as all the time he needed. The Starwear share price, riding high on the Textiles Bill amendment would be receiving an even bigger boost in a few days’ time when the company’s annual results were presented. Analysts were already moving their forecasts northwards in the expectation of strong earnings. Then, the icing on the cake, Starwear would have a clean sweep at the GlobeWatch awards next week, culminating in the grand prize for ‘Company of the Year’. With the company at its very zenith, Cullen would sell out his shareholding. He’d already lined up a very willing buyer, one who’d ensure that Jacob Strauss, egotistical asshole that he was, would instantly be ejected from corporate life, never to be heard of again. There was a certain poetic justice about it, thought Cullen.
Glancing at the share price monitor in his office, he looked at the Starwear figure, blinking a reassuring green. He didn’t need a calculator to work out that he’d made over half a million pounds today. He was feeling decidedly celebratory. With the ease of habit, he arranged his features in an appropriately earnest expression and made his way through Rosa’s office.
I’m just going upstairs for an hour to relax,’ he told her. ‘Hold all calls.’
24
Chris had never experienced such relief as he did the moment the door of Lufthansa Flight 261 to Frankfurt was closed, and the plane began taxiing to the end of the runway. After the unbearable tension of the past twelve hours, he felt exhausted as he eased himself back in his seat. Glancing over to where Judith sat beside him, expression weary and eyes closed, he didn’t doubt she felt the same way too.
Just over an hour before, they’d witnessed the murder of the couple mistaken for themselves. As the airport crowd had reacted in a screaming turmoil of panic and hysteria, they’d stood in a daze, scarcely able to take in the reality, numbed to silence and too stunned to move. Then, less than a minute later, sirens were sounding, police cars and an ambulance screaming into view.
The two of them had drawn their arms round each other, and returned inside the terminal building in a state of deep shock. The killing put everything in a dramatically different perspective. Knowing it should have been them out there, that two innocents had been caught up in their own, desperate drama, provoked overwhelming feelings of horror, outrage, guilt. It also, in a strange way, brought the two of them suddenly closer, like the sole survivors of some appalling disaster. Reeling from emotions on a scale they’d never experienced, at the same time they realised that now, even more than before, they couldn’t lose their grip. They had to get the hell out of this place.
Heading for the departures screen in the airport building, they found the first flight to Europe was by Lufthansa in an hour. Ground crew at the Lufthansa desk told them seats were still available. A reverse-charge call to Judith’s cousin Michelle, in London, and her credit card details, secured them two places in Economy. They scrambled through customs and immigration through to Boarding, which was already under way.
Now as Chris looked over at Judith, he reflected that they’d just been through the most harrowing experience of their lives together. There was no question now of not trusting each other, and no room for hostility. They were both in it together. As if in response to his thoughts, she reached out and took his hand in hers, drawing it into her lap as the plane thrust down the runway. Both of them looked out of the window as they took off, watching the sprawl of Bombay beneath them as the plane curved upwards in sharp ascent.
Then, as the plane reached its cruising altitude, Judith turned to Chris, her expression wan. ‘These past couple of weeks … I know I’ve been … difficult.’
He shook his head, before reaching out and tracing the line of her cheek with his finger. ‘It’s your job to be suspicious.’
‘I didn’t just mean that.’ There was a tenderness in her voice he hadn’t heard since the old days. Taking both his hands in hers, she told him, ‘I’ve basically been a total bitch.’ Her eyes were filled with sorrow. ‘The things I said, I didn’t … you know.’
He didn’t trust himself to speak. Instead he reached over and took her in his arms. She wrapped hers around his, and they held each other, a familiar embrace unleashing a flood of feeling.
‘I’m sorry,’ she managed eventually, nuzzling back into his shoulder.
‘Oh, Jude!’ He stroked her hair, the way he always used to.
He was the only one who’d ever called her Jude. Hey, Jude. Her nom d’amour. After they’d broken up, he had avoided using her name altogether, though when he had to, it was always the more formal Judith.
‘It’s a long time since you called me that,’ she whispered.
‘It’s a long time since we’ve spoken. Really, I mean. But it’s been hard for us both.’
She leaned back in her seat, wiping her eyes. ‘I wish you weren’t always so bloody reasonable,’ she sniffed, embarrassed.
He smiled. ‘I’ll try to be less reasonable in the future.’
She grinned. ‘Yeah.’ Then, confiding in him after a pause, ‘You know, I’m not so sure what to do now – about my article, I mean.’
His eyes met hers with an intimacy they hadn’t shared for years.
‘We know that Carter’s on the take. If I give him the photographs it’ll be a repeat of what happened with Cullen.’
He shook his head. ‘You know, I’m still not convinced it was Mike. North has so many phones tapped.’
‘You think there’s someone down there at the airport with an envelope full of rupees for us?’
‘Could be. It’s just so utterly out of character that Mike should be involved.’
She paused a moment before saying, ‘I guess the evidence is only circumstantial. If North was listening …’
‘Not that that helps with your Carter problem.’ He stroked her hand before suggesting, ‘What about taking it a level up?’
‘Tilyard?’
Carter’s boss and the Editor of The Herald was a remote figure with whom she’d had few dealings.