‘Of sorts. It was all very low-key.’
‘Funny,’ said Billy as the first course arrived, ‘I was thinking of Philip Hayton the other day. Do you remember him?’
‘No.’
‘He was one of the older boys. A headhunter. He was on my first interview panel, I recall.’
‘Of course, yes, Philip Hayton. He was killed in an accident, wasn’t he?’
‘Over in Ireland, yes. A boating accident. Except, of course, that there were rumors to the effect that he had been executed.’
‘Oh?’
‘Mmm. By the IRA, I suppose, though there wasn’t much of an IRA back then. Funny business...’
There was no more talk of the firm until they were sipping nicely bitter espresso coffee and Billy was debating whether he could manage another portion of cheese with his last crumbly biscuit.
‘I was wondering,’ he said, ‘what you thought of this Latchkey business?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, who’s to blame?’
‘I’m to blame, of course.’
‘Oh yes, well, as far as the record goes, but you said yourself that you’ve had your wrists slapped and that’s about it. No retribution, no demotion, nothing.’
‘They want it kept quiet.’
‘So as not to rile the Israelis? Yes, I can imagine.’
‘And I’ve been punished in another sense.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes, they’ve sent me to work beside Richard Mowbray.’
Billy smiled. He knew Mowbray, whom he irritated by insisting on calling him ‘Mauberley.’
‘The Mauberley Barmy Army, eh? Now there’s a man who has his sights quite firmly fixed on nothing but the top slot. He wants the old boy’s job, and one of these years, God help us, he may just get it.’
‘It’s a frightening prospect.’
‘So you’re working on Harvest, eh?’
‘That’s right.’
‘It looks promising. Are you day watchman or night watchman?’
‘Richard has a roster.’
‘I’ll bet he has. Be careful of Mauberley, Miles. He could drag you down with him. Have you heard his latest one?’
‘About the cousins having a bomb in their Moscow embassy?’
‘No, I’d not heard that. I was referring to his theory that the Belgrano was torpedoed by an American midget submarine.’
‘That’s crazy.’
‘In F Branch they have a new name for him: Meltdown Mowbray.’
Miles, feeling the lightness of the wine inside him, was beginning to laugh at this when a large, well-dressed man approached the table.
‘Billy Monmouth!’
‘Andrew.’ Billy rose from his chair, holding on to his napkin with one hand and shaking with the other. ‘Where have you been hiding?’
‘I’ve been in France. A company-funded shopping trip.’ The man called Andrew smiled down on Miles, full of self- satisfaction and wanting others to share in it. Miles wondered why, being so full already, the man needed to eat at all.
‘Andrew, this is Miles Flint, a colleague of mine.’
They shook hands. Andrew’s hand was warm and slightly damp. He radiated well-being and charm, and could probably afford another Rolex should he lose the one he was wearing.
‘Andrew is a salesman,’ explained Billy.
‘That’s right, and a damned good one. What do you do, Miles?’
‘I’m just a civil servant.’
‘Same game as Billy here, eh? Well, don’t think I don’t know who wields the power in this country. I’ve watched Yes, Prime Minister. In fact, I do a lot of dealing with the civil service. Hard but fair, would you agree?’
‘What’s fair about us?’ said Billy, causing all three to laugh.
‘Well, I’d better be getting to my table. We must get together for a drink, Billy, really we must. Keep in touch. Nice to have met you, Miles.’ And with that the man was off, walking to the corner table and joining his friends. He kissed the beautiful woman on the hand, laying custodial fingers on her neck, motioning across toward Billy and Miles. The woman smiled at them, then pecked Andrew on the cheek while he picked up a menu.
Billy, who had smiled back like an addict to his fix, now said from behind his smile, ‘What a shit,’ and decided on another portion of Brie to go with his whiskey.
‘He’s a slight acquaintance,’ he said. ‘We see one another at dinner parties, where we inevitably get drunk and end up promising ourselves this mythical get-together.’
‘He seems nice, though.’
Billy laughed.
‘Come on, our man Flint, Andrew Gray is a proper little shit and you know it. Your voice may be without irony, my friend, but your eyes betray you.’ Billy paused. ‘You know, Miles, you’re quite cunning in your way. I mean, you sit there all silent, watching, and people tend to forget that you’re there at all, but you are. Oh, you are. I admire that, though I also find it just faintly disturbing.’
As before, there seemed an unspoken meaning behind Billy’s words. Miles was wondering why Philip Hayton’s name had been brought into play, and remembered that Billy was on his list of suspects. In fact, he was at the top.
‘I suppose I am faintly disturbing, Billy,’ said Miles. ‘It’s one of my most appealing features.’
And Billy laughed loudly this time, catching the attention of the beautiful woman. He smiled at her, antennae twitching, a hunter intent on the chase.
Nine
Sheila, Listening to Mozart in the living room, thought of Miles. Although she abhorred physical violence, a pleasant shivery feeling came to her when she remembered the way he had fought for her as a student. He had been wild as a teenager, trying to prove something to himself and to the world. No longer... They had enjoyed themselves back then, but now they had grown so far apart. It was like being married to an amnesiac.
The base of her neck prickled as the Requiem Mass washed over her, full of its own violence. She had seen the film Amadeus with Moira, and they had fallen out about whether or not it was far-fetched. It never did to fall out with Moira. She was such a good friend, useful for all sorts of things, and she knew so much. Miles liked her, too. Sheila could see that, for all his subtlety. He would risk a glance at Moira whenever he felt safe, taking in her legs with one sweep, maybe her breasts at a later opportunity. His concealed admiration bordered on the perverse. Why didn’t he just come out and say he found her attractive? Sheila wouldn’t mind; she wouldn’t be jealous. One afternoon last week, walking past a building site, a crowd of workmen had whistled at her, and she had smiled back at them rather than giving them her usual snarl. Did she miss praise so much that she had to accept it from strangers?
Yes, she thought to herself, smiling again.
‘Hello, Mother.’
She had not heard Jack come in, had not even heard him closing the door. He had been noisy as a youngster, banging doors shut with a healthy disrespect for them. But nowadays he cultivated his father’s habits of stealth and secrecy. She felt the conspiracy ripening between them, unspoken but definitely there.
‘What’s this?’ Standing in front of her, Jack shouted this aloud, his thumb held toward the stereo.
‘Mozart,’ she said softly, turning the record down. ‘What are you doing home so early?’
Jack shrugged, then lifted a peach from the fruit bowl. Once he would have asked for her permission, which she would always have given.
‘What are you doing home?’ he mimicked.
‘I took a half day. I’ve got a lot of leave still to take. Have you eaten lunch?’
‘No, actually. I was supposed to meet a friend, but she didn’t show. Then I bumped into Dad, but he had a prior engagement.’