Oslo… Charlotte Burton watched her husband put down the telephone and slump into an armchair in as slovenly and relaxed a manner as one of their sons might have done. It was nearly dark outside. Time to draw the curtains. She discovered herself more attentive to such matters from the moment the first 494 had crashed in the desert while Tim was in the States. She was almost eager to shut out Holland Park not merely because of the occasional press encampment on the pavement but because the reporters and cameramen reminded her of her neighbours, even passing strangers, who would be mentally prying into their affairs.
Tim, only hours after he got back from Finland, had agreed to a visit from David Winterborne and Bryan Coulthard. They were messengers who need not be executed, they were bringing good news.
"Well?"
Burton was biting at his thumb.
"What—? Oh… They want to put a deal to me. David says he wants to save Artemis." He raised his arms in a huge, disbelieving, mystified shrug.
"A takeover a buy out, what?" she insisted, sitting forward in her chair, hands gripping each other on her lap. Tim what is it?" She was angry with him, almost as her mother would have been at her father for answering the door to visitors without donning his jacket. It wasn't the sweater and jeans he was wearing, though it was the defeat they symbolised, the retirement from the whirl of meetings and suits and desperate efforts to save the business.
"I'm not sure. It's not investment they haven't got the money!" He brightened, but it was a retreat into humour. He was afraid to believe the conversation he had just had.
"Maybe he wants to offer me some cheap leases on Skyliners…?
It sounded as if it could be that. Our mutual advantage, that sort of thing."
"Will you? If that's what it is? Take his offer, I mean?"
They'll have to be bloody cheap!" he announced loudly.
"But I suppose they might be interested in a deal like that. Mightn't they?" He was afraid to hope.
"Possibly. You're very high-profile at the moment for all the wrong reasons. If you agreed to fly Skyliners across the Pond—"
"I could have them this summer at least for July and August, catch some of the heaviest traffic. There'd be a lot of fuss about it, all the positive kind…" He rubbed his hands through his long hair, then looked up.
"Are there any drawbacks, Charley?"
"Not immediate ones. You'll have to be patient grovel, I shouldn't wonder."
"David likes that grovelling."
"You'll be dependent on Aero UK and the French for almost the entire fleet, for medium- and long-haul…" She plucked at her chin with finger and thumb.
"Pricing policy could be difficult, they'd be the tail wagging the dog, Winterborne and Coulthard… It could take years, Tim," she concluded, looking up.
"But it could save the company, mm?" He almost pleaded for her concurrence.
"I mean, if you think it's all right—" She smiled.
"Look at it this way, husband of mine, light of my life… The Skyliner was way too expensive for Artemis, so you plumped for the 494.
Now, the 494 is no more and the Skyliner is or should be comparatively cheap. You could, if the deal is properly structured and you can beat the price down far enough, still undercut the competition, even with the most expensive aeroplane in the world!"
"Stuff BA and the European carriers, you mean! Corf" He was grinning broadly, prompting the return of her own smile. It all sounded much too good to be true to someone not as eternally optimistic as Tim… not quite as convincing to her as to her husband, who had been plunged into gloom and all but silent since his return from Helsinki. Guilt and self-pity had battled for possession of his mood.
"I wonder', he continued, 'I just wonder…"
He had made a few desultory phone calls, refused possible meetings, wanted to skulk in hiding at home. For the past few hours he had plucked at the sleeve of her sympathy, her identity with his mood, like an increasingly importunate child. He was a child, in so many ways as now, with his mood elated. In moments, he would suggest opening champagne! Charlotte wondered at David Winterborne's true intent. Aero UK's own problems made Tim's suspicion feasible. Two men clinging to the same life belt — using each other as a life belt more likely. It was possible-She surrendered to his mood. She wouldn't draw the curtains, not yet.
"When are they coming?"
"An hour's time."
Then I need to change, make-up… And you, get out of that sweater and into some of the clothes I keep buying for you that you never wear!
Come on, come on Roman triumph or tumbril ride, you're going to be dressed for the occasion!"
The Rolls Royce drew to a halt in Holland Park, the evening sky holding a retinal afterimage of daylight. Bryan Coulthard got out of the car and Winterborne made to follow him when the car telephone began ringing. He waved a hand at Coulthard.
"Go ahead, Bryan I'll just take this." Coulthard nodded, closing the passenger door behind him. He stood on the pavement, hands on his hips, studying the elegant facade of Burton's house. Warm light fell on him from the first-floor drawing room.
"Yes?" Winterborne asked brusquely.
It was Eraser's voice, like an unpleasant reminiscence from a past acquaintance, recalling experiences he no longer admitted as his.
"Funny kind of reports on your friend," Fraser announced without preamble.
"She's been visiting some parts of the Midlands you might not want her to."
It was, at that moment, irritating to be the recipient of Fraser's clandestine humour.
"Do you mean Marian? What has she been doing?" he snapped. Coulthard glanced back into the Rolls as if impatient. Someone had opened Burton's front door; a door opening on to the future.
"I have an important meeting, Fraser — don't play games."
"Sorry sir." The insolence was evident.
"She was with that guy Banks, the twopenny-halfpenny builder who's been getting uppity. They drove around the canal development, the marina
… Two people who must have been them were surprised in the marina metro tunnel. She's cool, your friend. Pretended they'd gone down there for a shag—"
"What are you talking about?" But he knew. Why else had he instructed Fraser to be on the lookout for her? Egan's panic on Saturday evening, Marian's conversations with one or two other guests involved in the regeneration project… Aubrey?
"You're certain it was Marian?"
"As certain as one of our security men could be. He says he recognised her, and Banks. They were looking over Banks' site."
"I see."
Aubrey and Marian had been in some kind of collusion at Uffingham, he was certain. At lunch, Aubrey's questioning of his guests had appeared bland, conversational… but he had alarmed Rogier when he referred to Lloyd's death.
Why would he have done so, other than deliberately? Aubrey had no connection with Lloyd, other than through Marian. And Lloyd must have been Marian's source inside the Commission. It would be his death that was spurring her on, not Banks' whingeing, and Aubrey was following her lead.
"Why must she persist?" he asked exasperatedly.
"What in God's name does she think she's doing?"
"She can smell something's gone off, that's for sure."
Winterborne experienced a mockery of moral affront. Marian and Aubrey had no right, digging into his affairs. The matter was closed. Lloyd's death had been no more than an expedient necessity. It was in the past, over with.
"I–I'm not certain what should be done," he admitted. Coulthard had already climbed the steps to Burton's front door and was waiting for him. Burton himself appeared, shaking hands with Coulthard. The moment of success was being made visible.