Fifth Member Page 5

  But that was precisely what she did. Dudley had stopped in the corridor to speak to someone and she shot past him and down the stairs as though King Kong was after her, reaching the station yard as the last two cars headed for the big gates. She sprinted after them and managed to get close enough to the second to thump on the back window.

  The car stopped, and a uniformed head poked out of the front window. ‘What the f – Oh, it’s you, Dr B.’

  ‘Yeah,’ she gasped, not needing to act too much. She wasn’t as fit as she might be these days. ‘I’m coming with you. Roop said that –’ And she left it there.

  The policeman got out of the car, and opened the back door for her. ‘It’s a pleasure, Dr B.,’ he said courteously. ‘Even if Roop hadn’t said so.’ And she clambered in as quickly as she could, in case Dudley appeared in the yard himself, saw her and hauled her out ignominiously. She was just in time. As the car left the yard and curved away to the left towards Spitalfields she got a glimpse of Dudley at the entrance to the nick, beyond the netted area and slid down a little in her seat. She’d show the bastard!

  The car she was in was clearly a police car, complete with blue light though that was not in use at present, and she was very aware of the way traffic on the road made way for it with exaggerated courtesy; and was amused at the way the pair in front enjoyed their superiority. Men and cars, she thought. Babies, every one of them.

  But it was only when they reached Commercial Street, passing the huddles of Bengali and Bangladashi people on the pavements and the glittering sari shops and exotic grocery stores with their heaps of vegetables and herbs outside, where women with covered heads and white shawls dickered with shopkeepers in the floppy pyjama suits that were the commonest male attire in these parts, that she realized just how many cars there were on the search. They passed two that looked like private vehicles and then recognized the occupants; it was as though, she thought, a cloud of exploring locusts had descended on the scene.

  The radio spluttered in the front and came to busy life. ‘Alpha Tango Three, take Brick Lane from Hanbury to Fashion Streets on the eastern side, repeat Brick Lane, Hanbury to Fashion Streets.’ And the driver snorted as his colleague responded. ‘On way!’ into the set. ‘Where the bloody hell do they think we’re goin’? We’ve been told once, how often do they have to repeat it for every radio ham to pick up?’

  His partner, a more placid person, clearly, was soothing. ‘Oh, the bods stuck there in Control need to feel they’re being useful, I s’pose. OK. Right here. That’s it. Hanbury Street.’

  Eagerly George leaned forwards to stare out of the window. It didn’t look any different from any other East End street. Here and there the remains of the old buildings, but mostly fill-ins, put up after the Blitz which had battered this part of London most comprehensively. The same sort of people filled the pavements, and everywhere there was bustle and colour. Under normal circumstances George would have revelled in it, but now she was concentrating on looking for alleys or hidden corners where, just possibly, a body might lie unseen.

  The driver of the car she was in parked at the top of Hanbury Street where it met Brick Lane. ‘We’ll start here, on foot,’ he said. ‘You want to come with us? Or stay here? Up to you, Dr B.’

  She hesitated. She’d rather search on her own, to be honest, but they had the radios on them. If she didn’t stay with them she wouldn’t know what was going on. She scrambled out of the car to join them.

  ‘I’ll search too,’ she said and fell into step with them as they began to walk along the pavement of Brick Lane. The people they passed watched them with suspicious anxious stares and pulled back to let them pass by. The dislike they showed was so clear that she almost wanted to shout, ‘It’s all right, I’m not a policeman. I’m just ordinary, like you.’ Which was stupid because of course she was with the police and she was, in the watcher’s world, far from ordinary.

  The search was long and detailed. It was a muggy day, with rain in the air and the moisture seemed to concentrate the spicy scents around them of turmeric and chilli, coriander and cumin, for it was getting close to lunchtime and the little restaurants that spattered the street were all busy. She began to feel a little hungry herself. She hadn’t thought of eating breakfast.

  Her spirits slowly sank. The two policemen didn’t seem to miss anything. They looked under each car that was parked, peered into their interiors, walked through shops to their back premises, pushing aside crates and sacks of stock as their owners watched sullenly, not protesting but sending out waves of loathing, and then moved on to the next few square yards to start all over again. It was laborious and very boring, and George wished for one brief moment that she had heeded Roop and waited at the nick for a call. If a call was to come.

  She had come to the conclusion that there never would have been a call and that she was totally, wildly wrong.

  She was aware that there were other policemen too, on the western side of the street, making the same scrupulous searches and she watched them out of the corner of her eye, hoping they’d come up with something if her own pair of searchers didn’t.

  But they went doggedly on getting nowhere except near to the end of their allotted area of search and she plodded on behind them, feeling more and more miserable. Oh, but Roop would enjoy this! She’d come up with a suggestion that had tied up most of the shift on duty at Ratcliffe Street, both uniformed and CID, for hours and got absolutely zilch. He’d crow over her; oh, how he’d crow!

  And then the radio on the shoulder of the policeman in front of her rattled into life and she heard the voice, tinny and husky at the same time. ‘All units, all units, return to base, return to base, except Alpha Tango Three, Alpha Tango Seven and Alpha Tango Eight. Three, Seven and Eight, to Greatorex Street, between Chicksand and Hanbury Streets on the western side, repeat western side. All other units return to base.’

  ‘Which are we?’ George cried, pulling on the sleeve of one of the policemen. He grinned back at her.

  ‘It’s all right, Dr B. You can go to the party. We’re Tango Three.’

  5

  The Palace of Westminster was always a maelstrom with messengers rushing about as though they were carrying the fates of nations in their hands rather than gossipy notes about dinner dates, and people standing with their heads together looking deeply portentous as though they too were dealing with matters of vast importance rather than exchanging a little agreeable malice about other people’s peccadilloes. But this afternoon was different. Now the people talking together looked avid rather than full of their own importance and the messengers were almost frantic in their speed. This was a real situation, a real anxiety, a real drama of much greater interest than the latest bêtise from Brussels or threats from cash-strapped NHS administrators to blow the whistle on the machinations of the Department of Health.

  In the Government Chief Whip’s office there was an emergency meeting going on. The coffee was flowing and the people sitting around Mary Bodling’s desk looked edgy and excited, but not as despondent as they had been at a previous meeting, held immediately after they had received the news of the discovery of Sam Diamond’s body. Then they had been both anxious about what might be revealed about Sam Diamond (more about that than about what had happened to the man, and why, to be truthful) and licking their political wounds, wondering just what the hell they’d have to do to hold on to their paper-thin majority when they were yet another Member down, and considering what bribes could be offered to individual Lib-Dems to keep their Government afloat. Now that threat had retreated with the loss of a Labour member, they could indulge themselves in a little gossip.

  ‘I’d never have imagined David Gondor going in for hankypanky,’ said Henry Bowler, who had opted to handle his passing-over for the Chief Whip’s post in favour of Mary by being thoroughly sycophantic towards her. ‘Would you, Mary?’

  ‘I never think anything’s impossible for anyone,’ Mary snapped. ‘The more virtuous they look, the more likely t
hey are to be covering up something.’

  ‘You’re right, of course,’ Henry said.

  Steven Wittering, who was a shade more robust than Henry but still liable to give in to Mary’s whims without too much pressure, shook his head. ‘Mostly I’d agree with you, but Caspar-Wynette-Gondor? The worst kind of Socialist, he was. Committed idealist woolly liberals and parlour pinks, I can handle – we’ve got enough of ’em in our lot, going around with permanent puddles round their feet, they’re so wet. But Caspar-Thingummy-Whatsit wasn’t like that. He was so passionate about his political balls that I doubt he knew what the real ones were for. So I think Henry’s right. A sexy Caspar-Wynette-Gondor is an oxymoron. They’ll find no reason for his ending up as butcher’s meat in that department.’

  ‘Which only goes to show how little you understand human nature,’ Mary said. ‘The more passionate they are, and the more adrenaline they get going on the floor of the House, the more they’ve got left over to get their testosterone up. Believe me, I know.’

  Henry, contemplating the formidable Mary in a situation in which she might obtain definitive knowledge of the effects of testosterone on anyone at all, managed not to look at Steven, who was, he knew, thinking the same thing. ‘Do we know much about his background?’

  Steven, whose job it was to monitor the private lives of Labour Party members, on the grounds, as Mary always said, that you never knew when you mightn’t need a bit of mud to oil the wheels (she was rather given to mixed metaphors), leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. ‘Bit of a maverick. Not really popular with the nuts and bolts of his party, who still don’t feel really comfortable with toffs. They’re finding it hard enough to cope with the Islington brigade of intellectuals. David double hyphens really give ’em heartburn.’

  ‘What sort of toff?’ Henry, very aware of his status as the son of a family of old-fashioned County gentry, who liked to believe he was regarded in his village in deepest Devon as ‘the Squire’, was ready to scoff. ‘Some sort of pickle factory heir?’

  ‘I’d have thought you’d know all about him.’ Steven was amused. ‘I had the impression you’d swallowed Debrett at an early age. No, not a hint of pickle in his blood. Dead blue, it was. He’s the Earl of Durleigh’s younger brother. Surely you’ve heard about him? There was an uproar when he joined the Labour Party, just after leaving school. He refused to go to university, went and did a course in bricklaying and plumbing or something of the sort. I told you: one of those passionate socialists.’

  Henry was pink with mortification. Not to have known all about a fellow Member of the House – how could he have missed him, knowing as much as he did about the country’s peerage? He spluttered something which implied as much, and Steven was kind.

  ‘Don’t be embarrassed, old boy. He’s played his cards very close to his chest since he got here. I wouldn’t have known about him if I hadn’t gone hunting it all out for Mary. He worked on building sites for years, while being an active member of his local Labour Party branch – fell short of anything more intense, though it’s my guess he’d have been happier with one of the more lefty set-ups. Anyway, a couple of years ago, when you were off sick, remember?’ – Henry had managed to break both of his legs skiing, which hadn’t endeared him to Mary at the time, but had made his Labour pair very happy indeed –’ there was a by-election at Bilkley Town, as safe a Labour seat as you could find in the country and David Thingy-Whatsit got himself selected in spite of Walworth Road pushing for one of their harridans in red nails and shoulder pads, and got in with a slightly increased majority. Not at our expense, happily, the Lib-Dems. And he’s kept a low profile ever since. The only things he’s done, let me see …’ He went over to his desk to punch a few keys on his computer. ‘Yeah, I thought I remembered it right. He’s on the Select Committee looking at the Right to Inheritance Bill. And one of those Committees on building regulations. Works hard in his constituency, too. On the personal side’ – more keys were punched – ‘nothing really, except for a boozy wife.’

  ‘Oh?’ Mary’s ears pricked up. She had been sitting with her elbows plonked on her desk, her coffee cup between her hands, thinking her own thoughts rather than listening to her juniors. Now she became alert. ‘What was that?’

  ‘Marietta. They’ve been married fifteen years. No children – ah! Several miscarriages, I have here. Anyway, she’s a lush and has been for years.’

  ‘So,’ Mary said. ‘He must have been wandering after all. And it could be that’s why –’

  Steven shook his head, still peering at his screen. ‘I don’t think so. All the signs are he’s – was – a devoted carer, stays home to be with her whenever he can. According to my sources’ – he smirked a little at that; how many Tories had Labour sources as good as his? None, he rather fancied – ‘that’s one of the reasons he’s been so low profile. He didn’t want any job that took him away from his Marietta too long.’

  ‘Marietta! What a name,’ Henry said, whose own wife was plain Jane, as befitted the daughter of a baronet, and whose children were William and Emma. Highly suitable. Anything fancier smacked of the gutter to him. ‘Some show girl or other, I suppose?’

  Steven grinned and switched off the computer. ‘Sorry to disappoint you there, old duck. She was a bit of a toff in her own right. Father owned great chunks of Yorkshire. Her brother’s got it now, of course, and she got barely fourpence and she’s drunk most of that. So there you go. One thing’s sure. There’s no link with our Sam, thank God. That was the possibility that bothered me.’

  ‘How could there be a link?’ Henry said, and Mary looked at him witheringly.

  ‘Very easily,’ she said. ‘Remember the business of the Gravesend pub?’

  Henry reddened. He had indeed forgotten the fuss a while ago when several MPs from both major parties and even one Lib-Dem had been rounded up after a fight in a pub, which turned out to be a well-known gay S and M venue. ‘Well, all the same,’ he said, blustering a little, ‘you’ll grant that there doesn’t seem to be any link between this fella and poor old Sam of that kind or any other. So we can relax a little. Both sides have to have a by-election and –’

  ‘And going by the polls those bastards could win both of ’em,’ Mary said brutally. ‘Central Office’ll have to put a bit of a bomb behind the constituencies if we’re not to be in major trouble. At least we know there’s nothing anyone can dig out about Sam. I’ve checked every inch of him, too.’

  ‘And his wife?’ Steven said, and Mary cast him a sharp glance.

  ‘What have you heard?’ she demanded.

  ‘Oh, nothing concrete,’ Steven said hastily. ‘It’s just that she – Well, you know, Mary! Looking the way she does, and dealing with the sort of gear she does, I’ve heard a good many of her customers are – umm …’

  Henry leaned forwards, avid again. ‘Mmm?’

  ‘Poules de luxe, they used to be called.’ Steven giggled. ‘Upper-class tarts, ducky. They’re expensive and they spend a lot. I gather Alice does a very nice business with them.’

  ‘Shit!’ Mary exploded. ‘I told her a year ago that wasn’t on! Warned her the effect it might have on Sam’s reputation. And she’s still at it?’

  Steven shrugged. ‘I don’t know for sure. It’s just that everyone knows that if you want something a bit cheeky for your wife – a birthday or whatever, you know – Alice does a nice line in scanties. And it’s better than our people going into Soho shops or those Ann Summers-type places.’

  ‘Steven, I’ve told you before, it’s facts we need, not surmise. But just in case, you’d better put it about I don’t want our people buying stuff like that. Scanties? Ye Gods, do people still call ’em that? Anyway, it’s got to stop. They’re to keep well away from her. It’s the sort of thing the Sun would make hay with. The buggers are already camping outside to pounce on anyone who comes in or out and the phone has been jammed with bloody journalists ever since Sam was found. All we need is a titbit like the stock in Alice’s shop,
and there’ll be no controlling them. So, see to it. And, Henry, keep an ear to the police, will you? I want to know every step of their investigation. Move both of you. I’ve got work to do.’

  They went. You didn’t hang around when Mary had given an order.

  ‘Well, what are they saying, you lot?’ Colin Twiley sat on the edge of his desk, staring around at his inner sanctum team: Marcus Napper, slumped in a chair in the corner, looking half asleep; Bryan Naith, sitting as usual slightly aloof, with his hands shoved deeply into his jacket pockets, looking like a walking slum, according to Molly Nidd, who was sitting on the other side of him, herself pin-neat, though her skirt was very short and showed a certain excess of black-tighted leg, and her make-up was just a touch over-emphasized. The fact that these two loathed each other showed in every inch of their postures, each glowering at the other – with elbows, shoulders, even knees. Beyond Molly, Sean Burnell, all six feet six of him, tried to look comfortable and at ease in such august company and only succeeded in looking what he was, awkward and still rather young to be there. No one could argue about the quality of Sean’s mind; the boy could be brilliant. The trouble was, that brilliance tended to get him involved with people he couldn’t handle, as now. Left alone at his desk, Sean was a treasure; in meetings like this, he was completely useless. So Colin didn’t even look at him as he repeated his question, turning his gaze from one to the other of the trio.

  ‘Steven Wittering’s been trying to dig dirt about David, of course,’ Molly said. ‘It’s what he does best, that one. But they’re all a lot more relaxed now their chap Diamond’s got a pair, as it were. I don’t think the police have talked to them yet.’

  Colin looked hopeful. ‘Why should they want to talk to them? Do they think one of their people –’