by Andrew Garve
‘Grubber, possibly. He’s an odd man.’ Both Bodlin and Larden knew the Krontag International President from their abortive meetings with him during the previous year.
‘It wouldn’t have to be him, surely?’ Larden questioned, then paused, considering Bodlin and his words more carefully. ‘Perhaps you’re right. Difficult to credit though.’
The other glanced up. ‘Treasure’s risking the SAE will find out what he’s doing?’
‘Could find out, not will. It’s a calculated risk. As our Chairman it’s reasonable he should make a personal response to the takeover bid. Chairman to Chairman. He’s determined no one else will be involved, and he’s going to make Fritzoller swear to keep the confidence. Till Dermot’s free. If Fritzoller won’t agree— ’
‘He will,’ Bodlin interrupted fiercely.
‘Or agrees and then still gives us away to the SAE?’
‘Not possible,’ the other insisted, even more fiercely.
‘Again, it wouldn’t have to be him, of course. What if Fritzoller’s private secretary, say, is an SAE mole? What if she can listen in to what’s said in his office? Who knows?’ Larden shrugged. ‘Well I hope you’re right. I’ll get that tea. Make yourself comfortable.’
‘I’d like to make a phone call.’
‘Help yourself. Sit at the desk if you want. It’s probably easier.’
As Larden descended the stairs into the hall, the street door flew open. His wife came in, flushed and ebullient, wearing a crisp yellow dress, carrying a slim folio case and looking as if she hadn’t a care in the world. She started when she saw him, recovered, then moved forward quickly to embrace him. ‘Darling, I didn’t think you’d be back till tonight.’
‘The Garside meeting went on longer than we expected. There was no point in my going to the office.’ He continued to hold her close to him – not caressingly, but tentatively, his hands around her waist. In a way his action seemed to increase the tension existing between them. ‘Stuart Bodlin’s in the study. He’s making a phone call. I was going to make us some tea.’
She pouted, drawing away from him a touch awkwardly. ‘I’ll do that, darling. But could you have it down here in the sitting room? I have to fax a drawing to a client urgently, do some photoprinting, and make phone calls at the same time. I can do all that up there. Then I have to go out again. Incidentally, my bloody earphone’s on the blink again.’ She moved around him, heading for the kitchen at the back of the house.
Although she shared an office in Victoria with two other designers, it seemed to him she used it less than she did the house for business. ‘We’ll come down,’ he called after her.
‘Thanks.’ She looked back over her shoulder. ‘Anything new? About the takeover?’
‘Not really. Nor about Dermot,’ he added, his gaze holding hers until she looked away. ‘The SAE aren’t phoning again till tomorrow. That reminds me, I haven’t checked for messages yet.’
It was then that Larden saw Bodlin standing on the landing at the top of the stairs.
Bodlin’s face was even more ashen than usual as he emerged from the study, clutching his briefcase to his chest. He looked and behaved as if he had just received shocking news.
‘I’m sorry, I … I have to leave. I’ll explain later. All right?’ His speech was faltering, like his steps on the stairs as he clung grimly to the banister.
‘Something happened? You all right?’
‘I’m OK, yes.’ He shook his head. ‘Garside’s notes. They’re on the desk.’
‘Hello, Stuart. How are you?’ This was Jane who was returning from the kitchen.
Bodlin, who had now reached the hallway, looked back at her with a sort of horror. He made as if to speak, then, instead, stumbled to the street door, wrestled with the lock to get it open, and fled.
Doris Tanner looked down at her less than prominent bare breasts, frowned, and pulled the sheet over herself. ‘Scrawny I’m getting, and that’s a fact,’ she said, then sighed and wriggled a little further down into the bed.
‘Go on. I’ve seen a lot worse,’ her husband answered with feeling. He looked at the bedside clock. It was nearly four fifteen in the afternoon.
‘Thanks very much. Seen a lot worse lately have you? Topless customers, is it? Courtesy of British Gas? Oh Mr Engineer come quick, I think the leak’s in the bedroom.’ She giggled and dug her right elbow into his side.
‘Leave off, love. And I didn’t mean nothing like that. I meant on the beach.’
‘That was last year.’
‘That’s right. You was the best-looking bird there. Will be again this year as well. Far as I’m concerned, anyway. Pass the cigarettes then. Any tea left in the pot?’ Bert Tanner took his arm from around her shoulders. He was short and muscular, with a gravel voice, crew-cut hair, a boxer’s nose, and a mild countenance that could prove deceptive.
There was a faded tattoo on his left forearm showing a heart pierced by an arrow. The word Mother came underneath this in a flowery script. Doris had been on at him for years to have that tattoo removed. It was a relic of six youthful years in the regular army. He’d promised to have something done about it when his mother died. His mother was barely sixty and in robust health.
Like his wife, Bert Tanner was a Cockney from south of the river, but without her acquired polish. If asked, he would have said you didn’t need phony polish in his job – just knowledge and experience, and he had plenty of those.
Bert had been awake for half an hour. He was due on duty at the gas maintenance depot at six thirty. He didn’t like the shift he was on this month. It paid good overtime, but he didn’t see much of Doris. This was the first time they had been in bed together all week – and they were only there now through a chance variation in her routine.
Doris normally reached home shortly after five thirty. Today, Bob Larden, her boss, hadn’t been to the office at all. He had told her she could leave early to make up for working long hours on the previous two hectic days. She had come in just as Bert had been waking up.
He inhaled deeply on his cigarette. He never smoked at work, and not much anywhere else nowadays, except here. ‘There’s nothing beats a cuppa and a smoke in bed,’ he said. ‘Well only one thing, and we’ve just had that.’
‘You are coarse,’ she said. ‘Sit up properly then.’ She passed him the tea she had poured. The tray was on the bedside table beside her.
He pushed his back up the pillow till his neck was resting on the top of the newly upholstered bedhead. ‘Ta.’ He sipped noisily from the mug, then balanced it on the undue expanse of stomach below what until recently had been a recognisably barrel-shaped chest. ‘Nice drop of tannin in that.’ He turned his head to look at Doris. ‘What’s for my breakfast, then?’
‘You want to lose some weight before we go to Minorca,’ she said, fingering the mane of black hair below his navel.
‘Thought you liked me the way I am?’
‘The way you used to be. Not gross.’ She pinched his flesh.
‘All right then. Two rashers instead of four from now on. Is Mr Larden still on a diet?’
‘Shouldn’t think so. Poor sod’s got too much to worry about to think of diets.’
She lay back on the pillow, eyes roaming the room contentedly through a slight but flattering mist since she didn’t have her glasses on. The place was much prettier since their last redecoration. They were always decorating, the two of them; improving their home. This room faced south with a bay window that got the sun all afternoon. Sunbeams were streaking in as strong as stage lighting. She had enjoyed making love under what she’d imagined as spotlights. Not that anyone could see through the net curtains. The sun was also lighting up the new dressing table: she’d draped that with the same yellow and green fabric as the curtains. She’d made the curtains herself too.
Lazily she slid her left foot back, bending her knee upwards so that the sheet fell away from her bare leg in a mildly erotic sequence. Then she straightened the leg, twisting it about in t
he air while pointing the foot. ‘I’ve still got nice legs, haven’t I?’
‘Very nice, yes.’
He put his hand on her other thigh, then patted it under the sheet. She sensed this was more an involuntary gesture of approval than a sign of rekindling passion, and she didn’t mind.
‘My legs’ll be nicer still with a Mediterranean tan. Can’t wait for the holiday.’
‘Will the shares pay for it? Like you said last week?’
‘If we want to sell them. Easily. Now the price is back to a pound twenty-five.’
Bert shook his head. He didn’t understand high finance: the building society was good enough for him – and more reliable than shares going on recent experience. All he knew about their Closter Drug shares was that they’d bought them at a special price with two hundred pounds from their savings; against his better judgement. That was five years ago when the management had taken over the company. The value of the shares had gone up to two thousand, four hundred pounds last Thursday. He’d said it was too good to be true – and it looked as if he was right when the figure dropped to eight hundred pounds yesterday afternoon. Today Doris said it was back to two thousand, five hundred because there was a bid for the company.
‘Can we get the money out now?’ he asked.
‘We’d have to sell the shares for that. I asked Mr Closter-Bennet. He said not to. Not yet.’
‘You think he’s right?’
‘Well he’s the Finance Director. He ought to be right. I’m sure Mr Larden’ll say the same. He did yesterday, even when the price was right down. He said I wasn’t to tell anyone else though. What he’d told me. About not selling. Funny that.’
Bert gave an uncertain sniff. ‘Any news of that Hackle?’
They always referred to Larden as Mister. Hackle was just Hackle – and there was a reason.
‘If you ask me, he’s done a bunk.’
‘Go on? With a woman?’
‘I wouldn’t think so. Money more like.’
‘Sticky fingers in the till?’
‘It’s hard to say, and I don’t see how it can be that. Not really. But something very fishy’s going on, all the same.’
‘He went off last Sunday?’
‘Sunday afternoon. From home. He’s supposed to be seeing Midlands customers. Well Lorna, that’s his secretary, she knew nothing about it, and he hasn’t rung into the office once. Any calls for him have to go to Mr Larden or one of the other directors. That’s if Mr Larden’s not there. And they’re automatically recorded. Anyway, with all this takeover business, he wouldn’t stay away from the office. Stands to reason.’
‘What about the call to Mr Larden from the Irish bloke? The one on Monday?’
‘That was about Hackle. That’s all I know.’ She turned on her side towards him. ‘Doctor Ricini is staying with Mrs Hackle.’
‘Looking after her?’
‘Seems like it.’
‘And you don’t think Hackle’s with another woman? Right bugger he is. He hasn’t tried it on with you since?’
‘Hasn’t needed to.’
‘Better not neither.’
‘It was only that once.’
He hoped that was true. If ever he found it wasn’t he’d kill the bastard. ‘Bloody animal,’ he said.
Late one evening, in the previous autumn, Hackle had returned to the office, found Doris Tanner alone, and made a pass at her. It was obvious he had been drinking. She had made him leave her alone by threatening to tell her husband – which she had done, weeks later, after making Bert promise not to do anything about it. Despite her protests, Doris had been secretly flattered by the attentions of the Marketing Director: it was the reason why she had told Bert, without mentioning Hackle’s condition. She’d have been more complimented, of course, if Hackle had been sober when he’d groped her – and probably have allowed him to go further than she had. She sometimes fantasised about that.
‘He’s had Doctor Ricini panting for him for the last six months,’ she said.
‘Is that a fact? Sleep with him, does she?’
‘Lorna thinks so. Only he seems to have gone off our lovely young Medical Director just recently. Most likely taken up with someone else, Lorna said. She doesn’t know who though. I know she wishes it was her. She’s potty about him.’
‘Blimey, does he have every bird in the company begging for it?’
‘’Course not. He doesn’t have me for a start. He is dishy though, and … and sort of sophisticated, I suppose.’ Her words tailed away.
‘And he’s a married man with two kids, like you said.’ Bert was strong on fidelity. ‘What about his wife then? What’s she saying to Doctor Ricini who’s looking after her? “Finished with my hubbie, have you? Who’s he in bed with now, d’you know?” Cor! I’d give him sophisticated. If he ever lays a hand on you again— ’
‘So what about laying a hand on me yourself?’ She snuggled closer.
‘That’s different.’ As he put the empty mug on the table he noticed the time again. ‘I have to leave at quarter past six.’
‘Well it’s not going to take you that long is it? Please yourself of course.’ She feigned hurt feelings, half turning from him.
‘I’ll do just that then.’ He pushed away the sheet and ran a firm hand down her body.
She swung back to him, twining her arms around his neck.
He had been working out that he’d have time to shave and dress, take the dogs for a run, eat the ‘breakfast’ Doris would cook for him, and make love to her once more now. Bert was a methodical man. ‘This is the life,’ he growled.
‘So why … d’you have to leave … so early?’ she asked, between the lovebites she was making down his chest and abdomen.
‘Didn’t I say? I’m working out of Chiswick tonight. We’re short-handed at Chiswick. Further to go than Hounslow.’ There was a pause. ‘Oo, it’s bloody marvellous there.’
But she knew he didn’t mean Hounslow.
Chapter Fourteen
‘Are you leaving in the morning, Auntie Mary?’ called Tim Hackle, missing the rubber quoit again. He and Mary Ricini were playing in the back garden of the Hackle house. Tim wasn’t good at games that required too much physical co-ordination.
‘Perhaps. More likely I’ll stay for tomorrow night.’ As always with Tim she did her best to make everything sound as casual as possible.
‘That’s good.’ He gave her his endearing, slightly wicked smile. He retrieved the quoit from a flower bed and threw it back towards her across the lawn – but too high, and not far enough, despite his nearly propelling his whole self with it. ‘Sorry.’ He pushed up a dangling blue shirt sleeve, but the other one dropped down while he was doing it.
‘Shall I roll them up for you?’
‘No thanks, I can do it.’ He did so, but not very neatly. ‘Does that mean Daddy won’t be home again?’
Mary, in stockinged feet, picked up the rubber ring, hopped backwards lightly for several steps, then aimed it accurately towards the small boy – who missed it again. ‘I expect that depends on how busy Daddy is.’
It was becoming a touch more difficult to satisfy Tim’s curiosity about his father’s whereabouts. His sister Emma was no problem. Whatever her view on what was happening, she pressed no one for explanations, and kept her own counsel.
‘Can we play the football game on TV now, Auntie Mary?’
‘Because you always win? You’re a terror. All right.’ She pushed the hair from her eyes.
He skipped to her side, then pulled up a sock to his knee below the short trousers. She leaned on him while she slipped on her discarded high heels. He took her hand and squeezed it affectionately as they made for the open kitchen door. ‘Why are you staying now Mummy’s better?’
‘You want me to go away?’
‘’Course not.’
‘Well don’t push your luck then. I like being here.’ She had found that the best way to cope with his ceaseless questions was to neutralise them with counter que
stions.
‘Mummy is better isn’t she?’
‘She’s fine. Don’t you think so?’ The woman doctor was glad to have him relate her presence more to his mother’s needs than to his father’s absence.
‘She looks all right.’
‘But you see it’s not only a matter of her being better. She’s helping me with the research I’m doing on migraine. On those bad headaches she gets.’
‘That’s with the new medicine?’
‘Right. If she gets another attack I have to be here to check on what happens.’
‘Can I have a drink, Auntie Mary?’ he asked, when they were in the kitchen.
‘There’s some orange juice in the fridge. I’ll have some too.’ It was juice she had brought herself, along with more fruit, fresh fish, and the extra groceries she had been providing on the pretext of contributing her share to the household costs. She had also given the children presents. There had been TV games for Tim, and a pretty blouse for Emma. It was a home where luxuries were rare but appreciated. Rosemary Hackle was clearly short on housekeeping money. She was certainly grateful for Mary’s help, and unaware that the giver went to some trouble to disguise the extent of her benevolence – or else Rosemary was too preoccupied with other things to notice.
For her part, the pretty young doctor was compensating these three people in every way she knew for something she felt she had deprived them of in the recent past. Of course, it was a tortuous sort of formula that balanced wholesome foods against the stolen affections of Dermot Hackle. She was not even sure she had ever truly possessed those affections, but whatever the cause of her unease she was taking the opportunity to make up for it.
The emergency plan had worked well so far. Neither of the children was ever left alone out of school hours.
Rosemary was with her daughter now, meeting her out of school and taking her to a dental appointment arranged the week before. Accompanying her daughter to the dentist was something Rosemary would have done in the normal way.
Mary Ricini had left Closter Drug that afternoon in time to pick up Tim at his school at three thirty – something his mother usually did. Routines hadn’t been noticeably changed, nor arrangements cancelled. The children weren’t aware that they were being protected from special danger.