He sighed and got up, the better to tell her that she had to go.
She tilted up her head. Smiling.
In that moment he remembered the manner in which Frances had covered her mouth with a sheet that early morning when he had made to kiss her. Patricia lifted a hand and stroked his cheek.
He shouldn’t. He couldn’t.
But the door was locked.
To hell with it. He kissed her. For the longest time, feeling how she responded.
How different it would be, and he couldn’t stop the thought from forming, to wake up beside her. If only, he thought, if only, and held her more tightly.
When finally he let go, and when he took a step back the better to look at her, he saw how her eyes had welled with tears. ‘What’s wrong?’
She swallowed, opened her mouth and swallowed again. Something she wanted to say to him but couldn’t quite. Something he wouldn’t want to hear? In the silence that stretched between them, it occurred to him that she was about to tell him that she was pregnant, this thought striking a blow to his gut that made him want to unsay his question and unthink this thought.
‘Not enough sleep, that’s all.’ She gave a wan smile. ‘And it feels weird sneaking round like this.’
Relief made him reject his first response – that they’d been sneaking around for at least eighteen months – and choose instead a reassuring: ‘It won’t be for long.’
‘Won’t it?’ She looked as if she were about to cry again.
He sighed. He had such a lot of work to get through, never mind that he must ready himself for the Chamber.
Her teeth were beginning to work at her bottom lip, a giveaway tell of her distress. He let out another sigh. ‘Come on, Patricia. You know what we agreed.’
‘What you made me agree to, you mean.’
Like that, was it?
Like Frances, actually. Well, bugger them both.
He opened his mouth to say so.
She got in first. ‘You asked me to do something,’ she said. ‘And I did it. And what I found out is going to make your year.’ Her brown gaze was afire. ‘I’ve had very little sleep, so if you don’t want to hear what it is, I’d be just as happy to go back to bed.’
Was she teasing him so as to reel him back? His first impulse was to call her bluff. Tell her to go and sleep off whatever hangover she was clearly warming up to.
Except: what if she really did know something?
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Didn’t mean to be so curt.’
So easy to turn her round. She smiled. ‘I got Anil Chahda to spill the beans,’ she said. ‘And what he told me is better than we could ever have dreamt.’
11 a.m.
A staccato ping, someone prodding at Cathy’s doorbell, was immediately followed by the sound of a key turning in the lock. Lyndall’s school, which had only just reopened, must have shut again. A pity. She’d been enjoying the break from Lyndall’s sulky presence. She called out, ‘Lyndall?’
‘No, it’s not Lyndall.’ Gavin’s voice. ‘Sorry, I assumed you’d be at work.’
She pulled on her skirt. What was Gavin doing there? And, as well, how come he’d kept her key? ‘I’m on the late shift.’ She came out of her bedroom to see him at the end of the corridor, standing by the door. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I brought you a present.’ He stepped to one side, to reveal someone standing directly behind him.
‘Jayden!’ She saw him, head lowered, shifting from one foot to the other, and even from the other end of the corridor she could see how filthy he was. ‘How great to have you back, safe and sound.’ She hurried down the corridor. ‘Lyndall’s going to be over the moon.’ She hugged him as best she could given he still wouldn’t raise his head. ‘Where have you been?’ He smelt awful.
No reply.
‘I tracked him down in Feltham,’ Gavin said. ‘They were holding him for alleged damage to a shop window. When I threatened to blow the whistle on them for keeping an underage boy without either informing his parents or giving him anywhere to wash, they got somebody to look at the CCTV footage. And guess what: the youth with face obscured who was caught on camera throwing a brick through a JD Sports window was wearing a black T-shirt, not a blue one like Jayden’s. So they let him out.’
‘Poor you. And they kept you without letting you call anyone?’ When Jayden still didn’t speak, she said, ‘Your mum will be so happy to have you back.’
Now at last he lifted his head. ‘I didn’t . . .’ he said. ‘I won’t . . .’ before dropping it again. He was trembling.
‘It’s okay, Jayden.’ This from Gavin, who gave the boy’s head a fatherly pat. ‘Go and have a shower. I’ll fill Cathy in.’
Having deposited a set of Lyndall’s clothes outside the bathroom, Cathy went to join Gavin in the lounge. He was standing in front of the open window, trying to cool himself in the breeze. ‘Except it’s like a hot fan,’ he said. ‘Apparently carrying in sand from the Sahara. That’s why our sunsets have been so spectacular.’ He touched the radiator below the window. ‘I see you finally got them to switch the heating off.’
‘I think the boiler just gave up the ghost,’ she said. ‘So what’s up with Jayden and his mother?’
‘They let him have two phone calls while he was inside. The first time, when he told her where he was, she said it served him right and hung up. The second time she slammed the phone down as soon as she heard him say hello. He’s furious. The closer we got to the Lovelace, the louder he kept insisting that he wouldn’t go back to her. Said if I made him, he really would pick up a brick and throw it through the nearest shop window. I would have taken him elsewhere, but he’s in a terrible state and there are roadblocks all over Rockham. I didn’t think he could have survived the tension of being questioned by the police on the way out as well in. So I brought him here. Hope that’s okay?’
‘Of course it is.’ The last thing she needed was someone else to worry about, but she knew Lyndall would never forgive her if she turned Jayden away. And, besides, she thought, given Lyndall’s continuing silence, it might be a relief to have Jayden as a buffer. ‘But we do have to let Elsie know he’s safe.’
‘I’ll do it. I’ll also threaten her with some of the things he told me about her behaviour – that should keep her away for a bit and buy him time to catch up on sleep. He was dropping off in the car.’
‘I’ll put him in Lyndall’s room. But I have to go to work this afternoon.’
‘Late shift? Not like you.’
‘All the others were too frightened to go home after dark.’
‘You’re a brave woman, Cathy Mason, living as you do in Riot Central.’
She smiled, thinking that she’d probably volunteered less out of bravery and more to buy some space between her and Lyndall. ‘And you’re a kind man, Gavin, to bother with Jayden.’
He said, ‘For you, Cathy . . .’
She shook her head and tapped him twice on the lips to stop him going on.
He gave a rueful smile.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, thinking that she would have to tell him what she had finally understood.
Which was the realisation that, despite Banji abandoning her, not once but twice, he was, and had always been, the only man for her.
11.35 a.m.
On any normal sunny day, St James’s Park would have been packed with Whitehall insiders crossing from one appointment to the next, and tourists meandering between Horse Guards Parade and Buckingham Palace, and pensioners lined up in rows of white deckchairs, heads tilted back the better to catch the sun. But now those who were brave enough to even face the outside were all cleaving to the shade. Which is why Peter and Frances had chosen one of the benches near the Blue Bridge overlooking the lake. That way they could be sure that nobody would come close enough to hear what they were saying.
‘Good of you to come out.’
‘Don’t be silly, Peter. Of course I would. I am your wife.’
He didn’
t like the way she was looking at him. He averted his gaze, looking away from her and towards the lake. As he did so, one of the park’s white pelicans that had been by the water’s edge, seemingly asleep with its head folded under its wings, suddenly snapped to and, as he continued watching it, unrolled its neck to use its hooked bill to snatch up a pigeon that was just then passing by.
He’d heard of this happening, but in all his years in Parliament had never seen it.
‘Look at that.’
Although the pigeon was firmly clamped in the pelican’s beak, its grey feathers fluttered out of both edges of the bill as it struggled to get out.
The pelican lifted up its head and beak, and shook them, wobbling its neck, trying to force the pigeon further down the sac of its throat. The pigeon was still very much alive; its fight-back stretched the skin of the pelican’s gullet until it was almost translucent, with the dark outline of the smaller bird clearly visible. It was a ferocious fighter, and a horrified Peter found he couldn’t tear his gaze away as the pigeon succeeded in struggling back up the pelican’s gullet and into its beak, and for a moment it looked as if it might manage to get free. But as the pigeon’s wings quivered – it was trying to fly out – the pelican began to clap the two edges of its beak together, battering the pigeon. Having done this for a while, it shook its head, shaking its still living prey and pushing it down its gullet, this time far enough down so that the pelican could twist back its neck, resting it on its back feathers, which stopped the pigeon from climbing up. Having entrapped the pigeon in this fleshy U-bend, the pelican began to swallow convulsively, each jagged gulp forcing the pigeon, now unmoving, further down and, at last, into its stomach.
Peter was so hot, conscious of the sweat trickling down his back – he’d have to change his shirt again.
‘So why am I here?’ Frances’s voice pulled him back to the bench they were sharing. ‘What is it that you couldn’t tell me on the phone?’
He told her everything then that Patricia had told him. She listened with her gaze focused on the middle distance, across the water and towards the Eye. But when he had finished, she turned to face him full on. ‘It’s good.’ Her eyes were shining. ‘No, it isn’t just good. It’s great. Exactly what we were after. He’s finished.’
‘I’ll feed it to one of the lobby bods, then.’
A reproving shake of her head. ‘What? And let the world know that it was you who shopped him?’
‘Unattributed, of course.’
‘Come off it, Peter, you surely know that “unattributed”,’ hooking manicured fingers in the air to make quote signs, ‘is only for the public. It will take less than two hours for the entire Westminster village to know it was you. The Party will never forgive you.’ She looked away again, across the water and at the stationary Eye: ‘Why isn’t it moving?’
‘They had two mid-air collapses from heat exhaustion yesterday. They closed it to monitor the temperature in the pods.’
She turned back. Looked at him full on. ‘You’re going to have to talk to the PM. Make him see that he can’t wriggle out of this.’
He kicked himself for having let her say it before he could own up to himself that this, of course, is what he had to do.
He looked at the lake again where the pelican – he was sure it was the same one – was floating. As he watched, it lifted its wings, once, twice and then spread them, beating them against the air, and this had the effect of lifting its body, not far at first – its feet kept hitting the water, kicking up spray – but gradually gaining height until it was airborne and flying away across the water.
‘Hardly a pelican in all her piety,’ Frances said.
So she’d also seen the massacre of the pigeon.
‘Why couldn’t it have been satisfied with the fish the keepers give them?’
Frances shrugged. ‘Some animals prefer their food fresh.’ A pause and then: ‘I thought Patricia was only good for trying to get into your pants. Turns out she can also make it with a dead weight like Anil Chahda. Wonder how she managed to squeeze the ammunition out of him.’ She smiled. ‘Better get going for PMQs,’ she said. ‘His office will be in maximum flutter just beforehand: make your appointment then.’
12.10 p.m.
The PM as man of the hour.
Or so he clearly thought. He’d recently suffered a dismal set of PMQs but that was now reversed as the opposition competed with his own backbenchers to demonstrate their support and their approval. Look at him, this bullish man, who had recently seemed aged by office and the threats to his position, now standing straight and proud as he used the bass force of a growling voice to promise: ‘Not only will we support the police in using water cannons, if they need to, but this government has today suggested to the police authorities that the water be mixed with indelible chemicals that will later identify the wrongdoers. Our message is clear: anyone who goes out onto our streets with the intention of breaking the law will be marked by us and can expect to experience the full force of the law.’
‘Hear hear’ – that rumbled agreement – and Peter’s voice as enthusiastically supportive, ‘Hear, hear,’ and in accompaniment he nodded grimly, so that no one in the House or watching on TV would ever have guessed that inside he was beaming.
The metronome that had been plaguing him for the past few days now proved itself to be the countdown to the Prime Minister’s demise. Frances was right: with what Patricia had found out, the PM would have no option but to resign. I’ve got you, he thought, I’ve got you, even as he watched the Prime Minister riding happily at the head of a House in full cry.
‘As to the suggestion by my Honourable Friend,’ the PM was saying, ‘that to resolve the overcrowding in our police stations we corral rioters in Wembley Stadium, I say that although I, along with all my Honourable Friends, would prefer to see our great sportsmen and women in the stadium, I will, if needs be, give serious consideration to this suggestion.’
‘Hear, hear,’ and Peter as well calling it loudly, ‘Hear, hear,’ and nodding to emphasise his agreement and in time to the internal ticking of that clock, as he thought, time’s up, Prime Minister, time’s up.
When the PM sat down beside him, he could feel heat radiating off the man.
Tick, tick, while one of their backbenchers responded to his name by keeping on his feet and asking, ‘Could the Prime Minister tell us what plans he has to hold errant parents of underage minors to account for their children’s behaviour?’
Well done, Peter thought, couldn’t be better. He’d remember the favour and repay it once he was in charge.
When the PM went to the box, standing with his back to Peter, Peter almost seemed to see a noose drawing round the strained sinews of that bullish neck.
‘My Honourable Friend,’ the PM was saying, ‘is correct in saying that parents whose children threaten to bring this great nation to its knees should be held to account. We cannot tolerate a culture of neglect that glorifies thuggish behaviour and disrespects the rule of law. It is for this reason that we are drafting regulations that will allow magistrates to impose fines and, if necessary in extreme cases, prison sentences on parents who should be, and will be, held responsible for the behaviour of their underage children.’
Noose tightened, which was almost evident in the PM’s heightened colour as, accompanied by a chorus of agreement, he sat down again, turning to Peter, a smile on his face as if to say, see, I can do it, and better than you – in response to which Peter fed a hearty ‘Well done, Prime Minister’ into his leader’s ear while all the time thinking, come two o’clock at Downing Street and you will discover just how thoroughly you have cooked your own goose.
2.35 p.m.
In the time that Peter had been sitting outside the Cabinet Office he had heard the clip of footsteps passing along the many corridors of Downing Street, and he’d heard doors opening and doors closing and snatches of conversation in between. Big Ben, which had tolled the hour as he’d climbed the stairs, had also rung out t
he fifteen and thirty minutes past the hour, this forward movement of time reinforced by the ticking of the grandfather clock that stood in the lobby. But now everything, save for the sound of the clock and the beating of his heart, was quiet.
The cheek of the PM to keep his Home Secretary waiting so long – a power play, no doubt, which demonstrated, if any further demonstration were needed, how bad things were between them. So petty, though – unworthy of a man in power.
Well, at least if Peter had been nursing doubts about what he was about to do, this helped dispose of them. Thirty-five minutes and counting was designed to drive him into a rage. Not that he would be so driven. He would bide his time. Think of something else.
He thought about Patricia, outside in the car (she’d earned that privilege). He wondered how she was finding the wait. And then, without meaning to, he found himself thinking about Frances’s question as to how Patricia had managed to get the ammunition that he needed.
No – don’t think of that.
He heard a voice raised, presumably in jest because the response was laughter.
So long since he had laughed with Frances. With Patricia on the other hand . . .
‘Home Secretary?’
‘Yes?’ When had this functionary of the PM’s office appeared?
‘The PM will see you now.’
Time. Head high, he walked through the now open door.
The Prime Minister was at his usual place in the Cabinet room with his chair at its usual angle to the table to distinguish it from the other chairs, even though there was no one else sitting there. Hearing Peter coming in, he raised his bullish head, and said, ‘Peter,’ without a smile or a hint of an apology for having kept him waiting. ‘I hear you came in through the back door?’ And now a sly grin. ‘Not like you to miss a photo opportunity.’
‘70 Whitehall seemed the more appropriate entry point.’ He stood, because the Prime Minister hadn’t offered him a seat, and looked down the room, beyond the columns to the other end where the PM’s Press Secretary was standing, arms akimbo, glowering, his thin face looking even thinner and full of menace.
Ten Days Page 25
