‘Mr Lang,’ said Woolf major, ‘good of you to come.’ I nodded at him. ‘You know my daughter?’
I glanced across at Sarah, and she was looking down at her napkin, frowning. Even her napkin looked better than anyone else’s.
‘Yes of course,’ I said. ‘Now let me see.Wimbledon?Henley? Dick Cavendish’s wedding? No, I’ve got it. Down the barrel of a gun, that’s where we last met. How nice to see you again.’
It was supposed to be friendly, a joke even, but when she still didn’t look at me, the line seemed to curdle into something aggressive, and I wished I’d shut up and just smiled. Sarah adjusted the cutlery into what she obviously thought was a more pleasing formation.
‘Mr Lang,’ she said, ‘I’ve come here at my father’s suggestion to say that I’m sorry. Not because I think I did anything wrong, but because you got hurt and you shouldn’t have. And I’m sorry for that.’
Woolf and I waited for her to go on, but it seemed as if that was all we were going to get for now. She just sat there, rummaging in her bag for a reason not to look at me. Apparently she found several, which was odd, because it was quite a small bag.
Woolf gestured for a waiter, and turned to me. ‘Had a chance to look at the menu yet?’
‘Glanced at it,’ I said. ‘I hear that whatever you’re having is excellent.’
The waiter arrived and Woolf loosened his tie a little. ‘Two martinis,’ he said, ‘very dry, and…’
He looked at me and I nodded.
‘Vodka martini,’ I said. ‘Incredibly dry. Powdered, if you’ve got it.’
The waiter pushed off, and Sarah started looking round the place, as if she was bored already. The tendons in her neck were beautiful.
‘So, Thomas,’ said Woolf. ‘Mind if I call you Thomas?’
‘Okay with me,’ I said. ‘It’s my first name, afterall.’
‘Good. Thomas. First of all, how’s your shoulder?’
‘Fine,’ I said, and he looked relieved. ‘A lot better than my armpit, which is where I got shot.’
At last, at long last, she turned her head and looked at me. Her eyes were much softer than the rest of her pretended to be. She bowed her head slightly, and her voice was low and cracked.
‘I told you, I’m sorry,’ she said.
I wanted desperately to say something back, something nice, and gentle, but I came up empty-headed. There was a pause, which might somehow have turned nasty if she hadn’t smiled. But she did smile, and a lot of blood suddenly seemed to be crashing about in my ears, dropping things and falling over. I smiled back, and we kept on looking at each other.
‘I suppose we have to say it could have been worse,’ she said.
‘Of course it could,’ I said. ‘If I was an international armpit model, I’d be off work for months.’
This time she laughed, actually laughed, and I felt like I’d won every Olympic medal that had ever been struck.
We started with some soup, which came in a bowl about the size of my flat and tasted delicious. The talk was small. It turned out that Woolf was also a fan of the turf, and that I’d been watching one of his horses race atDoncaster that afternoon, so we chatted a little about racing. By the time the second course arrived, we were putting the finishing touches to a nicely-rounded three-minuter on the unpredictability of the English climate. Woolf took a mouthful of something meaty and sauce-covered, and then dabbed his mouth.
‘So, Thomas,’ he said, ‘I guess there are one or two things you’d like to ask me?’
‘Well, yes.’ I dabbed my mouth in return. ‘I hate to be predictable, but what the fuck do you think you’re doing?’ There was an intake of breath from a nearby table, but Woolf didn’t flinch and neither did Sarah.
‘Right,’ he said, nodding. ‘Fair question. First of all, in spite of whatever you may have been told by your Defence people, I have nothing whatsoever to do with drugs. Nothing. I’ve taken some penicillin in my time, but that’s it. Period.’
Well, that obviously wasn’t good enough. Not by a long shot. Saying period at the end of something doesn’t make it incontrovertible.
‘Yes, well,’ I said, ‘forgive my tired old English cynicism, but isn’t this a case of "you would say that wouldn’t you"?’ Sarah looked at me crossly, and I suddenly thought I might have overdone it. But then I thought heck, beautiful tendons or not, there were some things that needed to be straightened out here.
‘Sorry to bring it up before you’ve even got started,’ I said, ‘but I assume we’re here for plain talking, so I’m talking plainly.’
Woolf had another bite at his food and kept his eyes on his plate, and it took me a moment to realise that he was leaving it to Sarah to answer.
‘Thomas,’ she said, and I turned to look at her. Her eyes were big and round, and went from one side of the universe to the other. ‘I had a brother. Michael. Four years older than me.’
Oh cripes. Had.
‘Michael died half-way through his first year atBatesUniversity. Amphetamines, qualudes, heroin. He was twenty years old.’
She paused, and I had to speak. Something. Anything. ‘I’m sorry.’
Well, what else do you say? Tough? Pass the salt? I realised I was hunching down towards the table, trying to blend with their grief, but it was no good. On a subject like this, you’re an outsider.
‘I tell you that,’ she said eventually, ‘for one reason only. To show you that my father,’ and she turned to look at him while he kept his head bowed, ‘could no more get involved in the traffick of drugs than he could fly to the moon. It’s that simple. I’d bet my life on that.’
Period.
For a while, neither of them would look at each other, or at me.
‘Well, I’m sorry,’ I said again. ‘I’m very, very sorry.’
We sat like that for a moment, a little kiosk of silence in the middle of the restaurant din, and then suddenly Woolf switched on a smile, and seemed to get all brisk.
‘Thanks, Thomas,’ he said. ‘But what’s done is done. For Sarah and me, this is old stuff, and we dealt with it a long time ago. Right now, you want to know why I asked you to kill me?’
A woman at the next table turned and looked at Woolf, frowning. He can’t have said that. Can he? She shook her head and went back to her lobster.
‘In a nutshell,’ I said.
‘Well it’s very simple,’ he said. ‘I wanted to know what kind of person you were.’
He looked at me, his mouth closed in a nice, straight line. ‘I see,’ I said, not seeing anything at all. This is what happens, I suppose, when you ask for things in a nutshell. I blinked a few times, then sat back in my chair and tried to look cross.
‘Anything wrong with ringing my headmaster?’ I said. ‘Or an ex-girlfriend? I mean, that all seemed too dull, I suppose?’ Woolf shook his head.
‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘I did all of that.’
That was a shock. A real shock. I still get hot flushes about having cheated in Chemistry O-Level and scoring an A when experienced teachers had anticipated an F. I know one day it’s going to come out. I just know it.
‘Really,’ I said. ‘How did I do?’ Woolf smiled.
‘You did okay,’ he said. ‘A couple of your girlfriends reckon you’re a pain in the ass, but otherwise you did okay.’
‘Nice to know,’ I said.
Woolf continued, as though reading from a list. ‘You’re smart. You’re tough. You’re honest. Good career in the Scotch Guards.’
‘Scots,’ I said, but he ignored me, and went on.