Requiem (64 page)

She wrinkled her nose. ‘Corporate moguls, I’m afraid.
Seriously
boring. But what can you do? Some of them are very generous.’

‘We know the sort,’ David said drily, raising his eyebrows at Nick.

Nick smiled. ‘They say they can’t stand pop music. They say they only came because their kids made them, then admit they quite liked the show. They say it took them back to their youth.’

She laughed again, but her eyes remained on his, watching for his answer.

He made up his mind, though he knew he’d probably regret it. ‘I’ll come for half an hour,’ he said.

David shot him a well-don’t-blame-me look. Susan bowed her head and said simply: ‘Thank you.’ Her voice, soft and low, had a slight tremble to it, and she closed her eyes for an instant, as though saying a little prayer of thanks.

Before today, warmth was not a word he’d have associated with Susan Driscoll – brittle would have been nearer the mark – but he was rapidly opening his mind to the possibility that he had misjudged her.

Putting her salad aside, she began to talk about the old days which she seemed to remember with some fondness. But it didn’t take her long to sense his lack of interest. ‘So tell me,’ she said, shifting onto safer ground, ‘where are you based nowadays?’

‘Kensington. I’ve just bought a house.’

‘Oh? You’ve given up the country life then?’

‘Kensington’s quite leafy.’

She gave a soft laugh. ‘But not many cows.’

‘Not that I’ve noticed.’

‘But then London has its compensations, doesn’t it?’ she ploughed on. ‘Theatre and concerts and things. I adore London, but it might as well be Siberia for all I get to see of it nowadays.’

There was a small silence.

‘Don’t you get entertained a lot?’ he managed.

‘Oh, official entertaining, yes – dreary receptions, the occasional opera if one’s lucky. But theatre, dinner parties with friends …’ She shook her head and a slight frown furrowed the smooth line of her forehead. ‘I thought I was in for a quiet life but, well – ’ She seemed to become aware of David who, having finished his pasta, was half listening to the conversation. She broke off with a brave little laugh. ‘Let’s just say things don’t always work out the way you expect them to.’

What’s this? Nick wondered. Are you trying to tell me that under all this brightness you’re unhappy? Since Alusha’s death even the most casual of his friends had unburdened their troubles on him as if, having marked him as a fellow sufferer, they felt confident of a sympathetic response. Was the whole world suddenly unhappy, he wondered, or in his years with Alusha had he simply been too wrapped up in his own life to notice?

Aware that the conversation had faltered, he murmured: ‘The Ministry of Agriculture, isn’t it? Lots of farmers, I suppose.’

She rolled her eyes heavenward. ‘Worse.’ Her voice was heavy with ridicule. ‘Factory openings. Beef federations. Milk marketing boards. Agrochemical giants.’ Her mouth twitched with amusement, on the point, he guessed, of doing a sharp demolition job on the agrochemical industry, until the amusement drained out of her face, as if she had remembered something serious. He had a feeling he knew what that something was.

‘Your wife— Did they ever find out … ?’ she began cautiously. ‘It was a chemical, wasn’t it?’

David emerged from a mouthful of veal in cream sauce, looked nervously at Nick and took refuge in a hasty wave at the wine waiter.

‘Well, no one’s exactly sure,’ Nick answered quietly.

‘But … there was a suggestion, wasn’t there?’

‘It doesn’t really matter now.’

‘No …’ she said uncertainly. ‘I suppose not.’

No one spoke for a moment. The restaurant seemed very noisy.

‘But you know, if you’d wanted any help … access to information …’ She paused, her fingers lacing an intricate pattern under her chin, her eyes steady and clear. ‘I’d have done all I could. Anything …’ The word hung in the air.

‘Thanks,’ he answered simply. He caught David looking impressed at the calmness of his response.

Susan eased the conversation effortlessly away onto food, recounting some disaster she’d had with an unknown fish in a foreign restaurant. She was good at smoothing things over, Nick noticed, something she’d probably learned in her years as a politician’s wife. As he listened he realized she never mentioned her husband, either directly or indirectly. Was this intentional, he wondered, or a reflection of the discontent she’d already hinted at?

She told her tale entertainingly, with wide graceful gestures and frequent explosive laughter. His mood lifted. Against all the odds, he was enjoying himself, which just went to prove that you could never tell what might come out of even the most unpromising situation.

Yet was it really so unexpected? In the last year he’d been so careful to avoid new people and unfamiliar situations, so in dread of the effort they demanded, that he’d forgotten how refreshing a new face could be. Old friends, fond as they were, couldn’t help humping the luggage of the past around with them. Susan represented the best of both worlds, he realized, an old friend with the virtues of the new.

There was something else about her too, an energy, an obvious and unquestioning appetite for life that in his present mood was rather beguiling. She was like a sun, sending out light and vitality in every direction. Her brilliance was a little remorseless perhaps, but with no dark shadows attached.

Catching his eye, she accused: ‘You’re laughing at me.’

‘Not at all.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t be surprised,’ she declared, looking rather pleased at the idea. He noticed her skin which was the colour of pale honey as if she’d been abroad a lot but had taken care to keep out of the sun.

David called for the bill.

‘Already? And we’ve hardly talked about the concert!’ Susan gasped in mock horror. ‘Aren’t there lots of things we should discuss?’ she asked, striking a serious pose. ‘Things you’ll need on the day? Or anything you
don’t
need? Mr Weinberg and I’ – she indicated David with a slight movement of a long finger – ‘we’ve covered security and transport. But what about home comforts – champagne, food, that sort of thing? I’ve looked backstage – it’s a bit of a tip, but I can do something with the dressing rooms, jolly them up, you know.’

‘It’s really not necessary.’

‘But it’s no trouble. It’s my living, after all.’

It was a cue. He took it. ‘Oh?’

‘I’m an interior designer.’ She gave a jaunty little bow. ‘Newly established but trying hard. All reasonable commissions considered’ – she lowered her voice confidentially – ‘which means I’ll take on anything to get established.’

‘You find the time?’

‘Oh, I find it.’ There was a note of determination in her voice. ‘It’ll be easier when I get a few big commissions, of course. Less rushing about. And I’ll have our new place to practise on. We’re moving closer to the Commons.’

She paused, then, with a spark of calculation she could only have intended him to see, her eyes brimming with amusement she asked: ‘I don’t suppose your new house needs doing up, does it?’

He played along. ‘I hadn’t noticed.’

‘Let me show you some ideas,’ she said instantly, her face alight. ‘And if you hate them – well …’ She raised her shoulders to suggest this was unlikely. ‘If you like them – then we can take it from there.’ She spread her hands like a showman.

Out of the corner of his eye Nick caught David giving him a stare which, if he’d chosen to look, was probably loaded with caution. Maybe in reaction to that, maybe because he’d taken a sudden liking to the idea of change, maybe because Susan had made him laugh, he heard himself agree.

She gave a small exclamation of pleasure. ‘I’ll need just two things to get started,’ she declared breathlessly. ‘One’s your address, of course.’

He put his hand out to David for a pen. ‘And?’

‘Some idea of the style you’re looking for. Traditional, minimalist, neutral … you know.’

An image of Ashard flittered into his mind, the cavernous drawing room, muted and cool, the cosy library with its crackling fire and wood shelves, the bedroom overlooking the park, heavy with silks and soft brocades. ‘I don’t know,’ he said.

She brushed the idea aside with a light twist of her wrist as if it had hardly been worth considering in the first place. ‘Fine,’ she said, ‘absolutely
fine
. We can do it from another angle altogether. Just wander round the house, and you tell me what you
don’t
like about the present decor. That’ll tell me almost everything I need to know.’ She broke off. ‘How does that sound? Am I rushing things? Do you want to think it over?’ She widened her eyes, giving him a look of apprehension that wasn’t entirely convincing.

‘No, that’s fine.’

She grinned at him and, pulling a pocket diary out of her bag, opened it at a back page and pushed it towards him. He wrote down his address and phone number.

‘Now tell me,’ she said, ‘when would you like me to come round?’

He shrugged.

She laughed, shaking her head as if he was a child whose little foibles were to be indulged as well as enjoyed. ‘Well, what about tomorrow? Teatime? I love tea. I’ll bring sticky buns.’

He didn’t like sticky buns. He didn’t like tea much either. He heard himself say: ‘That’d be great.’

When he’d finished shaving, Schenker scrubbed a brisk flannel over his upper body, patted himself dry, applied fresh deodorant and put on a clean shirt laundered by Jeeves of Belgravia. He had a sudden doubt about the shirt. Blue medium-width stripe on white – too City-ish? And the style, with its deep collar – too Stock Exchange? Too assertive? Maybe. But did it matter? The days when he stood in fear and trembling of the group board were over. Half of them had come up the hard way, like him, and were unlikely to begrudge him a touch of style, while the others, Establishment to the core, wore shirts with stripes visible at fifty yards. Anyway, with what he had to tell them today, they wouldn’t be looking at his shirt.

Passing out of his private bathroom into his office, he found his secretary standing expectantly by his desk.

‘Hope it goes well,’ she said.

‘Thank you. It will.’

She slid soundlessly away and, sitting at his desk, Schenker went over his notes for perhaps the tenth time. The message would be best delivered briefly and low-key, underplayed to the point of understatement. He would merely say that, as of ten o’clock that morning, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food had decided to grant Silveron a licence for general use in the United Kingdom.

The board would show their delight. Then, after a decent interval, they would express a wish for the situation in the US to be resolved as satisfactorily, which would be their way of asking how things were going over there. He would assure them it was progressing, if slowly. He would remind them that the number of new products being granted licences in the US had dropped dramatically in recent years, that product-development times had never been longer, that, product for product, Morton-Kreiger was getting more new lines onto the market than any of their competitors.

No one would could argue with that. No one could say he wasn’t on top of the job.

Someone would ask about the Aurora scare, but he would be able to reassure them on that too. All blown over, all illnesses accounted for, no new cases. Merely a storm blown up by the environmental activists.

Twenty minutes to go. In his anxiety to prepare himself properly, he had left too much time. He buzzed for Cramm.

Cramm was even quieter on his feet than Schenker’s secretary, and it was a second before Schenker realized he had entered the room.

He waved him to a chair. ‘I think I’ll probably go to New York for the weekend,’ he announced. ‘Take tomorrow’s Concorde. See friends on Long Island.’ This wasn’t quite true. The friends he was going to see – the senior vice president of a giant cola company and his wife – actually lived in Connecticut and weren’t so much friends as new acquaintances. But Schenker, who’d been watching with growing interest some of the recent and highly dramatic cross-industry career moves of his contemporaries, wasn’t about to tell anyone this, particularly Cramm.

‘We’ll meet in Chicago on Monday,’ he said. ‘So – is there anything before then?’

Unusually for him, Cramm didn’t answer immediately.

Schenker gestured impatiently. ‘Well?’

‘It can wait,’ Cramm said, but his eyes told a different story. They told Schenker it was something he wasn’t going to like.

‘I’ll hear it now,’ he said.

Cramm stared at him impassively. ‘Perhaps we’d better speak outside.’

Schenker made a sound of irritation, already resenting the intrusion into his triumphal day. ‘Is this really necessary?’ But without waiting for an answer, he jumped to his feet and led the way through the adjoining conference room and out onto the terrace.

‘Well?’ he said tartly when Cramm had circled round to face him.

‘Catch, they’re setting up an operation – a whole lab – to run independent tests on Silveron.’

Schenker glared at him while he made up his mind how to react to this. ‘So?’ he said finally. ‘They’re going to spend a lot of money for nothing, aren’t they? Might be a useful experience for them.’

‘So you don’t want us to do anything?’

‘I don’t know – keep an eye on it. Do what you think.’ He waved a dismissive hand. ‘Whatever. Is that all?’ he added impatiently.

‘It’s the Kershaw woman. She’s causing a bit of trouble.’

Schenker took a sharp breath of anger. He didn’t want to hear about this, not now, not ever. ‘What do you mean –
trouble
?’

‘She wants more money.’

‘What the hell
for
?’

‘Distress and suffering.’

‘
Distress and suffering?
She has to be joking.’

‘Oh no, she’s deadly serious.’

‘But she’s already been dealt with!’ He glared into Cramm’s impervious features. ‘Hasn’t she?’

‘To the tune of fifteen thousand.’

‘Jees-us,’ Schenker hissed. He added: ‘Remind me – where did that come from?’

‘The Iraqi development budget.’

Schenker blinked. How Cramm managed these things he was never quite sure. ‘So what’s she after now, for God’s sake?’