A Time to Lie

by Simon Berthon

  ‘Also,’ said Quine, ‘is Fowkes acting alone or with others?’

  ‘Like the “friend”,’ continued Isla, ‘assuming he exists, who removed the girl from the flat and has now resurfaced.’

  ‘Is Jed being blackmailed by the “friend”?’ asked Quine. ‘And why?’

  Isla walked over to the window. Darkness had set in. She drew the curtains. ‘There seem to me two coherent explanations. One – Jed Fowkes is a frustrated fanatic who has a lust for power and a long-term ambition to impose his own stamp on the country. To this end, he’s effectively blackmailing Sandford into becoming his creature. Two – he’s acting for, or in concert with, a foreign power or movement or other outside force, either willingly or by blackmail, to create turbulence. Russia’s the obvious one. Followed by Iran or other extreme Islamists. Murder hasn’t worked, try something else.’

  ‘There are other candidates,’ said Quine. ‘Take the EU. Wouldn’t Brussels just love this country to fail? And Washington. The hard-core Trump rump have long been in cahoots with the right here. They probably view Sandford as a liberal commie. We’re not short of options. You begin to wonder which is the worst.’

  ‘That’s easy,’ said Isla. ‘Fowkes’s original story is true. The British Prime Minister killed an innocent girl.’

  31

  ‘You wanted to see me again, Jed. This time about M-C, I assume.’

  ‘We can discuss that if you want but it’s a side issue.’ They sat on opposite armchairs in the sitting room at Number 10. Fowkes looked funereal; Sandford couldn’t decide whether it was genuine, faked, or the natural darkness of a man who had never found much to enjoy in the world. ‘I’d prefer to have met immediately after the weekend. Better not to allow these things to drag on.’

  Sandford ignored the reproof. ‘I see there’ve been three more since Sunday.’

  ‘Yes, he’ll have to resign. But that’s not why I’m here. As I’m sure you realize.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘The discovery of the headless torso in Deptford is giving me nightmares.’ Fowkes produced the Mail on Sunday front page from a jacket pocket and laid it on the table between them. On it was written in red, ‘WHERE’S THE HEAD, JED?’

  ‘Someone’s after me,’ continued Fowkes. ‘For something I shouldn’t be blamed for. I never touched that girl.’

  ‘Don’t rush to conclusions. It’s obviously absurd that you or I could have any connection to the dismembering of a body.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘For God’s sake…’ Sandford told himself not to raise his voice. Remember Quine’s advice. Ride with it. No confrontation or contradiction. ‘You don’t seriously believe that of yourself? Let alone me.’

  Fowkes said nothing.

  ‘Answer the question.’

  Fowkes took a deep breath. ‘As I said before, I asked someone for help.’

  ‘OK. And as I said before, you need to pass on this person’s identity to the police.’

  ‘So he can tell them how you killed a girl and I became your accomplice in removing her body?’

  ‘Jed, are you seriously claiming this “friend” of yours removed a young woman from our flat, cut her up and buried the remains?’

  ‘The skeleton is evidence. That night will always be with me.’

  ‘If threats are being made against you, report those too.’

  ‘I can’t. Because it happened.’

  ‘No, it’s your imagination.’

  ‘Robbie, I don’t need your denial, I need your support. We have to be as one.’

  ‘Of course, you have my support. But, as far as I’m concerned nothing like this ever happened—’

  ‘That’s always been your good fortune,’ said Fowkes, eyes rimmed with fatigue.

  Sandford managed not to react. His fear now was Fowkes’s state of mind. He was on an edge. But of what? Of violence himself? Or was his rage different? An internal cauldron that constantly simmered but had never yet quite boiled – until it came to the point when it destroyed them both.

  Unless it was an act. But, perhaps, so rehearsed and honed that it had become some kind of reality.

  ‘How can I help?’ Sandford finally asked.

  ‘Help?’ Fowkes gave a short laugh. ‘There’s no help you can ever give me compared with what I once gave you. But yes, you can help me. Stop cutting me out. Bring me in on the Royal Speech. Let me write the key policy statements. Give me a veto. And when M-C resigns, give me a Chancellor who does what I say.’

  He must show sympathy. ‘Jed, I understand. Of course you must be involved. But you’re not elected. Not accountable. You’re asking a lot.’

  ‘I am accountable,’ he rasped. ‘I understand what has to be done.’ He took a deep breath and appeared to calm. ‘Robbie, remember how we once thought of doing great things for our country. Now is the moment.’

  Silence fell. Sandford stood, walked to a window above the Number 10 garden and stared out of it. Fowkes tapped fingers on knees. Ride with Jed. Finally, the Prime Minister turned.

  ‘All right, Jed.’

  Astonishment crossed Fowkes’s face. ‘All right?’

  ‘Yes. We’ll work together. And like the old days, you can take the lead.’

  ‘And that arms, mercenary ban thing you’ve come up with?’

  ‘I’ll try to persuade you.’

  ‘And if you don’t?’

  ‘It won’t go in the speech.’

  ‘Why the change, Robbie?’

  ‘Because, Jed, when it comes to it, you’re better on policy and strategy than me. Always were. I haven’t gone soft. I know what this country needs. Thank God we can do it from the right, rather than those weasels on the left.’

  ‘Who will replace M-C?’

  ‘Who do you want?’

  There was a glimmer in Fowkes’s eyes. ‘Margaret Lascelles?’ he murmured.

  Sandford just managed to stop himself laughing. Margaret Lascelles, Leader of the House of Commons – a job that, with a large majority, required little more than the sorting skills of a bin man – was an airhead. ‘She’s an idiot.’

  ‘But a useful one.’

  Sandford allowed himself a grin. ‘OK, done.’

  Fowkes frowned. ‘One thing I don’t understand is why you wouldn’t let M-C follow the radical agenda.’

  ‘What?’ said Sandford. ‘M-C was the one who got cold feet. We thought he was the iron man. He wanted to put the brakes on, not me.’

  Fowkes couldn’t hide his confusion. ‘Why?’

  ‘Maybe it’s guilt after all the country’s been through. Stopping him facing up to what’s necessary. Did he tell you otherwise?’

  Fowkes hesitated, recalling the words of their curt argument. And how it was he who had jumped to a conclusion before allowing Morland-Cross to come to his own. ‘I suppose not,’ he admitted, ‘now that I think about it.’

  Sandford looked at his watch. ‘Time waits for no man. And certainly won’t be waiting for you now.’

  Fowkes lingered. ‘What about M-C?’

  ‘I’m seeing him in a couple of hours. He’ll fall on his sword.’

  ‘What if he doesn’t?’

  Sandford smiled. ‘Someone will have to wield it.’

  Fowkes nodded. ‘Good,’ he said, turning on his heel.

  The door clicked shut. Sandford checked his watch. His diary allowed him fifteen minutes thinking time about his next move – the conversation later in the morning with Henry Morland-Cross. Quine was right. Face to face, appease Jed. There remained this naïvety about him that seemed to defy all the lessons of experience and passing years. Perhaps this was the ‘good’ Jed, the idealist, too often blinded by apparent opportunity. And the ‘bad’ Jed was using a terrible story to get his way. A story that, as yet, showed no sign of being disproved. Instead, with every new turn, it seemed bleaker. Somewhere out there was a severed head.

  32

  ‘Welcome to the farm!’

  Some farm, thought Quine, as the tall, broad
-chested man in his early fifties strode towards him. Sandford had called Mikey Miller over the weekend with Quine’s phone number and an explanation of his research for a biography. Miller rang his mobile while he was in hospital, leaving a curt message.

  ‘Hello, Joe. Big man rung me. Come first thing Wednesday. Cheers, Mikey.’

  The day was pure Indian summer, allowing Miller to wear an exotically flowery short-sleeved shirt, immaculate white shorts and flip-flops which Quine could swear had tiny silver studs in the rubber bands. His wavy blond hair reached his collar; a gold chain with a diamond pendant hung around his neck; a coral stud pierced one of his ears. Electronic security gates had opened to reveal a remarkably neat gravel drive – Sandford had passed on a rumour that it was laundered with an industrial cleaner and then blow-dried. The ‘farmhouse’ was an enormous, pillared Palladian-style villa with a central classical arch and frieze which reminded Quine of the Parthenon. As he walked towards Miller, it was impossible not to keep flicking his eyes between the arch and its creator framed beneath.

  ‘Hello, Joe. Reckon I got my hundred millions’ worth?’ Miller stuck out his right hand, a chunky gold signet ring wrapped around the fourth finger.

  ‘More than that, Mr Miller,’ said Quine.

  ‘My friends call me Mikey.’ He pronounced it ‘Moikey’.

  Miller peered at the bandage on his forehead and remnants of cuts on his face. ‘Blimey, Joe, you been in an argument with a pyrocanthus?’

  Quine grinned. ‘You could say that. No harm done.’ He wore the new grey suit Sophie had bought him. He understood that, while Miller might himself adopt the Malibu cruiser look, he would take instant offence if a first-time visitor dared to dress down. In the company of very rich men, you began as their servant.

  ‘So Robbie told me what you’ve come about – wanna see round the farm before we get down to business?’

  ‘I’d love to,’ said Quine.

  ‘All right then. It’s not uninterestin’.’

  Miller set off, Quine at his side. ‘I’ll show you the agricultural side first.’

  A flight of steps – apparently marble – rose to the centre of the villa. On each side was a long single-storey wing which Quine assumed must be staff quarters and utility rooms. All was built in the same gleaming white stone blocks. Narrow paths of the same immaculate gravel as the driveway wound through ornamental trees.

  ‘We’ll go this way,’ said Miller, heading towards a glass door in one of the wings. They entered a corridor, crossed an informal lounge and went out into the back garden. The view was breathtaking: to the left a swathe of green stretching towards Oxford; to the right the foothills of the Chilterns.

  ‘Not bad, eh,’ said Miller.

  ‘Gorgeous,’ replied Quine.

  Miller walked away from the house past what must have been at least a thirty-metre-long pool, with curved steps at one end and floodlights below the water level. Beyond were two tennis courts.

  Miller stopped. ‘You play?’

  ‘Not for a while.’

  ‘You should get going again.’

  He walked on a couple of hundred yards, then stopped by a long rectangular field of plants. ‘We’re doing all sorts on the farm, but this is the future.’

  ‘What is it?’ Quine knew but still asked.

  ‘Hemp.’

  ‘Oh, right. I remember reading something about it.’

  ‘Yeah, you might have. But hemp itself is all we’re allowed at the moment. Lots of products from it but you know what’ll be the clincher?’

  ‘Cannabis oil?’

  ‘Spot on. We’re thinking we’ve gotta get ready for it. I shouldn’t be telling you but hidden in the middle of all this we’ve got a bit of cannabis sativa underway. Just to see how it grows here.’

  ‘It’s not as if you need the… er—’

  ‘Cash? No.’ He clapped Quine on the shoulder. ‘Trouble is I can’t stop myself, can I? All right, let’s go back and do our business. Then I’ll show you the art gallery.’

  He led Quine back into the house and, after asking him to take his shoes off – ‘Don’t wanna mix outside muck with inside muck, do we?’ – he kicked off his flip-flops, attracting Quine’s eyes to his immaculately polished toenails. He led Quine down a flight of stairs and turned right.

  ‘We’ll talk here in the intermezzo if that suits?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Miller seated himself on a sofa and directed Quine to a matching armchair. The walls inside were as pure white as the exterior. He hit an intercom. ‘Can you come, Jimmy? Got a man here who’s thirsty and starving.’ He turned to Quine. ‘So Robbie says I can tell you anything you wanna know.’

  ‘That’d be great. Sounds like you and he have stayed close.’

  ‘Dunno about that, more difficult these days. He’s busy, I’m busy. But yeah. I give a bit to his party. Shouldn’t say this, but I give to all of them. Butter every side of the bread.’ Quine realized an appreciation of the joke was expected and chuckled. ‘Hang on.’ A slim, young Asian man had floated through the door. ‘What d’you want, Joe?’

  ‘Cappuccino?’

  ‘Good, plenty of foam for him, and I’ll have my usual. And some of them nice dark chocolate biscuits. Maybe a couple of chocolate croissants too. And Jimmy, warm them so the chocolate’s nicely melted, all right?’

  ‘Yes, Mikey,’ he replied, floating away as silently as he had appeared.

  ‘See, everyone’s equal here. He’s a good boy, that one. Might go far. Right, you ask, I’ll answer.’

  ‘How did you get to know Mr Sandford?’

  ‘Just call him Robbie, eh?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘It was chance. We were in the same hall and began to pass the time of day. He was arts and I was maths but that didn’t seem to matter. He got involved in the politics and all that. I used to go along and watch him once or twice. It wasn’t my thing. But I thought he was good. Impressive. We just got on. Maybe because we were both state school boys, we stuck together.’ He grinned. ‘May have been up north but still plenty of posh boys.’

  ‘Then after university?’

  ‘We all did a bit of travelling and then we came home, started our jobs, me back in the bank, him in Parliament. He asked me if I wanted to share a flat with him and a bloke called Jed Fowkes. As it happened, it suited me, so there we go. Nothing to it really.’

  ‘And your bank?’

  ‘Yeah, well, that was strange. My first job was with Coulthard’s – old-time City private bank, you couldn’t get more traditional. But not stuffy, not really. I think they saw me as the grit in the oyster, if you know what I mean. And I thought, this is different, why not?’

  Quine smiled. ‘And you worked there all the time you shared the flat?’

  ‘Yeah, I moved on soon after that. Later, of course, I had the hedge fund. Divested myself of that. And we’ve ended up here.’ He waved his arms around. ‘With all this.’

  Quine turned a page of his notebook. ‘You must remember Robbie went through a difficult period…’

  For the first time, Miller’s eyes narrowed. ‘Yeah. We all do, don’t we?’

  ‘He wants the biography to include downs as well as ups.’

  ‘Yeah, he told me that.’

  ‘What was it really like over that time in the flat?’

  Miller took a large bite of chocolate croissant which, almost unnoticed, had arrived on the table in front of him.

  ‘I’ll tell you,’ he wiped chocolate from his lips, ‘those times could get pretty hectic.’

  ‘May I ask what sort of things?’

  ‘Well, we were quite good boys in the week. It was the weekends. Always a party, often in our flat. Booze, girls, gear.’ He paused. ‘If I’m honest, I lost count of the number of girls I had. But this isn’t about me.’ He fell silent.

  There usually came a moment when Quine would allow an interviewee to break a silence – to confess. The moment when the pearl was dropped. This was not yet it
. ‘What about Robbie and girls?’

  ‘He was good-looking, still is. Charming. Good talker. Only problem was it sometimes fell apart when he’d drunk a bit too much and those pills he was taking for his nerves did their mischief. Didn’t matter ‘cos he just collapsed, then woke up next day, not a clue what had happened. Not that much ever did happen. Then there was Jed…’

  As Miller moved on to Fowkes, Quine stayed silent and nodded encouragement. ‘He was an odd one. He could do humour but it wasn’t as if he enjoyed it. Always setting the country to rights. There was a rage inside him. He had trouble pulling the girls, maybe…’ Miller hesitated.

  ‘Maybe?’

  Miller looked rueful. ‘Sometimes I wondered if Jed was gay. But I never saw the evidence either way.’

  ‘You mentioned gear,’ said Quine.

  ‘Yeah. That was coke. Me and some of the regulars. But not Robbie. Only ever booze with him.’

  ‘What about Jed?’

  ‘Yeah, he did a bit of weed. Nothing more.’

  ‘Acid?’

  ‘No. Don’t remember Jed ever tripping. He wouldn’t have liked that. Being that out of control.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Thought we were talking about Robbie.’

  Quine smiled apologetically. ‘Sorry. My curiosity getting in the way. Just trying to get the vibe in the flat right.’

  Mikey relaxed. ‘That’s all right. Just don’t want you getting us all arrested.’

  Quine chuckled and allowed him a moment for more coffee and croissant. ‘Going back to Robbie,’ he resumed. ‘You mentioned not much ever happening when he “fell apart”. Whether or not it ends up in the book, he told me to ask about anything that might have happened. I think he wants closure.’

  ‘He said that to you,’ said Miller with a trace of scepticism.

  ‘Yes. If you’d prefer to check with him, I could come back another time…’

  ‘Nah,’ said Miller, ‘I believe you. But the thing is I never saw what happened myself, it all came from Jed.’

  ‘What sort of things?’

  ‘Do we need to go into that? As I say, it’s second-hand.’

  ‘I really do assure you that Robbie wants to know everything, warts and all as they say. One example. There’s a sort of half-memory that’s always worried him of a girl at the flat and two or three boys in succession having sex with her.’