Disorder (Sam Keddie thriller series Book 1) (25 page)

Chapter 74

Downing Street 

In the apartment, Charlotte Stirling was confident that, for now, the real nub of the story wasn’t out. According to the media, an electrical fault at Number 10 had triggered an alarm, prompting an evacuation of the entire staff. The Prime Minister and his wife were not present.

   The story would not end there. Sooner or later, someone would get hold of the fact that her crazy son had been involved in a violent altercation. And than what?

   She walked through to the kitchen. There was a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc on the table. Aidan must have offered Eleanor Scott a drink. What Charlotte wouldn’t have given for a glass of wine now. She sat down at the table and put the tip of the bottle to her nose, inhaling the fumes deeply. It smelt amazing. She could imagine losing herself in a matter of minutes, the Stirlings’ tribulations melting away in a river of booze.

   The smell took her back to a time when alcohol was her constant companion, a far more reliable presence than her absent husband. And it was alcohol and unremitting loneliness, she liked to believe, far more than any degenerative trait, which had caused her to act the way she had.

   She remembered, as if through a fog – those days had been so deeply clouded by the dual intoxication of self-harm and wine – the moment it had started. That holiday in Tuscany near Montalcino, a hill town famed for Brunello, its red wine – the finest, so they were told, in all of Italy. Charlotte had preferred the cheap rosé.

   How the days had dragged. The humid afternoons were the worst. Lunch barely touched, at least two bottles down, she’d take a cooling bath, a place to pursue her destructive passions.

   At the memory of those moments, and all that followed, Charlotte winced, pushing the bottle away.

   She imagined Aidan and Eleanor Scott sharing a glass of wine. She was amazed that her son was capable of such civilised behaviour.

   Looking at the table, she had a sudden realisation, a thought that caused a sickening feeling that spread upwards from the pit of her stomach. Where was the other glass?

Chapter 75

Kensington, London

The embassy, a white stucco building in a street of similarly grand properties, was closed for the night. A flag hung from a balcony above him.

   Sam pressed a buzzer by the door.

   Seconds later, a voice grunted back: ‘Yes?’

   ‘It’s Sam Keddie.’

   There was a pause. Sam wondered whether Maalouf had abandoned the whole idea, not told the embassy staff. He looked over his shoulder, convinced that, at any minute, a last attempt would be made to silence him and retrieve his crucial evidence. But then Sam heard a bolt being pulled, a latch turning, and the door was opened. A short man ushered him in, indicating that he was to wait at the foot of a grand staircase.

   Sam sat. Opposite was another portrait of the Moroccan King – this time a more serious image, of a swarthy, unsmiling bruiser in a suit, who looked down at Sam with displeasure. Ten minutes passed.

   Sam heard a door open some distance away, and stood. A tired-looking man with pale skin and glasses was coming down the corridor, his footfall on the carpet virtually silent.

   They shook hands.

   ‘You have the evidence?’ asked the man.

   Sam nodded. He then gently lifted the glass out of Eleanor’s bag. The man produced a pair of plastic gloves and a small plastic bag from his jacket pocket. He snapped on the gloves then delicately took the glass by its stem between two fingers, lowering it slowly into the bag.

   ‘Just so we’re clear,’ said Sam, ‘the prints on the glass are Aidan Stirling’s.’

   ‘And the other man’s prints?’ asked the embassy official dryly. ‘When can we expect them?’

   ‘We’ve not yet had the chance to collect a set,’ said Sam, which was true, although he wondered whether Eleanor would ever willingly hand them over. ‘Please check these now.’

   A minute later, Sam was back outside in the cooling night, hoping to God that Maalouf was true to his word.

Chapter 76

King’s Cross, London

It was nearly 10pm when Eleanor rang.

   ‘Where are you?’ asked Sam.

   ‘In a cab,’ she said, ‘coming to you.’

   Sam could hear her crying at the other end.

   ‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘You’re safe now.’

   The fragile, emotional person on the other end of the phone was some distance from the nervous but single-minded woman Sam had last seen in the pub. But it wasn’t until she returned to the room, and he’d wrapped her in a tight embrace and she’d let her tension go and sobbed for over ten minutes into his shirt, that he realised just what a state she was in.

   Finally she pulled away, her face crumpled and damp with tears, and sat down on the bed. She beckoned for him to sit by her, and then told him what happened.

   Sam listened, first with a sense of guilt at having let her go in the first place, then rage as her account unravelled.

   Towards the end, having managed to speak without breaking down again, she became emotional as she recounted the tall man’s arrival.

   ‘I was so scared,’ she said, running the back of her hand across her nose. ‘If he hadn’t been fighting with Aidan, God knows...’ She began crying again, her torso rising and falling with great heaves of emotion.

   Sam pulled Eleanor’s head into his shoulder, stroking her hair. Her description of Aidan before the tall man entered the flat suggested a gauche, slightly conceited young man, nothing more. But the tall man’s behaviour – his comment that it was not safe leaving Aidan alone; and the violent restraining – suggested that they’d found their man. And if the glass proved Aidan was culpable, the operation mounted against them had to have been sanctioned by the man with the most to lose if that fact became public knowledge – Stirling himself.

   ‘I handed the wine glass into the embassy,’ Sam said, keen for Eleanor to know that her experience had not been in vain.

   Eleanor acknowledged Sam’s comment with a grateful nod, then lay down on the bed, her eyes drooping.

   Sam knew that, while sleep would come, Eleanor was going to need more than rest to get over this experience. A professional – not him, he was too close, too prejudiced – would be needed to help her through the next few weeks, to process and absorb the trauma so that it didn’t bury itself deep and begin to infect her.

   ‘I want to go home tomorrow,’ Eleanor said. ‘Help get ready for the funeral.’

   Sam lay down next to her. The muffled sound of London traffic – accelerating engines, horns being sounded – leaked through the windows. Elsewhere in the b&b, a couple argued and a man coughed repeatedly. Sam locked on to the sounds, desperate to drown out the thoughts in his head. They’d done everything they could. But was it enough?

Chapter 77

Sussex 

Police outriders ahead, the Daimler swept past a village hall and then a terrace of thatched cottages.

   Dressed in a dark suit, Charlotte next to him in a black dress and knee-length overcoat, Stirling looked out through the tinted windows at the honey-coloured stonework. A little boy whose mother had momentarily stopped to stare at the convoy passing through her village waved at the car as it sped by. Stirling instinctively waved back. Everyone was a voter, even a child who couldn’t see him through the glass. 

    It was a risk coming here today. If Eleanor Scott decided to get lippy, and started throwing about accusations, then he’d have to beat a swift retreat. But having discussed it with Charlotte the night before, they suspected that wouldn’t happen. It was a funeral at which Eleanor was likely to behave. Besides, there would be press there. Despite Stirling’s plea to the media to give the Scott family some privacy, he’d made damn sure his mournful presence would be recorded today. And even if she did decide to fling a bit of muck his way, he was now confident that it would be her who was damaged by it, not him. After all, certain developments over the past two days had given him a distinct advantage.

   The first one was thanks to his son. His decision to have him hospitalised and monitored by his psychiatrist – the only way they could guarantee he was medicated and safely supervised – had, as he’d expected, become news.
The Mirror
was the first to break the story, an anonymous source at the clinic had told the paper that Aidan had been recently admitted as a patient. The details were still a little hazy but the gist was that the Prime Minister’s son was possibly suffering from a personality disorder and receiving treatment.

   Stirling had decided to acknowledge it yesterday at a press conference in Downing Street. To a packed and unusually reverential room full of hacks, he spoke of ‘rumours floating around in the press that, unchecked, had the potential to do a great deal of damage’.

   ‘My son is receiving treatment for a mental health problem,’ he then announced. Stirling noted with a degree of pleasure the attention that was being paid. You could have heard a pin drop. ‘He has been suffering for a while now but his illness has become more difficult recently. Obviously, as concerned parents, we have sought the best treatment possible and we hope dearly that our son will soon be home.’

   He paused then, dipping his head as if collecting himself. His tie was particularly off-centre today, the hair noticeably untamed. He had in fact been about to head down to the conference looking better presented, but Charlotte had halted him at the door of the flat, loosening his tie and slightly ruffling his hair. ‘That’s better,’ she’d said. ‘You look more vulnerable now.’

   He then spoke of how, like many families in Britain, he and Charlotte had been forced to face mental illness head on, and acknowledge the pain and suffering it could cause. ‘Aidan’s experience has opened our eyes,’ he said, ‘to how commonplace mental illness is, and how stigmatised those who suffer it can still be.’

   The reception, judging by the coverage it received the following day, was favourable. According to the
Guardian
, Stirling had proved, yet again, that ‘he was very human, a man who knows only too well what it’s like to face some of life’s toughest challenges.’ The
Daily Telegraph
claimed that ‘the Prime Minister had maintained exceptional dignity in the face of extraordinary personal difficulties.’

   In the midst of such favourable press, it surely made sense, Charlotte had argued, to be seen mourning a dear old friend, to build on the image of a very human leader.

   The second development, rather more surprisingly, had directly resulted from the episode in Downing Street. He could feel himself salivating at the prospect of his forthcoming announcement. Christ, he was an operator. Who else was capable of turning a near disaster into an unmitigated triumph?

   The car slowed, dropping down a narrow lane, the steeple of a church visible over the top of a line of trees. Despite his confidence, Stirling started to worry about the risk they were taking. It reminded him of a loose end that was still of concern – Frears.

   Since his release, the Guardsman had gone to ground. Was he disappearing for good, or biding his time?

   Given recent developments – not least Aidan’s hospitalisation and the mess in the apartment – it made sense to distance himself from Frears, to conclude the business arrangement. This was not something they had discussed. He had tried to contact the soldier, but his calls and messages had gone unanswered. The PM felt a slight knot in his stomach at the prospect of Frears and what he was up to. Silly to worry, he thought, given how his announcement would turn the tables in his favour.

   The car had dipped into woodland, the lane overshadowed by the boughs of centuries-old oaks. Trees that had seen mere mortals like him come and go. Yet Stirling was confident that, when his departure came, he’d be remembered as a good, maybe even great, Prime Minister.

Chapter 78

Sussex 

The day Thou gavest, Lord, is ended,
The darkness falls at Thy behest;
To Thee our morning hymns ascended,
Thy praise shall sanctify our rest.

The hymn echoed through the church as the large congregation joined in song. It was a rousing sound that seemed at odds with the subdued feel of the building, an interior of cold, grey stone weakly illuminated by a pale light coming through the stained-glass windows from the leaden skies outside. It was a mild autumnal day – the unseasonal warmth only adding to the discomfort Sam already felt in the suit Eleanor had lent him from her father’s wardrobe.

   The hymn’s words seemed a mockery to Sam, seated with Eleanor and Wendy Scott in the front pew. They suggested closure, catharsis, relief; some of the things you might ordinarily associate with a funeral. But today, if what had happened so far was any predictor, there was only tension to come.

   Eleanor was steaming mad, so angry she could barely take in the coffin before her at the head of the church.

   The night before she had discovered that Susan, her mother’s sister, had invited the PM and Charlotte Stirling. It wasn’t her aunt’s fault; she was merely attempting to translate Eleanor’s mother’s limited communiqués into a meaningful plan for the day. There had been hymns to choose, catering to organise and, of course, a guest list to finalise.

   Sam had drawn Eleanor aside and cautioned her against letting rip on her aunt. ‘You have to remember,’ he’d said, ‘Stirling’s presence is about a lot more than an unwanted guest. You don’t want to start bad-mouthing him. And it’s not something your aunt needs to know.’

   Eleanor, who at that moment was angry enough to tell anyone who would listen about Stirling, his son and the murderous henchmen that protected him, stormed out of the house.

   Sam found her a little later sitting on a bench in the garden, a smouldering cigarette between her fingers.

   ‘I didn’t know you smoked,’ he said.

   ‘I don’t,’ she said. ‘These fags are the gardener’s.’

   ‘We can’t afford to speak out about this,’ said Sam. ‘Not until we have irrefutable proof. And we must leave that to the Moroccans.’

    Eleanor took another drag on the cigarette. Tears of frustration had started to well in her eyes. Sam could tell she didn’t want comforting. He took the cigarette from her lips and drew on it.

   ‘I know this is agony for you,’ he said, exhaling, ‘But we just have to wait.’

*

Eleanor’s anger, while contained, was still evident the next day. She deliberately got her mother to the church early so she wouldn’t have the ordeal of dealing with Stirling’s arrival. That said, both she and Sam sensed the PM’s entry. There was a murmur of voices, a wave of energy passing through the church.

  Sam turned. There, in the midst of an extraordinary congregation – which he knew from the guest list contained diplomats, high commissioners, charity workers, journalists and numerous politicians – were Philip and Charlotte Stirling, moving down the aisle.

   Sam was glad Eleanor kept her eyes fixed ahead. She would not have been able to stomach the scene. Stirling was literally working the room, shaking hands and managing a smile – thankfully a muted one – for all his well-wishers.

   After the service Sam watched from a distance as Eleanor, with Susan and a handful of Charles’ relatives walking behind, pushed her mother to the graveside for the committal, a family-only affair. The last stretch of the short journey took them from a concrete path across the grass of the churchyard, bumpy terrain that made the wheelchair’s progress slow and awkward. Sam wanted desperately to go and help Eleanor but he could see from her pained expression that it would not be a good idea. This was her private hell and she would endure it on her own.

   A message had got to both of them that Stirling would not be attending the wake and he had sent his apologies. But any sense of relief on Sam’s part was soon shattered when, after the committal, he joined the family as they made their way out of the churchyard to the lane and their waiting cars. There, standing by the gate that led into the road – which meant they had to speak to the PM – were the Stirlings. Beyond was a semicircle of five policemen in suits, recognisable by their stance – hands clasped in front of them – and their constant scanning of the area immediately around. A pack of journalists – mercifully fewer than Sam had anticipated – were standing behind. Sam could see a handful of cameras, now raised and snapping away, and one cameraman. A ministerial Daimler sat purring to the side of the gate, waiting to whisk Stirling and his wife back to London. Further up the lane, other guests were now departing for the wake at the Scott farmhouse, car doors slamming and engines accelerating the only sounds in the still air.

   Wendy, now pushed by her sister, was the first to get the Stirling treatment. He knelt before her and took both her hands in his.

   ‘I’m so sorry, Wendy,’ he said. ‘He was such a loyal friend to me.’

   Eleanor bit her lip and turned away. He feared that, at any moment, she would scream or lash out.

   Other relatives filtered past, getting a sympathetic nod from Stirling, until it was just Eleanor and Sam. At this point, Eleanor simply barged past the Prime Minister and Charlotte Stirling.

   Sam was about to follow when Stirling offered him his hand.

   ‘Philip Stirling,’ he said, a solicitous smile on his face. ‘You must be a relative of Charles’.’

   Sam took the proffered hand and looked the PM in the eye. ‘Sam Keddie.’

   Stirling’s grip tightened. ‘We meet at last.’

   Charlotte Stirling cupped her husband’s elbow. Sam noticed her sleeve ride up a couple of inches to reveal a raised scar of criss-crossed lines on the pale skin of her arm.

   ‘We should go, darling,’ she said, her voice strained. A smile fixed on her face, she shot Sam a poisonous look, pupils black with hatred.

   Just up the lane, Wendy Scott’s wheelchair was rising on a platform by the open back door of a people carrier. Eleanor was by her side but looking in Stirling’s direction, her eyes blazing.

   ‘You do know why Charles Scott committed suicide, don’t you?’ said Sam.

   Stirling’s eyes locked on to Sam’s. ‘I’m sorry?’

   ‘What happened in Morocco haunted him. He felt hugely responsible.’

   Stirling leaned towards Sam. When he next spoke, Sam could feel the PM’s breath hot against his ear. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

   Stirling then pulled away, the smile returning in a pastiche of warmth.

   ‘Dear Charles,’ he said. ‘Like all of us, full of flaws.’

   The PM and his wife moved off. The Daimler’s doors were opened, Stirling and Charlotte climbed inside and, seconds later, the car glided away, its exhaust hanging in the motionless air.