A Murder in Mayfair (26 page)

I didn't want to argue with him. He felt so strongly about it, and his views were based on so painful a personal experience that anything I said would be by comparison jejune. I nodded, and we started back to the cottage, he walking confidently, I stumbling now and then, but after a while finding my feet on that strange terrain. My father was thoughtful all the way home, but as soon as he began to prepare a meal, and particularly as he put the fish into the frying pan, he began to regain his sparkle. Once we were at table he was eating with relish.

We talked a little, in the gaslit semidarkness, about politics. He asked polite questions, which often showed he knew nothing at all about what had gone on in that last thirty-five years. I said there was a big row brewing up in my party over the question of reducing state benefits for single mothers.

“I know I've no experience, beyond my first few days, of being the child of a single mother, but somehow I take it personally. I keep asking how you can penalize a single mother without penalizing her child, but no one gives me an answer. And is it right to force a mother back to work if she genuinely feels her child needs her around precisely
because
she is the only parent? If my mother had been a different sort of person to Lucy, if she'd kept me, wouldn't I have wanted her around as much as possible? Wouldn't she give me the security I otherwise wouldn't have?”

I was a bit on my soapbox, rehearsing a speech I probably would never give. But my father had not followed the last bit, because his attention had been distracted by the name.

“Lucy!” he said softly. “How exciting she was. You feel you've never really lived before, because you've never known such excitement. What a snare it is, that feeling! It becomes the be-all and end-all of living. The truth is it's only peace that lets you live to the full, lets you appreciate existence and its potential. Excitement is destruction.”

As I lay in my bed that night, seeing again the form of my father in his bundle of blankets, I tried to see him not as the holy man I'd envisaged last night, but as the man who had engendered me, a man so excited by a new passion that he had felt as if he'd never lived before.

A
ll that took time to absorb. My journey back to County Wexford the next day had been uneventful, after affectionate farewells from my father. We knew we were unlikely to meet often in the future, but we also knew that when we did it would be from liking and not from duty. My gradual integration into and acceptance by Matthew's family was something of great moment for me, but it was the fragile bond with my father that was more poignant.

Then it was back to the daily grind. I was conscious, back at my desk within the Whitehall machine over the following week, that I was having difficulty concentrating. Working toward
possible
legislation in the year 2000 or 2001 doesn't easily present itself as a vital or a life-enhancing task. I kept thinking of my father, of what a gentle and lovable person he was, then speculating how that was to be reconciled with the fact that he had made no bones about being a murderer.

Or had he quite said that?

I shook myself. I was doing what Matthew had warned me against: trying to prove he hadn't murdered his wife. It might be that he hadn't said explicitly to me that he had done it, but
he had said that many people might feel he should have been hanged.

Outside the Department my life was eerie. Or rather, I was creating eeriness out of nothing. Because nothing was happening—no telephone calls, no near accidents or minor onslaughts, no identifiable shadowings. Yet I had got myself into the psychological mood in which I would almost have welcomed any of those things, maybe as a proof that there was still someone out there who might yet put himself or herself in a position where he might be identified or even arrested. Something happening seemed a precondition to someone being caught.

On the Friday morning, when I left the Department to climb into my official car on my way to the Blind School in Worcester, I thought I saw my stalker in a crowd of commuters arriving at work farther down the street. It was a glimpse only, if that, and when I looked back and strained my eyes to pick him out he was gone, or at any rate indistinguishable. I got slowly into my car, and didn't bother to report the matter. Even I could see that the police, however convinced they now were that the threat to me was a real one, had enough on their plates without taking cognizance of possible sightings of possible threats.

All this time I was aware of, even part of, political rumblings. The question of benefits for single mothers was assuming the status of a trial of strength—not between the government and opposition, but between government and their own backbenchers. It was becoming a litmus test of machismo, a contest of political wills: we've said we're going to reform the benefits system, and by God we'll take the difficult decisions involved—that was the line emanating from Downing Street. Puzzled, and often emotional, backbenchers wondered why the new ministers were so keen to cozy up to their traditional enemies in big business and so enthusiastic about clobbering those people at the bottom of the social scale they traditionally should
have been keenest to help. As a test of political muscle it was frustrating to those of us on the lower rungs of government because it was a matter where one might have least expected disagreement.

When I had dinner at Susan's in midweek, and went over all the events of my visit to Ireland, it is significant that, even with so much of absorbing interest to communicate to her, before we had finished with the main course we had turned to the single-mothers issue, about which we both felt strongly.

It couldn't help coming up at work. I said to Margaret Stevens one day in the corridor:

“It somehow seems futile slaving away for the disabled when everyone whispers that they're the next who are going to be clobbered.”

She nodded.

“I do understand. But I always say that when you're on the bottom rungs of government you need to keep your eyes firmly on your own brief. It's only when you get higher that you can afford to raise them and take in the wider picture.”

“I'm sure that's wise, but I'm not sure I can do it.”

It was when I had just arrived back at the flat after engaging in some minor politicking with discontented backbenchers in one of the Palace of Westminster bars that my phone rang.

“Mr. Pinnock?” said a strong male voice.

“Yes.”

“This is Calham Road Police Station here.”

Calham Road was the nearest station to the flat—small, but old and bleak rather than homely.

“Oh yes?”

“We've brought a man in. He was loitering in the vicinity of your flat, and we'd been alerted by the police at the Houses of Parliament about your being targeted.”

“That's right,” I said, able to talk about it now without a suspicion
of being paranoid. “I think it's pretty clear now that I have been, by someone or other. There was certainly a young man stalking me some weeks ago, but he hasn't been in evidence recently.” There was something about the policeman's voice that had sounded cautious and a bit puzzled, so I went on: “Is there something that you're not telling me, something that's worrying you?”

There was some hemming and hawing at the other end.

“Not exactly worrying us, sir. More a case of something we didn't expect. The fact of the matter is, as soon as he was brought in the man asked to speak to you.”

That floored me. There was a moment's silence as I thought it through.

“What you're saying is that, without your mentioning my name, he asked for me.”

“Yes, sir. Of course naturally we don't go fetching people the moment we're asked to, particularly important people like yourself.” I laughed and he laughed cautiously. “But of course his asking for you made us wonder, and when we'd probed a bit he told us that, though you don't know him, you are in fact his brother.”

“Ah. . . . He's someone, I'd guess, who's a bit unstable mentally.”

“We think so, sir. Have to be a bit careful about that these days. He's certainly very nervous—frightened even, and tends to babble on in a way that we can't follow. Can I take it then, sir, that there's nothing in this talk about being your brother?”

“Not exactly. Look, I can be with you in ten minutes—”

“If that's convenient we'd welcome it, sir, but I suggest we pick you up. Just to be on the safe side. From what the police at Westminster have said, it's not a good idea for you to be walking the streets alone at night.”

I had no problem agreeing with that. There was a ring on
my doorbell within five minutes and I was driven to Calham Road Station by a glum young man who looked as if he was reconsidering his career choice. Most politicians like talking to people, or else feel obliged to, but to my tentative remarks he responded as if I were trying to put something over on him.

At the station I was met by the man I had talked to on the phone, a thickset, stolid type, though with intelligent eyes.

“I'm Detective Sergeant Porter,” he said, taking me toward the cells. “He's through there in a custody cell at the moment. I should warn you he's fairly . . . disturbed.”

“Yes. That was my impression the only time I got a good look at him.”

“You've seen him but you've not talked to him?”

“Never. What does he say his name is?”

“He doesn't, sir. He just says: ‘I don't know.'”

“Cunning? Or part of the mental disturbance?”

“Hard to say. Could be a bit of both. Being mentally disturbed doesn't stop you being cunning.”

“Of course not. I think, you know, I'd better talk to him. Does he display any hostility toward me when he mentions my name?”

“None, sir. Quite the reverse.”

“Can I talk to him alone then?”

He shook his head.

“I don't think we can take that risk, sir. But we can leave the door open a bit, and I can be outside.”

That seemed in every way the best idea. I nodded my agreement. The duty sergeant took up a heavy bunch of keys and led us along a corridor to the last cell. He opened the door and I went inside, followed by Sergeant Porter. When we looked through the flap the man had been sitting on a bare bed, gazing vacantly ahead, but as I came in the eyes took on a dim species of life. He got up and started toward me, but very
unconfidently. Then on a swift gesture from Sergeant Porter he backed away, his eyes clouding up again. I began to regret I'd agreed to a police presence.

When he was again sitting on the bed, his jaw drooping, as little threatening as it was possible to imagine, Sergeant Porter went outside, nearly but not quite shutting the door behind him. I worried a little, after that bad start, and thought for a moment, trying to get the tone right.

“Hello. I hear you want to talk to me,” I said. He nodded.

“What's your name, then?”

He hesitated. Clearly it was a question that disturbed him.

“She called me Tim,” he said at last.

“Right, Tim. And who is ‘she'?”

“The woman I was given to.”

There were definite vibrations in the voice. Hatred, I thought.

“I don't think you like the name, do you?”

“I don't like anything that came from her.”

“I see. Do you have a name that you do like?”

The face screwed up in thought.

“I called myself Tony for a time. That was when I was on my own. . . . She called me ‘Pits.'  . . . Did you know you had a brother?”

“I know now that I was born with a twin.”

“When did you find out?” he asked eagerly.

“Quite recently.”

“Did you want to meet him when you knew?”

“Very much.”

“Because it's me. I'm your twin.”

“I thought you might be. But of course I want to be quite sure. You do understand that, don't you? I want to be quite sure that it's you who are my twin.” A pause, and then a sad nod. “Why have you been stalking me?”

“Stalking?” He became agitated again. “What's that, stalking?”

“Following me around, dogging my footsteps, being threatening.”

His face showed its liveliest emotion thus far.

“I haven't! I've never threatened you! I just wanted to talk to you. I wanted your help—and to help you, too. But I couldn't pluck up the courage.”

I looked into his cloudy eyes, and the confusion, the uncertainty, and the fear I saw there sent a pang to my heart. This really was a man who barely knew who he was.

“I see,” I said gently. “I believe you. I used the wrong words. But you see I knew you were following me and I couldn't understand why, and that's why I felt threatened. I didn't realize you wanted my help.”

“I was frightened. I still am.”

“Are you homeless?”

He shrugged.

“Sometimes. There's hostels and things.”

“I suppose you thought I could help you to find somewhere to live.”

He shook his head.

“No. Why should you do that? I don't worry about living on the streets. I'm used to it.”

“But it can be frightening.”

“Not as frightening as being with
her. “

I chanced my arm, though I'd so far been trying not to prompt him.

“Do you mean being with Mrs. Hayden-Gryce?”

His eyes became still more confused, and he struggled with a thought.

“Yes. She was frightening.”

“But these days you don't have much contact with your mother, do you?”

He flushed indignantly.

“She's
not my mother. She told me that often enough.” The voice had raised itself as he retreated into his past, his childhood. “Thank God you're not mine,' she used to say. ‘I couldn't bear to think anything of me went into the making of a pathetic piece of nothing like you.' ‘Thank God you're not my mother,' I would say back, but I couldn't think of anything to call her. There aren't words bad enough. I was never very good with words. They made me so I couldn't think. . . .” He suddenly looked at me with something close to accusation in his eyes. “You had good parents.”