It was tempting to tell the consiglieri how perfect his resolution was but Burcher decided to wait until he’d confronted Carver. He wondered if he would enjoy his association with the man as much as he had in the past with Northcote, until that very last meeting. Northcote had been stupid, imagining he could behave as he had.
Seven
It was not until Jack Jennings asked if he and the housekeeper were to fly back to Manhattan with him that Carver remembered that despite his earlier dismissal of there being any further possible hiding places apart from banks, George Northcote had another home in which the protective secrets could be concealed. That realization triggered more, the most pertinent a correction to another earlier misbelief. As George Northcote’s already acknowledged successor, he did have the right of access to each and any safe-deposit vaults in all – if any – company vaults or additional banks. In which – although he had not yet properly looked – it was inconceivable that Northcote would have deposited any incriminating material, aware it would be too easily discovered. But knowing, as Carver did know from the will he was taking with him back to the city, that Jane was the controlling beneficiary, Carver accepted that he had no legal right to access any private security facility in any personal bank account George Northcote held. The only person who held that right under the terms of the will was Jane. How much more convoluted, spinning in upon itself, could this become?
Carver told the man that of course they should come and thanked him for suggesting something that had not occurred to him. Accustomed to commuting back and forth between the city and the country, both Jennings and the housekeeper had clothes permanently in each so there were only a few things necessary for them to pack. While they did so, Carver assembled what he had put aside from his search of the Litchfield house.
As they walked out to the helicopter, Jane nodded to the valise into which Carver had packed his previous night’s discoveries and said: ‘What’s in there?’
‘Stuff I think I might need.’
‘Anything I should look at?’
‘Nothing at all,’ insisted Carver. She obviously knew of her inheritance. But not, he guessed, anything about the laughing, so-much-in-love photographs of her father and Anna which were in the case.
Inside the aircraft Jennings and the housekeeper determinedly placed themselves at a distance on the opposite side of the passenger cabin, an unnecessary but thoughtful courtesy. Directly after lift-off Jane said: ‘Tell me what I need to know: everything that’s happening.’ They were practically over the city before Carver finished his strictly edited account.
Calmly, with no catch in her voice, Jane said: ‘You haven’t spoken to the funeral director yourself?’
‘Hilda’s setting everything up for me.’
‘I’ll take over the funeral arrangements. All of it,’ announced Jane.
‘Are you sure…?’ started Carver, but Jane stopped him.
‘I’ll do it.’ Her voice was still calm, without a hint of hysteria, but at the same time positive, allowing no argument.
‘OK.’
‘What about Burt Elliott?’
‘He’s on my list for today.’ Elliott was the family lawyer. Another likely secrets repository, Carver thought. But one to which Jane again had access over him.
‘I’ll do that, too,’ declared Jane, in the same, no-argument tone.
Let it go, Carver decided, nodding in agreement. Better for Jane to occupy herself with as much activity as possible than to retreat within herself. Amateur psychology, he recognized. But it seemed to fit: to serve a purpose. ‘I’ve got Manuel and Luisa staying permanently at the apartment for a while,’ Carver said.
‘That’ll probably be useful, with everyone in town,’ accepted Jane.
‘And some nurses,’ he added, not looking directly at her.
‘Some what!’ Jane demanded, her voice rising for the first time.
‘Charlie Jamieson thought it would be a good idea.’
‘I don’t. Cancel it.’
‘It’s fixed now. Let’s see how it goes.’
‘I don’t want to see how anything goes. I’m OK. Really OK.’
‘I want them around,’ insisted Carver.
Jane turned more fully in her seat, to look at him. ‘Is it important to you?’
‘It’s important to me.’
‘It isn’t to me, because I don’t need nursing. I’ll give them their minimum week and that’ll be the end of it. I’ll take care of that, too.’
‘That’s good.’ If there was going to be a mood swing – a switch in her reaction – it would surely be during the next nerve-stretched week. Reminded, Carver said: ‘Jamieson’s also going to talk to Dr Newton.’ Paul Newton was their Manhattan physician.
‘I don’t need a doctor and I don’t need nurses!’
‘You don’t know that.’
‘I do know that.’
‘Charlie’s only going to tell Paul what happened, so he’s in the picture.’
‘We all know what happened. Dad had an accident and got killed under an over-turned tractor.’
‘It’s right that Paul should know, one doctor to another.’
‘I don’t want to see him. I don’t need anyone!’
On the other side of the cabin Jennings shifted uncomfortably.
‘He needed to be told.’
‘And I told you I’m quite all right!’
‘I’m not,’ honestly admitted Carver, deflating her vehemence.
At the 34th Street helipad the reception committee was made up of the company lawyer, the two most senior partners below Carver, Hilda Bennett and Janice Snow and, unexpectedly, a media contingent, photographers and two journalists, whose questions – the sound of words, not their content – were the first things of which Carver became aware when they cleared the noise of the helicopter. He moved to shield Jane but she shrugged him aside, stopping both for questions and pictures. A Wall Street legend had been taken from them, she said. They were all devastated. It was a mark of her father’s professionalism that the future of the firm that bore his name had been guaranteed before his death by his personal choice of successor, her husband. The firm of George W. Northcote would be the memorial to the man who founded it.
Carver and Jane went into the lead car of their cross-town cavalcade, with the lawyer beside Carver and the two personal assistants facing them from the jump seats. As they began to move Carver said: ‘How the hell was that allowed to happen!’
The lawyer, Geoffrey Davis, said: ‘It’s not something we anticipated. Or could have prevented.’
‘It’s all right,’ said Jane, from the other side of the car.
Across Carver, the lawyer said: ‘If you’ll allow me, Mrs Carver, you did very well. Thank you.’
Belatedly Carver realized that from his unspeaking part in the impromptu press conference he would appear very much the puppet. ‘There been a lot of media coverage?’
‘Just the formal announcement, so far,’ said Davis. ‘It was late …’
Janice Snow said: ‘I’ve got a list of interview requests.’
Carver at once wondered if Alice’s was one of them and even more quickly was angry at the stupidity of the thought. He’d have to try to call her. ‘I’m not sure if there’ll be time today.’
‘I’ll do them,’ declared Jane, beside him. ‘It’s got to be done today.’
‘We’ll do it together,’ Carver recovered. To Hilda he said: ‘What’s the schedule?’
The matronly woman said: ‘Partners at three, overseas people at four thirty. Drinks in the boardroom at five thirty.’
Carver said: ‘Set up a press conference for me at six fifteen…’
‘For both of us,’ broke in Jane, addressing Hilda. ‘I’m staying at the office…’ She nodded to the cellphone on its central pod. ‘Perhaps you’d call the funeral director now: fix a meeting there for me at four…’ She paused. ‘I’ll use father’s rooms.’