We drove from the airport to Downing Street in total silence. Both of us caught the footage of us disembarking the plane, endlessly looping on the news channel in the seat-back screen. James looking troubled, me with a little smile. The news was still firmly focused on US politics, a constant mix of talking up Morgan’s achievements in office and then knocking down the new president’s likely agenda. That fixation took the heat off James for a day or two, at least publicly.
By the time we got to Number 10 the kids had already been taken to school, though apparently not without extreme protest. James and I went upstairs; me first, him following and closing the door to the flat.
‘I’m think it’s best if we call the doctor, L,’ he said, out of breath. ‘I don’t think you’re at all well.’
‘I’m fine, James, really I am. I just want to know why you’ve done everything that you have. What purpose you think it’s served.’
‘Ellie, I’m sorry but I can’t deal with this. You need professional help.’
‘Oh, I’d love some professional help, James. A lawyer, maybe, to help me divorce you and get the kids away from you.’ Maybe I’d call Gail, I thought.
‘I won’t give you a divorce, Ellie. Not easily. I’ve done nothing to warrant it.’
‘Really? How about shagging Rosie in your office in Portcullis. How about killing Lottie and Luis?’
His lips pursed. ‘I don’t know what you know about me and Rosie, L, but that was a long time ago. And as for..’
‘I know because I caught you, James. I walked into your office while you were in the middle of doing it.’
He closed his eyes, ran his hand through his hair. He said nothing for a minute. ‘Alright, so you got me. Yes, I cheated on you. Once in ten years. But I’m sorry, this stuff about Lottie and Luis, I mean it’s ridiculous. You’re delusional.’
‘Delusional! Yeah, you’re right, James. I have been, very. But you did kill them, or you had them killed. You must have known about it. They needed me to have some friends to play with, didn’t they? When they put me in the Rendering.’
He made a sharp, slow intake of breath. ‘What.’
‘Oh I know everything, James, I’ve seen all the files. I know about Orithyia. That’s what they called me, wasn’t it?’
‘Who have you spoken to about this?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Not Gavin?’
‘Gavin doesn’t know anything James, and he doesn’t care. He just wants to get away from all of this now, away from people like you. As do I.’
‘I don’t understand how you know all this then, if you haven’t spoken to anyone else about it.’
‘I think I’d prefer to keep my powder dry about that, thanks all the same.’
‘What do you intend to do?’
‘Just tell me why, please. Whose idea was it?’
He just stood there for a moment, knew the game was up. ‘There is a view, and it’s one I have a lot of sympathy with, that if you take religion out of the equation then people will never be happy. That was the plan.’ His phone started vibrating; he put it in his pocket. ‘All this misery, the depression, the anxiety, it’s all stemming from the collapse in faith. No wonder no party can ever get a decent majority. People don’t believe in anything. Actually, the Rendering was designed for a different purpose…’
‘Yes, a torture device.’
‘But now it’s being used for something quite different. It was meant to make you all believe there was something after this. But you crashed the simulation, L. Nobody knows why. Those scans they did on you after you woke up, there was something odd about them but they didn’t know. That’s why I asked you a fortnight ago whether you’d been on any medication. They thought they’d detected activity in your brain they couldn’t account for.’
I hesitated. I knew it was irrational to give away more secrets, but on some level I felt James had finally levelled with me, so deserved something back. ‘I was on antidepressants,’ I said. ‘From just before you got Downing Street to just after the attack. I never told anyone, apart from my doctor in Eppingham.’
James gave a little gasp. ‘Why were you on them? Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘You were the reason I was on them, James! Everything. Our joke of a marriage, you and Rosie, I could deal with all that. But when Lottie died, then me and Luis…’ I couldn’t finish. Perhaps I knew where that line had been going; would end up with me conceding that I was partly to blame. ‘Anyway,’ I said instead. ‘What they did to Morgan, those things attacking her, again and again. You must know I witnessed that.’
‘What things?’
I told him about the bees in the cave, how they’d come for me later. If he was only pretending to be shocked he did a good job of it. He sat down. ‘I didn’t know anything about that.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘I don’t care if you believe me or not, L; it’s the truth.’ His voice was quivering. ‘I didn’t know they’d do anything like that to her.’ He put both his hands up to his cheeks, squeezed his lips together. ‘All they told me was how you’d wound up in a part of the Rendering you weren’t supposed to be. We lost you when you left Rav’s area. They said they didn’t find you again until you were back in yours. I was waiting for you there, with him. Luis.’ He looked at me. ‘I’m not the only adulterer in this marriage, am I.’
I snorted. ‘He was there for me, often. When you weren’t.’
I took that in for a moment. ‘So, you expect me to believe they never bothered to tell you they were torturing the President of the United States.’
He shook his head firmly. ‘I had no idea what they’d planned for her, I just suggested once that bees were something she wasn’t keen on. But they could’ve got that from anyone. Believe me, L, I wouldn’t advocate torture. But these decisions, you know, they weren’t made in committee.’
‘What did you hope to gain from it then?’
His chin touched his chest, his voice constricted. ‘Really, all I wanted was to get the Energy Bill through. I thought at least if the Middle East became unstable then it’d focus minds here, make people realise we can’t depend on the rest of the world for our fuel anymore.’
‘But the price of oil’s gone through the roof!’
‘Will you keep your voice down? Please. That’s a short-term thing, and being more popular since the attack means I can actually get things done. You know what it’s been like, you saw what happened to Drake and every other PM before him.’ Now it was his voice that rose. ‘All useless because of the bickering on their own benches. Has it not ever occurred to you that someone needs to run this fucking country?’
We stared at each other in silence. ‘This is over,’ I said eventually.
‘What’s over?’
‘We are, I’m done. I’m getting the kids out of this.’
‘No, you don’t mean that.’
‘It should’ve been over the day I found out you were having sex with your press secretary. I’ve been a fool.’
He looked at me in disbelief, then started to weep. He stood up, walked over to my sofa and sat down next to me. I moved into the corner, as far away from him as I could get. He put his elbows on his knees, leaned forward and pressed his head into his palms. ‘It only happened once,’ he cried. ‘Literally, once, I promise you, L.’
‘And you preserved the memory for posterity. I saw that too, James. In your phone.’
His skin seemed to be sliding down his face along with his tears. ‘It was her, L. She was the one driving it all.’
‘Then why keep a memento of it on your phone? Come off it, James!’
‘I didn’t keep it!’ He was shouting again. ‘Six months ago they approached me about all of this. Initially I said no, even threatened to speak out about it. But she’d put a camera in my office, that one time. They had a video, and they had my DNA. They said they’d bring me down if I didn’t do as they asked.’
‘They blackmailed you. She did.’
‘I do
n’t know if she was involved from the start or if she’s just a pawn in this, too. But I’ve only been aware of this for a few months, I promise. I’m the one who’s been a fool but for fuck’s sake, L, I didn’t know I’d ever become PM. I didn’t go out and find some cheap slut in London. I did it, I dealt with it, in what seemed to me the safest way. She was bored with her boyfriend, and, well, you know the rest.’
‘So did you sack Rosie or not?’
‘Yes, she’d been trying to convince me about Tabernacle again. What choice did I have?’
‘You could have resigned. Or taken the hit.’
‘It wouldn’t just be me taking it. How’d you think the kids would feel growing up, with that video out there? Their lives, they’d be… blighted.’
Neither of us said anything for a while. James went to the bathroom and blew his nose. He stayed in there for quite a while making me wonder if he was considering an exit, Morgan-style. Then I wondered if I should try to stop him. When he came back into the living room his eyes were less bloodshot. ‘I suppose you have a lot more questions,’ he said, sitting down in the chair opposite me once again.
‘Did you know they’d attack at Ben Gurion?’
‘No,’ firmly, directly at me. ‘They never warned me, didn’t give a timescale.’
‘Who’s they, James?’
He frowned. ‘It’s a cartel, I suppose you might say. Not the usual suspects, though. Nobody downstairs knows about it.’
Except Rav, I thought. ‘When did you realise you were in there with us. Did you think you’d died, or what?’
‘No.’
‘Explain.’
‘I knew. From the start. They told me I was going in there, after the attack. The revived me, just me. They warned me.’
‘And how’s this going to end? For you.’
‘The plan was to fight the next election, if we won then I’d step down a year into the next Parliament. Then try to keep a low profile, as much as possible. They’ll make sure money’s never a problem for us.’
‘And the plan’s changed?’
‘Well, that depends, L. I know it doesn’t look that way at the moment, but things could be good around here. I’m going to make sure we do something about the flat situation. Move us into Number 11. Morgan’s death put paid to Project Tabernacle, I promise you.’
‘They could just put the new president into the Rendering and start from scratch.’
‘Not for the time being, they can’t. You broke the Rendering, L. You crashed it.’
I suppose I should’ve felt proud, but then I hadn’t consciously done anything. ‘It was all because the alcove wasn’t there,’ I said. ‘Behind the painting in Room Seven. That’s when it started to go wrong.’
‘Yes, they worked that out, eventually, but they still don’t know why.’
‘Because the alcove wasn’t there, where me and Luis left letters for each other, each time I was in Naviras, for years. But it wasn’t there, not in the Rendering.’
‘I see.’ He looked betrayed, had every right to. ‘So with him, it wasn’t just once, it was lots of times.’
‘It went on for years, James. I wondered if you knew, or cared.’
‘Of course I didn’t fucking know! Do you think we’d have put him in there if we’d known?’
‘Then why did you? He had nothing to do with any of this.’
‘The stupid fucker wouldn’t let them into the guesthouse. He was causing trouble so they decided to add him to the simulation late-on. They thought he’d be a nice addition for you, a friend.’
This last word came out ragged, more like a gasp. I thought he’d break down, cry some more. Instead he looked up at the ceiling, then at me for the briefest moment before focusing on the wall. He pulled his shoulders back, rested into the chair. We sat listening to the noise of Whitehall, car horns underneath the chimes of the half-hour.
‘You do know if you leave Downing Street, it can’t end well, L.’
‘You want to keep a lid on it.’
‘I’m going to. We have to.’
‘You have to resign, James.’
‘I won’t. And you won’t do anything, I know you won’t. They’ll find you, and then what’ll happen to the kids?’
I didn’t answer, we sat in silence for another couple of minutes. James said he wanted to talk to me some more about this, but had to head downstairs. He’d already lost half an hour, meetings were backing up. He didn’t attempt to kiss me or tell me he loved me before he went back down.
He came back upstairs at eight o’clock. Sadie was already in bed, Bobby still up and in the living room with me. I was reading him a story. James told him to go to his bed.
‘At the end of the chapter,’ said Bobby, but James snarled back that he was to do as he was bloody well told. Bobby flinched before slowly going to his room.
‘Very big of you, James,’ I muttered. ‘Taking all this out on the kids.’
He didn’t respond to that, instead sitting down opposite me and producing his phone from his shirt pocket. ‘I had them check. Your so-called alcove isn’t there. It’s just a blank wall.’
‘No, that’s not true.’
‘I’m afraid it is true, Ellie. I don’t know why you think otherwise, but you must believe me. There’s nothing behind that painting in Casa Amanhã. They were very thorough when they captured the images for the simulation.’ He handed his phone over to me. On the screen was a panoramic photo of the bathroom, as I scrolled along it the fisherman painting came into view, placed on the sink, behind it nothing, just wall.
‘You could’ve created this image. Touched it up, or something.’
‘I assure you, this is one of the originals, from when the whole village was captured.’
‘When?’
‘A few weeks ago, I think. After Lottie died, certainly, and once Luis was out of the way.’
Of course I didn’t believe him. I had too many memories of the alcove, far too many. There was no way I could’ve invented them. I told James I’d reflect on everything, but that one of us would have to sleep on the sofa. We both knew that person would be him.
That night I lay in bed, sleepless. A thought had come to me earlier, days earlier in fact, but I’d refused to indulge in it. I’d not allowed myself any hope, had become so used to people dying offstage and having dealing with it, compartmentalise it. But that night it came back, and I had no choice but to entertain it; Rav, James, Gavin and I had all been put in the Rendering and had come back. The possibility had to exist that somewhere, maybe in the same place as I’d woken up in Virginia, they were keeping Lottie and Luis alive. The thought of that obliterated any chance of me getting off to sleep. I considered what leverage I might have, if any. Words seemed useless; threats, negotiations, what good could they do when I possessed nothing they needed? Only actions could move things, some demonstration of intent was required.
The next morning James and I had a brief conversation before the kids had woken up. He looked terrible for his night on the sofa, I must’ve looked worse.
‘I’ve been awake all night, thinking,’ I said. ‘And you’re right, James. We have to protect the kids. It’s not their fault, why should they have their lives ruined?’
‘So what are you saying.’ His face was neutral, perhaps he dared not hope.
‘I’m saying I’ll keep quiet. For now,’ My eyelids stung as I closed them. ‘We’ll go through the motions, until after the election at least. Then we’ll see.’
James nodded. ‘Maybe we can get over this, L. In the fullness of time. I do still love you, I hope you realise that. I wanted..’ He swallowed. ‘I wanted what happened to be a way of showing you that, the house on the cliffs, that was my idea.’
I gave a tired smile. ‘Like I said, we’ll see.’
Rav came up to see me after the kids had gone to school. James was in a very restricted security briefing with intelligence chiefs, those had become an almost daily occurrence. I told Rav about the Rendering, James’s
claims about Rosie and the affair, and the promises he’d made me to try to buy my silence and co-operation.
Rav clearly hadn’t slept for nights, either. He looked bereft. ‘I have to resign, Ellie,’ he said. ‘I can’t do this any more. Whatever the truth is, it’s bad. That much is obvious.’ I’m not sure he knew whom or what to believe anymore.
‘Please don’t resign yet,’ I said. ‘Can you hang on, just for another couple of weeks?’
‘For what?
I paused. ‘I have to go to Portugal,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what to believe either, but I have to see some things with my own eyes.’
‘I don’t see how that’s possible at the moment,’ he said. ‘You’ll have the press following you, it’ll make things worse.’
‘That’s why it’s not going to be announced. Nobody will know, not even James.’
‘Impossible.’
‘Is it? I’ll find a way out, when nobody’s looking. Maybe not this week, or next week. But one day everyone will be distracted by something and I’ll slip out.’
‘Will you take Sadie and Bobby with you?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘But Ellie, you can’t go to Naviras. That’s the first place they’ll look for you.’
‘Who?’
‘You know who. James, for a start.’
‘I don’t care,’ I said.
‘So if you go, what will I tell James? He’ll know we’re colluding. He must.’
‘Tell him I’m leaving him,’ I said. ‘It’s the truth.’
Postcard
It came to me with less than 24 hours notice. The schedule for the following day came through, confirming James would go straight from answering questions in Parliament to Paris for high-level peace talks.
‘Are you happy to stay in Downing Street tomorrow?’ Anushka asked me. ‘It’s just that they’re thin on security detail, everyone’s off to Paris.’
‘Of course that’s fine,’ I said, absently.
‘Doesn’t matter if something crops up,’ Anushka was hastily replying to an email and not looking at me. ‘I can always get someone seconded if you need to head out.’
I began to think about the following day. Rav would go to Paris with James, as would the press pack. Most of his key staff would follow him to Parliament for PMQs, which gave me an hour-long window from about 11:30. At first it seemed an absurd idea, but then it started to make more and more sense. When else would all eyes around Downing Street be focused on something else, staff, press, the whole shebang?
Weeks in Naviras Page 33