“You don’t have to ask. Of course I’ll do everything I can. Did you think of going to the police for help?”
“You’ve heard Wilkes on addicts. Would you turn an addict you cared about over to him? This is a matter for doctors, not police.”
“Is this one reason your new anti-drug law is more merciful to addicts than pushers?”
“I signed that bill before I knew about Vivian, but how can I make anyone believe that I didn’t know? Can you imagine how the press would crucify me if they discovered now that my own wife was an addict?”
“It’s a perfect set up for blackmail.”
“Yes, isn’t it? I thought of that. So far there have been no attempts.”
“How many people know now, besides you and the doctor?”
“Only Hilary and Carlos. I told them because I needed their help, and they were likely to find out anyway, living in such close relations with Vivian and me. Luckily, Hilary is an old friend of my mother’s family and Carlos has been my closest friend since Princeton. They won’t talk.”
“What about Vivian’s maid, Juana?”
“I doubt if such a thing would occur to her. She’s good at manual jobs, but she’s not intelligent. Even in her own language she’s illiterate, and she doesn’t understand English.”
“When did it begin?”
“I don’t know when or how or why. But I do know that if Vivian does not come back from the nursing home cured, I’ll have to get out of politics altogether.”
“So you meant it when you told Job that you really didn’t care whether you ran for a second term or not?”
“I meant it all right, but I doubt if Job believed me. How could he when he doesn’t know about Vivian?”
Jeremy’s voice was steady, but there was naked pain in his eyes as he went on. “Tash, you must understand that I still love Vivian. So much so that I am tormented by the idea that this must have happened because I failed her in some way.”
Tash couldn’t leave him with that thought.
“Addiction is physical,” she insisted. “Some people become addicts just because a careless doctor keeps them on pain-killing drugs too long during an illness. It doesn’t have to mean that Vivian was unhappy. It could be just that she fell among thieves.”
“You mean among addicts?”
“That’s how most new addicts are recruited. Vice loves company. It proselytes with the zeal of Victorian missionaries to the heathen.”
“Of course. It must be a lonely business, being an outcast.”
Jeremy walked over to the window and stood silent for a moment, looking up at the stars.
“Destroying Vivian is the perfect way to destroy me and everything I care about, my marriage and my career. I wonder if anyone hates me that much?”
“Isn’t hate too strong a word?”
“You should see some of the hate letters that come into the mailroom here every day.”
He began to pace the floor. “Why did I ever go into politics? I suppose it was because I like to gamble. This is the big game. Higher stakes than money.”
Tash smiled. “You do like taking risks, don’t you? Any other man would have got out of politics the moment he found out about Vivian. Another drink?”
“Yes, let’s both have a nightcap and then I’ll go. I feel a lot better than I did when I came into this room. I knew I had to tell you. For Vivian’s sake I had to find out how much you knew. But I didn’t want to tell you. I had no idea how you’d react.”
So it had not occurred to him that she might be in love with him.
He stood, watching her add water to the drinks. “You’re still free to resign, if you still want to.”
“Thanks.” Tash curled up at the chair end of the chaise longue, sitting on her feet as she sipped her drink.
Jeremy sat on the long end below her. Glass in one hand, he reached out the other to clasp a hand of hers.
“Dear Tash, what do you really want to do now? Go or stay?”
“Stay.”
There would be heartache in seeing him every day, knowing he loved Vivian, but there would be heartbreak in never seeing him again.
She disengaged her hand, brushing her hair back from her forehead to make the disengagement seem casual.
“What about the dead canary? Did anyone ever tell Vivian?”
“I told her the canary was dead, but I didn’t tell her how he died.”
“Did you know that I saw the boy pickpocket, Freaky, here in the grounds three nights ago?”
“Wilkes told me.”
“I had an impression he was coming out of the house when I saw him. I’ve wondered about that. Could he get past the alarm system? Why did he and Halcon steal Vivian’s letter? How did they know I had her letter?”
“Wilkes is pretty good at his job, but even he can’t answer those questions yet.”
Jeremy put down his empty glass and looked at the clock.
“Good God! Three in the morning!” He laughed. “Anyone who sees me coming out of your rooms at this hour is going to get ideas.”
He was halfway to the door when he paused to look back.
“Tash, I would have missed you if you’d gone. I like having you around.”
That was the moment when the stillness of the night was shattered by the howl of a siren.
It went on and on and on, brazen-throated and inexhaustible, smashing against the eardrums and vibrating through all the dark, secret cavities of the body.
For a moment they could only stand and stare at one another.
Then Tash shouted above the racket: “What is it?”
“Fire.”
“Here?”
“Must be. That’s our alarm.”
He opened the door.
They could not even see the corridor as great billows of smoke surged into the room.
12
JEREMY SLAMMED the door. Curls of smoke seeped under the lintel and spiraled up toward the ceiling.
“Let’s try the windows.”
There was more than one siren shrieking now. It was pandemonium, a word to
