Betrayals (37 page)

J
anet slept at Baxeter's flat that night and in the morning they made love again and it was as good as the first time. She insisted upon returning alone to the hotel, which was still besieged by reporters. On Baxeter's advice Janet did not try to avoid them, which he argued would merely prolong the pressure, but agreed to meet them all at once in a small conference room the hotel made available to them.

When everyone was seated and the lights were on, a cacophony of questions erupted. Janet held her hands up to stop the babble, not bothering to speak until the sound lessened. Then she said, simply, that she was unable to answer any questions because she had been legally advised that having come before a court everything was now
sub judice
until a verdict.

She was ignored.

“What's your reaction to the defense assertion which would appear to make your story complete fabrication?” called an American voice, from the rear.

“The truth will come out during the court hearing,” refused Janet, doggedly. I hope, she thought.

“Mrs. Stone, has this whole episode been an exercise to achieve personal publicity?” An English voice this time, a man in the front, balding and bespectacled.

The demand unsettled and to an extent bewildered Janet. Until now—particularly in Beirut—she had been treated sympathetically by the media, but she recognized that the attitude had shifted. Now it was suspicion, actual hostile suspicion. “From the time of my fiancé's abduction I have cooperated with the press for only one reason, to maintain public interest in his plight,” she retorted angrily. That anger was primarily at the assembled journalists but there was a subsidiary reason for her flushed face. When she got to the word fiancé her mind had filled with what had happened during the previous twenty-four hours between herself and Baxeter and she'd almost stumbled to an awkward halt.

“Do you intend staying in Cyprus throughout all the hearings, right up to a higher court if the case is committed there?” asked a woman.

Dear God, I wish I knew what I was going to do about anything, Janet thought. She said: “I have not yet decided upon that: it depends how long it takes.”

“You didn't come back to the hotel last night, Mrs. Stone?” It was the balding Englishman in front again.

“No,” said Janet and stopped. She could physically feel the flush firing through her cheeks.

“Where were you, Mrs. Stone?” A woman, somewhere in the middle of the pack.

“I …” groped Janet but another voice talked over her and she saw Partington walking down the side of the group to where she was sitting. “Partington, British embassy,” said the diplomat. “As Mrs. Stone has already made clear, there was the need for extensive legal discussion after the initial hearing. Those discussions lasted late into the evening and it was decided by the embassy that she needed some uninterrupted time to rest …” He bent, cupping Janet's arm, but went on talking: “It's also been made clear that there is no further comment Mrs. Stone can make until the conclusion of the legal processes here on the island so you will have to excuse her …”

There was a surge of protest. Partington ignored it. Janet, relieved, let herself be guided from her chair and out of the room: Baxeter was standing right at the back, near the door. He gave no facial reaction and neither did she.

“I'd better escort you to your room,” suggested the diplomat.

“Please,” accepted Janet.

They remained unspeaking in the elevator. In her room Janet said: “Why did you do that down there? Say what you did?”

“From where I was sitting you looked like someone who needed rescuing.”

“What about from where everyone else was sitting?”

“Maybe,” said Partington, unhelpfully.

“Why were you there at all?”

“Same reason why I was in court yesterday,” said Partington. “London still considers you a British national, irrespective of your American marriage. And particularly because of the high profile you've achieved. I was holding a watching brief, if you like. And to decide for myself whether you need help, despite what you told me.”

Janet experienced a jolt of embarrassment at the reminder, after what the man had just done. She said: “Thank you,” and decided it was inadequate.

“So do you?” pressed the man.

Yes, but not the sort you could give, Janet thought. She said: “I'm all right.”

Partington remained looking at her, waiting, and Janet guessed he was expecting her to tell him where she'd been the previous evening. She stared back, saying nothing. The man said: “Please, no more escapades.”

Janet realized that the man believed she had been attempting something else involving John Sheridan. She said: “Don't worry: I won't do anything silly,” and thought at once it was a ridiculous statement.

“I spoke to Zarpas,” Partington said.

“What about?”

“Your going back to England, during the hearings. He said that after you'd given your evidence you wouldn't be required until any higher court hearing: the gap could be several months.”

“That was thoughful of you,” said Janet.

“Think about it,” urged the embassy official.

She had to, Janet acknowledged, after Partington had gone. But not yet. Not until … She didn't know until. Or when. Or how. But she certainly didn't want to make any decisions yet. She looked at her watch and then the telephone, impatient for Baxeter to make contact. They hadn't talked about when they would see each other again. Janet was shocked at her sudden doubt, trying to rationalize it. He didn't need anything more, for whatever he was writing. No further reason then, professionally. And he hadn't acknowledged her downstairs, when she'd left the press conference. She'd thought at the time that he was being discreet, disguising any association between them, but recognized there could be other reasons. What if he hadn't meant what he said? That it had all been a come-on, to achieve a one night stand. Wasn't that what Harriet and her Washington group did all the time, mouth the expected words and pleasantries to get each other into bed and have to strain the following morning to remember each other's names? It would actually be better that way: easier to lock it away in her mind—lock it away and never ever turn the opening key—if they didn't see each other again. It wasn't so difficult alone in her hotel room (and fully dressed and out of bed) to make the resolve. That was definitely what she had to do. She had … The telephone shrilled and Janet snatched it up on the second ring.

“How are you?” he asked.

“I hoped it would be you,” said Janet. “All right, I guess.”

“I'm downstairs.”

“What took you so long to call?”

“Reasons,” he said, enigmatically. “There's a lot of guys still hanging around. Photographers, too.”

“What the hell for?”

“In the trade it's known as doorstepping,” he said. “It literally means what it says. You're a running international story so they've got to stay on your doorstep to be ready if anything develops.”

“I want to see you.”

“I'll come up: be ready to let me in the moment I knock.”

She was and immediately he thrust through the door Janet put her arms out to be held and he brought her close to him, soothing his hand through her hair, curious at her obvious need.

“I thought you said you were all right?”

“They attacked me at the conference,” protested Janet. “Why did they do that? It hasn't happened before.”

“Only one or two,” Baxeter said. “The majority are still on your side.”

“Why the change at all?”

“Stories like yours, stories that keep going over a long period of time, develop a kind of cycle,” Baxeter tried to explain. “A person is built up into a hero—or in your case heroine—and for a long time everything goes their way. Then, at the slightest whiff of doubt, some change. Having created their pedestal, they start trying to knock it down and their hero with it.”

“That's stupid!”

“That's the way it is.” Baxeter smiled. “But it's nothing for you to worry about. Like I said, it's only one or two. It'll all be OK after the full hearing.”

“Zarpas virtually told me it's my word against theirs. He can't find Haseeb, and the people at the cafe say they don't know anything about it,” pointed out Janet.

“The evidence will be found,” promised Baxeter.

“You were a long time calling,” Janet said, again.

“I had something else to do after your conference.”

Janet had become to feel warm, protected once more, in his presence, but it was washed chillingly away by the tone of his voice. “What?” she said.

“My visa's come through.”

“When are you going?” asked Janet, heavily.

“Tomorrow.”

“I don't want you to go.”

“We've been through that,” he reminded her. “We've been through it all.”

“If they're watching downstairs I can't stay away from here again tonight.”

“And I can't stay all night here, either.”

They abandoned themselves to an afternoon of absolute love, unthinking, uncaring, unaware of anyone or anything but themselves and the cocoon of Janet's room. Four times the telephone rang without her answering and once they held each other, laughing silently, as they tried to pick out a muffled conversation outside the repeatedly knocked-upon door. Minutes after the knocking ceased a note was pushed beneath the door but neither was sufficiently interested to get out of bed to see what it said.

The encroaching blackness of evening, the time he had to leave her, darkened their mood. And they were exhausted anyway by the lovemaking which had left them damp and physically aching.

“Can I say something?” asked Baxeter.

“What sort of question is that to ask me?”

“It's been wonderful,” said the man. “But for one thing.”

“What?” she said, guessing that she knew.

“It was the same with both of us: the frenzy. It was like we were desperate; that it would never happen again.”

“Don't: there's no point!”

“It will.”

“I said ‘don't.'”

“Last night you asked me not to say something else,” he remembered. “That I couldn't tell you I loved you. Which I do.”

“Come back!” said Janet. “Please come back.”

“I will,” he said. “I know I will.”

“How can you
know!
”

“I just know.”

Two hours earlier there would have been hilarity in the cautious way they checked the corridor before Baxeter left, but now there wasn't. He did it mechanically, ducking back once because of a passing guest, and was then gone without any farewell. Janet stood directly inside the door, head pressed against the wood, and it was several moments before she moved away. The room was completely dark but she didn't bother to switch on a light: didn't bother to do anything. She just climbed back inside the wrecked bed and begged for sleep to come, to blot out everything. Which surprisingly it did, very quickly. She was conscious of stirring twice during the night but it was not abrupt wakefulness and she drifted off again.

It was brightly light by the time she fully awoke. Beside the bed the message light on her telephone was blinking redly and she remembered the pushed-under-the-door message. She retrieved that first, smiling down at the request from Germany's
Der Spiegel
for an exclusive, in-depth interview. There were four telephone messages being held for her by the switchboard. All were from newspapers, all seeking the same. She decided to reply to none of them.

She escaped by going down the fire stairs to her hire car, which had not been identified, and drove into Nicosia for a breakfast which she needed, not having eaten at all the previous day. Afterwards she lingered over coffee, not knowing what to do next. Alone again, she acknowledged.

Without any positive intention Janet drove towards Troodos, retracing the route along which she had gone with Baxeter. It had been, she admitted to herself, that day when she'd realized—although refusing to realize it at the time—that she loved him. No, not love! It hadn't been that quick: that positive. That she was attracted to him and that there was a possible danger, she corrected. Sensible people who recognized danger avoided it. So why hadn't she? Janet didn't have logical, easy answers to the logical, easy questions. Everything was mixed up, not confused but differing factors interlocking to make some sort of (although not entirely satisfactory) explanation. She had been alone and fed up with being alone. Frightened and in need of someone. Vulnerable. And Baxeter had been kind and understanding. Janet stopped the mental examination, curious. Why did she think of John as John and Baxeter as Baxeter? Subconsciously, she supposed, she was trying to separate them, accord one greater intimacy (and greater love?) than the other.

Was it possible to love two men at the same time? It was an uncertainty Janet had never before had to consider. There had been a passing affair at university before she'd met Hank, but once they'd established their relationship it had been enough for her. There'd been approaches, of course. In England, and later in Washington: approaches almost every time they had attended one of Harriet's parties. She and Hank had laughed about it, absolutely sure of each other, neither feeling threatened.

Was John threatened by what had occurred between herself and Baxeter? The automatic mental division, she recognized again. And there
was
a division. Groping for a way to rationalize it to herself, Janet thought that it was practically as if she were thinking of herself as two women, one in love with John Sheridan, the other in love with David Baxeter. Hardly rational: positively irrational. Nevertheless it was how it settled in her mind. She accepted it was still not a resolve: not even a proper explanation. Little more than a weak attempt at easing her conscience. Sufficient, though, for the moment. That's all she really wanted to do, go from moment to moment, hour to hour, unwilling to make plans for the next day or the day after that because there was nothing sure enough to make plans about. Wasn't that just another attempt to avoid the most difficult question of all, the one she had adamantly refused even to bring to mind? She did so now, making herself consider it. Whom would she choose, if it came to the choice?