The Touch of Innocents (22 page)

It had taken her less than a minute to pack, to throw her miserable collection of belongings into the bag. She had spent the rest of the time before dawn sitting on the end of Benjy’s bed waiting for him to wake. She washed and dressed and fed him with little fuss, slipping into their conversation the mention of an aeroplane. She didn’t want him agitated. Even at his age he was a sufficiently experienced traveller for the prospect to cause neither alarm nor undue excitement; rather he looked forward contentedly to being fussed over by men and women in uniform who would thrust colouring books and his own special tray of food at him and would smile rather than scold if anything spilled.

Even mention of his father did not perturb him; the man he called Daddy had passed in and out of his life on enough occasions for it to be but part of a familiar pattern, and there was relief for the child that the familiar patterns seemed slowly to be returning. A mother. Now a father. Talk of home. The nightmare fading.

Daniel had arrived to take them to the airport. She went through the formality of thanking Sally for her help; of Chinnery there was no sign. Then they were gone, past the bloodied fingers of dogwood which led away from Devereux’s house, throwing up a trail of oil smoke as they left Bowminster and Wessex behind, until through the window Benjy was
pointing at the lumbering nose-up aircraft coming in to land. She guided Daniel to Heathrow’s Terminal Four by the back doubles which on a busy day could save vital minutes. They weren’t in a hurry but old habits die hard. Daniel dropped them at the Departure level, not even switching off the engine but climbing out of the car to give Benjy a small model aeroplane as a farewell gift in return for a kiss, willingly exchanged, Benjy failing to notice the tight smiles carved on the faces of both his new friend and his mother. He accepted Danny’s hug of goodbye with equanimity, as he had done every day since they had met. Then Danny was gone.

They had but one bag, a small vinyl grip, and they threaded their way through the controlled confusion of the pre-Christmas exodus to the ticket desk. The briefest of paperwork, Joe’s money in exchange for two tickets. A short walk with the infant to the Customer Services counter. A check of the passports. Everything in order. And already they were being shepherded by a stewardess towards the departure area and its milling crowds.

She had to struggle with a barely resistible urge to look round. She knew he was there,
he
was there, could feel his presence, the watery blue eyes, had suspected, rightly, that he would be unable to forgo the temptation of confirming for himself that she was fulfilling the arrangements she had made over the telephone. To savour his triumph. Driven by the need to know she was finally gone.

That was why, after booking the seats, she had amended the arrangements from a payphone.

And now it was time. They were at the departure area, she had deliberately left it late in order to reduce to a minimum the opportunity for Benjy’s tears – or for hers, come to that. The area was a
sea of waving hands and weeping relatives, and had become a battlefield as overdue passengers fought with overloaded baggage carts, as fond farewells collided with frantic dashes for departure gates. The three of them – Izzy, Benjamin and stewardess – pushed their way towards the far line, squeezing through the crowds. Izzy wanted to get as far away as she could from prying eyes behind, put as much confusion as possible in between.

Once more she explained in a matter-of-fact tone to Benjy that his father would be waiting for him at the other end. They had arrived at the narrow departure channel, almost at the point where a security officer would check boarding passes, where passengers would be separated from those they were leaving behind. The moment had arrived. She handed over the little vinyl bag and two tickets, one for Benjy and one for the stewardess, the airline ‘Auntie’, who would accompany him. Izzy smiled encouragement. And smiled and smiled until she knew her face would explode in protest. She had dosed the child with Calpol to help him remain calm; there was no means of release from her own torment. Yet even as she screamed inside and cursed all gods, she gave thanks that Benjy was not protesting or imploring – she couldn’t have taken that.

Now the Auntie had him in her arms, was presenting the boarding passes – a face over her shoulder, a face being carried away in the crowd, a face with a growing look of doubt, of accusation, a face coming to the realization that once again she was deserting him. The lip wobbled, eyes rimmed with tears of uncertainty as his faith in her fought with the evidence before him. But he didn’t cry; he could still see his mother, the mother he loved, the only
thing he loved, or trusted, and she was still smiling encouragement. Perhaps it would be all right.

And his hand had come out, a small, perfectly formed hand with five tiny outstretched fingers, beseeching, wanting his mother.

She had screamed at herself not to but couldn’t control it and she found her own hand reaching up, stretching out towards him, to grab him back, to protest, to stop the pain, the feeling that something deep within her was being torn by its roots from her womb. And she stretched out to grab him back but instead she was waving, still smiling, and he was biting his lip and believing in her, burying his fears beneath his trust. God, he was a fighter, that one; would he ever forgive her?

And then Benjy was gone. Back to his father. Out of her life. And she had ducked beneath a barrier and fled in despair.

She could not tell what the future might hold, what her husband or any court might decide, what the world would think of a woman who could give up custody of her child so brutally and later seek to claim him back, as she had and would. Yet she knew she had no choice. As much as she was unable to live with the possibility of losing Benjy, she had to set that against the certainty of losing Bella. A doubt weighed against a certainty.

Torture beyond reason, to give up one child in the hope, however forlorn, of regaining another. She might end up losing them both.

There were no tears, no longer any place in this new world of permafrost emotion for tears, merely an overwhelming numbness as she found the far exit of the terminal without once looking back.

The crass Volkswagen with its rusted paintwork
and sagging fender was waiting in the car park. She climbed in beside Daniel.

‘Could this car go as far as Kiev?’

‘I doubt it.’

‘Didn’t think so. OK, let’s go find Bella.’

They had stopped on the M3 motorway into London for petrol. Daniel came back from the cash kiosk rubbing his wallet ruefully.

‘By my reckoning, if we eat nothing and sleep in the park, we might have enough money to get us through, oh – at least until the weekend.’ He smiled thinly. ‘We need to figure out a plan.’

‘Already have.’

‘I must seem a pretty pathetic excuse as a noble knight come to your rescue. I’ve no job and practically no money.’ He thumbed through the few notes in his wallet. ‘Sorry.’

‘At least we’re swimming in it together, Daniel.’

‘Meaning?’

‘I’ve no money. And I have no job – at least, I won’t have when I fail to turn up in Paris or Washington next week.’

‘Bother.’

Her eyes lit in amusement at his understatement, but he failed to see the humour. He was troubled, her buccaneer becalmed.

‘I’d sell the car, but who’d want it? Never mind, we’ll think of something. I’m afraid we’ll have to slum it.’

She shook her head. ‘That’s not on. We have a lot to do and very little time.’

‘What do you suggest? A dawn raid on Harrods?’

‘If you like.’

‘And I assume we’ll take a suite at the Ritz?’

‘At The Stafford, in fact, a very exclusive hotel just off St James’s. It’s already booked.’

He began to laugh, then stopped. ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’

‘Deadly. We need to open doors. No one is going to invite us in if we tramp around London dressed like Orphan Annie.’

‘Orphan Annie found a millionaire.’

‘It needn’t cost that much. What we need is the right image. You know, on assignment my most precious piece of luggage is a twenty-dollar waterproof holdall that stays zipped up until five minutes before air time. It’s got nothing in it but a silk blouse, flash earrings, cosmetic wipes and a brush. I can be dressed in rancid jeans, standing up to my crotch in swamp and reeking after a week without a bath, but as long as I look good from the waist up, no one cares. Image is everything. Truth to so many people is only skin deep.’

‘To Americans, perhaps.’

‘No, Daniel, the English are the worst! Everything with these guys is external – the suit, the old school tie, the way they speak, the long aristocratic noses which keep their mouths as far away as possible from their brains. The English are all first impressions. We can’t handle them looking like refugees from an Oxfam bring-and-buy.’

‘My mother and me, we lived in an old tumbledown manor house overlooking the Bay. Lots of rooms, running water when it rained, no money. So when she wanted to create a fresh impression she’d move the furniture around from room to room.’

‘So what are you suggesting?’

‘Maybe we could swap earrings?’

She laughed. ‘Oh, Danny Blackheart, but you’d
look weird in my blouse.’ Slowly she ran an experienced eye over his ill-clad torso, jeans, sneakers, faded ski jacket. ‘I wonder what you’d look like in a well-cut suit.’

‘Pretty good, actually. There used to be a time … But that was in a different life.’

‘I mean this life. Today.’

‘Izzy, be real.’

‘Daniel, the whole bloody English Establishment is out there trying to squash me. We have to fight them on their own terms, we can’t do it from the gutter. They’ll find out I haven’t gone back, sooner or later. Then they’ll start looking for me. And you. But they won’t start looking for Mr and Mrs Daniel Franklyn living at one of London’s most exclusive addresses. Not for a while, at least.’

‘But how …?’

‘Daniel, just drive.’

So he did, and as they entered the heart of the capital she felt her energies returning, her batteries recharged by the electricity of urban life. She no longer felt isolated and exposed. Here the traffic confronted every intersection like a bull attacking a cape, while pedestrians risked life and limb by mimicking matadors and swerving between the angry vehicles, each audacious pass accompanied by an ovation of horns. This was the city, impatient, angry, anonymous. At last she was fighting on her ground again.

They drove until she directed him to stop in a side street off Piccadilly in the heart of the fashionable West End, drawing up outside the main London branch of Thomas Cook, the country’s biggest travel agency, into which she disappeared. Less than ten minutes had passed before she returned.

‘And now?’ he enquired.

‘First things first. Underwear, I think. Marks & Spencer.’

‘Come on, Izzy, what game are you playing?’

‘Same game, Daniel, only now we’re making some new rules.’

She pulled up the flap on her coat pocket. It was stuffed with fifty-pound notes.

‘Fifteen thousand pounds. Enough to be getting on with, you think?’

For a moment his lips offered a remarkable impression of a feeding perch. He started to frame the next question but the words failed him. ‘How …?’ he croaked, then subsided.

‘The brave and bold folk we call the corps of foreign correspondents are constantly racing off round the world at a moment’s notice armed with nothing more than overnight bags and our editors’ unreasonable demands. And in the sort of places we go credit cards are often useless. You can’t bribe or barter with plastic, sometimes can’t even get a hotel bed. Many of the places we stay aren’t likely to be around in thirty days’ time to collect on Amex. So WCN has this little arrangement with Cook’s to provide a cash float to anyone who’s on their list of accredited employees. Up to fifteen thousand pounds. And I’m accredited.’

‘But you said they were just about to fire you.’

‘That’s right. I imagine there’ll be one mother of a row.’

‘It’s, it’s … theft.’

‘Not technically. I intend to give it back.’ She shrugged. ‘Anyway, at the moment my need is considerably greater than WCN’s.’

‘Neither WCN nor the police might see it that way.’

‘I’ll take the risk.’

‘At very least it could ruin your reputation. It’s scarcely ethical.’

Green is a colour of varying charms that can reflect the warmth and intrigue of an emerald or the enchantments of an ancient forest. It can also petrify the spirit like ice-bound wastes beyond the Arctic Circle. As he gazed into her eyes, eyes which for him held so much charm and grace, he thought he’d never seen the colour so remorselessly glacial.

‘Daniel, I’ve had one child taken from me. This morning I gave up my other child. You want to stop and talk ethics?’

He touched her arm; she flinched as if brushed by a burning iron.

‘OK, Izzy. What’s your plan?’

‘Simple. Open a few doors. Find Paulette Devereux, find Bella. Any ideas?’

They were interrupted as a young police constable stared suspiciously at the mobile rust wreck anchored alongside some of London’s most exclusive retail property. Izzy flashed an enormous, on-camera smile. The policeman nodded, impressed less by the insincere gesture than by the fact that terrorists didn’t usually ignite car bombs while still sitting in the front seat. He motioned them on, staring disapprovingly at the plume of oil smoke coughed out by the exhaust.

‘Tell me a little more about Paulette,’ Daniel demanded as he nosed his way back into the thick West End traffic. ‘What she looks like. Not from the photographs you’ve seen, but from what you can remember.’

She closed her eyes to shut out distractions, sucked in her breath to chase after a memory and entered a deep, forbidding cave, a world of darkness and putrefying damp that made her flesh creep and
that whispered abhorrent thoughts of decay, and of death.

‘She’s tall. Blonde. Shoulder-length hair. Pretty at first glance but then you look more closely and see an old hag trying to climb out of a young woman’s shell. Difficult to tell precisely what age. The hair could be beautiful and has a professional cut but is ragged, unwashed, the flesh on the face seems to have shrunk away, almost anorexic. Pencil thin lips. Don’t know about the teeth, she doesn’t smile, seems almost incapable of expressing emotion. The features are somehow empty, as if she’s drained of feeling inside and been repacked with rags and cotton wool. And up really close she’s … dirty. The skin – oh, the skin is appalling, greasy, clogged pores. A sore on the upper lip. You get the impression that it wasn’t always like that, that once she was beautiful. But the eyes are the worst, the very worst part. So haggard, exhausted. Cursed.’

She opened her eyes, relieved to let the image fade. ‘But it’s what I felt rather than what I saw which left the strongest impression. Those eyes have no depth, as though made of frosted glass so you can’t see the real person inside. Makes you wonder if there
is
a real person inside. I start asking myself if she really exists, if this Paulette has any being beyond my mind.’

‘She exists, all right. But she’ll be a bitch to find.’

‘She must be somewhere.’

‘Yes, but not the sort of places you are used to looking in, I’ll be bound.’ The light in front of them turned red. Daniel sighed and put on the hand brake. ‘The description you’ve given me – physically flaking away, ruined beauty, empty – and so unreliable. Remember what the nuns said about her, couldn’t sleep and then could never get up and into the office,
often floating off for days at a time? She’s on something. An addict. Probably smack. Heroin. Heroin addicts hate to wash, hate the feeling of water. That’s why their skin can be so bad. And if I’m right and she’s come to London on a smack binge, she won’t be staying in The Stafford, that’s for sure. You won’t need any pretty clothes where we’ll have to go.’

‘Devereux’s daughter? An addict?’

‘Why not?’

It made sense. Izzy had little experience of white drug addiction, most of what she had seen first hand had been black or brown or yellow, and often dead, scattered around the slums and decaying ghettos of the Third World or the American capital. But she recalled the anguished tones of Devereux’s diary. How he’d been so blind. Not seen it. Until it was all too late. And now Paulette had fled to London. Sin City.

‘So we’re looking for a needle in a haystack.’

‘And in a haystack of needles, just to complicate things a little.’

‘But there’s one part of the package which is altogether more difficult to hide. Mr Coroner Fauld. He’s a public figure.’

Daniel cursed as at last they pulled away from the light only to be cut up by a motorcycle messenger displaying suicidal tendencies. ‘But if Fauld’s involved—’

‘He is.’

‘He’s scarcely likely to volunteer information.’

‘True, but we have one advantage. He’s blind. We know who he is, yet he won’t know us. Even if he’s been warned he’ll be expecting the sad and single Miss Izzy Dean. Not this odd couple, Mr and Mrs Franklyn. I think I shall call myself Fiona.’

‘Izzy, you seem to have thought this all through in considerable detail. You’re way ahead of me. So one question.’

‘Shoot.’

‘This odd couple, Mr and Mrs Franklyn, who have the suite in The Stafford.’ He risked taking his eyes off the traffic long enough to look round at her. ‘Their … body space. Are we talking single or double beds?’

She laughed.

‘Don’t mock me, lady, I’m serious. I’m no master with words and I can’t afford roses. And I daren’t tell you how much you frighten me—’

‘Frighten you?’

‘Course you do. You’re a very powerful woman, Izzy, you don’t operate like most other women. You seem so very much in control.’

‘Oh, Daniel, if only you knew …’

‘Your age and experience intimidate me, to be honest. But …’ He smiled, an expression completely lacking in guile. ‘But you will always find me honest. And I would very much like it to be the double bed.’

‘Daniel, stop the car.’ The laughter had disappeared.

‘Izzy, forgive me—’

‘Daniel, stop the car. Now.’

He pulled over, defying the bleating protest of the car behind.

‘Daniel, you have offered me friendship, your job, most importantly you’ve given me back hope. How could I refuse you anything? As far as I’m concerned, you can have my bed, my body, and anything else I’m capable of giving, whatever you want. Willingly. If that’s what you want. But … not me, not the woman inside. Not now. Not yet. There’s too much
guilt and confusion, too much fresh scar tissue. For the moment I’m an emotional cripple, I’ve got nothing more to give in that department. I can’t share, Daniel, not while I have this job to do. No distractions.’

‘Forgive me, I’m a slow, thick Paddy, Mrs Franklyn. Let me get it clear. That was American for “no”, was it?’

‘Be patient, Daniel. Please.’

He jammed the car into gear and pulled out without looking, to be greeted by an orchestrated protest from behind.

‘Bugger it,’ he said. ‘I guess timing’s not my strong point.’

‘Neither is driving,’ she whispered.

The day was turning to triumph.

Devereux had arrived in a crowded Chamber to defend his decision on the Duster before his colleagues, friends and foes in the House of Commons. He permitted no one to mistake the importance of the occasion.

‘With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the power blocs that had been frozen in place by what we called the Cold War, we have been launched into a world of great flux, great uncertainties,’ Devereux had intoned, every inch the statesman. ‘The decisions we take today will shape the world of our children and our children’s children. Indeed, it is not too great an exaggeration to say that it might resolve whether they have a world at all.’