8

It was very simple: before they did anything else, they would have to hide the body.

Sure—that’s a brilliant idea, he told himself. It was like finding a wallet. Just stick the body in your back pocket and keep walking.

It was getting hot in the Outer Office. It had never been so stifling, and he found each breath a little shallower than the one before it. His lungs contracted to two painful points and the room around him began to go gray.

The heat made the smell rise higher, each breath a whiff of urine and that other smell, the soprano shriek of blood. Speke began sobbing, but even so he was able to stalk toward the window, and lean, pushing the swinging glass doors outward, to let in the fresher, cleaner heat of the day.

The soil lay beyond, the stone sea to which he would commit his friend. It all swam in his eyes, the roots of the trees and the fallen acorns, the leaf-litter and the spill of sun through the branches. His palms were wet. This hand … He gazed into his palm. This hand had grabbed Asquith’s arm and—

“Who?” she asked. “Who was he?”

The question echoed in him. Ah, yes, he wanted to say. That, Maria, is the question of the hour. “An old friend.” It was true. Asquith was an old friend. The thought nearly destroyed him, and he had to take several deep breaths to keep from breaking down.

“Ham,” she began. Then when she could speak again, “Don’t let them take you away from me.”

Like many men, Speke had always wondered what he would do under real pressure. He had never been tested by war, and the physical crises that shape other men’s lives—accidents, natural disasters, physical handicaps—he had somehow avoided. As a result, he had always wondered how much courage he had. His character had been tested by the exigencies of his career, but now he could endure the fiercest sort of challenge, and he suddenly treasured this opportunity to prove to himself, and to Maria, that he was equal to it.

He had killed, and he would get away with it. It was that simple. He would triumph. He would have something in common with the heroic, with the lion, with the eagle. He would be a man who believed in himself. Never again would there be a ripple of self-doubt. He would know the truth about himself, and other men would sense this in him. (Speke has changed, they would whisper among themselves. He’s harder, now. Colder. You can see it in his eyes.)

“Maria, listen to me. Are you listening?”

“Yes, Ham. I’m listening.” Her voice was the sound of someone shocked beyond feeling.

“Do exactly as I tell you. We don’t have much time.”

To put it mildly. Bell already here, and Scamp on his way with cameras and a sound crew. He would let Bell stay. But Scamp would have to leave. He would think of an excuse. He would not grin before the video cameras today.

If only he could draw a single, deep breath. Or maybe that was not the problem. Maybe he was breathing too fast, hyperventilating. He turned to face her, trying to send her courage through the air. She seemed to try to respond, but, for the moment, she could not speak. He felt his legs regain their old strength as he reached her. (He’s somehow strangely masterful these days—not the same man at all.)

“We have to work together,” he said, gripping her shoulders, the strength of his feeling making him feel drunk, stupid and bestial.

Her eyes beseeched him: whatever you do, make it all right.

“Get the shovel from the garage.” She did not seem to hear him. “Now!”

She hurried from the cottage.

He was panting hard, gasping. Alone with his triumph, Speke could not stand to look. He forced himself. This is what he had done. This is what he would live with.

He snatched the carpet from before the fireplace, a stiff burgundy and tawny wool pile that he had considered an investment. Woven by women, he had been told, in a remote village long before television had even been imagined, its earth-golds the effect of tobacco juice dye.

He rolled the body quickly into the carpet, not letting himself look at it any more than he had to, but seeing all-too clearly the blood-smeared death snarl. And then to his horror he found himself embracing the rolled-up corpse, calling his old friend’s name, knowing that he would never have a whole mind again.

The body made a gurgling groan, a breathy syllable as his hug squashed air from the lungs. He let it fall, and stood slowly, then fell to the body again, rocking it and calling Asquith’s name.

Maria was there, struggling with him, pulling him away, thrusting the shovel into his hands.

“Quickly,” she whispered.

He staggered to the window. She was smart. She knew what to do. We’ll be a team, he thought.

It was good to be outside. He dug, stomping down hard to cut through the roots of trees. The smell of earth was powerful medicine. The earth would help him. Just an hour away from San Francisco, the estate was a refuge, a secret apart from the world of cars and news. He had been kind to the trees here, and to the house. He had cleared away the brush, and had once contracted such a bad case of poison oak the doctor had given him two shots of cortisone.

He was giddy, he knew, with the rush of thoughts, but he couldn’t stop them. As unlikely as it seemed, he knew without a doubt that the estate would help him. Nature itself, that unacknowledged god, would help him. This was madness, but he found himself recalling that he had donated money to dolphin research, and that he had written letters to the Senate decrying animal experiments. He had always stood up for the whale. He would become a vegetarian. Was it madness to think that his entire life would change? This was all a great blessing. It was a chance to grow. What a crossroads he had reached.

(He’s always been self-confident, but now he has real presence. I wonder what happened to make him so strong?) He shivered. What was Sarah doing with Bell? The biographer would be restless, even suspicious. This was the worst possible situation: a professional reporter, a man famous for his eye for detail, not a two-minute walk from a murdered corpse.

Speke was in fine physical condition, and he was able to work fast. Strong, he told himself. Be strong.

But the soil was hard, and full of rocks and snaking roots. Tough roots, resilient ropes that the shovel could not cut. The earth was rich with stones that chimed and grated against the blade. Pithy cables of tree clung to the steel, and he had trouble wrenching the shovel out of the soil, much less making headway into it.

What a pathetic tool this was. Apparently, it had been left in the garage by the previous owner or his gardener. Speke had a gardener of his own. He could call up and ask Brothers where he kept a better shovel, but Brothers was a wise and curious man.

His palms hurt. He was getting blisters. He leaned on the shovel, panting. He didn’t have time. He would have to go up to see Bell now, and excuse himself somehow and come back and finish later. He couldn’t do this when the cameras got here. Those weasels followed you everywhere. He had to beg CBS not to have a shot of him flossing his teeth on the evening news a few months ago.

Who would have thought plain soil would be so difficult? It was a wise place, though—a shrewd place for a grave. It was close enough to the Outer Office that coyotes would not dig up the body, not far from the window out of which Asquith had intended his escape.

He scrubbed himself in the wet bar. Maria was already at work, wiping up the blood with a rag. Christ, blood was sticky stuff. He wanted to vomit for a moment.

But Maria was tough. What an amazing woman she turned out to be, his Little Mouse. Once again, he was struck by the realization that he did not really know her. He helped her drag the body to the closet, where it became one more object in the storage place of unused flyrods and rarely consulted maps.

“I’ll finish later. I’m going to run up to see Bell.” His voice was hoarse. “I’ll be quick.”

“Don’t worry, Ham. I’ll clean up.”

The blood she meant. She would wipe up the blood. He could taste it in the air. He loved her, for a moment, too much to speak.

“How do I look?” he asked. “Do I look all right?”

“You look fine.”

He would have to look better than fine. He would have to look perfect to deceive a man like Christopher Bell.

He hurried through the sunlight, telling himself that there was no hope at all. How could he even con himself for a second?

Couldn’t you even smell it, all the way here, here in the bright sunlight? Didn’t the air smell of blood, dark and salt-brewed, like a stagnant sea?