Heaven's Light (47 page)

*

Charlie had called the press conference for 3 p.m. The phones at the press centre had started ringing at a couple of minutes past twelve, and he had been driven to drafting in extra pairs of hands, stationing them beside telephones in bedroom suites upstairs to cope with the torrent of calls. To no one’s surprise, Wilcox had sold his exclusive to the wire services, and now there wasn’t a news organization in the country that didn’t want to put its own spin on what the subs at the
Sun
were already calling
THE ZHU COUP.
If a local party had found so many takers in Portsmouth, how many other cities might share this hunger for independence?

It was this element that braced Charlie when he stood to face the roomful of journalists and TV crews, and the longer the press conference went on, the more exultant he felt. He began by reading a statement. It was brief and punchy. Pompey First had given Whitehall a black eye. Whitehall was a bad loser. There were a million ways of abusing the newly born, but what they’d done to Pompey First was close to infanticide.

A reporter for BBC News, drafted in from Southampton, asked if Charlie was denying the allegations.

‘One hundred per cent,’ Charlie yelled defiantly. ‘They’re doing what they know best. They’re lying.’

‘Who’s they?’

‘You tell me. That’s the whole fucking problem.’ Charlie’s language caused a ripple of laughter, not all of it amused. Answers like this, sadly, would never make it to the screen.

‘So where’s Zhu?’ shouted a voice from the back.

‘Pass.’

‘Have you talked to him?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because he’s not around.’

‘Doesn’t that tell you something?’

‘Yes, it tells me he’s got taste. Who’d be here? Putting up with you lot?’

More laughter. Charlie ignored it, treating the next accusation with contempt. The reporter came from the
Sentinel.
Throughout the campaign, he’d enthused about local democracy, about returning power to the people. Yet now, along with the rest of the pack, he was riding hard for the kill. His question was simple. Hadn’t Pompey First betrayed the city?

Charlie gave him a hard stare. It was a good question, he said, coming from a paper that had thrown its weight behind the campaign. For once in his life he’d begun to believe in journalists who’d put the real issues before the usual media garbage. Now, though, he knew he’d been naïve. The editor of the
Sentinel
was as wedded to fantasy as the source to whom he’d surrendered most of this morning’s paper.

Charlie reached inside his jacket, produced a folded copy of the
Sentinel
and held up the front page.

‘This is crap,’ he said. ‘This is what you get when no one bothers to think too hard, when no one bothers to ask the obvious questions.’

‘What questions?’

‘My friend, the fact that you even have to ask says it all. Who planted this stuff? Who manufactured it? And what made them so sure you’d print it?’

‘You’re denying it?’

‘Categorically.’

‘Zhu hasn’t funded your campaign?’

‘Mr Zhu has made some generous donations. We treat them as loans.’

‘Repayable?’

‘Of course.’

‘When?’

Charlie grinned at him, refusing to answer, one derisive finger in the air. The storm of flash-bulbs drove him to fresh excess.

‘Wilcox is a tart,’ he announced. ‘I just hope he gets well fucked.’

Another question came in, a change of tack. Would Pompey First’s rally still be on? At the Guildhall? Or was the contest over?

‘Over? Far from it.’ Charlie laughed. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, the gig goes on.’

Wilcox was on the phone to the Meridian newsroom when the reporter returned from the Pompey First press conference. The phone conversation over, he gave the editor a brief summary of the line Charlie Epple was taking. There was no conspiracy, no disguised bid for independence. With Pompey First, you got what you saw: governance the city could truly call its own.

Wilcox had his jacket off, his sleeves rolled up. He glowered at the reporter. ‘You asked him about betrayal?’

‘Of course.’

Wilcox indicated the shorthand pad. ‘What did he say? Verbatim?’

The reporter began to look uneasy.

Wilcox had a notoriously short fuse. He stared at the reporter until the man shrugged and began to flip through the pad. He read out Charlie’s thoughts on the
Sentinel
and its editor. Word for word. Wilcox watched him, unblinking. ‘He said that?’

‘Yes.’

Wilcox pulled out a drawer. He consulted a small address book, scribbled a number on a sheet of paper and passed it over the desk. ‘That’s Barnaby’s mobile,’ he said. ‘Ask him why his wife spent three grand buying heroin in Amsterdam. Tell him we have photographs. And ask him for a comment. OK?’ He slammed the drawer, then yelled for his secretary. Meridian were doing a special. They were sending a crew over. He wanted everyone in ties by the time they arrived.

Barnaby was still trying to find Zhu when the call came from the
Sentinel.
He’d phoned everywhere, trying to pin down the Singaporean, but for some reason both his mobiles were turned off and all attempts to raise his driver’s pager had come to nothing. The latest call had gone to Zhu’s home in Surrey. There, his personal assistant had been polite but evasive. Mr Zhu was currently in transit. Between where and where she wasn’t prepared to say. Only when Barnaby asked if he was still in the country did she offer any guidance. Mr Zhu had no immediate plans to leave the UK, she said.

The reporter on the
Sentinel
was brisk. Barnaby listened to what he had to say. At the end, without waiting for the inevitable question, he put the phone down.

Below, in the hotel lobby, Charlie intercepted him
en route
to the revolving door.

‘Zhu’s due at six,’ he said. ‘The manager tipped me the wink.’

‘Where’s he been?’

‘Heathrow. Apparently he picked someone up. Now we need to keep him away from those animals.’ Charlie nodded down the corridor towards a group of journalists nursing
glasses of Scotch while they compared notes. Charlie had just broken out Pompey First’s reserves of single malt. He saw no reason why a disaster shouldn’t be turned into a wake.

Barnaby glanced at his watch. It was already twenty past four. ‘He’s turned off his mobiles. So how do we get through to him before he arrives?’

‘No idea. But I’ll think of a way.’ Charlie paused. ‘The troops are getting restless. Word’s gone round already.’

Barnaby knew. Worried calls from Pompey First candidates were beginning to arrive in the press centre. The
Sentinel
’s reach was longer than he’d thought and they were taking a lot of heavy flak on the doorsteps. One or two were already starting to question the wisdom of pressing ahead with the Guildhall rally and, whatever reassurances he offered, Barnaby sensed a reluctance to appear on the same platform as the man whose face peered out from the
Sentinel
’s midday edition.

Charlie was still musing about Zhu. He’d post sentries. He’d lay an ambush. Somehow he’d shield him from the wolves down the corridor. He saw Barnaby reach for the revolving door. ‘Where you off to?’

Barnaby laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘Out,’ he said.

When Barnaby rang the front doorbell Liz was in the back garden. She appeared in jeans and an old sweater, her hair tied back with a scrap of scarlet ribbon. At the sight of him, she stiffened, saying nothing. ‘You’ve seen the
Sentinel?’

Liz nodded. ‘Sort of. A friend phoned me up. Read me out the best bits.’

‘And what did you think?’

‘It made me laugh.’ She smiled at last. ‘Sup with the devil…’

‘Zhu’s straight. I swear he is.’

‘I didn’t mean Zhu.’

‘Oh?’

Barnaby blinked. Liz had been in the sun and it showed on her forearms and he found himself wondering quite how far the tan extended. She was still looking at him, still waiting for an explanation for this sudden visit.

‘We have to talk,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid it’s urgent.’

‘Talk about what?’

‘Drugs. And three thousand pounds of my money.’

Liz pursed her lips. Then she pulled off her gardening gloves, shaking the loose soil onto the flower beds beside the front door. Inside, the house smelled different, as if it belonged to a stranger, and for the first time it occurred to Barnaby that Liz might be living with someone else.

‘Still by yourself?’ he asked, watching her fill the kettle.

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘No toy boys?’

She turned her back on him, unamused, the way you might ignore a child’s curse.

Uninvited, Barnaby sank onto the sofa. We used to sit here in the evenings, he thought. We used to be happy.

‘Have you eaten?’

‘Yes, thanks.’

Liz pulled up a chair and sat down. She took an orange from the fruit bowl and began to peel it. Barnaby watched her fingers, the way they dug into the skin, easing back the pith, leaving each segment undamaged. He’d come for a row, a confrontation. Yet all he wanted to do was watch.

‘You mentioned something about money,’ Liz said.

Barnaby told her about the reporter from the
Sentinel.
The accusation was brutally simple: Liz had given Haagen three thousand pounds. And Haagen had spent it on heroin.

‘True or false?’

‘Depends.’

‘On what?’

‘On whether you’re a lawyer or a human being.’ Liz tidied the peel and dropped it into the bin. ‘You choose.’

‘Neither. I’m under attack, that’s all.’

‘Who by? Who from?’

‘More or less everyone. You want a list?’

‘No, thanks.’

‘OK’ Barnaby shrugged. ‘But I’d still like an answer, if you don’t mind. To be honest, it makes me feel a bit of a prat, not knowing.’

‘I bet.’ Liz began to divide the orange into segments. ‘Pretty unpleasant, isn’t it?’

‘What?’

‘Not knowing what your partner’s up to. Getting calls out of the blue. Trying to come up with some explanation.’

Barnaby acknowledged the reproof with a slight tilt of his head. This was a new Liz, he thought. A year ago she’d have been half-way through the bottle by now, hopelessly off the pace.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said softly, ‘if that helps.’

He looked up in time to catch the smile that ghosted across her face. She began to tell him about Haagen and about the money. The man on the phone had been right. She’d spent £3,000 trying to get him out of the country. She’d told herself he’d be as good as his word. She’d told herself it was an investment. She’d been wrong.

‘An investment in what?’

‘Jessie,’ she said. ‘And us.’

‘You didn’t know about the heroin?’

‘No.’

‘You thought he’d pack up and go? Just like that?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I wanted him to, needed him to. I’m a simple woman, a mother. You do strange things when—’ She broke off, refusing to bother with excuses.

Barnaby reached for one of the orange segments. He put it in his mouth and sucked it, surprised at its sweetness. Bits of him were less dead than he’d thought.

Liz was talking about Jessie again. She’d been round for most of the morning. She was very upset.

‘Why?’

Liz shook her head in a gesture of profound sympathy. For a long time she was quiet. At last, she looked up. ‘You don’t know, do you? You really don’t understand. Your daughter’s been to damnation and back and yet there’s no way you’ll open your eyes, and take a second or two off, and see her for who she really is.’

Barnaby began to defend himself. Jessie was coming round to the flat. They were talking. Comparing notes. Getting closer.

‘To you, yes. To her? I doubt it.’

‘Who says?’

‘I say. Not her, me. She’s loyal to you, fiercely loyal. God knows why, but she is. She thinks the world of you, and all you do is tell her how much you want to make it better.’

‘Make what better?’

‘The world. Not hers. Not ours. But someone else’s. And I’m talking politics, not Kate Frankham.’ She stared at him, her eyes blazing, then looked away. Moments later,
the anger had gone, leaving in its place something infinitely more sombre. ‘Haagen’s back,’ she said.

‘Back where?’

‘Here. Back in Portsmouth, living on some houseboat or other. Jessie’s been seeing him regularly, keeping it a secret, not wanting to upset anyone.’

‘
Upset
anyone? Like who?’

‘Lolly. Me. Even you.’

Barnaby stared at her, a pattern of events beginning to resolve itself in his mind. Someone had wrecked their printing machines. There were rumours of a fire bomb at the Imperial. And Haagen was back in town.

He leaned forward on the sofa, helplessly inquisitorial.

‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Why did she want to see him so badly?’

‘I suppose she loves him. In her own way.’

‘But what do they talk about?’

‘God knows.’

Barnaby sat back, numbed. Jessie knew everything about Pompey First, every last detail of the schedule, every last change of plan. He’d bored her stiff with his new baby for weeks, months. How much of this had she passed on to Haagen? How much had he coaxed out of her?

He looked up, aware that Liz was still gazing at him.

‘It’s a great pity,’ she said. ‘A real shame.’

‘What is?’

‘You. You’re a bright man. Often you’re a kind man. You can make us laugh. You can make us feel wonderful. We love you. We both love you. But it’s not enough, is it?’ She gazed at him. ‘At first I thought it was just greed. You wanted more. More money. More sex. More conquests. More clients. More of everything. But now? Now, I’m not so sure. I think about it a lot. You, I mean. And sometimes I think you might be just a little bit autistic.’

‘Autistic?’

‘Yes. There are bits of you that seem completely dead, completely unformed. The light just doesn’t get through. And that means, poor thing, that you’re going to miss a lot. Us, for a start.’

The phone on the table between them began to trill. For once, Barnaby didn’t stir. His mind was quite blank.