Revenger

74

Alix reached the hotel basement and entered the warren of kitchen, laundry, housekeeping, security and management facilities that acted as the frantically paddling legs that kept the graceful five-star swan up above moving forwards. She played dumb. She was the new girl at work, not sure of her way around, needing directions back to the staff changing rooms. She got back into her regular clothes, but kept the scarf on and put on dark glasses the moment she got outdoors, going through the service entrance and across the road into Hyde Park as quickly as she could, away from prying eyes and security cameras.

The park wasn’t quite the urban oasis it had once been. Clumps of litter blew like plastic tumbleweed across the unkempt grass, and when she got to the glass-fronted restaurant that looked out over the waters of the Serpentine, two of the great panes had been replaced by temporary boarding and there was graffiti all over the brickwork. But the place was open, and Alix was able to order a cup of coffee and a stale, flaccid croissant, although in truth she didn’t feel like consuming either of them. In the adrenalin rush of escaping from the hotel she had forgotten how lousy she felt, but now the fatigue and nausea seemed to have gripped her again.

She scrolled through her phone’s address book, trying to find someone in London she could call on for shelter. She needed them to be reliable, discreet, and not have a family: she didn’t want anyone’s kids getting caught up in this. The first man she tried was a banker. He lived in a high-security residential block on Canary Wharf that had round-the-clock armed guards. His office said he was away on a trip to Singapore. She tried a female friend — a high-level political PR — but the way she said, ‘I’d love to help, darling, but…’ told Alix all she needed to know. She hung up before the woman had got halfway through her phoney excuse.

Her third choice was a forty-eight-year-old diplomat called Trent Peck the Third, or TP3 to his friends. He was handsome, rich, educated at Harvard before taking his Masters as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, and only recently emerged from a really savage divorce. Alix had lunched with him two or three times when he had been working at the State Department and she had been seeking favours for this or that foreign client. She and Carver had also met Peck and his ex-wife at social events in Washington. Peck was the kind of man who never let minor details such as the presence of spouses and partners prevent him trying his luck. Alix had spent more than one evening trying to fend him off, and Carver had noticed enough to put a cold, narrow-eyed look on his face that made Alix genuinely concerned about what he might do next.

In the end she’d managed to calm Carver down. ‘I know… you’re right,’ he’d said, admitting that a swift, brutal act of violence wasn’t the answer to this particular problem. ‘The man’s a wanker, though. You do know that, don’t you?’

Alix had agreed then, and she still felt the same way now. But she was a beggar who couldn’t afford to be choosy, so she made the call.

Answering his cell phone, Peck came on strong, right from the word go: ‘Alix! How great to hear from you!’ He exuded an automatic, artificial charm. ‘I can’t believe it! A call from the most beautiful woman in Washington DC! To what do I owe the pleasure?’

‘I need a place to stay,’ she replied.

‘Really? Don’t you have a reservation at a fancy hotel? I can’t believe they’re all booked up — not in this economy. But, hey, maybe it’s just me that you’re after…’

‘No, Trent, this is serious… I’m in trouble. I really need your help. I can explain everything. But please…’ Alix suddenly felt pathetically desperate and tearful — no stronger than that poor little hotel chambermaid. Her emotions were all over the place this morning, swung this way and that by her hormones. Life was so unfair sometimes. Why didn’t men have to put up with this?

At least there were some advantages to the whole feeble-female routine: it gave men a warm glow of strength and protectiveness.

‘Hey, Alix, it’s OK,’ Peck was saying. ‘I’m sure I can help, but first things first: where are you?’

‘Hyde Park,’ she said, with a sniff. ‘At the Knightsbridge end of the Serpentine.’

‘Great. That’s not too far from me. Listen, I have an apartment in St John’s Wood. That’s no distance. So what I want you to do is walk down towards Hyde Park Corner. You’ll come out by the Queen Mother’s Gates…’

‘Yes, I know where you mean.’

‘OK, so you know where the Hilton and the Metropolitan hotels are? There’s kind of a drop-off area, like a turning circle, right off of Park Lane. I’ll meet you there in fifteen minutes. I drive a black Range Rover.’

‘I’m on my way,’ Alix said.

‘Outstanding,’ Peck replied. ‘See you in fifteen.’