the Third Twin (1996)

Of course not. There was no such proposal. Steve carried on with his bravado. “But if there should be one, please be advised that it would be unacceptable to Dr Ferrami.” He decided to wind this up before he got himself in too deep. “Professor, I thank you for your courtesy and I look forward to seeing you in the morning.”

“Good-bye.”

Steve hung up. “Wow, what an iceberg.”

Jeannie looked puzzled. “He’s not normally like that. Maybe he was just being formal.”

Steve was pretty sure Budgen had already made up his mind and was hostile to Jeannie, but he did not tell her that. “Anyway, I got our three points across. And I discovered that JFU has hired Henry Quinn.”

“Is he good?”

He was legendary. It made Steve go cold to think he was going to go up against Henry Quinn. But he did not want to depress Jeannie. “Quinn used to be very good, but he may be past his prime.”

She accepted that. “What should we do now?”

Steve looked at her. The pink bathrobe had gaped open at the front, and he could see one neat breast nestling in the folds of soft terrycloth. “We should go over the questions you’ll be asked at the hearing,” he said regretfully. “We’ve got a lot of work to do tonight.”

37

JANE EDELSBOROUGH LOOKED A LOT BETTER NAKED THAN she did dressed.

She lay on a pale pink sheet, lit by the flame of a scented candle. Her clear, soft skin was more attractive than the muddy earth colors she always wore. The loose clothes she favored tended to hide her body; she was something of an amazon, with a deep bosom and broad hips. She was heavy, but it suited her.

Lying on the bed, she smiled languidly at Berrington as he pulled on his blue boxer shorts. “Wow, that was better than I expected,” she said.

Berrington felt the same, although he was not crass enough to say so. Jane knew things that he normally had to teach to the younger women he usually took to bed. He wondered idly where she had learned to be such a good lay. She had been married once; her husband, a cigarette smoker, had died of lung cancer ten years ago. They must have had a great sex life together.

He had enjoyed it so much that he had not needed his usual fantasy, in which he had just made love to a famous beauty, Cindy Crawford or Bridget Fonda or Princess Diana, and she was lying beside him, murmuring in his ear, “Thank you, Berry, that was the best it’s ever been for me, you’re so great, thank you.”

“I feel so guilty,” Jane said. “I haven’t done anything this wicked for a long time.”

“Wicked?” he said, tying his shoelaces. “I don’t see why. You’re free, white and twenty-one, as we used to say.” He noticed her wince: the phrase “free, white and twenty-one” was now politically incorrect. “You’re single, anyway,” he added hastily.

“Oh, it’s not the fucking that was wicked,” she said languorously. “It’s just that I know you only did it because I’m on the committee for tomorrow’s hearing.”

He froze in the act of putting on his striped necktie.

She went on: “I’m supposed to think you saw me across the student cafeteria and became entranced by my sexual magnetism?” She smiled ruefully at him. “I don’t have any sexual magnetism, Berry, not for someone as superficial as you. You had to have an ulterior motive and it took me about five seconds to figure out what it could be.”

Berrington felt a fool. He did not know what to say.

“Now in your case, you do have sexual magnetism. Buckets. You’ve got charm and a nice body, you dress well and you smell good. Most of all, anyone can see that you really like women. You may manipulate them and exploit them, but you love them too. You are the perfect one-night stand, and I thank you.”

With that she pulled the sheet over her naked body, rolled onto her side, and closed her eyes.

Berrington finished dressing as quickly as he could.

Before he left, he sat on the edge of the bed. She opened her eyes. He said: “Will you support me, tomorrow?”

She sat upright and kissed him fondly. “I’ll have to listen to the evidence before I make up my mind,” she said.

He ground his teeth. “It’s terribly important to me, more than you know.”

She nodded sympathetically, but her reply was implacable. “I guess it’s just as important to Jeannie Ferrami.”

He squeezed her left breast, soft and heavy. “But who is more important to you—Jeannie or me?”

“I know what it’s like to be a young woman academic in a male-dominated university. I’ll never forget that.”

“Shit.” He took his hand away.

“You could stay the night, you know. Then we could do it again in the morning.”

He stood up. “I’ve got too much on my mind.”

She closed her eyes. “That’s too bad.”

He went out.

His car was parked in the driveway of her suburban house, next to her Jaguar. That Jaguar should have been a warning to me, he thought: a sign that there is more to her than meets the eye. He had been used, but he had enjoyed it. He wondered if women sometimes felt that way after he seduced them.