Those Whom the Gods Love

Ginty Schell.

Harbinger sighed for her lack of self-protection. He really was going to have to take her in hand. Didn’t she know yet that you shouldn’t express doubts about your own work when you submitted it? Or that you should wait until the deadline to make sure what you’d written didn’t seem stale when the final decision on the week’s contents was made?

But as he read he began to smile. Beginner though she was, she hadn’t done badly. The piece could do with tightening here and there, hardening up once or twice too, and it needed the few telling personal touches that would lift it out of the good-exercise category and into something the Sentinel could publish. But he was reasonably pleased. And he was dead pleased to know she was safely back. That might let him sleep tonight. He reached for the phone.

‘Ginty? John Harbinger here. How are you?’

‘Fine. Did you get my e-mail?’

‘Yes. You’ve done a good job so far. It needs work, but for a first draft, it’s not too bad. I thought we might go through it over dinner.’

‘This evening?’ She sounded suspicious. Almost like bloody Kate. He wondered who’d been talking to her.

‘Yes. I need the finished version by Monday evening, as you know, so that would give you the weekend to knock it into shape.’

She was knackered, she told him, and needed an early night. After a second, she added in a rush that she wasn’t trying to avoid him, only making sure she got enough sleep.

‘Enough for what?’ he said with a suggestion of a laugh.

‘I’ve just been phoned to ask if I’ll go on Annie Kent’s Saturday radio show tomorrow morning – to discuss rape. Radio always makes me nervous and if I’m too tired, I’ll make a fool of myself and my voice will be all croaky.’

‘Good for you,’ said Harbinger, seeing the opportunity for a little publicity. ‘You will say something about the Sentinel, won’t you? After all, it’s not the BBC, so there are no rules against advertising.’

‘If I’m allowed to,’ Ginty said, adding more briskly: ‘And if you e-mail me with the changes you want to the interview, I’ll get you a revised version by the end of Monday. And by then I should have prints of the photographs Rano’s men took – and some of my own – in case you want illustrations.’

‘Good. That’ll help. Now, are you sure about dinner? Editing is always more satisfactory face to face than via e-mail. You sound like a woman who needs food.’

‘Honestly, I think I’d fall over if I tried to go out tonight. Like I said, I need to get my head down. I’ve got a hell of a lot of work on, and it’s my mother’s fiftieth birthday tomorrow. I’ve got to drive straight down to Hampshire after Annie Kent’s show, which means I’ll lose most of the rest of the weekend. But I’ll do your rewrite on Monday. I promise.’

‘What about having dinner with me then, as a celebration?’

‘All right. Fine. Yes, thank you. I’ll look forward to it. Bye.’

‘Me too. Before you go, Ginty: how was it? I mean, face to face with Rano? It sounds as though it might have been pretty rough.’

There was a high-pitched gasp down the phone as though she was about to giggle. Damn! It would be a bugger if she turned into another silly girl after all the trouble he was taking for her. But it turned out that she wasn’t laughing.

‘It was vile, while it lasted, but they didn’t actually do anything to me. And I got back in one piece, so I’m filing it under “useful experience”. That should deal with the nightmares.’

‘Great,’ he said as casually as he could with the word ‘nightmares’ sticking in his mind. ‘I’ll see you Monday. Have a good weekend.’

Putting down the receiver, he wondered what she was really like. The first time they’d met, she’d reminded him of those East European gymnasts, with her childish body and the big hurt eyes. She was pretty enough, and rather sweet, but not his type, so he’d been surprised Janey Fergusson had thought he might fancy her. Then, glancing around the room, he’d seen a long-legged blonde with big tits and a taut torso stretching her skimpy black dress and realized Ginty had been invited for someone else.

But the blonde had turned out to be a self-obsessed vacuous pain, in spite of her amazing body, so he’d started to pay more attention to Ginty and been reluctantly impressed. She’d laughed when he said he’d seen some of her work. Most wannabes were left gasping – or grasping – by the mildest of compliments from anyone in his position. And once she’d got over her evident surprise that he wanted to listen to her, she’d talked well. But there’d been nothing in what she’d said, or how she’d looked, to justify the conviction that had been growing in him ever since, that she had something he needed.

If so, he was clearly going to have to work hard to get it. There weren’t many young, female, freelance journalists who turned him down when he offered them dinner, even when they were doing some radio the next day. It hadn’t occurred to him that she might refuse, so he hadn’t set up anything else. Still, there’d be plenty of parties; there always were.

He riffled through the clutch of invitations on his desk. They were all from PR girls, desperate to drum up some publicity for yet another ghastly new book or an artist no one had ever heard of. One, which he’d been avoiding ever since it arrived, made him wince as it reached the top of the pile again. A nephew of Steve’s had become a painter and was having a private view next week. Harbinger put that on one side, then dumped the rest in the bin. He was too tired to go on the pull anyway.

The first three mates he phoned were busy, so he rang the local takeaway for a curry instead. It ought to reach the flat pretty much at the same time as he did.

The moment he unlocked his front door, he was hit by a peculiar smell, sickly and rotten, like decomposing bodies.

Oh, Christ! he thought. I am going off my trolley.

A second later he realized something must have gone wrong with the drains and felt better, even though he had no idea what to do about getting hold of a plumber. That sort of thing had never been his job. Bloody Kate had always done that.

As far as he could see, he hadn’t got anything out of their twelve-year marriage in return for working his arse off to pay the mortgage. He’d had to put up with Kate’s ghastly family, her PMT, the sleepless nights, the babysick and nappies, and all he’d got back had been constant carping about the time he spent at work and his inadequate sexual technique. Bloody women.

He was sniffing round the bathroom, leaning down towards the basin’s plughole, which smelled only of the toothpaste he’d spat into it that morning. The bog was OK, too, and the bath, so maybe it wasn’t the plumbing. He sniffed his way all round the flat like a customs’ dog. The sheets could do with changing, but it wasn’t them; they were just a bit grubby. And there were no sweaty games clothes either. He hadn’t played squash for weeks. Perhaps that was why he’d been sleeping so badly.

He followed the stink round the flat, ending up in the kitchen, staring at a virtually clean saucepan. All it had in it was half an inch of vaguely green water, but it stank. He’d boiled some frozen peas in it a few days ago, just after the cleaner’s weekly visit. He hadn’t known water could turn rancid like this.

Pouring it down the sink, he thought he might throw up. A gush of cold water from the tap washed away the slime, but he couldn’t get the smell out of his mouth and nose. It really was like decomposing bodies. Oh, God! Somehow he had to stop thinking about dead bodies or he really would go bonkers.

A good slug of whisky would take away the memory of that smell, he thought, as the bell rang. It was his curry. Damn good, too. He ate it, watching his video of Cape Fear. That and the whisky got him through the evening until it was time to go to bed.

Hours later, he reared up off the pillow, sweat pouring from his skin. Choking, he flung back the duvet. This time the dream had had an added extra torture. As he’d advanced on the body and felt it swing against the flat of his hand, he’d looked up and seen that it had Ginty Schell’s face. This was ridiculous. He hadn’t done her any harm. Not yet anyway.

Harbinger got out of bed and staggered to the bathroom to get a glass of water. The taste of curry in his mouth made him feel gross, and the sight of his pouchy eyes and clammy grey-pink face in the mirror turned him up. He looked about a hundred-and-fifty. He’d be ill soon if he didn’t find a way to stop all this.

It must have been Kate’s loony accusations that had set off these dreams. He was a decent bloke, whatever she’d said. Look at Ginty Schell. He’d given her a leg up without any nefarious intentions. Her Rano interview was going to give her a much higher profile than she’d ever have got writing for Maisie Antony or any of the other women’s mag harpies.

He tried going back to sleep, but it didn’t work, so he poured some more whisky and put on another video. Sometimes now, he slept in front of them, waking with his back wrenched and his tongue bitten. But usually he watched until dawn, then went back to bed and managed to get another hour or two. He was so tired, he sometimes wondered how much longer he could go on. It was even worse than when the kids had been babies.

Perhaps all he needed was another girlfriend. He still wasn’t sure about Sally Grayling, but he could always give her a go. See how it went. She wasn’t the sort of hardfaced bitch Kate had turned into, and she might know a plumber.

Chapter 4

Ginty had been afraid that her voice would be squeaky with nerves when she was eventually taken to the studio to be introduced to the presenter and her fellow-speaker. But the atmosphere was so relaxed and so cheerful that she felt her throat ease a little, and when she said good morning to them her voice sounded almost normal.

A thin plastic beaker of cold water from the filter just outside the studio door reassured her that she wouldn’t have to croak. She waited, trying to feel confident as she watched the clock over the presenter’s head for the programme to begin. The seconds jerked by, the clock’s hand bouncing a little at each green dot. As the hand reached the top, a red bulb glowed beside it, and the presenter nodded towards a dark glass wall between her and the engineers.

‘You’re listening to My Radio, and I’m Annie Kent,’ she said in her familiar, seductive voice, as though she were talking to someone she knew and trusted.

Ginty reminded herself to copy it. On the few previous occasions when she’d been interviewed on the radio, she’d sounded as though she’d been talking to a vast lecture hall full of hostile strangers.

‘We’re here this morning to talk about rape. I have with me Doctor George Murphy, who has been working with sex offenders for the past twenty years, and Ginty Schell, who is just back from the refugee camps, where she has been interviewing rape survivors about their experiences.’

The doctor produced an affectionate-sounding ‘hello’ for listeners, but Ginty wasn’t quick enough to say anything.

‘Now, Doctor Murphy,’ said Annie, obviously speedreading a sheet of paper on a clipboard in front of her, ‘you have written in support of the new theory that rape is not, after all, a crime of violence. It’s an evolutionary adaptation to ensure the survival of certain genes. What exactly did you mean by that?’

Ginty bit her tongue. She should have done some research before agreeing to come on this programme, but there hadn’t been time. If she were going to have to argue with a man whose beliefs sounded like a cross between Rano’s and her mother’s, she might lose it.

‘And what do you think, Ginty?’

She pulled herself together, not having listened to the doctor’s answer, and licked her lower lip. ‘Well, I don’t agree. I do think rape is about violence, but, even more, it’s about control.’

That was a bit lecture-y, she thought. Relax.

Annie Kent was smiling, but she gestured with her right hand to make Ginty speed up. She tried to obey: ‘I’m sure, too, that some men use it as a way of terrorizing people who might otherwise be a threat.’

‘Is that what you think’s happening in the war?’

‘Yes. I can’t believe that the rapes have really been organized to make sure that the next generation of children belongs to both sides, whatever Doctor Murphy assumes.’

‘But …’ he began, but Ginty was launched now. She couldn’t hold in the words.

‘I think the whole campaign has been organized to destabilize the enemy. It’s an appalling example of men using women’s suffering in their own fight with other men. Unforgivable, but unfortunately typical.’

‘Doctor Murphy?’

‘Did you know, Ms Schell, that rape is more likely to result in conception than unforced lovemaking?’ he asked in a voice so reasonable that it sounded patronizing.

Ginty swallowed, thinking about Maria and the child she’d murdered.

‘No, I didn’t,’ she said, ‘but I don’t see that that makes any difference.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t see how it’s relevant to whether rape is or is not a violent crime.’ Clumsy, she told herself. Make it personal, specific: ‘Do you ever talk to rape victims, Doctor Murphy?’

‘Not many. My business is with offenders, who are sent to me for treatment.’

‘Well, I don’t see how you can bring them to understand what they’ve done, unless you yourself know what it’s like for a woman. Any victim of real rape could tell you that it’s definitely a crime of violence and power; nothing to do with procreation.’

‘The two are not mutually exclusive, and …’ Doctor Murphy began, just as Annie Kent started to talk, overriding him with ease, even though she didn’t sound remotely bossy:

‘What do you mean by “real rape”, Ginty?’

‘Forcible rape by a stranger,’ she said quickly, the anger she’d felt as she listened to Maria coming back to loosen the words in her mind. ‘The stories I heard out there have made me intensely impatient with women in countries like this – and the States – who may have had a bad time in bed, or drunk more than they meant and regretted making love, then gone on to claim they’ve been raped. However unpleasant, uncomfortable or humiliating what’s happened to them, it’s not the same.’

What a speech, she thought, as she heard the pontifical note in her voice and forced herself to stop.

‘And what about Rohypnol?’ said Annie with deceptive gentleness. Ginty wished she’d kept her mouth shut.

‘That’s different,’ she said, hearing the power in her voice diminish. She felt as she always did when arguing with her mother, outmanoeuvred and under-informed. ‘Giving someone a drug covertly is forcing them. It’s not like one drink too many, taken knowingly – of your own free will.’

‘A lot of people have fought hard – are still fighting – to establish the fact that “No” means “No”,’ Annie Kent said, making it clear whose side she was on, so Ginty had to answer.

‘I’m not suggesting for one moment that a woman can’t go out with a man and still decline to have sex with him. Of course she can. Women must be allowed to dress attractively, flirt, kiss or behave in some other way that leads men to think they’re going to get lucky, and still refuse. Of course they must. But if a man then persuades a woman against her better judgement, or encourages her to drink so much that she loses her inhibitions and does sleep with him, calling what’s happened “rape” diminishes the real thing and short changes the real victims – like the women in those camps. The word “rape” implies violence – or at least the threat of it.’

As she spoke, she saw surprise on Annie Kent’s face, but she didn’t comment then, turning instead to Doctor Murphy to ask whether he thought his theories meant that men who rape were less culpable than those who committed other kinds of violence – against women or men. Ginty listened crossly, wondering if he was being deliberately provocative. She kept a tight hold on her reactions, and answered the last few questions as calmly as she could without backing down.

Annie Kent wound up the programme, inviting her listeners to call in with their views. The red light went out, and she pulled off her heavy-looking headphones, saying cheerfully:

‘We’ll get a lot of calls about that. You were very brave, Ginty, denying the existence of date rape. You’ll have the PC brigade all over you now, not to speak of date rape victims. It’s a subject that always gets people going.’ She looked pleased.

‘Oh, God,’ Ginty said. ‘That’s not what I meant. I wasn’t thinking. I was just so shocked by what some of those women out there – children really – have been through that I … Damn! When will I learn to think before I speak?’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Doctor Murphy casually. ‘It made a good programme. Listeners like a bit of controversy.’

‘Do they?’

‘Of course. I used to shade what I said, put both sides of every case, and ended up boring everyone. There’s nothing most people like more than an excuse for outrage. You’ll have done a public service this morning, letting them get rid of some of their spleen. You don’t have to look as though you’ve just murdered your grandmother.’

Ginty managed to laugh.

‘That’s better. Can I buy you a cup of coffee?’

‘I’d like that. Thank you,’ Ginty said before checking her watch. ‘Oh, no! I can’t. I’m really sorry. But I have to be in Hampshire by eleven-thirty, so I’ll have to go now.’

Harbinger hit the button on the top of his kitchen radio with a triumphant pop of his fist. No wonder he’d sent little Ginty out to interview Rano! No wonder he’d had this idea that he’d met her for a purpose, that she had something he needed! He could have kissed her.

‘Calling that rape diminishes the real thing and shortchanges the real victims,’ he recited, practically dancing over to the espresso machine.

Good for Little Ginty Schell. His heroine. He’d buy her a bloody good dinner on Monday. And he’d see what he could do to get her the career she wanted so much.

Freshet House was a small Queen Anne box, built on a gentle incline above untouched, old-fashioned water meadows. Its red brick façade had been pitted and faded to a rosy softness, but the pristine paint on the cornice and windows gleamed in the sunlight as Ginty turned into the drive two hours later.

Square, safe, and very English, the house sat in ravishing gardens that had just reached their annual moment of perfection. She looked and admired and wished she felt part of it all. Now that she’d probably alienated half the world by what she’d just said on air, it would have been nice to find a refuge here.

Luckily neither of her parents listened to the radio, unless of course there happened to be some incredibly important music on Radio 3. She parked her Ka neatly between their Volvos, checking that she’d left enough space for them to open their doors, and that she hadn’t allowed her front wheels to slip over the edge of the gravel on to the grass, both sins for which she’d been castigated in the past.

To one side of the house were the old stables, where Louise Schell had her working library and offices; to the other was the startling, modernist music room Gunnar had had built when he bought the place thirty years ago, in the days when planning officers let that kind of thing through. Ginty sometimes thought that the arrangement was typical of their lives: screened, separated, and selfcontained.

As always in good weather, the back door to the house itself stood open. Ginty walked past the laundry and the store rooms, down the long black-and-white-floored passage towards the kitchen. In the pantry a strange young man in white trousers and T-shirt was counting piles of plates. Crates of glasses were stacked up on the floor beside him, with cases and cases of wine. Dozens of champagne bottles lay on their sides in the wine bins. In the dim light, the rows of dark-green glass looked like Rano’s guns.

The kitchen smelled of yeast and raspberries. Mrs Blain was very much in charge, standing in a white overall with a clipboard in her hand. Three other women were working for her, dressed in similar overalls and mesh hats. One was making what looked like brioches, another picking over trays of soft fruit, and the third was standing at a separate worktop trimming whole fillets of beef. Her hands were bloody, but all the kitchen surfaces were of gleaming stainless steel and there were no ungainly gaps or chips to collect grime and microbes.

Ginty had a moment’s guilty pleasure as she dropped her purchases on one of the draining boards. The plastic bags had almost certainly collected germs from her car.

‘I’ll take care of those,’ said Mrs Blain, looking up from her clipboard. ‘Thank you. Your parents are in the garden. And …’

And you are in the way, Ginty supplied, understanding the polite tones with ease. She nodded, moved on to the garden room to collect a floppy straw hat from the pile by the door, and set out to find them.

There was no wind to stir the hot air. Nothing moved. Even the birds had ceased to flop in and out of the dovecote. A pair of rooks squatted on the shaven lawn, beaks open and wings hanging out from their bodies like stiff black screens. The mower had left a faint petrol smell to spike the richness of cut grass and lavender.

Over the top of the yew hedges, Ginty could see the pinnacles of what looked like an elaborate marquee. She was amused to see that the peacocks were not in evidence. After the last concert they’d ruined with their screams, her father must have insisted on their removal.

She followed the distant hum of voices, between the borders, through the walled garden, and down the yew walk towards the river. The sounds became inaudible words, then distinct syllables, then real language:

‘… think so. It’s too much responsibility. If one of them should drink too much, take a canoe and capsize, it would be … tricky. Let’s have both put into the boathouse and then there will be no temptation and so no trouble.’

‘Hello?’ Ginty called.

‘Ginty!’ Her father’s voice answered. ‘You have made good time. We are down here by the bridge.’

She walked on, to see her mother sitting on the stone parapet, with her back to the river. She was wearing another of the big soft straw hats. The unravelling edge made a ragged fringe over her face, but when Ginty bent forwards to kiss her, she saw the unmistakable marks of exhaustion. She knew better than to say anything.

When she straightened up, Gunnar kissed her forehead as he always did. ‘You look well. Doesn’t she, Louise?’

‘Yes.’ Louise smiled at Ginty but managed, in patting her arm, to push her further away. ‘It’s a relief. If I’d known where you were while I watched the news each evening, I …’ Louise stopped, then took a fine lawn handkerchief from her pocket and wiped her upper lip. ‘Well, as you can imagine, I’m glad to see you safely back. Shall we go up?’

Couldn’t you sound a bit more passionate about it? Ginty asked in silence. I could have been in real danger out there.

Humiliated by the longing she should have grown out of years ago, she wondered suddenly if she’d accepted Maisie Antony’s commission as a way of scaring her mother into showing some emotion. If so, it had clearly been a waste of time. Nothing was going to shock Louise Schell into pretending affection she didn’t feel.

She staggered a little as she slid to the ground, murmuring something about the dazzle. Gunnar took her arm and they strolled together towards the house, both tall and elegant in their matching loose white linen trousers and shirts. Ginty followed, bending to pick up the sunglasses that had dropped out of her mother’s pocket with the handkerchief.

That night, as she moved among the guests in the garden, Ginty discovered that her encounter with Rano had bought her something, even if not what she’d most wanted. Instead of spending the evening hovering on the edge of conversations between her parents’ friends, she found herself talking about the war, as though she’d become some kind of expert. A few of the guests had heard the Annie Kent programme, but luckily most of them agreed with Ginty, and even the ones who didn’t were polite about her views on rape.