Betrayals (34 page)

The following morning Janet telephoned the British embassy, but without any of the anger she was now sorry at having directed at her father. In contrast, she was chillingly cool. She told Partington at once that she was aware of his role in what had happened to her, talking down his weakly-begun protest by telling him that her father as well as Hart had confirmed it. As she mentioned the American, she remembered the still-unreturned clothes. Deciding now against any more contact with the CIA man, Janet demanded—rather than requested—that the embassy help return them to the woman in Beirut. Partington, flustered, promised that he would, of course, take care of it.

“I couldn't have known how it would turn out,” said the diplomat. “Not what they intended to happen to you in Beirut.”

“Robbery but not rape, eh?”

“Your father said the money didn't matter: that without it you wouldn't be able to do anything.”

“I don't want to talk about it any more,” said Janet. It was difficult for her to accept but she really did feel bored by it now.

“I really am very sorry.”

“That's what people seem perpetually to be, very sorry.”

“Apart from returning the clothes, is there anything else I can do?”

“No,” Janet said, careless of the rudeness.

“You will call me again, if I can help, won't you?”

“No,” Janet said again. “If I thought I needed any sort of help I don't think I would come to you, Mr. Partington.”

Janet was ready, waiting, for Baxeter's arrival, and picked up the telephone on the first ring when he called from the downstairs house phone. They met in the lounge overlooking the swimming pool again, although he did not at once turn on the tape recorder. Janet asked about his meeting with Zarpas, and Baxeter said he had not seen him. A subordinate officer had promised to put a stop on the money and circulate all banks, credit exchanges, and hotels. As an additional precaution, Baxeter had told his own bank to duplicate the warning through all its branches. He agreed with her that he supposed there would be a prosecution if whoever had the money attempted to pass it, but he assured Janet the policeman who had taken his statement had not talked of needing one from her.

“What about your magazine?”

“They cleared it before I started, so they knew the risks,” Baxeter said, casually. “There's no problem.”

“I still wish it had been my money.”

“It's over, finished,” said Baxeter, even more dismissively.

Janet found the resumed interview difficult, and could not at first understand why. It was because she did not think of him as a stranger any more, she decided finally. At the first encounter, their roles had been clearly defined, interviewer to interviewee, but now it didn't seem like that any more. Baxeter appeared to find a similar problem, posing his questions over-solicitously, frequently apologizing in advance for what he was going to ask and several times abandoning a query in mid-sentence, saying that it didn't matter and twice that it was too personal. It was late afternoon before Baxeter turned the recorder off.

“You must know more about me now than I do about myself,” said Janet, trying to lighten the mood.

“You don't mind?”

“Not if it helps John.”

“No,” he agreed, looking directly at her. “Not if it helps John.”

Janet looked away. “Sure you've got all you want?”

“Not quite,” he said. “There are still the photographs.”

“Of course,” Janet agreed at once. “Who'll take them?”

“I will.”

“You do both?” questioned Janet, not expecting that he did.

“They get good value out of me,” smiled the man.

“When?”

Baxeter looked beyond her, to the grounds outside. “The light's gone now,” he said. “Are you free tomorrow sometime?”

It would fill in part of another empty day, Janet thought: which is all it would be, just occupying part of a day. She said: “Sure. What time?”

“Your convenience,” he said.

“We really are being most polite to each other, aren't we?”

He was looking directly at her again but did not immediately reply. “Yes,” he said. “Very polite.”

“What time is the light best?”

“Mid-day, usually.”

“Why not make it mid-day then?”

“Could we make it a little earlier?” he asked. “I thought we might drive somewhere for better backgrounds. The Troodos Mountains, perhaps?”

“Of course.”

When Janet emerged from the hotel the following day she saw he'd had the Volkswagen cleaned, which made the rusting dent in the wing look worse than it had when the car had been dirty. It was clean inside, too, and between the two front seats there was a large carton of sweets and chocolate bars.

“Help yourself,” he offered.

“You really eat these all the time?”

“I'm getting better. Down to a pound a day.”

As they drove towards the mountains Baxeter maintained a constant chatter about the island, pointing out monasteries and medieval and Roman historical sites. He talked about the Crusaders and told the story of Aphrodite, whose temple, he said, was on the far side of the island. Janet listened politely, conscious of the effort he was making. He'd dug deeply into the sweet bag by the time they reached Troodos. The mountains were larger than Janet had expected them to be, mist-clouded at the summits and heavily cloaked in firs and pine. They stopped at a roadside tavern with an outside area ceilinged with vines and Janet shivered involuntarily. When he asked why she confessed that it had briefly reminded her of the sour-oiled cafe on the road to Dhekelia where she'd been taken to meet the Fettal family. Baxeter rose at once, saying they should go, but Janet insisted on staying, determined to exorcise the ghosts from her mind. She let him order the fish kebabs and he photographed her at the table and took more pictures after their lunch, Janet standing against the trellised vines and then against the verandah rail, gazing out over a deep and thickly wooded valley.

They climbed higher in the early afternoon and Janet suddenly saw the huge white globe, like a giant tennis ball, which Baxeter identified as one of the listening stations maintained by the British on the island. Janet actually opened her mouth, to speak of the eavesdropping cooperation that Willsher had told her about, but quickly shut it again. Throughout every interview she had given, and certainly during the two-day session with Baxeter, Janet had held back from disclosing anything of that conversation, determined to keep her side of the bargain with the CIA man. Did it matter any more? she wondered: that meeting in Washington seemed a very long time ago.

Baxeter took more photographs at another verandahed vantage spot, then came close beside her to point in the direction of Aphrodite's temple. Janet was once more aware of his cologne. The continual sweet-eating seemed to have scented his breath, too.

“I think I've got all the photographs I need,” he said.

“Time to go then?”

“I guess so.”

As they made their way unhurriedly towards the Volkswagen, Janet said: “I've enjoyed the day.”

He held open the door for her to get into the vehicle and as he entered from his side Baxeter said: “I've enjoyed it too. Very much.” He twisted in his seat, so that he could look directly at her. He didn't try to start the car.

“We'd better be going,” said Janet.

“I …” he started, then stopped.

“What?”

“Nothing.” Baxeter started the car and ground the gears when he engaged them.

The road snaked downwards in a never-ending loop of hairpin bends and Janet began to feel vaguely nauseated from constantly turning back upon themselves. The silence lasted for a long time. To break it she said: “What happened to the car?”

“What car?”

“This one. The dent in the wing.”

“Don't know: it happened in a car park. Have to get it fixed one day.”

It was not something she had ever discussed with him, but Janet was sure that John Sheridan would have repaired a damaged wing—or for that matter damage to anything else he owned—within an hour or two after he discovered it. She became instantly irritated with herself: linking them together in her mind again, she thought. She said: “Could you slow down a little? I'm beginning to feel slightly carsick.”

“Do you want to stop?” he asked, solicitous again.

“No. Just go slower.”

Baxeter did, markedly, and said: “Have you been to Limassol?”

“No.”

“There are some good restaurants along the coast from there.”

“Really?”

There was another silence, and then he said: “Would you like to eat dinner …?” He hesitated. “Not immediately, I don't mean. Later, when we've got off the mountain: you'll only feel discomfort while we're going around these bends.”

“I don't feel sick any more,” Janet said. “But no. Thank you for asking but no.”

“Of course not,” he accepted at once.

“I don't want to sound rude.”

“I understand.”

Janet wished she did. What would be wrong with having dinner on the way back to Nicosia? She said: “Maybe another …” and came to a halt herself, wishing she had not begun the sentence. “I'm feeling rather tired,” she finished, fatuously.

“I'm concerned,” he announced.

“What about?”

“Your getting mixed up in any more nonsense like that business at the Paphos Gate. And before.”

“I'm learning with experience,” said Janet, bitterly. What, exactly, was she learning, she wondered.

“Can I make a suggestion?” Without waiting for an answer he continued on. “Please let me give you my phone number. There's an answering machine, so I get messages even if I'm not there. If you get any more approaches—anything at all—don't try to handle it by yourself. Let me be involved …” He risked a glance at her across the car. “I don't mean for a story: not primarily, anyway. Let me help you first and we'll work out the rest later. I just don't want you to be hurt.”

Janet could not find the words to describe how she felt but certainly her eyes were clouded and when she started to speak her voice was jagged. She said: “That's very kind of you … generous … but what about your other commitments?”

“I can be as flexible as I like, working with the magazine.”

“I was not thinking particularly about the magazine,” corrected Janet. “What about girlfriends, wives, and children?”

He looked across the car again, grinning. “There are no girlfriends, wives, or children, in that or any other order.”

She smiled back, grateful he was making a joke of the question. “As I said, it's a very generous offer. Thank you.”

“So will you?” he pressed.

“Yes.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

Outside the hotel he made a groping, haphazard search through the pockets of his jacket and then the glove compartment and withdrew triumphantly from there with a crumpled and bent piece of pasteboard in his hand. “Knew I had one somewhere!” he said, offering her the visiting card with his number printed upon it. “And this!” he added, snatching into the carton and proffering the wrapped pastille. “It's strawberry flavored, the best. I always save it until last.”

She laughed openly, unoffended by the flirtation. She was enjoying herself and it hadn't happened for a long time: not since before John had been snatched. “All I seem to do is thank you.”

“Will you?”

“Will I what?”

“Come out to dinner with me some other time?”

Janet felt herself coloring and hoped he wouldn't notice in the fading light. She said: “I don't know. Maybe.”

“When?”

“I said maybe!” said Janet, as unoffended by his persistence as she had been by the earlier flirtation.

“Can I call?”

“Of course you can.”

“And you'll get in touch with me, if there are any more approaches?”

“I promised I would. So I will.”

Baxeter did not call the following day. Janet sat around the pool in the morning and went into the city in the afternoon and checked her messages when she got back, acknowledging the disappointment and becoming unhappy at feeling it. That night, eating a solitary dinner, she kept remonstrating with herself and was convinced by the time she went to bed that her attitude was in no way unfaithful to John. After so much hostility and rejection and drama, what could be more normal than responding—properly responding—to a gesture of friendship? And that was all it amounted to, Janet was equally convinced: a gesture of friendship, nothing more. Certainly nothing more on her part.

The next day Zarpas gave her the date of the first hearing against the Fettal family, cautioning her it was only a remand appearance but warning her that the magistrates would expect her to attend. And within an hour Partington telephoned to say the borrowed clothes had been returned to Beirut and ask if she had changed her mind about his offer to help, which she hadn't. She caught a reflection of herself leaving the by-now-familiar pool, abruptly aware just how deeply tanned she had become. And at this rate, she guessed, she would become more so.

Janet tried to suppress the sound of any pleasure in her voice when Baxeter called on the Friday and was sure she had succeeded, but a brief and unsettling feeling, a kind of numbness, briefly swept her body.

When he invited her to dinner, she managed, too, to seem unsure in advance of accepting it and felt after replacing the receiver that the conversation had been maintained on precisely the necessary level of friendship. He assured her the Orangery at the Hilton was good for nouvelle cuisine, and it was, and afterwards they went to a bar on the Famagusta Road where there was good bouzouki music. He said the article and photographs had worked out very well and that his Vancouver office was pleased. She told him about the initial court appearance of the Fettals, and he at once offered to accompany her if she would like him to. Janet, surprised, accepted. Baxeter asked what she was doing on the weekend, and Janet blurted “nothing” before thinking what she was saying, so he invited her to Paphos, and she accepted. Baxeter made no attempt to kiss her—no attempt at any physical contact at all—when he took her back to the hotel and neither did he the following day, which she enjoyed as much as she had their first trip to the Troodos Mountains.