Betrayals (32 page)

J
anet felt no intrusion having David Baxeter in her room. Rather she felt a continued relief at having someone to do something for her. She sat in the only easy chair while he perched on the edge of the bed, which was conveniently near the telephone. The man appeared to be switched through several different numbers and extensions at the main telephone exchange, sometimes announcing himself to be a journalist and other times not, as he sought to trace the anonymous number. It was an hour from the time he started when he smiled up towards her.

“A public kiosk on Ayios Prokopios: it's the road that leads towards the Troodos Mountains,” he announced.

“Oh,” Janet said.

“Why disappointment?”

She shrugged. “I don't know: I was just expecting something different.”

“If whoever it is really knows something, they're hardly going to deal from their homes, are they?”

“No,” Janet said, cheering up. “I wasn't thinking.”

“Call it,” Baxeter insisted. “There's got to be some demand, obviously. Say you need time to think about it and that you'll ring back. That'll give us time to talk it through.”

They exchanged places and Janet dialed, feeling for the first time vaguely self-conscious at getting involved in a negotiation in front of someone else. She sat looking directly at him while the number rang, without any response. After several minutes Janet said, hand cupped unnecessarily over the mouthpiece: “No reply.”

“Put it down,” he suggested.

Janet did so and said: “What now?”

“Wait a few minutes: then we'll try again.”

It became very quiet in the room, and Janet wished there were something else she could do. There were the calls to her father and Partington, she remembered: and at once decided against making them in front of the man.

“Now?” she said, finally.

“It's been less than five minutes,” Baxeter said. “But OK, try it again.”

This time the receiver was lifted on the third ring. A voice, in English, said: “This is a public telephone box.”

“I was told to call it,” she said.

“Janet Stone?”

“Yes.”

“Glad you called.”

“The message said you knew something to my advantage.”

“We do.”

“What?”

“We know where to look.”

“Look where?”

“Here, in Cyprus. And from there where to look in Beirut.”

It was all so familiar. She said: “What do you want?”

“A thousand.”

At least the rate was going down, she thought wearily. Following Baxeter's suggestion she said: “I want to think about it.”

“No tricks.”

“What do you mean, no tricks?”

“We're not dealing with the police.”

“No police,” she promised.

“How long?”

“Thirty minutes.”

It took much less than that for Janet to recount the complete conversation to Baxeter, who listened with his head intently to one side. As she finished the account Janet said: “It's a con, isn't it? It's got to be.”

“It sounds like it,” agreed Baxeter. “And I supposed you had to expect it, after all the publicity and the fact that a lot of people now know you're at this hotel …” He hesitated. “On the other hand, can you afford to ignore it?”

“Can I afford, literally, to try to negotiate?” came back Janet. “I know Zarpas has my bank account under permanent watch. The counter clerk would keep me waiting, and by the time I got the money he'd be behind me, asking what I was going to do.”

“Yes,” Baxeter said. “He would.”

“So it's pointless: the whole thing's pointless.”

“Why don't I let you have the money?”

“You!” echoed Janet.

“The magazine then.”

“But why should you!”

“Magazines and newspapers pay all the time for stories and articles,” he pointed out. “And we already agreed that if this came to anything I'd be able to write exclusively about it after John got out …” He smiled. “Actually,” he added. “At the going rate, £1,000 is very cheap.”

She'd been offered much more in Washington, at the beginning, remembered Janet. “But what if it is a con and you lose your £1,000?”

“I can't,” said Baxeter, simply. “When you call back say that you'll need time to collect the money. Ask for …” He paused, trying to decide upon a period. “… ask for three hours. In that time I can ensure that all the bank note numbers are recorded. If it's a genuine call, leading to something, I'll have wasted a cashier's time. If it is a fraud, then I report it to the police, with the numbers, and the money becomes valueless. Where's the risk?”

“It seems almost easy,” Janet conceded, reluctantly.

“Where can it go wrong?”

Janet thought for several moments, wanting to find the flaw. Eventually she said: “I can't find one.”

“Remember,” Baxeter urged. “Three hours. Agree to whatever hand-over arrangements they want: it doesn't matter.” He got up and left.

There were still a few minutes before the second call, and Janet remained staring at the door through which Baxeter had gone. She supposed a lot of people would have sneered at the professional cynicism of his becoming involved but Janet couldn't be one of them. She sincerely believed he would hold back on the publication of anything that might endanger John, and Baxeter seemed able to think quickly and clearly about possible pitfalls. At the moment, it was an incredible comfort to have someone upon whom she felt she could rely: someone who didn't react to everything she did as if she were mentally defective. OK, so maybe that was just more professional cynicism, someone behaving as he had to behave to do his job. Janet decided she couldn't give a damn. It was just good not to be entirely alone any more.

Her call was answered on the third ring.

“I agree,” she said.

“You didn't have any choice, did you?” the man said.

“No,” Janet said. “No choice at all.” There was a satisfaction in knowing there was no way the gloating bastard could cheat her: or rather, cheat David Baxeter.

“Do you know the walled part of Nicosia?”

“No.”

“To the west there is the Paphos Gate. That's where we want the money brought.”

“I need time to get it,” Janet said.

“Two hours.”

“Not enough. I need three.”

“That's too long.”

“I can't do it in two.”

“The deal's off then.”

“All right, it's off.”

“You don't mean that.”

“Goodbye.”

“Wait!”

Janet believed she detected a muffled conversation with other people around the man to whom she was talking.

The voice returned to the line. “Three then.”

“What do I do when I come to the Gate?”

“Nothing. We'll recognize you: you're a well-known lady.”

“I want to know what I'm getting for my money.”

“I told you before, where to look.”

“I'll want proof.”

“There'll be a photograph. And remember, no tricks.”

Janet thought again of the other calls she had to make but she did not immediately redial. Who to call first? She decided upon England. Her mother answered, gabbling off the moment she recognized Janet's voice. The woman complained that the television and still pictures from Beirut had made her look simply terrible, as if it had been a long-arranged photocall for which Janet had days to prepare, and demanded to know what Janet imagined she was doing getting on a boat with such men in the first place. It took Janet several attempts to cut across the babble and get her father to the telephone. He began in much the same way as her mother, and it was difficult again to stop him.

In the end she shouted. “I know what you did!” she yelled.

“What?” her father said.

“You telephoned Partington and told him you wanted me stopped, any way that was possible,” said Janet, still shouting. “You want to know how it happened! That's how it happened. Partington and the local CIA man set me up to be robbed and cheated and made to look stupid, so I'd have to come home like the silly little girl you think I am. You happy now? You happy that I almost got raped and that the man I stabbed might still die: that I was being shipped off to become a gang-banged whore in some back-street shed …!” The fury was pouring out of her, and she had to stop, breathless. When she did so it was very easy for her to hear that her father was crying.

“… Love you,” he sobbed. “Did it because I loved you …”

The answer—a lot of answers—came to Janet but she didn't bellow them back at the man because there wasn't any anger, not any more. Instead, quiet-voiced now, she said: “Just leave me alone, OK? Don't interfere any more.”

“Come home!” he pleaded. “Please come home.”

“I can't now,” Janet said. “There's the court hearing.”

“You're only a witness: you could come back and then return to Cyprus when it was necessary for you to give evidence.”

“I don't want to come back, not yet,” Janet said stubbornly.

“Don't try to do anything else,” her father said, still pleading.

“I am not going to try to do anything else,” Janet lied. Would Baxeter want to come to the Paphos Gate meeting with her? She was at first surprised at the thought but then accepted it because it wasn't surprising at all. She would have some protection, some safety, if he did.

“I'm sorry,” her father said. “So very sorry. I didn't know how …” He stumbled to a halt. “… couldn't have …”

“Stop it, Daddy,” said Janet, knowing the blur of tears herself now. “I'm OK. The police accept the stabbing as justifiable self-defense and say that it didn't happen in their jurisdiction anyway. I'm not hurt: not physically anyway.”

“Can you forgive me?”

No! thought Janet at once: not completely, she could not forgive him. Didn't know if she ever could. She said: “Of course I forgive you.”

“I really am …”

“… You told me that,” Janet stopped him. “Look after mummy.”

“Please come home,” he said.

“We'll talk about it another time.”

“Do that!” her father said. “Keep in touch. Don't stop keeping in touch!”

“I said I've forgiven you.” She felt no difficulty, no discomfort, in lying to her father, even though she could not ever recall lying to him before. She decided that everyone was cynical to achieve a purpose when the need arose.

“I love you,” he said again.

“I love you, too,” Janet said. Was that a lie, too, a response fitting the circumstance of the moment? Of course not. She'd have to be careful not to become too cynical, naive though she'd been until now.

She should have done it differently, Janet knew at once. The confrontation and the anger should have been directed at Partington, who'd triggered everything, and not at an old man whom she loved—of course she loved him—who'd done something he thought was best without any idea of what his action might bring about. Could Partington have had any conception, either? No matter. She should have vented her anger upon the embassy official and not her father, because now she felt drained, too drained to shout at anyone else. She wouldn't bother with Partington until the following day.

Where was Baxeter? Janet realized she was anxious for the man to get back and was at once surprised at the awareness. Why the hell should she worry about the return of a man she hardly knew! Because of John. The answer presented itself at once, and Janet openly smiled at it. Of course that was the reason. Despite her apprehension about the Paphos Gate meeting there was always the chance that it might—just might—be genuine, and so the sooner Baxeter came back the sooner they would discover whether or not it was worthwhile. That was it.

Janet hurried to the door when he knocked. She smiled and Baxeter smiled back: one of his teeth, to the left, was crooked, but not unpleasantly so.

He put a carefully wrapped bundle on the side table and said: “Well?”

“They didn't want to agree to three hours but finally they did,” reported Janet. “The Paphos Gate. He promised there would be a picture.”

“Of what?”

“He didn't say.”

“Easy to get lost inside the walls,” Baxeter said, reflectively.

“It's the divided sector,” Janet said. “Arabs would not be able to move freely inside, would they?”

Baxeter shrugged his shoulders. “Depends on how well they know their way around.”

“What about the money?”

Baxeter nodded towards the package and at the same time took a long, narrow strip of print-out paper from his inside pocket. “Every number carefully recorded,” he said.

“I really am most grateful for everything you are doing.”

“I've got a professionally vested interest: if this leads to anything it will be as much to my advantage as to yours,” he said.

“I actually think I've got more to gain than you,” disputed Janet. “And I'm still grateful.”

“We've time for a drink downstairs before we go,” said Baxeter. “That OK with you?”

“You're coming with me, then?”

“Didn't you expect me to?”

Janet let her hands come up and fall in uncertainty. “I didn't know,” she said.

“Let's talk about it downstairs.”

Janet brushed past the man as she left the room and she was aware of his cologne. It was strong. John had never gone in for things like that, Janet remembered.

Janet asked for coffee. Baxeter chose scotch. Janet watched the barman pour, caught by a familiarity but unable to think what it was. Glenfiddich, she saw, remembering: she and John had drunk Glenfiddich that first night, in Nathan's. She physically shifted in her seat, uncomfortable with the memory. Somehow it seemed wrong when she was with another man, which she acknowledged to be a stupid feeling but one she had, nevertheless. She said: “The person I spoke to kept on about not involving the police: no tricks was how he put it. I asked how I would recognize him and he told me I wouldn't. That he'd recognize me.”