by Alan Judd
‘You regretted giving him away?’
‘Now, yes. At the time, yes. In between, no.’
Charles spoke softly. ‘But he wasn’t dead, was he? Until Nigel got him killed. He could have been here now, with us.’
‘You knew who he was, for all those years, and you never said, you never told me.’ She spoke flatly, still staring at the river.
‘What if I just tell Nigel I’m going to do it, but don’t? Would you help by persuading him that I would?’
She turned to face him, the tears standing in her eyes. ‘God, you’re remorseless. You never give up, do you? It’s always what you want, isn’t it? Isn’t it, Charles? Always has been.’
‘There you are!’ Nigel shouted from the kitchen door. Milly barked and ran back up the garden. They both started and moved a step apart.
She wiped her eyes with her hands and turned away. ‘Well, now’s your chance.’
They walked up the garden together. Nigel stood before the door, hands in pockets, legs astride, confident, proprietorial. He was wearing a dark suit with no tie and the jacket buttoned on two buttons. He spoke again as they emerged from the lopsided rose arbour.
‘Knew it was you from your car, Charles. Did a good job on it, didn’t we? Looks spotless. You must be very pleased.’
‘No complaints about the car,’ said Charles.
Sarah walked quickly ahead of him.
‘Got Roger to bring me down early, darling,’ Nigel continued. ‘Thought you’d appreciate my presence in advance of our guests. Bit worried about getting over that bridge in these floods, to be honest. We should keep an eye on it and send them the long way round if it gets any higher. You didn’t notice whether Roger got back all right?’
She shook her head as she disappeared into the house.
Nigel turned to Charles. ‘Roger’s my chauffeur. Great guy.’
Charles stood back to allow him to follow Sarah into the kitchen. He wondered when guys had replaced chaps or blokes in Nigel’s vocabulary. Probably quite early and quite unconsciously, as soon as he sensed the way the world was going. The world except for Charles, that was, to whom guys still sounded affected in any but a North American accent. He wondered, too, about his penchant for irrelevant thoughts at times of crisis or decision; mental displacement activity, presumably. He once unwisely gave voice to it in front of his headmaster, and was caned.
‘So, what brings you here, Charles? We’re expecting company later.’
‘I came to see you.’
Milly was sniffing Nigel’s travelling bag and his office security briefcase, which were on the floor by the dresser. Nigel took up position beside them, hands still in pockets. Sarah had left the room.
Charles closed the kitchen door and for a moment didn’t know what to do with his own hands. It was like being in the army again, where there was often no obvious task for an officer’s hands. He stepped towards the table and gripped the top of one of the kitchen chairs.
‘Nothing I can do to hurry up the police process, if that’s what you’re after,’ said Nigel. ‘They’ve got half a warehouse of hard drives to go through following those arrests a few months ago, so yours is at the back of the queue, I’m afraid. It’ll come through all in good time. Nothing to worry about.’
‘And, of course, you must be very busy trying to find the real al-Samit.’
Nigel’s brusque bonhomie gave way to defensive determination. He pulled back his shoulders and pushed out his chest. ‘The so-called al-Samit remains a problem, certainly. It’s possible we got the wrong one with Gladiator, though I think the investigation will show that we didn’t, or not exactly. For my money, there’s no single al-Samit. It’s just a name they use. Gladiator may have used it – probably did, if you ask me – just as someone else must be using it now. Unless they just say it to make us think there’s someone else.’
‘I rather thought you had got the right one with Gladiator. By which I mean, the one you wanted.’
Nigel’s features did not move. ‘Well, we didn’t, as you know. All very unfortunate.’
Charles leaned forward, pressing on the chair. ‘But he was the one you wanted, Nigel, wasn’t he? The one whose secret annex you’ve got, the file which will come in handy for refreshing your memory when you visit your opposite number in France. The one which told you that Martin was Sarah’s son. My son. Unless you’ve destroyed it?’
There was a pause. Sarah returned quietly and stopped in the doorway, her arms folded, head bowed.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Nigel.
‘I think you do. So does Sarah. And not only us. There’s someone else.’
For an instant Nigel looked bemused, as if about to protest that Matthew Abrahams was dead or ask who Charles meant, but he controlled himself. Charles had expected anger, indignation, outrage, a scene of some sort, but they were all too well behaved for that. There was a faint creaking as Milly curled up in her basket.
‘What are you really after?’ asked Nigel, as if merely curious. ‘What do you want?’
‘Your resignation.’
Nigel raised his eyebrows. ‘Oh, really? Is that all? You don’t want my blood or a couple of million pay-off? You just want me off the scene, do you? Got your eye on my job, perhaps, the promotion that always eluded you? Must be something like that. How else could this benefit Charles Thoroughgood?’
‘It’s not for my benefit at all, which you may find hard to understand. It’s because of what you did years ago with the French and what you’ve done recently to cover that up. It’s because you tried to send Martin to his death, then had me arrested and finally got Martin shot.’
‘Oh, I did all that, did I? I’m the villain of the piece, the all-powerful arch-conspirator?’
‘And you’re James Wytham, aren’t you? The source of all those timely leaks arranged through your old friend, the editor. It was you that persuaded the police to arrest me, you that got Martin to go back to Afghanistan, you that ensured the police were told he was armed. Most of it’s provable, Nigel, quite apart from your flirtation with the French. If you go quietly, I shall stay quiet. Otherwise, I shall report it.’
Nigel glanced at his wife. She still leaned against the door post, arms folded, still looking at her feet. Her silence was helpful to his cause, Charles felt. He sensed that Nigel felt it, too.
Nigel took one hand from his pocket and rested it on the dresser, as if relaxing for a long talk. His fingers almost touched one of their wedding photographs. ‘You’re jealous, aren’t you? You always have been, jealous that I took Sarah from you and stood by her when you didn’t. And because of that you want to destroy me. Us.’
‘That’s precisely what I’m trying not to do. I’m giving you the chance to go quietly, to remove yourself, so that you’re not destroyed.’
‘You can remove yourself, Thoroughgood. Now. Right now. Get out before I call the police.’
Charles stared at him. The rain began again, spattering on the windows.
‘Right!’ Nigel slapped his palm on the dresser, rattling crockery and startling Milly. He strode out of the kitchen, brushing past Sarah, and clumped noisily up the stairs.
Sarah looked up. It was, Charles thought afterwards, her remaining, and her silence, that gave him confidence to continue.
They heard Nigel coming down the stairs, more deliberately than he had gone up. His footsteps sounded magisterially in the hall, then he entered the kitchen holding a double-barrelled twelve-bore shotgun at waist height, pointing it at Charles. Sarah’s mouth opened and she moved a step back, away from him. She said his name. Milly got out of her basket, wagging her tail and looking up at him. Charles did not move.
‘Out,’ said Nigel, moving the barrels from Charles to the door. ‘Now.’
Charles remained as he was, hands still on the back of the chair, the table between them. Incredulity kept him motionless, but Nigel interpreted it as refusal.
‘If you don’t go, Thoroughgood,’ he said, ‘I shall shoot you.’ He spo
ke as if threatening a child with some minor domestic sanction.
‘Nigel, for goodness’ sake,’ implored Sarah, softly.
He glanced at her, then slowly pointed the gun at the tall metal waste-bin in the corner, and fired. The noise filled the room. Milly scampered and whimpered, there was a muted cry from Sarah as she put her hands to her face and a physical spasm ran through Charles’s chest, leaving his ears ringing and his hands clenching the chair. The waste-bin was flung into the air, rebounded from the kitchen wall and came to rest on its side, rocking. It was crumpled in the middle and had a jagged, fist-sized hole right through it. The kitchen cupboard behind was holed and splintered. The room smelt pungently of exploded nitrocellulose.
Nigel pointed the gun back at Charles’s midriff and advanced slowly round the table towards him. Firing it had changed something in him; his face seemed somehow more full, his dark eyes now calm and self-absorbed.
‘See?’ he said quietly. ‘I mean it. I’ll do it.’
Charles believed him. Nigel’s expression was thoughtful, almost remote, as it was that morning years before on the bridge over the Cherwell when Charles had briefly thought he was going to throw himself in, and had facetiously said so. He watched Nigel approach, the twin black holes of the barrels coming closer. The muscles of Charles’s arms and legs quivered but part of his brain was remembering, calculating, planning. Keep coming, he was thinking, closer, come closer. Still he hadn’t moved.
He was remembering the unarmed combat instruction from Little Stevie on the training course. SAS Stevie, the short, wiry ex-Para, gentle in manner, brisk in execution. What’s a gun for? he used to ask. For killing at a distance. So if anyone with a gun gets close to you he’s thrown away his advantage. And if he’s close enough for you to grab it, you can move faster than he can pull the trigger. You can even, if you’re quick, get your thumb between hammer and firing pin. They’d practised and proved it. With a long-barrelled gun like a shotgun it was easier. You just had to tempt him close, make him think you were no threat.
Charles let go of the chair and turned to face Nigel, holding his hands just above waist height, palms forward as in surrender. Concentrate on the weapon, Little Stevie used to say, it’s the weapon you’re after, not him. The dark blind holes of the barrels drew closer until they were touching Charles’s jacket, just below the centre button. Nigel would almost certainly have fired the right barrel first, leaving the left still loaded. Charles knew what to do, but it had to be done fast.
Nigel prodded him with the gun. That was perfect. Charles’s reactions were not what they were, but presumably neither were Nigel’s. Charles lowered his hands and raised his eyes to Nigel’s as he began to speak. ‘All right, I’ll go, I’m going. I just want to—’
He knocked the barrel aside with the edge of his left hand, then gripped it as he swivelled and stepped backwards into Nigel with the full weight of his body. With his right hand he grabbed the butt and yanked it free of Nigel’s grasp. As he did so it jumped in his hands and there was another concussing roar. He felt the sudden heat in the barrel and saw the fridge in the corner shiver and buckle. With the gun now entirely in his hands, he stepped quickly away with it and turned to face Nigel, holding it in what the army used to call the high-port position, ready to butt-swipe him if he attacked.
But Nigel was far from attacking, or even struggling. He had fallen back onto one of the kitchen chairs, knocking it over. As Charles turned to face him again he scrambled to his feet and ran out of the room, past Sarah. Milly ran with him, barking.
For a second or two Charles and Sarah stared at each other. The room still seemed to be ringing from the explosion. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.
She nodded and swallowed, still holding her hands to her face. ‘Are you?’
Charles broke open the gun, the spent cartridges ejecting against the wall behind him. Keeping it open, he laid it carefully on the table. A boxlock Gallyon, he couldn’t help noticing, a handmade English gun, 1920s or 30s. A good gun.
From outside came the sounds of a car starting and a spurt of gravel. ‘I think he would have done it,’ he said.
She nodded, lowering her hands to pick the fallen chair. ‘Where on earth is he going? What’s he going to do?’
Charles indicated the fridge. The door of the freezer compartment was holed and sagged open, spilling some of the contents onto the floor. ‘Gone to buy a new fridge, perhaps.’
She replaced the chair and mechanically pushed the others into line. ‘How can you joke at a time like this?’ She was smiling nonetheless.
‘How can you not?’
He picked up the freezer contents and pushed them back into the compartment. Surprisingly, with a bit of lifting and pushing, the door closed. There was a hole in the top of the fridge but it was still working.
Sarah picked up the waste-bin and stood looking at what had come out of it. ‘We’ve got two couples coming for dinner this evening. They’re staying the night. More tomorrow.’
‘Ring and put them off.’
‘I can’t. It’s been arranged for so long.’
‘You can’t not. You can’t possibly explain all this. Or Nigel’s absence.’
She put down the bin and fingered the splintered kitchen cupboard. ‘D’you think he won’t come back, then?’
‘I’ve no idea, but I doubt he’ll be host of the year if he does.’
When she tried to open the cupboard the door fell off. ‘I was thinking of some new kitchen units anyway.’ She seemed unnaturally calm, like a sleepwalker. ‘I can’t put them off. It’s so late. I can’t think of a reason.’ She peered into the cupboard. ‘It’s got the saucepans, too.’
‘Say he’s had an accident, not seriously injured but bruised and shaken, a bit sick. I’ll ring them if you like.’
She smiled again, shaking her head. ‘And who would you be, Charles?’
Milly reappeared and made for the contents of the waste-bin. It felt to Charles as if they were both acting in a slow-motion film, or underwater. It was necessary to return to normal speed, or normal something. ‘You ring them, then. I’ll go and see if there’s any sign of him.’
The front door was wide open and rain gusted into the porch. He closed it as he stepped outside. Nigel had taken Sarah’s blue Fiat, leaving traces of its paintwork on the gatepost. Charles walked a few yards up the road, then turned back. He wasn’t thinking straight; there was obviously no point in walking after a car. As he turned he found he could see over the wall and down the hill to the rear of the pub and the stone bridge. Little of the bridge was visible since the water had risen to the top of the arch and spread over the road on either side. The meadow was completely flooded now, which meant there was no way out of the village in that direction. Nigel must have gone up the hill the other way.
But then he noticed something blue in the water and a knot of people on the road this side of the flood. It took a second or two to realise, then a further few seconds to decide whether to go back and tell her, to take the Bristol or to walk. He ran.
There were two men and three women, plus a couple of children, all standing by the pub, away from the torrent. There were unfinished layers of sandbags by the pub door and the adjacent cottage. The catering van was still there.
‘Doing sixty if he was doing anything,’ one of the men was saying. ‘Christ knows what he was on. Came round that corner like a bat out of hell, skidded all over the place, hit the side of the bridge there and bounced off into the water. All four wheels in the air at one point, just before he tipped over. He was flung about all over the place, couldn’t have had his belt on, but I saw his face. He was that bloke what bought old Mrs Hillier’s house. Then he went into it on his side, with the current turning him over and over.’
The rear of the Fiat was jammed against the underside of the arch. They’d rung 999 but it would take hours for emergency services to get there; they were flooded out with calls, they said – one of the men laughed – and they’d have to
go the long way round. There was no hope for him anyway – he never got out of the car. Dead before he hit the water, most likely, the way he was thrown about. Married, wasn’t he, but no children so far as anyone knew? Wasn’t he that secret man, head of MI5 or something?
Charles went to the water’s edge. ‘You sure we can’t get him out?’
The man who had laughed shook his head. ‘Forget about him, mate. It’s all over for him. It’s you what won’t get out if you put a foot in that current. Nor will the car till the level drops. Look how it’s wedged. Poor bugger.’
He was right. The car was wedged like a crushed cigarette-packet against the bridge, its roof flattened almost level with its doors. Nothing of the interior was visible. In no hurry now, Charles walked back up the hill in the rain.
19
Nigel had no religious beliefs that anyone knew of. He was cremated on an oppressive grey day that was like so many Oxford days, a speciality of the Thames valley. During the service Charles distracted himself from the effort of more appropriate reflections by trying to work out why this should be, but his thoughts kept returning to Nigel himself. Despite it all, he had found it hard to dislike him until the end. In fact, he had respected him for his love for Sarah. He may even have been a faithful husband. And, he had never seemed to resent the fact that Sarah had had Charles’s baby but not his. Not openly, at least. Thinking this made everything that had happened seem so profoundly unnecessary. Nigel could have lived a fulfilled and successful life without doing anything of what he had done. But the devil alone knoweth the heart of man, as the old judge had said. And, anyway, life itself was as profoundly unnecessary as anything that happened in it.
Such thoughts led nowhere, Charles well knew. He looked around. All the seats were taken, which he hoped might please Sarah, if she were in a state to notice. She wore a sharp-edged, shapely black coat with a black hat and half-veil. She and her sister were the only women wearing hats and he could not help musing on what a hat could do for a woman, the right hat anyway; nor, as he looked at her, on how from his early youth smartly dressed women in church had aroused in him the most unchurchly thoughts. He hoped they would never cease. He thought too of Martin’s still-unburied body, chilled in the mortuary, pending the inquest. He would attend that funeral, too, come what may.
