The Crime Tsar (17 page)

‘Would you like a glass of champagne, Lucy?'

Would Lucy like a glass of champagne? The last real champagne she'd tasted, not Spanish Cava or New Zealand Fizz but real, French champagne, was after the 1997 Election. She and Gary had drunk to the new world, the new beginning. She had felt as though they were coming out into the sunshine after two decades in thick fog.

‘Yes please, that would be lovely, Jenni. Thanks.'

She took the long-stemmed glass and sipped. The bubbles were tiny, expensive.

‘Oh Jenni, what a treat.'

‘You deserve it,' said Jenni, squeezing her arm. ‘You're such an angel. And look at these flowers, Tom, aren't they super? Lucy did them.'

‘Very nice,' said Tom, sharing with Lucy a look that gave her an orgasm of the stomach. She clenched her ribs and diaphragm and took another sip. The earlier scene seemed to have been edited out. This was calm water, no memory of the earlier weir.

‘What's your other guest's name, Jenni? I don't think you told me.'

‘Didn't I? It's Robert MacIntyre.'

Lucy was impressed. In the
Sunday Times
list of Britain's most powerful MacIntyre had been eighth. Jenni really had landed a prize.

‘Tom, hand Lucy the crudités. The dip is gorgeous, do try it.'

As Lucy picked up a piece of celery her hand touched Shackleton's. She would have liked her nails to have been as long and polished red as Jenni's.

Tom thought how nice it was to see a woman's hand without blood-dripping talons.

They sat and chatted about nothing. Lucy remarked on Tom's jacket, very fine wool, very designer label. Expensive. He wore it over a fine silk shirt. The colour of the sea. Or chemical effluent.

At ten-past eight the doorbell rang. Jenni, who had dropped her public face while they sat and talked, immediately re-assumed her diamantine mask. She had been warm and funny, completely relaxed. Enchanting company. Lucy thought if she were like that all the time Tom would never look at another woman.

Jenni went to the door leaving Lucy alone with Shackleton. Gathering her courage in the awkwardness that filled the pause, she touched his sleeve.

‘Sorry about… what happened earlier,' was all she could think of to say.

He looked as if he'd been scalded.

‘I'm used to it,' he said shortly.

Tom stood up as Jenni introduced the Gnome. Shackleton towered over him looking almost like a different species. Lucy stood too, a little awkward.

‘Lovely to meet you,' she mumbled, looking down at the ugliest man she had ever seen.

Robbie looked back and saw a pleasant, unexciting face with a very pretty mouth. A mouth made to accommodate –

‘Champagne, Robbie?' Jenni was beside him holding a glass.

‘Splendid. Thank you. Sorry I'm late. The PM called me in at the last minute. Couldn't get away.'

They small talked their way through until eight-forty-five when the caterer indicated to Jenni that dinner was ready. Lucy had hardly said a word but had smiled and nodded from her cocoon of champagne confidence. She was nowhere near drunk but the bubbles had gone to the backs of her knees. Jenni unfolded elegantly from an armchair. Lucy just got up. As she did she leant forward slightly. Tom caught sight of her innocent cleavage as her dress gaped. Lucy saw his look and turned scarlet, not the
ingénue
blush of romantic novels but a blotchy beetroot, the way she used to look after hockey.

Jenni was already shepherding her Gnome into the dining room and didn't notice. She was close to him, her hand hovering half an inch from his back. Lucy walked in front of Tom. She could feel him behind her. She willed him to touch her. When she turned to smile up at him she saw he was putting coal on the unnecessary fire. She walked towards the dining room alone. MacIntyre looked back at her and she felt an extraordinary and luckily swiftly suppressed desire to cry. His look had not been pitying or sympathetic but simply understanding. He understood what it was like to be Lucy. And she recognised Robert MacIntyre. He walked away from Jenni as if she didn't exist.

‘Lucy, I do beg your pardon, I thought Tom was bringing you through. Allow me.'

And he was next to her, escorting her to the table. Attentive, charming. He moved round the table, a balletic goblin seating Jenni and herself. As he pulled out her chair he looked into Lucy's eyes and again she was terribly moved. She saw such gentleness, such empathy there. She touched his hand in silent thanks. He didn't withdraw as Tom had done earlier but held her fingertips lightly. A tiny gesture.

Lucy had heard of MacIntyre's legendary charm and charisma and had dismissed them as the shallow weapons of the professional politician.

Now she saw how wrong she was.

If she wasn't already in the grip of obsession, she might have fallen in love.

The Gnome had seen the way this poor duckling in the ill-fitting dress looked at Shackleton. He'd read the situation and he'd seen his younger self in Lucy. He gave her a fleeting private smile. For a moment it was as if Lucy was looking at a great work of art. Then with a conspiratorial look, he turned his attention to his hostess.

Jenni's taste veered between the perfect and the appalling. Piles of arranged copies of
Hello!
magazine in the cloakroom, flower prints on the walls. Lladro ballerinas and antique clocks. Good rugs and hotel-style reproduction furniture. There was nothing in the public areas to show Shackleton lived there.

Her table was also contradictory. The glasses were elegant, large, expensive and would have been beautiful in their pure-lined simplicity had there not been a deep border of gold fancywork around the lip of each. The epergne, an old silver gilt confection of inverted dragons and cut glass, would have been understated perfection without the riot of tuber roses Jenni insisted on having spewing out from its crown.

As they sat down she realised it was too big for the table – they couldn't see each other. Without breaking her interest in the Gnome's conversation she swapped it for a small group of candles on the sideboard.

But her napkins and tablecloth were beyond reproach. The cloth was draped to the floor hiding their legs and feet in its embroidered folds.

The small talk was exceptionally small.

‘Do you live in London, Robert?'

Lucy heard herself and couldn't believe she was asking such a banal question.

‘I have a house and flat there but my home is in Gloucestershire,' said the Gnome, reaching for a slice of olive bread. Why couldn't people just put a bit of plain white bread on the table instead of all this ciabatta and grit-filled brown. ‘My wife breeds llamas. Most weeks I'm only there at weekends, though I was there last night, funnily enough.'

‘Do you have sheep?'

Jenni looked at Lucy. Why on earth was the stupid lump talking about sheep?

‘No. And actually the llamas seem to have befriended the local fox.'

Jenni felt she was losing the thread.

‘I'm sorry, Robert … sheep? Llamas? Foxes?'

The patronising look she gave Lucy indicated she knew he was trying to include her rather dim friend. If he had only disliked her for being Shackleton's smug wife he now despised her in her own right. He felt a flicker of desire. The desire to …

‘Yes, Jenni. Lucy's spot on. Llamas are great guard dogs. You put one in with a flock of sheep and it's supposed to see off any predators.'

He'd inflicted just enough of a sting; he applied the balm.

‘We could do with a couple in the Commons!'

They all laughed. The tiny frisson was gone.

‘D'you know, it only took an hour to get here this evening.'

‘That's marvellous …' responded Jenni brightly as the caterer discreetly served the main course.

‘Thank you.' Jenni was gracious, magnanimous. ‘I don't think we'll need you again this evening. You've been marvellous.'

She didn't add, see yourself out and there's a cheque on the mantelpiece but it was in her tone.

Lucy looked at the table. She knew she would spend most of tomorrow clearing up. Loading and unloading the dishwasher. Putting away. Almost immediately the door had closed Tom and Robert started talking politics and police.

‘What do you think would be best for London when Ingram retires?'

Tom visibly relaxed. They were on his ground. Without pause he began to speak, a long, well-thought-out unhesitating answer. ‘I think London is a unique case. I mean …' and he was off.

His hesitations were only for effect, the quietness of voice and sincere seriousness of the tone compelling. The Gnome was impressed. Not with the content of Shackleton's speech, which to his mind was woolly, but with his mesmeric delivery. He sensed in this man who was holding his eyes with a seductive intensity the same power he had himself. But this was more dangerous. He realised this man had no humour about himself. That this mind was narrowly confined within the discipline of his immediate world.

As the evening progressed it was clear there would be nothing in Tom Shackleton's life to distract him from his ambition. To be Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. He didn't go to the theatre or opera, he had an unsophisticated taste in art and almost no knowledge of music. The Gnome was fascinated. He had never met anyone whose emotional landscape seemed so empty. In a way he envied him. MacIntyre could still be moved to tears by a sunset or a piece of Mozart.

‘What are you reading at the moment?'

Lucy was startled. No one had addressed her for twenty minutes and even then it was to request the dill sauce.

‘I'm … I'm just finishing
The Quantum Theory
.'

The Gnome was impressed.

‘Really? I have to confess I've never actually got through it.'

‘Neither have I before, but being at home so much … I …' She was losing confidence. ‘I thought I should make the effort. I'm not sure I understand it all, though.'

Seeing her run out of confidence MacIntyre took over.

‘I'm particularly taken with the idea of parallel time. One has found oneself there so many times.'

‘Oh yes. Since my husband's been disabled …' Lucy paused. Maybe this wasn't the sort of thing to talk about at Jenni's dinner party. She glanced across at her hostess. Jenni's smile was encouraging but Lucy thought she saw ice in her eyes. ‘Oh … well … nothing.'

She subsided but MacIntyre wasn't going to let her go.

‘I think I know what you're saying, Lucy. Officially I'm disabled, you know.' They made the appropriate noises. ‘Oh yes, achondroplasia is a disability. You'd be amazed how many jobs I wouldn't be allowed to do. Police officer, for instance. I could never be a chief constable, Tom – do you think that's a loss? However, parallel time … yes, as a cripple, or a spastic as I have often been called, though that is technically incorrect' – Jenni winced – ‘you're put outside common time. Disability can put you in not just parallel time but a parallel universe.'

Although he spoke in measured terms with no hesitation, Lucy could sense what an effort it was for him. As it was for her to talk about a childhood long gone. But no one could see her childhood. The words bullies had thrown at her you could throw at anyone; the words that had followed MacIntyre were uniquely and unhappily his own.

‘It's not easy, as I'm sure your husband has discovered. I'm sorry he's not here – I've no doubt he and I would have a great deal of common ground. And time.' He was aware of how uncomfortable Jenni was. And Tom? Difficult to tell but MacIntyre thought he was embarrassed. ‘But look on the bright side – you can park on double yellow lines.'

Lucy laughed and her napkin slid to the carpet.

The Gnome bent and picked it up. As he handed it back he smiled his extraordinary smile and again captivated Lucy. She wished she could discuss the book further and talk about disability and illusion and …

He turned his attention to Tom.

‘You ever managed to read it, Tom?'

Tom shook his head, suspicious this was a trap to catch dumb plod. But it wasn't, the Gnome was far too clever for such point-scoring.

‘No. Port?'

‘Just a small one.'

Jenni was watching the two men circle each other. Weigh each other up. No matter how well her husband did this week she knew he wasn't the intellectual equal of Geoffrey Carter. She had no doubt he'd read
Quantum Theory
. She felt a dagger of thoughts and started to straighten her cutlery. If she could adjust knives, forks, spoon, glasses, napkin without the intrusion of another thought, another stab of hatred towards Carter, everything would work out. No harm done. Jenni clenched her tiny hands, her forearms on the table. She was desperate for Tom to impress this man who had the power of life or death over his ambitions. Her ambitions. She dug her nails into her skin to push the thoughts away.

Robert MacIntyre knew why he was there and was giving no hint that the outcome was already written on a confidential memo in his inside pocket. The Chief Constable's wife wasn't going to get that for a plateful of Sainsbury's mixed vol-au-vents.

Having learned all he needed to about Shackleton's inner man, he skilfully turned the conversation to lighter things. Past experiences, embarrassing moments. By telling, very wittily, some tales of his early days in the Commons he allowed Shackleton to relax into reminiscence.

Now the Gnome was surprised. The serious, convincing policeman turned into a schoolboy. The encouragement of his audience and the wine and port liberated a very funny story-teller whose humour was quite earthy and occasionally risqué. And he had this extraordinary laugh, as if he was doing it from memory and it hadn't changed since puberty.

Lucy heard it and it made her more fond of him. More maternal. Jenni heard it and thought it sounded asinine. She also hated it when he told his crude stories. Especially the one about the Italian PC with the abnormally large member. The tag line always guaranteed a wave of pleasantly shocked laughter. Tales of Tom's beginnings in the canteen culture of the Met in South London. His well-rehearsed party turn.