by Bunn, Davis
Brian gave his fiancée a tight smile. Janine’s expression had undergone a remarkable transformation. She stared at Elena in openmouthed surprise.
Elena went on, “I saw last night how I need to look beyond myself. How families and lives and relationships are being shredded by this crisis. This is not just about people losing jobs and homes. This is about the crushing of hope and the destruction of lifelong dreams. I am a trained counselor. I have an empty office building and an empty schedule. I want to help knit families back together.”
There was a long silence. Finally Brian said to his fiancée, “You were right and I was wrong.”
Janine shivered, as though forcing herself awake. When she spoke, her voice was an octave lower than normal. “I find the idea of being a vicar’s wife utterly repellent. Taking tea with old ladies, being a sounding board for people who want to complain and are afraid to approach Brian. I want a purpose that is all my own. Yesterday I told Brian I wanted to help with the families who are being wrecked by this foreclosure crisis.”
“And I told her there are two problems with her suggestion,” Brian said, smiling openly now. “The first is, she’s already working too hard. The social services are being cut back by the current budget crisis. At the same moment when people’s needs are greatest. Janine is already working twelve-hour days and coming home so exhausted she stumbles. And she wants to do more? I know firsthand the danger of compassion driving a servant beyond the brink.”
“I can restructure my schedule,” Janine said. “I took today off to show you just how possible that is.”
“I doubted your resolve last night. And I was wrong to do so.” Brian turned back to Elena and went on, “The second problem is space here at Saint Aldates. Our own counseling services are stretched to the breaking point. The shelter we started has been overwhelmed. And now Janine wants to bring in more people.”
“I have the space,” Elena said. “And the time.”
“Not for long,” Brian said.
Janine said, “I have identified families who are truly willing to accept help, and not just use counseling service as another opportunity to complain.” Her voice sparkled now.
Elena was now the one who shivered. “How long do you need to set this up?”
“Hours,” Janine said. “How much free space can you offer us?”
Elena was already on her feet. “Come and see for yourself.”
Elena’s day filled at a very rapid rate. By the time she stopped for the noon teleconference, Janine had signed up nineteen families who had been struck by the economic crisis and were desperate for counseling. Another seven couples were booked into an encounter group slated to begin the next evening.
When the others came on the line, Elena described what was going on and explained how this was a new area for her. She said she would appreciate their prayers, as she had never worked on family counseling issues before. She then introduced Janine and said she had urged her to join their group.
The only comment came from Lawrence, who demanded, “What is that racket?”
“My afternoon appointments,” Elena said.
Janine said, “They are used to waiting hours for appointments. Days. They’re afraid if they don’t show up early, they won’t get in at all.”
Janine had filled the front rooms with battered but usable furniture. She had repeatedly come and gone, quick flashes of movement and bursts of conversation, then off again. Janine remained breathless with the thrill of her work. Her elation was so infectious that she managed to draw smiles from the people waiting in Elena’s front room.
Without being asked, Shirley Wainwright had taken up station at the reception desk. Gerald remained a silent guardian on the periphery of their world. The families let their children play on the floor and did not seem to care that the sofa was lumpy or the carpet stained. On one visit, Janine had arrived with a bundle of church posters, which she and Shirley taped to the walls. The posters shouted messages of hope and light and new beginnings. At midmorning Shirley went out and bought a box of children’s toys. The next time Janine returned, the two of them had tacked soft blankets to the kitchen walls and floors and turned it into a crèche.
Elena read a passage from her Bible, then asked if there were any specific prayer requests. Lawrence spoke first. “Antonio was right. They’re gunning for me.”
Nigel Harries, the security chief, had slipped in just before Elena had placed the call. He leaned forward in his chair and frowned at the phone but did not speak.
Lawrence went on, “I’m still not clear on whether this dream of his was a foretelling, or just his subconscious at work.”
“Let’s set that aside for the moment,” Elena said. “We may not know the answer to that for days, weeks, or perhaps not at all in this life. What is important here is that the dream resonated with you both.”
Antonio said, “My meetings this morning could not have gone worse.”
Lawrence’s voice sounded metallic, as though all human emotion had been pounded down to a steel-hard core. “Where are you now?”
“In the backseat of my car, parked outside the EU finance ministry.”
“Are your aides with you?”
“Yes.”
“How long do you have?”
Antonio did not hesitate. “A few days at most.”
“That’s more than me.”
Sandra’s voice broke in softly. “Lawrence.”
“I’m not quitting. I’m just speaking realistically. I have a meeting this afternoon with the head of the Senate Finance Committee. My guess is, he’s going to hand me my walking papers.”
“I may follow you,” Antonio replied. “As soon as tonight.”
Elena thought she heard someone cry softly and wondered if it was Sandra Harwood. Elena found it wrenching to think that such a strong and capable woman had been brought so low. But all she said was, “Does anyone else have something they wish to share with the group?”
When no one spoke, Elena reached into her purse and withdrew a folded sheet of paper. “Yesterday at Miriam’s service I could not speak. I had a hundred things I wanted to say. A thousand. But none of them felt right. Last night, after Antonio called to tell me about his dream, I finally realized what it was I needed to say.”
She unfolded her notes but found it unnecessary to look at her words. “Even those of us who only knew Miriam for a brief moment came to care very deeply for her. I imagine that each of us also learned from her. I certainly did. Her wisdom and gift of instruction carried me through some of the most difficult and most important periods of my life.
“Miriam’s last lesson is the one I feel needs to be stated here today. In such moments as this, when we are hollowed and confused by loss, we might be tempted to view our course and our causes and our actions as failures. But if we can look beyond our sorrow, if we can hold fast to the gift of faith, we can feel the unique wholeness of eternity. We can realize more clearly than at any other time that God is near. At such times as this, the world’s grip upon us has been shaken and the dross falls away. We see our need to heed the eternal call. We can know the peace and hope and joy that defies the world. I can hear Miriam reminding me of this right now. And I intend to go forward honoring her example.”
Elena set the page on the table by the Bible and said, “Let us pray.”
The security chief waited until Janine had departed, then asked if he might have a word. As usual, Nigel Harries was dressed in a well-tailored gray suit. The gold watch chain strung across his vest glittered in the afternoon light as he slipped a manila file from his briefcase. He said to Shirley, “Sandra Harwood informs me that you disagree with the official version of your husband’s demise.”
“Do we have to go through this again?”
“Not if you don’t wish. But it might aid us—”
“I’ve spent hours and hours with various officials. They all thought I was wasting their time to even suggest such a thing.”
“I can assur
e you, madam, that I consider this anything but a waste of time.” When Shirley did not object again, Nigel asked, “Do you have any evidence that might suggest your husband did not in fact have a heart attack?”
“Teddy had a full physical three weeks before this happened. He passed with flying colors.”
“Had Teddy any history of a heart complaint?”
Shirley sighed. “For the ten thousandth time. No.”
“Be so good as to indulge me a moment longer.” Nigel slipped a photograph from his folder. “Do you by any chance recognize this individual?”
Elena found herself staring at the photograph she had last seen in the ambassador’s office. Of a young woman with dark hair and a pixie’s face slipping up the outer stairs to Elena’s former office.
Shirley Wainwright must have noticed the change to the room’s atmosphere. She asked Elena, “What is it?”
“The picture,” Nigel pressed gently. “Do you recognize the woman?”
She gave Elena another glance, then leaned over the picture. “Sorry. No.”
“This could be most important, Mrs. Wainwright.”
“Shirley.”
“Please be so good as to give the individual another look. What about the name, Jessica Ravel?”
Shirley leaned in closer. Elena caught the faint whiff of old smoke filtering into the room. Shirley said, “Nothing.”
“Thank you.” Nigel slipped a second photograph from his file and set it on top of the first. “What about this gentleman.”
The stench of old smoke heightened as Elena looked down at the grim visage of the man Lawrence Harwood had called a fixer. The photograph caught him as he rose from a table. The young woman was a vague blur to his left. Elena could not see the woman’s face. But she knew it was her.
“I don’t recognize either of them.”
“That’s rather interesting. As they clearly know you. Or at least, have found you both of interest.”
“I don’t understand.”
“No. Quite.” He reached into his briefcase for another file, this one tied by a blue ribbon and stamped with the British seal. “My colleagues at MI6 remain most perturbed by the illegal bugging of an Oxford counseling service. Particularly since confidential conversations involving a senior member of Her Majesty’s ambassadorial corps took place there. They offered to apply their face recognition software to their visual records. I believe we may have identified something of use.”
He untied the ribbon and withdrew three photographs. He shifted the speakerphone and laid them on the table in careful sequence.
Shirley Wainwright touched the first photograph. “I remember the night these were taken.”
“Describe the event, if you would.”
“It was a little over a month before Teddy died. Five weeks and a day. I remember exactly, because on the flight Teddy told me that God had spoken to him. You can’t imagine how that made me feel, how long I’d waited and prayed.” She traced a fingertip over her husband’s face. “I wept. The flight attendant thought we were arguing.”
“The event,” Nigel prodded.
“We were part of a delegation of global financiers. We met with officials from the Bank of England. These were taken at a reception the first night. It was at …”
“The Ritz,” Nigel said.
“Yes. That’s right. Three days before, Teddy had been asked to chair the new regulatory commission. He had asked for time to think things over. He had prayed about it. We both had. Teddy had been planning to retire. Goodness knows we didn’t need any more money. He detested his work and the attitude the bankers had been showing since the bailout. Like they had won the lottery, and they could turn their backs on the devastation they’d caused and go back to making money—”
“The reception,” Nigel gently pressed.
“That morning, when we arrived in London, Teddy called the White House and accepted the appointment. By the time we showed up at the reception, everybody knew. They all treated him differently. Like they weren’t certain who he was anymore. Or if he could be trusted.”
Nigel leaned back in his seat. He studied something only he could see on the far wall. “And then this gentleman shows up.”
“I told you. I don’t remember him at all.”
But there he was. Elena inspected the three photographs. Teddy Wainwright and his wife stood in a receiving line, waiting to shake the hand of the chairman of the Bank of England. Two people behind Teddy was the man Lawrence had called the fixer, Cyril Price. He was chubby in the manner of a man who still carried his childhood fat, his features slightly underformed. A little dimple of a chin, a small mouth, smallish ears set tight against his head, thinning hair that was more transparent than blond. In the first photograph, he glared at Teddy.
In the second photograph, he gestured to someone out of sight.
In the third picture, the fixer was joined by a dark-haired woman with a pixie’s face. She joined the fixer in staring at Teddy. She did not glare. Her expression was vaguely erotic. Like she was enjoying a secret spectacle. Elena could see the tip of her tongue touching her upper lip as she smiled.
“I don’t understand,” Shirley said.
Nigel reached into the embossed folder. “There is something else I think you should see. This sequence was taken by a closed-circuit camera mounted on a side street about thirty yards from where your husband’s limo reportedly broke down.”
“Reportedly,” Shirley repeated.
“Quite so.” Nigel slipped the reception photos to one side. “Now in this first, you can see the limo driver walking away.”
“It’s blurry.”
“Stills taken from a video camera can only be enhanced so far.”
“Even so, I never met the man.”
“What is important is that the limo driver claimed he walked around the corner to find a signal for his cell phone.”
Shirley leaned in closer. “His hands are empty.”
“Precisely. There are any number of perfectly innocent reasons for this. But I find it interesting nonetheless.” He set down the second photograph. “Now here we see the man exiting from the camera’s upper perimeter. Just as he does so, we see another figure walking in the opposite direction.”
“You don’t see a face.”
“I offer this photograph just to establish the sequence of events. The limo driver departs, minus his phone. A second figure appears, walking toward the place where Teddy waits.”
He set down a third photograph.
Shirley breathed. “It’s her.”
“It would appear so.”
A dark-haired woman in a navy trench coat walked beneath the camera. The camera’s angle did not reveal a clear view of her face. But Elena nodded silent agreement. The woman who had appeared in her former office was shown stalking the street toward Teddy Wainwright and his empty limo.
Shirley Wainwright said, “Where else could she be going?”
“There is nothing down that street but a bus stop and the Teterboro highway. No shops. A pair of run-down tenements used mostly by immigrants.”
“That woman doesn’t live in a tenement and she doesn’t ride buses.”
Nigel Harries made a process of gathering up his photographs.
“She was going to murder my husband.”
“Perhaps. Quite possibly, in fact.” Nigel revealed a cold edge to his character, a stern, unwavering force as solid and permanent as gunfire. “Rest assured, madam, that is precisely what I intend to determine.”
35
The telephone calls arrived within three minutes of each other. Sandra’s came first. As soon as Elena answered, Sandra declared, “Lawrence has been fired.”
“Where is he?”
“On his way back from Capitol Hill. He phoned me from the car.” Sandra sounded broken. “I don’t understand what’s happening.”
“You need to come here.”
Sandra did not seem capable of taking in Elena’s words. “Just a few days ago, thi
s all seemed so right.”
“Sandra. Listen to me.” Elena used the same tone she took with trauma patients. Talking them down off whatever emotional wall they were trying to claw their way up. A calm metronome, commanding them to come back to earth and focus. “You and Lawrence need to get on the next plane to England.”
“We can’t just leave.”
“You most certainly can. You must.”
“We can’t be seen to give up.”
“Nobody said anything about defeat.” The energy that had continued to course through her all afternoon made it difficult to hold to the calm monotone. “Bring Angie Cassels with you.”
“If we leave, they will know they’ve won.”
“It doesn’t mean a thing, what they think they know.”
“Lawrence will insist on staying to fight.”
“Tell him I said he can’t. He has to come. Today.”
“But—”
“Sandra, listen carefully. Tell Lawrence this isn’t his fight. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
She was silent a long moment, then said, “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Sandra breathed once, twice. Then she cut the connection. No farewell, nothing. Elena shut her phone and cradled it to her stomach. She stood in her office, listening to the clamor from the front room. Now that the conversation was done, Elena half expected for the power and the certainty to vanish, leaving her wrestling with doubt and remorse. How could she order such important people to do anything. Like that. But the sense of being guided by another’s hand remained powerfully present.
She was still standing there, cradling her phone, when it rang a second time. She checked the readout and answered with “Antonio?”
“I’ve been fired.”
This time, the power was a palpable presence, so intense that she could not keep the tremors from her voice. “You need to come here. To Oxford.”
“Everything’s gone. I’ve failed us. I pushed too hard. I insisted on a majority on the commission. The politicians resisted. I went public. They used my statements to the press to fire me.”