Two Women Read online

  ‘We all know what happened. Dad had an accident and got killed under an over-turned tractor.’

  ‘It’s right that Paul should know, one doctor to another.’

  ‘I don’t want to see him. I don’t need anyone!’

  On the other side of the cabin Jennings shifted uncomfortably.

  ‘He needed to be told.’

  ‘And I told you I’m quite all right!’

  ‘I’m not,’ honestly admitted Carver, deflating her vehemence.

  At the 34th Street helipad the reception committee was made up of the company lawyer, the two most senior partners below Carver, Hilda Bennett and Janice Snow and, unexpectedly, a media contingent, photographers and two journalists, whose questions – the sound of words, not their content – were the first things of which Carver became aware when they cleared the noise of the helicopter. He moved to shield Jane but she shrugged him aside, stopping both for questions and pictures. A Wall Street legend had been taken from them, she said. They were all devastated. It was a mark of her father’s professionalism that the future of the firm that bore his name had been guaranteed before his death by his personal choice of successor, her husband. The firm of George W. Northcote would be the memorial to the man who founded it.

  Carver and Jane went into the lead car of their cross-town cavalcade, with the lawyer beside Carver and the two personal assistants facing them from the jump seats. As they began to move Carver said: ‘How the hell was that allowed to happen!’

  The lawyer, Geoffrey Davis, said: ‘It’s not something we anticipated. Or could have prevented.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Jane, from the other side of the car.

  Across Carver, the lawyer said: ‘If you’ll allow me, Mrs Carver, you did very well. Thank you.’

  Belatedly Carver realized that from his unspeaking part in the impromptu press conference he would appear very much the puppet. ‘There been a lot of media coverage?’

  ‘Just the formal announcement, so far,’ said Davis. ‘It was late …’

  Janice Snow said: ‘I’ve got a list of interview requests.’

  Carver at once wondered if Alice’s was one of them and even more quickly was angry at the stupidity of the thought. He’d have to try to call her. ‘I’m not sure if there’ll be time today.’

  ‘I’ll do them,’ declared Jane, beside him. ‘It’s got to be done today.’

  ‘We’ll do it together,’ Carver recovered. To Hilda he said: ‘What’s the schedule?’

  The matronly woman said: ‘Partners at three, overseas people at four thirty. Drinks in the boardroom at five thirty.’

  Carver said: ‘Set up a press conference for me at six fifteen …’

  ‘For both of us,’ broke in Jane, addressing Hilda. ‘I’m staying at the office …’ She nodded to the cellphone on its central pod. ‘Perhaps you’d call the funeral director now: fix a meeting there for me at four …’ She paused. ‘I’ll use father’s rooms.’

  ‘Is that …?’ Carver started but stopped.

  Jane said, heavy in rebuke: ‘Thank you!’

  There was a stir throughout the car, with Hilda looking imperceptibly at Carver, who hoped she noticed his equally imperceptible nod to indicate that Jane had to be humoured, in everything. He wouldn’t be able to continue his intended search with Jane occupying her father’s office! To his personal assistant he said: ‘Perhaps, Hilda, you’d help Mrs Carver. You can be with me today, Janice.’

  Both women nodded, Hilda at the same time reaching out for the console-mounted telephone.

  Janice said: ‘Everything you asked for last night has been fixed.’

  As vital as it was he wouldn’t anyway have had time today to go through Northcote’s office and personal vault safe, Carver acknowledged. But Jane wouldn’t be in the office tomorrow. Nor would it have been possible for him to have got to Northcote’s apartment, where he’d told Jennings to disturb nothing, just tidy whatever needed tidying. Would there be a safe or a hidden place there that would open to one of the unidentified Litchfield keys at the bottom of the valise securely clamped between his legs? Deciding that it was a question that wouldn’t upset Jane he said: ‘What’s the reaction been?’

  There was a hesitancy between the lawyer and the two women. Finally Davis said: ‘Overwhelming. We’ve got two girls listing the calls. I guess there’ll be as many letters in tomorrow’s mail.’

  To Hilda, who was replacing the car phone, Jane said: ‘I’ll personally sign the reply to each one.’

  Hilda looked to Carver for another nod of agreement. To Jane she said: ‘Four’s fine for the funeral people. And I’ll keep a note of the letters and messages.’

  Jane separated with Hilda the moment they reached the executive floor. Walking with Carver to his office suite, the lawyer said: ‘Jane’s standing up remarkably well.’

  ‘Remarkably well,’ agreed Carver. For how much longer, he wondered.

  Within fifteen minutes of settling behind his own desk Carver fully realized just how impractical his idea of searching Northcote’s office had been, even if he’d known exactly what he was looking for. He handed his diary over to Janice to rearrange his appointments over the next week, together with Northcote’s valedictory address to be copied in time for the partners’ meeting, which she managed, along with more than sufficient duplicates for the following overseas assembly. The partners’ meeting inevitably began with the ritual of condolences, with which Carver supposed he and Jane would become all too familiar over the coming days. At the company secretary’s insistence the partners took a formal vote of acceptance of Northcote’s posthumous speech, which was repeated later at the gathering of the overseas chief executives, also attended by the American partners. At the combined meeting there was the additional formality, again insisted upon by the company secretary although this time endorsed by the lawyer, of another vote unanimously accepting Carver’s succession. Carver hadn’t anticipated the need to make this speech and in effect didn’t. He thanked them for their support and confidence and in a jumble of clichés pleaded his inadequacy to fill Northcote’s place but pledged to do his utmost to try, which would need the help and assistance of them all. There were grunts and mumbles of assurance when he said he hoped he would get that help and assistance.

  Jane was waiting in his office and announced at once that the funeral would be in three days. She’d agreed the flowers and the limousines and booked the wake at the Plaza Hotel. There was to be a memorial service at Litchfield at the end of the month and, as he had already instructed, her father was to be interred alongside his late wife. The will was going to be read in Burt Elliott’s office, which the household staff needed to attend to hear about their inheritances. She’d already told Jennings here in Manhattan to arrange that. The remaining staff at Litchfield were coming down in the morning. She’d called Al Hibbert to warn him there would be no one at the estate.

  There was no hesitation – or question – in her accompanying Carver to the boardroom drinks gathering, where she spoke individually to practically everyone and called for silence to thank them for their condolences and to announce that the cocktail party at East 62nd Street, which had been cancelled, was going to be held after all and she looked forward to meeting the wives there.

  ‘It’s what my father would have expected of me,’ she concluded.

  Jane was totally composed at the press conference and although she deferred to Carver for most of it she was always ready when a question was directed personally at her. On their way uptown afterwards Carver said: ‘I didn’t think you’d want the cocktail party.’

  ‘Like I said, it’s what he would have expected. I’ve organized caterers and warned Manuel to expect their call. We’re having steak tonight, incidentally. It was the easiest thing I could think of, with the uncertainty of our not knowing what time we’d be back. We’re actually much earlier than I expected.’

  ‘You’ve pretty much filled your day,’ said Carver. In terms of actual achievement sh
e’d accomplished far more than he had.

  ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘Me?’ said Carver, surprised.

  ‘You’re the numero uno now.’

  He refused to recognize the real meaning of her question. ‘I’ve been practising for over a year.’

  ‘Frightened?’ she demanded, openly.

  ‘Of course I’m not,’ Carver lied, although still not in direct answer to her intended question. ‘Why should I be?’

  ‘It’s a responsibility. You’ve got an empire to protect and people will expect you to build another, to prove yourself.’

  If only she knew what he had to protect! ‘Like I said, I’ve had time to prepare.’

  ‘I’m going to be right behind you, all of the way.’

  At the apartment Jane thanked the senior nurse for their attendance but announced at once that they had been engaged prematurely and wouldn’t be required beyond the contractually agreed first week. She didn’t need painkillers for a headache or any other discomfort, nor would she require sedatives later.

  As they ate, Jane said: ‘She patronized me. Expects me to collapse. By the way, I spoke to Paul Newton. Told him I was all right and that it wasn’t necessary for him to come over.’

  She would collapse, Carver guessed. Not immediately. For the moment – for the coming days – she was going to be wired by all the things that she’d determined personally to do. The breakdown would come when it all quietened: after the memorial service perhaps. He’d speak to Newton tomorrow. And quietly to the nurses, too.

  Carver reached out consolingly to her when they got into bed that night and didn’t anticipate her immediate expectation that they would make love and was even more astonished that he was able to and that it was as good as it was.

  Afterwards she said: ‘Dad had a saying, that there’s always a birth to make up for a death.’

  Carver shifted, unsure what to say. ‘I never heard it.’

  ‘We should have a baby, John.’

  ‘We’ve talked about it,’ reminded Carver. But not recently, he reminded himself. He’d actually put the thought out of his mind and didn’t, in the present circumstances, welcome its return.

  ‘Not properly. Like we haven’t tried properly. I want to undergo IVF treatment.’ If she could become pregnant she would be continuing her father’s bloodline. She wanted very much to do that.

  ‘We’ll talk about it later,’ said Carver.

  ‘You’re patronizing me, like the nurse. This isn’t hysteria. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time. Now’s the right time.’

  It wasn’t, thought Carver. Now wasn’t the right time for anything.

  People who deal in them – accountants, financiers, bankers, mathematicians – can see a beauty in figures and the patterns that their controlling logic dictates. But it was not actually a pattern of figures that Alice Belling believed she saw when she began going through the printouts of all the worldwide subsidiaries of Mulder Inc., Encomp and Innsflow International. To confirm it she hauled a world atlas on to her desk and was sure she was right as far as the United States was concerned – which if she were right made them very united indeed – and the templates first of Europe and then of Asia were sufficient further to convince her. The temptation to start at once from her terminal in Princes Street was very strong but prudence won over impatience. Using the cybercafe gave her a second cut-out and considering the organization she believed she had discovered, Alice acknowledged that she needed to continue as carefully and as protectively as possible. Which meant waiting until tomorrow. Even though the cafe didn’t open until ten she was still up by seven, determined not to forget anything because today was going to be a long one.

  John Carver was up by seven, too, so he was fully awake when Al Hibbert telephoned from Litchfield. Hibbert said: ‘Everything’s wrecked, John. I’ve never seen a place stripped like it. It’s terrible. Bastards!’

  Stanley Burcher was irritated at the need constantly to cross the river to meet the Deliocis but acknowledged that he had to show the respect of going to them, on their territory. He also acknowledged that he’d gone too far, confronting the old man as he had, at the last encounter. He knew the New York Families would back him, if Emilio Delioci protested. But they’d be unsettled by the way he’d spoken to a Don, even a minor one. It was essential that he recover by replacing Northcote with Carver to keep the system working smoothly.

  The Thomson Avenue restaurant wasn’t open but they were waiting for him in the back room, the old man, the elder son and Family heir, Enrico Delioci, and Paolo Brescia. Burcher wondered idly if they had cots in a closet somewhere, so that they were able to sleep in the damned place. He said: ‘So what did you find?’

  ‘Nothing.’ It was Enrico who replied, to spare his father the embarrassment.

  ‘Nothing!’ echoed Burcher, disbelieving. ‘There must have been something.’ It would be he who switched the operation to John Carver, so there wouldn’t be any need in the future to deal with this amateur crew who believed muscle was the answer to everything: in future it would just be he and Carver and all the power-by-association that the arrangement would give him.

  ‘I was there,’ said Brescia. ‘We took the place apart, everything. Kept the cash and valuables, to make it look like a burglary. But there was none of the documentation or the names you gave us.’

  ‘Then who’s got it?’ demanded Burcher.

  ‘Maybe it wasn’t there,’ wheezed Emilio Delioci.

  Burcher looked at the son. ‘You made the call, telling him you were sending collectors, right?’

  ‘Right,’ agreed the darkly saturnine man.

  ‘What did he say … the exact words?’

  ‘That he’d talked it all out with you. That there wasn’t any point in our coming because there was nothing to collect.’

  ‘What about when your people were trying to persuade him?’

  Brescia said: ‘He died without saying anything about documents. But Carver knows. That’s what Northcote said – Carver knows.’

  ‘Let’s not forget the woman, the personal assistant,’ said Enrico. ‘You want we should ask her?’

  A trick, Burcher instantly realized. They were putting the responsibility on to him, covering themselves if anything went wrong as it had up in Litchfield. ‘Not like you asked Northcote. Looks like you got away with it but I don’t want to stretch coincidence unless we have to.’

  ‘What then?’ demanded the old man.

  Another trick, thought Burcher. It really hadn’t been a mistake insisting his word was the word of the Families. Burcher said: ‘I guess I – and the people I speak for – have to get personally involved.’ As much as he wanted to do that and pick up the recognition, Burcher felt a stir of uncertainty as he spoke.

  Eight

  Jack Jennings flew with them and as they began to descend over the Litchfield estate Carver gazed down at the assembled police vehicles with a feeling of déjà vu. The impression was heightened by it being the same pilot in the same helicopter and of their landing almost in the same place as before, to avoid those on the ground being disturbed by the down draught. And as before Al Hibbert was already on his way towards them when they hurried from the machine.

  The sheriff said: ‘This sure as hell isn’t what you needed, on top of everything else.’ When he saw Jane he said: ‘Sorry, Mrs Carver. Didn’t realize it was you.’

  Jane shook her head impatiently and said: ‘How bad is it?’

  ‘As bad as I’ve ever seen around these parts. Worse,’ said Hibbert. ‘The place – the house as well as the outhouses, the pool house and all the staff quarters – hasn’t just been turned over, to get anything and everything that’s valuable. It’s been totally trashed.’

  It had.

  Very little furniture in any of the rooms remained intact. Seats and cushions were slashed apart and the frames and coverings of couches and formal and easy chairs dismembered. Every drawer of every desk and cabinet had been taken out,
upended and then broken into pieces: Northcote’s antique study desk had been crowbarred apart into something close to matchwood and the heavy, button-backed desk chair disembowelled. Every book on the shelves had been taken down and its leaves torn out and strewn across the floor. The doors of the cupboards below had been wrenched off their hinges. The safe gaped open, empty. The drapes hung in shreds. Carver was glad he’d salvaged Northcote’s family photographs: every one that remained had been smashed. The devastation, through which protectively white-overalled forensic specialists were working, was repeated throughout the ground floor. It was only when they reached the sprawling, split-level drawing room that Carver realized through the mess that no antique ornament or any of the silver that Northcote had collected remained. Nor did any of the paintings, prints or original nineteenth-century photographs of early American settlers and native American tribes, a collection in itself unique if not antique.

  The kitchen and staff accommodation had been overturned, in some instances literally. Three huge, free-standing fridge freezers had been thrown forward off their feet but only after the doors had been opened, for their contents to smash and now seep over the floor. The same destruction had been carried out on two separate, smaller refrigerators. Every single thing in every storage cupboard had been heaped, smashed, on the floor, to mix with the seepage from the freezers. What wine and spirits had not been taken from the cellar were smashed and soaked the floor.

  Every room in the staff wing was demolished, apart from the shell itself, even to every article of clothing being slashed beyond repair and every personal item – photographs, ornaments, momentoes – smashed.

  Because there was so much soft furnishing and bedding the havoc appeared worse upstairs because every piece – bed coverings, duvets, pillows, mattresses, couches and easy chairs – had been eviscerated. The carpet had even been lifted in Northcote’s bedroom and adjoining dressing room, where all his suits hung in tatters from their rails and in the middle of which were piled slashed shirts and sweaters.

  Hibbert said: ‘It’s the same in the outhouses. Everything – cars, equipment – totally wrecked.’