A Little White Death (17 page)

‘And?’ he prompted.

‘Perfectly simple. House rules. We all watch. If we want to.’

Troy began to realise he’d had a lucky escape. Thank God Anna had begun by asking for separate rooms. Thank God for her indecision, her lack of foresight, her impulsive actions. If Fitz
had thought they had . . . God knows?

‘But . . . Woodbridge isn’t playing the game. Bastard.’

‘Has he ever?’

‘Oh yes.’

Troy trod carefully through the next sentence.

‘Perhaps . . . perhaps it’s me?’

‘Oh good Lord. Are we back to you being a copper already?’

‘Looks like it. Look at it his way. Would you want the brother of an Opposition MP hanging about? Would you want a Scotland Yard detective watching you fuck? Would you want him knowing you
fucked women half your age – and in pairs?’

This scarcely required thought, yet Fitz seemed to think about it.

‘It’s not illegal, is it?’

Good God, was the man really so naive?

‘I mean . . . as you say . . . looking at it from his point of view . . . I think I’d be more bothered by a reporter than a copper.’

‘If I were Woodbridge, I’d be bit more careful. If I were you, I’d be a bit more careful.’

Suddenly Fitz managed if not a sober moment – that was impossible – then a clear one. He leant in and spoke sharply to Troy.

‘Am I to take this as a warning, Commander?’

‘I wouldn’t put it that way.’

‘Am I to take it that your interest is professional?’

‘Knock it off, Fitz. You know damn well what I meant.’

Yet, clearly, the man didn’t.

‘It’s not illegal,’ he said again. ‘I’m doing nothin’ illegal.’

‘In your house, under your roof, as your guests, one of Her Majesty’s foreign ministers shares mistresses with Khrushchev’s embassy representative. A KGB colonel for crying out
loud! Can you imagine how that would look?’

A dreadful question formed itself in Troy’s mind.

‘They do know about each other? Don’t they?’

‘Of course. They’ve been here together half a dozen times. Never in the same bed, but then they’re both conservatives – if you see what I mean.’

‘Did they know I’d be here?’

‘Mmm . . . Tony did. Seemed quite pleased at the prospect of seeing you again. Tim didn’t, but that’s his fault. Never tells anyone when he’s coming. Sort of turns upon
Tommy – and he is, after all, Tommy’s guest not mine – at the last minute. He must take us as he finds us. I rather think he thinks you think he went home when old Tommy did. But
then, a good pussy always gets the better part of his discretion. A touch or a taste and the man’s senses all but desert him. He’ll probably slope off before dawn and assume you never
knew. Silly sod.’

Fitz picked up three or four wine bottles and plonked them down like a studious chess player until he found one half empty – or, as he most certainly saw it, half full. A plain white label
reading, ‘Le Chambertin 1952’. He paused to drink more and when he had drunk returned to the ragged ends of conversation and picked up a different thread.

‘You know, what you said about being bothered by reporters—’

‘I didn’t say that. You did.’

‘Did I? Anyway, there has been one.’

‘One what?’

‘Reporter.’

‘From which paper?’

‘
Post
.’

‘Did you get me here to tell me that?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘Do you know his name?’

It seemed as though Fitz might never speak. He downed another glass and sat staring at the empty vessel in his hand.

At last he said, no more than a surly, self-pitying mutter, the single word ‘Troy’.

And Troy was quietly furious with him.

‘So I’m not here because I’m a copper?’

‘Whoever said you were?’

‘I’m here because I’m a Troy.’

‘Right now, o’ man, I find myself wondering why we’re either of us here. But as I recall Anna wanted your company and I’m rather partial to your way with the
piano.’

He swayed drunkenly and braced himself, elbows on the table.

‘Alex. Alex Troy. Cousin perhaps?’

It crossed Troy’s mind not to answer and let him stew.

‘Nephew. My brother Rod’s son.’

‘Whatever . . .’ Fitz’s arm swept the table dismissively and sent two wine bottles spinning to the floor, ‘. . . whatever . . . he’s been . . . sniffing. Asking
questions in London . . . and in the village. Y’see, Woodbridge’s constitunency – ye gods, that’s a stinker to pronounce when you’re pissed – anyway the damn
thing is in the next county, in Kent, less than twenty miles away. It would have been no problem for this nephew of yours to have followed him here. Common knowledge he’s a friend of
Tommy’s, and he’s a patient of Anna’s, which ain’t common knowledge, but I suppose he has to work a few things out for himself.’

‘And he knows about Woodbridge and the Ffitch girls?’

‘Dunno.’

‘Does he know about Tereshkov?’

Fitz seemed suddenly reluctant to part with the information.

‘Does he?’

Still Fitz said nothing.

‘And I suppose you’d like me to have a bit of a chat with Alex? Convince him we’re all chaps in a chaps’ world and that some things might be better left unsaid –
or, should I say, unwritten?’

Fitz got to his feet, the pathetic beginnings of a drunken rage visible in his reddening cheeks, but he’d drunk too much to pull it off. Where there should have been temper there was only
tantrum, where he should have roared he could only squeak.

‘Look, Troy. I don’t need your help. I don’t need your protection. I did not get you here on false pretences. Any friend of Anna . . . oh bugger . . . oh bugger . . . got to
piss—’

He staggered off in the wrong direction, to the door of the sitting room.

‘Don’t need
your
protection. Ace in the fucking hole. D’ye hear me? Ace in the fffff . . . fffff . . . fffff . . .’

Troy followed and watched Fitz get as far as the large Knole sofa and pass out. He nudged him and called his name, but the man was already snoring. He went back through the dining room to the
kitchen, in search of the cold drink that had got him up in the first place.

Clover Browne stood in the open fridge door, swigging from a coke bottle.

‘Help yourself,’ she said and handed him the bottle.

She was bizarrely dressed for two in the morning – fur coat and wellington boots. Either she had not bothered to take off her make-up for the night or she’d just put it back on.

‘Love the dressing-gown,’ said Troy.

‘It’s not a dressing-gown. I’m off out.’

‘Out?’

‘Just a walk over the park. Wanna come?’

Troy looked through the open doorway, past the table, into the sitting room. All he could see were Fitz’s feet sticking out.

‘I wouldn’t worry about Fitz if I were you. Worst that’ll happen is he’ll wet ’imself. You gonna come or what?’

‘Why not?’ said Troy, and the part of his mind that thought came up with a dozen reasons why not, and the part of his mind that worked his legs and his groin did not hear them.

Crossing the open space of the croquet lawn a bird shrieked. Clover grabbed his arm with both hands.

‘Wossat?’ she said.

‘A little owl,’ said Troy. ‘Several little owls in fact. They’ll be out hunting this time of night.’

‘How little’s little? Like a sparrer?’

‘No. More like a pigeon. A fat pigeon.’

‘That’s what I hate about the bleedin’ countryside. All those things in the night that you can never see, and all those creepy crawlies that you can. I been comin’
’ere since last summer and I still can’t get used to it.’

‘City girl are you?’

‘Leave it out,’ she said.

They entered the ruins of Uphill House. Inigo Jones favoured high ceilings at the best of times, and with most of the upper floors missing, the view up two floors to the sky was like stepping
into a cathedral. The chimney stacks towered over them – stars motionless in heaven, a cloudless, clear night sky.

She led Troy to the far side of the ruin, treading across the broken shards of what Troy was sure had once been Jones’s highpitched roof. They came within sight of the north lodge. Lights
glowed upstairs and down. Someone on the first floor facing was fond of fresh air and had left a window wide open to the night.

Clover whipped off her coat. She was naked but for knickers.

‘Hang that up for me.’

A large rusty nail protruded from the wall. He looped the coat over it and turned back to her. She braced herself with one hand on his shoulder and kicked off her wellies. The knickers followed.
A thumb in the elastic to ease them off her hips, then she stepped neatly out of them.

Naked.

He stared.

Her flesh came up in goose pimples.

Stiff little nipples.

Blonde bush like whore frost.

‘You was wonderin’ weren’t you?’

‘Was I?’

‘“Is she a real blonde?”’

‘Never crossed my mind.’

‘Well – I am. Not like the twins, they’re not blondes. Out of a bleedin’ bottle.’

‘They’re not twins either.’

‘Come again?’

‘I’ve been around twins all my life. I grew up with twin sisters. I’d say there’s the best part of a year between Tara and Caro.’

‘Lyin’ tarts. Now – me coat pockets. Hand me the shoes and the mask.’

Troy rooted in the pockets of the fur coat, and found a pair of high heels and an operetta mask. The mask covered her cheeks and her nose, framed the mouth, buried the eyes in emphatic darkness,
gave wings to her ears.

‘Right. Gotta dash or the old sod’ll be wonderin’ where I got to. Tap tap at the bleedin’ window – “’Eathcliff it’s me” – silly old
sod.’

‘Lucky Tommy,’ he said.

‘Tommy?’ she said, and the inflexion baffled him, question or statement? ‘I should cocoa. Right, give us a kiss for luck.’ This embarrassed him more than her nakedness.
The thought that he had to move; even the mere stoop and turn of the head the gesture required held up a mirror to his foolish face. He felt he must be the colour of beetroot. He pecked her on the
cheek as dutifully as he could.

‘Nah. Not like that.’

She slipped her arms around his neck, slapped her lips on his, pressed her hips into his groin and snogged him – an overlong, overly wet juvenile kiss in best back-row-of-the-cinema
tradition. He came up instantly. The worst, the hardest of unbidden erections. It was impossible she would not notice. She pulled back, one hand reached down and squeezed his cock.

‘Now, now,’ she said. ‘Plenty of time for that later.’

Troy felt as though he had been scalded. He felt as he thought those fat, seedy, middle-aged men must feel in Soho strip joints, he felt as Charlie must have felt with his last whore, ashamedly
grubby, foolish to the point of stupidity, feeling the chasm that yawned between intelligence and cupidity. He ran all the way back. With any luck he’d never see that woman again.

Anna was in his bed. Her back to him, the lights out. Asleep, he hoped. By the time he had slipped silently between the sheets she had turned. Her hand slid across his chest,
brushed one nipple and came to rest on the flat of his belly. Had she felt his heartbeat, the unwilling suspension of his breathing? The hand slid on, wrapped around his cock. It came instantly to
life. She rose up without a word, slid onto it, braced her hands upon his shoulders and began to prise herself on him, off him, on him.

She was smiling sweetly. To herself, not at him. Her eyes were closed. He put a hand out to her breasts. She slapped it back, her eyes flashed once and closed again. Then, unbidden as all his
responses, the image of Clover Browne darted into his mind and he came.

Anna stopped. Waited while the gush spent itself inside her. Her eyes opened. He thought she’d be annoyed, but she was smiling still. She leant forward, nipples touching his chest, hands
buried in the pillow either side of his head, one finger tracing the outline of his ear.

‘Good Lord. What’s got into you?’

The nature of guilt eluded him. At the best or worst of times he felt so little of it that its occasional descent to his unwilling shoulders took him by surprise. He had fucked Anna twice, come
twice, whilst thinking of other women. The unfamiliar pattern of guilt flickered across his mind – a magic lantern light thrown upon a crumpled scrim, the shifting shadow of the demon faint
as Nosferatu – and disturbed his sleep. He did not know what to make of it. When he awoke it had gone, gone as though it had never been.

Scotland Yard was a complex structure. A complex structure rendered
complicated
by the legacy of recently retired Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Sir Stanley
Onions, KCMG, OBE. Onions had been Troy’s champion. Against the odds, and scarcely without wavering, but Troy’s champion all the same.

In 1944 Troy had blotted his copybook – been caught in possession of an illegal weapon, still working on a case Onions had told him to drop, and damn near killed in what Onions had called
‘a shoot-out at the OK corral.’ He had delayed Troy’s promotion by the best part of a year. In 1956 he had accepted an undated letter of resignation from Troy and simply sat on
it. It covered Onions for things Troy had done that he had thought it better not to know about. All he heard were rumours and Troy doubted very much whether Onions ever believed Troy was connected
with the disappearance of Inspector Cobb – but if Stan had really had an inkling Troy had killed Cobb, nothing on earth would have saved his skin. But rumour persisted without ever seeming to
gel. And Onions’ reaction to uncongealed rumour had been to promote Troy. As the cliché had it, he put his money where his mouth was. He promoted and he promoted and he promoted. By
the summer of 1961 Troy had risen to Commander of Criminal Investigation, in all but name Scotland Yard’s chief detective. Under him were all the arms of the CID responsible for investigation
of crime. And there they came unstuck.

‘What are you up to in Soho?’ Stan had asked one day late in 1961.

‘I need coppers. I can’t afford to waste them on the trivial.’