The Crime Tsar (49 page)

Then one afternoon, unable to stop herself, she rang his office again and he answered. Lucy was thrown for a moment. Where was Janet? One o'clock. Lunch.

She was surprised at how normal her voice sounded.

‘Oh, hello. I … er … I've been trying to get hold of you. I didn't expect you to answer.'

The self-deprecating laugh.

‘I'm being a good boss, answering my secretary's phone. I must answer it more often.'

She felt a surge of hope. Maybe the intimacy was still there. She lowered her voice.

‘Are you all right?'

His reply was formal. Polite.

‘I'm fine, thanks, Lucy. How is Gary?'

She was burbling now.

‘He's fine. Well, no, he's got to go into hospital for a couple of days … I mean … I've been worried about you.'

It was as though he hadn't heard her.

‘I'm sorry, I have to go. I have a meeting.'

Lucy heard the desperation in her voice. Yet again he'd turned her into a supplicant.

‘It would be nice to meet. If you want to talk. Well, um … you know, if Gary's going to be away, I'll be on my own till the weekend at least and well …' She trailed off hoping he'd come to her rescue.

But as if replying to a journalist he outlined his reasons for not being available: he had to draw up a national anti-crime strategy, he even detailed the government's policy towards recidivists.

When he drew breath Lucy said, ‘So this is goodbye then.'

He was quick to reply.

‘No, no. I don't want to say goodbye.'

Lucy was surprised at the strength in her voice.

‘Well, I'm not going to phone up every six months to listen to the government's thoughts on repeat offenders.'

He was taken off guard by her tone. Defensive.

‘But we were talking about –'

Lucy cut in. At last she was angry, indignant.

‘Will I see you again?'

Pause.

‘Probably not.'

Lucy knew she'd never been so coldly angry or so in control.

‘Well, say goodbye then.'

Shackleton hated to give up anything that was his. When he spoke his voice was soft, reluctant.

‘Goodbye.'

Lucy's voice was strong, loud.

‘Goodbye.'

As she rang off she heard him say with a gentleness he only had with her, ‘Take care.'

But it was too late. Lucy stared at the phone, the urge to call back not quite as strong as the desire to be free. But after a moment, regrets started to whisper, and she reached for the phone.

Then, through the window, she saw it pull up. A white flat bed truck. A nondescript man in jeans got out and heaved something off the back. He walked with it, like a suburban Christ carrying his cross, to Shackleton's gates. Then he tied the
FOR SALE
sign to the upright with metal ties. After checking it was secure, he returned to his van and drove off.

Lucy hadn't moved. She had barely breathed. She grabbed her bag and ran over to the house. Scrabbling for the keys she dropped the bag's contents on the front step. The key didn't work. It wouldn't turn. The locks had been changed. She leaned against the door and sobbed, sliding down it until she was sitting knees up and head down against it.

The same position Jenni had died in.

After speaking to Lucy, Shackleton had gone back to the work of putting his team together, meeting politicians, preparing his first statement of intent. It wasn't until after a rather fine dinner at the Athenaeum he thought about her again.

MacIntyre was also a guest and they found themselves sitting around the same low table in the bar drinking ancient brandy and savouring the burnt autumn smell of a large arrangement of lilies which dominated the otherwise soberly masculine room.

Their host, a desiccated wit whose life had been made comfortable by the Law, if not always justice, had the rare gift of making his guests relax into indiscretion and, occasionally, inebriation.

Neither Shackleton nor the Gnome was drunk but they were more relaxed with one another than they had been before. Jenni was no longer an uncomfortable presence.

The conversation roamed amiably and grazed on several subjects before MacIntyre said, ‘How's that neighbour of yours? Lucy, wasn't it?'

Shackleton was so taken aback he didn't say anything but he could feel himself getting hot. His face and ears were burning. Red. For God's sake, he was blushing. He was confused – maybe he had had too much to drink. That must be it. He put his glass down.

The Gnome was watching him, amused. He'd never seen Tom Shackleton shaken before.

‘I enjoyed meeting her. I thought she was a very …' He paused, swirling his brandy and summoning the right word. ‘… A very sweet person. Am I right, Tom? Is she sweet?'

He'd leaned in close to Shackleton now, close enough to see the fine hairs on the other man's cheekbones and the flushed skin underneath.

‘I've no idea, I don't know her very well. She's a – she was a friend of Jenni's.'

The Gnome was smiling now. The alcohol was making him playful. He was in what Lizie called his ‘kitten with a ball of string' mood.

‘Really? I got the impression you' – a breath – ‘were her special friend.'

Shackleton turned to MacIntyre and was surprised at the benign amusement on the dwarfish face. He struggled to maintain a tone of moderate outrage.

‘For Christ's sake, what the hell gave you that idea?'

The Gnome shrugged and sat back, still watching Shackleton with a sort of elfish mischievousness.

‘Oh, nothing really. Except she's in love with you.'

Shackleton clenched his hands together and suppressed a laugh.

It was a spectacularly inappropriate reaction and delighted the Gnome. He was always interested in unforeseen reactions to embarrassment. This was much more interesting than outrage or anger.

‘Oh, while I think of it, we must have another meeting about budgets. That tight bugger at the Treasury's getting jumpy again. Another brandy?'

Having had his fun MacIntyre got up and went to the bar to join their host. There were waves of laughter from the men there. Shackleton knew they weren't laughing at him but it felt the same as when he was in the playground surrounded by laughter and didn't find out until his mother slapped him that his trousers were split, exposing his hand-me-down vest and pants. Group laughter had made him uneasy ever since.

He prepared to stand up but wasn't sure he could move. He must have drunk more than he realised.

Lucy. Bloody Lucy. Why couldn't she leave him alone? She'd made him say goodbye. That should have been it. The relief of a life without emotional clutter.

He got up. No, it wasn't too much drink, it was emotional poisoning. The residue of too much feeling in a hitherto emotional teetotaller.

Pleading pressure of work he said his goodbyes and didn't allow himself to think again until he was out of the building. He walked across the square to his car and looked back at the great gold Pallas Athene above the pillared entrance of the club. The goddess of wisdom.

He wondered who the goddess of rank stupidity was because that's who he needed tonight.

His driver opened the car door.

‘No. No it's all right, thanks. You go. I want to walk for a while.'

The man looked sceptical but he just said goodnight and drove off.

It was cold. He put on his white raincoat, the one Jenni had derided as being far too Humphrey Bogart, and walked down the steps to the Mall. The buildings were luminous in the moonlight as he walked past the war memorial in the park, with the empty Horse-guards Parade on his left.

A car passed, illuminating the back of Downing Street. The pelicans he'd thought were swans on his first visit shone white on
the rocky islands of the lake. The little gingerbread house opposite the Cabinet Office looked enchanted.

And he missed Lucy.

He sat on one of the low railings edging the grass, his back to Whitehall, his face to the quiet stirrings in the park, and allowed himself for the first time since the phone call to think about her.

Amidst all the guilt and confusion, the one thing he now realised, too late, was he missed her. He really missed her. It wasn't Jenni's absence he felt but that of cosy, loving Lucy.

‘Oh Lucy. Lucy, Lucy, Lucy.'

A Canadian goose, disturbed by Shackleton's lovesick repetitions, honked.

At the same time a taxi, its old diesel engine shattering the romantic calm of the scene, clattered round the corner. Shackleton hailed it. If it had a third gear he might just make the eleven o'clock train.

The thought of Lucy alone in the house, and the residue of good wines and brandy, sustained Shackleton all the way to her front door.

Then the doubts set in. The sight of his house, the memories, the sheer idiocy of what he was doing. What was he doing? He wasn't sure. What had he come for? He didn't know. No. That wasn't true. He'd come to talk. Lucy was the only one he could talk to. She was a part of him. He sat on the step. If she was part of him she was the only good part. He saw how far he'd travelled when he realised he didn't want to lose that.

He remembered, in the warm, dark stillness-of one of their nights together, he'd said, in reply to her probing for some sign of affection, ‘If we were both free, our relationship would be very different.' As always, phrasing himself ambiguously. As always, open to interpretation. Well, now he wanted it to be different. All right, they weren't both free but they could talk, maybe make plans for the future, after Gary … when Gary … Shackleton stopped himself. Jenni had taught him the destructive power of allowing wishes to germinate. Leave it. Go back to London. The monster Hope had rarely visited his life – it wasn't the time to invite it to take up residence now.

But he couldn't stop himself. Lucy had become the one thing, the
one person who could save him from the nothing that was threatening to envelop him. She had held him and told him he was alive. The black women had said only wood could defeat him. With Lucy and the scrupulous avoidance of splinters he'd make a life, a life like other people had, with happiness and tranquillity. He laughed out loud. That was it, Lucy was the key to life.

The front door opened behind him. He stood up like a guilty schoolboy.

‘Can I help you?'

It was a woman in her forties with tightly curled rust-blonde hair, discreet reddish lipstick and blue eyeshadow unrelieved by either mascara or liner. Her dress was dark blue in the fashion of women who despised fashion. Her shoes sensible and suitable for anything required of a foot besides glamour. She was formidable and English, and born a century too late.

‘My name's Shackleton, I'm sorry, I didn't realise the time, I was hoping to –'

She didn't allow him to finish, used as she was to a lifetime of completing the sentences of others.

‘Pop in for a visit, yes. Now I see you in the light, you're that chap who's the new Crime Tsar. Used to live opposite. Lucy's mentioned you.'

‘Is Lucy –?'

‘Yes, come in. Oh how do you do, by the way, I'm Christine, Christine Stroud. We were just going to have hot chocolate.'

Shackleton followed her into the hall. His heart was beating fast. He hadn't felt like this for years. Or had he ever felt such excitement at the prospect of seeing a woman?

The house was smaller and shabbier than he remembered, but then he hadn't set foot in it for a long time.

Christine tapped on the door as she passed the front room.

‘Visitor for you,' she called and went on to the kitchen indicating Shackleton should go in.

He was shaking and sweating. Out of breath. He'd been having breathless attacks since Jenni died. The doctors couldn't find any reason. Just stress, they said, reaction. Whatever the cause he was panting now, like a smoker after a flight of steep stairs.

The door handle was stiff and made too loud a noise as he turned it and went in. The heat of the room struck him immediately. It was
stuffy with the blast of a very efficient radiator and heavily curtained windows.

Then he saw why.

Instead of Lucy there was Gary, lying in his bed with three pillows raising him to a half-seated position. Hanging by his side the urine bag hooked over the bed frame.

‘I'm sorry, I thought –'

He wanted to run out of the house before Gary turned his head and saw him. But Gary didn't turn. He was asleep. His breathing steadier than Shackleton's and deeper.

Christine bustled in with a tray.

‘Go on in. Sit down. I'll put Gary's under this little cover. I doubt he'll wake now he's had his medication. He doesn't usually go off this quick though.'

Shackleton didn't move.

‘Well, why don't you stay a while – he might wake up. He'd be glad to see you.' She lowered her voice to a pitch that could summon foxhounds. ‘I think he's lonely without Lucy here. Misses her dreadfully.'

Shackleton was lost for what to say.

‘Are you a relation?'

He might as well have said, ‘Do you support the disestablishment of the Church?'

‘Good Lord, no. I'm a nurse, Mr Shackleton. Have been all my life. Lucy always asks for me when she's away. Not that she's away much, she's such a saint, no. She's gone off for a few days R and R. Apparently she lost someone close recently and has taken it rather hard. I'm sure you' – emphasis on the you and a rounding of the blue-lidded eyes – ‘of all people will understand that.'

‘Yes.'

‘I'll leave you alone then. If you want anything I'll be in the kitchen.'

She'd put the tray down by the bed. Shackleton went across and looked down at Gary.

‘You'd better drink it before it gets a skin.'

Gary spoke without opening his eyes, though the desire to see Shackleton's face was almost irresistible. He was rewarded by the sound of a cup being knocked over. He opened them then and turned to look at Shackleton.