‘How is that fat bastard?’ Sanjay asked with feeling. Once, she had explained to him how the business desk was run, and described Carter’s predilection for short skirts and PR puff. Since then, Sanjay hadn’t had a good word to say about The Herald’s City Editor.
‘Never changes,’ she told him now. ‘More stories. More cleavage. I really don’t know what to do.’
The moment she said it, she wished she hadn’t; it was an opportunity Sanjay couldn’t resist. Puckering up his lips, he assumed an earnest expression, the prelude to a well-intended, but superfluous homily.
‘Sometimes the answers we seek’, he intoned solemnly, ‘are right beneath our very noses.’
‘Yeah,’ she took her change from Nandan and made her way to the door, ‘I’ll remember.’
Trudging back up the road to her flat, she couldn’t help reflecting – if only it was that easy. If only the next exposé was beneath her very nose. For in the unforgiving greyness of the morning, another ten hours in the office looming ahead of her, Judith knew she needed a story, and a big one, if she was going to survive.
3
Merlin de Vere dumped his briefcase and grocery bags in the hallway of his Dorset cottage and walked across the semi-darkness of the sitting room, sweeping aside the full-length curtains before unlocking the sliding glass doors behind them. Then he stepped outside. At eight p.m. on the last Friday in August, the sun was high above the horizon, its slanting rays reflected up from the sea in a shawl of shimmering silver. Built near the edge of a promontory, the cottage was surrounded by the sea; out on the balcony, all you could hear was the wash of the surf against the cliffs below, the cries of seagulls wheeling overhead.
Resting his hands on the balcony rail, Merlin closed his eyes, drew in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. This was something of a ritual for him; a private ceremony each Friday evening after the drive down from London at the end of another manic week in the City. Standing motionless, he would let go of the constant clamour of thoughts demanding his attention. For a few minutes, the sun warm on his face, he would just be.
Dorset was his escape, his safe harbour from life as an analyst with American merchant bank, J. P. Morgan. As much as he thrived on the high-octane charge of the City, the big money and big risks that dominated his every waking moment during the week, he also needed to get away from it. This was the perfect retreat. An hour and a half down the motorway and he was in a different world, a world that comprised all the usual pastoral pleasures – walks, pubs, country serenity – as well as a place where he could indulge in his favourite hobby, yachting.
For the past few months, since they’d started seeing each other, Denise had been coming down for weekends too. She ran her own catering company in the City, her life a frenetic whirl of boardroom breakfasts, lunches and cocktail canapes; she liked keeping the weekends simple, just as he did. More often than not, she had a function to run on a Friday night, so she’d drive down to join him early on Saturday – as was the case this weekend. Friday nights were usually his own, which suited Merlin just fine. So rarely alone, he relished the solitude of his cottage by the sea.
After a few minutes out on the balcony, leaning on the rail and soaking up the familiar tranquillity of the view, he stepped back inside the cottage. And froze. Two hooded strangers were in the sitting room. The moment when he became aware of them seemed to last a heart-stopping eternity. The one closer to him, shorter and stockier in build, was holding a hunting knife with a seven-inch blade directly to his face. The other – taller, further away – was already moving behind him, sealing off the balcony. Directly ahead of him, Merlin took in the open front door through which they’d come, his briefcase and groceries on the hallway floor. His car, a sports Mercedes, was parked a short distance from the front door.
Eventually he breathed in again. ‘Just take it.’ His voice was hoarse, almost a whisper. ‘The key’s still in.’
He could feel his heart thumping, blood thundering through his head, his mouth dry with shock.
The man with the knife was glancing about.
What the hell did they want?
‘My wallet’s in the briefcase,’ he managed.
Please God, keep that knife away!
Then the taller of the two men was standing directly in front of him. Merlin could see little behind the mask except the angular lines of his face, the dark glint of his eyes.
‘Just do as we say and you’ll be fine.’ The accent was South London. There was something familiar about the hood. ‘Any trouble—’ he gestured towards the other man with the knife. ‘Do we understand each other?’
Merlin nodded once.
Every moment seemed to spin out for ever as shock passed in giddying waves through his body. Then the taller man was barking orders.
‘First you can unpack these.’ He gestured towards the hallway floor.
Merlin was uncomprehending. ‘Wh-where?’
‘Don’t fuck with me!’ There was instant violence in his voice. ‘The fridge! Cupboard! Wherever you put things!’
Merlin stumbled forward in bewilderment, collecting up the bag of groceries and taking them through to the kitchen, to the left of the front door. With the two men standing to either side of him, he placed the bag on the kitchen table and began to take out the items he’d bought that afternoon. There was the food for brunch to go in the fridge: eggs and tomatoes, onion and mushrooms, orange juice. As he put away each item he observed his trembling fingers as though they belonged to someone else. The banality of putting away groceries while two hooded thugs threatened him was surreal. If he hadn’t known for certain this was in deadly earnest, he might have wondered if it was some kind of bizarre practical joke. Why didn’t they just grab the car, his money, and go?
There was bread for toast in the morning; a chicken biryani from Marks & Spencer’s he’d bought to microwave for supper; a six-pack of Budweiser; two bottles of wine. He glanced again at the taller man who stood, hands behind his back. Where had he seen the mask?
‘Don’t look at me! Move it!’
When he’d finished putting the fruit in a wooden bowl, the taller man gestured towards the hallway with his chin, ‘Where do you keep your briefcase?’
‘In the spare room.’