He turned down Pennsylvania Avenue a final time. The flag was flying and lit above the White House. Roosevelt was in residence. There were three men in U.S. Navy uniforms standing in the rain before the iron gates, peering in. To Bill Cochrane, they keyed memories of the sailors from The Adriana in Union Station, singing on their way to their incendiary slaughter at sea. He had to work to suppress the unpleasant memory.
The sight of the sailors keyed a similar association to Laura, and Cochrane suspected as much, because she had been very talkative over the course of the evening-more about university, her husband, her girlhood, her father-and now she was very quiet, as suddenly, were the rain-slicked streets.
Envisioning her thoughts telepathically, or at least trying to, he sought to calm her. 'I know you're alarmed about Stephen,' he said. 'I know how traumatizing it is. But there's no way he'll harm you again. There's no way he'll harm anyone.'
To which she had many reactions, but said nothing. Then they were parking near his house.
When they entered, he led Laura to the living room, eased her coat from her, and turned on only enough lights to maintain the pleasantness of the evening. She rubbed her hands together, still chilled from the outdoors, and he checked the radiator. The heat was low, so he used some newspaper to kindle some logs in the fireplace.
Laura sat quietly as the fireplace slowly came alive. 'Now,' he finally said, 'time for that nightcap. Port, still? I have brandy, also.'
'Port would be fine,' she said.
He found some in a decanter on the dry sink in the dining room. He blessed the housekeepers for seeing to at least some eventualities.
He glanced at her and idly thought, What do I think I'm doing here with my suspect's wife? Then he reminded himself that his resignation from the Bureau became effective within less than two weeks. He had no suspects any more because he had concluded his final case. So much for conflict of interest.
'Bill?' she asked at length. 'What do you think will happen?'
He poured a tawny port into two cordial glasses, barely looking up as she spoke.
'About what?' he asked.
'In Europe,' she said. 'Germany and England.'
He drew a long breath and returned to the sofa. He handed her one glass and sat down near her.
'I suppose Hitler will topple what's already shaky,' he answered. 'France is totally unprepared for war. They'll fall the same way the Weimar Republic did. Soviet Russia is another question. I sense they’re extremely powerful and will be willing to sacrifice millions of lives.”
'And England?' she asked.
'Chamberlain's been discredited because a war has started despite all his concessions. He'll be out of office within weeks, also.'
'I'm not an expert,' she said as she sipped very slowly, 'but England doesn't have the ships and planes that Germany has. Do you think there will be an invasion?'
'I think there's a good chance that one will be attempted. Whether it succeeds or not is another matter.”
She was looking straight ahead now, not at him, and Cochrane knew where her thoughts were: in Salisbury, at the Georgian home of her father, surrounded by memories and a peaceful garden from her girlhood. All the things she had told him about.
He placed an arm around her shoulder before he even realized what he was doing.
'I also think England will get some ships and airplanes,' he said. 'Very quickly, if she needs them.'
She turned to him and smiled. She was, as he had noticed all along, very beautiful, in addition to being another man's wife.
'From Roosevelt?' she asked.
'That's the rumor on Capitol Hill,' he said. 'But who knows? There's an election coming, also. If Roosevelt leaves office, few of the other candidates have any international vision at all. Die-hard isolationists, they are. They'll travel to hell and back to keep America out of another European war.'
'What will you do?' she asked. 'Enlist if there's a war?'
'I don't know. Maybe.'
'What would you like to do?'
'Go to New York, I suppose. Find some peaceful work. Make a few dollars. Want the full truth?' he asked.
She nodded and was half finished her port.
'Fall in love again,' he said, finishing his. 'And yourself?' he asked.
'Myself?'
'What would you like to do?'
She thought for a moment, looked away to the fire, then looked back to him. 'You'll laugh,' she insisted.
'No, I won't, Laura.'
'I'd like to spend time with you,' she said. 'A lot of it.'
He set down his glass of port and took her hand. It was surprisingly chilly, despite the fire. Then there was a long silence, as each attempted to rationalize the danger signals that flashed.
'That would be wonderful,' he said in response. And his instinct was to add the conditions: wonderful, thank you, but you're married; wonderful, thank you, but I've buried the only other two women I've loved; wonderful, thank you, but I've totally given up on love, remember? I'd hoped to fall again, but figured I wouldn't. Until I met you, that is, a voice within him said. Until I saw this lovely, frightened, distraught Englishwoman standing in the woods behind a church.
But there were no other words spoken. Instead, he kissed her. Then there was an urgent embrace and they sank back onto the sofa. Her eyes were closed and her arms were around his shoulders. When his hand moved gently to the buttons of her sweater, she did nothing to stop him. Rather, a delicious anticipatory warmth coursed through her. Much later in the evening she remembered thinking, This isn't adultery at all, I'm simply going to bed with a man I love.
When it was over, and when she lay next to him watching the final embers in the fire, words formed before she knew she was saying them.
'If America enters the war,' she said softly, 'don't you dare get killed.'
FORTY-ONE
The sound of the persistent knocking, a fist on a wooden doorway, forced Laura to emerge from a deep, satisfying sleep.
There was the warmth of the strong male arm around her. His chest pressed to her back beneath a sheet and a blanket. There was, as she slowly woke, the excitement and strangeness of Bill Cochrane's bed. There was the sound of traffic outside. Then came that knocking again.
She felt Bill's arm leave her waist and she rolled over. She fluttered her eyes open and saw him hurriedly dressing. Slowly, her mind began to register. The previous evening. Dinner. Logs in the fireplace. A new lover.
He pulled on his clothes.
'Good morning,' she said, sitting up.
Then came the knocking again.
'Morning,' he said.
She sat up in bed, held the sheets to her, then figured, why bother? She liked her lovers to admire her. The sheet was across her lap.
'What is that?' she then asked, realizing that the persistent rapping would not go away. 'Bill, what's going on?'
He sat down on the edge of the bed, wrapped an arm around her bare shoulders, and kissed her.
'You're very beautiful and you're a spectacular lover,' he said to her. 'And I have no idea who is downstairs at my door. So I thought I'd get dressed and find out.'
