Chasing Tomorrow

He had made mistakes, of course, in the past. Mistakes that had cost him dearly. The worst mistake he’d ever made had involved taking Jeff Stevens and Tracy Whitney at their word. Those two repellent swindlers had destroyed his life, once. Now, in some small way, he had returned the favor. Destroying their marriage wasn’t enough. But it was a start.

“I didn’t enjoy this job,” the girl was saying, emptying the contents of the briefcase into her own, tattered backpack. She’d cut her hair since he last saw her in London and now wore it short and black, in a sixties-style bob. He preferred it to the look she’d adopted for Rebecca Mortimer, all long tresses and freckles. Youthful innocence didn’t suit her.

“Tracy Whitney may be a bitch, but Jeff Stevens is a nice man. I felt bad for him.”

The man’s upper lip curled. “How you felt is not relevant.”

It is to me, she felt like saying, but she didn’t bother. She’d learned long ago that arguments with this man were fruitless. Despite his brilliant intellect, or perhaps because of it, he had the emotional sensitivity of an amoeba. Come to think of it, the analogy was probably unkind to amoebas.

“Anyway.” He smiled that creepy smile of his, the one that always made her shiver. “You got fucked, didn’t you? Women all love getting fucked, especially by Stevens. Your little titties are probably tingling right now just thinking about it, aren’t they?”

She ignored him, zipping up her backpack and locking it. She had not slept with Jeff Stevens, as it happened. Rather to her annoyance, Tracy Whitney had interrupted them right at the crucial moment. But this was not information she intended to share with him. She’d be happy when they got back to robbing art galleries and jewelry stores.

“I mean it,” she said, standing up to leave. “Any more old scores you can settle yourself.”

“I’ll be in touch,” said the man.

FOR A MONTH AFTER Tracy left him, Jeff went to ground. He rented a flat in Rosary Gardens in South Kensington, unplugged the phone and barely went out.

After more than ten unreturned voice mails, Professor Nick Trenchard tracked him down at the flat.

“Come back to the museum,” he told Jeff. “You need to keep busy.”

He tried not to show how shocked he was by Jeff’s appearance. Jeff wore a full beard, which made him look decades older, and his crumpled clothes hung off his skinny frame like rags on a scarecrow. Empty beer cans and take-out boxes littered the apartment, and the TV was permanently on low in the background.

“I am busy. You wouldn’t believe how many episodes of Homeland I missed since I got married,” Jeff quipped. But there was no laughter behind his eyes anymore.

“I’m serious, Jeff. You need a job.”

“I have a job.”

“You do?”

“Sure. Drinking.” Jeff collapsed onto the couch and opened another beer. “I’m pretty good at it, as it happens. I’m thinking of giving myself a promotion. Maybe something in the Jack Daniel’s division.”

Other friends tried and failed to intervene. In the end it was Gunther Hartog who refused to take no for an answer.

“Pack your bags,” he told Jeff. “We’re going to the country.”

Gunther had turned up at the flat in Rosary Gardens with a small army of Brazilian women who set about picking up the mountains of trash that Jeff had accumulated during his self-imposed imprisonment. When he refused to move from the couch, four of the women lifted it off the ground with Jeff still on it, while a fifth swept the floor underneath.

“I hate the country.”

“Nonsense. Hampshire’s beautiful.”

“Beauty’s overrated.”

“So’s alcohol poisoning. Get your suitcase, Jeff.”

“I’m not going, Gunther.”

“You are going, old boy.”

“Or what?” Jeff laughed. “You’re gonna ground me?”

“Don’t be silly,” said Gunther. “That would be ridiculous.”

Jeff felt a sharp stabbing pain in his left arm. “What the . . .”