He screwed up his eyes tightly, but still the image invaded his mind.
It would be with him for the rest of his life.
But that need not be long.
At last he moved. He sat on the edge of the bed, then stood up. There
was blood, his blood, on the sheet, a disgraceful reminder. The sun had
moved around the sky, and now shone brightly through the window.
Tim would have liked to close the window, but the effort was too much.
He hobbled out of the bedroom, and went through the living room into the
kitchen. The kettle and the teapot were where she had left them after
making tea. She had spilled a few leaves carelessly over the Formica
work-top, and she had not bothered to put the bottle of milk back into
the little fridge.
The first-aid kit was in a high, locked cupboard, where small children
could not reach. Tim pulled a stool across the Marley-tiled floor and
stood on it. The key was on top of the cupboard. He unlocked the door
and took down an old biscuit tin with a picture of Durham Cathedral on
the lid.
He got off the stool and put the tin down.
Inside he found bandages, a roll of bandage, scissors, antiseptic cream,
gripe water for babies, a displaced tube of Ambre Solaire, and a large,
full bottle of sleeping tablets. He took out the tablets and replaced
the lid. Then he found a glass in another cupboard.
He kept not doing things: not putting the milk away, not clearing up the
spilled tea leaves, not replacing the first-aid tin, not closing the
door of the crockery cupboard. There was no need, he had to keep
reminding himself.
He took the glass and the tablets into the living room and put them on
his desk. The desk was bare except for a telephone: he always cleared it
when he finished working.
He opened the cupboard beneath the television set. Here was the drink he
had planned to offer her. There was whiskey, gin, dry sherry, a good
brandy, and an untouched bottle of eau de vie prunes that someone had
brought back from the Dordogne. Tim chose the gin, although he did not
like it.
He poured some into the glass on the desk, then sat down in the upright
chair.
He did not have the will to wait, perhaps years, for the revenge which
would restore his self-respect. However, right now he could not harm Cox
without doing worse damage to himself. Exposing Cox would expose Tim.
But the dead feel no pain.
He could destroy Cox, and then die.
In the circumstances it seemed the only thing to do.
DEREK HAMILTON was met at Waterloo Station by another chauffeur, this
time in a Jaguar. The Chairman’s Rolls-Royce had gone in the economy
drive:
sadly, the unions had not appreciated the gesture.
The chauffeur touched his cap and held the door, and Hamilton got in
without speaking.
As the car pulled away he made a decision. He would not go straight to
the office. He said: “Take me to Nathaniel Fett you know where it is?”
The chauffeur said: “Yes, sir.”
They crossed Waterloo Bridge and turned into the Aldwych, heading for
the City. Hamilton and Fett had both gone to Westminster School:
Nathaniel Fett senior had known that his son would not suffer for his
Jewishness there, and Lord Hamilton had believed that the school would
not turn his son into an upper-class twit–his Lordship’s phrase.
The two boys had superficially similar backgrounds. Both had wealthy,
dynamic fathers and beautiful mothers; both were from intellectual
households where politicians came to dinner; both grew up surrounded by
good paintings and unlimited books. Yet, as the friendship grew, and the
two young men went to Oxford–Fett to Balliol, Hamilton to Magdalen–the
Hamilton house had suffered by the comparison. Derek came to see his own
father’s intellect as shallow. Old man Fett would tolerantly discuss
abstract painting, communism, and be-bop jazz, then tear them to pieces
with surgical accuracy. Lord Hamilton held the same conservative views,
but expressed them in the thundering cliches of a House of Lords speech.