Which was the image Ben Hatry painted tirelessly for the benefit of his lieutenants but always on the understanding that we keep it quiet among us boys and girls in the sacred interest of objective reporting of the news, which is what we are put on earth to do, or your fucking feet won’t touch.
‘Count me out,’ Ben Hatry had told Cavendish the day before, in his toneless voice.
Sometimes he spoke without moving his lips at all. Sometimes he grew sick of his own machinations, sick of the whole human mediocrity.
‘You two bastards handle them on your own,’ he added viciously.
‘As you wish, Chief. Pity, but there we are,’ said Cavendish.
But Ben Hatry had come, as Cavendish knew he would, by cab because he didn’t trust his chauffeur, and even arrived ten minutes early to read a summary of the shit that Cavendish had been sending to Van’s people over the last few months – shit being his preferred term for prose – ending with a one-page red-hot report from those wankers across the river – unsigned, unsourced, unheaded – which Cavendish said was the clincher, the pure wine, the missing diamond, Chief, Van’s people were going ballistic, hence today’s get-together.
‘Who’s the bastard who wrote this?’ Hatry enquired, ever anxious to give credit where it was due.
‘Luxmore, Chief.’
‘He the arsehole who screwed up the Falklands operation for us single-handed?’
‘The same.’
‘Didn’t go through Rewrite Department, that’s for sure.’
Nevertheless Ben Hatry read the report twice, a thing unknown in him.
‘Is it true?’ he asked Cavendish.
‘True enough, Chief,’ said Cavendish with the judicious moderation that characterised his judgments. ‘True in parts. Not sure about its shelf-life. Van’s boys may have to be a bit quick on the draw.’
Hatry tossed the report back at him.
‘Well at least they’ll know the fucking way this time,’ he said with a mirthless nod for Tug Kirby, the third murderer, as Cavendish wittily dubbed him, who had just stormed into the room without wiping his great feet and was glowering round him looking for an enemy.
‘Those Yanks arrived yet?’ he roared.
‘Any minute now, Tug,’ Cavendish assured him soothingly.
‘Buggers’ll be late for their own funerals,’ said Kirby.
A particular advantage of Geoff’s place was its ideal position in the heart of Mayfair, handy for the side entrance to Claridges, in a gated and guarded cul de sac with a lot of heavy hitters and diplomats and lobbyists living there, and the Italian Embassy one end. Yet there was a pleasing anonymity about it too. You could be a cleaner, caterer, courier, butler, bodyguard, catamite or grand master of the universal galaxy. No one cared. And Geoff was a door-opener. He knew how to get to the power people, bring them together. With Geoff you could lean back and let it happen, which was what they were doing now: three Brits and their two Yankee guests and everyone deniable as they tucked into a meal they agreed was not taking place, a help-yourself with no servants to witness it, consisting of salmon tiède flown down from the Cavendish estates in Scotland, quail’s eggs, fruit and cheese, and all topped by a super bread-and-butter pudding made by Geoff’s old nanny.
And to drink, iced tea and its stablemates, because in today’s Born Again Washington, said Geoff Cavendish, alcohol at lunch was regarded as the Mark of the Beast.
And a round table so that nobody was dominant. Plenty of leg space. Soft chairs. The phones unplugged. Cavendish was great on people’s comfort level. Girls galore if you wanted them. Ask Tug.
‘Flight bearable, Elliot?’ asked Cavendish.
‘Oh, I’m in travel heaven, Geoff. I just love those bumpy little jets. Northolt was neat. I love Northolt. The chopper ride to Battersea, epic. Beautiful power station.’
With Elliot you never knew whether he was being sarcastic, or was he like this all the time? He was thirty-one years old, a Southerner from Alabama. He was a lawyer and a journalist, and floppy-droll except where he was on the attack. He had his own column in the Washington Times where he disputed ostentatiously with names that till recently had been bigger than his own. He was lank and cadaverous and dangerous and bespectacled. His face was all jaw and bone.