Very early on monday morning, the team of women cleaners—all related or connected by marriage, all Asian—entered the Irving Theatre. As usual, they entered by the Stage Door, unlocked by the cleaner in charge, Mrs. Patel senior. Because the team cleaned backstage first, it was some time before the body of Hattie Vickers was discovered.
When the team went towards the front of the house, Mrs. Patel found the communicating door shut but not locked, and she thus did not need to use the code to open it. This was unusual, but not unknown. Mrs. Patel could remember previous occasions when the code had not been necessary. She had no way of realising that it was Hattie Vickers, not Mike, who sometimes made the mistake out of nervousness; but Mrs. Patel had certainly never pointed out this lapse in security to the theatre management. It was never part of Mrs. Patel’s plan to make unnecessary enemies.
Hattie lay, as she had lain since her fall, wedged between two seats in the stalls. In the hours when she had slipped slowly from unconsciousness into death, Hattie had remained motionless as though held in a red plush-lined tomb. Later it would be discovered that she had broken both hands in her fall (trying in some pathetic way to ward off the inevitable?) as well as suffering such terrible injuries to her head that there was never any question of recovery. Hattie Vickers had thus been dead for well over twenty-four hours when the cleaning team arrived.
Nevertheless, the first instinct of Mrs. Patel senior was to try to shake the body awake. She put her hand on the huddled form. Mrs. Patel did so rather gingerly because she assumed Hattie was one of the homeless who had infiltrated the Irving. Experience had told her that the homeless, even outside the Irving, could be quite vicious when disturbed.
At the same time Mrs. Patel knew her duty: “Wake up, please! I am asking you, please, to wake up.”
The tangled mass of hair, spilling everywhere, told her that the sleeper was female, well probably female. When there was no reaction Mrs. Patel, more boldly, touched the hair itself, first one straying piece to which she gave a gentle yank, then the hair on the sleeper’s head. The place where she touched the head felt slightly sticky, as though something had congealed. It was not until she saw her fingers—blackish-red in the low lights of the auditorium—that Mrs. Patel realised what she had found: not a sleeping form but an extremely dead one.
Even then, with that extraordinary self-control and personal dignity which had enabled Mrs. Patel to see her huge family through many vicissitudes, Mrs. Patel did not scream. She rose up and taking her youngest daughter-in-law, a sensitive creature, by the hand, led her away. Mrs. Patel junior had not seen the corpse, but felt the occasion was owed the tribute of her tears. She sat sobbing discreetly as Mrs. Patel senior telephoned 999 from the theatre pay-phone just outside the stalls.
The dead body of Hattie Vickers remained exactly where it had fallen. The fact that Mrs. Patel senior had led a life of difficulties in two countries meant that she was not unacquainted with British police procedures. She knew that it was important not to touch anything before the police came, otherwise trouble ensued—trouble for the Patels, that is. Trouble might come their way in any case (undeserved trouble had happened before now), but Mrs. Patel would do her best as usual to protect them all. After her first tentative exploration, Mrs. Patel had left the body quite alone in its position which mimicked sleep. Her reddened fingers, were, however, scrubbed and scrubbed again, regardless of what anyone might say.
Paradoxically, at about this time, you could have mistaken Jemima Shore, lying half-asleep in her huge, pale, disordered bed, for someone who was dead. There was a particular abandon about the way her body lay, death and gratified desire producing roughly the same effect. And indeed desire had been gratified, very much so. Something dangerous which had existed between herself and Randall Birley from their first meeting had detonated. The result was an explosion of violence, of sexual energy, from Randall, from Jemima, then from Randall again.
“I want you like this—am I hurting you?—and like this, and like this.”
“I want you like this—I don’t care—and again, yes, again …”
“And like this. Darling.”
They slept a little. Jemima woke to find Randall’s dark head on her arm; for a moment in her confusion, its blackness puzzled her. Ned … she put the thought from her, and a moment later Randall too was awake, taking her, and she was able to put the thought very far away indeed.
Now that he was gone, Jemima lay for a long time luxuriously in her bed, letting sleep come and go. After a while she remembered his last words as he kissed first her breasts, then her shoulder. Randall had efficiently pulled the soft lace-covered duvet across her, rescuing it from some strange corner of her bedroom where it had ended up.
“So I won, you were my prize, the only prize I wanted.” He picked up one of the dizzy strappy high-heeled shoes she had worn to present her Award. Jemima, who loved a virtuous opportunity to buy shoes, really amazing shoes, had decided that it was her duty to give the viewers a treat.
“Perhaps I should take one of these as a souvenir,” said Randall lightly.
“Give me my shoe, my shoes.”
“If I give them to you, will you put them on for me?”
“One day.”
Jemima pondered briefly her words “one day,” and then drifted back to sleep. When she woke again, it was time for coffee, and in Midnight’s disgusted opinion—he did not like rivals, any rivals—time for food. Jemima put on her robe but nursed her coffee back in bed. The sheer animal happiness of having enjoyed sex and still more sex the night before had not faded; the imprint of it all on her body, the bruises, would probably take even longer to fade, but about that she felt grandly reckless. At the same time, she was beginning to ponder Randall’s last remarks: “I won you, my prize …”
A pleasantry? Yes. All the same, “Was I won? Do I want to be won? I think it’s me who’s supposed to give the prize,” she thought wryly. On the whole, Jemima Shore did not want to be anyone’s Garrick Award.
Yet in his other declarations—those there had been before by mutual agreement they fell into bed—Randall had been wonderfully ardent and yet unpossessive. “I could have a real passion for you. What would you think of that? You might not like that. Passion can be dangerous.” He had used the word, alluded to the threatening bond she had felt between them from the start.
Well, what did she think of that? Jemima looked at the high-heeled shoes still lying on the bed where Randall had left them. One day, she had said. Yet she agreed with Randall about passion, and its consequences. Ned’s particular mixture suited her, in spite of her grumbles: passion, including most satisfying physical passion, when he was there, coupled with long periods of absence, during which she was out of his sight and thus out of his arms (and she had a suspicion out of his mind too) for all the faxes which screamed their way across the world to debouch from her machine.
“But I rather hope not this morning,” thought Jemima guiltily. And the fax seemed to sense her reluctance and remained tactfully silent. She did not plan to feel guilt about what had happened with Randall—in that respect she and Ned, so often apart, carefully respected each other’s privacy—but all the same a loving fax at that particular point might have brought her perilously close to the tinglings of guilt.
She turned her thoughts back to Randall Birley: Randall and the question of danger. In particular, a more prolonged passionate relationship with Randall could be dangerous. Given that she had sensed that from the start, wasn’t that what had drawn her to him … Jemima’s honest self-interrogation was interrupted not by the fax but by the telephone.
It was Cherry. “I just got back from Nice—more about that later—in time to see you last night. Those were wicked shoes! What? Yes, yes, what you said was fine. What did you say? I couldn’t stop looking at your shoes. I thought that was the point. And did you get to meet Randall Birley?”
Jemima knew she had to apply herself to the task, never easy, of telling Cherry enough but not too much. She could begin—if not continue—by telling the truth. “Yes, I did meet Randall Birley. But then I met him before at the Irving Theatre, with his—” she hesitated, “with Millie Swain. On Friday. We went to Gino’s.”
“I’m dying to see Twelfth Night.” Cherry allowed herself to be distracted. “I hear it’s terrifically upbeat, all that sixties pop music at the end, you leave the theatre singing.”
Hattie Vickers of course did not leave the theatre singing. Nor did the shaken (but outwardly calm) group of Mrs. Patel and her helpers. Not many people witnessed the departure of Hattie’s small body on a stretcher, face covered, one little skein of hair dangling beneath the blanket. Just as few people had witnessed the arrival of a police car, then another police car, followed by an ambulance.
The West End, around the Irving Theatre in its side street, was quiet and curiously listless of a Monday morning as though still hung over from the ritual enjoyments of the weekend. The story of Hattie’s death did not make the early editions of the Evening Standard, which carried an inspiring headline on the subject of the election: LAB-LIB: NEW POLL SHOCK. The small print indicated that 67 per cent of those polled replied, “Don’t Know,” when asked whether they thought the Labour-Liberal alliance was helpful or otherwise in the present international situation.
Another discreet arrival and departure later that day was that of the Foreign Secretary, Burgo Smyth. He visited the Prime Minister, Horace Granville, at Number Ten Downing Street. A great deal of telephoning—awkward, ghastly telephoning—had preceded this meeting. But both men knew that the telephone discussions must finally culminate in a personal meeting.
“I won’t insult you, my dear fellow, by saying that you probably need to spend more time with your family.” The Prime Minister spoke with that mixture of gaiety and briskness which Burgo Smyth knew he reserved for really difficult situations. Smyth had after all sat in the Cabinet long enough beside Horace Granville, first as his colleague, latterly as his subordinate.
There was no doubt that H.G. had great personal charm and a good deal of it was probably genuine. “After all, why shouldn’t he be charming?” thought Burgo with a spurt of anger that broke through the exhaustion currently—perhaps mercifully—dimming his inner reactions. “Inherited wealth, no wife, never felt the need apparently, poor fellow, lucky fellow, not even queer when he was young. I can never get used to ‘gay’ (what’s gay about it?), no hint of that, no scandal anywhere, and a devoted sister to look after him. I should have had a sister like Miss G.—” He conjured up the image of the Prime Minister’s sister, a quiet, pleasant, well-mannered Scotswoman who conveyed the air of a superior school matron. “That would have saved a lot of trouble.”
Horace Granville leapt up. His spare figure and thick fair hair which had passed imperceptibly from blonde to grey, coupled with his characteristically energetic movements, contributed to an air of youthfulness. Compared to H.G., Burgo felt weighed down, old and finished. Whereas H.G. would never be finished. If he lost the election, he would retire to his estates in Scotland, his lovely Adam house in its elegant park, the rare books in his library—and his trees, those forests about whose fortunes Burgo Smyth had been rather too often kept informed. For Burgo Smyth on the other hand, the end of his political career was death itself, not only political death, but the end of the only life he had ever wanted.
“How is Teresa by the way?” asked the Prime Minister.
Burgo shook his head. “Not well. That is, the same. I haven’t … I haven’t bothered her with all this yet. My children think it’s better to tell her everything at one time.”
H.G. had always been extremely courteous to Teresa Smyth. He was invariably courteous to women, the chivalry of his manner to the new Labour leader Helen Macdonald being a joy to certain Tories, since she found it infuriating; that is, it teetered on the edge of patronage without ever quite falling into the trap. But in those long-gone days when Teresa had sometimes laboured to fulfil her role as a minister’s wife, with occasionally embarrassing consequences, H.G. was one of Burgo’s colleagues who had always treated her kindly. He was grateful to him for that. Now he wondered just what else, if anything, he was going to have to be grateful to H.G. for.
“Limit the damage, limit the damage!” cried the Prime Minister. His step was so light and springy as he paced up and down the huge formal room that he gave the impression of taking part in some old-fashioned measure. “You’ll resign, I understand. Pity, pity, but there it is.” Then with even greater cheerfulness the Prime Minister threw in the afterthought, “No House of Lords for you, my dear fellow, no peerage’. So unfair, you’ve certainly deserved it. When I think of the types who are going to get peerages and go to the House of Lords. Whether we win or lose.”
Burgo Smyth could think of those types too. Curiously enough, thinking of them enabled him to endure stoically the casual way the Prime Minister had disposed of his final dream. A secret dream, that in the House of Lords one day he would still find some kind of political arena. After all, the members of the House of Lords were not exactly subject to the same pressure to preserve stainless reputations; no electoral challenge for them. At this point Burgo had no idea whether he would have to face prison for his offence; he was unquestionably guilty of covering up a death. But even people who had been to prison had a perfect right to sit in the Lords on release; it was one of the British anomalies that you could not strip away a peerage as you could strip away a knighthood or other decoration.
That had been Burgo Smyth’s wild hope, after all the service to his country and his party. With a cheery wave of his long-fingered hand, H.G. had put an end to that secret longing too. It was unrealistic and had always been so. “Limit the damage, limit the damage.” And he Burgo Smyth, who had for so many years and in so many turbulent countries done just that, he, Burgo, was now the damage.
“You’ve got a really splendid majority,” said the Prime Minister; he might have been congratulating his Foreign Secretary on his fine head of hair. “At least you had a splendid majority last time. This time round I think yours is one of the really safe seats in the country. Well done. With all those trips, it can’t have been easy to keep in touch. Or perhaps they prefer reading about us in the newspapers. I sometimes think that about my lot. Of course my sister is wonderful there, better than any wife—” But even the Prime Minister’s natural exuberance faded as he realised the implications of what he was saying.
He returned to briskness. “So we shall have a seat to play with—your seat—to win or lose after the election. Reward some good fellow who doesn’t deserve to lose but is going to. Get him back. You will resign shortly after the election. Exact timing to be discussed. I’ve been on to the Home Secretary of course. Sandra will be as helpful as possible. Which cannot be, alas, very helpful. Resign for personal reasons, whatever you like. I’m afraid the full inquest will eventually make it quite clear what those are, but, as we both know, that can’t be avoided. I understand the inquest will be formally opened, and immediately adjourned, on Friday morning. That’s the latest we can hope for. Besides, on Friday the Press will be busy proving they were right all along about the election. The real inquest may not be for some time. And by then,” H.G. gave Burgo a darting smile, “you’ll no longer be Foreign Secretary. Not even a Member of Parliament.
“To be practical,” he went on, “your seat. Your dear good girl, now what a bright future she’s got. Alas, they tell me she’ll be lucky to hold that seat. Let her have yours? But no, that wouldn’t be quite right. Your boy was lucky, wasn’t he? Very lucky.” Burgo did not know whether H.G. was referring to Archie’s unfortunate brush with the neo-Nazis being papered over, or to his selection for a safe seat. He noticed that H.G., whose liberal credentials were impeccable, did not predict a bright future for Archie.
“Your seat. Let’s see, what shall we do with it? Whom shall we reward? Some nice, loyal chap who will just have lost his own seat. For example, I also hear that Harry Carter-Fox can’t possibly hold Bedford Park.”
“The Carthorse!” exclaimed Burgo. “For God’s sake. That we should be so lucky as to lose him. If the electorate get rid of him, every committee he’s on will take half the time.” (Had Olga Carter-Fox heard this, she might have revised her opinion of Burgo Smyth, at any rate as a future protector of her husband.) Burgo’s response was automatic. He had forgotten for the time being the Swain connection, as the politician in him became once more dominant. Yet he had spoken to Olga Carter-Fox only recently, as he felt in honour bound to do, following the discovery at Hippodrome Square: that sulky brooding Olga Swain whom he had never liked even when she was a child.
“Oh, I should rather miss him!” cried the Prime Minister. “No one can accuse us of being a party without a conscience with him on our backbenches. Conscience, yes, yes. What a nuisance consciences are, aren’t they? But some people have to have them, don’t they? Otherwise where should we be? No, we can’t afford to ignore the conscience factor, can we? Under the circumstances.”
Throughout this light-hearted tirade, the Prime Minister had continued to walk about, occasionally peering out of the deep windows at the various structures of the British Establishment which the views provided. Burgo Smyth realised that he had always been maddened by H.G.’s apparent inability to keep still, never more so than now. But of course, like so much of seeming inconsequence about Horace Granville, this habit of peregrination served its purpose. In this case, his restlessness protected him from direct eye contact with Burgo Smyth, as he pronounced the exact steps by which his political execution was to be carried out.
The death was to be self-inflicted. Like a kamikaze pilot in the service of the Japanese emperor at the end of World War II, he was expected to commit a form of suicide. Burgo Smyth knew that; he accepted that; he had in a conscious or unconscious sense been expecting this moment for almost the whole of his effective political career. He still paused to wonder at the cold-blooded cunning of Horace Granville who would accept the sacrifice of his safe seat, at one and the same time as stopping the mouth of the late Imogen Swain’s family by promising it to her son-in-law.
When Burgo replied, he did so with great formality. “I’ll do whatever you say, Prime Minister. I began this meeting by apologising for all the distress I am giving and shall be giving to the cause we both serve. I should like to end it by apologising again. To you personally. You have shown many kindnesses in the past—both to me and to my wife.” Burgo Smyth stood up, towering heavily over the slight dapper figure of the Prime Minister; he prepared to extend his hand. But, like an eel, H.G. slipped away from the closeness and in an instant was to be seen at the drinks tray, pouring from a cut-glass decanter full of pale gold-coloured liquid.
“Malt whisky. Local. Made in my constituency. But of course my sister always insists we pay for it and it costs a fortune.” He handed Burgo Smyth a beautiful and weighty tumbler. The Prime Minister sipped. The Foreign Secretary took something not far from a swig. On doctor’s orders, he had not drunk whisky or any other spirits for a long time; as he tasted the elixir, he decided that whatever his future held, it was going to feature whisky once again. Suddenly, to Burgo Smyth’s astonishment, H.G. put down his glass and, stepping towards him, put his arm around his shoulders, reaching up slightly to do so. He’s going to hug me, thought Burgo Smyth, he’s really going to hug me.
“My dear Burgo, I’m so terribly, terribly sorry,” said Horace Granville gently. For once in his life he sounded absolutely serious. “I keep thinking how for thirty years you must have dreaded this moment. The anguish you must have felt. Following the—accident, how you must have longed to put the clock back.”
For the first time since that midnight encounter with his children and Jemima Shore, Burgo Smyth felt his self-control faltering, that iron self-control on which (like Mrs. Patel the cleaner) he had prided himself throughout his career. By this time the Prime Minister had delicately stepped back, and his glass was once more ensconced in his hand. Burgo’s voice when he answered was unusually husky, but he managed a kind of smile.
“Putting the clock back! Yes indeed. Don’t we politicians always wish we could do that?”
“You must have felt great love.” H.G. sounded almost wistful.
“I felt great passion. Not always the same thing.”
“Ah yes, you’re probably right. I wouldn’t know about that. Or so my sister tells me. Passion, I mean, not love. I tell her I would be perfectly capable of feeling passion if only the right woman came along. It would serve her right if I did fall violently in love, at my age, and insisted on getting married. Then where would she be?” The frivolous mask was back.
“Thus putting the clock back, Prime Minister?” murmured the Foreign Secretary in the same vein. He took another long drink of the magic pale liquid in his heavy tumbler.