A Little White Death (59 page)

‘Chateau Margaux ’56,’ he said. ‘It’d only be coals to Newcastle. We might as well open it now and drink a toast to Mother England.’

Troy sort of knew what he meant, but did not ask any questions. He would be happy if a glass of Margaux proved to be his only distraction.

They each took a tea-chest. Bon viveurs at a moveable feast.

‘You’re looking better,’ said Woodbridge as he poured. Then he raised his glass, ‘Cheers,’ he said, and Troy took a swig of the finest claret he’d had in
quite a while. Then he said, ‘You know Clover’s dead?’

‘I heard it on the grapevine.’

‘You mean Anna told you?’

‘Yes. You did a good job keeping it out of the papers. Same night as Fitz, wasn’t it? Must have been awful for you. Dreadful coincidence.’

‘I’m a policeman. I have difficulty with coincidence.’

‘Is that what you’ve come to tell me?’

Troy told him everything he had told himself in the course of what already seemed to be an unending day, everything he had told Eddie, everything he had told Jack. He knew the lines by heart
now. The sad, confusing story of the death of Clover Browne. Sadder with every repetition.

Woodbridge heard him out as Jack had done – in silence, without question – then he said, ‘Are you seriously telling me you think the Home Secretary murdered Clover
Browne?’

‘Yes.’

‘On the strength of one ill-phrased remark?’

‘It said what he thought and what he knew. “She swallowed a handful of sleeping pills, then dashed off a couple of suicide notes.” I know you think the phrase is vague and
casual, but it remains. I never told anyone that Clover left two suicide notes. I thought I owed that to her grandfather.’

‘Who did the old boy turn out to be? Who is Sir Somebody Something?’

‘Stanley Onions.’

‘My God, Fitz played with fire, didn’t he?’

‘If there had been anything material in the note Clover left him he would have told me. And I would have told the Yard. As he didn’t, I let him have the last of his granddaughter in
privacy. Only three people knew she left two notes: Stan, me and the man who killed her. “A couple of suicide notes” is not a casual imprecision. It was Freud speaking, again Travis
said what he knew to be true even as he tried to lietome. And he knew it to be true because he was there when Clover wrote them.’

He was not at all sure that he had convinced Woodbridge. It all depended on what Woodbridge said next.

‘What do you want from me, Troy? What is it you want me to say?’

‘You knew Travis was staying at Tommy Athelnay’s. You’re the one person who had to know. He could not have spent that Sunday at the north lodge and not bumped into you –
he’d have had to hide in his room all day. He was a friend of yours. You have adjoining constituencies. You stood in for him at surgeries from time to time. Of course you knew he was there
– the two of you turned up together.’

‘Fine. He was there.’

It seemed to Troy to be a strangely confrontational answer, an unspoken but plain ‘so what?’

‘And Clover too.’

‘If you say so.’

‘No. I want you to say so.’

Woodbridge tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling. Troy could hear the raspof his breath, could almost feel the inner debate within the man.

‘Supposing . . . supposing I were to say that she was. Suppose I were to say that she and Travis had been having an affair since Christmas. Suppose that. What then?’

‘Then I would ask you to back me. To back me when I confront Travis.’

‘Oh God, Troy. I can’t do that. I don’t want to do that. Give me one good reason why I would ever do that?’

‘Clover’s dead. Fitz is dead.’

‘Neither you nor I can bring them back. And I don’t see that exposing Nick will do her one jot of good.’

‘He killed her.’

‘So it’s justice?’

‘Inasmuch as we can wield it, yes.’

Woodbridge sighed again.

‘I still cannot do what you ask. If I thought it would do anything for Clover or Fitz then . . . but I can’t . . . I can’t see the reason in it. He’s got away with
it.’

‘One good reason, you said. One good reason to back me.’

Woodbridge said nothing.

‘In 1957 you got up and lied to the House about Charlie Leigh-Hunt.’

‘Old news, Troy. We were all wrong about Charlie.’

‘And at the end of January this year you got up and lied to the House again when you told them Charlie had now been exposed as a spy by his defection to the Soviet Union. The Government
and the Opposition cut a deal not to debate the matter. Your version was accepted by both sides. And it was as big a lie as any you’ve told lately.’

‘Lies? Troy, it’s common knowledge the bugger’s in Moscow. He scarpered there from Beirut.’

‘He fled Beirut only after you’d been to see him at our embassy there. You spent a whole afternoon with Charlie before he got on that Russian freighter.’

‘What? What? Troy, are you trying to blackmail me?’

‘Charlie told me himself. He told me you came out to see him and told him it was all over for him and he should cut and run. But if that was all there was to it, why not just bumphim off ?
He could vanish without trace. Or why not simply send a junior intelligence officer. If the message was simply, “Bugger off ”, why did it take the time and effort of a Minister of
State? Why did it go to the highest level? Tim, when you told the House Charlie was not a Russian agent, you lied. When you told the House he was a Russian agent, you lied. Because the truth is
Charlie Leigh-Hunt is a triple agent. You went to Beirut to tell him it was time to go to Moscow. Sometime in ’57 SIS learnt what Charlie was and turned him. Charlie was a believer. You
people turned him into your whore. And he accepted it because it was marginally preferable to death. You let my brother think that Charlie was nothing more than a thoroughly discredited,
clapped-out old spy. You let Rod believe his career as a spook was over. The messy years between your endorsement and your exposure of Charlie were nothing more than an elaborate cover to fool the
Russians and keephim out of harm’s way. You put Charlie in the wilderness until they had no suspicions left, and at the right moment you placed him where you wanted him. Charlie is our new
man in Moscow. He whores for Britain. He whores for Russia, and he whores for Britain again. Right now I should think he’s about as sore as the junior bumboy in an English public school.
Charlie’s getting fucked up every orifice for Queen and Country. And if you do not helpme now, I’ll blow the whistle.’

For a moment Troy thought he had blasted Woodbridge off his tea-chest, but when he spoke his words were calm, his voice devoid of the anger Troy felt in spades.

‘Troy – be sensible. If you leak this you could do irreparable damage to the country.’

‘I don’t care.’

‘You’d be signing Charlie’s death warrant.’

‘I don’t care. I’d probably be doing him a favour.’

‘The Government would slap a D notice on it at the first whiff of a leak.’

‘Could you stopmy nephew when you wanted to? Do you think Alex won’t find ways of letting the truth be known? Do you think you could stopRod? If I tell Rod what I know, he’ll
bung in a standard, “What are the Prime Minister’s plans for the day?” at question time, and his follow-up will be, “Why was Tim Wood-bridge in Beirut the day Charles
Leigh-Hunt defected?” Try slapping a D notice on that.’

‘You think Labour will not recognise the national interest? Do you think Rod has no loyalty?’

‘Oh Rod’s got bags of the stuff. But how do you think Wilson’s going to react when he finds out you conned him? He’s a vain, pompous little prick. You didn’t see
fit to tell him the truth when you invoked the national interest. He’s priding himself on his ability to horse-trade, flattered that you took him into your confidence over a matter of
national security, pleased as punch to play hard-ball with the big boys, and suddenly he finds you worked a fast one on him? He’ll be furious. Labour will be furious. All deals will be off.
They’ll probably agree to keep it secret – they’ll still turn the Commons into open warfare. But Rod – Rod’s a believer in Love and Justice and Democracy. He hates
lies. Whatever new deals the Commons can cut in the national interest, Rod will brand you a liar in public all over again. You’ll be front-page news just when you thought your fifteen minutes
of infamy had passed.’

They passed an age in silence. It seemed to Troy that what Woodbridge had to say cost him dearly in the effort of expression.

‘You’re wrong. I know you’re wrong. You’re underestimating the way things hang together and you’re underestimating your own brother. But if you kick up any fuss,
there’ll be a scandal. That I will not deny. I don’t want another scandal, Troy. I don’t want to be dragged back. I want simply to leave. If you do this I’ll be tied and
bound all over again. Can I not just go in peace? Is that too much to ask? If you can’t do this for me, could you at least think of the international implications and do it for
England?’

‘Bugger England,’ said Troy. ‘Do this for Paddy Fitz and Clover Browne!’

Travis still stood with his back to them, one hand pressed to his forehead, the elbow crooked, as though fighting to contain what cerebrally could no longer be contained. He
said nothing. Troy counted the stripes on his shirt.

‘What now?’ he said at last, without turning. ‘What do the two of you have in mind?’

Troy looked at Woodbridge to find Woodbridge looking at him.

‘Let’s have some light on the subject, shall we?’

Woodbridge got up, flicked the light switch by the door. A chandelier bearing two dozen electric candles flashed on, and he parked his backside on a radiator beneath the window. Travis lowered
his hand, sat facing Troy once more, the comfort of darkness stripped from him, every line in his face visible, the blankness in his eyes, and the bags beneath them. He put his palms flat on the
polished surface of the table as though steadying his whole body with the slightest pressure.

‘You resign,’ said Troy.

It seemed to him that Travis nodded.

‘You stand down at the next election. You do not accept a peerage. You leave public life.’

Again the merest nod of the head.

‘Coyn retires at Christmas.’

He nodded again, eyes down, not looking at Troy, staring at the spread of his own fingers on the table top.

‘Quint is fired.’

‘All of us?’ said Travis simply.

Troy heard the words come to him from some distant schoolbook history. Words he could not have said he knew.

‘“You have sat too long for any good you might have been doing. In the name of God go.”’

This remark seemed to galvanise Travis. The fingers closed, the hands locked, his eyes met Troy’s.

‘How very convenient for you, Commander Troy. Everyone out of the way. Leaving you a clear field. A quick bit of Shakespearian blank verse, and you sweepus all away and run Scotland Yard
yourself.’

Troy was sure he heard it. Ricocheting between earth and sky. Sure he saw it. Him, the boy Troy, running up the aisle of that long-forgotten theatre in Le Touquet. His father’s voice
ringing in his ears. A sound like breaking string. He heard it snap, over his head somewhere, deep within him somewhere. Something snapped. Something snapped in Mr Charlie. Something snapped in
Troy. Then he could hear Woodbridge speaking from the edge of the room.

‘You’re an ignorant bugger, Nick. It isn’t blank verse and it isn’t Shakespeare. It’s Cromwell dismissing the Long Parliament.’

And then all he could hear was the sound like breaking string. ‘A distant sound, as though coming from the sky, like the breaking of a string.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘We all go. I’ll resign too. We all go.’

A quarter of an hour later, ash white with burnt-out rage, Travis showed them to the door.

‘One last thing,’ Troy said in the open doorway, buttoning up his coat. ‘How did you get Percy Blood to shoot Fitz?’

Travis didn’t even think about it, as though he had expected the question all along, an ironic smile twisting his thin lips.

‘If I’d wanted Fitz killed, do you seriously think I’d’ve sent a lunatic to do it?’

‘How were you going to do it?’

‘Do you know, I never worked that out. As you said, I had my arrangement with Fitz. I took one thing at a time. And then . . . then I didn’t have to. The problem had sorted
itself.’

The door closed. Troy and Woodbridge found themselves alone in the stillness of a wet, deserted street. They walked to the end of Church Row and stood on the corner.

‘Thank you,’ said Troy. It seemed to him that it needed to be said.

‘Had to be done,’ said Woodbridge. ‘It had to be done for Fitz and for Clover. I won’t deny I gave it some thought after you’d gone. And I don’t much care for
blackmail. But you were right. We do it for Fitz and for Clover. They neither of them deserved what was done to them. She didn’t deserve to be dead at seventeen. Fitz never deserved to be
publicly pilloried in that way. He didn’t deserve to be hounded and he didn’t deserve to be in their line of fire. As you said to me not so long ago – aim too low and you never
know who you might hit.’

‘All the same, I’m grateful to you. I’d’ve hated signing Charlie’s death warrant.’

‘But you’d’ve done it?’

Troy shrugged.

‘Answer me one question, Troy. Why aren’t you bringing down the government? First Profumo and Keeler, then me and the Ffitch sisters. After a year like this it will only take one
more scandal to finish us. You arrest Travis and we’re finished.’

‘You’re finished whatever I do. Macmillan’s already said he’ll go. You and Fitz have done for Macmillan as surely as if you’d put a gun to his head. You lot
aren’t going to have a party conference this week; it’s a beauty contest. Perhaps Rab Butler will lead you into the next election. He’s never struck me as a winner. Or, since one
can now resign a peerage, perhaps some Tory in the Lords will decide to throw in his cap. Who knows, you might end up led by a fool like Hailsham, and that’s a losing ticket if ever I saw
one. No – I’m not using this to bring down a government because I don’t have to and I don’t think it’s my job to. The next election is Labour’s for the asking.
Besides, Travis is a bigger fool than even you think. We’ve evidence of his infidelities, but I’ve nothing that would stand up in court and convict him of murder. If he thinks
he’s getting away with murder, then let him. Just so long as he goes.’