‘I know. I understand.’ Mouse looked downcast for a moment, then smiled over at Marcus hopefully. ‘Will you stay for just one more drink? I have some vodka over here somewhere.’ He rose. ‘Here it is. Stay and toast the end of an era. Just while I have one last cigarette.’
Mouse filled both their glasses and walked over to the window. Darkness had fallen, but the lights that illuminated the tower blazed up into the night sky. The snow raged in the beams of light, whipped across their field of vision by the wind, swirling upwards and then exploding in all directions as it hit the building. Marcus watched flakes land at Mouse’s feet and disappear into the parquet floor. He crossed to stand behind his friend.
‘You know the story about the lights?’ Mouse was staring out into the blizzard, the cigarette held in his lips, his hands either side of the window frame.
‘During the blackout, Senate House was the only building illuminated in Bloomsbury. A beacon of light for the German bombers. They never switched these things off. But it wasn’t hit. Through the whole of the Blitz this enormous building stood here, like a middle finger raised to the Germans, and never once did they hit it. Bombs fell either side, they devastated the area up towards Euston and across Clerkenwell and Holborn, but never here.’
Mouse raised his glass.
‘Cheers, by the way. Anyway, after the war they found out that Hitler was planning to base the Third Reich in Britain in Senate House. I mean, it has the right feel about it, doesn’t it? The size of the place, the sense that it’ll be here in a thousand years when all the City skyscrapers have been burned to the ground. If Oswald Mosley had won power, he intended to move parliament here.’
Marcus finished his drink and placed the cup on the trestle table.
‘I really have to go now.’ It was almost seven o’clock.
‘Just. . I need to speak to you.’ Mouse didn’t turn around, but drained his plastic cup and sent it spinning out into the snow. Marcus stood in the middle of the room, hands hanging at his sides, looking at his friend’s squat frame silhouetted against the white world outside.
‘I want to go to the police,’ Mouse said. ‘I want to hand myself in. Tell everyone exactly what happened. I just can’t stop thinking about Lee’s dad. I’m responsible for his hope, and it isn’t fair. Every time the telephone rings, every time there’s a knock on the door, part of him — maybe an increasingly small part of him as time passes, but part of him nonetheless — will think it’s her. He’s an amazing man. I always loved speaking to him whenever I went up there. He deserves better than this. We shouldn’t be covering this up.’
Marcus’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He ignored it, stood lost in thought for a moment. Mouse continued.
‘I’ve been thinking very hard about this. I almost called D.I. Farley last night. I don’t know what’ll happen to me, but it really doesn’t matter. I’d be fine in jail. I’d cosy up to some big gangster type, offer to soap him in the shower. I’d be grand.’
‘Here, give me one of those.’ Mouse passed him a cigarette. Marcus took a long drag and sighed as he let the smoke out through his nose. He pulled the chair out from under the trestle table and sat down.
‘But it’s more than that. .’
‘Go on,’ said Marcus.
‘The Course used to be about making us better people. I used to believe that, despite the showiness and the money sloshing around, it was a genuinely good thing. But it has changed, you know? The Course has become a corporation. It’s bigger than Lee’s death, and that just can’t be right. Because that’s what David’s saying, isn’t it? That it isn’t worth jeopardising the American expansion for the sake of telling the truth about Lee. The Earl has turned David’s head. Because David is a good man. He would have done the right thing if this had happened a year ago. He wouldn’t have let us cover up Lee’s death.’
Marcus’s phone buzzed again. He answered it.
‘I’m sorry, Abby.’ He knew he sounded drunk. He made an effort not to slur his words. ‘I’m with Mouse. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Eat without me.’ He hung up.
‘Will you come with me to the police station? Will you help me through this? I’m pretty scared. I want to do the right thing, but it isn’t going to be easy.’
Mouse paused, walked over to find the vodka, and took a swig from the bottle. He passed it to Marcus. Marcus gulped, wiped his arm across his mouth and rocked back on the chair.
‘I’ve obviously been thinking about it, too,’ he said. ‘It’s weird, but I’ve changed so much over the past few weeks. I used to think I was in control of things. I always used to feel like I was the centre of the room, at the heart of things, but these days. . everything seems so different. As if life is just rushing by. Like I’m on a train travelling very quickly and I lose sight of things flashing past, have to really concentrate to catch sight of the world. Things are just happening to me.’
Mouse turned to Marcus and looked at him. Marcus found it difficult to meet his friend’s eyes.
‘I agree with you about the Course and about David,’ said Marcus. ‘This whole American dream has given him visions of global domination. He thinks he’s going to be some flashy televangelist preaching to thousands in aircraft-hangar churches, beamed out on prime time to the homes of a million fawning fans.’
Marcus stood, took a last drag on his cigarette and flicked it out into the snow.
‘But the Course is a force for good. In this fucked-up world you have to think that getting people to believe in a mild, forgiving God is a good thing. We forget how much the Course has done for us. Imagine who you’d be without it. I’d be a monster, I’m sure. You have to realise that David is right. Letting people know about Lee will destroy the Course. To have a story like this break would wreck it.
‘I think about Abby, too. I’ve been a shit husband. I realise that. And I need to try to make things up to her. I’m going to do everything I can for this baby, for her, for the Course. I’m not trying to change your mind. Or rather, I’m just trying to make you see that if you tell the police it’s going to have huge repercussions.’
‘But isn’t it the right thing to do?’
‘I don’t think anything is as simple as that. I don’t think there’s such a thing as right and wrong any more.’
‘Do you think Abby would be terribly hurt?’
‘Of course. I worry. . I worry about the baby. What the shock would do to her, to the baby.’
‘Oh, Jesus, you can’t use that. You can’t use that against me.’
‘It’s something that I think about, of course it is.’
‘What will you do if I do tell them?’
‘I can’t stop you.’
‘But you won’t come with me.’
‘I don’t know that I can.’
‘Please?’
Mouse’s breath misted in the air blown in from the window. Marcus was staring out at the snow.
‘I didn’t know what to do,’ Marcus said. ‘I was totally lost. This move, it gives me a second chance. I know I should help you, Mouse, but I can’t. I’m putting everything in God’s hands. I think, perhaps, it’s God who has been directing things, that’s why I feel like I’ve lost control. I’ve decided to embrace that, to let Him lead me from here on.’
‘That’s really dumb. You can’t mean it?’
‘I just don’t know what else to say. I’m so sorry.’
Marcus put his arms around Mouse and they stood there for a few minutes. Marcus reached over and gently pulled the window closed. There was a line of white snow across the diagonal Vs of the wooden floor.
‘I have to go.’
Mouse’s mouth hung open. His eyes, which had been wide and questioning, suddenly narrowed.