A Delicate Truth (31 page)

‘I’m sorry? Which
house?’

‘
This
fucking house. Where
you’re sitting now, looking at me, where d’you think? Every bloody drawer
and cubbyhole. Even Danny’s toy cupboard. Searched from top to fucking bottom by
people who knew their business. Jeb’s papers from the drawer there. Whatever
he’d left behind. Took out and put back, in the right order except not quite. Our
clothes the same. Harry thinks I’m paranoid. Seeing conspiracies under the bed, I
am. Fuck that, Mr Bell. I’ve turned over more
houses than
Harry’s had bloody breakfasts. It takes one to know one.’

‘When did they do this?’

‘Fucking yesterday. When d’you
think? While we was out cremating Jeb, when else? We’re not talking fucking
amateurs. Don’t you want to know what they were looking for?’

Reaching under the sofa, she drew out a flat
brown envelope, unsealed, and pushed it at him.

Two A4 photographs, matt finish. No borders.
Black and white. Poor resolution. Night shots, much enhanced.

A format to remind Toby of all the fuzzy
images he’d ever seen of suspects covertly photographed from across the street:
except that these two suspects were dead and lying on a rock, and one of them was a
woman in a shredded Arab dress and the other a much-shot child with one leg half off,
and the men standing around them were bulked out in combat gear and holding
semi-automatics.

In the first photograph, an unidentifiable
standing man, also in combat gear, points his gun at the woman as if about to finish her
off.

In the second, a different man, again in
combat gear, kneels on one knee, his weapon beside him, and holds his hands to his
face.

‘From under where the ship’s
stove was, before the buggers stole it,’ Brigid was explaining contemptuously, in
answer to a question Toby hadn’t asked. ‘Jeb had fixed a slab of asbestos
there. The stove was gone. But the asbestos was still there. The police thought
they’d searched the van before they gave it me to clean. But I knew Jeb. They
didn’t. And Jeb knew concealment. Those photos had to be in there somewhere, not
that he ever showed them to me. He wouldn’t. “I’ve got the
proof,” he’d say. “It’s there in black and white except that
nobody wants to believe it.” “Proof of what, for fuck’s sake?”
I’d say. “Photographs
taken at the scene of the
crime.” But ask him what the crime was and all you’d get was a dead
man’s face.’

‘Who was the photographer?’ Toby
asked.

‘Shorty. His mate. The only one he had
left after his mission. The only one as stuck by him after the others had the fear of
God put into them. Don, Andy, Shorty – they was all good buddies until
Wildlife
. Never after. Only Shorty, till him and Jeb had their fight and broke
it off.’

‘What was the fight about?’

‘The same bloody pictures you’re
holding in your hand. Jeb was still home then. Sick but managing, like. Then Shorty came
to have a word with him, and they had this God-awful fight. Six foot four Shorty is. But
Jeb come in from under him, buckled his knees for him, then broke his nose for him on
the way down. Textbook it was, and Jeb half his size. You had to admire it.’

‘What did he want to talk to Jeb
about?’

‘Give him back those pictures, that
was first. Shorty had been all for showing them around the ministries till then. Even
giving them to the press. Then changed his mind.’

‘Why?’

‘They’d bought him. The defence
contractors had. Given him a job for life, provided he keeps his stupid mouth
shut.’

‘Do the defence contractors have a
name?’

‘There’s a fellow Crispin.
Started up this great new company with American money. Red-hot professionals. The shape
of tomorrow, according to Shorty. The army could go fuck itself.’

‘And according to Jeb?’

‘Not professional at all.
Carpetbaggers, he called them, and told Shorty he was another. Shorty wanted him to join
up with them, if you can believe it. They’d tried to sign Jeb as soon as the
mission was over. To shut him up. Now they’d sent Shorty to try again. Brought Jeb
a fucking letter of agreement all typed up for him. All he had to do was sign it, give
back the photos and join
the company and the sky was the limit. I
could have told Shorty to spare himself the journey and a broken nose, but he
wouldn’t have fucking listened. Actually, I hate the bloody man. Thinks he’s
God’s gift to women. Had his hands all over me whenever Jeb wasn’t looking.
Plus he wrote me a smarmy letter of condolence, enough to vomit.’

From the drawer that had held the press
cuttings she produced a handwritten letter and shoved it at him.

Dear Brigid,

I’m real Sorry to hear bad
News regarding Jeb, same as I’m sorry it ended so Bad between us. Jeb was
the Best of the Best, he always will be, never mind old squabbles, he’ll
always be in my Memory as I know he will in yours. Plus Brigid, if you’re
short of Cash in any way, call this mobile number attached and I will remit
without fail. Plus Brigid, I will trouble you kindly to remit forthwith two Pics
on loan which are Personal property of self. SAE attached.

As ever in Grief, Jeb’s
old Comrade, trust me,

Shorty.

Shouts of argument from outside the front
door: Danny having a screaming fit, Harry vainly reasoning. Brigid makes to grab back
the photographs.

‘Can’t I keep them?’

‘Can you fuck!’

‘Can I copy them?’

‘All right. Go on. Copy them,’
she replies, again without a moment’s hesitation.

Beirut Man lays the full-plate photographs
flat on the dining table and, ignoring the advice he gave to Emily only a couple of days
ago, copies the photographs into his BlackBerry. Handing them back, he peers over
Brigid’s shoulder at Shorty’s letter, then copies his cellphone number into
his notebook.

‘What’s Shorty’s other
name?’ he asks, while the din outside rises in a crescendo.

‘Pike.’

He writes down
Pike
too, for
safety’s sake.

‘He called me the day before,’
she says.

‘
Pike
did?’

‘
Danny, shut the fuck up, for
Christ’s sake!
Jeb did, who d’you think? Tuesday, nine
o’clock in the morning. Harry and Danny had just gone off on a school outing. I
pick up the phone, it’s Jeb, like I never heard him these last three years.
“I’ve found my witness, Brigid, the best you could ever think of. Him and me
are going to set the record straight once and for all. Get rid of Harry, and as soon as
I’m done we’ll start over again: you, me and Danny, same as old
times.” That’s how depressed he was a few hours before he shot his fucking
head off, Mr Bell.’

If a decade of diplomatic life had taught
Toby one thing, it was to treat every crisis as normal and soluble. On the taxi ride
back to Cardiff his mind might be a cauldron of unsorted fears for Kit, Suzanna and
Emily; it might be in mourning for Jeb, and wrestling with the timing and method of his
murder, and the complicity of the police in its cover-up, but outwardly he was the same
chatty passenger and Gwyneth was the same chatty driver. Only on reaching Cardiff did he
go about his dispositions exactly as if he’d spent the journey preparing them,
which in truth he had.

Was he under scrutiny? Not yet, but Charlie
Wilkins’s warning words were not lost on him. At Paddington, he had bought his
railway ticket with cash. He had paid Gwyneth cash and asked her to drop him off and
pick him up at the roundabout. He had kept to himself the identity of the person he was
visiting, although
he knew it was a lost cause. More than likely, at
least one of Brigid’s neighbours had a watching brief to tip off the police, in
which case a description of his personal appearance would have been reported, although,
with any luck, police incompetence would ensure that word would take its time to
travel.

Needing more cash than he’d reckoned
on, he had no option but to draw some from a machine, thus advertising his presence in
Cardiff. Some risks you just have to take. From an electronics shop a stone’s
throw from the station he bought a new hard drive for his desktop and two second-hand
cellphones, one black, one silver, with pay-as-you-go SIM cards and guaranteed fully
charged batteries. In the world of downmarket electronics, he had been taught on his
security courses, such cellphones were known as ‘burners’ because of the
tendency of their owners to dispose of them after a few hours.

In a café favoured by Cardiff’s
unemployed he bought a cup of coffee and a piece of slab cake and took them to a corner
table. Satisfied that the background sound suited his purpose, he touched Shorty’s
number into the silver burner and pressed green. This was Matti’s world, not his.
But he had been at the edge of it, and he was not a stranger to dissembling.

The number rang and rang and he was
reconciled to getting the messaging service when an aggressive male voice barked at
him:

‘Pike here. I’m at work. What
d’you want?’

‘Shorty?’

‘All right, Shorty. Who is
this?’

Toby’s own voice, but without its
Foreign Office polish:

‘Shorty, this is Pete from the
South Wales Argus
. Hi. Look, the paper’s putting together a spread on
Jeb Owens, who sadly killed himself last week, as you probably know.
Death of our
unsung hero
stuff. We understand you were quite a mate of his, that right? I
mean, like, best mate? His winger, kind of thing. You must be pretty cut up.’

‘How’d you get this
number?’

‘Ah well, we have our methods,
don’t we? Look, what we’re wondering is – what my editor’s wondering –
can we do an interview, like what a fine soldier Jeb was, Jeb as his best mate knew him,
kind of thing, a full-page splash? Shorty? You still there?’

‘What’s your other
name?’

‘Andrews.’

‘This supposed to be off the record or
on?’

‘Well, we’d
like
it on
the record, naturally. And face to face. We
can
do deep background, but
that’s always a pity. Obviously, if there are issues of confidentiality,
we’d respect them.’

Another protracted silence, with
Shorty’s hand over the mouthpiece of his phone:

‘Thursday any good?’

Thursday?
The conscientious foreign
servant mentally checks his appointments diary. Ten a.m., departmental meeting. Twelve
thirty p.m., inter-services liaison officers’ working lunch at Londonderry
House.

‘Thursday’s fine,’ he
replied defiantly. ‘Where’ve you got in mind? No chance of you coming up to
Wales at all, I suppose?’

‘London. Golden Calf Café, Mill
Hill. Eleven a.m. Do you?’

‘How do I recognize you?’

‘I’m a midget, aren’t I?
Two foot six in my boots. And come alone, no photography. How old are you?’

‘Thirty-one,’ he replied too
quickly, and wished he hadn’t.

On the return train journey to Paddington,
again using the silver burner, Toby sent his first text message to Emily:
need
consultation asap please advise on this number as old number no longer operative,
Bailey
.

Standing in the corridor, he rang her surgery
as a back-up and got the out-of-hours answering service:

‘Message for Dr Probyn, please. Dr
Probyn, this is your patient Bailey asking for an appointment tonight. Please call me
back on this number, as my old number no longer works. Thank you.’

For an hour after that it seemed to him that
he thought of nothing but Emily: which was to say that he thought of everything from
Giles Oakley’s defection and back again, but wherever he went, Emily went too.

Her reply to his text, barren though it was,
lifted his spirits beyond anything he could have imagined:

I’m on shift till midnight. Ask
for urgent-care centre or triage unit.

No signature. Not even an E.

At Paddington it was gone eight when he
alighted but by then he had a new wish list of operational supplies: a roll of packaging
tape, wrapping paper, half a dozen A5 padded envelopes and a box of Kleenex tissues. The
newsagent in the station concourse was closed, but in Praed Street he was able to buy
everything he needed, and add a reinforced carrier bag, a handful of top-up vouchers for
the burners and a plastic model of a London Beefeater to his collection.

The Beefeater himself was surplus to
requirements. What Toby needed was the cardboard box he came in.

His flat in Islington was on the first floor
of a row of joined eighteenth-century houses that were identical save for the colour of
their front doors, the condition of their window frames and the quality of their
curtains. The night was dry and unseasonably warm. Taking the opposing pavement to his
house, Toby first strolled past it, keeping a casual eye out for the classic
telltale signs: the parked car with occupants, the bystanders on
street corners chatting into cellphones, the men in overalls kneeling insincerely at
junction boxes. As usual, his street contained all of these and more.

Crossing to his own side, he let himself
into the house and, having climbed the stairs and unlocked his front door as silently as
he knew how, stood still in the hall. Surprised to find the heating on, he remembered it
was Tuesday, and on Tuesdays Lula, the Portuguese cleaning woman, came from three till
five, so perhaps she had been feeling the cold.

All the same, Brigid’s calm
announcement that her house had been professionally searched from top to bottom was
still with him, and it was only natural that a sense of irregularity lingered in him as
he went from room to room, sniffing the air for alien smells, poking at things, trying
to remember how he’d left them and failing, pulling open cupboards and drawers to
no effect. On his security training courses he had been told that professional searchers
filmed their own progress in order to make sure they put everything back where they
found it, and he imagined them doing that in his flat.