Keep Calm (31 page)

“Before I could get to it,” Georgia added. All eyes were watching Heaton as closely as humanly possible, hoping for a telltale sign of inconsistency, a hint of deviousness or deception. Heaton remained calm, steadfast in his own victimization in the matter.

“You must believe that we were all floored when this came out, of his past, of his complicity in this, of these threats he had made toward Roland on the Internet. It just defies logic how this could be the truth. No one who worked with him at the company has anything at all to report in terms of untoward behavior, deviancy, or the slightest hint of aggression. Nothing. By all reports that we have put together, he was a very, very personable man. Quite charming in fact. Yes, he had been in some trouble in Michigan, but somehow or other, which we can only blame on his father-in-law, he had been able to hide the full nature of his legal transgression from the Chicago human resources people when Thompson first got him his interview.”

“So you're saying that Gordon Thompson was able to get him in under the wire in terms of a background check?”

“Yes. Sadly, that is what I am saying. HGI is a very large company. Too large, maybe, it now seems.” Georgia listened as Heaton spoke, leaned back on the couch, and tried her best to take it all in.

“So you're thinking that the father-in-law conspired? Is involved in the bombing? In whatever is behind this?”

“And where is this Thompson now?” Darling wanted to know.

“He's been up at my farm. Outside Worcestershire. He's supposed to be back in London today. We'll be doing an inquiry ourselves after we've made him available to your people to question. That takes place at one p.m. at Scotland Yard.” Georgia looked over to Darling for confirmation. Darling agreed, the meeting was set, but he seemed troubled. None of this seemed to sit well with the grizzled Darling.

“And tell us again, David. Why had you asked Mr. Lassiter to look into the brief? What was it that you wanted him to see before Georgia got to it?”

“That was merely business, Major Darling. We had spent three years on a deal to more or less privatize a financial service system that has done nothing but given its members short shrift in terms of retirement packages. I just wanted Roland's help in putting the whole thing to bed. You see that, don't you?”

Darling answered halfheartedly. “No, actually, I don't entirely. What is it that you wanted Roland's help with?” Heaton took the query in, actually chuckled slightly.

“Well, I hate to say it like this, but I needed him to help me sell Georgia. She's a tough one to get over and was the final hurdle. No one could work the good chancellor over quite like Roland. I begged him to put his back into it, so to speak.”

Darling followed the answer with another nod, yet still, for some reason, didn't quite see it as true.

Something seemed off to Burnlee as well. His face gave it away. The home secretary, twenty years older than Heaton, Turnbull, and Darling, had known Heaton's father and his uncle, both members of Parliament in their day. In fact, the uncle, Edmund Heaton, had once held Burnlee's title. He was a wary watcher, Burnlee, and didn't say much in moments like these. He let others do the talking so that he could hear between the banter. His way had always been to listen to the larger tone of the room and not the short bursts of words that were thrown fast and loose around this storied building. His stony silence hinted at his suspicions. Heaton was lying. Burnlee had no doubt.

“Maybe it's an American thing. Has anyone put any thought to that?” Heaton quietly asked. Georgia and the others were stunned.

“An American thing? What could that possibly mean?”

“He's an ex-cop, maybe he's CIA. I don't know. I am aware that the Americans would love us off our balance right now. I know they aren't anywhere close to fans of Roland's. I know they'd love a freer hand in the Middle East and I know they'd love the referendum to work out and for us to leave the EU. Let that money and those contracts flow west to New York and Los Angeles. It's wild speculation but what isn't about all of this, really? What if the CIA got to Gordon Thompson, paid him to set up his son-in-law, then planned to nicely do away with them both?”

“That's rich pudding. As far out as it gets,” Burnlee protested.

“I agree, but it's all rich pudding at this point. Isn't it? None of this makes any sense.”

The room went quiet. There were no more questions. Heaton didn't have any other theories. Georgia politely ended the talk.

After Heaton left the PM's office, an accounting was taken, and Georgia and Darling agreed with the home secretary. Heaton hadn't uttered a single truthful sentence. They sat in silence, wondering who would say it first: Heaton, and whoever his conspirators might be, had sought to destroy the government from the inside. This was officially a national disaster. It was no longer speculation. If Heaton was involved, then he had key insiders helping him. The brazenness of the attempt was breathtaking. Darling and Burnlee were both sure of it.

Georgia's worst nightmares had sprung fully formed into an awful reality.

*   *   *

IN THE BLACKEST
hour of the morning, Georgia was awake, lying in bed, wondering where this would end, where tomorrow would take them. She truly had if not the weight of the world, then the weight of Great Britain on her shoulders.

Her thoughts wandered and settled on Steel. She wondered if the young detective realized what murky waters she had waded into. She wanted to chat quietly with her about how scary the world had suddenly become, to speak of the events on the scale of their national gravity, but more important, she wanted to speak in shades of the personal and intimate, in terms of being a frightened girl, wide-eyed inside a woman's body. Steel would understand that, she thought. She would understand and maybe softly brush Georgia's face with the back of her tiny hand. Maybe kiss the tip of her nose and slowly run her fingers through Georgia's thick hair. They would lock eyes and discuss the gravity of being caught up by history. She sat up, pulled her knees close, and thought of calling Steel, and then, when the impulse grew and took hold she went over and grabbed her phone and brought it back to the warm bed with her, burrowed back in, and phoned Steel.

“Hello?” Steel heard her mobile buzz on the nightstand next to the bed. She woke from a deep sleep. She had been dreaming of skiing in America with her parents, who were both somehow younger and incredibly adroit at downhill. She woke so quickly that she remembered the incongruent fantasy and was still living it for a beat as she reached for the phone.

“Hello.” It was Georgia, according to the caller ID. But her voice seemed different. She spoke quietly, more slowly than usual. “I'm so sorry to wake you, Inspector Steel.”

“No, no. Don't be sorry at all. Is everything all right?”

“As all right as it can be, what with the world as it is.”

“Yes, I can only imagine what you have on your plate. I shudder to think of it in terms of a workday.”

Georgia took a moment to answer. She sipped cold water from a cut crystal glass at her bedside. “It's beyond madness, Inspector. I can't begin to tell you. It feels like a mountain has slid right over on top of me.” Steel nodded silently.
What must that be like? To be suddenly thrust into this position, where everything comes down to you? Every decision that's made is yours to make, yours to muck up?

“You must feel so alone right now.” A tear rolled down Georgia's cheek as a response. Steel didn't need to see the tear to understand the silence floating along the line. The pain she heard in Georgia's voice.

“Is there anything I could do for you? To make it easier? Anything at all, Madam Chancellor?”

“You could call me Georgia. I do appreciate hearing you use my name.”

“You do? Truly?” That seemed unreal—Georgia Turnbull getting joy from Davina Steel of Bloomsbury addressing her one-to-one, yet she sensed maybe it was the truth.

There was yet another waft of silence between them. Steel's heart was beating wildly as the chancellor spoke to her. “I do enjoy talking with you, Davina. It seems like I have no one to talk with these days. Oh god, how pitiful must that sound?”

“No, no, I feel the same way. I enjoy talking with you, too, Georgia.” Somehow saying her name made Steel slightly giggle. Georgia responded with a laugh of her own and it went on that way, the two of them serving back and forth simple rounds of small talk and chitchat. Life. Childhood. Stress. Weight gain. Weight loss. Hair care. Fashion. Dogs. Cats. Tennis. Uncles, aunts, Britain, and even Adam Tatum. They were all touched on for over an hour until suddenly there was silence. Steel waited for her partner's next volley and it didn't come.

“Have you fallen asleep on me? Georgia? Georgia?” After a moment she was back. Her voice was even groggier now.

“Yes, I think I may have. I'm sorry. I don't mean to be rude.”

“It's not rude at all. I'm going to let you go. I'm sure you have a full day ahead of you.”

“I wish you were…” Another silence.

“Wish I was what? Georgia?” She had stopped herself. Steel sensed it. She knew she had stopped because the words that would have come out would have been hard to take back. They would have been too emotional, too laced with longing. They were both better off saying good night, so they did.

“Good night, Georgia.”

“Good night, Davina. Thank you for a wonderful talk.”

 

ON THE RUN
■
8

Kate went shopping with Tiffany the next day, who jokingly said she wanted to “show off” the giant Whole Foods on Kensington High Street. It took everything Kate could do to keep from breaking down in tears, but she had promised Adam to keep it together while he figured out their next move. Tiffany made small talk as they squeezed and weighed vegetables and fruit. Kate pondered sadly to herself at how mundane life can be, how rote the day-to-day steps can become, and in the same moment she found herself envious of Tiffany and the uneventful future she would most likely have. She saw her own family's future as cold and unforgiving. She tried to envision a time when she'd casually weigh and bag the evening's vegetables again, but she knew life wouldn't be anywhere close to carefree in the near future, if ever.

As they waited to check out, Tiffany talked about Beau and his ailing father, about living in London, about being an American in Britain, about raising the kids so far from her parents in Indiana. Kate nodded, did her best to carry a small part of the conversation, but all she could think about were the last seven days: Adam forcing them to run, the realization that her father had knowingly set up her family and her for a horrible fall, about Richard, his face in the steamed-up bathroom mirror, his murder, the blood on the courtyard that Adam was sure she didn't see, the fact that she and her family had caused the end of his beautifully awkward one-off of a life, the constant gloom on Adam's face, the way he watched the news with certain knowledge that a wave would wash him away at any time—toss them all away.

*   *   *

KATE FINALLY COULDN'T
take it anymore. Interrupting another one of Tiffany's anecdotes about her kids, she started to cry, a deep, guttural moan that took her breath away as the car rolled along on the pockmarked roads back toward Shoreditch.

Tiffany jerked the family's BMW wagon over to the side of the street. She had felt the sullen, sour air floating around Kate and the family since the moment they had arrived, but this level of anguish was well beyond her expectations. Tiffany had no idea what to say. She figured it best just to let her cry it out.

“It's okay, it's okay, Kate, just let it out. Let it out, babe.” That was really the best that she could do. Kate squeaked out a silent thank-you and did in fact “let it out.” She cried for another few minutes until there were no more tears. As Tiffany warmly took her hand, Kate did the one thing she promised her husband she wouldn't do. She told Tiffany everything.

*   *   *

LATER THAT NIGHT
, after a silent dinner where none of the adults spoke, while the kids hypnotically watched a Pixar film they had each seen a dozen times before, Beau spoke candidly with Adam on a leisurely walk in the early evening among the cold, tan brick buildings of Great Eastern Street.

“I'm afraid you're going to have to leave, Adam. Tiffany's upset and she has every right to be. No matter how innocent you are, you're going to be the prime suspect any moment now and you know as well as I do that hiding you here will be a crime. There'll be a steep price for us to pay, even if you somehow wriggle out of this godforsaken nightmare.”

Adam understood. He'd seen it coming the minute Tiffany walked through the door from her excursion with Kate that afternoon. It made sense, too. They couldn't afford to drag the McCalisters into their mess. It had already cost Richard Lyle his life.

An old woman was digging through a garbage can outside a block of office suites, hunting for recyclables. Two young boys on bikes were spinning circles in the middle of the turnoff to Garden Walk. No one seemed happy. Not the boys on the bikes, not the pedestrians on the street, not the people on the buses that floated by. It was if the whole city had been robbed of joy along with Adam and his family. He had taken the ultimate darkness to Richard Lyle, dimmed the lights of the McCalisters' life, and now it seemed as if he were soaking the entire city, blocks at a time, with despair. He was cursed. He felt that then, in that moment, with his friend who desperately needed to distance himself from Adam and his doomed family.

“Just give me the night to figure out what to do, Beau. We'll leave tomorrow. I think that I have a plan. Just give me the night to come to terms with it.”

Beau answered sincerely. “I'm sorry, Adam. I truly am. If there was anything I could think of to do for you, I would do it.”