The Touch of Innocents (17 page)

‘So fah, so very good, suh,’ she mimicked in drawling tones.

‘I’m glad. To work, then. What do we do next?’

‘Figure out how Devereux knew who I was talking to on the phone.’

‘An extension? A tape machine, perhaps, tapping his own phone? That’s easy enough.’

‘But Devereux’s been hundreds of miles away. Yesterday he was in Scotland, visiting some nuclear submarine base. I saw him on the news last night.’

‘So how does he keep his finger on the pulse?’

‘… around my throat?’

Suddenly her thoughts were swamped by instinct, telling her all was not well, to be alert, that danger called. She could no longer hear the sound of Benjy throwing gravel. Instead there was traffic, the sounds of a country road abruptly grown busy, of heavy speeding tyres on tarmac. Of rapid, careless footsteps.

She turned to see a dust-smeared farm lorry, saw too the anxious and tormented face of its driver as he reached simultaneously for brakes and horn, and then she could see Benjy’s heedless meandering from forecourt to gutter that led directly into the lorry’s path. The noise of the horn blaring out its warning fused with her own cry as brakes protested and tyres left a smouldering path along the road. Benjy, at last aware of danger, turned, faced the oncoming juggernaut, transfixed.

Nightmares are made up of such pieces. The
tendency is to freeze, to cower beneath the bed-clothes in fear and impotence, to wait until the awful dream has passed. It is how many men and women have gone to their deaths, refusing to believe the testimony before their eyes, praying the moment will pass, unable to react, even to protest.

It seemed inconceivable that she could have beaten the lorry to the spot where Benjy waited, that in a stride she could have pushed him from danger’s path and still been able herself to avoid the desperate advance of the lorry, but mothers possess a capacity to be more than mortal. As she stood, trembling, clutching her son in exultation, seared by the knowledge that she had let him stray and that she alone was to blame, she knew for the first time the true depths of her plight.

She knew, if she had ever doubted it, that she must persevere, that she would be unable to find peace without first knowing the truth about Bella. Simply, she could never live with her guilt.

Yet there were many sides to her guilt, other risks which she now had no choice but to recognize. She had just seen one of those risks, only by some extraordinary chance averted it. The risk was to Benjy, placed in peril while her attention was elsewhere. Even as she chased after the shadowy truth about one child, she was dragging her other towards danger. Could she live with that guilt? Was it to be Benjy? Or Bella?

There was something else she knew as she stood sucking the breath back into her lungs and soothing Benjy’s alarm. For a fleeting moment before it disappeared back behind a protective curtain, through the window of a tea room which stood at an angle across the road from The Thomas Hardy, she saw a face.

The dark scowl of Chinnery. Spying on her.

Now she knew how Devereux had been aware of her every move.

The room was shrouded, lit only by a table lamp on the great mahogany desk and the reflection from the city lights which penetrated through the uncovered windows. It was how the Prime Minister liked to work, to concentrate in the solitude of his study in Downing Street. Richard Flood was gazing through the centimetre-thick glass, trying to scratch away a mark with his thumb nail, slow to realize the imperfection was buried in the multi-layered and mortarproofed pane, when Devereux walked in.

‘Paul, good evening,’ he offered without turning round. ‘You know, the garden looks a mess. I really must get it cleaned up.’

‘Mmmm,’ Devereux muttered, not sure quite why he had been entrusted with such crucial information and wondering whether the Prime Minister, who was gaining something of a reputation for his eccentric behaviour under pressure, was going to ask him to roll up his sleeves and fetch a spade.

‘How’s Bizzie?’ he offered.

‘Oh, Elizabeth’s fine, the little lady’s just fine. Never better, thank you,’ Flood muttered distractedly, as though Devereux had asked after the time of day rather than the Prime Minister’s wife.

Fool, thought Devereux. Three years in Downing Street had turned the man into a puppet of formality, a hive of hidebound inactivity who seemed even to have forgotten how much his wife hated her full name. He’d forgotten much else about her, too.

Flood spun on his heel. ‘Paul, I wanted you to be here to share it. Remember, our evening at the American Ambassador’s the other night? When I twisted his arm about the UN and Cyprus and things?’

‘Ah, yes, Dick,’ Devereux repeated, clearing his throat of the sour humour which the Prime Minister’s words had caused. ‘A wise move, I’m sure.’

‘Not just wise, Paul. Brilliant! I heard this afternoon that they’re going to agree. To everything. Absolutely bloody everything. Wonderful, eh? The President’s due to telephone in a few minutes to put his personal seal on things and I thought you might like to share the moment with me. Couldn’t have done it without your support, you know.’

Devereux shook his head in what he hoped did not betray his feelings of scorn but appeared more a gesture of self-deprecating denial.

‘They’ve really crammed this deal through, the President must need it more badly than we realized,’ Flood continued. ‘Maybe we let them off too lightly. What do you think, Paul? Should we tweak ’em for a little more?’

‘The cows have been well covered. Let’s not exhaust the bull with too much pleasure.’

They were interrupted by the warble of one of the three telephones on the desk. Within seconds the connection was made.

‘Mr President, good evening. Oh, you’re in California and it’s still morning? I want you to know I’m very happy for you. I also want you to know I have Paul Devereux with me, my Secretary of State for Defence. I hope you won’t object if I put this call on the speaker so he can listen along?’

The Prime Minister punched a button on the
console and the deep Virginian tones of the American leader echoed into the room.

‘Blessed are they that giveth, Prime Minister, and, as I guess you know, I’m about to be pretty damn’ blessed.’

The American leader was known for his fondness of biblical quotation and analogy with which he cultivated the public image of a Southern gentleman and national father figure. In private, it was not unknown for him to conduct meetings with his advisers while occupying a toilet seat.

‘That’s most kind of you, Mr President. I trust your rewards will be plentiful and in this life.’

‘Sure as hell better be. That’s where I need a little generosity of spirit on your part, Prime Minister. You’ve got what you want. The financial deal on the Duster. The Security Council, Cyprus, and we’ll put on a reception during your trip to Washington which’d make Walt Disney go green. But there’s one other item I want your truly British help on.’

‘Which is?’

‘Well, see here, you know I have some little local difficulties with the Congress on this project. As the Good Book says, they have eyes that cannot see, ears that cannot hear and mouths that cannot stop. Or something like that. So I need to be particularly friendly towards the senior Senator for Wyoming, who just happens to be the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and who also just happens to have a grand-daughter desperate to get into your Oxford University. Now, if the kid had as much brain as the old man’s got influence there’d be no problem, but … Could you fix it for me?’

The Prime Minister’s lower jaw wobbled. ‘Well, the Government doesn’t control such matters, of course, and those intellectuals make such a fuss
about academic freedom … But I’d be happy to look into it for you. Personally.’

‘Goddamn it, I don’t want it looking into, Prime Minister, I want it done. Isn’t the Duster worth one little lousy place at Oxford, for Chrissake? I’d have thought it’d be worth an entire university.’

‘I … I …’ Flood’s jaw wobbled once more, taken aback at the other’s approach.

‘Mr President.’ Devereux stepped into the conversation. ‘You have to understand the Prime Minister must ensure he is not seen trampling roughshod over academic freedom. It would do no favours to the Senator or his grand-daughter if there were a great public outcry over the matter.’

‘Well, ain’t that the truth.’

‘However, I think there is a way round the problem. I’m sure the Prime Minister could find a British defence contractor, one closely involved with the Duster perhaps, who might be persuaded with the Prime Minister’s personal encouragement to take a keen interest in endowing an academic chair at Oxford. An ideal and imaginative way of displaying his deep social commitment. A commitment which might lead him all the way to the House of Lords, eh, Prime Minister?’

‘Well, yes, I’m sure …’

‘I suspect that, in these very stringent financial times for them, the university authorities would be likely to take a very understanding and sympathetic view of any … minor conditions which might be attached to such a munificent gesture.’

‘You mean you can fix it?’ boomed the President.

‘Yes.’

‘Yes!’ repeated the Prime Minister.

‘Gentlemen, thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a by-word, among all nations. Know
something, I believe our little baby has lift-off.’

‘Bless you,’ muttered the Prime Minister as the President bade his farewell and the line went dead. For the first time in weeks, Devereux saw Flood smile.

The Defence Secretary spent a further hour with the Prime Minister as the latter savoured the triumph over a glass of whisky. They set to resolving other problems, settling scores, planning initiatives which might lead to revival and electoral success. Flood was enthused and Devereux content to take a back seat, to listen, offer guarded suggestions, to let the Prime Minister pick up the ideas and run with them. He had to act with care. He could not outshine his leader yet must provide a sufficient measure of comfort and encouragement to ensure he maintained the inside track which was opening for him. Win or lose the next election, Flood was unlikely to last much beyond. For the first time in a purposeful fashion, Devereux began to consider the possibility that he might soon take his colleague’s place.

Prime Minister. It was there, beckoning. Then the ghost of his father would most truly have been laid.

Flood, in generous spirit, accompanied Devereux to the front door of Number Ten where, at the moment the door swung open, the television lights for the nightly news broadcast were switched on, bathing them in the glow of national attention. The Prime Minister took Devereux’s hand and shook it warmly, a gesture of endorsement which, even bereft of words, would be seen and understood by all who followed the uncertain tidal streams of political fortune.

‘An excellent evening, Paul. Thank you. I suppose you are off to celebrate our success?’

Devereux returned the smile. ‘Perhaps later. First
I need to call the American Ambassador. There are a couple of details that still need sorting out with him.’

He seemed to be everywhere. On television, in the headlines, all around the house, within her marriage, even inside her skull. She had woken in the middle of the night, pillow damp from the torment of the nightmare and mental effort of trying to break free, but to no avail. The face of Paulette had loomed once more out of her subconscious, the image clearer and more precise than ever. Except when the face of Paulette had melted into the features of Paul.

But what had inspired most terror within her was the fact that, struggle hard as she might, as the image of the girl gained in clarity so the other image seemed to dissolve. She could not recall what her own baby looked like. Bella was gone. The childish, half-formed features, the pitch of her cry, the face, the changing colour of the eyes and the special way the red hair fell across her brow, all blurred in her mind like the scorched celluloid of an old film. She wanted to take the easy way out, and panic.

She wiped her damp brow – hell, it wasn’t damp, it was running with sweat – and lay back on her pillow to listen to the sounds of the old house. Such places were never still, constantly creaking, echoing with time. And time was not on her side.

Time passed, day by day, taking her further away from Bella. How long had it been? And her question gave birth to an insight, perhaps one last place to try.

She had burgled every room in the house, invaded every cupboard, inspected every corner in her search for some sign, evading the suspicious eyes of Sally who seemed to have been told she was up to no good. Most normal hosts would have thrown her out
as soon as they discovered she suspected his daughter, perhaps even himself, but Devereux was normal neither as a host nor as an opponent. He obviously preferred to have her watched, to know where she was, what she was doing.

She, too, had resisted the temptation to move away from the house. There seemed little point. She had nowhere else to go, no money and, since the Devereux family had become a target, staying in the house somehow placed her nearer to her goal. It was intended as a prison, but the doors remained unbolted.

So she had stayed. And searched. But there had been nothing. Not even any locks, no pretence of trying to hide clues, except in the filing cabinets within the study, and they were Government secured, probably alarmed, unbreachable. And yet, perhaps …

As silently as she could, without lights, she crept from her bed through the darkened house, like a thief, catching her breath as every floorboard groaned like a coffin lid, her senses on edge, listening for the snap of a light switch, fearing illumination and discovery. There was only Sally, who slept at the back of the house, but in the dark the place crawled with a thousand ghosts. Devereux ghosts.

Then she was in the study, her eyes set not on the filing cabinets but on the word processor. Perhaps the one place which held secrets that Devereux had forgotten to lock. Unless he wrote his diary longhand.

As she switched on, she knew how great was the risk of discovery. The equipment began to whine and beep with a noise that would carry through the old stone house; she sat bathed in blue light which
must have been visible right across the vale, and certainly as far as the cottage where Chinnery lived. She turned in alarm at a tapping on the window, but it was no more than a hawthorn bush, disturbed by the wind.

‘
Disk error
.’

Damn. But delight. There was a floppy disk in the jaws of the drive. A button release, a flashing screen, an orchestra of electronic greetings.

‘
Microsoft Word
.’

Great! The whole world knew this program. And she was into it. Probing. Ransacking. Revealing.

And there she found it, on the floppy.

‘
Diary
.’

Just like that. Bloody fool. He’d forgotten, overlooked it – but didn’t everyone?

It was not the full diary, only musings of the last months, since October. But that would be more than enough. Quickly she scrolled through, flashing past secrets both personal and political, the ammunition he had loaded.

‘
Oct 14. Cabinet. PM pathetic, wretched man. No backbone, no balls. D. is talking of a leadership challenge …’

She dared not tarry.

‘
Oct 20. Spent night with BL while PM off in Brussels. The fool. Being screwed on all fronts
…

‘
Oct 30. New private secretary at Department. Rebecca. Divorced. Dynamite. Delightful prospect …’

And so it continued but she had no time to take it in, catching only fragments of the inner man, until she had reached the date of her accident.

Nothing. Nothing but a wine-drenched dinner party against which he had recorded the political indiscretions uttered by the host and the personal
indiscretions he had been led to expect from the hostess.

She scrolled on. The next two days, and more.

And there it was. Cryptic. Scarcely incriminating, no proof, but enough for Izzy.

‘
P. My darling P. How could you? I have been so blind. God help her. God help us both
.’

What had he discovered about his daughter so soon after the accident that had left him on his knees? The despair cut clean through. This was the real Devereux, or at least part of him, but she had no time for pity or any other judgement. She jumped in dismay as once again the wind scratched the hawthorn across the pane and, from the cottage that nestled in the lee of the house, a light appeared. Chinnery’s light.