‘I suspect there are some pretty impressive crumbs.’
‘Yes, but from this height they tend to fall a long way. My task is to persuade those men of very profound wealth that they can afford not only their yachts, several ex-wives and assorted young companions but also a conscience.’
‘You had a career in the City before you joined the Church, didn’t you?’
‘Ah, you’ve done your homework,’ the bishop chuckled, his lips moving like the ripples on a pond – although in truth there had been remarkably little information about the bishop to be found: a sparse Wiki entry, few interviews or profiles, no evangelical outpourings. ‘I found the City . . . unfulfilling.’
Harry’s tea arrived; he let it stand for a while.
‘But we have so much to talk about and so little time,’ the bishop said, moving them on. ‘How can I help?’
‘I was hoping you could tell me a little about my father.’
‘Ah, the Blessed Johnnie. Did you know he was a very fine scrum half?’
‘I had no idea.’
‘Could have got a blue if he’d applied himself.’
‘You did, didn’t you?’
The bishop nodded. ‘But for Johnnie there were always . . .’ – he sighed – ‘too many distractions.’
‘What sort of thing?’
The bishop began, picking his words with care. ‘He was always very . . . enterprising. Had no money and not much background. In places like Christ Church at that time such things mattered. Every staircase had its earl or an honourable, there was even a maharajah floating about the place. It was still very Brideshead but Johnnie never let such things stop him. He made himself useful.’
‘How?’
‘He would organize extravagant trips during the vacations. Skiing at Klosters, summers in Venice, that sort of thing. Always led from the front, did Johnnie. First down a black slope, first into the bar and’ – the damp lips wobbled in amusement – ‘it has to be said, he was always first up to the prettiest woman in the room. Your father always made his mark.’
‘Took risks, you mean?’
As Wickham reminisced he ran a finger down his crucifix. Harry noticed that his fingers were beautifully and almost certainly professionally manicured. Per haps he was making up for the fact that he was down on the digit count. ‘You have to remember it was the sixties. The Vietnam War, the Beatles, Profumo, the Pill. The world trembled, everything seemed to be up for grabs, every rule was questioned. It was a time when, for a while, I lost my own faith. But your father never had much time for rules. What he had instead was a large number of friends. Extraordinary. I think Johnnie invented the game of networking – everyone from aristocrats to an engineering student from Worksop. Named Richards, I think he was, quite brilliant academically but without a single social skill that anyone could discover. Latchkey kid with a working-class grudge, hated Oxford. But Johnnie made friends with him and discovered he had a peculiar skill with telephones. Could beat the system. In those days when you wanted to make a call you had to drop four large old pennies into the slot before the operator would connect you. Richards discovered that simply by tapping the receiver in the right way he could mimic the sound of the coins dropping and get his call home for free. Then he expanded. Built himself a little gadget tied together with tape and with wires sticking out of it that enabled him to make calls to any part of the world. In those days you had to book international calls and they cost several fortunes. Johnnie had a lot of pals with girlfriends in the States or Switzerland or Australia, rich pals who were more than happy to pay for the pleasure of chatting up their young ladies, particularly if at the same time they could add to it the exquisite titillation of cheating the General Post Office. Johnnie and Richards went into business together and made some very serious money.’ Harry was astounded, almost breathless in anticipation. It was as though a page of history – his own history – was being turned for the first time. ‘What happened?’
‘Richards got caught, of course. Got himself arrested and charged with some ludicrous offence like misappropriation of Her Majesty’s electricity. The authorities were making it up as they went along. They’d never come across anything like that before. Ridiculous, couldn’t make it stick. Richards was found not guilty and as he walked down the steps of the court the men from the GPO came to their senses and offered him a job.’
‘And my father?’
‘Always one step ahead. Nobody could lay a finger on Johnnie, got away with it, always did.’
‘I suppose he did,’ Harry muttered, an edge of bitterness souring his tone. ‘You and he were good friends?’
‘For a while, yes. It was a time of sharing. Pimm’s, poetry, long afternoons in punts, and exceptionally pretty people. Everyone was pretty in the sixties.’
‘And the Aunt Emma club.’
‘Ah, yes, the Aunt Emmas. Just an informal gathering, very gentle. At that time we undergraduates weren’t allowed in the full university club, so we called ourselves the Junior Croquet Club and hacked away on college lawns. And your father, Harry, was the meanest man with a mallet I ever knew.’ The bishop laughed. ‘A total tiger in front of the hoops, while I was always a bit of a headless chicken, I fear.’
‘And after university? You kept in touch?’
‘Summer’s colour fades. Young people drift apart. I went into the City while he . . . well, Johnnie continued making friends, finding opportunities wherever he could.’
Harry reached for the photograph in his pocket, realizing that the bishop’s stories had already swallowed up so much of his time. ‘These people . . .’ He put the photo down on the crisp linen tablecloth and pointed. ‘There’s you. My father.’
‘Well, well,’ Wickham said, fumbling for his pince-nez glasses, which emerged from his suit breast pocket attached to a thin gold chain. He was almost foppish but a bishop could get away with it.
‘You were both friends of Susannah Ranelagh.’ Harry pointed once more.
‘Yes, her name strikes a chord. Not close friends, not in my case, at least, no more than an occasional leap around the croquet lawn. I wonder what became of her.’
‘This is Christine Leclerc. And the one she’s got her arm around is Ali Abu al-Masri.’
‘Yes, I remember them. Followed their careers from afar. So sad.’
‘And this one’s Findlay Francis, isn’t it?’
The bishop squinted. ‘Is it? Was that his name? I don’t remember, it was such a long time ago. Mind you, at my age most things were a long time ago.’
‘It just struck me as strange that so many members of your croquet club seem to have come to a sad end.’
‘Three score and ten.’
‘I think it was more than that.’
The bishop’s lips lost their rhythmic beat and pursed in curiosity. ‘What do you mean, Harry?’
Harry searched the cleric’s eyes. ‘A plane crash. An assassination. A sudden heart attack. Now both Susannah Ranelagh and Findlay Francis have disappeared.’
‘Have they? I didn’t know.’
‘I think my father and Miss Ranelagh kept in touch. I think they met up every year, in October.’
‘Really? How good of them.’
‘I was wondering, do you know anything about that? Their friendship? Their meetings? Was it an annual get-together of the Croquet Club, something like that? And who was this third woman? She’s a total mystery. Do you have any idea?’
The bishop dragged his eyes away from the photograph and took off his glasses. ‘Harry, you know more than I do. I’m afraid I can’t help you.’
‘You didn’t keep in touch with other members of the club?’
‘The other Aunt Emmas? No, not really, not even your father. He travelled so much.’
‘Can I ask when you last met him?’
‘You know, I’m not entirely sure. Perhaps during a gaudy at Christ Church, a reunion dinner. But there would have been so many others there and old minds grow weary—’
‘I’d like you to think about that really hard if you would, Bishop Randall. Any little connection, any detail you might be able to remember, no matter how small.’
‘Of course, I shall. And if it doesn’t offend you I’d like to remember him in my prayers. But I fear there is little else I can do for you, especially today.’ He glanced at his wristwatch. ‘I hope you’ll understand and forgive me. My luncheon companion will be here any minute. I’d love to introduce the two of you but he and I are about to have a . . . a very delicate discussion.’
‘Falling crumbs.’
‘Even the Good Samaritan required a few crumbs to undertake God’s work. So if you’ll excuse me, Harry . . .’ He pushed back his chair and rose, extending both hands, which wrapped around Harry’s own.
‘Might I have an address for you, a telephone number, Bishop Randall?’
‘Of course, but I . . . I travel rather a lot. You can always track me down through the Church Commissioners’ office, that’s easiest. They always know where I am. Or e-mail.’
It didn’t sound like too much of an excuse, not from a man of his age.
‘God guard your every step, Harry.’
The bishop released his grip. As Harry turned and walked towards the lift, he realized he hadn’t even touched his tea. And the bishop, who could remember every detail about an engineering student named Richards, could barely recall even the names of his own friends.
Long after dark and still hours before dawn, Billy stood in the cover provided by a bookie’s shop doorway. It hadn’t taken much to find Harry’s old Volvo parked in a side street. Edwards had provided the registered address and, with parking restrictions in London as tight as a Chancellor’s purse, the car was never going to be far away. Billy eyed the street one more time. Nothing. He stared contemptuously at the car. It would have taken him less time to break into it than it would to hit a dartboard from three feet, but there was no need. He knelt down beside the rear number plate, peered underneath to make sure there was no obstruction, then wriggled his way beneath until he was alongside the line of the exhaust pipe. With a pencil light clamped between his teeth he inspected the underside of the car above the rear axle and, with a wire brush he pulled from the pocket of his camouflage trousers, scraped the thin layer of road dirt away until he had a sound surface. From his other pocket he produced a gadget barely larger than a box of cooking matches. Mail-order. A vehicle tracking device. GPS straight to your mobile phone. Battery life of three weeks, twelve months on standby. Real-time locations, password-protected and lots of other crap Billy didn’t need to understand. ‘An ideal solution to the challenge of tracking company employees who are not working diligently. Also for use in domestic circumstances for resolving relationship issues.’ The tracker had three large magnets that he used to attach it to the scrubbed area, where it located with a satisfying clunk. He allowed himself a smile. This was so much easier than the usual shit Edwards insisted that he jump into. Perhaps the dick-head policeman was going soft in his declining years. Maybe it was time to stand up to the slime-ball. For sure, next time, maybe, probably, that’s what he’d do. What goes up can be shoved further up. But no sooner had he vowed on the virtue of a hundred virgins that he’d quit being a loser than Billy froze. Two piercing bright eyes were staring at him. He jerked his head in panic and banged into the underside of the axle. As if someone had hit him with a hammer. As Billy let out a stream of curses, the old dog fox sauntered away.
It was only as Billy was kneeling in the gutter brushing the dirt from his shirt that he noticed the fox had left something behind, something that he was now kneeling in. Edwards’s fault. One day he would make sure that bastard got what was coming to him. Meanwhile, and accompanied by another bout of cursing, Billy followed the fox into the night.
CHAPTER TWENTY
It was the weekend, a lazy start to the day, and necessary after the previous evening, which had involved not only an hour of mixed basketball but also an intense time at the bar afterwards when Jemma had been interrogated by another couple, friends of Steve. They had probed and pushed, particularly the woman, testing her about the relationship with Steve when he disappeared to the toilet. It had made her feel uncomfortable. ‘Just good friends’ didn’t hack it: they’d clearly got a very different impression from Steve. She hadn’t been much of an active participant in the sex when they’d got back to his place. She hadn’t slept well and was up early, making coffee, when she heard her laptop warbling from within the depths of her overnight bag. She flipped it open on the kitchen table and saw it was a Skype call. From ‘findlayfrancismissing’. She ran a vague hand through the mess of her hair and hit the video button. Her face popped up at the bottom of the screen and she immediately regretted opening the video link: her hair screamed of Friday night fornication. But the rest of the screen remained blank. The caller was being cautious.
‘Hello, this is Jemma Laing.’
A woman’s voice, hesitant. ‘This is Findlay Francis’s daughter. You wanted to talk.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Hope you don’t mind me not showing my face but when you post a missing-persons page it seems that almost every sicko in the business climbs on board.’
‘Fair enough.’
‘That’s why I called early, before the sickos get out of bed.’
‘Nearly caught me out, too.’
‘Sorry,’ the woman apologized but the voice was still uncertain, unconvinced.
‘No problem. I’m a teacher, my body clock kicks me out of bed early every morning.’ She ran another desperate comb of fingers through the mop of auburn hair. It appeared on the screen like a gushing spring. ‘Can I have a name?’ she asked.
‘I’m Abigail. You can call me Abby.’
‘Morning, Abby,’ Jemma responded, trying to reassure, sipping her mug of coffee.
‘You said your partner, Harry . . . that he wanted to talk about my father. I have to tell you right from the start there’s no reward, nothing like that.’
‘That’s not why he wants to talk.’
‘So what exactly does he want?’
‘I’d rather he explained the details himself. Your father and his father were friends at Oxford, apparently. And it seems that several of the friends they shared have gone missing.’
‘He thinks there’s a connection?’ Abby said, her voice rising in alarm.
‘I think he wants to swap stories, show you some photos. Shake a few memories.’
‘Oh dear. What happened to his father?’
‘He died of a heart attack some years ago. Before Harry and I got together.’
‘Sorry but . . . I’m just not sure. The last person who promised to help me turned out to be a spiritualist; the one before that wanted me to join their prayer group. I really don’t know.’
‘You might think Harry was even worse. He was once a politician.’
A squawk of surprise that might have been misery came from the laptop.
‘Look, Abby, his father was Johnnie Jones – I think he called himself Maltravers-Jones. Both he and your father were at Oxford in 1962. Ring any bells?’
Suddenly the full screen came to life and Jemma saw the round face of a middle-aged woman with spiky purple hair and dark eyes hidden behind oversized spectacles the colour of daffodils. She was wearing a T-shirt decorated with the image of an elephant and she was sitting in a makeshift domestic office in front of an overcrowded noticeboard made up of cork tiles. The overriding theme of the room appeared to be chaos and cats. A long-haired tabby was sitting on the bookcase while Abby was sucking her lip nervously.
‘Hi, Abby!’ Jemma waved a hand in greeting. ‘Nice to meet you properly.’
‘Hello, Jemma. Me, too. If – if – I agreed to meet him, would you be there, too?’
‘Er, would that be entirely necessary?’
‘Yes, I think it would. I’m not meeting any more men on their own.’
‘Abby, if you’re to make any progress finding out what happene
d to your father I think you’re going to have to take the risk.’
‘Maybe.’ Suddenly Abby’s eyes widened in surprise and she leaned forward intently into the screen. In the box at the bottom of Jemma’s screen, showing what her camera was revealing to Abby, a body was moving in the background. A naked body. Steve. Ears plugged into music. Scratching himself. Utterly heedless. Heading for his coffee.
‘Is that Harry?’ Abby whispered.
‘Um, no. It’s complicated.’
‘I bet.’
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend—’
‘You haven’t, Jemma, believe me. Made my day. I was young. Once.’ She giggled, stifling it with her hand. ‘Look, if you’re willing to take risks, I suppose I am, too.’
‘You ever think about coming back to this place, Harry?’
‘No, but occasionally I think of doing a little root-canal surgery on myself.’
‘In which case, you’ll be needing a touch more anaesthetic.’ Cyrus Harefield leaned forward and poured more Sauvignon. Harefield was a senior Member of Parliament – ‘the crust on the vintage port’, as he described it – and also sat as a Church Commissioner, a member of the group responsible for safeguarding the property and other assets of the Church of England. The Terrace of the House of Commons was a favourite hiding place, away from the turmoil of the chamber and the interminable plotting of the younger brethren. On the other side of the river the multicoloured lights on the wheel of the London Eye turned slowly through the night while the sound of bagpipes drifted from the direction of Westminster Bridge. The neon-blue lights of an ambulance sped towards St Thomas’ on the other bank. Nothing had changed, it seemed, since Harry had sat here in his own right and poured his own wine.
‘But you should, you know,’ Harefield continued as he dunked the empty bottle back into the ice. ‘You were the best and the brightest, Harry, yet you got shafted. You could right that terrible wrong. Damn, but we need you.’
‘You seem to have survived without me.’