The BBC ran an hour-long special on the life of Georgia Turnbull, a what-if on the woman who very well may become the next prime minister. A week and a day had passed since the explosion and the press had no choice but to focus on a presumptive successor. Georgia was clearly the most attractive. The inevitable comparisons were slapped into place to underline her Thatcheresque humble origins, right down to the shopkeeper father and the stern, steady rise to power. Much was made about the way she would rule, with whom she would govern, and even who would rue the day she came to power. It was sensational, tawdry, speculative, and completely compelling.
Steel watched from her family’s flat in Bloomsbury with her parents. She tried her best to be blasé. She wanted so badly to tell her mother how well she thought she knew “Georgia”; how strong she felt the bond between them had grown; and, yes, how madly in love she thought she had fallen. She said nothing. She watched coolly, playing the part of a detached co-worker who had no real opinion one way or the other on the famous woman being profiled.
It was later, alone in her bed, in the dark, while she thought of gently kissing the chancellor’s naked body, her head arched back deep into her pillow, when she finally let her face show how truly enthralled she was with all things Georgia Turnbull.
* * *
THE NEXT MORNING Davina woke early and drove down to the Kensington Palace Gardens to wait for Heaton. She stood stoically beside a patrol car, her hat off, her short fine hair blowing in the wind, as Heaton’s driver pulled out on the way to Number 10. If she wasn’t going to be included in the discussion among Heaton, Turnbull, Darling, and the home secretary, she wanted some shelf space inside his mind. She wanted him to know that she would be there when it came time to arrest him, when it came time to put him into the pit at the end of this ordeal, when she finally placed the last piece of the puzzle and saw the unmistakable figure of a man who had betrayed his country.
She followed closely in traffic as Harris steered the way through Knightsbridge, down the back of Belgravia, behind Buckingham Palace to the Birdcage Walk, and finally onto Whitehall. Any chance she could, she’d have her patrolman driver pull up next to them, and she’d sweetly half smile at Heaton and nod as he proudly nodded back. He was so clever, so calm, so confident that this would end well for him. She needed him to know that it wouldn’t. True, it didn’t seem to faze him, his grin as cocksure as ever, but she knew it made a dent. He would fold, Heaton. He would crumple one day soon. She was convinced of it.
She chuckled to herself at the last traffic light when she saw Peet in the passenger seat up front and realized his shoulder was bound tight in a sling. He had taken a bullet, she had no doubt. Tatum had scored a hit. She couldn’t help but feel a devious sense of joy. When Harris turned the freshly washed Mercedes onto Whitehall and then quickly onto Downing Street, Steel and her patrolman slogged on up along the bottom of the busy boulevard. She had done what she needed to do. The rest was in the capable hands of her lovely partner Ms. Georgia Turnbull.
* * *
“I’M TELLING YOU, Georgia, we are all sick about this. Everyone at Heaton Global, from myself on down. It’s a heartbreaker is what it is.” Heaton’s cologne was stronger than Georgia had ever noticed it to be before. She had known him for years, even went out on a few unmemorable dates in the late nineties, and had always been aware of his propensity to wear too much cologne, but this was a lot, even for Heaton. She couldn’t help but wonder if it were because he was nervous, if the thought of this “sit-down” had gotten under his skin.
“We hired this man as a courtesy to my oldest friend in the world, Gordon Thompson, after his son-in-law had had some legal trouble in Michigan, and I had little idea, by the way, what that entailed. He subsequently went to work for our Chicago office. At best reports he did well there, and somehow or another Thompson got him along on this delegation we took here. Again, I didn’t know the man, had never set eyes on him until a few days before the final conference.” Heaton felt the weight of uncertainty in the room, the pressure to force some version of the truth about Tatum, about Heaton’s connection to him.
“Georgia, ask yourself, how well do you remember the man in that meeting?”
“Not at all. I don’t recall him saying a word.”
“That’s because he didn’t. Nor to me, before or after. To this day here, I still have no idea how he got anything in or was able to leave anything behind.”
Darling had the answer at the ready. “It was inside a large notebook that was left behind and placed in the cupboard—the dossier that you had instructed Lassiter to look over personally.”
“Before I could get to it,” Georgia added. All eyes were watching Heaton as closely as humanly possible, hoping for a telltale sign of inconsistency, a hint of deviousness or deception. Heaton remained calm, steadfast in his own victimization in the matter.
“You must believe that we were all floored when this came out, of his past, of his complicity in this, of these threats he had made toward Roland on the Internet. It just defies logic how this could be the truth. No one who worked with him at the company has anything at all to report in terms of untoward behavior, deviancy, or the slightest hint of aggression. Nothing. By all reports that we have put together, he was a very, very personable man. Quite charming in fact. Yes, he had been in some trouble in Michigan, but somehow or other, which we can only blame on his father-in-law, he had been able to hide the full nature of his legal transgression from the Chicago human resources people when Thompson first got him his interview.”
“So you’re saying that Gordon Thompson was able to get him in under the wire in terms of a background check?”
“Yes. Sadly, that is what I am saying. HGI is a very large company. Too large, maybe, it now seems.” Georgia listened as Heaton spoke, leaned back on the couch, and tried her best to take it all in.
“So you’re thinking that the father-in-law conspired? Is involved in the bombing? In whatever is behind this?”
“And where is this Thompson now?” Darling wanted to know.
“He’s been up at my farm. Outside Worcestershire. He’s supposed to be back in London today. We’ll be doing an inquiry ourselves after we’ve made him available to your people to question. That takes place at one p.m. at Scotland Yard.” Georgia looked over to Darling for confirmation. Darling agreed, the meeting was set, but he seemed troubled. None of this seemed to sit well with the grizzled Darling.
“And tell us again, David. Why had you asked Mr. Lassiter to look into the brief? What was it that you wanted him to see before Georgia got to it?”
“That was merely business, Major Darling. We had spent three years on a deal to more or less privatize a financial service system that has done nothing but given its members short shrift in terms of retirement packages. I just wanted Roland’s help in putting the whole thing to bed. You see that, don’t you?”
Darling answered halfheartedly. “No, actually, I don’t entirely. What is it that you wanted Roland’s help with?” Heaton took the query in, actually chuckled slightly.
“Well, I hate to say it like this, but I needed him to help me sell Georgia. She’s a tough one to get over and was the final hurdle. No one could work the good chancellor over quite like Roland. I begged him to put his back into it, so to speak.”
Darling followed the answer with another nod, yet still, for some reason, didn’t quite see it as true.
Something seemed off to Burnlee as well. His face gave it away. The home secretary, twenty years older than Heaton, Turnbull, and Darling, had known Heaton’s father and his uncle, both members of Parliament in their day. In fact, the uncle, Edmund Heaton, had once held Burnlee’s title. He was a wary watcher, Burnlee, and didn’t say much in moments like these. He let others do the talking so that he could hear between the banter. His way had always been to listen to the larger tone of the room and not the short bursts of words that were thrown fast and loose around this storied building. His stony silence hinted at his suspicions. Heaton was lying. Burnlee had no doubt.
“Maybe it’s an American thing. Has anyone put any thought to that?” Heaton quietly asked. Georgia and the others were stunned.
“An American thing? What could that possibly mean?”
“He’s an ex-cop, maybe he’s CIA. I don’t know. I am aware that the Americans would love us off our balance right now. I know they aren’t anywhere close to fans of Roland’s. I know they’d love a freer hand in the Middle East and I know they’d love the referendum to work out and for us to leave the EU. Let that money and those contracts flow west to New York and Los Angeles. It’s wild speculation but what isn’t about all of this, really? What if the CIA got to Gordon Thompson, paid him to set up his son-in-law, then planned to nicely do away with them both?”
“That’s rich pudding. As far out as it gets,” Burnlee protested.
“I agree, but it’s all rich pudding at this point. Isn’t it? None of this makes any sense.”
The room went quiet. There were no more questions. Heaton didn’t have any other theories. Georgia politely ended the talk.
After Heaton left the PM’s office, an accounting was taken, and Georgia and Darling agreed with the home secretary. Heaton hadn’t uttered a single truthful sentence. They sat in silence, wondering who would say it first: Heaton, and whoever his conspirators might be, had sought to destroy the government from the inside. This was officially a national disaster. It was no longer speculation. If Heaton was involved, then he had key insiders helping him. The brazenness of the attempt was breathtaking. Darling and Burnlee were both sure of it.
Georgia’s worst nightmares had sprung fully formed into an awful reality.
* * *
IN THE BLACKEST hour of the morning, Georgia was awake, lying in bed, wondering where this would end, where tomorrow would take them. She truly had if not the weight of the world, then the weight of Great Britain on her shoulders.
Her thoughts wandered and settled on Steel. She wondered if the young detective realized what murky waters she had waded into. She wanted to chat quietly with her about how scary the world had suddenly become, to speak of the events on the scale of their national gravity, but more important, she wanted to speak in shades of the personal and intimate, in terms of being a frightened girl, wide-eyed inside a woman’s body. Steel would understand that, she thought. She would understand and maybe softly brush Georgia’s face with the back of her tiny hand. Maybe kiss the tip of her nose and slowly run her fingers through Georgia’s thick hair. They would lock eyes and discuss the gravity of being caught up by history. She sat up, pulled her knees close, and thought of calling Steel, and then, when the impulse grew and took hold she went over and grabbed her phone and brought it back to the warm bed with her, burrowed back in, and phoned Steel.
“Hello?” Steel heard her mobile buzz on the nightstand next to the bed. She woke from a deep sleep. She had been dreaming of skiing in America with her parents, who were both somehow younger and incredibly adroit at downhill. She woke so quickly that she remembered the incongruent fantasy and was still living it for a beat as she reached for the phone.
“Hello.” It was Georgia, according to the caller ID. But her voice seemed different. She spoke quietly, more slowly than usual. “I’m so sorry to wake you, Inspector Steel.”
“No, no. Don’t be sorry at all. Is everything all right?”
“As all right as it can be, what with the world as it is.”
“Yes, I can only imagine what you have on your plate. I shudder to think of it in terms of a workday.”
Georgia took a moment to answer. She sipped cold water from a cut crystal glass at her bedside. “It’s beyond madness, Inspector. I can’t begin to tell you. It feels like a mountain has slid right over on top of me.” Steel nodded silently. What must that be like? To be suddenly thrust into this position, where everything comes down to you? Every decision that’s made is yours to make, yours to muck up?
“You must feel so alone right now.” A tear rolled down Georgia’s cheek as a response. Steel didn’t need to see the tear to understand the silence floating along the line. The pain she heard in Georgia’s voice.
“Is there anything I could do for you? To make it easier? Anything at all, Madam Chancellor?”
“You could call me Georgia. I do appreciate hearing you use my name.”
“You do? Truly?” That seemed unreal—Georgia Turnbull getting joy from Davina Steel of Bloomsbury addressing her one-to-one, yet she sensed maybe it was the truth.
There was yet another waft of silence between them. Steel’s heart was beating wildly as the chancellor spoke to her. “I do enjoy talking with you, Davina. It seems like I have no one to talk with these days. Oh god, how pitiful must that sound?”
“No, no, I feel the same way. I enjoy talking with you, too, Georgia.” Somehow saying her name made Steel slightly giggle. Georgia responded with a laugh of her own and it went on that way, the two of them serving back and forth simple rounds of small talk and chitchat. Life. Childhood. Stress. Weight gain. Weight loss. Hair care. Fashion. Dogs. Cats. Tennis. Uncles, aunts, Britain, and even Adam Tatum. They were all touched on for over an hour until suddenly there was silence. Steel waited for her partner’s next volley and it didn’t come.
“Have you fallen asleep on me? Georgia? Georgia?” After a moment she was back. Her voice was even groggier now.
“Yes, I think I may have. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be rude.”
“It’s not rude at all. I’m going to let you go. I’m sure you have a full day ahead of you.”
“I wish you were…” Another silence.
“Wish I was what? Georgia?” She had stopped herself. Steel sensed it. She knew she had stopped because the words that would have come out would have been hard to take back. They would have been too emotional, too laced with longing. They were both better off saying good night, so they did.
“Good night, Georgia.”
“Good night, Davina. Thank you for a wonderful talk.”