And how dangerous.
It was young love—Billy Hamlin and Toni Gilletti’s—that had caused the tragedy that was to define Alexia De Vere’s life. Alexia herself may have thrived and prospered. But other lives had been ruined. Lucy thought about the little boy who drowned. Nicholas. He was the true victim here, not Billy Hamlin, for whom Alexia seemed to feel unaccountably sorry, and certainly not Alexia herself. But somehow Nicholas’s story had gotten lost, overshadowed by Alexia De Vere’s fame and success. He’d become part of the wallpaper, the backdrop for what happened next.
For what Alexia became. What Alexia achieved. What Alexia now stood to lose, if Billy Hamlin or her other myriad enemies had their way.
Lucy Meyer would remain loyal. There was no question about that. Sisters must always remain loyal. They must stand by their siblings through thick and thin. Lucy Meyer had been raised to believe in family, and she believed in it to this day.
Lucy would keep Alexia’s secret.
But after today’s revelation, nothing would ever be quite the same between them again.
Chapter Twenty
It was a typical late-summer night in London: rainy, gray, and cold. As a result, all the pubs were full.
At the Old Lion on Baker Street, Simon Butler was working his usual shift behind the bar when a disoriented man rolled in.
“Watch that one.” The landlady, Simon’s boss, saw the man too. She immediately recognized the stooped shoulders, staggering gait, blank stare, and unshaven hopelessness of the long-term homeless. “He looks like he’s had a few too many already.”
The man made a beeline for the bar. “Pint, please.” He pushed a handful of dirty change in Simon’s direction.
“Coming up.”
He’s not meeting anybody. He’s here to drink. To forget.
As Simon pulled the man his beer, he noticed him muttering to himself. Quietly at first, but then in a more agitated way, the classic confrontational, paranoid ramblings of the schizophrenic. Simon’s brother Matty had been schizophrenic. Simon recognized inner hell when he saw it.
“Booze isn’t the answer, you know,” he said gently, handing the man his beer. Close up he looked even worse than he did from a distance, all sallow skin and bloodshot eyes. He smelled of desperation and dirt, a wisp of unhappy smoke floating aimlessly on the wind.
“She was going to marry me.”
The man wasn’t talking to Simon. He was talking to himself, to nobody, to the air.
“She loved me once. We loved each other.”
“I’m sure you did, mate. I’m sure you did.”
Poor bastard. He wasn’t dangerous. Just pathetic.
It was a cruel world.
Brooks’s is one of the most exclusive gentlemen’s clubs in London. Standing on the west side of St. James’s Street, it was founded by four dukes and a handful of other aristocrats in the 1760s, and began life as a political salon for Whigs, the liberals of the day.
Nowadays it has a broader membership, but is still heavily frequented by diplomats, politicians, and civil servants. The only true, unspoken conditions of membership are that applicants be male, British, and unquestionably upper class.
Teddy De Vere was not a member, belonging as he did to the Tory Carlton Club just across the street. The two institutions consider themselves gentlemanly rivals, and membership in both clubs is quite unheard of. Teddy was, however, a frequent guest at Brooks’s, so today’s lunch was nothing out of the ordinary.
“De Vere.”
Sir Edward Manning, Alexia’s permanent private secretary, greeted Teddy warmly. With the home secretary herself, Sir Edward maintained an appropriately formal distance. But Alexia’s husband was another matter. The two men knew each other slightly. As social equals, meeting privately, familiarity was perfectly appropriate.
“Manning. Thanks for seeing me. I’m sure your schedule must be jam-packed.”
“No more so than yours, old man.”
They ordered gin and tonics, and a pair of rare filet steaks with Brooks’s famous crispy fries. Teddy got down to business.
“It’s about Alexia.”
“I rather assumed it might be. What’s on your mind?”
“It’s a bit awkward. She alluded to me that she’d been having trouble with a chap she knew years ago.”
Not by a flicker did Sir Edward Manning betray his surprise that Alexia had chosen to confide in her husband about Billy Hamlin. The deportation order had been executed so swiftly and secretly that not even the home secretary’s own security detail had been informed of it. And at Alexia’s request! If Hamlin held a dark key to the home secretary’s past, Sir Edward imagined that the very last person she would wish to know it would be her husband, the nice but dim Teddy.
“She suggested this man has been harassing her.”
Again, Sir Edward said nothing. Teddy De Vere had not asked a question. He had made a statement. Sir Edward Manning had not risen to the highest ranks of the British Civil Service by responding to statements.
“The bugger of it is, Alexia won’t give me the fellow’s name. All she’ll say is that you’ve ‘dealt with it.’ ” Teddy sliced off a succulent bite of steak and put it in his mouth. “So what I want to know is: have you?”
“Yes,” said Sir Edward, in his usual measured tone. “As far as I’m able.”
“What does that mean?”
“Off the record?”
“Of course.”
“The man the home secretary is referring to is an American citizen.”
“She told me. She also said he was an ex-con and a lunatic.”
Sir Edward Manning raised a laconic eyebrow. “I’m not sure I’d go that far. The point is, due to his nationality, our powers, though considerable, are limited.”
“Alexia said you deported him.”
“That is correct. He was deported and his passport’s been red-stamped so it’s impossible for him to reenter Britain legally. I had a quiet word with some of our American friends and I understand that he has also been sectioned. As far as I know he remains in a secure facility somewhere on the Eastern Seaboard.”
Teddy De Vere did not look reassured. “As far as you know? ‘Somewhere’?”
“It’s not perfect,” Sir Edward admitted. “But given that this was all done under the radar, so to speak, it’s the best we can do without putting the Home Office at risk. One always needs to think, what would one say to the press if it did get out? How far can one go? Having a schizophrenic ex-convict who harassed the home secretary deported and institutionalized would be acceptable to the majority of voters, in my view, were the story ever to leak. Especially as the man concerned is an American. Nobody likes Americans.”
“Indeed,” Teddy agreed. “Is the story likely to leak?”
“Leaks are never likely. Unfortunately they happen on a daily basis.”
Teddy nodded knowingly.
Sir Edward went on. “Your wife’s appointment upset quite a number of people, as you know. There was some unseemly briefing against her during the whole flag-burning crisis. Plenty of people are hunting feverishly for a chink in her armor. We don’t want to give them one.”
For a few minutes both men returned to their steaks. Then Teddy said, “So this nutter could still enter the country illegally?”
“Anyone can do anything illegally.” Taking a sip of Burgundy, Sir Edward dabbed his mouth daintily at the corners with a monogrammed napkin.
“And if he did? What would happen then?”
“Then we would arrest him, like any other illegal immigrant, and deport him again. Look, De Vere, I understand your concern. I’d feel the same if it were my wife.”
Teddy tried and failed to picture the utterly effete Sir Edward Manning having a wife.
“But I honestly don’t think either you or the home secretary has reason to be concerned. This man is ill. He has no source of funds. Trust me, I’ve met him and he is no criminal mastermind. He simply lacks the wherewithal to get himse
lf back to Britain.”
They finished their meals. Teddy ordered a sticky toffee pudding with butterscotch sauce. Sir Edward, conscious of his waistline, had a double espresso. Sergei Milescu liked him to stay in shape. Soon, Edward hoped, he would be able to give Sergei what he wanted and get him off his back forever, literally and metaphorically. Until then, dessert menus must remain resolutely closed.
Sir Edward signed the bill. Both men retrieved their coats.
Sir Edward asked Teddy, “When are you headed back to Boston? You’re still on holiday, aren’t you?”
“On and off. I’m flying back tonight actually. I want to get back to Alexia. Things are still tricky at home with our daughter and I don’t like to leave her on her own.”
For the second time in an hour, Sir Edward Manning hid his surprise. He’d understood that the bad blood between Mrs. De Vere and her daughter, Roxanne, was a taboo subject, but Teddy had just brought it up quite openly.
“Well, do give my best to the home secretary,” he said politely. “We’re looking forward to having her back.”
“I will,” said Teddy. “And many thanks for lunch. Oh, one last thing,” he added casually.
“Yes?”
“I don’t suppose I can persuade you to give me this chap’s name, can I?”
The man came to the pub every day for the next week. Always sat at the bar, always nursed two beers, no more, and never spoke to a soul other than Simon Butler.
Simon Butler and the voice in his head.
Simon now knew a little about him. He was in London visiting a friend. He loved cars. He had a daughter. Someone had been going to marry him, but they had changed their mind. This much Simon thought was true. But a lot of what the man said was pure paranoia.
The British government was on his tail.
The home secretary was trying to silence him.
A trained killer wanted him dead and was picking off his loved ones one by one.
Every night the man told Simon Butler about “the voice.” On the telephone. In his head. In his dreams. Telling him what to do. Terrorizing him. No one believed him. But the voice was real.
He didn’t want to tell Simon his name. That was part of the paranoid delusions. No one could be trusted. But he did mention a daughter, Jennifer, over and over again.
One night after work, Simon told his landlady, “I’d like to try and find her. She’s obviously his only family and the guy needs help. She’s probably worried sick.”
The landlady looked at the young barman with affection. He was a good boy, Simon Butler. Kind. Not like her own son, Arthur. It pained her to say it but Arthur and his mates were delinquents. “It’s a nice idea, Si. But you’ve only a first name to go on. That’s not going to get you very far, is it?”
Simon shrugged.
“If you’re really worried you’d be better off calling Social Services. Maybe they could help him.”
“Maybe,” said Simon. “I’d need an address, though.”
It wasn’t a hospital. It was a prison.
Yes, there were doctors, the proverbial men in white coats. But they didn’t want to help him. They wanted to control him. To trap him. All Billy Hamlin remembered was being locked in, strapped down, and doped up to the eyeballs with God knows what. Things to make him forget, to make him relax, to keep him in a permanent state of inertia.
The voice was gone. The doctors called that progress.
But Billy’s panic grew.
Time was running out.
As much as it terrified him, Billy needed the voice. He needed it to tell him what to do next. To give him another chance. Jenny’s life depended on it.
Ironically, it was Jenny who saved him. She was still safe—so far—and once she tracked him down, she came to visit every day. Billy couldn’t tell his daughter the whole truth about the voice. The truth would terrify her, and he didn’t want that. But he talked to Jenny about the drugs, about the cotton-wool clouds in his head, numbing every sense and emotion. About his longing to be free. Eventually, Jenny had convinced the doctors that she could care for him, that he would be safe at home with her. Little did she know that it was really he, Billy, keeping her safe, watching her night after night while she slept, on constant vigil at her modest Queens apartment.
He hadn’t wanted to leave. To sneak out like a thief in the night, without explanation, without saying good-bye. But the voice had called and left him instructions. And the voice must be obeyed.
Balling his hands into fists, Billy pressed them to his eyes, willing himself not to cry. He had to stay focused. And positive. Focused and positive, that was the key.
He was here, after all, in London. He’d made it. That in itself was no mean feat. But the first thing he learned when he arrived on British soil was that Alexia De Vere was not here. Parliament was on its long summer recess, and the home secretary was on a three-week break in Martha’s Vineyard of all places, less than a hundred miles from the hospital where Billy had been locked up. He could have stayed where he was! The irony was so bitter it choked him, a cold hand of fate closing around his throat.
Alexia De Vere was gone. But she would be back.
There was nothing for it but to wait.
Simon Butler was furious. Social Services was about as much use as a water pistol in a forest fire.
“We’ve got some leaflets,” the bored moron on the so-called help line informed him, unhelpfully. “Or you can go on our Web site for details of your nearest local drop-in center.”
Simon remembered this same, not-my-problem attitude from when his brother Matty had been ill. “What’s your Web site,” he asked tersely. “Www-dot-I-don’t-give-a-shit-dot-com?”
“I understand your frustration, sir—”
Simon Butler hung up. There had to be a better way.
Billy Hamlin was feeling better.
The sun had come out, and London no longer looked like a study in gray. Women put their short skirts back on, people smiled at one another in the street, and the pub crowd had spilled onto the pavements, people perched on picnic tables smoking and laughing and enjoying the novelty of having their evening tipple “alfresco.”
Parliament reconvened in nine days but Alexia De Vere was due back in six.
It was almost over.
He usually went to the Old Lion on Baker Street. It was busy and anonymous, with more passing trade than regulars, and Billy liked the barman there. He was friendly but not intrusive, and he slipped Billy chips and peanuts for free. But the Old Lion had outdoor seating, so today Billy made an exception and went to the Rose and Crown in Marylebone instead.
For the first two beers he was fine. But as the afternoon turned to evening and he kept on drinking, his mood darkened.
“She was going to marry me, you know.”
“Who was?”
A group of young men sat next to him at the bar, smartly dressed City types. How long have they been there? Billy wondered. He hadn’t noticed them before.
“Toni. Toni Gilletti.”
“Right. Okay.” The young men turned away.
For some reason, Billy felt slighted. He grabbed one of them by the arm. “I know things, you know. I know things about the home secretary. I could bring the British government down. That’s why they’re after me.”
“What’s your problem, asshole?” The trader shook his arm free, accidentally pushing Billy back off his bar stool in the process. Losing his footing, Billy crashed into a nearby table of diners, sending plates and cutlery flying. Somebody screamed.
The next thing Billy knew he was on his feet. Someone, one of the diners, had thrown a punch. Panicked, he lashed out wildly, kicking and shouting as the bar staff manhandled him onto the street.
“Come back and I’ll call the police,” the landlord shouted after him. “Fucking loon.”
It wasn’t until he started walking home, weaving his way through unfamiliar streets, that Billy realized how drunk he was. His lip was split, he felt nauseous and dizzy, and
one of his eyes appeared to be starting to close. Worse, he had no real idea where he was. The smiles he’d seen on the streets earlier had all gone now. People he passed glared at him, their expressions ranging from distaste to outright hostility.
They’re afraid of me.
The thought made him sad.
By the time he made it back to his guesthouse, one of a row of nondescript Victorian houses along the Edgeware Road, it was close to midnight. Wearily, he tramped up the stairs. A stranger was standing outside his door.
“Billy Hamlin?”
Like a trapped rat, Billy looked from left to right, hunting for an escape, but there was none. “Who are you? What do you want?”
“Don’t worry, Billy.” The stranger smiled. “I’m not from the police. You’re not in any trouble. I’m here to help.”
Beneath the posh British accent, Billy recognized the earnest, concerned tone of the professional social worker. He’d heard it so often back in the States, it was depressingly familiar. But who would have reported him here? Who even knew he was in England?
“Look, I’m fine. I don’t need help.”
“We all need help, Billy, now and then. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“I don’t know who sent you. But I’m fine. Please leave me alone.” Billy fumbled in his pockets for his door key.
“Here.” The stranger came up behind him. “Let me help you with that.”
The knife was so sharp, Billy Hamlin barely felt it slice between his shoulder blades and puncture his heart.
Chapter Twenty-one
Alexia De Vere sipped her iced cranberry juice as she gazed out of the plane window. On her lap, a thick ministerial brief lay open reproachfully. Immigration Solutions for 21st-Century Britain. Somehow even the title sounded dispiriting, a glass of cold water in the face. Alexia couldn’t face it just yet.
Her vacation on Martha’s Vineyard had done her a world of good. Lucy Meyer in particular had lifted her spirits and strengthened her resolve. Alexia had done the right thing by closing the door on Billy Hamlin and her past. Lucy had confirmed it. No good could come of her and Billy meeting now, of conjuring up the ghost of Toni Gilletti and the life she, Alexia, had worked so hard to leave behind. Gradually she started to rewrite the story in her head. She hadn’t callously turned Billy Hamlin away. Billy was ill, and she had gotten him help. Edward Manning had dealt with things, and Alexia trusted Edward Manning. It was time to move on, and get on with the business of government. As for Teddy, put simply, what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
Sidney Sheldon's the Tides of Memory Page 17