Does she really say that? It sounded as if there was a gap where the vowel should have been. I hope the connection isn't breaking up, but rather that than my consciousness. 'Lester,' I say with just a fraction of my rage. 'You've paid out an insane chunk of my money to LUP, that's London University Press. Tell me why.'
I could take the silence for an admission of guilt until she says 'We must have received an instruction.'
'Not from me. Who from?'
'From whom,' Bebe murmurs as Tess breaks the silence, fragments of which are embedded in her answer. 'We don't see to ha a re or, Mr L ster.'
'You're coming apart. You bet there's no record. What are you going to do about it?'
'It does loo a i there may ha bee an e or. If you cou pu i in iting – '
'I'll email you, that's fastest. You're damn right there's an error, and you need to deal with it now.'
'Ple ho on whi I spe to – '
I assume she's consulting her supervisor. The gap at the end of her sentence is followed by Mozart on a synthesiser, music whose jollity I find inappropriate. It splits into a run of random samples, and I hold the mobile away from my face until Tess interrupts the performance. 'We ca cre it your a ount be or you ut i in wri ing.'
'I should bloody well think so too.' Instead of this I say 'Thank you for your help. I'll email you tomorrow at the latest.' As I pass the phone to Bebe while the car speeds onto the Hammersmith Flyover I say 'I think this needs recharging. I only just got the message.'
She avoids touching my fingers as she takes the phone. 'Everything's satisfactory otherwise, is it?'
'Pretty well. You sound as if you don't think it should be.'
'You usually get escorted out of airports by security, do you?'
'He took me through Customs so I wouldn't be delayed any more. I'd drawn some attention because a handler damaged my case, you saw, and then they insisted on going through my things.'
'We've been waiting for hours because Natalie asked.' Yet more accusingly Bebe enquires 'What was he saying to you?'
'Just about their procedures. Nothing to do with me.'
'Maybe you're the biggest innocent we ever met,' says Warren.
'We thought you might be held up because you'd brought back something you shouldn't,' Bebe says and spies on me in the mirror.
'Anything special?'
'Try drugs. We know you were in Amsterdam.'
'Only because I was taken.'
'Like I said, the biggest innocent,' says Warren. 'Sounds like you've no control over where you go or what happens when you get there.'
'I've plenty,' I protest, though for a moment his formulation seems far too accurate. 'Do you honestly think I'm such a fool I'd bring drugs back from Amsterdam?'
The Hallorans are silent all the way to Hyde Park Corner. They seem preoccupied, and I am by the meagre traces of snow along the route. How could it have been bad enough to close the airports? I'm about to wonder aloud as the Shogun veers up Piccadilly, and then Warren says 'Anything else you're planning on denying?'
'What else have you got?'
This time the silence lasts as far as Trafalgar Square, from which pigeons rise like discoloured remnants of snow. I take my question to have concluded the interrogation until Warren says 'How did you get on in Hollywood?'
'Well, it wasn't quite Hollywood. It – '
'So we understand,' Bebe says, and the lights along the Strand lend her eyes a piercing gleam.
'It was a film archive, and very useful too. I've brought back plenty of ideas.'
'Maybe you should keep them to yourself.'
I'm attempting to interpret this when Warren says 'And how did you find your director?'
'Pretty useful.'
'Pretty,' Bebe repeats.
'Very, if you like.'
'This isn't about what we like. Useful how?'
'As a source of information.'
'Gee, you must be some writer,' Bebe says. 'You stayed in their house for a week – '
I find this needlessly disconcerting when my sense of time is at the mercy of jet lag. 'It wasn't a week.'
'Nearly a week if it's so important to you, and all you did was talk to them.'
Fleet Street flourishes giant mastheads of newspapers at me, and I feel as if I'm under investigation. Before I can respond to Bebe's comment she says 'What was their name again?'
'Willie Hart.'
'Willie as in...'
'Hart.'
The luminous dome of St Paul's floats by, and I'm reminded of a circus tent. The car swings fast along Cannon Street as though it's expressing the impatience in Warren's voice. 'She's asking you what it stands for.'
'More than I'm going to.'
I hear myself say this, but not aloud. I haven't phrased my answer when Bebe says 'No I'm not, I'm telling him. It's Wilhelmina.'
'If you knew, why did you ask?' That's far too defensive, and I add 'Forget it. The important thing is I didn't know.'
'Something must be interfering with your senses,' Warren says. 'Spending too long in front of the screen, maybe.'
'I mean I didn't till I met her.' I could add that I didn't then, but instead I demand 'When did you?'
'Before you got there,' Bebe says in some kind of triumph. 'We looked in your favourite place.'
'The Internet,' says Warren.
'You must be more at home there than I am. All I could come up with was Willie.'
I might have phrased that better. The illuminated Tower of London has appeared ahead, and I'm almost exhausted enough to imagine that Warren is driving me to prison, especially given the tone of his question. 'That's what you'll be telling Natalie, is it?'
'Yes, since it's the truth. Why, what will you be telling her?'
'We already have,' says Bebe.
'May I know what exactly?' I ask with several times the confidence I feel.
'Hey, Simon, what do you think?' Warren retorts. 'There's no way you can be as foolish as you're playing it.'
'Perhaps you could advise me when you told her at least.'
'As soon as we found out, of course,' Bebe says.
So Natalie knew when she emailed me at Limestones. Now I see the reply she was hoping for, and why her response to mine was so guarded. I ignore Bebe's surveillance in the mirror and gaze ahead as we cross the bridge to Southwark. In a minute the Shogun turns left with a screech of charred rubber to the Abbey School.
Children with electric lanterns on poles are ushering the last cars into parking places in the schoolyard. Two ranks of children with lanterns sing 'God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen' to welcome parents into the school. As the car slows I release my seat belt, although the captain hasn't turned off the sign. 'Excuse me if I run ahead to find them,' I say, and as soon as it stops I'm out of the car.
Snowflakes sparkle in the dark air like speckles in an old copy of a film. The swaying lights distort the shadows of their bearers and send them ranging about the yard. As I hurry between the waits the carol falls silent, leaving a corrupted echo in my head: 'God rest ye merry mental men'. It's an ancient joke and not even a good one. I'm nearly at the door when I see that the child nearest to it on the left is the headmistress. 'Miss Moss,' I say clumsily enough for someone to giggle nearby. 'We met. Simon Lester.'
She only peers at me, and I have the unbearable idea that the Hallorans will need to vouch for me. As I hear their doors slam I say 'I'm with Natalie Halloran, if you remember.'
Even this doesn't appear to placate her. Perhaps she disapproves of my flaunting the relationship in front of her innocents. A shiver takes me by the neck and measures my spine, and I use it as an excuse to lurch into the
