Algers spun around and stepped back to her, his eyebrows raised in query; but nothing came, she just stared at her older mentor, her lips wordlessly moving. Algers’ face relaxed into melancholy, as though he knew by instinct what it was she was trying to say.
“Hey,” he whispered, “it’s okay.”
“I’m sorry,” she said shaking her head gently as his hands rested on her shoulders. “I made a promise…”
“I know.”
“You know?”
“We all make that promise, Lucie, sooner or later we all say, ‘just one more job and I’ll put it all behind me’. It’s just it’s not a promise that many of us keep.”
“I have to keep it,” she answered, her eyes beginning to mist. “I’ve never been the right fit for this job; I let my emotions influence me, I spend half my time killing people and the other half on my knees to God, trying to say sorry for doing it. I swear Kasper, when I get into bed every night, I go through a list of all the reasons to hate myself and I can’t think of any reasons not to. All I wanted to do with my life was help people, that’s why I signed up and became a Minister. I was a bloody good one too, but now? Now I walk around with a gun, killing people someone tells me are the bad guys… You have no idea how badly I never want to see a gun again in my life.”
“Lucie,” Algers interrupted. “You’ve just saved the lives of six women. You’ve ended the career of a man who would have caused fuck knows how much harm if he’d ever got behind the PM’s desk, and while you may not have singlehandedly stopped the war in Yemen, you’ve made damn sure things aren’t going to get any worse for them, at least for a while. You’re not just good at this job, Lucie, you’ve done good by doing it.”
“By waving a fucking gun around and killing people…”
Algers sighed in patient understanding.
“Lucie, only you can decide whether or not you feel suited to this job, but don’t let anyone ever tell you you’re not good at it. So what if you spend your days off praying? I usually spend mine getting pissed and watching re-runs of Randall & Hopkirk. I can’t give you any theological answers, Lucie, I’m not a religious man, but if I were, I’d say that this job, well… I think it might be your calling.”
Lucie’s eyes widened at his words and she looked silently back at him, nodding her understanding. Algers hands slipped from her shoulders, though his eyes remained on hers a moment longer before he gave a final smile and turned back to join the procession of the vainglorious into the chamber.
Making her way up to the gallery, Lucie politely reciprocated the few nods and half smiles in her direction as she took a seat among the dispirited journalists and sketch writers occupying it, high above the shining, green leather benches of the Commons. Below them at the despatch box, stood the latest automaton from the governmental conveyor belt, droning passionlessly on about a topic so unclear, even the half-hearted and half-cut cries of ‘hear, hear’ from honourable and not-so honourable colleagues were less sincere than usual.
She spotted the waving order paper of Algers from his position on the opposing benches, as he rose to make his first comments in the House since his injury, to the generally agreeable mutterings of those around him.
“I’m sorry, Mr Speaker, but while I’m grateful to the Right Honourable gentleman for giving way, I feel it is my duty to point out to the House, that he is talking absolute horse shit.”
The immediate flurry of order papers and cries of righteous indignation were every bit as vociferous as Algers had expected, and more so; the Speaker’s impassioned cries for ‘Order’ unheeded for some moments before volume returned to a manageable level.
The Speaker, a short, grey haired man who never allowed his stature to in any way diminish his authority, allowed a wry smile to play across his face as he stood to enforce the laws of the House.
“The, ah, Honourable Member,” he began, in not entirely unamused tones, “is an accomplished and intelligent man, and is well aware of the rules of this place, and what language is considered acceptable. I invite him to take this opportunity to withdraw his comments and… modify his language.”
Algers made his perfunctory apology and re-phrased his statement to a blander one, objecting to the government’s considering work of one hour a week to be reason to claim that the employment figures had risen; a statement the Minister pooh-poohed before continuing.
As the government minister reached his overdue conclusion, the benches began to fill and the leading figures of all Parties hurriedly took their seats ahead of the expected drama; notepads around Lucie opening at the ready, their owners already scrawling imagined headlines about what was to follow.
“Urgent question to the Defence Minister,” boomed the Speaker, the House erupting in cries of adversarial posturing as the Leader of the Opposition rose to his feet, and demanded an immediate response to the situation at WaterWhyte Defence and the status of the Red Mako project, as well as the allegations appearing in the foreign press of Adam Butcher’s involvement in the kidnapping of foreign nationals.
Responding for the government was a young and terrified looking junior Minister, thrust into the unwelcome limelight in the absence of his department’s Secretary of State. He had not spoken long before a shout came from his own benches.
“Point of order, Mr Speaker!”
Lungs exhaled and heads turned towards the third row on the government benches, to see Jarvis Whyte, his order paper clutched between his fingers and raised in the air. A tortuous tension hung over the assembled Members, as they waited for the Speaker to allow him to speak or direct him to remain silent in his seat.
“Point of order,” roared the Speaker from his position of grandeur, to a cacophony of cheers and a volley of condemnation. “Mr Jarvis Whyte.”
The barrage of braying and jeers which typically peppered the chamber, gave way to murmurs and whispered rumblings as Whyte rose to his feet. Across the House, they stared in wide-eyed expectation, like children watching the chimney for Santa, while the features on his own front bench were rigid and grey, as though awaiting pronouncement of sentence. Whyte himself looked to Lucie more confident than when she last saw him, facing down the rows of parliamentarians as he might the boards of his companies, his high forehead free from perspiration and his eyes piercing and sharp.
“Mr Speaker,” Whyte began, the chamber falling into ominous silence. “The Minister states that the government had no awareness of the activities of the late Mr Butcher, nor their connections to the Red Mako project, or indeed the company I long ago founded, WaterWhyte Defence. I’m afraid to inform the House that this is simply and demonstrably untrue…”
The sentence remained unfinished, as Whyte coughed and tried to speak, only to cough again. His brow furrowing in confusion which quickly turned to panic as he struggled to heave air into his lungs. Clutching his chest, the man’s legs gave way and he tumbled forward over the benches, landing crumpled on the floor, by the feet of the politically and physically intransigent. Shouts for help and screams of horror ignited chaos in the chamber, punctuated by cries for order and paramedics to attend.
Lucie ran from the gallery, towards the Commons, out of which poured the powerful and the terrified. Cries from one quarter of ‘terrorist’ had thrown fuel onto the furnace of panic, while cooler heads appealed fruitlessly for calm. Lucie pushed her way past the fleeing Members and the bemused ushers, who struggled to apply sanity to the mayhem. When she reached the fallen Whyte, Algers was already kneeling beside him, his fingers to the man’s neck.
“Dead,” he confirmed as he looked up to Lucie.
“How?” she asked. “He looked fine!”
They stood back as two paramedics arrived and set about what would be futile efforts to revive him, Algers taking Lucie aside and whispering to her.
“I’ve seen sudden death syndrome before but not in someone Whyte’s age.”
“And just as he’s about to expose government complicity in the Red Mako? That’s too much o
f a coincidence.”
“Absolutely, I just wish we had an explanation for it.”
Lucie frowned in frustration as she scanned the chamber, looking for anyone or anything which might give some clue, before her eyes settled on a single MP, who had remained seated while the others ran, staring in pure maliciousness at the fallen body, before standing slowly and heading for the exit.
“Don’t worry,” Lucie told Algers, who followed her stare. “I think I know someone who might.”
TWENTY-NINE
“Come in!” Lucie shouted as a knock rapped loudly on the door of Kasper Alger’s Parliamentary office early the next morning, followed by the creak of wood as the visitor entered.
“I was expecting to see Kasper,” said Amber Robyn as the door closed behind her and she surveyed the cramped and dusty office, puzzlement on her face.
“Yes, sorry about that,” Lucie answered, “he’s running a few minutes late and he asked me to look after you. Drink?”
“I’m not sure I have the time,” the MP answered, displeasure at the altered arrangement, not to mention who she was expected to deal with in the meantime, etched onto her face.
“Oh, please, Amber,” Lucie insisted, pulling a bottle of aged malt Scotch from Algers’ drawer. “Kasper got this in especially; have a glass while we wait, he won’t be long.”
Not waiting for an answer, Lucie poured two measures into glasses ready on the table and handed one to Robyn.
“What shall we drink to?” Robyn asked.
“How about to Jarvis Whyte?”
“Forgive me,” she replied, “but I wouldn’t have thought you’d mourn the passing of a man who campaigned so vehemently against people like you?”
“I’m not a monster, Amber,” Lucie answered, winning the battle to keep her emotions contained. “Nobody deserves to go like that.”
Robyn’s eyes flickered for the briefest of moments as she held the glass to her lips.
“I don’t know,” said Robyn, her voice almost sinister in tone. “I understand it’s not uncommon for a comedian to die on stage.”
The words didn’t stun Lucie, instead they told her that the woman sat across from her understood she may not be there to discuss casework with Algers.
“To Jasper,” said Amber Robyn, her eyes betraying suspicion.
“To Jasper,” said Lucie Musilova, her own giving no reason to doubt it.
The women drank, their eyes remaining on each other, and neither at first offering a word or gesture to break the rapidly ossifying tension, until Robyn broke her stare for a second to glance at the clock on the wall behind Lucie’s head.
“How long did you say Kasper would be?”
“There’s been word from the coroner,” Lucie stated, ignoring her counterpart’s question. “Unofficially of course.”
“The cause of death’s already been released, it was a stroke, everybody knows that.”
“Well yes, everybody knows that, or at least thinks they know that, and it would certainly fit the story of a man under enormous pressure, whose world was collapsing around him. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s what the coroner found.”
“Really?” Robyn answered, her eyebrow raised. “And just why would the coroner tell you something not included in her report?”
“Oh, friend of a friend, you know how these things work.”
“Indeed?”
“Anyway, at first glance, you’re absolutely right; acute respiratory failure, wholly consistent with stroke victims, but when you take the coniine found in his water into account, it puts things in a completely different light.”
“Coniine?” Robyn snapped, “I’ve never heard of it.”
“It’s nasty,” Lucie replied. “You might know it better as hemlock poisoning. It induces flaccid paralysis and hypoxia, eventually killing you through lack of oxygen to the heart and brain. Horrible way to die…”
“So, it was suicide?”
At first Lucie answered her only with her eyes, staring unflinchingly into the MP’s own.
“Was it?” she eventually responded.
“Now, surely you’re not suggesting…”
The anger that had begun to spread onto Lucie’s face softened, replaced by something approaching sorrow, a sadness overcoming the fire in her now watery eyes.
“Amber,” she began, her voice soft, almost whimsical in tone, “Kasper told me once that he and Jarvis were never close, either socially or politically. He was an unashamed Tory, he looked at Parliament as a club and it’s fair to say neither would make the other’s Christmas card list, but do you know what? When Kasper was first elected, an Independent MP, alone in the Palace of Westminster, without the first fucking idea of where to go and what to do, Jasper Whyte was the first one to go to him and offer his hand. He showed Kasper around the place, bought him a drink in the bar and they chatted, only for an hour or so, about the things they believed in, what made them want to get involved; they even found a little bit of common ground here and there. And that was it, other than a nod and a smile in the Chamber, or on their way to vote, but do you know what that tells me about Jarvis? That he was a decent person. He didn’t care about High Office, or careering. Maybe he wasn’t the best constituency MP, and maybe he should have been booted out of here years ago, but I can point to hundreds of people downstairs who that could apply to. No, he might not have used his position for good, but neither did he try to cause harm to people like that. It’s a shame you can’t say the same.”
Robyn’s eyes widened at the insult, and for a moment Lucie wondered if she might actually strike her, but a modicum of restraint appeared to take hold and control returned to her still ferociously beautiful features.
“If you think, young lady, that you can sit there and make insinuations…”
“I’m insinuating nothing, Amber,” Lucie interrupted, “I’m saying that you killed Jarvis Whyte.”
“I..?” Robyn laughed in outraged indignance. “What makes you think I was either able or inclined to kill a man I’ve known for twenty years?”
“That’s just it, Amber,” Lucie continued, “You’d known him for twenty years. You knew him as well as anyone, some would say perhaps too well, not that that’s any of my business. But whatever the nuances of your relationship over the years, you were still close, at least he thought so. You’d campaigned together in the Referendum and you were both still involved in Leave pressure groups pushing for a No Deal Brexit; you’d been in and out of his office a hundred times in the last few weeks, including the day of his speech.”
“So?”
“Coniine poisoning can take about three to four hours to kill a person. You’d met with him at six, he died just after two. I think you poisoned his water during your meeting in the hope he’d die before he could expose government complicity in the House, the extra sip just helped him on his way.”
The anger was burning behind Robyn’s eyes as she listened to Lucie’s words, objections forming at her lips only to be swallowed away and replaced with more as her rage continued to bubble.
“If you were to repeat your words outside of this office, madam, my solicitor would come down on you like a tonne of bricks. How, exactly would I have access to this ‘coniine’, and more importantly, why would I want to kill Jarvis, if we were as close as you suggest?”
Lucie finished her drink and picked up a folder of papers on Algers’ desk, flicking through it as she spoke.
“Well, that’s the interesting thing, Amber,” she began, “you see at first it was just a hunch, but then someone got in touch with me about some interesting paperwork that’s turned up.”
“Another friend of a friend?”
“Something like that. It turns out that one of the major shareholders in WaterWhyte Defence is an investment group called The October 17th Group made up of several investors. I did some digging and wasn’t too surprised to find Whyte and Butcher’s names among them, along with one or two prominent if slightly distasteful business world
figures. There was only one other politician in the group; any guesses who?”
“My private investments,” Robyn hissed through her rigid jaw, “are my own affair, and nobody else’s.”
“Maybe so, but I don’t recall seeing them mentioned in the Register of Member’s Interests, Amber?”
Robyn’s scowl deepened further still.
“An oversight,” she curtly replied, with obvious insincerity.
“I’m sure. I know you won’t mind that I’ve taken the liberty of reporting the, erm ‘oversight’ to the Parliamentary standards authority, and of course, being a shareholder and a personal friend of the man who set it up, you’d have access to the company’s premises, including their chemical facilities. But that isn’t your only connection with Butcher, is it?”
Lucie leafed to another page in her folder and held it up for Robyn to see.
“Just before the referendum you co-authored a pamphlet about the ‘dangers of immigration’, in which you repeated several discredited theories and laid the blame for austerity on what you called the ‘uncontrollable tsunami’ of immigrants from Europe. After that you campaigned together under several controversial banners, and at least before Butcher’s elevation to Cabinet, you revelled in your reputations as mavericks, didn’t you?”
“Hardly a motive for murder.”
“Not on its own, no,” Lucie replied, her calmness countering the burning anger of her counterpart. “But when you consider that The October 17th Group are also significant investors in ‘Adult Entertainment Centres’ up and down the country, it does raise a few questions about the speeches you’ve made condemning them, wouldn’t you say?”
Robyn straightened herself in her chair, winning at least for a moment the struggle to compose herself.
“I had no idea such investments were being made on my behalf,” she retorted. “And I will ensure that they discontinue immediately.”
“That’s it, is it?” Lucie responded. “You think you can just pocket the cash and rattle off a quick apology and everything will be alright?”
Sealed With A Death Page 22
