A Sentimental Traitor

by Michael Dobbs

  Nothing seemed to make much difference to the police, they plodded on with their questions, didn’t seem even to listen to the answers, otherwise why was Harry still here. He felt cheated when it finished.

  ‘Wait here, Harry,’ van Buren instructed when at last it was over. He disappeared for ten minutes. When he returned, his expression was dark.

  ‘What the hell am I doing here, Theo?’ Harry demanded wearily.

  ‘They’re going to release you on police bail in a little while.’

  ‘What does that mean? Exactly?’

  ‘They think there’s a case to answer but they can’t make it stick, not yet. So they’re biding their time. Not prone to rushing to conclusions, are the constabulary, unless they’re in a bar. Waiting for the results of the forensics.’

  Harry sprang to his feet and began pacing, unable to contain his frustration. ‘This is horseshit, Theo. Can’t you see that?’

  ‘Me? Of course. Sure I do. But our friend the Detective Sergeant can’t, not at the moment. Your word against hers. And . . .’ A slight hesitation while he ran his tongue across his lips. ‘Well, you had been drinking.’

  ‘Since when has that been a crime in your own home?’

  ‘Murky water, Harry. Very murky water.’

  Harry snapped, turned on his friend. ‘It was a neat malt, if you must know. Eighteen years old. From Islay. I’ll take you to the distillery one day.’

  The lawyer’s eyebrows waggled in warning; this wasn’t a great time for sarcasm, but Harry ignored it.

  ‘For Chrissake, what sort of justice is this?’ he demanded, voice raised, gesticulating wildly. ‘I am a totally innocent man. Innocent, you hear me? She’s the one who’s lying, perverting the course of justice. Yet I get locked up in this urinal while she’s out there with her feet up having her nails painted, for all we know. My word against hers, you say. So why isn’t she here?’

  ‘You know why, Harry. ‘Cos sometimes life’s a puddle of poo. Talking of which, they’re suggesting you’ve been under pressure, with the election and everything.’

  Pressure from the election? They’re going to make a mess of their trousers when they find out about the money, Harry thought.

  ‘And you were alone with her. Very late last night.’

  Harry stopped pacing. ‘Whose side you on, Theo?’

  ‘Yours, of course. Just showing you what the enemy’s got.’

  A cold hand seemed to settle around Harry’s throat.

  ‘You ought to be aware there’s chaos out there. Underwear wrapped in knots. They don’t know how to handle it, Harry, you put fire up their bums. The Assistant Commissioner got the Commissioner out of bed for this one, and I suspect he probably then went and spoiled the Prime Minister’s breakfast. No one’s going to crawl away quietly from this. There’s a very large picture of you on the front page of the Standard. You’re in handcuffs, being arrested. And did I tell you there’s a media mob waiting outside?’

  Harry slumped back into his chair, eyes fixed on the door. Any moment he expected Franz Kafka to walk in, pen and notepad at the ready.

  ‘They’ll release you soon, once they’ve had their tea and signed fifty different bits of paper.’

  Harry stared at his lawyer with disbelieving eyes. ‘Release me?’ he whispered. ‘They’re throwing me to the wolves.’

  And the wolves were waiting, an entire howling pack of them, spreading out across Agar Street, blocking pavements, interfering with the traffic. Harry had sent back to his home for more clothes; he couldn’t appear in the white overall with the hopelessly wrinkled collar, as if he’d just jumped over the wall of an asylum. Yet still he was unshaven and unkempt as he stood on the front steps of the station, van Buren at his side, his eyes so raw the television lights blinded him. He couldn’t see how many had gathered, but he could hear them, smell them. He told them he had a brief statement to make, then waited for them to stop screaming and snarling at him before he took a deep breath.

  ‘I have been arrested on a charge of serious sexual assault made against me by my press officer, Emily Keane. There is not a single shred of truth in those allegations. They are, quite simply, lies, and time will prove them to be lies. But the law requires a full and proper investigation. I will help the police in every way I can. In the meantime, I remind you all, that I am an innocent man.’ He stared around him for a few moments, chin up, knowing he had to exude confidence and calm, then made his way through the scrum to the taxi that was waiting for him. Questions were hurled at him from all sides, but he ignored them, even the retard who asked him if he was going to sack Emily Keane.

  There was another mob outside his home. He had to battle his way through elbows and camera equipment onto his own doorstep, in the melee he thought someone might have punched him. Even after he had slammed the door they kept banging on it. The telephone was ringing, a hundred messages demanded his attention; in blind fury he ripped the phone cord from its socket and threw his keys down beside the other set on the hall table. He noticed someone had been inside the house, forensics presumably; it was, after all, allegedly a crime scene. The sofa cushions had been moved, the whisky glasses gone, as was the coat she had left behind. He hauled himself upstairs, had to use the banister rail, surprised at how exhausted he was, then threw himself on his bed. He closed his eyes, hoping the world might cease to exist.

  He felt close to despair. He was alone, wanted to have Jemma by his side; he sat up, intending to call her, until he realized she must already know. He was juggling words in his mind, struggling how best to tell her about what had happened, when he noticed a wardrobe door was slightly ajar. Dammit, had forensics been everywhere? He rose, intending to close it, then opened it instead. An entire half rack was empty. Her half rack. Jemma’s clothes were gone, every one of them, and the same with her toiletries in the bathroom.

  He charged downstairs to his front hall, ignoring the hubbub that was still coming from the other side of the door. There, on the table, was his set of keys. And beside them, hers, lying on top of a neat turquoise file of the interviews she had completed into the Speedbird crash. There was no note.

  ‘A beautiful day, my love.’

  ‘Isn’t it just, Felix? Simply perfect.’

  They were walking along the South Bank in the shadow of the London Eye whose great wheel was moving magisterially through a freshly washed blue sky. It was the Easter holiday, the weather warm, the spring sun generous. Couples and young families were spreading across the grass, turning their backs on winter.

  ‘It’s good to have you home for a while, Patricia.’

  ‘Just for a few days.’ Before she returned to her other home.

  ‘You’ve been so busy these past months.’

  ‘Let’s just say, Felix, that the time has been profitably invested.’

  ‘Mr Jones?’

  ‘Is no longer a problem.’

  ‘He’s not yet been charged.’

  ‘But disgraced. That’s enough.’

  They walked on in silence beneath Westminster Bridge, sharing their thoughts, until they were opposite the Houses of Parliament. There was little sign of life. The Palace was closed, except for tourists, the river terraces empty but for the striped canvas awnings that were used as hospitality marquees.

  ‘Hideous,’ Felix muttered. ‘Look at it, an extraordinary Victorian Gothic palace, a most wondrous gingerbread confection that was once the envy of the world, and now look at it. Despoiled with those hideous tents.’

  She looked at where his finger was pointing. The tents – pavilions, as they were pretentiously described – seemed hideously out of place, and shabby. ‘They have no idea how ridiculous they look from the outside,’ she said.

  ‘The tents?’

  ‘The entire place.’

  ‘You know, if this were France, or Berlin or Rome or Madrid, those awnings would have been ripped out and replaced with something significant, something truly cultural. But instead they make it look like a village fête.�
��

  ‘Don’t upset yourself, Felix. It simply doesn’t matter any more. Best leave the place as it is. A tourist attraction.’

  They watched as a boat filled with tourists leaning on rails, their cameras clicking, turned at the end of its run up from Greenwich, negotiating the current, churning up the heavy silt waters.

  ‘By the way,’ he mentioned as an afterthought, ‘I put you down for a postal vote. Wasn’t quite sure where you’d be.’

  ‘Thank you, but . . .’

  ‘Did I do wrong?’

  ‘No, it’s simply that I don’t think I’ll bother to vote. What’s the point? It doesn’t make much difference who parks their car in Downing Street. We’ve gone beyond that. The rules aren’t made here in Westminster any more.’

  ‘You intrigue me,’ he said, turning to face her, staring inquisitively, ‘if it doesn’t make any difference, then why . . .’

  ‘Why have I been so unkind to poor Mr Usher?’ She threw her head back, the sun catching the highlights in her hair and sparkling from her eyes. Then she started laughing, as if he couldn’t have invented a more preposterous question. The sound was so intense it almost seemed masculine, and continued for many moments, almost uncontrollably. Then she looped her arm through his and began walking him on. ‘For fun, Felix. I do it for fun.’

  Spring. But the blows continued to fall on Harry with the determination of a winter gale. He had neither cash nor credit, so he sold his Audi S5, for notes, in a hurry, and inevitably well below the market price. The buyer screwed him. As Harry was discovering, it’s what happens when your luck runs out.

  His team of campaign volunteers, so dedicated and willing, was suddenly struck down by plagues of a biblical proportion. There was an outbreak of unseasonal colds, others were kept at home by minor domestic crises, or had distant relatives in need of their immediate attendance. If his constituents passed him on his side of the street, they averted their eyes, or if on the other, they stared. Kids made idle by the school holiday followed him down the street, dancing in his wake, taunting him.

  The Prime Minister refused to take his call. When Harry telephoned Downing Street, the switchboard put him through instead to Usher’s parliamentary aide, Archie Dodgson, an old friend of Harry’s.

  ‘He’s preparing for the final leaders’ debate,’ Dodgson explained. ‘Sorry, Harry, you know how it is. Try not to take it personally.’

  ‘OK, suggest some other way I can take it, Archie.’

  ‘He’s got too much on his plate,’ Dodgson responded abrasively, then softened. This was Harry he was talking to. ‘Look, you know what the polls are showing. Our private polls are even worse. The voters have never particularly liked Ben, you know that. But now they don’t respect him either. The tide’s turned.’ There was a dullness in his voice that spoke of more than late nights and exhaustion. He had lost hope.

  Every ray of sunshine seemed to start a forest fire in his soul. He had friends, even former lovers, who stood by him, offered him support, but there were many who didn’t know what to say or were keen to move on, so said nothing. It was the silence that hurt, wormed its way inside his confidence and dragged him down, those who should have called, but didn’t.

  Then, precisely a week after his arrest, Harry was called back to Charing Cross for a further interview. He dressed carefully, polished his shoes in the old military style, wasn’t going to sit there in prison garb again. Van Buren had phoned ahead and asked permission to use a more private, rear entrance. It was denied. Another posse of inquisitors and photographers was camped out in Agar Street, waiting for them. ‘Don’t worry,’ the lawyer had said as the taxi approached, ‘they’re just the foreplay.’

  They read him his rights all over again, put him through the nightmare once more. But it was a different interview room, bigger, smelling of old dust and disinfectant, no windows but a dark glass panel in one wall that Harry assumed allowed others to see him unobserved. They were kept hanging around for nearly half an hour. Harry kept glancing at his watch. ‘Can’t you complain?’ he demanded.

  ‘Course I could. But it wouldn’t make a bloody bit of difference.’

  So they sat, and stifled.

  Eventually the door opened and the two investigating officers, Arkwright and Finch, entered. No smiles, no handshakes, no apology, all formality. Detective Constable Finch was carrying a number of clear plastic evidence bags. Despite the presence of his lawyer, Harry felt outnumbered.

  The Detective Sergeant trotted him through his version of events once more, checking for inconsistencies, wondering if he would trip himself, save them the bother, before they moved on to the meat of it all.

  ‘Forensics, Mr Jones,’ Arkwright said. ‘Usually tell the whole story in this sort of thing. And very clear in our little case.’ He pushed an evidence bag across the table. ‘For the purposes of the tape, I’m showing Mr Jones Exhibit KAA1. It’s Miss Keane’s sweater.’

  Harry stared, but didn’t touch.

  ‘You see the stain there, on the left shoulder? That’s a drink stain. Your drink, Mr Jones.’

  ‘I don’t deny it. It spilled when she rushed me.’

  ‘Fibres from this sweater were found in considerable quantity on the shirt you were wearing that night, consistent with there having been considerable contact between the two of you. You know, as if she had been held very tight.’

  ‘Or thrown herself at me. Can forensics tell the difference?’

  Arkwright didn’t reply, sat staring, wondering if Harry might say more, change his story. Then he moved on.

  ‘I am now showing Mr Jones Exhibit KAA2. Is this your shirt, Mr Jones?’ Another evidence bag was pushed across the table.

  ‘You know it is.’

  ‘You see these marks? They are Miss Keane’s lipstick. There are also clear traces of her saliva and tears. Consistent once again with her being held very firmly by you, against her will.’

  ‘Look, you know they’ll be equally consistent with her pushing herself on me. She’s lying. Set me up. Why can’t you see this?’

  Van Buren’s hand came out to touch Harry’s sleeve and stem the anger that was beginning to bubble to the surface and could so readily betray a client, but Harry was not to be so easily deflected.

  ‘And let me make this simple for you, Sergeant,’ Harry snapped, his voice rising, ‘you’ll also show me some forensics report which will have my saliva on her face, because we kissed. She was most insistent on that. Very persistent and passionate, she was, which is one of the reasons I pushed her away. Maybe there were marks on her shoulders – like that.’ He made a sharp shoving gesture.

  ‘Seems like you were angry with her,’ Finch intervened. ‘About the press guide.’

  ‘And you’ve only got her word for that, too, haven’t you? For pity’s sake, I know you have to take these matters seriously, but lying to the police and perverting the course of justice are also pretty damned serious offences, aren’t they? That’s what you should be investigating here.’

  ‘Why would Miss Keane do such a thing?’ Arkwright pressed.

  In a manner that surprised even him, Harry’s tirade came to an abrupt halt. ‘I – I really don’t know. She’s a fantasist, I suppose, can’t take rejection,’ he muttered, subdued.

  Arkwright had gained a small victory, the accused had been thrown off course. His lips creased into a thin smile. ‘You were in the habit of taking Miss Keane back to your place late at night.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You sure about that?’

  ‘Absolutely positive.’

  ‘Not to drink? To maybe offer her a good time in the bedroom?’

  ‘Never.’

  The smile was hovering once more. ‘That’s strange. How do you explain this, then?’ The policeman produced a document from his file. It was a photograph, of Emily leaving late at night with him waving to her from the doorstep. It was date marked. Harry felt his heart rate rise, and his skin turn clammy.

  ‘That was the first time we
ever met. She turned up on my doorstep.’

  ‘You invited her in. Showed her around.’

  ‘That’s not how it happened.’

  ‘Even into your bedroom.’

  ‘That’s a lie!’ Harry protested through clenched teeth.

  The Sergeant remained determinedly calm. ‘Strange, then, how she’s been able to give us a pretty accurate description of your bedroom, right down to the design of your duvet, which apparently you invited her to sit on.’

  ‘No!’ Harry slapped the table with the palm of his hand. ‘Look, I found her on the doorstep. She invited herself in. Asked to use the toilet. If she sneaked into the bedroom, it was entirely on her own.’ He glared across the table. ‘She’s saying that I came on to her that first time, yet she came back for more?’

  ‘She’s saying you didn’t attack her. Not that first time.’

  ‘Not ever!’

  ‘And yet, Mr Jones, the forensics show without a shadow of a doubt that your hand was very firmly on the lady’s breast. How do you explain that?’

  ‘Take my word for it, she is no lady.’

  ‘But there was bruising on the lady’s breast. It precisely matches the hand pattern on the sweater. Your hand, Mr Jones. I have a doctor’s report here’ – another piece of paper was produced – ‘and photographs of the injury.’