A Sentimental Traitor (17 page)

There is a tipping point in matters, more decisive than a turning point, which marks the place of no return. Sloppy had reached it. The strange Mr Anderson had presented him
with a challenge in the form of the Shengtzu Investment Fund, and Sloppy had risen to the occasion. He had spent many hours studying the contents of the envelopes. Both seemed genuine, and the
additional hours he spent on the telephone and interrogating the web had confirmed every bit of the story.

Yet still he hesitated. To make a quick-turn profit he needed short-term money, and he could conceive of only one answer. Harry. To Sloppy’s mind the papers he had deceived Harry into
signing were entirely balanced – he had no deliberate intention of cheating his friend. If Sloppy had decided he needed to access Harry’s funds, it was only because his friend
didn’t need them. And, being a fair man, Sloppy had balanced this little bit of larceny by giving Harry a share of the business. He had made Harry a partner. And, with the security of these
letters, Sloppy was able to access funds that he then placed in the hands of the Shengtzu Investment Fund, along with the quarter of a million from his new and serendipitous client. Before anyone
knew it the profits would be reaped, the money would be returned and the worst that could happen would be a few awkward questions, but Sloppy could handle that. And if this all seemed a little too
good to be true, it was balanced by the fact that most things in Sloppy’s life seemed entirely too bad. He deserved a break, and Harry deserved to give it to him. So in the end it was simple.
Any remaining doubts were washed away with the whisky and painkillers.

Alas, it wasn’t the entire story. The documents relating to the Shengtzu Investment Fund were genuine, but not complete; Patricia had seen to that. The papers had been taken from a much
thicker dossier that had been handed to EATA by the authorities in Beijing, who were in the middle of an anti-corruption drive. Corruption was endemic and they would never eliminate the problem,
but it was politically convenient for them to parade a few scalps in order to encourage others to behave a little more cautiously. The Shengtzu Investment Fund was a vehicle that had careened out
of control and was about to be brought to a halt, taken to pieces, its director-drivers dragged to the side of the road where they would be lucky to escape without a bullet in the back of the
head.

Sloppy was heading for disaster, and where he went, Harry was bound to follow. He was, after all, a partner, there were documents to prove it and his ignorance wouldn’t save him. What
would be his excuse, that he had trusted his best friend? Yet busy men often are forced to trust those around them, and in Sloppy’s case Harry did that without reservation. Anyway, he had an
election to fight, and a new woman in his life, they were distraction enough. He couldn’t do everything, not by himself, couldn’t even read all his mail, so when in the middle of the
latest pile that cascaded onto his doormat he found an envelope from Sloppy, marked with its corporate logo, he tossed it to one side, unopened, for later. Much later. After all, he knew what was
in it. The quarterly statement. Another in a long line of quarterly statements. They had never given any trouble before, and he expected none now, otherwise Sloppy would have called. He trusted
Sloppy, with his life.

Harry’s main opponent in the upcoming election was Zafira Bagshot, a young and energetic campaigner who had recently returned from several years as an aid worker in the
Sudan and was now intent on campaigning on every corner. She had publicly accused Harry of being an absentee landlord, a man who took his constituents for granted while he strutted the stage at
Westminster. He didn’t take it personally, he rather admired her, but it gave the campaign an added edge. On the last Saturday afternoon in February he was walking through the market square,
shaking hands, chatting to shoppers and greeting stallholders while on all sides his helpers handed out leaflets. Two journalists from the local radio station and newspaper were in tow, while Emily
Keane hovered in the background, ever present but none too conspicuous.

‘Oh, you must be the new lady in Harry’s life,’ one elderly volunteer gushed in her ear.

‘Just his press helper,’ Emily replied, and smiled.

The old lady offered a conspiratorial smile in return in the manner of all experienced gossips.

‘No, really,’ Emily persisted, but the old woman went off chuckling.

As they made their way through the afternoon Harry spoke to many of his voters – people were rarely unkind to his face, but he sensed an air not so much of disaffection as of
disappointment, which when he pressed them for details tended to focus on Ben Usher. One trader who specialized in selling British produce even had an entire corner of his stall devoted to a
display of jars of Marmite, and they were selling well. Harry even bought one himself, quietly suspecting that he’d end up with an entire cupboard full by the end of the campaign.

It was late, just as dusk was finally taking hold and the chill winter air beginning to bite, when Harry all but stumbled across a figure sheltering in a doorway. At first he had thought it was
nothing more than a pile of rubbish waiting to be collected, sheets of cardboard and old clothes, but from its midst he saw someone staring at him. A girl, one of the homeless.

‘Stupid sod!’ she shouted, kicking out at him. ‘Watch who you’re treading on.’

‘Sorry, didn’t see you there.’

‘You blind or what? What the hell you want, anyway?’ she demanded, pulling a tattered duvet more closely round her.

And already the journalists were circling, crowding in.

He could have moved on, using her aggression as an excuse, but Harry didn’t often pass by the other side, not without a close look first. He asked the journalists to give them a little
privacy, and Emily ushered them to a safe distance.

‘You OK?’ he asked when at last he and the girl had been left on their own.

‘Fucking brilliant,’ she snapped, scraping the hair from her eyes. They were large, attractive, and she was not much more than twenty.

‘Bit too cold for fucking brilliant in my opinion,’ he replied softly, squatting so that he could make good eye contact. Her cheeks were red, flushed, not sallow like so many on the
street, and her teeth still white. He guessed she was a newcomer. ‘You been doing this long?’

‘Piss off.’

‘I’d like to help.’

‘You gonna give me money?’

‘What would you use it for?’

She glared, defiant. ‘I’d probably book a holiday in the Seychelles.’

‘You want something to eat? I can get you that.’

‘Money!’ she bit back.

He looked deeper into her eyes, saw the glazed, furtive look, and knew what she would use the money for.

‘I’d really like to help.’

‘You’d really like to bang me, you mean. That’s all your type ever want.’

‘What are you on?’

‘On? What am I
on
? I’m on my own, wanker!’

This wasn’t getting anywhere. It was time to leave. He stood up.

‘You wanna help, then give me some money,’ she said, more urgent, realizing she was losing an opportunity. ‘I’ll fuck you if you want.’

‘What?’

‘Twenty quid.’

He began to move away.

‘Aren’t you gonna give me some money?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Food. Not money.’

It had been a waste of time. Such encounters usually were. Yet there had been occasions when it had worked out. Usually ex-servicemen who had found the adjustment to civilian life too difficult.
They came back from a war with their heads screwed, from a world that was black and white to one where everything was compromise and illdiscipline. Jobs that didn’t work out, marriages that
failed, homes that were lost. An alarming number of former soldiers ended up on the street, and he wouldn’t turn away from them, knowing what they had gone through, and were still going
through. In a few cases, a precious few, he had been able to help. And for those precious few, it was worth putting up with the usual crap and abuse.

When he cast a final look over his shoulder he saw the journalists, notebooks and recorders in hand, talking to the girl. One was handing across money. She was standing now, wrapped in
cast-offs, eyes filled with pain and rage, pointing after him, and shouting. Something about him not being willing to help, refusing to give her money, only being interested in sex.

Harry hurried on, putting as much distance between him and the embarrassment as possible. Emily rushed to his side.

‘Not my best bit of canvassing,’ he muttered. ‘I didn’t even ask her if she was registered to vote. Still, I doubt whether I could have counted on her support.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Emily said, ‘they’ll never use what she says.’

‘But they’ll report what she is. A young woman sleeping rough on my streets.’

‘And that you tried to help.’

‘They are journalists. They will report that I didn’t help. Which is good news for the young lady, because doubtless my opponent will be here in the morning handing out hot tea and
buns and offering to let her sleep in her spare room.’

‘I’ll put that down to cynicism, Harry.’

‘And I’ll put it down to experience.’

He walked on, thinking he had left the matter behind him.

Felix Wilton had been in awe of his wife ever since she had taken the remarkable decision not to throw him out and had instead come to a more dignified arrangement. He had
watched her build her secret life, just as he had built his own, and if it wasn’t exactly a matching of souls it was much more than muddling through. It was an accommodation, a meeting of
interests, protected from the distractions of sex that usually fouled things up. Yet the latest step along their way had left him almost overwhelmed. A quarter of a million pounds couldn’t be
seen as a lightweight gesture even in EU circles where accounting had always had a remarkably flexible reputation. Wilton knew his history, understood that such matters had always been a feature of
the European dream, ever since the very early days when after the war the United States had sprinkled slush funds like stardust over Jean Monnet and the others to help kick-start the process. Funny
money had been a bit of a problem ever since, and an entire European Commission under Jacques Santer had been forced to resign
en masse,
blown away by repeated allegations of corruption. But
there was so much less need for that nowadays, when everything was up front, and the President of the European Parliament paid nearly a million dollars for his trouble, more than twice that of the
US President and more than four times the salary of the British Prime Minister. Dreams don’t come cheap. So perhaps a few hundred thousand didn’t really matter that much.

Yet Wilton found himself worrying about it all, for her sake. He cared – not just for their arrangement, but for her, Patricia. He worried about her in the morning when he unlocked the
door to his antiques shop, and found himself still worrying about her when he came to lock up at 5 p.m. prompt, so he did what he always did in such circumstances. He returned home and fixed
himself a large drink, cooked himself a solitary meal (Dover sole, grilled, with a few greens, on this occasion) and waited until it had gone nine. Then he walked to Hyde Park, sat on a bench and
pretended to read a newspaper – his eyes should be that sharp! – and made sure he wasn’t being followed. He carried on down the Bayswater Road, past the bustle of Notting Hill
Gate and into Holland Park Avenue.

It was 10.25 by the time he turned into Holland Walk, the path that ran alongside the park. He knew what to expect for it was one of the longest established pick-up points in central London. Gay
turf. Except the turf was frozen and at this time of year pick-ups were the sexual equivalent of extreme sports. There were only hardy souls hanging around, leaning on the railings where the frost
had turned the cobwebs into works of art that caught the intermittent lamplight and shivered like distant galaxies. There were enquiring eyes cast at him from the shadows but he ignored them,
walking on, and when he stopped and looked back, it wasn’t to change his mind, only to check yet again that he wasn’t being followed. As he did so, from the opposite end of the Walk
that ran off Kensington High Street, another man began to walk towards him, slowly, in no hurry. When at last they met, on a part of the path that was less well lit than others, they greeted each
other like old friends, embraced, kissed, moved into a deeper part of the shadow behind a tree. They were there for some time in a monochrome world that was largely silent, until a shrill cry of
alarm came from the park – a peacock, disturbed by some marauding fox. But the two remained locked, so close and buried in the darkness that any Peeping Tom would have been seen far sooner
than he could have spotted what they were up to.

Then they were done. A final embrace. They parted. Wilton continued on to the High Street, where he took a taxi to the Chelsea Arts Club. The other man continued walking, in a long circuitous
route through the streets of Holland Park that eventually took him back to his place of work. The Russian Embassy.