‘Everyone’s up to their neck, Casey. It’s the High Court case tomorrow ‘
‘Dammit, Randall, this is our daughter’s life we’re talking about.’
‘Candy is not technically mine,’ Thurlow reminded icily.
‘Well, she has been for the past six years as far as I’m concerned, you callous bastard.’
Thurlow’s voice cracked. ‘Don’t be so melodramatic. You say there’s been an hour’s warning, the police will get the area cleared ‘
Casey was exasperated. ‘I could be there myself while I’m standing here arguing with you.’
‘Then why don’t you do that.’ Cold.
‘Stuff you, Randall!’ she said and slammed down the telephone.
God, whatever had she seen in that bastard? How could she ever have been fooled by that smooth, supercilious English voice and all the rich trappings of inherited wealth.
She snatched her handbag, checked for her car keys and raced across the news floor to the glass lift. It descended to the vast beige marble arboretum that formed the reception area of Northcliffe House. Once outside the doors, she found it was raining heavily, the forecast July showers having turned into a prolonged torrential monsoon. Eddie Mercs was still standing on the corner of Derry Street with Hal Hoskins, the young leather-jacketed photographer.
Both men were trying in vain to flag down an empty taxi.
‘EDDIE! D’YOU WANNA LIFT?!’
A smile of relief broke over the veined and florid face, rain flattening what was left of his curly grey hair.
By the time they caught up with her, Casey had already reached her meter space and had the engine of the red Porsche purring eagerly. The photographer scrambled in through the passenger seat to the rear squab while Mercs dumped himself beside the driver, water forming a pool by his feet.
‘Nice motor, Case,’ the photographer observed appreciatively. ‘First time I’ve been on a job in a Porsche. Yours?’
‘My late husband’s,’ she replied, peering through the thrashing motion of the wipers, the windows already fugging with condensation. ‘I’m sorry,’ Hoskins said.
Mercs explained helpfully: ‘She means late as in former — or else it’s just her wishful thinking.’
‘We’re separating,’ Casey added. ‘Halfway between nisi and absolute — there must be a word for it. We’re getting separate new homes but the Porsche goes back to his side of the asset sheet. Guess I must make some concession to growing up — just don’t ask me to give up tap-dancing.’
The Porsche swung across Kensington High Street to join the eastward flow of traffic streaming towards the West End.
‘You could do worse than marry me,’ Mercs offered, wiping the rain specks from his glasses with a handkerchief.
‘I couldn’t afford the liquor bills.’
‘But I’d let you keep up the tap-dancing.’
She grinned without taking her eyes off the road. From the moment she had met Mercs in Jimmies Wine Bar after her first shift on the Standard, they had hit it off instantly. Considered dour by those who did not know him, Mercs had found that his own dry wit was triggered by Casey’s quick-fire one-liners. She had also used them to good effect in an occasional humorist column called ‘A Yank in London’ which the editor had grudgingly trialed. Too much of her day, she was aware, was spent replying to Mercs’s romantic proposals which were invariably sent via their VDUs after he had imbibed an extended liquid lunch. But at least it proved a welcome antidote to her troubled personal life. ‘How long you been living here now?’ Hal asked.
‘Six years. Since I married Randall.’
‘Worked on other national papers, have you?’
‘No, this is my first proper job now Candy’s grown-up. Randall insisted I stayed at home so I’d been confined to freelancing features for the women’s mags. But I used to be a real journalist for a time back in the States. My first husband wasn’t so stuffy about that sort of thing. I did some good investigative jobs — only local, mind — but I helped to get a corrupt local police chief fired. It’s my only claim to fame.’
‘Perhaps you can do some of that here,’ Hal suggested.
She smiled. ‘I don’t think so. They’re keeping me a million
‘ miles from any real in-depth work. It’s all leisure and life style for me. We Yanks may be cute, but we’re not to be taken seriously.’
‘Besides which, you can’t spell,’ Mercs added for good measure.
They were through Knightsbridge now, Casey deftly changing gear and overtaking whenever an opportunity presented itself. Using the car’s power to full advantage, she shot through the underpass beneath Hyde Park Corner and into Piccadilly. From there Mercs gave directions enabling them to miss the holdups at Piccadilly Circus by cutting up through lower Mayfair, crossing Old Bond Street and Regent Street to Soho. When they reached Old Compton Street, he advised her to pull in and park.
It was to prove a wise move. Because continuing on foot, they discovered that the traffic had become grid-locked. Police had sealed off the entire length of Charing Cross Road and Shaftesbury Avenue, which would normally carry motorists past Tower Street where the bomb had supposedly been planted.
Until this time Casey had been persuaded by the assurances of her husband and Eddie Mercs that Candy was in no danger. But now the sight of so many blue uniforms, flashing lights and tape cordons holding back masses of pedestrians set her heart racing again.
She glanced at her watch. It was forty minutes since the bomb warning had been received. ‘Eddie, where do we go now?’
‘We’ll drop south around the cordon and get to Seven Dials via Upper St Martin’s.’
Then they were on the move again, crossing Shaftesbury Avenue to take the back streets to Leicester Square station before turning into Cranbourne Street. Along Upper St Martin’s Lane, past Stringfellow’s nightclub and Peppermint Park to Monmouth Street, one of the seven roads that fed into the Dials circus like the spokes of a wheel. They had been moving fast, Casey particularly surprised at Eddie Mercs’s remarkable energy. For someone so overweight, who smoked and drank too much, he nevertheless managed to keep at the front. Now, however, their progress was slowed as they found themselves struggling against the crush of people coming in the opposite direction. Evacuated office workers, shoppers and tourists were advancing across the full width of the narrow street. There was no sign of panic, in fact many were laughing and joking, probably shop assistants welcoming the enforced break from boring routine.
Casey glanced around at the bobbing mass of heads. Candy could have been anywhere in the crowd and she could have unknowingly missed her by a matter of feet. Suddenly this didn’t seem like a very good idea.
The scene at Seven Dials was one of total chaos. It had been selected as the rendezvous point for the emergency services. Being close to the suspect vehicle bomb, it was also large enough to allow police cars, fire engines and ambulances to gather together. Yet it was clearly far from an ideal site. The circular traffic circus, with its central modern sculpture, was crammed with official vehicles and overrun with evacuating civilians. The west end of Earlham Street, which ran into Tower Street where the bomb was reportedly placed, had been cordoned off with police tape. Guests from the Mountbatten Hotel and restaurant were being directed away from the star-shaped junction up Mercer Street and north Monmouth to the safety of Shaftesbury Avenue theatreland. Meanwhile the Cambridge Theatre matinee audience and drinkers from the Crown pub were being guided south and east towards Covent Garden.
Under a prematurely darfcsky, the rain-drenched spectacle was bizarrely lit by the pulsing blue strobes of the emergency vehicles.
A middle-aged police sergeant, rain dripping from the peak of his cap, spotted the three of them moving against the flow of humanity.