The Lords' Day (retail) (21 page)

He hurried to his appointment that night by the bridge over the Regent’s Canal, popping peppermints for his breath, chuckling to himself. He was sweating when he arrived, his eyes glassy
bright with a mixture of celebration and expectation. He knew he wouldn’t live for ever, but what time was left to him would put right all the many wrongs that had been done to him. He could
settle scores, buy friends and afford the prettiest boys in the business; even if he was no longer able to join in himself, he could still watch the show.

It was with such happy thoughts as these that he met his contact at the shadow-dimmed steps that led down to the canal, and it was with these thoughts that Levrenti Valentin Bulgakov died. His
body came to rest at the bottom of the steps. It didn’t really matter that his heart couldn’t stand the shock; the fall alone would have killed him.

10.38 p.m.

Harry was still sitting on his doorstep, hugging his knees to his chest like some homeless vagrant trying to keep himself warm. The cold had long since travelled up through his
body but he ignored it; there was too much else to occupy him, for the longer he sat on his own doorstep, the more he realised he didn’t belong here. He didn’t know if he belonged
anywhere any more. His father had once joked that the reason Harry was an only child was because he was an experiment that had failed, yet as much as Harry had tried to slough off the banter, it
had struck home and struck deep. Perhaps that’s what had driven him all these years, an unconscious attempt to win the approval of his dead father, a desire that he should belong somewhere.
People assumed he was entirely self-contained, a man who lived off his many successes, yet they had no idea how much he had always needed others.

Bloody Mel. She wasn’t home, and wasn’t coming home, no matter how much he tried to persuade himself otherwise. The light hanging above the door was off, and it was a habit of hers
to leave it blazing to greet her when she was coming back late. The only light came from lamps inside the house that were part of the security system, someone pretending to be home. He sat in
darkness, and punished himself for being a fool.

There was a pub further down the mews. It was a place of too much
kitsch
and too little change for Harry’s liking yet it was always busy, crowded with estate agents and advertising
wannabes, and as he sat on his darkened doorstep, two customers tumbled out and on to the cobbles. They were clearly the worse for wear, laughing, clinging to each other for support. The mews had
never been the best-lit stretch of town and the occasional old-fashioned street lamps cast long and forbidding shadows, yet there was enough light for Harry to see them, a young woman and an older
man, and judging by the way they fell upon each other they were unlikely to be father and daughter. An embrace upon the cobbles quickly turned into desperate fumbling in a doorway where they
thought they could remain unobserved; they didn’t see Harry almost opposite. The woman was complaining in a whisper that he was ruining her blouse, but soon there was nothing more than
giggles that turned to urgent moans, and lumps of pale flesh peering out of the shadows.

As Harry observed their struggle, he found himself feeling nothing, neither titillation nor contempt, just an emptiness inside. It was far from being the first time he had watched people having
sex; trips to the seedier basements of Soho had been a rite of passage at Sandhurst while his intelligence work in Northern Ireland had required him to witness far more than this, yet as he watched
this ageless act taking place in the doorway of an art gallery, he had only one thought throbbing insistently inside his head. Where the hell are you, Mel? Where are you with my child?

He couldn’t see – and didn’t want to see – everything that was going on in the shadows, but he couldn’t miss the girl stretching out her fingers until they curled
around a plant that was growing in one of the gallery’s luxuriant window boxes, grasping it ever tighter until, with one final involuntary spasm and a strangled cry that caught in her throat,
the stem was wrenched out by its roots. It made a hell of a mess.

For a moment there was silence, nothing but panting, but then Harry could hear complaints. About the damp earth and bits of twig that had got everywhere, the fact that he hadn’t even
bothered taking off his bloody raincoat, and the tear in her blouse. Soon the pair grew sullen, wrestling with zips and buttons and buckles once more, and he was muttering about finding her a
taxi.

‘And twenty quid,’ Harry called softly.

The couple froze; only now did they see him on his doorstep.

‘Twenty quid,’ Harry repeated, ‘that should cover it, for the plant.’

‘Fuck you,’ the man snarled, until Harry rose slowly but purposefully to his feet. The man caught the sense of menace. ‘Oh, what the hell,’ he grunted, struggling as he
dug into a pocket while at the same time trying to fasten his belt. Eventually he emerged with a note that he stuffed through the letterbox. ‘Bloody do-gooders,’ he muttered as he made
a final adjustment to his clothing.

‘But cheap at the price, wouldn’t you say, darling?’ the girl declared in a refined accent that tinkled like a chandelier in Knightsbridge. ‘Buck up, the poor
fellow’s only jealous. Probably hasn’t had a good shag in months.’

Which had been true, until last night . . .

‘Anyway, time for me to be away,’ she announced. She linked her arm through his and dragged him away, her hips swinging provocatively as they left Harry behind in the shadows. He
watched them disappear. She would soon be home, unlike Melanie. Where the hell was she? And what had their marriage been about? Perhaps their life together amounted to little more than what he had
just seen, something that was animalistic, essentially mindless, and over. This morning he had been in love with her, and now . . . all that was left was an empty light. This was pointless, she
wasn’t coming back, not this evening, not ever. Three wasted years. And he wondered how many notes the lawyers would make him pour through her letterbox as a mark of his gratitude.
Considerably more than twenty quid a pop, he suspected, but none of that would matter if only – if, please God – he could save the child.

He was standing in front of his house taking one final look at his old life when a car swung into the mews, its headlights white, blinding. For a moment his spirits rose in hope . . . But, no,
not Mel; it was his police driver.

‘They need you, sir,’ the driver called through the window. ‘The commander implied it was rather urgent.’

He shouldn’t be here, he had to get back. Leave all this behind. He climbed in, and the driver put his foot down.

11.00 p.m.

It wasn’t until that moment that Celia Blessing realised you could hear the tolling of Big Ben from inside the chamber. Up to this point she had always been distracted,
but now everything was so quiet, with people talking in nothing but whispers, that she could hear the bell as a dull, distant thudding, like the closing of a castle door.

‘I do so love this place,’ she said distractedly, ‘but you never have, have you, Archie?’

He grunted. ‘Always struck me that the Lords is the last desperate resort of people who’ve got no future nor even much of an interesting past. We only get the second-class crooks in
here. The top class all go off and live somewhere warm.’

‘You’re such a smelly old cynic,’ she said, but without malice.

‘Cynicism’s been a good friend to me. Rarely let me down.’

‘Oh, why are we here?’ she sighed.

‘I reckon, lass, because neither of us have much else better to do.’

Sadly, Celia realised he was right. She had come to that lonely stage in life when she spent too much time looking back. It was all very well growing old disgracefully and running your umbrella
along life’s railings, but when you’d annoyed as many people as possible and told yourself you’d thoroughly enjoyed it, you still had to return home to a cold hearth and deal with
it on your own. That’s why you spent your evenings looking back, surrounded by memories, not because you were eaten up by the warming comforts of nostalgia but because you were becoming
afraid to look too far forward. Old age was a little like being confronted by a rebellion in the colonies. You simply closed your eyes and refused to recognise it, until you were forced to. Then
you declared that you would give in gracefully, and hated every joint-aching minute of it.

‘What’s wrong with you, Archie?’

He sniffed. Typical of a bloody woman to be so direct. No man would ever come out with something so blunt. ‘I hate bloody sandwiches,’ he muttered.

‘No, really. What’s wrong with you?’

He paused before he spoke again. He’d had no practice in doing this, there had been no one else to tell. ‘Got cancer. Inoperable. Maybe six months.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Made my will. Cats’ home included. No children, you see. Damned body never was any good. That’s why the wife left me all those years ago.’

‘Hang on, what about . . . ?’

‘Sonya? How desperate do you think a man has to be to try it on with a money-grubbing little tart like her? The open arms of aspiration and the parted legs of desperation, that’s
what one of the press buggers wrote, and I fell into both. Truth be told, I actually enjoyed the headlines. Did my street cred no end of good. Stood me a whole month’s worth of free drinks in
my local.’ His face brightened. ‘You see, lass, there’s always some good to be found even in the stickiest situation.’

‘Evidently your wife didn’t think so.’

‘Oh, but I got my own back on the bastard she ran off with.’

‘How was that?’

‘I let him keep her.’ There was an engaging twinkle in his eye, but the smile took courage.

‘So that’s why you’ve stayed behind.’

‘You ever seen anyone die of cancer? Not pretty, is it? Got no stomach for it myself. Won’t be long now, can already feel it. Makes me sick with disgust. I loathe myself, what my
life has become. So . . . well, I thought these boys here might even be doing me something of a favour. I’m bored and I’m dying, Celia, and they are two of the worst companions
I’ve ever had. Who knows, these little foreign chappies might bring me just the sort of excitement I need.’

‘You don’t mean you
want
to—’

‘No, no, I’m not the type to go looking for it, but these guys have done me a favour. Brightened up my week no end. And let’s face it, duchess, I’ve got so little to
lose, so much less than almost anyone else in this room. And if, somehow, I can pass on that favour . . .’

‘How?’

‘Not entirely sure. Wait and see, I guess. So that’s what I’m doing here. Waiting and seeing.’

‘But what can you, a . . . a . . .’ She was struggling to find the appropriate words.

‘An old hulk with rotting timbers?’

‘What can you of all people do, Archie?’

‘But that’s it, you see, duchess. I’ve been waiting, and while I’ve been waiting I’ve been watching. And I think I might just have found a use for these old
timbers.’

‘Surprise me.’

‘I’ve got a plan, you see. Not much of a plan, maybe, but buggers can’t be choosers, as they say. It’s just that there’s one little problem. Sounds silly, I know,
but it involves the Queen’s lavatory.’

‘I’ve always said you were an utterly ridiculous man.’

‘Oh, and perhaps a second, very tiny problem,’ he muttered, suddenly a little shame-faced.

‘I think I’ve already figured that one out, you old fool.’

‘You have?’

‘Of course. You’re going to need my help.’

11.18 p.m.

Paine found Tricia Willcocks standing in the garden of Number Ten, wrapped up in a man’s borrowed overcoat, her hands thrust deep inside the pockets, looking up at the
stars that were splashed like tiny pebbles of light across a dark beach. The moon was almost full and the night unusually still and quiet; there was no rumble of traffic from the streets of London.
It seemed as if the entire world was holding its breath.

‘When I was a young man I wanted to be an astronaut,’ he said, walking across the grass to join her.

‘So why weren’t you?’

‘Too much to do down here, I suppose. But right now I’d find the prospect of being somewhere the other side of the galaxy rather appealing.’

‘You have come for your answer, Robert.’

‘I said I would. And there’s not much time left. Delta Force is on its way.’

‘I know.’

She cast around the sky as though looking for landing lights. Her breath sent up little clouds of smoke in the November sky.

‘Home Secretary, the President will not back down. She feels as if she has the weight of history and, if I can put it like this, a thousand generations of Harrisons behind her.’

‘Impressive. But I guess there’ve been quite a lot of Willcockses along the way, too. I’m not sure we’ve ever spilled as much blood as the Harrisons, but from what I know
of them, they’re as stubborn and as cussed as a haemorrhoidal mule.’

‘I hate to be put in this position, to have this conversation with you, but—’

‘It’s your job, your duty, Robert.’ She rather liked Paine, fancied him a little. He was good-looking and reeked of loneliness; it appealed to her feminine side.

‘As you say, my duty.’

‘I think there might be a frost,’ she said, as if she hadn’t a care in the world. ‘What do you think?’

‘Tonight I think even hell might freeze.’

‘It will do before I let in your troops.’

‘They’re only here to help. And the President will not be dissuaded.’

‘But she has no right. The law, every scrap of it, is on my side.’

‘The law?’ Slowly he shook his head. ‘The law is written by those who win.’

‘Ah, the Wild West.’

His voice flooded with emotion and urgency. ‘Tricia, don’t try to call her bluff, I beg you.’

‘But it’s folly for a President—’

‘She’s not thinking as a President. She’s acting as a mother. That’s why she will not back down.’

‘Then I must think for her.’

He wrung his hands in despair, his pain evident. ‘I fear for the consequences of what we’re doing tonight. You know, tomorrow the stars will still be up in their places, but our
world may never be the same.’