flustered. ‘Doing something with their lives-’
Hadden-Vane narrowed his eyes at the priest. ‘Come, come, Father Maguire. It’s a very serious matter to mislead a Parliamentary committee.’
The old man’s face turned deep red against the frame of white hair.‘I’ve no intention of misleading anyone,sir,’he protested.
‘Good.’ The MP beamed at him and suddenly reached for his pocket and produced the blue handkerchief with an exaggerated flourish. Father Maguire watched, bemused, as he mopped his face.
‘Father Guzowski used to tell you about the background of the men he was sending you, didn’t he? Their families, their circumstances, things like that.’
‘Ye-es, sometimes,’ the old man nodded cautiously.
‘What did he tell you about Michael Grant?’
‘Madam Chair,’ Grant interrupted.‘I object to this. I’ve made no secret of my background. This is offensive and irrelevant.’
‘Yes, what is the point of this?’ Hart agreed.
‘It will only take a moment, if Father Maguire remembers his promise not to mislead us. Michael Grant arrived in this country with another man, Father, didn’t he?’
‘That’s true. Joseph Kidd.’
‘That’s what he called himself, but you knew that wasn’t his real name.’
‘I’m not sure-’
‘Father Guzowski told you his real name, didn’t he? What was it?’
‘I . . . I don’t remember.’
‘What about Michael Grant’s real name?’
‘I don’t know . . .’
The priest’s answer was almost drowned by a hubbub of voices and a shout of anger from Michael Grant.
‘You knew they entered the country under false names, didn’t you?’ Hadden-Vale insisted, raising his voice above the din.
‘They had to!’ Father Maguire protested, and the noise was suddenly stilled. Even Michael Grant, half-risen out of his seat, was struck silent.‘They were in mortal danger.’
‘From whom?’
‘The police. The Jamaican police wanted them dead.’
‘Because?’
‘Because . . .’ The old man looked at Michael with a stricken face,then back at Hadden-Vane.‘Because . . .’His voice faded and he seemed on the point of passing out.
‘Because they’d murdered a police officer!’ Hadden-Vane roared, and the priest bowed forward, his face in his hands.
Michael Grant was on his feet. He shouted something incoherent at his tormentor across the table and began to struggle towards him, knocking his chair over and pushing aside his neighbour, who got in his way. His face was transformed by anger, mouth open in a furious snarl, his movements wild and violent. All around him people began to move in confusion, some to block him and others to get out of his way.The Clerk and a door attendant joined in,and Grant became locked in a tight scrum in the middle of the room. Beyond him, well out of range, Hadden-Vane was backed against the oak panelling,a look of elation on his face,dabbing at his mouth with his blue handkerchief.
From the window of the living room on the first floor Brock could see yellow and purple crocus tips pushing up through the last remaining crust of old snow against the fence of the garden below. If he listened carefully, he could hear the murmur of traffic on the high street, and the occasional muffled jangle of the bell on the front door of the antiques shop through the floor. He sat at the window, holding a mug of coffee, suspended.
Unlike Tom Reeves, whose suspension would become, after due process, an absolute rupture, his own, he’d been assured, was a temporary state designed to satisfy the ruffled sensibilities of the brass. All the same, it felt like being shouldered out of the way, out of the stream of life. Suicides were suspended, as were punch bags, victims in comas, and people holding their breath in fright. He wondered if that was how Suzanne’s daughter had felt before she stretched herself out above the cliffs.
While he’d been waiting for the coffee to brew, he’d come across the pile of newspapers, tactfully stacked away beneath the kitchen table for disposal. It looked as if she’d bought every one, their headlines a study in sanctimonious outrage . . .
‘Extraordinary scenes in Parliament’
‘MP was a YARDIE GUNMAN.’
‘PM condemns renegade MP’
‘Tragedy of Boy from the Dungle’
Her voice on the phone had been tentative. She hadn’t realised that he was involved, until Ginny had mentioned it, and was shocked when he told her he was suspended.What was he doing?
What he was doing was reading the papers and wondering at the speed with which they, as opposed to the police, had been able to uncover so much information in so little time.Here was a picture of a hovel beside a rubbish tip,where Michael Grant had grown up, and there an old lady,his grandmother,whose surname,Forrest,was the one that should have been on his passport. Here was Father Guzowski surrounded by small children, and there the sainted priest again, eyes closed, in a casket after his murder.
What he was also doing was imagining the research effort that must have gone into it, and the irony that, all the time Michael Grant had been beavering away gathering information on Spider Roach, Roach must have been doing exactly the same thing on Grant,saving up the juicy revelations,one by one,until the moment came to launch his devastating attack.
‘Well,’Suzanne had suggested tentatively,‘if you’d like a break, a drive down to the country . . .’
He’d accepted readily,too readily he now thought.Maybe she’d intended it as a hypothetical option for some time in the future, instead of which he’d got straight in the car and motored down.
‘We’re here!’ Suzanne’s voice came from the foot of the stairs, accompanied by a chatter of children’s voices, home from school.
Miranda rushed in first, with the unselfconscious assumption that she would be found adorable, which she duly was. Brock knelt to give her a hug, then straightened as her older brother came in, holding out his hand stiffly,right shoulder tilted higher than the left as if expecting to have his arm twisted. Brock shook the hand, then gave him a hug too. He’d brought some presents, a Meccano set for Stewart, who had a practical bent, and a puppet theatre for Miranda, who was already something of a performance artist. They accepted them enthusiastically, but Brock thought he also sensed a wariness, as if perhaps they associated gifts with adult guilt, with being abandoned and returned to.
Stewart had homework to do before teatime, and while he got on with that Brock helped Miranda erect her theatre from the kit in the box.Later they ate together and talked about inconsequential things, TV shows and movies they’d seen, what they were going to do that weekend.Brock had the impression they were all being care- ful.When the children went to bed he stood to leave, but Suzanne said they hadn’t had a chance to talk,and he agreed to stay for coffee.
They sat in armchairs on opposite sides of the fireplace and Brock remarked that the kids were looking happy. Suzanne spread her hand and rocked it like a bird caught in turbulence.
‘You’ve been having problems?’ he asked.
She sighed, then said, ‘Look, if you insist on driving back tonight you won’t be able to have a drink, and then I won’t be able to have one, but I need one if we’re going to talk about things-it’s the Aussies’ fault, they got me drinking more than I used to.’
‘What do you suggest?’
‘Well, there’s a spare bed.’
