‘You know what I think?’ demanded Alice. ‘I think we’ve still got time to go clean. Get out. Get help and protection. You’re right. We’re in way above our heads, so that’s what we need. Help and protection.’
‘You’d go to jail.’
‘I’d get a deal.’
‘I don’t know if what you’ve got – what I’ve got to go with it – is sufficient for a fuller investigation.’
‘What have you got to go with it?’ she pounced.
He didn’t immediately reply. ‘Calculations: some of George’s rough calculations.’
‘Where?’
‘Safe.’
‘Where?’ she repeated.
‘Where it needs to be to protect us.’ Was his office vault secure enough? For the time being, until he could think of something else: something better.
‘Darling! George, who thought he had something – whatever it was – to protect himself, is dead, his face literally chopped meat! Janice is dead, because she wouldn’t tell you what she knew, if she knew anything at all. Or tell them, if she knew anything at all. In some half-assed English town or village or whatever the hell Basingstoke is, three people are dead, leaving kids and husbands and wives. We can’t do this by ourselves any more. We’re not good enough. Clever enough. We’ve got to go to…’ Alice stopped, still not sure what they had to do to guard themselves. ‘The FBI! They’ll do a deal with us in return for our evidence! We go to the FBI, tell them what we know. I’ll admit everything I’ve done and do the deal.’
Carver gave himself more wine, accepting so much – too much but not enough – of what Alice said, like their not being good enough or clever enough. ‘I told you I am not sure what we have is sufficient for an FBI investigation. What you got illegally hacking into IRS offices and company registration records can’t be the basis for an investigation: a defence from people this good would have it ruled inadmissible before it got anywhere near a court or a grand jury. What I got from Litchfield – although explaining your inadmissible findings – isn’t sufficient by itself. Whatever – whichever – way an FBI investigation went, the firm would be destroyed. Whatever deal you cut with the Bureau, your career and reputation would be wiped out…’
‘I’d be alive, for fuck’s sake! You’d be alive.’
‘I don’t want to say the rest.’
‘You don’t have to say the rest. OK, Jane would be devastated but she’d be alive!’
‘All three of us with different identities, living – existing – in some godforsaken country, never sure when they might find us.’
‘We’re not sure now, for Christ’s sake! We’re totally unsure and terrified. I am, at least.’
‘The five companies we know about were all George kept, in the last six months.’
Alice sat, empty glass in hand, waiting.
‘So there aren’t any more,’ continued Carver.
‘What’s your point?’
‘I severed the firm’s connection with the five today.’
There was another moment of silence. Then Alice said: ‘How?’
‘Official letters.’
She regarded him with further disbelief. ‘You think that’s it, if Janice told them about a valise you brought back from Litchfield, where they clearly found nothing! What are you saying – trying to say – John?’
‘I’ll give it to them.’
More silence, longer than any before.
Spacing her words Alice said: ‘Give them what?’
‘What they were looking for at Litchfield but which I found first.’
‘Was that all you found, just rough calculations? What about George’s bank?’
‘I haven’t been to his personal bank. You know I went to the Chase this morning. There was…’ Carver stopped, shaking his head.
‘What?’ she demanded.
‘Nothing that helps. Just some personal things.’
‘What personal things?’ she insisted.
‘Photographs. No one I recognized. They were old.’
‘Maybe it’s someone the FBI would recognize!’
‘It was a woman. Her name was Anna, Anna Simpson. That’s all I know.’ Why had he told her that, if keeping things from her was her protection? He was flaking, coming apart.
‘I want us to get help, John. Proper, official, professional police help.’
‘Let me think.’ He actually had an idea but decided against sharing it with Alice. She knew too much already.
‘There’s nothing to think about, apart from staying alive!’
‘What’s an Internet protocol?’ he suddenly demanded.
‘The address – the trace – of whoever’s got into your system. The fingerprint, if you like.’
‘I don’t like,’ said Carver, turning her expression. ‘What are the chances of them finding you – where you worked from – through the English place they bombed?’
‘I don’t know,’ admitted Alice, honestly.
‘Out of ten, give me a figure.’
‘A two.’
‘That’s good. And even then it wouldn’t get them to you, personally, would it? Just to the cafe. And no one there knew what you were doing, did they?’
Alice felt a sweep of nausea. ‘They’ve got to be warned.’
‘No one knew what you were doing?’ insisted Carver.
‘Of course not.’
‘How did you pay?’
‘Cash.’
‘No credit cards or cheques?’
‘No.’
‘So no one ever knew your name?’
The memory echoed in her mind. I’m Bill, by the way. And her automatic response. Alice. She said: ‘No.’
‘Then there’s no way you can be identified, even if they did trace back to Manhattan.’
‘What about a warning?’ said Alice.
‘I’ll think of something.’
‘There’s nothing to think about. An anonymous call’s all it’ll take.’
‘Leave it to me,’ demanded Carver. ‘And I really mean that. Leave – it – to – me!’
‘OK.’
‘I don’t feel hungry,’ he announced.
‘No.’ She paused. ‘We could go to bed.’
They did and there was the aphrodisiac of fear for both of them and for a long time afterwards they lay silently, exhausted, together.
At last he said: ‘I’ve got to go up to Litchfield tomorrow. I’m not sure yet what time I’ll be back.’ When he’d telephoned to tell Jane of Janice’s death she’d been trying to fix the realtor’s inspection visit for noon. He should have called her again before now.
‘I’ll wait to hear from you.’
After Carver had gone Alice stood with her wine in her hand, staring out over the bustle of SoHo in the direction of the cybercafe. The risk was minimal. But she hadn’t believed they’d locate her Trojan Horse in the hotel chain’s booking system.
The telephone was picked up at once and the voice said: ‘Here we are, ready and waiting to help you!’
‘Is that Space for Space?’
‘It is and it’s Bill and I know that’s you Alice ’cos I got an ear for voices. Tell me we’re going to have that drink at last, Alice?’
Alice hurried the receiver back on its rest, the feeling of nausea again blocking her throat.
