“He never talks about her? Interesting. Because I’ve got to tell you, the way she just vanished makes you wonder.”
“What, you think Will stuffed her in a trunk and tipped her into the English Channel?”
“No. Well, yes. But really? No, of course not. Maybe.”
I laughed. “My guess? She ran off to Majorca with that guy she was seeing. Jose something. Will says she always had a thing for Spanish men.”
This was one of those topics there was no need to revisit, so over coffee and Italian brandy I brought the conversation round to where I wanted it to be. I shared with him Elizabeth Fortescue’s views on the character of the local MP, concluding by asking, “Do you have Colin Livingstone in your file of people who owe you favors?”
“No. But I have him in the file of those who fear me, and rightly so.”
“Really? What’s he done?”
“Who hasn’t he done is more to the point.”
“Really?” I stopped mid-stir and thought about this. It certainly matched my impressions of the man, and those of Elizabeth Fortescue. I would put her in the camp of people who have a low opinion of most people all the time and are right in their opinions half the time. In Colin’s case I’m sure she was spot on. “Well, he hasn’t done me, for one.”
“Put on some makeup and quit wearing your hair in a ponytail, and he’ll try. If that’s what you want.”
“Of course it’s not what I want. Fuck’s sake. I want information.”
“Such as?”
I centered my cup carefully in its saucer before replying. We were now engaged in a negotiation, much like a transfer of prisoners. I didn’t want to give too much away. At the same time, I wanted Oscar’s help. “I think he knew Anna,” I said. “I think he knew her quite well, if you follow.”
“Sure. No surprise there. But before we go further, let’s have a serious word about this detective drama you’re playing at.” He took a large sip of his brandy and ordered another. I wasn’t really up on my Italian brandies but I suspected a slug like that midday would put most people on the floor. “Do I need to tell you how dangerous it can be?” he continued. “What if he’s the killer? What if he actually killed Anna, for reasons unknown? Although blackmail would be my guess—she knew too much. Then again, what if your friend Macy killed her?”
“She’s not my friend,” I told him. “My friends don’t ask the vet to Botox their dogs. My friends have brains. Like you.”
He nodded, a slightly tipsy nod, accepting the compliment as his due.
“But that’s all the more reason I want to meet Colin in his offices in Whitehall.”
“Meet him in—”
“It’s extremely unlikely I’d come to harm there, unless he stuffed my body parts behind the walnut paneling or something. Even then, there would be a record that I’d gone in there … and I’d never come out.”
I’d dropped my voice to a low, growling register. It was a pitch-perfect imitation of the man who narrated Bloody Murder: London, if I do say so myself. It made Oscar laugh.
“All right,” he said, giving in more easily than I’d expected. No doubt he saw advantages to my getting the inside track. “I do see your point. And there’s nothing easier to arrange. All that’s left to talk about is what’s in it for me.”
“You want an exclusive, right?”
“Of course I want an exclusive. I’m not running a charity here.”
“Then I’ll see what I can do.”
He drained the last of his brandy and started looking for the waiter. “We’ll strategize how you’re going to get him to open up. Let’s start with the hair and work our way down to the shoes.”
“What’s wrong with my shoes now?” I looked down at my ballet flats—my go-to shoes for walking around London.
“Nothing, if you’re trying out for the Royal Ballet Company. But if you’re going to get Colin to reveal anything, you’ll need heels. It also wouldn’t hurt to wear something a little tightfitting.”
“What’s any of this have to do with—”
“By the way, whatever happened to Ken? More brandy?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “I really have to get going soon.”
Catching the waiter’s eye, Oscar signaled for the check. Knowing him, he’d spend the afternoon going from one pub to the next. He called it networking. Most people would call it getting drunk.
“Ken?” he repeated.
I shrugged. “He went back to America, I guess.”
“I always liked him. You two were good together.”
“Because we were both Americans? That’s a tight bond, all right. We both liked baseball but so do the Japanese. And you never liked him.”
“Seriously, I think it helps, don’t you? Like backgrounds. Similar tastes and memories. Shared language.”
“Ken and I,” I said firmly, “had zero chance of making a go of it, especially once I met Will. I’ve told you that a hundred times. I met Will and my fate was sealed. There was nothing I could do about it.”
He looked at me for a long moment, studying me as if for a portrait. “Men always go for you, don’t they?” he said. “You just pull them, without even trying.” He shook his head. “Amazing.”
I shrugged. That description sounded more like Anna to me.
25
A year earlier, the most fortunate and photogenic people of Weycombe had celebrated the Autumnal Equinox at the home of Colin Livingstone, MP, in one of his more blatant attempts to curry favor with the moneyed constituents who could stand to be in the same room with him. So it wasn’t as if I didn’t know the guy; it was more that the chances he’d remember who I was were small. There is nothing memorable about me unless I make a huge effort to stand out. That chameleon quality came in handy when I was auditioning for stage roles: I could become anyone I chose. But even playing a part I am not an attention seeker. I prefer it that way.
There was, of course, an enormous security hassle about getting into the houses of Parliament. Even with Oscar smoothing the way for me, I had to book an appointment well in advance while they tapped my phones or did whatever they had to do to ensure I hadn’t stuffed my bra with explosives.
You might think someone as inflammatory as Oscar would be a hindrance to my gaining access, but everybody owed Oscar something and it was best not to ask what was owed in return. I arrived at the pre-arranged time at the visitor entrance and was led away from the tourists to a staging area for special guests. There my name was ticked off a list after I’d shown my driver’s license to the uniformed policewoman. She made a photocopy as I sent my handbag down the conveyor belt to be x-rayed and then walked through the scanning station. I’ve no doubt I was watched by the surveillance camera from all angles.
Before 9/11, it was a simple matter to visit your MP. He or she is, after all, for better or worse, yours, and access to lawmakers is written into the Magna Carta, or it should be. With all the terror alerts, I couldn’t casually wander the corridors of Her Majesty’s government, knock on Colin’s mahogany door, and inquire as to the exact nature of his relationship with Anna. No. This was going to require a little more finesse.
The runners Anna had been wearing on her last day were a hint to her ties with Colin.
They were a brand called JoySports, imported from the US, making them insanely expensive. Wearing them was supposed to be a punch in the eye for China and whoever else flooded the UK with cheap goods. In the US, the congressman most involved in getting a factory for knockoffs of these shoes installed in his district ran on the slogan, “On your feet. Support your country.” Which, once you got past the shoe-insert associations, was not a bad slogan.
Still, only the upper one percent could afford to buy these shoes with their cushy insoles. The push now was on to get them manufactured in the UK. Our local MP was heavily invested in this effort, perhaps even financi
ally; I’m sure I couldn’t say. But he probably had a closet stuffed full of free samples in all sizes and colors, men’s and women’s.
The fact Anna was wearing JoySports the day she died I might more easily have written off to coincidence had I not seen her at Macy’s garden party having that smoldering tête–à–tête with Colin.
I was met by one of Colin’s protégés as I emerged from the body scanner and was ushered through the back ways of the famous old building. It is typical of the English that a building Americans would attempt to preserve in aspic is in daily use in London, and has been in daily use for centuries, its artwork largely unprotected from theft. It was overwhelming, and for me, a lover of all things British, a paradise. I could thank Anna, in a way, for getting me inside.
I had looked Colin Livingstone up online, of course, and could not make head nor tails of his various titles. He’d been shadow secretary of this and that for nearly twenty years, finally in the past few years achieving the title of minister. I gathered this was a reward of sorts. I am the least political person alive, and if I can’t understand US politics you can be sure I’ve no idea what in fuck the people of Westminster get up to. I did finally figure out that the main job of a shadow is to take potshots at the sitting cabinet. There is nothing that resembles a schoolyard so much as the houses of Parliament.
Colin’s fortune was inherited from his father, who invented a popular condiment, a fact Colin tried rather desperately to play down. You will have heard of Hotsy Topper?—made with the secret formula the family refuses to reveal. I suspect grain alcohol is added to offset all the corn syrup, but his opponents swear it’s made from the blood of newborns.
Anyway, he was born rich, and rather than sit around being the son of privilege he decided that interference in other people’s lives might get him laid more often, or something like that. And so after his failed attempt at piety, he ran for office.
Physically, Colin was larger than life, which we demand of our politicians. Whatever the phrase means, you know it when it hits you. Livingstone (no relation to the one you’re thinking of) had a huge physical presence that seemed to suck the air out of every corner. He was a man who might one day look good cast in bronze as a park statue, a pigeon sitting on his shoulder.
At the Equinox fundraiser, a literal shock had gone through me as he clasped my hand in both of his. He had looked deep into my eyes and said how wonderful it was to meet an American cousin. His large hands were as warm and soft as mittens and, as he continued holding my hand, speaking of his delight at seeing his heart’s desire at last, I had the queerest sensation of energy being passed from him into me, like he was some sort of faith healer. If he’d told me to pick up my bed and walk it would have fit perfectly with the tone of our meeting. Instead he asked me what part of the US I was from and actually seemed to have some passing knowledge of the country. It was a geographical sort of knowledge of Maine’s major export (lobster) and industry (healthcare), but that he knew so much about it from memory impressed me not a little.
He had a Bill Clinton-ish reputation already. I don’t mean just that reputation, necessarily. I mean he had that charisma that made people like him and made them want to buy whatever he was selling. He also was all teeth and starched hair, tie knotted just so. The tie only came off when he traveled to the rural parts of his constituency, where he became a man of the people. His website had a gallery of photos of him standing about in fields or surveying England’s mountains green from a hilltop, and looking at these photos you might be forgiven for mistaking him for a prosperous farmer with lots of time on his hands.
Like my husband, Colin was of a type that must be issued in boxes for later assembly by public schools all across England. He did not get where he was by being bipartisan, and he was loathed and envied by his opponents for his hair, his big teeth, and his wealth, pretty much in that order. To all appearances he was securely married to his childhood sweetheart, a washed-out wraith of a woman who was seldom seen in public, and all attempts by reporters to prove otherwise had proven fruitless. I know because I knew some of those reporters, whose job it became to stake out his London pied-a-terre when he hired an assistant who could neither type nor spell. It was not clear she could read, either, but that may have been because she had difficulty seeing over the top of her enormous chest. It appeared she had no difficulty reading the instructions on her can of hair spray, however.
One day soon after he took on this assistant, Colin had announced he was going hiking, alone. Already by this time, “hiking the Appalachian Trail” had become Washington-speak for having it off with someone not your wife. A fit reporter (they could only find one—it’s a drinking, smoking, and snorting profession) followed him to Wales and sure enough, hiking was what Colin was doing. Building a fire, alone with his thoughts, only small forest creatures for company, like Snow White. The guy was as untouchable as Mitt Romney, and it was finally decided to leave him alone and spend the editorial budget on more likely targets. The thing about both Whitehall and Washington, though, was that these guys never learned. Leave Colin alone long enough and temptation would find him.
I believed Anna Monroe had found him.
26
The hallway to Colin’s office was as long as an airport runway, giving me lots of time to rehearse what I wanted to ask him. Well, it would have given me lots of time if not for the chirpy intern or PA or whatever at my side who never stopped talking for a moment.
Colin stood up politely as I entered and ushered me to a plush seating area across from his desk. The intern’s almost imperceptible lift of eyebrows was met with a small shake of his head. Refreshments were not to be offered. I was to say my piece quickly and leave.
“This is a rare pleasure,” he said, smiling and oozing bonhomie. His veneers made his teeth look four times their normal size. “To see such a beautiful woman in my office.” The intern smirked a farewell and walked out, closing the door sharply behind him. No doubt he’d heard this hooey many times before. “To what do I owe this honor?”
I opted to speak bluntly. “I am here about Anna Monroe,” I said, watching for his reaction. Nothing hostile in my demeanor, just a look of innocent, wide-eyed curiosity.
“Anna Monroe,” he repeated. “You’re not—tell me you’re not the young woman who found her body that terrible day? I hadn’t connected the name.”
“I’m afraid I am. That’s why I’m here. The suspicion in this kind of case—well, you can imagine. It sort of spreads. In addition to losing a friend and neighbor, I’ve got the police looking very closely at me. It’s most uncomfortable.”
“I can see why it would be. I don’t, however, see how I can help you with that. Just answer all their questions. They’ll go away eventually once they see they’re wasting time talking to you.”
“That isn’t always how it works back in my country.”
“Well, it’s how it works here, I do assure you.”
Before he could add “now if there’s nothing else, I’m terribly busy,” I said, “As I mentioned, I was a friend of Anna’s. She confided in me, you see.” This was a slight exaggeration, to say the least, but it worked. He got very, very still, his expression frozen, and the look on his face was one of polite inquiry. But I thought I could smell fear beneath his citrusy aftershave.
“Ye-e-s-s-s?” he said.
“Yes.” I went for it now. “She told me you and she were having an affair.”
His hand shot out to the intercom on his desk. For a second I thought he might call in guards to haul me away. A wiser, or at least a more innocent, man might have done so. But when he said, “Hold my calls, please, Alice,” I knew I’d scored. His face now carried a curdled look.
“It’s not blackmail, if that’s what you’re thinking,” I said quickly. “Nothing remotely like that.”
“What is it you want?” The geniality, so second nature to the political beast, had complet
ely vanished now. I was seeing the face behind the mask, the face of a man who had risen to such giddy heights of power by playing hardball. I didn’t know about Anna—she clearly felt differently—but I would have given him a wide berth. But it’s not news that power is an aphrodisiac.
“I want information, that’s all.”
“What is this? You’re not with the police. I don’t have to talk to you.” He might have added “you weren’t even born here,” and looked like he was thinking of doing so, then thought better of it. I was a constituent, just one with a grating accent.
“Information,” he said, winding down and allowing a hint of sarcasm to creep into his voice. The silly little housewife wanting information, that was me. “Go on.” He could barely get out the words through his gritted, enameled teeth.
I was still making it up as I went, and I decided that playing to his ego was the way to go.
“She spoke very highly of you. She did nothing but sing your praises, really.”
“Anna? Now you do surprise me. That’s very flattering, but I still don’t see h—”
“She told me she was meeting someone that morning.”
“Well, it wasn’t me.”
“She didn’t say it was. That’s why I’m here. The police are talking to me, as I mentioned, asking me questions. I have to tell them what I know, obviously. Everything I know. But before I do that … you see, I’m not interested in tossing anyone into it. Anyone innocent, I mean. The problem with murder is it drags everyone down, even people who don’t really deserve to be dragged down. You do see?”
I was doing my best Miss Marple imitation at this point, dithery and twittery as if I didn’t know what I was about. I was even clutching my handbag in my lap with both hands.
“I agree with what you say but I don’t see what I can do about it. If Anna was meeting anyone, it wasn’t me. In fact, I can prove it.”
Weycombe Page 18
