Take No Farewell - Retail (31 page)

‘Well?’ I said after a moment.

‘I didn’t expect you back, Mr Staddon.’

‘Obviously not.’

‘I suppose this looks rather odd, doesn’t it?’

‘It looks damnably suspicious. Can you persuade me it isn’t?’

‘Probably not.’

‘How did you get in?’

‘I took Reg’s key with me this afternoon.’

‘And returned when you thought I’d be long gone?’

‘Yes.’

‘So, this was carefully planned. Is it why you volunteered to come in this week?’

‘In a sense. But if you’d not been so reticent about Clouds Frome, I wouldn’t have had to—’

‘Clouds Frome? You mean you’re looking for the plans of a house I once built? You’ve crept back here, at dead of night, just to satisfy your curiosity?’

‘It isn’t dead of night. And it’s rather more than curiosity.’

‘What, then?’

‘Necessity, I suppose you’d say.’

I moved closer. ‘Explain this necessity, Giles. Explain it to me now, please, while my temper’s still in check.’

‘My salary here doesn’t cover my expenditure, Mr Staddon. It’s as simple as that. It’s not that you under-pay me. You don’t. But I have expensive tastes. I like the best, the very best. The point is that I sometimes need to subsidize my tastes by earning money in unorthodox ways. This is one such way. I’ve been paid to obtain copies of the Clouds Frome floor-plans and elevations, complete with all measurements and dimensions. I tried to talk you into letting me see them, but you wouldn’t. So, this seemed the only—’

‘Who paid you?’

‘I’d really rather not say. He insisted on complete confidentiality. It’s not as if what he asked me to do was in any sense criminal.’

Suddenly, anger flared within me. ‘God damn it, you’ll tell me and you’ll tell me now! This is my office. I
employ
you. Legal niceties don’t enter into it. I can dismiss you on the spot – and make damn sure no other architect takes you on. I may count for little in this world – and less in this profession than you think you will one day – but just at the moment I hold the power to wreck your career before it’s even started. So, I’ll ask you again: who paid you?’

Shame – or a realization of the truth of my words – swept over Giles. His face crumpled. The vestiges of defiance fell away. ‘A Brazilian. Known to you, I believe.’

‘Rodrigo Manchaca de Pombalho?’

‘Yes. That’s the name.’

‘How did you come into contact with him?’

‘He was in the Three Crowns one night last week. He stood me a few drinks, introduced himself as a businessman from Portugal, said he didn’t know London and asked if I could tell him where an entertaining evening was to be had. Well, I quite took to him, especially the way he threw money around, so I offered to escort him. We went to the Alhambra, and on to a club I know afterwards. He seemed to enjoy himself – and he paid for everything. When he suggested another outing the following night, I jumped at it. That’s when he told me who he really was and offered me fifty pounds if I could lay hands on the plans of Clouds Frome.’

‘No doubt you jumped at that as well?’

‘There’s no point denying it, is there? The money would have got me out of a bit of a hole, actually. Besides, I could see no harm in it. He didn’t want to approach you himself. He wouldn’t say why. And I didn’t press him to. After all, I was confident I’d be able to talk you into giving me what he wanted. Why should I quibble? It seemed too good an opportunity to miss.’

‘Did you ask him why he wanted the plans?’

‘No. He made it plain he had no intention of explaining himself to me. And why should he? He was paying me well enough to stifle my curiosity.’

‘So, all your polite and respectful questions about my design of the house were just ploys. All your praise – all your wide-eyed admiration – was intended to lure me into letting you have what you’d been bribed to obtain.’

‘You could say that, yes.’

‘And when those methods failed, you resorted to burglary.’

‘It’s hardly burglary. What do a few plans matter? What harm can they do?’

‘I don’t know. But if it were all so very innocent, he wouldn’t have offered you as much as he did, would he?’

Giles seemed about to throw back some sharp retort, then
thought
better of it. ‘What happens now, Mr Staddon?’ he asked neutrally.

‘First of all, you tell me what arrangements you’ve made with Senhor Pombalho.’

‘I was to telephone him as soon as I had the plans. The terms we agreed were strictly C.O.D.’

‘Very well. This is what you’re going to do. Telephone him now. Arrange a meeting. Somewhere public. I want plenty of bystanders when I confront him.’

‘When
you
confront him?’

‘Yes, Giles. You make the appointment. I’ll keep it. Is he still staying at the Bonnington?’

‘I don’t know. He just gave the number. Museum 1010.’

‘It sounds like the Bonnington. Call it and see.’

‘But what do I say to him?’

‘Say you have the plans and you can meet him tonight. I’ll leave the choice of venue to you. Then you can go home and contemplate your future.’

‘What is my future – after this?’

‘Uncertain. It’s the breach of trust, you see, Giles. That’s what’s so unforgivable. I’ll have to discuss it with Mr Renshaw, of course. Perhaps your position isn’t completely irretrievable. For the moment, I just don’t know.’

‘If you’d lent me the plans, or not come back tonight—’

‘I don’t have the plans to lend.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘They don’t exist. I destroyed them – all of them – a long time ago.’

He stared at me in amazement. ‘Why?’

‘That’s none of your concern. Now, make that telephone call, please, there’s a good fellow.’

With a resigned shrug of the shoulders, he walked into the outer office and switched on the light. Only Reg’s telephone, as we both knew, was connected to an outside line. As he picked up the receiver, I sat down at my desk and raised mine to my ear, listening as he spoke to the operator and was connected.

‘Bonnington Hotel. Good evening.’

‘Room 207, please.’

‘Hold on, please.’

The extension rang only once. Then came Rodrigo’s voice, muffled but familiar. ‘
Estou?
’

‘Senhor Pombalho? This is Newsom. I have what you want.’

‘That is good.’

‘Can we meet tonight?’

‘Tonight? Yes. You—’ He broke off. There was another voice in the background, a woman’s raised, it seemed, in protest, though I could not catch her words. ‘
Fique quieto!
’ snapped Rodrigo. ‘You will come here, Newsom?’

‘No, I can’t. I’ll meet you at the Lamb. It’s a pub not far from your hotel. They’ll give you directions.’

‘I will find it. When?’

Giles took out his watch and flipped it open. ‘An hour’s time, shall we say? Nine o’clock.’

‘Nine o’clock. Yes. I will be there.’ With that, he put the telephone down.

‘Well?’ said Giles, looking back towards me. ‘Is that what you wanted?’

But I did not answer. I had pulled out my own watch as Giles named the time and was staring now at its face, dumbstruck by my own forgetfulness. It was a minute past eight. And I was a long way from Southwark Bridge.

The bridge was dark and empty. The night was cold and damp enough to discourage loiterers. I was entirely alone, leaning against the parapet, the Thames running turbulently below me. It was twenty past eight and my frail hope that Malahide might also be late had vanished. He had waited for me only so long, then taken his merchandise elsewhere. Perhaps it was as well, in the circumstances, that I could not afford to linger, could not spare the time to brood upon what would happen now to Lizzie Thaxter’s last letter. With a sigh, I pushed myself upright and started walking hard towards Holborn.

The Lamb was, as I had hoped, crowded. A piano was being played somewhere deep in the throng to the tune of ‘If You Were The Only Girl In The World’. In the crush at the bar, I caught sight of Rodrigo straightaway, standing head and shoulders above the other customers. I began threading my way towards him. Amidst the jostling, the laughter, the shouting and the singing, he did not notice me as I approached.

He looked bowed and mournful, a dark cape slung about his shoulders, a shadow of stubble about his chin. His size and expression, his isolation from the merriment around him, had created an invisible circle in which he stood, silent and forbidding, staring down into his glass.

‘Newsom isn’t coming,’ I said, shouting to make myself heard.

Rodrigo swung round, colliding with a man behind him as he did so and spilling the poor fellow’s drink. But all protests were wasted on him. ‘Staddon!’ He stared at me, his eyes blazing. ‘Why are you here?’

‘I found Newsom searching my office. He admitted you’d put him up to it. He also told me what you were after. I was listening on another line when he telephoned you. I’d instructed him what to say.’

‘You
instructed
him?’

‘Yes. And now I’m here to demand an explanation. What do you want with the plans of Clouds Frome?’

‘I will tell you nothing.
Nada em absoluto
. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, but I don’t think you do. There are no plans to be had, Rodrigo. I burned them all before the war.’

‘You are lying!’

‘No. It’s the truth. They no longer exist. Except in my head. So, if you want to know anything about them, you’re going to have to persuade me you have a good reason.’

‘Why did you burn them?’

‘That needn’t concern you.’

‘But it does. I want to know why, Staddon. Why burn them? Was it so you could forget Clouds Frome and what you did there? Was it so you could forget Consuela?’

‘Leave Consuela out of this.’ I was suddenly aware of the silence that had fallen around us; people on all sides were listening and watching. The realization provoked me into a stupid attempt to humiliate Rodrigo. ‘I don’t know what you think gives you the right to deliver moral lectures. Remember, I heard every word of your telephone conversation with Newsom. You weren’t alone in your hotel room, were you? Who was she, Rodrigo? Some little tart, I suppose. How much were you paying—’

It was like a snake striking. His right arm flashed out from beneath the cape and his hand closed round my throat with choking force. I was pinned against the bar, the edge of it grinding into my spine as he pushed me further and further back. There was a commotion around us and a splintering noise as a glass fell to the floor. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the barmaid stepping away, her blouse wet with spilt beer. Then she screamed. Somebody else cheered. But I could neither speak nor cry out. I could not even breathe. The pain was intense, the panic of suffocation mounting. I prised desperately at his hand, but could not dislodge it. Behind my neck, his fingers and thumb nearly met. And in front of me was only his face, twisted with rage, eyes bulging, teeth clenched. ‘
Eu matarei você!
’ he bellowed. Then came a gurgling, spluttering sound that I suddenly realized was me, pleading for mercy. My mouth was open, straining for air, my vision was failing, my strength ebbing. He was going to kill me. Now, at last, I knew he meant it. He was going to squeeze the very life out of me and there was nothing I could do to stop him.

Then his grip slackened slightly and, with it, the pressure that had arched me back across the bar. A snatch of breath reached my lungs. I could see again more clearly. There were figures behind and around Rodrigo, pulling him off me, dragging at his right arm, shouting at him to desist. There
must
have been six of them, powerful, hard-drinking men who had just realized this was more than mere horse-play, but, for all their efforts, they could do no more than weaken his hold.

Yet that, in the event, was enough. In the precious interval they won me, I saw a change in Rodrigo’s expression. His anger with me faltered. Perhaps he remembered what had brought him to England and how poorly he would serve Consuela’s cause by killing me. Or perhaps he simply judged me unworthy of such a fate. Whatever the reason, he suddenly whipped his hand away from my throat.

My legs buckled beneath me. With the return of breath came wracking coughs and a mist of tears across my eyes. I heard Rodrigo shout something and sensed, rather than saw, a scattering of figures as he turned away and cleared a path to the door. As it crashed to behind him, I was helped onto a stool. A glass of water was pressed into my hand. My coughing fit began to subside and, as it did so, the soreness of my neck and the pain in my back intruded. I could not speak. For the moment, it was enough to breathe again and wait for coherence to return.

‘Gawd, mate,’ said somebody. ‘I thought ’e was gonna finish you for sure.’

‘Yeh,’ said another. ‘So did I. Whad’ya do to get ’im goin’ like that?’

I shook my head in the only answer I could summon. It was not true, of course. I knew full well what had provoked Rodrigo. But that did not matter now. What mattered was the sense of my own stupidity that was flooding into my brain. I had come there to discover why he wanted the plans of Clouds Frome. And the only thing I had learned was what I already knew. He despised me.

The taxi-ride home from the Lamb that night gave me ample time to contemplate my plight. Malahide might at any moment offer Lizzie Thaxter’s letter to the press, yet I had no way of reaching him in order to explain my failure to keep
our
appointment. Nor, out of a concern for my own safety, could I risk any further approaches to Rodrigo. For Consuela’s sake, I had to keep Lizzie’s letter out of the newspapers and I had to persuade Rodrigo to trust me. But my efforts on both counts had been abject failures. My position was hopeless and, for that, I had nobody to blame but myself.

By the following morning nothing had changed except my state of mind. From self-pity and despondency the resources of my nature had salvaged, if not hope, then at least a measure of confidence. For this Giles Newsom had good reason to be grateful. In any other circumstances, I would have persuaded Imry to let me dismiss him for what he had done. And to judge by the tousled, nerve-stricken condition in which I found him awaiting me at Frederick’s Place, dismissal was what a sleepless night had led him to expect. He was not to know, of course, that I had been visited by enough doubts and fears to eclipse his own, nor that his humiliation was about to make him my ally.