Two Women

Twenty-One

Jane hadn’t seen Rosemary Pritchard on her way out of the cathedral but there had been too many women in the congregation to isolate every one and a lot wore hats, some with veils like her own, although Jane didn’t imagine the gynaecologist to be a hat-and-veil person. Hilda told her, when she asked in the car, that there wasn’t an attendance list but they’d know later who had been at the service from the condolence books. Peter Mortimer and Paul Newton were among the first to arrive after her at the Plaza. Mortimer asked how she felt and Jane said OK, which she was. There had only been two ebb-and-flow sensations in the cathedral, both when she was sitting down, and none since. She was hearing and thinking quite clearly, knowing what she had to do, eager for everyone to arrive so she could find Rosemary. It wouldn’t be possible for them to talk properly at the receiving line but she’d be able to tell Rosemary she wanted to see her later and that it was important. It was good to be able to think like this, not losing the thread halfway through. She told Hilda she didn’t want anything to drink or to go to the bathroom. Why was it taking so long for everyone to arrive? Geoffrey Davis and the senior partner took their places beside her and Jane nodded to the parroted question about how she felt.

Hilda said: ‘People are getting here now,’ which they were.

Mortimer, standing drink in hand with Newton where they had an unbroken view of Jane, said: ‘She’s going to be just fine. The chlorpromazine didn’t hit her as hard as it could have done.’

Jack Jennings was close enough, with the rest of the now dispersed Litchfield staff, to hear the remark and hoped the psychiatrist was right. He thought Jane Carver looked shaky.

Alice held back, wanting the concealment of the crowd that she’d had at the cathedral, desperately, anxiously, wishing she’d been able to think of a better approach to Jane. It hardly amounted to an idea at all but it might just get her to Jane, alone, which was as far as Alice had taken her thoughts. Get to Jane alone, today. Talk about documents she’d been promised by Northcote and then by John for the biography of Northcote she’d agreed to write. How was she going to persuade Jane – convince Jane – to open the safe deposit? She didn’t know, not yet: hadn’t worked it out. Just get them protected, that was all she had to do. Keep them both alive.

Stanley Burcher was using the concealment of the crowd, too, entering the room as part of the line but sidling away almost at once, not wanting officially to meet Jane Carver. Not yet anyway. If he determined upon the proposal taking shape in his mind it might be necessary only once, she being the only person with legal access to Carver’s security facility. Could he turn that into a mere formality? Carver’s severance letters would be on record in the Northcote building: the Families had the originals Carver had written to their registered Grand Cayman addresses. There was every reason for his officially approaching the Northcote firm, acknowledging the termination, and demanding the return of all documentation referring to the five companies, arguing that he knew they were being stored privately and not in the firm’s vaults. The danger was that Northcote lawyers would examine what was in the box, once Jane had retrieved it. Could he extend client confidentiality and insist the contents be returned unexamined? They knew, from what Carver had produced in the NOXT building, what was duplicated in the Citibank vaults and Burcher doubted the woman would understand any of it. The Northcote lawyers would, though, when they went through it, as they inevitably would. Which way would they jump when they realized the significance? Like lemmings, over the self-exposing, self-destructive cliff, to the FBI? Or more practicably, and strictly within the law, gratefully accepting they were no longer professionally involved and even more gratefully thrusting upon him Carver’s incriminating box? It was an impossible bet to call. But the sensibly practical route – the route Burcher would have expected any sensible, practical lawyer to take – would be the latter. Where in this milling reception room was the Northcote lawyer? Logically he – or she – had to be close to Jane Carver. Reluctantly, as he was always reluctant to enter any focus of attention, Burcher moved towards the receiving group. So, finally, although from a different direction, did Alice.

What the fuck was he doing here, Hanlan asked himself. Had he expected name tags, Martha in big letters? Imagined, in this babble, that he’d hear the voice he’d recognize when he wasn’t sure he’d recognize it anyway? Stupidly – unprofessionally – he’d let this get to him: let instinct – gut instinct – cloud hard-assed reality. Ginette was right and McKinnon was right and Washington was right. Keep the door – or more literally, the telephone lines – open but don’t invest this off-the-wall situation with importance or priorities it didn’t have. OK, after this he wouldn’t. Any more than he’d tell anyone else at Federal Plaza where he’d been or what he’d been doing. Just keep things in order of priority. File this at the back of the list. Hanlan still didn’t move from where he’d established himself after also slipping out of the receiving line, token champagne in hand but undrunk, watching. Martha would be here, crazy or not. She’d have to be, according to every Quantico rule of psychological profiling. A big crowd. Rich crowd. No one – certainly no woman – looking out of place, particularly unusual or attracting attention. Most likely one of this sort of crowd then. But which side? The honestly rich side, who would have needed Northcote and Carver to keep them that way? Or the dirty organized-crime side, who according to Martha had found some way to make Northcote and Carver work for them? No way these days of guessing. Telling. Everyone – at this level – looked the same, behaved the same. Rich. Successful. Honest. A quiet voice said: ‘Excuse me,’ and Hanlan moved aside for Burcher to continue on towards where Jane Carver and her group were standing.

Jane let her mind freefall from everything immediately around her but intentionally, not from any legacy of the drug, her sole concentration upon finding one person, one face, which so far she hadn’t seen. That’s all she had to concentrate upon, only Mary… no, Rosemary… Pritchard. That’s the only person she wanted to see: to talk to. Rosemary. Talk to Rosemary. Everything else was unimportant, banal. Trite words, trite responses. So sorry… a wonderful man… tragic loss… we must keep in touch… lunch… Thank you… very kind… yes, keep in touch. Where was Rosemary? Why hadn’t she come? Jane felt tired, from standing, from shaking hands. Her back and legs ached and her hand, her fingers, hurt from being squeezed: people thinking the harder they pressed, the more sincere they appeared. So sorry… a brilliant man… Thank you… very kind…

‘Jane?’

‘Rosemary!’ exclaimed Jane, then at once: ‘No, not Rosemary.’ She tried to focus but it wasn’t easy to see a veiled face through her own veil and then abruptly the woman’s image faded for the briefest of seconds. ‘You’re not Rosemary…? Who…?’ Why wasn’t it Rosemary? It had sounded like Rosemary.

‘We have to talk,’ urged Alice, conscious of the pressure from people behind. ‘It’s very important. About your father. And John. Both of them.’

‘I thought you were Rosemary.’

‘Can we talk? Can I come to see you, to talk? It’s urgent.’

‘Do you know Rosemary? Rosemary Pritchard?’

The pressure, the intervention, was now from the woman whom Alice knew to be Hilda Bennett. The woman said to Jane: ‘Are you all right

…? Do you want to stop…?’

‘No,’ refused Jane, fully bringing herself back to where she was, what she was doing. ‘What was it you said?’ she asked Alice.

‘We need to meet. About your father. And John.’

‘Yes. Of course. Thank you. Very kind.’

Stanley Burcher was merged into another wall, studying Geoffrey Davis, who had been pointed out to him as the Northcote lawyer by a hovering hotel manager. Uncharacteristically Burcher was tempted to make a direct, personal approach, quickly dismissing the thought as unprofessional and in entirely the wrong circumstances. He thought Davis looked a practical, level-headed sort of man. But outward appearances were meaningless. He hadn’t seen anyone resembling the magazine photograph of Alice Belling, who at that moment passed just twenty feet away as she left the reception.

Alice knew who Rosemary Pritchard was: John had recommended the gynaecologist to her. Why, at this moment in time and in these circumstances, was Rosemary Pritchard so important to Jane?

Jane was glad at last to be moving, relieving the ache in her back and legs and sparing her hand from any more crushing insincerity, which was still as crushing without the handshakes. Appalling tragedy

… so unfair… brilliant husband… brilliant father… you’re very brave

… couldn’t be that brave myself… lunch… I’ll call very soon… Thank you… lunch is good… I’ll wait to hear… She was learning how to control the ebbs and flows. It had come three times while she stood in the receiving line, though she was sure no one had suspected, because she was always sufficiently aware now in the very few seconds before they washed over her. Could compensate, say the words. Thank you… very kind… so good of you to come… Her back was aching again. Her legs too. She couldn’t go on much longer. Wanted to stop. Finish now. Done enough. Done all she had to.

Hilda said: ‘Do you want to go home now?’

‘Have I done everything properly?’

‘You’ve done everything exactly right.’

Jane was startled by Mortimer’s reassurance, unaware until he spoke that the man was walking the room with her. ‘Then yes, I’d like to go home.’ No one knew, no one suspected. She had… Had to do what? Couldn’t remember… She would though, soon enough. Just needed a moment. Get her thoughts together. What was it she had to do? It was important. More people in the way. Fine man… brilliant mind… such a loss… Thank you… so kind… thank you…

Jane couldn’t remember getting into the car. They were going back across town. Hilda was talking. Just the odd word initially, then connected, making sense: ‘… a lot to do. Letters, things like that. Not tomorrow, if you don’t feel like it. Whenever. But I’ll get the condolence books now if you’re all right for a moment. I’ll go get them, then I’ll come back.’

‘I want that,’ Jane heard herself saying. ‘Like before.’

‘That’s what I thought. I expected that you would.’

‘There must be other things I have to do…? Proper things… formal …?’

‘Everything’s on hold, until you’re ready.’

‘Not today.’

‘No,’ agreed the older woman. ‘Nothing more today. Today you’ve done enough.’ The car turned into East 62nd Street and Hilda said: ‘Here we are. Home.’

Jane welcomed the sudden clarity, not aching now, not even feeling tired. ‘Not home,’ she contradicted. ‘John isn’t here any more.’

Alice hadn’t intended to be there. She’d left the Plaza to retrieve her car and get back as soon as she could to the safety of the cabin in the Bearfort Mountains. It was only when she drove out of the lot that she decided to go to East 62nd Street, initially with no thought in her mind of actually approaching Jane, not knowing, even, why she was doing what she was doing. She tried the Melrose Hotel to isolate any obvious attention upon John’s apartment building, from both the bar and reception, but couldn’t see sufficiently from either. It was when she was outside in the street again that she saw Jane helped from her car by Hilda Bennett and sat undecided upon a bench at the Second Avenue junction and was glad she did because the older woman left after just fifteen minutes. Why not this afternoon? Alice suddenly asked herself. And just as quickly answered herself: Why not?