This Honourable House (18 page)

‘Ah. We don’t indulge in chequebook journalism. The proprietor does not allow it.’ This, like many other assertions Betts had made in the course of the afternoon, was not quite correct. It would have been truer to say that the proprietor made speeches expressing his abhorrence of chequebook journalism, then let his editor go her own way. ‘They won’t talk unless paid. And the evidence that one or two have ever met your husband, let alone indulged in three-in-a-bed sessions with him, is a bit iffy.’

‘Three in a bed? Frank? Good Lord. One in a bed was enough for him, and then he’d be snoring the whole night.’ It was out before she could stop it: Gail could have bitten off her tongue. Faust had been caught by his own duplicity and had gone to hell, willy-nilly. Betts shrugged and said nothing.

In the pause her curiosity surfaced. ‘These girls who make allegations about my Frank that aren’t true, why would they do that?’

‘For the very worst reasons, Mrs Bridges. It must be awkward for a respectable person like yourself to understand.’ Betts let his eyes water as if in grief.

‘For money? But what about the damage to their own reputations, let alone my Frank’s?’

Betts’s eyebrows lowered. Gail answered her own question. ‘What reputation, eh? I’m being naive.’

‘No, no. But my editor would appreciate it if you could fill in the background. What sort of chap was he, when you were together? Was he romantic? Very active in bed, keen? Would you call him the passionate type? In other words, Mrs Bridges, was your Frank a great lover, and should we be fearful for the health of his new marriage? Or does she have nothing much to worry about?’

The basement of the block of flats was reached by taking the lift to the lower ground floor, ignoring the sign to the underground car park, and opening an unmarked steel door. Its rivets were almost buried under layers of grimy white paint, bringing to mind, Benedict thought, an old crone’s warts under makeup. It was noisy and hot. From a nearby chamber came the rumble of central-heating boilers; steam gurgled overhead through fat pipes encrusted in yellow and rusty dribbles. Spiders scuttled and curled up under blackened cobwebs like so many twitching asterisks. In a cupboard the lift mechanism sighed and hissed incessantly.

A set of fire extinguishers and a hydrant, its red paint dirty, barred their way. The door was four inches thick, and heavy. Benedict grunted as he broke a nail on it. ‘Not much used, this place?’ he inquired.

Lawrence propped the door open with a fire extinguisher. A whiff of cooler air stirred the cobwebs. ‘Not recently. Lord Smart persuaded the landlord to do it up for his personal use, though since he was jailed nobody much has come here. There isn’t any movable equipment; the noble lord’s wife whisked it away the moment he was in financial difficulties. But the basic services should be operational and I tipped the caretaker to give it a thorough scrub. This time of the day, he said, nobody’d want it. Privacy guaranteed. Here we are.’

He switched on the lights. A handsome low room of over thirty metres square was revealed, its pale wood flooring swept with a dull gleam. Although the skylights were obscured by grime, the neon strip-lights gave an almost too brilliant illumination. At one end a brick climbing wall had been installed with ropes as thick as a man’s fist; full-size mirrors at the other reflected the two men’s images brazenly back at them.

The atmosphere was airless and dusty. ‘There must be some form of ventilation.’ Benedict put down their bags. ‘And showers, maybe. If we can get everything working it won’t be too awful.’

Lawrence frowned as he paced along the inner wall. ‘Let’s explore. Our teacher arrives in ten minutes and I’d like to impress him.’

At the far corner he located a beech-veneered door. He opened it and they were greeted by the faint smell of bleach and a blue-tiled suite of modern showers and toilets. They draped their towels on the heated rail and switched it on. They tried the gold-trimmed taps: everything appeared functional. As the water flowed warm over their fingers and the ventilators hummed into action their spirits rose.

‘You did well to find this,’ Benedict said, sensing that he had appeared ungracious. ‘Feel like the Nibelungs down here. Hammers, anvil and rings optional.’

He stood hesitantly as Lawrence laid out his kit on a wooden bench and kicked off his loafers. Lawrence stopped. ‘Come on. You can’t do martial arts in your ordinary clothes. Not unless you’re attacked in the street, that is.’

‘Doesn’t it need special jackets and trousers?’

‘I brought some for you.’

Benedict smoothed the simple garments. They felt clean and crisp, like hospital sheets, like the linen at his prep school on Fridays, the day the beds were changed. Clinical, fresh, puritan. He stripped off to his shorts and hung each item, including his tie, carefully on a hanger. Keeping his back to Lawrence he picked up the sportswear and put it on, tying the belt loose.

A new voice greeted them. A small shaven-headed man with a squat muscular body, pecs and biceps bulging through a blue tracksuit, filled the doorway His face was square and hairless, his ancestry European with a hint of Chinese, the skin tanned and taut. He introduced himself as the instructor Lawrence had arranged. In a few moments he too was ready in white, loose-fitting garments with a prominent black belt.

Out in the gym their bare soles made contact with the floor. Benedict curled his toes. ‘Our
feet’ll get filthy,’ he remarked. The tutor scowled and shook his head as if such levity was inappropriate.

Lawrence punched Benedict playfully. ‘Do this right and we’ll be black and blue in no time,’ he said. ‘Just forget what you look like. Nobody’s watching. We’re entirely private and no one else will be allowed in here during our sessions. It’s a different world. One in which, to say the least, you can get rid of all those tensions that have been causing you grief.’ Lawrence ignored the warning glance in the tutor’s direction; the man himself remained impassive. ‘I mean it, Benedict. Thump the hell out of me if it helps. That’s the whole idea.’

‘Let me check,’ Benedict pressed, with a grin, as the tutor waited. ‘You won’t sue me for common assault if I wallop you from here to high water?’

‘Don’t be an idiot. Of course not.’

The tutor faced them and bowed. ‘Now, gentlemen, if you please. Let me explain the essential philosophy.’

For the next hour the men were pupils and teacher of the ancient art of tae kwon do. The first lesson was the honour ceremony. Hands clasped over their heads the cousins faced the master. With solemn expressions they stumbled through the chant of salutation. Benedict started to giggle, until chided by a gruff command from Lawrence. Their sport was a commitment to themselves, to their opponent and to the gods that made them, the teacher explained. It was important not to skip this bit but to take it seriously. A contact sport undertaken in a selfish frame of mind was more likely to lead to bad practice that would result in injuries. This was not tennis.

He took them through stretching exercises till their tendons ached, then demonstrated the principles of attack and defence. There were so many misconceptions in the West. It was a gross oversimplification of such arts to assert that one fighter simply used his opponent’s weight against him; the fundamentals were vastly more complex. The action involved understanding the opponent’s tactics and favourite moves, anticipating and inviting their repetition. And figuring out, in advance, how to use those predictabilities against him. An experienced fighter who had done his homework would react instinctively at a lunge or sidestep, guessing where it might lead; when the thrust came, split seconds later, the target had vanished. The attempt would be abortive, the attacker thwarted, pinioned in his turn, and the point won.

‘It sounds exactly like politics,’ Benedict grunted, as he hit the ground for the third time. He knelt, winded. ‘But it’s a little difficult when you’ve never done it before.’

‘But this shows why it’s perfectly satisfactory for two people to fight together regularly, as you two intend.’ The tutor lifted him to his feet. ‘As in chess. You’ve got to burrow into your opponent’s mind. It’ll vary depending on his mood, the weather, what his boss said to him in the office and so on. No two sessions will be alike. This is quite a cerebral sport. It always surprises those who come to it fresh.’

He motioned the novices to take a breather, then to try a few feints with each other while he barked comments. In a moment a red-faced Benedict, though he struggled to use his weight as instructed, was again flat on his back, though on this occasion he had managed to remain upright for longer. Lawrence and the tutor applauded. ‘You’re getting there, well done,’ said Lawrence, and hauled his cousin up.

As he spoke he reached out, as he might for a child, to rescue Benedict’s belt, which had come loose. The jacket had swung open to reveal a thin chest, the flesh livid with red bruising. They were standing close. Each could feel the other’s quick breath on his cheek, the glow of his hot panting body, sense the air flowing between them. A sheen of sweat covered Benedict’s forehead, and he brushed it away with his bare forearm, then pulled the jacket to hide himself.

Lawrence tied the belt nonchalantly and patted his shoulder. His cousin flinched. Their eyes met, and Benedict stepped away awkwardly. The tutor pretended not to have noticed, as if present at
an intimate act.

A few yards over their heads on the ground floor, the caretaker, who preferred to be called a concierge, was interrupted as a tenant made an inquiry about a lost key. Alone once more he reverted to observing the basement room through the security camera high in its ceiling.

On arrival, the tutor had passed the time of day amiably enough and mentioned he was booked for five lessons only. The concierge checked the reservations folder. Then he searched for and found a number in the phone book. And, after watching Benedict, Lawrence and the shaven-headed teacher intently for a further twenty minutes, he reached for the phone.

Melvyn O’Connor tossed his jacket on to an armchair, selected a CD from an anonymous pile and began to warble tunelessly.

Betts put his hands over his ears. ‘I wouldn’t mind so much if you could actually sing,’ he muttered. ‘Silence would be preferable. Where’s that bourbon?’

Melvyn was dancing round his room whirling his arms like a windmill. His tubby belly wobbled, lank hair fell over a greasy forehead, his eyes bulged wetly. Life at the top was clearly taking its toll.

‘Here.’ He plonked the Jack Daniel’s, two glasses and an ice bucket on the table and sat down heavily. ‘“Spinning Wheel”. My favourite. Blood Sweat and Tears. Do you remember them? I don’t honestly myself, I was too young, but you’re about the right age.’

‘Your signature tune, you might say. Spinners of the world, unite: you have nothing to lose but your House of Commons pass.’ Betts poured a treble over the ice and ignored the remark about his age. ‘Thanks, I need this. At a guess, you’ve been at it already.’

‘Had a couple with Alistair before I left. He’s cock-a-hoop. Brags that Diane Clark and our lot have scored over you and the
Globe,
Jim. I said he shouldn’t be so sure.’

‘I was banned from the High Court,’ Betts said gloomily. ‘Told very firmly to be nowhere near the Strand. To get lost. The
Globe
would do as it had pledged, put a full apology on the comment page in the same spot where we told the truth about the Secretary of State for Whatever She Is ages ago. Pardon me.’ He burped loudly. ‘Libelled her viciously. I forgot. Stupid cow. There won’t be any more column inches in my newspaper about the case, however much others may hype it up. But it goes against the grain, I tell you.’

‘She was prancing around in the street tearing up copies of the
Globe
, whooping like a banshee,’ Melvyn reported helpfully. ‘Claimed the settlement vindicated women. And she invited everybody to a party. I imagine she’s smashed as hell right now.’

‘Which is what I’d like to be.’ Betts poured another drink for himself and Melvyn. ‘Nobody from our place wanted to help me drown my sorrows. Skirted me the whole day as if I’d been in the wrong, not her. Course, they’ll have forgotten about it by next week. I’ve just inputted a snappy piece on the long-running saga of Frank Bridges, with quite a nice twist if I say so myself; and then it’ll be “Done it again, lad,” and “Great stuff, Jim.” But for tonight I’m a bloody leper.’

‘It was fifty grand she got, wasn’t it?’ One of Melvyn’s motives in inviting Betts to his flat for a drink instead of attending Diane’s party was not only their rather fragile friendship but curiosity and a desire to fill the gaps. On his home computer in the bedroom the file was poised for the diary he planned to complete before the night was out, if he was sober enough. The diary would not, could not, see the light of day until after Melvyn had left the government’s service. Inevitably, given the insecure nature of his profession, that day would come. When it did, publishing his account would keep him afloat. Rainy day money. By comparison, a bottle of bourbon dispensed in the cause was as nothing.

Betts nodded. ‘More or less. The amount’s confidential. Who does she think she is? What I wrote was too close to the bone. She sets herself up as a champion of women, yet she’s a million
miles from most of them. She’s never had kids but she pontificates about how to bring ’em up. And about child care and child support, creating mayhem and misery for perfectly respectable blokes who’d rather forget about the grotty first wife and her brats, thank you very much. She pretends to be ordinary, and to speak for ordinary mortals, but she’s been a full-time politician since her teens. Never lived the everyday life on which she claims to be a friggin’ expert.’

‘That’s not a crime,’ Melvyn remarked mildly. ‘It’s true for most politicians. They aren’t normal people and they’ve never lived normal lives. Look at the Boss, I ask you – five kids at their age. In any other family that’d be taken for fecklessness. As for the rest of them, they blather on endlessly about family values yet the last thing that comes into their heads when there’s a spat on is the kids’ tea party or taking Grandma shopping. I’m exactly the same. Truth is, for most of us almost anything is more exciting than going home.’

“‘Home is a place to go to when there’s no more work to be done,”’ Betts quoted.

‘Margaret Thatcher,’ Melvyn supplied promptly. ‘Bloody woman. Fancy a pizza?’

‘Yeah. Double meat feast with extra topping.’ Betts fumbled in his wallet and handed over a ten-pound note. He laughed wryly. ‘I can afford it. To keep me quiet they put a sweetener into my bank account. Bonus, they called it. So I’m not moaning.’

As he called the pizza parlour, Melvyn kept an eye on his guest. The odds were that on the day Melvyn did leave the government’s service, Betts would write a witty character expose on Melvyn’s traits. It would be great, but unlikely, if Melvyn emerged from such a review smelling of roses. Perhaps nights like this when Betts needed a friend would redress the balance. Host and parasite: each feasted on the other.

‘Simply the best!’

The Tina Turner CD was on full blast. The Red Lion in Whitehall had seen many celebrations and wakes over the decades but this one was proving memorable. The old pub downstairs was packed with regulars and tourists, the type who will find the action most evenings in any capital city. The door leading upstairs was hung with a chalked board announcing a private event. In the room on the upper floor, tables had been pushed to one side and the carpet rolled up. Music from a disco blasted out at top volume. In the centre of a group three deep the Right Honourable Diane Clark was swaying, feet apart, hips pumping, an empty Grolsch bottle serving as a mock microphone in her hand, doing a fair imitation of her favourite rock singer.