Kitabı oku: «Call After Midnight», sayfa 2

CHAPTER TWO

SARAH STARTED TO speak, but her voice refused to work. Like a statue, she sat frozen in her chair, unable to move, unable to do anything but stare at him.

“I thought you should know,” said Nick. “I had to tell you in any event, because now we’ll need your help. The Berlin police want information about your husband’s activities, his enemies…why he might have been killed.”

She shook her head numbly. “I can’t think of… I mean I just don’t know…. My God!” she whispered.

The gentle touch of his hand on her shoulder made Sarah flinch. She looked up and saw the concern in his eyes. He’s worried I’ll faint, she thought. He’s worried I’ll get sick all over his nice thick carpet and embarrass us both. With sudden irritation she shook off his hand. She didn’t need anyone’s rehearsed sympathy. She needed to be alone—away from bureaucrats and their impersonal file folders. She rose unsteadily to her feet. No, she was not going to faint, not in front of this man.

Nick reached for her arm and nudged her gently back into the chair. “Please, Mrs. Fontaine. Another minute, that’s all I need.”

“Let me go.”

“Mrs. Fontaine—”

“Let me go.”

The sharpness of her voice seemed to shock him. He released her but did not back away. As she sat there, she was acutely aware of various aspects of his presence—the faint smell of after-shave and fatigue, the dull gleam of his belt buckle, the wrinkled shirt sleeves.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to crowd you. I was just worried that…well…”

“Yes?” She looked up into those slate eyes. Something she saw there—a steadiness, a strength—made her suddenly, and against all instinct, want to trust him. “I’m not going to faint, if that’s what you mean,” she said. “Please, I’d like to go home now.”

“Yes, of course. But I have just a few more questions.”

“I don’t have any answers. Don’t you understand?”

He was silent for a moment. “Then I’ll contact you later,” he said at last. “We have to talk about the arrangements for the body.”

“Oh. Yes, the body.” She stood up, blinking back a new wave of tears.

“I’ll have the car take you home now, Mrs. Fontaine.” He moved toward her slowly, as if afraid of scaring her. “I’m sorry about your husband. Truly sorry. Feel free to call me if you have any questions.”

She knew none of those words came from the heart, that none of them held any genuine sympathy. Nicholas O’Hara was a diplomat, saying what he’d been taught to say. Whatever the catastrophe, the U.S. State Department always had the right words ready. He’d probably said the same thing to a hundred other widows.

Now he was waiting for her response, so she did what was expected of any widow. She pulled herself together. Reaching out, she shook his hand and thanked him. Then she turned and walked out the door.

* * *

“DO YOU THINK she knows?”

Nick stared at the door that had just closed behind Sarah Fontaine’s retreating figure. He turned and glanced at Tim Greenstein. “Knows what?”

“That her husband was a spook?”

“Hell, we don’t even know that.”

“Nick my man, this whole thing reeks of espionage. Geoffrey Fontaine was a total nonentity till a year ago. Then his name shows up on a wedding license, he has a brand new Social Security number, a passport and what have you. The FBI doesn’t seem to know a damn thing. But intelligence—they’ve got the guy’s file under classified! Am I dumb or what?”

“Maybe I’m the dumb one,” grunted Nick. He walked to his desk and dropped into the chair. Then he scowled at the Fontaine file. Tim was right, of course. The case stank to high heaven of funny business. Espionage? International crime? An ex-federal witness, hiding from the mob?

Who the hell was Geoffrey Fontaine?

Nick slouched down and threw his head back against the chair. Damn, he was tired. But he couldn’t get Geoffrey Fontaine out of his head. Or Sarah Fontaine, for that matter.

He’d been surprised when she walked into the office; he’d been expecting someone with a little more sophistication. Her husband had been a world-class traveler, a guy who’d whisked through London and Berlin and Amsterdam. A man like that should have a wife who was sleek and elegant. Instead, in had walked this skinny, awkward creature who was almost, but not quite, pretty. Her face had been too full of angles: high, sharp cheeks, a narrow nose, a square forehead softened only by a gentle widow’s peak. Her long hair had been a rich, coppery color; even tied back in a ponytail, it had been beautiful. Her horn-rimmed glasses had somehow amused him. They had framed two wide, amber-colored eyes—her best feature. With no makeup and with that pale, delicate complexion, she’d seemed much younger than the thirty or so years she must be.

No, she was not quite pretty. But throughout the interview Nick had found himself staring at her face and wondering about her marriage. And about her.

Tim rose. “Hey, all this grief is making me hungry. Let’s hit the cafeteria.”

“Not the cafeteria. Let’s go out. I’ve been sitting in this building all morning, and I’m going stir-crazy.” Nick pulled on his jacket, and together they walked out past Angie’s desk and headed for the stairs.

Outside a brisk spring wind blew in their faces as they strode down the sidewalk. The buds were just starting to swell on the cherry trees. In another week the whole city would be awash in pink and white flowers. It was Nick’s first D.C. springtime in eight years—he’d forgotten how pretty it could be, walking through the trees. He thrust his hands in his pockets and hunched over a little as the wind bit through his wool jacket.

Vaguely he wondered whether Sarah Fontaine had reached her apartment yet, whether she was lying across her bed now, sobbing her eyes out. He knew he’d been rough on her. It had bothered him, hounding her like that, but someone had to break through all of her denial. She had to understand the facts. It was the only way she’d ever really recover from her grief.

“Where we going, Nick?” asked Tim.

“How about Mary Jo’s?”

“That salad place? What, are you on a diet or something?”

“No, but it’s quiet there. I’m not into loud conversation right now.”

After two more blocks, they turned into the restaurant and sat down at a table. Fifteen minutes later the waitress brought their salads, which were cloaked in homemade mayonnaise and tarragon. Tim looked at the lettuce and arugula on his fork and sighed.

“This is rabbit food. Give me a greasy burger any day.” He stuffed a forkful of the salad into his mouth and looked across the table at Nick. “So what’s bugging you? The new post got you down already?”

“It’s a damned slap in the face, that’s what it is,” said Nick. He drained his cup of coffee and motioned to the waitress for another. “To go straight from being number two man in London to shuffling papers in D.C.”

“So why didn’t you resign?”

“I just might. Since that fiasco in London, my career’s been shot. And now I’ve got to put up with this bastard, Ambrose.”

“Is he still out of town?”

“One more week. Till then I can do the job my way. Without all that bureaucratic nonsense. Hell, if he rewrites any more of my reports to make ’em ‘conform to administration policy,’ I’m going to puke.” Nick put his fork down and scowled at the salad. The mention of his boss had just ruined his appetite. From the very first day, Nick and Ambrose had rubbed each other the wrong way. Charles Ambrose reveled in the bureaucratic merry-go-round, whereas Nick always insisted on getting straight to the point, however unpleasant. The clash had been inevitable.

“Your trouble, Nick, is that even though you’re an egghead, you don’t talk gobbledegook like all the others. You’ve got ’em all confused. They don’t like guys they can understand. Plus you’re a bleeding-heart liberal.”

“So? You are, too.”

“But I’m also a certified nerd. They make allowances for nerds. If they don’t, I shut down their computers.”

Nick laughed, suddenly glad for the company of his old buddy, Tim. Four years of being college roommates had left strong bonds. Even after eight years abroad, Nick had come home to find Tim Greenstein just as bushy and likable as ever.

He picked up his fork and finished off the salad.

“So what’re you going to do with this Fontaine case?” Tim asked over dessert.

“I’m going to do my job and look into it.”

“You gonna tell Ambrose? He’ll want to hear about it. So will the guys at the Company, if they don’t already know.”

“Let ’em find out on their own. It’s my case.”

“It sounds like espionage to me, Nick. That’s not exactly a consular affair.”

But Nick didn’t like the idea of turning Sarah Fontaine over to some CIA case officer. She seemed too fragile, too vulnerable. “It’s my case,” he repeated.

Tim grinned. “Ah, the widow Fontaine. Could it be she’s your type? Though I can’t quite see the attraction. What I really can’t see is how she hooked that husband. Blond Adonis, wasn’t he? Not the kind of guy to go for a woman in horn-rimmed glasses. My deduction is that he married her for reasons other than the usual.”

“The usual? You mean love?”

“Naw. Sex.”

“Just what the hell are you getting at?”

“Hmm. Touchy. You liked her, didn’t you?”

“No comment.”

“Seems to me the old love life’s been pretty barren since your divorce.”

Nick set his coffee cup down with a clatter. “What’s with all these questions?”

“Just trying to see where your head’s at, Nick. Haven’t you heard? It’s the latest thing. Men opening up to each other.”

Nick sighed. “Don’t tell me. You’ve been to another one of those sensitivity training sessions.”

“Yeah. Great place to meet women. You should try it.”

“No, thanks. The last thing I need is to join some big cry-in with a bunch of neurotic females.”

Tim gave his friend a sympathetic look. “Let me tell you, Nick. You need to do something. You can’t just sit around and be celibate the rest of your life.”

“Why not?”

Tim laughed. “Because, dammit, we both know you’re not the priestly type!”

Tim was right. In the four years since his split-up with Lauren, Nick had avoided any close relationships with women, sexual or otherwise, and it was starting to show. He was irritable. He’d thrown himself into salvaging what was left of his career, but work, he’d discovered, was a poor substitute for what he really wanted—a warm, soft body to hold; laughter in the night; thoughts shared in bed. To avoid being hurt again, he’d learned to live without these things. It was the only way to stay sane. But those old male instincts didn’t die easily. No, Nick was not the priestly type.

“Heard from Lauren lately?” asked Tim.

Nick looked up with a scowl. “Yeah. Last month. Told me she misses me. What she really misses, I think, is the embassy life.”

“So she called you. Sounds promising. Sounds like a reconciliation in the works.”

“Yeah? It sounded more to me like her latest romance wasn’t going so well.”

“Either way, it’s obvious she regrets the divorce. Did you follow up on it?”

Nick pushed away what remained of his chocolate mousse cake. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Didn’t feel like it.”

Tim leaned back and laughed. “He didn’t feel like it.” He sighed to no one in particular. “Four years of moaning and groaning about being divorced, and now he tells me this.”

“Look, every time things go bad for her, she decides to call good old Nick, her ever-loyal chump. I can’t handle that anymore. I told her I was no longer available. For her or anyone else.”

Tim shook his head. “You’ve sworn off women. That’s a very bad sign.”

“Nobody’s ever died of it.” Nick grunted as he threw a few bills on the table and rose. He wasn’t going to think about women right now. He had too many other things on his mind, and he sure as hell didn’t need another bad love affair.

But outside, as they walked back through the cherry trees, he found himself thinking about Sarah Fontaine. Not about Sarah, the grieving widow, but about Sarah, the woman. The name fit her. Sarah with the amber eyes.

Nick quickly shook off the thoughts. Of all the women in Washington, she was the last one he should be thinking about. In his line of work, objectivity was the key to doing the job right. Whether it was issuing visas or arguing a jailed American’s case before a magistrate, getting personally involved was almost always a mistake. No, Sarah Fontaine was nothing more to him than a name in a file.

She would have to remain that way.

* * *

Amsterdam

THE OLD MAN loved roses. He loved the dusky smell of the petals, which he often plucked and rubbed between his fingers. So cool, so fragrant, not like those insipid tulips that his gardener had planted on the banks of the duck pond. Tulips were all color, no character. They threw up stalks, bloomed and vanished. But roses! Even through winter they persisted, bare and thorny, like angry old women crouched in the cold.

He paused among the rosebushes and breathed in deeply, enjoying the smell of damp earth. In a few weeks, there’d be flowers. How his wife would have loved this garden! He could picture her standing on this very spot, smiling at the roses. She would have worn her old straw hat and a housedress with four pockets, and she would have carried her plastic bucket. My uniform, she’d have said. I’m just an old soldier, going out to fight the snails and beetles. He remembered how the rose clippers used to clunk against the bucket when she walked down the steps of their old house—the house he’d left behind. Nienke, my sweet Nienke, he thought. How I miss you.

“It is a cold day,” said a voice in Dutch.

The old man turned and looked at the pale-haired young man walking toward him through the bushes. “Kronen,” he said. “At last you’ve come.”

“I am sorry, meneer. A day late, but it couldn’t be helped.” Kronen took off his sunglasses and peered up at the sky. As usual, he avoided looking directly at the old man’s face. Since the accident, everyone avoided looking at his face, and it never failed to annoy him. It had been five years since anyone had stared him boldly in the eye, five years since he’d been able to meet another person’s gaze without detecting the invariable flinching. Even Kronen, whom he’d come to regard almost as a son, made it a point to look anywhere else. But then, young men of Kronen’s generation always fussed too much about appearances.

“I take it things went well in Basra,” said the old man.

“Yes. Minor delays, that’s all. And there were problems with the last shipment…the computer chips in the aiming mechanism…. One of the missiles failed to lock in.”

“Embarrassing.”

“Yes. I have already spoken to the manufacturer.”

They followed a path from the rosebushes toward the duck pond. The cold air made the old man’s throat sore. He wrapped his scarf a little tighter around his neck and forced out a thin, dry cough. “I have a new assignment for you,” he said. “A woman.”

Kronen paused, sudden interest in his eyes. His hair looked almost white in the sunshine. “Who is she?”

“The name is Sarah Fontaine. Geoffrey Fontaine’s wife. I want you to see where she leads you.”

Kronen frowned. “I don’t understand, sir. I was told Fontaine was dead.”

“Follow her anyway. My American source tells me she has a modest apartment in Georgetown. She is a microbiologist, thirty-two years old. Except for her marriage, she has no apparent intelligence connections. But one can never be certain.”

“May I contact this source?”

“No. His position is too…delicate.”

Kronen nodded, at once dropping the subject. He’d worked for the old man long enough to know the way things were done. Each man had his own territory, his own small box in which to operate. Never must one try to break out. Even Kronen, trusted as he was, saw only a part of the picture. Only the old man saw it all.

They walked together along the banks of the pond. The old man reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the bag of bread he’d brought from the house. Silently he flung a handful into the water and watched the crumbs swell. The ducks splashed among the reeds. When Nienke was alive, she had walked to the park every morning, just to feed the ducks her breakfast toast. She had worried that the weak ones would not get enough to eat. Look there, Frans, she would say. The little ones grow so fat! All on our breakfast crumbs!

Now, here he was, throwing bread on the water to the ducks he cared nothing about, except that Nienke would have loved them. He carefully folded the wrapper and stuffed it back into his pocket. As he did this, it struck him what a very sad and very feeble gesture it was, trying to preserve an old bread wrapper, and for what?

The pond had turned a sullen gray. Where had the sun gone? he wondered. Without looking at Kronen, he said, “I want to know about this woman. Leave soon.”

“Of course.”

“Be careful in Washington. I understand the crime there has become abominable.”

Kronen laughed as he turned to leave. “Tot ziens, meneer.”

The old man nodded. “Till then.”

* * *

THE LAB WHERE Sarah worked was spotless. The microscopes were polished, the counters and sinks were repeatedly disinfected, the incubation chambers were wiped clean twice daily. Sarah’s job required strict attention to asepsis; by habit she insisted on cleanliness. But as she sat at her lab bench, flipping through the last box of microscope slides, it seemed to Sarah that the sterility of the room had somehow extended to the rest of her life.

She took off her glasses and blinked tiredly. Everywhere she looked, stainless steel seemed to gleam back at her. The lights were harsh and fluorescent. There were no windows, and therefore, no sunshine. It could be noon or midnight outside; in here she’d never know the difference. Except for the hum of the refrigerator, the lab was silent.

She put her glasses on again and began to stack the slides back into the box. From the hallway came the clip of a woman’s heels on the floor. The door swung open.

“Sarah? What’re you doing here?”

Sarah glanced around at her good friend, Abby Hicks. In her size forty lab coat, Abby filled most of the doorway.

“I’m just catching up on a few things,” said Sarah. “So much work’s piled up since I’ve been gone….”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Sarah! The lab can manage without you for a few weeks. It’s already eight o’clock. I’ll check the cultures. Go on home.”

Sarah closed the box of slides. “I’m not sure I want to go home,” she murmured. “It’s too quiet there. I’d almost rather be here.”

“Well, this place isn’t exactly jumping. It’s about as lively as a tomb—” At once Abby bit her lip and reddened. Even at age fifty-five, Abby could blush as deeply as a schoolgirl. “Bad choice of words,” she mumbled.

Sarah smiled. “It’s all right, Abby.”

For a moment the two women said nothing. Sarah rose and opened the incubator to deposit the specimen plate she’d been working on. The foul smell of agar drifted out from the warm petri dishes and permeated the room.

“How are you doing, Sarah?” Abby asked gently.

Sarah shut the incubator after setting the plate inside. With a sigh she turned and looked at her friend. “I’m managing, I guess.”

“We’ve all missed you. Even old Grubb says it’s not the same without you and your silly bottle of disinfectant. I think everyone’s just a little afraid to call you. None of them really knows what to do with grief, I suppose. But we do care, Sarah.”

Sarah nodded gratefully. “Oh, Abby, I know you care. And I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. All the casseroles and cards and flowers. Now I just have to get back on my feet.” She gazed sadly around the room. “I thought that coming back to work was what I needed.”

“Some people need the old routine. Others need to get away for a while.”

“Maybe that’s what I should do. Get away from Washington for a while. Away from all the places that remind me of him….” She swallowed back the familiar ache in her throat and tried to smile. “My sister has asked me to visit her in Oregon. You know, I haven’t seen my nephew and nieces in years. They must be getting huge.”

“Then go. Sarah, it hasn’t even been two weeks! You need to give it some time. Go see your sister. Have yourself a few more cries.”

“I’ve spent too many days crying. I’ve been sitting at home, wondering how to get through this. I still can’t bear to see his clothes hanging in the closet.” Sarah shook her head. “It’s not just losing him that hurts so much. It’s the rest….”

“You mean the part about Berlin.”

Sarah nodded. “I’ll go crazy if I think about it much longer. That’s why I came in tonight—to get my mind off the whole thing. I thought it was time to get back to work.” She stared at the stack of lab books by her microscope. “But it’s strange, Abby. I used to love this place. Now I wonder how I’ve stood it these past six years. All these cold cabinets and steel sinks. Everything so closed in. I feel as if I can’t breathe.”

“It’s got to be more than the lab. You’ve always liked this job, Sarah. You’re the one who stands humming by the centrifuge.”

“I can’t picture myself working here the rest of my life. Geoffrey and I had so little time together! Three days for a honeymoon. That’s all. Then I had to rush back to finish that damned grant proposal. We were always so busy, no time for vacations. Now we’ll never have another chance.” Sighing, she went back to her bench and flicked off the microscope lamp. Softly she added, “And I’ll never really know why he…” She sat down without finishing the sentence.

“Have you heard anything else from the State Department?”

“That man called again yesterday. The police in Berlin have finally released the—the body. It’s coming home tomorrow.” Her eyes suddenly filmed with tears. She gazed down, struggling not to cry. “The service will be Friday. You’ll be there?”

“Of course I’ll be there. We’ll all be there. I’ll drive you, okay?” Abby came over and laid a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “It’s still so recent, Sarah. You’ve got every right to cry.”