12
After breakfast he sat in the lounge again with Lenny and Dee, looking through the papers, the same superficial reflections. He didn’t learn much more about them, other than the odd fact that Lenny owned aircraft hangars for a living.
They mentioned their boys just as much, a trait he found touching, the fact that even for one week in Vermont they clearly missed them. The prospect of bringing them along on the next trip rose again, JJ imagining how the boys would most likely become besotted with the Bostridge girl and all the emotional crises that would entail.
The first sign that Holden was coming was Kathryn bringing in a tray with a pot of coffee and a cup on it. She didn’t say anything, just set down the tray and left, and a minute or two later Holden came in, picked up the tray, brought it over to join them.
“Another fine day,” he said triumphantly, like he was talking about the stock market or the economy. “Mind if I join you?”
“Not at all, Ed,” Dee replied, just as enthusiastic. “How was the lake?” Lenny looked up to hear what Ed had to say.
“Beautiful, beautiful. Something special.” There was that look again, the deep-in-thought look JJ had seen the previous night, before he added, “You know, if you’re back here next year, feel free to take a few days in the cabin. You’re more than welcome.”
“That’s very kind,” said Lenny, and Dee looked in danger of throwing her arms around him, like all their efforts had paid off, a sense of inclusion. “We might just take you up on that offer.”
Ed smiled and nodded, a little embarrassed perhaps by the emotional pitch of their response. He turned to JJ then and said, “I’m sorry, we haven’t met but I guess you’re JJ. I’m Ed Holden.”
They shook hands, JJ saying, “Pleased to meet you, Ed. I take it it’s not your first time here?”
“No, in fact I’m not a guest. Old family friend. And you’re here between business trips I’m told.”
“That’s right,” said JJ. “Recharging the batteries.”
Ed nodded and turned to Dee who was still looking on, Lenny having gone back to the papers. “So what do you two have planned for today?”
“Highlight of the trip,” she said, rolling her eyes. “We’re making the drive up to Ben and Jerry’s!” It was the second time JJ had heard that; he remembered now that it was an ice-cream brand, guessing it was made somewhere nearby. As if to reinforce the fact, Dee asked, “Do you have Ben and Jerry’s in England, JJ?”
“Yes, we do,” he said, letting go that he’d already told them a couple of times that he lived in Switzerland.
Ed wagged his finger at her teasingly and said, “Just remember, a moment on the lips”—the three Americans finished the phrase together then, a summer camp chorus—“a lifetime on the hips!” That accomplished, Ed turned to JJ, asking, “And what about you, JJ, any plans for the day?”
“Just walking about the place, taking in the woods.”
“That’s what I’m planning for the morning. Maybe I could join you, if you don’t mind the company?”
“Not at all.” He noticed Lenny and Dee looking hoodwinked again, could imagine them trying to work out later why the English guy seemed to get taken so easily into the fold, consoling themselves perhaps with Ed’s offer of the cabin.
When the two of them set off for their walk a little later, Ed pointed to a part of the garden that sloped down into a small hollow surrounded by trees.
“See there,” he said. “When David and Susan first bought this place there was a swimming hole down there. So when Jem was born he decided it was dangerous and that he was gonna fill it in. One of the neighbors objected, said it would damage the wildlife, but no one could find anything in there, not so much as a frog. Then someone else came forward, said the hole was artificial anyway, dug by the people who had the place before the war, family called Timmins. So he started to fill it in, but the Timminses had chosen a good spot; it was two winters before he finally cracked it.” They’d walk on a way but Ed stopped and turned back to look at it now, saying, “David did a good job too though, never seen it flooded since. No sign at all it was ever there.”
“Nowhere to swim,” said JJ, appreciating how smart it had been to use the phrase.
Ed nodded and said, “It’s something of an in-joke among friends, ’specially people who’ve been here midsummer.”
“It wouldn’t have been Tom who gave away that you were in Vermont?”
“Absolutely not,” Ed answered, leaving no room for doubt. “And if it had been Tom, I hardly think the Russian you dealt with would have been fifteen miles away.”
“True. It’s the way I am, though. I never rule anyone out.” Yet once again the nagging doubt was there, the way he’d almost let Esther get to him. It had been an easy mistake in exceptional circumstances but there was never any excuse, and if Esther hadn’t made mistakes too they’d have still been cleaning bits of his brains from the mosaic floor.
Holden knew nothing about it though, and just as JJ was mentally chastening himself for trusting someone he said, “That’s the smartest way, but in the end it’s the loneliest too. You have to have people you can trust, have to have an instinct for it. Like you, I trust you already, just as much as I trust Tom. I don’t believe it would ever figure in your game plan to double-cross me. It’s who you are.”
JJ laughed a little, taking the compliment but not believing it for a minute. Holden was coming across as too laid-back for someone who’d been in the business that long, JJ certain there were more layers than he’d ever see beneath that easygoing surface.
“Well I’m glad you trust me,” he said. “Now why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”
Ed nodded but didn’t say anything at first, waiting as two people passed them on mountain bikes, coming off the woodland trail they were just about to start up. Ed and the cyclists exchanged greetings, and then as they walked on he pointed vaguely at the tree canopies, saying, “In a few weeks there’ll be people like that swarming all over these woods.”
“Yeah, Susan told me. Leaf peepers.”
“Leaf peepers,” Ed repeated, apparently amused by the term. “So you want information.”
“Well, as you just pointed out, I’m too early for the leaf-peeping season.”
Ed laughed again in response, still smiling as he started to speak. “I still have something I need to figure out, but this is how it’s shaping up. David and me went a long way back, similar backgrounds. We started a business venture buying art in Russia, selling it here, mainly for David—he liked the excitement.” JJ smiled, thinking of how much excitement Bostridge had ended up getting, and as if thinking along the same lines Ed said, “Quite. The thing is, David was never a company man or anything, but he started to get involved with little bits of company business here and there, you know, like carrying messages, information. It was all a game to him, like being in a James Bond movie.”
“It certainly has a familiar ring to it.”
“It gets more familiar. A couple of years ago it seems David crossed some boundaries and it goes down that London wants him removed. Berg’s pulling the strings and, cautious as ever, he decides to run it past me first. Not like I have a veto, just to keep everything sweet.”
“You knew Bostridge was gonna be killed?”
Ed nodded and said, “From the first time he went to Moscow I knew he’d end up taking a bullet. It still came as a shock, ’specially that it was us doing the killing.” He fell silent for a couple of paces, either trying to work something out or just lost in thought, pulling himself back after a moment or two. “So anyway, I wanted him to be taken down by someone decent, someone I knew would do it properly, quickly. I insisted on you or Lo Bello. Berg said he could get you. So that’s why it’s my fault you’re involved, why I felt obliged to help.”
JJ took in what he’d heard so far, intrigued by the mechanics behind what had seemed like a straightforward hit. “I’m following you,” he said, “but I don’t see where this is heading. You think Berg wants me dead because I unknowingly killed someone for him two years ago.”
“He wants you dead,” Ed said, clarifying the point, “because he can’t be sure Viner never told you that it was Berg’s hit. See, I made some inquiries afterwards and no one I spoke to knew how David had crossed the line. The more I looked, the more I began to think the hit was personal business for Berg, probably a favor for some gangster or other.”
“And?”
“And now, for whatever reason, Berg wants to eliminate everyone who knew or might have known about the hit. There’s been some ballast, but most of the key people targeted in the last couple of days were connected in some way with the hit on David. Of course, typically for Berg, he’s been methodical about making it look like something else, but he’s done this before. You have to hand it to him, he’s a smart cookie.”
“You have no idea why?” It was already looking obvious to JJ but he wanted to get as much as possible from Holden before he started speculating.
“I’ve got a lot of people looking into options for me, but nothing concrete, no.”
They’d reached the point at the top of the climb that looked over the Copley and the village. Ed stopped to take it all in. “This is one of Susan’s favorite spots,” he said, taking a deep breath as if he could draw all of it in like that.
JJ looked at it too, nodding, in no real mood for scenery though, his mind stacking things up. It seemed hard to believe Holden wasn’t ahead of him, but then Berg was probably better at fooling his own kind than he was anyone else, intelligence people always too eager to construct puzzles where there were none, looking into the distance when there were corpses at their feet.
“What about the Russians I killed? Doesn’t that suggest the most obvious connection?”
“I don’t think so,” said Ed, his tone dismissive. “They’ll have been Sarkisan’s people. Berg and Sarkisan have been in bed together for years. And he wouldn’t care about who killed David; it might even have been his call.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about them being Sarkisan’s men,” said JJ. “Someone told me the other day that Berg’s been making some high-level contacts recently, that they were taking care of his protection at the moment. So maybe it’s those contacts he doesn’t want finding out about Bostridge. I mean, Bostridge must have had some powerful friends out there if someone like Sarkisan didn’t want to be seen to hit him.”
Ed looked at him, impressed that JJ had come up with something he’d missed, like he’d never anticipated getting anything as ethereal as information from him, or a theory.
“Who told you this?”
“Stuart Pearson.” There was a moment of calculation then on Ed’s part, despite his claim of complete trust in JJ, and the careful question, “Pearson talked to you?”
“That’s one way of putting it. I was threatening to kill his children at the time.”
Ed smiled indulgently, relaxing again, like JJ was a student owning up to his part in a drunken prank. His face took on a different expression then, one of satisfaction that the simple piece of information from Pearson was all he’d needed to see what everything came down to. “Then I think you’re right, we have an answer,” he said, then digressed, “Did you retrieve anything from the two Russians?”
“Couple of passports from the house sitter, another from the tourist.”
“Good. I’ll go down to Washington with them tomorrow, make some inquiries. I’m pretty certain, though, that these links you’re talking about must be with Naumenko. It all adds up, everything you’ve said.”
Ed started walking again and after a few paces JJ said, “Aleksandr Naumenko. I’ve heard a bit about him.”
“But not much,” added Ed. “He’s an interesting character, smarter than the rest put together, just as ruthless, discreet with it, and if he isn’t the most powerful man in Russia already, he certainly will be. No one wants to touch him either. The other bosses all respect or fear him. Incredible.” Ed looked in awe, like he was discussing some historic figure.
JJ thought instead about what it meant for Berg to have this person on his side, the obstacle of freeing himself and Holden from the contract suddenly looking insurmountable. In the light of it the last few days picking off people here and there seemed as much a game, as much a fantasy, as Bostridge acting the spy in Moscow. JJ said, “So do you want to share with me why this is good news?”
“Of course.” Ed nodded, smiling. “You see, if it’s Naumenko it does explain why Berg wants us dead, just like you said. Because we know that he killed David, and Naumenko loved David, I mean loved him, chemistry between them. Strange but there it was. They did a lot of business together, became great friends. Apparently he cried when he heard David had been killed. He never forgave me either, said I should have made David more aware of the dangers.”
Ed looked lost again, like he blamed himself too. It made JJ think back as well, to his own preoccupation that night, never realizing that somewhere, probably in the same city, a man as dangerous as Naumenko had been reduced to weeping over David Bostridge, and that back in America Holden had waited, knowing that the trip would end badly, that he’d have to comfort the family, knowing all the time that he’d sanctioned it, chosen the killer.
“So in theory,” JJ said eventually, “if it is Naumenko, we only have to tell him what we know about Berg and that should give us some movement.”
“Exactly,” said Ed. “You just sit it out here for a day or two, I’ll go down to Washington, and then we’ll see what happens.” They walked on a short way without speaking before Ed added like an afterthought, “A shame we couldn’t have done something before they got to Larry.”
“You knew Viner? ” JJ asked, surprised.
“Yeah, pretty well; I always looked him up when I was in Paris. Actually I had lunch with him a couple of months ago. Fakhr el Dine, you know, at the IMA?”
“I know it. He used to lust after the waiters there.”
“Yeah,” Ed agreed, tacitly acknowledging the vast underbelly of Viner’s life, a side of him that was only vaguely hinted at in his lusting after young waiters. “Yeah, he was a sick individual. And maybe the world’s better off without him. He was decent though, where it counted.” JJ nodded, not saying anything, and Ed said, treading carefully, “I heard about your girlfriend too.”
Again, JJ nodded but said nothing, feeling there was nothing to say to someone who hadn’t known her, or them as a couple. He felt too like he wanted to avoid any situation where someone might sympathize with him on Aurianne’s behalf, sympathy that would have stuck in his throat, sickened him. Instead, he shifted the conversation back to Holden, saying, “You’re not married yourself ?”
Ed raised his eyebrows in response. “Fifteen years,” he said, correcting JJ’s assumption. “Jane’s a professor at Yale too. Thankfully, she’s visiting with her family in Sydney at the moment. But like Susan, she’s okay with the business, you know? She understands the risks.”
JJ reeled slightly, his shock based mainly on his impression of the house, a place which had looked like only one person lived there. He was certain too that the walk-in closet had contained only men’s clothes, but maybe he’d been mistaken, or maybe the missing clothes had been hers rather than his.
“No kids?”
“No. We put it off and put it off and in the end it just seemed too late.”
“And you don’t find business messes your life up?”
“No,” Ed said, matter-of-factly. “Until this came along. And that’s the beauty of still having your hand in, knowing what’s coming, getting tipped off.” He looked at JJ then, saying, “You know, you’re never gonna live a normal suburban commuter’s life—and who’d want to? But you can find a balance, with the right people, the right mix of trust and caution. It can work. Life can be good.” JJ smiled, bemused that Ed had so easily seen through him, like it was common for people of his age to be preoccupied with how they could square things up. “I’ll tell you something else,” added Ed. “I would never advise trying to cut your ties with the business, but you can do other things too.”
“Become a professor.” JJ laughed.
“You wouldn’t be the first, or writer or journalist. There’s no hurry, you’re young, but there are futures.”
“I’ll bear it in mind,” said JJ, still smiling but finding some comfort in the conversation, in Holden generally, the way he seemed to wear it all so lightly, like a man who’d come to terms with himself.
They walked on for another hour or more, Ed talking about his move into academia, about his career before that, a short spell in Vietnam, longer spells in Eastern Europe. They touched upon the subject of the Bostridges now and then too, almost in passing, and JJ found it reassuring to talk to someone who was as implicated in Bostridge’s death as he was and yet who was able to separate that fact completely from his ongoing relationship with the family.
Eventually they came to the village from its far side and stopped for lunch in a small restaurant, one JJ hadn’t even noticed on his previous walk, country-kitchen style, plenty of happily overweight couples eating in there. The waitress knew Ed and spoke a few words to him nearly every time she passed, Ed responding each time, his smile increasingly strained.
They’d finished eating when JJ remembered the icon from the previous day and said, “Found something under the bed yesterday, reminded me of something I saw in Moscow.” He was careful not to mention Bostridge by name in such a small place.
The response was dramatic all the same, Ed asking urgently, “You know what happened to it?” His eyes were sharp and focused, like the mention of it had reawakened something he’d long given up. It was amazing to see, how the contents of the package stolen from Bostridge could electrify him like nothing else they’d talked about, the laid-back Holden completely shed.
“The girl took it,” JJ said. “He was with a prostitute.”
“David!” Realizing he’d spoken too loudly Ed lowered his voice as he added, “He would have run a mile from someone like that, believe me.” JJ wondered if the original information on Bostridge had come from Holden and if perhaps he hadn’t known his friend as well as he’d thought. Ed seemed to pick up the doubt in JJ’s eyes and said, “I know what you’re thinking, and I admit it, it’s a shock to me that he was with anyone at all, but a hooker, absolutely no way.”
“How about some coffee?” said the waitress, suddenly appearing at their table with a cheery smile.
Ed transformed himself immediately, smiling, giving a hint to JJ of how easily he adopted that look of having nothing to worry about. “That’s a great idea, Megan. Coffee for me. Tea for my friend?”
“Yes, tea please,” confirmed JJ. He’d spoken to her a few times, but she smiled now and said, “Over from England?” He smiled back, nodding, not saying anything though, not wanting to encourage the conversation. Once she’d gone he cut back to their own, picking up where Ed had finished. “I thought you said he had a taste for excitement?”
“He did but not in that department. And he was obsessed with disease.” It made JJ think of the condom again, and of the girl who, if Holden was right, had done an incredible job in luring Bostridge astray. He was forgetting, though, that he’d seen her and that she probably hadn’t needed to try particularly hard, maybe just sit in the bar like he’d imagined, her job even easier if she hadn’t had to ask for money. It was compelling all the same, the slim possibility that she hadn’t been a prostitute, or at least that she hadn’t presented herself as one to Bostridge.
“Whatever she was,” JJ said, voicing his thoughts, “she was in bed with him when I got there, and she took the package. She searched the room, found it under the bed. No, she looked under the bed straightaway, like she knew where it would be.”
Ed looked shell-shocked, as much by the presence of the girl as by the loss of the package.
“I’ve often wondered what happened to it.” He pulled himself back into business mode and said, “See, I didn’t find out it would be on that trip till after David had left. So it was short notice, but I still made arrangements for the merchandise to be retrieved. When I was told it was missing, I assumed someone somewhere along the line had taken advantage of the situation, common enough out there, but I can tell you, it hurt more than usual on this occasion.”
Again it was interesting to hear him talk about being hurt by the loss of a package when he hadn’t used that kind of sentiment once in talking about David Bostridge. Perhaps it was because that kind of hurt was programmed into his system, or perhaps JJ had gotten him wrong, fooled by the flip exterior, and in truth it still hurt too much for him even to broach it, skipping across the story lightly instead, talking about swimming holes, Dartmouth, family backgrounds, anything superficial rather than deal with the intense and difficult truth at the heart of it all, the open wound of what he’d done.
“Won’t be a second,” the waitress informed them as she passed with two plates of food.
“Thanks, Megan.”
“What was in the package anyway?”
“An icon,” said Ed. “But no ordinary icon. It came from a church in Pechorsk, small town near Archangel. Probably came from Novgorod originally. The Annunciation painted on a wooden panel. The only icon in existence that we can say with some degree of certainty was painted by Theophanes. The ultimate prize, and a beautiful piece of art, truly beautiful!” He was fired up with describing it, offering a brief insight into how he probably was in the lecture hall.
It explained too why he’d reacted so excitedly to the mention of the package, perhaps even explained the girl’s behavior that night in Bostridge’s room. But then the girl, whatever she’d been, had almost certainly been following underworld instructions, driven not by the same reverence as Holden but by fear of what they’d have done to her had she failed to bring it back.
Suspecting then that even Holden’s reaction had been as much about money as anything else, JJ said, “Was it valuable?”
“Too valuable to be lost,” he said. “I don’t mean the money either, though this was an exceptional piece in a modest market. For someone in my field, to have had a piece like that in my hands, even for a short time ...” He trailed off and then Megan appeared, cluttering around the table, apologizing for the delay which she put down to the tea.
When she’d gone again JJ said, “It was stolen though?”
“Of course,” said Ed, the question ridiculous. “But we had a buyer lined up, someone with an extensive, mostly legitimate collection. He’d have left it to a museum when he died. It would have stayed there until a suit was lodged for its return, by which time Russia would have stabilized enough to ensure the piece’s safety. Sometimes stolen art is secured art, you know? I have no qualms about it.”
“As long as it’s stolen by the right person.”
“Exactly,” Ed said, acknowledging JJ’s mocking tone with a smile. “But don’t worry, that icon will resurface. I’ll stake my career on it.” JJ nodded, sipped at his tea, wondering idly which career he was talking about.
When they got back to the inn Ed insisted on introducing JJ properly to Susan, leading him through a door in the hallway to the part of the building that was still their private house. It was decorated much the same way as the main part of the inn, given away only in the domestic detail, a pair of training shoes on the floor, a jacket thrown over the banister at the bottom of the stairs.
Ed led him through to the kitchen where he could already hear Susan talking to Jack, the same catching-up conversation he’d walked in on before. JJ checked his watch then, surprised that he and Ed had been out for so long.
They were sitting either side of a kitchen table, strewn with paperwork, drinks, a half-eaten sandwich in front of Jack. Susan smiled at Ed as he appeared but kept on with what she was saying to Jack, some question about a kid who’d been in trouble, interrupting herself only when she saw JJ.
“Why, hello, JJ,” she said, smiling but looking surprised to see him there, wondering perhaps why Ed had brought a guest into their private space.
“Hello,” he returned, nodding to Jack who’d looked over to see who was there.
“Susan,” said Ed, “I’ve been out with JJ today and it turns out we’re connected. JJ’s a great friend of Tom’s.”
“Tom Furst? How amazing,” she said, lighting up with the news, and then to JJ, “You know, I sensed when you first came that you were, I don’t know, one of us I guess. What an amazing coincidence !”
“Not really,” he said sheepishly. “I didn’t want to say anything, but it was Tom who recommended this place.” She smiled, shaking her head in disbelief, her eyes full of warmth. It was as if she had sensed a connection with JJ, as if she’d wanted him to be more than a guest and was pleased now because there he was, one of them by association.
“Well come and sit down,” she said, clearing some of the papers into a pile, and then as they sat, one on each of the two remaining sides, “How about coffee? Or I can ask for tea? I make the most appalling tea.” They both declined. Jack went back to his sandwich and a glass of strawberry milk that left his top lip with a mustache each time he drank from it. For a minute Susan looked like she didn’t know where to begin but she said finally, “So are you actually in the same line of work as Tom?” There it was, a loaded question that had the capacity to open doors all the way to the facts of her husband’s death. Remembering what Holden had said about her though, about being okay with the business, he said carefully, “In effect, yes I am.”
“You’re like, a spy?” asked Jack, wiping the comical pink mustache with the back of his hand. He looked vaguely interested in the idea, like it was a career he was considering, or possibly because that’s what he thought his dad had been.
“Tom isn’t even a spy,” answered JJ, smiling. “And what I do is even less exciting than what Tom does.” Jack looked at him, a skeptical expression on his face, as if to make clear to JJ that he knew more about these things than most kids his age.
“I still find it hard to believe Tom’s a grownup,” Susan said.
Ed cut in, “Susan, your own kids are grownups. Look at this big guy here.”
Jack raised his eyebrows and looked at Ed, spelling it out. “Ed, I’m like, fourteen, which is like, a kid. You’re a grownup!”
“Debatable point,” Susan said, turning back to JJ with a familiar American openness. “Why don’t you join us for dinner tonight?”
“That’s a great idea,” said Ed, looking at JJ.
“I’d like that, thanks.”
“Do I have to come?” Jack asked.
His mother looked exasperated. “I’m sorry,” she said to JJ before answering the kid. “Jack, you could at least wait for JJ to leave before you petition me to be excused.”
He looked confused for a second but then turned to JJ and said, “Sorry. It’s not you. It’s like, dinner and stuff, you know? And I have like, plans, which my mom kind of knows about.”
“No need to apologize,” JJ replied. “If I was fourteen I wouldn’t want to have dinner either.” Jack smiled at Susan, as though he’d just been vindicated, and Susan smiled back, a brief silent conversation of playful facial expressions passing between them.
Ed spoke then, saying like he’d just remembered it, “Oh, I have to go down to Washington in the morning, just for a day or two. Someone’s in town and I want to see him before he goes again.”
“Which reminds me,” JJ said to Ed before Susan could respond, “I’ll go and get that phone number for you, while I think of it.”
“Thanks,” said Ed.
“Well this all sounds very intriguing,” Susan said, looking at Ed for an explanation.
“That’s why you wouldn’t have made a spy, Susan. Don’t see connections when they’re not there. See, the phone number JJ has for me is an old friend from Berlin who lives in Paris nowadays.” She asked if it was anyone she knew, and JJ excused himself as Ed answered.
He went back through into the inn and up to his room, picking up the passports and putting them in his pocket, finding a piece of paper and writing what looked like a Paris number on it. When he got back to the kitchen though, Ed wasn’t there. Susan looked up from her paperwork to say, “He’s gone up to his room, third door on the left-hand side.”
“Thanks,” said JJ and walked up to Ed’s room, a guest room that looked similar to JJ’s a little way beyond the partition.
Standing in the open doorway, he went through the form of giving him the phone number, chatting inanely while handing over the passports. Ed responded likewise, talking about nothing as he flicked through them and put them away. They parted then, saying they’d see each other at dinner, Ed closing his door.
As JJ walked back toward the top of the stairs he noticed one of the other doors he’d passed half open, giving a view of the room from that direction, a narrow glimpse of what looked like the girl’s room, a few posters on the wall. He slowed down, staring in as he passed, suddenly noticing the reflection in the mirror above the cluttered dressing table, the girl herself and her boyfriend, asleep on the bed like two entwined children, a spellbound sense of stillness about them.
Seeing them there reminded him of a winter afternoon years before when he’d been about her age, sleeping fully clothed with his girlfriend, waking a little and watching the light fade, feeling her close, one of those rare moments that had been beautiful at the time and not just in the recollection.
He hadn’t thought of it in years but did now because of seeing them, the sleeping September-lit room pumping blood back into that part of his memory. And he felt envious too, of their youth, their clean slate, or perhaps just of the boyfriend, for having someone or something to hold on to, for having her.
Because despite what Ed had said, it still seemed hard to believe that he’d ever find a balance like that again. There had been Aurianne for a while, and for a while that had felt like something stable, but he hadn’t even loved her, and the worst part of that was knowing how devastated he’d have been now if they had been in love.
No doubt Ed would have countered that the present situation was a one-time thing, nothing to govern life choices by, but they worked in a business that had a way of throwing up one-time situations like that. If it was just him that wouldn’t matter, but he didn’t see how he could ever invest in a life beyond himself, not fully invest, not knowing what he knew.
Bostridge perhaps had been lucky. He’d been an amateur, not a real player. So it had been only Bostridge himself who’d been killed. Apart from his death, as much of a loss as that must have been, his family had been immune, to the extent that here they were blindly playing host to two people intimately involved with the killing and yet able to continue with life as normal: boyfriends, discussions about work and school, dinners with the friends of friends.
Following Jack’s exit JJ had reckoned on just the three adults having dinner, but when he got there the kitchen table was set for four. There was no food cooking, though. Susan brusquely dismissed her own cooking skills, explaining that the meal would be brought in, double-checking that JJ liked beef.
The three of them were already sitting down when Jem came in, a vague smile on her face, like a contentment spilling over from some other part of her life. She was wearing a summery dress but with a white T-shirt under it, showing up the light tan of her skin, the dress offering brief hints of the figure beneath as she moved, her breasts, hips, all subtle promise.
JJ started to stand up but thought better of it, not wanting to embarrass her, rising from his seat only to shake hands when Susan introduced them. Her hand was soft but with a firmer grip than her brother’s, determined, her eyes pale green, searching again as if trying to read code.
She was sitting opposite him but didn’t speak for a while, listening instead as JJ and the others made small talk. A couple of times their eyes met but averted quickly, the girl looking mildly flustered each time. There was something amusing about it, and something strangely reassuring too, that there was already some indistinct chemistry between the two of them, a girl almost half his age, a teenager whose father he’d killed when she’d still been a child.
The food came, beef in a rich sauce, mushrooms, beer perhaps. Ed tasted his and said, “Wonderful. JJ should eat with us more often.” Susan laughed at the backhanded insult to her cooking, and Jem joined in then, speaking for the first time since sitting down. “No, Mom, this is like, so good.” The same affected hesitancy as her brother and what seemed like most other American kids.
“Honestly, JJ,” Susan said, “my cooking isn’t wonderful but it really isn’t as bad as all that.”
“I’m sure it isn’t. This is very good though.”
Ed cut in, picking up on what Susan had just said. “I like that chicken thing you make. But really, Susan, there’s no shame in not being a great cook.” He turned to JJ then. “She was raised on the Upper East Side and the Hamptons; till she was eighteen she thought food came ready-cooked.”
Susan and Jem laughed, Jem suddenly saying a little too hastily afterward, “So like, why do they call you JJ? I mean, when your name’s William Hoffman.”
He wondered if she’d checked his name in the register, maybe after first seeing him the previous night. “Childhood nickname,” he said. “Doesn’t mean anything.”
“And why are you called Hoffman?” He felt a slight charge, the fact that she was curious about him, bemused at the same time that it mattered to him.
“It’s my father’s name.”
“But it’s not English, right?”
“Nor is he. He’s Swiss. I live in Switzerland too.”
“Oh.” She seemed to think about it for a second or two and then added, “Cool.” She said no more then for the rest of the meal, just listening again, more relaxed now though whenever their eyes met, even smiling a couple of times in response.
They’d finished eating when her boyfriend appeared behind her in the doorway. Susan introduced him to JJ and the kid said, “Yeah, we met, kind of. Hey.”
“Hello, Freddie.”
“So, um ... ,” Jem said to her mother questioningly, like she wasn’t sure of the polite thing to do.
“Well, Freddie could join us,” said Susan, “but as we’re not in formal society I think we can probably spare the two of you.” The girl smiled, excusing herself, offering a general good-bye to the room as much as to the people in it, Freddie saying bye to each of them, an innate politeness forcing its way out past the surface cool.
Susan waited till they’d gone and said quietly then, “I do worry about them. They’re in love, there’s no doubt about that, but I have a bad feeling Freddie Sales will break her heart.”
She actually seemed fairly relaxed about the prospect, but Ed looked stern and said, “Then he’ll be making a big mistake, won’t he, JJ?”
“She’s a beautiful girl,” he agreed. Susan looked flattered, but Ed looked nonplussed, saying, “I don’t mean that! I mean he’ll be messing with the wrong people.”
“Speak for yourself,” said Susan quickly, “JJ and I are the right kind of people.” Ed acknowledged the wordplay. JJ felt flattered this time, by her tone and by the feeling around the table of complete acceptance, as if they’d known him for years rather than days.
And the fact that they’d been connected for almost two years hardly seemed to matter as they sat there, or what connected them. On the surface it was a freak encounter that the four of them had been brought together at that table, the way storms left strange fish sharing the same rock pools. But at some deeper level it felt right to be there, a place where he seemed to belong.
It was the feeling he got with Jem, too, based on no more than a few glances, on the indefinable attraction he felt toward her, that there was something prewritten between them, some unspoken territories that they already shared. It was ridiculous, a grown man losing sight of things because of the attraction of a pretty girl, but that was how he felt, Berg, Naumenko, and everything else almost fading against the thought of her.