Johnny shrugged and shook his head; he didn’t even seem interested.
‘I have a feeling it could be something that might clear your name, once and for all,’ encouraged Todd.
Johnny laughed. It was a hollow sound.
‘Do you know anything that can give me back half a lifetime?’ he asked. And then he did turn away.
Todd watched him stride down the lane outside the church, and like Jennifer Stone such a short time ago he was struck by his dignity. He knew he could never help Johnny Cooke, and Jennifer, always so full of the joys of living, was dead. But he owed them a debt, he felt, and his father too, and he wasn’t going to stop until he had done his best to settle that debt.
Marcus got his driver to take him straight to his London apartment. He had indeed done all that he should do, but he was genuinely severely shaken. He had loved Jennifer after all, hadn’t he? Inasmuch as he could ever love anyone, yes he had. Now what was he going to do? He felt alone and desperate.
As he walked through the front door, the phone was ringing, and when he picked it up the scrambler light blinked. The computerised scrambling mechanism could be operated by an incoming caller using the correct codes, as well as by the recipient of a call. The Friends took no chances.
An educated voice introduced itself as John Fitzsimmon. Marcus was astonished. John Fitzsimmon was a senior civil servant, well known throughout Whitehall. He was powerful and much respected, a pillar of the establishment, a man with a flawless reputation, tipped to be the next head of the civil service.
‘Good evening,’ said the caller, his cut-glass public school voice echoing from the receiver. ‘I understand we are members of the same club.’
‘I am a member of a lot of clubs,’ replied Marcus.
‘Waste of time,’ said John Fitzsimmon. ‘There is only one that matters.’
He then suggested that they go for a walk together in St James’s Park and have a chat. They should meet at the bandstand. Surprised but curious and, oddly, already heartened, Marcus quickly agreed.
He and John Fitzsimmon had never met, but each recognised the other.
‘Understand you’ve had a spot of bother, old boy,’ said Fitzsimmon by way of greeting. He held out his hand. Marcus took it. The Masons’ handshake — well, that was no great surprise. Fitzsimmon’s public-school drawl held all the confidence of generations of power and wealth, but family history and the right education were not quite enough to guarantee either of those any more.
‘Not to worry,’ continued the drawling voice. ‘Not your fault. These things happen. Got to be sorted out. Nobody likes it. But we can’t let anything interfere with the main game plan, can we?
‘Been sent by some mutual Friends...’ There was an almost imperceptible pause, and the lightest of emphasis on the word Friends. ‘...to give you a helping hand, old boy.’
Fitzsimmon seemed to know everything — he made that abundantly clear — which Marcus at first found disconcerting. But this man referred to the murder of six people and the maiming of several others as if to the correction of an accounting error. He treated it like a routine business operation. And maybe, thought Marcus, to these people he was mixing with, that was exactly what it was. So much that happened involving so many people at the top in the world was undoubtedly hidden-agenda stuff. He knew that. He had told Jennifer that. Things were rarely as they seemed. To the men and women who were really in charge of the world’s politics and finances, a few deaths in a suburb of London would be just a hiccup along the way to completing whatever plans were in progress. He began to feel not quite so alone.
In a straightforward businesslike manner, Fitzsimmon explained to him more than ever before how The Friends worked in protecting and cultivating their own. There were casualties along the way, only to be expected, couldn’t be helped.
‘You’re the important one. After all, you’re going to be prime minister, eh old boy? Eh? Can’t let you down, can we?’
From now on, John Fitzsimmon would be at his right hand.
‘And we’ll find you one of ours to be your PPS when you’re the PM eh, old boy? Eh?’
Marcus was in something of a daze. But when he returned to his Chelsea apartment he began to feel much better. He had started to convince himself that John Fitzsimmon was right. He was too important to be put at risk. Sacrifices had to be made, and the death of Jennifer Stone was a sacrifice. A terrible sacrifice, but a necessary one.
Over the next week he met Fitzsimmon every day. They dined together, drank together, and talked endlessly. At last Marcus had someone who seemed to know everything, in whom he could confide. Fitzsimmon had that air of infallibility about him exuded only by his kind, and Marcus found it infectious. The Whitehall wizard had instructions to give Marcus all the help and support he needed, to rebuild him, to steer him forwards, and to do everything he could to keep Marcus happy.
John Fitzsimmon had also been given detailed instructions about exactly what kept Marcus happy.
On the seventh day after Jennifer’s funeral, Fitzsimmon took Marcus to a safe house in Ealing.
‘I have a surprise for you, present from The Friends,’ he said.
In an upstairs room furnished with a big double bed and a settee, two Oriental girls stood nervously by the window. They were twins and were wearing matching silk kimonos. They were breathtakingly pretty.
‘There you are, old boy, should take your mind off things,’ drawled Fitzsimmon.
Marcus wasn’t sure that he was quite ready yet. It was this that had got him into the mess he was in, after all.
‘I... I’m not sure I can,’ he heard himself stammer.
‘Oh, from what I’ve heard you’ll manage,’ said Fitzsimmon unconcernedly. ‘They’re yours for the night; very young — the way you like ’em, eh old boy? But they know what to do, I’m told. Take care, won’t you?’
And he left Marcus to it.
Together the two girls undressed him. He did not protest or help, moving only enough to make it possible for them to remove his clothes. When he was standing naked, they slipped off their kimonos. Underneath, both were wearing silk teddies trimmed with lace. Their bodies were exquisite, pale and perfect in every detail.
Still Marcus did not have an erection. He stood limp and unsure of himself before them. Then first one and then the other of the two girls knelt before him and began to play with him and take him in her small soft mouth. It was like transmitting an electric current to a dormant robot. Marcus could feel his appetites being returned to him by tongue and touch. His sexuality was so much his driving force that it frequently overwhelmed him without his knowledge, sometimes almost against his will. He had reason to hate this lack of control — he who in every other way was such a controlled man. But his sex drive was a thing apart, and it could — as Jennifer Stone had found out — turn him into a monster.
Soon he was big and hard and all he could think about was sex. Everything else was dismissed from his mind and body by the urgency of his desires, which had indeed been the intention. He let rip. He went for it. Just like always.
In the next room, two men were watching Marcus Piddell’s sexual antics through a two-way mirror. They had been told he could do almost anything he liked, that it didn’t matter if he hurt the girls, that he probably would hurt them, but there was to be no permanent damage. Not again.
The fat man turned away in disgust. He had a daughter about the age of the twins in the other room, and if any man did to her what that bastard was doing to those poor kids, he would kill him, he thought.