The Touch of Innocents

by Michael Dobbs

  ‘Mr President, good evening. Oh, you’re in California and it’s still morning? I want you to know I’m very happy for you. I also want you to know I have Paul Devereux with me, my Secretary of State for Defence. I hope you won’t object if I put this call on the speaker so he can listen along?’

  The Prime Minister punched a button on the console and the deep Virginian tones of the American leader echoed into the room.

  ‘Blessed are they that giveth, Prime Minister, and, as I guess you know, I’m about to be pretty damn’ blessed.’

  The American leader was known for his fondness of biblical quotation and analogy with which he cultivated the public image of a Southern gentleman and national father figure. In private, it was not unknown for him to conduct meetings with his advisers while occupying a toilet seat.

  ‘That’s most kind of you, Mr President. I trust your rewards will be plentiful and in this life.’

  ‘Sure as hell better be. That’s where I need a little generosity of spirit on your part, Prime Minister. You’ve got what you want. The financial deal on the Duster. The Security Council, Cyprus, and we’ll put on a reception during your trip to Washington which’d make Walt Disney go green. But there’s one other item I want your truly British help on.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Well, see here, you know I have some little local difficulties with the Congress on this project. As the Good Book says, they have eyes that cannot see, ears that cannot hear and mouths that cannot stop. Or something like that. So I need to be particularly friendly towards the senior Senator for Wyoming, who just happens to be the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and who also just happens to have a grand-daughter desperate to get into your Oxford University. Now, if the kid had as much brain as the old man’s got influence there’d be no problem, but … Could you fix it for me?’

  The Prime Minister’s lower jaw wobbled. ‘Well, the Government doesn’t control such matters, of course, and those intellectuals make such a fuss about academic freedom … But I’d be happy to look into it for you. Personally.’

  ‘Goddamn it, I don’t want it looking into, Prime Minister, I want it done. Isn’t the Duster worth one little lousy place at Oxford, for Chrissake? I’d have thought it’d be worth an entire university.’

  ‘I … I …’ Flood’s jaw wobbled once more, taken aback at the other’s approach.

  ‘Mr President.’ Devereux stepped into the conversation. ‘You have to understand the Prime Minister must ensure he is not seen trampling roughshod over academic freedom. It would do no favours to the Senator or his grand-daughter if there were a great public outcry over the matter.’

  ‘Well, ain’t that the truth.’

  ‘However, I think there is a way round the problem. I’m sure the Prime Minister could find a British defence contractor, one closely involved with the Duster perhaps, who might be persuaded with the Prime Minister’s personal encouragement to take a keen interest in endowing an academic chair at Oxford. An ideal and imaginative way of displaying his deep social commitment. A commitment which might lead him all the way to the House of Lords, eh, Prime Minister?’

  ‘Well, yes, I’m sure …’

  ‘I suspect that, in these very stringent financial times for them, the university authorities would be likely to take a very understanding and sympathetic view of any … minor conditions which might be attached to such a munificent gesture.’

  ‘You mean you can fix it?’ boomed the President.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes!’ repeated the Prime Minister.

  ‘Gentlemen, thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a by-word, among all nations. Know something, I believe our little baby has lift-off.’

  ‘Bless you,’ muttered the Prime Minister as the President bade his farewell and the line went dead. For the first time in weeks, Devereux saw Flood smile.

  The Defence Secretary spent a further hour with the Prime Minister as the latter savoured the triumph over a glass of whisky. They set to resolving other problems, settling scores, planning initiatives which might lead to revival and electoral success. Flood was enthused and Devereux content to take a back seat, to listen, offer guarded suggestions, to let the Prime Minister pick up the ideas and run with them. He had to act with care. He could not outshine his leader yet must provide a sufficient measure of comfort and encouragement to ensure he maintained the inside track which was opening for him. Win or lose the next election, Flood was unlikely to last much beyond. For the first time in a purposeful fashion, Devereux began to consider the possibility that he might soon take his colleague’s place.

  Prime Minister. It was there, beckoning. Then the ghost of his father would most truly have been laid.

  Flood, in generous spirit, accompanied Devereux to the front door of Number Ten where, at the moment the door swung open, the television lights for the nightly news broadcast were switched on, bathing them in the glow of national attention. The Prime Minister took Devereux’s hand and shook it warmly, a gesture of endorsement which, even bereft of words, would be seen and understood by all who followed the uncertain tidal streams of political fortune.

  ‘An excellent evening, Paul. Thank you. I suppose you are off to celebrate our success?’

  Devereux returned the smile. ‘Perhaps later. First I need to call the American Ambassador. There are a couple of details that still need sorting out with him.’

  He seemed to be everywhere. On television, in the headlines, all around the house, within her marriage, even inside her skull. She had woken in the middle of the night, pillow damp from the torment of the nightmare and mental effort of trying to break free, but to no avail. The face of Paulette had loomed once more out of her subconscious, the image clearer and more precise than ever. Except when the face of Paulette had melted into the features of Paul.

  But what had inspired most terror within her was the fact that, struggle hard as she might, as the image of the girl gained in clarity so the other image seemed to dissolve. She could not recall what her own baby looked like. Bella was gone. The childish, half-formed features, the pitch of her cry, the face, the changing colour of the eyes and the special way the red hair fell across her brow, all blurred in her mind like the scorched celluloid of an old film. She wanted to take the easy way out, and panic.

  She wiped her damp brow – hell, it wasn’t damp, it was running with sweat – and lay back on her pillow to listen to the sounds of the old house. Such places were never still, constantly creaking, echoing with time. And time was not on her side.

  Time passed, day by day, taking her further away from Bella. How long had it been? And her question gave birth to an insight, perhaps one last place to try.

  She had burgled every room in the house, invaded every cupboard, inspected every corner in her search for some sign, evading the suspicious eyes of Sally who seemed to have been told she was up to no good. Most normal hosts would have thrown her out as soon as they discovered she suspected his daughter, perhaps even himself, but Devereux was normal neither as a host nor as an opponent. He obviously preferred to have her watched, to know where she was, what she was doing.

  She, too, had resisted the temptation to move away from the house. There seemed little point. She had nowhere else to go, no money and, since the Devereux family had become a target, staying in the house somehow placed her nearer to her goal. It was intended as a prison, but the doors remained unbolted.

  So she had stayed. And searched. But there had been nothing. Not even any locks, no pretence of trying to hide clues, except in the filing cabinets within the study, and they were Government secured, probably alarmed, unbreachable. And yet, perhaps …

  As silently as she could, without lights, she crept from her bed through the darkened house, like a thief, catching her breath as every floorboard groaned like a coffin lid, her senses on edge, listening for the snap of a light switch, fearing illumination and discovery. There was only Sally, who slept at the back of the house, but in the da
rk the place crawled with a thousand ghosts. Devereux ghosts.

  Then she was in the study, her eyes set not on the filing cabinets but on the word processor. Perhaps the one place which held secrets that Devereux had forgotten to lock. Unless he wrote his diary longhand.

  As she switched on, she knew how great was the risk of discovery. The equipment began to whine and beep with a noise that would carry through the old stone house; she sat bathed in blue light which must have been visible right across the vale, and certainly as far as the cottage where Chinnery lived. She turned in alarm at a tapping on the window, but it was no more than a hawthorn bush, disturbed by the wind.

  ‘Disk error.’

  Damn. But delight. There was a floppy disk in the jaws of the drive. A button release, a flashing screen, an orchestra of electronic greetings.

  ‘Microsoft Word.’

  Great! The whole world knew this program. And she was into it. Probing. Ransacking. Revealing.

  And there she found it, on the floppy.

  ‘Diary.’

  Just like that. Bloody fool. He’d forgotten, overlooked it – but didn’t everyone?

  It was not the full diary, only musings of the last months, since October. But that would be more than enough. Quickly she scrolled through, flashing past secrets both personal and political, the ammunition he had loaded.

  ‘Oct 14. Cabinet. PM pathetic, wretched man. No backbone, no balls. D. is talking of a leadership challenge …’

  She dared not tarry.

  ‘Oct 20. Spent night with BL while PM off in Brussels. The fool. Being screwed on all fronts …

  ‘Oct 30. New private secretary at Department. Rebecca. Divorced. Dynamite. Delightful prospect …’

  And so it continued but she had no time to take it in, catching only fragments of the inner man, until she had reached the date of her accident.

  Nothing. Nothing but a wine-drenched dinner party against which he had recorded the political indiscretions uttered by the host and the personal indiscretions he had been led to expect from the hostess.

  She scrolled on. The next two days, and more.

  And there it was. Cryptic. Scarcely incriminating, no proof, but enough for Izzy.

  ‘P. My darling P. How could you? I have been so blind. God help her. God help us both.’

  What had he discovered about his daughter so soon after the accident that had left him on his knees? The despair cut clean through. This was the real Devereux, or at least part of him, but she had no time for pity or any other judgement. She jumped in dismay as once again the wind scratched the hawthorn across the pane and, from the cottage that nestled in the lee of the house, a light appeared. Chinnery’s light.

  She snatched at the switch on the screen and the blue glow faded but the main drive still hummed, the computer was still toiling. Another light in the cottage went on and a dog howled; the world was waking. This might be her last chance.

  More by memory than the pale light of a winter moon she found the box of computer disks at the back of the desk. Clean, empty floppy disks. Like sponges.

  She couldn’t risk any form of illumination. She sat in front of the console and typed, blind, two fingers.

  The computer stirred, fell silent again. She extracted the original floppy and replaced it with a new one. More stirring, more silence.

  She was desperate to switch on the screen, to check, but she thought she could hear signs of movement from inside the house now. Sally. She switched disks once more, leaving the original back in its drive.

  Had it copied, had the sponge soaked up the information? No way of checking, not now. Clutching the new disk, she quickly retraced her steps back to her room.

  So he had known, almost from the start. And had become part of it. For there could be no other interpretation, no other understanding of his diary entry. His reappearance in her life had been no coincidence. Now she knew the measure of her enemy, for enemy he surely was.

  A parent driven by overwhelming obsession, and love, faith and hope, and perhaps guilt, to protect the child. No matter what.

  It seemed all too familiar. Like looking in a mirror. She understood how determined he might be. As determined as she.

  And that made Devereux a very dangerous man.

  Daniel dropped them at the hospital. Only as she sat waiting for her check-up did she realize how little she had thought during the last few days of her medical condition. She had found enough strength to spring after Benjy, enough physical resource to see her through the days. No headaches. Her bouts of depression she put down to the loss of Bella rather than the clinical after-effects of the accident. She’d even begun some gentle aerobic stepping exercises to rebuild the muscle tone. No question she was getting stronger.

  And Weatherup agreed. A slow, painstaking examination of her neurological signs, from the shape of her head and the reflexes of the retinas to the sensitivity of the soles of her feet, seemed to leave him well satisfied. Izzy Dean was working.

  ‘You’re a medical mystery, Izzy. A few weeks ago you were supposed to be dead. Now, apart from your spleen scar and that slightest nick by your eye, I can find no evidence of the fact that you were ever in an accident. It’s as if you’ve found something within you which is repairing all the loose ends, retying all the knots, far more effectively than any drug I could prescribe.’

  It’s called hope, she told herself.

  ‘Amazing what a few press-ups will do, doctor.’

  ‘Now, don’t you go overdoing things,’ he chided. ‘Any damage you received to the brain is irreversible and we simply don’t know enough about such matters to tell you what, if any, difficulties that might cause. Just take it easy for the next few weeks; your brain and your body will let you know of any problem much more effectively than we can. But, as far as I can tell, so far, so very good.’

  ‘You’re telling me that the medical profession isn’t omniscient? That it makes mistakes?’

  He recognized her challenge. Cautiously he seated himself on the end of the examination couch, conscious of the fact that their last conversation had turned to confrontation.

  ‘In my job we understand so little. We struggle so hard with inadequate tools, and we pray. If we succeed, we still don’t know whether it’s because of our skills, our luck or simply our prayer. But also there comes a point when we have no choice but to bow our heads to the inevitable. When the struggle has to stop.’

  He held up his hand to stall the protest he knew she was about to launch.

  ‘Please, Izzy, listen to me for just a minute. It’s very common for mothers to have difficulty in believing they’ve lost a baby; it’s not only natural, it’s normal. You have the added problem of not having been there to say goodbye.’ He licked dry lips, searching for the right words. ‘But you see, there are too many steps in the system, too many people involved. A mistake simply couldn’t have happened. You’ve got to find some way of letting go.’

  She wanted to shout at him. What about mistakes of hair colour? What about babies in Bournemouth? But he was trying to be genuine, she could detect no trace of craft in him. She held her peace.

  ‘Those ID bracelets are checked every step of the way, against all the medical records we make. For a mistake to have been made would take the entire hospital, every doctor and nurse who dealt with your baby. It simply couldn’t happen.’

  He took her silence as acquiescence; his frown turned to an expression of encouragement. ‘Don’t just take my word for it. Go and prove it to yourself. Talk to those who looked after your baby, find out how much care she was given. Then perhaps you’ll find you can accept.’

  Her shoulders dropped. He was right, not everyone in the hospital could have made a mistake, she had to accept that. Even more, it would have taken a mistake by the Coroner’s Office, the undertaker, the police … seemingly everyone in the country. No conspiracy theory could cover so many people. And what would be their purpose? Suddenly she felt tired, belittled. Her head fell forward, as though s
he no longer had the strength.

  ‘I shall do as you suggest.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘So, when would you like to see me next?’

  ‘See you, Izzy? As far as I’m concerned, you’re as strong as a horse and as free as a bird. A remarkable recovery. In a word, go. So long as you don’t overdo it, listen to what your body is telling you, in my opinion you can leave. Fly back tomorrow, if you want. Spend Christmas at home. In fact, I would suggest it, probably the best recuperation you can get.’ His voice softened to a whisper. ‘Get away from here and its memories. Give yourself a chance to forget.’

  People forget, but not systems. They are built to retain, to store the myriad details of life. And, as Daniel was discovering, of death.

  After dropping Izzy off at the hospital he had driven to the Coroner’s Office, with no idea of what he was searching for except, with the assistance of his press credentials, to test the version of events she had been given.

  And for all the world it seemed to be correct. The Coroner himself was not available, it was not a full-time post, so the wizened clerk with the leathery skin and bottle-black hair informed him. But she offered her own help, delivered in a prim manner and pedantic voice which he later discovered was the legacy of half a lifetime of schoolteaching before her early retirement to the less stressful and considerably quieter enclaves of the Coroner’s Office. On medical grounds, at her doctor’s suggestion. She wore no ring.

  ‘A baby girl,’ Daniel explained. ‘Unknown identity. Died in a car accident.’

  She retrieved a slim manila file from a locked cupboard, wiping it meticulously with a bright yellow cloth although nothing in the office bore any trace of dust. ‘You’re not the first to enquire, as it happens. A lady from the social services just last week. Strange accent. Forin, I believe.’ She pronounced the word with particular emphasis. Very English.

  So Katti hadn’t ducked out …