A Sentimental Traitor (28 page)

‘Mr Jones, I wasn’t expecting you.’

‘I hope you don’t mind, George.’

‘You should have called.’

‘Is your father around?’

‘Retired. Not before time. I reckon it’s me you want to see.’ He stood up to face Harry in a manner that suggested he expected something of a confrontation. He was in his late
thirties, receding hair, straining belt – a considerable way up his own arse, Harry reckoned, judging by the flash machine outside.

‘Very well, George. You must know what difficulties you’ve put me in. I was hoping I could appeal to you, man to man.’

‘These things are always awkward, Mr Jones,’ the printer said, folding his arms across his stomach. He didn’t suggest they move elsewhere, somewhere quieter. He didn’t
seem as if he expected the conversation to last long.

‘I’ve been a good customer of you and your father’s over the years. You know me. Now I’m in a spot of trouble.’

‘Not our problem. Not our fault, either.’

Harry’s lips were working, trying to find the right words to get past the man’s mulishness. ‘I owe you less than eight thousand pounds. I can’t understand why you want to
force me into bankruptcy rather than accept a deal.’

‘Company policy.’

‘Not your father’s policy.’

‘He’s not here.’

Harry gazed around the workshop, with its machines whirring away, the boxes of product piling up, the eight men and women who made up the workforce all busily occupied. It was clearly a thriving
concern. ‘The eight thousand will ruin me, George, but it seems like it wouldn’t get in your way very much at all.’

The printer ran his tongue around his mouth as if he were searching for lost breakfast. ‘It’s a matter of ethics, Mr Jones. The sort of thing you liked to preach when you were in
Parliament. Promises made, promises kept. That’s how this country runs, or used to.’

‘And a bit of give and take, too, George.’

‘Sure, until you politicians opened the floodgates and left us hard-working folk doing the giving while every Tom, Dick and Sanjay did all the taking.’

Ah, one of those. Closed mind, clenched fist.

‘If you make me bankrupt you’ll probably end up getting less than by coming to a voluntary agreement.’

‘As I said, a matter of ethics. You come here accusing me of putting you in difficulties. Well, I didn’t. You made your mess, not me. Up to you to clear it up. Now, if you’ll
excuse me, I’m busy.’

Harry was wasting his time, the printer pointing towards the door. A large white van had drawn up outside and two of Maundy’s workmen were loading pallets of finished product into it. A
second van was hovering in the background, waiting its turn. As Maundy escorted Harry out, making sure he left, they passed a cliff face of the boxes waiting to be loaded. Samples of the content
were stuck to the outside. Harry stopped, ran his finger across a carton. They contained promotional leaflets for the European Union. The man had been bought. He stared at Maundy.
‘Ethics?’ he said softly.

The printer’s eyes betrayed only a flicker of shame before he threw Harry out.

Harry walked away from the printers, down the hill towards the bus stop that would ferry him to the local train station, now aware that they were intent on destroying him
completely. Soon he wouldn’t even be able to afford the price of his bus ticket. It had always been the likely outcome, but still he hesitated before making his next phone call. He
didn’t even know who ‘they’ were, only that they wouldn’t stop. But he was Harry Jones, the idiot who didn’t know when to stop, either.

‘Hi, Jem.’

‘How did it go, Harry?’

‘It didn’t. They wouldn’t budge. They’ve bought the bastard off with a shedload of printing orders.’

A sharp intake of breath. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Yeah. Me, too.’

‘So . . .’

‘We do what we discussed.’

‘Are you sure?’ She sounded reluctant.

‘I need you on this one, Jem,’ he said firmly. ‘This crap is coming straight out of EATA in Brussels. Now I’ve got some press cuttings and other bits about it –
pretty meagre stuff, they don’t give interviews or hand out press releases. Like trying to spot a rat in a sewer when someone’s switched off all the lights. But I need your help in
going through it all. You up for that?’

‘I suppose so,’ she replied hesitantly.

‘Good, can we meet up tonight?’

‘No, I’m busy.’

‘Tomorrow then. Saturday. Got to get going with this. Five o’clock in the pub OK?’

‘All right.’

‘Thanks, Jem, I’ll see you then.’

He cut the connection. He gazed at his cloned iPhone, almost as though it were a loaded weapon, before he put it back in his pocket.

He knew it would be hours rather than days. After all, he’d given them a deadline. He waited at home, and filled his time by sorting through his belongings, packing boxes,
deciding what was truly important to him. Not the expensive acquisitions and antiques, which in any case he was likely to lose, but the memories. The books from his primary school, with the
inscriptions inside. A copy of
Moby Dick
, its cover a little torn, its paper beginning to go yellow: ‘Awarded to Harry Jones. First in Class. July 1978. E. L. Vale, Headmaster’.
It was one of several. Clever little sod. And there were the photos, of his father, and mother. So few of them together. And, of course, of Julia.

His memories of Julia weren’t of this house but of Julia herself; they would go with him wherever he went. He’d witnessed so many others who had lost everything, their communities
destroyed by Saddam Hussein, the villages burned out by Colombian drugs gangs, the bombs that had gutted places like Belfast and Armagh. He’d been there, seen these things happen, knew that
others somehow found the means to survive. Yes, all of that, but even so. This was his life, more than forty years of putting his neck on the line for others, Queen, country, constituents, and what
had he got to show for it? A private life that resembled an Indian train crash and – this. Now he was losing it all, and along with it all, his reputation. Mr E. L. Vale would not have
approved. Harry threw the book across the room into a distant corner.

It was lunchtime. Saturday. Harry was finishing off his second drink of the day along with the reheated remains of last night’s noodles when he was distracted by a knocking at the door. He
found two well-dressed gentlemen on his doorstep, one late twenties, the other a little older.

‘Mr Jones? I am so very sorry to bother you,’ the elder of the two said with only the merest brush of a foreign accent, ‘but I am in London only for a couple of days with my
brother. Forgive me, I am looking for a home in this area for my family, and one of your neighbours’ – he waved a vague hand in the direction of the other end of the street –
‘said you might soon be considering selling. It is most rude of me, but I am a cash buyer and I wondered . . .’

It wasn’t the best cover story, but Harry knew what was coming. They wouldn’t take no for an answer, would kick their way through the door if necessary, but it wasn’t. He let
them in.

They tripped him from behind as soon as the door was closed, and pushed him to the floor. He could have put up a better fight before he succumbed, but that would only have served to make them
more vicious. They left his face alone, no marks, and concentrated on his body. After the first of the blows he brought up the takeaway, noodles and nausea all over their shoes, which he hoped
might discourage them, but they were professionals. While he was on his knees, retching over his carpet, they found a towel and wiped themselves down. Then they started over again, knees as well as
fists; Harry knew at least one of his ribs had gone. Soon he was losing consciousness.

When they had finished on him they made a brief search of the house, kicking over the piles of books he had been sorting through. They found what they wanted in his study – his laptop, a
few files. They threw them in a small holdall, along with his camera for good measure. Harry was no longer moving. They left him lying amidst his own bodily mess.

After they walked out of Harry’s house, his attackers sauntered down the street, their casual pace designed to attract no attention. They had no reason to suspect they
might be followed, and as a result they didn’t spot Jemma. She was making a mess of the job, darting forward, drawing too close for fear of losing them, then stopping dead, because of her
still greater fear that they would see her. She sensed from their build that they were the same men who had assaulted her, left her naked and terrified.

She tracked them around Berkeley Square, grateful for the crowds that gave her cover, then on into the crawling traffic of Curzon Street. It was there she lost them, as her eyes were on the
approaching cars, waiting to cross the road, and when she looked up once more they had gone. She panicked, heedless of the vehicles now, dashing across the street to the spot where she had last
seen them, and discovered an alley that led her into a backwater, an unhurried square filled with small, pavement eating places and boutique shops. And there, sitting at an outside table, were her
two men, talking to a third. She slipped behind a table some yards down the broad pavement, reached into her bag, produced a map that she spread out in front of her and placed a camera on top of
it, as might any tourist. She ordered a drink from the waiter, making sure she paid for it as soon as it arrived, and began inspecting her camera, as though checking the results of her
morning’s work. That was how she took photographs, of all three of them. She had to work quickly, because the two men soon got up and went on their way, leaving the holdall behind. The third
man, who was older, and in no hurry, opened the bag and rifled through its contents, before smiling quietly to himself and zipping it closed once more. He paid for his tea and left. Once again
Jemma followed, keeping her map to hand, ready to bury herself in it if he looked in her direction, but he didn’t, pacing on steadily, as if he had found a new purpose.

As, indeed, he had. The man did what he always did after a moment of tension or triumph had passed. He strode purposefully along a route he had taken many times before, which sometimes led to a
different destination but always took him in the same direction.

Jemma followed him, feeling sick not just from her inner tension but also the thoughts of Harry. She knew his two assailants were dangerous men, and there was a small part of her that hoped they
had left him tied up, unmarked, as they had done her, but there was a much more insistent part of her that doubted this was possible. No way he would have handed over the contents of the holdall
quietly, he would have put up a fight, bloody Harry always did. And the thought of what they might have done to him soon overcame all her other fears.

They had neared Marble Arch. She watched as he disappeared inside a pub, then followed him to the doorstep. That was when she saw the sign and knew she could go no further. ‘This is a
majority gay and lesbian pub’, it proclaimed. It was a step too far for her, she would give herself away, ruin everything. She turned and ran all the way back to Harry.