His going burst her bubble. No-one knew, of course. Not even Julian Mason, with whom she had always been totally open and honest. She supposed being one hundred per cent better which was what Mason and Cox, with Dawson smiling beside them, had just declared her to be – meant she could successfully lie now without anyone guessing. Like Dawson hadn’t guessed about her conversion. That wasn’t so much an outright lie, any more than her not telling the psychiatrist the aching loss – the feeling that something had literally burst – she felt at Jeremy leaving. It was more retaining some privacy, which everyone did. In fact she was probably more honest than most people. Always had been. She did believe in something because when everything else had failed she’d been set free by a miracle, with a priest’s hand on her head. So there had to be some higher authority, some Supreme Being. And if Dawson represented it, then it was to his God she had to be eternally grateful. So she would be. It was the most sincere promise she’d ever made and she’d keep it. She’d probably need to.
There was a huge difference between talking to Dawson and Julian Mason but talking was the operative word. Jeremy’s departure had signalled the beginning of the end. Now Mason and Cox had told her there was nothing more they could do, so their contact was virtually over as well. So she needed the church as much – maybe even more – than people who insisted they didn’t have the doubts. Which wasn’t badly dishonest, either. More a compromise, which again everybody did about a lot of things, religion most of all. The important thing was keeping her promise.
She wished it was as easy to rationalize her feelings towards Jeremy Hall. Julian had done his best to prepare her – not about Jeremy alone but about all of them, himself and Dawson and Dr Cox – and she’d recognized at once that her dependence upon them had to be broken. But it wasn’t the same with Jeremy. It wasn’t dependence. What then? It couldn’t be love. That was ludicrous. Their close-together walks had been kindness, nothing more, just his helping her get better. And she didn’t think love – any sort of relationship – had a place in her life any more. She was still unsure what did, apart from Emily. And that remained the biggest, still-avoided uncertainty of all.
She wasn’t sure, either, whether his daily telephone calls weren’t adding to whatever it was that was troubling her. They weren’t specifically to her, she reminded herself. He always spoke to the two doctors, sometimes even the priest, and there was always a practical reason for their conversations. She’d needed to confirm she still wanted Geoffrey Johnson to retain her power of attorney, for instance. And it had seemed important for him to tell her the Metropolitan authority had dropped their claim for the cost of policing St Thomas’s Hospital and to remind her she still hadn’t made a decision about the media and publishing offers.
Did her uncertainty – the pricked-bubble feeling – really have so much to do with Jeremy Hall? Or was she transferring on to him – lying to herself – the true reason for it? Wasn’t it, quite simply, the terror of going back into the outside world: of being alone, with no-one to rely on? None of them – Mason or Cox or Dawson – would have made the decision if they hadn’t been totally convinced, individually and collectively, that she was ready for it. It was Jennifer herself who wasn’t convinced. So she had to convince herself about her readiness, as she had to convince herself about a God.
There was no cause to be ashamed – embarrassed – by how she felt: nor try unnecessarily – unfairly – to involve Jeremy. It wasn’t even the unknown terror of what awaited her. Jennifer was terrified about only one person she was going to meet. And from whom, because of what Mason had just told her, she no longer had to be parted.
Jennifer jumped at the telephone, momentarily hesitating before picking it up.
‘I’ve already spoken to Julian,’ announced Hall. ‘Excited?’
‘Frightened.’
‘I’d be surprised if you weren’t.’
‘I can leave whenever I want.’ Stop avoiding it! she told herself.
‘I know.’ There was a long pause. ‘Jennifer?’
‘I can go back with Emily. Be her mother again.’ The words sounded odd: artificial.
‘Yes.’
‘Where is she?’
‘Hampshire. She arrived back last week, from Paris.’
‘Is it safe for her to be there?’
‘We’re employing a lot more security people. Annabelle thinks it’s best.’
‘Does she know I’m better?’
‘I’ve only just heard myself.’
‘It’s going to take me a day or two to get ready.’
‘Is it?’ Hall asked, pointedly.
‘Emily will have to get used to the idea, as well as me. Just a day or two.’
‘I’ll probably need that, to set things up.’
Jennifer felt a jump of excitement, through the apprehension. ‘You’re going to fix things for me?’
‘Would you like me to?’
‘Yes, please!’ she said, hurriedly.
‘And come with you?’
‘Yes. I’d like that very much.’
‘Welcome back!’ he said.
‘Yes,’ she said, doubtfully.
Jeremy Hall had discerned her mood and understood it, with more practical cause to be apprehensive than Jennifer could yet imagine. The circus had begun again the very moment he’d arrived back at his neglected, mailbox-overflowing apartment. A media ambush still awaited him and he literally ran the envelope gauntlet. There were more letters inside. There were also two from his bank, which coincidentally he opened in the right order. In the first the manager assured him he had no cause whatsoever to worry at being overdrawn because the man fully understood the preoccupying circumstances and cordially invited him to lunch. The second thanked him for the cash infusion so substantial that the lunch would be a good opportunity to discuss investments. The tape on his answering machine was exhausted with messages, some from people he hadn’t heard of since university, others from girls claiming to have met him at functions and parties he couldn’t remembering attending. There were three calls from Patricia Boxall.
The chambers were besieged the following morning and one by one the forgotten luncheon invitations from Proudfoot’s celebration party were pressed upon him during the morning. Experimentally he accepted Sir Richard’s. They had to force their way out of the building and led a pursuing road race to Pall Mall. He was asked three times for his autograph in the Reform Club, which Proudfoot insisted he’d never known before and promised to complain to the membership committee. When he returned to chambers, Hall had his home telephone number changed and made ex-directory.
He took all three briefs Bert Feltham had offered at the clinic. A police line had to be formed to get him into court to defend the earl’s son on the heroin charge, which he won in a single day’s sitting which ended with the case being dismissed and the magistrate referring the evidence of a drug squad officer to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner with a suggested internal enquiry. The hospital insurers had doubled their original out-of-court settlement offer, which Hall considered satisfactory, but the parents of the child urged him to take it to court. ‘It’s not as if you can lose, is it, Mr Hall?’ said the father, who wouldn’t be persuaded otherwise.
His rowing club had been discovered in his absence and he was followed there the first Saturday anyway. He was hopelessly out of condition and the pursuing press launches created waves and wash that engulfed him. He watched himself on television that night paddling waist deep and water-logged back to the pontoon, glad the cameras unmistakably caught him calling the photographers bastards and telling them to fuck off.
And he missed Jennifer. He told himself in the beginning that it was unavoidable, his having been thrust into such close proximity with her for so long and for such a reason. But gradually he changed his mind. It wasn’t the situation he missed it was Jennifer herself. He felt responsible for her, worried about her. He appreciated the guidance he got during his daily calls to Mason and Cox and even the priest – calls he always routed through them, so there would apparently be a reason for his later speaking to her – but he wasn’t entirely satisfied Jennifer was yet ready to leave the safety of the clinic.
Which today they’d insisted she was. So the final moment had come and he’d consciously – intentionally – intruded himself into it. Right that he should. Seeing a case through to its proper conclusion: earning the exorbitant fee demanded by Bert Feltham.
He had Geoffrey Johnson alert the security company greatly to increase the manpower at the mansion and ordered the helicopter to fly her from the clinic directly into the grounds of her home. He telephoned Annabelle several times after she got back from Paris with Emily, initially disappointed but then accepting the nanny’s subdued reaction.
‘She’s been medically and psychiatrically declared totally recovered,’ he insisted.
‘It can’t be a moment too soon for Emily.’
‘Have you told her?’
‘Of course I have! She needs as much preparation as Mrs Lomax. More maybe.’
Hall wasn’t interested in debating the greater need. ‘How’s she reacting to all the security?’
‘I’ve tried to make it into a game. Told her they are her soldiers and a lot of them are nice enough to go along with it. It’s not brilliant but it’s the best I could think of… I’m running out of things to think of.’
‘Is she excited?’
There was a pause before Annabelle responded. ‘She says she doesn’t want her mummy to be nasty again.’
Hall briefly considered driving to Hertfordshire to fly down with Jennifer but decided against it for the sake of the clinic: it would have been poor recompense for the way they’d protected Jennifer’s anonymity to lead the media of the world to whoever else was seeking privacy.
It was a wise decision. By the time he came off the M3 towards Alton – ironically following, he realized, the same route Gerald Lomax had taken on the night he’d murdered Jane – he headed a line of at least fifteen identifiable press and television vehicles. Most, during the journey, pulled out of the convoy to draw level to photograph and attempt to talk to him through their open window. Worryingly, by the time he did turn off, there were two helicopters fluttering overhead.
He was glad he’d had the forethought personally to speak to Inspector Hughes before setting out that morning. The scene outside the mansion was reminiscent of the road-blocked approach to St Thomas’s Hospital. It required a police Range Rover front and back and walking policemen either side for him to cover the last hundred yards to the mansion entrance and a squad of security men had to come out to complete the wedge in the middle of which he was finally able to get inside.
Annabelle was waiting for him, at the entrance. Emily was beside her, curly hair loose, in jeans and Mickey Mouse sweater, a forlorn attempt by Annabelle to make it seem an ordinary day. The child held Annabelle’s hand and stood with one foot awkwardly on top of the other, twisting precariously.
‘Listen!’ demanded Annabelle, as he got out of the car.
There was an audible roaring hum from the road, like bees or maybe even the distant sound of approaching hooves. It was worsened by the hovering helicopters.
‘And the road’s more than a mile away,’ completed the girl.
‘Like the zoo,’ suggested Emily, with childlike prescience. ‘You were at the hospital with my mummy!’
‘Yes.’
‘She’s coming home! She’s better!’
‘I know.’
‘I don’t know about Daddy, do you?’
‘No.’
‘Maybe he’ll come, too.’
‘Maybe.’ He looked helplessly at Annabelle who looked expressionlessly back, offering no help.
‘There’s another one!’ said the child, pointing up. ‘I’ve been in a helicopter.’ She pronounced it ‘elcopter’.
It fluttered down, far enough away for them not to be buffeted by the downdraught, but it didn’t save its passengers from that of the pursuing media machine. They came in low and their cameramen had ample time to picture Jennifer, who was hurried towards the house by Colin Dawson. By the time they reached it Annabelle had already carried the suddenly frightened Emily inside, away from the noise and the artificial gale.
Every effort Jennifer had made for the homecoming was totally wrecked. Her dress and jacket were in disarray, her hair churned into a bird’s-nest and her nose as well as her eye was running from the dust that had blown in, streaking her make-up: before she could even speak the priest had to pick out a piece of grit with a handkerchief tip. It did mean, though, that Jennifer had the perfect excuse for the real tears that started the moment she was able properly to look at Emily.
‘Hello darling,’ Jennifer said. ‘Mummy’s home.’
‘But not Daddy?’ said Emily.
‘No,’ said Jennifer. ‘Not Daddy.’
It was the unexpected presence of the wealthy priest, perfectly accustomed to such opulence and sincerely believing himself chosen to be God’s vehicle for miracle, who saved the situation.
No-one else knew what to do or say. Emily had instinctively started back when Jennifer moved as if to kiss and hug her – so she’d stopped – and Annabelle ran out of words after saying it was nice to see Jennifer back. Hall couldn’t think of any contribution at all. So Dawson sipped the Earl Grey and ate the triangle sandwiches served by Alice Jenkins as if afternoon tea there was a regular ritual and talked to Emily, who seemed to welcome the relief as much as the rest of them, playing up to it even.
‘Does your collar hurt like that?’
‘No.’
‘Daddy doesn’t have a shirt like that.’
‘This is because I am a priest.’
‘What’s that mean?’
‘I work for God.’
‘Not for my daddy?’
‘No.’
‘Do you know God?’ she demanded, seemingly genuinely curious.
‘Yes.’
‘Does he really have a beard? He’s got a beard in the picture on Miss Singleton’s wall: she’s my teacher. G stands for God.’
‘The picture’s of his son.’
‘Do you know him, too?’
‘I know of him.’
‘But you haven’t met him?’
‘Not like I’m meeting you now.’
‘You’re very clever to know what G stands for,’ ventured Jennifer, as the tension eased.
‘I know all my letters now. Annabelle taught me while we were away. We’ve been away, while you’ve been ill. I saw Mickey Mouse…’ She plucked at her sweater. To Dawson she said, seriously, ‘He’s real, you know?’
‘No, I didn’t,’ said the priest.
‘He is. I met him. And Goofy and Pluto and Minnie. I met them all.’ She looked back to Jennifer. ‘But I’m glad I’m home now.’
‘I’m glad, too,’ said Jennifer, hopefully. ‘And I’m glad most of all to be home with you. Are you glad that I’m home?’
Hall saw the fleeting frown cross Annabelle’s face.
Emily remained serious for what seemed a very long time. Finally she said, ‘I think so. But I wish Daddy was here too.’
Jennifer’s face began to crumple more but she managed to stop it. ‘I’ve missed you,’ she blurted.
Emily didn’t say anything.
‘It’s getting late, darling,’ said Jennifer. ‘While everyone else is having their tea here why don’t we go and have ours in the kitchen? And after that I can give you your bath and then read you a story and you can show me all the letters you know, on the page?’
Emily looked between her mother and the nanny. ‘I want Annabelle to give me my tea and bath. And read to me.’
‘But with Mummy as well,’ said Annabelle.
‘All right,’ agreed the child, uncertainly.
The excuse of grit in her eye had almost gone by the time Jennifer asked Hall and the priest to stay as she followed Annabelle and Emily out of the room.
Hall said, ‘Not at all what she expected, I wouldn’t think.’
‘She said she’d tried not to imagine anything.’
‘It’ll take some getting over,’ suggested Hall.
‘Hardly, with her resilience,’ said the priest. ‘It could have been better, but only just. They’ve got a lot of catching up to do.’
‘Are you here to help?’ queried Hall.
Dawson’s shoulders lifted and fell. ‘She asked me to come with her at the last minute. Said she wanted moral support…’ He smiled. ‘I’ve never been in a helicopter before.’
‘Easier than getting here by road.’
‘We saw what it was like when we came in. Incredible.’
‘I think I might get a lift back with you. Come back and get the car later.’ Purely for the immediate convenience, he told himself. It was ridiculous even to think of trying to drive through that melee again.
Dawson made another vague gesture through the lounge window in the direction of the distant road: inside it wasn’t possible to hear the animal roar. ‘They’re not going to be able to live like this. No-one could. Not for long.’
Hall was still trying to think of a reply when Jennifer came back into the room. She didn’t try to hide the fresh tears. ‘She was frightened of me being too close to her in the bathroom so I came away.’ She paused. ‘I saw what I looked like in the bathroom mirrors. A mad woman.’
None of them wanted to eat. Hall and the priest drank whisky. Jennifer didn’t drink anything and neither did Annabelle when she came down to say Emily had gone to sleep. They were all too anxious to reassure Jennifer it was always going to be difficult at the very beginning: each insisted, again too eagerly, that it had in fact gone far better than they’d anticipated. None of it helped.
Jennifer agreed at once to Hall leaving in the clinic’s helicopter and said, There’s something we could discuss in detail when you come back for your car, although I might as well tell you now.’
‘What?’
‘I’ve decided to write the book. And I want you to negotiate the contracts for me.’
‘I’m not a literary agent,’ Hall protested, weakly.
‘Literary agents arrange deals. We’re having deals shovelled at us. I need a lawyer to pick the best and negotiate the best…’ She smiled through the sadness. ‘And you, Jeremy Hall, are the very best lawyer I’ve ever met in my life.’ And by acting for me, she thought, you’re staying in my life.
Jeremy Hall was thinking the same. ‘I’d be pleased to,’ he said.