17

JAKE DIDN’T LAST THE PRESCRIBED WEEK OF MOURNING, but left a day early, undone by his excruciating and heated quarrel over the Horseman. It rankled. Oh how it rankled. On the flight back to London, bouncing in blue skies over Labrador, dozing fitfully as he cruised over the rippled, steely Atlantic, Jake thrashed through his altercation with Uncle Abe again and again, coming out best in retrospect.

England was signaled by earache, the lowering jet, and the usual bank of snotty cloud. Jake disembarked at Heathrow in a black mood, with tomorrow’s drive to Cornwall, Nancy and the kids, still ahead of him.

There were lights on in the house. Could he have forgotten to …? No, Harry would be there, damn it, he thought, damn it, as he turned the key.

The hall smelled sweetly of incense.

Once in the living room, he saw the girl. Lazy blue eyes. Lank blond hair. Coltish. He had surprised her, drifting out of the study, and now it was with a measured insolence that she stooped to retrieve a shawl from the floor, gathering it to her breasts. As in a frozen frame, he was to remember, they scrutinized each other, Jake seething with impatience, the girl leaning against the door, the opening picture in a Playboy spread sprung to life.

“Yes,” she said.

“This is my house,” Jake snarled, “my name is Hersh,” and, as if to establish his proprietorial rights, he flung his flight bag on the sofa, self-consciously aware that his manner was as bellicose as an A. J. Cronin father returned to the manse.

The girl withdrew into the study, there was a giggle, some whispering, and then an agitated Harry appeared.

“Oh, for Chrissake! Put something on, will you!”

Harry slid into his trousers, grinning idiotically. “But you weren’t coming back until tomorrow.”

“I changed my mind.”

Beseechingly, he squeezed Jake’s arm. “I told her I was in films. A director. Don’t ruin it for me, Jake.”

She was there again, standing in the doorway, the shawl wrapped around this time.

“Do you want her?” Harry whispered. “She’s crazy for it. All ways.”

“At the moment, Fellini, I’m crazy for only one thing. A drink,” and he turned smartly, taking the stairs to his bedroom two at a time, stumbling but once.

Cunning Harry sent Ingrid with a tray. Remy Martin and a glass. “You are angry with us,” she said.

“And you are very observant.”

“You’re the intellectual type.”

“That’s the ticket.”

“But you keep a gun.”

So Harry had treated her to a tour of his aerie. The little German bitch would have seen the photographs on the wall. Frau Goering, the Von Papens, “Sepp” Dietrich.

“For a good reason,” he said. “Now would you just set the drink down over there and go.”

She reeked of sex, and he, equally palatably, of death. Gratuitously, he added, “I’m going to have a bath.”

“What reason?”

“The gun or the bath?”

“The gun.”

“I might be planning to shoot some Germans. Maybe even you. Who knows?”

Ingrid giggled, pointing, but it wasn’t his prowess she was mocking. It was the Y-front underwear he was standing in. Powder blue. Pilar had stupidly put them in the machine with Sammy’s jeans and the colors had run.

Spitefully, Jake pulled at the shawl, which came away easily. Then just to show he wasn’t utterly unappreciative or a prude, he ran his hand over her breasts and passed it angrily between her legs. Glaring at him, she locked him there. Jake, to his astonishment, responded by pinching her as viciously as he could. Which set her to trembling all over. The next thing he knew she was on her knees, her head bobbing between his legs. Uprooting her, Jake feigned lofty disinterest, betrayed by a throbbing erection. Even so, he said, “Go back to Harry, will you. He must be getting impatient.”

At five thirty in the morning, Ingrid started up Haverstock Hill, heading for home, her gait uneven, almost a totter. Sobbing, she steeled herself against the car creeping toward her, unaware as yet that it wasn’t an attempted pick-up but a police car, coming from scouring the Heath for Hampton flashers: Echo-1 from E Division.

“Everything all right, miss?”

Her inchoate tale, choked with sobs, sounded like the usual guff. Although Sergeant Hoare was skeptical, for at that hour most girls surprised in her state fell back on the same sort of wild sexual charges, especially if they were frightened, he parked, his engine idling. Policewoman Everett invited Ingrid to sit down beside her in the back of the white Jaguar. Wearily, she asked the girl to begin again. It was no use. Once more she rambled hysterically, weeping, and lapsing into German.

“What was the other man’s name again?” Sergeant Hoare asked, glancing sharply at policewoman Everett, who took out her notebook for the first time.

“Hersh.”

“Have you been taking drugs?”

“Niemals. Not me.”

“Not you. But the others?”

Ingrid fell silent, more shrewd than hysterical now, and protested that she felt better and was capable of walking home.

“It’s no trouble. We’ll drive you. But what would you say to a nice cup of tea first?”