A Delicate Truth (36 page)

‘But in
fact
’ – Lionel
looking at his gingery-haired fingers now, rather than at Kit – ‘when you really
get down to it, we
are
talking two pints of beer, aren’t we? And Jeb, as
you say, is no sort of drinker – or wasn’t, poor chap – so presumably you mopped
up the rest. True?’

‘Probably.’

Frances was once more talking to her
notes.

‘So, effectively, two pints of beer on
top of the very considerable quantity of alcohol you’d already drunk during and
after dinner, not to mention two double eighteen-year-old Macallan whiskies consumed
with Crispin at the Connaught before you ever reached your club. Calculated together,
let us say eighteen to twenty units. One might also draw conclusions from the fact that,
when you suborned the night porter, you specified one beer glass only. In effect,
therefore, you were ordering for yourself. Alone.’

‘Have you been sniffing around my
club
? That’s bloody disgraceful! Of
course
it was only one
beer glass! D’you think I wanted to tell the night porter I’d got a
man
in my room? Who did you talk to anyway? The secretary? Christ
Almighty!’

He was appealing to Lionel, but Lionel was
back to patting his hair, and Frances had more to say:

‘We are also reliably informed that it
would be impossible for any individual, master of stealth though he may be, to
infiltrate himself into your club’s premises,
either
through the service
entrance at the rear,
or
through the front door, which is
kept under surveillance at all times,
both
by the porter
and
by CCTV.
Added to which, all club personnel are police vetted and security-aware.’

Kit was fumbling, choking, fighting for
lucidity, for moderation, for sweet reason:

‘Look here, both of you. Don’t
grill
me
. Grill Crispin. Grill Elliot. Go back to the Americans. Find that fake
doctor woman who told me Jeb had gone mad when he was already dead.’ Stumble.
Breathe. Swallow. ‘And find Quinn, wherever he is. Get him to tell you what really
happened down there on the rocks behind the houses.’

He thought he’d finished, but
discovered he hadn’t:

‘And hold yourselves a proper public
inquiry. Trace that poor bloody woman and her child and get some compensation for her
relatives! And when you’ve done that, find out who killed Jeb the day before he
was going to sign up to my document and put in his own word.’ And somewhat
erratically: ‘And don’t for God’s sake believe anything that charlatan
Crispin tells you. Man’s a liar to his boots.’

Lionel had finished patting his hair:

‘Yes, well, Kit, I don’t want to
make a big matter of this but, if push ever came to shove, you’d be in a pretty
unhealthy position, frankly. A
public
inquiry of the sort you’re
hankering after – which could result from, well, from your document – is light years
away from the sort of hearing that Frances and I envisage. Anything deemed in the
smallest
way to go against national security – secret operations successful
or otherwise, extraordinary rendition whether merely planned or actually achieved,
robust interrogation methods, ours or more particularly the Americans’ – goes
straight into the Official Secrets box, I’m afraid, and the witnesses with
it’ – raising his eyes respectfully to Frances, which is the cue for her to square
her shoulders
and place her hands flat on the open folder before her
as if she is about to levitate.

‘It is my duty to advise you, Sir
Christopher,’ she announces, ‘that you are in a most serious position. Yes,
acknowledged, you took part in a certain very secret operation. Its authors are
scattered. The documentation, other than your own, is patchy. In the few files that
are
available to this Office, no names of participants are mentioned – save
one. Yours. Which does rather mean that in any
criminal
investigation that
resulted from this document,
your
name would predominate as senior British
representative on the ground, and you would have to answer accordingly. Lionel?’ –
turning hospitably to him.

‘Yes, well, that’s the bad news,
Kit, I’m afraid. And the good news is, frankly, pretty hard to come by. We have a
new set of rules since your day for cases where sensitive issues are involved. Some
already in place; others, we trust, imminent. And, very unfortunately,
Wildlife
does tick a lot of those boxes. Which would mean, I’m afraid, that any inquiry
would have to take place behind closed doors. Should it find against you – and should
you elect to bring a suit – which would naturally be your good right – then the
resultant hearing would be conducted by a hand-picked and very carefully briefed group
of approved lawyers, some of whom would obviously do their best to speak
for
you and others
not
so for you. And
you
– the
claimant
, as he
or she is rather whimsically called – would I’m afraid be banished from the court
while the government presented its case to the judge without the inconvenience of a
direct challenge by you or your representatives. And under the rules currently being
discussed, the very
fact
that a hearing is being conducted might of itself be
kept secret. As of course, in that case, would the judgement.’

After a rueful smile to harbinger a further
spot of bad news, and a pat for his hair, he resumed:

‘And then, as Frances so
rightly
says, if there
were
ever a
criminal case
against you, any prosecution would take place in
total
secrecy until a sentence
was handed down. Which is to say, I’m afraid, Kit’ – allowing himself
another sympathetic smile, though whether for the law or its victim was unclear –
‘
draconian
though it may sound, Suzanna wouldn’t
necessarily
know you were on trial, assuming for the moment that you
were
. Or at least not until you’d been found guilty – assuming, once
more, that you had been. There
would
be a jury of sorts – but of course its
members would have to be very heavily vetted by the security services prior to
selection, which obviously does
rather
stack the odds against one. And
you
, for
your
part,
would
be allowed to see the evidence
against you – at least, let us say, in broad brush – but I’m afraid
not
share it with your nearest and dearest. Oh and whistle-blowing
per se
would
absolutely not be a defence, whistle-blowing being – and may it forever remain so in my
personal view – by definition a risk business. I’m deliberately
not
pulling my punches here, Kit. I think Frances and I both feel we owe you that.
Don’t we, Frances?’

‘He’s dead,’ Kit whispered
incoherently. And then again, fearing he might not have spoken aloud: ‘Jeb’s
dead
.’

‘Most unhappily, yes, he is,’
Frances agreed, for the first time accepting a point of Kit’s argument.
‘Though not perhaps in the circumstances you seek to imply. A sick soldier killed
himself with his own weapon. Regrettably, that is a practice that is on the increase.
The police have no grounds for suspicion, and who are we to dispute their judgement?
Meanwhile, your document will be kept on record in the hope that it will never have to
be used against you. I trust you share that hope.’

Reaching the foot of the great staircase, Kit
appears to forget which way to turn, but fortunately Lancaster is on hand to guide him
to the front gates.

‘What did you say your name was, my dear
fellow?’ Kit asks him as they shake hands.

‘Lancaster, sir.’

‘You’ve been very kind,’
says Kit.

The news that Kit Probyn had been positively
sighted in the smoking room of his club in Pall Mall – transmitted yet again by text
over Emily’s black burner, thanks to a tip-off from her mother – had reached Toby
just as he was settling down at the long table in the third-floor conference room to
discuss the desirability of engaging in talks with a Libyan rebel group. What excuses he
had pleaded for leaping from his seat and stalking out of the room now escaped him. He
remembered pulling the silver burner from his pocket in full view of everyone – he had
no alternative – and reading the text and saying, ‘Oh my God, I’m terribly
sorry,’ then probably something about somebody dying, given that the news of
Jeb’s death still occupied his mind.

He remembered pelting down the stairs past a
Chinese delegation coming up, then running and walking the thousand-odd yards from the
Office to Pall Mall, all the while talking feverishly to Emily, who had summarily
abandoned her evening surgery and got herself on to a tube headed for St James’s
Park. The club secretary, she had reported before she descended, had at least honoured
his promise to inform Suzanna the moment Kit appeared, if not with the good grace that
might have been expected of him:

‘Mum said he made Dad sound like some
sort of criminal on the loose. Apparently the police went round there this afternoon,
asking a lot of questions about him. Said it was to do with something called
enhanced vetting
. How much he drank and whether he’d had a man in his
room when he stayed in the club recently, if you can believe it. And had he bribed the
night
porter to serve them food and drink – what on earth was
that
about?’

Panting from his exertions and clutching the
silver burner to his ear, Toby took up his agreed position next to the flight of eight
stone steps that led up to the imposing portals of Kit’s club. And suddenly Emily
was flying towards him – Emily as he’d never seen her – Emily the runner, the
freed wild child, her raincoat billowing, dark hair streaming behind her against a
slate-grey sky.

They climbed the steps, Toby leading. The
lobby was dark and smelt of cabbage. The Secretary was tall and desiccated.

‘Your father has removed himself to
the Long Library,’ he informed Emily in a dispirited nasal twang. ‘Ladies
can’t go in, I’m afraid. You’re allowed downstairs, but only after
6.30.’ And to Toby, having looked him over: tie, jacket, matching trousers.
‘You’re all right to go in as long as you’re his guest. Will he vouch
for you as his guest?’

Ignoring the question, Toby turned to
Emily:

‘No need for you to hang around in
here. Why don’t you hail a cab and sit in it till we come?’

At low-lit tables, amid cages of ancient
books, greying men drank and murmured head to head. Beyond them, in an alcove given over
to marble busts, sat Kit, alone, bowed over a glass of whisky, his shoulders shaking to
the uneasy rhythm of his breathing.

‘It’s Bell,’ Toby said
into his ear.

‘Didn’t know you were a
member,’ Kit replied, without lifting his head.

‘I’m not. I’m your guest.
So I’d like you to buy me a drink. Vodka, if that’s all right. A large
one,’ he told a waiter. ‘On Sir Christopher’s tab, please. Tonic, ice,
lemon.’ He sat down. ‘Who’ve you been talking to at the
Office?’

‘None of your business.’

‘Well, I’m not sure about that.
You made your démarche. Is that right?’

Kit, head down. Long pull of Scotch:

‘Some bloody démarche,’ he
muttered.

‘You showed them your document. The
one you’d drafted while you were waiting for Jeb.’

With improbable alacrity, the waiter set
Toby’s vodka on the table, together with Kit’s bill and a ballpoint pen.

‘In a minute,’ Toby told him
sharply, and waited till he’d left. ‘Just please tell me this. Did your
document –
does
your document – make any mention of
me
? Maybe you
found it necessary to refer to a certain illegal tape recording? Or Quinn’s
erstwhile Private Secretary. Did you, Kit?’

Kit’s head still down, but rolling
from side to side.

‘So you didn’t refer to me at
all? Is that right? Or are you just refusing to answer? No Toby Bell?
Anywhere?
Not in writing, not in your conversations with them?’

‘
Conversations!
’ Kit
retorted with a rasping laugh.

‘Did you or didn’t you mention
my involvement in this? Yes or no?’

‘No! I didn’t! What d’you
think I am? A snitch, as well as a bloody fool?’

‘I saw Jeb’s widow yesterday. In
Wales. I had a long talk with her. She gave me some promising leads.’

Kit’s head rose at last, and Toby to
his embarrassment saw tears lying in the rims of his reddened eyes.

‘You saw
Brigid
?’

‘Yes. That’s right. I saw
Brigid.’

‘What’s she like, poor girl?
Christ Almighty.’

‘As brave as her husband. The
boy’s great too. She put me on to Shorty. I’ve arranged to meet him. Tell me
again. You really didn’t mention me? If you did, I’ll understand. I just
need to know for sure.’

‘
No
, repeat
no
. Holy
God, how many times do I have to say it?’

Kit signed the bill and, refusing
Toby’s proffered arm, clambered uncertainly to his feet.

‘Hell are you doing with my daughter
anyway?’ he demanded, as they came unexpectedly face to face.

‘We’re getting along
fine.’

‘Well, don’t do what that shit
Bernard did.’

‘She’s waiting for us
now.’

‘Where?’

Keeping a hand at the ready, Toby escorted
Kit on the journey across the Long Library into the lobby, past the Secretary and down
the steps to where Emily was waiting with the cab: not inside it, as instructed, but
standing in the rain, stoically holding the door open for her father.

‘We’re going straight off to
Paddington,’ she said, when she had settled Kit firmly into the cab. ‘Kit
needs some solids before the night sleeper. What about you?’