‘I had a call from Lyford Cay this morning,’ announced Clarissa. ‘They want to know when I’m going down.’
She had been looking away from him but now she stared directly into his face.
‘How much longer would you like me to stay?’ she said.
There was none of the imperious demand that had been in her voice in New York. And she didn’t speak in italics any more, Charlie realised. She’d performed the function for which he had asked her to come to Palm Beach. But was proving additionally useful for this charade.
Charlie suddenly became aware of the intensity of her expression and his mind was thrown, with frightening clarity, to his earlier thoughts in the hotel suite and then through the years to an argument he had had with Edith, soon after they had gone on the run and he had explained fully to her what he had done and the people he had deceived to make it possible.
‘There’s a cruelty about you, Charlie,’ she had said accusingly, ‘a cruelty that sees nothing wrong in using any-one, even me ‘
He had denied it, of course. And four years later he had stared down at the pulped body of the only woman he had ever loved and whom he had constantly cheated, and he had known that he would never lose the guilt of using her.
‘I’d stay if you want me to,’ said Clarissa. She hesitated, a smile trying hopefully at the edges of her mouth. Then she added, ‘I’d like to, really…’
‘No,’ he interrupted, ‘it’s better you go.’
‘Please…’ she tried, but Charlie shook his head at her again.
‘I told you it would be dangerous,’ he said. ‘And it might be.’
‘You’re just saying that… an excuse,’ she said.
‘I’m not,’ said Charlie sincerely. ‘I promised Rupert there wouldn’t be any danger.’
‘Hardly kept your promise, did you?’ she demanded, turning the words back upon him and reminding him of the other guilt.
Charlie frowned, nervous of the direction of the conversation.
‘Let’s not be stupid, Clarissa.’
‘Never that,’ she said. ‘The society butterfly, that’s me.’
It was her first attempt at brittleness for a long time and it failed, and they both knew it.
He moved to speak, but she burst out ahead of him. ‘Don’t tell me how much older you are than me.’
‘I am.’
‘That’s a cop-out,’ she said. ‘Like married men always try to end an affair by saying their responsibility to their children is too great.’
‘I wasn’t going to talk about age,’ said Charlie.
‘What then?’
‘You’d become bored… honestly you would.’
‘I wouldn’t,’ she said defiantly.
‘It’s like -’ he stopped, searching for the expression ‘- like a holiday romance,’ he resumed, badly. ‘There wouldn’t be any novelty left, back in England.’
‘I wasn’t thinking of it as novelty.’
‘Think about it,’ he said. ‘That’s all it is, really.’
To cover the sigh, he brought the glass to his lips. The conversation had disconcerted him. Mixed with surprise was irritation; this was creating a situation he didn’t want, taking his mind from Pendlebury and Terrilli and the Russian stamps.
Behind him and therefore unseen, Saxby and Boella finished their drinks and left the Alcazar, wandering out into the car park alongside the exhibition room, apparently needing to check something in their golf equipment in the boot of their car.
‘I don’t find it easy to beg,’ she said.
‘Then don’t.’
‘I don’t want to go away from here.’
‘I want you to.’
‘It’s normally I who dictate the end to these sort of things,’ she said.
‘I’m not discarding you,’ attempted Charlie. ‘I’m asking you to go down to Lyford Cay because it might be safer for you there than here.’
‘You’ll see me when we get back to London?’
‘As a friend,’ he qualified.
She laughed, trying to make it a sneering sound. ‘What’s the difference between screwing a man’s wife three thousand miles from home rather than two miles away?’
‘None, I suppose,’ admitted Charlie honestly. ‘It just seems different, somehow.’
‘I think you’re a bastard,’ she said.
To remind her that it had been she who initiated the seduction would qualify him for the description, Charlie decided.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I am.’
She made as if to rise abruptly, but then relaxed against the table.
‘I’m sorry I’ve been a nuisance,’ she said.
‘You haven’t.’
‘An embarrassment, then.’
‘Nor that, either.’
‘Could there really be danger?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Quite easily.’
‘And you could get hurt?’
Charlie thought about the question. ‘I’ve usually managed to avoid it,’ he said.
‘But you could?’
‘I suppose so. That’s why I don’t want you to say anything of this to Sally. It mustn’t get back to Cosgrove.’
‘Please be careful,’ she said.
‘I’m always that,’ promised Charlie.
‘I’ve a car coming for me at eight,’ said Clarissa. Seeing Charlie’s expression, she said, ‘I didn’t think you’d want me to stay. And I could have always cancelled it.’
‘Of course,’ he said.
‘It’s only twelve thirty.’
‘Do you want lunch?’
‘No.’
‘Another drink?’
‘No. I want to say goodbye properly.’
He rose, to help her from her chair. She didn’t stand immediately, instead remaining where she was and gazing up at him.
‘It’s strange,’ she said. ‘If anyone had told me a month ago that this was going to happen, I’d have said they were mad.’
‘Novelty,’ repeated Charlie.
‘I wonder how long it will take to wear off,’ she said, rising at last.
Pendlebury regarded the arrival of Saxby and Boella as marginally more important than the Englishman’s apparent awareness of Terrilli. He immediately allocated more men to the two known criminals, ignoring Warburger’s fears about detection because he felt the situation justified the risk. When he learned about their checks on the lighting cables he nodded happily, confident that the operation was going exactly as he intended and that he was in complete control.
The initial surprise at the Englishman’s visit to Terrilli’s home did not last long. It meant he had identified the video picture, that’s all. It still needn’t alter the timing of the man’s death.
Pendlebury left his room and shambled to the elevator, head sunk against his chest in concentration. He’d delayed too long to confront the man about his suspicions of robbery,
Pendlebury decided. He would have to behave as if he attached no importance to what the woman had said.
He was still deep in thought when he emerged at ground level, so that the presence of one of his people near the desk momentarily startled him.
‘Any news of the insurance guy?’ he asked.
‘Spent three hours with the woman,’ said the agent. ‘She’s just left and he’s gone back to his rooms; probably needs the rest. Must be quite a performer.’
‘Yes,’ said Pendlebury, ‘I think he is.’
John Williamson planned his attempted entry into the exhibition chamber very carefully, knowing there were only five minutes before it closed. The security men were in a bunch, even those in plain clothes, so the Russian managed to take a photograph including almost all of them with the Minnox camera concealed in the hollowed out book he carried beneath his arm. He allowed himself to be stopped and smiled apologetically at his stupidity in expecting to view the stamps so late, glancing around and identifying the security cameras while he was talking to an attendant. There would be time enough later, he assured the man. He was staying for several days.
He was turning when the lift opened to his right and he saw the unkempt figure of another of the security men whom he’d identified from his observation of the exhibition earlier in the evening. From the deference paid, someone in authority, Williamson had judged.