Sidney Sheldon’s The Tides of Memory. Сидни Шелдон

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СКАЧАТЬ keen on eels in aspic. Have you got a pen and paper handy?”

      But it wasn’t Teddy’s mother. The faint click on the line told Alexia immediately it was a long-distance call, but there was no voice on the other end.

      “Hello?” Sometimes there was a delay on the line, especially with calls from the U.S. “Lucy, is that you?”

      Lucy Meyer, Alexia’s summer neighbor from Martha’s Vineyard, was the only other person she could think of who might call her at home at this hour. With the holidays approaching, Lucy had been in closer touch, a welcome reminder of the peaceful life that existed outside of politics. If only Lucy lived in England, how much easier my life would be.

      “If it’s you, Luce, I can’t hear you. Try again.”

      But it wasn’t Lucy Meyer. It was a low, synthesized growl. “The day is coming. The day when the Lord’s anger will be poured out.”

      The voice distorter was designed to frighten. It worked.

      Alexia tightened her grip on the handset.

      “Who is this?”

      “Because you have sinned against the Lord, I will make you as helpless as a blind man searching for a path.”

      “I said who is this?”

      “Your blood will be poured out into the dust and your body will lie rotting on the ground. Murdering bitch.”

      The line went dead. Alexia put the phone down, gasping for breath.

      She closed her eyes and the view from her office window popped into her mind: the silver Thames and its deadly currents snaking their way around her, cutting her off like Rapunzel in her tower.

      Somebody out there hates me.

      The waters were rising.

       CHAPTER TWELVE

      ALEXIA DE VERE TAPPED HER DESK impatiently with a Montblanc silver fountain pen. Commissioner Grant, the senior Metropolitan Police Officer in charge of her personal security, was late for their three o’clock meeting. If there was one thing Alexia disliked, it was lateness.

      Her first boss in politics, an odious Liberal MP named Clive Leinster, had been a stickler for punctuality and it was a lesson that had remained with Alexia throughout her career. God, Clive was an asshole, though! Working as his personal assistant had changed Alexia’s life, but he himself had been a horror. In his midforties, married, and an appalling letch, even by Westminster standards, Clive Leinster was short and wispily bald, with knock knees, bad breath, and a receding chin to match his hairline. It was a miracle to Alexia Parker (as she was then) that Clive Leinster had found one woman prepared to sleep with him, never mind several.

      “Power’th an incredible aphrodithiac, Alexia,” Clive would breathe huskily over her desk after one of his long, boozy lunches. After a month it was painfully clear that the type of personal assistance Clive Leinster was looking for was not the sort that Alexia was prepared to offer. “You’ll never get ahead in Wethtminthster if you’re not prepared to play the game, you know,” Clive sneered as Alexia packed up her desk.

      “At least I can say ‘Westminster,’ ” Alexia shot back. “And I’ve every intention of playing the game. Just not with you.”

      Marching out of Leinster’s office with her head held high, Alexia was convinced she’d get another job in a heartbeat. In fact, she spent the next six months back behind a bar at the Coach and Horses on Half Moon Street.

      “No MP will touch me,” she complained to one of her regulars, a shy young financier named Edward De Vere. “It’s like I’ve got the plague or something. That fucker Leinster must have poisoned the well.”

      “I can ask a few questions at the Carlton Club, if you like. See if there are any rumors knocking around.”

      “You’re a member of the Carlton?” It was the first time Alexia had realized that Edward De Vere must be well connected. Politically well connected, that is. The Carlton Club was an exclusive—the exclusive—Tory Party members club in St. James’s. Like all would-be Conservative politicians, Alexia would have sold her soul to have access there, but there were no women allowed. Even if there had been, unknown barmaids with no family or connections to recommend them were probably not at the top of the Carlton membership committee’s wish list.

      Two nights later, Edward De Vere was back in the bar.

      “So, did you hear anything?”

      “As a matter of fact, I did.”

      “Well?” Alexia leaned forward across the bar, accidentally affording her customer an excellent view of her breasts. “Don’t keep me in suspense.”

      “I’ll tell you on two conditions.”

      “Conditions?” She frowned.

      “Actually three conditions.”

      “Three?”

      “Three.”

      “And they are?”

      “The first is, don’t shoot the messenger.”

      Shit, thought Alexia. He must have heard something bad. Really bad.

      “I would never do that. Go on.”

      “The second condition is that you call me Teddy. ‘Edward’ makes me sound like such a stiff.”

      Alexia laughed. “Okay. Teddy. And the third?”

      “The third is that you agree to have dinner with me on Friday night.”

      Alexia considered for a moment. She already had a date on Friday night, with a dancer from the Royal Ballet named Francesco. Her gay colleagues at the pub were beside themselves with excitement about it.

      “Lucky you,” the Coach and Horses landlord had cooed, staring unashamedly at Francesco’s crotch in the promotional pictures Alexia showed him. “He certainly carries all before him, doesn’t he?”

      “It was love at first tights!” Stephane, the bar manager, giggled.

      By contrast, Edward De Vere—Teddy—looked like a gauche little schoolboy. Ruddy-cheeked, awkward, and painfully reticent around women, Teddy was the archetypal British upper-class male, and not in a good way. And yet he had plucked up the courage to ask Alexia out. And he was funny. And a member of the Carlton Club. More important than all of this, he knew why Alexia was being blackballed by Westminster MPs and he wasn’t going to tell her unless she agreed to have dinner with him.

      “All right, fine. I’ll have dinner with you.”

      “On Friday.”

      “Yes, on Friday. Now, for pity’s sake, what did you hear?”

      Teddy De Vere took a deep breath.

      “Clive СКАЧАТЬ