The Hidden Man - Charles Cumming [73]
Robert Bone
US Post Office/Box 650
Rt 120
Cornish
New Hampshire 03745
United States of America
Bingo. She would get it to Taylor by noon. A quick glance through the front door’s fish-eye lens and Tracy was out on the street. Job done. With any luck, she’d be home by three.
32
It wasn’t there.
Ben rummaged through the contents of the shoebox where he had hidden the original copy of Bone’s letter, but there was no sign of it. Tapes, random playing cards, paper clips, packets of gum, but no trace of an airmail envelope bearing Bone’s handwriting. Just two days before, Ben had come home, made a photocopy of the letter at a local news agent and placed the original for safe keeping in his studio. Alice could not have taken it because she would not have known where to look. And yet somebody had been through the box.
He shouted down stairs:
‘Have you seen the letter?’
Alice tooka long time to reply. It was Saturday morning and she was reading the papers in bed.
‘What’s that?’
‘The original copy. The letter from Robert Bone. Not the one in the car.’
Again, a long delay. Then, tiredly, ‘No.’
He walked down stairs and went into their bedroom.
‘You sure? You didn’t send it to your friend in Customs and Excise, the one who was going to check on Kostov?’
‘I’m sure.’
Alice looked puffy and tired, trying to lock herself into the privacy of a weekend and not wanting to be disturbed. Ben had brought her a cup of coffee at ten and barely received a word of thanks. He was trying to make an effort with her but she seemed distant and cold. In the past, Saturday mornings had been almost consciously set aside for sex, but even that was a chore now.
‘I’m going out,’ he said.
‘Where?’
‘Thought I might go for a walkround Regent’s Park, maybe take a look at the roof on the British Museum, go to an exhibition or something.’
‘All day?’ Alice asked.
‘Probably, yeah.’
She had told him that she was having lunch with a friend and afterwards going into the Standard. Another Saturday apart. Another weekend when they did separate things.
‘Did Mark ever call you back?’ she asked.
‘No. I’ve left twenty messages, sent a dozen emails. He must be ignoring me.’
Peeling a satsuma in bed, Alice said, ‘Now why would he do that?’
The tone of the question suggested that she could well imagine why.
‘I have no idea,’ Ben replied. ‘I’m trying to make it up to him.’
Didn’t she realize that? Hadn’t she seen that he was trying to move on? Or was it simply that she didn’t care?
‘I mean, maybe he’s busy,’ Alice suggested. ‘Maybe his phone’s not working. Maybe he just wants to be left alone.’
‘Well that’s great, isn’t it? I have a lot of stuff I need to talkto him about and he won’t fucking get in touch.’
‘Relax,’ she said, an instruction that had the effect of making Ben feel even more on edge. ‘Where do they say he is when you call Libra?’
‘They say he’s around. That’s all they seem to know. That he’s around or in a meeting and can they take a message? And his mobile just rings and rings. I don’t even get to say anything.’
Alice smiled as juice from the satsuma dropped on to the sheets.
‘So, as I was saying, I’m going out,’ Ben told her. ‘Thought I might take the car.’
He picked up a bottle of mineral water from the floor, tooka slug and scratched at his neck. Alice said, ‘OK,’ then, out of nowhere: ‘By the way, I had lunch with Sebastian yesterday.’
The water caught in Ben’s throat. He had been walking out of the room.
‘Sebastian?’
He knew exactly who she was talking about.
‘That’s right. Sebastian Roth.’
Why was she telling