‘Makes me think of my own son,’ McCreery said. ‘My eldest, Dan.’
‘You have children?’
‘Two, yes. We’ve just had the most almighty bloody row, as a matter of fact.’
‘What about?’
‘Well, I can’t really stand Dan’s wife,’ McCreery replied, matter-of-factly. ‘And I’m absolutely certain that she can’t stand me.’
‘That’s not easy.’
‘No, no it’s not. How do you get on with Alice’s parents?’
‘So-so,’ Ben said. ‘Her mother drinks too much, does a lot of charity work and Chardonnay. Dad’s a self-made millionaire. Wants to play golf with me the whole time and calls Alice his “princess”. Still, they’re decent people.’ McCreery smiled as Ben repeated his earlier question. ‘What did you argue about?’
And it took him several seconds to compose his thoughts. The Great Court was now very crowded and there was a long queue at the cafe.
‘Well, I think Bella — that’s my daughter-in-law — is of the opinion that Gillian and I rather ruined Dan’s life,’ he said.
‘How’s that?’
‘Oh, the usual Foreign Office whinge. Winging him around the world as a small boy. Germany, London, Moscow. She thinks he never settled, never put down any roots.’
‘Is that important?’
‘Well, apparently.’ McCreery squeezed his eyes shut and blinked rapidly. ‘She’s done a bit of a job on him, actually, convinced Dan that we were somehow unsuitable as parents. Let’s see, at the last count I was an imperialist snob, a racist, and — let me get this right — a typical Tory homophobe.’
‘Jesus.’ Ben looked taken aback but tried to keep the mood light. ‘She really doesn’t like you.’
‘Yes, I’d made the mistake of voicing my disapproval of the FCO’s current willingness to allow gay ambassadors to cohabit with their — dreadful word — “partners” overseas. Bella, quite rightly I suppose, thought this was an appallingly reactionary stance and encouraged Dan to leave the restaurant.’
‘You were in a restaurant?’
‘We were in a restaurant.’
Four German tourists bearing trays of tea and sandwiches approached the table and sat down. McCreery acknowledged them with a nod.
‘There’s actually a rather sobering thought behind all this,’ he said. ‘We are terribly possessive as a species, Ben, particularly women, I think. It has something to do with insecurity, with the human need to establish territory. Bella perceives Gillian and I as a threat and has very systematically gone about the process of pushing us away.’
‘It sounds like it.’
‘Yes, she’s a bloody fool. I have no designs on my son, no wish to prevent him from living the kind of life he wants to lead. But she wants him for herself, you see. She feels threatened. One or two of his friends have told me that it’s much the same thing for them. She’s turned him against them and they never see Dan any more. She simply won’t allow it.’
Ben secretly felt that Dan sounded ineffectual, but he was nevertheless sympathetic to McCreery’s dilemma. His father had been lucky to have him as a friend. McCreery did not appear to take himself too seriously, yet he possessed a serious, analytical mind and an appealing honesty. He wondered if he had been unfairly critical of intelligence men, and felt guilty for having prejudged McCreery, even if some of his opinions were wildly out of date. He was on the point of going to the car and fetching the copy of Bone’s letter when McCreery announced that he wanted to move.
‘Do you mind if we walk around a bit?’ he said, picking up his stick. ‘It’s just that my leg’s a bit sore.’
‘Of course,’ Ben replied. ‘Of course.’
‘You don’t have to be off anywhere?’
‘No, nowhere at all.’
‘Well, good then. I must say, I’m enjoying our little conversation.’
McCreery stood up and moved back from the table. He sought his balance on the stick and put a hand on Ben’s back.
‘It’s bloody good to have run into you, actually,’ he said. ‘Really made my afternoon. Now let’s go and feel smug about the Elgin Marbles or something, shall we? That always gives me a kick.’
35
You see things as a Watcher. You see the private lives of public men, the lies and the cop-outs of power. You witness acts of violence, acts of greed. Above all, there is the interminable tedium of nothing going on. Ian Boyle had seen it all. This was not his first adultery.
He was assigned to Roth from 9 a.m. on Saturday morning, taking over from Graham who had done the overnight shift in the Southern Electric van. He had to wait a couple of hours while Roth preened himself inside and then left the house at 11.16, looking tanned and spruce, the innocent ease of the guilty man. His 6-series BMW was parked on the corner and Ian followed it at a three or four-car distance as Roth drove north via Chelsea towards the bustle of Notting Hill. He had a pretty good idea where he was going: the rumours had been rife all week. Sure enough, Roth pulled up outside the house on Elgin Crescent, then checked his hair for a long time in the rear-view mirror before making a call on his mobile phone. To her. Inside. Ian saw it all. When he had finished speaking, Roth put the hazard lights on and started the engine. He wasn’t staying.
She came out pretty quickly. Looking beautiful, the way she always did, a terrible temptation for a man and aware of that power and using it all the time. They didn’t kiss as she stepped into the car, but that was probably just a precaution for the neighbours. Instead there was a movement, a kind of visible friction in the front seat, and Roth appeared to hand Alice what must have been a present. And then they were off, his hand stroking the back of her neck, then changing gear, then touching her again. Ian felt terrible for Benjamin.
He followed them to the Lanes borough Hotel. They went in separately and stayed for more than four hours. While he was waiting, Ian discovered that the room had been booked under a false name. A Mr Dulong, of Edinburgh. It was a week before he discovered just how sick that was, just how conceited Roth had been. At one point Ian phoned Taploe and told him what was going on, but the boss had just sounded vindicated, as if Roth’s behaviour justified the increased surveillance, proving a larger crime.
The only thing that surprised Ian about the whole sorry, shabby affair was how angry Alice looked when she emerged from the hotel at 4.46 p.m. As if they’d had a row. It wasn’t the look, at least, of a woman who’d had herself a good time. But then Ian had never been very good at reading the female face; perhaps that was why he had never risen any higher within the Service. His own wife, after all, had tricked him for months: all that time saying she was going to be late back from work and all that time fucking another man. Ian thought about Ben again and wondered if it would be unethical to get a message to him through Blindside.
Coming down the steps of the hotel, Alice pulled a phone from her bag. Ian noticed that her hair was still slightly wet at the back of her neck, a flush in her cheeks from the shower. She dialled a number and began looking round for a cab. And then she was talking, arguing, jabbing the air with her hand. Ian had a good idea who she was speaking to, a hunch of intuition. Ten quid, he said, laying a little wager with himself as Alice stepped into a cab. Ten quid that the spoilt little bitch is feeling guilty about what she’s just done and is taking it out on him.
36
‘Alice, what I’m trying to tell you is that I just don’t have time to talk about this now…’
Ian was right. Ben was standing outside a smoky pub in Russell Square, Bone’s letter in his hand, fending off an Alice moan.
‘All I’m asking,’ she said, ‘is that you show me a little sympathy. I’ve been at work all day and nobody was around to help me out and I just wanted someone to understand that. All you’ve done is spent the last five minutes saying it’s not that big a problem. It’s just typical male behaviour.’