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THREE

Saturday, 12.30am, Manhattan

At the office, he hammered the ‘send’ key on the keyboard, pushed back his chair and stretched. It was half-past midnight. He looked around: most of the desks were empty, only the night layout area was still fully staffed – cutting and slicing, rewriting and crafting the finished product which would spread itself open on Manhattan breakfast tables in just a few hours’ time.

He strode around the office, pumped by a minor version of the post-filing high – that surge of adrenalin and relief once a story is done. He wandered, stealing a glance at the desks of his colleagues, bathed only in the flickering light of CNN, on mute.

The office was open plan, but a system of partitions organized the desks into pods, little clusters of four. As a newcomer, Will was in a far-off corner. His nearest window looked out onto a brick wall: the back of a Broadway theatre bearing a now-faded poster for one of the city’s longest-running musicals. Alongside him in the pod was Terry Walton, the former Delhi bureau chief who had returned to New York under some kind of cloud; Will had not yet discovered the exact nature of his misdemeanour. His desk consisted of a series of meticulous piles surrounding a single yellow legal pad. On it was handwriting so dense and tiny, it was unintelligible to all but the closest inspection: Will suspected this was a kind of security mechanism, devised by Walton to prevent any snoopers taking a peek at his work. He was yet to discover why a man whose demotion to Metro meant he was hardly working on stories sensitive to national security would take such a precaution.

Next was Dan Schwarz, whose desk seemed to be on the point of collapse. He was an investigative reporter; there was barely room for his chair, all floor space consumed by cardboard boxes. Papers were falling out of other papers; even the screen on Schwarz’s computer was barely visible, bordered by a hundred Post-it notes stuck all around the edge.

Amy Woodstein’s desk was neither anally neat like Walton’s nor a public health disaster like Schwarz’s. It was messy, as befitted the quarters of a woman who worked under her very own set of deadlines – always rushing back to relieve a nanny, let in a childminder or pick up from nursery. She had used the partition walls to pin up not yet more papers, like Schwarz, or elegant, if aged, postcards, like Walton, but pictures of her family. Her children had curly hair and wide, toothy smiles – and, as far as Will could see, were permanently covered in paint.

He went back to his own desk. He had not found the courage to personalize it yet; the pin-board partition still bore the corporate notices that were there when he arrived. He saw the light on his phone blinking. A message.

Hi babe. I know it’s late but I’m not sleepy yet. I’ve got a fun idea so call me when you’re done. It’s nearly one. Call soon.

His spirits lifted instantly. He had banked on a tip-toed re-entry into the apartment, followed by a pre-bed bowl of Cheerios. What did Beth have in mind?

He called. ‘How come you’re still awake?’

‘I dunno, my husband’s first murder perhaps? Maybe it’s just everything that’s going on. Anyway, I can’t sleep. Do you wanna meet for bagels?’

‘What, now?’

‘Yeah. At the Carnegie Deli.’

‘Now?’

‘I’ll get a cab.’

Will liked the idea of the Carnegie Deli as much as, perhaps more than, the reality. The notion of a coffee shop that never slept, where old-time Broadway comedians and now-creaking chorus girls might meet for an after-show pastrami sandwich; the folks reading first editions of the morning papers, scanning the pages for notices of their latest hit or flop, their cups constantly refilled with steaming brown liquid – it was all so New York. He wanted the waitresses to look harried, he liked it when people butted in line – it all confirmed what he knew was a tourist’s fantasy of the big city. He suspected he should be over this by now: he had, after all, lived in America for more than five years. But he could not pretend to be a native.

He got there first, bagging a table behind a noisy group of middle-aged couples. He caught snatches of conversation, enough to work out they were not Manhattanites, but in from Jersey. He guessed they had taken in a show, almost certainly a long-running musical, and were now completing their New York experience with a past-midnight snack.

Then he saw her. Will paused for a split second before waving, just to take a good look. They had met in his very last weeks at Columbia and he had fallen hard and fast. Her looks could still make his insides leap: the long dark hair framing pale skin and wide, green eyes. One look and you could not tear yourself away. Those eyes were like deep, cool pools – and he wanted to dive in.

He jumped up to meet her, instantly taking in her scent. It began in her hair, with an aroma of sunshine and dewberries that might once have come from a shampoo, but combined with her skin to produce a new perfume, one that was entirely her own. Its epicentre was the inch or two of skin just below her ear. He only had to nuzzle into that nook to be filled with her.

Now it was the mouth that drew him. Beth’s lips were full and thick; he could feel their plumpness as he kissed them. Without warning, they parted, just enough to let her tongue brush against his lips, then meet his own. Quietly, so quietly no one but him could hear it, she let out a tiny moan, a sound of pleasure that roused him instantly. He hardened. She could feel it, prompting another moan, this time of surprise and approval.

‘You are pleased to see me.’ Now she was sitting opposite him, shrugging off her coat with a suggestive wriggle. She saw him looking. ‘You checking me out?’

‘You could say that.’

She grinned. ‘What are we going to eat? I thought cheesecake and hot chocolate, although maybe tea would be good . . .’

Will was still staring at his wife, watching the way her top stretched across her breasts. He was wondering if they should abandon the Carnegie and go straight back to their big warm bed.

‘What?’ she said, feigning indignation. ‘Concentrate!’

His pastrami sandwich, piled high and deluged with mustard, arrived just as he was telling her about the treatment he had got from the old-timers at the murder scene. ‘So Carl whatsisname—’

‘The TV guy?’

‘Yeah, he’s giving the policewoman all this Raymond Chandler, veteran gumshoe stuff—’

‘Give me a break here, you know I got a lawyer friend downtown.’

‘Exactly. And I’m Mr Novice from the effete New York Times—’

‘Not so effete from what I saw a few minutes ago.’ She raised her eyebrows.

‘Can I get to the end?’

‘Sorry.’ She got back to her cheesecake, not picking at it like most of the women Will would see in New York, but downing it in big, hearty chunks.

‘Anyway, it was pretty obvious he was going to get the inside track and I wasn’t. So I was thinking. Maybe I should start developing some serious police contacts.’

‘What, drinking with Lieutenant O’Rourke until you fall under the table? Somehow I don’t see it. Besides, you’re not going to be on this beat long. When Carl whateverhisnameis is still doing traffic snarl-ups in Staten Island, you’re going to be covering the, I don’t know, the White House or Paris or something really important.’

Will smiled. ‘Your faith in me is touching.’

‘I’m not kidding, Will. I know it looks like I am because I have a face full of cake. But I mean it. I believe in you.’ Will took her hand. ‘You know what song I heard today, at work? It’s weird because you never hear songs like that on the radio, but it was so beautiful.’

‘What was it?’

‘It’s a John Lennon song, I can’t remember the title. But he’s going through all the things that people believe in, and he says, “I don’t believe in Jesus, I don’t believe in Bible, I don’t believe in Buddha”, and all these other things, you know, Hitler and Elvis and whatever, and then he says, “I don’t believe in Beatles. I just believe in me, Yoko and me.” And it made me stop, right in the waiting area at the hospital. Because – you’re going to think this is so sappy – but I think it was because that’s what I believe in.’

‘In Yoko Ono?’

‘No, Will. Not Yoko Ono. I believe in us, in you and me. That’s what I believe in.’

Will’s instinct was to deflate moments like this. He was too English for such overt statements of feeling. He had so little experience of expressed love, he hardly knew what to do with it when it was handed to him. But now, in this moment, he resisted the urge to crack a joke or change the subject.

‘I love you quite a lot, you know.’

‘I know.’ They paused, listening to the sound of Beth scraping her cheesecake fork against the plate.

‘Did something happen at work today to get you—’

‘You know that kid I’ve been treating?’

‘Child X?’ Will was teasing. Beth stuck diligently to the rules on doctor–patient confidentiality and only rarely, and in the most coded terms, discussed her cases outside the hospital. He understood that, of course, respected it even. But it made it tricky to be as supportive of Beth as she was of him, to back her career with equal energy. When the office politics at the hospital had turned nasty, he had become familiar with all the key personalities, offering advice on which colleagues were to be cultivated as allies, which were to be avoided. In their first months together, he had imagined long evenings spent talking over tough cases, Beth seeking his advice on an enigmatic ‘client’ who refused to open up or a dream that refused to be interpreted. He saw himself massaging his wife’s shoulders, modestly coming up with the breakthrough idea which finally persuaded a silent child to speak.

But Beth was not quite like that. For one thing, she seemed to need it less than Will. For him, an event had not happened until he had talked about it with Beth. She appeared able to motor on all by herself, drawing on her own tank.

‘Yes, OK. Child X. You know why I’m seeing him, don’t you? He’s accused of – actually, he’s very definitely guilty of – a series of arson attacks. On his school. On his neighbour’s house. He burned down an adventure playground.

‘I’ve been talking to him for months now and I don’t think he’s shown a hint of remorse. Not even a flicker. I’ve had to go right down to basics, trying to get him to recognize even the very idea of right and wrong. Then you know what he does today?’

Beth was looking away now, towards a table where two waiters were having their own late-shift supper. ‘Remember Marie, the receptionist? She lost her husband last month; she’s been distraught, we’ve all been talking about it. Somehow this kid – Child X – must have picked something up, because guess what he does today? He comes in with a flower and hands it to Marie. A gorgeous, long-stemmed pink rose. He can’t have just pulled it off some bush; he must have bought it. Even if he did just take it, it doesn’t matter. He hands Marie this rose and says, “This is for you, to remember your husband”.

‘Well, Marie is just overwhelmed. She takes the rose and croaks a thank you and then has to just run to the bathroom, to cry her eyes out. And everyone who sees this thing, the nurses, the staff, they’re all just tearing up. I come out and find the whole team kind of, having this moment. And there, in the middle of it, is this little boy – and suddenly that’s what he looks like, a little boy – who doesn’t quite know what he’s done. And that’s what convinces me it’s real. He doesn’t look pleased with himself, like someone who calculated that “Hey, this will be a way to get some extra credit”. He just looks a little bewildered.

‘Until that moment, I had seen this boy as a hoodlum. I know, I know – I of all people am meant to get past “labels” and all that.’ She mimed the quote marks around ‘labels’, leaving no doubt that she was parodying the kind of people who made that gesture. ‘But, if I’m honest, I had seen him as a nasty little punk. I didn’t like him at all. And then he does this little thing which is just so good. You know what I mean? Just a simple, good act.’

She fell quiet. Will did not want to say anything, just in case there was more. Eventually, Beth broke the silence. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, in an ‘anyway’ voice, as if to signal that the episode was over.

They talked some more, their conversation noodling between his day and hers. He leaned over several times to kiss her, on each occasion hoping for a repeat of the open-mouthed treat he’d had before. She was denying him. As she stretched forward, he could see the bottom of her back and just a hint of her underwear, visible in the gap between her skin and her jeans. He loved seeing Beth naked, but the sight of her in her underwear always drove him wild.

‘Check please!’ he said, eager to get her home. As they walked out, he slid his hand under her T-shirt, over the smooth skin of her back and headed south into her trousers. She was not stopping him. He did not know that he would replay that sensation in his hands and in his head a thousand times before the week was out.