by Rachel Hore
“Heck of a job, John…” Marcia drawled. So he was Marcia’s client, John Farrell. Or, Jude judged, by the intimate way she took the man’s arm, something more than that.
Jude took the opportunity of their turned backs to melt away through the trees in the direction of the lane. They were clearly up to something, and she sensed it was better that they didn’t know she was a witness.
CHAPTER 10
Jude arrived home in Greenwich at nine o’clock that evening, exhausted, but needing to ready herself for an early start the next day. The christening, at a church near St. Alban’s, had been followed by a big boozy party that had gone on all afternoon. By the time she left at six, the end-of-weekend traffic had brought the motorway to a standstill, then after her turn-off it had been a slow crawl across East London.
She unpacked, made her favorite comfort food—cheese on toast—and checked her e-mails while she ate. There was a reply from Cecelia, which she clicked on at once.
Hey, Jude (I adore writing that!),
It’s really good to hear from you. I’d love to meet up. Jude, it’s the most amazing coincidence, but I’m working at the Royal Observatory down the road from you for a short time! Is there any chance you could meet me there after work one evening and maybe we can go for a drink or a meal in Greenwich? I’m pretty free—Danny’s in Boston—so pick your day!
Much love,
Cecelia
She replied to this, explaining the situation and perhaps optimistically suggesting the next day, Monday, and was just logging off when her BlackBerry rang. It was, at long last, Caspar.
“We’ve been in meetings all day,” he said. “And we’ve just had dinner in this amazing restaurant with the other guys. How was Norfolk?”
“It was fine, thank you,” Jude said in her chilliest tone. He hadn’t been in touch at all since … Thursday, she supposed. But then she hadn’t called him, either. What did this say about them both?
“How were the star books?”
“Definitely worth the trip.” Her eye fell on the box containing the observation diaries that had somewhat riskily spent the day locked out of sight in her car trunk.
“Good … Good … And your sister and everyone…? Hey … you wouldn’t believe who we saw in the restaurant. Johnny Depp.”
“No!” She forgot her coolness.
“Yes. With his wife and some other guys.”
“Really? What’s he like in real life?”
“Pretty ordinary, I’d say. Nothing that a well-cut suit can’t do.”
“Oh, Caspar! You’re just jealous. Did you speak to him?”
“What do you take me for? Of course I didn’t.” No, Caspar had too much of a sense of personal dignity to risk being snubbed. “They must hate that, stars. People going up and treating them like public property.”
“Well it’s the public that give them their success.”
“That’s true, I suppose. Now, about next week. The holiday. Jude, I’ve got a very special ask. Would you mind if I didn’t join you at the villa till Tuesday?”
“What, go down on my own? Oh, Caspar.” Jude was truly dismayed. “Why?”
“Things here,” he said mysteriously. “From what the guys were saying tonight they need us to get working on their British campaign straightaway. I reckon I’d be free by Tuesday lunchtime. Look, you wouldn’t have to drive down. I could cancel the ferry and you could fly to Bordeaux and Luke could fetch you. I’d pay.”
Jude felt suddenly very tired indeed. “Caspar, no. That’s not fair.” It was her main holiday this year. She wasn’t sure about the whole thing anyway, and now he was ruining it. Suddenly she felt really angry. “It won’t be the same without you there. I don’t know your friends and they don’t know me. I was only going because you were.”
“But I will be there. Just a few days later. You’ll be fine. The others will be really relaxed, you know. I’ll call Luke and Marney as soon as I get off the phone with you here. We’ll sort it out.”
“No, we won’t sort it out. You’re messing me around.”
“You’re angry, aren’t you? Please don’t be angry.”
“Are you surprised? You don’t call me for days and then you tell me work is more important than our holiday. What am I supposed to think?”
There was a silence at the other end of the line. Then the tinkling of liquid falling on ice cubes. Caspar swallowed a mouthful of drink and said very humbly, “I’m really sorry. I guess I’ve got so caught up in the work, I’m on a kind of high about it. The trouble is, I’ve promised the guys we’ll do it. Jack’s all set up. I can’t let him down. Look, can you think about it?”
“I’ll think about it,” Jude said dully. She was really too tired and upset to think straight now. “Can we speak tomorrow?”
“Of course, of course. I’m in and out of meetings, but we’ll catch each other sometime.”
We’ll catch each other sometime. Like ships passing in the night. Was that what their relationship was like? Jude wondered, as she lay awake that night, too tired and jittery to sleep. She and Caspar didn’t need one another, not really. Three or four months into their relationship and she couldn’t say that she knew him very well. And coming back home, that sense again of walking into what belonged to her and Mark—those memories were as comforting as the cheese on toast. She’d never allowed Caspar to stay here, had always arranged it that they ate in town and went back to his, or that it was sometime like a Sunday, when he’d want to go back home in the evening to sort out things for the week. But perhaps she ought to plod on with this relationship, put the work in and wait for it to come good. Maybe there could never be someone she could love with the same intense passion and sense of rightness that she’d felt with Mark.
CHAPTER 11
On Monday morning the office was electric with tension. It was only half past eight when Jude walked in with her briefcase containing the precious journals, but Suri was already at her desk, head bent over a pile of dusty volumes, elbows tucked into her sides like a frightened animal trying to make itself as small and unnoticed as possible. She looked up at Jude’s entrance, mouthed, “Hello,” rolled her eyes and made a warning grimace. The sound of raised voices from Klaus’s office told the rest of the story. Just at that moment, Inigo emerged, a look of tragedy on his face to make a Shakespearean actor proud. He hitched up the trousers of his ridiculous suit as he sat down at his desk, then started tapping away furiously at his keyboard, completely ignoring Jude’s greeting. Klaus, meanwhile, hung in his office doorway, fingers hooked over the frame like a huge, angular bird of prey, and regarded Jude with a fierce gaze.
“What’s going on?” she asked, looking from one man to the other. Klaus summoned her with a brisk movement of his head and she followed him inside.
“Klaus? What’s the matter?”
He ignored her question.
“Yes. Good morning, Jude. How was Norfolk? I read your e-mails, for which great thanks. We’ve definitely got the collection, haven’t we? It would make a huge difference to our viability. I’ve taken the liberty of including some figures in the budget reforecast I sent upstairs this morning—”
“Did you?” Jude interrupted, a little alarmed. “I’m pretty sure we’ve got it. I was going to check in with Robert Wickham today.”
“Excellent,” he said, rubbing the tips of his fingers together. “You’d better look at this morning’s figures for the year to date.” He scooped up a transparent document wallet and passed it across the desk.
It took her a few moments to absorb the lines of numbers. What glared up at her were the totals at the bottom. Actual against budgeted sales for the past six months. It was a shock. She knew Pictures and Furniture were having problems in the current climate, but Books were down nearly a million pounds on expectations, too. Klaus folded himself into his chair, gesturing to Jude to sit down opposite.
“We really needed Lord Madingsfield’s collection,” he rasped, raking his fingers through his floppy, gray
ing hair. “Those Audubon bird manuscripts particularly.” He glared through the glass wall of his office to the cowed figure of poor old Inigo. So that’s what the row was about.
“It wasn’t Inigo’s fault,” Jude said, with a grudging sense of fairness. “He’s told you. Madingsfield has a cousin at Sotheby’s—”
“I was just telling Inigo … I chose to call Madingsfield over the weekend,” Klaus interrupted in clipped tones, picking up an ivory paper knife from his desk and running his thumb down the blade. “To say how disappointed we are. His story is a little different. He tells me in that dreadful oleaginous way he has that he didn’t detect that Beecham’s was ‘suitably enthusiastic’ about his collection. I don’t know what Inigo said to him, but it seems he didn’t press the man hard enough.”
“But that’s Madingsfield all over. He would blame us,” cried Jude. “He would hardly come out straight and admit to nepotism, would he? Come on, Klaus, we know him of old.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Klaus snapped, slapping the paper knife down on the desk and making Jude jump. “The point is that Inigo didn’t go in hard enough.”
“But you’ve told us not to make unrealistic promises in these trading conditions,” Jude said, confused.
The phone trilled and Klaus snatched it up. “Clive?” His voice was deferential now, nervous even. “You’re ready for us. Five minutes? Yes, yes. You’ve got all the documents I sent up? Yes, I understand completely. Very important. Good.”
Jude’s whirling thoughts cleared. Klaus must be under tremendous pressure from senior management. He, like Lord Madingsfield, was desperate to parcel out blame. Today Inigo was in the firing line. Tomorrow, it might be her.
Klaus replaced the handset and reached for his jacket and his papers, his long face tense, miserable.
“Get yourself ready for a difficult meeting,” was all he said.
Jude went to collect her things.
“Inigo, are you ready? Suri, would you mind the phones?” Klaus asked, putting on his jacket.
Inigo refused to meet Jude’s eye. All right, she thought, hurt, if that’s the way you want to play it. It was apparent to both that the wheel of fortune had turned. Inigo was out of favor and, today, Jude was firmly in.
It was when they sat down at the boardroom table, with the chief executive and the finance director, that her eye fell on a handout in front of her entitled “Suggestions to Deal with the Shortfall” and she felt her stomach flip. The first item, in bold type, was “The Starbrough Collection” with “£150k” printed beside it. She shot Klaus a glare, but instead of shriveling up in his seat, he frowned her into obedient silence.
Clive Worthington, chief executive of Beecham’s UK, informed them tersely that he was interviewing the senior staff of all the different departments in turn to deal with the matter of a devastating downturn of income from recent auctions.
“You’re not the worst department affected,” he said, looking at Klaus severely over the top of his reading glasses, “but it’s vital that you pull out every stop to meet these figures you’ve submitted. What’s this latest entry? Starbrough? First I’ve heard of it.”
“Jude will explain,” said Klaus, and Jude, her mouth dry with nervousness, described the collection of books and instruments that she’d inspected over the weekend.
“And this is a dead cert, is it?” Clive snapped. “This collection coming to us?”
But before Jude could open her mouth to declare honestly that she was almost sure, Klaus butted in.
“Jude’s promised me she’ll settle the matter,” he said quietly. “We think the figures are good to aim at.”
Drop me in it, you bastard, won’t you? she thought.
* * *
“You could have warned me what you’d put,” she told him after the meeting. “The sale’s not even in the bag yet. And I told Wickham only a hundred thousand.”
“I don’t see why it shouldn’t make more, if the items are as you describe,” Klaus said in his smoothest voice. “It’s important to be bullish.”
“In this market? We haven’t had anyone to look at the globes and stuff yet.”
“There’s a lot of interest in this area. Anyway, it’s going to help Clive bolster our position with New York. This is politics, Jude. New York is asking us for job cuts.” His eyes glittered. “Trust me.”
She sighed. He was, as usual, impossible. If he pulled it off he’d get all the glory; if it all went wrong, she’d get the blame. Trust him, indeed.
“If you can sew up the deal this morning, we’ll discuss how to handle everything. To turn the Starbrough collection into a big sale the publicity must be bang on.” He marched back into his office.
Jude sat down and stared sightlessly at Wickham’s observation journals where she’d laid them out on the desk. Please God there was a story in them big enough to make the difference. Aware that Klaus was probably listening from his desk—he’d left the door open—she picked up the phone and dialed the number for Starbrough Hall.
“Good morning, I hope I’m not ringing too early,” she said when Robert answered. “I wondered whether you’d come to a decision. The team here is very excited at the prospect of handling the sale of the collection.” Company-speak. She hated it.
“And we’d be delighted to let you,” came Robert’s reply.
She almost leaped in her chair with relief. Instead she grinned hugely at Klaus, who was standing at his door, listening. He nodded back and mouthed, “Well done,” at her.
But despite her exhilaration at her success, she had a sudden vision of Chantal standing in that beautiful, half-empty library looking desperately sad.
She spent much of the rest of the morning drawing up a letter of agreement, e-mailing the details to Robert for approval. Early in the afternoon he replied, accepting the terms. He ended his message with a PS: “Do come and stay should you need to spend some time with the collection.” That was kind of him.
Klaus immediately summoned her and Bridget from Publicity to his office to schedule the sale and announce it. Bridget was seven months pregnant and in a hurry to get her deadlines sorted.
“If it’s to be November we’ll need a big feature for the autumn Collector by early August. Three thousand words, I’d say,” Bridget said. “Would you do that, Jude?” The Beecham’s Collector, a quarterly free magazine, was sent out to a mailing list of clients, the media and other useful contacts. “We’ll use the piece as a starting point to create general media interest.” Jude understood that this should attract a wider range of potential buyers than the usual suspects.
“Jude, is there much of a story behind the collection?” Klaus asked, scribbling some notes.
“There could be; I just don’t know yet.” She explained about the observation diaries and the charts.
“What would be fabulous,” Bridget said briskly, “would be to showcase some discovery that this man made. Do we know anything about him as an astronomer?”
“He’s not a known figure, I’m afraid,” said Jude. “That’s not what you want to hear, I know. I would love the opportunity to do some further research about him.”
“By all means,” said Klaus. “And, Jude, that story. If there’s one, find it.”
* * *
At five o’clock she left the office and threaded her way through the Mayfair side streets to Bond Street tube. But at Greenwich rail station, instead of turning right toward her house, she struck out in the direction of the park and climbed the hill to the Royal Observatory.
“How wonderful to see you! It’s been far too long!” At reception, Cecelia Downham greeted Jude with a hug and showed her downstairs into a poky basement office, crammed with books and papers.
“What a fabulous place,” Jude said, looking around at everything. “Straight out of a Dickens novel.”
“Isn’t it wonderful? I’m contributing to an exhibition about the history of the Observatory, so I’m borrowing it for a couple weeks while a pal’s on vacation. Here, h
ave a seat. I’m sorry, it’s like a yard sale in here.”
“So much for the paperless office,” said Jude, as Cecelia moved a pile of periodicals from an old chair, then set about making them both mint tea from a tiny electric kettle. A tall, stunning blonde with an East Coast accent, Cecelia always seemed an unusually glamorous figure for a researcher. In addition to being an excellent scholar she was enthusiastic about her subject and generous with her expertise. She was also a good friend, though she and Jude didn’t see one another so often these days.
“Where are you staying? You don’t go back to Cambridge every night, do you?” Jude asked.
“Danny has a friend with an apartment in the Barbican.” Cecelia’s long-term boyfriend was also an academic, but they never managed to get jobs in the same place. Danny, though from Dublin, was currently a professor of English in Boston, so one or other of them was always getting on a plane.
“You could have stayed with me,” Jude cried. “Another time, promise.”
They chatted for a while, catching up from a year ago when she had visited Cecelia in the rooms of her Cambridge college.
“So what have you got for me?” Cecelia asked, indicating the briefcase Jude had brought.
“It’s your period, Cece, late eighteenth,” Jude said, pulling the packages out, unwrapping the journals and handing them across the desk. “Look,” she said, peeling the plastic off the last one and flicking through it to show her friend. “Here’s where the handwriting changes. There are definitely two people involved here. What I need to gauge is whether there’s anything interesting about these from a collector’s point of view. I mean, can we say Wickham made any contribution to the astronomy of the period? Oh goodness, I’m jabbering, I’m sorry. I’m under some pressure to make this into a big sale and I need a story. There’ll be no problem paying you a research fee, by the way.” She sipped at the scalding tea while Cecelia flicked through the first volume.
After a moment, Cecelia frowned and said, “I’ll have a proper look, of course, Jude, but I can’t pull a story out of the air.”