“Which is you and Ashley,” observed Jack, “a woeful lapse of responsibility, even for Briggs—he must be stretched thin with the hunt for the Gingerbreadman. Have you spoken to Josh?”
“I’ve just told him. He’d been expecting it, but the confirmation was still a shock. I showed him the list of Mr. Currys to see if he knew which one Goldilocks had been having dinner with the night before she died.”
“And?”
“He didn’t even look at the list. He said it was a code name—and that Goldilocks had made him swear not to reveal who it was.”
“I’ve a feeling this is seriously bad news.”
“You’d be right. ‘Mr. Curry’ was… Bartholomew.”
Jack was suddenly wide awake.
“Bartholomew? Sherman Bartholomew?”
“The very same.”
“Why the secrecy? Was she investigating him?”
“Josh said we should ask Bartholomew.”
“He’s right,” said Jack. “We will.”
“Shouldn’t I okay it with Briggs first?” asked Mary nervously. “This could be a very hot potato.”
“I’ve had hotter,” said Jack. “Besides, Briggs said this wasn’t an all-out murder inquiry yet.”
They agreed to meet at the council offices where Bartholomew was holding a surgery that morning. But Sherman Bartholomew wasn’t a doctor. He was Reading’s representative in the House of Commons. The Right Honorable Sherman Oscar Bartholomew, MP.
19. The Right Honorable Sherman Bartholomew, MP
European nation with highest politician/lover ratio: Few European states can hope to compete with France and Italy in this department, and the two nations have been battling for European political lothario supremacy for over thirty years. The contest has been increasingly acrimonious since 1998, when France was initially the clear winner but somehow “lost” sixty-eight illicit lovers in the recount and had to concede defeat. The following year was no less rocked in scandal, when the Italians were disqualified for “stretching the boundaries” of their elected representatives to include senior civil servants—and the crown was tossed back to France. No one was quite prepared for the disgraceful scandal the following year when it was discovered that one French minister had no mistress at all and “loved his wife,” a shocking revelation that led to his resignation and ultimately to the fall of the government.
—The Bumper Book of Berkshire Records, 2004 edition
“I’m sorry we always have to meet under such disagreeable circumstances,” said Jack to a well-dressed, handsome man in his late fifties. “This is Detective Sergeant Mary Mary, also of the NCD.”
“I was the defense attorney for the Gingerbreadman,” explained Bartholomew for Mary’s benefit. “No one else would handle it.”
“You put up a robust defense,” replied Jack with a smile.
“I’m always relieved it wasn’t robust enough, Inspector. He got better than he deserved—have you caught him yet?”
“We’re not on the chase. I shouldn’t worry—you’re the last person he’d want to attack.”
“I’m very relieved to hear it.” Sherman Bartholomew shook their hands with a firm grip and offered them a seat in his office. He was that rare thing in politics, a freethinking and radical MP who wasn’t sidelined by his party to the anonymity of the back benches. He was an asset to the city and took his job seriously. The constituency hours took place once a week in the council offices, and Jack and Mary had managed to jump the line of disgruntled bears and other assorted citizens who sat grumbling in the waiting room. Bartholomew, in keeping with the strongest parliamentary tradition, shunned the possibility of any kind of scandal and agreed to see them straightaway. “Perhaps you might tell us what you know about Goldilocks, Mr. Bartholomew?”
He didn’t answer and instead drummed his fingers on the desk for a moment. “It’s a situation of the utmost delicacy,” he said without making eye contact.
“Was she investigating you about something?”
“No.”
“Extortion?”
“No!”
“Blackmail?”
“No, no—it was nothing like that.” He stood up and paced nervously back and forth behind his chair.
“Sir,” said Jack, this time more forcefully, “I have to tell you that this morning we positively identified the remains of a woman we found up at SommeWorld.”
Bartholomew looked at Jack with a pained expression. “Goldilocks?”
“Yes.”
“I need to sit down, if you don’t mind,” he mumbled, and sat heavily in his chair.
“We know,” continued Jack, “that you dined with her the evening before she vanished. If you have been involved in any sort of parliamentary impropriety that Goldilocks was investigating, it will almost certainly come out in the fullness of time.”
He looked at them both and rubbed his forehead. “We were lovers,” he said in a quiet voice.
“What?” exclaimed Jack with undisguised astonishment. He was expecting any explanation but this one.
“Lovers,” repeated Bartholomew. “Goldilocks and I. For more than a year now.”
“Wait, wait,” said Jack in a state of some confusion. “You were, to great fanfare, Westminster’s first openly gay MP and have remained a vociferous mouthpiece for all kinds of minority-rights issues for the past twenty-five years, and now you’re telling me… you’re straight?”
Bartholomew covered his face with his hands, and his shoulders shook with a silent sob.
“You don’t know what it’s like,” he said miserably, “living a lie. I’ll be ruined and disgraced if this gets into the papers. My parliamentary career will be finished and my hard-fought pink credentials in tatters.”
“What about Douglas?” asked Mary, equally shocked by Bartholomew’s confession. “Your long-term relationship and much-publicized adoption of two children has always seemed so… perfect.”
“I did it for appearance’s sake,” he mumbled sadly. “Doug knows what I am and will stand by me if any of this gets out.”
Jack and Mary looked at each other as Bartholomew massaged his temples and stared at the blotter on his desk, as though the dark smudges might reveal some sort of answer to his dilemma. He blew his nose and tried to compose himself.
“Mr. Bartholomew,” said Jack after a pause, “it won’t be the first time I’ve had to investigate a potential crime that has involved sensitive issues of a strictly personal nature. But you must understand that our prime consideration at this point is to find out what happened to Goldilocks.”