They had talked a little about racehorses, on which subject Jaff seemed knowledgeable enough, and soon it had been obvious to both of them that they were the same beneath the skin, though nothing was said there and then.
The Farmer had given Jaff his card; Jaff had given Fanthorpe one of the girls and a room key for the discreet boutique hotel across the road. What a night. They hadn’t looked back. After that, contact had to be kept to a minimum for business reasons, but he always remembered that night and imagined Jaff thrashing the sheets with gorgeous women like that every night while he stayed at home and worried about the bills and his daughters’ education, Zenovia’s increasingly extravagant shopping trips. He knew he felt more than a little envious toward Jaff, that he lived life vicariously through him. Perhaps, he had even once gone so far as to think Jaff represented the son he had never had. Even in business Jaff was perhaps the partner The Farmer could never quite acknowledge that he had.
And he remembered a few months after their first meeting, in this very same den where he was sitting now, handing the Smith & Wesson automatic to Jaff, putting in the magazine for him, identifying the target and telling him to make sure he dumped the gun in the river afterward. Well, it appeared as if he hadn’t got around to that last part. But what did it really matter? The Farmer thought. So he’d been a bit sloppy once. So the cops might get his prints from the magazine. So what? Jaff wouldn’t be talking; that was for certain.
The Farmer was lost in this line of thought when his private mobile rang, the one with the bell that sounded like an old telephone. He picked it up and barked his name. From the other end of the line came a name and an address, followed by a click. It was all he needed, all he’d been waiting for. He keyed in the number of Darren’s throwaway.
“SIR?” SAID Winsome on the way to hospital.
“You don’t need to call me that.”
“I know. I just feel more comfortable sometimes.”
“Oh? Does that mean you have a tricky question? A complaint?”
“Neither, I hope, sir. I just…well, I just wondered why you didn’t take George Fanthorpe’s offer.”
“I’m surprised to hear you, of all people, asking me that.”
“What if I hadn’t been there?”
“You think I’d have gone along with him then?”
“No, sir, not that. But would you have done the same? After all, you could always have agreed, pretended to go along, and then when Tracy was safe, you could have made your move.”
“When you sup with the devil you need a long spoon, Winsome, and I didn’t have time to go out and get one.”
“Sir?”
Banks sighed and glanced out of the window. Beyond the buildings he could see lightning from a distant storm. Tracy had been scared of storms when she was a little girl, he remembered. He hoped she wasn’t scared of them anymore; she had enough to worry about. “Right now,” he said, “we’re at a delicate stage of the game where Fanthorpe, Jaff, Ciaran and Darren hold most of the cards. We’re also at that stage where things are tending toward chaos. The still point. It’s a bad place to be and an even worse place to make the sort of gamble that puts one’s daughter’s life at stake.”
“I still don’t understand, sir.”
“I’m tired, Winsome. There were many reasons-ethical, personal, practical-why I didn’t take The Farmer up on his generous offer. But when you get right down to it, it just wasn’t that good an offer.”
“But why not?”
“Because Fanthorpe couldn’t guarantee Tracy’s safety. Situations like the one Ciaran and Darren are entering into right now are volatile by nature, full of uncertainty and chaotic in the extreme. No one can predict what the outcome might be. Anything could happen. A butterfly might spread its wings in Mexico and change the world. My gambling on Fanthorpe would have been exactly that. A gamble. And the way things are now, I at least maintain a modicum of control, and more than enough self-respect. And that’ll have to do for now. You can get quite a long way on them, actually. We’re here, aren’t we?”
TRACY BANKS lay awake in the dark. The ropes that secured her hands and her ankles to the bedposts made her feel as if she were on the rack every time she moved. Whenever the thunder rumbled outside, she felt a deep and primitive sense of unease ripple through her. Despite the stimulation of the coke, Jaff had fallen asleep quickly and easily. She could hear his gentle snoring beside her, see the outline of his sleek naked body glistening in the darkness. Four twenty-three. The devil’s hour. Her spirits were low and she felt used, abused, humiliated, worthless. And powerless.
Jaff had had his way with her, of course, after he had tied her up, and then he turned the TV on when he lost interest, muttering something about ringing Madison, blaming Tracy for just lying there like a sack of potatoes. It could have been worse. He could have beaten her. But he hadn’t; he had just shagged her routinely and fallen asleep watching TV. Worse things had happened after a night in the clubs and a drunken trip home with a stranger, awkward fumblings in the back of a minicab. But this time she hadn’t been drunk or stoned, and Jaff wasn’t a stranger, though in a way he was more unknowable than any of the predictable boys she had slept with before. And this time it had been different. This time it had been rape. He had tied her down and had sex with her against her will. That she hadn’t screamed out or struggled changed nothing. She was his prisoner, and he had a gun.
She couldn’t reach the telephone even if she tried; it was on Jaff’s side of the bed. Even in his intoxication and his lust he wasn’t stupid; he never lost sight of the practical realities. She wished she could at least get hold of the remote to turn off the bloody TV, which he had switched on just before falling asleep. It was an American football game, and it was driving her crazy. But the remote was on Jaff’s side, too, of course.
Suddenly she sensed that he was awake beside her. “Did you hear that?” he said.
“All I can hear is the bloody TV,” said Tracy.
Jaff ignored her tone, grabbed the remote and switched it off. “Listen,” he commanded.
Tracy listened. “I can’t hear anything.”
“Ssshhh. I thought I heard someone outside, in the corridor.”
“You’re paranoid. It’s just the thunderstorm. Or someone going back to their room after a night out.”
Jaff slipped out of bed. He was wearing only his white underpants. “Paranoia is a form of awareness.”
“And whose words of wisdom are those?”
Jaff gave her a knife blade of a smile. “Charles Manson.” He pulled the gun from his bag and went over to the door, placing his ear against the wood. Then he looked through the peephole. A few moments later he undid the chain and opened the door, checked both ways up and down the hotel corridor, and came back in.
“I could have sworn I heard someone out there.”
Tracy couldn’t very well tell him not to worry and come back to bed. In her position, there wasn’t much point in saying anything. She just kept quiet, hoping he would leave her alone and fall asleep again.
He did lie down beside her, but he didn’t fall asleep. She could feel the tension emanating from his body, coiled on the bed beside her. But he didn’t touch her, and she was relieved at least for that.
Time dragged slowly on, the storm abated and the dawn light started to show through the curtains. Tracy wondered how long they would stay there, how long before they headed out to the garage, where they would pick up a nice clean car and drive to London and…When did the place open? Seven o’clock? Eight? Nine? It didn’t matter how many CCTV cameras recorded their journey if the car wasn’t on the police’s stolen list. Jaff was certain to obey all the rules of the road and to avoid speeding, no matter how much of a hurry he was in. Because for him the journey meant freedom, and for her it might mean death.