False Impression (11 page)

‘There’s nothing
to stop me going to your place,’ said Tina. ‘Tell me what you want and I can
pack a bag and...’

‘No need to
pack,’ said Anna. ‘Everything I want is ready and waiting in the hallway –
don’t forget I was expecting to fly to London this evening.’

‘Then all I need
is the key to your apartment,’ said Tina.

Anna unclasped
the chain round her neck and handed over her key.

‘How do I get
past the doorman?’ asked Tina. ‘He’s bound to ask who I’ve come to see.’

‘That won’t be a
problem,’ said Anna. ‘His name is Sam. Tell him you’re visiting David Sullivan
and he’ll just smile and call for the elevator.’

Who’s David
Sullivan?’ asked Tina.

‘He’s got an
apartment on the fourth floor, and rarely entertains the same girl twice. He
pays Sam a few dollars every week to keep them all blissfully unaware that they
are not the only woman in his life.’

‘But that
doesn’t solve the cash problem,’ said Tina. ‘Don’t forget you lost your wallet
and credit card in the
crash,
and all I have to my
name is about seventy dollars.’

‘I took three
thousand dollars out of my account yesterday,’ said Anna. Whenever you’re
moving a valuable painting, you can’t risk any hold-ups, so you have to be
prepared to take care of the odd baggage handler along the way. I’ve also got
another five hundred in the drawer by the side of my bed.’

‘And you’ll need
to take my watch,’ said Tina.

Anna took off
her watch and swapped it with Tina’s.

Tina studied
Anna’s watch more closely. ‘You’re never going to be allowed to forget what time
it was when that plane flew into the building,’ she said as the microwave
beeped.

‘This may well
be inedible,’ Tina warned her, as she served up a dish of yesterday’s chicken
chow mein and egg fried rice.

Between
mouthfuls, the two of them considered the alternatives for getting out of the
city, and which border would be safest to cross.

By the time they
had devoured every last scrap of leftovers along with another pot of coffee,
they had gone over all the possible routes out of Manhattan, although Anna still
hadn’t settled on whether she should head north or south. Tina placed the
plates in the sink and said, “
Why
don’t you decide on
which direction you think would be quickest, while I try to get myself uptown
and in and out of your apartment without Sam becoming suspicious?’

Anna hugged her
friend again. ‘Be warned,’ she said, ‘
it’s
hell on
earth out there.’

Tina stood on
the top step of her apartment building and waited for a few moments. Something
felt wrong. And then she realized what it was. New York had changed over day.

The streets were
no longer full of bustling, haven’t-the-time-to stop-and-chat people, who made
up the most energetic mass on earth. It felt more like a Sunday to Tina. But
not even Sunday.

People stood and
stared in the direction of the World Trade Center. The only background music
was the noise of perpetual sirens, which continually reminded the indigenous
population if they needed reminding – that what they had been watching on
television in their homes, clubs, bars, even shop windows, was taking place
just a few blocks away.

Tina walked down
the road in search of a taxi, but the familiar yellow cabs had been replaced by
the red, white and blue of fire engines, ambulances and police cars, all
heading in one direction.

Little clusters
of citizens gathered on street corners to applaud the three different services
as they raced by, as if they were young recruits leaving their homeland to
fight a foreign foe. You no longer have to travel abroad to do that, thought
Tina.

Tina walked on
and on, block after block, aware that just like the
weekend,
commuters had fled to the hills, leaving the locals to man the pumps. But now
there was another unfamiliar group roaming around the city in a daze. New York
had, over the past century, absorbed citizens from every nation on earth, and
now they were adding another race to their number. This most recent group of
immigrants looked as if they had arrived from the bowels of the earth, and like
any new race could be distinguished by their colour – ash grey. They roamed
around Manhattan, like marathon runners limping home hours after the more
serious competitors had departed from the scene. But there was an even more
visual reminder for anyone who looked up that autumn evening. The New York
skyline was no longer dominated by its proud, gleaming skyscrapers because they
were overshadowed by a dense grey haze that hung above the city like an
unwelcome visitor. Occasionally there were breaks in the ungodly cloud, when
Tina noticed for the first time shards of jagged metal sticking out of the
ground – all that was left of one of the tallest buildings in the world. The
dentist had saved her life.

Tina walked past
empty shops and restaurants in a city that never closed. New York would
recover, but would never be the same again. Terrorists were people who lived in
far-off lands: the Middle East, Palestine, Israel, even Spain, Germany and
Northern Ireland. She looked back at the cloud. They had taken up residence in
Manhattan, and left their calling card.

Tina once again
waved unhopefully at the rare sight of a passing taxi. It screeched to a halt.

A
nna strolled
back into the kitchen and began washing the dishes. She was keeping herself
occupied in the hope that her mind wouldn’t continually return to those faces coming
up the stairs, faces she feared would remain etched on her memory for the rest
of her life. She had discovered a downside to her unusual gift.

She tried to
think about Victoria Wentworth instead, and how she might stop Fenston from
ruining someone else’s life. Would Victoria believe that Anna hadn’t known
Fenston always planned to steal the Van Gogh and bleed her dry? Why should she,
when Anna was a member of the board and had been
fooled
so easily herself?

Anna left the
kitchen in search of a map. She found a couple on a bookshelf in the front room
above Tina’s desk: a copy of Streetwise Manhattan, and The Columbia Gazetteer
of North America, propped up against the recent bestseller on John Adams,
second president of the US. She paused to admire the Rothko poster on the wall
opposite the bookshelf – not her period, but she knew he must be one of Tina’s
favourite artists, because she also had another in her office. No longer,
thought Anna, her mind switching back to the present. She returned to the kitchen
and laid the map of New York out on the table.

Once she’d
decided on a route out of Manhattan, Anna folded up the map and turned her
attention to the larger volume. She hoped that it would help her make up her
mind which border to cross.

lUHlIlUlT

Anna looked up
Mexico and Canada in the index, and then began making copious notes as if she
was preparing a report for the board to consider; she usually suggested two
alternatives, but always ended her reports with a firm recommendation. When she
finally closed the cover on the thick blue book, Anna wasn’t in any doubt in
which direction she had to go if she hoped to reach England in time.

Tina spent the
cab journey to Thornton House considering how she would get into Anna’s
apartment and leave with her luggage without the doorman becoming suspicious.
As the cab drew up outside the building, Tina moved a hand to her jacket
pocket. She wasn’t wearing a jacket. She turned scarlet. She’d left the
apartment without any money. Tina stared through the plastic window at the
driver’s identity disc: Abdul Affridi – worry beads dangling from the rear-view
mirror. He glanced around, but didn’t smile.

No one was
smiling today.

‘I’ve come out
without any money,’ Tina blurted, and then waited for a string of expletives to
follow.

‘No problem,’
muttered the driver, who jumped out of his cab to open the door for her.
Everything had changed in New York.

Tina thanked him
and walked nervously towards the entrance door, her opening line well prepared.
The script changed the moment she saw Sam seated behind the counter, head in
hands, sobbing.

“What’s the
matter?’ Tina asked. ‘Did you know someone in the World Trade Center?’

Sam looked up.
On the desk in front of him was a photo of Anna running in the marathon. ‘She
hasn’t come home,’ he said.

‘All my others
who worked at the WTC returned hours ago.’

Tina put her
arms round the old man.
Yet another victim.
How much
she wanted to tell him Anna was alive and well.
But not
today.

Anna took a
break just after eight and began flicking through the TV channels. There was
only one story. She found that she couldn’t go on watching endless reports
without continually being reminded of her own small walk-off part in this
two-act drama. She was about to turn off the television when it was announced
that President Bush would address the nation. ‘Good evening. Today, our fellow
citizens ..
.’ Anna listened intently, and nodded when the
President continued: ‘The victims were in airplanes, or in their offices;
secretaries, businessmen and
women ..
.’ Anna once
again thought about Rebecca. ‘None of us will ever forget this day...” die
President concluded, and Anna felt able to agree with him. She switched off the
television as the South Tower came crashing down again, like the climax of a
disaster movie.

Anna sat back
and stared down at the map on the kitchen table.

She
double-checked, or was it triple, her route out of New York.

She was writing
detailed notes of everything that needed to be done before she left in the
morning when the front door burst open and Tina staggered in – a laptop over
one shoulder, dragging a bulky case behind her. Anna ran out into the corridor
to welcome her back. She looked exhausted.

‘Sorry to have
taken so long, honey,’ said Tina as she dumped the luggage in the hallway, and
walked down the freshly vacuumed corridor and into the kitchen. ‘Not many buses
going in my direction,’ she added, ‘especially when you’ve left your money
behind,’ she added as she collapsed into a kitchen chair. ‘I’m afraid I had to
break into your five hundred dollars, otherwise I wouldn’t have been back until
after midnight.’

Anna laughed.
‘My turn to make you coffee,’ she suggested.

‘I was only
stopped once,’ continued Tina, ‘by a very friendly policeman who checked
through your luggage, and accepted that I’d been sent back from the airport
after being unable to board a flight. I was even able to produce your ticket.’

‘Any trouble at
the apartment?’ asked Anna, as she filled the coffee pot for a third time.

‘Only having to
comfort Sam, who obviously adores
you.
He looked as if
he’d been crying for hours. I didn’t even have to mention David Sullivan,
because all Sam wanted to do was talk about you. By the time I got into the
elevator, he didn’t seem to care where I was going.’ Tina stared around the
kitchen. She hadn’t seen it so clean since she’d moved in. ‘So have you come up
with a plan?’ she asked, looking down at the map that was spread across the
kitchen table.

‘Yes,’ said
Anna. ‘It seems my best bet will be the ferry to New Jersey and then to rent a
car, because according to the latest news all the tunnels and bridges are
closed. Although it’s over four hundred miles to the Canadian border, I can’t
see why I shouldn’t make Toronto airport by tomorrow night, in which case I
could be in London the following morning.’

‘Do you know
what time the first ferry sails in the morning?’ asked Tina.

‘In theory, it’s
a non-stop service,’ said Anna, ‘but in practice, every fifteen minutes after
five o’clock. But who knows if they’ll be running at all tomorrow, let alone
keeping to a schedule.’

‘Either way,’
said Tina, ‘I suggest you have an early night, and try to snatch some sleep.
I’ll set my alarm for four thirty.’

‘Four,’ said
Anna. ‘If the ferry is ready to depart at five, I want to be first in line. I suspect
getting out of New York may well prove the most difficult part of the journey.’

‘Then you’d
better have the bedroom,’ said Tina with a smile,

‘
and
I’ll sleep on the couch.’

‘No way,’ said
Anna, as she poured her friend a fresh mug of coffee. ‘You’ve done more than
enough already.’

‘Not nearly
enough,’ said Tina.

‘If Fenston ever
found out what you were up to,’ said Anna quietly, ‘he’d fire you on the spot.’

‘That would be
the least of my problems,’ Tina responded without explanation.

Jack yawned involuntarily.
It had been a long day, and he had a feeling that it was going to be an even
longer night.

No one on his
team had considered going home, and they were all beginning to look, and sound,
exhausted. The telephone on his desk rang.

‘
Just thought I ought
to let you know, boss,’ said Joe, ‘that Tina Forster, Fenston’s secretary,
turned up at Thornton House a couple of hours ago. Forty minutes later she came
out carrying a suitcase and a laptop, which she took back to her place.’