CHAPTER SIX: SAFE HAVENS

Hunter woke the following morning feeling distinctly uncomfortable. He flexed his muscles uncertainly, exploring what seemed to have shrunk into a very confined bed, and remembered Elaine's snoring, and his switch to his sofa, and felt a pulse of irritation start to rise in him. He stretched, feeling decidedly grumpy, and put his feet on the carpet, ready for aggression. He could smell the scent of fresh coffee wafting in to him from his kitchen, but he would not be bribed. He would shave, and have a shower, and be tough.

The shower proved a blessing. The streaming hot water washed him fresh and clean, body and soul, and strengthened his resolve. Some toast would be nice, and maybe a couple of fried eggs, before giving Elaine a piece of his mind and driving down to Financeday.

He padded barefoot towards his kitchen, shirt dangling outside his trousers. It was Saturday morning, and he had all the time in the world. But his breakfast hopes melted immediately he reached the kitchen doorway, because Elaine sat at the kitchen table, her hands cupped around a steaming mug, staring at the mug glumly, and her face was haggard and drawn.

Hunter inspected her silently, poured himself coffee from the cafetiere, and began to cut himself a slice of wholemeal bread, standing with his back to her.

‘I'm sorry.’ Elaine’s voice was a mere wisp of pain.

Hunter pretended not to hear, and the kitchen was silent as he slid his bread under the grill.

‘I shouldn't have drunk it all.’

He shrugged. Hangovers were self-inflicted punishments.

‘I just felt fed up when you pushed off like that.’ Elaine allowed herself a small, plaintive sniff. She was feeling her way, but it was hard, both because Hunter had his back to her, and because her head was giving her pure hell.

Hunter sniffed as well, to signal his disapproval. The flat was his, and he had every right to do as he pleased in his own home. He felt anger start to bubble inside him again, and it was a righteous emotion.

He turned his toast, heating it to crisp the bread to a golden brown just short of burning, turned the grill off, and looked around for butter. He would eat, and then sort this woman out.

Another plaintiff sniff began swelling, and Hunter heard a gulp, and a yelp, and the sound of desperate shuffling. He turned, to glimpse Elaine on her feet and in flight, one hand cupped over her mouth, and a moment later she was gone, and the bathroom door had slammed. He spread his butter thickly, adding marmalade, took a plate to the table and seated himself to enjoy the fruits of his labour. She had brought it on herself.

The flat was quiet, all but for the crunching of toast, and then a low moan, a sound of great pain, hung in the air. Hunter ignored it. Elaine was plainly being theatrical. Another moan followed, swelling and ebbing, and a sad little whimpering sound, and he sighed, crunching up the last crumbs of his toast before getting reluctantly to his feet. He was not really a hard man, though sometimes he could make a pretty good showing. But hangovers were no cause for schadenfreude. He had travelled the same road himself many times, and Elaine had always bound up his wounds.

He put on a samaritan face, padding to the rescue.

Elaine knelt crouched on his bathroom floor, head bent over his lavatory. She retched as he looked down at her.

‘I'm dying.’

Hunter silently handed her a damp flannel.

She retched again, coughing into the lavatory, and then straightened wearily to look up at him.

‘I'm sorry.’ She shook her head, like a dog freeing itself from water, and levered herself awkwardly to her feet, and was silent for a moment, taking deep breaths.

Then she looked at her watch, and yelped again. ‘Oh, my God. I've got to do a market today.’ She stared at Hunter, her eyes pleading. ‘I'll replace your marc.’

Hunter sighed. He could feel his better nature once again pushing toughness aside, and it seemed wrong to kick Elaine when she was so palpably down. He hesitated. Replacement was plainly some way short of a bribe. He pondered for a moment, before making up his mind. ‘Two of the best bottles you can find.’

Elaine winced. ‘Bastard.’ But she only whispered the word, and her voice had no defiance. Hunter was driving a hard bargain, but he was agreeing to help.

‘Plus a veal roll, and a couple of Portuguese custard tarts.’

Elaine gulped at the thought of food, but then assented silently. She knew Hunter doted on veal rolls and small custard tarts from the Lisboa, a Portuguese cafe tucked away at the very tip of the market, out at the end of Golborne Road, and two bottles of marc and a couple of tarts seemed a small price to pay.

Hunter padded away to get dressed.

Saturdays were days for casual smartness, and careful choice. Hunter decided to look prosperous, and picked out a dark blue silk shirt to team with a pair of pale blue cotton chinos, plus a black leather belt to go with black silk socks and well polished black shoes. He admired himself in his bedroom mirror when he was done. The man in the mirror had a good air about him, even if a touch on the tubby side. He looked like a man ready to help distressed damsels.

He carried Cradock’s case to the door of his flat, looked out quickly to make certain nobody stood waiting on the landing, and then trundled it down in the lift to the basement parking space where he kept his proudest possession, a twelve month old dark blue Clio Williams.

The case made a snug fit into boot of the car, and the Clio still shone from a wash the previous weekend. Hunter slotted a CD of Leclair concertos into his car stereo, settled himself comfortably behind his steering wheel, bleeped open the garage's automatic doors, purred up the exit ramp, and was out a moment later cruising smoothly towards Notting Hill Gate.

Saturday morning traffic along the north side of Hyde Park was light. He took his time, cruising along, content to let wilder drivers practice racing, even though the Clio had the power to wipe most other cars into the dirt, and smiled benevolently at the sight of a man driving a small silver Renault with a cat perched on his shoulder. London was a good place to be on a fine summer day.

The Renault cornered neatly, cat holding tight, and pulled away, a little in front of him, but driving at no great speed. Hunter let it go - the Clio could waste it in a puff, but he was listening to his music. Suddenly the white shark shape of a police car swept past, and he slowed instinctively. But the police car was seeking better prey, and slotted in behind the Renault, blue light flashing. It was plain that the cat had irritated the strong arm of the law, and the sight made Hunter smile wryly. Exhibitionism had plainly harvested the seeds of its own destruction.

He cruised on, honest, upright, and law-abiding. He knew himself as a man of influence and importance, one of the beautiful people, taking his time and enjoying his day, and minor show-offs could be left at lower levels.

Financeday's building slept, shuttered and barred. Hunter parked in the courtyard outside the back door. He could see a uniformed security guard seated at the reception desk beyond the double glass doors of the building, with his jacket unbuttoned, and his feet up, reading a paper, and looking very comfortable.

Hunter lifted Cradock's case carefully out of the Clio, and carried it to the building. The guard watched him approach, and got out of his chair lazily to unbolt the door.

‘Morning, sir.’ He was a tall man, perhaps six foot eight, with a military mien and ramrod bearing in his blue uniform, and looked like an ex-soldier, possibly a former guardsman.

Hunter held up his Financeday press card and moved to pass him, but the guard held up his hand, eying Cradock's case.

‘We have to check, sir.’

Hunter lifted the case onto the desk, unlocked it, and lifted the lid. He was impatient to be on his way, but kept his impatience to himself. The guard was plainly bored, and needed to show willing to justify his paypacket. He would gain nothing by complaining.

The guard was quick and deft. He lifted the folders on one side of the case, then on the other, glanced quickly inside a few, and then tidied them all neatly back into place. He stood back.

‘Looks like a lot of work, sir.’ His voice was respectful.

Hunter nodded. ‘Research material.’

‘Yes, sir.’ The guard's reply was neutral. He glanced at Hunter's laminated card, picking up a clipboard with a sheet of paper divided into columns. ‘I'll book you in for nine, sir, and I'll need to know your function and where you'll be working.’

Hunter bridles. ‘Number rank and name?’

The guard was not amused. ‘We have to do our job, sir.’

Hunter scribbled, and the guard glanced at the sheet.

‘Thank you, sir.’

He returned to the reception desk, took a bunch of keys, and walked to a door to the corridor that led in turn to the stairs and lifts linking with the rest of the building. He turned to watch Hunter push at the door, and his eyes were the eyes of a military man, hard and searching.

The Financeday newsroom was empty, strangely silent in its weekend slumber. Hunter took Cradock's case to his desk, and looked around. But he felt uneasy after the security guard’s search, for somehow the emptiness was eerie, and almost unnerving - he was on his own with Cradock's secrets, but he was not alone, for he had opened the case for inspection, and the case had been thoroughly inspected.

He dropped the case on his chair and prowled off towards the stairs leading up the paper's library, hunting for an empty and lockable filing cabinet large enough to make it a home. But every cabinet was filled, or locked, and he had a sudden twinge of fear. He had abandoned the case on the floor below, and even now security men might be taking it away. He rushed back to his desk, and the case was still in place, but it was an anxious lesson. He mistrusted the security guard, and must hide it somewhere very much safer. Now he would have to call Arabella, and crawl.

He perched on the edge of his desk for a moment, and then lifted his phone and punched a number, smiling his most charming smile as a woman’s voice answered.

‘Bella? This is Richard, Mr. Hunter.’

It was a private joke, a throwback to the times when Arabella ranked as Mrs. Hunter, and a litmus test. Hunter knew that she would react well if she was in a good mood, and bite his head off if she was grumpy.

Arabella Cosgrave was charm itself. ‘Darling, how nice.’ She was seated at her dressing table, swathed in a smart satin peignoir, filing a trace of rough skin from the corner of a fingernail, and she was in a very good mood. Jack was off to play a couple of rounds of golf somewhere with a junior minister, and she was invited to a rather smart diplomatic coffee morning in Belgravia. But she said no more, because she was curious to know why Hunter was calling, and she had a request tucked up her sleeve.

She listened, and trilled her consent as he finished speaking. One good turn deserved another, and Jack wanted to pick Hunter's brains about some complicated City deal. ‘Of course, darling, no problem at all, you can leave your case with Maria, and you can collect it again when you come to lunch tomorrow.’

Hunter made a small yelping noise. He did not much care for Cosgrave, rating Arabella's second husband as a big, arrogant bastard with a penchant for throwing his weight around. He had a feeling that his clever plan had turned into a trap. But he had no choice.

Arabella took his yelp for acquiescence, and beamed. ‘Wonderful, darling.’ Her voice was a fresh trill of pure delight, and she smiled a big, big smile at herself in her dressingtable mirror as she switched off her phone. Jack would be well pleased. She glanced at her watch again, and leaped to her feet. Now she really must move: time was galloping by, and she must get into her best little Caroline Charles summer creation pretty fast, and rush along.

Another observer also profited from Hunter's squirrelling. The Financeday security guard also made a phone call, a little while after Hunter packed Cradock's case back into his car, and now his jacket was buttoned neatly and he was alert.

‘Brought it in and took it out again, sir.’

He listened for a moment.

‘All photocopies, sir, as far as I could tell, and I had a pretty good shufti.’

He listened again, and shrugged. ‘Don't know, sir. He came, and then left again. maybe he wanted some more copies.’

Another pause. He glanced at his clipboard, reeling off Hunter's registration number. ‘Dark blue Clio Williams, sir, alloy wheels. Nice little motor.’ He listened for a moment, grunting in confirmation, and replaced his telephone, looking well pleased with himself. His watchfulness had just earned him a nice little bonus, and he had done a good deed. He had slotted Mr. Hunter squarely into a frame, and the man was now up the sharp end.