"Hello, library?" Now she remembered, and it was urgent. "Can you tell me which newspapers you buy?"
She scribbled down the names as the voice listed them: Times, Telegraph, Guardian ... She had to be sure. "I'm correct in thinking that a Margery Turner used to read your newspapers?"
"Yes, you are." The voice, a pale tenor that sounded fussy, had hardened. "And that isn't all she did. May I ask to whom I'm speaking?"
Barbara felt trapped. "Just a friend," she said, and rang off.
The other phone rang at once. Her mouth grew sour and dry, her heart felt as though it were hiccuping. There was only one voice she wanted to hear--but it was Louise. "Paul Gregory is here," she said.
"I'll see him in a few minutes. Can you find out for me if a journalist called Gerry Martin works for any of these newspapers?" When she'd listed them she felt slightly less helpless. "All right, send him in," she said.
Paul was wearing a deep blue silk shirt with a matching ------------------------------------119
cravat and expensively faded jeans. "Well, Paul," she said.
"Well," he said, coming to the point with a directness that was new, "I was wondering how you'd feel if someone else were to handle my American rights."
"Someone such as Howard Eastwood."
"Oh, you know he approached me?" Though she must have taken him off guard, he didn't let it show. Success had filled him with confidence.
"Publishers and agents are part of the same community, Paul. News travels. Of course it's entirely up to you who represents you." For the first time today she felt sure of herself, able to forget her worries and deal with the moment. "I'm building up a good deal of American interest in Torrent. Do you want me to withdraw the books so that Eastwood can resubmit them?"
"Can you do that? I mean, might it weaken the American interest?"
"Well, yes, I'm afraid it might."
"Oh, then you mustn't do it." His confidence was stumbling. "But couldn't you, ah, sort of--was
"Hand over the negotiating to Eastwood? No, Paul, I won't do that. Apart from the fact that it was wholly unethical of him to invite you for lunch, I've no respect for him. He's notorious for selling rights which he isn't entitled to sell. Frankly, if you decide to let him handle your work in America, I shall feel uneasy about handling it here."
"Oh, I hadn't committed myself to anything." His face was trying to stay calm, but he was rubbing his shiny forehead. "As far as I'm concerned it was just a free lunch."
"You weren't to know." As she settled back, Arthur's glazed eyes flashed at her. "But believe me, any agent ------------------------------------120
who tries to poach someone else's clients isn't to be trusted."
He was obviously relieved that she had let him off so lightly. "Anyway," he said, "I wanted to tell you the idea I had for my next novel." It sounded promising--a man donates his sperm for artificial insemination only to learn a terrible secret years later about his heredity, and has to trace his children and decide what to do--but she felt depressed, perhaps the aftereffect of winning him back, and on edge to hear from Louise.
Soon Louise appeared, with coffee and bad news. "I can't trace Gerry Martin," she said.
"Gerry Martin? Now where have I heard that name?" Paul frowned and sipped his coffee slowly, as though that might stimulate the memory. At last he said, "Maybe I'm thinking of someone else."
Barbara suspected that he'd never heard of Gerry Martin, that he had simply wanted to seem willing to help, so as to wipe out his lapse with Eastwood. "Could you find out if she's written any books," she told Louise, and managed not to sound as edgy as she felt.
She got rid of Paul as soon as she could, and occupied herself with amending contracts for some of her authors. Arthur watched her, his unblinking eyes a question which she couldn't answer, until she turned the photograph away. She had to phone contractual amendments through to editors at Cape and Gollancz and New English Library, and she kept thinking how that engaged one line. Still, the other phone was free; Angela could reach her. Why did she need the reassurance of a call? There was no reason to suppose that anyone would have been watching the empty house by the overpass, that anyone had seen Barbara and the policeman there. Perhaps there was even less cause for her to worry, perhaps Margery had made the calls and forged the letter and gone into the house to plant the ------------------------------------121
drawing there; Barbara had only her word for it that she couldn't draw. The worst thing was that she could be sure of nothing.
Louise came in to remind her that she was due for lunch with an editor from Fontana. "I'm sorry," she said, "Gerry Martin doesn't seem to have written any books. What do you know about her? Maybe there's another way to find her."
"I don't know anything, Louise. Never mind, it doesn't matter." But of course it did, and she realized how much when she reached Piccadilly. Children clung to balloons and to their parents' hands; a little girl's face perched above her father's. Their voices were borne away by the crowd, and Barbara could only tell herself that Margery might have invented Gerry Martin too.
She wished she had arranged to meet her editor somewhere other than the wine bar. She had to ask the waiter if any money had been stolen here on Monday, and he seemed to regard her as little better than an accomplice of Margery's, even when she told him where to contact the police. The Fontana editor tried to put her at her ease, and made offers for two promising first novels she was handling, but her mind chattered uncontrollably throughout lunch: where else could she search for Gerry Martin? Whom could she ask? She could think of nobody, but by the time she left the editor, one thing was clear to her: she must tell someone what was happening to her.
As soon as she reached her office she called Ted. "Can I visit you today? Just a friendly call, or perhaps I ought to say a cry for help."
"Glad to see you any time. Come over now." He sounded as if he might want to swap problems. "Tonight I have to lecture at our local library about publishing."
"I'll be over in an hour or so. Set up the drinks."
She hurried through her correspondence, among which ------------------------------------122
she found confirmation of her New York hotel suite. How could she risk going to New York, or to Italy with Ted, when the drawing of Angela might not have been a fake? But she had at least to go to New York, to conduct the auction. She had almost finished drafting the replies when Louise called. "Paul Gregory is on the line."
She'd had enough of him for one day. "You deal with him, Louise. Say I'm not here."
She scribbled the last of the replies and took them through to Louise for typing. "I have to go over to Melwood-Nuttall for a couple of hours. Call me if you need to."
She was at the door when Louise said, "Oh, Paul Gregory--``
"What about him?" Barbara hadn't meant to speak so sharply, but her burst of work had twisted her nerves tighter. "Can't it wait?" she said more gently.
"I suppose so. It was only that he'd remembered about Gerry Martin."
After Barbara turned the room seemed to continue turning. "Remembered what?" she demanded.
"Where he'd come across her name. Apparently she writes for an underground newspaper, the Other News."
"Good God." Of course the library wouldn't buy that; it would be donated. "Tell him that I had to rush out again but I'm very grateful," she said.
She was so elated by her release from helplessness that she was nearly at Melwood-Nuttall--Piccadilly, Shaftesbury Avenue, Charing Cross Road were a single jumble of sun and faces--before she thought of looking for the Other News. She found several issues in Words & Music; apparently it was doing its best to be monthly. A title on one red and white cover led her to four pages at the center: "The God Trap," by Gerry Martin. ------------------------------------123
She leaned against the pole beside the pedestrian crossing--above her head a green man kept flickering, marching on the spot, but his red twin failed to show up--and glanced through the article, wh
ich exposed several religious groups which demanded complete faith and all their money from members. She could see from the opening paragraphs how thoroughly researched the report was.
Though she felt guilty, she knew what she ought to do now. She would only be wasting time if she tried to explain everything to Ted when Gerry Martin, whoever she was, already knew about the cult--perhaps knew things which Barbara should know. She hurried back to her office.
Louise looked surprised. "I called Paul Gregory for you. He wants you to have dinner with him and his wife."
"Thanks, Louise." Directory information gave her the phone number of the Other News, but there was no reply. She rang Ted to apologize. "You don't mind, do you?"
"So long as you're all right," he said, and again she felt guilty; if his problems related to his ex-wife she felt bound to help if she could, to comfort him at least. "I wasn't going to tell you anything that can't wait," he said.
She rang Paul to accept his invitation for the end of next week, then she kept calling the Other News intermittently throughout the afternoon, without success. She managed to work, but her elation faded a little each time she put down the phone. Gerry Martin existed; did that mean that everything else was true? Was Angela somewhere, thirteen years old and in someone's power? Her feelings were splintered, unable to fit together. If Angela was still alive, she thought bitterly, then her captors had taken better care of her than Barbara had done.
On her way home she stopped at the garage where she knew the proprietor and asked him to repair her car. He ------------------------------------124
left her in the parking lot under the Barbican and towed the car away. The low ceiling pressed down like a storm cloud, the fluorescent tube above her was shaky as lightning. As she made for her flat, to recommence trying to call the Other News, she wondered dully if anyone had cleaned the parking lot lately; one of the dark corners looked thick with cobwebs. ------------------------------------125
125
Fifteen
Gerry Martin was less impressive than her article. She'd sounded offhand almost to the point of impatience, and younger than Barbara had expected. Of course, Barbara reminded herself, journalists were often disappointing when you met them, just like writers. "I have to be at the paper tomorrow night," the journalist had said grudgingly. "I suppose I could see you then."
Tomorrow was now, and Barbara was back in Hornsey, having toiled up from the station. The streets climbed to a main road which fell away at once toward Crouch End. By the time she reached the road she was short of breath, her head felt soft and throbbing as her heart. She crossed the road and descended the far slope, where terraced houses stepped down steeply as organ pipes.
The office of the Other News was a terraced house just like its neighbors, opposite the empty cage of a school ------------------------------------126
yard. A privet hedge lolled into the street, leaned over the path, obscured most of the minute garden. When she squeezed past she felt the thumping of the press in the basement, the telltale heart of the house.
She rang the doorbell and waited. Twilight came welling over the hills, which looked ragged with green baize; a radio mast was a pin in a cushion. A hairy young man who wore a sleeveless orange undershirt, his hands tattooed with print, opened the door. "Gerry Martin is expecting me," she said.
"She isn't here. Do you want to see the editor?" He turned his back on her at once and went into the house.
She followed, though she'd already had one brush with the editor. The ground floor had been made into a single room. Several young people were collating the latest issue of the newspaper on two long trestle tables, beneath an assortment of lamps. Four armchairs, none of them matching the others, sagged in what space was left. A boy of about twelve ran up from the basement, bringing pages and a hot smell of oil and ink. Barbara sat in one of the armchairs and tried to avoid the springs.
Eventually the editor came downstairs. His denim vest and trousers might have been the ones he'd worn last week. He was stout and thirtyish, with a drawl that was almost Oxford, a faint supercilious smile. Last week, when she'd despaired of getting through by phone, he had interrogated her with maddening thoroughness, though she had told him little except that Margery had put her in touch.
Now he stared at her. "Ah yes," he said at last. "Gerry is out on a job. Wait if you want to, but I wouldn't be too hopeful."
Once he'd gone, his buttocks slouching from side to side in their denim bag, she shifted to a marginally more comfortable armchair and earned herself a sympathetic grin from one of the collators, a young man with an ------------------------------------127
earring. When he made coffee he brought her some in a chipped Donald Duck mug. The coffee was atrocious, and speckled with milk, but she made herself sip it while she wandered about, reading the pamphlets that were tacked to the walls: a report on private security forces, the Race Relations Act, what to do if you're arrested. She read as slowly as she could, for she was determined not to leave until she met Gerry Martin. She had already been waiting for almost an hour.
When the front door banged open she turned quickly, but it was a spotty young girl wearing jeans and a faded shapeless sweater with holes in the elbows. The girl hurried upstairs, her sandals flapping, her lank hair wagging from two rubber bands. "The pigs are harassing the travelers all right," Barbara heard her saying. "And someone dumped broken glass all over one of the camp sites. I got some of the travelers to talk."
The editor said something muffled. "Is she still here?" the girl said, and came strolling down to Barbara. "Barbara Waugh. I didn't notice you."
She was older than she'd seemed at first glimpse--in her early twenties, Barbara judged--and her eyes were quick and sharp. Nevertheless Barbara must have looked dissatisfied. "Don't let my scruffiness bother you," the journalist said. "I had to look unobtrusive today. What did you want to tell me?"
"I rather hoped you might be able to tell me something."
"Well, first I need to know what your interest is. Are you looking for the people who killed your daughter?"
For a moment Barbara felt shaky, until she realized that the journalist--like everyone Barbara met, it seemed--had read the article about her. "I mean," Gerry Martin said, "nine years is a long time unless you've got some kind of a lead."
"I'm not sure that she's dead." Barbara grew ------------------------------------128
uncomfortably aware of the people at the tables. "Is there somewhere private we can talk?" she said, and heard herself echoing Margery.
Gerry Martin led her upstairs to a small room opposite the editor's, who frowned at them as they passed. The room contained a rusty filing cabinet, three scratched office chairs, and two desks; there wasn't much space for anything else. On one desk a scummy mug of coffee acted as a paperweight beside an ashtray snaggle-toothed with butts. Gerry Martin struggled to the other desk and gestured Barbara to sit on the third chair. "Why do you think your daughter's still alive?"
Barbara told her everything. It didn't matter that the journalist was nondescript--no doubt that was a positive quality in investigative journalism--for Barbara was so relieved to share her tale that it felt almost like giving birth. Despite her promise, she told the journalist everything.
"Yes, I thought it was strange when I heard about Margery Turner," the journalist mused. "Mind you, she didn't move too well, did she? The kind of person you could imagine falling down stairs. So you never got to search the house."
"No, not yet, anyway. Have you?"
"I meant to, but I've been busy with assignments. Too late now. It must have burned down shortly after you left."
Barbara stared at her. "I didn't know. There was a fire behind the house. I suppose that could have spread, but doesn't it seem odd that the house was destroyed as soon as someone tried to search it?"
"Maybe." Gerry Martin shrugged. "But listen, there's something you need to explain. If it really was your daughter on the phone, why would she send you to
a house that had been empty for weeks?"
Barbara had wondered that herself; it was a reassurance ------------------------------------129
she'd kept at the back of her mind, a reason to believe that it couldn't have been Angela on the phone. "Well, maybe there is an explanation," the journalist said. "If she's been in the power of the cult for nine years, maybe she can only think of the places it has lived. If she was scared to meet you near wherever it is now, she might have thought of the place before that."
The vibrations of the press reverberated faintly through the house; Barbara couldn't tell if she were shuddering too, and had to close her eyes. "I'm sorry, Miss Martin. I'll be all right in a moment."
"Call me Gerry." Now she seemed concerned. "I don't want to upset you, Barbara, but are you assuming that the murder of your little girl was deliberately faked?``
"Maybe." Barbara's voice was shuddering now.
"I agree it's possible. Say one of their women wanted your daughter because she couldn't have a child of her own--it's exactly that sort of fucked-up mind that gets taken over by fringe religions. It isn't usual to steal a child as old as yours was, but it happens. It really sounds more like that than a ransom kidnapping. If they were after money, why did they never get in touch with you?" She was thinking aloud, and seemed hardly aware of Barbara. "All right, let's see. Maybe they felt they would draw less attention to themselves by keeping your daughter than whatever else they might have done. So they have to call off the police. They dress up this other little girl and kill her. The question is, where did she come from? Why wasn't she reported missing? It's a nasty idea, but maybe she was one of theirs."
Barbara felt sick. "You can't believe that, surely."
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