13

Greg was having a swim in his lunch break when he had a message to call the office. It was urgent. Cursing, he clambered out of the pool and with a towel round him went to the telephone. Margaret told him he had to be back by two to take an urgent call.

‘From home?’ Greg asked.

‘How should I know?’ Margaret snapped. ‘All I know is you’re to be here. Jason will be at a meeting.’

But the call wasn’t from Sydney. It was from Lincoln’s Inn Fields.

‘Mr Oliver Goodbody for you.’ For a moment Greg was puzzled. Then he remembered the tall, elderly man who had chatted to him in the hall at Ravenscourt.

‘We met at the cricket when you were looking at the Caverel portraits,’ the silken voice began.

‘I remember,’ Greg replied. ‘The Poms in wigs on the staircase.’

Oliver laughed. ‘Exactly. You may remember you asked me about Julian Caverel, and Jason West tells me your interest in him was aroused by a visit from a young woman.’

Not a day had passed since that visit when Greg’s thoughts about her had not been aroused. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said guardedly.

‘I think I told you then that I act for the Caverel family.’

‘You did.’

‘Well, we have had a letter from a firm of lawyers making a quite extraordinary claim on behalf of a young woman. I believe she might be the same young woman who visited you.’

‘Oh, yes.’ So she had found lawyers.

‘I wondered’, the smooth tones continued, ‘if you and I could have a talk about what was said when she saw you.’ There was a long pause.

‘Hullo, are you still there?’ Goodbody asked.

‘Yep,’ Greg replied at last. ‘I am.’

‘We could meet wherever’s convenient for you, either here at my office or –’

‘What do you want to talk about?’

‘What she said to you. You may be the first person she spoke to about Julian Caverel after she arrived in London, and as we now have this claim by her lawyers –’

‘Who did you say her lawyers were?’ Greg asked. If he had their name, he’d be able to trace her.

‘Michael Stevens and Co. of Clarges Street. In view of their letter, it is important to learn exactly what she was saying when she first arrived in this country. I would very much like to talk and hear your report of –’

‘No way,’ said Greg. ‘No way.’

This time it was Oliver Goodbody who paused. ‘Do I understand that you are declining to talk to me about what was said when she spoke to you about Julian Caverel?’

‘You understand right,’ Greg said. ‘What was said was private.’

This time the pause was even longer. The voice went on coldly, ‘You appreciate that if this ever comes to litigation, you could be forced to tell a court what was said? You would be brought to court under a subpoena.’

‘Sure, I understand. But I told you that what was said was private. Between her and me. So you just subpoena me. I’ll look forward to it.’

Greg replaced the receiver. He sat back in his chair. So she’d gone ahead. Already she had the stuffed shirts twittering. He’d be damned if he’d lift a finger to help any of them against her. But if she wanted help, that would be different.

He asked in the office about Michael Stevens and Co. and then looked up their number. When he’d got through, he asked for Miss Fleur Caverel’s address. He was refused it. He asked to leave a message for her and gave his name and telephone number. From the tone at the other end of the line, he knew Fleur would never get it. Then he thought of Henry Proctor. Henry was back from Milan.

‘Lunch, tomorrow,’ Greg said.

‘Why?’ said Henry.

‘You’ll see.’

‘There’s no such thing as a free –’

‘I know, and this one isn’t either. Morton’s, one o’clock, Berkeley Square. I’ve got an acting job for you.’

Later that afternoon Jason sent for him. ‘I’ve just spoken to Oliver Goodbody, Gregory. I gather you have refused to meet him and tell him what that young woman said about the Caverels when she came to see you – the young woman who embraced you in the hall.’

‘That’s correct.’

‘But why won’t you?’

‘Privilege,’ said Greg. ‘She came to consult me.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, you’re not a lawyer.’

‘Perhaps not. Still, it was private. What she said was confidential.’ And that was all he would say.

In the afternoon of the following day, Henry presented himself at the offices of Michael Stevens and Co. He asked if he could see Mr Stevens’ secretary. It was about Miss Caverel, he said, and it was important.

To the secretary Henry was at his most winning. ‘I’d be so grateful for your help. Miss Caverel and I are old friends. We worked together last year, acting, you know, in Paris,’ he added grandly, so grandly that the secretary thought she ought to have recognised him. ‘I’ve been abroad in Italy, doing a part in a film which is being shot there, and I’ve lost contact with Fleur. I was told I might be able to get hold of her through you. Could you ask her to get in touch with me?’

‘I’m not sure…’ the secretary began.

Henry turned on his grandest manner. ‘She and I talked only a week or so ago when she first arrived in London, just before I had to go to Milan. She wanted me to fix something for her. I took down her number but I’ve mislaid it. Now I need to see her. I believe I may be able to help her.’

‘In what way?’

‘Just help her. She’ll understand. Tell her Henry, Henry Proctor, was asking for her. Ask her to call me.’

Henry had done well, for that evening Fleur rang.

‘Darling,’ Henry began, ‘I’m just back from Milan, a far better job than the one in Paris last year. Much more money. Do let’s meet and have a talk. Where are you staying?’

‘At a hotel in Paddington, with a friend. By the way,’ she added quickly, ‘your friend was no bloody use.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ For a moment Henry hesitated. Then he ploughed on. ‘But I gather you’re fixed up all right now. I’d just love to see you again. I’m across the park in Fulham. Come and have a drink tomorrow evening. I have some news for you.’

‘What kind of news?’

‘Come round and find out. It’ll amuse you.’ He gave her the address. ‘Flat No. 8, the third bell. I’m on the first floor.’

Later he rang Greg. ‘She doesn’t think much of you, and she said she was here with a friend. But she has the address. Now you owe me.’

The next evening Greg stood at the window looking down at the street. She came by taxi, and he saw the top of her glossy head as she paid off the cab. He retreated back into the room in case she looked up. The bell rang; he pressed the buzzer and stood by the door waiting. There was a knock. He opened the door.

‘You!’ she exclaimed. ‘I came to see Henry. What are you doing here? Where’s Henry?’

‘He’s not here just at present,’ he said cheerfully. ‘But come on in.’ She stood where she was, looking at him. ‘Henry asked me to let you in. He’s been called away.’

‘Henry said he had some news for me,’ she said. ‘When will he be back?’

‘Not long now.’

Slowly she entered the room and he closed the door behind her. She looked around, at the photographs on the chimney-piece, at the sporting magazines on the table. ‘This isn’t Henry’s place,’ she said, her back to him.

‘No, it’s mine,’ he said breezily. ‘I got Henry to ask you.’

She swung round. ‘Are you working for the Caverels?’ she said quickly.

‘No, of course not. It’s nothing to do with any of that.’

‘Then what is it to do with?’ She began to walk to the door. He stood with his back to it.

‘All I know about your claim is what you told me. I hope you win, and if I could help, I’d like to.’

She stopped. ‘Then why –’ she began.

‘I just wanted to see you, and I didn’t know where you were. Then I heard that Stevens’ were your lawyers so I rang up but I knew they’d never pass on my message so I got Henry to ask you here.’

She was staring at him. ‘You talk like Henry,’ she said.

‘He’s Australian, like me.’

She started to walk again towards the door, forcing him to step aside. ‘Don’t be mad,’ he said grinning. ‘I don’t mean any harm, at least not what I’d call harm. I just wanted to see you again.’

She turned. ‘Why?’

‘Guess why.’

She was staring at him. ‘Why?’ she repeated.

‘Because I think you’re – I think you’re quite wonderful.’

Her eyes were still on him, her face still serious. He was still smiling. ‘I think you’re great, terrific, marvellous. I fell in love with you the moment we met and I had to see you again. That’s why.’

She half smiled. ‘Well, now that you are seeing me again, are you still in love?’

‘More than ever. I’d do anything for you.’

‘You didn’t last time we met.’

‘I know. I just couldn’t think. I’m new in London, like you.’

‘Did you believe what I told you?’

‘Of course I did.’

For several seconds she stood staring at him; then she walked from the door and began to prowl round, examining the pictures and the photographs, fiddling with objects on the tables. After she had circled the room, she sat on the sofa, drawing up her long legs beneath her.

He went to the side table. ‘A drink?’

She shook her head. He opened a can of beer, his back towards her. ‘I hear you found a very good lawyer.’

‘No thanks to you.’

‘In the office where I work, the office you came to, they say he’s bloody sharp.’

‘I hope he is. And he has a PR man who works with him, called Willoughby Blake. Have you heard of him? He’s famous.’ He shook his head. ‘But my friend doesn’t trust Blake. He says Blake wants to get rid of him and take me over.’

‘Will you let him?’

‘My friend won’t.’

He looked down at the can in his hand. ‘Is all this so very important to you?’

‘I told you. I want my rights.’

‘But what does that mean? Suppose it goes through the courts, appeals and everything, and in the end you get your father’s estate? Then what? Do you want to stay here, live all your life in England, in the damp and the cold and the rain, with all these toffee-nosed Poms with their plummy voices? Do you really want to live in that great barrack of a house?’

‘If it’s mine, I do.’

‘Have you seen the place?’ She shook her head. ‘I have,’ he went on, ‘just after I’d seen you, I was asked to play cricket there. It’s vast. I couldn’t live in it. I wouldn’t want to.’

She stretched her arms high above her head. ‘Can’t you see me in a castle, sitting on a throne, wearing a crown?’ She began to laugh. ‘Wouldn’t I look great?’

‘You’d look great in anything anywhere. But is that what you really want?’

‘I want what’s mine.’

He shrugged. ‘Well, if that’s what you really want, that’s good. Then fight for it, go and get it and don’t let a bunch of stuffed shirts keep you from getting it.’

‘I’m not going to. And when I win, my friend says I’ll be very rich.’

‘Who is your friend?’

‘That’s my business. Are Australians always so nosy?’

‘Usually.’

She stared at him, looking him up and down. He grinned back at her. ‘Do you really like the way I look?’ she asked.

‘I certainly do.’

‘You think I’m beautiful?’

‘I think you’re more than beautiful. As I said, I think you’re wonderful. That’s why I got you here.’

‘You said you wanted to get to know me.’

‘Of course.’

Suddenly she was serious. ‘Do you? Or is it that you just like what you see?’

‘No,’ he said, ‘I want to get to know you, all about you. But I do very much like what I see.’

She stretched both hands high above her head again. ‘Who knows what anyone else is like. No one ever knows.’

‘They find out, if they care enough.’

Suddenly she said, ‘I get headaches, bad headaches.’

‘I’m sorry. Have you one now?’

‘No, not now. I get them, though.’

She got up and went to the window looking down at the street. ‘Do you know what I was doing before all this began?’

‘Henry said you were a dancer. That’s why you were in the advert with him.’

‘I was in that advert ’cos I’m black, and they needed some black girls in grass skirts to go with the palm-trees and they hired us from the cabarets.’

She came back to where she’d been on the sofa and leaned against the cushions. ‘I was a stripper. I’ve been a stripper since I was a kid. That’s how I lived, taking my clothes off in clubs all over Europe – Paris, Berlin, Cannes, Budapest. Most of Europe must have seen me. All of me.’

‘What of it?’ he said.

‘After the show we’d have to sit with the punters, chatting them up, making them buy champagne.’ She paused. ‘You know what that means?’ He nodded. ‘Some were all right.’ She got to her feet. ‘I think I will have that drink now,’ she said.

She went to the drinks table, her back to him. ‘You know, I quite fancied you when I saw you, even though you weren’t any bloody use. The dimple in your chin. I like that.’

He heard the ice going into a glass. When she turned she had a glass half-filled with ice in one hand, the vodka bottle in the other. She poured some vodka over the ice, a lot of vodka. ‘You’re pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?’

‘On the surface,’ he said grinning again at her. ‘Only on the surface.’

She put down the vodka bottle and drank from her glass. ‘Seeing you again’, he went on cheerfully, ‘makes me feel good, very, very good.’

‘I like your voice.’

‘Poms don’t.’

‘Poms?’

‘English.’

‘You’re not English, are you?’

‘No, I told you. I’m an Ozzie. But my mother’s English.’

‘If my ma’s right, so was my dad. I’m half English too.’ She drank again. ‘I don’t feel it.’

‘Nor do I,’ he replied. He wondered why she said ‘If my ma’s right.’ Wasn’t she certain?

She came towards where he was on the sofa and bent and rested her hand on the side of his face. Then she kissed him on the forehead. He tried to pull her to him but she drew away and strolled again round the room, drinking as she went. She paused at the far end.

‘Three doors,’ she said. ‘What’s in there?’

‘The kitchen.’ She walked to the next door. ‘Bathroom,’ he said, ‘and loo.’

The third door she opened and stood in the doorway, looking at the bed. She raised her glass, drank and walked inside. When he came to the door, she was sitting on the bed.

‘You didn’t know about me, about what I used to do, when you asked me here, did you?’ she said. ‘Or had you guessed?’ He shook his head.

She drank again from her glass and then put it on the table beside the bed. ‘Don’t be scared,’ she said, beckoning him.

She came at him like a hurricane, forcing him on to his back, riding him, then switching him over so that she lay beneath him, then back again, her nails scratching his sides, his shoulders. But she kept her mouth away from him. When she was on top of him and rose and fell, she had her eyes shut and was murmuring. Only when it was over did she let him kiss her on the lips. They lay side by side, his hand on her thigh.

‘I needed that,’ she said.

He took his hand away abruptly. ‘Was that all it meant?’

She turned her head to him. ‘No, I was teasing. It was different.’

‘Different! From what?’

‘From other times.’ She bent and kissed him gently on the lips. ‘Do you believe in fortune-tellers?’

‘No, do you?’

‘In a way.’

‘In what way?’

‘I like to be told what’s going to happen.’

‘Did they tell you about me, that I was going to happen?’

‘Of course, a dark man with a dimple would come into my life. No, I mean the real future, what’s really going to happen.’

‘It’s nonsense,’ he said.

‘Is it? Are you so sure?’ When she heard herself saying that, she remembered the Gypsy in Paris asking the same question and asking was it the past or the future she’d seen. And she’d replied it was only a dream, just a dream.

She turned on her side and saw the clock by the bed. ‘I have to go,’ she said. ‘I have to get back to the hotel, to my friend.’ He was going to speak but she put her finger on his lips. ‘Don’t worry. He’s just a friend.’

He watched as she went naked from the room to the bathroom. She had made love as no one had ever made love with him before. Then he thought of what she’d told him about herself and the clubs and the punters. He swung his legs off the bed, put on his robe and in the sitting-room poured himself some vodka and drank it neat.

She reappeared, dressed. He pulled her to him but she broke away. ‘Why do you have to go?’

‘The lawyer’s coming tonight. Nowadays it’s nothing but meetings, people asking questions, other people taking notes. I have to do what they say now. But I shan’t when I’m rich.’

‘Where can I find you?’ he asked.

‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s too difficult. They mustn’t find out about us. The lawyer says I must be careful. He says I may be followed.’

‘Who by?’

‘By the family lawyers.’

‘Why?’

‘To see what I get up to. They’d like to catch me out. I’ll get in touch with you here.’

She had indeed been followed, by a stout, neat little man in a dark suit, carrying an umbrella. He had sat in the café opposite watching the door of the house she’d entered, waiting for her to emerge. When she did, he followed her back to the hotel in Paddington, but while he had been waiting he had examined the names in the plates beside the bells on the front door and made a note on a pad with a small gold pencil. He’d come back later and check out the people who lived in the flats. It would, of course, be a man she’d been with. He had no doubt of that.