Her wide smile threatened to turn into an hysterical laugh but she checked it. ‘He’s gone to hospital but he’s fine. He was the hero of the hour. He calmed people down, organised everything. He gave a Senator mouth to mouth resuscitation and brought him back.’
‘Son of a bitch,’ Spinoza said softly.
‘The old judge?’
‘He’s dead. He was deaf and confused. But you saved the rest of us. That water from the jugs…it was everywhere!’
‘I wish I’d been quicker. So what’s the damage, apart from the Judge?’
‘The Senator. I think he must’ve touched the Judge when he was live. Some people got burns. Peter did. And cuts from falling on the glass.’
‘Could be worse then,’ I said. ‘You’re okay?’
‘I suppose. I was giggling a while ago. I suppose that’s shock.’
Spinoza moved a canvas chair forward. ‘Better sit down, Ms Bell. I’ll look see a bit, Cliff. Send you a drink?’
‘Two.’ Trudi sat and grabbed my arm. ‘Make it three,’ I said.
‘You didn’t catch them, did you?’ Trudi wiped her face with her sleeve and transferred some blood. I got out a handkerchief and wiped it off. Somehow I felt strange being at the scene and not having any blood on me.
‘No, we didn’t catch them.’
‘How did you know?’
I told her how and a waiter arrived with some Scotch in a decanter, a pitcher of ice and some glasses. We drank and sat quietly while the paramedics tidied up-a couple of people went out on stretchers.
‘What happened to them?’ I said.
‘There was a bit of a panic. Some people got trampled.’
The courtyard was emptying when Spinoza came up with a policeman, Mike Borg and another man who was holding a video camera.
Spinoza made a drink for Borg, the man with the camera and himself. ‘You all right, Ms Bell? Good. We got us a very useful gentleman here, Cliff.’
The useful gentleman turned out to be one Robert Klip who had filmed the proceedings in the courtyard from a balcony above with his Sony TV camera.
‘At Mrs Clephane’s invitation,’ he said quickly. ‘You can check with her.’
‘I have,’ Spinoza said. ‘She asked you to give us your fullest cooperation.’
Klip was a tall, thin man, almost bald and with devoted eyes and a sensitive mouth. ‘For her,’ he said, ‘anything.’
We experts who hadn’t managed to prevent an old man from being fried, exchanged glances.
‘Just give us the film, Mr Klip,’ Borg said. ‘We’ll give you a receipt and make sure your property is returned to you.’
Klip ejected the cassette. ‘Is that all?’
‘You’ve been a great help.’ Spinoza took the cassette. ‘I’ll leave the receipt to you. Mr Borg.’
Borg scowled and dug into his jacket pockets. Spinoza handled the cassette reverently. ‘We can go and look at pictures now, Cliff.’
‘Right. I want to take Trudi back to the hotel first and find out what’s happening to January. Where is she?’
Trudi came out of the apartment carrying her empty glass. She was pale but looked composed. ‘Peter’s staying in hospital until tomorrow. He’ll go straight from there to the Senate hearing and straight from that to the plane.’
‘God,’ I said. ‘Can he walk?’
She laughed. ‘He could run if he wanted to. This is all theatrics.’
‘It’s fine,’ Spinoza said. ‘We can mount real good security at the hospital. Keep everybody out.’
‘Except the TV and the reporters.’ Trudi said.
I drained my glass. ‘We’ve got business, Trudi. Want to go back to the hotel?’
‘What d’you mean?’ she flared. ‘ You’ve got business? I’m still working. I have to go to the hospital and orchestrate the performance.’
‘Okay, okay. We’ll take you.’
‘I’ll get a cab.’ She slammed the glass down and walked off.
‘What hospital?’ I yelled.
‘Be Georgetown University from here,’ Spinoza said.
I stumbled on a champagne bottle and picked it up. Half-full. I resisted the impulse to take a swig. ‘Are you married, Billy?’
Spinoza tugged at his tuft. ‘I don’t know. My wife went off to Mexico a year back. Maybe I’m still married, maybe I’m divorced, maybe I’m a father, maybe I’m a widower. I don’t know. Let’s go.’
We cleared another inquisitive cop and brushed past two reporters who were having a hard time finding anyone to talk to.
‘What about you? You married?’
‘Not for 10 years.’
We walked towards the Merc. The fire engine had gone and the blue lights on the remaining police cars had stopped flashing.
‘And would they be the best years of your young life?’
I waited while he unlocked the car and thought about it. I remembered the good times with Cyn; the holidays and the tennis and the few quiet nights, very few. Then the wandering years with the excited meetings and things turning sour within days, sometimes hours. Then Helen and the promises and the problems.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t say they were.’
19
My stay in Washington was becoming more and more unreal. I had a hankering to go into a house or flat where someone really lived and to see somebody do something that could be called normal work. This time I plunged back into the institutional world January had been visiting. The world of desk attendants, silent elevators and plush carpets. It was a vast steel and glass building with tinted windows and concealed interior lighting. I had the feeling that all the mirrors were two way and all the glass was bullet-proof, but that was probably just because I was getting the Washington blues.
After being cleared and checked and re-cleared, we were admitted to a room full of screens and consoles and whirling discs. It was like a computer warehouse with little bunches of salesmen and customers clustered around in certain spots. The air conditioning seemed a trifle high and I sweated. My suspect eye didn’t like the fluorescent light. A white-coated man introduced himself, in a thick Southern drawl, as Heseltine and took the cassette from Spinoza.
‘Be careful,’ Billy said.
‘I’m always careful… sir.’ He was pale and soft-looking with pinkish eyes behind tinted glasses.
‘We’d also like to do a description ID, Heseltine,’ Spinoza said. I thought I caught a flash of antagonism in the White Rabbit face. Maybe I did, because Spinoza added with a touch of acid: ‘If that’s all right with you?’
Heseltine checked on the clipboard he was carrying, nodded and became super-efficient. ‘We’ll do the lift from the tape first. Over here, please.’
He walked to a long, low-slung machine, put the cassette into a slot, pressed a button and an image appeared on a screen. The picture was just like on a large TV set, thinned out with a grainy quality. Heseltine fiddled with knobs and switches and the picture cleared suddenly.
‘We can freeze, magnify, alter the colour balance. Do jus’ about anything you want…’ He checked the clipboard. ‘Mist’ Hardy.’
‘Run it,’ Spinoza said. ‘Let’s see if you can run it.’
Klip was a pretty good hand with a video camera; the high elevation of the camera made the film hard to adjust to at first, but he had used the zoom to good purpose and he’d moved about on the balcony, getting different angles on the throng below.
‘That’s him. Hold it!’ I pointed to a man behind the table; he was tall and blonde, wearing a cream-coloured suit. His hair fell forward over his forehead and he tended to keep his head down. Heseltine advanced the picture frame by frame and he eventually got a fairly clear shot, almost front on with the head almost up.
‘Will that do?’ Heseltine said.
‘Sure,’ Spinoza said. ‘That’s fine.’
Heseltine flicked switches and pressed buttons. Nothing happened on screen but there were deep stirrings in the heart of the machine. When he was happy, Heseltine released the film and it moved on.
‘I take it these two weren’t the same guys as in the car?’ Spinoza took off his jacket and draped it over the back of a chair. Heseltine moved the chair away with his foot.