She had been walking back from the restaurant, replete, her fears and senses dulled with food, wine and bright conversation. He had appeared from a narrow, unlit doorway, clumsy as a drunk, and had lumbered into her. She had exhaled a small scream of surprise. She had been half-attending to the footsteps clicking in a magnified way off the high walls and facades of the Rue de Amigo, wondering if someone was following her, when the second man had blundered against her. His weight had been sharp, heavy, before he had staggered away and she stumbled into the hotel entrance.
There had been no more to it than that footsteps clicking out like the exaggerated ticking of an ominous clock, a momentary collision… but she had understood the message as clearly as if it had been delivered by hand to the door of her room.
She squinted at the illuminated bedside clock in the gloom.
Seven-twenty. In the night, too, there had been a drunk or purported drunk knocking at her door, demanding entry. She had, eventually, persuaded him hers was the wrong room, that he should go away… in somewhat obvious language. Reluctantly, she swung her legs out of the bed, at once lighting a cigarette, coughing, drawing the smoke in deeply, her hand shaking once she took the cigarette from her mouth.
"God…" she heard herself breathe as if there was someone else in the room with her. The cigarette began to relax her, working against the new buffeting of her nerves when she realised what she had decided to do. The thought made her queasy, even blundered against her like the man in the street, the other man against her door.
She thrust herself off the bed and dragged open the curtains. The unfamiliar, comforting nightdress swished with the anger of her movements. Traffic noise, the early summer morning blue after rain over the rooftops, the tower of the Hotel de Ville, the tiny minarets and up thrusts of the other heavy buildings of the Grand' Place.
David Winterborne his features flushed with drink and confidence seemed to stare into the room from just beyond the window. He would soon be at a power breakfast with EU officials, Aero UK and Balzac-Stendhal executives, and representatives from Sabena and other European carriers. She had overheard a time of eight bandied between table companions at the restaurant the previous evening. Already it was only a half-hour away. By ten-thirty, she and her colleagues, together with Winterborne and a tribe of officials and executives, would be at Brussels' Zaventem airport, boarding the Skyliner. The breakfast meeting would last for perhaps an hour. David's suite would be empty for no more than that.
His PC… Silly idea now. And yet the image tugged at her like a hangnail caught in cloth. David, creature of habit, the boy who avoided the cracks in the pavement, walked the borders of the carpet, checked the light switches obsessively… there was the slim chance that he would still, like touchstones, use the old passwords.
She began to hurry, stubbing out the cigarette in a cut-glass ashtray, scrubbing her face into wakefulness in the bathroom, dashing her make-up on, choosing her outfit. Eight… eight-five. They would be about to eat breakfast in the private room now, comfortable, assured, the windows slightly fogged with power, arrogance.
Snatching up her handbag and the camera she always carried on jaunts, she closed the door behind her and stood for a moment in the corridor that smelt of thick carpet and dry air. Her heart was thudding against her ribs; she was already jogging against time.
She went up two floors in the lift. There had been an open door on her own corridor, a maid bent over a bed, tugging off linen. She rounded the corridor-another housemaid, pinafored, tinily Oriental and almost hidden by the trolley of linen and cleaning materials she was pushing from one door to the next. David's suite was-two doors closer to her than the maid… Time, time. Eight-nine… A strange and ludicrous image of waiters clearing away grapefruit, melon, the scent of kedgeree, and bacon and eggs. David loved kedgeree, always had. The maid looked up with the shy, almost flinching in curiosity of her race and occupation. Marian clicked her fingers exaggeratedly, after fishing in her handbag, attempting to appear panicked. The maid seemed troubled on her behalf.
"Do you speak English?" God, I hope so… "English?"
The reply was precise. The girl was, on closer inspection, young enough to be a moonlighting student.
"Yes, madam." Not even the French appellation. Nevertheless, Marian continued her impersonation of Anglo-Saxon patronage towards foreigners, speaking slowly.
"I am Mr. Winterborne's personal assistant—" She gestured towards the suite's double doors.
"He needs something from his room. He didn't give me the key. It is urgent. Can you let me in?"
"Mr. Winterborne?" She consulted her list, nodding daintily, precisely.
"Yes," she confirmed, looking up at the doors. Then she studied Marian and seemed satisfied.
Her pass-key strained the material of the pinafore outwards as she tugged it towards the door on its brief chain. The lock clicked.
Furiously, before the girl could turn, Marian wiped her finger along the sudden wet line on her forehead.
Thank you thank you!" She lurched into the suite, still scented with David's aftershave. The maid remained in the doorway. Marian turned and said peremptorily: That's fine I won't be long. You can continue with your duties." It was insultingly dismissive and the maid turned away, letting the doors close behind her. Marian heard her own loud breathing in the spacious sitting room. The bedroom door remained half-open. A suit hung against the door of a dark old wardrobe like a hanged man.
Eight-twelve. Croissants, preserves, waiters gliding like un hearing ghosts between the extravagant dollars, the dates, the counter-proposals. David at the head of the table, his slim hands on the white cloth, patiently still, stirring only slightly whenever the discussion moved in his direction. His presence was almost real enough to be in the bedroom next door.
She was startled by the noise of a vacuum cleaner blurting awake in the next suite.
She had miscalculated, the maid was only one room away… Nothing on the writing desk, the armchairs or the chaise. Small items of David's a fat black pen, his cigarette case, silver and initialled, a comb.
Eight-eighteen.
The bedroom, then The vacuum cleaner growled like a dog beyond the wall, occasionally lurching softly into furniture. The unmade bed, the discarded shoes and underwear, the hanged suit. Files, the open suitcase, a guide book, rolled fax messages. She touched at them but did not read… Eight-twenty… The satisfied, male clatter of knives and forks against crockery, the more desultory conversation, as the power breakfast consumed its allotted time. Eight-twenty-one… The wet line was back across her forehead. Her hair flopped over her cheek and eyes and she brushed it violently aside. She glanced towards the bedroom window. A pigeon, staring back, shocked her like an enemy.
It must be in the wardrobe. She held the suit over her arm, removed the small, flat crocodile leather case which contained the PC, rehanged the suit against the wardrobe door. With harsh, thankful breaths, she carried the case to the writing desk and flipped the locks. They sprang open. Another pigeon — perhaps the same one watched her from the sitting room window with red-eyed surveillance. She opened the lid, exposing the screen of the PC, its keyboard sliding smoothly into place. Tiny, delicate… The handbag's strap seemed to bite into her shoulder. She would have to photograph the screen, once she gained access… Her fingers trembled as she poised over the keyboard. The pigeon's beak tapped on the thick glass of the window, as if to encourage her. David's fat black executive pen lay beside the cuff of her blouse. Oh, David, she couldn't help but think. He had pleaded with her in the Musee, there had been exaggerated glances of entreaty over dinner, as if she had wounded or disappointed him.