The Avenue of the Dead (8 page)

‘Just over a year. Edward moved here from New York when he went into politics. He bought this house and I redecorated it. It's marvellous for entertaining. I did the sitting-room myself. Would you like to see it? I'm rather proud of it – it's not an easy shape. Long rooms never are, they always tend to look like passages.'

Davina followed her out of the study. She had made a mental inventory of the room; there was only one photograph, Liz and Fleming on their wedding day, no personal bric-à-brac, a tasteful Victorian landscape, and a spectacular flower arrangement.

One of the ashtrays was full, the butts all tipped with lipstick. Elizabeth had chain-smoked before her arrival. Davina helped herself to more ice and noticed that the bucket was half empty. Elizabeth had been drinking before she came and it was still only eleven o'clock in the morning. The south-facing reception room was long, high-ceilinged, dramatically furnished with grey silk walls and elaborate yellow curtains; a brilliant Persian carpet ran down its centre.

There was a big crystal and ormolu chandelier and she noticed that it held real candles. The eighteenth-century marble mantelpiece was particularly fine and Davina thought it had probably not been in the original house. There was a rare early painting of the old city before the war of 1812 hanging above it.

A Bechstein Boudoir Grand piano stood majestically near one of the long windows, with famous faces in silver frames on top of it. The new President and his good-looking wife smiled out at them from the front rank. It seemed less like a real room than a stage setting for Mr and Mrs Edward Fleming to perform as leading actors in the Washington play. A play without a final curtain, and for some, no safety curtain either. The actors changed but the play went on for ever. Its title was
Political Power
.

‘Lovely,' Davina said. ‘You've got a great flair, Liz. You could turn professional.'

‘Not any more,' she answered. ‘Now all I can do is hang around the house and be the perfect hostess. Being so close to the Oval Office has its disadvantages, Mousey, darling. You can't afford to get your colours wrong.'

‘You mean you were an interior decorator?' There hadn't been a mention of that on her file.

Liz shrugged. ‘Not officially,' she said. ‘I used to help people out with colours and materials. I enjoyed it.' She seemed evasive, anxious to change the subject. She shrugged again, and there was resentment there too. ‘When Edward started climbing up the ladder, he didn't want me mixed up in business. I might do the wrong people's houses.' She gave a brittle little laugh, tinkling with malice. ‘He didn't want to deprive me of an interest, of course, but I couldn't take fees or even presents any more, and naturally if I helped someone for nothing it would look like favouritism. Caesar's wife. That's what I had to be.'

‘And were you?'

The answer cracked at her like a pistol shot. ‘No. Let's go and have lunch. We'll take my car.'

She was a bad driver, erratic and irritable, cursing others for her own mistakes. It was an uncomfortable journey in heavy traffic. The restaurant was in the centre of town, nestling between two gleaming office buildings. It was mock medieval, with a reproduction of the famous Lady and the Unicorn tapestry facing the entrance. There was a dimly-lit, overcrowded bar, which Liz Fleming bypassed to Davina's relief, and a long narrow room, with oak panels and antlers and machine-made aluminium armour. It was full of people and very noisy. Heads turned as they followed the head waiter; there were waves and cries of greeting, to which Elizabeth responded. They were shown to a table in a corner near the head of the room. The air conditioning was at full pelt, keeping the atmosphere comfortable. The menu, printed on vellum and unrolled before them, was a cumbersome nuisance. Liz waved it away.

‘I'll order for us,' she said. ‘They have some medieval crap for the out of town visitors. Do you like oysters, Mousey? Good. We'll have the oysters Mornay to start and chicken Maryland with Creole salad. And the wine waiter, Henry, please.' She smiled at Davina. ‘Don't worry, you won't be getting the old English egg and breadcrumb oven-ready version. This is the real thing and it's delicious. I wasn't going to insult you by suggesting steak.'

‘Why not? Isn't it good?' The words ‘old shoe leather' floated impishly to mind.

‘Yes, it's marvellous, if you like eating half a cow, and you get steak, steak, steak, when you first come to the States until you never want to see a piece of beef again. Now, let's have something nice to drink, shall we – and two vodkas on the rocks while we're waiting.'

She disappeared behind a huge leather-bound wine list.

Davina looked round the restaurant. She recognized one or two Republican senators, a well known political commentator with an earnest-looking young woman. And right across from her, eating a large steak, was Colin Lomax. The annoyance of seeing him there changed to a cold suspicion. James White had been typically evasive about Major Lomax. Always the half-truth behind the kindly smile, and that frostbitten heart incapable of human feeling. ‘Only in case you need a back-up. He's a good man, he won't get in your way. Just think of him as a sort of insurance policy.' White had left Ivan unprotected. There was no insurance policy for him. She hadn't forgotten or forgiven that.

She twisted her chair round so that her back was presented to Lomax; he saw the angry movement and smiled with a sour little twist of the lips. She didn't like being followed. He didn't like following. There were fragments of bomb splinter still floating around in his back. Sometimes they caused pain. This was one of those times. He glanced at the woman Davina was sitting with – made up, artificial … He hated the type. She had emptied her vodka and was beckoning for another, smoking all the time. Leaning towards Davina, talking, talking … He cut into his steak. It was superb. He had in fact been to the Unicorn before, during a four-day visit to Washington as part of an SAS advisory group. Unfortunately their advice had not been taken. The attempt to release the hostages had gone ahead and failed, with a tragic loss of American lives. The loss of good men because of bureaucratic, political muddling. He had a professional's admiration for the courage and skill of his US counterparts. He responded to their anger at the humiliation inflicted upon their country and its people. He would have flown out with them, given the chance. He had the soldier's contempt for the soft civilians in places like London and Washington and Paris, playing chequers with the lives of brave men. He not only disliked the US capital, he shunned cities generally. He had felt more at home in the windy, rainswept bandit country of Armagh than he ever did in the manicured countryside of southern England.

Whatever those two women were discussing across the room from him was important to a lot of people. The husband was a personal friend and adviser to the new President. The wife was a drunk and – he used the old Scots epithet – a hoor. Some dirty little scandal was fomenting under the custom-built, electronically operated bed, and that did not excite him. He missed his old life and his comrades with an ache as real as the painful jabs from the loose steel in his back.

Elizabeth Fleming was drunk. Not drunk enough to slur her words, or fumble with her cigarettes over the coffee. But drunk just the same. Davina recognized the signs; the eyes were too wide, their stare too concentrated. The lowered voice was almost theatrical. Her words had a peak of exaggeration to them which invited disbelief. One hand lay on Davina's wrist, pinning it in a gesture of affection which had just emerged after a childhood of dislike.

‘I'm so glad you've come,' she said. ‘I've been so lonely here – so cut off. Nobody to talk to, nobody I can trust. You'll stay for a while, won't you, Mousey? You won't be going back to England?'

‘You're in trouble, aren't you, Liz?' Davina asked the question gently. She could see what Neil Browning meant when he dismissed her as attention-seeking, living in a fantasy world. But there was something in the eyes and the way the painted mouth trembled at the corners which she recognized. Fear. Whatever else she was, Edward Fleming's wife was afraid.

‘How do you know?' It was a whisper, exaggerated, silly.

‘I know you,' Davina said. ‘You were the most confident girl imaginable. Except for Charlie, of course. You were a pair, you two. You had the world at your feet, like a nice little football, just waiting for you to tip it into goal. You've lost that, Liz. You're scared and you're running. Put the brandy down and listen to me. I came here for a holiday; I thought it would be nice to see someone from Highfields after all these years – you're, a celebrity, your husband rates a
Time
magazine article to himself these days. I never expected to find you like this. It worries me.'

To her surprise Liz Fleming withdrew her hand. ‘We haven't seen each other for years. Why should anything about me worry you now?'

For the first time since they met that morning, honesty-flashed like lightning through the murk of small talk and deceit.

‘There've been times in my life when I needed a friend,' Davina said. ‘I think you need one now, and it might just as well be me. Perhaps I can be a friend to you, Liz, because I'm not jealous of you any more. I'm fond of Charlie now, because I'm not jealous of her either.' She smiled, and a man glancing at them from a nearby table suddenly thought – that's a pretty woman, with the red hair. ‘It took me a long time, and a very special man, to become a real person. I'd like to help you, Liz. I'll be here for a few weeks, and you know where I'm staying.'

‘With the Hicklings – from the embassy.' She picked up the brandy glass again. ‘There's a young man called Neil Browning – trade secretary. He's been very helpful – when things get too much for me, and I get nervous, I call him up and he takes me driving, or just walking sometimes. It helps to talk to him. But I can't really trust him, Mousey. He's just an embassy hack, told to keep me happy and stop me making a fuss.'

‘What sort of a fuss? You're not being blackmailed, are you?'

Liz Fleming laughed, and shook her head again. When the brandy went down, she might find it hard to walk straight. Two wisps of blonde hair came loose and flapped around her cheeks. ‘Blackmail? Oh, sweet Jesus, that would be easy! Edward is a power figure now, you know. He could deal with blackmail for me. He can deal with anything. Without anybody ever knowing. That's a scary thought, isn't it?'

‘It is, if he's the one you're frightened of,' Davina said slowly. ‘I think we should go now, Liz.' She turned round to signal the waiter. Lomax was still there. He had the bill in front of him.

Liz Fleming wouldn't let her pay. She signed the bill, and steered by Davina, made the walk through the restaurant without bumping into anything. Outside the hot, damp air enveloped them like a wet sheet. ‘I'll drive,' Davina said. ‘Give me the keys.'

‘I'm not drunk,' Liz protested. Her voice had risen. ‘Edward always says I'm bloody well drunk –'

Davina took her handbag, got out the keys and hustled her into the passenger seat. They swung out into Independence Avenue. The air-conditioned car was soon cool.

In the driveway of the Georgetown house, she turned to Davina.

‘I'm sorry I yelled at you,' she said. ‘I'm a
bit
drunk, but not very. It's become a habit. You drink when you're bored. I made a fool of myself at lunch. Forget it. I can be quite good company at times.'

‘I know you can,' Davina said. ‘I enjoyed lunch. And you didn't make any kind of a fool of yourself, so don't think that. You go and lie down, and you'll be fine by this evening. I'll ring you in the morning. Perhaps we could go shopping – I'm going to need something to wear for parties. I didn't realize Washington was such a gay place.'

Liz Fleming turned to her. She seemed to have sobered, or made a special effort. ‘San Francisco is the “gay” place,' she said. ‘Washington is social. Not quite the same thing.' She smiled, and there was warmth in it for the first time. ‘I'd love to take you shopping tomorrow,' she said. ‘I'm really glad we've met again. You take the car back; I'll send Edward a message and he'll have it collected. See you tomorrow.'

Davina reversed and drove out into the narrow street. In the driving mirror she watched Elizabeth Fleming open her front door and go inside.

She was a purposeful driver, her reactions razor sharp. Ivan used to tease her, saying her aggressive impulses took over at the wheel. He came on the wings of laughter sometimes, instead of pain. A very special man, she had said. He would have teased her about that.

He had praised her instincts when she doubted them. And they were clamouring that Elizabeth Fleming was genuinely afraid of something. So afraid that she was hiding from it in drink.

She left the car in the embassy compound and went into Hickling's private office. The scrambled line to London was installed there. She got through to James White.

‘I've seen Elizabeth Fleming,' she said. ‘There's definitely something wrong. I'm going to have to stay here for a time. I'll need money. I think it would look better if I rented an apartment.'

His reply was smooth; he always ignored her abruptness. ‘Of course, my dear. An account will be opened for you. Take as long as necessary. And don't hesitate to call on Colin Lomax if you get worried.'

‘I appreciate your sending me a minder,' she said sharply. ‘I'd appreciate it more if I knew why I needed one.'

‘We don't know ourselves,' he answered. ‘But he's a very useful chap to have around. What's your next move?'

‘Consolidate with her, and meet the husband.'

‘He's a very able man,' the pleasant voice intoned down the telephone. ‘A very able man indeed. Be on your guard with him!'