A Scandal in Belgravia (18 page)

They went back to eating and drinking, and talking about Pete's sales figures and Harry's cash-flow problems, and when this new Chancellor would get inflation under control and interest rates down. It was the sort of talk I've heard a hundred times in my lifetime. The only time they reverted to the personal was at the door, when Gerry and three of his lunchtime companions said their goodbyes.

“If I don't see you before the weekend after next, Gerry old boy, have one on me, eh?” The tubby man poked him in the ribs. “Or two or three, if the fancy takes you. By heck, I envy you. Chance'd be a fine thing, eh, Tony?”

And uttering a series of these coded clichés, these verbal totems, they vanished into the dreary afternoon, Gerry taking off to the left with his second-in-command, the rest going the opposite direction. I ordered coffee, to give Fraser-Hymes time
to settle back at the office, then I paid my bill and followed him.

There was no security to speak of at the gate of the works, and I walked through and went straight to the small, uninviting administrative block—the sort of not-really-trying architecture that characterised the whole area. When I asked the girl in the outer office if I might see Mr. Fraser-Hymes I handed her my card. She took it without interest.

“Do you have an appointment?”

“No. I thought he might see me without.”

The girl glanced up at me. My face seemed to ring more bells than the name on my card. She reached towards the telephone, then changed her mind and slipped out through a door at the side of the office. There was a ripple of whispering, then I was conscious of being watched through a slit in the door. A moment or two later the door swung open.

“Mr. Proctor! This is an honour. I don't know what we owe it to, but you're very welcome.”

He was all smiles and handshake. His breath smelt of beer and peppermint, but his eyes were clear and sharp, and close to I had the impression of someone who kept himself in good physical shape. He ushered me through to his office as if this were a proud moment in his professional life (poor fish).

Once there it was difficult to know how to start. I couldn't convincingly say that I happened to be in the area (it wasn't an area one could happen to be in), and I wasn't going to pretend to be doing a survey of the fortunes of small companies and how they were coping with high interest rates. Luckily there was no immediate need to put my cards on the table. Gerald Fraser-Hymes had ordered coffee, and he filled in the interval as best he could by producing the sort of waffle that a retired politician meets wherever he goes.

“Sad day when you resigned from the government . . . well, sacked if you prefer . . . moderating hand at the tiller . . . of course they still have my wholehearted support . . . this new business rate, on top of the Poll Tax, is losing you friends in
droves around here . . . member of the local association . . . not as active as I'd like to be, but you know how it is . . . filling in the time pleasantly enough, are you? Directorships, Royal Commissions, that sort of thing?”

He ran out of steam, but he'd given me an opening.

“A bit of this, a bit of that. But much of the time I'm writing my memoirs.”

“Look forward to them.”

Liar.

“I'd better tell you why I'm here. Back in the fifties we had a mutual friend: Timothy Wycliffe.”

He stiffened—perceptibly, involuntarily.

“
No
. . . . No, I can't recollect knowing anyone of that name.”

“You stayed for a time in his flat near Belgrave Square. That's not the sort of place one would forget staying in.”

The tension in his body was palpable.

“No, you've got the wrong chap, I'm afraid.”

“I don't think so. I don't believe there could be many Gerald Fraser-Hymeses of the right age. . . . Look, could we stop playing games? I should emphasize that I'm not in the least interested in your private life—”

“What's that supposed to mean? What are you implying, eh?”

He was looking immensely fierce, like an outraged colonel, but the fierceness seemed to be genuine. He was talking in a low voice, almost a hiss, but this did not detract from the angry intensity of everything he said. I sighed.

“Mr. Fraser-Hymes, I'm not trying to accuse you of anything or blackmail you. I've quite simply become interested in the death of Timothy Wycliffe. I'm just asking you as a friend of his—”

“That's the trouble with you politicians: you get so bloody arrogant you think you can barge in wherever you like and ask whatever questions you feel like asking. Even a police officer
would have to have a bloody warrant! Well, this time you've got it wrong. I'm under no obligation to talk to you, and I'm not going to. You can just clear out!”

“Very well,” I said, getting up. “But I can't see what you're upset about. You talked to the police at the time.”

He spluttered. The girl came in with plastic cups of coffee. She looked at Fraser-Hymes's face, put the cups on his desk, and fled.

“So you've been getting at police records, have you?” he resumed, still talking in a hiss. “That's what people mean when they say this government abuses power. You've no right to go digging into police records of thirty-odd years ago. All right, I'll tell you this—what I told them at the time: I was nineteen in 1956. I'd just left school and I was studying at London University. I couldn't find digs because my parents were so bloody close with their money there wasn't anything I could afford. Wycliffe offered me a room, and I lived there for a few days, until I cottoned on to the filthy things he and his pals were doing, and the filthy things he wanted me to do with him. Then I got out. That's it, and that's all!”

“While you were there, did—”

“No! That's it. That's all I've got to say. Now get out.”

So out was what I got. I have to say I admired him. What he did took bravery—not because I am at all a formidable person, quite the opposite, but because someone who has been a cabinet minister and a sort of B-team national figure does acquire a certain aura that means people address him with respect, accord him a certain dignity. It is, if you like, a cut-price version of the divinity that doth hedge a king. To order me out of the room demanded bravery.

That in other respects he conspicuously lacked bravery might be argued, but one must remember his age and his occupation. To have “come out” in the world of industry and commerce—what would have been the effect of such a gesture? The ridicule would have been unimaginably crude, the understanding and
support virtually nil. His position would have speedily become untenable. He had made his decision: he had settled for an existence of dirty weekends in London, a facade as a marauding bachelor with tastes that the boys could understand. In his small world he had done a really good job of self-defence, had produced a protective camouflage that really did protect.

I did not believe him, obviously. I did not believe Timothy would have offered any young man a room in his flat, even for a short time, without having made his own sexual orientation clear. It was overwhelmingly probable that Fraser-Hymes was one of his boyfriends. Further than that I would not go. It did not seem to me that the man's reaction was that of a murderer—even one whose crime lay way back in the past. It was, quite simply, too belligerent. The natural instinct would surely be to be apparently cooperative, with a great deal of misleading flimflam and a lavish supply of red herrings. Though he lied as to fact, his reaction to my enquiries seemed basically an honest and spontaneous one. . . . On the other hand, of course, I had caught him on the hop with a subject he must have thought had been buried decades ago.

You note that I have begun to consider the people I talk to in the light of potential murderers.

I
don't think I've ever seen a town or city I disliked more than Los Angeles. I have seen Blackpool and Belgrade, Burnley, Oslo, and Bombay, but none of them is so horrible a nonplace as Los Angeles. It is like being part of a nightmare future, and my instinct after ten minutes in the taxi was to tell him to turn round and take me back to the airport. Not, I imagine, that changing direction is possible on those roads. You will say that I did not come prepared to like the place, but then who does? The reputation of the city has gone everywhere, and the reputation is the truth.

The message had come from Reggie while I was in Leicester. Jeremy had been at work, and the message as taken by Jaime read, “Dective thing he found Fobbs.” I interpreted this to mean that the private detective had found a man he thought might be Andy Forbes. I rang Reggie, got Helen his wife, and she confirmed this, adding that they'd be delighted to see me any time I cared to turn up. I said I'd turn up just as soon as I could get a plane. Jeremy wasn't due back till late in the evening, so I wrote him a long and affectionate note in explanation, which I was sure he'd just skim through and crumple up. Then I simply packed a few things and rang for a taxi to take me to Heathrow. There are always seats on some plane or other that is going to the States.

The man in the seat beside me on the plane to Chicago wanted to talk about how high interest rates were affecting industry. I told him I'd put all that sort of thing behind me now. I realised suddenly that that wasn't just an excuse—it was the literal truth about how I feel. All that was another life. We talked about his grandchildren instead. At Chicago I overnighted at the airport hotel (if you opened the window you got the most concentrated dose of diesel fumes I've ever experienced), and the next day I caught the early flight to Los Angeles.

Reggie and Helen live in a fairly “nice” part of Los Angeles—that is if you could forget the town itself, the polluted atmosphere, the trip Reggie had to take to work every day, and the rubbish on the thousand and one television channels. I really fear for my grandchild. I don't know Helen well—I've seen her before only once since I flew over for the wedding—but I like what I know. She gave me a warm welcome, introduced me to Howard (who doesn't look in the least like a Howard, much more like a John or a Charles), and for much of the day until Reggie came home from work we all three played outside in the “fresh air.”

Later that evening, over bourbon and water (a very comfortable drink which I could get a taste for), Reggie and I talked. He had had a recent letter from Christopher in the Sudan and he filled me in there; I brought him up to date about Fiona as far as I could, and of course we talked about Jeremy. One thing I'll say about my son: he's a very good listener—very patient and understanding. I don't suppose he has much to do directly with insurance customers, but he's the sort of person one feels one can't lie to or conceal anything from. I said to him:

“This Timothy Wycliffe business is becoming a bit of a mania. Or perhaps a haunting would be a better word—I'm haunted by it. I feel I have to get it off my back before I can do anything else.”

“Is there a book in it?”

“Do you know, I wondered that? It sounds a bit heartless—a sort of bloodsucking—a blatant misuse of a friend's tragedy. On the other hand I thought it might do good. But at the moment I'm not sure I have
any
book in me, let alone that.”

“Of course you have a book in you, Pops. You're the most intensely bookish person I know.”

“That's not at all the same thing. The memoirs are coming out as dead as last year's turkey.”

“But perhaps a book about Wycliffe's death would be more interesting to write. You would be more involved. And, let's face it, everyone loves an unsolved mystery.”

“Whereas no one loves a politician's memoirs? You're probably right, though it's often puzzled me how many copies some of them seem to sell. Still, I'm afraid mine will fall into the instantly remaindered category unless I produce a lot of catty revelations about the PM, and that I'm determined not to do.”

“Still running scared even now she's gone?”

“Not at all. It's a question of honour. But I must admit that the thought of a book about Timothy's death is much more attractive, at the moment, than plodding on with the memoirs.”

“The private eye I hired is pretty sure he's got the right man. He swears he was extremely discreet, and there's no way the chap could have got the wind up.”

“I suspect that's irrelevant now. Andy Forbes's sister took offence at my going into the local pub and asking questions. Quite rightly, I'm afraid. It was a stupid and insensitive thing to do. I'd guess that she's almost certain to have alerted him by now.”

“You don't think he'll have taken flight?”

“No—if I've got the man right I don't think he will have. What name is he living under now?”

“Frank Andrews.”

“I thought it would be something like that—a simple reversal of initials and a terribly ordinary name.”

“All the information is in the file,” Reggie said, handing it to me. “When will you go?”

“I think I'll go tomorrow. But maybe I'll go by train, stay a night or two, try not to rush it. I don't want to talk to him in a state of jet lag.”

Reggie went away and booked me a seat on Amtrak and a room in a hotel. Rather nice, really, to have got to the stage where one's children do things for one. In spite of my having been a cabinet minister I'm sure Reggie feels I could barely survive in America on my own. The next day he made sure he not only took me to the station, he practically put me on the train. It was in fact a beautifully clean and safe-making train, and I couldn't imagine what ghoulies and ghosties he felt he was protecting me from.

The Ulysses S. Grant has a silly name (or perhaps I mean the president had a silly name), but otherwise it had everything I like in a hotel and never these days get. I decided to bask in its comfort and friendliness and not to rush things. I needed to think out my approach to Andy Forbes. I walked around the older parts of the town, soaking up atmosphere—the atmosphere that was so lacking in Los Angeles—and thinking through what I knew of Tim's death. Basically I could guess what Andy Forbes was going to tell me—if he told me anything. And on the whole I stood by my commitment to his sister. What interested me was the character of the man, and what had moved him to act as he did. I believed that if he did talk he would be honest.