Heaven's Light

by Hurley, Graham

  ‘No, of course not. But that’s the way things are.’

  ‘Bullshit, Alan. I know what you really think. You really think what we all think. You really think, deep down, that we could do it better ourselves. Only no one dares say so.’

  ‘We can’t say so.’

  ‘Can’t? What’s can’t? You ever hear about the eighties? Looking after yourself? Looking after number one? This is a new game, Alan. We’re in it for what we can get. Bugger London.’

  Charlie turned away, suddenly tired of arguing, but Carthew caught his arm.

  ‘There are rules, Charlie. We’re council officers. We’re accountable. Even you – even you’re accountable.’

  ‘Oh, yeah? To whom?’

  ‘The Secretary of State.’

  ‘Wrong. We’re accountable to the councillors. They’re local, for God’s sake, and they’d probably see it our way too. If only someone had the bottle to ask them.’ Carthew looked round – he seemed nervous of being overheard, as if he’d suddenly found himself behind enemy lines. Charlie patted him on the shoulder. ‘Join the party.’ He grinned. ‘Join Pompey First. Help us make it through the night.’

  ‘You’re crazy. I’ve told you. We’re supposed to be apolitical. You’re not allowed to do these things. I keep telling you. There are rules here. Protocols. Dos and Don’ts.’

  ‘OK, OK.’ Charlie held up his hands. ‘Then dream a little. Wouldn’t you like things to change?’

  Carthew studied him, trying to weigh the seriousness of the inquiry. Eventually, he permitted himself a tiny nod.

  ‘Yes,’ he said guardedly. ‘Of course I’d like things to change.’

  ‘Then wouldn’t it be nice to try? Have a little punt? Couple of quid on democracy?’

  ‘Of course it would. But you’re underestimating the difficulties.’

  ‘You mean the enemy?’

  ‘I mean the difficulties. Have you any idea what this government’s done? The legislation they’ve pushed through? Fencing us in? Tying our hands? Making sure we behave ourselves?’

  ‘No.’ Charlie shook his head. ‘I haven’t a clue.’

  ‘Then talk to Johnny Dekker. He knows it inside out. He says it’s war. That’s the word he uses.’ Carthew was emphatic now. ‘War. If we step an inch over the line, they hammer us. It starts with the District Auditor and it gets worse.’

  ‘How much worse?’

  ‘Infinitely worse.’

  ‘Sarajevo?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Then we have to fight back. Like the Muslims. No?’

  Carthew looked at him for a long moment, then placed a cautionary hand on Charlie’s arm.

  ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘You do what you have to do. But ask yourself one question. Ask yourself where all this leads.’

  Charlie turned away, more convinced than ever that he was right. Only when he got to the companionway that led to the saloon did he realize that John Dekker, one of the city’s lawyers, had been listening. He was standing at the rail, enveloped in a duffel coat, smoking a cigarette.

  ‘Alan’s right,’ he said softly, as Charlie stepped past. ‘But there are ways and means, believe me.’

  Tully had been waiting in his car for nearly an hour before he saw the two girls leave with a dog. He recognized Jessie at once, the tumble of curly blonde hair, the way she loped off down the street, long, rangy strides, just like her mother. The girl beside her must be Lolly, he thought, remembering Liz’s description. Small, she’d said, and dainty.

  He watched until the two girls rounded the corner and disappeared, then dialled Charlie Epple’s number. It rang for perhaps twenty seconds before the answerphone engaged. A man’s voice asked for messages and expressions of eternal love. Tully rang off with a snort, climbed out of the car and hurried across the road. It was a cold grey afternoon, a sharp wind gusting off the sea. At Charlie’s door, he used Liz’s key and locked it again from the inside. He saw the phone at once, a cordless Betacom cradled on a base station, the cable from which routed along the skirting board to a standard BT junction box. Tully knelt beside it and unscrewed the cover. Inside, working with a penknife and a tiny pair of pliers, he fitted the transmitter into the circuit. The aerial was tiny, a whisker of plastic-coated wire. It was nearly invisible to the naked eye and he ran it beneath the junction box, millimetres above the carpet. Finally he replaced the cover and screwed it tight before he got up and retreated to the front door.

  Back in the car, he unboxed the device that acted as both receiver and recorder. This was much bigger, the size of a modest transistor radio, and he extended the aerial before dialling Charlie’s number again. The needle on the meter began to dance the moment the message triggered on the answerphone, and he replayed the recording afterwards, satisfied that the system worked.

  Round the corner in Farthing Lane, Liz answered his knock. He showed her the recorder and asked her where she’d like to site it. She took him to the hiding place she’d prepared in the spare bedroom and he lodged it firmly behind the vase of flowers, trailing the aerial over the back of the table.

  ‘Anyone ever come in here at all? Guests? Kids?’

  ‘No, not even Hayden. Best he doesn’t know.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Positive. He’s great pals with Charlie. And I feel bad enough as it is.’

  When Tully got to the front door, he remembered the spare audio cassettes. He fetched them from the car, explaining that each ran for ninety minutes. When the first one was full, or she heard something especially interesting, she was to give him a ring. Liz took them without enthusiasm.

  Tully stood by the car, feeling unaccountably guilty. He rarely trusted his sense of humour, but the circumstances seemed to warrant a joke. ‘Maybe you should have spent the ten thousand on a contract.’ He smiled. ‘Like I suggested.’

  Liz shivered, pulling her cardigan around her. ‘I spent three on a present,’ she said, ‘and it didn’t work.’

  Kate Frankham normally left her Christmas shopping until the last possible moment but this year was an exception. She had the usual network of friends and relatives, the Christmas card list she kept in the back of her leatherbound address book, but she wanted, above all, to find something special for Hayden. After a difficult summer trying to sort out her feelings for him, she’d concluded that love was as good a word as any. It certainly wasn’t perfect. No relationship that depended on stolen time ever could be. But stolen time added an excitement of its own and Kate had enough first-hand experience of the torpor of marriage not to begrudge Hayden a little boredom of his own. If he chose to stay with his dull wife and junkie daughter, so be it. Kate, at least, had the best of him.

  She pushed through the heavy swing doors into Knight and Lee, a big Southsea department store, unbuttoning her coat as she did so. She’d set aside the afternoon for getting Hayden’s present just right, and she began to drift through the displays of crystal glass, wondering exactly what sort of gift would bridge the yawning gap between Christmas Eve and the start of real life again, days and days into the New Year. She’d been this way before, the first time they’d had an affair, and she knew how empty Christmas could be without a partner. The ritual meals with her mother and her widowed aunt. The interminable hours of bad television and Spanish brandy and stale mince pies. The incessant urge to tiptoe into the hall, lift the phone and dial his number, stealing just a minute or two of his Christmas. She’d hated it, resenting every second of the nine days he’d spent with his wife and daughter, but this time round she was determined to be stronger, to fence him off from her life, to pretend for a week or so that she was back on her own again, answerable to no one but herself.

  Upstairs, on the first floor, there was a section devoted to the kind of framed prints that ended up on the walls of so many Southsea homes. Impressionist classics by Monet and Degas. A couple of Lowry’s industrial townscapes. Even an early piece from Egon Schiele. She stepped back, looking at the Schiele print. It was called La Danseuse
, a wonderfully poignant study of a young dancer at rest, her knees drawn up to her chest, her body cloaked, her head resting on her shoulder. She looked pensive and physically drained, and there was something in her face that spoke to Kate of all the other Schiele prints she’d collected, the ones she’d framed for her bedroom wall, bodies intertwined, lives knotted, relationships caught at moments of overwhelming frankness. She reached for the print, meaning to buy it, then changed her mind. The only place he’d ever hang it was in her own house. She didn’t want that. It would only confirm how narrow a ledge they shared.

  She went downstairs again but wherever she looked she encountered the same dead end. The aftershave his wife would smell. The simple silver ring he’d never wear. The exquisite leather gloves he’d have to pass off as a present from a grateful client. In a while, she found herself back upstairs, within touching distance of the Schiele print. What she needed wasn’t an object at all. What she really needed was an experience, something they could share together, an hour or two or an evening that would lodge itself deep inside him, an everlasting memory, indelibly date-stamped, no one else’s property but their own. She smiled to herself, glad to have made a decision. They’d start, as ever, with a bottle of wine. There’d be music, something different, something new. Then a meal, and more wine, and afterwards, an hour or two that he’d never forget.

  She made for the stairs. At the perfumerie, she bought a handful of tiny bottles of body oil – coconut, primrose, musk. Then, nearby, a box of scented candles, deliciously thin, the colour of spilled blood. In an off-licence across the precinct she found four bottles of a ’91 Rioja, an outstanding vintage she’d come across only the previous week. She returned to the precinct, wondering about the music, about the meal, building the present item by item, hour by hour, the way a playwright might compose a series of scenes. Hayden loved pasta, adored seafood. She’d marry the two with home-made linguini and fat Dublin Bay prawns, and bless the union with the best olive oil she could find. Afterwards, they’d have fresh fruit, something raunchy and tropical, laced with yoghurt or crème fraîche. She hurried towards the supermarket, delighted that she’d staked out territory of her own, found a way of detaching him, all too briefly, from the tyranny of real life.

  The supermarket was crowded. She drifted up and down the aisles, selecting items that caught her eye, adding a box of crackers and a ripe Camembert to the meal she’d prepare. Beside the display of fresh produce, she began to hunt for tropical fruit, testing the lychees and paw-paws. She was about to settle for a particularly ripe mango when she felt a hand on her arm. Frank Perry was standing guard beside a trolley. His wife and daughter were nearby, filling a plastic bag with apples. Frank looked neat, tidy and unusually cheerful. Being MP-in-waiting for Portsmouth West obviously suited him.

  Kate kissed him on the cheek. Absurdly, she couldn’t think of anything to say.

  ‘Coming to the Christmas do on the nineteenth?’ Frank asked brightly. ‘Only I know there’s a rush on the tickets.’

  Kate felt her face go pink. She’d been meaning to write to the constituency secretary, offering some excuse or other, fending off the inevitable invitation. By the nineteenth, she’d be a founder-member of Pompey First, a traitor, a turncoat, the target of every Labour supporter in the city. The last place she’d want to be was the party’s annual thrash.

  ‘I can’t,’ she said quickly. ‘I’d love to but I’m otherwise engaged.’

  ‘Shame. Anything nice?’

  ‘Not really.’ Kate swallowed hard, reaching for a plausible excuse. ‘It’s Billy, Billy Goodman. He’s not, you know, too well. I try and cheer him up whenever I can.’

  Frank nodded gravely and his eyes went down to the contents of Kate’s basket. ‘Lucky man,’ he said. ‘Shame the wife never stretches to stuff like that.’

  Charlie Epple was back in Old Portsmouth before nightfall. The harbour cruise, by common consent, had been highly successful, Alan Carthew securing expressions of serious interest from six of the nine guests as they filed off the launch and shook his outstretched hand. They’d been impressed, they said, and they’d certainly be in touch again once they’d had time to marshal their thoughts.

  Charlie parked his Calibra in the shadow of Hot Walls and crossed the road to his house. The lights were on in Lolly’s room on the first floor and he heard the girls talking as he let himself in. He called upstairs, telling Jessie he was home, and detected the bounce of bedsprings as she went to the door to yell back. Then the door closed and he hesitated a moment, hearing her footsteps dance across the ceiling before the conversation dissolved into giggles.

  The phone rang minutes later. Charlie was in the kitchen making toast. He picked up the cordless in the hall, wedging it between his shoulder and his ear as he licked the butter from his fingers. The last time he’d seen John Dekker was an hour or so ago, climbing into a taxi outside the harbour station. Now he seemed to be back in his office at the Civic Centre. ‘I’ve been talking to Carthew,’ he said. ‘I know a worried man when I see one.’

  ‘What’s he worried about?’

  ‘You.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He thinks your little speech was out of order. He’s asked me to have a quiet word.’

  ‘Really?’ Charlie laughed. ‘So what do you think?’

  ‘I think I’m extremely interested. But Carthew’s right. You should ask yourself where all this leads. It might not be as simple as you think.’

  Charlie returned to the kitchen. Dekker was talking now about Pompey First. Just the phrase had fired his imagination. It had the merit of sounding obvious from the off. Charlie was spreading Marmite on the toast. ‘What do you mean, obvious?’

  ‘Obvious in the sense that it should have been done years ago. Obvious to me, at least.’

  ‘Glad to hear it. So where are we going wrong?’

  Dekker laughed. If Pompey First was to lead anywhere, then it would have to flag the path to some form of independence. And if that were to happen, it would find itself at war.

  ‘With whom?’

  ‘Our masters in London. Carthew’s right – they can open up on several fronts. The District Auditor’s only one, but that’s bad enough, believe me.’

  Charlie pulled a stool towards him with his foot, slipping another slice of bread into the toaster. I ought to make notes, he thought. I ought to be writing all this down. Dekker was briskly tallying the bullets in the Auditor’s gun. If Pompey First ended up by holding the balance of power within the city council, and if the party’s programme incurred any serious expense, both councillors and council officers were potentially at legal risk.

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘You want the list?’

  ‘Please.’

  Dekker began to go through it. Under Section 19 of the 1982 Local Government Act, the Auditor could make application to the court for a declaration that a particular item of expense was unlawful. Under Section 20, councillors or officials could be surcharged. Under Section 25a, the Auditor could issue a prohibition order, blocking a particular financial initiative. Under Section 25d, he could further apply for judicial review.

  Dekker waited for Charlie to emerge from the blizzard of legislation.

  ‘I’m lost,’ Charlie said, ‘don’t understand a word of it.’

  ‘It’s simple. It’s a restraint. You’re handcuffed, bound hand and foot. Whitehall allows you to spend just so much. Spend any more and you’ll end up paying the bills yourself.’

  ‘Or what?’

  ‘Or face contempt of court.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘A big fine. Or a prison sentence.’

  Charlie did his best to absorb the news. He was still woolly about the connection with Pompey First. ‘We’re fighting a local election,’ he began. ‘Is that illegal?’

  ‘Absolutely not.’

  ‘Then what’s the problem?’

  ‘There isn’t one – unless you win. If you win, then you’ll face choices, like any other
party. Those choices are incredibly narrow. That’s all I’m saying.’

  ‘So narrow we couldn’t change things?’

  ‘So narrow no one would ever know the difference.’

  ‘That’s appalling.’

  ‘You’re right.’

  ‘Even worse than I thought.’

  ‘Good. Best give it some thought, eh?’

  Charlie was unsure now where Dekker stood. Was this another shot across his bows? Subtler than Carthew’s but motivated by the same old reluctance to rock the boat? Or did Dekker have another agenda, a longer game that might, conceivably, work to Pompey First’s advantage? He bent to the phone, still tasting the Marmite on his lips.

  ‘Straight question,’ he said. ‘Where are you in all this?’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yeah, you. Say the launch goes well. Say we pick up support, field some decent candidates. Say people have the guts to vote us in. Say we win in May. What then? For you?’

  There was a long silence. Dekker had a spacious office up on the third floor in the Civic Centre, and Charlie could picture him behind his desk, slowly revolving in the swivel chair, half a turn to the left, half a turn to the right, chewing the question over.

  ‘I’m a lawyer,’ he said finally, ‘and I have great respect for the law.’

  ‘So you’re against us?’

  ‘On the contrary.’

  ‘You’re not?’ Charlie was lost again.

  ‘No, I’m with you every step of the way.’ He paused. ‘This won’t mean anything to you but last year the government pushed through something called the Deregulation and Contracting Out Act. It was in the papers. A lot of people were very unhappy.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it gave the government carte blanche to do exactly as it chose. Laws are made in Parliament. This particular law enables ministers to amend or repeal more or less anything. Without a proper reference back.’

  ‘Back to what?’

  ‘The House of Commons. In effect, ministers can ignore or change any law they like. In peace, it’s unprecedented. The last bloke to try it on was Henry VIII.’