The Madness of July (16 page)

He asked, ‘And what did the target do next?’

Paul clasped his hands together on the table, preparing himself. ‘We don’t know. I wish we did.’

Gwilym said, ‘So do we all, so do we all,’ resuming his gravedigger’s commentary.

‘From then on,’ said Paul, ‘he rather slipped under the radar.’

Flemyng said, ‘You mean there’s no information at all.’

‘Yes.’

And Gwilym said, ‘God Almighty,’ as if he had known nothing of it.

Despite Osterley’s care, and perhaps generosity, in editing out of the script the first discovery of the body, they had no choice but to return to the subject. Flemyng watched for Osterley’s response.

Paul said, ‘Manson wasn’t seen again after that lunch on Wednesday until he was found, for the first time, in the parliamentary precincts on Thursday morning.’ A glance at Osterley, no more. ‘I hope you are following me. There were drugs on the scene. A syringe.

‘The medic who had a look at him before he was… taken… I’m referring to the first discovery,’ Paul found it hard to leave anything unsaid, ‘is apparently convinced that he died of an overdose. Probably a long-time user. Anyway – not much doubt.

‘But the first people couldn’t do a great deal – couldn’t intrude, so to speak – bearing in mind that he had to be found again. Properly.’ He gave an unnatural, nervous cough. ‘Our man couldn’t leave any traces. He did say rigor mortis was only just beginning to set in, so the victim died on Thursday morning. Not before.’

No one in the room asked for more detail.

Paul added, ‘I wish I didn’t know this, but I can’t pretend that I don’t.’ His first concern was to avoid breaking the rules, let alone the law, but the speed of events had left him on the back foot, for the only time that Flemyng could remember. ‘Here’s our problem. We don’t know the circumstances in which he died. That’s the truth of it.’ He gave a sudden, loud sigh. ‘Had he spoken to anyone? Why had he gone there in the first place? What was his game?

‘The syringe was nearby and had his fingerprints on it, I’m told. Just what you would expect. It was on a bookshelf. But where we go from here, I’m not sure.’ He looked towards Flemyng.

‘God save us,’ said Gwilym, still flailing around, despite having heard everything for a second time.

‘Let me spool back,’ Paul said. ‘In McKinley’s room, we found his real passport in a pile of clothes. It confirmed that he was the person who had used the McKinley one before. A Mr Manson. As the Chief Inspector said’ – a glance at Osterley – ‘we’ll hang on to that for a little. The Americans will be up to speed by now, and dealing with it in their own way, I’ve no doubt. The police officers who found his body – the second discovery – never saw the other passport so he remains McKinley to them. There were drugs of various kinds, I’m told. I haven’t heard of any of them. The syringe, of course. Wallet and keys. A small leather notebook. And that’s about it.’

He looked at Flemyng, to pass the silent message that Osterley had agreed that there was to be no mention of his own phone number. Another gesture. No matter that everyone in the room was aware of the piece of paper that had been fished out of the dead man’s pocket at the first discovery, the deal was that it would not, as Gwilym had put it to Paul, be placed on the table for all and sundry to peruse at their leisure.

Flemyng asked the question that Paul was expecting. ‘What does the notebook tell us?’

‘Quite a bit,’ said the policeman, and smiled.

There was a pause. Gwilym looked to be imagining the scene in the back of the van with no windows, transporting a stiffening corpse wrapped in blankets despite the heat, through the streets of London to a hotel where a second team of dark servants in overalls would be holding open a service lift, perhaps forming another bearer party and clearing the way to whisk it upstairs to its new resting place. He was sitting quite still, with his head at an artificial angle looking straight ahead, and Flemyng caught the shake in both hands.

‘I made arrangements, I should say right now, for the notebook to be given to me. In other words, it was not taken to Kensington police station with the other personal effects. That seemed the obvious course in the circumstances. It will not appear on the list of items found at the scene. Just like his real passport.’

For a fair man, Paul’s face had taken on a strangely dark look. His forehead was lined, his short hair ruffled as if he had been wakened from a deep sleep. ‘Tell us, Jarrod. I should perhaps warn you both’ – a gesture to Flemyng and Gwilym – ‘that there are some disturbing entries in that notebook.’

Flemyng waited.

‘For example, in relation to one senior civil servant in particular. His name and private office number. All underlined. He has a page of the notebook to himself.’

Looking miserable, he said, ‘Tom Brieve.’

Another heaving sigh from Gwilym, who was producing a chorus of groans while lighting another cigarette. Flemyng had never seen him smoke, and such was the surprise of it that it seemed as if Gwilym was now operating in another dimension.

‘Brieve.’ Flemyng’s voice was flat and gave no hint as to whether he was surprised or not.

Paul said, ‘I’ve spoken to Tom. He’ll soon be on his way to Paris for the conference, with pretty well everyone in this whole place. But not until the morning. He has a dinner tonight, apparently.’ He then swept his hand high. ‘He has explained to me,’ this with a careful glance around the room, taking in everyone, ‘that a call did come into his office from a man who called himself Manson. His real name, as we know. One of Tom’s secretaries took the message. Manson wanted to have a conversation, and mentioned the name of a congressman in Washington whom Tom knows, saying he was the conduit who had suggested the call. Didn’t say what he wanted to talk about.

‘I should say here and now that with some effort we contacted the congressman in question last evening and he knows nothing of Manson, nor of the supposed introduction to Tom Brieve, and is as mystified as we are. It was a tale Manson told for his own purposes. I need hardly say that the congressman is neither aware that Manson is dead, nor of the nature of our interest. He will doubtless have forgotten it all by now. Let’s hope so. The boys in the Washington embassy handled it well.’ As always with Paul, praise where it was deserved.

‘The long and the short of it is this. He wanted to speak to Tom Brieve himself, but the conversation didn’t take place. Tom’s secretary told Manson to ring back the next day, put a brief note on Tom’s daily list and says he thought no more of it. Put it out of his mind. And, of course, Manson didn’t get in touch again.’

‘For reasons we know,’ said Gwilym, with another sigh.

Paul was on his feet, a straight-backed figure beside the high white marble fireplace, his hand resting on the mantel. ‘So there we have it. We know who he was.’

Gwilym said with relish, ‘A spy.’

Paul ignored him, and resumed.

‘He was proposing to speak to an official in the most important office in this government, had got himself into parliament for reasons we don’t understand, and ended up dead in a cupboard, apparently having taken too many drugs. And as to the question why, we don’t have a sliver of an answer. Except that we can assume he wasn’t here on holiday.’

‘Or for the good of his health, you might say,’ said Gwilym. Paul breathed hard.

‘Jarrod, thank you. Let us know when you learn more.’

As Osterley departed, Paul turned to face the others. Flemyng was in front of him, Gwilym still in his chair by the window.

Paul went back to the desk and perched on one of its corners, one foot just touching the floor. ‘Will, this is the oddest business I have ever known. Grisly, dangerous, you name it. Politically – explosive, though it’s not a word I like. As I indicated yesterday, I need you to help in any way you can. And since then, as we have heard, it has taken another nasty turn, towards Brieve’s office. You have to pitch in, full tilt.’

‘We’re in it up to our necks,’ put in Gwilym.

Paul ignored this, and carried on. ‘Your boss won’t know, Will. He’s away anyway. No one, not your colleagues, not your old friends elsewhere – Gwilym here, that’s all. As I told you before, not another soul in this building, from the highest to the lowest. I’ll tell you what I can.

‘The body’s the least of it.’

Flemyng moved quickly to pin him down. ‘What do you mean by help, exactly?’ he said. ‘And pitching in?’ He pulled himself up and, Gwilym also having risen, joined them at the desk, straightening his jacket as he did so.

‘As I said last night, I want you to delve into your past a bit, wherever it might take you. I don’t need to know all the details. But I’ll protect you if you need that,’ Paul told him.

He did also offer a smile. Gwilym didn’t. He was still trembling, and had left several cigarette ends in a heavy ashtray beside his chair. He was watching Flemyng closely, head cocked to one side in a manner that looked affectionate.

Paul said, ‘We don’t exactly look like the Three Musketeers, do we?’ That did bring a flicker of a grin from Gwilym. ‘But we’re going into battle, I suppose, together.’

At this, Gwilym produced a moment of unintended and touching comedy. He stood to attention, as if in response to a command, his shirt ballooning out of his trousers and his tie at half-mast. He pushed a hand through his hair, stirring up the blond thatch. ‘Come on, Will,’ he said, raising both arms like a nervous conductor.

For Flemyng, the minute or so that followed this display of innocence and supplication had the intensity of some vision come upon him in the night, vivid enough so that the shapes and colours of the faces and places that he saw were imprinted on his mind, where they would remain, clear and seductive, through the days that lay ahead. Paul understood that he felt the pull of the old game with Sam and the others; understood all the confidences they would share and the secrets they would have to keep. Flemyng was thinking, too, of Lucy hunched over a letter that was taking her into the dark heart of his trade, and a picture of a brother in happier days flashed on his mind, unprompted. Then home, where he was bound that night.

‘Paul,’ he said. ‘You know that I’m due to go north later. Last flight to Edinburgh. I’ve got a little fishing planned at home, then the speech in St Andrews on Sunday. Should I go? I’ve got today, can make some progress first.’

Paul said, ‘Go. That’s where you think best. It’s your brain I need, Will, not your swordstick. Prowl around today, talk, then take yourself home. We’ll speak tomorrow and meet here again late on Sunday, if that suits, take it from there. Things will have moved on by then. No doubt you will have had some conversations of your own.’

Flemyng was with him and they locked eyes.

‘Get into this, as best you can. I’ll talk to Tom Brieve again. You’ll bump into all the others who’re involved in bits of the business, but they’re not to know. The police will have to go through the usual stuff, although it will be as discreet as they can make it. Let them do their own thing. We’re going to have to make the connections that may be beyond them.

‘That I hope are beyond them, I should say.’

Flemyng, who’d been managing his own fear for days, recognized in Paul the same determination to keep panic at bay, the effort to hold the temperature down, despite everything.

‘Better than being a minister, any day,’ said Gwilym, managing a laugh at last.

‘Mind you, you’ll have to carry on as normal,’ Paul said, having got up and moved back to the fireplace. ‘What you’re doing for me mustn’t show.’ Flemyng saw that the big clock on the mantel was signalling that it was nearly noon, its long filigreed hands almost on top of one another. In a moment there would be a chime to mark the height of the mad day, and from over the road they’d hear the deep boom of Big Ben counting them into the afternoon.

‘I have plans for this afternoon that may help,’ he offered.

Paul returned his smile with a nod of relief.

‘Will. Thank you. And it’s just like the old days. As I say, no one will know.’

Flemyng smiled at that. They shook hands, not without a little awkwardness, because Gwilym was getting into the swing of the adventure and seemed transformed. He did up his tie, stood straight, and for one brief moment seemed on a high. They broke up.

Flemyng knew what Paul wanted him to do. He walked to the courtyard outside his office, paused for a few minutes’ thought, then went upstairs to his desk and asked to be left alone, even by Lucy. On his private line, he dialled the number of Abel’s home in New York.

10

In Washington, Maria had spent the night on the edge of sleep, mostly awake. The figure of Joe seemed to be in the room and she felt she could have touched him, the playboy who conjured up moments of intensity that brought tears to the surface. He teased her, then drifted away. When the light did come and the phantom was gone, there was no chance of rest, and she set to work. She sent a short, careful message to Jackson Wherry about Abel, and learned that he would be welcome at dinner that evening in London. ‘Peter Lehman’ would have a place at a good table.

‘Time’s short, but we’ll play this for as long as we can,’ said Wherry when he called. ‘Old ways are best.’

Maria’s dark night had lifted. Abel would touch down soon, and set to work. She would be at her desk, and therefore by his side. Until then she had nearly two hours. She cooked a little breakfast, and heard Leila stirring in the bedroom. She had come to Maria very late, after Abel had gone. ‘Let’s go out, before the day begins.’

They took their bikes and headed west. After about fifteen minutes they chained them up at the canal and set off, occasionally hand in hand, their faces raised to a freshening wind.

They lived a life together that couldn’t be admitted, and few people in the city were trusted to share the knowledge. Even with some close friends, she deceived. In all her store of secrets, one of the richest hoards in a city where they were hidden all around, there was nothing that she wished more to release and let go. But the consequence of that hard discipline and the careful years they had shared was that their trust in each other, when they spoke of their work, was absolute. Neither had to enter into negotiation about the boundaries.