Joyce raised an eyebrow. “You don’t want to talk to Mrs. De Vere, sir? Are you quite sure?”
“That’s what I said isn’t it?” Henry Whitman snapped.
The secretary left. Alone in his office at Number Ten, Henry Whitman made a call from his private cell phone.
“I need that information.”
“You’ll get it.”
“When? I’m being made to look like a laughingstock here. I need something I can use.”
“Soon.”
“Your source had better be good.”
“My source is impeccable. Very well placed. Very motivated.” There was a pause on the line. “Would you like to see a picture of him?”
“A picture?” Before Henry Whitman could answer, an MMS image appeared in his in-box. He clicked it open, and really wished he hadn’t.
“Jesus Christ.”
“Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Father, welcomes you into his heart.”
“Hallelujah!”
The young female minister was new to St. Luke’s Church and she was going down a storm. Gilbert Drake was normally not a fan of women priests, but even he was prepared to make an exception for this girl, with her loose blond hair, trim figure, and girlishly freckled cheeks.
“Jesus Christ forgives your sins and washes you in the holy water of His love.”
“Hallelujah!”
“Godparents and sponsors, if you would now submerge the postulants.”
Gilbert Drake put a hand on the young boy’s shoulder and pressed down, till his head was completely beneath the waterline of the baptismal pool. For a few seconds Gilbert watched the boy’s jet-black hair swirl upward, lifted from his scalp by the water like the hair of a corpse.
How easy it would be to drown someone. To drown a child. All you had to do was stand there.
It was a sinful thought. Gilbert dismissed it.
“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
“Amen.”
“Now raise the postulants up, cleansed of sin, into the Light of the Lord.”
The children came out of the water as one, gasping a collective breath. The congregation cheered. In the pool, wet hugs were exchanged. Gilbert Drake’s godson looked up at him, gap-toothed and triumphant, his smooth Indian skin the only flash of brown among the other pasty-faced, East End boys.
“I did it, Uncle Gil! I did it!”
Gilbert Drake’s eyes filled with tears. “You did it, Nikil. Your big brother would’ve been so proud.”
The room Billy Hamlin rented in Kings Cross was dark and dank and depressing. A bare lightbulb hung pathetically from the ceiling, the plastic window blinds were broken, and the squalid single bed smelled of cigarette smoke and sweat.
Billy didn’t care. He lay down on the bed and closed his eyes and a feeling of peace washed over him.
In a few days he would see her.
In a few days it would all be over.
He slept.
Chapter Fifteen
Roxie De Vere observed her naked body in the mirror and frowned. A small curve in her midriff bothered her.
I’m getting fat. If I stuck it out far enough, I’d look pregnant.
She tried it, edging forward in the wheelchair the physical therapists at Guy’s Hospital had designed especially for her, to enable her to take showers by herself. Turning sideways, she stroked her bloated stomach and struck a maternal pose.
“It’s as close as I’ll ever come,” she said out loud.
Roxie’s hatred for her mother was like a thing then, solid and physical, a teddy bear that she could clutch to her chest and nurture. At other times it felt more like a rock, something heavy and grounded that she could chain herself to while she screamed. One day she would do it. She would hurl that rock into the ocean of her own self-pity and drown. Then her mother would be sorry.
Or would she? Roxie didn’t know anymore.
All she knew was that Andrew Beesley was the only man she would ever love. And that thanks to her mother, Andrew was gone.
Wheeling herself into her bedroom, Roxie got dressed. It took a long time, but thanks to the inventiveness of her medical team, and the hundreds of thousands of pounds thrown at the problem by her father, Roxie could now manage almost all of life’s daily tasks for herself.
“You could live independently, you know,” Marie, Roxie’s chief physical therapist, had told her repeatedly. “Get your own place. You don’t have to live at home if you don’t want to.”
Roxie told Marie that she stayed on at Kingsmere for her father’s sake. “Mummy’s away so much. Darling Daddy would be desperately lonely on his own.” But the real reason she stayed was to spite her mother. As much as Roxie loathed living under the same roof as Alexia, she knew that Alexia hated it even more.
Why should that bitch have a peaceful, happy life with Daddy after what she did to me?
She should be punished. She should suffer.
Roxie pulled her blond hair back into a ponytail and dabbed blusher on her cheeks. She was still a beautiful young woman, despite her ruined body. Parliament’s summer recess was coming up. As usual, the De Vere family would decamp to Martha’s Vineyard for the holidays, with Alexia jetting back and forth to London as needed.
If only there were a way I could really hurt her, thought Roxie. The only thing Alexia had ever truly cared about was her career. By rights, that was what she should lose. Unfortunately, Roxie’s mother had an almost supernatural gift for political survival.
Still. One day . . .
In her study at Cheyne Walk, Alexia De Vere flipped through the file that Sir Edward Manning had given her. She’d requested the information only yesterday, but with typical efficiency, Edward had had the file on her desk by eight o’clock this morning. It was a lot thicker and more detailed than she’d expected.
“You got all this from the U.S. State Department?” she’d asked.
“I got it from a reliable source, Home Secretary.”
“And nobody else knows I requested it? You didn’t discuss it with Commissioner Grant?”
Sir Edward Manning looked affronted. “You asked me not to, Home Secretary. Of course I didn’t.”
Alexia thought, Perhaps I was wrong to distrust him. He’s loyal to the department, if not to me personally. As long as I make sure our interests are aligned, Edward’s going to be a useful ally.
“Are you sure you’re feeling quite well, Edward?” she asked, putting the report aside. “You look as if you’re in pain. Your chest.”
Belatedly, Sir Edward Manning realized that he was clutching the wound again. He’d had to change his shirt three times yesterday and was crunching down ibuprofen tablets like M&M’s. Sergei Milescu had stopped by last night, to ask about “progress.” He’d insisted on sex, which was agony for Edward, and left with the unspoken threat of violence hanging heavy in the air.
“My friends are not patient people, Eddie. They want results.”
“But I don’t even know what I’m looking for!” Sir Edward Manning had pleaded. “I need time. I need to gain her trust. Can’t you explain?”
Sergei Milescu shrugged. “Not my problem. I’ll see you soon, Eddie.”
Sir Edward looked at Alexia De Vere. “I had a minor accident, Home Secretary. I fell off my bike on the way into work.”
Alexia looked horrified. “When?”
“Oh, a few days ago. At the end of last week.”
“Well, why on earth didn’t you say so? You must go home and rest.”
“There’s no need, Home Secretary.”
“There is need. You’re in your sixties, Edward. You must take these things seriously.”
“It’s only a few scrapes and bruises. I’m perfectly fit to work.”
Alexia shook her head. “I won’t hear of it. I’m working from home myself this afternoon, so there’s no need for you to be here. Go home. I’ll have my driver take you.”
Rereading the report Edward had given her in her home office, Alexia wondered whether her PPS had actually gone to bed, or whether he’d sneaked back into the office to work. Career civil servants like Sir Edward Manning—“lifers,” as they were known in Parliament—were almost all workaholics, addicted to their jobs and the buzz of Westminster life. But she quickly forgot Edward as his report once again engrossed her.
CONFIDENTIAL PSYCHIATRIC EVALUATION:
WILLIAM J. HAMLIN.
The patient displays classic paranoid schizophrenic symptoms, including delusions and auditory hallucinations, frequently triggered by the telephone or television. He claims to hear one specific voice, a classic dominant negative hallucination combining critical commentary with specific instructions to the patient. He intermittently describes this voice as female. (Mother?? Deceased during patient’s infancy. Patient alluded in treatment to feelings of abandonment and betrayal.) Generally suffers from obsessional thoughts about women, mostly nonsexual/family-oriented, e.g., acute anxiety about his daughter. His divorce also seems to be an underlying factor in his delusional thinking and psychosis, although relations with ex-wife appear good.
Intermittent depression but no suicidal thoughts. No self-aggrandizing. No recorded violent tendencies. Very limited aggression.