Free In The Presence Of The Enemy by Elizabeth George Page B

partners. You knew what he was when you slept with him. You had to have known.”
    “Yes. I knew. Do you want me to tell you that it didn’t matter?”
    “I want you to tell me the truth.”
    “All right. It didn’t matter. I wanted sex with him.”
    “Why?”
    “He engaged my mind. Which is the one thing most men don’t bother to try when it comes to seducing women.”
    Alex grasped onto the word because he needed to grasp it. “He seduced you.”
    “The first time. After that, no. It was mutual after that.”
    “So you fucked him more than once.”
    She didn’t flinch from the word as he would have liked her to do. “I fucked him for the length of the conference. Every night. And most of the mornings as well.”
    “Brilliant.” He gathered the tabloids together. He replaced them in the rattan holder. He went to the cooker and grabbed the pan of sauce. He dumped it into the sink and watched it burble into the disposer. She was still standing next to the draining board. He could feel her proximity, but he couldn’t face her. He felt as if his mind had received some sort of death blow. All he could manage was, “So he’s taken Charlie. Luxford.”
    “He’s arranged it. And if he publicly acknowledges the fact that he’s her father—on the front page of his paper—then she’ll be returned.”
    “Why not phone the police?”
    “Because I intend to call his bluff.”
    “Using Charlie to do it?”
    “Using Charlotte? What do you mean?”
    This he could feel at last; and he revelled in the sensation. “Where’s he got her, Eve? Does she know what’s going on? Is she hungry? Is she cold? Is she mad with terror? She was snatched off the street by a total stranger. So are you concerned with anything besides saving your reputation and winning the game and calling this bastard Luxford’s bluff?”
    “Don’t make this a referendum on mother-hood,” she said quietly. “I made a mistake in my life. I’ve paid for that. I’m still paying for it. I’ll pay till I die.”
    “This is a child we’re talking about, not an error in judgement. A ten-year-old child.”
    “And I intend to find her. But I’ll do it my way. I’ll rot in hell before I do it his. Just look at his newspaper if you can’t decipher what he wants from me, Alex. And before you condemn me for my gross self-interest, try asking yourself what allowing a fine sex scandal into the papers would do to Charlotte.”
    He knew, of course. One of the greatest nightmares in political life was the sudden appearance of a skeleton that one had believed long and safely buried. Once that skeleton dusted off its creaking bones and made its debut in the public eye, it turned suspect every action, remark, and intention of its owner. Its presence—even if it did no more than hug the periphery of the owner’s current life—begged that motivations be examined, comments be placed beneath a microscope, footsteps be dogged, letters be analysed, speeches be dissected, and everything else be nosed as intimately as possible to try to detect the scent of hypocrisy. And this scrutiny didn’t end with the skeleton’s owner. It tainted every member of the family whose names and whose lives were also dragged through the mud of the public’s God-given right to be kept informed.
    Parnell had known this. Profumo likewise.
    Yeo and Ashby had both felt the scalpel of scrutiny incise the flesh of what they had considered their private lives. Since neither her predecessors in Parliament nor the Monarchy itself was exempt from public exposure and ridicule, Eve knew that she would not be an exception, and certainly not in the eyes of a man like Luxford who was driven by the mutual demons of his circulation fi gures and his personal loathing of the Conservative Party.
    Alex felt weighted by burdens. His body demanded action. His mind demanded under standing. His heart demanded flight. He was caught between aversion and compassion, and he felt tattered by the battle of