The Silent Oligarch: A Novel (32 page)

Hammer held Webster’s eye and nodded gently, bringing his hand away from his mouth.

“How do you feel now about Gerstman?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you still feel responsible?”

“Yes. I think I set things off. Primed the mechanism.”

“But you went on with the case.”

Webster frowned slightly, looking closely at Hammer for a hint of his meaning.

“I did.”

“I’m not criticizing you. But we go on. It’s who we are. We weren’t made to leave things alone.”

“That’s just it. I want to leave things alone. I want to leave them exactly as they are. It doesn’t matter whether that’s me or not.”

Hammer nodded. “I’m not saying that in time you’ll feel better. You won’t. I had a source hang himself once. Years ago, before Ikertu. To this day I don’t know why he did it and to this day it makes me feel sick. You won’t feel better. But you will see better.”

“See what?”

“What we do. Why we do it. That on balance we do some good.”

Not for Gerstman. Not for poor Lock. And for Inessa, he would never know.

He looked away. From the light on the bare trees outside he could tell that the day would be gone in an hour or so.

“Take some time,” said Hammer. “Come back in a month. Two. But come back.”

Webster looked down at the floor and nodded once, the merest inclination of his head.

“Thanks, Ike. We’ll see.”

W
EBSTER WALKED EAST ACROSS
the Heath. The sun shone low through an avenue of bare limes and picked out in crazed patterns the dead leaves on the ground. It was half past two and Nancy and Daniel would be out of school in an hour. The park was quiet: some runners running, some mothers pushing prams. At the top of a hill he came into the light and there was London beneath him in a bright, cold haze. He walked along a wall of deep green holly and then down the shaded passageway to the pond. Two old men were drying themselves with white towels on the wooden deck. In the changing room he took off his coat, his shoes, his suit, his shirt and his socks, and stepped outside in his shorts. The air pinched his skin. At the end of the diving board he stopped, looked up at the sky above him, a perfect ultramarine, looked down at the green-black water below, and dived, the cold embracing his hands, his head, his tired body, shocking him awake.