The Stars’ Tennis Balls (8 page)

A movement in the street below caught his eye. Ashley and Gordon were returning to the house, a third person between them. Ned smiled when he recognised the lumbering gait of Rufus Cade. How on earth had they bumped into him? Any other time it would be fun to welcome them in, but…

Never usually unsociable or selfish, Ned crept to the door and gently turned the key in the lock. The very delicacy of the sound woke Portia.

‘Did you just lock the door?’

“Fraid so,’ whispered Ned. ‘The others are coming back. Thought we might pretend to have gone out.’

Portia watched Ned crossing the room towards her and an intense happiness rushed through her like wind through grasses and she shivered and rippled with so much pleasure that she almost believed it was pain.

‘Don’t ever leave me.

‘No fear,’ Ned whispered, climbing back into bed.

They heard Ashley’s voice calling up the stairs.

‘We won’t disturb you both. Something I had to fetch. You young people enjoy yourselves!’

The smothered laughter of Gordon and Rufus delighted them. How wonderful it was to be giggled about.

Ned sighed with the completest fulfilment and joy. Where in all the universe was anyone so unfathomably lucky? He was young, healthy and happy and without a care or an enemy in the world.

Ned shivered and pulled the blanket closer around his shoulders.

‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘Do you think it would be possible for someone to bring me my clothes?’

The policeman at the door shifted his eyes from the ceiling to Ned.

‘Not cold is it?’

‘No, but you see I’m only wearing…’

‘Middle of summer, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, yes it is, but. ‘Well then.’

Ned stared at the foil ashtray in front of him on the table and tried to force his mind to concentrate on what had happened.

At four o’clock he had seen Portia into the College, which is to say they had rung the bell for the fifth floor of a disappointingly ordinary doorway in a narrow street behind the Scotch House.

‘I’ll be outside,’ he promised, kissing her goodbye as if for the longest parting. ‘And when you come out we’ll go into Harrods for an ice-cream soda to celebrate.’

He had been waiting there on the pavement for nearly half an hour, trying to work out, in a cheerful sort of way, whether or not Portia taking such a time up there was a good sign. Being an optimist, he had naturally decided that it was.

A group of young Spaniards or Italians (he couldn’t really tell which) had come up to the door. They had been in the act of producing a key when Ned had decided, on an impulse, to be let in with them. The sight of a respectably dressed boyfriend might just tip the balance in Portia s favour.

‘Excuse me,’ he had said. ‘Would it be all right if I came in with you?’

They had looked at him in bewilderment. If this was the average standard of English here, then Portia was going to have a lot to do.

‘I… JUST… WONDER… IF…YOU…‘he had started to say, but before the words were out of his mouth it had all happened. Appearing it seemed from nowhere, two men had each seized an arm and bundled Ned towards a car. Too surprised to speak, the last thing he heard before a hand pushed him down into the back seat was the raucous laughter of a small group of people standing in the dimly lit doorway of the nearby pub.

‘W-what’s going on?’ he had asked. ‘What are you doing?’

‘You’d better ask yourself what
you’ve
been doing,’ one of the men had said drawing a foil package from Ned’s jacket pocket, as the car accelerated away with a squeal of tyres.

At the police station he had been more thoroughly searched. They had taken away for examination everything but his underpants and he had been sitting in this room now for over half an hour, wondering what could possibly be going on. The next time the door opened and someone came in, he decided, he would insist on being allowed to telephone his father. The police had no idea they were dealing with a cabinet minister’s son. Sir Charles was a gentle and scrupulously polite man, but he had commanded a brigade in the war and run a small pocket of Empire for six years. In the Sudan he had pronounced sentences of death and seen them carried out. As Secretary of State for Northern Ireland he had extended the limits of internment without trial and authorised all kinds of extreme measures – ‘strong medicine for a strong infection’ he had said to Ned once, without revealing details. This was not a man to be messed with. Ned almost felt sorry for the police. He would assure his father that he had been kindly treated and that he held no grudge.

At last, the door to the interview room opened.

‘Right then, son.’

‘Hello, sir.

‘My name is Detective Sergeant Floyd.’

‘If it’s all right, I’d like to ring …

‘Cigarette?’

Floyd dropped a packet of Benson and Hedges and a lighter onto the table as he drew up a chair opposite Ned and sat down.

‘No thanks. I don’t smoke.’

‘You don’t smoke?’

‘No.’

‘Half an ounce of hash and you don’t smoke?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Bit late for “sorry” isn’t it? One thing to have it for your own use. But selling to foreign students. Magistrates don’t like that.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Of course you don’t. How old are you?’

‘Seventeen and a half.’

‘Seventeen and a half?
And a half’

The policeman at the door joined in the laughter. ‘Well, I am,’ said Ned, tears beginning to form in his eyes. What was wrong with saying that, when it was true?

Floyd frowned and bit his lip. ‘Let’s forget about the drugs, shall we? Tell me what “Interior, interior, interior” means to you.

Ned looked at him helplessly. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘Not a difficult question is it?
Interior, interior, interior.
Tell me about it.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’ Ned felt as though he was drowning. ‘Please, I want to ring my father.’

‘Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? Name?’

‘Do be quiet, there’s a good fellow.’

Ned and the Detective Sergeant turned together. A neatly dressed man in his mid-twenties was standing in the doorway, a gentle smile on his face.

‘And just who the hell might you be?’ said Floyd, outraged.

‘A word, Sergeant,’ said the young man, beckoning with his finger.

Floyd opened his mouth to speak, but something in the young man s bland expression made him change his mind.

The door closed on Ned once more. He could hear Detective Sergeant Floyd’s voice raised in barely controlled anger in the corridor outside. ‘With respect, sir, I do not see the need …

‘With respect, that’s the ticket, Floyd. Respect. Just what’s needed. Now I’ll take those if you please. Thank you… paperwork will follow.’

The door opened again and the young man popped his head in, smiling. ‘Would you like to come with me, old chap?’

Ned jumped to his feet and followed the young man along a passageway, past an angry Detective Sergeant Floyd.

‘Can I use the telephone?’ Ned asked.

‘Ridiculous of them,’ said the young man, as if he hadn’t heard, ‘to strip you like that. Ah, here’s Mr Gaine!’ He indicated a broad-shouldered man in a denim jacket who was leaning against a fire door at the end of the passage bearing in his arms a pile of clothes, neatly folded with the shoes lying upside-down on top.

‘Those are mine!’ said Ned.

‘That’s right. We shan’t have time to put them on just now, I’m afraid, we must be off. All set, Mr Gaine?’

The broad-shouldered man nodded and pushed against the bars of the door. The young man escorted Ned down some steps into a courtyard and towards a green Rover parked in the corner, where the sunlight beat down on its roof.

‘You just hop in the back with me. We’ll let Mr Gaine drive shall we?’

Ned winced when his bare thighs touched the upholstery.

‘Scorched you a bit? Sorry about that,’ said the young man cheerfully. ‘Should’ve thought to park in the shade, shouldn’t we, Mr Gaine? All righty, then, cabin doors to automatic. Let’s not hang about.’

‘Where are we going?’ Ned asked, adjusting the blanket around himself to protect his legs and his modesty.

‘My name’s Delft,’ was the reply. ‘Like those ghastly blue and white tiles. Oliver Delft.’ He put out a hand for Ned to shake. ‘And you are…?’

‘Edward Maddstone.’

‘Edward? They do call you Edward, do they? Or are you an Ed, Eddie, Ted or Teddy?’

‘Ned, usually.’

‘Ned. Fair enough. I’ll call you Ned then, and you can call me Oliver.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘Well, there’s lots to talk about, isn't there? I thought perhaps we might go somewhere nice and quiet.’

‘Only, my girlfriend, you see … she doesn’t know where I am. And my father…’

‘We’ve a fair drive ahead of us, I’m afraid. I’d try and get a bit of shut-eye if I were you. I know I shall.’ Delft settled against the headrest.

‘She’ll be worried…’

But Delft, apparently asleep in an instant, said nothing. Since the sleepless night of his watch on the
Orphana
and the anxious day that followed it, Ned had lain awake on a bumpy train from Glasgow to London. The next day, today – could that really be
today? –
he had travelled out to the airport and then back again to Catherine Street. There he did, it was true, spend time in bed, but he had not slept. Portia had dozed a little, but Ned had been too happy to think of sleep.

But now, in spite of the strangeness of his circumstances, he found himself starting to yawn. The last thing he saw before he fell asleep was the rear-view mirror and Mr Gaine’ s cold eyes watching him.

‘You’ll have to forgive my brutal way with an egg,’ said Oliver Delft. ‘It started life as an omelette
aux fines herbes
but now I’m afraid it’s just scrambled eggs speckled with green. Non-stick! It’s just a phrase if you ask me.’ He pushed a plate towards Ned and smiled.

‘Thanks.’ Ned began to shovel the eggs into his mouth, amazed at how hungry he was. ‘Very good.’

‘You honour me. While you eat, we can talk.’

‘Is this your house?’

‘It’s a place I come to sometimes,’ said Delft. He was leaning against the Aga rail, a glass of wine in his hand.

‘Are you a policeman?’

‘A policeman? No, no. Nothing as thrilling as that, I’m afraid. Just a humble toiler in the lower realms of government. All very dull. Here to get to the bottom of one or two things.’

‘If it’s about the drugs the police found, I
swear
to you I don’t know anything about them.’

Delft smiled again. The smile was an effort. Inside, he was very bored and extremely annoyed to be there. The pleasurable long weekend he had been looking forward to for ages had already been ruined.

Five minutes
… five blasted minutes were all that had come between Oliver and freedom. He had already locked his desk and had been in the very act of signing the duty log when Maureen had bustled in, twittering about a flash from West End Central.

‘Isn’t Stapleton here yet? I’m about to go off watch.’

‘No, Mr Delft. Captain Stapleton hasn’t signed in. There’s no one else.’

‘Bugger,’ Oliver had said, meaning it. ‘All right then, let’s have a look.’

He had taken Maureen’s typed slip and read it through carefully. ‘Hum. Who’s in the Heavy Pool?’

‘Mr Gaine, sir.’

‘Get him to warm the car up. I’ll be out in three.’

That had been something at least. Mr Gaine was Oliver’s man and could be trusted not to make life more difficult by ruffling feathers and stamping on sensibilities.

Whatever Oliver had expected when he arrived at Savile Row police station, it certainly hadn’t been a worried schoolboy. The whole thing seemed ripely absurd. Undoubtedly a mistake, he had said to himself the moment he laid eyes on the floppy haired teenager jiggling his knee up and down under the interview-room table, a forlorn and bewildered look on his face. Delft may have been only twenty-six himself, but he had seen enough to be sure that Ned Maddstone was as innocent as a day-old chick. A day old
carrier pigeon
chick, he thought to himself. He was pleased with the image and made a note to include it in his report. His masters were old-fashioned enough to enjoy a pert turn of phrase.

He looked across at the child now.

Ned was sitting at the kitchen table, still jogging his leg on the ball of his foot, with an earnest pleading look on his innocent face.

‘Honestly,’ he was saying. ‘I absolutely swear. On the Holy Bible!’

‘Calm down,’ said Oliver. ‘I really don’t think a Bible will be necessary. Not that we’d be able to find one in a place of sin like this,’ he added, looking round the room as if it were less a country kitchen and more a Louisiana brothel. ‘You can swear on Marguerite Patten’s
Cookery in Colour
if it gives you pleasure, but there’s no need.’

‘You do believe me then?’

‘Well, of course I believe you, you daft young onion. All some silly mistake. Still, as we’re here, you might as well tell me what the words “Interior, interior, interior” mean.’

‘I don’t know!’ said Ned. ‘The policeman asked me the same thing, but I’ve never heard them. I mean, I’ve heard the word “interior” before, obviously, but…’

‘You see, this is what we have to try and understand,’ said Oliver. ‘And when we’ve got to the bottom of it we can let you go and you can get on with your life and I can get on with mine, which I’m sure we’d both like.’

Ned nodded vigorously. ‘Absolutely! But…’

‘All right then. Now let’s have a look at this shall we?’

Oliver came forward and laid on the table a single sheet of paper.

Ned stared at it mystified. It was a typed list of names and addresses. He recognised at once the names of the Home Secretary, the Lord Chancellor, the Secretary of State for Defence followed by others, vaguely familiar to Ned. Last of all came his father’s name,
Sir Charles Maddstone.
At the bottom, in handwritten large black block capitals were the words –

INTERIOR INTERIOR INTERIOR

‘What does it mean?’ he asked.

‘It belongs to you,’ said Oliver. ‘You tell me.’

‘My piece of paper? But I’ve never seen it before.’

‘Then what was it doing in the inside pocket of your jacket?’

‘In the… oh!’ The truth began to dawn. ‘Was it… was it originally in an envelope?’

‘It
was
in an envelope!’ said Oliver. ‘You’re absolutely right! It was in
this
envelope!’ He held up a white envelope, an envelope that to his annoyance the police had torn open without a single thought. Oliver had immediately spotted a tiny hair behind the flap, a little security measure sealed there to warn the recipient of any tampering. It might be possible to find a duplicate envelope and put the letter back in play, but one never knew what other safeguards the police might have blundered through. Not really their fault of course, he conceded. The search had been routine. They had imagined they were dealing with nothing more than a spoilt kid’s drug stash.

‘But why is it important?’ Ned asked. ‘What does it mean?’

‘Well now, you’ve just admitted that it’s yours, so I should’ve thought you’d be the one to tell
me.

Ned shifted uncomfortably. ‘But you see I was… I was given it.’

‘Yes, I’m afraid I’m going to need a bit more than that.’