The Ambassador (20 page)

Captain Wilt Finkelstein’s expression was bitter. He chewed his lip ferociously. The old uniform was stretched to bursting across his now ample middle and the belt was on its last notch; his wife had had to sew the brass buttons more securely on to his tunic. He strode into the pub ahead of a small contingent of sombre figures, ignored the fat man seated precariously on a stool and slammed a hand down on the counter.

‘Four litres – not halves – and be quick about it,’ he demanded.

The fat man shifted on the uncomfortable stool. ‘You look like you had a hard morning, Officer,’ he ventured.

‘Too bloody right,’ Finkelstein grunted. ‘Been to a funeral. One of my old partners. Shot dead.’

‘I’m sorry about that,’ the fat man said sincerely. ‘Nobody realises what you guys have to put up with.’ He pushed the four full glasses towards the police officer and placed a large paw on his fist. ‘No. I’m getting these. Mark of gratitude.’

‘Thanks, pal,’ Finkelstein muttered. He gave his name. ‘What do I call you?’

‘Fred Hoyle. Fred to you.’ The two men shook hands.

Finkelstein settled himself on the next stool and took a long draw on the beer. ‘You’re spot on,’ he growled. ‘Nobody appreciates. That guy was not yet forty. Promoted to an elite corps in February. Got a family – two kiddies. Then there’s a shoot-out three nights ago and – pow! Blown to smithereens.’

Fred made suitable noises and took a swallow of his own drink.

‘I’d string ’em up, that’s what I’d do,’ Finkelstein continued. ‘We haven’t had capital punishment anywhere in the Union for a hundred years, but that’s a big mistake. The bastards think they can take pot-shots at police officers and get away with it. And they can. All the bugger will get is a few years in clink. That’s if we catch ’im. And what’s my mate got? Nothing. Cut off in his prime. Them poor kids.’

‘What happened?’ Fred had sensed that the officer needed to talk.

‘Terrorists, that’s what.’ Finkelstein dropped his voice. ‘Not supposed to know that, are we? It’s listed as a street-crime shoot-out, but it was political. A group got into the Channel 5 TV annex and tried to start broadcasting. But Mr Maxwell Packer, the owner, wasn’t having any. He called his buddy, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. Some of the group were armed. And my mate got blown away.’

‘That’s odd,’ Fred mused. ‘Didn’t see nothing about it in the papers.’

‘No, well, you wouldn’t. Nobody likes to admit there are problems. All’s well, all the time. Except it ain’t.’ 

A frown had appeared on Fred’s podgy face, threatening to distort his genial demeanour. ‘I don’t know of no problems,’ he said cagily. ‘Seems to me that if some lunatics invade a TV station the owner is within his rights to have them thrown out.’

‘Yeah. Only it wasn’t as simple as that.’ Finkelstein buried his face in his beer mug then wiped the foam from his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘What gets me is they keep us in the dark. I never made detective, so I can’t suss it out. But that bunch were armed, and the police unit sent after them was ready for trouble – the latest high-powered lasers, the lot. Yet nobody’s been arrested or charged. An’ nothing in the press, nothing at all, like you said. It’s as if it didn’t happen.’

He leaned forward and poked Fred viciously in the chest, his finger disappearing repeatedly into the folds of flesh. ‘’Cept it did, and my mate’s dead. An’ something’s going on, and more men will get killed. And for what? That’s what I’d like to know. For what?’

He lapsed into silence. The two men drank in mutual sympathy till the glasses were drained. In the far corner the other police officers were seated, talking glumly to each other. Finkelstein put his glass down on the bar. ‘Another? My shout.’

‘Yeah, why not? It’s Friday, short shift, only three hours. If I go home the missus complains I get under her feet.’

‘When I think of it,’ Finkelstein continued over his refilled glass, his voice more mellow, ‘my life these days, on civvy street, is a big improvement over police work, any day. I used to do thirty or forty hours a week, half the night, running from one bun-fight to another. We thought nothing of it. Mind you, I was younger then.’

‘You not in the force now?’ Fred eyed the uniform and noticed the worn cuffs and shiny elbows: the marks of hours spent seated at a desk. His manner became slightly less respectful.

‘Nah. Got invalided out. Still got a bit of bullet inside me. I work for RSS – Rottweiler Security Services.’

Fred nodded. The company was well known.

‘Big operation,’ Finkelstein began to boast. He talked animatedly for several minutes about his job, much of it in the language of the recruitment brochure which he had just helped to write. Then he glanced about and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper.

‘You buy shares ever?’

Fred shrugged. ‘Yeah, got a few. Virgin, Yamaichi. I tried for the BBC issue but was too late. Any tips?’

The former police officer leaned close. ‘Our firm. RSS. Being taken over, so I hear. Foreign interests. Could be big money. Shares are at ten euros – could be three or four times that in a few weeks.’

Fred’s eyes shone. ‘Thanks, that’s worth knowing.’ He paused to drink. ‘And who are the interested parties?’

‘Dunno.’ Finkelstein shook his head. ‘Far East, rumour has it. Keen to buy into the security sector. God knows why. An’ who cares, anyway, provided they pay our wages?’

Marius was restless. His usual weekly visit to his mother, arranged for the days when Parliament wasn’t sitting, had been postponed again. She was indisposed, she declared, and would be for a while, as if she could conceal her surgery from her son, her next of kin. But 
she would still be quite bruised, her flesh purple and green in patches, with the scars visible. It was kinder to respect her vanity, and let her be.

He walked down the street aimlessly until it became too hot, then sat at a sidewalk cafe in the shade and ordered an iced coffee. The liquid was cold, but not strong enough, not the way he preferred it; the lacuna made him unreasonably fractious. Opposite was a pub, the Queen Anne. He could see men inside with big hands wrapped lazily around lager steins. As he watched idly, one overweight figure ambled out and headed purposefully down the road. A workman going home, probably, or to a match. Only the unfortunate had to work after Friday lunchtime.

It came to Marius out of the blue that he had no home. His mother’s apartment was very much hers; her children had given it to her as a seventieth birthday gift. The house he had grown up in was the rococo palace in Budapest, overlooking the Danube, but he had been a small boy when they left and had revisited only as a famous stranger. For years the family had trudged about Europe as lodgers in other palaces and embassies; he had become accustomed to elaborate ceilings and dusty, overfilled bedrooms. The nearest he had come to a home of any sort was the apartment he had acquired after entering the House of Lords. But that was no more than a convenient
pied-à-terre
at a smart address, with few redeeming features.

The apartment was comfortable enough. The block, not far from Parliament, had originally been constructed with MPs and senior civil servants in mind. While their personal security was paramount, their privacy must also be protected. Thus the property came with full mechanical portering and cameras only in the common areas, a somewhat unusual arrangement. It meant, however, that Marius could entertain without surveillance. Not infrequently that had included the wives and daughters of colleagues. He smiled at the memories, then felt obscurely ashamed.

The iced coffee grew warm in the soft air as condensation ran wetly down the tall glass. Marius brooded. His mother’s chiding came insistently to him. In her words, maybe it was time he began to grow up.

Had he seen his mother she would inevitably have raised the question she had aired since he had reached his thirties. When was he going to settle down? She would pluck his sleeve and murmur about how happy it would make her, and how he had a duty to ensure that his heritage was passed on, her voice like the caress of a silk scarf over his face, suffocating and unavoidable. He would joke that the passage of his genes could be done at any moment, and that instead it was an outcome he took great care to avoid.
Planned
conception, he would tease, was what he assumed his mother had in mind. In turn the old lady would pout that an official wedding and a proper wife were what she meant, as if he needed to be told. The exchange was familiar and increasingly frequent. Until recently Marius had dismissed it as the natural preoccupation of a loving parent. But lately he had hesitated in his standard responses, sufficient to have his mother eye him closely; and the discussion had embarrassed him, in ways he could not quite fathom.

His mother was ambitious for him, though it was not clear what gains a suitable spouse could bring. Marius sensed that, in career terms, he had gone as far as he wished to go. Had he yearned for high office, he could simply have made those views known and would probably have been invited on to the front bench with alacrity; hints had been dropped more 
than once that he would be welcome. But that would have meant abandoning the freedom and independence of his chosen lifestyle in favour of endless days and nights in committee rooms, cabinet and the Lords chamber, explaining, defending, parrying policies for which he might have only the most tenuous affection. The appeal of such office was limited, the pay terrible. Nor could a determined wife push him, he was sure, into something he did not want to do.

If she were wealthy … Marius caught himself sharply. He was far from poor. The glossy jetset, many of whom were long-standing acquaintances, were casually generous with their homes, with holidays and cruises on yachts; provided he made himself excellent company, he lacked nothing but their responsibilities. It was a cadger’s life, perhaps, but its lack of ties suited him admirably. To be honest he did not ache to own anything, only to enjoy his time on earth, to avoid pitfalls, to fill his days with pleasant and absorbing activity. He would say he was a happy man.

Or, rather, he used to say it, under his breath, swinging along a sidewalk, squiring beautiful women to theatre first nights or to private showings at galleries. Taking his place on the second row of their Lordships’ House when the King came for the state opening, representing his kin, the crowned heads of Europe, at sessions with the European President Herr Lammas whenever money or precedent were on the agenda. Making new friends such as the American Ambassador, whose solid nature and inquisitiveness had impressed Marius from the first. Escorting such distinguished visitors to places like Porton Down, where his more laconic approach was challenged by their concern. Indeed, some of his current malaise could be put at Strether’s door: the man was a sea-green innocent, and yet the questions the American asked and his worries about the genetic programme had intrigued Marius and stayed with him long after the conversation had ended.

He let his mind dwell on Strether.
Bill
, as he liked to be called. Marius chuckled to himself – it was that example of easy familiarity, the willingness to expose his cultural quirks to scrutiny, to risk ridicule, even, which separated Bill so effectively from self-regarding Europeans, and rendered him so satisfactory as a friend. One felt instinctively that Bill would listen to any worries and have words of simple shrewdness to offer. Yet perhaps he would also benefit from a little extra European sophistication. He was a degree too solemn, too earnest. It might be time to resurrect an idea that had been briefly alluded to that afternoon months ago at the Palace. It was time to take Strether to the Toy Shop, and give him a rollicking good men’s night out.

That was mischievous, and Marius knew it. Strether abashed, out of his depth, would be amusing and the source of endless dinner-party stories. The Prince examined his motives and found them slightly impure, but no matter. There was no active cruelty in it. Strether would find the Toy Shop an amazing experience, and would dine out himself on tales of what went on – his own behaviour excluded, of course – when he went home. As family men would whisper in all-male company the secrets of a geisha house after a sojourn in Japan, so would Strether the cattleman regale his closest pals back in Colorado. If he could be persuaded to come.

The prospect of the fun ahead detained Marius a little longer, then the restlessness returned. The afternoon was wearing on; shadows remained short, but the sun was losing its intensity. Soon the streets would be filled with strolling young men and women out for the 
cooler hours of the evening, eyeing each other in a swish of skirts, a hint of scent, a twist of the head. Maybe he should pick up a girl tonight, and take her back to his apartment; not least to prove to himself that he could still do it, a master at seduction as ever. Or he could call up one of a dozen ladies who would be delighted to share an evening with him, stylish females with perfumed hair and perfect limbs, who would rebuke him for his neglect of them and beg him to stay.

He took out his powerbook and began to scroll down names, then with a soft curse switched it off. This was not what he sought: he wanted to go home, to have a home, and to have waiting there a lovely woman who was wedded to him and him alone. Who was committed to him and had made promises she would always keep. And for whom promises of lifelong devotion on his part would seem to be mere statements of fact, an assertion of obvious truth. But where might such a woman be found?

He leaned back and squinted at the cloudless sky through the lush leaves of a fragrant beech tree. Images flickered through his mind as the diffused light came and went. His retinas were dazzled and for a moment he was blinded.

His mother wanted somebody royal and preferably rich; he didn’t care about either. Physical beauty these days could be virtually guaranteed – as his mother could testify, once her scars had vanished. Brains and intelligence were more important (a view which might surprise the Princess), plus wisdom and good humour. A person with some of Bill Strether’s better qualities, then. How unusual that a stranger should have had such an impact, and have altered, however imperceptibly, Marius’s ordering of what made people worthwhile.