When the crowds on the screen cheered the Archangel steaming up the Thames, it occurred to me that these people just didn’t know what they were letting themselves in for: the suspicions and doubts, the simple hardships of everyday life. I could feel the same thought flitting around the room too, and, as if to make the point, there was a brief power cut soon after. It came just as Lorelei began her speech about the coming dawn, the day when we would all live and build together. We had to wait in the dark for the picture to return, so I took the opportunity to slip out to the wooden call box in the lobby, telling Hazel I was going to the ladies’ room. This time, the line connected.
‘Tibbot,’ he mumbled.
I was overjoyed to hear he was there. I began to blurt out everything without even saying hello. ‘I know what was wrong when she died. I’ve realized now,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘According to Grest, when I went into the bathroom, Lorelei said to me, “Who’s there? I can’t see.” But why? The lamp was on; it wasn’t dark.’
‘So the steam–’
‘There wasn’t any steam. The room was clear. But what if she meant exactly what she said – that she couldn’t see. Her sight had gone.’
There was silence on the other end. He was contemplating it. ‘It could be,’ he said, but his voice was guarded. ‘I can’t tell why, though.’
‘Could Grest have done that to her?’
‘Well, if you beat someone badly enough they can lose their sight. But that would have left huge bruises, fractures probably. There weren’t any.’
‘He said there was splashing about, like a fight. That could have been her panicking to get out.’
Tibbot cleared his throat. ‘It’s possible.’ I could tell he wasn’t sold on the idea.
I came to the point. ‘Either way, we need to talk to him. Can you meet tomorrow afternoon?’
‘All right,’ he sighed. ‘Call me at the station in the morning. Eleven o’clock. Give your name as Mrs Stevens – I’ll leave a message for you if I’m out.’
‘Thank you.’
Back in the auditorium, Hazel looked at me curiously as I took my seat. The film had been resurrected after the power cut and Lorelei’s speech played again. Beautiful in the sunset, her face filled the screen. As you watched, you could see the whole future of our country reflected in her irises. They eventually faded to black.
When the film ended, the lights came up to reveal Hazel’s face awash with tears and her skin red. I hadn’t noticed in the dark, and kicked myself for not guessing that seeing her mother move and speak, then disappear, would sadden her so. Hazel had never had a chance to say goodbye, and this was the closest that she would ever get. ‘Are you all right?’ I asked. An idiotic question, but one that we always ask at those moments, as if we don’t know the truth.
‘Mum was really beautiful, wasn’t she?’ she managed to get out, although her voice was strangled in her throat.
‘Yes. She was.’ And she was, really she was. Like a picture. But such beauty couldn’t go unpunished by the world. Like Cassandra, her gift was also her undoing.
Where had it taken her? When Nick and Lorelei had first watched this film, they couldn’t have known what the pictures would mean. They would mean Nick slowly watching the woman he had married slip away from him to become a part of the political world. And then the jealousy and pain as he learned of her affair with John Cairncross – an affair ended by a public trial and a confession of counter-revolution that would also cast Lorelei out of the spotlight. And the final image would be her lying under ripples of water.
35
Tibbot and I sat on a bench in Victoria Park as he threw bread to the birds on the pond. ‘Bloody ducks eat better than I do,’ he muttered.
‘Better than most people. Well, this side of the Wall.’
‘They had better be careful or they might just end up as a Sunday roast.’
‘Is that your plan?’ I said.
‘Not this week. I don’t have the mushroom sauce to do them justice.’ He stopped and nodded towards the path.
A bruised figure was walking quickly towards us. He looked all around to see who else might observe him here, before sitting. ‘What do you want?’ he said in an angry tone. ‘I’m busy.’ I gazed at Grest’s face, curious to know how he had explained to his colleagues the marks that Tibbot’s fists had left on him.
‘Doing such important work,’ I replied.
‘Tell me what you want or I leave.’
I didn’t think he would, but there seemed little point in pushing him. ‘You said before that on the day she died, you heard me go into the bathroom, and then she shouted, “Who’s there? I can’t see.”’
‘So?’
‘Why would that be? That she couldn’t see?’
He took a long look at me. ‘You’re a proper one, aren’t you?’
‘Mrs Cawson has a new friend,’ said Tibbot. ‘Comrade Fellowman. He’s best mates with Guy Burgess, you know.’
‘A true guardian angel.’
‘So you really should answer the question. Was there something wrong with her sight?’
Grest waited again before answering. He was beginning to enjoy himself. ‘Tart was blind as a fucking bat. At least she was then.’
So that confirmed what I thought. ‘Did you do that to her?’ Tibbot demanded. ‘Smack her too hard?’
‘No.’
‘Stop lying to us!’
‘I’m not, mate. She was like that when I got there.’
Tibbot looked at him suspiciously. ‘Slipped your mind to tell us last time, did it?’
Grest leaned back casually, watching the truth dawn on us. ‘Don’t work for you, do I? I wasn’t exactly in the mood to natter.’
‘But you are now?’
He smirked. ‘Well, I’ve been thinking about it. You see, Cawson called me the day before it happened. Said she was doing the dirty on us and I had to go round there to get the last of the stuff and the ledger. Now when I got there, I found her pegging out and myself in the middle of it all. So I had no choice – I had to keep the blues away from it and make sure no one investigated too far. You want to tell me the timing was coincidence?’
I understood what he was implying. ‘But how could Nick plan it like that?’ I said, confused.
‘He’s the doctor, not me. Something in her food, her drink. That Champagne, I should think. It wouldn’t need to be to the minute.’
No, it wouldn’t have to be to the minute. Just so long as Grest was there around the same time, he would make sure any investigation was superficial. But then I had stumbled in and set everything awry. Poor us. Poor Lorelei.
‘What did he use?’
‘Don’t ask me. Ask him.’
‘What exactly did he say?’ Tibbot asked, tapping his fingers together thoughtfully at the information.
‘Just that. She was stabbing us in the back so I should get the stuff and bring it to him. Then things would go on like before, but without her.’
‘Did he tell you to hurt her?’
‘Not in so many words, but she wasn’t going to just hand it all over tied up in a fucking ribbon, was she?’ Tibbot looked faintly disgusted. ‘Right, well, unless you want any more little stories?’
‘Go on, then, fuck off,’ Tibbot muttered to him.
Grest walked away, and we watched his back recede along the path. He had a rolling sort of gait now, casual, unconcerned.