Now that the man was talking, almost rattling along, poking his face close to hers, talking at manic speed but not attempting otherwise to touch her or her clothing in any way, the best plan seemed to be to keep him at it.
The education of women! A bizarre subject to discuss, perhaps, under the present circumstances, but one on which Jemima did at least have strong views-if not precisely these views.
“You’re absolutely right,” she agreed, her tone still resolutely equable, resisting the temptation to adjust the loose tie and button of her dress.
On the subject of education, would it be a good plan or a very bad plan-to reintroduce the subject of Clemency Vane? Her captor-for such he was-either knew her or knew of her. As it was, one could indeed fruitfully talk about the education of Clemency Vane and at some length, in view of what had happened to her following that education. Had the missing Clemency been actually present in the hotel room where she promised to be, Jemima herself would have shot off some pertinent questions on the subject: even if she would have recorded the answers in her own well-trained memory (and not as yet with a camera crew). Clemency had asked for her to take no notes and certainly not use a tape recorder at these preliminary interviews. And Jemima, who at this stage was committed to nothing, Clemency having made all the running herself, had nothing to lose by agreeing to her terms.
Clemency Vane was a convicted criminal who had recently been released from prison, where she had spent something over five years on a charge of drug dealing. It was an odd case. Nobody seemed to know quite where all the money had gone: some really large sums had vanished. Jemima remembered that the original sentence had been for eight years and that Clemency had been released for good behavior: it had certainly been a strong sentence for a first offender. On the other hand the proved details of Clemency Vane’s drug dealing were pretty strong too. And it was undeniably dealing: no question of a desperate addict merely trying to service her own expensive habit. Quite apart from the fact that she had pleaded “guilty.”
The oddness lay in the hint of political background to it all, a hint that mysteriously and totally disappeared when the case came to be tried and the “guilty” plea was entered, What was the country concerned? Jemima tried to remember. Red Clemmie? Blue Clemmie? Green Clemmie? Not the latter presumably in view of the drug dealing. Since none of this had finally been proffered by the defense at her trial, temporarily the name of the country eluded her, which was ridiculous. But she would have reminded herself of all the details of the case beforehand if Clemency Vane’s summons to an interview in the anonymous barn of a West London hotel had not come so peremptorily to her this morning. That had altered their previous more-long-term arrangements.
“No, it can’t wait. I thought it could when I spoke to you originally. But now it can’t.”
Santangela. That was it. Santangela: one of those little states, whose precise connection with drug traffic, antidrug traffic measures, nationalism, and anti-imperialism was so difficult to establish even for those who were keenly interested. Which most Britons, and Jemima was no exception, frankly were not. That was the hint of political background that had come and then mysteriously gone away. After all, shortly after Clemency Vane was imprisoned, there was a successful revolution in Santangela in any case; so the whole situation had changed. Santangela: where exactly was the place? Latin America? Central America? South America? It was ridiculous to be so ignorant about sheer geography, which was after all a matter of fact. But then that was Europe-centered Britain-including Jemima Shore-for you.
Jemima looked at the man again. Not a Moroccan, an Algerian, or a Turk, then, but a Santangelino? If that was what its nationals were called, as she seemed to remember they were. More vagueness, she ruefully admitted. All the same, for the first time her gaze was inquisitive, not challenging and self-protective. A Santangelino. Somehow connected to Clemency Vane’s drug charge, once deemed in some way political, then all of a sudden quite apolitical, just criminal. What she was not yet in any way clear about as yet was exactly how Clemency and her drugs fitted into Jemima’s current series. She had been wondering that ever since Clemency Vane had made the first contact. But there seemed plenty of time to find out.
Jemima’s new series-very much at the planning stage-was tentatively entitled For the Love of the Cause. It concerned the rival claims of public campaigning and private life. She had already made various soundings concerning it and had had one or two preliminary interviews with dedicated campaigners of various sorts-including one with a man who, very much against Jemima’s own beliefs, wanted to bring back capital punishment but whose wife opposed him, To her irritation, she was failing to turn up sufficient numbers of “strong women” who fitted this particular bill; they existed, all right, but preferred to keep their private lives and/ or disputes to themselves. Jemima sympathized, of course, but remained professionally irritated…
Then Clemency Vane telephoned out of the blue. Jemima herself would certainly never have thought of a reformed-one hoped-drug dealer in connection with this series. Yet Clemency’s original call, fielded by Cherry, indicated that this area of conflict was what she wished to discuss. Various other calls followed, guarded conversations, all on the telephone, with Jemima herself, with no direct information offered absolutely pertinent to the program, yet a good deal of talk about the principles involved. Love and duty, their rival demands, and so forth.
They had met only once; as now, in a hotel, an anonymous block in a different part of London; as now, the summons had come suddenly, giving Jemima little time to prepare.
“I can get away now,” Clemency Vane had said. “Please come.” And Jemima, to the sound of a few protests about work load from Cherry, had gone.
For Clemency Vane’s appearance, Jemima had been dependent on the numerous newspaper and television news images: the strong features, particularly the nose, which might be described kindly as patrician, otherwise as beaky; the circular tinted glasses that added a somewhat owlish look; and the pretty, softening halo of blond curly hair at her trial. In fact Clemency was darker than Jemima had expected, or perhaps the blond hair had been allowed to darken in prison; as it was, her hair, also much straighter, was scraped back, and her face behind the circular tinted glasses-they at least were familiar-virtually devoid of makeup. You got the impression of someone deliberately rendering herself unattractive, or at least unappealing; gone was the feminine softness of the prisoner on trial.
At the same time Clemency was quite tiny physically; that, along with her cultivatedly plain appearance, was another surprise. Well, you never really knew about people from their newspaper photographs, did you? That was one certain rule. Even television could be oddly delusive about size and scale.
It was still a strong face, despite the unexpectedly small scale of it all. A strong face: and a strong character too, judging from the evidence yielded up by the trial.
“I need to find out about you,” Clemency had said at this meeting. She spoke quite abruptly, dragging on her cigarette. She had smoked throughout the interview, stubbing out each cigarette with fury when it was about halfway finished. “I need to know if I can trust you.” Her attitude was certainly not conciliatory: defiant if anything. But she was also nervous.
“As it happens, you can trust me.” Jemima was prepared to be patient. “But I hope you will find that for yourself. With time. That’s the best way. I’m in no hurry about this series: we’ve only just started to research it, as a matter of fact. For the Love of the Cause. It’s a fascinating topic but a tricky one. I need to get exactly the right people-”