Midnight Fugue (21 page)

The pulsating green dot that showed the Nissan’s position remained steady in the car park. He turned his TV set on, keeping the sound low. There was nothing on the sports channels that he wanted to watch, so he checked out the hotel’s entertainment channel and accessed an adult movie. Its title promised a lot more than it gave. A few nice boobs, no pubes, and the kind of simulated passion that wouldn’t have fooled a myopic nun; all it did was put him in the mood for something that was really for grown-ups! After ten minutes of grunt and groan, he switched the set off and turned his attention to the laptop. The green dot was still in the car park.

Most likely the blonde tart was in her room, sitting on Tubby’s face, he told himself. The thought did more for him than the movie had, and he ran his fingers over the keyboard and a few moments later he was into one of his favourite sites. He rose, went to the interconnecting door between his room and Fleur’s and made sure it was bolted. Then he stripped his clothes off and lay on the bed with the laptop to enjoy the fun.

Over the next ninety minutes, he fetched himself off three times. The first had been an almost spontaneous reaction to the images on the screen, the second came after a long languorous build-up as he navigated his way through progressively more extreme sites, and the third time had been pretty mechanical to confirm that his recovery speed was as good as ever. Shooting that guy in the face had really turned him on; stuff like that usually did. Some hotels he knew, he could have come back and whistled up a woman, but the Keldale didn’t feel like it offered that kind of service, particularly on a Sunday afternoon. Anyway, with Fleur next door and likely to come calling, it was out of the question, so it had to be DIY time.

He glanced at his watch. Coming up to half three. Rest a bit then go for number four? No, this movie stuff was all right and often provided some instructive tutorials, but it didn’t come close to a real woman. Blondie now, he wouldn’t mind an hour of grunt and groan and maybe a bit of slap and scream with her.

The thought reminded him he was supposed to be watching the tracker screen.

He exited his porn site and there it was, the green spot pulsating merrily in the car park. Probably still trying to coax Tubby into his first orgasm, he thought complacently. Might appreciate a real man.

But no point thinking about that with Fleur calling the shots. Bit of a prude, old Fleur. He assumed she must have had it, because on the streets he grew up in, he’d never met any tart over fourteen who hadn’t. But where or who with he had no idea. Maybe The Man had given her one. He certainly wasn’t going to ask.

He rolled off the bed and went into the bathroom. Nice refreshing shower, then downstairs for a cup of tea and a club sandwich. He sang ‘Maybe It’s Because I’m a Londoner’ as he soaped himself. He felt surprisingly happy. And why shouldn’t he be?

Soon, with a bit of luck, they’d be out of this godawful town heading back to the civilized south where people knew who he was and showed him respect and didn’t speak like a bunch of fucking sheep with hiccoughs.

And one thing was certain.

Like with prison, once he was out of fucking Yorkshire, no way he was ever going back in!

14.45–15.45

Every time David Gidman the Third tried to prise himself away from the new community centre, someone got in his way. Several times he’d thrown Maggie Pinchbeck a desperate glance, appealing for rescue. All he got in return was an encouraging nod of the head.

But at last he made it to the car. The charming smile with which he said farewell to his civic escort did not flicker till Maggie had driven beyond the range of prying eyes, then it broadened into a huge yawn.

‘God, that was mega boring,’ he said.

‘I noticed. Let’s hope no one else did.’

Exaggerating his sulkiness because he feared he couldn’t altogether hide it, he said, ‘OK, sharp-eyes, on a scale of ten, how did I do?’

‘Six out of ten, six point five, maybe,’ she said promptly.

He chewed on this for a while, then said, ‘Why do you imagine that relentless honesty makes your job more secure than fulsome flattery?’

‘I don’t. But if it doesn’t, I don’t want to work for you anyway.’

He gave her a smile which if it had been any tighter might have cracked his teeth.

OK, she was never going to give him the kind of comforts the two-metre model could provide, but at least she might do the occasional bit of ego-stroking.

He said accusingly, ‘You didn’t warn me Jones was going to be there.’

‘That’s because I didn’t know. He wasn’t in church. In fact, I’m sure I saw Gem Huntley there, but she vanished afterwards. Not feeling well, he said.’

‘Yeah. You believe him?’

‘No.’

She waited to see if he’d follow it up, but he didn’t.

She drove in silence for a while then said casually, ‘That stuff Jones was spouting about wolves from the past biting you, what do you think that was all about?’

He wasn’t surprised she’d latched on to it. She had a very sensitive radar.

He said, ‘How the hell should I know? Probably came along for the free sandwiches. Why does the bastard hate me so much? I never did anything to harm him.’

Maggie let this pass. After a moment she said, ‘Still, it’s strange. And he did give the impression he thought he was on to something.’

‘Part of his trade,’ he said dismissively. ‘The others call him Nine Ten. Knows more about tomorrow than he does about today. And he’s probably rattled his brain to jelly shagging Beanie the Bitch.’

He closed his eyes and pretended to doze for the rest of the journey to his Holborn flat.
You should live in the constituency
, Maggie had advised.
Not fucking likely
, he’d replied. Holborn was a concession.

As he got out, Maggie said, ‘Shall I come in? There’s stuff we need to go through for tomorrow.’

‘Later,’ he said. ‘I’m knackered. Think I’ll get my head down.’

Not on Sophie Harbott you won’t, thought Maggie, who’d arrived early enough that morning to see the woman departing in what looked like high dudgeon. It was a liaison Maggie disapproved of more than most of her boss’s adventures. If the tabloids got a sniff he was shagging the wife of the Labour spokesman on religious affairs, they would fall over themselves to top each other’s headline: WHO’S CONVERTING WHO?… CROSS-BENCHING MODERN STYLE… COALITION COITION… the possibilities were endless.

But that was, literally, Gidman’s affair. She’d made it clear that, so far as his love-life was concerned, she wasn’t getting involved in either arrangements or clean-up.

‘OK,’ she said. ‘Six thirty? Seven?’

‘Whatever. By the way, did you get hold of the Chuckle Brothers?’

This was the term he used for Kuba and Drugi, the two young Poles who’d done the work on his shower that had completed the cooling of Sophie’s ardour. They had been recommended by Maggie, who said she’d met them when working for ChildSave on immigrant families. Gidman had not been altogether displeased to have been able to complain about an arrangement made by his usually tediously efficient PA.

‘They’ll be there tomorrow,’ she promised.

‘Meanwhile I’ll just have to take a cold shower, I suppose,’ he grumbled.

‘Might do you good,’ she said. ‘See you later.’

David the Third watched her drive away, then went up to his flat. For once he had time on his hands. He could do a bit of work on a speech he was making next week. Or read a book, watch a bit of telly, or even ring Sophie, see if she’d be interested in taking up where they’d left off. Probably not. Anyway, he didn’t feel much interested himself, in that or any of the other options. Jones the Mess had really got to him, he realized. What he needed were answers, and there was only one place to get them.

Ten minutes later he was in his Audi A8 heading north. There are no good times for moving through London outside the small hours, but Sunday afternoon comes close and it wasn’t yet half three when he came to a halt before the high gates of Windrush House.

The camera on the gate column viewed him for a moment then the metal gates swung silently open and he sent the car moving slowly forward up the long drive, careful as always not to provoke his father’s wrath by spraying gravel over the manicured lawns.

As Gidman went up the steps to the front door, it was opened by a young black man dressed in immaculately creased burgundy slacks, a beautifully cut suede jacket and a white shirt so bright it made you blink.

He said, ‘Hello, Mr Gidman, sir. You’re looking well.’

‘Hello, Dean. And you look like you’ve got something really special lined up.’

Dean grinned. He and Dave the Third had identified a common interest in the pursuit of love. He said, ‘Yes, sir. Another hour and I’m off duty, then I’m driving out to Romford to pick up this new gal I met last week, real looker, training to be a hairdresser. We’re heading up West, got a table booked for a nice meal, do a club, then it’s all in the lap of the gods.’

‘The only thing in the lap of the gods is a divine dong,’ said Gidman, smiling. ‘Sounds like yours is ready for action.’

‘Hello there, young Davey!’

He looked round to see another much older black man who suddenly flung a left hook at him which he only just managed to fend off with his right forearm.

‘Nearly got you! You come down the gym after you done your homework, we’ll soon sharpen you up.’

‘I’ll look forward to that, Sling,’ said Gidman.

Milton Slingsby had been part of his life since childhood. As well as the boxing, Sling had always been on hand to play cricket and football with, to drive him to school, to pick him up when he’d been out with his friends in the evening. The precise role he played in Goldie’s affairs had never been quite clear to Dave. He’d heard him described at various times as driver, handyman, even personal trainer. Nowadays he was never far away from Goldie who, if asked, would probably say, ‘He’s my old friend.’ If pressed to explain exactly what he did, Dave had heard his father reply, ‘Any damn thing I ask him to,’ with a laugh to signal a joke, though Dave wasn’t certain he was joking.

Just how much Sling’s treatment of Dave as a schoolboy was a joke and how much down to his mild dementia, Gidman hadn’t worked out. Certainly his mental condition would have been a lot worse if it hadn’t been for Goldie. ‘Your pappy bought my contract,’ Sling often told Dave. ‘And he say to me, “From now on in, no more boxing rings. From now on you fight only for me.”’

By one of the little jokes that time likes to play on its subjects, as Sling’s brain paid the penalty for those early rattlings, his body aged in quite a different way. No flat-nosed, cauliflower-eared, punch-drunk pugilist this; long and lean, with silver-grey hair and an academic stoop, he could have been a retired professor whose occasional abstractions were the mark of a mind voyaging through strange seas of thought alone.

‘Where’s Pappy, Sling?’ asked Dave as he moved into the house.

‘Upstairs with Jimi. You home for the holidays now, young Dave?’

‘That’s right, Sling. Home for the holidays. I wish,’ said Gidman. ‘Dean, have a great night!’

The young man gave him a thumbs-up and went back into the security control room. It sometimes bothered Dave that Sling and Dean were all the household staff there were, but his mother was adamant she didn’t want help cluttering up the place. Goldie acknowledged his wife’s domestic authority with a meekness that would have amazed those who knew him only through business.
Couldn’t hire a better cook
, he’d say.
Which makes it all the worse she got me on a lunchtime diet
!

As for security, Dave Gidman knew the alarm system was state of the art.

He ran up the stairs to a darkened first-floor room set up as a home cinema. Here he found his father watching a video of Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock. It was a taste they didn’t share. Another was the pungent Havana cigars which Flo had decreed could only be smoked in this one room.

Goldie didn’t take his eyes off the screen where the great rocker was deep into ‘Message to Love’, but raised his right hand in the imperious gesture which those around him had learned meant
stand still, don’t speak, I’ll get round to you when I’m ready
.

A wave of resentment surged up in his son. One thing to be seen as a school kid by Sling’s defocused gaze, quite another to be fossilized in that role by his father.

Out in the world he was the golden boy, expecting and receiving deference, even from those who disliked him. Why make an enemy of a man who was the hottest long-term bet for Downing Street in the last fifty years?

It was only those most intimately linked to his political career who refused to defer. Like Cameron and his attendant clones. And Maggie bloody Pinchbeck, who tried to control him like a performing dog. At least he could sack her. Maybe.

But his father was the worst offender. Sometimes the appellation David Gidman the Third sounded more pecking order than genealogy. OK, he couldn’t sack Goldie, but maybe it was time he understood that the wide and glittering world of political power into which he’d launched his son didn’t end at his mansion gates.

He picked up the remote and stopped Hendrix in mid-syllable.

‘OK, Pappy,’ he said, already appalled at his own boldness. ‘I need to know what the fuck’s going on.’

Goldie Gidman turned his head and regarded his son blankly. Inside he wasn’t displeased at this show of spirit. Life had given him only two things he wouldn’t ruthlessly discard in the interests of his own comfort and security. One was Flo, his wife, and the other was his son. He’d kept them at a very long arm’s length from the world he’d grown up in, a world where you learned to survive by being harder than those trying to survive around you. With Flo, it had been easy, despite the fact that she was by his side almost from the beginning. Her love was unconditional, she saw nothing he did not invite her to see, asked no questions, passed no comments.

Dave the Third was harder. Brought up to a life of privilege, it was simple to put a firewall between him and his father’s colourful past. But protection was no protection if it weakened what you were trying to protect. In the career he was launched on, he would need the same skills as his father — a nose for danger, an eye for the main chance, and a ruthless instinct for survival at no matter what cost to others.