There was no point trying to get courage from making a joke if he was going to take her literally.
‘Good. And don’t forget that we have many friends still in London. Some of our people, too. They will always be able to find you if you have trouble remembering what you’ve heard or seen.’
With the barely disguised threat echoing in the hot still air, she nodded again. Her last sight of him before his men tied the scarf around her head, this time taking more care not to rip out her hair, was of the warmth of understanding in his blue eyes. Blindfold, she felt a hand lie gently on her right shoulder so that the thumb could stroke her neck. She shuddered.
John Harbinger looked at his latest freelance hopeful across the top of his wineglass and began to feel hopeful himself. He let his eyelids droop sleepily and lifted one side of his mouth in a sexy smile.
‘They say you should leave the table while you’re still hungry,’ he murmured, ‘so I suppose we ought to get going …’
‘Oh, but I’m stuffed,’ Sally Grayling said, gasping a little. She looked at her watch, then up again at his face. Her own turned pink as she realized what he’d meant.
Harbinger hadn’t known that girls still blushed. He began to feel a whole lot better. Without looking away from her big grey eyes, he flipped his Gold Card onto the bill and waved to the waiter. Sally wasn’t likely to go far as a journalist if she didn’t toughen up, but he wasn’t complaining. A bit of gentle adoration would come in handy just now. It would make a nice contrast with Kate’s unbelievable aggression, and it might stop him worrying about Ginty Schell.
He still couldn’t imagine what had possessed him to send her to interview Rano. True, she was already on the ground, but so were lots of real journalists: men, tough and experienced, who knew how to handle themselves and could have stood up to a hundred murderous thugs. He must have been mad.
Catching sight of Sally’s anxious eyes, he realized he was scowling. He did his best to forget what Ronald Lackton might be doing to little Ginty Schell and smiled across the table. Sally relaxed at once, all her muscles flowing into each other. Everything about her yearned towards him. Yes! He could still do it. And if her copy turned out to be crap, he could always rewrite it before it went to the subs. At least for as long as her promise held and he got his just reward he could.
‘I’m going to have to go back in a minute,’ he said, smiling ruefully. ‘I’ve got meetings stacked up this afternoon like high-season Gatwick.’
‘Gatwick?’ Her eyebrows were pressed up towards her neat hairline.
Harbinger wondered if she might be thicker than he could cope with. He put on an efficient briskness. ‘So, you’d better send me an outline of your piece. We don’t commission much these days from people who aren’t on our regular list of freelancers. With a synopsis, I’d be in a better position to give you a contract.’
‘Oh, no,’ she said, scooping her hair behind her ears in a gesture as old fashioned as the blush. He began to wonder if even he, with all his legendary editing skills, would be able to do much with her stuff. Still, he told himself, you can never tell. The oddest people do turn out to be able to write. Ginty Schell for one.
‘Then,’ he went on aloud, quelling his doubts, ‘you will at least get a kill fee. OK?’
‘That’s really, really kind of you. I never thought I’d … Well, you know. Thank you, John.’ Her lips parted, still a little wet from the wine she’d just drunk. She really was rather gorgeous. He felt his prick stiffen and for the first time in years had to drop a hand into his lap to smooth it down with his thumb. He hoped she hadn’t noticed. He wondered whether he might be able to get her to come back to the flat with him now for a quickie. She was infinitely shaggable. Oh, God! he thought, as he added a tip to the credit card slip, and signed it. Why had his subconscious thrown up that particular word? If he didn’t get a grip soon, he’d go completely nuts.
He could still see Sally’s wine-stained lips, but they didn’t do anything for him any more. It wouldn’t have made any difference if she’d taken her clothes off for him there and then.
‘Must get back to work,’ he said, as he flipped his wallet shut over the credit cards.
He kissed her cheek at the door of the restaurant and left her there, walking back along the south side of the Thames to his office. Bursts of reflected light hit his eyes from the river as he fought to keep the memories down, but he couldn’t fight hard enough. He was back in The Goat in Eynsham, in June 1970, waiting for Steve.
The Goat was crowded, as it always was on a summer Sunday with all the girlfriends up from London as well as the Oxford-based ones. But there was no sign of Steve. John had searched the place as soon as they arrived, while Dom and Robert got the drinks.
The Shaggee turned up about half an hour later, in a gaggle of other girls from St Hilda’s escorted by a bunch of braying rugger-buggers. She didn’t look too good, obviously hadn’t slept. In John’s experience (more limited than he’d admit except under torture) they didn’t sleep much after the great deflowering, so that could have been a plus – but she also looked as if she could have been crying. Which wasn’t so good.
Half-way through The Goat’s famous steak-and-kidney pie, the rumour began to filter through to John’s table: Virginia Callader’s been raped. Suddenly the bits of kidney seemed disgustingly smooth and the chunks of steak more fibre than anything else. They stuck in his throat. Memories of the old joke weren’t helping – Meet Virginia: Virgin for short but not for long. But if she had been raped, what on earth was she doing living it up in The Goat?
John took a good swig of beer. ‘I’ve been raped’ was the kind of thing girls said when they weren’t sure they should have given in and let you take their bra off. And they all – even Virginia – laughed like hyenas at the other joke, ‘What did the fieldmouse say to the combine harvester? I’ve been reaped! I’ve been reaped!’
But when John looked surreptitiously at The Shaggee and saw her red, swollen eyes and her pallid skin, with the lovebite flaming just under her left ear, his last bit of advice to Steve did begin to seem a bit off:
‘Give her plenty to drink. Don’t take “no” for an answer. If she protests, it only means she wants you to make the decision for her. Don’t forget that neverpublished poem by one of the Romantics: “There’s a no for a no, and a no for a yes, and a no for an I don’t know”. They never mean no when they say it. It’s their way of getting a good screw without taking responsibility for it. They all fantasize about that, you know.’
John saw his mates beginning to absorb the rumour and get ready to ask questions, so he dredged up a good filthy joke and got them all roaring with laughter. Robert’s latest girlfriend looked a bit po-faced, which didn’t help. And Dom blushed, but then he was always a bit otherworldly, like most Wykehamists. In a way it was a pity that Fergus wasn’t there – he could usually be relied on to cheer everyone up – but, given that the whole situation was his fault in the first place, no one had thought to invite him to the Post-Shagging Party.
A ham-like hand bore down on John’s shoulder. Turning, he saw one of The Shaggee’s rugger-buggers. He looked huge and dangerous. John was surprised to find himself faintly apprehensive.
‘Where’s that shit Steve?’
John shrugged. ‘Haven’t seen him today.’
‘When you do, tell him I’m going to kill him. OK? Got that?’
John nodded and turned away, but not before