Two Women

Fourteen

By the time Carver reached the office he had fifteen minutes left and the only precaution upon which he had decided took just five of them, because everything was already set up. All that was left for him to do was wait and try to anticipate, which he initially did but quickly gave up because he wasn’t anticipating he was imagining and the image upon which his mind settled was the near-faceless body of George Northcote. Carver forced the panic back, consciously breathing deeply as if pulling the courage into himself. He could do it, if he didn’t panic: if he didn’t conjure up mental horror pictures. His stomach churned, physically, and a few times audibly. There was no visible shake when he looked down at his hands, lying before him on the desk. He lifted them, holding them out straight in front of him. Still no shake. He felt his face. He wasn’t sweating, either, although he felt hot. He wiped a handkerchief across his face all the same, knowing he wouldn’t be able to do so later. He didn’t know – which was the root of his fear – what he was going to be able to do later.

The lawyer who hadn’t left a name arrived precisely on time and as Hilda ushered him into Carver’s room Carver thought at once of his memorial service reflection about professionally invisible people. In a crowd this man would have been practically see-through. He was medium height and slightly built and everything about him was muted: muted grey, single-breasted suit, grey-on-grey patterned tie, a white shirt. It was impossible to gauge the man’s age from the expressionless, unlined face. There was a strange, oddly unmoving smoothness in the manner in which he walked, a progress rather than an actual walk, the glide of an invisible, ghostlike – or was it ghost-making? – man. Carver had intended to remain seated, as Northcote had shown his superiority at their confrontation, but had hurriedly to scramble to his feet totally losing the planned impression – when the inconspicuous man stopped the offered handshake halfway over the desk, making Carver rise to it. He at once turned to examine available chairs, to take the one that put himself directly – confrontationally – across the desk from Carver, and said: ‘It’s good of you to see me at such short notice.’ The polite, ingratiating voice was soft, worryingly close to being inaudible, with no discernible accent.

‘Particularly as you weren’t able to leave a name.’ Carver was pleased at his own hopefully forceful tone, evenly pitched but demanding, someone unaccustomed to being treated inconsiderately.

A reasonable attempt at playing the affronted man, Burcher decided. But only just. He rose, taking a prepared card from his top pocket, but offered it across the desk in such a way that Carver had once again to stand to accept it.

He was going up and down like the other man’s marionette, accepted Carver. The two-line inscription on the plain pasteboard read Stanley Burcher, Attorney at Law. There was no address or contact details. Carver at once remembered the regular entries in Northcote’s diary, S-B. Could he have misread the intervening squiggle as an ampersand to mean Northcote was meeting two people when it had only been this man, Stanley Burcher?

The lawyer said: ‘The name wouldn’t have meant anything. I knew the company names would.’ He was unsure how long to permit the accountant to imagine his superiority. It was important not to begin wrongly. They were going to have to deal with each other for a long time, years, so there had at least to be an amicable working relationship, if not friendship. Until the very end Burcher had imagined something approaching friendship between Northcote and himself. Mutual respect, certainly.

What, Carver wondered, was the other man’s real name? And how many other people had ever posed themselves the same query? Impossible, probably, to guess: as so much else – everything else – in which he was so suddenly and so unwillingly caught up was impossible to guess or to comprehend. The thought was abruptly replaced by another, far more relevant. There had not been time for his severance letters to have reached Grand Cayman. So what had brought this man here today? ‘How can I help you, Mr Burcher?’ Bullshit politeness to bullshit politeness – we’re quietly talking murder, you know, your murders, yes I know, good of you to put it so discreetly.

Burcher allowed a momentary but perceptible hesitation, for Carver’s benefit, and Carver was pleased, misconstruing it as he was intended to. Then Burcher said: ‘I don’t think either of us needs to perform, do we, Mr Carver?’

‘I don’t understand that remark.’

‘I know we can speak openly,’ declared Burcher. ‘George Northcote told my clients just before he died that you knew everything in which he and my clients were involved. Which is convenient for us all: it involves you. Makes you complicit.’ After softball comes hardball, to let the man know how irrevocable, inescapable, his position was.

He had to tread – but more importantly, to speak – with extreme care, Carver reminded himself. ‘I have learned certain things, in the last few days: things that greatly concern me. That knowledge, in itself, in no way involves me. Nor makes me complicit, with anyone or in any way, in anything.’ He felt good, equal in this confrontation: stupid to have hollowed himself out, near mentally as well as physically. His stomach most definitely wasn’t in turmoil any more: all his arguments were ready, logical. There was an immediate lurch – a twitch – of contradiction. How far from the whirling blades had Northcote’s face been when he’d talked – screamed in the frantic terror of realization – of long-kept secrets no longer being secret?

Too obviously rehearsed but not a bad attempt, allowed Burcher. ‘We both know what we are talking about, Mr Carver.’

‘We do indeed, Mr Burcher.’

‘I hope this is not going to become a difficult situation,’ said Burcher, the voice still politely soft, perfectly modulated. Surely this man wasn’t going to be stupid!

‘I see no reason why it should,’ said Carver. He was driving, choosing the route.

‘There is no reason.’

Carver recognized the beginning of a who’s-going-to-blink-first contest. ‘You’re obviously not aware of my letters.’

Burcher was put off balance by a remark he did not understand but he betrayed no reaction. ‘No. Tell me about your letters. And what they said.’

‘I yesterday sent letters officially severing all connection between George W. Northcote International and Mulder Incorporated, Encomp, Innsflow International, BHYF and NOXT,’ enumerated Carver, with what he judged to be the necessary formality.

‘I most certainly didn’t know about those letters,’ easily admitted Burcher. ‘It would have been far better if we’d talked before they were sent.’ It looked as if moulding Carver as the man had to be moulded was going to be more difficult than he’d imagined. It had been a mistake to imagine otherwise and Burcher didn’t like conceding mistakes.

He was still in charge, decided Carver. ‘I don’t see any benefit in my having done that. I didn’t, after all, have any idea we were going to meet. But why, not already knowing of my firm’s disassociation from your clients, are you here today?’

Very definitely not as easy as he had imagined, Burcher recognized. Those whom I represent no longer appear on your computerized client list. I was asked to find out why,’ Burcher improvised.

Now it was Carver who was tilted, hesitating, unsure which way to take the conversation. Cautiously he said: ‘I’ve just told you I’ve ended my firm’s involvement with your clients.’

‘And immediately – before any discussion – erased them from your records?’

‘I don’t see any point – any purpose – in our discussing it further. The decision has been made. It’s irrevocable.’

‘I think there is need for further discussion, Mr Carver.’

‘I repeat that I don’t, Mr Burcher.’

‘There could be some resentment from my clients.’ He had to hear Carver out, fully discover the reason for the man’s confidence, knowing as he clearly would what had really happened to Northcote and to the woman in Brooklyn.

‘As I have some resentment at learning that your clients have been illegally monitoring my firm’s computer system.’

‘Learning that is most definitely a cause for concern,’ picked up Burcher, heavily.

‘I’m glad you agree with me.’

‘I’m not agreeing with you, Mr Carver.’

‘Then I don’t understand.’

‘My clients regard their security – the security of their affairs – as extremely important.’

‘As I do, with my firm. Hence my irritation.’

‘My clients are more than irritated – far more than irritated – at discovering that very concerted attempts have been made illegally to enter their computerized records both in this country and elsewhere.’

There was an echoing thunder of words in Carver’s mind – no reaction, facial or verbal, no reaction, facial or verbal… Even-voiced, sure he remained as expressionless as the man facing him, Carver said: ‘Then they’ll understand how I feel about their illegal entry here. I obviously need to update security.’

Burcher let a silence grow between them, staring directly at Carver, who stared directly back. The lawyer broke it. He said: ‘Are you surprised to hear that efforts were made to intrude into my clients’ affairs, following George Northcote’s death?’

Carver was chilled – physically cold – but sure he gave no indication. ‘As surprised as I was to learn that your clients have been intruding into mine.’

‘Theirs,’ pointedly qualified Burcher, at once.

‘As I am sure you were more aware than I was, until very recently, no records of your clients’ affairs were retained here…’ Now Carver let in the pause. ‘Which is extremely unusual and not a manner or a practice in which this firm will continue, now that I am in control of it. The fact that it has been allowed to exist, until now, was a major factor in my decision to disassociate from your clients.’

‘We are moving ahead of ourselves, going off at tangents,’ protested Burcher.

‘I don’t see that we are.’

‘We were talking about illegal computer entry. Hacking.’

‘I did not think there was anything further to talk about on that,’ said Carver, the coldness moving through him again. ‘But the fact that your clients considered themselves able to do it – and you felt able to admit it so readily to me – provides a further reason for our parting.’

‘The hacking attempt upon my clients – quite a lot of which they believe to have been successful – originated from here, from Manhattan,’ announced Burcher. ‘My clients are confident they’ll very shortly find out from where. And by whom.’

‘Which should enable you to complain to the FBI.’

The face confronting him remained unmoving. ‘You disappoint me. That wasn’t a very clever remark, Mr Carver.’

‘It depends upon your point of view. Mine is that there is nothing to be gained for either of us by continuing this conversation. I’ve made my decision, communicated it to your clients, and consider my letters to be the end of the matter. It’s unfortunate that you’ve had a wasted journey.’

‘I am not at all sure that it has been a wasted journey. Or that it is the end of anything.’ He was arguing, as if Carver had an argument to put against him, Burcher realized, astonished.

‘Mr Burcher, I have told you – and tell you again, now – that the firm of George W. Northcote International will no longer act for your clients in any capacity or in any way whatsoever! That, surely, is clear enough!’

There was another long silence. Briefly, for the first time, Burcher broke the fixed gaze in which he had until that moment held Carver, to look unseeingly down at some spot near the bottom of the desk, as if in contemplation. He’d been badly wrong, believing that John Carver would roll over at a frontal approach. Coming up again after several moments, the man said: ‘The computer intrusion is not my clients’ greatest concern.’

Carver waited, actually imagining the beginning of a renewed confidence.

‘What did George Northcote tell you of his working relationship with my clients?’

He’d be losing control – temporarily at least – by replying to such a direct demand but there was advantage in his doing so, Carver decided. ‘Nothing, apart from confessing that for a very long time he had acted for companies controlled by organized crime. He did not provide any identities. I told him I had no intention of continuing – which I’ve also told you, today – and he said it was a situation that would not arise: that his retirement ended the firm’s association.’

‘George Northcote profited very greatly from his firm’s connection.’

‘A benefit limited absolutely between himself and your clients.’

Burcher nodded, although Carver wasn’t sure with what the man was agreeing. The lawyer said: ‘At the end of his life, George Northcote proved himself a very stupid man. I hope my clients hope – that you are not going to make the mistakes that he did.’

‘Repeating the mistakes of George Northcote is precisely what I do not intend doing.’ Carver was satisfied with the retort but the confidence wasn’t there any more.

For the first time there was what Carver guessed Burcher intended to be a smile, lips drawn back from sculpted teeth like the brief opening and closing of a curtain. ‘That’s good to hear. Northcote’s mistake was breaking a long-established understanding. No records were ever kept here. But towards the end, maybe over as long as five or six years, my clients estimate that Northcote retained what built up to be a substantial dossier of original material. This should have been prevented by our own people, of course. But after such a long and satisfactory association, they’d grown complacent. Which was their mistake.’ Burcher stopped, waiting.

Uncertainty about what to say – what to admit and what not to admit – surged through Carver. Momentarily he had another mental image of a crushed, near-faceless body. He said: ‘George told me they were to guarantee the end of the firm’s links with you.’

‘Aah!’ said Burcher, stretching the exclamation as if a profound mystery had been explained. Then, after another pause, he said: ‘How, exactly, did he intend achieving that guarantee?’

The thin ice was creaking beneath Carver’s feet again. ‘He didn’t make that clear. I remember him saying that there wasn’t going to be a problem.’

‘Wasn’t going to be a problem,’ echoed Burcher, spacing the words to make them into an obvious threat. ‘But there was. And is. A very big and very real problem, Mr Carver. My clients gave George Northcote the guarantee he asked for. And in return he promised to return everything he’d retained. But he didn’t. My clients have gone through everything, back more than ten years. And they know there is still material missing. And have even had it confirmed.’

Janice Snow, thought Carver, immediately. ‘How was it confirmed?’

‘You brought a valise back from Litchfield. My clients believe that valise contained missing documents that belong to them. They will be most distressed if, this time, they do not get them back… all of them back.’

It was not the admission about Janice Snow that Carver had hoped for but this man was too clever for him to try to get it more obviously with another question. Carver decided he’d played enough and achieved enough. He said: ‘I believe there are some things belonging to your clients… not a lot but some…’

The curtain was briefly parted for another grimaced smile. Burcher thought that maybe it wasn’t going to be so difficult after all. ‘I am so glad this is going to be resolved amicably. Sensibly.’

‘You spoke of your clients having given George guarantees?’

Burcher nodded but said nothing, forcing Carver reluctantly on. ‘Which was the return of the documentation on the understanding that all links between this firm and your clients are ended?’

There was another nod, no words. Burcher decided it wasn’t going to be resolved today but then what was the hurry? He and Carver had a long life ahead of them.

Carver stopped speaking, waiting. Tensed, too, against his stomach turmoil becoming audible again. There was still no visible shake in his hands, seemingly easy upon the desk in front of him. He didn’t want to risk lifting them from the support, as he had before.

Burcher again broke the impasse. ‘There is a great deal of annoyance.’

‘Of which – in which – I am in no way involved. Nor is the firm, only by title, which has no relevance any more.’

‘I’ll make the argument,’ promised Burcher.

Could he make his own argument, Carver asked himself. And followed with the other questions. Was he brave enough? Strong enough? Did he have incrimination enough? ‘I need the guarantee.’

‘I need the missing documentation,’ declared Burcher, flatly.

‘I know that.’

‘Everything,’ insisted the lawyer.

‘Everything,’ agreed Carver.

‘Have you told anyone? Your wife, for instance?’

Carver wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold on. Minutes. No more than minutes. He moved one hand to cover the other. His skin was tingling, sensitive to the touch: unreal. It was all unreal, so totally disorientating. Forcing the steadiness into his voice, he said: ‘Of course not! Tell his daughter what her father had done!’

‘What about Alice Belling?’

Carver later thought – although never admitting it – that if he had not been sitting he might actually have had difficulty in remaining upright, staggered at least, at the numbing awareness of how completely he was trapped. It would be ridiculous to pretend – to question. ‘Absolutely and most definitely not.’

‘I want you to understand, Mr Carver, my clients’ determination to recover what is rightfully theirs.’

He had to end it soon! Very soon! ‘I hope you understand my equal determination for separation between us.’

‘I’d be better able to discuss that with my clients if I left today with what they want.’

Carver indulged himself – tried to recover – with a hint of derision. ‘Do you honestly imagine that it would be here?’

‘I’d certainly imagine that you have safes here. A security vault.’

Not imagine, thought Carver. He’d know. Know from a bewildered, terrified, tortured Janice Snow. ‘What you want is divided between bank safe-deposit boxes. And the banks are now closed.’

‘I’ve talked about mistakes, Mr Carver. Too many totally unnecessary mistakes.’

‘Which I’ve heard.’

‘I hope you have, Mr Carver. Sincerely hope you have. You already appear to have a complicated personal life: it’s not one to complicate further. This is a situation to be ended.’

‘As is our connection,’ persisted Carver. ‘I’ve given you my guarantee. I look forward to yours.’

‘I want it all by tomorrow,’ demanded the man, letting the artificial politeness slip for the first time.

Carver’s only need – a physically aching need – was to end this confrontation: end it and escape. ‘Where can I reach you?’

‘You can’t. I’ll reach you here, tomorrow. Noon.’

‘You’re coming here at noon?’

‘I didn’t say that. I said I’d reach you here, at noon.’

‘I’ll be waiting.’

‘We both will.’

It was three hours before Carver got to Princes Street, almost one of them spent practically unmoving – initially slumped – in his chair in the darkened office, recovering. He was exhausted by the encounter and further drained, more so mentally than physically, by analysing it all and what he had to do as a result of it.

He’d telephoned, warning her, and when he entered her apartment Alice said: ‘Jesus!’

‘I know,’ he stopped her. ‘Shit on a stick.’

‘Not even close.’ She poured her prepared drinks, spilling some in her own nervousness, and said: ‘So it was bad?’

Carver stared into the Martini. ‘That’s the funny thing. It didn’t seem so, when it was happening. It was only afterwards, thinking about it all. Listening.’

‘Tell me.’

He did, rehearsed, word-perfect, and Alice put her drink aside, head bowed. She didn’t immediately speak when he finished and Carver didn’t try to prompt her, his mind once more analyzing what he’d said, trying to think of what he might have overlooked or misinterpreted, finding nothing. There was, though, still the denouement.

Alice said: ‘He knew about me? They know about me?’

‘By name. Involved with me. He didn’t associate you with the hacking.’

Alice hadn’t once personally answered her telephone since the Space for Space manager’s recognition of her voice, tensed for the man to call back after tracing her number by dialling the 69 ‘last-call’ identification code. He hadn’t. Her line had gone five times that day, twice Carver trying to find her – the last time warning of his arrival – and twice with editorial queries on articles she’d written. The fifth caller had ominously disconnected, without leaving any message. She’d been too frightened to dial 69 herself, to learn who the caller was. ‘What did he say?’

‘That they knew the intrusion originated from here, from Manhattan.’

‘That all?’

‘That they were going to find out who it was. Which we know they can’t, because you didn’t leave any identification, did you?’

Alice was on the point of telling him, but decided against it. ‘What about you and I?’

‘The threat was there, as it was in everything else he said.’ It was the moment to tell her, to reassure her. ‘In fact, he said far too much.’

Alice retrieved her drink, frowning across at him. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I recorded everything. We’ve had the wired-in system for years, for client interviews.’ He smiled. ‘I pressed the button and got it all: I’ve even made a copy, before I came here tonight. And we’ve got his name: or at least the name he’s using. He might even be the conduit through whom George dealt. Combined with everything else, it’s the dynamite that’ll blow them away.’

Alice smiled back. ‘And there’s going to be a meeting tomorrow?’

‘He’s contacting me at noon, to arrange a place.’

‘Which makes it perfect. He tells you, you tell the Bureau and they pick him up, with the evidence, when he makes the meeting.’

Carver looked at her for several moments before saying: ‘No.’

‘What do you mean, no?’

‘That way I lose it all, the firm, us, Jane. We’ve talked about it.’

Alice put her drink aside again to come over to where Carver was sitting. She knelt at his feet and took his glass from him, so that she could take both his hands in hers. She said: ‘No, John.’ Then, spacing the words: ‘No! No! No! We’ve also talked about how they’re too big for us to fight. They killed George and they killed Janice and they’ll kill you…’

‘Not when they hear the tape. And I tell them I’ve got a copy of it as well as duplicates of everything else.’

‘John, you can’t frighten them!’

‘I’m not trying to frighten them. I’m not going to threaten them. All I want is severance. This is my insurance. Our insurance.’

Alice felt a sweep of helplessness: of not knowing what to say, what to do. And then, abruptly, she did know. ‘I want you to promise me something. I want to know where you’re going to meet this man Burcher.’

‘Why?’

‘I want to know where you’re going to be. That you’re going to be safe. Make it somewhere open, the park maybe, with people all around you. Not an enclosed office or an apartment. Or a car where they can take you anywhere they want.’

‘All right.’

‘Mean it!’

‘I mean it.’ The demand had been reversed, Carver realized.

‘Can you stay?’

‘Not with Jane the way she is.’

‘Call me then, when the arrangements are fixed.’

‘OK.’

‘I love you.’

‘I love you, too. It’s all going to work out fine.’

‘I know,’ said Alice. And believed she did.

Stanley Burcher’s irritation was soon subdued by his inherent objectivity. He knew what he was going to do and wished he didn’t have to use the Delioci Family to achieve it but his brief, final involvement with them wouldn’t give them any continuing rights.