The Madness of July (38 page)

‘
Whose pride?
’ He underlined it.

Underneath, he wrote Sam’s phrase, ‘
a surfeit of allies’
.

He reviewed his knowledge and realized again, with a twinge of guilt, that he had produced little new for Paul and that his own enlightenment had come from others. His instruction, however, had been to think. He stepped gently downstairs, opened the door from the kitchen and went outside. He sat on the swinging chair. The sun was rising over the house and his energy began to flow.

He considered the pieces of paper again, and Paul’s concern, Lucy’s advice about the letter, and his own gradual understanding of the importance of Archie Chester. He had to find an entry point, the chess player’s line through the enemy ranks. He rose and paced the garden, turning at the back wall and retracing his steps in a straight line, then turning again. He made a symmetrical pattern on the grass. At its centre was Francesca and her reminder about his family, the revelation that Mungo had found unexpected meaning in his mother’s double life – a justification, and a benefit.

Then, as if clouds were lifting slowly, a path opened up in front of him and led him on. He followed it, imagined Sam by his side, and thought of the emotional life of his trade, its importance and its violence. The frailty hidden in every public face.

For several minutes, he turned his thoughts upside down and back again. The pattern fell apart, then put itself together, each time in the same way. He must be right.

Slowly, enjoying his relief, he went inside and rang Paul, who’d be in the office, although it was not yet half-past six. He wouldn’t be expecting the request, but Flemyng knew it would be accepted, eventually.

‘Abel should be with us,’ he said.

Paul hesitated at the other end of the line. ‘You may be right, but spell it out. I need to be sure.’

Flemyng said that he wasn’t suggesting that Abel should sit through the opening of the conversations that would start at ten, because Sorley and Ruskin would be justified in objecting. They were accused of nothing, and couldn’t be subjected to questioning by a foreign official without decent warning, if at all. But there was another way, he said. If Abel could situate himself in the ante-room, in the domain of one of Paul’s secretaries, he would be available if required. Flemyng said it might prove a useful addition to their armoury. He deliberately put it no higher. ‘You never know,’ he said. ‘An extra hand to the pump, that’s all.’

Agreed.

He rang Abel’s hotel from the kitchen phone, knowing that his brother would be up and about. ‘Today’s the day, just like you said last night. We’re going to do it the way I want, you and I together. Ready?’

They arranged to meet for breakfast.

*

They met in a café near the Abbey, Abel having taken the opportunity for a random stroll through Westminster, enjoying the knowledge that no one in the early crowds knew who he might be, why he was there, nor the troubles that had brought him into their midst. He enjoyed a peal of bells, the first noisy coughing of the rush hour, the promise of a clear, hot day with the clouds high. Buying two newspapers on the corner of Parliament Square, he walked towards the park. More cricket on the front pages than politics. Heatwave talk. Good.

Turning back to the square, he stopped at the Lincoln statue. Abel wondered if Joe had come that way, whether he had found what he was looking for, and what led to his desperate plunge at his moment of success, if that was how he’d seen it. He watched an official car appearing from New Palace Yard under Big Ben, then turned away. Five minutes later he was in a hole-in-the-corner café in Great Peter Street, squashed at a corner table with his brother at right angles to him and two strong teas in front of them.

Their conversation would have been inconsequential to any listener but it established, for them, the shape of the day. They looked beyond the morning encounter with Flemyng’s colleagues – two and a half hours away – to more time with Mungo, and another trip home together. ‘I dreamed about it,’ Flemyng said, his face brightening. ‘An escape mechanism, and a useful one.’ Some of his fear had dispersed.

‘I’m not surprised,’ said Abel. ‘You have to find a way of putting this out of your mind for a few hours. I couldn’t. I spoke twice to Maria in the night. God knows what they’re thinking at the hotel switchboard. She’s antsy, as you’d expect.’

Flemyng said, ‘Fill me in. When I knew her in Paris she was tough. Irresistible, but a bit scary. Always a step ahead.’

Abel spoke without hesitation about his dependence. ‘She’s a rock. I’ll explain more later, maybe when we’re home, but it all comes back to her. I need Maria – plenty people do – and she’s got to be protected.’ For the first time since they had sat down, Flemyng was aware of the weight on Abel’s back. ‘This means everything.’

When they left the café after thirty minutes or so, and set a course for Whitehall, they had the chance for some quiet, serious words. ‘You always knew that this wasn’t about an ambassador, didn’t you?’ said Abel.

‘I assumed from the start that it was bigger.’

Abel said, ‘You’re right, and painfully so.’

Flemyng looked at him. ‘I know our pride’s involved. Yours too?’

After a pause, Abel said, ‘And how. You know how we are… same as you but worse. You’ll find out why. But you’ve got to get there on your own.’

Then they had to split up. The crowds were swelling on the pavements. Abel said he’d like to walk, clear his head. ‘But I’ve got a suggestion about somewhere we might visit over lunchtime if our timetable holds.’ When he explained where and why, his brother smiled and thanked him. ‘Of course. I wouldn’t have thought of it. Thanks.’ Abel clasped his hands in a signal of satisfaction, raising them in a boxer’s salute. First, Flemyng would spend an hour or so in his office, getting rid of as much paper as he could. They’d meet at the door to the cabinet office in Whitehall at a quarter to ten. Sorley would come first, and then Ruskin. Neither of them would know why.

‘First time we’ve done this together, right?’ said Abel.

‘That hadn’t occurred to me,’ said his brother.

They exchanged a smile. For a few minutes they spoke of how it might be done, played a few tactical games. Then, without warning, Abel turned into the crowd and was gone.

Flemyng walked through the courtyard to the corner door, and took the stairway up to his office. He asked Lucy to come in, and to shut the door behind her.

She spoke first. ‘Please tell me more. Where is this leading?’

And for the first time in the crisis, he seemed to Lucy to deny her a glimpse into his thoughts. ‘I can’t, no. But it will soon be over. That’s all.’

Turning away from her towards the window, and missing her expression of pain, he spoke as if to himself.

‘Something struck me out there,’ he said. ‘I was in the square, then in Whitehall and the crowds. But nobody out there – not a single soul – has the slightest notion of what we’ve been living through. They haven’t heard a whisper. It’s odd, because this may turn out to be the most important day I’ve had in politics. Who knows?’

Lucy watched him from the back, said nothing.

‘Here we are, with all this stuff.’ He gestured to the towers of paper on his desk, the two red boxes on the floor with the files slipping out, the tray with the heap of telegrams, the phones that could connect him to anyone, anywhere. ‘The people in the office. Our tower of Babel.

‘And it’s such a very private life.’

24

Their preparations were nervous. Paul was groping for an anchor of normality. Having been introduced to Abel, he spoke with exaggerated formality as if he were trying to persuade the brothers that he was convening a meeting about budgets or appointments, not death.

‘Let us remember,’ he began, ‘that we are dealing here with a demise brought on by a man’s own weakness, and that it is a tragedy. Our concern for the other events with which Joe Manson found himself connected must not wipe that fact from our minds. We simply need to know whom he met, and why. We shall then know why he came, whether the story I have been given about a serious personal accusation is true, and whether or not it has any public implications or significance for us beyond the fact that it has occurred. There, our remit ends.’

Flemyng, sitting in the chair by the window which had become so familiar to him in recent days, knew that Paul feared he might no longer be able to keep order in an office where it was everything. As a consequence, he was desperate to set limits. Flemyng understood the alarm and felt its grip, but it was not unwelcome to him. Part of him had come to love the fear.

Abel, across the room, carried the air of sober relaxation that served him so well. Flemyng understood that his brother had knowledge that was denied to him and to Paul, and wondered whether it would emerge in the next few minutes. He watched Paul, whose eyes were on Abel, and tried to organize in his mind the questions that might take them to the next stage.

He found as he did so that in his mind’s eye he could see Lucy reading the letter for the first time, hear her quiet in-breaths of astonishment. Several times in the past few days he had felt anger rising inside him at the cruelty he’d seen on the page; at this climactic moment he was able to keep it down. Panic would put everything at risk.

One of Paul’s phones rang.

‘This is a surprise,’ they heard him say. He chewed a lip and fidgeted in his chair. ‘How bad?’ Abel glanced at his brother.

Paul was pulling at his neck, shaking his head. ‘It’s not good, but I suppose there’s nothing we can do. Say I’ll be in touch later today.’ He dropped the phone into its cradle, seeming to resist at the last moment a temptation to slam it down.

‘Sorley’s office. Apparently he’s in a desperate state. His wife has rung in, worried to death. Hasn’t slept, she’s given him some pills and refused to let him leave the house. We thought we’d managed the public climbdown on his bill pretty well – exceptionally so, I’d say, and he’s bloody lucky – but it’s hit him hard. So he’s off parade this morning. I’ll insist on seeing him this afternoon instead.’

Meanwhile, there was Ruskin in an hour. Paul said that while they waited he could pass on some more detail on the last sightings of Manson.

‘We’ve been sweating the police who were on duty in the parliamentary precincts on Wednesday and Thursday and I have learned two things. The trouble is that security is such a shambles… You’d think with the bomb threats and so on they’d have got the point – security cameras or something. Maybe one day. But we do have some information.’

Abel was closer to him than Flemyng, and Paul chose to look him in the eye.

‘Manson got into the building twice, once on Wednesday night, and again early on Thursday. He was seen by a duty officer at St Stephen’s entrance who noticed the jeans, assumed he was a tourist and directed him to central lobby. The previous night he went through Westminster Hall – told the officer he was interested in the history of the place – and he could have ended up anywhere if he had his wits about him. He didn’t mention an appointment, just ambled down the steps into the hall and wandered off.’

‘Twice?’ said Flemyng.

‘Definitely,’ Paul said. ‘It was him. We got a picture from the embassy – after a bit of pressure, and a little trouble – and the officers identified him.’

Abel spoke briefly, and they broke up, allowing Paul to make some phone calls. ‘You wouldn’t believe that business goes on as usual, but it does. Treasury taking advantage of the heat again, and getting the Home Office into a state.’

When they came together again the clock was sounding eleven. ‘Are we ready?’ said Paul. ‘Jonathan will be in the waiting room by now.’ The brothers rose and Abel left with Flemyng to take up position in the outer office. Paul pressed an intercom button and asked his secretary to show Ruskin in through the other door.

As he came in, Paul stood to greet him quite formally, and that was enough to establish the atmosphere.

‘Jonathan, please sit down. I’m sorry for the urgency but we do need to talk. It’s a matter that we’ll discuss with several others, too, in the coming days. You’re the first, that’s all. On hand as ever, and we’re very grateful.’

‘Sure. Always ready.’ Ruskin was smiling, shrugging, his long body loose and relaxed. Then he said, ‘We?’

Paul ignored the question. Ruskin had placed his briefcase on the floor, and loosened his green woollen tie, turning away for a moment to hang his light grey suit jacket on the coatstand beside the bookshelves.

‘What’s up?’ he said, folding himself into the chair facing the desk. ‘Need some help?’ He rested his hands firmly on its arms and leaned forward in his listening pose, body inclined slightly to one side. He wore a dazzling white shirt, and his hair was shining and perfectly groomed.

Paul used words designed to hit him amidships, because he had to see how he reacted. Any other way and he might be lost. ‘Jonathan, this is personal.’ For a public man, the dread phrase.

It was a test, but there was no sign of fear.

Paul was measured and gave no sign of agitation, although before the questions began he had reminded himself of the weakness of his position. They knew of a short phone call to Ruskin, nothing more: no evidence that he had spoken to Manson or met him, nothing that suggested contact had been made. There was nothing from fingerprints at the scene where the body had first been discovered. Osterley had confirmed as much, having taken a set from the desk in Ruskin’s office on Sunday evening. He had done the same operation in the offices of Brieve, Forbes, Sorley and Flemyng, with Paul’s reluctant blessing and without their knowledge. Nothing. They might as well have been on different continents when Joe Manson laid his last tracks on the earth. Yet this was bound to have the flavour of an interrogation.

Paul was flying half blind, with no vision of what lay behind the next bend. He knew for all but a certainty that Manson had phoned Ruskin’s number from a box near the Lorimer and that the call had lasted for only a minute or so. No more. Paul was full of jitters, but showed nothing.