This lunchtime she was in a club off Wigmore Street, whose members-only dining room was a throwback to what passed for pastoral in the public school imagination: actual wooden benches ran alongside two long tables, gazed down upon by portraits of stern, academically garbed homunculi. This arrangement might have led to communal feasting and lively interaction, but in fact fostered cliquery, which was its main purpose. Diners paired off, or clustered in small groups, with intervening spaces across which to pass the salt, or shuttle a basket of rolls. The occasional woman, suffered as a legislative necessity, was treated with that degree of reverence which borders on contempt, and never realises how transparent it is. The dress code tended towards the baggy.
Most voices bounced off the ceiling; the louder they were, the shallower their content. But underneath that was the bass murmur of business being done.
Di Taverner enjoyed her rare visits, partly because it was always salutary to observe the Establishment with its braces loosened, and partly because it amused her to be one of the few who knew the club to be the brainchild of one Margaret Lessiter, a college contemporary of hers, who had been trading off the blinkered self-regard of men since Freshers’ Week.
There were few diners, the cold weather keeping them away. For the young, winter brings a glow to the cheek; for those of Lady Di’s vintage, a certain amount of upkeep is required outside the normal temperature range. She disappeared briefly on arrival; on her reappearance her face was fresh, her features unravaged, and she sat at the far end of one of the benches barely acknowledging the scant others present, whose conversation was muted, but organic—there was a rule about mobile phones, and the rule was: No mobile phones. These remained out of sight; dismantled too, in Di Taverner’s case, both battery and SIM card removed. Though she was always struck, on performing such measures, that the increased security they offered was partly offset by a heightened awareness of the vulnerability that demanded such measures in the first place.
For some reason this observation reminded her of her erstwhile boss, Claude Whelan. He’d have enjoyed it. Absent friends, she thought; though, as with the majority of her relationships, it was only absence that made friendship feasible.
The menu did not require study—experience had taught her that the risotto came in smaller quantities than the shepherd’s pie, and was therefore preferable—so she sat unoccupied for five minutes. Her lunch-date’s lateness did not surprise her. Maintaining his own clock was in keeping with a larger, all-encompassing solipsism; part of a package that had been returned to sender so often that a less arrogant soul might have wondered whether it were correctly addressed. When he at last showed up, it was with no obvious sense of hurry, and he paused to speak to others before joining her. One of those who rose to greet him looked vaguely familiar to Taverner, but in a generic way, as if he’d once belonged to a boy band who’d troubled the charts for a while, but whose disparate units made no impact whatsoever. He offered his card to Taverner’s lunch companion, who took it with every sign of enthusiasm, and who was still clutching it as he arrived at her side, where he tore it in two and dropped it on the table.
“One-time policy adviser to David Cameron,” he said in explanation. “The poor bastard. Who wants that on their CV?”
“Looking for a new role, is he?”
“For a whole new identity, if he has any sense.” He studied her. “Ravishing as always, Diana. Can’t think why you insist on meeting in public.”
“Oh, I’m sure you can.”
Peter Judd smiled in his usual wolfish way.
Still a wolf then; still a beast. True, now that he was less in the public eye he had pulled back on his more obviously camera-friendly habits, like riding a bicycle and spouting Latin. The line he’d once walked had been redrawn, and was no longer a highwire, strung between the City and Westminster Palace; more an invisible thread, connecting interests that were likely subterranean. Former Home Secretary and one-time scourge of the liberal left, with a personal life not so much lock-up-your-daughters as scorch your earth and erect watchtowers, he was now a private citizen, which, given what he managed to get up to when a public servant, didn’t inspire confidence. This being so, Taverner had found it wise to keep a quiet eye on him since he’d left office. Officially at least he was keeping his nose clean, running a PR business, which took a little image-adjustment: Peter Judd had always spent more time jamming bushels over other people’s lamps than dimming his own, and an image of him scrubbing his clients’ paths to the limelight didn’t come easily. People could change, though. It was all she could do not to bark with laughter as that little gem came to mind.
“You’re looking very . . . prosperous, Peter.”
“Everyone looks prosperous this time of year. It’s why gym membership goes up.” He patted his stomach as he sat, having walked round the bench to be facing her. “Beach-ready by Easter, don’t worry. You appear pretty trim, though. Power agrees with you.”
“I don’t think of it as power. I think of it as service.”
He nodded. “That’s damn good. Did you write it yourself?”
“I do hope we’re not going to spend all lunchtime sparring. I’m passing up a perfectly good maintenance and upkeep review meeting for this.”
“I’m flattered. Have you ordered?”
She hadn’t; they dealt with that. And once the waitress—waitperson, she wondered? Waitstaff?—had retreated, she said, “So. ‘Bullingdon Fopp’? Really?”
“Don’t pretend you’re not amused.”
“Oh, I am. I just wonder you have any clients.”
“Lorry loads. Private jet loads, I should say. Everyone wants to be in on the joke. Because it’s no joke. You know how this works, Diana. No network like a college network. Surely First Desk of the intelligence services doesn’t need reminding of that. Especially not one with a Cambridge degree.”
“Funny. But only because it was long before my time.”
“Old treacheries cast long shadows. Here’s our wine.”
It was poured, and the bottle left in an ice bucket within easy reach.
“And the private sector’s a happy hunting ground?” she asked. “It still feels strange, not seeing your name on the front pages.”
“Consider it a . . . sabbatical.”
Her glass failed to reach her lips. “A comeback? Seriously? With your history?”
“You want to know the thing about history?” he said. “History is over. That’s its purpose. A few years in the wilderness, breaking bread with the lepers, and you can return rinsed and pure, your sins not so much forgiven as wiped from the public memory. Oh, the occasional high-minded journalist might dig up some long-forgotten peccadillo, but it’s one of the blessings of an electorate with a low attention span that once you’re out of jail and passed Go, you’re golden.” He sipped wine. “Short of kiddy-fiddling or animal cruelty, obviously.”
“‘Long-forgotten peccadillo’? Orchestrating a coup, near as damn it? Not to mention the attempted hit on a member of the security services.”
“I do miss Seb,” Judd admitted. “He had a skill set you don’t often find in your run-of-the-mill valet.”
“Yes, I’m sure Jackson Lamb would sympathise with your loss,” said Lady Di. “Though I doubt he’d tell you what he did with the body.”
“That’s the way Seb would have wanted it,” said Judd philosophically. “A nice professional job. No prolonged farewells.”
“Whatever you think of the electorate’s short-term memory,” she said, “I think you can confidently expect Lamb to harbour a grudge. And I’m not sure he’ll be happy to see you back in the high life.”