by Ken Follett
Nancy said: “Could you direct me to the ticket office?”
“If I ever get cast as a tour guide, I won’t need to rehearse!” said Lulu, and the passengers with her laughed. “The airline building is at the far end of the street, past the railroad station, opposite the harbor.”
Nancy thanked her and walked on. Mervyn had already started out, and she had to run to catch up with him. However, he stopped suddenly when he caught sight of two men strolling up the street, deep in conversation. Nancy looked curiously at the men, wondering why they had stopped Mervyn in his tracks. One was a silver-haired swell in a black suit with a dove gray waistcoat, obviously a passenger from the Clipper. The other was a scarecrow of a man, tall and bony, with hair so short he almost looked bald, and the expression of someone who has just woken up from a nightmare. Mervyn went up to the scarecrow and said: “You’re Professor Hartmann, aren’t you?”
The man’s reaction was quite shocking. He jumped back a pace and held up his hands defensively, as if he thought he was about to be attacked.
His companion said: “It’s all right, Carl.”
Mervyn said: “I’d be honored to shake your hand, sir.”
Hartmann dropped his arms, although he still looked wary. He shook hands.
Nancy was surprised at Mervyn’s behavior. She would have said that Mervyn Lovesey thought nobody in the world was his superior, yet here he was acting like a schoolboy asking a baseball star for his autograph.
Mervyn said: “I’m glad to see you got out. We feared the worst, you know, when you disappeared. By the way, my name is Mervyn Lovesey.”
Hartmann said: “This is my friend Baron Gabon, who helped me to escape.”
Mervyn shook hands with Gabon, then said: “I won’t intrude anymore. Bon voyage, gentlemen.”
Hartmann must be something very special, Nancy thought, to have distracted Mervyn, even for a few moments, from his single-minded pursuit of his wife. As they walked on through the village she asked: “So who’s he?”
“Professor Carl Hartmann, the greatest physicist in the world,” Mervyn replied. “He’s been working on splitting the atom. He got into trouble with the Nazis for his political views, and everyone thought he was dead.”
“How do you know about him?”
“I did physics at university. I thought of becoming a research scientist, but I haven’t the patience for it. I still keep up with developments, though. It so happens there have been some amazing discoveries in the field over the last ten years.”
“Such as?”
“There’s an Austrian woman—another refugee from the Nazis, by the way—called Lise Meitner, working in Copenhagen, who managed to break the uranium atom into two smaller atoms, barium and krypton.”
“I thought atoms were indivisible.”
“So did we all, until recently. That’s what’s so amazing. It makes a very big bang when it happens, which is why the military are so interested. If they can control the process, they’ll be able to make the most destructive bomb ever known.”
Nancy looked back over her shoulder at the frightened, shabby man with the burning gaze. The most destructive bomb ever known, she said to herself, and she shivered. “I’m surprised they let him walk around unguarded,” she said.
“I’m not sure he is unguarded,” Mervyn said. “Look at that chap.”
Following the direction of Mervyn’s nod, Nancy looked across the street. Another Clipper passenger was idling along on his own: a tall, hefty man in a bowler hat and a gray suit with a wine red waistcoat. “Do you think that’s his bodyguard?” she said.
Mervyn shrugged. “The man looks like a copper to me. Hartmann may not know it, but I’d say he’s got a guardian angel in size twelve boots.”
Nancy had not thought Mervyn was that observant.
“I think this must be the bar,” Mervyn said, switching from the cosmic to the mundane without pausing for breath. He stopped at the door.
“Good luck,” Nancy said. She meant it. In a funny way she had grown to like him, despite his infuriating ways.
He smiled. “Thanks. Good luck to you, too.”
He went inside and Nancy continued along the street.
At the far end, across the road from the harbor, was an ivy-grown building larger than anything else in the village. Inside, Nancy found a makeshift office and a good-looking young man in a Pan American uniform. He looked at her with a twinkle in his eye, even though he had to be fifteen years her junior.
“I want to buy a ticket to New York,” she told him.
He was surprised and intrigued. “Is that so! We don’t generally sell tickets here—in fact, we don’t have any.”
That did not sound like a serious problem. She smiled at him: a smile always helped in overcoming trivial bureaucratic obstacles. “Well, a ticket is only a piece of paper,” she said. “If I give you the fare, I guess you’ll let me on the plane, won’t you?”
He grinned. She figured he would oblige her if he could. “I guess so,” he said. “But the plane is full.”
“Hell!” she muttered. She felt crushed. Had she gone through all this for nothing? But she was not yet ready to give up, not by a long shot. “There must be something,” she said. “I don’t need a bed. I’ll sleep in a seat. Even a crew seat would do.”
“You can’t take a crew seat. The only thing vacant is the honeymoon suite.”
“Can I take that?” she said hopefully.
“Why, I don’t even know what price to charge—”
“But you could find out, couldn’t you?”
“I guess it has to cost at least as much as two regular fares, and that would make it seven hundred and fifty bucks one way, but it could be more.”
She didn’t care if it cost seven thousand dollars. “I’ll give you a blank check,” she said.
“Boy, you really want to ride this airplane, don’t you?”
“I have to be in New York tomorrow. It’s ... very important.” She could not find words to express how important it was.
“Let’s go check with the captain,” the boy said. “This way please, ma’am.”
Nancy followed him, wondering whether she had been wasting her efforts on someone who did not have the authority to make a decision.
He led her to an upstairs office. Six or seven of the Clipper’s crew were there in their shirtsleeves, smoking and drinking coffee while they studied charts and weather reports. The young man introduced her to Captain Marvin Baker. When the handsome captain shook her hand, she had the oddest feeling that he was going to take her pulse, and she realized it was because he had a doctor’s bedside manner.
The young fellow said: “Mrs. Lenehan needs to get to New York real bad, Captain, and she’s willing to pay for the honeymoon suite. Can we take her?”
Nancy waited anxiously for the reply, but the captain asked another question. “Is your husband with you, Mrs. Lenehan?”
She fluttered her eyelashes, always a useful move when you were hoping to persuade a man to do something. “I’m a widow, Captain.”
“I’m sorry. Do you have any baggage?”
“Just this overnight case.”
“We’ll be glad to take you to New York, Mrs. Lenehan,” he said.
“Thank God,” Nancy said fervently. “I can’t tell you how important it is to me.” For a moment her knees felt weak. She sat in the nearest chair. She was embarrassed about feeling so emotional. To cover up, she rummaged in her handbag and took out her checkbook. With a shaky hand she signed a blank check and gave it to the young man.
Now it was time to confront Peter.
“I saw some passengers in the village,” she said. “Where would the rest of them be?”
“Most are in Mrs. Walsh’s pub,” the young man said. “It’s a bar in this building. The entrance is around the side.”
She stood up. The shaky spell had passed. “I’m much obliged to you,” she said.
“Glad to be able to help.”
She went
out.
As she closed the door she heard a buzz of comment break out, and she knew they were making ribald remarks about an attractive widow who could afford to sign blank checks.
She went outside. It was a mild afternoon with weak sunlight, and the air was pleasantly damp with the salty taste of the sea. Now she had to look for her faithless brother.
She went around to the side of the building and entered the bar.
It was the kind of place into which she would never normally go: small, dark, roughly furnished, very masculine. Clearly it was originally intended to serve beer to fishermen and farmers, but now it was full of millionaires drinking cocktails. The atmosphere was stuffy, and the noise level was high in several languages: there was something of a party atmosphere among the passengers. Was it her imagination, or was there a faintly hysterical note in the laughter? Did the jollification mask anxiety about the long flight over the ocean?
She scanned the faces and spotted Peter.
He did not notice her.
She stared at him for a moment, anger boiling up inside her. She felt her cheeks flush with rage. She had a powerful urge to slap his face. But she suppressed her fury. She would not show him how upset she was. It was always smarter to play it cool.
He was sitting in a comer, and Nat Ridgeway was with him. That was another shock. Nancy had known Nat was in Paris for the collections, but it had not occurred to her that he might fly back with Peter. She wished he were not here. The presence of an old flame just complicated matters. She would have to forget that she had once kissed him. She put the thought out of her mind.
She pushed through the crowd and went up to their table. Nat was the first to look up. His face showed shock and guilt, which gave her some satisfaction. Noticing his expression, Peter looked up.
Nancy met his eye.
He went pale and started up out of his chair. “Good Christ!” he exclaimed. He looked scared to death.
“Why are you so frightened, Peter?” Nancy said contemptuously.
He swallowed hard and sank back into his seat.
Nancy said: “You actually paid for a ticket on the S.S. Oriana, knowing you weren’t going to use it; you came to Liverpool with me and checked into the Adelphi Hotel, even though you weren’t going to stay there; and all because you were afraid to tell me you were taking the Clipper!”
He stared back at her, white-faced and silent.
She had not planned to make a speech but the words just came. “You slunk out of the hotel yesterday and rushed all the way to Southampton, hoping I wouldn’t find out!” She leaned on the table, and he shrank away from her. “What are you so scared of? I’m not going to bite you!” As she said the word bite he flinched, as if she might really do it.
She had not troubled to lower her voice. The people nearby had gone quiet. Peter looked around the room with an embarrassed expression. Nancy said: “I’m not surprised you feel foolish. After all I’ve done for you! All these years I’ve protected you, covered up for your stupid mistakes, and let you go on being chairman of the company even though you couldn’t organize a church bazaar! After all that, you tried to steal the business from me! How could you do it? Doesn’t it make you feel like a worm?”
He flushed crimson. “You’ve never protected me—you’ve always looked after yourself,” he protested. “You always wanted to be boss—but you didn’t get the job! I got it, and you’ve been scheming to take it away from me ever since.”
This was so unjust that Nancy did not know whether to laugh, cry or spit in his face. “You idiot, I’ve been scheming ever since to let you keep the chairmanship.”
He pulled some papers from his pocket with a flourish. “Like this?”
Nancy recognized her report. “You bet like that,” she said. “That plan is the only way for you to keep your job.”
“While you take control! I saw through it right away.” He looked defiant. “That’s why I came up with my own plan.”
“Which hasn’t worked,” Nancy said triumphantly. “I’ve got a seat on the plane and I’m coming back for the board meeting.” For the first time she turned to Nat Ridgeway and spoke to him. “I guess you still can’t take control of Black’s Boots, Nat.”
Peter said: “Don’t be so sure.”
She looked at him. He was petulantly aggressive. Surely he could not have something up his sleeve? He was not that smart. She said: “You and I own forty percent each, Peter. Aunt Tilly and Danny Riley hold the balance. They’ve always followed my lead. They know me and they know you. I make money and you lose it, and they understand that, even if they’re polite to you for Pa’s sake. They’ll vote the way I ask them to.”
“Riley will vote with me,” Peter said obstinately.
There was something in his mulishness that worried her. “Why would he vote with you, when you’ve practically run the company into the ground?” she said scornfully, but she was not as confident as she made herself sound.
He sensed her anxiety. “I’ve got you scared now, haven’t I?” he sneered.
Unfortunately, he was right. She was beginning to feel worried. He did not look as crushed as he should. She had to find out whether there was anything behind this bluster. “I guess you’re just talking through your hat,” she jeered.
“No, I’m not.”
If she kept taunting him he would feel compelled to prove her wrong, she knew. “You always pretend to have something up your sleeve but it generally amounts to nothing at all.”
“Riley has promised.”
“And Riley is as trustworthy as a rattlesnake,” she said dismissively.
Peter was stung. “Not if he gets ... an incentive.”
So that was it: Danny Riley had been bribed. That worried Nancy. Danny was nothing if not corruptible. What had Peter offered him? She had to know, so that she could either spoil the bribe or offer more. She said: “Well, if your plan hinges on Danny Riley’s reliability, I guess I don’t have anything to worry about!” and she laughed derisively.
“It hinges on Riley’s greed,” Peter said.
She turned to Nat and said: “If I were you I’d be very skeptical about all this.”
“Nat knows it’s true,” Peter said smugly.
Nat clearly would have preferred to remain silent, but when they both stared at him, he gave a reluctant nod of assent.
Peter said: “He’s giving Riley a big chunk of General Textiles’s work.”
That was a blow, and Nancy’s breath caught in her throat. There was nothing Riley would have liked better than to get a foot in the door of a major corporation such as General Textiles. To a small New York law firm it was the opportunity of a lifetime. For a bribe like that, Riley would sell his mother.
Peter’s shares plus Riley’s came to fifty percent. Nancy’s plus Aunt Tilly’s also amounted to fifty percent. With the votes divided equally, the issue would be decided by the casting vote of the chairman—Peter.
Peter could see he had trumped Nancy, and he allowed himself a smile of victory.
Nancy was not yet willing to concede defeat. She pulled out a chair and sat down. She turned her attention to Nat Ridgeway. She had sensed his disapproval all the way through the argument. She wondered if he knew that Peter had been working behind her back. She decided to put it to him. “I suppose you knew Peter was lying to me about this?”
He stared at her, tight-lipped; but she could do that too, and she simply waited, looking expectant. Finally she outstared him, and he said: “I didn’t ask. Your family quarrels are none of my concern. I’m not a social worker. I’m a businessman.”
But there was a time, she thought, when you held my hand in restaurants, and kissed me good night; and once you caressed my breasts. She said: “Are you an honest businessman?”
“You know I am,” he said stiffly.
“In that case, you won’t approve of dishonest methods being used on your behalf.”
He thought for a moment, then said: “This is a takeover, not a tea party.�
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He was going to say more, but she jumped in. “If you’re willing to gain by my brother’s dishonesty, you’re dishonest yourself. You’ve changed since you worked for my father.” She turned back to Peter before Nat could reply. “Don’t you realize you could get twice the price for your shares if you let me implement my plan for a couple of years?”
“I don’t like your plan.”
“Even without restructuring, the company is going to be worth more because of the war. We’ve always supplied soldiers’ boots—think of the extra business if the U.S. gets into the war!”
“The U.S. won’t get into this war.”
“Even so, the war in Europe will be good for business.” She looked at Nat. “You know that, don’t you? That’s why you want to buy us out.”
Nat said nothing.
She turned back to Peter. “But we’d do better to wait. Listen to me. Have I ever been wrong about this sort of thing? Have you ever lost money by following my advice? Have you ever made money by disregarding it?”
“You just don’t understand, do you?” Peter said.
Now she could not imagine what was coming. “What don’t I understand?”
“Why I’m merging the company, why I’m doing this.”
“All right, why?”
He stared at her in silence, and she saw the answer in his eyes.
He hated her.
She was shocked rigid. She felt as if she had run headlong into an invisible brick wall. She wanted to disbelieve it, but the grotesque expression of malevolence on his distorted face could not be ignored. There had always been tension between them, natural sibling rivalry; but this, this was awful, weird, pathological. She had never suspected this. Her little brother, Peter, hated her.
This is what it must be like, she thought, when the man you have been married to for twenty years tells you he’s having an affair with his secretary and he doesn’t love you anymore.
She felt dizzy, as if she had banged her head. It was going to take a while to adjust to this.
Peter was not merely being foolish, or mean, or spiteful. He was actually doing himself harm in order to ruin his sister. That was pure hatred.
He had to be at least a little bit crazy.