Flashpoint (26 page)

The Prime Minister considered the matter. He said, “That brings us to the 29th or 30th. If our friends over the way had stage-managed it they could hardly have arranged it better. Is this chap Killey going to get his mandamus?”

“The buzz is that it’s two to one,” said the Deputy Chairman. “Megan’s for him, because he thinks the magistrate behaved like a buffoon. He ought to be a good judge of that. He’s always making bad jokes in court.”

“What about Lamb?”

“He thinks the magistrate was stupid, but was right in law. The Lord Chief has been wobbling, but may come down on Killey’s side because he can’t stand the Attorney-General. I don’t suppose anyone really knows, but that’s supposed to be the form.”

“It’s unimportant,” said the Prime Minister. “Whichever way they decide, it’s going to hurt us.”

The Chairman said, “Yes,” and looked at him speculatively.

“If you think the matter through,” said the Prime Minister, “you’ll find the real trouble is that the public has heard Killey’s side of the story – heard it in a dozen different versions.
But there’s been no opportunity of giving Dylan’s.
If it comes to Court, I’ve no doubt of his getting an honourable acquittal. I think the charge is stale and spiteful nonsense without a particle of real evidence to back it up. But an acquittal will come too late to be of any use. I mean, of course, too late to be of use to the party. It will be a sort of satisfaction for Dylan, although it’s bound to leave a smear. If we’re going to rehabilitate him, it’s got to be done now.”

“A personal statement in the House?”

“I can see no alternative.”

The three men considered it. They all knew that a personal statement could be very effective. It could also be completely disastrous. They knew, too, that by the traditions of the House there would be no debate about it. Where a member’s honour was impugned he had the right to make his defence uninterrupted and unquestioned. But because it was no part of the ordinary proceedings of the House, it had to be entirely candid and convincing.

The Chairman said, “I think there’s one thing we ought to know, Prime Minister. This story about one of the hush-hush departments trying to discredit Killey. Is there any truth in it?”

“If it was done,” said the Prime Minister coldly, “I neither knew about it, nor consented to it. I am having the matter investigated. If the people concerned took steps on their own authority, they will have to take the consequences. I should like everyone to be quite clear about that.”

There was a moment of not very comfortable silence. The Deputy Chairman broke it by saying, “If Dylan makes a statement it will at least bring him back into the picture. The odd thing about all this is that the press has been having a field day but the two people it’s supposed to be all about have been remarkably reticent. Dylan hasn’t said anything and Killey seems to have disappeared.”

“He’ll emerge at the appropriate moment,” said the Chairman sourly, “with a bloody great halo round his stupid head.”

Simon Benz-Fisher was whistling gently to himself as he fed a pile of dockets into the huge stove in the basement of Lynedoch House. The existence of this old-fashioned solid fuel system of central heating had been, to him, one of the attractions of the building.

Terence appeared at the entrance of the stoke-hole with an armful of files.

“This is the last of them,” he said. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

Benz-Fisher looked at the name on the file, chuckled, and said, “I think we might have one or two out of this one.” He unclipped the file, riffled through the contents and finally extracted half a dozen of the letters.

“We’ve got some photographs belonging to that one,” said Terence. “They’re in the folder.”

“Artistic?”

“Oh, very.”

“Then we might keep a couple of them.” He added them to the contents of an already bulging briefcase.

“What’s it all in aid of?” said Terence. “A bit of the old black?”

“My dear Terence,” said Benz-Fisher – “yes – you can put all the rest in. I don’t think we’ve any further use for them – you have known me for five years. Do you really suppose that I am a common or garden blackmailer?”

“Honest to God,” said Terence, “I don’t know what you are, and that’s the truth.”

Benz-Fisher smiled complacently. “I am all things to all men. I am X, the unknown factor in the equation. I am the Gordian knot, which no human ingenuity can untie. I am a master illusionist.”

He looked down into the red heart of the furnace which was sluggishly digesting its diet of paper and cardboard. Taking the iron furnace-rake he plunged it into the glowing mass which flared up into little tongues of yellow flame.

“Tomorrow all this, the fruits of so many years’ work, will be a handful of grey ashes.”

“They won’t half be narked when they find out what you’ve done.”

“Let them be narked. Did you ever see that well-known conjuring trick, Terence, when a man makes a girl disappear?”

“I’ve seen it done once. They said it was done with mirrors.”

“I can do an even better trick. And I need no mirrors to perform it. I can wave a wand, and make
myself
disappear.”

“Sounds a useful trick. You couldn’t teach me, I suppose.”

“No, Terence. I fear it is beyond you. It requires prudence, patience and foresight. Gifts which your fairy godmother gives you at birth, or not at all. Allied to this, you need the mind of a chess master. A mind that can construe the tactics of an opponent six months ahead and construct a plan to deal with each possible permutation and combination.”

Off again, thought Terence. Right up in the stratosphere.

On the last word Benz-Fisher slammed shut the door of the furnace, perched his bowler hat on his head, picked up his brief-case, gave a cheerful wave of his rolled umbrella and vanished through the doorway.

It was a bit like a conjuring trick, thought Terence.

There were a number of reasons why the various parties who were searching for Jonas Killey should have failed to locate him.

One reason was his handwriting. This was so vile that the hotel at which he was staying had registered him as Jacob Pellow and addressed him as Mr Pellow throughout his stay. The second reason was that he had forgotten, in the excitements of the past month, to get his hair cut. It was now not only much longer than usual but, feeling self-conscious about the bruise down the side of his face, he had allowed it to descend in embryo sideburns. A more important reason was that the press had been unable to locate a useful photograph. Jonas was not a man who sought publicity, and the best that the researchers had been able to turn up was a school group, taken in his last year at Grantham Grammar School nearly twenty-five years before, and a rather blurred snapshot of a group of solicitors who had attended a seminar on International Law in Amsterdam.

But the real reason why nobody spotted Jonas was that he wasn’t hiding. He wasn’t hiding because it hadn’t occurred to him that anyone was looking for him. If he had behaved in a fugitive-like manner it is possible he would have been noticed. But he was not a fugitive. He was taking an unscheduled, but extremely enjoyable, holiday. The only newspapers which he saw were the
Salisbury and Winchester Journal
and the
Andover Herald,
and the headlines in these were devoted to such topics of local interest as an outbreak of arson at Bulford, the new by-pass, and suspected foot and mouth disease at Pewsey.

From time to time Jonas thought guiltily of his practice, but he comforted himself with the reflection that it would do young Willoughby a power of good to have a few days at the helm. There was nothing like responsibility for settling a young man down. His only real worry was his mother. He telephoned the nursing home every morning and every evening and the reports which he received, though tactfully delivered, left him in no doubt as to the truth. Her life was slipping away.

On the Thursday he caught a bus into Salisbury and called on a firm of solicitors in Castle Street. He had telephoned them on the previous afternoon, and the senior partner, Mr Abigail, saw him at once.

Being a solicitor himself Jonas appreciated that nine tenths of the instructions which clients give solicitors are superfluous. He confined himself to mentioning the names, addresses and sums of money which mattered. It took exactly five minutes.

As he rose to go Mr Abigail said, “You’ve been having a short holiday, Mr Killey?”

“A few days.”

“The press not bothering you?”

“No. Why should they?”

After a moment of silence Mr Abigail said, “Have you seen the papers in the last few days?”

“Only the local ones.”

“I suggest you buy
The Times
and
The
Telegraph.
Oh, and the
Watchman
too. If you’d like to see Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s, I can get them for you.”

“Please don’t bother,” said Jonas. “If there’s anything interesting in them I can see them when I get back to London.”

After he had left, Mr Abigail took that morning’s copy of the
Watchman
out of his briefcase and reread the paragraph on page one.

“It was noted that Mr Killey was not in Court either on the Monday when the riot occurred or on the following day when their Lordships reserved judgement. Speculation is beginning to grow as to his whereabouts. A spokesman for the police said, ‘We have no instructions to investigate Mr Killey’s movements nor is there any reason why we should have such instructions. Mr Killey is free to go wherever he wishes.’ The central figure in one of the most extraordinary dramas of recent times would seem to have vanished. Enquiries at his Wimbledon office revealed that they had had no word from him since Friday.
Where is Mr Killey?”

Mr Abigail reflected that had professional propriety not forbidden it, the
Watchman
would have paid him handsomely for the answer to that question.

When Jonas got back to his hotel the message which he had been expecting from the nursing home was waiting for him. He gave the necessary instructions, and said that he would be returning on the following day. The matron said, “Very peaceful. No pain at all. She simply went to sleep and didn’t wake up.” Jonas cut her short by ringing off. He was equally brusque when the proprietor offered his condolences. He said, “I’m going for a walk. I shall be back for supper. Could you have my bill ready?”

“In this country,” said the Prime Minister, “we seem to have overlooked the value of the Courts of Law as a setting for demonstrations. It wasn’t only propaganda trials, in the Russian manner, that I was thinking of. It is the French, it seems to me, who have perfected the art of the scene in court. I was reading, only yesterday, a new account of the case–”

Will Dylan, sitting uneasily in the tall, leather-covered armchair stamped with the insignia of the House of Commons, wondered how the Prime Minister had time to read anything except official papers. There was a heap of these on his desk at that moment. He wondered, also, how long the Prime Minister was going to take to reach what was evidently in his mind. Although he had not been long in Parliament, he was well aware of the speed with which reputations rose and fell; the way in which people were reassessed almost daily, as on a Stock Exchange, so that a member could be a blue chip one day and a bad buy on the next. He had a shrewd idea of what was coming, but it was no use trying to hurry the old man.

To help things along, he said, “You mean that business in the High Court.”

“And that scene at Bow Street. The same men were involved in both.”

“I don’t see the connection.”

“The connection is that they were both aimed at you. The first indirectly, the second directly. They were both designed to draw public attention to the allegations which a solicitor called Killey has been making about you.”

When he came to the point, thought Dylan, he came straight there, no fooling.

He said, “You could be right, Prime Minister. I hadn’t quite viewed it in that way. What do you want me to do about it?”

“There’s only one thing a member of this House can do when his personal reputation is attacked. He has to stand up and defend it. It’s a useful privilege. If vague stories are being whispered, vague allegations being made, he can bring them out into the open. Fresh air kills germs. If plain lies are being told, he can nail them. I think the best time will be this evening. I’ll have a word with the Opposition and they’ll clear the floor for you at about seven o’clock. That means we shall get full coverage in the morning papers. They’re more responsible about that sort of thing than the evening papers.”

Will was silent for so long that the Prime Minister raised his head sharply and said, “Well?”

Will said, “Ever since I came down here, Prime Minister, I’ve been realizing how important words are. It doesn’t matter what you do. It doesn’t matter if you do nowt, as long as you make the right noises.”

“Not entirely true,” said the Prime Minister. He was conscious of the strength of the man opposite; a strength of character and bone, showing in the face. He noticed, too, that now that he was speaking from the heart rather than the head Dylan was reverting to a fashion of speech which he had modified, consciously or unconsciously, during his stay in the South. “Some truth in it. Go on.”

“This thing you’re talking about. It’s been on t’boil for a long time. Simmering, you might say, to start with. Now it’s come to boil. T’other chap’s done all the talking. I’ve said nowt. I’m not starting now.”

“So far as you’re concerned, that’s a point of view I can understand. In the ordinary way, no one’s called on to defend himself from malicious rumours. But this isn’t an ordinary situation. It’s got blown up out of all proportion. And it’s hurting the party.”

“I’m not that important,” said Will.

“My party managers tell me a different story.”

“Even if it happened to be true, and I’ll be blunt with you, it wouldn’t keep me awake nights. I’m not a party man. Truth to tell, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of difference between parties, except that one’s in and t’other’s out.”