‘I’m so sorry.’
Under the cover of blowing her nose, she dabbed her eye again. ‘The luck of life. Nine years ago now but I think of him every day. He was the golden boy. Rising through the company. Everyone knew he’d soon be running it.’
‘Did that change things? Make you feel you should step up into his shoes?’
She smiled. ‘I thought about it. I’m sure Dad did too. No. But it made me more determined. To get a first, to make my own way, my own career.’ She paused. ‘I suspect there was a traditional bit of me that thought the firm was for the male van Kroons. I became what we now call a headhunter.’
‘Clearly with great success.’
‘Yes,’ she said with an openness he liked. ‘It’s gone well. The languages helped, I started off doing Europe. And now I’m starting a whole new operation in the West Country.’
‘I’d always want to support you in your work,’ he said.
Her brown eyes opened wide. ‘Who knows what we’ll all want to do?’
That first evening at the Italian restaurant rushed over them like a tidal wave. He walked her home and, somehow, knew that he should do no more than kiss her on the cheek and hold the door while she went inside.
The second date followed two days later, same place, same table. The forty-eight-hour wait was agonizing.
‘I felt we’d hardly started,’ Carol said.
‘I know.’ He slowly stretched a hand across the table. She took it and held it for a few seconds. Everything was going to be all right.
‘Politics,’ she said, as if turning the page to a new chapter. ‘You said you could have gone either way. Please discuss.’
He grinned at the command. ‘OK. I was never really an ideologue. But it always fascinated me and I was ambitious. Though I didn’t have a photo taken on the steps of Number 10 when I was a boy—’
‘Like Harold Wilson…’
‘Yes, well remembered.’
‘You don’t need to sound so surprised, Robbie.’
‘Sorry.’ They laughed. ‘Anyway I got involved in school debates, that sort of thing.’
‘What about your parents?’
‘I have to be careful with the humble boy made good narrative. Yes, we lived in a council house, a nice Victorian terrace in Durham as it happens. But my dad worked in the post office. We watched the Miners’ Gala but I can’t claim him as a miner. Then, under Thatcher’s right to buy, he bought the house. Did well out of it. The Labour Party of the 1980s wasn’t for me – Militant Tendency and all that. So I joined the Tories, the winners.’
‘Now Blair’s set in for ever as far as I can see.’
‘May seem like that. But Brown’s turned on the spending taps – second term, all shackles off – and it’ll end in tears. Labour will win next time but heading towards 2010 there’ll be a crash. No doubt about it. Then we’ll win and have to sort out the mess. Like we always do.’
‘Right,’ she said, ‘I’ll hold you to that.’
He slapped the table with his palm. ‘Good. Nothing’s more certain.’
‘And what about when you first were in Parliament? As a researcher, I mean.’
‘It was a funny time. Thatcher had just been offed. I liked Major. Looking back, the seed of Jed and me eventually drifting apart was already sown.’
‘Jed Fowkes…’
‘Yes.’
‘Your flatmate. You mentioned him.’
‘Actually Jed was amazing in his way.’ He collected his thoughts. ‘His dad was on the shop floor at Longbridge. He was there when the first Minis came off the production line. He rose to be shop steward, and then a convenor. Fiery by all accounts. Jed, initially, inherited the politics. Even while at school, he joined the IS, International Socialists. Then in 1987 – the summer before his final year at Oxford – he went on a student visit to Leipzig. East Germany was still Communist. When he came back, he wrote an amazing piece in Cherwell. About how terrible life was there. The disillusion he felt. He also confessed – quite bravely, I thought – to how he’d been introduced to a man who turned out to be a senior Stasi officer and tried to recruit him. The article made him a student name. He ditched the left and joined the Tories.’
‘And you met him…’
‘Three and a half years later. When I arrived at Westminster in 1991. He was incredibly knowledgeable, full of ideas. I remember him saying something that turned out to be brilliant. “In future, there won’t be general elections, there’ll be a conglomeration of specific elections.” Of course, we understood marginal seats were crucial. But – and the internet was just beginning – Jed was already outlining a future where data was king. We’d be able to know the preferences of every single voter. Whatever happened on the surface, electioneering would come down to who most effectively targeted each of those individuals with the right message.’
‘That was smart,’ she said.
‘The problem was Jed was a preacher, an evangelical. Transmit, not receive.’ He hesitated. ‘I sometimes felt he should have been an academic. Then he could have kept banging on without people arguing with him.’
She smiled. ‘That bad?’
‘No, for a couple of years I enjoyed it. Well, put up with it. Because I was learning. But as I said, I was pro Major. Pragmatic, amiable, moderate. Jed joined the other side. The ideological right, the anti-Europeans, the lot Major called “the bastards”. I suppose I’d had enough. He was more upset than I thought he’d be when I left the flat. Maybe he was always a bit on the spectrum, as we say these days. We bump into each other every now and then but he’s part of my history now, not my present.’ He stopped; she allowed him a moment.
‘You know,’ he eventually said, ‘I think, politically, there was one big difference. When it came to the rich and poor, Jed felt the rich came first. I can see the argument – the logic – wealth trickling down. But it’s inhuman. For me the poor always came first. Always will. Logic’s not always for the best.’
He had finished. She looked at him, eyes shining. At that moment, gazing back at her, he felt he was seeing the world afresh. He walked her home. This time, as she opened the front door, she took him by the hand and led him upstairs.
They married the Saturday before Christmas, just eight months after those first dates. The wedding, attended by three hundred guests, was a glittering occasion held at the village church in Gloucestershire followed by a reception in a huge, heated marquee on the front lawn of the van Kroon family home. They might not have forgotten Holland but they had left behind the austerity of Dutch Protestantism. The first Sandford daughter arrived so soon that some were tempted to count the months.
Jed Fowkes had been on the guest list. Sandford felt he had to be. His own selection as parliamentary candidate for a safe constituency had created a further awkwardness. Jed was a serial failure at selection meetings, unmarried, unattached, and now a rather anonymous figure in the party’s policy unit. But Sandford remained grateful to him as a significant part of his early career. He made a point of seeking him out among the wedding throng.
‘Hey, Jed, fantastic to see you,’ he said, clubbing him on the shoulder. ‘So good you could come.’
Fowkes did not return the gesture. He made a show of looking around the vast marquee. ‘You struck gold, Robbie. Safe seat, rich wife.’
Sandford frowned. ‘It’s all luck. You know that.’
‘Yeah, sure.’
‘Anyway you’re doing well. Crafting policy, preparing for our return.’
‘It’s all for show. You’re fine, you’ll get in. But we’ve no chance of winning while Blair’s there.’
‘If you think that, Jed, maybe you should get out, try something else.’
Fowkes took a step towards Sandford, matching him eye to eye. ‘I’m a stayer, Robbie. It’ll take time – ten, fifteen, even twenty years maybe – but there’ll come a moment when we’ll see what a proper government can do. Maggie was beginning to see it. Get out of Europe, it’s corrupt to the core. Roll up t
he state. Build ourselves a country again. Mark my words, it’ll come. And I’ve every intention of being there to see it happen.’
9
The kettle whistled. At least, thought Sandford, it allowed the menace of Fowkes’s words to hang momentarily in the air. It was beginning to feel like Groundhog Day from that unpleasant – and unforgettable – exchange at the wedding eighteen years before. A scenario unfolding, a threat in its tail. Then it was just a wish, now it was clearly leading to something more.
‘Tea or coffee?’
Fowkes shook his head dismissively. ‘No. Let’s get on.’
‘Fine.’
‘Right. Roisin gave a quick wave to the remaining three of us and went off. She asked the little Hungarian girl if she was going to be OK. Andrea said she was fine. Then she smiled at you and said, “Are you fine?” in a way that made me suspect exactly where the night might be heading. I wondered whether I should push off but, to be honest, I had nowhere to go that night. I hailed a black cab and piled into it with the two of you.’ He paused again. ‘Still with me, Robbie?’
Sandford frowned. ‘I’ll take your word for it.’
‘I guess the girls were always eyeing you up. You were the one they went for.’
Sandford shrugged. ‘I don’t know about that. Where’s this heading?’
‘I’m sorry. This is difficult. But details and timings matter. There were the three of us in the cab. It seemed natural that you and she sat on the bench seat and me on a drop-down seat. We didn’t say much. She stared out of the window. We drove across one of the bridges – London Bridge, I guess – and she said, “Wow, it is very beautiful.” I felt she’d been rehearsing the sentence and finally had the opportunity to speak it. You had your arm round her. I can remember it like yesterday. You?’
‘Jed, we met loads of girls.’
‘Keep trying. The cab dropped us, we went up the stairs to the flat. I went to the kitchen, grabbed a couple of beers, she’d been drinking vodka and Coke. I probably thought she’d had enough and brought her something soft. You went into the kitchen. She kept her eyes on where you’d gone. You reappeared with a big glass of whisky.’
‘You sure?’ said Sandford. ‘Unusual for me.’
‘And not always a good idea.’ Fowkes paused, extracting a tissue to clear his nose, as if to prepare himself for a development in the story that he needed courage to tell. ‘I was beginning to feel like a wallflower so I made some excuse. But you stopped me, said, “Let’s see if there’s a movie on.” I felt grateful to you, I didn’t really want to go to bed but I didn’t want to mess you around either. We always knew not to get in each other’s way. Maybe that time, you felt it useful having me there while you and she were working each other out. I got up, switched on the TV, flicked through the channels. I stopped at one playing a movie. It had a famous sex scene. That you might remember.’
‘Don’t Look Now?’
‘Yes. Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie looking like they’re really at it.’
‘Everyone knows that scene.’
‘But that night. Can you remember watching it that night?’
‘Jed, how the hell can I begin to remember on which exact date a particular film was playing on late-night TV thirty years ago?’
Fowkes’s eyes narrowed. ‘I do, Robbie. That’s the point.
I do.’
‘What are you implying?’
‘I’m not implying anything. You were both watching the screen, laughing, and putting your arms round each other. I made my excuses and said goodnight. You seemed OK, though the whisky disappeared pretty fast.’
‘I’ve no idea how you remember a detail like that.’
Fowkes raised a hand. ‘Well, I do. You didn’t usually drink too much but it was a Friday night, maybe you were tired, maybe it was the girl, I don’t know. But you were certainly going for it.’
‘I don’t recall any of this.’
‘Maybe that’s why.’
Sandford looked at his watch again. ‘Are we nearly done?’
‘Yes,’ replied Fowkes. ‘We are – as you put it – nearly done. A while later, I don’t know exactly how long, I needed to pee. I crept out of my room. The sofa was bare, meaning you and she must be in your bedroom. On the way back, I heard what sounded like whimpering coming from behind your door. Then it suddenly stopped. I went back to my room. A minute or so later, you knocked at my door. Your eyes were wild, your face red. I’ll never forget how you looked. “Something’s happened,” you said. I dragged myself out of bed and put on my boxers. You asked me to come and look, but you could hardly get the words out. We went into your bedroom and she was lying flat on her back, jeans and pants halfway down her thighs. Her head was on the sheet, one pillow beside her, a second pillow on the floor. “Something’s happened to her,” you said.
‘I’m no medic but I picked up her arm and felt for a pulse. I wasn’t sure. There didn’t seem anything much there but maybe I was doing it wrong. Her chest and breasts seemed too still. I put on the top light. You were standing there motionless, like a marble statue. “What the fuck have you done?” I said. You said you thought she was going to scream, but when I asked you why, you kept saying you didn’t know. “Was she asking you to stop?” I asked. “I don’t know.” It was the third time you’d said it. I wanted to call 999, but you wouldn’t let me. You kept saying it was an accident but that you didn’t know what happened.’
Fowkes stopped to draw breath. Sandford listened, expressionless, waves of nausea rising. ‘I don’t remember any of this. How can you know it happened?’
‘I’ll tell you how. Because she’s reappeared.’
‘What!’ said Sandford.
‘The girl. She’s reappeared,’ repeated Fowkes.
‘The girl?’
‘Her body.’ He hesitated. ‘I mean, a part of it.’
‘What are you talking about? Jed, this is getting crazy.’
Fowkes took a folded piece of paper from his inside pocket and unrolled it. It was a page from the Daily Mail. ‘Look at the date. The day before your conference speech. It was pushed through my letter box in an envelope. I’ve no idea who by.’ He handed it to Sandford. ‘Read the story at the bottom. Actually, first look at what’s written below it.’
Handwritten in the bottom margin in red capitals were six words. ‘REMEMBER THE GIRL FROM HUNGARY, JED?’
‘That’s your new development. I could hardly show it to you in the conference hall, could I?’ Imitating Sandford’s previous gesture, Fowkes made a show of looking at his watch. ‘The fifteen minutes you gave me is up. You need to remember this more than I do, Robbie. Let’s meet again when you’ve had time to think about it.’
Before Sandford could speak, Fowkes had turned and was heading towards the door, shutting it behind him with a click that felt like the distant crack of a rifle.
10
Sandford crouched over the newspaper cutting lying flat across the kitchen table. ‘SEVERED HAND MYSTERY’.
His hands were damp with sweat, his heart racing, worse than anything he had felt for years. He pushed away the cutting, sat down, hands on the table, and closed his eyes. Following his CBT training, he took deep breaths, concentrating solely on counting the seconds as he exhaled each one.
After a couple of minutes, he retrieved the article. It described Lewisham CID’s mystification at the apparent burial, some twenty-five to thirty-five years ago, of a young woman’s chopped-off right hand with a ring on the fourth finger. It had been wrapped in a piece of shower curtain and dumped on wasteland near the river, part of a huge proposed development west of Greenwich. Workmen had stumbled across it while checking a mains water pipe beneath a service road. The official police statement concluded: ‘If you have information about a young woman who went missing in South-East London between the mid-1980s and mid-1990s, please contact Lewisham police.’ The newspaper article was more excited. ‘It’s a mystery straight out of a crime thriller. The remains, it seems, of a young wo
man brutally hacked to death and dismembered. The truth may only be revealed if further body parts are found.’
Sandford tried to remember the exact words Jed had used to describe the events of that evening. He wondered how much he had rehearsed them. He had taken his allotted time of fifteen minutes, almost to the second. A delivery with perfect timing, ending in the final sting as he handed over the article. An ending that required at least one further conversation, perhaps more.
Why now? What evidence did he really have that the hand had anything to do with some incident at the flat? He stared at the words in red, ‘REMEMBER THE GIRL FROM HUNGARY, JED?’ Could they have been written by Jed himself? Was the whole thing, sparked off by this chance discovery, his invention? If so, why alight on something so extreme? A girl apparently unconscious in their flat, her pants halfway down her legs. Who then disappeared.
Sandford saw the real threat. It was not possible to disprove it. It was Jed’s word against the void in his own memory. Supported by a newspaper page with a message and the evidence of a severed hand. That ever-present fear that something shameful – or, perhaps, much worse – might have happened in that troubled period of his life was raging. But never, surely to God, anything like this.
He would never forget that first conversation with Carol at the restaurant. He had told her about the panic attacks because they could always return. But he had not fully spelt out the wildness of those times.
Most weekends had been one long party, usually started by Mikey and his City friends. Sometimes newly met couples peeled off to his or Mikey’s bedrooms, locking the door behind them. Other times, the big joke was to ask if he could remember who had tucked him up in bed. They would give him looks and murmured questions. ‘Did you have a good time with her, Robbie?’ A fragment of memory still made him shiver. A girl, out of it, visited by at least three or four males in succession. Had he tried to stop them? He had a vision of her lying there, legs sprawled. If he had gone in, surely it was only to comfort her. That was the trouble. As with Jed, ‘sure’ was the impossible word until truth could be proved.
A Time to Lie Page 4
