The moment the door was shut behind her, the man put the security chain across it. Then he ordered Jemima Shore to take her clothes off. All of her clothes.

“But you can leave your shoes on, if you like. They’re pretty.”

Jemima found that the sheer unreality of the situation prevented her from taking in what he was saying. She could hear the words all right, the man was standing right beside her, his breath on her cheek—although he was not in fact breathing particularly heavily. They were about the same height: his eyes, very widely set, the colour of glossy chestnuts, were level with hers.

The man’s hair was dark, very thick and quite long; they were so close that she could see one or two silver threads in the shaggy mass. He had a moustache, sideburns, and soft dark down on his cheeks; it was that which gave him a Mediterranean look. His accent, however, faint but discernible, she could not place. He wore a clean white T-shirt with some kind of logo on it, and jeans. The broad shoulders and the heavy arms revealed by the contours of the T-shirt gave an impression of considerable physical strength, in spite of his calm breathing. Jemima was aware that he was sweating slightly.

She was carrying a large green Chanel-type handbag of quilted leather slung over her shoulder by two gilt chains. The man took the bag from her and put it carefully on the king-sized bed which dominated the hotel room. The curtains were drawn and the lamp by the bed was lit, although it was in fact only eleven o’clock in the morning.

The man repeated his command. “Take off your clothes.” He added, “I want to get to know you.”

It was idiotic, thought Jemima: the previous television programme she had worked on had actually been about rape. During that period, she had spoken to at least a dozen victims—of widely differing ages—on the subject. The words she had heard most frequently went something like this: “You just don’t understand what it’s like … Helplessness … If it’s never happened to you … Until it’s happened to you …”

Naturally, she had never sought to argue the point. Her intention, as an investigative television reporter, had been to present her evidence as sympathetically but candidly as possible in order to illustrate just that gulf: between sufferers and the rest, however well intentioned. The programme about rape had been the last in a series of which the overall title had been “Twice Punished”: it had concentrated on the tragic social after-effects of certain crimes.

“Helplessness … You just don’t understand … Until it happens to you.” Now it seemed Jemima was going to find out for herself the truth of those sad, despairing cries. Rather too late for her programme. Ironically enough. And she had a feeling she was going to need all the sense of irony (or detachment) she could hang on to in the present situation. And then something more.

“Take off your clothes,” repeated the man for the third time. “I want to get to know you.” He was still not hurried or breathing heavily; only the slight perspiration on his upper lip betrayed any kind of agitation. Jemima now guessed him to be Moroccan or Algerian, maybe even Turkish; his actual use of English was more or less perfect.

“Who are you? And where is Clemency Vane? I have come to interview Clemency Vane.” Jemima decided the best course was to ignore the ludicrous, frightening command altogether and attempt in some way to gain a mastery of the situation. She was glad to find that her own voice was absolutely steady even if she, unlike the man himself, was panting a little. She found that she was also able to manage a small, sweet, composed smile, the one the viewers loved, because Jemima generally went on to demolish the recipient of that sweet smile—some pompous political leader perhaps—politely but totally.

“Clemm-ie”—he accented the last syllable just slightly—“is not here. I have come instead. Now you will take off your clothes please. Or”—he paused as if to consider the situation in a rational manner—“I could perhaps take them off for you. But you would probably prefer to do it yourself.”

The man bent forward and undid the loose drawstring tie at the neck of Jemima’s cream-coloured jersey dress. His hands, like his shoulders, were large and muscular: they were covered with dark hair; the nails, Jemima noticed automatically, were very clean, as if newly scrubbed, and well-kept. He undid the first pearl button and made as if to touch the second; then he drew back.

“This is where I scream,” thought Jemima. “Argument stops here. There must be somebody in earshot in this damn barn of an hotel.”

“Don’t touch me, please,” she said aloud. “And I must tell you that, whoever you are, my camera crew are due to arrive in this room in exactly one minute; they took the next lift.”

“Oh, don’t be frightened.” The man ignored her remark about the camera crew, which was in itself a worrying sign—since it was in fact quite untrue. Jemima doubted whether at this precise moment anyone in the world knew exactly where she was, not even Cherry, her faithful PA at Megalith Television.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. “Even if you scream”—he had clearly read her mind—“I shall not hurt you, only silence you with this.” For the first time Jemima realized the man was carrying a large white scarf or cloth on his arm. “But please do not scream. There would be no point, I think, since both the rooms near us are empty, and the maid is far away.”

The man hesitated, then he led Jemima quite gently but firmly in the direction of the large bed. They both sat down. That brought her—possibly—within reach of her green handbag; but what kind of weapon was a soft, quilted-leather handbag, however large? The man gazed at her earnestly with those wide-apart brown eyes.

“I have seen you on television, Jemima, I think you’re very beautiful and you’re intelligent too. I like that very much. You’ll find I really appreciate your intelligence when we get to know each other better. Women should cultivate their intelligence so as to be of interest to men, how can a stupid woman be of any interest to a man … Education is very important for women. In order to help their man.”

Now that the man was talking, almost rattling along, poking his face close to hers, talking at manic speed but not attempting otherwise to touch her or her clothing in any way, the best plan seemed to be to keep him at it.

The education of women! A bizarre subject to discuss, perhaps, under the present circumstances, but one on which Jemima did at least have strong views (if not precisely these views).

“You’re absolutely right,” she agreed, her tone still resolutely equable, resisting the temptation to adjust the loose tie and button of her dress.

On the subject of education, would it be a good plan or a very bad plan to reintroduce the subject of Clemency Vane? Her captor—for such he was—either knew her or knew of her. As it was, one could indeed fruitfully talk about the education of Clemency Vane, and at some length, in view of what had happened to her following that education. Had the missing Clemency been actually present in the hotel room where she promised to be, Jemima herself would have shot off some pertinent questions on the subject: even if she would have recorded the answers in her own well-trained memory (and not as yet with a camera crew). Clemency had asked for her to take no notes and certainly not use a tape recorder at these preliminary interviews. And Jemima, who at this stage was committed to nothing, Clemency having made all the running herself, had nothing to lose by agreeing to her terms.

Clemency Vane was a convicted criminal who had recently been released from prison where she had spent something over five years on a charge of drug-dealing. It was an odd case. Nobody seemed to know quite where all the money had gone: some really large sums had vanished. Jemima remembered that the original sentence had been for eight years and that Clemency had been released for good behaviour: it had certainly been a strong sentence for a first offender. On the other hand the proven details of Clemency Vane’s drug-dealing were pretty strong too. And it was undeniably dealing: no question of a desperate addict merely trying to service her own expensive habit. Quite apart from the fact that she had pleaded guilty.

The oddness lay in the hint of political background to it all, a hint which mysteriously and totally disappeared when the case came to be tried and the “guilty” plea was entered. What was the country concerned? Jemima tried to remember. Red Clemmie? Blue Clemmie? Green Clemmie? Not the latter presumably, in view of the drug-dealing. Since none of this had finally been proffered by the defence at her trial, temporarily the name of the country eluded her: which was ridiculous. But she would have reminded herself of all the details of the case beforehand if Clemency Vane’s summons to an interview in the anonymous barn of a West London hotel had not come so peremptorily to her this morning. That had altered their previous more long-term arrangement.

“No, it can’t wait. I thought it could when I spoke to you originally. But now it can’t.”

Santangela. That was it. Santangela: one of those little states, whose precise connection with drug traffic, anti-drug traffic measures, nationalism and anti-imperialism was so difficult to establish even for those who were keenly interested. Which most Britons, and Jemima was no exception, frankly were not. That was the hint of political background which had come and then mysteriously gone away. After all, shortly after Clemency Vane had been imprisoned, there had been a successful revolution in Santangela in any case; so the whole situation had changed. Santangela: where exactly was the place? Latin America? Central America? South America? It was ridiculous to be so ignorant about sheer geography, which was after all a matter of fact. But then that was Europe-centred Britain—including Jemima Shore—for you.

Jemima looked at the man again. Not a Moroccan, an Algerian or a Turk, then, but a Santangelino? If that was what its nationals were called, as she seemed to remember they were. More vagueness, she ruefully admitted. All the same, for the first time her gaze was inquisitive, not challenging and self-protective. A Santangelino. Somehow connected to Clemency Vane’s drug charge, once deemed in some way political, then all of a sudden quite apolitical, just criminal. What she was not in any way clear about as yet was exactly how Clemency and her drugs fitted into Jemima’s current series. She had been wondering that ever since Clemency Vane had made the first contact. But there seemed plenty of time to find out.

Jemima’s new series—very much at the planning stage—was tentatively entitled “For the Love of the Cause.” It concerned the rival claims of public campaigning and private life. She had already made various soundings concerning it, had had one or two preliminary interviews with dedicated campaigners of various sorts (including one with a man who, very much against Jemima’s own beliefs, wanted to bring back capital punishment but whose wife opposed him). To her irritation, she was failing to turn up sufficient numbers of “strong women” who fitted this particular bill; they existed all right, but preferred to keep their private lives and/or disputes to themselves. Jemima sympathized, of course, but remained professionally irritated …

Then Clemency Vane telephoned out of the blue. Jemima herself would certainly never have thought of a reformed (one hoped) drug-dealer in connection with this series. Yet Clemency’s original call, fielded by Cherry, indicated that this area of conflict was what she wished to discuss. Various other calls followed, guarded conversations, all on the telephone, with Jemima herself, with no direct information offered absolutely pertinent to the programme, yet a good deal of talk about the principles involved. Love and duty, their rival demands and so forth.

They had met only once: as now, in an hotel, an anonymous block in a different part of London; as now, the summons had come suddenly, giving Jemima little time to prepare.

“I can get away now,” Clemency Vane had said. “Please come.” And Jemima, to the sound of a few protests about workload from Cherry, had gone.

For Clemency Vane’s appearance, Jemima had been dependent on the numerous newspaper and television news images from the time of her trial: the strong features, particularly the nose, which might be described kindly as patrician, otherwise beaky; the circular tinted glasses which added a somewhat owlish look; and the pretty softening halo of blonde curly hair. In fact Clemency was darker than Jemima had expected, or perhaps the blonde hair had been allowed to darken in prison; as it was her hair, also much straighter, was scraped back, and her face behind the circular tinted glasses—they at least were familiar—was virtually devoid of make-up. You got the impression of someone deliberately rendering themselves unattractive or at least unappealing; gone was the feminine softness of the prisoner on trial.

At the same time Clemency was quite tiny physically; that, along with her cultivatedly plain appearance, was another surprise. Well, you never really knew about people from their newspaper photographs, did you? That was one certain rule. Even television could be oddly delusive about size and scale.

It was still a strong face, despite the unexpectedly small scale of it all. A strong face: and a strong character too, judging from the evidence yielded up by the trial.

“I need to find out about you,” Clemency had said at this meeting. She spoke quite abruptly, dragging on her cigarette. (She had smoked throughout the interview, stubbing out each cigarette with fury when it was about half-way finished.) “I need to know if I can trust you.” Her attitude was certainly not conciliatory: defiant if anything. But she was also nervous.

“As it happens, you can trust me.” Jemima was prepared to be patient. “But I hope you will find that for yourself. With time. That’s the best way. I’m in no hurry about this series: we’ve only just started to research it, as a matter of fact—‘For the Love of the Cause.’ It’s a fascinating topic but a tricky one. I need to get exactly the right people—”

“That piece in the paper—the woman spy in love with an Israeli—”

“Ah, you saw that. I wondered. Premature, I’m afraid. She won’t talk to us. Too much conflict already about what she did for love.”

“I too did it for love,” Clemency interrupted her. “You could say that I, too, gave up everything for love.” She was busy stubbing out yet another of those wretched cigarettes and she did not look at Jemima as she spoke.

“You mean there was a man involved?” Jemima spoke tentatively. Clemency’s nervousness was not perhaps surprising under the circumstances but quite marked all the same, including this sudden out-of-the-blue request for a face-to-face interview. She had no wish to frighten her off at this stage.

“Correct. There was a man.” Clemency pulled on her cigarette with increasing ferocity and then once again stubbed it out.

“That didn’t come out at the trial.”

“I didn’t want it to. I pleaded ‘Guilty’ and that was that.”

“Is he still involved? Or rather, are you still involved with him? You were in prison a long time. Or is it over? Is it like the Love-versus-Duty question of the woman spy and the Israeli you mentioned? Is that what we might talk about on the programme?”

Jemima realized too late that she had posed too many questions too quickly. An obstinate closed expression on Clemency Vane’s face warned her of her mistake.

“I don’t want to say anything more at the moment. You must understand: there are problems.” And Clemency declined to explain any further, sharply and inexorably. That was all Jemima was left with—until the summons this morning.

So there was a man involved. And this was him? Was Jemima now looking at the man for whom Clemency, product of a privileged education, showered with worldly advantages by her doting parents, clever enough to achieve university, achieve anything she wished in truth, had thrown it all away? Infatuation was a fascinating subject. One woman’s infatuation was another woman’s poison … Take this man. Very strong physically, perhaps (she hoped not to find out), certainly quite handsome … this was the man for whom a privileged English girl had wasted five years of her life. This Santangelino without even a name …

“My name is Alberto,” he said to her with a smile—his first smile, and that might be a good sign, might it not? Once again, however, he had apparently read her thoughts—not such a good sign, that.

“First of all you will take off all these clothes. Even the shoes now. Then we will know each other better. And perhaps we will love each other.” Alberto put both his big hands on her shoulders as though he were measuring her for something.

“Shouldn’t we really get to know each other first?” Jemima spoke in the most reasonable tone she could muster. She must at all costs, she knew, from studying such things, humour him: she must not arouse his violence, his hostility, give him that psychological impetus he needed to transform the situation from polite parleying to physical action. It was the feeling of helplessness that was so terrible; just as she had been told so many times.

“And perhaps we will love each other.” For God’s sake, it wasn’t the stripping off that mattered! Jemima had a beautiful body, or at least had been assured of it enough times to lack self-consciousness on the subject. She had no particular feeling about nudity and privacy either, sunbathing topless or even naked when it seemed right without giving much thought to the subject. The exposure of her body, however disagreeable the demand in this secret claustrophobic context, was not the point. But to love each other!

How near, for example, was the hotel telephone? Looking round, she saw the telephone was on the far side of the bed. Her eye then fell on an ashtray with stubs in it. That gave her an inspiration. It was worth a try: even for a dedicated non-smoker like herself.

“Could you let me have a cigarette first, please, then I promise—”

Alberto hesitated. Finally he said, “I have no cigarettes.”

Jemima gazed again at the stubs. Half-smoked. In spite of herself, she found she was trembling. And her voice shook when she spoke. She had not realized before how much she had been counting—subconsciously—on Clemency’s arrival to interrupt them, somehow save her. (Clemency Vane was after all the one person in the world who really did know where she was.)

Jemima looked at the bathroom door. It was closed. She had not really thought about it but now the blank door had a sinister look. “What’s happening here? Is she—wait a minute—is she still here? Is this a plot?”

Alberto smiled again. Jemima, her fear rising, decided that his smile was not after all a good sign.

“A plot? Yes, you could call it that,” he said. “A plot to get to know you. You thought it was your plot with your silly programme about love and duty—even an intelligent woman like you, with your fine education, can be a little silly sometimes. But it was not your plot. It was our plot!”

“Clemency knows about this!” exclaimed Jemima. “Well, she must. How else did you know I was coming? Listen, Clemency’s here. That’s what you’re saying.”

“Don’t you understand? Clemency would do anything for me. She’s my woman. The drugs, everything, prison, that was all for me. And now she has brought you here for me. She set you up for me.

“Clemmie told me to come here,” he went on with that strange, horrible exhilaration. “She laughed, yes, she laughed at you, for thinking that she would take part in your stupid programme.”

He was becoming vehement again and, apparently unaware of what he was doing, tightened the grip on her arm.

“I’m a strong man, you see, the kind of man women love—women love to support and help men like me. Clemency knew that: strong man, she said, you get to know Jemima Shore then, if you want, get to know Jemima Shore if you like, because during all those years you never knew anything really about me. And now you never will. Poor Alberto, you will never know me.”

Alberto’s grip had loosened again, and his voice too had changed subtly as though he was imitating Clemency herself. Her abrupt, rather scornful tones. There was a silence between them.

“You will never know me.” But it was Alberto who had said that, quoting Clemency, not Jemima. It was Alberto himself imitating Clemency.

“She did do it all for me, didn’t she?” He was questioning Jemima now; there was something pathetic about him, despite his fierceness, and the strong hands which still held her prisoner.

But then that temporary glimpse of something pathetic was quite gone. Alberto started to pull at Jemima’s clothes. The cream jersey dress came off quite easily, or would have done so, but the very violence of his actions hindered him, those scrubbed strong hands seemingly frustrated by his own haste.

“I must not struggle,” thought Jemima desperately, “I must not even scream. I know what to do, I must be passive, I must endure, I must survive. Otherwise he’ll kill me.” Now she was in her silk petticoat and the man was panting horribly, sweating much more. He began to talk, gabble. “Women, you like this, this is what you really want, bitches, traitors …” He talked on, and then half-hissed, half-shouted at her, “You I’m really going to possess—”

In spite of herself Jemima lost control. The careful passivity went. She began to struggle in Alberto’s grip, to shout at him.

“Even if you killed me”—having raped me was the unspoken phrase, for, in spite of everything, she did not wish to pronounce the words—“even if you killed me, and especially if you killed me, you would not get to know me. You would not possess me.”

Alberto stopped. He still held her. Now they were both sweating, panting.

“She said that, Clemency.” But before Alberto spoke the words, Jemima knew the truth, understood suddenly and clearly what had been implicit all the time. What had been done for love. Once long ago. And once only recently.

“Alberto,” she spoke more strongly now. “Release me. Then let me go into the bathroom.”

“No. It’s not right.” Some of the power was waning in him, the passion. Jemima felt it. Her own increased.

“She’s there. Clemmie,” he added in a low voice.

“I—I want to see her,” said Jemima.

“There’s nothing you can do.”

“You must let me go in there, there may be something I can do.”

Alberto shook his head. “It’s too late,” he said.

“Listen, for God’s sake—”

“It’s too late. It was already too late when you arrived here.” Now the force she had felt in him was totally extinguished. She was in command. In command as Clemency Vane had once been—had been until the very end.

“I followed her here,” he went on. “I knew she was stealing out to come and see you. I pleaded with her when I got here. I knew she wanted to get out of it, I made her frightened. She told me she found me rough—but she used to like that—she called me things like demanding after she came out of prison. She said sex didn’t interest her. She never, ever wanted to make love with me. She said I bored her.”

Alberto began to sob convulsively.

“Then when I pressed her more, she said she never loved me in the first place. She did it all for the cause. Yet I helped her. I protected her. She wouldn’t listen. The money was needed then, she said, so she did what she had to do. Now it was not. Santangela was safe. And she would tell the world why she did it all—not for me, but for the country, the cause.”

He sobbed more terribly.

“For love.” Clemency’s words came back to her. “You could say indeed that I gave up everything for love.” Dry, wry, defiant words. But for love of the cause, not the man.

Jemima jumped up and Alberto did not even try to stop her. She pulled on her dress and he made no move to stop that either. She went into the little clean white hotel bathroom, saw the shower, the bright pristine towels on the rail, not very big towels and an unremarkable beige colour—it was that kind of hotel. All the towels were clean and untouched except one: that was the towel draped inadequately over the body lying in the bath.

The towel left the woman’s face exposed, or perhaps Alberto had not wished to cover it. Certainly he had not closed Clemency Vane’s eyes; they stared at Jemima, sightless and bulging, above the purple discoloration of her face, the mouth and the tongue. There was no sign of what Alberto had used to strangle her—but the memory of his strong, black-haired, well-tended, well-scrubbed-afterwards, muscular hands came back to her. The hands which had held her, Jemima. And tried to know her, as in the end they had never known Clemency Vane.

“I told you it was too late,” Alberto said from the bedroom. He had not moved. “You can go away now,” he added, in a remote voice, as though the subject no longer interested him. “I shan’t harm you. Go. It’s nothing to do with you any more.”

Much later, about seven o’clock, back at the Megalith office, Cherry said to Jemima with that cheerfulness she maintained even towards the end of the office day, “Where were you this morning? There were quite a few calls. You left a message you were out seeing that woman, what’s-her-name, the drug-runner who did it all for love, the persistent one who kept ringing up about the new programme. But you never left me a number. Did you see her?”

“I saw her,” said Jemima. Later she would tell Cherry, of course, as she told her everything, and later still everyone would probably know. But not just now.

“Was there anything in it for the programme?” enquired Cherry. “She was so sure she could help us.”

“No, after all, nothing in it for the programme.”

“Ah well,” said Cherry comfortably. “You never really know about people, do you?”

Jemima Shore agreed.