In the Presence of the Enemy

  “To eat? How on earth is that possible? Don’t you notice that you’re hungry?”

  “One does forget, Helen.”

  “Hmph. Not I.”

  “How well I know.” His toast popped up. He speared it with a fork and lathered it with Marmite. Leaning against the work top, he munched for a moment, after which he said with some apparent surprise, “Good Lord, this is awful. I can’t believe I ate so much of it at Oxford.”

  “The taste buds are different when you’re twenty years old. If you had a cheap enough bottle of plonk to drink, you’d find yourself transported back to your youth.” She unfolded her letter.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  She read a few lines and recited the facts for him. “How many calves have been born on the ranch so far this year. Great joy at having survived another Montana winter. Jonathon’s school marks are not what they should be and do I think he ought to be sent to England to boarding school? (Definitely not.) Mummy’s visit was a great success only because Daphne was there to keep them from leaping at each other’s throats. When am I coming for a visit? I may invite you as well, it seems, now that things—as she puts it—are official. And when is the wedding because she needs to diet for at least three months in order to be fit to be seen in public.” Helen folded the letter and crammed it back into its envelope. She edited out her sister’s extended rhapsody on Helen’s engagement to Thomas Lynley, eighth Earl of Asherton, with its heavily underlined at last at last at last, its dozen exclamation points, and its ribald speculations on what life was going to be like in the future with, as Iris put it, a Lynley on the lead. “That’s it.”

  “I meant,” Tommy said past the toast, “tonight. What’s up?”

  “Tonight?” Helen aimed for insouciance, but only managed something that sounded to her like an uneasy truce between inanity and guilt. Tommy’s face altered marginally. She tried to assure herself that he looked more confused than suspicious.

  “Rather late hours at work,” he pointed out. But his brown eyes were watchful.

  To escape their scrutiny, Helen went for the kettle and spent a moment filling it and plugging in its flex. She plopped it down and rubbed her hand against the water that sloshed from the spout. She fetched the tea tin from the cupboard and spooned tea into a porcelain pot.

  “Ghastly day,” she said as she spooned. “Tool marks on metal. I was gazing through microscopes till I thought I’d go blind. But you know Simon. Why stop at eight in the evening when there are four more hours to be worked through before one collapses from exhaustion? At least I managed to squeeze two meals out of him, but that’s only because Deborah was at home. He’s as bad as you are when it comes to eating. What’s wrong with the men in my life? Why do they have such an aversion to food?”

  She could feel Tommy studying her as she tapped the lid onto the tea tin and returned it to its cupboard. She hooked two cups onto two fingers, placed them on saucers, and pulled two spoons from a drawer.

  “Deborah’s taken some wonderful portraits,” she told him. “I meant to bring one along to show you, but I forgot. No matter. I’ll get one from her tomorrow.”

  “Working again tomorrow?”

  “We’ve hours and hours left, I’m afraid. Days, probably. Why? Had you something planned?”

  “Cornwall, I thought, when this Fleming business is taken care of.”

  Her heart lightened at the prospect of Cornwall, the sun, the wind off the sea, and Tommy’s company when his mind wasn’t taken up with his work. “That sounds lovely, darling.”

  “Can you get away?”

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow evening. Perhaps the day after.”

  Helen didn’t see how. At the same time, she didn’t see how she could tell Tommy that she didn’t see how. Her work for Simon was sporadic at best, and even when he had deadlines fast approaching or testimony coming up in court or a lecture to be given in the immediate future or a course to prepare for the university, Simon was the most tractable of employers—if he even could be called her employer—when it came to Helen’s presence in his lab. They had fallen into the casual habit of working together over the past few years. It had never been a formal arrangement. So she could hardly claim to Tommy that Simon might protest if she wanted to go to Cornwall for a few days. He wouldn’t protest at all under normal circumstances, and Tommy knew that quite well.

  Of course, these weren’t normal circumstances. Because under normal circumstances she wouldn’t be standing in her kitchen wishing the water in the kettle would boil so that she would have another distraction that would keep her from having to manufacture a variation on the truth that was not an outright lie. Because she hated the thought of lying to Tommy. Because she knew that he would know she was lying and he would wonder why. Because she had a past that was nearly as colourful as his own, and when lovers begin prevaricating—lovers possessed of tangled pasts that unfortunately happen to exclude each other—there is usually a reason from one of their pasts that has slithered unexpectedly into both of their presents. Wasn’t that the case? And isn’t that just what Tommy would think?

  Lord, Helen thought. Her head was spinning. Would the water never boil?

  “I’d need half a day to go over the estate books once we got there,” Tommy was saying, “but after that the time would be ours. And you could use that half day with Mother, couldn’t you?”

  She could. Of course she could. She hadn’t yet seen Lady Asherton since—as Iris would have put it—“things” had finally become official with Tommy. They’d spoken on the phone. They had both agreed that there was much to discuss about the future. Here was an opportunity to do so. Except that she couldn’t get away. Certainly not tomorrow, and with all probability, not the day after that either.

  Now was the moment to tell Tommy the truth: There’s just a little something we’re investigating, darling, Simon and I. What, you ask? Nothing really. So inconsequential. Nothing to trouble yourself over. Truly.

  Another lie. A lie on a lie. A terrible muddle.

  Helen looked hopefully at the kettle. As if in answer to her prayers, it began to steam. It switched itself off, and she dashed to attend to it.

  Tommy was saying, “…and they’re apparently set to descend on Cornwall as soon as possible to celebrate. I think that’s Aunt Augusta’s idea. Anything for a party.”

  Helen said, “Aunt Augusta? What are you talking about, Tommy?” before she realised he’d been chatting away about their engagement while she’d been ruminating over how best to lie to him. She said, “I’m sorry, darling. I drifted off for a moment. I was thinking about your mother.” She poured water into the teapot, stirred it vigorously, and went to the refrigerator where she rooted round for the milk.

  Tommy said nothing as she assembled the teapot and everything else on a wooden tray. She picked up the tray, saying, “Let’s collapse in the drawing room, darling. I’m afraid I’ve run out of Lapsang Souchong. You’ll have to settle for Earl Grey instead,” to which he replied, “What’s going on, Helen?”

  She thought, Damn. She said, “Going on?”

  “Don’t,” he said. “I’m not a fool. Is there something on your mind?”

  She sighed and reached for a variation on the truth. “It’s nerves,” she said. “I’m sorry.” And thought, Don’t let him ask anything more. And to keep him from asking, “It’s the change between us. Finally having everything definite. Wondering if life is going to work out.”

  “Are you getting cold feet about marrying me?”

  “Cold, no.” She smiled at him. “I’m not getting cold feet at all. Although the poor things are miserably sore. I don’t know what I was thinking when I bought those shoes, Tommy. Forest green, the perfect match for this suit, and absolute agony. By two o’clock I had a fairly good idea what the bottom half of a crucifixion would feel like. Come along and rub them for me, will you? And tell me about your day.”

  He wasn’t buying. She could tell that by the way he was observi
ng her. He was favouring her with his detective inspector’s inspection, and she wouldn’t emerge unscathed from the scrutiny. She turned from it quickly and went to the drawing room. She poured the tea, saying, “Have you brought the Fleming case to a conclusion, then?” in reference to the investigation that had taken up so much of his time for the past several weeks.

  He was slow to join her, and when he did, he walked not to the sofa where she had his tea ready, but rather to a floor lamp, which he switched on, then to a table lamp next to the sofa, then to another next to a chair. He didn’t stop until every shadow had been eliminated.

  He came to join her, but he didn’t sit next to her. Rather, he chose a chair from which he could face her, from which—she knew—he could easily study her. This he did as she picked up her cup and took a sip of her tea.

  She knew he was going to insist upon the truth. He was going to say, What’s really going on, Helen, and please don’t lie to me any further because I can always tell when someone’s lying to me since I’ve years of exposure to liars of the highest calibre and I’d like to think that the woman I’m marrying isn’t one of them so if you don’t mind shall we clear the air right now because I’m having second thoughts about you and about us and until those second thoughts are banished I can’t see how we can move onwards together.

  But he said something quite different, hands clasped loosely between his knees, tea untouched, face grave, and voice…Did he really sound hesitant? “I know that I press in too close sometimes, Helen. My only excuse is that I always feel in a hurry about us. It’s as if I believe we don’t have nearly enough time and we need to get on with things now. Today. Tonight. Immediately. I’ve always felt that way when it comes to you.”

  She set her teacup on the table. “Press in…I don’t understand.”

  “I should have phoned to tell you I’d be here when you got home. I didn’t think to do it.” He shifted his gaze off hers and onto his hands. He seemed to aim for a lighter tone, saying, “Listen, darling, it’s quite all right if tonight you’d rather…” He raised his head. He drew in, then blew out a chestful of air. He said, “Hell,” then plunged on with, “Helen. Would you prefer to be alone tonight?”

  From her place on the sofa, she observed him, feeling herself going soft in a hundred different ways. The sensation was not unlike sinking into quicksand, and while her nature insisted that she do something to extricate herself, her heart informed her that she could not do so. She had long resisted the qualities in Tommy that had encouraged others to label him such an outstanding catch in the marriage game. She was generally impervious to his good looks. His wealth did not interest her. His passionate nature was sometimes trying. His ardour was flattering, but she had seen it directed at enough women in the past to have doubts about its reliability. While it was true that his intelligence was appealing, she had access to other men who were equally as quick, as clever, and as able as Tommy. But this…Helen did not possess the armour to combat it. Surrounded by a world of stiff upper lips, she was putty in the hands of a man’s vulnerability.

  She rose from the sofa. She went to him and knelt by his chair. She looked up into his face. “Alone,” she said quietly, “is the very last place that I want to be.”

  Light awakened her this time. It dazzled her eyes so much that Charlotte thought it was the Holy Trinity bestowing Grace upon her. She remembered the way that Sister Agnetis explained the Trinity during religious studies at St. Bernadette’s, drawing a triangle, labelling each corner The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit, and then using her special yellow-gold chalk to create giant sunbeams spurting out from the triangle’s sides. Only they weren’t supposed to be sunbeams, Sister Agnetis explained. They were supposed to be Grace. Grace was what you had to be in a perfect state of in order to get into heaven.

  Lottie blinked against the white incandescence. It had to be the Holy Trinity, she decided, because it floated and swung in the air just like God. And coming from it in the darkness, a voice spoke, just like God to Moses from the burning bush. “Here’s something. Eat.”

  The shining lowered. A hand extended. A tin bowl clattered next to Lottie’s head. Then the light itself sank down to her level and hissed like air spouting out of a tyre. The light made a clank against the floor. She shrank from its burning. She got far enough from it to make out that its fire wore a hat and was mounted on a stand. Lantern, she realised. Not the Trinity at all. Which must mean that she still wasn’t dead.

  A figure moved into the pool of radiance, black-garbed and distorted in her vision, like a carnival mirror. Lottie said through a very dry mouth, “Where’s my specs? I don’t have my specs. I must have my specs. I can’t see prop’ly without them.”

  He said, “You don’t need them in the dark.”

  “I’m not in the dark. You’ve brought a light. So you give me my specs. I want my specs. If you don’t give me my specs, I’ll tell. I will.”

  “You’ll get your specs back in due time.” A clink as he set something on the floor. Tall and tubular. Red. Thermos, Lottie thought. He uncapped it and poured liquid into the bowl. Fragrant. Hot. Lottie’s stomach growled.

  “Where’s my mum?” she demanded. “You said she was in a safe house. You said you were taking me to her. You said. But this isn’t a safe house. So where is she? Where is she?”

  “Quiet down,” he said.

  “I’ll yell if I want. Mummy! Mummy! Mum!” She began to get to her feet.

  A hand shot forward and clamped over her mouth, fingers digging like tiger claws into her cheeks. The hand yanked her across the floor. She fell to her knees and the rough edge of something that felt like a stone cut into her.

  “Mummy!” she shouted when the hand released her. “Mu—” The hand shut off her voice, doused her head in the soup. The soup was hot. It burned. She squeezed her eyes closed. She coughed. Her legs kicked. Her hands scrabbled against his arms.

  He said into her ear, “Are you quiet now, Lottie?”

  She nodded. He raised her up. Soup dripped from her face down the front of her school uniform. She coughed. She wiped her face against the arm of her cardigan.

  It was cold where he’d brought her, wherever it was. The wind was coming inside from somewhere, but when she peered about she found she couldn’t see beyond the circle of radiance provided by the lantern. Even of him she could see only a boot, a bent knee, and his hands. She shrank from these. They reached for the Thermos and poured more soup into the bowl.

  “No one’ll hear you if you shout.”

  “Then why’d you stop me?”

  “Because I don’t like little-girl noises.” He used his toe to push the bowl in her direction.

  “Got to go to the loo.”

  “After. Eat that.”

  “Is it poison?”

  “Right. I need you dead like I need a bullet in my foot. Eat.”

  She looked about. “I haven’t got a spoon.”

  “You didn’t need a spoon a moment ago, did you? Now eat it.”

  He moved farther out of the light. Lottie heard a svit and saw the flaring of a match. He was hunched over it and when he turned back to her, she saw the firefly tip of his cigarette.

  “Where’s my mum?” She lifted the bowl as she asked the question. The soup was vegetable, like Mrs. Maguire made. She was hungrier than she’d ever remembered being, and she drank it down and used her fingers to help the vegetables into her mouth. “Where’s my mum?” she asked again.

  “Eat.”

  She watched him as she raised the bowl. He was just a shadow and without her specs he was a very blurry shadow as well.

  “What’re you gawping at, then? Can’t you look somewhere else?”

  She lowered her eyes. It was no use, really, trying to see him. All she could manage was his outline. A head, two shoulders, two arms, two legs. He was careful to keep out of the light.

  It came to her then that she had been kidnapped. A shiver went over her, so strong a shiver that she slopped vegetab
le soup out of the bowl. It dribbled across her hand and onto the skirt of her uniform’s pinafore dress. What happened when people were kidnapped? she wondered. She tried to remember. It was all about money, wasn’t it? And being hidden somewhere until someone paid money. Except Mummy didn’t have very much money. But Cito did.

  “D’you want money from my dad?” she asked.

  He snorted. “What I want from your dad’s got nothing to do with money.”

  “But you’ve kidnapped me, haven’t you? Because I don’t think this is a safe house at all and I don’t think my mummy’s anywhere in it. And if this isn’t a safe house and Mummy isn’t here, then you’ve snatched me cause you want money. Haven’t you? Why else…” She remembered. Sister Agnetis was hobbling back and forth across the front of the classroom, telling the story of St. Maria Goretti who died because she wanted to stay pure. Had St. Maria Goretti been snatched as well? Isn’t that how the dreadful story had begun? With someone taking her, someone eager to defile her Precious Temple of the Holy Spirit? Carefully, Lottie set her bowl on the floor. Her hands felt sticky where she’d spilled soup on them and she rubbed them against the skirt of her pinafore dress. She wasn’t exactly sure how one’s Precious Temple of the Holy Spirit was defiled, but if it had to do with drinking vegetable soup given to one by a stranger, then she knew she had to refuse to drink it. “I’ve had enough,” she said and remembered to add, “Thank you very much indeed.”

  “Eat it all.”

  “I don’t want any more.”

  “I said eat it. Every scrap. You hear?” He came forward and poured the rest of the Thermos into the bowl. Little beads of yellow dotted the broth. They moved towards each other and formed a circle like a fairy’s necklace. “You need me to help you do the job?”

  Lottie didn’t much like his voice. She knew what he meant. He’d shove her face into the soup again. He’d keep her face there till she drowned or she ate. She didn’t think she would much like to drown, so she picked up the bowl. God would forgive her if she ate the soup, wouldn’t He?