Connections (32 page)

“Fleur,” Ben said, “what's all this about?”

“It's a long story,” she told him. “I'll tell you about it.” She noticed this promise did not please the others.

Ben stood up. “It's been nice but we must get back. We've got a bottle to drink and Fleur has a script to read. Come on, darling.” In this way he stated his claim to her. She thought this was more an automatic gesture rather than any suspicion that she and Dominic had been involved. Seeing no way of not going along with this alpha male demonstration she stood up. Joe stared at her enigmatically.

Dominic smiled. “Enjoy your wine,” he said.

“We've got a lot of news to catch up on,” Ben told him.

Crossing the road, Ben took her arm, a gesture which would have been visible from the pub. She concluded Ben had probably lost the encounter with Dominic on points. He'd been obviously aggressive, ready to lose his cool. Dominic hadn't, which probably gave him the advantage. So, who's counting? she asked
herself impatiently. Dominic and Ben are, she answered. At bottom she knew Dominic had spotted her ambivalence about Ben and enjoyed it.

Inside the flat Ben looked round. “Couldn't you have found something better than this, Fleur?”

It was as if he'd spent every minute since they'd met studying how to jar her. Was it deliberate? she wondered. It certainly felt like it. But how on earth did he expect them to get on together if all he did was upset her in small ways? “I didn't have a lot of money after the bank took the flat,” she said. “I wouldn't have had this if Jess hadn't gone to Gerry Sullivan. He offered to fight them on the grounds that I was not individually financially advised when I signed the papers. They cut me a deal rather than have a fight in court. Which actually I couldn't have afforded. So that was how I got the deposit.”

She was opening the wine when he put his arms round her. “It must have been awful for you,” he said. “I suppose that means this place was bought out of company funds. It belongs to both of us.”

Fleur pulled away. He might be right. She pulled herself together. Calm down, she told herself. Enjoy it. Play a game. Count how many times Ben can upset you over the next hour.

She went into the kitchen and found the corkscrew, started to open the bottle. He took it from her. “You've got very independent in your old age.”

“Let's go in the other room,” said Fleur. She put her glass and the bottle of wine on a tray and left the kitchen.

“Yes, let's go back into the salon,” Ben said gloomily, following her.

He looked around again, said, “Yes,” loudly in a tone of gloomy satisfaction and threw himself into a chair.

“It's not a palace but it's a roof over our heads,” she said, conceding, she knew, that he was going to share the flat with her. She was embarking on a routine she had once taken for granted, the steps towards calming Ben down. There were other things she should be saying. “We're together now. I'm sure your script is brilliant. There's bound to be work for you here – you're
so talented.” His role would be to counter with scepticism, depression, soul-weariness and contempt for her as a kind of Pollyanna until gradually, as with the process of rocking a fretful baby to sleep, he would feel soothed and, finally, content. Had he always been so difficult, she wondered? Not really, she answered herself. He felt at a disadvantage, weak, worried about his future.

“It's a pity you can't take some of your father's money,” he said. “To get you a decent place is a decent area. I suppose you're paying a mortgage on this.”

It had been their flat five minutes ago. Now it was her mortgage. She replied, “At the moment Grace and Robin are paying it. But the new job will take care of that.”

“That'd be money from your father as well,” he said.

“Maybe. I didn't know that when I borrowed it.”

“So what's the difference?” he persisted.

“Ben – I don't want to spend too long talking about my father's money.” An instinct warned her not to tell him the story of how her father might have thrown a beaten-up Vanessa in the street. She only said, “I haven't been in touch with the Jethros since I left Barbados and they haven't contacted me. I've blotted my copybook for good. And I don't really care.”

“There's such a thing as an apology, offered and received. Why don't you just say sorry? He just wants to help you. He's not after your immortal soul. Can't you give a bit?”

“I saw enough in Barbados to know it doesn't work like that. That help turns into debt, which you have to pay back in different ways, ways you didn't expect. There's no such thing as a free lunch, Ben.”

“That's just where you're wrong, Fleur. There is such a thing as a free lunch. Jesus God – the man's your father.”

“What does that mean? Robin's my father, Ben, not Dickie Jethro. Dickie's the man who slept with my mother, a long time ago. He couldn't handle the consequences, went away and sent money.”

“It looks as if that's all Grace let him do.”

“He could have found me later. That's not the point, Ben. I
just don't care. I can't be made to care. How many people of our age worry about their parents? If you're sitting around in your twenties and thirties fretting about your parents either you're a very sad person or there's something wrong, or both.” She sighed. “It's been a long day.”

“It's been a long day for me, too.”

“I know.”

He put on the television and started channel-hopping. “I'll just try and get a view. I've been gone a long time.”

“Yes. Do you mind if I go to bed? I'm knackered.”

“Whatever,” he said.

Fleur went wearily into the bedroom and got ready for bed. Ben appeared in the bedroom door, holding his script. “Give it a quick read,” he suggested.

She took it, went to bed and lay down to read. She was surprised that Ben, a documentary producer, had elected to write a film script, even more surprised by the theme. It was the story of Ben's own father, who, as a young man from a small Yorkshire mining community, had found himself in post-war Berlin as part of the occupying army. He'd fallen in love with a German girl; they'd parted. Later, Ben's father had gone on to university on an ex-soldier's grant and qualified as an engineer. He had never forgotten this early love affair. The script told the tale of a young man from a small village experiencing war, finding himself in a ruined city, suddenly in love with a bewildered, starving German girl. It was quite good. She just wondered if anyone, anywhere, would ever be persuaded to film it. But, she told herself, stranger things had happened.

The television went off and Ben appeared in the doorway, “So?” he questioned.

“It's very good – very touching. I'm impressed,” she said. “I'm going to show it to Jess.”

“Oh – Jess,” he said. “Well, that's that, then. Forget it. She'll hate it on principle.”

“No she won't. In any case, I have to show it to her. She's my boss.”

“So you've got no power at all?”

“I don't know. We've got a meeting on Monday to sort it all out. But basically Debs Smith is still in charge, Jess is her deputy and a woman called Jane Ray and I come next in the pecking order.”

“All girls together. That's me buggered then.” he said. “Especially with Jess in charge.”

“Don't be so gloomy,” she told him.

He started taking off his clothes. “You liked it then?”

“Oh yes, very much,” she said weakly.

He got into bed and they spent the night not talking, not touching. Ben slept deeply, but Fleur's own sleep was light and uneasy, broken by fragmentary dreams of Dickie Jethro sitting on the terrace in Barbados, of the computer course, into which, in the dream, Dominic's dog Jason suddenly ran, of the playing field at her school where she stood in goal with her hockey stick, ball after ball getting by her into the back of the net.

Ben was still asleep when Fleur got up next morning, still grimly determined to get to and finish her course, though every day's incidents seemed to conspire to reduce its importance to her. Anyway, she thought, it might be best to disappear and let Ben find his feet while she was gone. He was embittered by the collapse of the business and the rebuffs he'd obviously experienced in the USA. Now, she thought, she'd have to ask Jess for an advance on her salary, otherwise they wouldn't even be able to eat.

She was opening her front door when Dominic appeared with Jason, who was now spending his days with the Simmonses next door. They'd grown very fond of Jason, who had almost reconciled them to his owner. Mrs Simmons said he was a godsend because he got her husband out of the house to take exercise.

Dominic gave her both a broad smile and a penetrating look at the same time. What he saw seemed to delight him. “I'm late,” he said. “Got to run. What time will you be back tonight?”

“Probably around seven,” she said.

“See you then?”

She nodded and went off down the steps. What had made him so bloody cheerful, she thought, considering she'd gone off last
night with Ben, who'd just moved in with her? Then she got it – he could see from her face she and Ben had had a rotten evening, and that if they'd had sex at all it hadn't been any good. He wasn't doing anything about Ben's arrival, not giving any signals, not talking to her about it, not trying to get at Ben. He was just watching and waiting, Fleur decided furiously. How cool you are, Dominic Floyd. How cool.

The heating had failed at the college and she only had a drink and a bun for lunch because she was so broke. She tried her own phone but no one answered, so she left a message for Ben.

Dominic phoned her at Camera Shake that evening and said, “As it's Friday evening let's meet. I'll buy you a meal.” She agreed.

“He's getting half civilised,” Jess observed when Fleur told her. “Oh – I've got the pictures of that Russian. Adrian was looking through them last night. They know there's a story there. They're trying to find it. You can take them with you.”

A storm's coming up here, cap'n. At dusk the old bloke with the Labrador had to retreat, clutching his cap to his head. His dog was nearly blown off its legs.

This is the part where everyone gets desperate, including me. We're getting to the end of January now, the weather horrible, cold, sleety, rainy, spring not far off but who by then could believe it would really come?

When I walked into the office one day Veronica gave me a very funny look and announced that my old friend Mr Robinson was here to see me again. She said, “He was very insistent,” which meant he seemed like serious business.

I went into the office and there was mild Mr Robinson sitting on my couch reading an arms magazine. He looked up.

“
Mr Robinson,” I said. “An unexpected visit.
”

“
I do apologise,” he said. “It was a matter of some urgency, so I thought I'd just drop by and see if you were free.
”

“
It must be a month since we met,” said I. “That was over two young men, Floyd and
—”

“
Carter,” he supplied. “Joseph Carter.” He looked me straight in the eye. I could see why Veronica had let him in. He looked rich, he looked sensible and he looked as if he had a problem.

“
I'd like to talk to you,” he said. “But perhaps elsewhere?” He meant he didn't want to be recorded in my office, which he would have been – though I always deny it to the clients, who sometimes believe me.

I agreed and we went to a nearby pub and had a pint I don't think either of us wanted.

“
It's more necessary now to ease Floyd and Carter out of the
way,” he told me. “If you can do it, I'm prepared to increase the offer to a quarter of a million.
”

Which would take my pay to £250,000 for what would amount to no more than a week's work observing, planning, and finally eliminating the unlucky duo. The only reason for offering this large sum for the job was that Robinson needed to keep this business a secret for ever and ever, not have it traded off later by the perpetrator under other crimes to be taken into consideration, as a bargaining counter in getting a reduced sentence. He needed a man with a sterling record in keeping his mouth shut. I hoped they hadn't indicated to him that they had me over a barrel regarding the Irish Farm business.

Well, I was tempted. Who wouldn't have been? First by the money, second by fear of the above. If I displeased Robinson, who was to say his friends in high places wouldn't open the file on me?

It was obvious Robinson didn't intend to tell me anything about the subjects or what the business was all about. He just wanted someone nominated by other members of the club to eliminate two citizens without asking any questions.

I drank half my pint in one swallow, taking time to think. Jethro's daughter was somehow involved. Robinson might be working for Jethro. He fitted the profile of a banker: a restrained, careful, rational man who got on with the job. Not the vivid Jethro, hauling himself up by his boot straps, making deals here and there, but someone who might very easily be an associate of his. Trusty lieutenant, useful sidekick. And it figured, I realised, because Jethro was the bee's knees as far as this administration was concerned – man of the people, entrepreneurial, making a profit for the state. Jethro was in and out of Number Ten Downing Street so regularly he would be able to command the Pughs and Protheros of this world the way you or I buy a bus ticket.

But I sensed Robinson was not happy about our meeting. He was in an exposed position. Careful Mr Robinson was doing something that had to be done in a hurry and not carefully enough. Which meant there was some kind of a rush on, a crisis. This was exactly the impression I'd got from Prothero.