She started off, heedless of whether Ulrike was following. Ulrike caught her up, determined not to look as if she were tagging along like an undesirable appendage. She said, “How did you know who I was?”
Arabella glanced her way. “Strength of character,” she said. “The way you dress and the expression on your face. The way you walk. I saw you come up to the gate. Griff always likes his women strong, at least initially. Seducing a strong woman allows him to feel strong himself. Which he isn’t. Well of course, you know that. He never has been strong. He hasn’t had to be. Of course he thinks he is, just as he thinks he’s keeping secrets from me with all these…these serial trysts of his. But he’s weak the way every handsome man is weak. The world bows to his looks and he feels he must prove something to the world beyond his looks, which he utterly fails to do because he ends up using his looks to do it. Poor darling,” she added. “There are times I feel quite sorry for him. But we muddle along in spite of his foibles.”
They turned into Brick Lane, heading north. A lorry driver was making a delivery of bolts of bright silk to a sari shop that stood on the corner, still decorated with Christmas lights as it was, perhaps, all year.
Arabella said, “I expect that’s why you hired him, isn’t it?”
“Because of his looks?”
“I expect you interviewed him, found yourself a bit dazzled to be on the end of that soulful expression of his, and didn’t follow up a single reference. He’d have been depending upon that.” Arabella gave her a look that seemed well practised, as if she’d spent days and months awaiting the opportunity to have her say in front of one of her husband’s lovers.
Ulrike gave her that much. She deserved it, after all. “Guilty as charged,” she said. “He gives good interview.”
“I don’t know how he’ll cope when his looks fade,” Arabella said. “But I suppose it’s different with men.”
“Longer shelf life,” Ulrike agreed.
“Far more distant sell-by date.”
They found themselves having a quiet chuckle and then looked away from each other in embarrassment. They’d strolled some distance up Brick Lane. Across from a button-and-thread shop that looked as if it had done business on the spot since the time of Dickens, Arabella stopped.
She said, “There. That’s what I wanted you to see, Ulrike.” She nodded across the street, but not at Able-court and Son Ltd. Rather, she indicated the Bengal Garden, a restaurant that stood next to the button shop, its windows and front-door grilles closed and locked until nightfall.
“What about it?” Ulrike asked.
“That’s where she works. She’s called Emma, but I don’t expect that’s her real name. Probably something unpronounceable beginning with an m. So they added uh to Anglicise it. Or at least she did. Em-uh. Emma. Her parents probably call her by her given name still, but she’s trying very hard to be English. Griff intends to help her along in that. She’s the hostess. She’s a real departure for Griff-he doesn’t generally go in for ethnic types-but I think the fact that she’s trying to be English in the face of parental objection…” Arabella glanced Ulrike’s way. “He’d interpret that as strength. Or he’d tell himself so.”
“How do you know about her?”
“I always know about them. A wife does, Ulrike. There are signs. In this case, he took me to the restaurant for dinner recently. Her expression when we walked in? He’d obviously been there before and laid the groundwork. I was phase two: the wife on his arm so Emma can see the situation her darling must contend with.”
“What groundwork?”
“He has a particular pullover he wears initially when he wants to attract a woman. A fisherman’s sweater. Its colour does something special to his eyes. Did he wear it round you? For a meeting you may have had, just the two of you? Ah. Yes. I see that he did. He’s a creature of habit. But what works, works. So one can hardly blame him for not branching out.”
Arabella walked on. Ulrike followed, casting one last glance at the Bengal Garden. She said, “Why do you stay with him?”
“Tatiana,” she said, “is going to have a father.”
“What about you?”
“My eyes are open. Griffin is who Griffin is.”
They crossed a street and continued north, past the old brewery and into the region of leather shops and bargain prices. Ulrike asked the question she’d come to ask, although at this point she knew how unreliable Arabella’s answer was probably going to be.
“The night of the eighth?” Arabella repeated thoughtfully, offering Ulrike the possibility that she was actually going to hear the truth. “Why, he was home with me, Ulrike.” And then she added deliberately, “Or he was with Emma. Or he was with you. Or he was at the silk-screening business till dawn or later. I’ll swear to any of them, whatever Griff prefers. He, you, and everyone else can absolutely depend upon that.” She paused at the doorway to a large-windowed shop. Inside, customers lined up at a glass-fronted counter behind which an enormous blackboard listed the variety of bagels and the toppings on offer. She said, “I’ve no idea actually, but that’s something I’ll never tell the police, and that you can be sure of.” She looked away from Ulrike to the interior of the shop, wearing the expression of a woman who suddenly sees where she is for the very first time. “Ah,” she said, “here’s the Beigel Bake. Would you like a bagel, Ulrike? It will be my treat.”
HE FOUND A PLACE to park that had logic written all over it. Beneath Marks & Spencer, there was an undergound carpark, and while it had a CCTV camera-what else could one expect in this part of town?-should He ever be witnessed on film from this place, His presence possessed a rational explanation. Marks & Sparks had toilets; Marks & Sparks had a grocery. Either of those would serve as excuse.
To make sure, He went above to the store and put in an appearance in both facilities. He bought a chocolate bar in the grocery and stood wide legged at a urinal in the gents’. That, He thought, should satisfy.
He washed His hands thoroughly-at this time of year, one couldn’t be too careful with all the head colds going round-and He ducked out of the store afterwards and headed in the direction of the square. It formed the intersection of half a dozen streets, the one whose pavement He walked along being the busiest of them, coursing upward in a glut of taxis and private vehicles all struggling southwest to northeast. When He got to the square itself, He crossed over with the traffic lights, breathing the fumes of a number 11 bus.
After Leadenhall Market, He’d been cheesed off, but now He was in a different frame of mind. Inspiration had struck Him, and He’d snatched it up, making a switch in His plans without anyone’s intercession. As a result, there was no chant of ridicule from maggots. There was just the instant when He’d suddenly realised a new way was open to Him, broadcasting itself from every newsstand on every street corner that He passed.
In the square, He went to the fountain. It wasn’t in the centre as design would dictate, but rather towards the southern corner. It was what He came to first, in fact, and He stood looking at the woman, the urn, and the trickle of water she was pouring into the pristine pool beneath her. Although trees lined the square at no great distance from the fountain, He saw that no remainder of their dead leaves decomposed in the water. Someone had long ago fished them out, so the trickle from the urn fell sonorously, without the splat that otherwise would suggest decay. In this part of town, that would be an unthinkable idea: death, decay, and decomposition. That was what made His choice so perfect.
He stood back from the fountain and observed the rest of the square. It was going to present an enormous challenge. Beyond the row of trees that lined a broad central path to a war memorial at the far end, a rank of taxis waited for fares and an underground station disgorged passengers onto the pavement. They made for banks, for shops, for a pub. They sat at window tables of a brasserie nearby or joined a line of ticket buyers at the box office of a theatre.