Illegal Action

50

Brunovsky was in love with his aeroplane. He sat in one of the vanilla leather-padded chairs, wearing a fawn cashmere blazer and Gucci loafers that looked as soft as slippers, talking to Liz in loving and monotonous detail about the attributes of the Embraer Legacy 600: its range of 3,400 nautical miles, wingspan of 68 feet, approach capability of 5.5 degrees (whatever that meant), and last but not least, its $23.6 million price tag.

The engines revved and the jet accelerated down the short Northolt runway until they were pushed back against their seats. It cleared the outer perimeter fence with what looked to Liz no more than twenty feet to spare; for a moment she wondered if the pilot was planning to join the cars heading west on the M40.

A friend of her father’s had once flown in the Concorde back from New York, and said that its interior was like a padded cigar tube, but Brunovsky’s jet was remarkably spacious. It could seat fourteen passengers, but on board now were only Liz, the oligarch and Jerry Simmons, sitting by himself on a two-seater sofa near the galley in the rear. As soon as they were airborne a slim young blonde stewardess in a smart navy blue suit with the shortest skirt Liz had ever seen on a uniform offered them smoked salmon and cold Sancerre. This is the life, thought Liz, settling back in her chair, realising without any feeling of guilt that she was the only one to accept the wine.

Sitting up front, alone with Brunovsky, she was wondering how much if anything she should tell him about Peggy’s recent discoveries. But she hesitated. She didn’t see it as any part of her job to tell Brunovsky that all his pals were crooks. He might well be aware of it already and he wouldn’t thank her for pointing it out. Tutti, for example. It was remarkable that Brunovsky had not even mentioned his supposed suicide. He might well know more about Harry Forbes than she did, and if that club was where he had met Monica, he must have a pretty good idea already of what sort of a girl she was.

As for Greta Darnshof, Liz determined to find out how much Brunovsky knew about her mysteriously funded magazine. She was about to raise the topic when Brunovsky finished his lunch, unbuckled his seat belt and stood up. He pointed towards the cockpit. “Excuse me, Jane, I must leave you for a little while. Monica hates flying, and when we travel together I have to sit and hold her hand. Now I have the rare opportunity to keep my pilot skills sharp. Hopefully, you won’t know if it’s me or the regular pilot who lands the plane.” He laughed and moved towards the nose of the plane.

Looking through the small window, Liz watched the Severn grow larger, then after a short time begin to shrink in the distance behind them. She thought about Brunovsky, trying yet again to get a fix on the man—difficult, since he was so volatile: one minute charm itself, the next volcanically bad-tempered. The deference he’d shown her at first had slowly diminished as she had become a familiar in his household. He obviously had some kind of confidence in her and had listened to her warning like a little boy being told what was good for him, but increasingly he was treating her as his property, in the same peremptory, demanding fashion he treated Monica or, God help us, the hapless Tamara. Another three weeks in Belgravia, thought Liz, and he’d have me taking dictation.

She undid her seat belt and walked back to the galley in search of some water, passing Jerry Simmons in his blue chauffeur’s suit. There would have been something imposing about his gorilla shoulders and big, bland face, had he not been sound asleep, snoring softly with his mouth open.

As they reached the eastern tip of Ireland the cloud thickened and the view disappeared. The plane descended slowly and bumpily until suddenly, only a few hundred feet above land, a gentle, rolling landscape of silky green appeared like a watercolour below. Liz could make out small farms, a hamlet of six or seven cottages, a stream no bigger than a large ditch, and then the wheels gently touched the runway with a delicate kiss.

A jubilant roar came from the cockpit, and as the plane rolled slowly towards the tiny terminal in the distance, Brunovsky emerged with a grin on his face. “I have not lost my touch,” he declared happily as he rejoined Liz, who was taking her mobile out of her bag. As she turned it on, Brunovsky reached out a large hand. “Could I borrow that for a moment?” he asked. “I left mine behind, and Monica likes to know when I have landed.”

Liz was extremely reluctant to surrender her phone, since it held a battery of Thames House numbers, but with Brunovsky’s hand held out, it was difficult to refuse to lend it to him. He took the phone and went back to the cockpit as the plane continued to traverse the long cross-axis of runway.

At last the plane came to a stop outside the terminal, and the pilot pushed open the cabin door, then unfolded the steel stairway. As Liz and Brunovsky came down the steps, with Simmons behind them, a chill westerly wind that had not yet reached London swept across the tarmac, catching them as they walked quickly to the tiny new terminal building of tinted glass and charcoal steel. There was a Boeing 737 parked outside the far end of the building, and a line of Cessna propeller planes on the grass fringe by the airport fence, but otherwise no sign of traffic.

Inside the terminal, landing formalities were cursory. A cheerful young man in a uniform gave a quick look at their passports and waved them through. Baggageless, they moved past an unattended customs desk into a small outer hall, where a solitary girl sat doing nothing behind a desk. Liz thought she had better let Peggy know where she was. “Can I have my phone please?” she asked Brunovsky.

“Of course,” he said, and felt in his jacket pocket. He tried another pocket, then patted all of them with an anxious look on his face. “Oh no,” he said, “I’ve left it in the cockpit.”

“I’m sure I can go back and get it,” said Liz. She couldn’t believe the man at passport control would object.

Brunovsky shook his head. “I am so sorry, Jane, but the plane won’t be there. The pilot’s taken it for refuelling.” He looked at her apologetically.

“There must be a pay phone here.”

Brunovsky looked irritated. “Jane, we are late already. Please wait. We will be at the house in half an hour—you can ring from there.”