‘How did you know that?’
‘Come on, Robbie. After you sought help, you told Mikey and me about them. You said it helped that people close to you knew. So we discussed it with her. Briefly and just once.’
‘You were all talking, were you?’
‘We weren’t “talking”. Certainly not her. We just wanted to be there for you.’
Sandford sighed. ‘Jed, just get to the point.’
‘Good idea. Let’s go back to that evening. We’ve agreed we spent it with a girl called Andrea.’
‘And Roisin.’
‘Yes. Until she left. And then Andrea came back to the flat with us in a taxi.’
‘Yes.’
‘OK. Do you remember her leaving?’
‘No.’
‘Was she in the flat next morning? On the sofa perhaps? Or in your bed?’
‘Not that I remember. She must have left.’
‘When you were back functioning the next day, I told you I’d managed to sort the girl out. Get her out of the flat. And I said something like, “You just be fucking careful in future, I’m not going to do this for you again.”’
‘No, Jed. And you’ve offered no material evidence that this hand has any connection with a Hungarian girl called Andrea.’
Fowkes sighed and looked at his watch. ‘How long have we got?’
‘As long as you want. If I’d known last time why you were coming, I’d have given you longer then. Unless you planned it this way.’
‘I dislike the implications of that remark.’ He seemed about to say more but stopped himself. Silence fell. He took another sip of water. Sandford waited. ‘I’d rather you didn’t try to provoke me,’ Fowkes continued quietly.
‘Are you still easily provoked?’
Fowkes closed his eyes and took a deep breath. ‘I can see I need to explain what happened next. Before you ask me why I’ve waited thirty years, the answer is that I’ve always wanted to protect you. You didn’t remember, you didn’t need to. The important thing was that you sorted yourself out. Which you began to do. So why should I worry you with it?’
‘Go on.’
‘We had a girl in our flat in a seriously bad way. You were afraid to call an ambulance. Meaning you must have done something to her. She might even be dead. Whatever your state of mind, you knew you’d be questioned about what happened. You were talented, possibly a future star. I didn’t want to see you in trouble. And yes, I knew I’d have questions to answer too. On the spur of the moment I did something I came to regret. I looked down at the girl. I thought to myself she’s only just arrived in the country. She’s doing a temp job. No one here really knows her. Her family don’t expect to hear much from her. This is long before FaceTime and all that. She’s just another post-1989 migrant worker from eastern Europe, bunking off from one job to another.
‘She was small. Easy to carry. At that time I had a friend from a different world to ours who would know what to do. I phoned him, he was at home. I said I had a problem, could he come round? He lived only twenty minutes’ drive away. He came straightaway. With another guy. I didn’t know him. I said maybe they could leave her outside a hospital. “Sure,” he said. “I’ll do what’s best.” The next time I saw him I asked how it turned out. “Fine,” he said, “we disposed of her.” I didn’t ask him how. It seemed the best way.’
Sandford tried to keep his face neutral. ‘Let’s say this did happen. Maybe he was using tough guy language. He probably just dropped her at a hospital and she ended up fine. Assuming so, why didn’t she report us? Why didn’t something come out?’
‘No reason for it to. She was so far gone she probably wouldn’t have remembered much, if anything. If she did, she’d keep it quiet. She’d be too embarrassed to tell anyone. And she’d be too scared to go to the police. It was a different world for women then.’
‘Right. That’s what happened. And she probably spent a few more months here and then went home.’
‘But there’s an alternative, isn’t there?’ said Fowkes.
‘Alternative?’
‘She disappeared. She was a nobody. In this country anyway. And now she’s reappeared. Her severed hand anyway.’
‘There’s no evidence,’ said Sandford.
Fowkes felt for something in his inside pocket. ‘Another cutting came through my door.’ He produced a folded newspaper page and handed it to Sandford. ‘Read that.’
This time Fowkes waited. Sandford put his reading glasses on. The headline was ‘CLUE TO MYSTERY HAND’.
Lewisham CID say the ring found on a severed hand in Old Deptford Dockyard last week may help to narrow the search for the victim. The ring turns out to be of Hungarian origin. It was made from a Hungarian one-korona silver coin, its inside band marked with the name Ferenc József – the Austro-Hungarian emperor who died in 1916. Its age suggests it may be an heirloom handed down the generations of one family. Police have asked anyone with information about the unexplained disappearance of a young Hungarian woman in London between twenty-five and thirty-five years ago to contact them.
Beneath the article in red capitals was a handwritten message. ‘SHE’S GETTING CLOSER, JED.’
Sandford put the cutting down on the sofa cushion beside him. ‘That may point to the girl being Hungarian – but not to it being this girl.’
‘And what about the messages?’
‘Probably just some nutter you’ve fallen out with trying to wind you up.’
Fowkes stood up, leant over and retrieved the cutting. ‘Jesus, Robbie, think about it. If it’s just some nutter, how would he know about the girl?’
Sandford hesitated. He decided he had to say it. ‘Unless, Jed, you’re writing those messages to yourself.’
Fowkes buried his face in his hands, rubbed his eyes, then looked up. ‘I honestly can’t believe you said that, Robbie.’
Silence fell. But you haven’t denied it either, have you, thought Sandford. ‘OK, sorry. But if any of this is true, Jed… when you found her in that state, you should have called the emergency services there and then. Whatever I might have said.’
‘You’re still not listening. It’s the question I asked you before. Did we kill her? Did you kill her, Robbie? Because that means I’m complicit in murder. It’s always the cover-up, isn’t it? That’s what always gets you. So right now, I need you to tell me what to do.’
Sandford allowed himself a moment. He calculated that, whatever game Jed Fowkes was playing, his advice would be the last thing he would follow.
‘Jed, let me be clear. If you believe this severed hand belongs to a young woman who was the victim of an accident – or something worse – in our flat some thirty years ago, you have to go straight to the police. Report your concerns, describe the whole of that evening as you’ve described it to me. Give the identity of the person who came to help remove Andrea from the flat. My own position is I don’t find your story credible and have no recollection of any such incident.’
Fowkes stood up. ‘Are you recording this?’
‘Don’t be daft.’
‘Just wondering.’ He sighed and slowly shook his head just once. ‘Thank you for your advice, Prime Minister.’ Without a further word, he turned and left the room. Sandford heard the front door of the flat shut quietly behind him.
14
The Prime Minister had five minutes till his next appointment. Whatever was true or false in Fowkes’s account, this was not going away. Fowkes presented potentially terminal danger. The best defence – maybe the only defence – remained to discover the truth. Unless the truth…
That way madness lay. He needed to hold onto fact. He had not smacked his children – maybe just a couple of times when they wouldn’t shut up in the back of the car. He had never hit his wife. Nor anyone else as far as he could remember. He had never killed anyone, never thought of killing anyone, never had any personal involvement in someone’s death. Except the car crash.
Why was Jed doing this? The frightening thing was tha
t Jed was so plausible, so apparently rational, that you could easily believe him.
The flat’s phone rang. ‘Yes, Mark, I’m on my way.’
A minute after 6 p.m., he was entering the office. The Cabinet Secretary, PPS, and the Number 10 special economic adviser were waiting. ‘We’re in the study, aren’t we, Mark?’
‘Yes, Prime Minister.’ They filed in after him.
‘Thanks for coming,’ said Sandford. ‘I want this to be a private meeting, kept confidential and unminuted. Anyone unhappy about that has my permission to leave.’
The other three, surprised by the peremptory tone, exchanged puzzled looks and stayed silent.
‘Good.’ The Prime Minister gave a short smile. ‘As my PPS is prone to remind me,’ he nodded at Burden, ‘we have less than four weeks till the State Opening and the Royal Speech. For several reasons, I want a new procedure this year for that speech. As always, we will take submissions from all departments. But the final drafting will take place here, within this office.’ He paused. ‘And, until the moment of printing, it will be confined to us four. There’ll be no sharing with any other. Including the Treasury.’
‘That will ruffle feathers,’ said Sir Kevin Long.
‘Tough,’ said Sandford.
‘I’ll have no problem on the economic side without them,’ said the special economic adviser.
‘Thanks, Tim. Mark?’
‘It’s a short speech. There are no practical issues if we have departmental briefs.’
‘Yes, short. But setting our agenda for the next four years. I’ll be heavily involved in aspects of the drafting myself.’ He looked around the room. ‘I would also ask the three of you not to discuss my possible reasons with each other. Do I have the agreement and full support of all of you?’
Three voices in turn said, ‘Yes, Prime Minister.’
Mark Burden checked his watch. ‘Six fifteen, the guests will have arrived.’
Sandford stood. ‘Let’s go.’
It was a Downing Street drinks reception for champions of sport. Normally he would enjoy it – a chance to meet people he genuinely admired – but, as he entered the room, he felt a need to be with his family. He shut it out. He was the Prime Minister.
He joined a former manager of Newcastle United who had spent a brief period as England boss.
‘Hello, Ron,’ he said, stretching out a hand. ‘You know I went to St James’s Park when Keegan was playing.’
‘Oh really! When Kev became manager, he got more out of that club than I ever did.’
‘Why did Newcastle United,’ Sandford’s flat ‘a’ in ‘castle’ was more pronounced than usual, ‘always seem such a basket case? All those fans. All that enthusiasm.’
‘Well, Prime Minister,’ said the manager, ‘you should know this better than anyone. It always starts at the top, doesn’t it?’
Sandford laughed. ‘Good to catch up with you.’ He moved on to a former Wimbledon Women’s Wheelchair doubles winner. He knelt down and shook her hand. ‘I love your sport,’ he said.
‘People find it too slow.’
‘Well I don’t agree with “people”,’ replied Sandford. ‘You’re subtle, every different type of spin, playing all the angles, more like a chess game, it’s great stuff.’
‘Oh!’ she beamed. ‘I’ll pass that on. Do you play?’
‘Used to. With the kids.’ He waved his hands around. ‘Never seems time for it now.’
‘You’re a busy man. I mustn’t monopolize you.’
‘It’s been a privilege.’
For those ninety minutes, the vision of Jed Fowkes disappeared. Back in the car taking him home, it returned. The driver and bodyguard noted his unusual distance – he hardly managed to say hello.
At Salisbury Square, they had not yet started supper.
‘You’re early!’ exclaimed Carol.
‘I thought you’d be pleased,’ he said with tragic theatricality.
His daughters frowned at him. ‘Course we’re pleased to see you, Dad, you muppet,’ said Becca, the oldest. He looked at her, seventeen now but the shorter and broader of the two, wavy brown hair, athletic, on the loud side. Bella, four years younger, was thin and graceful, straight fair hair, more subdued, more serious, more intuitive. If either were to inherit his anxiety gene, it would be her. Because they were so different, it was easy to love them equally. He could not stop himself trying to picture the Hungarian girl. She would probably have been only a year or two older than Becca.
‘What’s wrong, Dad?’ asked Bella quietly.
He forced a smile. Carol moved beside him and pecked him on the cheek. ‘Who’d be a Prime Minister, eh?’
‘Perhaps I’ll just do one term. Get out before the next election. That would surprise them.’
Carol gave him an odd look. ‘There are still times when I’m not a hundred per cent sure whether you’re joking.’
‘Me neither.’ He grinned and rubbed his hands together. ‘Right, I’m hungry.’
‘Lucky you, your timing’s perfect,’ said Carol.
Home. He knew how fortunate he was. Carol’s wealth had enabled them to buy a house in his Bristol constituency’s most expensive address, Royal York Crescent in Clifton, and then his scruffy two-bedroomed flat in Lewisham to be replaced by this house. Not once in their occasional marital rows had Carol resorted to reminding him that her money had made it all possible.
Supper was a tray bake of chicken with a mound of roasted vegetables. ‘Wow,’ he said. ‘An escape from the sandwich.’
‘How was the drinks?’ asked Carol.
‘Really enjoyable,’ he replied. As they ate, he told them about the wheelchair tennis champion. ‘Seems an age since we played. How about next time we’re all together at Chequers?’ He looked up at Becca. ‘Did you decide about Oxbridge?’
‘Yeah,’ she replied. ‘I don’t think I should go for it.’
‘Oh.’ He frowned. ‘I thought you liked Oxford.’
‘Sure, the city’s OK. But the university’s kind of elitist, not to mention all that work.’
‘But you’re clever.’
‘I don’t know about that. Anyway I wouldn’t want to get in just because I’m the Prime Minister’s daughter.’
He smiled at her. ‘It’d be just the opposite. Nothing they’d like better than to turn the PM’s daughter down. Maybe that plus us sending you to private school makes it impossible anyway.’ He paused. ‘Perhaps it’s just too hard.’
‘Too hard! No, it’s not too hard, Dad. It’s too sniffy. Anyway you didn’t go to Oxbridge.’
‘I wasn’t clever like you.’ He looked at Carol. ‘There’s the Oxford girl – where the brains come from.’
‘Well, in the end, it’s up to Becca herself,’ said Carol.
‘Of course it is,’ said Sandford. ‘Anyway, if it’s too hard, fine, I get it.’
‘That was rather naughty of you with Becca,’ said Carol, putting aside her book as they lay in bed.
‘Oh?’
‘She sidled up to me after you’d gone to the study. “How could he think it’s too hard for me?” she said. She was deliciously cross with you. I told her that’s how it could look to some people. She harrumphed and walked out.’
‘Do you think she’ll go for it?’
She grinned. ‘Almost certainly. Well done, my darling.’ She resumed her book.
‘Good.’ He smiled briefly. Flopping flat on his back, staring at the ceiling, his face sagged.
She put her book back down, removed her spectacles and leant on an elbow. ‘What’s wrong?’
He glanced at her, then back to the ceiling. ‘It’s fine. I’m fine.’
‘You’re not.’ He did not respond. ‘Is it Jed?’
He sat up. ‘Not directly. I did meet him briefly. He said he’d heard something bad about a very senior colleague.’
‘Who?’
‘On this one, I’d rather not.’
‘You’ve never held out on me before.’ She placed a hand
on his chest. ‘Not that I know of anyway.’
‘No, I haven’t.’
‘If not the person, at least the deed.’
‘I can’t. It’d make me feel dirty.’
‘It’s worrying you. So there’s a chance it might be true.’
‘I guess so.’ His heart was thumping.
‘Right then, it’s come from Jed,’ she persisted. ‘A very senior colleague. Is it Morland-Cross?’
‘Carol, I can’t—’
‘It is, isn’t it? Henry bloody M-C. That might not be so bad for you.’
‘It’s always bad. For the government. And the party. And him. He’s stayed in his box, I owe him.’
‘Who says he’ll never jump out of it?’ She sat up beside him. ‘Robbie, if M-C is up to no good, you should be using it. You only just beat him in the leadership contest. He’s still got his power base. He’s the only one who can undermine you.’
Sandford said nothing. A conversation he would have preferred to duck had, through Carol’s tenacity, taken an unusual turn. But not in the way she intended. The germ of an idea was forming. He could not just sit back and defend, he needed to attack. Against Jed, not Morland-Cross. But perhaps M-C could be deployed as his unwitting weapon.
‘I’ve got you thinking, haven’t I?’ Carol said with a note of triumph. ‘It is him, isn’t it?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Ha! What’s the old goat been up to?’
‘I don’t fully know. Nor does anyone else yet.’
She grinned. ‘You’re teasing. Lie back.’ She moved her hand down from his chest to his stomach, not stopping there.
‘Carol, I can’t.’
‘What do you mean, you can’t!’ Her hand cupped him.
He pointed a finger to his head. ‘I’m done for. Too much going on up there.’
‘Then let down there take over.’ He put his hand over hers. ‘Robbie, if you can’t manage this once in a while, I might start thinking you’re shagging the Downing Street cook.’
He laughed. God, he was stupid sometimes. There was only one response. He felt her. ‘Go for it,’ she said. ‘The way you really like.’ She turned onto her front and raised her thighs. As he entered, he put his arms around her, grabbing both breasts and squeezing hard. Harder than he meant. She gasped. ‘Careful.’ He loosened his grip and explored her all over, allowing himself to go with an intensity he had not felt for a long time. From nowhere, the image of the girl lying, legs sprawled, exhausted, sweating, flashed before him. He shut his eyes and pushed harder. He came quickly. When he had finished, she rolled onto her back and he lay beside her, his face buried in her neck and hair, her hand stroking the top of his head. He tried to hold back tears. They lay together in a silence both seemed to want.
A Time to Lie Page 7
