The Knives (37 page)

‘The coverage is pretty good, I’d say,
patrón.
After the week you’ve had, I guess the sum of it is – there’s nobody quite like you …’

Blaylock was back in the Jaguar, having travelled back to London on a late train the previous night, now en route to the Captain’s rural summit – policy, direction, prospects for the next election – hosted at his Dorset home. Jaded and pensive, he was content to listen to Mark Tallis exulting over the papers.

‘Even the fucking
Correspondent
has gone all “He-said, She-said”. “Is Blaylock a liability? Or do we need more of his sort in politics?” I mean, a poll in
The Times
says thirty-one per cent still think you should quit but there’s an
Observer
op-ed saying you ought to be leader.’

‘At least it’s only them …’

He had made some front pages, but the various messy snaps of his mercy dash from Thornfield Town Hall all seemed to catch him in a fair light. His high praise for Cleveland Police was widely reported. The
Mirror
liked the scathing judgement he had delivered on the FBB. (‘
What do this shower have to say to the honest, hard-working local people of this area?
’) It seemed to him one of the better things he had done lately. Again he could not but feel that hitting someone – so long as it was the right one – was something he ought to do more often.

They reached Corfe, a grey stone village under a blue-wash sky, replete with church and market square, nestled under the watch of a ruined medieval castle and a whaleback ridge of hills. The Jaguar zipped past a row of ceramic shops and a pub that, at lunch-hour, spilled out with a discernible mix of locals and Londoners.
It was unmistakably Sunday, steeped in the special torpor of rural life and England’s upper middle class. He had come to a corner of England that was true blue – just as the Prime Minister was, just as Blaylock was not.

Stepping over the threshold into the Captain’s country kitchen Blaylock was met by an aroma of fresh-ground coffee and by Vaughan, in the midst of slathering two legs of lamb with a gloop of garlic and rosemary, wiping hands slippery with olive oil onto a black apron as he came over.

‘David, how often is it that I’m shaking your hand like you’ve just returned from battle?’

Glancing past the Captain Blaylock clocked the cohort for the afternoon – just him, Dominic Moorhouse, Caroline Tennant, and the Captain’s usual coterie, the Etonian–Oxonian clan who directed the daily Downing Street meetings Blaylock never attended.

His out-of-place-ness was underscored by the others’ casual dress code of denims and good shirts. Even the indefatigably soignée Caroline Tennant wore jeans with her white silk blouse. Blaylock – suited, though tieless – cringed at how programmatic his life had become, that the suit was simply what he had pulled, unthinking, out of his wardrobe.

They sat round a long, heavy oak table across from the kitchen island, set with blue glass bottles of fizzy water and pots of that potent coffee. Blaylock decided to slough off his discomfort: he had earned his place at the table, he could call himself a survivor.

Al Ramsay presented the latest polls: the government ahead on providing leadership and a strong economy, trailing on protecting the NHS and knowing the price of a pint of milk. ‘“Out of touch”, I don’t buy it,’ Vaughan muttered. Blaylock feared the whole session might be a brow-furrowed stare at this set of numbers. But it wasn’t long before Vaughan steered them to his personal reading of them.

‘The big theme’, Vaughan asserted, ‘just needs to be security,
no? Trust us. Competence. Yes, we don’t want to neglect transforming people’s life chances and all of that stuff. But things are a bit dicey, so for a while at least we need people to be a bit more hard-headed.’

Today Blaylock was unusually conscious of Vaughan’s remarkable calm, perhaps because all week long he’d had reason to be glad of it. The Captain seemed never truly to agonise: he made a decision, guided by the heads he trusted, then he moved on, however unsteadily. His confidence didn’t appear feigned; it came from some real place, not merely the offspring of privilege. For all that life had been good to him, Vaughan, though not pronouncedly churchy, seemed to exude some Anglican conviction that life was not all – that ‘all’, in fact, was vanity and vexation of spirit, the world far from perfect, but a Tory government, at least, was the world turned right side up, and so the job was to keep winning and stumble onward. It was not the ‘radicalism’ Deborah Kerner urged upon Blaylock; yet it seemed altogether more effective.

‘David,’ said Vaughan, turning fully to Blaylock. ‘What do you think are the odds of our pinching a seat or two in the north?’

‘Well,’ he sighed, sitting back. ‘There are plenty of voters without the ideological baggage their parents had, just wanting to get on, used to shopping around. As long as we’re a vehicle for good ideas, and we’re competent …’ Blaylock heard himself falling into rote, and decided he didn’t like it. ‘But, look, you can govern without the north. It might be too much work. I honestly don’t think the gap in ideologies is why you get the hate, it’s more of a gut sentiment.’

He was being peered at, and sought to clarify.

‘I mean, there’ll always be a proportion of northerners who hate you because they’ve never met you or anyone like you, and they think you’re a load of posh moneyed tosspots.’

‘“You”?’ Caroline Tennant sounded amused. ‘I’m sorry, are you not one of us, David?’

Blaylock realised he was more tired than he had thought, and that no amount of piping hot coffee would relieve that.

‘David, would you join me for a stroll?’

The injunction was plain. Blaylock was perfectly fond of hacking around hills in the north. This ‘stroll’, though, seemed clearly an extension of the day’s agenda. Vaughan thrust a pair of green Hunter wellies at him and went off on a hunt for his own gear, rummaging the coat rack and the boot rack that had their own tidy room next to the kitchen door.

Pulling on the boots Blaylock was struck for the first time by how Elspeth Vaughan resembled Caroline Tennant – though her smile was toothier, her flaxen locks longer and untamed. She and the Captain had the look of a family firm. He watched them confer in hushed tones, saw him stroke his wife’s cheek then address his ten-year-old daughter Tabitha, shyly at their side, as ‘darling one’. At this, Blaylock felt a twinge in his breast.

The afternoon had clouded over as they headed up the wide escarpment to the hills above Corfe Castle, their security guards twenty paces behind. They climbed over stiles and through kissing gates to follow a muddy pathway skirting the hill on the low side.

‘You seem very much at home here,’ Blaylock offered.

‘As opposed to Downing Street? Our “fake” home, as Tabby calls it. Yeah. I don’t know that it does me any good but … this is where I’m from, what I am. I can’t change it. I don’t have your grit.’

If not emollient, it could have sounded patronising. But Blaylock had to admit Vaughan was good that way. ‘If you’d grown up on a council estate you’d still be getting it in the neck. It’s the job. If it was me in your place I’d be “out of touch”, too.’

The pathway had come to an enmired end, and what beckoned them now was a near-vertical trudge up to the heights of the ridge by a well-trodden grassy track.

‘To the sunlit uplands, eh?’ Vaughan smiled.

Halfway up Blaylock felt a deep post-prandial torpor, his blood sluggish, like cream in his veins, and the wind resistance further wearied him and his calves. The Captain, though, had colour in his cheeks. As they reached the top a splendid panorama opened up – behind them the resilient limestone ruins of the castle, around them a mosaic of fields, woods and nestled villages, and before them hills rolling away to the horizon and Poole Harbour. This was England, too, no doubt. Blaylock so easily forgot this part.

The sky was all fire and muzz, the cloud formations had become starkly luxurious swirls. The wind on his face was cool and it refreshed like water. Up here, it was clear and poignant to him – the world was a perfect creation, not even counting all the lives and the love in it. And yet he was lanced by the feeling that it was perfectly full without him – his contribution superfluous, other than, perhaps, the degree to which he had helped others have their share of it.

He had the strangest urge to take off and race down the slope, to let the gradient carry him, and run until his chest erupted – until he was a blur, mere ether, transformed into energy and made to vanish. Something deep inside him was telling him,
Begone!

‘It’s good, isn’t it? The view.’

‘Great. Really great, Patrick.’

‘How are you feeling about things?’

‘It’s been a week. But, we’re through it, I suppose.’

‘I know. Some of the scraps you get into … I know I’ve said, but you don’t need to get into so many.’

‘I’ve appreciated your support.’

‘Not at all. The only thing that ever worries me, David … just at times, you can seem detached, somehow, from our fortunes? When really that’s all there is, isn’t it? Power is what it’s all for. Government’s the only place to be. I need to know you’re with us.’

‘After this week, please don’t ever doubt my loyalty.’

‘Fine, fine. But what we do from here isn’t about me being re-elected. My time’s nearly up. “It has been written.” We all of us need to be thinking of our futures. The jobs we can still do.’

Vaughan’s look was so sincere, so pregnant, that for one hallucinatory moment Blaylock saw himself stooping to one knee, bowing his head.
The altitude
, he thought.

A raucous
ruff!
broke the peace, and they looked to see a woman struggling with a big hairy hound on a lead, both being warily scoped out by the bodyguards.
It’s their hill, too
, Blaylock reasoned – a useful reminder, lest he and the Captain had been dreaming that all the kingdoms of the world were theirs to dispose of.

He made it to Islington for 5.30 p.m. as he had pledged, in time to take his children out to tea. To his surprise, from the moment Jennie answered the door with mildness in her eyes, it seemed that he had done something right. He got a long hug from Molly. Cora said gruffly that it was ‘quite a cool thing’ he had done in Thornfield. Even Alex appeared very nearly impressed by the old man.

‘I trust you see, son, how we deal with the right to protest and the duty of public order.’

He requested access to the upstairs bathroom and was still a little surprised when Jennie assented.

‘Nick’s not here?’

‘He has a project and he’s running around. He always is …’

As he washed his hands he could not avoid the sight of the big black masculine toilet-bag by the sink, akin to his own, yet glaringly other, spilling over with Vitamin D, herbal embrocation, a topical remedy for bleeding gums and – painfully – a square pack of Skyn condoms, ‘ultra-thin and ultra-soft’.

He came downstairs and watched his children putting on their coats. Jennie had her fingers pressed to her lips, her gaze sightless.

‘You okay? Any news on Bea?’

‘Not good.’ She shook her head. ‘She’s going to move to a hospice.’

‘Aw god. I’m sorry.’

He studied Jennie’s face, her holding of emotion in check; and he absorbed the news for himself. He had genuinely admired Bea, and always wished for her approval. He couldn’t imagine her gone.

Jennie’s fingers had strayed back to her face. ‘Oh, I’m worried, David. I’m really worried …’

It seemed very vital to him that they had this much to share. He laid his hand on her arm. ‘Of course you are. The people we love, we’ve got to hold onto them. Nothing else matters.’

She nodded, managed a smile at the gesture he had made. In that moment he wanted so badly to do more for her. For all it was worth, his hand stayed on her arm.

He got into Shovell Street early and fixed himself a full cafetière, intending to take an hour before Monday meetings to find some words fit to be said at the funeral of PC Tweddle. He had hardly got settled, though, before Phyllida Cox knocked and entered.

‘You should be the first to know, I am resigning and moving on. A position at English Heritage. I’ve been talking to them a while.’

He was taken aback somewhat, never quite prepared to trust the sensation of being given the thing he wanted, since it seemed to call for some sort of check on the state of one’s spiritual worthiness.

‘So be it. I’m sure you’ll make an impact wherever you go.’

‘Will you consider it difficult of me if I’m gone by Christmas?’

‘No. I can live with it. Someone can act up.’

She stood, wavering, seemingly unsatisfied herself. ‘Irrespective of our differences, and what you may think to my opinion, I would urge you for one last time to consider the issue of your … personal volatility.’

‘Thank you. I have taken it under advisement. For my part I’d advise you in future to always bear in mind who you’re working for.’

Once she was gone he turned back to the lines in front of him:
‘The men and women of our police service go to work every day to protect the public, and we ask them to be ready, if the need arises, to put their lives on the line. Christopher Tweddle was an officer who bravely answered that need.’

It had been real everyday courage, no doubt, to go forth against a man blinded by a killing rage, blind to the pain he might inflict, who had come to put such a paltry value on life, including his
own. Still, Blaylock had to imagine what it would mean to say these words in a church full of rank-and-file officers, in the presence of the man’s coffin, his widow, and his two sons, left fatherless by the deranged act.

He tried to imagine himself in PC Tweddle’s shoes, the last moment, the crack of the glass and the searing blackness into oblivion. He wanted the police adequately protected, yet he needed them, still, to be brave enough to go first through that door into the unknown.

He sat back and surveyed his screed. He had written what he meant to say. And still it wasn’t good enough.

He left his post before midday and Martin drove him to Hampstead, on what felt like a covert errand, for which he had to steel himself. He did, at least, feel anonymous and reassured to enter a quiet, private, prosperous enclave of London. It was the sense that some vintage, cultured, serene version of central Europe had settled amid rows of orderly double-fronted redbrick English homes, all with manicured front gardens.

Amanda Scott-Stokes met him diffidently at the door and led him upstairs to her consulting room. He studied her as she poured them two glasses of water. She looked sixty-ish, with a dark bowl haircut, lined and glaucous eyes behind black-rimmed spectacles. She wore black tights and roll-neck, a grey woollen skirt, altogether an ageing bluestocking with a notable bust. Lisping and diminutive, she was nonetheless possessed of an undeniable learned assurance, her disconcerting smile suggesting to Blaylock reserves of private and arcane knowledge.

Was it because her built bookcases dominated every wall? Diverse scholarly journals were strewn across her coffee table. Over the fireplace was a framed sketch that Blaylock hazarded might be a Picasso. Watching from the next wall was a photograph of Marilyn Monroe reading a chunky Russian novel.

He lowered himself into a white leather Mies van der Rohe chair. It was she who took the sofa, crossed her legs and rested a yellow legal pad in her lap.

‘We should talk a little first, yes?’

‘Sure … Talking is the greater part of it, I understood?’

‘Well, quite.’

‘There were children in your marriage? Were you angry toward them?’

Having waited for her questioning to reach this point, Blaylock felt an obligation to reach deeper for his answers than he had done hitherto.

‘My wife, my ex-wife, would say that my temper made a climate in the house. So, the children couldn’t escape it. Like the weather, I suppose … It’s hard to escape from anger in politics. The work demands so much of you. And you get uncomprehending moments because no one round you can possibly comprehend. That would frustrate anyone, I think. All the petty battles … So, it could be that way at home, too.’

‘Just a “climate”? Or were there – outbursts? Incidents?’

‘Oh …’ He exhaled, suddenly feeling himself flag under the burden of miserable memories. ‘There was a time I started shouting at my daughter Cora and I just couldn’t stop.’

‘Did you ever raise a hand? To your wife or the children?’

He took a deeper breath yet. ‘Yes. One time I grabbed my wife quite heavily … wanting her to understand … I mean, utterly stupid and cowardly of me. She ran upstairs and locked the door and I broke it … I calmed down but she called the police, rightly. I … she didn’t pursue it, though she certainly could have. But … I always think that was the end, effectively. Of our marriage.’

‘Are you in a relationship currently?’

‘Not at present.’

‘You’ve had relationships since your divorce?’

‘Vanishingly few, but, yes.’

‘Were any of these … coloured, or marked, by the anger issues?’

‘Not so much. In my view. Some cross words. But my feelings probably weren’t engaged to the degree they’d been in my marriage.’

‘No subsequent relationship has been as serious to you as the one with the woman you were married to?’

‘No … How could it?’

She seemed to weigh this. ‘Why do you suppose you’ve been moved to take these steps now? Not sooner?’

‘Because in my personal life I screwed up and I paid a price. My work life is what I have now, I can’t screw that up.’ Blaylock paused, appalled at what he had just said. ‘And my job is a big responsibility. I need to know that won’t be … adversely affected, beyond repair.’

‘At work are you ever physical in expressing anger?’

‘I had – an incident, a few days ago, raised my hand to a colleague. It wasn’t typical, you don’t get a rise out of me that easy now.’

‘Can you say a little more of this incident for me?’

He sighed. ‘I trusted a young man who was working closely with me, and he betrayed my trust and when I found out – he owned up, but he didn’t apologise … I was so vexed just looking at him … But I calmed down. I didn’t hit him, much as I wanted to. I mean, it’s fine to disagree with me but not to lie and dissemble. You have to do things honestly. Even in politics, much as that may astound people. Be honest, or go do something else.’

She looked at him – so he thought – rather sceptically. The look lasted. She looked again at her notes, as if myopically, then shook her head. ‘Heavens. I do thank you for telling me what you’ve told me. I appreciate this is an unusual situation. You would be an uncommon patient.’ She was visibly in thought. ‘And, I’m so sorry, David, but I’m afraid I don’t think it will be possible for me
to take you on. Forgive me. I hope you’ll understand?’

Blaylock had the sudden sensation of having failed a test, of being informed with regret that his application had been unsuccessful.

‘Fine … Why not? What is it?’

‘You talk of honesty … I’m not certain you’re ready to look at yourself with sufficient self-awareness. It has to be done that way, or not at all. Then, to be absolutely candid for my own part, there’s also a political matter.’

‘Political?’

‘Yes, and that does pertain when someone comes to see me privately. I need to have a sympathy for that patient. You are a public figure, and you are associated with a government of whose policies I disapprove. In that sense there will always be a sort of impediment, do you follow?’

‘Yeah. Ha. Fine, whatever.’

‘You see my predicament?’

‘Sure, Jesus. Obviously. If you think I’m so corrupt … Okay, yes, I get it. This was a strange waste of time, wasn’t it?’

He stood and gathered his coat. She was still peering at him, spectacles shining, in a manner he now thought grossly patronising.

‘But, just so you know, I’m a human being, too. I’m not just a set of headlines. Moreover, can I just say, you’re full of shit? Sitting there in judgement. You disapprove, fine. Do you judge a government’s policies by their outcomes? Or is it just the intentions? Anyhow, your position is ridiculous. Pathetic. You follow that?’ He felt the tension released from him, and took a purposeful breath. ‘Okay, so what do I do for this? Do I write you a cheque?’

She crossed her hands on her lap. ‘Oh David, do forgive me, please. I angered you purposely.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘It must seem like a low sort of a ploy. But I’m afraid I needed
to … see a “rise” out of you, as you put it? Really, I’m sorry. Of course I have no such objections to seeing you as a patient – as you say, it would be ridiculous. Really the only question is whether you feel able to talk to me. And that you wish to proceed, even after my little subterfuge. I do understand if you don’t.’

He considered – then put down his raincoat on the chair and lowered himself back into the Mies van der Rohe chair, uneasily, as he felt it give anew under his weight.

She carefully tore a sheet from her legal pad, set it beside her, looked at him, blinked, and smiled – that encouraging smile, as if reserved for a slow learner.

‘Let’s begin again, shall we?’