Betrayals (27 page)

She dragged herself forward, stumbling on the steps up to the revolving doors, and stopped directly inside, to gather her strength against breaking down at reaching safety.

At the desk it seemed to be changeover time, from the night today staff. They frowned, startled, as she approached and Janet looked down, shocked at the state of herself. Her jeans were tattered and her blouse was ripped and only held across her by one remaining button. There was lot of blood which must have come from Costas, changed brown by the dust in which she was caked.

“Please help me,” she said. “I'm English. English-American. My name is Stone: Janet Stone.”

“The fiancée of John Sheridan,” said an American voice behind.

17

I
t was not one man but several. Another—not the American who'd first spoken, because the voice was different—said: “Jesus, you're right!” and Janet looked blankly at all of them.

The first man came closer, smiling and with his hand outstretched: “Whelan, Jim Whelan. CBS. I did an interview with you in Washington when Sheridan first went missing. Just been posted here myself.”

Limply Janet took his hand, not remembering, looking beyond him to the other men. Whelan said, “Welcome to the Summerland Hotel, home of the international press corps,” he said.

The first man who had spoken came to her now. “Henry Black,” he said.
“Washington Post
. And do you look as if you've got problems!”

Janet burst into tears.

She tried to stop but couldn't and they sat her in the foyer and got coffee she didn't drink and waited until she'd recovered. When she did, it seemed as if the group had grown larger. Other people introduced themselves. There were more Americans and three or maybe four Englishmen and an Englishwoman stringing for two London newspapers, as well as some French and Germans, far too many names for Janet to remember. She was aware of cameras going off and shunned away, wishing they wouldn't, and a soft-voiced argument began between the Americans she'd first met and the photographers. Janet said she wanted to wash, to try to clean herself up, and the CBS reporter arranged a room for her, and the Englishwoman, whose name she finally got as Ann, became a self-appointed guardian, telling the other reporters they would have to wait. Janet bathed and washed her hair, getting rid of her fatigue as well as the dirt and when she emerged from the bathroom found the other woman had set out some of her own clothes for her to borrow, a skirt and a shirt and a sweater. Everything was slightly too big but didn't appear so when Janet surveyed herself in the mirror.

While she'd bathed Janet had fully regained control. Now she assessed the problems. She was an illegal entrant, certainly. But that wasn't the most serious; the most serious had to be the stabbing aboard the fishing boat. Perhaps more than a stabbing: perhaps a killing. Her word against … against how many? She didn't know: but she'd definitely be outnumbered. Stavos and Dimitri would get the others to lie against her, to concoct any sort of story they wanted. So she needed protection: official, professional protection, before even surrendering herself to whatever Beirut authority existed. And public, outside protection, too. Which meant the waiting pressmen downstairs.

Janet cooperated with everyone and everything. She gave a combined press conference and then individual interviews and posed for still photographs and the television cameras. Because he had been the first to approach her she asked Whelan to take her to the British embassy, and there, even before she explained her situation, she set out the cooperation she had given to the world media, openly using it as a threat although she was not sure against what.

The embassy official's name was John Prescott: his position within the legation was never made clear to her. He was a precise, neat man and surprisingly slight. The word that came to Janet the moment they met was dainty. He listened without any outward reaction, small hand against his small face, making an occasional note in careful script. When she finished he asked her to wait in the office and was gone for more than an hour. He returned with another man whom he introduced as Robertson and identified as the embassy's legal advisor. The lawyer was a heavy, florid-faced man: he reminded Janet of Partington, in the Nicosia embassy. Robertson asked her to repeat much of the story, which she did, and when she finished he complained, red-faced, that it would have been much more sensible for her to have come direct to the embassy instead of announcing it in advance to the press. Janet didn't apologize.

Prescott pedantically explained that as her first marriage gave her certain rights to American citizenship he had felt it right to involve the U.S. embassy, as well as themselves. He had also been in communication with the British embassy in Beirut and had sent a full account to the Foreign Office in London. It was all very difficult and complicated, he said.

Janet wondered what they were waiting for until, thirty minutes later, two other men were ushered into the rapidly overcrowding room. Only one provided a name. It was William Burr and he described himself as an attaché at the U.S. embassy. He said: “You're causing us all a lot of headaches, Ms. Stone: a whole lot of headaches. We're getting far too accustomed to hearing your name.”

To the Englishmen, Burr said: “You arranged an interview?”

Robertson nodded and said: “Three o'clock.”

“Where?”

“Here,” said the lawyer. “Within British jurdisdiction: it gives her the protection of the embassy.”

“Very wise,” agreed the American. Janet thought his hair was surprisingly long for a diplomat. He had a very freckled face and wore the sort of heavy moustache she remembered being popular among young people in the late '60s, when she'd first gone up to the university. The other, unnamed American was much younger, an open-faced, bespectacled man who moved his head obviously between every speaker. Janet wondered if he were a lawyer, like Robertson. “Interview with whom?” she demanded.

“Police. And Immigration,” said Robertson.

Five Lebanese arrived, so it was necessary to move into a larger room. It was dominated by a conference table and Prescott carefully sat her between himself and Robertson on one side, keeping the Beirut officials on the other. The Americans sat at one end, like referees.

Janet answered the questions from two of the Lebanese, one police, the other immigration. A third man bent constantly over his pad, keeping verbatim notes. After an hour the policeman had a whispered conversation with his companion, who nodded, and asked for the use of a telephone. Prescott led one who had so far taken no part in the questioning to the smaller office in which they'd first been, and the interrogation resumed. It was not as demanding, as hostile even, as Janet had expected. Both questioners frequently smiled as they put their queries and the immigration inspector often nodded to her replies, as if he were in agreement with what she were saying.

When the Lebanese official returned to the room there was a muffled conversation between the group and the questioner produced a detailed map and asked Janet to identify the berth against which she believed the fishing boat had tied up the previous night. When Janet did so the man asked Robertson if they would agree to Janet accompanying them upon a launch, to point out the spot.

“Leave the embassy, you mean?” demanded the lawyer.

The Lebanese lowered his head, acknowledging the point of the question: “My colleague and I are happy to agree with the protection of the embassy extending with you: presumably one or all of you will wish to come too.”

“Why?” intruded Janet. “Why do you want me to do this?” She was frightened of going near that stinking hulk again; of actually confronting Stavos and Dimitri and whoever—or whatever—else might be aboard.

“There is no fishing boat of the sort you have described anywhere in that part of the harbor: no Cyprus-registered vessel at all,” announced the policeman, simply.

“Which means …” began the American, but the Lebanese cut him short, in agreement. “… that there is no incident involving a stabbing for us to become involved in,” said the man.

The British lawyer and Burr accompanied Janet. They drove in a British embassy car to a different part of the harbor, in the east of the city, where there were police in uniform and as many sparkling and glittering yachts and boats at their moorings as there were in the Larnaca marina.

All four Lebanese crowded aboard the officially designated harbor launch, which looped out to sea and then came in at Janet's hesitant direction, as she tried to recall her approach the previous night. In the daylight she was better able to make out the division between the parts of the city and the port. When she became almost certain of the jetty she squinted shorewards, to locate the fenced-in part near the offices where she had been hounded by the pursuing men. She found it, running her eyes from it as a marker, and decided she was right.

“There!” she said.

“You're sure?” Robertson asked.

“Positive.”

“It's the jetty you picked out on the map,” said the Lebanese policeman. “As I said, we have no official record of any vessel from Cyprus having put in there during the night. And most definitely, as we can all see, there is no Cyprus fishing boat there now.”

“So any stabbing inquiry ends?” Burr pressed, instantly.

The Lebanese gave an expansive shrug. “Of course.”

“It happened!” Janet insisted.

“Nothing happened for me to investigate,” the man said, with matching insistence.

Robertson waved his hands in a pressing-down gesture to Janet. As the launch turned to cut its way back across the harbor to the pier where they had boarded, the lawyer said: “Which just leaves the matter of illegal entry.”

“I think I need to make telephone calls,” said the immigration man, avoiding any immediate commitment.

More had happened ashore than at sea during the hour they had been absent from the embassy. There was a cluster of reporters and television cameramen actually around the building when they reached it. They surged forward in a glare of camera lights as they saw Janet in the car, yelling unheard questions, and it was difficult for the driver to edge by them and at the same time to negotiate the dogs' tooth barriers set up at the entrance to the British compound against any terrorist car suicide attack. The car managed it, but only just.

Prescott was waiting at the side entrance when the vehicle stopped. As they got out, Robertson demanded: “What the hell's that all about?”

Prescott waited until they had assembled back in the larger room before answering. Then he said: “Some developments, in Cyprus. A man was arrested in Larnaca today trying to negotiate at the Hellenic Bank a £10,000 bearer letter of credit made out in the name of Janet Stone.”

She'd guessed Stavos had not understood, remembered Janet: served the bastard right. She said: “What about the one I stabbed?”

Prescott shook his head. “I've no information about that. I queried it and Nicosia say they don't know anything about a stabbing. The police have located the boat, apparently. There
is
a lot of blood, but as far as I can understand the story is that a crewman had an accident, with a bottle or some glass. And there's always a lot of fish blood around anyway on a boat like that.”

The American who had so far not spoken said: “Apparently Ms. Stone's interviews have gotten a pretty big play, worldwide. And there's still tomorrow's papers to come. What's happened in Cyprus has added to the interest. The pressure for official statements and more interviews isn't just coming from those guys outside in the road. There's a whole bunch at our legation, too.”

“I think too much has been publicly said already,” Robertson complained with lawyer's caution.

“There is a legal situation,” Prescott agreed. “There's been an official request from the Cyprus authorities, through our Nicosia embassy, for Mrs. Stone to be returned to help police inquiries there.”