Cromwell's statue seemed to frown at the little group in Old Palace
Yard as they waited for the liveried minibus that would transport them to Waterloo and the Eurostar high-speed train. The air of holiday that hung about the party of ten two researchers had managed to wangle their way on to the junket to Brussels failed to infect her. Her colleagues had murmured soothing, anodyne sympathies regarding the fire and her escape from it. Remembering it was still like touching at new, painful skin over the childhood burns.
It was not the fire, however, that preoccupied her. There was another terror, more slow and acidic, that she wished she could put at a distance. Only a few minutes before leaving her London flat, she had discovered that it had been expertly burgled while she was in the constituency. Someone had broken in without leaving any trace and stolen the scribbled notes and the photographs that Michael Lloyd had sent her. Her computer had been wiped clean of everything she had transferred to it concerning-David… the fraud… her suspicions…
Michael Lloyd. No shred of proof, or evidence, had been left behind.
She wished she had not checked the hiding-place before leaving for the Commons, for then she would not have known how completely and expertly they were moving against her… Her long fingernails were hurting her palms as she squeezed her hands into fists. Pull yourself together, she instructed herself sternly. But all the proof's gone… Then you'd better find some more.
She shivered, alerting the attention of a senior Opposition MR a Eurosceptic ally on the Committee. She smiled disarmingly at him. He was as unpopular with his party's leadership as she was with the government. The old man turned away and she felt the memory of the burglary press at her again… This time, she was able to fend it off.
She breathed deeply, calmingly.
Another sceptic from her own party was very obviously consulting his watch.
Typical! I don't doubt the champagne will be too cold, too!" His adopted squirearchical manner was a better joke; his parents had been teachers, he an estate agent in one of the larger London firms.
Typical of you, Roger," offered one of HM Opposition's most vociferous and unquestioning Europhiles. His nom-de-guerre throughout Westminster was Ethelred the Undoubting. Some — the irredeemable called him Euro-Jew. A darkness passed over Roger's narrow features. An irredeemable? She rarely made common cause with Roger, even over Europe.
The familiarity of the company, the mere prospect of the trip to Brussels, was working on her like a restorative. She did feel calmer.
"Settle down, children," she offered, smiling with an almost polished brightness. The time for squabbles is on the way back, when you're all tired out ah, here we are!"
Suitcases were at once snatched up with that eagerness she only ever witnessed among Honourable Members when they were travelling first-class and without payment and heading towards a fleshpot or a trough. Brussels offered almost everything your average MP could desire, except a permanent posting! That had not been one of her jokes. The Eurostar livery gleamed in the morning sunshine on the flanks of the stretched minibus as it pulled up in Old Palace Yard as near to the group as was respectful.
She picked up her own small suitcase and, as she straightened and was saying in an ironic tone:
"I see the boys are pushing to the front as usual-!"
— saw David Winterborne crossing the cobbles in the company of the Minister of State at the Department of Trade and Industry. Her suitcase felt awkward, heavy in her grip. The members of the Committee pressed on to the minibus, their cases loaded at the back by the uniformed driver, the bright, empty chatter of the hostess merely bird noises. David's features darkened stormily for just a moment, then his carefully nurtured aplomb was recovered.
"Marian! How wonderful-!" His hand was extended towards her. The junior minister, knowing their long acquaintance, noticed no tension between them. She took his cool, slim hand.
"David as you see, you've just caught me off on a jolly. Another freebie Aubrey's last words to her were in her mind. There has been no crime because the reason for the crime no longer exists. Such matters are known by the soubriquet of business ethics. But they will be all the more determined to act against anyone who even threatens to remind them of the fact that there was a crime, that people died Be careful, I beg you. He had addressed Gant as earnestly as herself.
"David," she repeated with a great deal more self-confidence.
"How nice to see you and to see you have the time to spend cultivating business in our little banana republic!"
David was forced to chuckle. The minister, whose gravity was that of an undertaker rather than born of confidence or sincerity, scowled at her levity. As if in further rebuke, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, emerging from the official limousine, waved to David before brushing his tie straight across his ample stomach and flicking a cowlick of hair away from his forehead.
"Flavour of the month," she murmured.
"Ready, David?" the junior minister intruded.
Marian was relieved rather than irritated with the man's pompous assumption of superiority. David's unwavering gaze was a withering light beating on her nerves.
"What? Oh, yes… Marian, have a wonderful time in Brussels, I presume? You're all right? I mean, after that fire—?"
The question was dazzling in its innocence.
"Fine!" she replied with as much ingenuousness.
He leaned forward and pecked at her suddenly cold cheek. She held herself rigid so that she would not flinch away from his kiss. He was smiling as he drew back from her, then his attention immediately embraced the junior minister. At St. Stephen's Porch, the Chancellor still loitered, waiting for a word with Winterborne. There has been no crime, Aubrey had said. Damn you for being so right, Kenneth!
She felt bewildered until the elderly Member took her arm and began to guide her towards the minibus with its ridiculously grinning hostess.
She was unable to suppress the shiver of nerves, alarming the Opposition MP "All right, lass?" he asked in his broad Yorkshire accent.
"You're not sickening for sum mat are you?"
She smiled. His tone was as normal and reassuring as the traffic as it jerked from light to light along St. Margaret's Street; as familiar as Parliament at her back.
Marian shook her head.
"I'm fine, Henry fine. Wrong time of the month you know."
"Aye. And I've heard that excuse cover a multitude of sins in my time, too."
They had reached the bus and she patted the hand that still lay, gnarled and blue veined from coal, on her arm.
"I doubt it was ever used to resist your advances, Henry. Thanks."
Shaking her hair away from her face, she climbed aboard the minibus and plumped aggressively into a vacant seat. The male MPs seemed infected with the atmosphere of a holiday. What else was it? She kept her briefcase on her lap, opening it determinedly to remove Private Eye. She turned to its parliamentary gossip, "HP Sauce', and almost at once called out:
"I see you're in the Eye, Roger again!"
Roger appeared mortally offended, but knowledgeable.
"Everything there is already declared on the Register," he snapped.
"You hope!" someone else called. Another commented good-humouredly:
"I see Marian's up to mischief as usual."
And she was… She had left Aubrey's flat late in the afternoon, with Giles, having promised to be a good girl. Giles had taken her at her solemn, pretended word, but Kenneth had been suspiciously anxious on her behalf… And now she knew why.
She frowned as she scanned Private Eye's already widespread gossip. She even knew the source of most of it.