The Madness of July (40 page)

Flemyng had been prepared for the admission. ‘I know. Did you see me in the street in Mansfield Mews on Thursday, from the second-floor window? You went there after cabinet, didn’t you?’ Ruskin stared at him, his eyes dull for a moment, but before he could say anything, Flemyng changed tack again. He spoke in a measured tone, as if all the emotion of the moment had evaporated.

‘I want to talk about the American, Manson. That’s why we’re here – not for that piece of paper, which is yours.’ He gestured to the letter.

Ruskin was pleading with him now, all pretence gone. ‘Do you know what the American asked me? Told me?’ His voice rose again. ‘Blackmail, as clear as day.’

‘Jonathan, tell me everything, from the beginning.’

‘I will.’

He shifted back in the chair, stretched out his long legs, almost looked as if he was trying to find a way of being comfortable.

Behind the door, in the ante-room, Abel moved a little closer, standing at Paul’s shoulder. He could hear Ruskin’s voice dropping again.

‘It wasn’t Thursday, like Paul said. It was Wednesday night.’ Flemyng admired his ability to hold the details in his head while his composure deserted him. ‘The American rang me, told me what he knew, straight out. I panicked; didn’t argue. Told him to come to the House, just like that. What else could I do? It was so quick.

‘When he came, he asked me about… my son.’ Flemyng nodded, as if he had known all along, and gave no sign that he was hearing Ruskin’s story for the first time. With that gesture of encouragement Ruskin accepted one more blow: that it was his secret no more. Gone, carried away on the tide.

‘Rape? How dare the bastard! I tell you, Will’ – Flemyng knew that he was floundering now – ‘she’s madder than I am. Vicious. Awful.’ He was telling the story from the middle outwards, betraying his assumption that his questioner was ahead of him, and had heard it before.

With Abel listening carefully at the door, Flemyng asked for one important piece of information. For Abel, at Maria’s prompting. He told Ruskin that travel records had been examined – didn’t reveal by whom, or whence they came – and that he didn’t appear to have visited America at what he called the relevant time. How did Ruskin know the boy in Georgetown was his son?

He snorted. ‘America? Wrong, Will. Don’t get ahead of yourself.’ He shifted violently in the chair.

‘It was in Oxford. We were together for a few days, no more.’ He sounded weary now. ‘I could tell you the college. The date of the stupid bloody conference and the number of the room, for fuck’s sake. I’ve been sending money all these years. You doubt me?’

A last flare of pride, not quite extinguished.

‘It wasn’t over there, it was here. Did she tell your people that? Liar, as ever. Or did you just make a half-arsed assumption?’ His instinct for combat resurfaced, even at the moment of collapse.

With Ruskin squirming before him, shrunken and trembling, Flemyng knew it was the moment to strike. ‘I want you to meet a friend and colleague of Manson’s, Jonathan. We need to know why it was so important for him to confront you. This is about him, not you. Here’s his friend.’

Abel walked in. ‘Hello, Minister, my name is Grauber.’ Flemyng smiled and sat back, the baton passed. Ruskin greeted him inaudibly, seemed unable to rise to shake his hand.

‘I’m afraid I have some bad news,’ said Abel, without preamble, to give the follow-up punch its full weight.

Ruskin was now almost gasping for breath as he said, ‘Bad news?’

Flemyng and Abel were watching every twitch of the face, every flap of the hand.

‘Yes,’ said Abel. ‘Joe Manson is dead. That’s why I’m here. This has nothing to do with your son. He is of no concern to us, and we wish him no ill. Nor you, if you can believe that.’

Ruskin sprang to his feet and loomed over them both. ‘Dead?’ He put both hands on the desk, and turned his head towards Flemyng. ‘How?’

‘Drugs,’ said Abel. ‘That’s how it was always going to end for him. But I have to tell you that he worked in a sensitive part of our government. You won’t have known it, but he did. The consequence is that we need to know what he was doing when he died, because he was in the possession of information that was precious to us.’ He added, ‘I realize that you understand these things, given your own involvement in sensitive matters.’

Without pausing, making no concession to the figure in a state of near collapse at the desk, he said, as if reconsidering Ruskin’s first reaction, ‘My question is simple. Did you know that he had died?’

Ruskin’s poise came back in ragged fashion at the last, and he staged a rally. Flemyng admired the effort. ‘Dead? What are you talking about? All I know is he was as high as a kite – I can tell it when I see it, as Will is aware.’ He glared at Abel. ‘You’re a friend, after all, you know his problem. When he challenged me – insulted me, threatened me – I left him on the terrace at the House. He’d phoned me and I’d agreed to meet him for a drink… because of what he said he knew. Stupid. Said he had the whole story, and that it might all come out. I told him to go away and never come back and that was the last I saw of him. I went to my room in the House and locked myself in, raged for a while.’ He sagged back into the chair.

The brothers watched him. They had rehearsed the last piece of choreography, and Flemyng took the lead.

‘Jonathan, this has been unpleasant for all of us. You’ve been frank, and nobody envies you the experience of having a troubling piece of your past thrown at you without warning. We all have something tucked away. But you’ll realize with this death – it’s very private by the way – that you will need to be spoken to, because you met Manson. He worked for his government, came here under cover, and is dead. We have to know why. The investigating officer is called Osterley, from Special Branch, and he’ll contact you. You’ll have to lay it all out for him. When you met Manson, where you saw him, every word that was spoken. The lot.’

Ruskin’s china blue eyes were wide and dazed-looking.

‘It will be today. You know what it’s like, trying to keep a lid on these things. We need to move fast. He’ll listen to your story. Tell him everything, and then it’s over.

‘He will be particularly interested in the hour of Manson’s confrontation with you, because he died on Thursday, not Wednesday.’

Ruskin tried to smile. ‘Something must have happened after I saw him then. He was obviously on drugs. I’ve been there and I’ve looked over the edge.’ With a physical effort that was obvious to everyone, he said, ‘I’m so sorry. He was a sad man.’

Flemyng could see that Paul was watching through the crack in the door behind Ruskin, still wearing an expression of horror. He seemed not to have moved for several minutes.

‘It was sad indeed,’ said Flemyng. ‘And violent too, I think, at the end.’ He slid back Paul’s desk drawer and took out his own blue handkerchief. From it he extracted the short sliver of marble he had picked from the floor of the store-room and placed it on the table. ‘Violent enough for a big bust of Gladstone to be split almost in two. I think the crash may have been the last thing Joe Manson heard.

‘Poor Manson, mad enough at the end to have a fight with a statue.’

There was silence.

Then Abel said, ‘I’d like to thank you, Minister – Jonathan, if I may? It’s a difficult moment, especially for those of us who knew Joe. Please tell the police everything you can. No doubt we’ll meet again.’

A twitch appeared on Ruskin’s face that Flemyng had never seen before, and he sighed.‘I will,’ he said as he walked – stumbled, to Abel’s eyes – towards the door.

Abel matched his brother’s timing with his last shot, Paul watching from the adjacent room.

‘There is one particular difficulty that Osterley may ask you to help with. Just so you know.’

Ruskin turned to face Abel. As he did so, he caught sight of Paul. But the fight had gone from him.

‘It looks as if Joe died from drugs that were injected. There was a syringe nearby. But we know he’d never used one in his life. Any light you can cast…’

Ruskin gazed at them both in turn, shook his head towards Paul, gave a kind of bow and closed the door behind him.

26

The clock struck the half-hour and broke the silence that Ruskin had left in his wake. Paul was back at his desk, with Flemyng opposite him and Abel standing by the window, looking towards the park. ‘I need to send a message,’ he said. Paul gestured to the outer office, and he left without another word. Flemyng had never seen Paul silenced so quickly, and watched him grapple with feelings that had robbed him, for the moment, of all authority.

Abel closed the door gently behind him and Flemyng waited for Paul, giving him the chance to regain command. After a few moments his grey eyes came up, and met Flemyng’s. ‘The most terrible scene I’ve ever witnessed. I had no idea… The agony. How has he hidden it?’

‘Necessity,’ said Flemyng without obvious emotion, and pressed on.

‘Was it you who sent him to see Archie Chester?’ Now that he had opened himself up to the questions that must follow, Paul didn’t pause to ask Flemyng how he knew. Instead, he let it flow.

‘Yes, but not for this kind of thing.’ He waved to the door, as if the shadow of Ruskin were still there, refusing to fade in the light.

‘Tell me,’ said Flemyng.

‘We’ve often used Chester for people in difficulty. Top man, and more discreet than some of these characters. Your old friends have a good relationship with him and he’s sorted out a few of their walking wounded, one way or another. You must know that.’ Flemyng gave no response. ‘Ruskin came to me months ago with a story about troubles he was having at home – maybe true for all I know – and said he needed help. His wife has always hated this life, as you know. Did I know anyone? Naturally I mentioned Archie. I had no idea there was a drugs thing going on. Well, I know now. My God.’

Flemyng said, ‘He’s dangerous of course, knowing what he does. He sees so many of the papers, wanders the byways, knows where the bodies are buried.’ He shook his head at the phrase. ‘I’m sorry.’

Paul slapped his hand on the desk. ‘Exactly. You know what he’s like – ear cocked for any gossip. I couldn’t believe it when he mentioned Berlin. I knew then that he’d flipped. Will, that’s as deep as it goes.’

He got up and stretched. ‘I’m sorry, I found that a physical trial.’ He went to the window, and spoke with his back to Flemyng. ‘I’m going to fill you in a little more, because I think after the last half-hour you deserve that at least. You’re cleared for most of this kind of thing obviously, but we’ve had to keep this so dark you’d hardly believe it.’

He walked to a side table where his secretary had laid out four china cups and saucers on a wooden tray, even the biscuits that she knew Ruskin liked. The pot of coffee was untouched. No one had noticed it. Paul stood there, the host embarrassed by having forgotten his duties.

Flemyng took up the reins. ‘I can help you, Paul. On Berlin, I should tell you that I’ve discovered enough to give me an outline, and in my head I’ve been colouring in the picture. Let me try it out, and see how we go. You don’t need to say anything.’

Paul made a gesture of relief.

‘I have a few facts and I’ve been thinking about the gaps,’ Flemyng said. ‘This probably sounds strange, because you think you get it all in this office, but I think for just about the first time in this whole bloody saga I may be able to assist you. Let some light in.’

Paul stayed absolutely still but his shoulders had relaxed.

Flemyng began. ‘The way I took your request for help was that you needed me to think for you – to try and understand the connections between people that weren’t immediately obvious, and watch how they behaved. My old game. I don’t imagine for a moment this is what you wanted me to unravel, but I was drawn to it. Of course I was, like a trout to the fly.

‘First of all, I made the assumption that your alarm about Berlin – I know Sassi mentioned it at the opera – must involve a sensitive source. Nothing else produces this kind of panic. It’s familiar enough to me from days gone by, and I learned enough from an old friend to set me on my way. But there was a problem I couldn’t unlock. More than one, as it turned out.

‘A surfeit of allies.’ Flemyng echoed Sam’s words. ‘A phrase I picked up recently, and it won’t go away.’

He closed his eyes in a natural effort at concentration. When he resumed he had turned away instinctively to avoid distractions and as he began to spin his story, in a measured, soft tone, he and Paul had their backs towards each other as if neither wanted to acknowledge what lay between them.

‘To begin at the beginning, I went back in time. Two decades, Europe in the deep freeze, Hungarians on our conscience, the sixties still over the horizon. You remember it – a grey world. Starting out – Berlin, then Vienna – I was aware of a trickle of gold dust that came through a crack, treasure so precious that it was hardly spoken about, even among friends. I was junior, a boy and not much more on my second posting, but I was lucky enough to see it shine. I know others who spend a half a lifetime and never get the chance, but I was taken into the game, played my part and grew up in a hurry. I was in on it, and I loved the dark, Paul.’

He took a few steps and put his hands on the desk. Paul was still turned away.

‘I was blessed. I ran errands to our source, and steadied him in the storm. We spoke, started a friendship, played a little. Berlin, twice in Vienna much later. One or two other places. I was the messenger who turned into something more – an ally, you might say. I brought him comfort, courtesy of London, and held his hand. Prepared him for the years ahead. It was the making of me, as well as him.’

Neither of them had smiled much in the course of the morning, and as Paul swivelled to face him, he saw Flemyng’s long face still serious. But there was confidence in his bearing, his hands loose and his voice strong.

‘He was mine, Paul.’

Flemyng spoke of the prize he’d been given. ‘I was young, new on the street. By chance I fitted the part, that’s all. And I think you know this, Paul – our friend wasn’t on the other side, in the enemy camp. He was on our side of the wall. But just as precious as if he’d been in Moscow, so we thought. His isn’t a story that happens over there. He’s in the west.