through to Mr. Ley.
“It’s Laski here,” he said.
“Ah, yes?” The banker was cautious.
Laski forced himself to sound calm. “I’ve sorted out this little
problem, Ley. The necessary cash is in my vault. Now I can arrange
delivery immediately, as you suggested earlier; or you can inspect today
and take delivery tomorrow.” “Um.” Ley thought for a moment. “I don’t
think either will be necessary, Laski. It would rather throw us to have
to count so much money this late in the afternoon. If you can deliver
first thing in the morning, we’ll clear the check tomorrow.”
“Thank you.” Laski decided to rub salt in the wound. “I’m sorry to have
irritated you so much, earlier today.”
“Perhaps I was a little brusque. Good-bye, Laski.”
Laski hung up. He was still thinking fast. He reckoned he could drum up
about a hundred thousand in cash overnight. Cox could probably equal
that from his clubs. They could swap that cash for two hundred thousand
of the stolen notes. It was just another precaution: if all the notes he
delivered tomorrow were too worn to be reissued someone might wonder at
the coincidence of a theft one day and a deposit the next. A leavening
of good condition currency would allay that suspicion.
He seemed to have covered everything. He allowed himself to relax for a
moment. I’ve done it again, he thought: I’ve won. A laugh of sheer
triumph escaped from his throat.
Now to supervise the details. He had better go down to the vault to
provide reassurance to his no-doubt-bemused staff. And he wanted to see
Cox and his crew off the premises fast.
Then he would phone Ellen.
ELLEN HAMILTON had been at home almost all day.
The shopping trip she had told Felix about was invented. she just needed
an excuse for going to see him. She was a very bored woman. The trip to
London had not taken long: on her return she had changed her clothes,
redone her hair, and taken much longer than necessary to prepare a lunch
of cottage cheese, salad, fruit, and black coffee without sugar. She had
washed her dishes, scorning the dishwasher for so few items and sending
Mrs. Tremlett upstairs to vacuum-clean. She watched the news and a soap
opera on television; began to read an historical novel, and put it down
after five pages; went from room to room in the house tidying things
that did not need to be tidied; and went down to the pool for a swim,
changing her mind at the last minute.
Now she stood naked on the tiled floor of the cool summerhouse, her
swimsuit in one hand and her dress in the other, thinking: If I can’t
make up my mind whether or not to go swimming, how will I ever summon
the willpower to leave my husband?
She dropped the clothes and let her shoulders sag. There was a
full-length mirror on the wall, but she did not look in it. She took
care of her appearance out of scruple, not vanity: she found mirrors
quite resistible.
She wondered what it would be like to swim in the nude. Such things had
been unheard-of when she was young: besides, she had always been
inhibited. She knew this, and did not fight it, for she actually liked
her inhibitions–they gave to her lifestyle a shape and constancy which
she needed.
The floor was deliciously cool. She was tempted to lie down and roll
over, enjoying the feel of the cold tiles on her hot skin. She
calculated the risk of Pritchard or Mrs. Tremlett walking in on her, and
decided it was too great.
She got dressed again.
The summerhouse was quite high up. From its door one could see most of
the grounds–there were nine acres. It was a delightful garden, created
at the beginning of the last century; eccentrically landscaped and
planted with dozens of different species of trees. It had given her much
pleasure, but lately it had palled, like everything else.
The place was at its best in the cool of the afternoon. A light breeze
set Ellen’s printed cotton dress flapping like a flag. She walked past