The Madness of July Page 5

  Paul was jacketless but still formal. He had more than ten years on Flemyng, but no one would have thought the gap so wide because Paul was in good shape, with a helmet of flecked grey-blond hair and a fresh complexion. He wore a pale blue shirt with faint stripes, his daily uniform, and a loosened cricket club tie. As he opened a file, Flemyng watched the tilt of his face, which was dominated by wide, light grey eyes. Long lashes gave them extra power. Everything else played second fiddle – the short nose, his full lips, the ears scrunched up as if someone had nibbled them. When he spoke it was in a classless voice devoid of any drawl, clipped and precise, like his grammar. He was hard to place, except as a man of decision.

  ‘We have a delicate problem here,’ he began.

  ‘Where?’ said Flemyng, familiar enough with the Jenner style to know that Paul would not think him frivolous.

  ‘Well may you ask. In a bloody cupboard somewhere in the bowels of our beloved parliament.’

  Flemyng shifted in his chair, head forward.

  ‘As awkward a place as you could imagine for this kind of business,’ Paul continued, as if he had been expecting just such an event to come his way some day. ‘I needn’t tell you what the House authorities are doing.’

  ‘Crapping themselves,’ said Flemyng quickly and quite softly, to make clear that he didn’t want to interrupt.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Paul. ‘The very few who know. I’m going to let you hear the story first hand.’ His grey eyes fixed on Flemyng, as if he might ask him to swear an oath first. ‘I tell you now that it has become more complicated than I would like. There have already been mistakes, and…’ – he produced a rare unpolished phrase – ‘… we’ve hardly started.’ Flemyng saw him glance at his watch, and felt a jolt: everything must have happened within the last hour or two. Paul was still standing, one hand resting on the edge of his desk.

  ‘Will.’ Flemyng could hear longing in Paul’s voice: he needed reassurance. ‘You’re here because your phone number has turned up in strange circumstances. We’ll come to that. But there’s more. Your boss, like mine’ – he looked back at his watch with a touch of theatricality – ‘is leaving the country as we speak. Mine en route to watch a military exercise in the northern seas – and to be watched in turn by our Russian friends, naturally – and yours on a quieter African swing for lots of handshakes and not much else. That’s his lot. Then both to Paris for the signing on Tuesday. Good news. When prime ministers and foreign secretaries are away, we’re a little more free, as you well know. We can operate in our own way.’

  ‘You might even say we were alone,’ Flemyng said. In an enterprise that they both knew might involve deceit.

  ‘You’ll gather,’ Paul was continuing, ‘that I have already started to play this one in a rather unorthodox manner. I may regret that. History tells me I almost certainly will, but there we are. I’ve set a course. Some of it, I’m sorry to say, has been set for me. I’m going to produce for you the nearest thing we have to a witness. Gwilym is the best we can do.’ He lifted the phone on his desk.

  Gwilym. Red-striped shirt askew at both ends, with the collar splayed wide, leaving his black tie to hang down like an afterthought, he stumbled through the door. He was what he appeared: a blue blood who pulsed with confidence and bonhomie, a kenspeckle presence in parliament and government, drinking with backbenchers one minute and secretaries of state the next, for ever appearing around corners. He carried the misleading label of private secretary to the government chief whip, true as far as it went but catching none of his significance. Half manipulator and half honest broker, oiling the wheels, he was family solicitor to parliamentarians who had to be extricated from an affair or a plot that had backfired; did the deals that had to be done across the floor, behind the arras. Got the government’s business done. Along the way, he saved marriages and broke them, gave a career his blessing or prepared it for the end. Knew every corner of the political landscape, and all the darker secrets that moved events.

  A daily cry went up, ‘Send for Gwilym!’ – it was rare to use his second name, which was Crombie – and he was there, often before the message was sent, having a nose for trouble and a genius for never being far away. He was ready with a hand for any shoulder, a confidence to offer in exchange for a confession of weakness or terror. Treasured and feared, he lurked, and almost always smiled.

  Flemyng had seen him the previous evening, doing his rounds. They’d exchanged a cheery word about parliamentary business for the last few days before the coming summer recess. ‘Harry Sorley’s education bill is a mess,’ Gwilym had said. ‘You saw it coming, which is more than he did. Well, I’ve got it in hand. He’s going to have to swallow his medicine. Chaos otherwise. Do help, won’t you? Speak to him as a friend. You have a way at these moments. We don’t want the rising of the House postponed, and trouble.’ Unthinkable, with the summer sun so high.

  But the Gwilym in front of him now was a different man. His face was blotchy, his straw-blond hair matted in violent spikes, cheerfulness transformed into a visible nervousness that had him clutching the top of his trousers with one hand and waving the other like a flag of distress. Flemyng was stirred. There was a hint of terror in the room. Paul seized the moment.

  ‘Will, I know how good you are at this kind of stuff.’ Flemyng gave no acknowledgement. ‘I need you on board.’ That he wasn’t yet in cabinet, hadn’t yet taken the oath that made brethren of the highest ministers, was neither here nor there, it seemed. Paul pressed on, ‘Who cares about seniority? An advantage, really. I know what you’ve done in the past, under the radar, before you got out.’ He did a half-turn of his head to look directly at Lucy, who stayed stock still. After a few moments, when he had received a slight nod of understanding from her, he turned back to Flemyng. ‘I do need you now. All the advice you can give. It’s your political brain I want, your feel for things. I can’t read them the same way.’

  Flemyng’s response was largely for Lucy’s benefit. But he looked to Paul. ‘Do you trust me?’

  ‘Do you think you’d be here…?’ He rubbed his head. ‘Of course I do. I think I may be in great difficulty and there are people in this building who mustn’t know that. Not until I’ve got a grip of this. I don’t even know what I want you to find out. I need your understanding, that’s all.’

  Flemyng interrupted. ‘You know what I’m saying. Really trust? On board to solve a problem, or to be watched so that you can make your judgement of me – if my phone number’s tied up in this somehow.’

  He appeared not to have stiffened in the course of this awkward exchange. His legs spread out wider, he loosened his tie and across his face there was no sign of alarm. He seemed to draw in energy in preparation for springing to life and racing from the room. ‘I’m with you, of course. I’ll work with you, as best I can. But I know nothing.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Paul. ‘I do want you, from which it follows that I have trust.’

  Flemyng muttered, ‘Are you sure? Which phone? Home…, office?’

  ‘Let’s hear from Gwilym,’ was Paul’s answer. He gave the signal to begin.

  In the pause that preceded Gwilym’s account, the scene took on the appearance of a staged photograph, which Flemyng saw in sepia, drained of colour and everyone held in a pose by the moment. Gwilym had steadied himself in the comfortable armchair Paul had placed in the bay window, the strong light from behind him keeping his face dark, by contrast with the circle of brightness round his head from the sun. He’d dropped his jacket on the floor in a heap. Lucy was sitting upright with her hands folded over a closed notebook, the perfect servant. At the centre of the tableau was Paul, in command behind his wide desk, quite still, eyes turned towards the window, their grey untouched by the sun.

  ‘I’m afraid it was a bugger’s muddle from the start,’ said Gwilym.

  ‘It begins with Denbigh. You’ll know him, by sight anyway, one of the younger clerks in the House. Hair everywhere, beard and all the rest of it, child of the decade past, I sup
pose. Odd-looking chap, but conventional underneath, funnily enough. Sorry for rambling.

  ‘He was going about his business this morning, trundling through the shortcut that they use down from the Speaker’s office. I think myself that he was heading early to the strangers’ bar for a swift one, but that’s by the by.’ His voice was rising to its natural confident tenor. ‘Anyway, he noticed that the door to one of the store cupboards was open – a walk-in thing, full of boxes and spare bits and pieces. There’s a bust of Gladstone for some reason, old door handles, ghastly candelabra, you name it. They put the Baldwin portrait in there, the one that was slashed. Rolls of wallpaper, lanterns and brass rails dangling all over the place. Anyway, tried to pull the door shut. Natural thing to do. Couldn’t.’

  He hadn’t lost his sense of timing, and waited for a moment.

  ‘It was jammed open by a dead man’s foot.’

  Though Gwilym’s eyes were in shadow, Flemyng could see that he was looking up at his audience. Lucy’s concentration had kicked in. She was holding her hair behind her head, so that her broad mouth, usually turned up, was her main feature. Her face was expressionless. ‘Denbigh took a minute to realize what it was,’ Gwilym said. ‘Thought there might have been a statue or something that had fallen over. Silly, but fair enough when you think about it. You don’t expect corpses in his line of work.’ Paul showed no sign of impatience but allowed Gwilym time, to let him settle. ‘As he put it to me, the body was twisted and contorted, pale – you’d hardly expect anything else, would you? – and the eyes were open. Horrible, of course.’ He paused, an attempted mark of respect.

  ‘The man was so obviously dead that Denbigh realized he wouldn’t have to touch him, or speak to him. That was a relief, of course.’ Gwilym added, ‘I mean, he wasn’t still alive and in need of something. Rescue, kiss of life, I don’t know. He had another reason for relief – knowing them all, he knew that it wasn’t the body of a member. Better or worse if it had been? I don’t know.

  ‘Then Denbigh did something a bit silly.’

  ‘But understandable,’ Paul put in, to help.

  He took in expectant glances from Flemyng and Lucy and raised a palm. Wait.

  ‘He did his best to conceal the body without disturbing things too much.’ So he had tried to move the foot, using his own, to allow the door to close. ‘It was bloody difficult,’ said Gwilym. ‘Not because it was stiff, but because it was floppy. Denbigh kept thinking it was going to come to life again. Ghastly, and he was a youngish man, too. Blondish curly hair, fit-looking if you know what I mean. Wearing jeans, believe it or not, in the House. Must have stuck out like a sore thumb. Anyway, no blood, not a drop. That was a relief. But an awful look on his face. Anyway, Denbigh got the foot, leg I suppose, back far enough and shut the door. There was a key. He locked it.’ Flemyng noticed that Paul was shaking his head slowly, for the first time.

  The police officer who should have been on duty down a few stairs, round the corner near the strangers’ bar, had taken a walk on to the terrace, Gwilym said. It was a hot morning; no one around, wind-down time. ‘This is where he bent the rules a bit. Didn’t look for an officer, but came to me. We’d been together a few minutes before, so he knew I’d still be in the chief whip’s room a minute away.’

  Paul made his first intervention, knowing the answer, but wanting it laid out. ‘And what did you do then?’

  ‘I’m afraid I made a mistake. Me too.’ Gwilym’s head was down again. ‘This was so odd that I didn’t want to leave it to ordinary policemen.’ Aware of the childish phrase, he hurried on. ‘I know the number for the Special Branch folk so I rang it. Panic, I suppose. Friend of mine helps me out there from time to time – you remember when we found the IRA boys on the kitchen staff – and it seemed their sort of thing. Chap called Osterley picked up the phone; an officer not known to me. I gave him what information I could.’ At this he stopped, and seemed to be about to offer an explanation, but Paul gestured to him to resume the core story. ‘He told me to get to the scene, wait with Denbigh and say nothing.’

  ‘You mean, not to tell the House authorities? Which you should have done first?’ Paul as head prefect, getting Gwilym to repeat what he already knew.

  ‘Exactly.’ He nodded miserably. ‘I pressed the alarm bell when I shouldn’t have. Tourist keels over. So what? But a body in a cupboard… I suppose that’s what did it; that and what we found at the scene.’ There was a moment’s silence, as if to give sympathy in his predicament.

  ‘And so a sequence of events began,’ said Paul, like a solicitor obliged to take a client through an unhappy story. ‘Rapidly.’

  Having stood on the other side of the door from the dead man for a few minutes, Denbigh, according to Gwilym, had gone into a kind of trance as a way of preserving his mental balance, but even in his torment he had recognized the origin of the dark blue passport that was making a little tent where it had fallen on the floor.

  ‘When I made my call to Special Branch they asked for any information I had,’ said Gwilym. ‘Well, all I had – apart from a corpse at my feet – was an American passport. So I read out the details, naturally. Osterley asked me to stay on the line and I waited. Disappeared for a good five minutes, then he gave me the third degree. Name and passport number that was recognized, national security, blah, blah, blah. The works. Stand by your beds; stay dumb. Well, what else could I do? I was in it up to my neck if I did anything else.

  ‘There was panic. Imagine us. Denbigh was as white as the corpse. He was guarding the door like Horatio on the bridge and I was shaking. Apart from his aunt, he said he had never seen one,’ he said, with a theatrical hand gesture in gesticulation at the memory of the body. ‘Great-aunt, actually.’

  Denbigh had asked him a clerk’s question, Gwilym said. ‘He wondered if it helped– made a difference – that he was American.’

  Happy to have a procedural problem to explain, Gwilym had recovered his fluency. ‘I understood how his mind was working, trying to find a way out. We all know about deaths in the House. Denbigh was hoping it might be easier with a foreign corpse. ’Tisn’t, of course. Makes no difference. Worse, if anything.’

  His listeners understood, but allowed him to tell his story without interruption, explaining a difficulty that was well-known, but kept quiet. The parliamentary authorities had more than the usual dislike of dead bodies, because their building was still – technically and anachronistically – a royal palace, with one irritating consequence. The royal coroner was responsible for investigating sudden deaths on all such premises, medieval-style. Complicated, and a cause of public fascination. A legal horror show always best avoided.

  Flemyng knew that, as a consequence, no deaths occurred in parliamentary precincts. They were not allowed: custom, and therefore fact. Whenever they did take place, they were officially denied. Gwilym had known the junior minister who had dropped dead in the middle of a speech, toppling to the floor like a stone obelisk, and was said to have expired in hospital some hours later. At least three members in his time, who had succumbed in different parts of the House to various kinds of sexual acrobatics, were said to have died safely outside the precincts, usually in the ambulance that took them away. A benign hypocrisy descended at life’s end.

  ‘I think that’s why Denbigh got on to me first, not the serjeant-at-arms and the rest of them. He was hoping that it might be dealt with at once. Awfully quickly. He didn’t think it through at all.’

  Gwilym was wearing his hangdog look. ‘Well, it was dealt with, but by the wrong people. My fault. Sorry.’

  He told of his instruction from Osterley, speaking from Cannon Row police station only a couple of hundred yards away. ‘You know Special Branch, how they work.’ Flemyng dipped his head. ‘I was instructed to wait for some workmen. Workmen!’

  ‘They were in dark blue overalls and I realized on the spot where they must have come from. They walked like an undertaker’s burial party, very downbeat, and there was one in a dark suit. That w
as Osterley. He’d summoned up a team from you- know-where.’ He jerked his head.

  Paul said, unnecessarily, ‘Security Service.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Gwilym, ‘I realized then I was losing control of all this. What would the House authorities say? I didn’t dare to think. But I’m afraid it was all because of the big mistake I made at the beginning. Or was it a mistake, Paul? I don’t know.’ Paul nodded, a signal to continue.

  He took them through his encounter with the emergency squad, which he said he immediately recognized as the kind of team with which you would hope never to have any dealings. Gwilym said the most unpleasant moment for him was when he’d realized one of the men was a doctor, because he began some preliminary poking around with the body, got out a thermometer. Osterley, the besuited officer, took Gwilym aside. They stepped on to the terrace a few yards away. Osterley expressed his gratitude for his discretion and for the call. He asked if anyone else had appeared, and, by Gwilym’s account, looked him in the eye in a deliberately unsettling manner.

  ‘I’m afraid I began to burble about the royal coroner.’

  ‘What did he say?’ Flemyng asked.

  ‘Stuff the royal coroner. Or something to that effect,’ looking at Lucy. ‘Then his exact words were, “He’s the least of our worries. Don’t fret, we’re getting him off the premises anyway.”’ Gwilym said he recognized fret as a patronizing word.

  ‘By this stage, I’m afraid I had an odd feeling of familiarity with the corpse, though we’d never met. Sorry. You know what I mean. I felt that I was sort of on its – his – side, if you follow me.’ Flemyng nodded, to keep the flow going.

  ‘I realized that they were about to cart off the body. What could I do? Osterley told me that I wouldn’t have to worry about a fancy inquest. He then said that other people were on their way, and didn’t leave me in much doubt where they were coming from. He waved across the river.’ Flemyng managed not to smile. His old friends were in on it already. Paul was shaking his head again.