The prince turned his heavy-lidded eyes toward his companion. “My wife, Mr. Streater. I think she…”
Streater had to coax him. “Yeah?”
“She and Mr. Silverman. I think they may be…”
“Yeah? What are they doing?”
Arthur screwed up his face. “I think they may be having” — his voice diminuendoed to a whisper — “…relations.”
“So they’re shagging?”
The prince gazed mournfully at him. “I think it’s just possible that may be the case, yes.”
“Unlucky, mate. Having your missus get schtupped by another bloke. But you’ve only got yourself to blame.”
“What do you mean?”
“What I mean, Your Royal Highness, is that you let her get away with too much shit. You gave her everything she wanted from the get-go so there was nothing left for you to bargain with. She got bored. Birds are like that.” Streater broke off to honk at a schoolgirl. His tongue darted out of his mouth to wet his lower lip. “Wouldn’t throw her out of bed for eating prawn crackers.” He wound down the window and bellowed a suggestion of staggering vulgarity.
The prince hardly seemed to notice. “Tell me, Mr. Streater,” he murmured. “And in this matter I should appreciate your candor. What would you suggest?”
“Treat ’em mean, mate. I’m not saying that’s an original thought, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Women like to know who’s boss. There’s a reason why blokes like me get ore pussy than we know what to do with, while blokes like you end up with your wife tupping around behind your back. You know what that is?”
Slowly, solemnly, the prince moved his head from side to side.
“It’s because you’re afraid of women and I’m not. I know how to play them and I know how to give them what they want. It’s a game, Arthur, and the sad thing — the bloody tragedy of it — is that blokes like you just never learnt the rules.”
“So am I to take it, Mr. Streater, that you’ve never been in love?”
In the kind of voice which made it very clear that he would answer no more questions on the subject: “Just once.”
On Shaftesbury Avenue, Streater swerved blithely into a bus lane and the prince inquired where they were going.
“Not far. I promise.”
“But I am to plant a tree today. The children are expecting me.”
“Sod the children!”
The prince just blinked. “What was that?”
“Sorry,” Mr. Streater muttered. “Sorry, mate. Didn’t mean to blurt that out.”
Streater brought the car to a halt just outside the bleak terminus of King’s Cross station in a space reserved for emergency vehicles, switched off the engine, yanked open the glove compartment, pulled out a ragged, faded baseball cap and passed it to the prince.
“What’s this?”
“It’s your disguise, chief.”
The prince was just becoming used to this unfamiliar thing perched on his head when the doors at the back of the car were flung open and a couple of fat men squeezed themselves inside, along with the smells of grease and roadkill.
One of them shuffled his bulk forward to stare at Arthur. “This him, then?” he said in a mockney growl. “Bugger me, he’s uglier than I expected.”
The other one thrust a cardboard container running with oil and slime under the nose of the heir to the throne.
“Golden arches?” he asked, bafflingly.
Arthur never learnt to tell these two apart. They seemed almost identical — both thick necked, both jowly and unshaven, dressed in grubby shirts, frayed jackets and stained raincoats. They both smelt the same, too — of the street, of bad money and of corruption.
“I’m Detective Chief Inspector George Virtue,” one of them said. “This fat wonker’s Detective Sergeant Vince Mercy.”
“What is the meaning of this?” asked the prince, only just keeping the incredulity from his voice.
“Little field trip,” one of them said. Virtue? Mercy? It was so difficult to tell. “Little bit of R ‘n’ R.”
“Just sit still,” Streater snapped, “we’re going inside in a bit.”
“You’re catching a train?” Arthur asked hopefully.
Streater looked as though he was about to remark that the prince should just wait and see when someone tapped on the windscreen, scurried round to the back of the car and, miraculously, crammed himself in beside the fat policemen.
The newcomer was sweaty and nervous, had graying hair (too long) and wore an embarrassing amount of gold jewelry. “Streater?” he said, and nodded toward the prince. “Who’s this? What’s he doing here?”
This question elicited a more than usually large grin from Streater. “This is Arthur Windsor. Arthur, this is-”
“Mr. X,” the man interrupted, suddenly frantic.
“For Christ’s sake. This is the next king of England. If you can’t be upfront with the Prince of Wales, who the hell can you be straight with?”
The man seemed embarrassed. “Of course. Sorry. I’m Peter.” He stuck out his hand, and instinctively, the prince shook it.
On the back seat, one of the policemen belched, and for a vile moment the smell of half-digested Big Mac lingered in the atmosphere.
“Time to move,” Streater said, and opened the door, admitting a merciful blast of cold air.
Together, the five of them walked into the station.
“You’ve probably been wondering exactly what ampersand is…,” Streater said.
One of the fat men laughed. “Tasty!”
Streater went on as though the interruption had never happened. “Fact is, it’s a natural substance. Grows by itself under certain conditions. Peter here… what’s the word you’d use, Pete? He gathers it, he… harvests it for us.”
The gray-haired man flushed pink.
“But demand’s seriously outstripping supply. The kids are lapping it up so we’ve had to find a way to replicate. A mate of mine has a mate who knows a man who did time with a guy who’s shagging the sister of a bloke in France who’s tight with a sympathetic chemist. Result — ampersand manufactured by the ton. We’re off to meet our courier off the train.”
Detective Sergeant Vince Mercy slapped his hands together in glee. “New delivery! Fresh meat!”
Streater grinned. “Welcome to the real world.”
The blond man led them into the station and down the escalator to the Eurostar terminus, where they took up positions by the coffee shop. Arthur kept the baseball cap pulled down over his face but was strangely disappointed to find that not one member of the public so much as glanced at him.
Streater bought Peter and the prince a latte (oddly, not offering to do the same for the two policemen) and they all stood suckling at the plastic teats on their cups, trying not to look suspicious. One of the fat men jabbed Arthur in the ribs. “Has he told you how it’s done, guv?”
“I’m sorry?”
“This bird we’re meeting. She’ll be carrying the stuff inside her.”