Two Women (8 page)

Jane still lay on her back but there weren't any more sobs. He let his clothes lie where they fell and eased as carefully as he could into bed beside her, anxious to avoid movement or contact that might awaken her. There was no instinctive, automatic shift at his presence.

Who, wondered Carver, was Anna?

‘So what the hell happened!' demanded Burcher, the soft voice unaccustomedly loud.

‘He wasn't up to it. He croaked,' said a crinkle-haired, heavily built man.

‘Who are you?' said Burcher.

‘Who wants to know?'

‘I want to know because the Families want to know. Because they're not happy.' Burcher thought again how wise he'd been letting the people he represented know that he was strictly adhering to the pyramid procedure. There were far more people in the restaurant back room than when he'd last been there. The attitudes and atmosphere were bravado.

‘He's my
caporegime
, Paulo Brescia,' wheezed Emilio Delioci.

‘Were you there?' Burcher asked the man and knew at once from the discomfited shift that he hadn't been.

‘I sent people.'

Burcher let the silence build and when he spoke he was quiet-voiced again but sounded every word, as if he were tasting it as he wanted them to taste it. ‘Aren't you aware of how important George Northcote was to the Families?'

‘He was ours,' said Emilio Delioci.

Burcher shook his head. ‘You were allowed to believe that as a mark of respect. Northcote created a system that benefited not just New York but every other Family in this country and so every other Family in this country is going to be as sore as they are in New York and that's as sore as hell. You're close to being put out of business.'

‘You can't threaten us like that, asshole!' said Brescia.

‘You want to put that to the test, asshole?' challenged Burcher. ‘Let's all of us get something very straight and very clearly understood. What I say is what New York say: you insult me like some bit player in
The Godfather
, you insult New York and if they feel like it – if they feel you are not doing what you've been asked to do, then …' Burcher extended his hand towards Brescia and snapped his fingers dismissively, ‘… you're gone. History that no one remembers. Have I made that very straight and very clear to everyone here?'

‘I don't want any misunderstandings,' said Delioci.

‘Neither do I,' said Burcher. ‘So I'll ask again. What happened?'

‘My people told Northcote they wanted what he'd held back,' said Brescia, all the truculence gone. ‘He said he'd given you the message: that that was how it was going to be. They tried to persuade him. He suddenly went stiff and died on them. They made it look like an accident: that's how the local radio and newspapers are reporting it.'

‘So somewhere there's a load of stuff that could cause us a lot of harm?'

The
capo
smirked and Burcher realized the man was playing to the rest of the audience in the room. Brescia said: ‘He was being persuaded. There's a guy taking over the firm, married to Northcote's daughter. Carver. He knows all about it. And a woman, Janice Snow, did the computer entries.'

It could all be turned into a coup, Burcher decided. And if it could be, it would be his coup, not that of these half-assed small-timers. ‘What about the material Northcote was holding back?'

‘I told you, he passed out before they could get that out of him.'

‘What about in the house?'

‘There's staff. We couldn't get near it.'

‘Here's what you're going to do,' said Burcher. ‘You're going to send people back to Litchfield, to find some way in. You're going to find out everything I need to know about this Carver guy. Use a legitimate private detective agency in the city. And you're going to find out how much the woman, Janice Snow, knows. All that very straight and very clear?'

‘I don't enjoy disrespect, Mr Burcher,' said Delioci.

‘I mean no disrespect to you,' said the lawyer. ‘I was told very specifically to pass on the feelings of those to whom we are all answerable and most specifically of all to ensure that everybody understood there are to be no more mistakes.'

‘I think you have done that,' said the old man.

‘Then it's been a good meeting,' said Burcher. How much more, to his personal benefit, could he manipulate it? He wondered.

Six

J
ohn Carver thought he'd prepared himself for what he had to do but he hadn't. He gasped, aloud, and felt his legs begin to go at the sight of George Northcote's body on the gurney. He instinctively snatched out for the table upon which the body actually lay, pulling further aside even more of the covering sheet and seeing more awfulness and when he tried to speak he couldn't. What he tried to say came out as an unintelligible hiss. He finally managed: ‘Oh dear God,' his voice still a dry whisper.

He felt Al Hibbert's supportive hand at his elbow. The sheriff said: ‘Easy, John. Take it easy.'

‘I'm OK,' croaked Carver, his voice better but only just. Stronger still he said: ‘What the hell happened to him? It's like … it's like he's been flayed …'

Northcote's face was practically non-existent and there was virtually no skin and most of the lion's mane had been torn off, scalping the man. There seemed to be no skin either on much of Northcote's chest, from which Carver had tugged the sheet. It was flat, not a body shape at all, and there was a lot of bone and grey, slimed viscera.

‘The mower got him first, then the tractor,' said Hibbert.

‘No,' refused Carver. ‘It isn't possible. I saw the rig. The mower blades were covered, shielded against just such an accident. If he fell backwards he wouldn't have been cut … skinned like that. He'd have maybe broken an arm or a leg on the protective covering but that's all. And going backwards would have taken him
away
from the tractor, when it tipped over, not underneath it …'

‘That's what Pete and I thought at first,' said Hibbert, nodding to Simpson on the other side of the slab. ‘We stayed up there past midnight last night: got engineers in. Here's how we worked it out. George goes too close to the dip, throwing the tractor sideways. The force of it going tips the mowing rig, which runs on its own motor. When George hits it, it's upside down, the blades going full belt. Does that to him. The mower is wider than the tractor that's pulling it. For a moment or two – God knows how long – it prevents the tractor going right over but swings it back towards where George has been tossed …'

‘He would have most likely been dead by then … unconscious, certainly,' broke in Simpson. Belatedly the medical examiner put the sheet back over the corpse. ‘This is an odd one, sure. But I get a dozen accidents like this every year, guys driving operating – machinery they're not used to … something goes wrong … bang, they're dead …'

‘The tractor is heavier than the rig, finally makes it give way … we've got photographs of how it bent, when it finally wasn't able to stop it going right over,' picked up Hibbert. ‘And when it goes, there's George right under the whole fucking thing.'

The perfect murder, thought Carver: the absolute, totally unprovable, perfect murder. Once you're in, there's only one way out. Out like George, in front of him although covered again by an inadequate sheet. Skinned alive. Not actually alive. Skinned by being thrust in and out of the mower blades to an agonizingly slow death. Would he have told them: given them what they wanted? He would have screamed. Been demented. Carver went to Simpson. ‘Charlie Jamieson examined him, day before yesterday. Says his blood pressure was so high he could have had a heart attack.'

‘Charlie called me, at breakfast,' said Simpson. ‘George's readings were at record-book levels.'

Carver was sure he was snatching at straws but would have been glad of one no matter how slender. ‘Could he have had a stroke, because of it? Could that have been the reason he went too close to the dip and turned over?'

Both men – the sheriff and the examiner – looked emptily back at Carver. Hibbert said: ‘I'm sorry, John. I just can't quite get your point …'

It was a point he couldn't make, Carver realized. He felt physically encased, as if his ribcage was being crushed by his impotence like that of the man lying, flat-chested, on the metal table in front of him. ‘George knew his land: knew where he couldn't take his rig. Knew how to handle it, too. There must have been a reason for his going too close this time.' Why was he saying this? In front of a law officer! What self-justification was he trying to make, to absolve himself from the self-recrimination of not having tried to have George Northcote's death properly investigated? Which he well knew couldn't be properly investigated.

‘It happened
because
he knew his land so well,' said Hibbert. ‘He wasn't thinking, wasn't taking enough care
because
he'd done it a hundred times before. All it needed was inches to make the mistake he made. The engineers we had up there last night are professionals. I'll show you the photographs: the way they're sure it happened.'

The way it had been intended to be worked out, thought Carver. ‘There going to be an inquest?'

‘Into what, John?' demanded Hibbert. ‘There's nothing officially to inquire into.'

Carver felt the impotent straight-jacketed constriction again. ‘I can go ahead with the funeral arrangements then?'

‘As and when you wish,' assured Hibbert, as if he were giving away a raffle prize. ‘It's gotta be a shock, John. Hang in there.'

Carver's feeling now was of burning irritation at the filedaway clichés. ‘That's what I'll do, Al: hang in there.' Hang in where, with whom?

Hibbert said: ‘I'm sorry but I officially need to hear the words. Is the body you've just seen that of George Northcote?'

Of course it was! But then again it wasn't: wasn't the bull-shouldered – most certainly not the bull-chested – lion's-maned founder of the best known, most prestigious accountancy firm on Wall Street. ‘That's the body of George Northcote.'

Hibbert said: ‘I hate this. Of all the things I have officially to do, I hate this the most.'

‘Me too,' said Simpson.

‘I'm sorry to have put you through it,' apologized Hibbert. ‘I tried to indicate last night …'

‘I know,' stopped Carver. ‘It's OK.'

‘We lost a good man here,' said Simpson. ‘The best.'

‘That's what he was,' Hibbert hurried on. ‘The best. We're sure as hell glad you and Jane are still here in the community, to carry on.'

Carry on what? wondered Carver. Near to cliché himself, he said: ‘We're still here.'

‘How is Jane?' asked Simpson. ‘Charlie told me there was pretty heavy shock.'

‘She was still sedated when I left,' said Carver. ‘Charlie's with her but I need to get back. Is there anything else?'

‘We're through,' declared Hibbert.

Simpson said: ‘I'll tell my guys to expect a call from your funeral directors.'

‘It'll come sometime today,' promised Carver. An even-voiced, calm, conversational exchange, he thought. We're talking about a murder, you fucking idiots! A murder committed by people professional enough to be able to skin a man alive but make it appear to these boondock boneheads a typical country mishap.
I get a dozen accidents like this every
year
. Just another one of those accident stories, to go into the Litchfield folklore.

‘Anything I can do to help, John, you just call. That's all it needs, a call.'

‘I appreciate that.'

‘I mean it.'

‘I know you do.'

The sheriff and the medical examiner both solicitously escorted Carver from the building and stood together as he drove away. Simpson said: ‘That guy's suffering shock, just like his wife. Worse, maybe. His is delayed. It'll properly hit him in a couple of days.'

‘I must admit I've never seen anyone quite so badly hurt as George from falling into mower blades,' said Hibbert.

Simpson shook his head, a patronizing you-don't-know gesture. ‘Happens all the time.'

Carver drove home by the longer, round-about route that took him by the bottom of the lake, a way they rarely used, intent upon landmarks when he approached Northcote's estate and grunting with empty satisfaction when he identified what he was looking for. The hollow into which George Northcote had been tipped was invisible from the house but it was very much in view from this rarely used back road. In view and easily reached through the simple pale fencing. And from where he was standing the mow-line was distinctly marked, going from this boundary up the incline but stopping at the hollow into which it had tipped. Carver remembered quite clearly that when he'd been there the previous evening all the talk – all the indications – had been that the rig had come in the opposite direction, down the incline.

From the moment of entering financial journalism through a fluke of shall-I-shan't-I timing, Alice Belling had recognized that the World Wide Web was the trampoline upon which to bounce anywhere she chose through cyberspace.

And had become a far more expert and adept surfer than any on Wakiki beach. There were few firewalls she could not electronically scale or burrow beneath or systems she couldn't hack into. She justified the intrusion to her own satisfaction by only ever using what she discovered to expose financial wrongdoings, never valid business manoeuvrings. It was an operating integrity with which she had no difficulty and would have been uninterested in that of others had others known, which none did, not even John Carver, from whom she had no other secrets.

Normally she roamed the world and its Web from the comfort and convenience of her SoHo apartment on Princes Street. Today, persuaded by what Carver told her, she decided against working from home, even though she always avoided the possibility of inadvertently leaving her own electronic fingerprint on any detection equipment or device with which she was unfamiliar by never going direct into a target system but always hacking first into an unsuspecting intermediary business or organization to make her penetration via their site.