just how she looked after him when he was little. And how he’d met you.’
‘That’s nice,’ he said, but he didn’t believe a word of it. When he’d watched from the window, Anna had been doing all the talking.
By five o’clock Duval was only two-thirds of the way along the line of fence. ‘I guess he’ll have to come back,’ said Robert, watching him from Anna’s study.
‘Not tomorrow – I don’t want to ask him to work on a Sunday.’
As if Duval had much else to do. ‘I don’t want him here when I’m not around.’
‘It’ll have to be next weekend.’
‘I thought we’d go to the dunes.’
‘Are you forgetting something?’
She was right; they were having dinner at the president’s house.
‘All right. I’ll see if he can come then.’
And Duval was pleased to be asked back, and more pleased still when Robert handed over $105 in a mixed wad of bills. I could build a new fence for what this is costing me, he thought.
‘Same time, same place then?’ asked Duval.
‘We’ll be here,’ said Robert, then thanked him and said goodbye. Going back into the house while Duval assembled the paint things, he found the phone ringing in the kitchen. It was the mother of a friend of Sophie’s from school, but when he called to Anna he heard her going out the front door. By the time he got off the phone and went out front, Duval’s car had gone, and Anna was coming in, with a satisfied look on her face.
‘Did you forget to tell him something?’
She looked at him defiantly. ‘Yes. I told him not to bring a sandwich next time. He can eat with us.’
5
Emails got ignored, phone calls were not returned – much as Robert didn’t want to beard the coach in his den (actually, the university’s multimillion-dollar sports complex) Robert knew it was harder for people to give bad news face to face. Though after his conversation with Balthazar he held little hope of changing the coach’s mind.
‘Virginia Carter.’ The voice was pure rural Indiana; it spoke of dairy cows and silos and barn dances.
He explained who he was. ‘I wanted to make an appointment to see Coach Carlson.’
‘Just a minute.’ He heard her paging through a diary. ‘Hmm. Well, it’s training season now so that’s no good. And then the real season starts, of course. Let’s see – I could try and slide you in for late October.’
It wasn’t even August yet. ‘That bad, huh?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘It doesn’t matter that I’m attached to the university?’
‘It’s a big university, sir. You should see the ticket requests the coach gets.’
He scratched one side of his chin, finding a patch he hadn’t shaved. When Sophie had been little she’d come and watch him lather up, then talking with her he would miss the same spot day in and day out.
‘Could you tell the coach I’m seeing President Crullowitch later this week?’ Strictly speaking, this was true, since he was having dinner at his house on Saturday. ‘I know he wants me to see the coach before then.’ Not so strictly true.
There was a momentary silence. ‘Hang on a minute. I’m going to put you on hold.’ He waited, while a symphonic rendition of the football team fight song played three and a half times. Then she was back.
‘Coach Carlson asked if you could come for a drink at his house on Thursday evening? Six o’clock.’
‘Sure.’
And she gave him the address, a street of large houses, mansions really, in Kenilworth, a few miles north of his own house. How did a football coach come to live among multimillionaires? Curious, he Googled ‘Carlson+football+coach+salary’. There were many entries, but five minutes later he had discovered the coach’s annual salary was $650,000. That’s why he lived in Kenilworth.
He’d need to make sure Anna could stay with Sophie when he went, as otherwise he’d have to line up Mrs Peterson. He thought of ringing his wife, but decided it could wait. Lately she seemed to be working very long hours, and was often coming home late. There was an edge to her talk, and he wondered if she was diverting some personal stress into her work.
But did the extra hours really come from her consulate duties? He couldn’t see how, not in the dog days of July. Or was it Duval? More likely, and though worrying, nonetheless more palatable than the third possibility. Philip.
There was a tension now between them, one that had been brewing but only spilled over with her determination to