…’
‘You want security to go on watching her?’
‘Keep the telephone taps on, throughout the department. Hers particularly. And obviously keep an eye on Parnell. Leave me to worry about everything else. And Dwight…?’
‘Yes?’
‘You’re doing a hell of a good job.’
That morning Newton didn’t make the mistake of trying to leave through the wrong door.
‘Sorry I haven’t got back to you before now,’ apologized Newton.
‘Not a lot for us to discuss so far,’ accepted Parnell.
‘Enough,’ said the vice president. ‘You seem to have everything parcelled up pretty efficiently.’ Newton hadn’t set out intending this meeting. His mind hadn’t gone beyond the New York encounter and what there was to discuss with Edward C. Grant. It was only afterwards, on the return Washington shuttle, when he was still very much thinking of that discussion and Grant’s numbing cynicism during it – and of his openly being named on the security eavesdrop – that the idea came of personally speaking to Parnell. And trying to assess what suspicion or curiosity the Englishman might disclose.
‘Still a long way to go.’ Why the sudden summons, after playing the invisible man?
‘Looks to me like you’re working to an agenda.’
‘Trying to create one that’s practical,’ qualified Parnell. ‘I thought the best initial contribution we might try was on some of the most current research, to complete an entire package.’
Was that a veiled reference to Paris? ‘Sounds a sensible approach. How many have you got in mind?’
Parnell was sure he prevented the frown. ‘Those that I’ve already memoed you about.’
‘Sure,’ said Newton, awkwardly, gesturing to a disordered pile of paper on his desk. ‘You think there’s anything likely?’
‘Nothing that’s leapt out of the petrie dish at us, but then we neither of us expect Archimedes-style discoveries, do we?’
Newton forced the smile, sure the other man was mocking him. ‘Still be nice.’
‘The exchange system appears to be working well, between Russell’s section and mine.’
That had to be a reference to France. ‘Sure you won’t be overwhelmed?’
‘No,’ answered Parnell, honestly. ‘That’s why we’re working to an agenda, trying to keep up to speed with what’s ongoing, allowing space to go back to earlier stuff when we’re able.’
He had to force it along, Newton decided. ‘I’m afraid Russ has been a little preoccupied lately. Me, too.’
‘He told me.’ The quick halt was intentional, to lure Newton into saying more.
‘Turned out to be a waste of time. It’s all being scrapped,’ insisted Newton.
Parnell didn’t believe Newton any more than he’d believed Russell Benn. ‘Gastrointestinal is where pharmacogenomics might have a real place.’
The son of a bitch was trying to trick him! ‘It was respiratory. A decongestant.’
‘Of course! Russell told me. My mistake.’
‘You think of any way things could be improved for you?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Parnell. ‘Might suggest closer contact between Russell and myself in the future. But not yet. The backlog’s too big. You sure there’s no purpose in my having a different look at the respiratory experiments?’
‘None,’ said Newton, positively. ‘That’s a principle I work from here, Dick. We don’t waste time with failed ideas. It doesn’t work, we scrap it, move on.’
‘I’ll remember that,’ said Parnell. What was the point of all this?
‘Maybe we should have lunch together again soon.’
‘Good idea now that you can raise your head from the microscope. I look forward to it.’
Another reference, isolated Newton. ‘We’ll do it real soon.’ There very definitely had to be another early-morning trip to New York – arranged from a public kiosk, he reminded himself. Every phone on the research floor was being security monitored.
From the way the Toyota was parked, Parnell saw the damage when he was still some yards away, despite the twilight. The damage began at the passenger door but was worse on the nearside wing, the dents deep enough to have broken a lot of paint. He looked for a culprit’s note under the windscreen wipers. There wasn’t one.
‘Shit,’ he said. He yanked at the nearside wheel, which felt secure enough. He drove slowly through the near-empty car park, satisfying himself there was no wheel damage before he reached the highway.
In the apartment, he made the single evening drink he allowed himself, a strong gin and tonic, briefly undecided but finally ringing Rebecca.
‘You coming to the house?’ she asked at once.
‘Just wanted to talk.’
‘What about?’
‘Some bastard drove into my car, in the car park.’
‘Did they leave a note?’
‘No such luck.’
‘How bad?’
‘Passenger door and wing. The damage kind of goes around to the front, which is slightly buckled.’
‘You told security?’
‘Not yet.’
‘You should,’ she insisted.
‘I will,’ emptily promised Parnell.
‘Don’t put it off.’
‘I won’t.’
‘I’m looking forward to the weekend.’
‘So am I.’
‘You really mean that?’ she asked.
‘I really mean it.’
‘I love you.’
‘I love you too,’ said Parnell, once again wishing he didn’t have so much difficulty saying the words.
Ten
Rebecca insisted it was her decision how they spent the weekend, although it was limited to Sunday. She arrived early at Washington Circle and told Parnell to dress in jeans and a work shirt. She refused coffee, which she’d already delayed herself by making in Bethesda. As usual she refused to start the engine until he fastened his seat belt.
‘Now I’m strapped in, tell me where we’re going.’
‘Out into the great big country that you’ve never seen,’ said Rebecca.
‘What if I don’t like it?’
‘Too bad. You’re being kidnapped.’
She drove him, in fact, to Chesapeake Bay to eat the in-season, bite-sized soft-shelled crabs with a pitcher of beer. Despite the jeans and work shirt, Parnell got glued and dirty from the shakers of glutinous salt and herb flavourings and couldn’t properly clean himself up, even in the washroom.
Rebecca said: ‘You think any clean-living, respectable girl would get into bed with someone looking like you do?’
‘No,’ said Parnell. ‘But the food would be worth the abstinence. And you’ve got grunge all around your face, too. I’ll try to develop a treatment for it.’
‘I’ve beaten you!’ Rebecca declared, triumphantly.
‘I’m getting accustomed to it,’ acknowledged Parnell, in weak protest. ‘Beaten me to what, exactly?’
‘The guided tour. You know your way from Washington DC to McLean, North Virginia, and from Washington Circle to Georgetown, and that’s it. Until today. Congratulations! You pushed the covered wagon out beyond the stockade, and hostile Indians aren’t firing arrows.’
‘They didn’t three hundred years ago. Our settlers fired on them first.’
‘Book learning!’ she refused. ‘This is your first great step for mankind.’
Parnell scrubbed his face with a gritty, crumpled paper towel, but didn’t feel any improvement. ‘So, I’m not much fun, eh?’
‘Severely limited.’
‘Why’d you stay?’ He felt safe with the question because the conversation was light, unendangering, although embarrassingly he recognized that Rebecca was making a deserved complaint.
‘We crossed the boundary. Made the commitment we always held back from. Which we still seem to be holding back from.’
‘I could blame work. But I won’t.’
‘Good. You changed your mind?’
‘No. I wasn’t sure if you might have done.’ That wasn’t entirely true, he admitted to himself.
‘You could have asked.’
‘You keep nagging and I will blame work.’
‘You do that and I’ll know you’ve changed your mind.’
‘You ever think of studying law rather than science? You’d have made a great prosecuting attorney.’