The Madness of July (34 page)

Lucy got up. ‘Thanks for telling me everything,’ she said. ‘It’s been good of you. I hope I’ve helped. I’ll do everything I can in the next day or two. We’ll get through all this. Don’t worry.’

Flemyng said, ‘I wish it was everything. I’m afraid it isn’t the half of it.’

He had his jacket on, and had locked his briefcase in the desk, straightened his papers and switched off the overhanging reading light beside him. ‘I’m going to leave my overnight box here. I’ll try to work through it early tomorrow. I know we’ll survive but don’t doubt how difficult it’s going to be. I may have to do something that destroys someone. Deceive others. Have you considered that?’

He went to the door. ‘And there’s some awful complicating stuff from the American end. Not to mention…’

‘… a body?’ she said, and Flemyng didn’t reply. She knew it all now, almost.

Lucy got up and straightened her clothes. She slipped on the sandals with wooden soles that she’d left under her desk, patted her tower of papers, clicked off her own desk light and moved to the office door beside him. ‘I’m afraid I’m enjoying this. Sorry.’

He laughed in relief.

Then, his last surprise of the day.

Lucy took his hand. She squeezed.

Oh, no, he thought to himself. Please, no.

Monday

20

In his room at the Lorimer, Abel prepared for the end game. It was his alone to begin, his own loyalty that he was about to test. His brother would understand when the time was right. Abel was confident, and placid in his own mind. He prepared with care, falling into a routine that in his mind was associated with every moment like this. He assumed that there was no physical danger attached, but he gave it the same respect that would be due to an enterprise in which caution governed every move, and where he was always aware of the darkness round the corner.

His message to Maria overnight had explained what he proposed to do, having judged that the moment had come. He had waited a long hour for the reply, sitting in the dark with just enough light from his bedside lamp to read the novel he had packed for the journey. He never left home without one, and a spare at the bottom of the bag in case he needed a change of scene. When the hotel put through the call from Washington, just before 3 a.m. in London, she spoke softly but with no hesitation. ‘You’re right. It’s time. Good luck.’

From habit, he laid out his things with care as he prepared to leave, just as he would if it was a room to which he knew he would never return. There was nothing that would identify him easily, and his few clothes were neatly stacked, the badge of the traveller who rarely stays long. Exercising for his standard ten minutes, he then indulged in a leisurely wet shave, taking care to find every tuft of stubble, and showered with vigour. He thought of Mungo and Will. The weekend had restored some of their closeness, and he wondered whether it would survive the events around them.

The trick was to make sure that nothing interfered with the openness they had rediscovered in the course of the family revelations; that it could survive the business that must be done. They could recover their intimacy without undoing everything that had made them who they were, each balancing the two lives that they cherished. He had his secrets, so had Will, and they were part of the brothers, as much as the texture of the old life Abel had been able to touch and savour at home, and which had moved him unexpectedly once again.

He was in Room 431 and passed Joe’s resting place on the way to the lift, offering a silent promise to his friend.

Abel was wearing a tan summer suit and light green cotton shirt, carrying no bag. Passing through the narrow lobby he seemed a traveller bound for an easy morning walk, with nothing pressing on his mind. He picked up a
Times
from the old paper seller on the corner and walked to South Kensington tube station to find his way to Victoria. His mind turned to the man with whom he would have breakfast. They had shared some merry times over the years, but their meetings were rare. Abel enjoyed his humour and understood his ruthlessness, which was what had drawn them together and offered them both an opportunity. He was confident of his ground, although the two had not talked face to face for a year or two. So it went. In his mind, he sketched out the delicate message that he would compose afterwards, which would require Jackson Wherry’s help.

Maria would be waiting. In his overnight message he had let her know his plans by using a name whose significance only she understood. In her phone call to send him on his way, she hadn’t asked him to take care, nor played the controller with advice, only reminding him gently that this encounter might decide the game. It was now the pre-dawn hour in Washington, and Abel doubted that she would be sleeping.

From the underground at Victoria, he walked two hundred yards to the red-and-white brick fastness of one of the 1890s mansion blocks that cocooned Westminster Cathedral. He remembered Mungo and Aeneas as he passed the Catholic church, and paused near the steps. But he had a timetable. Knowing precisely where he was bound, he identified the building and the bell with no trouble. Easing past a housekeeper polishing the thick glass windows on the front door and wishing her good morning, he rose in a clattering brass cage to the third floor where he knew he would have an hour. They began, as they always did when they met, with talk of Maria.

‘How’s my favourite Irishwoman?’

‘In the rudest health,’ said Abel. ‘Fighting the good fight.’

‘Aren’t we all?’ They sat on either side of a table set in a window bay, with coffee and orange juice, some pastries and a banana lying on each of their side plates like imitation weapons with which they might fight a children’s duel. They felt each other out, trying to judge the other’s mood. ‘Abel, you don’t age,’ his host said as they gossiped about government, elections, the people of politics and their foibles. An ambassador had been caught with his trousers down in Helsinki, a mutual friend in France had troubles that might be terminal. Abel learned little, but wasn’t pressing.

After a little while, he laid his wares on the table. ‘I wanted to see you alone, and here, because I have information to pass on. It will be useful to you, I hope, in the way that you’ve often helped me. Your people must learn about this. They need to know, but indirectly. That’s why I wanted to come here. You know I don’t often ask.’

The reply was quick. ‘Does it affect me directly?’ Nothing else. Abel had expected it, because he knew his man.

‘Maybe, but I can’t know. That’s a matter for you. Let me tell it in my own way. There is a guy from Washington whom I have no reason to believe you have met. He’s in town – or may be coming, I’m not sure – and I think he may contact you. You need to know that if he has done that, or is about to, it’s not at my request.’ Abel was alert for the slightest symptom of discomfort. There was none, only a hungry look.

‘Has anyone tried to reach you, privately, in the last few days? I’ll tell you why in a moment. Any American, using any name? A phone call to the office? An intermediary trying to arrange a meeting with you? A mention of my name, perhaps. Someone hanging around here, even?’

The answer was emphatic. ‘No.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Yes.’

Abel painted a picture of Joe, stripped of any glamour and even his name. There was enough to establish the importance of the episode, but not enough to adorn it with too much significance. He couched it in the context of Joe’s psychology, making it a mystery and not a thesis. ‘He has some knowledge that your people don’t have, but would benefit from.’ Abel, the agent of generosity. There was no mention of Joe’s death; he might have been cavorting down Victoria Street outside the flat for all Abel’s companion knew.

As he spoke, Abel was unable to resist the thought that his brother would have admired him at that moment.

The relationship between the two men at the breakfast table was marked by bursts of obvious camaraderie, because of the stakes for which they played, and moments of calm in which they appeared to be probing each other. His host disappeared to the small kitchen to make another pot of coffee, and broke the flow with some gossip while he was on his feet: a chance to draw breath. He spoke of summer storms and febrile parliamentarians. A shrinking budget and angry unions. A jumpy press. Back at the table, they resumed, in the more serious mood they had both adopted simultaneously, knowing that the purpose of the encounter must be revealed.

‘We think a little storm is coming your way, building up,’ Abel said. He thought of Maria’s hurricane and how much more danger it posed than his friend could know. ‘It’s a very British one, if I may say so. Sex.’

His friend leaned back and sighed, ‘Carry on. I can’t wait.’ They laughed together.

‘It’s old, but alive. There is talk in Washington of an affair that has sprung back to life after years. No names for you, because I don’t have them, but there’s a suggestion – no more – that it touches your government at its heart.’ He continued for five full minutes, mingling the few facts that poor Joe had carried to his death with a few speculations of his own to muddy the waters. When he finished, satisfied that he’d spun a beguiling yarn, he said, ‘I’m telling you this because we’ve exchanged a few favours over the years’ – his friend smiled – ‘and I think this is one where I can help you. I don’t expect to hear any more about it, incidentally, because it’s not my business. For what it’s worth, it’s all yours.’ A gift.

Across the table, he detected relish and amusement. No agitation, but the beginning of excitement.

Abel knew these moments well. He had planned to get one question answered on his visit, and one alone, after he had handed over his polished gemstone, and took the temperature to decide when was the right moment to cast his fly. After nearly an hour, his story told and some mild gossip offered in return, he moved.

‘One of you is coming to Washington, we know. Is it you?’

His directness was evidently no surprise. But the answer had a regretful tone. ‘As things stand, seemingly not. But the deal isn’t done. You never know. Will Flemyng’s in the frame, I hear. Not what he wants, and I know there are those who’ll do their best to stop him if it’s in the works. Maybe they’re busy already. Can’t quite believe in Flemyng myself – you do know him, don’t you?’ Abel shrugged. ‘I’m still trying as best I can. I may still be in play. Just.’

‘Good luck,’ said Abel, leaning in close. ‘It would be fun, wouldn’t it?’

‘Pity you can’t help,’ was the response. It was almost pleading.

‘Wrong government,’ said Abel. They both laughed, and it was time to go.

They parted at the lift, his host raising an arm in farewell as the grille clanked shut and the cage slipped down.

Abel noticed outside, as he walked towards the station, a government car drawing up outside the door of the block he had just left. Just made it, he thought. Like Lawrence, all the drivers were on time.

21

‘Time to tell?’

Francesca’s first words, when he’d arrived home from Paul’s office after midnight, but they had agreed that he needn’t begin his story until the morning, and she’d made the offer of a drink instead. A peace offering. They opened the garden windows and sat outside, enjoying the lingering warmth and speaking quietly in the dark. She talked of the coming end-of-season performances at the opera house, their plans for Scotland in August, and there was no politics, save mention of a phone call that afternoon to her from Jonathan Ruskin. ‘Nothing to bother you with if you were late, he said. We had a long gossip. Fun, as usual. But poor Harry Sorley’s in a mess, Jonathan says. Wife in meltdown.’ Then she steered away again, knowing that Flemyng might begin to sink into a troubled mood again. ‘Let’s carve out some time together next weekend. OK?’

He said he would.

‘I’m still a little angry.’

‘I know.’

They went to bed, each aware that the morning would bring revelation. As the night took hold she was aware that he was awake, and didn’t say a word. Then, around two o’clock, the phone rang. Flemyng was out of bed and downstairs as if he had been waiting for the call. Francesca lay still, wondering if she should go to the stairs in the hope of hearing something. She resisted when she heard him close the living room door.

Flemyng, sitting in the corner by the front window near his bookcase, was speaking quietly. Picking up the receiver, he had heard a voice from long ago. ‘Old friend,’ it said, in English. ‘Thank you for thinking of me at a difficult time.’

They spoke for fifteen minutes. As the conversation ended, Flemyng said, ‘I’m so sorry.’

Upstairs, he told Francesca that he couldn’t discuss the call, only that it was business. She understood, she said, and they tried to sleep.

When they were awake, just after six, and lying in the bright light that streamed through the window, he accepted that the time had come.

‘I’m going to start with home,’ he said.‘The business that Mungo wrote to me about is more complicated than I’d thought. Terribly simple, too. Our mother had an affair for years and years. He was an American, and we don’t know when it started, which means there may be a lot we don’t know about ourselves.’ There it was.

She put an arm round him. ‘My poor Will.’

He rolled over in bed to face her. ‘But that’s not why I’ve been so down. In fact, it’s lifted me up in a strange kind of way. I’m awake again. You’ve noticed how I’ve been, haven’t you?’

She laughed at him for the first time in days. ‘Noticed? I’ve never known you like you’ve been in the last two or three weeks. I think it’s only fair that I hear why. I’ve been worried silly. So, please, tell me.’

‘It’s a puzzle, but I’ll try to explain it,’ he said. ‘And I’ll give you one word to start with, the one you heard at the opera house. Berlin. It’s a good beginning, because that’s the strangest place I know. You’ve never been, and I’ve never explained properly what it feels like – frozen in time but still the most unstable thing you’ll ever touch.’ He spoke of a place boiling with politics and intrigue, never stopping, not just the wall and the wire and the scars, armies staring each other down, the thumping hangover of unsettled business. ‘All of us saying we want it to come to an end, although most of the time we believe it never will, and feeling relief because we can’t imagine anything else. We don’t like the unknown, but we should.’