Exposure (8 page)

‘Because I don't sit in judgement like you do,' he said quickly. ‘You're the crusading journalist, not me. After all, if I'm going to spend my life with politicians, I can't afford to side with the underdog. There's just no future in it.'

Julia said quietly, ‘Then you'll never get to the top, Felix. You make fun of Warburton, but he's got real standards and integrity. That's why he's trusted. Let's go to our table.' She got up and he followed her with a slight shrug. She was in a touchy mood, and he was irritated because he wanted to enjoy himself. He didn't want a moral lecture, he decided, he wanted lobster quenelles.

Harold King noticed the redheaded woman when he passed them on the way to the table specially reserved for him. It was in the middle of the room, giving him a vantage point where he could see everyone and everyone could see him. He noticed her because he hated that colour hair. He had never considered any woman cursed with it to be attractive. One day he'd seen a secretary in the main office with red hair, and ordered her to dye it or be sacked.

With the temper typical of the colouring, she'd told him to stuff his job and stormed out in tears. He had told personnel not to give her a reference.

But this one was familiar. He recognized Western's star protégée, the reporter who'd covered the Welsh child murders and written a serious psychological study of the murders afterwards. Julia Hamilton.

He read every word in Western's newspapers, London and provincial. He noted his staff, his main advertisers, his political stances, his attitude to social, economic and world issues. King always studied his targets in depth while he was preparing to attack them.

This girl was outstanding; he watched her narrowly, dismissing the companion as some young hanger-on. She'd be a good catch for him when the time came. If the bribe was big enough in terms of money and power. Every human being had a price. It would gratify him to rub Western's nose in the shit by employing Julia Hamilton.

For a moment their glances met. King was extraordinarily sensitive; the coarse bullying persona he presented concealed a deeply intuitive understanding of people. It had given him power over them precisely because he knew what made them tick.

Her contempt and hostility were tangible in those few seconds of eye contact. He registered her reaction to him, and stared her down. He also registered that it took quite a long time before she turned her head away. There was contempt in that gesture too, not submission.

He swallowed his glass of Perrier and glared round for the waiter. Yes, he decided, I'll employ you. I'll make you an offer you won't refuse, because nobody could. And then I'll break you. As I've broken other fools who tried to stand against me. And I'll enjoy doing it.

He gave his attention to the first course and dismissed Julia Hamilton from his mind.

His wife was talking trivialities about some charity committee. He didn't bother to listen. She had social ambitions, and he despised her for it. He knew, if she didn't, that all the high-society ladies wanted out of women like her was fat donations from their husbands. In return they patronized them. Money was the key; he didn't mind if Marilyn indulged her silly fantasies. It kept her out of mischief. What he wouldn't allow was his daughter to be dragged into the charade. Luckily she wasn't interested in female time wasting. He looked at her with affection. She was his clone; she looked like him and she wanted only one thing in the world. To be like him. She was his compensation for the son he never fathered. Better than a son. He realized that. A son would have competed. Gloria worshipped at his shrine. ‘How's the foie gras?' he asked her. She smiled up at him. ‘Delicious, Daddy.' He went on; he was needled by that other woman's refusal to be overborne and he felt spiteful. ‘Enjoying yourself, darling?' ‘I'm having a wonderful time,' his daughter answered. ‘I always love coming out with you.' He reached across and patted her hand. ‘You're my girl,' he said. He turned to his wife. ‘Isn't she my girl?' The pretty doll nodded obediently. ‘Yes, Harry darling.' He knew she had given up competing against her daughter long ago. He also knew that she and Gloria hated each other.

A son, he often reminded himself, might have sided with his mother.

‘Good dinner,' Felix remarked. Julia had hardly spoken through the meal. His irritation was growing. Excellent food, exceptional wine – he'd insisted on choosing from the list and he hadn't spared the cost. Why not – Western was paying. And he knew it annoyed Julia.

Why the hell did she have to be so sour? Working herself up into a froth of righteous indignation because Harold King had been rude to some greasy waiter … He always shouted the odds in public, it was part of the image. He was surprised she couldn't see it in perspective.

Julia said, ‘Let's have coffee and I'll get the bill.'

‘I'd like a brandy,' Felix announced. ‘Or are you getting into a moral dilemma about the expense account?'

‘Order what you like,' she said curtly. She knew him in this provocative mood. Like a spoilt child.

‘OK – let's see – Armagnac,' he scanned the wine list. ‘The '68 should be nice. I'll have that.'

‘And for madame?' the wine waiter enquired.

‘Nothing, thank you.' Julia wanted to finish her coffee and go. She had hated the whole evening, and it wasn't just because of Harold King. Felix returned to the attack.

‘My old man was a wine merchant,' he announced. ‘He knew a lot about wine, but not a lot about business. All the old bugger left me was a champagne taste on a beer income. Julia, what the hell's the matter with you?' He leaned towards her. ‘You've been so fucking sour the whole evening. What's the matter?'

She stirred her coffee and then put the spoon carefully into the saucer. She looked up at him. ‘You are, Felix. I don't think I like you very much.'

Red seeped up his neck and into his face. He said, ‘What is this – some kind of message?'

‘I don't know,' Julia admitted. ‘Look, don't let's argue about it. I'll get the bill.'

‘I haven't finished my drink,' he said loudly. ‘Anyway, I think I'd like another one.'

‘Please yourself,' she said quietly. ‘If you want another you can pay for it.' She signed the bill and pushed back her chair. ‘I'll see you later,' she said.

‘You'll be lucky,' Felix snapped. ‘Thanks for a lousy evening.'

The head waiter came up to her. He had noticed the little scene of friction and the young man scowling at the table as she walked away.

‘I hope you enjoyed your dinner,' he said.

‘Very much, thank you,' Julia answered.

‘May I order you a taxi?'

‘I have a car.' Her wrap was brought and she draped it round her shoulders. Felix hadn't followed her. Phillipe saw her to the door.

‘Give my regards to Mr Harris,' he said. ‘I hope he will come and see us soon.'

‘I'll tell him,' Julia promised. She couldn't imagine Ben Harris in a restaurant like Mario's. Perhaps because she knew so little about him. She didn't drive home directly. She detoured round Hyde Park and on an impulse headed towards the Embankment. She loved the river at night. Unfortunately, it wasn't safe to park the car and get out and walk. She didn't want to go back to the flat. She wanted a little time to think.

The relationship was changing; it had been happy in the beginning, deeply sexual on both sides, carefree and without ties. Like a passionate friendship. The few years age difference hadn't seemed significant. Even the disparity in money terms was glossed over. He thought it was a joke to be called her Toy Boy. And she realized, in that pause for introspection, that she had begun indulging him like the spoilt child she chided him for being. But he wasn't a child, he was an ambitious, selfish, unscrupulous man with a talent for sex.

Suddenly, foolishly, Julia's eyes filled up with tears. It couldn't go on. It was demeaning to both of them. She didn't love him, she admitted that. But the truth was worse. She didn't like him any more, and she'd been goaded into saying so that night. It was time to put an end to it. She wiped her wet cheeks and started the engine. When she opened her front door the flat was in darkness. He had gone off somewhere, spending the night with a friend. In the morning he'd turn up and expect her to take him into bed and pretend nothing had happened. It wasn't the first time he'd taken off. But it would be the last.

Inside, she kicked off her shoes. She was glad Felix wasn't there. On an impulse, checking her watch for the first time, she dialled Ben Harris's number.

‘It's me,' she said. ‘I hope I'm not interrupting anything.'

‘Only a bloody boring programme on ITV,' was the answer. ‘How did you get on?'

‘He was having dinner with his wife and daughter. He actually gave me the hard stare.'

‘I bet you gave it back,' Ben said.

‘I did, but it wasn't easy. He's horribly intimidating.'

There was a slight pause.

‘It hasn't made you change your mind?'

‘No,' she said firmly. ‘Quite the opposite. You're right, Ben, he's bad news all right. It was a good idea of yours; I'm glad I've seen him. I couldn't see that file of yours tonight, could I?' Again there was a pause.

‘I could drop it round in half an hour. Where's lover boy?'

‘He's not here,' Julia admitted. ‘We had a row.'

‘Glad to hear it,' Harris sounded laconic. ‘He's a sponging little prick. Take my advice and don't have him back.'

She said slowly, ‘I'm not going to. Can you really drop the file over? I don't think I'll sleep much tonight, anyway. I'd like to get started.'

‘See you,' he said, and hung up.

She opened the flat door to him. ‘Thanks for coming over,' she said. ‘It's very good of you.'

‘No problem.' He looked round the sitting room. ‘Nice place. Do you collect the pictures?'

‘Yes; I'd like to get one or two abstracts one day, but they're just too expensive. Sit down, I've made some fresh coffee.'

‘I couldn't have tea, could I?'

‘Of course you can. Won't be a minute. Tea bag do?'

‘Never have anything else,' he called after her.

It was an attractive room. He liked the pictures; they gave colour and originality, a reflection of their owner. He opened the file and leafed through it. She came back with two mugs. He liked her for that. ‘Before I give you this,' he said, ‘I'm going to ask you one more time – are you still going ahead with this investigation?'

‘One more time,' she said, ‘yes I am. And I'm going to ask you something. You are going to help me, aren't you?'

‘I wouldn't be giving you this if I wasn't,' he said. ‘Against my better judgement and all my instincts, I'm going into it with you. But on one condition, and it's not subject to argument.' He looked at her obstinately. She knew the expression. This was his sticking point, whatever it was. ‘Name it,' she suggested.

‘That you pull back when I tell you to, and leave it to me,' he said. ‘Otherwise, J, no file, no deal. And don't promise anything you don't mean.'

Julia hesitated. ‘Why should I have to pull out?'

‘You won't,' he answered, ‘unless I think it's getting dangerous. Which I think is certain, especially if we come up with something. Do you want to think it over?' He had closed the file and put it under his arm. He meant what he said.

‘No. You have a head start. I need the file and I need you, Ben. We have a deal. Western won't like it, but he doesn't have to know.'

‘The less anybody knows from now on, the better,' he said. He finished his tea. ‘Are you getting rid of Sutton? You won't be talked round?' She shook her head. ‘No,' she said. ‘It's not good for either of us any more. Don't be too hard on him, Ben. It's not really his fault.'

‘You're too much for him,' Ben Harris remarked. ‘Too bright, too successful, too much of everything. You haven't talked to him about this, have you?'

‘No. I just said we might be doing a feature on the Honours system. He doesn't know anything else.'

‘Good. I'll be off now, J. Read this through and we'll get our heads together tomorrow. After office hours. Thanks for the tea. I'll see myself out.'

The file started in 1949 with the release of a displaced person from the UNRRA rehabilitation centre in Nessenberg. There were ten thousand men, women and children in that particular camp, human flotsam thrown up by the tidal wave of war. People without papers, identities or proven nationalities. The young man who called himself Hans Koenig was typical of the victims of national chaos and breakdown. He had no papers, claimed he was brought as slave labour from the Polish borders in 1939, but couldn't remember his name or place of birth, or what had happened to his family. He thought they'd been shot. He'd been beaten and traumatized. He remembered nothing. The history was quite common. Teenagers and children were seized, transported, Germanicized if they were Aryan types, or worked as slaves in factories or on the farms. Girls were sold into domestic service. Hans Koenig insisted he didn't know who he was or where he came from. He had been found in a refugee column fleeing the Allied advance. The medical records said he was suffering from acute emotional trauma. He had been in the camp for four years.

Hans Koenig was just one more statistic in the register of human misery that the officials of UNRRA, the military, and the civilian authorities in the British Section were trying to shift through and sort out.

There were guilty hiding among the innocent; deserters from the German army, SS masquerading as civilians, minor war criminals from the Ukraine and the Balkan States hoping to evade punishment. The SS were easier to identify because of the number tattooed under the armpit, but most had burned or scarred themselves to avoid detection. There was no evidence of guilt in Koenig's medical record. He was a stateless person, without a past and with no future. Julia read slowly through the photostats of those early reports. Suddenly the aftermath of that dreadful war seemed real to her. The grainy newsreels and staccato broadcasting style of documentaries had meant little to someone who hadn't been born at the time. Past misery, hopelessness and human evil spoke to her with a clear voice as she read of the only known origins of the man she had seen in the smart restaurant that night. The coffee was cold beside her. Her watch said it was two forty-five in the morning.