Meltdown (28 page)

‘But you’ve been in power for more than ten years and you don’t go for state education yourself,’ David pointed out.

Henry was trying to look comfortable and relaxed.

‘That is simply not so, David,’ he replied. ‘Jane and I use the state system and we’re very happy with it.’

‘Now come on, Henry,’ David said. ‘You know that’s bollocks.’

‘It’s a state school,’ Henry insisted.

‘It’s a grant-maintained grammar which you have no right to be in because it is two whole state schools away from where you live! You pulled strings and worked the system, Henry, and you should bloody well admit it.’

Henry was clearly fuming. His and Jane’s decision to seek out one of the few selective state schools left in London had made him very vulnerable to charges of hypocrisy. Particularly after he had laughably claimed that it was a choice made only because of the excellence of its choir.

‘We are
not
being hypocritical,’ Jane insisted, trying to come to Henry’s aid but in fact making things worse. ‘If the comprehensive system were as good as it ought to be, our kids would be in it like a shot.’

‘And it will be,’ Henry chipped in quickly. ‘That’s our pledge in government and we will make good on it.’

‘Bloody hell.’ Jimmy laughed. ‘Like David said, you’ve been in for ten years, how long do you need?’

‘They’ve been so busy banning foxhunting and starting wars,’ Rupert sneered.

‘I support the principle of comprehensive education for all,’ Henry repeated pompously, ‘and I am working to bring it about. The problem is that everybody’s pulling out of it. More and more people can afford fees and we just don’t have enough middle-class parents using the system, which of course means more of them leave.’

‘Just like you and Jane,’ Rupert said.

‘I’ve told you, Rupert,’ Jane snapped, ‘St Bartholomew’s Grammar is a
state school
.’

‘It’s grant-maintained and selective, Jane. Live with it.’

Lizzie and Robson definitely approved of state education and were anxious for it to be as top class as possible.

‘I’d rather my taxes went on books, not bombs, any day,’ Lizzie said.

She and Robbo doubted, however, that there would ever be circumstances in which they might put their own kids into a state school. They conceded that some kids might thrive at a comprehensive, but sadly not theirs. Tabitha and Jonah were extremely sensitive and intelligent children. They needed challenges and they needed boundaries. They needed
stimulus
. These things could no longer be found at the local schools and probably never would be again. Lizzie felt terribly angry about this.

‘I’m sorry, Henry,’ she said, ‘but as far as I’m concerned the horrible irony of it all is that, after your endless meddling with traditional teaching methods, the Labour government have actually made it
impossible
to go state.’

‘Oh, I suppose you think the curriculum should all be three Rs and the Battle of Britain?’ Jane put in.

‘I know I do,’ Robbo commented. ‘More Churchill and less bloody media studies, whatever they are.’

Jimmy agreed entirely with Lizzie and Robbo’s position. He and Monica certainly felt that it would not be fair to subject a bright boy like Toby to the roughhouse of a state primary. In fact they were already beginning to see signs of sensitivity, brightness and creativity in baby Cressida.

Besides Henry and Jane, David and Laura were the only members of the gang with any experience of the state system, having gone local with five-year-old Tilly. What’s more, they were enthusiastic about the varied multicultural experience she was receiving. Tilly’s best friend, they explained with some pride, was the most charming little Sudanese girl and the previous week the whole school had celebrated Eid together.

‘It was fascinating,’ Laura explained. ‘I managed to get along for most of it and I must say I feel I know a little more about the Muslim world than I did. Which
has
to be a good thing, surely?’

‘You see?’ Henry crowed. ‘That’s the multicultural, inclusive and diverse state system in action!’

David and Laura conceded that they would be taking Tilly out when she was six, so that she could join her sister Saskia at St Hilda’s Girls. Saskia was
loving
it.

Rupert (and previously Amanda) thought that Lizzie and Robson were pathetic liberals even to worry about it and that David and Laura were insane socialists to touch a state school even for a year. There was nothing,
nothing
good about the state system. It was simply a hugely expensive training programme for drug dealers and benefit cheats. Rupert (previously supported by Amanda) always claimed that anybody who could afford to go private and who even dreamed of putting their children through the state system was an abusive parent, sacrificing their innocent children at the altar of contemptible political posturing. They felt there was an argument for the authorities prosecuting these parents for neglect, just like they did with parents who let their five-year-olds eat their way to ten stone.

‘With the exception of crazy champagne Reds like you, Henry, who hog the few good state schools,’ Rupert said, ‘everybody goes private if they can. No, Henry! I can assure you,
everybody
. So why do successive governments insist on acting as if state education was what people actually want? They’d do far better spending the money on enabling poorer kids to go private.’

‘Which is what you’re doing, isn’t it, darling?’ Rupert’s girlfriend Beatrice chipped in proudly, seizing on a subject upon which she could comment. ‘Roop has set up a bursary which supports two bright children through private education.’

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence. Everybody at the table knew about Rupert’s bursary, which had been Amanda’s initiative. It had been discussed many times at similar dinner parties, happier ones before Rupert had decided to drop a generation in his choice of partner. Beatrice’s innocent interjection had brought the Amanda-shaped elephant at the dinner table into sharp focus.

Rupert rode it out with his usual panache.

‘That’s right, darling. We’ve had over a thousand applications already,’ he said. ‘What do you think of that?

Eh? Even the bloody public don’t want to go public.’

‘Yes,’ Jane said pointedly, ‘Amanda must be very proud. She set it up, didn’t she?’

‘I pay for it, Jane,’ Rupert snapped. ‘I think you’ll find that that is what they call the bottom line.’

At that point, with her usual impeccable, almost clairvoyant timing, Jodie put her head round the door.

‘I’m off out now, Monica, if that’s OK? Jimmy Barnes is playing at the Round House and I know the guy on the door.’

‘Goodness, Jodie,’ said Monica, ‘I thought you’d have gone hours ago.’

‘Toby was still sniffly so he had a couple of extra stories. I’ve given him Calpol.’

‘Terrific. I’ll look in on him in a bit.’

Jodie beamed a huge smile and left.

‘That girl is
brilliant
,’ Monica said as she always did. ‘I could not do without her.’

Later that evening, after all their guests had left, Monica and Jimmy finished off the last bottle while she stacked up the plates ready for the cleaner to put them in the dishwasher in the morning and Jimmy dumped the bottles in the recycling bin.

‘I hate recycling,’ he said. ‘It’s a week-long reminder of how much we drink.’

‘And apparently it doesn’t do any good anyway,’ Monica said. ‘I read in the
Standard
that they just shove all the bottles in landfills.’

‘Fantastic dinner, Mon,’ Jimmy said, ‘although a bit weird with the Beatrice thing.’

‘She’s all right, poor girl. I felt sorry for her really. I suppose we shall get used to her in the end.’

‘If he keeps her.’

‘Things have to change at some point, don’t they?’ she said wistfully. ‘Nothing goes on for ever, does it?’

‘Except us.’

‘Ah, but we’re just lucky.’

Loss adjustment at a funeral

Andrew Tanner carefully straightened his tie as he approached the church gate.

Such a very pretty church. Nice. But not easy to get to.

Network Rail seemed to be digging up half of Oxfordshire and it had taken Tanner two trains and a replacement bus service to make the trip from the City to the little village of Great Tew. It was worth it though, Tanner thought, because had he not made the trip he would always wonder if anything useful could have been gained from it. This way he would know and you could not put a price on peace of mind.

Peace of mind was probably the only thing on which Andrew Tanner could
not
put a price.

Putting a price on things was his job. He was an investigator and loss adjuster for the Wigan and Wigan Equitable Insurance Company and it was up to Andrew to determine what an item was worth and who was liable for that sum.

In this case the item was a life and its value was not in question. It was worth two million pounds. That was the sum which Wigan and Wigan would be required to pay out had the life ended as the result of an accident. The question was, had it?

Were Wigan and Wigan liable?

The interim coroner’s report had been inconclusive. Not as to
how
the deceased had died. That was beyond doubt. He had died from massive injuries sustained when the car he was driving hit a brick wall at sixty-five miles per hour. The question was
why
.

Was the death an accident? Or had the driver
deliberately
jerked the steering wheel and accelerated towards that wall? The coroner would not say. He was waiting for further police and psychological reports.

An open verdict had been recorded and therefore Wigan and Wigan would not as yet make payment.

Andrew passed the two sombrely suited ushers at the church door, taking an order of service from one of them as he went. ‘Excuse me,’ Jimmy asked, ‘but could you identify yourself, please?’

In light of Lizzie’s public profile, there had been some press interest in her husband’s funeral and one or two photographers were being held back by a constable at the church wall.

‘Andrew Tanner,’ Andrew replied. ‘I am with Wigan and Wigan. The deceased’s insurers.’

‘Wow,’ said Jimmy, ‘that’s amazing.’

‘Amazing?’ Andrew asked.

‘Well, you know, you don’t expect such old-fashioned business ethics, do you? Not in the modern world.’

‘Business ethics?’ Andrew asked.

‘You coming to pay your respects to a valued client. I didn’t think companies took that sort of trouble any more.’

‘Uhm. No. Quite,’ Andrew replied and moved on into the church.

‘Isn’t that something,’ Jimmy whispered to Rupert. ‘I’m with Wigan and Wigan myself and quite frankly I’ve been hating them because they’re giving me such a hard time over the premiums on Webb Street, but something like this makes me see things a bit differently.’

‘You idiot, Jim,’ Rupert replied. ‘It’s obvious why the bastard’s here, isn’t it?’

‘Is it?’

‘Of course.
They don’t think it was an accident!
I must say, I did wonder myself.’

Andrew Tanner turned and looked back at them. He had taken only a few steps with his slow, measured tread and was almost in earshot. Their heads were bent towards each other: clearly they had been whispering about him and now they were frozen, watching him as he watched them. Andrew inclined his head in acknowledgement and then went in search of a pew. Finding a place towards the back of the church, he glanced at the little booklet he had been given.

A service in remembrance of Robson ‘Robbo’ Cartwright. Husband. Father. Mate.

Andrew flicked through the pages. It contained the usual stuff, a couple of hymns, the Beatles’ ‘Let It Be’ and that poem from
Four Weddings and a Funeral
. And speeches – ‘Remembrances’, ‘Reflections’, ‘A Eulogy’. Every word no doubt serving to establish that Robson Cartwright was the best, the finest and most upright of men who had ever walked the earth.

But was he?

Or was he in fact a thief? For thief was the only word to describe somebody who arranged their death in order that his family might benefit from a policy which paid out only on illness and accident.

It happened all the time. Men and occasionally women at the end of their tether, broke, failed, shamed. Seeking to cash in on the one potential asset that remained to them. Their own life.

Andrew could see the two ushers standing in the church vestibule, glaring at him. They had been joined by a third, a trendily dressed man who wore conspicuously fashionable glasses. They were looking at him with such contempt. Such malice.

Andrew hated the way people treated insurance companies. They wanted full cover, of course. They wanted full cover and instant payment for when they fell asleep with a burning cigarette in their hand and scorched the couch, or wrapped their cars round lamp posts while trying to send texts. But they also wanted to pay minuscule premiums.

What’s more, they wanted to make exaggerated and even false claims while still pretending to occupy the moral high ground! That was what really got Andrew Tanner’s goat. The hypocrisy of it all! It would not be so bad if they were honest about it. If they admitted that they basically wanted a premium service for virtually nothing from a company that they expected to be allowed to cheat on with impunity. But no. Instead they reserved the right to paint the insurers as the villains, as cheating, money-grabbing and immoral, when in fact that was
them
! It was the clients, not the insurers, who were the cheats. It was they who made the fraudulent claims, expecting instant and full payment on losses that weren’t even covered. Which, if paid, would force up the very premiums that these same hypocrites insisted should be kept to a minimum.

The widow and her children were entering the church now. There she was, Elizabeth Cartwright, celebrated lifestyle guru and in Andrew’s opinion potential insurance fraudster. What else should he call the woman? Her lawyer had already been in touch with Wigan and Wigan to notify them of her husband’s death. Of the
accident
. She was broke. The world knew that the dead man had lost the family fortune through greed, trying to grab ludicrous interest rates in what had turned out to be a vast Ponzi scheme. Now she wanted the shareholders of Wigan and Wigan to support her. She wanted to claim a two-million-pound life-insurance policy on the ludicrous assertion that her husband Robson, Robbo, that great guy, that great husband, father and mate, had died as the result of an
accident
.