The Madness of July

by James Naughtie

  He took his cue, and said that he had learned a little about Joe Manson’s last movements – pushing it a good deal – and added that he had begun to put together a pattern that might help them make sense of the disparate pieces of the pattern that was confusing them. About Sam and Berlin, nothing.

  ‘I hope I can take you forward,’ said Paul. ‘I have another teaser for us. It will require some thinking through.’

  Gwilym had resumed his sighing role from Friday, now with both hands clutching at his head, which was streaked with sweat, leaving his straw hair matted and spiky. He rubbed his hands across his blotched red forehead. Flemyng suspected that he hadn’t slept for more than a few hours since he had last seen him.

  ‘Will,’ said Paul. ‘Something very funny has come up. A few things, in these papers.’ He flapped the beige file in front of him, sliding it away from the others. ‘But first, you. What do you know?’

  Flemyng looked him in the eye, trying to identify suspicion, bewilderment, trust. It was clear, however, that the path now led away from the room where they sat and straight to Abel, who could no longer remain an offstage presence and must be introduced, Gwilym notwithstanding. Looking across the table, Flemyng realized it was not going to be difficult. Gwilym was all over the place, tuning in and out. He made his decision.

  ‘I’ve been to the place where Manson was found – I spent a little time there on Friday, and I have some thoughts. But first, I can tell you how my phone number got into Manson’s pocket. That’s the proper place to start.’ He glanced to the side of Paul, and spoke slowly.

  ‘Gwilym, I have a brother.’

  He grinned back. ‘Don’t we all? Many of us, anyway.’

  ‘Mine’s called Abel,’ said Flemyng with a smile.

  ‘I hope he’s still with us,’ said Gwilym, and hooted. ‘Do you bear the mark of Cain?’

  Flemyng laughed dutifully. ‘He’s living and working in America. He has – had, I should say – some connection with Manson through government service – maybe distant, I can’t be sure – and I’ve established that he gave him my number in case he needed a contact here. Some time ago, when Manson was coming to London on official business. Kind of thing my brother would do for a colleague. I spoke to him about it this weekend.’

  He stopped. Then added, ‘In Scotland.’

  Paul took his hands from the files in front of him, where they had been resting, put them behind his head and leaned back, his whole body relaxing. He was able to smile. ‘And where is he now?’

  Flemyng glanced at his watch. ‘Probably on his way back to London.’

  ‘I take it…’ Gwilym began, looking at Flemyng, and at a glance from Paul he desisted.

  ‘I can arrange to talk to him later tonight, or tomorrow. Or for you, Paul…’ Having opened the path, Will could let it lie clear. ‘Obviously not here.’

  Paul took his cue and fished a folded piece of paper from the pink file in front of him. ‘We mustn’t overlook one quite obvious fact. This is what Joe Manson had in his pocket, the number written down in his own hand. There’s no name attached. Assume for now that he didn’t know whose number it was when your brother gave it to him’ – he looked at Flemyng, received a nod in return – ‘some time ago. For emergencies only. But this was surely a crisis for Manson. Why not use it?’

  They couldn’t escape the question, Paul said. ‘What was it that he came to London to find out, and why didn’t he use this number to try to get to it?’ He was watching Flemyng’s every movement. ‘Any of us would use a helpful contact, wouldn’t we?’

  Flemyng said, ‘I’d go at it the other way round. I’m interested in what he knew already. Because I think that’s what is scaring our American friends, even more than what Manson wanted to find out.’

  Paul thought about this for a few moments. ‘Let’s run through it. Joe Manson dropped in here in a hurry, for purposes unknown. He met a friend from the American embassy, Halloran from Wherry’s outfit. There are dozens of them these days, as you’ll know. Within twenty-four hours of that lunch he was dead, having gone to parliament in the meantime for some reason we can’t fathom and then succumbed to an overdose.

  ‘Before we leave this room we’re going to find the thread that connects these events. Maybe I should start with what I have here.’ This time the beige file, flapped apart, stayed open.

  He produced several sheets of paper, which he said had come from Osterley, a copy of the magazine article that Flemyng had been sent in his overnight box, and a notebook. They were laid on the desk, with a hint of ceremony.

  They had been found at the Lorimer. ‘Where exactly?’ said Flemyng.

  Paul’s embarrassment welled up at revisiting the story. ‘The team on Thursday missed these things. They didn’t want to hang around. As I indicated to you on the phone in Scotland, Will, the police who were called after the discovery of the body found them in the course of subsequent enquiries.’ He paused. ‘They were in the hotel safe-deposit box.’

  Flemyng laughed out loud. ‘Glory be,’ he said. ‘I haven’t lost the old touch after all.’

  Paul cast him a puzzled look. ‘The most interesting item is probably this.’ He picked up a sheaf of papers, roughly stapled together. Flemyng could see they had been annotated in red ink.

  ‘They’re the transatlantic travel histories of four ministers in the government, and one official who sits not far from this room,’ said Paul. ‘Going all the way back to a time when they weren’t in politics. Two decades, a little more.

  ‘And, Will, you are one of them.’

  He sank back in his chair. ‘Why? Why in God’s name would anyone want that? All my government trips are public and I’ve been coming and going from the States all my life. My mother and so on. She was American, as you know. What’s this about?’

  Paul shrugged. They agreed that they were coming at the conundrum from the wrong angle, and couldn’t know where the right one lay. Somewhere in these sheets lay the answer. ‘The trouble is that we don’t have the faintest damned idea what it means without knowing the question we’re trying to answer,’ said Gwilym, demonstrating that his instinct still lived. ‘We’re stuffed and skewered. Yet again.’

  Paul slipped the pages quickly back into his file, and said that there was nothing obviously peculiar about the patterns revealed in the itemized journeys – no quick in-and-outs, no odd one-way passages, nothing noted as peculiar against any name. Although, he said, there was a good deal of underlining. They reminded him of a balance sheet that had been through the hands of a pernickety accountant. But as Gwilym had said – Paul nodded in his direction – they were meaningless without access to the question to which they were meant to provide an answer. So he wouldn’t say who else was on the list.

  ‘It must have taken Manson some effort to get all this,’ he said, ‘from the bowels of various offices. Why?’

  The theory was that he had got some of the details, at least, from Halloran, his embassy friend. Paul said they would sweat him, via Wherry, at the right moment.

  But not all had come from that source. ‘We can infer from these,’ he said, ‘that Manson set about getting the details before he left Washington. Records on these people wouldn’t have been pulled together in one morning, even with the American embassy’s resources – visa records, and so on. This is personal and sensitive. Manson has been determined, and careful. There is evidence here of hard work.’ He waved the sheets.

  Flemyng had felt a strong tide of excitement in the air at the start of their meeting, perhaps expectation, something even Gwilym’s flagging spirits couldn’t disguise. Yet they seemed to be stuck again, perhaps doomed to sink. The atmosphere in the room had become heavy with the waning of the day and he felt a pressing need for air. Paul did the sensible thing, and called a break.

  They poured a drink, and when Gwilym excused himself for a moment, Paul took the chance to zoom in on Abel. ‘You must ask your brother directly. There’s no alternative. I have no idea where this corpse
is leading us, if you don’t mind my putting it like that. And I have to know quickly.’

  For the first time, Flemyng realized how shaken Paul was, as he ran through the difficulties. ‘There’s the law, apart from anything else…’ He was white and downcast. ‘Imagine where this might lead, God save us.’

  Flemyng had taken a place by the fireplace, standing where Paul had on the first night, and commanded the room for the first time. ‘I’ll have to ask something of you, Paul, in return. You know that Abel’s position here is sensitive almost beyond my capacity to describe it. You know – Gwilym doesn’t, and almost nobody else does – and even you, I’d suggest, don’t know as much as you think. If you want me to break this open for benefits that I agree with you are valuable, I’ve got to be able to ask some awkward questions of you in return.’

  They were both on their feet, Paul over by the window, drawing the curtains. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘What about?’ A deal. The nature of their business.

  ‘I’ll come back to what I need from you in a moment,’ Flemyng said. ‘First, Abel. He did help a little. Manson angered Maria Cooney’ – he raised his eyebrows to Paul, who nodded in return – ‘by coming over here. It was his own thing, and she knew it was personal. Off limits. Something that may have involved a confrontation with someone, but I don’t know why. She doesn’t know who that person was and nor does Abel, so he tells me.

  ‘The problem is that Maria thought Manson might have talked about something else while he was here, and that’s what’s got her into such a state. That’s where I want your help.’

  Alongside Flemyng’s hand on the mantelpiece, the clock struck one chime for the half-hour and broke the tension. ‘I’ve just thought of something,’ he said, looking up and smiling. ‘The Inverness train will be on its way in a few minutes.’

  Paul’s brow was creased. ‘Inverness?’

  ‘Mungo, my other brother, is on his way to Pitlochry, and then south from there.’ Flemyng drew the scene – Babble carrying the leather suitcase up to the platform, his hunter’s watch in hand, the sleeper from the north leaning round the long bend, with all the folk who got on at Aviemore and Kingussie settling into their bunks or sliding along to the bar. The night train still rolled into the dark with some remnants of style. There were even kippers in the morning, if someone had remembered to load them at Inverness. ‘And tomorrow,’ he said, ‘we’ll all be together in London.’

  Paul smiled. ‘I like your brother Mungo, and I know how close you all are.’ He exchanged a look with Flemyng that caused them both to linger on that thought. Gwilym still hadn’t returned.

  They could both see humour in the plight of a family caught in a story that was tying two brothers in painful knots, but energized by the knowledge that the participants were flocking together, drawn by forces whose origin they couldn’t know. They enjoyed the moment and sat down again. Gwilym hadn’t returned.

  ‘Answer me this,’ Flemyng said. ‘Why were you happy for me to be in Scotland?’

  Paul smiled. He toyed with the file and kept his eyes on it. ‘What I prize in you is the talent for feeling out the connections we can’t prove. They’re there, and we know it. You’re someone who watches the way people behave. That’s how you were trained – to watch, and to know that it’s sometimes more important than listening. Correct?’

  ‘And?’ said Flemyng.

  ‘I assumed that Abel would go home,’ Paul said. ‘Wouldn’t you?’

  Flemyng raised a hand in acknowledgement. Retaining his calm, he said, ‘Somewhere in the middle of this mess is a political game for high stakes. A price that’s too much for someone, and a lot of hurt pride. I want to know if that stuff on your desk can help us.’ He gestured to the newspaper cutting lying in the open file on the desk. ‘I’m glad you put that in my box.’

  ‘We can take it that Manson’s target was in there somewhere, can’t we?’ said Paul. ‘It’s obvious.’ He pointed to the rings round the heads of Ruskin, Forbes, Brieve, Sorley and Flemyng himself. ‘Which brings me,’ he said, reaching across the desk, ‘to the notebook and the message I copied for you. Friend Flemyng knows.

  ‘You see my problem.’

  Manson had written in an old-fashioned hand, with generous loops and each F carefully formed. ‘It could only have been written by an American,’ said Flemyng, reading it again. ‘That’s obvious. But there’s a trap here. What’s the question it raises in your mind?’

  ‘Whose friend?’ said Paul.

  ‘Of course,’ said Flemyng. ‘But where?’

  ‘In Washington, I assume,’ said Paul.

  That, said Flemyng, was where he was wrong. Having thrown Paul for a moment, he seized the conversation. ‘I’ll come back to that, but I have something else I have to raise, which may be just as serious.

  ‘There are rumours.’

  Paul’s expression didn’t change.

  ‘About me.’ Flemyng paused to invite a reaction. None came.

  ‘They are worrying, because they touch on loyalty, or seem to.’

  Still nothing.

  ‘Paul, I can’t put it more bluntly than this. Am I being watched?’

  He moved his head to look at Flemyng from a different angle, as if he wanted to hear the question repeated in another way. His mouth was open, grey eyes wider than ever. He didn’t speak for a few moments. Then, ‘Are you serious?’

  Flemyng turned away. ‘I’ve never been more serious in my life. Is it true?’ He was speaking over his shoulder. ‘I haven’t seen any signs. But that may just mean I’ve lost my touch.’

  Paul moved back to his desk, to speak from a place of safety. He sat down behind it. ‘You force me to confront something rather disturbing.’

  ‘That I am being spied on?’

  Paul hit the desk with his fist. ‘No.’ He was bending forward so that he spoke towards the papers in front of him, avoiding Flemyng’s gaze. ‘For me, something even worse. That I may not know what’s going on; that your assumption – and mine – about this office, these files, all this paraphernalia, the bloody red light on this phone, is wrong. They’re illusions. Or delusions, I should say. Telling a story that’s not true. A fiction. You understand what I mean. It’s not a question of whether this rumour you’ve heard is true or not – and God help us, I can’t believe you think for a moment it might be – so much as the fact that I can’t tell you one way or the other. D’you see what that means for me?’

  The confession had cost him his balance, and the relaxation with which he had convened the gathering had turned quickly to dishevelment. He flopped back in his chair. When he looked up, he seemed to be pleading.

  Flemyng pressed on. He asked, calmly, whether Paul had ever heard such talk.

  ‘No. Not a whisper. Nothing. But you must have something to go on. A reliable person? A friend?’

  Flemyng shook his head. There was no point in going further, he said. Paul’s bewilderment was convincing. If something was happening it was without his sanction, and cause for a different kind of fear. Perhaps in them both. ‘Let’s put it down to gossip. A crossed wire.’ Paul said nothing more.

  In a tone that betrayed none of the disturbance he felt, Flemyng returned to the question of friendship. ‘Manson thought I could help because I was someone’s friend.’

  So it seemed, Paul agreed.

  ‘And you assumed that friend to be in Washington,’ Flemyng went on. Paul said that seemed the logical conclusion because it was a friendship that Manson thought might help him and it was surely on his patch.

  ‘I disagree,’ Flemyng said, shaking his head. ‘Look at it from the other end of the telescope. Then we might find ourselves getting somewhere in this whole business, for the first time.’ Lifting the atmosphere that had sapped their spirits in the last few minutes, he smiled. ‘That would make a change, wouldn’t it?’

  Paul leaned back. ‘I’m waiting.’

  ‘Manson thought I might help because of a friendship of mine. One here, in London. That’s my co
nclusion.’ He approached the desk and came close to Paul. ‘I have many friends, you among them. But one of them can get us to the heart of this business.

  ‘Who it is I have no idea. A political friendship – one of the men with a ring round his head in that cutting on your desk, or someone else in government? Maybe someone closer to me in another way? Who knows? But whoever it is knows something that can explain this madness.’

  Their exchange seemed to have drained Paul of energy. ‘Another bloody secret,’ he said in a voice that was not far above a whisper.

  ‘Of course,’ said Flemyng. ‘There’s always one more.’

  19

  As the train pulled out of Pitlochry, Babble let the whisky in his glass on the tabletop pick up the swaying of the coach and watched his drink slide from side to side. That satisfying motion marked the happy start of a journey he always loved, slipping and rattling into the night. They watched the dying light on the hills, the last of the sun lending life to the colours for a few minutes before the landscape became a shadow and no more. He said to Mungo, without looking away from the darkening window, ‘All right?’

  They were together in a bar in which every place at the tables, and the two banquettes at the end of the carriage, was occupied. The regulars knew that the last part of the journey before darkness was precious – and on a summer’s night, a golden hour – so they had come for a nightcap before settling down in their berths. The steward was an amiable and twinkle-toed host, though his face shone with the purple polish of a lifelong whisky man and the fiery red of his Royal Stewart tartan jacket had long since faded to dusky maroon. His hair was oiled down, and glistened. The company rolled along happily, with Mungo and Babble as comfortable and secure as they might feel at home, together on the rowing boat on their loch or on the hillside. They had been keeping a contented silence since they sat down, broken by Babble’s question.

  He spoke again. ‘All right? After last night.’ The question, repeated, demanded an answer.