This Honourable House (8 page)

The photographer snapped the back of his camera shut, pressed a button and heard the film whir into place. ‘None of them hold a candle to Lady Thatcher,’ he answered doggedly. ‘She wouldn’t have gone in for a lark like this. We ought to have her back, pronto. The country’s gone to the dogs without her.’

‘She’s history,’ said Betts testily. ‘Silly old bag. Mad as a hatter. If she were dining here tonight with some decrepit old paramour, it wouldn’t even be news. You ready?’

The two men pushed open the door and began to saunter towards the far corner where Betts had been warned to expect his quarry. The restaurant was dimly lit and almost full. Suddenly their way was barred by a portly man in a striped waistcoat. ‘Good evening, gentlemen. Do you have a reservation?’

‘Reservation? Nah, we’re not here to dine,’ said Betts stuffily. The wondrous odours of garlic, olive oil and shallots made his nose wrinkle none the less. With some difficulty he could make out the Marquand table thirty feet away complete with lit candles, a half-empty bottle of French wine and a soup-plate filled with a cascade of rare beef and pimento. Plus the apparently embarrassed girlfriend. Fiona, that was her name. From this distance she was quite impressive; he might make contact with her himself. Perhaps she’d prefer an award-winning journalist with a fund of hilarious stories to some useless government twat who hadn’t the least intention of a night in the hay. At a nearby table
sans
candles or wine sat Melvyn with the bodyguard, the latter stiff and uncomfortable, a glass of beer untouched before him.

‘Then I’m sorry, gentlemen. I’ll have to show you out.’ The portly man called loftily over his shoulder. ‘Luigi? Some help required here.’ From an alcove emerged another, bulkier individual with the air of a bruiser. The two barred their way.

The photographer lifted his camera to his face and began to focus. Betts could see Melvyn half rise.

‘No! I’m sorry, you’ll have to leave!’ The
maître d’
made a grab at the camera while Luigi took a menacing step.

‘But we’re here by arrangement –’ Betts protested.

‘Not with us, you’re not,’ the
maitre d
’ concluded grimly and seized Betts by the arm. ‘Now, be off or I’m calling the police.’

With yelps and protests the gentlemen of the press were bundled outside and the door slammed firmly shut against them. Other diners craned their necks to see through the smoked-glass panes, then sniffed, patted their jewellery and returned to their seared lobster and pan-fried barracuda. As he picked himself up Betts could see two fingers being lifted in his direction by the grimacing Luigi.

‘Bloody ’ell,’ the photographer muttered, examining his camera for signs of damage. ‘Frigging maniacs. A wasted evening. I could’ve been watching Chelsea on the telly. I tell you, it’d never have happened in Mrs T’s day.’

They started to trudge disconsolately down the road. They had gone barely fifty yards when the restaurant door was flung open and Melvyn could be seen, yelling and waving his arms. ‘Come back! Come back! It’s all a mistake. You’re welcome, honest…’

Inspector Stevens sucked his teeth and cursed that he had allowed his better nature to prevail. He had been feeling guilty until he came into the flat. Guilty, because of the nagging worry at the back of his mind that perhaps he should have treated this complaint with far more seriousness, should have called in Special Branch or CID.

If the lady concerned had still been the wife of a VIP there would have been no question. Had she been the wife of a known villain he would have handed the case over, pronto, conscious of the aggravation such individuals could cause. But with vacancies at the current level, car thieves cocking a snook at them in their own back yard and the pressure on to compile the force statistics by the end of the month, other priorities had necessarily prevailed. His gut instinct, like the sergeant’s, was that no offence had been committed. Police officers of long experience could tell. To devote a ton of scarce resources to proving the obvious was a negation of his duty. But he had, none the less, felt obliged to pay the visit himself.

He should have sent his sergeant, whose bluff manner concealed no great brain but whose compassion for the victims of crime was limitless and delicately expressed. Stevens himself could be sympathetic, but knew his limits. Boredom and exasperation would inevitably intervene.

Gail Bridges was seated in an old armchair, a crumpled heap of tissue screwed up in her hand, her face doleful. From the kitchen came the unmistakable smell of a blocked drain; through the door he could see unwashed crockery piled high in the sink. As he politely removed his leather gloves and cap, Stevens could not help reflecting that if this woman stopped feeling sorry for herself long enough to clean up her flat and apply some makeup, her whole outlook on life might improve – she must once have been quite attractive. It would certainly make his own task easier. There came unbidden the unworthy reflection that he could almost see why her husband had left her for someone else. ‘I’m sorry,’ he could hear himself saying.

‘No action?’ she repeated. ‘But a crime’s been committed. A very serious crime.’

‘Ah, yes. The trouble is, Mrs Bridges, there isn’t much for us to go on. No fingerprints or DNA, for example. We have tried.’

‘But you’ve got a motive,’ Gail wailed. ‘He wants to scare me! Why don’t you arrest him?’

‘Mrs Bridges.’ Stevens could feel his temper rising and fought to control it. ‘A motive is not sufficient. Before we can put a case to the Crown Prosecution Service, we need to have a reasonable chance of obtaining a conviction. Otherwise we can be accused of harassment. Your husband has rights too, you know.’

Gail blinked. She held herself rigid, but her hands fluttered as if escaping from her control. ‘It seems to me, Inspector, that he’s the only one who does. Nobody seems to consider
my
needs. When I was his wife, people like you couldn’t do enough for me. Now I feel like a non-person.’ The inspector pressed together the leather gloves, stroking them as if for comfort. The odour from the kitchen made him want to blow his nose. ‘I could get Victim Support to talk to you, if you like,’ he offered lamely.

‘At least that would recognise that I am a victim,’ Gail said. ‘But no, thanks. What I’d like to hear is how I’m to get justice.
Why
won’t you bring a case?’

‘Because, as I’ve explained, we have to be sure we won’t make fools of ourselves, or of you. The prosecution like to be fairly certain that they can prove their argument. If your husband, or anybody else, were to bring a claim for wrongful arrest it can cost a packet in compensation.’

‘Not to speak of your prospects of promotion, I suppose.’ But Gail’s faint attempt at sarcasm fell on deaf ears. Stevens was unlikely to rise more than one rung up the ladder before retirement, which, on days like this, could not come too soon.

She was silent for a moment, picking at the ball of tissue until bits began to detach themselves like confetti and litter the floor at her feet. ‘I can’t just leave it. Tell me honestly, Inspector, what
would be my chances if I brought a private prosecution?’

‘You could try,’ he answered cautiously, ‘but I really wouldn’t recommend it. Not least because if we haven’t any evidence neither have you. And, most importantly, you have to establish that a crime has been committed in the first place.’

She stared at him, blinking, for a whole minute. He could hear the tick of an unseen clock, but otherwise the flat was quiet. Then, slowly, ‘You all believe I did it myself, don’t you? That I’m off my rocker or something?’

‘No, no, not at all,’ he started to say, but she had jumped out of the chair and lunged at him, as if to strike at his face. He tried not to flinch. She was muttering, ‘You think I’m some sort of nutter! Christ, you’re as bad as my husband. You’re all the same. All in this together!’

Then she fell back into the armchair, hugging herself, her mouth working emptily. It seemed to Stevens that this unhappy woman was suffering from too little sleep, that her vision of events was distorted by her misery and isolation. She needed, as his mother might have said, to get out more. But he was a police officer, not a social worker. He stood in front of her, trying to produce some soothing remark, and failing. When she refused to meet his eye again he shrugged, gave up and let himself out, though his step down the staircase was heavier than it had been when he arrived.

It was not a good day for the decorator. Christine sighed. It was not the best week, to put it mildly, not when tomorrow was the State Opening of Parliament.

Benedict was closeted in his study with Lawrence, preparing his speech in answer to the Gracious Address. That required second-guessing what the Queen would say, and how the Prime Minister would open the debate. For days the media had been filled with tantalising snippets. The efforts of Number Ten to massage the news, to dampen down expectations or keep secrets for the big day, had been frustrated by the eagerness of certain Cabinet members to be seen as having faced an impossible battle and winning against the odds. So the nation was aware that the Environment Secretary had fought a fierce rearguard action against the Treasury and by his own account (filtered through his press office) had emerged triumphant. That meant Frank Bridges would be piloting a lengthy bill this session to privatise the London Underground, much against the wishes of the travelling public and his own party stalwarts. The Treasury should have been delighted at the prospect, since the Tube ate money; but sweeteners agreed at late night meetings to induce private investors to take on the ramshackle system would gobble up the whole of the reserve for the next two years, so the Chancellor was gloomy.

It was relatively easy for an opposition leader to poke fun in such circumstances, especially since Benedict was not required to come up with an alternative. He could claim sincerely to be speaking for the people. The
Globe
editorial had already launched into a tirade against the proposals. If he could discomfort the government front bench, he would score. Christine could hear bursts of laughter from the study as Benedict and Lawrence dreamed up another clever quip. The two cousins, politicians to their fingertips and closer than brothers, were in their element. By the sound of it, the process was going famously. She must not be jealous.

But it left her at a loose end on a day when she had to be in the flat. He could have opted to do the writing in his office at the Commons and kept out of her way. The division bell and light were installed over the flat’s living room door, but since the House was not sitting, it would not ring. An aide or a secretary might still require his presence for urgent papers or inquiries. She found herself grumbling that, if one of them had to stay at home, he might have offered more firmly to do it. On the other hand, Benedict would have no idea about the bloody decorator, and might have sent the poor woman away confused or upset.

Christine paced around the room, touching items here and there, picking up books and idly examining dedications to Benedict on the fly-leaves. Several were first editions of publications by
friends from college days, mostly politics or history. On her husband’s desk, neglected for the moment, was a tentative bid to write his biography. It seemed too soon: yet it took time to get such a volume researched and published. In a year or so it might be handy, as minds started to focus on the election to come.

Christine wondered languidly how politicians managed to stay fresh and engaged, speech after speech, year after year. Of course she was completely committed to Benedict, to his career and to his future. That meant having no doubts about the party he had joined as a student, though it was hard to see why he had chosen this insignificant bunch when Andrew Marquand, the tutor who had been such a mighty influence on him, had wisely entered politics for what had soon become the government party. Marquand had risen rapidly by force of character and intellect, and by backing the current Prime Minister for the leadership against staider names. Marquand was by nature, Christine accepted, a big fish who would always want to swim in the ocean, and who sensed accurately where the tide flowed.

Did that suggest that Benedict preferred to paddle in a smaller pond? Her husband insisted that he had chosen the New Democrats out of conviction, but such considerations seldom entered true political minds. The shrewdest would plan ahead, extrapolate which party was likely to be on the wane, which improving in the polls at about the date that they themselves might be ready to emerge. Andrew Marquand had finessed it beautifully, had spent a useful stretch on the losing side, building experience and a high profile. By this reasoning an ambitious youngster in the late 1970s when Labour was in power was bound to emerge a Tory. Conversely, but by the same process, an emerging tyro in the mid-nineties wouldn’t have touched the Tories with a bargepole: New Labour was the coming thing. But Benedict was not like that. He did not calculate to his own advantage. He honestly believed what he said, or appeared to. This was what she loved about him.

It was important to cling to that. Nobody was perfect, human beings least of all. As a guffaw came from behind the study door, Christine moved away discreetly. Benedict’s fretfulness about the dearth of big issues seemed to have abated. In there, applying his brain to the delivery of a speech, he was on home territory. With the punters, on television, with his constituents, with party workers he was at ease, warm, friendly, natural. Apparently natural: Christine was aware how much effort it could take to march up to strangers, look them in the eye and shake them engagingly by the hand.

John Major was famous for doing it beautifully, for giving each contact the feeling that, for those few seconds, he or she had the Prime Minister’s total attention. There would be a squeeze of the fingers, sometimes repeated. For the favoured few, the free hand would be pressed on top, a double handshake, the grip firm and convincing. The individual would be left with an indelible impression of the remarkable Major sincerity and niceness, even as exactly the same manoeuvre, with the identical effect, would be on offer further down the line.

The decorator was late. The woman had been recommended for her design skills, not for her punctuality. Perhaps it would help if a few of these dreadful old photographs were taken down – then everyone could see more clearly what she intended. They were so unsuitable for a sophisticated home where guests of quality would be entertained. Benedict was no longer the earnest schoolboy or the university undergraduate; it was inappropriate that so many pictures were from that era. They hinted, possibly, that he was reluctant to grow up. Only the wedding photos, in glorious colour, were new, resplendent in their chased-silver frames.

Chased? Chaste, more like. It was ages since the wedding. In that time,
nothing
. Or nothing much. Christine ran her fingertip over the silvery scrolls and frozen flowers of the showiest frame, the one showing them bending over the register. It was Benedict’s favourite. With a stab of pique Christine wondered whether for her husband signing the contract had been the most significant element in the ceremony. If that were so, it was a pity he did not keep his side of the bargain.

It wasn’t that he didn’t try. For the first few weeks, during and after the honeymoon, he was
naive in bed but keen. He would strip off willingly enough, and seemed to have no shame in standing naked before her though with a towel in one hand like an infant’s security blanket. And he would examine her curiously, eyes roaming over her breasts and belly, and tell her how lovely she was, and what a lucky man he knew himself to be. He would grasp her shoulders and kiss her on the mouth with every sign of pleasure. It was what happened after that. Or, rather, what didn’t happen.

If he got an erection, it was only by letting her hold his penis and rub it gently, then with more rhythm, until the lazy thing sluggishly came to life. He would wince if she touched his scrotum, or tried to slip her fingers between his legs. During this interlude his eyes were tight shut. More than once Christine had had the impression that the image Benedict was conjuring up behind those
blue-lined
lids was not hers. He seemed much happier when it came to her own needs, massaging her with some enthusiasm, and holding her close when the climax came. In fact that activity was carried out with a gritty professionalism, as if, whatever else, he was determined that she should enjoy herself to the full.

But everything failed, night after night, when he tried to insert the modestly erect penis into her vagina, however much they panted and shoved. Within seconds it died, became about as capable of action as a piece of damp flannel. The failure upset him, of that there was no doubt. He would twist away, muttering angrily to himself, and try with his own hand to get it restarted. Once when she had lain on her stomach in despair, he had rolled on to her back and she could feel its hardness; but when he attempted to enter her from behind, it had collapsed.

‘It’s nerves,’ he groaned, and she had accepted the explanation. Or, ‘I’m shy – I didn’t think I would be with you, but I am.’ Or, ‘We must have had too much to drink,’ usually after only a glass or two of wine. One night he had said, tetchily, ‘Not everybody does it brilliantly, you know,’ before marching off to the bathroom and locking the door, leaving her aghast.