The Chosen One (20 page)

The smile had gone now.

‘There is one more thing I should explain. The policyholder left behind a considerable sum of money. There is scope in the terms of the policy for a facility fee.’ Maggie said these last two words slowly, so that they might sink in, then repeated them: ‘A facility fee to be paid to anyone who assists in the disbursement of funds.’ She leaned forward, ensuring that eye contact remained locked. ‘That too could of course include you.’

‘I’m not sure I follow, Miss Muir.’

‘The point is that we believe the policyholder died without a will. We think he left a lot of money with no one to give it to. My duty is to be absolutely sure that he did not leave any family or dependants behind and – once I’m sure of that – well, then the sum has to be distributed somehow, doesn’t it?’ She laughed and the secretary’s eyes widened.

‘In previous situations like this, schools have been recipients for such monies. And of course there would be compensation for your time and effort in helping us conduct our inquiries.’

‘So what would you need exactly?’

‘All I would need is for you to take me to wherever those files are kept, so that I can take a quick look at the one belonging to our client and then I will be on my way.’

‘That’s all?’

‘That’s all. I’m in the business of friends and family. That’s what I’m looking for: friends and family.’

The smell of bullshit was filling her own nostrils, but somehow Maggie sensed it was working.

The light was fluorescent, the smell stale. Upon rows and rows of metal shelves, mounted on Meccano-style uprights, were hundreds of cardboard boxes. Each one was labelled in the thick but fading ink of a marker pen. She began reading off the years. 2001-2, 2000-1…

The secretary had just asked the difficult question Maggie had been hoping to avoid – whose file is it you’re looking for? – when she was called away to deal with a fourteen-year-old boy with a nosebleed. She nudged Maggie through a pair of double-doors, then unlocked another dark green door before rushing upstairs with a pack of tissues, calling back over her shoulder, ‘I’ll be back shortly!’

Maggie was left alone, accompanied only by the gurgling of hot water pipes. She didn’t have much time. With her head angled, she read quickly along the sides of these old brown boxes. 1979-80, 1978-79, 1977-78…

Turning the corner, she found at last the right year. She pulled the box down and, with no table to rest on, set it on the ground and knelt beside it, coughing as the dust of the floor rose to her throat.

Inside were two parallel rails on which hung a series of dark green files. She did a quick flick through the Bs: the Baker file was gone, no doubt removed during last year’s campaign, when journalists kept asking for it. A few Cs, a large number of Ds, a handful of Es; on and on until, at last, there it was.

Jackson, Robert Andrew

There was a home address, which Maggie swiftly scribbled in a notebook. There was a mother, Catherine Jackson, but by the word ‘father’ only a blank.

Copies of his school report, including praise for his leadership of the debate team. High scores for history and for Spanish, decent in maths. Not what she needed. She turned the pages fast, hoping something would pop out, something that—

What was that?

A sound, close by. Metallic, but not the banging of a pipe. It came from further away and yet it was definitely down here, in the bowels of this building. It sounded somehow
deliberate.
Man-made.

She scoured the file, speed-reading. There was another reference to the debate team, written by a Mr Schilling. The date was three years after the first one: Jackson would have been seventeen.

…
Robert’s contribution to the debate team has not been quite as enthusiastic as it was previously. I suspect the loss of the captaincy of the team made him a little sore. If he is to pursue a political career, he needs to learn that every career includes its defeats!

A political career. Maggie kept going. A letter to Mrs Jackson from the Principal, suggesting a meeting at the school to resolve the ‘disciplinary matter we discussed on the phone’. A reference accompanying an application to Harvard. A rejection letter from Harvard.

Finally, at the back of the file, a photocopied page from the high school yearbook. In the photograph Jackson wore the same expression Maggie had seen on his CIA file: smiling and hopeful, but with a hint of something else, too. Arrogance, determination or youthful ambition – it was hard to tell.

Keeping the file on the floor, she replaced the box on the shelf and was just reaching for the lid when she heard the same metallic sound again, this time nearer. Inside the room.

Over her right shoulder she saw nothing but more rows of boxes. Over the other were the heavy pipes of the school
heating system. Suddenly aware that she was alone in a closed, dark underground room, she felt a desperate need to get out.

The sound came again and it was getting closer.

She bent down to pick up the file, pausing to shepherd a few loose sheets back between the covers, and when she came back up, she could tell the light had changed. The area where she had stood was no longer in shadow.

She turned around. There, framed in the light between two rows of shelves, just a few feet away from her, was the outline of a man. Fixed, still – and staring at her.

Washington, DC, Friday March 24, 12.00

‘Are we on a secure line?’

‘Always, Governor.’

‘You’re not telling me you consider the United States Congress secure, are you?’

‘I am not, sir, no. We have our own encryption equipment in this office.’

‘That’s smart, Senator.’

‘I thank you.’

‘You sure you not from Louisiana?’ A loud thunder of laughter down the phone, the way politicians used to laugh half a century ago: the sound of a big, Southern man who could fill a room with his own charisma. This, Senator Rick Franklin guessed, is how Huey Long would have laughed. Conventional wisdom said they didn’t make them like that any more, but Governor Orville Tett begged to differ.

‘I also want to thank you for getting in touch, Governor. I’m most grate—’

‘We can cut the formal bullshit. We’re busy men and we’re on the same side, ain’t we?’

‘We are.’

‘So: seems like you’re the main man on this Baker stuff. You’re leading the troops into battle.’

‘I’m humbled by that description, but yes. I started this fight and I mean to finish it.’

‘Well, good for you. That’s the kind of fighting spirit we need in our party. Too many pussies up there in DC who were ready, once Baker won last fall, to shut up shop and hang out the gone fishin’ sign. That’s why I want to help.’

‘Glad to hear that, sir.’

‘Here’s the thing. You know that cesspit down in N’Awlins is run by Democrats. So, surprise surprise, they’ve canned the investigation into Forbes’s death. That particular truth a bit too inconvenient for those liberals!’ Another gale of laughter came roaring down the phone.

‘I hear you, Governor Tett.’

‘Despite everything the Lord has rained down on that Sodom of the South, there are still a few good, God-fearing men down there in New Orleans. And one of them’s been watching things very closely. Kind of my eyes and ears down there. Found out something mighty interesting too.’

Franklin flashed a thumbs-up at Cindy, sitting opposite him, watching MSNBC on mute. He could hear a rustle of papers on the huge lump of oak he imagined served as the Governor’s desk.

‘Let me just get my reading glasses here a moment. OK, here we go.’ He made a murmuring sound, as if skim-reading, enjoying the suspense a tad too much, Franklin decided.

‘He noticed a woman down there, snooping around. Claimed to be press, but was doing her own thing. My man kept a close eye on her. Even followed her to some kind of sex club.’

Franklin felt his shoulders tense with embarrassment: Governor Tett had gained national fame during his first term when he had been covertly filmed in a variety of strip joints. The killer sequence – shown by Jon Stewart every night for a week – had Tett rewarding a particularly buxom performer by slipping a twenty not into her garter belt, as convention demanded, but directly into her underwear, twanging it forward and, it appeared on tape, taking a peek inside as he did so. Everyone had written the Governor off, assuming he would be impeached or turfed out by the voters, whichever came first. But Tett had gone on the Christian Broadcasting Network, sobbed about his shame, called to his saviour to rescue him and begged for forgiveness. After that direct appeal to evangelical voters – instantly dubbed ‘the Tett offensive’ – his poll numbers went up. He’d been reelected last year, against the national trend which saw Baker win his landslide.

‘Turns out this woman’s not press at all,’ Tett went on. ‘She called herself Liz Costello of the
Irish Times
. But that ain’t her real name. She is, in fact,
Maggie
Costello.’ He stopped, like a comedian who’s delivered his punch-line.

Franklin waited for a moment, then realized Tett was not going to go on. ‘I’m sorry, Governor. The name’s ringing a bell but—’

‘I thought all you Washington insiders knew each other!’ ‘I’m not a Washington insider, Governor Tett. I’m a—’ ‘Aw, come on. I’m just jerking your chain. Maggie Costello was, until this week, a foreign policy advisor to one Stephen Baker. President of these United States.’ ‘Oh, that’s good.’

‘You didn’t think I’d disappoint you, did you?’ ‘That’s very good,’ Franklin replied, resolving to keep this
information to himself until the moment was ripe. ‘When did she get down there?’

‘I don’t know that yet, but I’m checking that for you. Question you gotta ask yourself is: was she the dustbuster?’

‘Dustbuster?’

‘Clean-up artist! Did Baker send her in after Forbes was taken out, you know, to cover their tracks?’

‘I see.’

‘Or maybe Baker put her in there to find out what the hell happened to Forbes – because he didn’t know! It all depends on whether we think Baker had Forbes killed or not.’

‘Yes.’

‘And we don’t know that, do we?’

Something in Tett’s tone made Franklin uncomfortable.

The Governor wasn’t done. ‘I mean, the only man who knows the real truth of that is the man who ordered the killing of Vic Forbes. Am I right?’

Franklin didn’t answer the question, which he suspected carried more than a hint of accusation. ‘Of course, Governor, it may turn out that Forbes did take his own life after all.’

‘Yes, Senator Franklin, it might. But it might be too late to matter by then. Too late for Baker, I mean. And whoever gets that head on the trophy wall, he’s going to look pretty good in three years’ time, ain’t he?’

‘Well, I’m not thinking about that, Governor.’

‘You should, Senator. You should. And when you do, you remember your good friends down here in the great state of Louisiana, won’t you?’

‘I will certainly not forget this kindness, Governor Tett. One last question: where is Miss Costello now?’

‘We have that covered, Senator. Remember, I have sympathetic counterparts across the entirety of this great country of ours. Governors with eyes and ears everywhere, each one
of them with state troopers at their service, just like me. That’s a lot of ground we got covered.’

‘That’s good to hear.’

‘Put it this way, Senator. Wherever Miss Costello goes, there’ll be someone watching. Always.’

Aberdeen, Washington, Friday March 24, 15.24 PST

‘I see you’ve already made yourself at home here.’

Maggie heard herself panting. ‘You gave me quite a start.’

‘Did I? I am sorry.’ The voice was old, but steady. In the basement gloom, Maggie could still not make out a face.

‘My name is Ashley Muir, from Alpha Insurance,’ she brazened. She thought about extending a hand, but fear got the better of her.

‘Yes. So Mrs Stephenson said.’

Maggie’s breath came in heavy, pounding gulps.

‘I have to tell you, I don’t like people coming down here. Not without me.’

She looked over at the door. Desperation made her cut the politeness. ‘Who are you?’

‘My name is Ray Schilling. I am the principal of this school.’

A wave of relief broke over her. ‘Oh, good. I am glad to hear that.’ She smiled an absurdly wide smile. ‘Can we perhaps talk in your office?’

‘So you can understand my wariness, Ms Muir.’

‘Completely,’ Maggie said, enjoying the warmth of a mug of coffee in her hand.

‘We didn’t have many journalists last summer – Stephen Baker was a student here for such a short while. But those that did come: devious people, Ms Muir. Devious.’

‘Devious,’ Maggie agreed.

‘So when I heard this story about insurance claims and whatnot, well, I thought “Here we go again”.’

‘Of course you did.’

‘Not that you’d have found anything there, even if you had been looking for it.’ The Principal, white-haired with a long, narrow face, gave a self-congratulatory nod.

‘Why’s that?’

‘I removed that file myself as soon as Stephen – excuse me – as soon as the President entered the race.’

‘Removed it?’

‘Only to a place of safekeeping, Ms Muir. I wanted to be able to look reporters in the eye and tell them that the file was not here.’

‘That showed great foresight, Mr Schilling.’

‘Thank you. And now it isn’t here at all.’

‘Where is it?’

‘Did you know that they begin collecting material for a presidential library from the moment the oath is taken?’ He spoke slowly, a function, Maggie had initially assumed, of his age. Now, she realized, it was simply the speech of a man who had spent a lifetime addressing young people.

‘I didn’t know that, no.’

‘So that’s where it is. Safe and sound.’

‘Good for you.’

‘Not that it will provide much for scholars to chew on.’

‘No?’

‘No. Very thin. Must be because he was here for such a short time, you see. Unusually thin, all the same.’

‘As it happens, I was not looking for Mr Baker’s file.’

‘Someone has died, I understand.’

She had been hoping to avoid the name, but there seemed to be no choice if she was to play this scene through to the end. ‘That’s right. Robert Jackson.’

The Principal’s face, already pale, seemed to turn a shade whiter. He sat back in his seat. ‘Robert Jackson,’ he repeated softly.

‘Yes, I’m afraid so. He would have been here thirty-odd years ago.’

‘Nothing odd about it. Exactly thirty. I should know. I taught both of them.’

‘Both of them?’

‘Baker and Jackson.’

‘Of course!’ Maggie smiled. ‘You’re the Mr Schilling on the report. You ran the debate team.’

‘You saw that?’ Now he smiled, too. ‘Such a long time ago. I was very new here then. A young man, not much older than the students themselves.’

‘And now you’re the Principal.’

‘Fifteen years in this job. Time for me to quit soon. But what a thrill, to see one of our students do so well. One day this will be Stephen Baker High.’

Maybe
, Maggie thought.
But only if he stays in office longer than two months
. ‘So you remember him when he was here?’

‘I remember all the students I teach.’ He paused, then leaned forward.

Maggie recognized the manner. There were a few Mr Schillings in her neighbourhood of Dublin, as there probably were in every middling town: the educated man among provincials. She imagined him among the lumbermen and fishermen of Aberdeen with his lonely subscription to
The
Economist
and his fondness for the BBC World Service. No wonder he remembered the day Stephen Baker had walked into his life, brightening the gloom.

‘Stephen was always something special. No one forgot him. You couldn’t.’

‘He certainly is very charismatic,’ Maggie said, as levelly as she could manage. She wanted to seem as detached from Baker as Ashley Muir, insurance investigator and voter, would be. ‘And the policyholder that I’m looking into,’ she made a fuss with a file in her bag, ‘Robert A. Jackson. Was he memorable in any way?’

‘Well, I remember him, if that’s what you mean. But, in truth that probably has more to do with Stephen Baker than it does with him. Anyway, I’m sure this is perfectly irrelevant for your purposes. An insurance claim, was it?’

Maggie scrambled to get him back on track. ‘I’m trying to build up as full a picture of the policyholder as I can. There’s a large sum of money involved, no apparent beneficiaries. I need to find out if there’s something we’re not seeing.’

‘What might that be?’

‘A surviving relative, maybe children from a marriage that didn’t work out. I’ve decided to start at the beginning and take it from there. In my experience, the unlikeliest information can prove useful. You said he stayed in your memory because of Stephen Baker?’

‘As I remember it, Jackson was not a bad debater. He could be sharp and precise. But he was so – there’s no nice way to say this –
overshadowed.
’

‘Overshadowed?’

‘He used to be the captain of the debate team at James Madison High. He got far in several competitions. Even reached a final in Olympia – though he lost that.’

‘And then?’

‘And then Stephen Baker arrived in the final year. Funnily enough, they had a lot in common. Both so interested in politics, in history. I remember they got on quite well. Stephen used to tease him, called him by his middle name: Andrew. Like the president.’

‘Stephen Baker and Robert Jackson were friends?’

‘I would say so, yes. Same class, same interests. They began debating together, a tag-team if you will. Against others in the school, then other schools. They were very effective.’

‘So what went wrong?’

‘Well, I made this point to the reporters who came here to interview me about Stephen – about the President. He had true star quality, even then. A tremendous magnetism. Wherever he went in the school, people would follow. Especially the girls. Even the teachers were not immune.’

‘So what happened?’

‘It’s a minor thing, but in the light of what you’ve told me about poor Robert, I feel rather guilty. After just a short time at the school it was clear that Baker was special and it struck me that with him as captain, our debate team might finally have a chance of success.’

‘So you replaced Jackson with Baker.’

‘Yes.’

‘Did it work?’

Schilling smiled. ‘Bigtime, as the students would say now. James Madison won the statewide cup. Took on all those elite schools in Seattle and Redmond and Olympia and won. You have to know what that meant to a small town like Aberdeen. Things were already pretty depressed back then, logging was contracting, plenty of fathers at the school were out of work. And then, there was this…star.’

‘So you talent-spotted a future president of the United States.’

‘That’s what I tell the reporters who come here. That’s
the public story. But Robert took it very badly. It broke his friendship with Stephen Baker instantly.’

‘And that’s been on your conscience?’

‘Oh, gosh no! High school friendships are a dime a dozen, Ms Muir, as I’m sure you know. No, it wasn’t that. What mattered was the effect it had on Robert. It did seem to change him. He retreated into himself. He had never been adept socially but now he became very introverted. He resigned from the debate team – didn’t want to be on it if he were no longer captain.’ He looked into Maggie’s eyes, as if gauging whether he could trust her. ‘He became very bitter. It’s a very strong word to use about an eighteen-yearold boy, but I sensed that he became
hateful.
’

‘Did he do something?’

‘No, though these days you’d keep a close eye on him. After Columbine, no one takes any chances.’

‘Good God.’

‘Sorry, that was the wrong thing to say. He committed no acts of violence. But I had got to know him well and I saw that his resentment of Stephen Baker became unhealthy. When Baker applied to Harvard, so did Jackson. Baker, as you know, sailed in. They were throwing scholarships at him.’

‘And Jackson was rejected.’

‘Yes. Yes, he was.’ He paused. ‘Are you a mother yourself, Ms Muir?’

Immediately a picture of Liz and three-year-old Calum popped into Maggie’s head. ‘No, Mr Schilling. I’m afraid I’m not.’

‘Well, people don’t realize how fragile kids are at that age. These are the formative years. A young man can be shaped by what happens to him at that age.’

‘And what happened to Robert Jackson?’

‘I would say he developed an unhealthy interest in Stephen
Baker. An obsession, you’d call it. Baker became a kind of mirror to Robert, and whatever he saw in that mirror was never good enough. Robert wasn’t as smart, he wasn’t as handsome, he wasn’t as popular. And it wasn’t just a phase, either. I ran into Robert a year or two afterwards, and he still seemed to be in the grip of this fixation.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘It was strange really. But Robert had a file with him. One of those high school files, with a rubber band across the front? He showed it to me.’

‘And what was inside?’

‘Clippings about Stephen. Items from the local paper, neatly cut out and filed in date order. Too neat. It made me shudder.’

‘Did they still know each other then?’

‘Well, Stephen’s father still worked here, in the timber trade. He couldn’t afford to retire. So Aberdeen is where Stephen came back to during the vacations.’

Maggie tried to collect her thoughts. ‘And you say you feared Robert Jackson would do something…something he might regret?’

‘You’ve just reminded me of something I said to my wife at the time. Gosh, thirty years ago and it’s just come back to me.’

‘What did you say?’

‘I said that an obsession like this only ends in destruction. Jackson will either destroy Stephen Baker – or he will destroy himself.’