Heaven's Light

by Hurley, Graham

  Tully nodded. Liz had got this far on the phone. ‘She’s the one who came round,’ he said. ‘This afternoon.’

  ‘Yes. She’s … you know… she and Jess … they’re …’

  ‘Together.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘And you didn’t know until this afternoon.’

  ‘No, I didn’t, and frankly it would never have crossed my mind. Sweet little thing, Lolly. Pretty, too.’

  Tully accepted a slice of cake. Jessie’s new friend had burst in earlier, Liz said. She’d been hysterical. It had taken Liz most of the afternoon to calm her down and when she’d finally coaxed some sense from her, she’d rather wished she hadn’t bothered. Lolly and Jess were lovers. Had been since Merrist House. They’d spent a wonderful summer together, hatching all kinds of plans, but now everything had been wrecked.

  ‘By Haagen?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Hence your call.’

  ‘Yes.’ Liz began to pour the tea. Just the mention of his name gave her face a haunted, despairing look. With Haagen evidently abroad, the nightmare was over. Or so she’d thought.

  Tully refused another slice of cake. It was a little too rich for him. ‘You mentioned letters,’ he said.

  ‘Yes. Haagen’s been writing to her, or so Lolly says. Actually, it must be true. She had one of the letters with her. That’s what the fight was about.’

  ‘Fight?’

  ‘Yes.’ Lolly had intercepted some letter or other. From Haagen. She’d read it. She’d found some others. Then she’d taken this phone call. Liz explained that Haagen was threatening to come back. Soon.

  ‘How soon?’

  ‘Lolly doesn’t know. But soon is soon enough.’

  ‘Has he sorted himself a passport? A new one?’

  ‘God knows. Is that something he’d have to do?’

  ‘Obviously. Unless he wants to get nicked. His name’s on the computer. He’d never get past Immigration.’

  Liz nodded, briefly heartened by the thought of Haagen behind bars. Tully asked why Haagen would want to return to the UK.

  Liz, pouring another cup of tea, made a hopeless gesture with her spare hand. ‘That’s what I asked Lolly. All she could come up with was loneliness. She thinks the wretched boy’s fed up. She thinks he needs someone to talk to, someone to lean on, someone to share all his troubles – and, of course, that’s Jess all over. A couple of bars on the violin and she’s anyone’s. Always has been, silly girl.’

  Tully cradled the cup on his lap, eyeing the framed photos on the piano top. Fifteen years of trawling through the small print of other people’s lives had poisoned his view of human nature. Most of his private clients, indeed most of the people he knew, he regarded as greedy, insecure and incapable of distinguishing between self-interest and the truth. Liz, oddly enough, had always been an exception. He admired the way she’d protected her marriage, the way she’d battled for her daughter against Haagen, the way she’d come to him for advice but never returned to bleat or complain. She was a strong woman. She had pride, self-respect. Hayden Barnaby had been lucky to find her.

  Tully emptied his cup and returned it to the tray. ‘So what do you want me to do?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I thought you might have some ideas. That’s why I phoned.’

  Tully frowned. The issue, in essence, was simple, exactly the same question Liz had posed at the start of the year: how to keep Jessie away from Haagen Schreck. ‘Is she working? Jessie?’

  ‘Off and on. Mainly off.’

  ‘Does she have any money? Any savings?’

  ‘Not that I know of. All that went last year.’

  ‘So she wouldn’t be in a position to join him in Holland.’

  ‘I’d have thought not.’

  The beginnings of a strategy were shaping in Tully’s mind.

  ‘Let me ask you something else,’ he said. ‘This man Charlie you mentioned. It’s his house where Jessie’s living?’

  ‘Yes. Charlie’s Jess’s godfather.’

  ‘Are they close?’

  ‘Very. Always have been.’

  ‘And Charlie keeps an eye on her?’

  ‘Not really. Charlie’s the eternal adolescent. Keeping an eye on anyone just isn’t his style. If anyone does the looking after, it’s probably Jess.’

  ‘So you wouldn’t trust him to keep a secret from her?’

  ‘God, no. Why do you ask?’

  Tully stood up, searching in his pocket for the packet of cheroots he normally carried. Liz found a box of matches. He sat down again.

  ‘You mentioned a phone call. If it really is this Haagen, he’ll phone again. Bound to. We need to tap into the phone calls. If he means what he says about coming back, we need advance warning.’ He fiddled with the matches. ‘I can put a device on the line.’

  ‘What line?’

  ‘Jessie’s line. The phone line at the house.’

  ‘But that’s Charlie’s line.’

  ‘Precisely.’

  Liz stared at him, the penny beginning to drop. ‘You want to bug Charlie’s telephone calls?’

  ‘To keep tabs on Haagen, yes.’

  ‘What good will that do?’

  ‘It might enable us to have him picked up at the port of entry. Harwich, say, if he takes the boat from Holland. Or maybe Heathrow, if he flies.’

  ‘You can do that?’

  ‘Easily.’

  Liz began to warm to the idea. Tully could see it in her face. She got up and went across to the breakfast bar. Keys hung on ribbons from a line of hooks beneath a pinboard. She selected one and brought it back, winding the ribbon between her fingers. She offered it to Tully. ‘It’s Charlie’s,’ she said. ‘He sent it down to me before he moved in. I had to sort out the gas people.’

  ‘Where does he live?’

  Liz gave him the address. The girls were probably home a good deal but, as far as she knew, Charlie was out most of the time.

  ‘How long would you need to plant this thing?’ she asked.

  ‘Five minutes. Absolute maximum.’

  ‘And it just records by itself?’

  ‘No. It transmits the conversation on a radio link. The range isn’t enormous but I’ll find somewhere safe for the recorder.’

  ‘How close would you have to be?’

  ‘Quarter of a mile. Give or take.’

  ‘Then put it here. I’ll sort out a place. Charlie’s just round the corner.’ She paused. ‘Are you sure he won’t find it? Spot it? Whatever you need to plant?’

  Tully was examining Charlie’s key. He shook his head, then slipped the key into his pocket and got up. The biggest of the photos on the piano was a formal wedding portrait. He stood beside it, buttoning his jacket. In the photo, Hayden and Liz were standing beneath a small tree. Liz looked extraordinarily young, her face in profile, beaming up at Hayden, and in the background he recognized the honeyed stonework of the cathedral. Tully lingered a moment longer, glad that one couple at least had made it through to middle age. Then he remembered Liz’s offer. ‘Here will be fine,’ he said. ‘I’ll drop it in tomorrow.’

  Jessie was drunk when she found the broken glass. She’d borrowed some money from Charlie and had hauled Lolly up the High Street for a pint or two of cider to celebrate a Christmas job she’d just secured at one of the city’s department stores. They’d stayed in the pub for most of the evening, scoring more drinks from a party of insurance salesmen, and by the time they returned to Charlie’s house, they were both paralytic.

  Lolly, who’d forgotten all about the glass jar, suggested they raid Charlie’s supplies of vodka. Jessie, who hated spirits, said she wanted to go to bed. She mounted the stairs in darkness, not bothering with the light, and pushed open her bedroom door. She stepped out of her clothes and collapsed on the unmade bed. At first, she felt nothing. Then she became aware of a wet stickiness beneath her arm. She rolled over, fumbling for the bedside light. The sheet beneath her arm was scarlet with fresh blood. She gazed at it wonderingl
y. Every time she moved on the mattress, there was a clink-clink of broken glass.

  She stood up, fighting for balance, trying to make sense of the bed. There was more blood on the sheets, a blotch here, a blotch there. She narrowed her eyes, trying to find a pattern. Then the door opened and Lolly was standing outside in the corridor. Swaying, she reached for the door frame.

  ‘You’re bleeding. Shit.’

  Lolly came in. On her hands and knees, she started to pick tiny shards of glass out of Jessie’s legs, working slowly up, cupping the splinters in her hand. Jessie did as she was told, standing motionless beside the bed, wondering aloud about the mark on the wall. At length, her eyes returned to the bed and she spotted a fragment of canal boat. She bent to pick it up and showed it to Lolly.

  ‘That’s from my jar,’ she said vaguely. ‘My lovely jar.’

  Lolly had found a pair of tweezers. A tiny splinter had lodged in the fold of flesh beneath Jessie’s shoulder blade. Jessie was still staring at the bed, tussling with cause and effect. ‘What happened?’ she kept asking. ‘What’s been going on?’

  Lolly opened the window and Jessie heard the tinkle of glass on the pavement below. Then Lolly was back, taking her by the hand, leading her towards the door. She was covered in blood. Some of the deeper cuts might need plasters. She’d sort something out in the bathroom. Outside, on the landing, Jessie pulled Lolly to a halt.

  ‘You did it,’ she said uncertainly. ‘You broke my jar.’

  Lolly nodded. ‘Horrible thing,’ she said. ‘Cheap and nasty.’

  Chapter Eleven

  He’d been waiting in St James’s Park for nearly half an hour before it dawned on Ellis that he’d chosen the wrong bench. It was lunchtime and civil servants from the Foreign Office and the Treasury were striding along the newly swept paths, some alone, some in company, one or two in track-suits and running shoes, tucking in a circuit or two of the park before returning to their desks. Ellis got up, cursing himself for misunderstanding the directions on the phone. North side, she’d said. Up by the Cake House.

  He hurried across the bridge over the lake, wondering whether she’d bother to wait. He knew she was fond of him, she’d signalled her affection in a dozen tiny ways, but he knew as well how unforgiving she could be about people who let her down. In Louise Carlton’s world, there were a number of cardinal sins. And lack of punctuality was one of them.

  Seconds later he caught sight of her. She was sitting on a bench in the icy sunshine, her bulk unmistakable. On her lap she had a plastic shopping bag. Pigeons pecked at the crumbs round her feet, and as Ellis watched she produced more cake from the bag, tossing it clumsily across the path and into the water. Ducks paddled towards the cake, and a pair of swans splashed heavily off the bank in anticipation of more.

  Louise saw Ellis coining, shading her eyes against the low sunshine and then fluttering a gloved hand in greeting. As soon as he sat down, she reached in the bag and produced a thick slab of icing. She broke it in two, handing half to Ellis.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about Zhu again,’ she said. ‘I thought we might review developments in a little more detail.’

  She favoured him with a chilly smile, half encouragement, half enquiry, and Ellis added what he could to the account he’d already given her on the phone. He’d been down to Portsmouth. He’d taken Mike Tully to lunch. And he’d been able to confirm, to no one’s surprise, that Zhu was an able businessman with a talent for spotting high-yield business opportunities. Beyond that Tully hadn’t been prepared to go, though Ellis had sensed an unease about Zhu’s plans for the naval dockyard.

  Louise was shaking the last of the crumbs out of her bag. ‘He hasn’t got it yet.’

  ‘No, but Tully thinks he will. He knows Zhu. He admires the way he works. And I don’t think he’s got a lot of time for the opposition.’

  ‘Opposition?’

  ‘Us.’ Ellis nodded towards the ramparts of Whitehall across the pond. ‘The civil service. God’s elect.’

  ‘He’s wrong.’ Louise was adamant. ‘We’re not the opposition. We’re enablers, facilitators, agents of change. We’re shrinking the state, thinking the unthinkable. We’re on his side. Doesn’t the poor man understand that?’

  Ellis picked a crumb from Louise’s lap. The relationship they’d built depended on conspiratorial moments like these, a joint recognition that whole swathes of Whitehall had become agents in their own destruction, spectators at their own funeral, presiding over a process that could lead only to the dole queue. It was one of the more powerful reasons that Ellis had begun to wonder about a transfer to MI5. There, at least for the time being, you were still invisible. And there, as well, it was possible to remain beyond the clutches of the politicians.

  Louise patted his hand. She had an uncanny knack of being able to read his mind, of getting behind the gruff wariness with which he kept most of the world at bay.

  ‘How did you get on with Tully? Personally?’

  ‘Fine. In fact I liked him.’

  ‘You’ll see him again?’

  Ellis glanced across. Most of her questions were orders in disguise. ‘You think I should?’

  ‘If you think it might be important, certainly.’ She waited for an answer, and Ellis thought again of the hour and a half he’d shared with Tully. After talking in the pub, they’d walked the length of the yacht basin, as far as the heavy timber gates that gave onto the upper harbour. It was low tide, and across the gleaming mudflats Tully had pointed out the nearby bulk of Portchester Castle. The Romans had established a settlement there. The place was steeped in history. Something in Tully’s face as he’d turned for the walk back to the car park had stuck in Ellis’s mind. Part of it had to do with pride. Tully obviously loved the place. But part of it had to do with something more corrosive, something – Ellis thought – closer to resignation. Strolling back past the lines of moored yachts, Ellis had tried to probe a little deeper, tried to fathom what Tully’s interminable silences might mask. But nothing he could say provoked even a smile, and when he’d said goodbye, Tully had barely acknowledged him.

  Louise was still waiting for an answer. ‘Well?’

  ‘He’s a difficult man. It could take a long time.’

  ‘A long time to what?’

  ‘To get close to him, to win his confidence.’

  ‘I understand that. But would it be worth it? A wise investment?’

  ‘Depends.’ Ellis was frowning now. ‘What exactly are you after?’

  Louise didn’t answer. A Japanese couple were having trouble with their camera. The ducks had swum away. Ellis felt the weight of Louise’s body against his shoulder. When she spoke, her breath was warm on his ear.

  ‘I want you to run him,’ she said, ‘strictly freelance, nothing on paper, nothing formal. I want you to befriend him, nurture him, make him trust you. It’s spare-time work, evenings, weekends. I’ll fund your expenses, and there’s scope for a small subvention at the end. You’ll report to no one but me. Only use the office phone to arrange meetings. Keep them social. We’re friends, remember.’ Her hand closed over his, and Ellis felt her fingers tighten inside the leather gloves. He let her kiss his cheek and gave her hand a little squeeze in return. The last thing he wanted to do was encourage her.

  Charlie Epple’s invitation to join the harbour cruise had been an afterthought, a late decision by the Strategy Unit’s director, Alan Carthew. The cruise was the first in a series that was to run throughout the following year. Aboard a luxury launch, Carthew and a handful of colleagues would host a briefing for a dozen or so businessmen who’d expressed a serious interest in moving their operations to Portsmouth.

  The briefing began half an hour into the cruise. Out beyond Southsea Castle, Carthew mustered the guests in the main saloon and bombarded them with the good news about the city’s prospects. How tourism had blossomed. How investment was pouring in. What sense it would make to relocate to one of the UK’s most dynamic locations.

  Afterwards, as the
launch wallowed back towards the harbour mouth, it was Charlie’s turn to pitch for business. In the wake of Carthew’s fervent optimism, he was deliberately low-key. He talked about the history of the place, how settled it was, generations of Pompey families barely leaving the same street. He talked of loyalty and fortitude and a number of other civic virtues, increasingly rare. Phrase by phrase, he built a picture of a workforce that no sane businessman could resist, and before he called for questions, he ended on what he admitted was a frankly personal note. There was a case, he said, for genuine city governance: the people’s votes, the people’s faith, the people’s money vested in local leaders whom they themselves had chosen. The idea was by no means new but lately it had taken real shape. The party, he said, was called Pompey First. And big business, in particular, should take note.

  An hour later, way up-harbour beyond the ferryport, Carthew trapped Charlie in the stern of the launch. ‘You had no right,’ he said at once. ‘That was extraordinarily ill-judged.’

  Charlie eyed him without comment. ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘What’s so outrageous about believing in the product?’

  ‘It’s political, that’s why.’

  ‘Really? So when does belief become political? And who cares about the difference? I want to sell the city because I believe in the city. If Pompey First makes it a better city, surely that’s all to the good. I’m adding value, Alan. Look on the bright side.’

  ‘You’re being naïve.’

  ‘Bollocks, I’m pissed off just like you are. We could do it better by ourselves, that’s all I’m saying. Anything wrong with that?’

  Carthew seemed lost for words. Behind him, one of the big French ferries was nosing into the terminal. Charlie nodded at it. ‘Our ferryport,’ he pointed out, ‘our money, our investment, our expertise, five million quid in the black and now those pillocks in London say we can’t spend a penny more. Does that sound logical to you?’