‘What about this thing you thought you saw in the dead man’s hand in the kitchen.’
She looked furious.
‘I thought I saw? I imagined it, you mean?’
Her head was thrust aggressively towards me.
‘You tell me.’
‘No.’
‘What was it – a gun?’
She shook her head, stepped back. I heard the metal door of the gym clang closed.
‘Leave it. You need to focus on what’s happening to you and not worry about the rest of this.’
‘What’s happening to me has already happened.’
She smiled faintly as she turned away and started walking back to her car, lithe again.
‘I somehow don’t think that’s the end of it,’ she called back. ‘Sir.’
A couple of days later I went to see my father, Victor Tempest. His real name was Donald Watts but he’d used his nom de plume for years. I thought I should tell him first-hand what had happened.
He lived in a cramped-fronted house across the road from the Thames in west London. On the big Georgian house to his right, a blue plaque commemorated Gustav Holt’s stay there when he was in London at the turn of the twentieth century. Another plaque on the house to his left commemorated dancer Nanette de Valois’s time living there. My dad probably hoped there would be a plaque for him when he passed on.
You could almost miss his house as it was set back from the road. The narrow courtyard at the front was dominated by a huge, low-hanging tree that all but hid the doorway. The flagstones were littered with empty fast- food packages, crisp packets and a crushed beer can. He kept his downstairs front room shuttered. The windows were grimy.
He kept it like this deliberately. Deters burglars, he used to say.
Inside was a different story. From the first floor there was a lovely view over the Thames and across the graceful iron bridge. His walled garden at the back was secluded and tranquil.
My dad had made a good living as a thriller writer and although his books were not so much in demand these days he still got feted when people remembered he was alive.
He’d bought this house with his first big lump of money after he’d divorced my mother. I never lived here, nor even stayed over. My father never remarried. He was a womanizer until late into life. Even now, probably, if he could get away with it.
He was expecting me but there was no answer when I rang the bell. I stepped back into the street and looked towards the pub a few hundred yards away on the riverbank. He’d probably be there.
I waited for a break in the traffic then hurried across the road. I walked under the bridge, on to the towpath and headed for the pub. I inhaled the sour smell of the river. I liked it almost as much as the briny tang of the sea in Brighton.
Ye Olde White Hart had a long balcony overlooking the river and, below them, long tables with benches attached set in concrete right at the river’s edge on the towpath. When the river was high, the towpath flooded and the concrete was the only way to ensure the tables didn’t float away. I’d always thought it would be a pleasantly surreal experience to drift down the river sipping your drink at your table.
My father was inside the pub. It was big, Victorian with a high ceiling and a circular bar in the middle. A boat was suspended from the ceiling – this was a popular venue for watching the boat race.
He was in conversation with a young barmaid who was standing by his table. He was leering at her and when she moved off he turned his head to watch her backside. Ninety-five and still a lecherous bastard.
He had a live-in nurse/factotum/cook. He’d had a series of them. He usually made a pass, so they either laughed it off and stayed on, or took offence and left. At the moment it was a Polish girl, Anna, who coped with him very well. She’d been with him a couple of years.
‘Did you forget I was coming?’ I said, putting my hand on his shoulder. He tilted his head back.
‘I knew you’d find me. Smart copper like you.’
In his youth, my dad had been a robust, broad-shouldered man. With age he was shrunken but his shoulders were still broad and he held himself erect. His neck had shrunk, though, so his shirts always looked too big and his jackets hung oddly, almost up around his ears.
My father had always been charming. Turned it on and off. Could charm anyone. Especially women.
He was remarkable. He’d run his last marathon on his ninetieth birthday. But I wasn’t sure what he did to fill his days, except ogle women in pubs, I suppose.
We weren’t close. Indeed, we’d had a lot of problems over the years, mostly because of the way he’d treated my mum. I was pretty sure I had half-brothers and sisters somewhere and that they would come out of the woodwork when he died.
I got him another beer and sat down with a glass of wine. He watched me for a moment.
‘You’ve come a cropper, I gather.’
‘I wanted to let you know the full story – didn’t want you getting the wrong idea.’
‘There’s no such thing as a full story. As I understand it, you shot your mouth off about how innocent your officers were after you’d got your leg over one of them. You being in Brighton, I suppose we should be grateful it was a gal, not a bloke.’
‘Finished?’
‘Pride’s taken a bit of a bashing, then?’
‘It’s not over yet.’
‘Looks like game, set and match to the other side from where I’m sitting.’ He took a drink of his beer and I saw his eyes follow another woman across the room.
‘Is yon government bloke going to help? Billy Simpson? Or has he put the boot in, too?’
Good question, I thought, but didn’t say. My father looked at me.
‘Like father like son, eh? Billy’s father were always watching out for himself. Anything I can do to help?’
This was typical of my dad. He’d always given me a rough ride but once he’d had his say and given me grief he’d be there if he could. Well, sometimes.
‘Not really. Got to stick it out, I guess.’
‘What are you going to do to make a living? Write your memoirs?’
He smiled as he said it. It was a thin smile. My father had a mean face. I’d often wondered about that. Does physiognomy reflect character? In the nineteenth century, police forces throughout Europe had built a whole system on that assumption. And some people did look cruel or sour. It was usually to do with the set of the mouth. My dad had a tight mouth drawn down. Eyes protuberant, unblinking. And he was cruel. When I was growing up, praise had been grudging. He’d always been demanding, always lorded it over the household. He was a bully, sharp with his words, contemptuous of what he saw as weakness.
I think he was missing an empathy gene. He could feign kindness. He was regarded as a charming fellow. But underneath he’d always been cold, hard.
‘A bit young for a memoir. Consultancy. Lecturing – I don’t really know.’
‘Crusading? Not that the word has the right connotations in these days of warring religions. Son, I have no idea where you have got this crusading thing from.’
‘What’s your point?’
‘My point is – there’s nothing good about any of us. We’re all in the gutter-’
I started to finish the quote but he interrupted.
‘I know the bollocks you’re going to say. Oscar Wilde – the man who invented sound bites. Some of us like to think we’re looking up at the stars, but whilst we’re doing so someone is nicking our wallet, someone else is shitting on our shoes and that other bloke is fucking us up the arse.’
He leant forward to take a sup of his beer, his Adam’s apple bobbing. He caught my look.
‘What – you’re shocked to hear your dad talk like this? Bit late for finickiness, isn’t it, after what you’ve done? You’ve spent your life taking the moral high-ground about me and your mother but now you see how it can happen. You know what I thought when I read about your leg-over? Thank bloody Christ he’s actually got blood in his veins – because I often wondered.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with fidelity and having a moral code.’
‘Fidelity is for my old hi-fi system and don’t get me going on morality.’
