Almost a Crime (29 page)

pitched braying voice, thought that she must have been

quite pretty once, that really she was his least favourite sort

of person. Snobbish, prejudiced, foolishly worthy: then he

remembered the-‘small Megan, sitting in her wheelchair at a

previous meeting, handing out stickers at the door, her

large eyes fixed trustingly on her mother’s face as she spoke,

and felt ashamed of himself.

The hall — attached to a Methodist church — was only

about a third full; mainly with middle-class women, a

handful of husbands, and a small group of the local green

contingent — young men with beards and sandals, young

women with trailing hair and skirts and a lot of silver

jewellery.

Gabriel was suddenly jolted, with a force that he felt

physically, into a state of acute and pleasurable awareness,

half sexual in character, half cerebral, by the appearance of a

woman in the doorway of the hall: the woman he had met

three days earlier in the sunlit heart of Bartles Wood; the woman he had at once so disapproved of and enjoyed; the woman who had occupied a sufficient area of his consciousness

for him to know almost without looking at her that

her hair was dark and heavy, and swung just short of her

narrow shoulders, her eyes were large and very deep

brown, her jawline exceptionally well defined and set in

what seemed permanent determination; that she was small

and more than averagely slim, that she had very beautiful

hands; that her breasts were small - had he really noticed

them? Yes, it seemed he had - and her legs extremely good;

that—

‘Mr Bingham, could I introduce Octavia Fleming? She’s

involved with Foothold, a charity I am very close to, and

has become interested in our attempts to save Bartles

Wood. Octavia, this is Gabriel Bingham, our local MP.’

And ‘Yes,’ they said, at the same time and then she

laughed and he smiled. ‘We’ve met before.’

‘Where in God’s name do you think she’s gone, Marianne?

I really am terribly worried. If you could have heard her

this morning …’

‘Felix, I have no idea. I’m sorry. Doesn’t the nanny

know?’

‘Apparently not. Just said she’d gone out, that she was

going to be back very late.’

‘Well,’ said Marianne, ‘if Octavia is able to go out, there

can’t be anything very wrong with her. Now could I

suggest—’

‘That’s a rather naive assumption, I think. She could

be anywhere, anywhere at all, driving round, feeling desperate

…’

‘Had she been home?’

‘No.’

‘And Tom’s not there?’

‘He’s in Oxford. He’s always away, never at home when

he’s really needed …”

‘Felix, that’s hardly fair. Tom works terribly hard, he has

a very demanding business to run.’

‘I also have a demanding business to run. Even more so in the past. And if Octavia needed me, I made sure I was

there.’

‘But that was when she was a child, for heaven’s sake,

she’s—’ Marianne managed with great difficulty not to

finish her sentence.

‘That’s not the point. Anyway, as you reminded me

recently, she is now Tom’s responsibility. One he seems to

be totally neglecting. I have called him three times today,

told him how upset Octavia was, he’s ignored all my calls.

What’s going on?’

Marianne’s resolve snapped totally. ‘Felix, please stop

this. Octavia is Tom’s wife. When are you going to realise

that? So she’s upset. I get upset sometimes, you do,

everybody does. Just leave her alone, leave them both

alone. And while you’re about it, leave me alone as well.

I’m trying to have a peaceful evening.’

She put the phone down, finding herself enragingly near

to tears for the third time that day. It wasn’t like her, she

thought, blowing her nose, it wasn’t like her at all. Her cool

self-control seemed to have deserted her. She tried not to

think why.

‘Well,’ said Octavia briskly, as she and Gabriel stood rather

awkwardly outside together, ‘I suppose I’d better get back

to London.’

‘Where’s your car?’

‘There,’ she said, slightly shamefaced.

‘The Range Rover?’

She looked at him. He was smiling — just — but his eyes

were quite hard. Irritation sawed at her. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘I

think you’ve got me a bit wrong. I really do.’

‘And how do you think I’ve got you?’

‘As a rich, spoilt townie wife, playing Lady Bountiful,

taking up a rather attractive, trendy cause, and then roaring

back up to my London house and getting on with my own

expensive life.’

‘Well, that’s how it looks, I must admit.’

‘It’s so unfair,’ she said, trying to keep her voice calm. ‘I

really care about the wood. And I actually work very hard,

you know.’

‘Very commendable,’ he said, heavily polite.

‘Oh, stop it!’ she said, the strain and misery of the day

breaking over her. ‘It just might interest you to know, in

your pompous self-satisfaction, that my husband referred to

you as a Bollinger Socialist. Which on the surface sounds

actually quite fair to me. You went to Winchester and then

Durham. Hardly bastions of underprivilege.’

‘How do you know that?’ he said, genuinely astonished.

‘I looked you up. I was — interested,’ she said, irritated

with herself now, ‘having met you.’

‘And why on earth should your husband have a view on

me? What does he actually do, this husband of yours?’

‘Oh, he’s in — in marketing. What are you doing here

anyway?’ she said suddenly. ‘It’s the middle of the week,

you should be at Westminster.’

‘I had to come down to see a hospital consultant.

Nothing interesting, I’m afraid, old sports injury, and I’m

safely paired. I shall be back in the morning, and—’

‘Octavia! Good night, and thank you so much for

coming. And for everything. Your little speech was

wonderful, we thought. Really wonderful. Such passion.

And — and would it be all right now to tell people you’re

involved?’

Octavia looked at Pattie David, and then up at Gabriel

Bingham’s politely cynical face. Until that moment her

courage had been wavering. Even then she might have held

back; but behind the cynicism, which she devoutly wished

to confound, she recognised something else: recognised it

and greeted it with the same from herself.

‘Yes,’ she said firmly, ‘it would be perfectly all right.

Good night, Pattie. Good night, Mr Bingham. I’m sorry we

can’t talk more.’

She half ran forward, climbed into her car, revved it up,

drove rather fast out of the car park. She wanted to get

away: quickly. She pulled out into the road, turned sharply

left — she had come in from the right, she was sure — drove down the road to a crossroads, went straight over it and

found herself looking at sign that read ‘Felthamstone

Industrial Estate’.

‘Damn,’ she said, going into reverse, yanking on the

steering wheel to turn the car, and then finding the road

blocked by a rather elderly Golf. Gabriel Bingham was

getting out of it.

‘Good thing you’ve got power steering,’ he said, and

started laughing. ‘No, no, don’t look like that. I came after

you to say I was sorry, and also to put you on the right road.

I was extremely rude, and it was unforgivable. And Mrs

David was right, your speech was wonderful. It even

affected me, and God knows I should be immune to the

things. Now, could I buy you a glass of orange juice or

something before you set out for London? I’d make it

Bollinger, but of course you have to drive …’

‘It is a loathsome phrase,’ he said, setting a glass of tomato

juice in front of Octavia, settling himself beside her. There

wasn’t a lot of room on the bench; his long body was rather

close to hers.

‘Sorry. Bit of a,,squash. Shall I sit opposite you instead?’

‘No, it’s fine;’ she said, and meant it. ‘What’s a loathsome

phrase?’

‘Bollinger Socialist. We all hate it. And it is unfair. I can’t

help my background, any more than you can. All I’ve done

is see sense, moved away from it.’

‘And you never utilised it? You’ve never utilised your

education, your accent, your — your self-confidence, your

ability to express yourself?’

‘Yes, of course I have,’ he said, looking at her in genuine

astonishment. ‘I use them to get things done for the people

who haven’t got those things. That’s the whole point.’

‘And where do you live?’ she said. ‘Down here, I mean?

In a high-rise flat in Bristol city centre? In a squat in

Warminster?’

‘A squat in Westminster. During the week. But no

actually, I have a small house in Bath.’

‘Oh, really? In Bath? So not a high-rise, then. A

Georgian cottage is it, perhaps? Or a little terrace house?’

‘It’s a terrace, yes. You are a funny lot,’ he added,

shaking his head, smiling at her, ‘you Tories.’

‘Why do you think I’m a Tory?’

‘Well, aren’t you? What did you vote?’

‘I’m a Socialist. I voted for Blair, of course.’

‘That’s not—’ he said and stopped himself.

‘Not Socialism?’ she said, laughing, ‘Oh dear, Mr

Bingham. I hope that was the bitter talking. What a terrible

thing to say. I must tell my husband.’

‘That is not what I was going to say at all,’ he said, his

untidy face slightly pompous suddenly. ‘The fact is that

probably half the people who voted us in are Tories at

heart. Next time round they’ll go back to the fold. You

will, I daresay. Where do you live?’

‘Kensington,’ she said. ‘And don’t start again. Let’s talk

about Bartles Wood. How do you really feel about it? Off

the record?’

‘Off the record, I’m undecided. It’s a bit like the

grammar schools. Marvellous if you can enjoy them, worse

than nothing if you can’t. And this chap, Carlton, who’s put

in the application, you know, he’s talking about a

community centre with—’

‘Facilities for the disabled.’

He stared at her. ‘You have gone into it very thoroughly.’

‘Well,’

she said quickly, ‘I’m interested.’

‘And?’

‘I’ll believe in those facilities when they’re there and

being used — and what use are they anyway, so far from a

town centre? Anyway, what about you? What’s the official

party line on it?’

‘The rule of thumb is, permission gets granted where

there’s a need. There usually is.’

‘Oh, really? What about the Newbury bypass? Everyone

said a much smaller scheme would have done, they could have saved the water meadows. What about Bath?’

‘The Tories were in then,’ he said. ‘Absolutely not

guilty.’

‘Okay. What about Manchester airport?’

He smiled at her. ‘You really do mind about all this,

don’t you?’

‘Yes. I told you, I told you all in my speech, I love

England, I love the countryside, I love lanes and woods and

streams and hedgerows. Soon they’ll all be gone. Buried in

concrete boots. With lorries thundering over them. This is

such a tiny country. We have to do what we can to save it.

And you, Gabriel Bingham, you could do so much. If you

wanted to.’ She stopped and looked at him. ‘Do you want

to?’

‘I’m not sure. Politics isn’t about emotion, it’s about

facts.’

‘There should be emotion as well. Emotion and passion.’

‘Emotion gets in the way of truth. Politics is a science,

not a humanity.’

‘So you’re not going to let your heart rule your head?

Not even to a small degree? Over so important a matter?’

‘Now why do you think my heart believes in saving

Bartles Wood?’ said Gabriel Bingham, smiling at her.

‘I know it does,’ said Octavia simply. ‘I met you there,

remember?’

‘Yes, actually, I do,’ he said and the hazel eyes on hers

were thoughtful, thoughtful and very serious suddenly. ‘I

remember it very well …’

In the finest suite of the Buchan Hotel (slightly flashy, very

luxurious, on the edge of the Cotswolds), champagne on

ice, Tiffany necklace in its turquoise box by the bed, Tom

Fleming was waiting for the phone call that would tell him

his guest had arrived, unable to decide if he was in heaven

or hell. He looked longingly at the vast round bath, with its

Jacuzzi jets. That would relax him. But she would arrive

any moment, and he wanted to be totally ready for her, totally in control from the moment she arrived. It was difficult to be in control if you were naked and wet. Unless,

of course, you were both naked and wet. Later they would

undoubtedly both be in the bath, and that would be glorious. It would all be glorious — for a while. Meanwhile , he would have to wait.

He looked at the Tiffany box, with its white ribbon; he

I was a little worried about that, about so incriminating a

I present, but it seemed an occasion for grand gestures. He

[ had paid cash for it, as he always did. As he did for the

I hotels and the restaurants. And under the circumstances,

perhaps, worth the risk. Christ, he hoped it was going to be

all right …

The room phone rang fiercely through the silence.