Echoes of Sophie's account of her conversation with Freddie Hamid at the cemetery in Cairo invaded Jonathan's concentration.
"And you said it
"He said I wouldn't understand, even if he told me. I should shut up and not talk about things I didn't understand. Then he said, This isn't crime, this is politics. I said,
"And Roper?" Jonathan asked.
"He says there isn't a bottom line. People like my father just think there is, which is why people like my father are suckers. He says he loves me and that's good enough. So I get angry and say. It may have been good enough for Eva Braun, but it isn't good enough for me. I thought he'd belt me. But he just took note. Nothing surprises him, do you know that? It's facts. One fact more, one fact less. Then you do the logical thing at the end of it."
Which was what he did to Sophie, thought Jonathan. "What about you?" he asked.
"What about me?" She wanted brandy. He hadn't any, so he gave her Scotch. "It's a lie," she said.
"What is?"
"What I'm living. Someone tells me who I am, and I believe them and go with it. That's what I do. I believe people. I can't help it. Now you come along and tell me I'm a mess, but that's not what he tells me. He says I'm his virtue. Me and Daniel, we're what it's all for. He said it straight out one night, in front of Corky." She took a gulp of Scotch. "Caro says he's pushing drugs. Did you know that? Some huge shipment, in exchange for arms and God knows what. We're not talking about sailing close to the wind. Not cutting a few corners or having a quiet joint at a party, she says. We're talking fully fledged, organised megacrime. She says I'm a gangster's moll ― that's another version of me I'm trying to sort through. It's a thrill a minute being me these days."
Her gaze was on him again, straight and unblinking. "I'm in deep shit," she said. "I walked into this with my eyes wide shut. I deserve everything I get. Just don't tell me I'm a mess. I can do the sermons for myself. Anyway, what the fuck are you up to? You're no paragon."
"What does Roper say I'm up to?"
"You got into some heavy trouble. But you're a good chap. He's fixing you up. He's sick of Corky bitching about you. But then he didn't catch you prowling in our bedroom, did he?" she said, flaring again. "Let's hear it from you."
He took a long time to answer. First he thought of Burr, then he thought of himself and all the rules against talking.
"I'm a volunteer," he said.
She pulled a sour face. "For the police?"
"Sort of."
"How much of you is you?"
"I'm waiting to find out."
"What will they do to him?"
"Catch him. Put him on trial. Lock him up."
"How can you volunteer for a job like that? Jesus."
No training covered this contingency. He gave himself time to think, and the silence, like the distance between them, seemed to join rather than divide them.
"It began with a girl," he said. He corrected himself. "A woman. Roper and another man arranged to have her killed. I felt responsible."
Shoulders hunched, the cape still gathered to her neck, she peered round the room, then back to him.
"Did you love her? The girl? The woman?"
"Yes." He smiled. "She was my virtue."
She took this in, uncertain whether to give it her approval.
"When you saved Daniel, at Mama's, was that a lie too?"
"Pretty much."
He watched it all going through her head: the revulsion, the struggling to understand, the mixed moralities of her upbringing.
"Dr. Marti said they nearly killed you," she said.
"I nearly killed them. I lost my temper. It was a play that went wrong."
"What was her name?"
"Sophie."
"I need to hear about her."
She meant here, in this house, now.
* * *
He took her up to the bedroom and lay alongside her without touching her while he told her about Sophie, and eventually she slept while he kept watch. She woke and wanted soda water, so he fetched some from the fridge. Then at five o'clock, before it was light, he put on his jogging gear and led her back along the tunnel to the gatehouse, not letting her use the flashlight but making her walk a pace behind him on his left side, as if she were a raw recruit he was leading into battle. And at the gatehouse he put his head and shoulders right into the window for one of his chats with Marlow the night guard, while Jed flitted by, he hoped unseen.
His anxiety was not eased when he returned to find Amos the Rasta sitting on his doorstep, needing a cup of coffee.
"You have a fine, upliftin' experience with your soul last night, Mist' Thomas, sir?" he enquired, pouring four heaped spoonfuls of sugar into his cup.
"It was an evening like any other, Amos. How about you?"
"Mist' Thomas, sir, I ain't smelt no fresh fire smoke at one a. m. of a Townside morning not since Mist' Woodman liked to entertain his lady friends to music and fine lovin'."
"Mr. Woodman would have done a lot better, by all accounts, to read an improving book."
