Ten Days (39 page)

In the moment, she went into the room. It was small and narrow, with half walls painted white and glass above waist height. There was a bench in the middle of the room on which there was what must be a body. It was covered by a white sheet. No other furniture save an upright chair.

There was a man there. Pale and tall, wearing a sparkling doctor's coat and – and for some reason this detail stuck with Cathy – his mousy-brown hair had been gelled to stick up in spiky tufts.

‘Take your time.' He was waiting by the body.

She felt Lyndall's hand slipping into hers and remembered those many other times when, about to cross the road, her young daughter had done the same thing. Remembered thinking – how could Banji have foregone the pleasure of knowing his child and feeling so much trust?

‘Are you sure you want to do this?'

Lyndall, her eyes full of fear, nodded.

‘Come on, then.' Hand in hand they made their way over to the bench.

‘When you're ready, I'm going to pull back the sheet,' the man said. ‘So that you can see his face. Let me know when you're ready.'

She felt the tightening of Lyndall's grip. She squeezed her hand. Said, ‘We're ready.'

The sheet was withdrawn and there he was. Not the man she had known. A wax resemblance: a honey skin greyed, two brown eyes closed and bulging, a fleshy mouth that no longer had any colour and that was turned down to a forbidding line.

She said, ‘Yes. It's him.' Lyndall's fingers digging into her palm. ‘It's Banji.'

‘Thank you.' The man made ready to pull the sheet back up.

‘Don't.' This from Lyndall.

He dropped the corner of the sheet and stepped away. ‘Take your time.' He went to stand in the corner of the room.

‘We want to be with Banji,' Lyndall said.

‘Stay as long as you want.'

‘Alone.'

Cathy could feel how Lyndall was trembling.

Lyndall inclined her head in the man's direction. ‘Tell him he has to go.'

He said, ‘I'm sorry. I'm not allowed to.'

Was there a secret microphone in the room so that people could eavesdrop? There must have been because when Commissioner Yares opened the door, all he said, and to the man was, ‘Leave them.'

‘But, Commissioner.'

‘I take responsibility. You can have that in writing.'

‘If you say so.' The man slipped past the Commissioner and out of the room.

‘Thank you.'

The Commissioner nodded. ‘Just one condition. Because there will have to be a post-mortem examination, you must not touch him. Do you understand?'

When Cathy nodded, he left the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

She stood, motionless, Lyndall's hand was still in hers.

She looked down at the man she once thought she had known. He was lying there. So still. So unlike himself, if, that is, she had ever really known who he was.

It's a second death for me, she thought. The first was many years ago when she'd had no choice but to cut him from her heart.

All those years that had passed before he had reappeared and never once had it occurred to her how much Lyndall looked like him. And now, seeing her live daughter and her dead love, it was as if she could hardly tell them apart.

She said, ‘I love you.' Whispered it so that neither would hear.

Lyndall's hand was limp in hers. She let it drop.

Lyndall moved forward then. Just a step until she was close to him. She raised the hand that Cathy had been holding.

Cathy readied herself to spring forward.

Lyndall kissed two fingers and then she lowered them until they came to rest just above Banji's forehead. ‘Hello, my daddy,' she said.

11.30 p.m.

They were side by side on the sofa as they had been for hours. In silence. Until at last Lyndall's voice sounded out: ‘Was it my fault?'

‘No, darling. It wasn't.'

‘But I knew he was there. I could tell he wasn't okay. I should have told you.'

‘He asked you not to.'

‘I shouldn't have listened to him. If we'd got to him earlier, if you'd been able to stop him . . .'

‘Listen to me.' She stretched out an arm and pulled Lyndall to her. ‘It is not your fault.'

She felt how Lyndall was trembling.

‘But if I had . . .'

‘Sshhh.' She gripped her tighter and began to rock her. And that's the way they stayed for a long time, Cathy rocking Lyndall, who shed the tears that she could not.

One day she would. She knew that. Knew how much she had loved him.

But for now she needed to face the truth. And share it with her daughter.

‘That first time he left,' she said, ‘had nothing to do with you.'

‘It was because you were pregnant.'

‘I was pregnant, but that isn't why he left. He told me why. Said he didn't love me. That he never really had.'

‘But he came back.'

‘Yes, he did, and it's taken me all this time to understand. I realise now it wasn't to do with me. It was to do with you. He came back because he wanted to know you.'

Saturday

One Year Later

Peter

‘With only ten days to go before the election,'
the reporter was saying, ‘it
would take something as serious as last year's riots to stop the onward march of the government. And even if rioting was to break out again, the Prime Minister has proved himself a strong leader in times of crisis.'

‘Not bad for a liar,' Peter told the air.

‘Perhaps this is why he is currently polling as well as both Margaret Thatcher or Tony Blair did at the peak of their respective careers.'

‘Not news,' Peter said. And it wasn't.

The Prime Minister's public humiliation of his son (who got a driving ban – big deal – and a slap on the wrist for a bit of pot) had made him the nation's favourite and put an end to any further leadership challenge. The end of the drought, and the spike in tourist revenue, had added to the feel-good factor. So now, despite his previous and oftrepeated insistences that he was planning to step down after the election, the Prime Minister had made it clear that since the country and the Party wanted him, he would serve another term.

‘He seems to have become that rare thing – a politician who, having apparently moved past his sell-by-date, has a late resurgence.'

‘Enough.'

Beyond enough. He clicked the radio off.

He was in shirtsleeves, alone at the kitchen table, while Patricia dozed upstairs. He could go on being in his shirtsleeves, he turned his wrist to look at the time, for at least another hour before he had to leave. He poured himself a third cup of coffee.

One year on from his fall and he had grown accustomed to this slower pace of life, which was bound to slow down even more after he gave up his seat. It suited him. Granted there were still times, mostly in the dead of night, when he would wake in a panic about how he was meant to survive this smaller life, but the sight of Patricia beside him was enough to drive such doubts away. He also had consultancies and seats on boards aplenty, which brought the added advantage of a bank balance that, despite the punitive maintenance payments, was much healthier than it had ever been.

And, of course, there was the baby to look forward to.

How wonderful to be able to spend time with this one when he came. Not like when Charles was born, when he'd been distracted by the urgent need to build a political career.

Which reminded him: Patricia had suggested he send the picture of the latest scan to Charles as a way of coaxing him round, if not to Patricia then at least to the brother who'd be with them in a couple of months.

May as well do it now.

He went to the bottom of the stairs and called, ‘Where did you store that scan, darling?'

No reply. She must have dropped back to sleep.

Her laptop was on the kitchen table. He'd find the photo on his own and forward it on to Charles as a surprise to her.

He switched the laptop on. When it asked for her password, he typed in the four digits of his birthday – sweet that she had chosen these.

Easy enough after that to locate her store of photographs, although the sheer quantity of folders was daunting.

As efficient as ever, she had named each folder, although, he soon discovered, not in a way that was open to easy interpretation. When he tried the obvious one – ‘Baby' – it opened to a series of photos of Patricia with her three best friends, all of them looking much the worse for wear from drink. And her folder called ‘Recent' was a series of selfies she had taken in the bath. Touching to see how she was smiling, and how she had focused the camera on her growing bump. Impressive also that she had not dropped her phone in the water while taking them.

He cast his eye down the list again. There was one labelled ‘BS'. Could stand for Bullshit or, equally, Baby Scan. Yes, he had a good feeling about this one. He clicked on the folder.

And nearly fell off his chair.

* * *

He couldn't stop himself from roughly shaking her.

She opened her eyes in fright. ‘What's wrong?'

‘What does “BS” stand for?'

‘I'm sorry?' She blinked. ‘What did you say?'

‘You heard me.' He shook her again. ‘You have a folder called “BS": what does it stand for?'

She swallowed.

‘Answer me.'

She pushed herself up. Covered her stomach with both hands as if she was in danger of being hit.

Which he would never do. Although he felt like it. ‘I'm waiting,' he said. ‘What does it stand for?'

She looked at him. Said, ‘Bill's Surveillance,' the first word tripping up against the second.

‘Who's Bill?'

‘A friend.' Then she shook her head. ‘No. More like an acquaintance.' Another shake. ‘Doesn't matter who he is.'

‘He was following us?'

‘Yes.'

‘He took those photos?'

‘Yes.'

‘The ones of us in bed as well?'

‘Yes.'

‘And then he sent them to Frances?'

‘Yes.'

‘On your say so?'

‘Yes.'

‘Why?'

Silence.

‘I want to know why you wrecked my marriage.'

‘I didn't wreck your marriage,' she said. ‘You didn't love her. You loved me. You kept on saying so. But you were never going to leave her.'

‘I was,' he said. ‘I told you that I was.'

‘But you weren't. You didn't have the guts.'

‘How dare you?'

‘I knew it for sure when you prostituted me with that policeman – and all so she could find the ammunition to get her to Number 10. Wasn't your style to ask me to fuck another man, so I knew she was the one who had suggested it.'

‘You ruined my political career.'

‘You wouldn't have been happy. Not with her.'

He looked away.

‘You were so under her thumb you couldn't have left her. Not unless she chucked you out.'

He said it again: ‘You ruined me.'

‘It wasn't me. You keep harping on about how the Prime Minister was to blame for making your private diaries public. Maybe he was. But how do you think he would have got hold of the diaries? She must have given them to him.'

‘You make me sick.'

She looked at him. ‘Do I?' She held his gaze so tightly that eventually he looked away.

Joshua

The last time he'd come here, she'd objected to his car outside her house. So this time he had his driver stop a block away. Then, dressed in civvies (she'd also told him to keep his uniform out of it), he walked around the corner, pushed open a gate that was half hanging off its hinges, passed along a path that badly needed weeding, and to her door where, because he knew that the bell didn't work, he knocked.

She opened the door and said, ‘Oh, it's you, is it?' as if, despite his calling to tell her that he was on his way, she hadn't known he was due. She looked him up and down. ‘Thought you'd be sporting the badge.'

‘What badge?'

‘Of your elevation. I saw they made you a proper Sir.'

‘We only get to wear that on formal occasions.'

‘Pity,' she said. ‘Your kind like to show off all the time.'

He said, ‘You asked me to come here, and here I am. You better tell me what it is you want.' And then, as she continued to block the entrance, he added, ‘Do you really want to talk on the doorstep where everybody will see us?'

She stepped aside. ‘The lounge,' she said.

It not being his first visit, he knew which way to go. He went down the corridor past the line-up of photographs of Julius. He walked through a doorway and into a small room that was under-furnished but newly dominated by a huge wall-hung television screen.

‘Yes,' she said, following his gaze. ‘I did buy it with your money. That's what you're thinking, isn't it?'

‘It's not my money,' he said. ‘Now tell me, why am I here?'

‘That's good,' she smiled. ‘I like that you don't pretend.'

‘What do you want?'

‘I want our deal made formal. I want it written down.'

‘Don't you trust me?'

‘No reason why I should. But why I want a proper document is because you lot never do last long. Take the other one – your deputy – that you did the dirty on.'

‘What makes you think I did the dirty?'

‘My husband was a copper. Other coppers tell me things. Especially now he's dead.'

‘Coppers have been known to exaggerate.'

‘Don't get me wrong: whatever you did to him, I couldn't give a shit. Why I'm bringing him up now is that he was riding high – talk was that he was after your job and nearly got it – and where is he now? Working security in Asda would be my guess. If it happened to him, it could also happen to you. Okay, you're white, so you won't fall so far – but if it happens, I'd be the loser. I want what's due to me – Julius's pension – no matter whether it's you or some other idiot in charge.'