‘Harry, you have always told me and I agree that Panamanians with certain noble exceptions like Ernesto Delgado do not care for the Canal. They didn’t build it. We did. They did not even provide the labour. The labour came from China and Africa and Madagascar, it came from the Caribbean and India. And Ernesto is a good man.’
Jesus, she thought. Why do I speak like that? Why am I such a strident pious shrew? Easy. Because Emily is a whore.
She sat at his desk, head in hands, sorry she had split the drawers open, sorry she had bawled out that wretched weeping woman, sorry she had once more had wicked thoughts about her sister Emily. I’m never going to talk to anyone like that again in my life, she decided. I’m never going to punish myself again by punishing other people. I’m not my fucking mother or my fucking father and I am not a pious perfect God-fearing Zonian bitch. And I’m very sorry that in a stressful moment, under the influence of alcohol, I found it in me to abuse a fellow-sinner, even if she’s Harry’s mistress and if she is I’ll murder her. Rummaging in a drawer that she had till now neglected, she came upon another unfinished masterpiece:
Andy, you will be very pleased to hear that our new arrangement is highly popular with all parties, especially the ladies. Everything being down to me, L is not compromised in her conscience as regards naughty Ernie plus it’s safer regarding the family as a whole it being one to one. Will continue this at shop.
And so will I, thought Louisa in the kitchen, giving herself one more for the road. Alcohol no longer affected her, she had discovered. What affected her was Andy alias Andrew Osnard who with her reading of this fragment had abruptly supplanted Sabina as the object of her curiosity.
But this was not new.
She had been curious about Mr Osnard ever since the trip to Anytime Island when she had concluded that Harry wished her to go to bed with him to ease his conscience, though from what Louisa knew of Harry’s conscience, one fuck was unlikely to solve the problem.
She must have telephoned for a cab because there was one standing outside the door and the bell was ringing.
Osnard turned his back on the eyehole and walked through the dining room to the balcony where Luxmore sat in the same near-foetal position, too scared to speak or act. His bloodshot eyes were opened wide, fear stretched his upper lip into a sneer, two yellowed front teeth had appeared between his beard and his moustache and they must have been the ones he sucked when he wished to signal a happy turn of phrase.
‘I am receiving an unscheduled visit from BUCHAN TWO,’ Osnard told him quietly. ‘We have a situation on our hands. You’d better get out fast.’
‘Andrew. I’m a senior officer. My God, what’s that hammering? She’ll awaken the dead.’
‘I’m going to put you with the coats. When you hear me shut the dining room door after her, take the lift to the lobby, give the concierge a dollar and tell him to get you a taxi to the El Panama.’
‘My God, Andrew.’
‘What is it?’
‘Are you going to be all right? Listen to her. Is that a gun she’s using? We should call the police. Andrew. One word.’
‘What is it?’
‘Can I trust the taxi driver? Some of these fellows, you hear things. Bodies in the harbour. I don’t speak their Spanish, Andrew,’
Lifting Luxmore to his feet, Osnard led him to the hall, bundled him into the cloakroom and closed the door. He unchained the front door, slid the bolts, turned the key and opened it. The hammering stopped but the ringing continued.
‘Louisa,’ he said as he prised her finger from the bell button. ‘Marvellous. Where’s Harry? Why don’t you come on in?’
Transferring his grip to her wrist he heaved her into the hall and closed the door but did not bolt it or turn the key. They stood face to face and close while Osnard held her hand above their heads as if they were about to begin an old-fashioned waltz, and it was the hand that held the shoe. She let the shoe fall. No sound was coming out of her but he smelt her breath and it was like his mother’s breath whenever he had to accept a kiss from her. Her dress was very thin. He could feel her breasts and the bulge of her pubic triangle through the red fabric.