‘Sure,’ he replied. ‘We should just keep an eye on brother.’
And they took their seats in the front row. Everything was moving smoothly. Ben heard the door closing quietly behind them, sealing in the chapel’s disinfectant smell, then he leaned forward at the pew and pretended to pray.
20
Jock McCreery’s house was situated fifteen miles south of the crematorium along a narrow country lane. A faint drizzle had begun falling by the time Ben and Alice arrived. The gravel drive leading up to the house was already packed with cars, some banked up on to the edges of a damp lawn churned with mud and leaves, others parked in a small courtyard at the back of the property. Mark had offered to go in a separate car with three of Keen’s colleagues from Divisar, in order to show them the way.
Sandwiches cut into white, crustless triangles had been laid out on a table in the sitting room alongside bottles of wine, malt whisky and mineral water. McCreery’s wife, Gillian, a rotund woman in her late fifties wearing a baggy skirt and a necklace of fat, artificial pearls, made a point of introducing Ben, Mark and Alice to a constant stream of guests whose names they instantly forgot. The atmosphere in the house was one of nervous civility: guests were crammed into every room, even gathering on the stairs, but their conversations seemed muffled out of respect for Keen. Smoking was forbidden inside the house (‘We just find that the smell gets into everything,’ Gillian explained, ‘the curtains, one’s clothes, you understand’) and Ben longed for a cigarette. He was relieved to be free of the oppressive mood of the crematorium and had become quickly drunk on cheap red wine, but his attempts to go outside were blocked at every turn by guests approaching to offer their sympathy.
Sebastian Roth arrived just before two o’clock. Alice noticed him first, like the scent of a good story, holding himself at the edge of the room in a manner characteristic of someone who was used to being noticed. She felt, from a distance, that Roth was interesting to lookat rather than handsome, exuding a sense of power worn comfortably. Only his carefully tended hair, thickand lustrous, betrayed a probable vanity. Ben was standing beside her, watching McCreery’s black Labrador flickits wet tail against a Colefax & Fowler sofa as he drankwine from a plastic cup.
‘Look who’s here,’ she whispered, touching his arm. Alice had waited more than three years for a chance to meet Roth; that the opportunity should arise at her father-in-law’s funeral was merely an inconvenience.
Ben raised his eyebrows, glancing in Roth’s direction.
‘The boss,’ he murmured.
‘He doesn’t looklike someone who runs a nightclub.’
‘What were you expecting?’
‘I don’t know. More glamour. Not such a nice suit. He’s so…’ She reached for the word. ‘Groomed.’
‘Roth’s a businessman, just another free marketer.’ Ben put his cup down as the Labrador wandered out into the kitchen. ‘Ask him about the retail price index and he’ll talkto you for five hours. Try to find out whether he prefers trip-hop to speed garage and he’ll defer to his agent. Nightclubs, pharmaceuticals, junk bonds, makes no difference to guys like that. Libra is just another way of making money.’
Roth had made his way across the room to where Mark was standing, talking to the genial, chalk-haired American who had read from Keats at the service in Guildford. Handshakes. Mutual smiles. Alice noticed a slight air of deference come over Ben’s brother, his body language becoming more animated, a widening of the eyes.
‘You’ve never met him, have you?’
Ben said, ‘Who? Roth?’
‘Roth.’
‘Never. Only seen him on TV. BBC film about the club when it was expanding into the States. Otherwise just gossip columns, titbits in the papers.’
‘I saw him at a booklaunch once.’ Alice was speaking very quietly. ‘I think he’s the kind of guy who likes to be seen with beautiful women. You know the type. Lots of Versace and no conversation.’
Ben smiled as a secretary from Divisar, her eyes bruised from crying, introduced herself, said how sorry she was and walked back towards the hall. Moments later Mark was ushering Roth across the room towards them. Ben had been on the point of going outside for a cigarette and was frustrated once again to have to endure the wake’s miserable platitudes.
‘Sebastian Roth. I just wanted to pay my respects.’ Up close, Roth’s skin was smooth and implausibly tanned. He was shorter than most of the men in the room and had not yet looked at Alice. ‘Your father was somebody we’d been working very closely with. His experience was invaluable to us in Russia. It goes without saying that we’ll all miss him a great deal.’
‘Thankyou.’
It was a conversation Ben had been having all day. What to say next? How to follow it up?
‘Did Mack not come with you?’ Mark asked, rescuing him.
‘My lawyer, Thomas Macklin,’ Roth explained. He was still ignoring Alice, perhaps deliberately, training his eyes solely on Ben. McCreery appeared beside them and pulled Mark away into a separate conversation. ‘He’s in Moscow at the moment. You’ve met, haven’t you?’
Ben nodded.
‘Mack also worked alongside your father, as you know. He wanted to be here, but it just wasn’t possible. Asked me to pass on his condolences. And I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to make it to the funeral in person. I’ve also been away for the past few days.’
‘It’s really OK.’
There was a prolonged silence. Alice eventually edged forward and Ben took the hint.
‘Oh, sorry.’ It was as if he had been locked off in a meditation. ‘Sebastian, this is my wife, Alice. Alice, this is Mark’s boss, Sebastian.’
What followed was a text book first encounter of instant chemistry, a series of split-second subconscious acts. Alice touched her necklace, her skirt, reached out to shake Roth’s hand and then ducked her eyes to the floor. Roth, attempting to hold her gaze, absorbed Alice’s physical beauty in an instant, registering it as a challenge. The least significant part of their exchange were the words they used to greet one another. Roth said, ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you,’ and Alice replied, ‘You too.’
For the next few minutes, she allowed Roth to talk. Mark told me it was a wonderful service. Very sad, very moving. His voice was like a well-oiled machine, dipped in self-love. On reputation, Alice wanted him to find her attractive, and she waited for the secret glance, the shared indiscretion.
‘You must be exhausted,’ he said to Ben, who paused before replying with a candour that surprised both of them.
‘Actually I found the service pretty unaffecting,’ he said. ‘It’s been very difficult to get a clear perspective on things in the last few days. Jock spoke for about ten minutes, did the eulogy thing, but it was frustrating and incomplete, like he was holding back information about my father’s life just to protect state secrecy.’
Roth coughed nervously and said, ‘I see.’
‘And then the local priest stands up and tries to say a few words, but it’s just embarrassing. My father wasn’t a spiritual man, a Christian. The vicar had probably only met him a handful of times. He was just someone whose hand he might have shaken on Christmas Day.’
Alice put her arm around Ben and said: ‘You OK?’ but he was already pulling away. Something about Roth’s overdeveloped charm had annoyed him and he wanted to be outside.
‘Listen, Mr Roth…’
‘Sebastian, please,’ he said instantly.
‘I was just on my way outside to have a cigarette. Do you mind if I leave you two alone? It’s been difficult to get away.’
‘Of course not.’
‘It was really a pleasure to meet you. I’ll only be gone five minutes.’
If Roth was surprised by Ben’s attitude, Alice was more sanguine.
‘Sorry,’ she said, as Ben walked off into the kitchen. ‘He’s been like that since it happened. Off in his own world.’
‘I’m not surprised. This must be a very difficult time for him.’
&nb
sp; ‘Very.’
‘I’ve never lost a parent. You?’
‘No,’ Alice said.
‘The most awful feeling of emptiness, I should imagine. A complete void. Ben must be devastated.’
‘I think they both are.’ For the third time that day Alice found herself saying, ‘In a sense it’s worse for Mark because he’d built up a relationship with his father and now all that’s been taken away from him.’
‘Yes. And just as they were getting started.’ Roth was making what felt like a very concentrated effort to look Alice in the eye, as if someone had once told him that there was an advantage to be gained in making a woman feel like the only person in a room. ‘But I imagine Ben is in this awful limbo. He has no specific memories to draw on, just one all too brief encounter over dinner. It’s horrific. I wish there was more one could do.’
Alice needlessly straightened the collar of her shirt, but did not reply.
‘And what about you?’ he asked her. ‘I imagine it’s very hard being in your position. Not knowing what to do. Not knowing what to say to Ben. I often think these things are just as painful for the partner of someone who’s grieving.’
This was her first proper glimpse of Roth’s reputation, of the cad’s talent for empathy. Alice could see how it might work; his manner was not overtly flirtatious, but thoughtfulness and self-confidence were always attractive in a man.
‘Well, we haven’t really had much of a chance to talk,’ she told him. ‘Ben’s been so involved with the police, you know? They’ve interviewed him, gone through every last detail of what happened…’
‘And they’re no closer to a suspect?’
‘No closer. A couple in the street remembered seeing a man sitting in a Mercedes about half an hour before the shooting, but they didn’t get a number-plate. There weren’t any security cameras outside the apartment or in the foyer. The police have hairs for DNA, but they could be anyone’s. It’s a lottery.’
‘Yes. Locard’s Principle.’
‘Locard’s Principle?’
Roth looked pleased to have sparked her interest.
‘A technique of forensics,’ he explained. ‘Everything leaves a trace.’
Calmly, he reached out and took hold of the sleeve of Alice’s shirt. She let her arm fall loose, but did not dislike the presumption of being touched. ‘If I come into contact with your clothes - even for a fraction of a second - I leave a mark, a record of myself.’ Roth released her, briefly taking the weight of her arm as it dropped. ‘It’s the same with footprints, or tiny fragments of skin. You can read books about it.’
Alice tooka quarter-step backwards.
‘That’s fascinating.’
‘And have Divisar been able to help?’ he continued, as if nothing had passed between them. ‘Do the police thinkit may be connected to his job?’
‘I really don’t know. Ben’s dad was in MI6 before working there. They’re looking into that.’
‘I see.’
Roth appeared to be on the point of asking a further question when his expression stiffened considerably. A guest had caught his eye, someone he had clearly not been expecting to see. For the first time his focus on Alice appeared to waver, like an actor forgetting a line. To trace the source of this sudden change, Alice turned round. A slim, blonde woman - thirty-five going on forty - was approaching from the door, a knowing smile set across her face. She walked with a striding, authoritative self-confidence and Alice scoped her, head to toe: expensive if conservative hair; a decent black suit; striking, intelligent eyes; a handbag three seasons out of date.
‘Isn’t it extraordinary who you bump into at these things?’ the woman said. Alice disliked her on sight.
‘Elizabeth,’ Roth said, still noticeably unsettled. ‘It’s wonderful to see you. I thought you were in Moscow.’
‘Not so, not so,’ she said, and gazed distractedly around the room. She looked at Alice with a short glance that somehow managed to mix civility with a clear and unambiguous contempt.
‘Elizabeth Dulong,’ she said, proferring an iron handshake. She was wearing Chanel No. 19 and her accent bore the faintest trace of a Scottish burr. ‘I’m an old friend of Sebastian’s. And you are…?’
‘Alice,’ Alice replied. ‘Alice Keen…’
‘Christopher’s daughter-in-law,’ Roth explained, tilting his head for emphasis.
‘Oh. Is that so?’
Dulong gave Alice a brief second look but maintained a chill composure.
‘When did you arrive?’ Roth asked her, pushing a hand through his hair. All the easy assertiveness of his manner had disappeared. There was a clear connection between them, yet Alice assumed it was not sexual. Dulong was neither glamorous nor young enough to be Roth’s type, and she was wearing an engagement ring on her left hand.
‘Just arrived,’ she replied. She was exactly the sort of career woman - chippy, contemptuous of prettier girls - with whom Alice routinely fell out at the Standard. ‘I came down from London with Giles.’
‘With Giles.’
It was like a conversation in the bus queue. For several minutes they made stilted small talk until McCreery interrupted to ask where he could find Ben. In that time Alice was able to discover only that Elizabeth Dulong worked for an obscure section of the Ministry of Defence, and that she had met Roth at a cocktail party in Moscow hosted by the Russian Minister of Transport. Drinking sparkling mineral water, Dulong told a dull, clearly third-hand story about Boris Yeltsin before bombarding Alice with curt questions about the Standard, all of which conveyed her obvious contempt for journalists of every persuasion.
‘I’ll go and get him for you,’ she told McCreery, pleased to have an excuse to leave, and with a deliberately seductive glance at Roth, Alice slipped outside.
Ben was wearing a pair of polished, hundred-pound brogues that he had owned for a decade but barely worn. Shoes for weddings, funeral shoes. McCreery’s garden was soaked with rain, the lawn a catastrophe of molehills and weeds, and to avoid ruining them Ben had been forced to smoke his cigarette while walking up and down the drive. He began to feel self-conscious as cars left the wake and headed down the road. There he was, right in front of them, the bereaved younger son smoking alone in the gloom. When they saw Ben, one or two guests braked to a crawl and waved tentative goodbyes, but the majority were too embarrassed to stop, and accelerated towards Guildford evidently hoping that he hadn’t seen them. He wished that he had gone out of the back of the house, where there might have been a shed or shelter of some kind. Just to be alone for five minutes, away from the prying eyes of strangers.
He was taking a final drag on his second cigarette when a Mercedes pulled up beside him on the road. Through a misted window he recognized the American who had read from Keats at the funeral. His name had been printed on the service sheet. Something literal, he remembered. Something like Kite or Judge.
‘It’s Benjamin, isn’t it?’ the American said. He had switched off his engine. ‘My name is Robert Bone. We haven’t met. This is my wife Silvia.’
Ben ducked down and saw a pale-looking woman wearing a headscarf poring over a map in the passenger seat. Post-chemotherapy, he thought; she had the same exhausted features that had characterized his mother’s face in the final months of her life. Unlike Bone, she was not stepping out of the car.
The American was six foot four with a handshake as firm and sympathetic as any Ben had known all week. Compassionate, judicious eyes glowed beneath a dishevelled mop of white hair. It was a face Ben would have liked to paint: wearied by experience yet possessed of a certain benevolence. For the first time, against his expectations, he instinctively felt that he had come into contact with somebody who had been deeply affected by his father’s death, a friend for whom the loss of Keen would mean more than simply a twenty-minute funeral service and a glass of lukewarm wine. At first he put this feeling down to sheer melancholia.
‘You read at the service,’ he said. ‘Endymion, wasn’t it?’
&nb
sp; ‘That’s right. A beautiful piece. One of your dad’s favourites. But I guess you wouldn’t know that?’ Bone settled a hand on Ben’s shoulder. ‘It’s too bad, son. Really, it’s just too bad.’
A bird flew low over their heads and Ben followed it across the sky.
‘How did you know my father?’ he asked.
The American paused momentarily and seemed quickly to sweep aside considerations of tact or secrecy.
‘I used to workfor the Central Intelligence Agency,’ he said. ‘Your father and I did time together in Afghanistan. I’m just sorry I didn’t catch up with you back there.’ He nodded towards McCreery’s house, the light winter drizzle now obliterating all colour in the garden. ‘I spoke to your brother quite a bit, and to your wife, Alice, about her journalism career and so forth. She seems a fine, ambitious person. She’s obviously gonna be very successful. But every time I looked over towards you, you seemed busy talking to somebody else.’
‘Yeah, it was hard getting away.’
‘No problem. Listen, I got a plane to catch back to the States. My wife hasn’t been well and…’
‘I’m sorry to hear that…’
‘But I’m gonna write you…’
Ben shook his head. ‘Please, there’s no need.’
‘No, not that kind of letter.’ Bone’s hand was still resting on his shoulder, as if by leaving it there he was fulfilling a promise to Keen. ‘There are things I need to tell you. Things your dad would have wanted you and Mark and Alice to know. He talked about you kids the whole time. I know that’s gotta be hard for you to hear right now, but Christopher always had a hard time’ - he paused - ‘communicating. He was a stubborn sonofabitch, a goddam snob, too. But your old man was my best friend, Benjamin, and I wanna make sure you boys are OK.’
The American’s plain-speaking, unironic good-naturedness appealed to Ben in his despondent mood. Bone was simply a good man wounded by a friend’s violent death; he was trying to reach out, trying to do the right thing. The opposite, in fact, to all those refined, carefully worded Foreign Office snakes who took the world for idiots and betrayed everything but their own good name.
The Hidden Man (2003) Page 11
