The Madness of July

by James Naughtie

  And Abel knew why he was there.

  ‘You know what we need from London. If Joe’s tongue has been too loose, just because he went mad about this woman – for the second time, God save us – the game could be over. There are things London must never know.’

  Abel got up and walked to the table, as if looking for a place to think. His head was down. ‘All that work, digging our gold seam. And it’s dust.’

  Maria sighed. ‘Yeah. The Brits will retreat, which is what some of them are inclined to do anyway, as we know. And then we’re screwed. And let’s be clear about what we both know. I don’t mean the American national interest, I mean us.

  ‘You and me. Our people. Nobody out there’ – she flung a hand towards the window – ‘has an idea that any of this is happening, or not happening. We don’t exist. But Joe and a stupid ambassador threatens everything. Ambassadors! Who needs them?’ Abel, if our deal goes down, we’ll be absorbed, reorganized, reconfigured. Fucked.

  ‘The bureaucracy’s human sacrifice. Roasted alive.’

  His thoughts were turning, as Maria would know they must, to his own story, and the decision that had taken him to America. His calling, his family, and the secret that he’d kept down the years. Maria shared it and no one else around him knew it, not even Hannah. Not his brothers. He had long since decided that it was no deceit, but a necessity. All the years on the road, times of darkness and days of fun with Joe and Bendo and all the others, sprang to his mind. His life. ‘Unthinkable,’ he said.

  ‘You know what everything here – us – means to me, and why. It’s family. My inheritance. Well, one of them…’

  ‘Believe me.’ Maria spoke quietly, aware of the pain. ‘We’re all at risk.’

  ‘I’ve been away from home for ever, but I still worry about Will. Brother Mungo’s on the trail of the family story. He’s got on his historian’s hat, and he’s fascinated. We’re going to have to talk about it. Now this, just when we don’t need it.’ He shook his head.

  ‘Is Will OK?’ she asked.

  ‘When you knew him in Paris he was happy-go-lucky. Loved it all. Same in politics for a while, but he’s got a dark side. I sometimes speak to Francesca – his wife, you won’t have met – and she’s worried. He doesn’t know we’re in touch. He’s troubled by the game he’s in now – more than he ever seemed to be in the old one, which is strange in its way. He won’t get killed in this one, but he might be destroyed. So I guess he feels as vulnerable as he’s ever done.

  ‘Meanwhile, Joe’s dead in London. Meanwhile! How can I even say that?’

  Maria stayed with Will. ‘He was the life and soul in Paris. Style. Everybody loved him. I’m sorry things have changed for him, but it’s what he always wanted. The political life.’

  She left Abel alone then, going through the archway into the kitchen, whose aromas had now infected the whole house. He lay back on the cushions, watched the candles burn. The last of the light was fading from the windows, and the evening breeze filtering through the bug screen in front of him was a relief at the close of a long hot day. He was looking west and caught the livid stripes of the sunset through thin broken clouds. He thought for a little, while Maria sang softly in the kitchen as a counterpoint to the alarms of the last few minutes. He heard the pasta bubble and she clattered plates and salad servers, shouting to him to get water on the table, and more wine.

  ‘It’s gonna be a long weekend, one of the longest. I don’t think we have more time than that.’

  He felt the night drawing in quickly, darkness only a few minutes away. The high spirits of his arrival had slipped away; there were no smiles as they sat down at the table. Maria, whom he knew to have the ability to stay cheerful at the height of a crisis, was serious, eyes cast down. They both thought of Joe.

  ‘First of all, I need to know where and how,’ said Abel.

  ‘He was found in his hotel room. Place called the Lorimer. Maybe known to you. Curled up, lots of stuff around. A mixture of substances, they say. A syringe, used – remember that. Passport in the name of McKinley – only one – stupid when he was told to ditch it after that shit hit the Colombian fan. This from our people. Wherry says the red light went crazy at Heathrow when he came in. Don’t know what they did about it.’

  ‘Followed him?’ said Abel.

  Maria tilted her head to one side. ‘Would you? They’re strapped, like us. They’d need a good reason.’ Suddenly she smiled. ‘And we’re friends, aren’t we?’

  There would be an autopsy, but the local police who were called to the hotel – Wherry knew they weren’t aware who Joe was, and only had the McKinley passport – took the straightforward view. He’d overdosed. Died in the morning sometime, maybe topped up from the night before. That’s how it looked. Maria said there would be another examination of Joe by embassy people, but they wouldn’t get the body for days and days, at best. Coroner’s call.

  ‘That’s it. All yours, Abel.’ Their old intimacy had kicked in easily. A team of two. She went to her desk, and took out the passport which was ready inside. ‘You’ve never had this one, Zak Annan tells me. Plane ticket’s there. Credit card in the same name. We’re getting faster at this. Lehman.’ Abel laughed for the first time since he’d arrived. ‘One n or two?’ He scanned the documents. The photo was fine.

  Maria said, ‘I’ll call a cab.’ He’d pick up his bag on the way to Dulles.

  He called information on the other line from the phone on the kitchen wall, and after a wait for the number rang the Lorimer, Hans Crescent, London. ‘A room from tomorrow, please… Four days, probably. Is that possible? I’d like to check in around noon, if that suits you… Mr Lehman. One n.’ They didn’t ask for an address, only his first name. ‘Peter.’ A pause.

  ‘Thanks for your help… Hot? Glad to hear it. Until tomorrow then.’

  They said little for the next four or five minutes, exchanging murmurs of reassurance that didn’t take them far. Abel was anxious for movement. The air was stifling, and for the first time since he’d got off the plane there was, just under the surface, a fearful pulse. The thrill of the chase was overtaken by the feeling that he and Maria were gripping each other tight, rolling headlong into a dark tunnel.

  ‘All these complications,’ she said, a finger raised like a teacher’s signal. ‘But so simple. What did Joe know, and who did he tell?’

  Maria was smiling now. ‘It was like this with him,’ gesturing to the table, ‘on Monday night.’ Joe was heading home to Miami, and no talk of London. ‘But he left me with the story I’ve told you. He stepped out there to the Diamond cab. Last I saw was his head catching the street light at the corner. A wave, and he was gone. But he’d decided to take himself over there. Didn’t give me a hint. I think he went a little mad, and that’s why I’m scared. I’ll miss him.’

  Abel shook himself and stood up. ‘Come on. This is what we’re for. It’s us. We’ll do it.’ The truth was that Maria’s mood had shaken him. She was the leader, the playmaker, source of all fun. Now she stood by the fireplace – tall, white, but half lost in shadow and darkened by a distant thought or a memory. He managed to grin. ‘Let’s go.’

  As if he’d given an order, they heard the cab draw up. At the door, Maria put a hand on Abel’s back. A police car, siren blaring, rolled past quite fast; from a neighbouring street came the sound of another, an echo of the first. The noise hung in the thickness of the night and died away. The cicadas chirruped in chorus, and a little gang of kids shouted their way past on the far sidewalk. Maria leaned towards him to say goodbye, and they embraced.

  He whispered, ‘Like I said from the airport, Bendo’s ready.’

  She pushed him away slightly to hold him at arm’s-length, as if she wanted to examine him from top to toe. ‘And you?’

  He felt her arms go around him again before he could reply, and she wouldn’t wait for him. ‘Listen.’ She spoke more softly than at any time that evening. ‘I saw Joe through all his troubles. I knew what he’d fallen into, ho
w he got out and slipped back, time and again. But he had a fear that never left him. And it tells us everything.’

  Her grip on Abel was still tight, and he fancied he felt the beat of her heart.

  ‘Joe was scared of needles. He never used a syringe in his life.’

  Friday

  8

  ‘When are you going to tell me what you’re keeping from me?’

  Francesca’s question came after a weary night. Flemyng had pleaded fatigue when they went to bed after the opera and spoken of complications that needed the clear light of day to explain. Each woke once or twice in the dark, said nothing. And when the morning sun was brightening their bedroom, nothing much had changed.

  ‘I don’t even understand the family stuff you’ve been talking about, because you won’t let me in,’ she said. ‘You mentioned Mungo in your sleep. I heard his name. I care about him, but you won’t talk. And what’s been going on in the office? I’ve never known you so dark.’

  He asked for time. ‘I’m going to sit outside for a few minutes,’ he said. ‘Please.’

  Francesca sat up abruptly. ‘Is there someone else? I deserve to know.’

  He was stricken, and with Francesca beginning to weep, found it impossible to give her an answer. Instead, he said, ‘I love you. Never forget that.’ And closed the door.

  He stepped softly downstairs, stopping twice to calm himself. He opened the door from the kitchen and went outside, disturbing a squirrel and some blackbirds breakfasting on the lawn. There was a swinging chair under a canopy of white climbing roses near the chestnut tree that marked the far limit of their garden and he sat down, the swing squeaking softly with his weight. He realized his cheeks were damp with tears.

  But deliberately he turned his mind away from home, and concentrated. Methodically, placing each conversation and each event in sequence, recalling words and gestures from Paul and Lucy and Gwilym, he built up a picture of the previous day, piece by piece. To make sense of it, he then turned back to Wednesday, the night before his long walk to meet Sam and then Paul’s bolt from the blue, the arrival of Sassi and the opera night. There had been a strange encounter in the dark.

  He’d not expected to see Paul late on a Wednesday, because the cabinet secretary had seldom any need to cross the road for a long parliamentary sitting. But he was around, and they’d fallen into conversation on the terrace alongside the river, surrounded by members enjoying a late night (Sorley’s bloody bill, again) because they could escape between votes for blissful drinking and banter in the dark, a balmy orgy of politics at the end of the day. Flemyng had responded to the unexpected quality of the encounter and now, sitting in his garden at dawn, could remember how their conversation had developed and, as he recalled, got out of hand.

  At first, a routine canter round the course. The temper of government, how summer crises were ephemeral storms, strikes and inflation and the Europeans, and Paul’s vague concern about the Americans, which had intrigued Flemyng. They’d leaned on the stone balustrade with their drinks and watched the river, letting themselves relax, and Flemyng had spoken of the forest fires of politics, the flames that sprang from nowhere and left the landscape bare. ‘I can feel the heat,’ he’d said. Paul was listening, refusing to interrupt.

  Like a penitent getting close to the point with a confessor but stopping short, Flemyng had edged on to risky territory with thoughts about the nature of friendship in politics and his own troubles.

  ‘You think comradeship is the greatest gift in this game, and for a while it is.’ But the higher you got, the more certain it was that the closest friendships would break, and probably break you in turn.

  Paul had asked how he could enjoy his world.

  ‘The intensity,’ said Flemyng. Then, as if that wasn’t enough to be truthful, added, ‘And the danger.’

  Before they had parted, Paul had said enough to encourage him to go a little further, turn over a few more cards. So Flemyng had added: ‘The more you concentrate on behaving sensibly in politics – rationally – doing the right thing, moving up, the more the rules of the game are bound to make you behave irrationally. It’s so obvious. I’m the one they say has all the advantages – the silver spoon, the confidence. If they only knew.’

  Paul had said nothing, letting him continue. Two party boats passed them on the river, weaving away towards the south bank, their music carried off into the night. The cover of darkness had encouraged Flemyng to continue.

  A point was reached where you invited destruction, he’d said, as if it were inevitable. ‘Maybe madness isn’t an aberration, but the natural end to our game.’ Everyone aspired to it in politics, even if they didn’t recognize it for what it was.

  Before they parted, half an hour later, he had been drawn into a conversation that courted yet more danger. ‘I’ve found out something that troubles me, Paul. I don’t want to say more now. I’ll choose the right time. But I’ve seen the fragility underneath. I’ve always known it was there, and I suppose that’s my trouble. I want it all. Need the promise, enjoy the fear.’

  Paul hadn’t pressed him. ‘Tell me when you feel it’s right, or necessary.’ That was all.

  Now, in his garden at the start of the day, he recalled how he had been disturbed enough by his own frankness to tell Lawrence to take the car away, and had walked home along the river in the warm and soft darkness. Near Chelsea Bridge, on a whim, he had taken the slimy stone steps down to the water’s edge for no purpose but solitude, with the tide rising and streaks of light from the street lamps breaking on the water. He spent a few minutes in isolation there, standing on the lowest step, hidden from any passer-by at the railing above, one hand touching the damp weeds clinging to the stone embankment wall. The world retreated, granting privacy. Above him, the traffic was thinning out. One o’clock struck. Then he heard the faint swish of an oar on water and saw out of the blackness a single rower, sliding rapidly westwards and almost noiselessly along the surface, alone on the waterway in the dark. His blades left silver traces picked out in the patches of light, but soon he was gone. His wake disappeared, and the river looked as if nothing had broken its surface. A city of the unexpected, always. When Flemyng climbed up the steps to the street and began to walk again, it was at a faster pace.

  Half an hour later he had reached home. Francesca was already asleep.

  On the inside doormat lay the message with its handwritten summons from Sam, using an old workname. He noted the time of delivery on the postcard inside the envelope on which Sam had written ‘Will’. It had been dropped off only a few minutes earlier. Flemyng had read it twice, then torn it into four pieces which he’d pushed to the bottom of the kitchen bin. He’d immediately planned his route for the next day.

  He could still remember every step of the walk on Thursday morning, Sam’s alarm, and the atmosphere in Mansfield Mews where the government car had been parked outside number six. The movement at the window. Paul’s revelation of the American’s death had come only an hour later and now, in the stillness of the morning, Flemyng began to think through their next meeting, four hours away.

  Francesca’s arrival in the garden with coffee jerked him back to the present and the misery that he’d felt when she began questioning him. She interrupted his apology with her own. ‘I don’t mean to be hard on you. But can’t you see, I’m worried sick?’ They hugged, swinging back and forth on the seat. ‘Can you reassure me?’

  He squeezed her to him. ‘Of course I can. Of course. How could you think anything else?’

  ‘What am I supposed to think?’

  ‘I can’t tell you much,’ he said. ‘You know how it is. But I’ve learned something about what’s going on around me – hidden deep down and dangerous, I think. Forget policy, all that. This is about people, and what it’s like when they break.’

  He asked her, as he had asked Paul, to give him time. Holding her hand, he turned to his plans for the weekend. ‘I’m still planning to go north tonight... I’ll fill you in properly
on the family thing when I’ve talked to Mungo. That’s his territory, not mine. I owe it to him to wait.’

  He got up and walked across the lawn, turning back to her after a few moments. ‘As for the office, I’ve been thinking about something you’ve often said to me.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘That I enjoy the thick of it, the camaraderie. Thrive on the fun. But that’s not the whole story, nor even the true one.’

  For the first time that morning, Francesca smiled. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘You’ll always be the cat who walks alone.’

  Then they heard the doorbell. Lawrence was waiting with the car to take Will to the office.

  He picked up his red box, and the morning folder was waiting for him on the back seat of the car. He checked the diary, revealing a lightish Friday, although there were ominous signs in Lucy’s typed note of a queue of visitors forming in the building, all wanting decisions before the office powered down for the summer. And, Flemyng knew, so that they could wipe clean their consciences before they cleared their own desks. An ambassador from the Gulf was in town and had been promised lunch – that could go – and there were awkward phone calls to make to disgruntled backbenchers. His constituency chairman still wanted him, and Gwilym had to have a word about parliamentary business next week. Two big red boxes were threatened for the weekend in Scotland, fishing or no fishing. About the events that were consuming his thoughts, there was only one simple line: ‘Paul, 10 a.m.’

  He flicked over the newspaper front pages as they drove alongside the river. Serene. He’d clear the afternoon.

  He leaned forward. ‘Lawrence, could you drop the box at the office? It’s a fine day. I’ll walk the last lap. Work off last night’s indulgence.’ He got out of the car a hundred yards before Lambeth Bridge, and crossed the river. As he turned towards Whitehall, he rehearsed what he was going to say to Lucy, on the assumption that she had done what he had planned.