Tara turned away and removed her hat so that Centaine could not easily pick her out of the crowd, and she worked her way quickly but unobtrusively to the side exit of the stand. As she crossed the carpark and headed around the back of the stables, the first roaring cheer went up from the stand. Nobody would look for her for a couple of hours now, and she began to run. Moses had the Chev parked in the plantation of pines, near the guest cottages and she pulled open the back door and tumbled into the seat.
'Nobody saw me leave,' she panted, and he started the engine and drove sedately down the long driveway and out through the Anreith gateway.
Tara checked her wristwatch; it was a few minutes past three o'clock, but it would take forty minutes to round the mountain and reach the city. They would reach the parliament building at four o'clock when the doormen were thinking about their tea-break. It was a Friday afternoon, and the House was in Committee of Supply, the kind of boring routine business which would leave the members nodding on the benches. In fact, Blaine and Shasa had tactfully arranged this schedule with the whips so that they, and quite a few of their peers, might sneak away to the polo without missing any important debate or division. Many of the other members must have made plans to leave early for the weekend, for the building was quiet and the lobby almost deserted.
Moses parked in the members' carpark and went around to the back of the station wagon to bring out the packages. Then he followed Tara at a respectful distance as she climbed the front staircase. Nobody challenged them, it was all so easy, almost an anti-climax, and they went up to the second floor, past the press gallery entrance, where Tara had a glimpse of three junior reporters slumped dispiritedly on their benches as they listened to the honourable minister of posts and telegraphs droning out his selfcongratulations on the exemplary fashion in which he had conducted his department during the previous fiscal year.
Tricia was sitting behind her desk in the outer office painting her fingernails with varnish, and she looked flustered and guilty as Tara walked in.
'Oh, Tricia, that is a pretty colour,' Tara said sweetly, and Tricia tried to look as though her fingers didn't belong to her, but the varnish was wet and she didn't quite know what to do with them.
'I've finished all the letters Mr Courtney left for me,' she tried to excuse herself, 'and it's been so quiet today, and I've got a date tonight - I just thought --' she petered out lamely.
'I've brought up some samples of curtain material,' Tara told her.
'I thought we'd change them when we installed the new light fittings.
I would like it to be a surprise for Shasa, so don't mention it to him, if you can avoid it." ?f course not, Mrs Courtney." I will be trying to work out the new colour scheme for the curtains, and I'll probably be here until long after five o'clock. If you've finished your work, why don't you go off early? I will take any phone calls." 'Oh, I'd feel bad about that,' Tricia protested half-heartedly.
'Off you go!" Tara ordered firmly. 'I'll hold the fort. You enjoy your date - I hope you have a lovely evening." 'It's so kind of you, Mrs Courtney. It really is." 'Stephen, take those samples through and put them on the couch please,' Tara ordered without looking at Moses, and she lingered while Tricia cleared her desk with alacrity and headed for the door.
'Have a super weekend, Mrs Courtney - and thanks a lot." Tara locked the door after her and hurried through to the inner office.
'That was a bit of luck,' she whispered.
'We should give her some time to get clear,' Moses told her, and they sat side by side on the sofa.
Tara looked nervous and unhappy, but she kept silent for many minutes before she blurted out, 'Moses, about my father - and Shasa." 'Yes?" he asked, but his voice was bleak, and she hesitated, twisting her fingers together nervously. 'Yes?" he insisted.
'No - you are right,' she sighed. 'It has to be done. I must be strong." 'Yes, you must be strong,' he agreed. 'But now you must go, and leave me to do my work." She stood up. 'Kiss me please, Moses,' she whispered, and then after a moment broke from his embrace. 'Good luck,' she said softly.
She locked the outer door of the office and went down the staircase into the main lobby, and half-way down she was suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of doom. It was so strong that she felt the blood drain from her head and an icy sweat broke out on her forehead and upper lip. For a moment she felt dizzy, and had to clutch the banisters to prevent herself from falling. Then she forced herself to go on down and cross the lobby.
The janitor was staring at her strangely. She kept walking. He was leaving his cubicle and coming to intercept her. She felt panic come at her and she wanted to turn and run back up the stairs, to warn Moses that they had been discovered.
'Mrs Courtney." The janitor stopped in front of her, blocking her path.
'What is it?" she faltered, trying to think up a plausible reply to his demands.
'I've got a small bet on the polo this afternoon, do you know how it's going?" She stared at him, and for a moment it did not make sense.
She almost blurted out, 'Polo, what polo?" and then she caught herself and with an enormous effort of will and concentration chatted with the man for almost a minute before she could escape. In the carpark she could no longer control her panic and she ran to the Chev and flung herself behind the wheel sobbing for breath.
When he heard the key turn in the lock of the outer door, Moses went back into Shasa's office and drew the drapes over the windows.
Then he went to the bookshelves and studied the titles. He would not unpack the altar chest until the last moment. Tricia might return for something she had forgotten, there might be a routine check of the offices by the parliamentary staff. Shasa might even come in on the Saturday morning. Although Tara had assured him that Shasa would be fully occupied at Weltevreden with his guests over the whole weekend, Moses would take no chances. He would disturb nothing in the office until it was absolutely necessary.
He smiled as he saw Macaulay's History of England on the shelf.
It was an expensive leather-bound edition, and it brought back vivid memories of the time when he and the man he was about to kill had been friends - of that time long ago when there had still been hope.
He passed on down the shelves until he reached a section in which Shasa obviously kept all those works with whose principles he differed, works ranging from Mein Kampf to Karl Marx with Socialism in between. Moses chose a volume of the collected works of Lenin and took it across to the desk. He settled down to read, confident that any unwanted visitor must give him sufficient time to reach his hiding-place behind the drapes.
He read until the dusk fell and, the light failed in the room, then he took the blanket from the package he had brought up from the Chev and settled down on the sofa.
He woke early on Saturday morning, when the rock pigeons began crooning on the ledge outside the window, and let himself out of the panel door. He used the toilets at the end of the passage in the knowledge that it was going to be a long day, and took a cynical pleasure in defying the 'Whites Only' sign on the door.
Although the House did not sit on a Saturday, the main doors were open and there would still be some activity in the building, cleaners and staff, perhaps ministers using their offices. He could do nothing until the Sunday, when Calvinist principles forbade any work or unnecessary activity outside the body of the church. Again he spent the day reading, and at nightfall he ate from the supplies he had brought with him and disposed of the empty cans and wrappers in the rubbish bin in the toilets.