‘Jane?’
‘Rosemary!’ exclaimed Jane, then at once: ‘No, not Rosemary.’ She tried to focus but it wasn’t easy to see a veiled face through her own veil and then abruptly the woman’s image faded for the briefest of seconds. ‘You’re not Rosemary…? Who…?’ Why wasn’t it Rosemary? It had sounded like Rosemary.
‘We have to talk,’ urged Alice, conscious of the pressure from people behind. ‘It’s very important. About your father. And John. Both of them.’
‘I thought you were Rosemary.’
‘Can we talk? Can I come to see you, to talk? It’s urgent.’
‘Do you know Rosemary? Rosemary Pritchard?’
The pressure, the intervention, was now from the woman whom Alice knew to be Hilda Bennett. The woman said to Jane: ‘Are you all right
…? Do you want to stop…?’
‘No,’ refused Jane, fully bringing herself back to where she was, what she was doing. ‘What was it you said?’ she asked Alice.
‘We need to meet. About your father. And John.’
‘Yes. Of course. Thank you. Very kind.’
Stanley Burcher was merged into another wall, studying Geoffrey Davis, who had been pointed out to him as the Northcote lawyer by a hovering hotel manager. Uncharacteristically Burcher was tempted to make a direct, personal approach, quickly dismissing the thought as unprofessional and in entirely the wrong circumstances. He thought Davis looked a practical, level-headed sort of man. But outward appearances were meaningless. He hadn’t seen anyone resembling the magazine photograph of Alice Belling, who at that moment passed just twenty feet away as she left the reception.
Alice knew who Rosemary Pritchard was: John had recommended the gynaecologist to her. Why, at this moment in time and in these circumstances, was Rosemary Pritchard so important to Jane?
Jane was glad at last to be moving, relieving the ache in her back and legs and sparing her hand from any more crushing insincerity, which was still as crushing without the handshakes. Appalling tragedy
… so unfair… brilliant husband… brilliant father… you’re very brave
… couldn’t be that brave myself… lunch… I’ll call very soon… Thank you… lunch is good… I’ll wait to hear… She was learning how to control the ebbs and flows. It had come three times while she stood in the receiving line, though she was sure no one had suspected, because she was always sufficiently aware now in the very few seconds before they washed over her. Could compensate, say the words. Thank you… very kind… so good of you to come… Her back was aching again. Her legs too. She couldn’t go on much longer. Wanted to stop. Finish now. Done enough. Done all she had to.
Hilda said: ‘Do you want to go home now?’
‘Have I done everything properly?’
‘You’ve done everything exactly right.’
Jane was startled by Mortimer’s reassurance, unaware until he spoke that the man was walking the room with her. ‘Then yes, I’d like to go home.’ No one knew, no one suspected. She had… Had to do what? Couldn’t remember… She would though, soon enough. Just needed a moment. Get her thoughts together. What was it she had to do? It was important. More people in the way. Fine man… brilliant mind… such a loss… Thank you… so kind… thank you…
Jane couldn’t remember getting into the car. They were going back across town. Hilda was talking. Just the odd word initially, then connected, making sense: ‘… a lot to do. Letters, things like that. Not tomorrow, if you don’t feel like it. Whenever. But I’ll get the condolence books now if you’re all right for a moment. I’ll go get them, then I’ll come back.’
‘I want that,’ Jane heard herself saying. ‘Like before.’
‘That’s what I thought. I expected that you would.’
‘There must be other things I have to do…? Proper things… formal …?’
‘Everything’s on hold, until you’re ready.’
‘Not today.’
‘No,’ agreed the older woman. ‘Nothing more today. Today you’ve done enough.’ The car turned into East 62nd Street and Hilda said: ‘Here we are. Home.’
Jane welcomed the sudden clarity, not aching now, not even feeling tired. ‘Not home,’ she contradicted. ‘John isn’t here any more.’
Alice hadn’t intended to be there. She’d left the Plaza to retrieve her car and get back as soon as she could to the safety of the cabin in the Bearfort Mountains. It was only when she drove out of the lot that she decided to go to East 62nd Street, initially with no thought in her mind of actually approaching Jane, not knowing, even, why she was doing what she was doing. She tried the Melrose Hotel to isolate any obvious attention upon John’s apartment building, from both the bar and reception, but couldn’t see sufficiently from either. It was when she was outside in the street again that she saw Jane helped from her car by Hilda Bennett and sat undecided upon a bench at the Second Avenue junction and was glad she did because the older woman left after just fifteen minutes. Why not this afternoon? Alice suddenly asked herself. And just as quickly answered herself: Why not?
Twenty-Two
Neither was it a conscious intention – it hadn’t crossed her mind – to say what she did until Alice entered the building and realized she had to negotiate reception security to get to the sixth floor, where she knew John’s apartment to be. Nor, most stupid of all, had it occurred to her that there would obviously be CCTV cameras. The man smiled at her approach and asked who she was visiting and Alice said: ‘Mrs Carver’s expecting me. It’s about Rosemary Pritchard.’
‘She’s just got back from her husband’s funeral,’ frowned the man.
‘So have I.’ What was she doing here, saying here! This was knee-jerk, unthought-out madness.
‘Of course,’ he said, looking more closely at Alice’s veiled appearance. ‘I was told to expect some people. Rosemary Pritchard, you say?’
‘That’s right.’ Not a direct lie. By no means the truth, either. But the best – probably her only – chance of getting past the foyer to see Jane, who wouldn’t have responded – had her staff respond – if she’d correctly identified herself. Which was unthinkable anyway. Which people were expected? She was thinking on her feet now, intuitively, snatching at each and any opportunity. Easy enough to claim a misunderstanding. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was getting to Jane. She heard the man recite the gynaecologist’s name into the internal telephone, her breath tight, and saw the man’s unthinking nod of acceptance. ‘You’re to go up,’ he told Alice, who was already moving towards the elevator.
It would have been Manuel who’d answered, she supposed. Or Jennings. John had talked of the staff transfers, after Northcote’s death. Would either know what Rosemary Pritchard looked like? It was doubtful. As far as Alice was aware Rosemary Pritchard didn’t make house calls. She’d get to Jane OK now. Nothing to stop her. To say what? She still wasn’t sure. Retained research material didn’t sound good enough any more, not now she was actually here. Never really had sounded right. So what was she going to say? She didn’t know. Couldn’t think of anything. Which could make this a bad mistake, ruining everything coming full frontal on to Jane like this with stories of murder and blackmail and Christ knows what else. Not could be a bad mistake. Would be a bad mistake, because she couldn’t tell Jane anything of why she was here. Whatever story she tried to tell would be gibberish, the ramblings of a lunatic.
The elevator stopped at six, John’s floor. Jane’s floor, she corrected herself. John didn’t live here any more. Never would, ever again. Or in Princes Street. Or in the cabin. The elevator doors sighed closed behind her but Alice didn’t move. She most definitely shouldn’t have come like this. This was panicked, ridiculous. Jane wouldn’t understand a thing she said about being in danger. Have her thrown out, seized maybe by the security man downstairs. She should have gone from the funeral to Federal Plaza and surrendered herself to someone called Gene Hanlan and persuaded him to come here with her. That would have made the approach official, to be taken seriously. If, that is, Hanlan could have been persuaded and not gone on demanding convincing proof of her claims
