Never Tell

by Seeber, Claire

  I would suggest that the Honourable St John take a leaf out of Daddy’s book and keep his antics to the golf course. We have had one upper-class tragedy in recent years to tarnish the university’s reputation: we don’t need another one.

  N.B. Can anyone actually remember a single important change brought in for the good of the nation by the senior St John, our current Home Secretary and at present, Britain’s most powerful man? Answers on a postage stamp, please …

  Chapter Eight

  GLOUCESTERSHIRE, MARCH 2008

  The day after Maya’s boyfriend died at Albion Manor, my mother came to collect the children for the weekend and James flew out to Vietnam. I’d tried one final time to suggest that I might accompany him – my mother had even offered to babysit for the whole week – but James still rejected the idea. He was going earlier than originally planned, to ‘see a man about some marble’, as he put it, for his luxury chill-out room and for a meeting in Saigon. The reopening of Revolver in London was looming and he was determined that it was exactly what Britain needed. ‘People need cheering up right now,’ he said simply, and I had felt some affection for his black-and-white view of life; his optimism in frivolity.

  The affection soon vanished on the way to the airport when I finally told James about Xavier and the Kattan story. I’d been nervous about mentioning it, but even I was shocked by the strength of his disapprobation.

  ‘I can’t fucking believe you never said anything.’ James slammed his fist against his window as we joined the M4. My thoughts were speeding so fast I could hardly untangle them quickly enough to defend myself.

  ‘But I tried to tell you days ago that Xav had called me. It’s just – well, you never listen.’

  James’s face was deathly pale, the shadows huge under his eyes. ‘You what?’ His tone was quiet and menacing. I hadn’t heard that tone for a while.

  I clutched the wheel tighter. ‘You weren’t interested,’ I said as blithely as I could, overtaking a caravan that rocked dangerously. ‘And why would it have been such a bad idea anyway?’

  ‘You know the answer to that, don’t you, Rose?’ His top lip had gone rigid as it always did in anger. ‘Oh, it all makes sense now. For fuck’s sake.’

  ‘It’s fascinating. He’s fascinating. I’ve told Xav no, but you know, James, I’ve got a feeling, a sense, something big’s happening out there.’ I was gabbling with nerves. ‘He’s got his daughter practically a – a prisoner in that monstrous house, her boyfriend’s dead, it’s practically open murder. It’s like bloody Jane Eyre up there, women locked in the attic, and you know, I think Xav might be right about the al-Qaeda connection.’

  An Aston Martin tore up behind me and flashed its lights. ‘Bloody idiot,’ I muttered, but refused to budge.

  ‘Rose,’ James looked in the mirror, ‘move over.’

  ‘I won’t be bullied by some stupid git, J. I’m doing ninety.’

  The Aston inched nearer and flashed again.

  Reluctantly I pulled into the middle lane. ‘God knows what he’s up to, or who is coming and going there. There’s chemicals piled everywhere and that bloke Zack, who works for him, is a nutter. He’s even got the Islam flag tattooed on his arm.’

  I heard myself, too late. I thought of the terrible government adverts. I pushed the thought resolutely away.

  ‘Hadi Kattan? Are you serious? Don’t be so fucking stupid,’ James snapped. ‘Your imagination’s running away with you. He’s just a brilliant businessman. A wheeler and dealer maybe. Not a terrorist.’

  ‘But you don’t know anything about him, James,’ I said. ‘Just because you had a drink with him once and he asked you to shoot some birds, you think he’s your best mate. And you told him about bloody X, didn’t you? About Oxford? I mean, why would you do that?’

  ‘I didn’t.’ James looked at me like I was mad. ‘Don’t be stupid.’

  ‘He seemed to know about it.’

  ‘How could Kattan possibly know about Society X?’

  ‘He said something about blasphemy. He said something about – about you telling him stuff.’

  ‘Rubbish. Why in God’s name would I mention X? I was hoping he was going to give me money for the club. It’d be madness to tell him anything about our bloody sordid past.’

  ‘He insinuated it.’ I was sure Kattan had.

  ‘Well you’re wrong. And you’re playing with bloody fire again, Rose.’

  ‘Why? Look at it, J. Look at the facts. Henchmen, whispering, a politicised son who hasn’t shown up yet. A daughter who’s demonstrating for Islamic rights. And now her boyfriend is dead too. I mean, what else do you want?’ Stubbornly I stared at the unfurling road. ‘And why shouldn’t I do the research, if I want to?’

  ‘Because you agreed.’

  ‘I didn’t agree. Not really. I just said I’d give it a rest for a while. While the kids are small.’

  ‘They’re still small.’

  ‘Oh, you’ve noticed, have you?’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘It means, James –’ in for a penny, in for a pound – ‘that most of the time you hardly notice the kids, full stop.’

  ‘That’s bollocks.’

  ‘It isn’t bollocks, and you know it. You don’t notice any of us these days, you’re so caught up all the time.’

  ‘I’m making money for the family.’ This was his usual tactic. ‘I’m earning our keep.’

  ‘You’re not making money drinking into the small hours and never coming to bed. You’re not making money getting fucked and playing X-box with Liam, or snorting coke all night in London, pretending to make music with twatty popstars.’

  ‘I’m not. I don’t,’ he muttered. His tone changed; he looked just like one of the children when they knew they’d done something wrong. ‘Hardly ever.’

  ‘Oh, come on, J. You promised to knock it on the head when we came here, but it’s just got worse and worse. You’re even having the bloody nightmares again. And you’re arguing with Liam. Has he messed up again? You need to tell me. I can help.’

  ‘No. It’s all fine.’ He stared out of the window at a field of seated cows. ‘Must be going to rain.’

  ‘James!’

  ‘I’ve just … I’ve been really stressed with work,’ he mumbled. ‘This threat of recession isn’t great for anyone. It’ll calm down again, I promise.’

  ‘Look, you know I love spending time with the kids – of course I do. But, you know … ‘ There were sudden tears in my eyes. I blinked them away furiously. ‘You didn’t even want me to drop you at the airport today.’

  ‘I just didn’t want you to be bothered with it,’ he mumbled uncomfortably.

  I took another deep breath. ‘I’m lonely, J.’

  This would be the moment he turned to me and said, oh God, I’m sorry, darling, I love you so much, it’ll be like it used to, I know I never see you, speak to you, pay you any attention, want to make love to you or even just cuddle you.

  ‘So you thought you’d get all cosy with bloody Xavier again,’ he snarled.

  ‘Don’t shout at me, please, James.’

  ‘I’m not shouting,’ he shouted.

  There was a long pause.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said eventually. I could tell from his slumped bearing that he felt ashamed. ‘I just – I thought you’d left all that behind you. You write your stuff for the Chronicle. Isn’t that enough?’

  I thought of Edna’s marrows and smiled wryly. ‘I suppose it’s a bit like you not doing Revolver or the label but opening a disco in Burford. You might enjoy it, but it wouldn’t be the same buzz.’

  ‘I suppose.’

  I ploughed on. ‘The twins are in nursery every morning now. I just … Xav rang me, and I thought – I don’t know – I just wanted to use my brain again, I suppose. And it’s important people know the truth. That it’s reported right.’

  ‘You’re addicted, you mean. You replaced one addiction with another.’

  ‘I didn’t.’ But
his words made me start. I was addicted – he was right – only I wasn’t going to admit it now. ‘I’m not really. I just miss it sometimes.’

  ‘But,’ James put his hand on mine. He touched me so infrequently these days the contact was almost a shock. ‘But you know what happened last time.’

  ‘Yes I know. But it was a one-off. I was unlucky.’

  ‘And before that? You were nearly bloody killed in LA.’

  I’d been following the Vice Squad out there; I was in the wrong place at the wrong time during a gangland shoot-out. A police officer and a fifteen-year-old boy had been killed, the boy lying in a pool of his own blood whilst his mother sobbed piteously, cradling his head in her lap.

  ‘You’re not doing it, Rose.’

  I slid my hand away. ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t be fucking obtuse. You’re not doing the piece on Kattan for either the Chronicle or Xavier bloody Smith, and that’s that.’

  The slip-road to Heathrow was coming up.

  ‘Well, I’m not going to, you’re quite right. I’d decided not to already. But actually, I don’t think,’ carefully I indicated left, ‘I don’t think it’s up to you.’

  James left to catch his plane without so much as a backwards glance, without giving me a kiss or even saying goodbye.

  I sat outside the airport in the fumes and endless stream of vehicles, the airport I flew from at least once a month in the old days, and I put my head in my hands and cried.

  I cried for my new confusion. I cried for my children and the inadequate mother I often felt I was, and my guilt at wanting other things, old things, like work and the buzz that used to be the career I had loved.

  And most of all I cried with relief that my husband had gone.

  When I pulled away from the airport, heading not for home but for London, so did another vehicle, tight on my wheels, though I didn’t know it at the time.

  UNIVERSITY, MARCH 1992

  I am reckless what I do to spite the world.

  Macbeth, Shakespeare

  After the scathing article about his exploits appeared in the New Student, Dalziel vanished. James said he’d been incandescent with rage; none of us was sure where he’d gone. For the first time this term, though, I felt relieved Dalziel wasn’t in town. My own faith in him was less solid than before; I sensed he was walking a tightrope between fun and hysteria, increasingly tense when we did meet. And crucially, I’d finally admitted I was in a spot of trouble myself. My new hobby was fast becoming an addiction. I’d even started to seek out the dealer when Dalziel was not around, and I recognised that it was a horribly slippery slope. I was actually looking forward to the oncoming Easter holidays so I could flee home to my parents. I needed to digest the crazy ride I’d been on this term; my tutors were not pleased and I knew I was already slipping behind with my studies. I needed some normality.

  When Dalziel did return to Oxford a week later, good humour apparently restored, he asked us to meet, dressed for dinner. The esoteric elite, as he called us with a smirk, met in the pub nearest the city’s grandest hotel, at 7.06 p.m. on Friday 13 March. Much later I discovered that he’d figured it was also 6.66 o’clock – the number of the beast.

  James, Lena and I perched at the bar, and waited for the others to arrive. Dalziel and Brian walked in some time later, Brian sweaty and uncomfortable in his monkey suit, Dalziel elegant and at ease in his tuxedo, though his eyes were glittering rather manically and his pallor was obvious.

  ‘Sorry I’m late,’ he said, his pupils like pins. ‘Family business.’ He threw a car key on the table. His knuckles were grazed, I noticed, and there was a tiny spot of blood on his otherwise pristine cuff. ‘And a challenge to meet.’

  Lena gave a knowing smile. ‘You did it then.’

  Dalziel held a long finger to her lips. ‘Shhh.’

  He was on good form at first, cracking jokes and stroking us all, physically and metaphorically, telling us how pleased he was to see us. I, on the other hand, was not. Despite my new resolve, I’d spent the night before at his house smoking with him until we’d passed out again in the early hours; I’d woken irritable and headachey and telling myself this had to stop soon. But when Dalziel beckoned me over in the pub and kissed me full on the lips, my fears dissolved.

  He bought a round of sambuca and continued to massage our egos, asking us questions about our courses, our plans for the holidays. Later I remembered that James was cross because Dalziel was paying me so much attention, and Lena too was soon sulking, her oddly squashed face all tight and annoyed, her fingers tapping incessantly on the table.

  An ambulance screamed by, closely followed by a police car, sirens blaring. Dalziel stared out of the window at them.

  ‘Big dramas, apparently.’ The flat-faced barmaid passed a pint over to an elderly regular, her raisin eyes alight with gossip. ‘Girl was in a car smash earlier over on the bridge. Hit and run, Michael said.’

  Dalziel drained his glass and sent it sliding down the table. It would have fallen if James hadn’t caught it. The blue of the police-car light was reflected eerily in his eyes as he turned back.

  ‘One more?’ Dalziel suggested, pulling a sheaf of notes out. We happily acquiesced, in no rush to leave the comfort of the pub. But now Dalziel’s good mood vanished; he became increasingly distracted, edgy and distant. When I asked if he was all right he smiled and said he was just tired; but he kept checking his watch.

  The bar was warm and comfortable with its smoky hop-smelling fug; it seemed a shame to leave. But we drank a final shot of sambuca and then Dalziel handed James a parcel and an envelope that he brought out from his inside pocket.

  ‘This is for you, James. Don’t open the parcel until you need

  to.’

  ‘And how will I know when that is?’

  ‘You’ll just know. You can open the envelope when I leave.’

  James shrugged. ‘OK. You’re the boss.’

  I must have smiled inadvertently because James shot me a filthy look.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Lena moaned.

  ‘I have things to set up,’ Dalziel said enigmatically. ‘I’ll see you all very soon.’ Then he kissed the top of my head and inclined his head to Brian, who leaped to his feet like an uncoordinated puppy and scampered after him. ‘We’ve got work to do.’ They vanished.

  ‘You’re very cosy,’ James commented sourly.

  ‘Don’t be silly.’ I smiled wanly at him. The truth was I was exhausted, hardly eating, hardly working right now.

  ‘Better get going, I suppose.’ James fiddled with the envelope. He looked vaguely menacing and rather handsome in his black polo-neck and tight black jeans, but his normally open face was taut and furrowed with worry. ‘I wish I knew what Dalziel was up to tonight,’ he muttered, tearing open the envelope. ‘He’s gone a bit weird, don’t you think?’

  Lena returned from the loo. ‘He’s settling debts,’ she drawled, perusing the note. Her eyes were pinned now as Dalziel’s had been earlier: her pupils tiny and black. She smelled of sick and Fracas perfume.

  ‘What kind of debts?’ James said. ‘God, he’ll be all night.’

  ‘See the stolen chariot, dear boy,’ Lena mocked, dangling the car key on her black-nailed finger. ‘Guess whose it is?’

  ‘How the fuck should I know, Lena?’ James said. ‘Why don’t you enlighten us?’

  ‘Actually,’ Lena tapped the side of her nose, the left nostril of which was blood-encrusted, ‘that’s for us to know and you to find out.’

  James laughed drily. ‘You’ve got no idea, have you?’

  ‘I fucking well do, actually, and you should keep your fucking mouth shut, dick-head,’ she spat. ‘Frankly, you should just be grateful you’re invited at all. I’ve never known what Dalziel saw in you.’

  ‘Likewise,’ James retorted, but he was obviously shaken by her venom. ‘Had a line too many, dear?’

  ‘I moved on from charlie a long time ago, baby,’ Lena said scornfully as she lit yet another
cigarette. Her fingers were brightly stained with nicotine. ‘Mind your own fucking business, anyway.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, OK, big girl,’ James snapped. ‘If you want to destroy yourself, Lena, that’s fine by me.’

  ‘Ditto,’ she said unsteadily. Snatching up her bag she disappeared back into the ladies.

  ‘That’s what he likes to do, you know.’ James looked almost angry. ‘I’ve been so fucking slow.’

  ‘What?’ I was confused.

  ‘Get ‘em hooked and in his power. It’s all about power with that bloke.’ James drained his own drink now and read the note. ‘He only wants us to go next door to the posh hotel. To the penthouse suite. Big fuss about nothing, after all that. And I tell you, Rose,’ he stared at me with the brown eyes that had recently stopped smiling, ‘one last blast and I’m done with all this.’

  We shivered on the pavement, waiting for Lena. The sky was vast and the moon shiny and white. James pointed out Orion in the stars.

  ‘He’s the hunter, you know.’

  I smiled at him. ‘Yes, I know.’ I looked at his freckled face lit up in the moonlight and thought what a nice boy he was, despite his sometime moods. Much safer than Dalziel. Therein lay the problem.

  Lena stumbled out of the pub. ‘Let’s go, shall we?’ she slurred.

  ‘If you’re sure you can actually walk,’ James mocked.

  ‘Why – did you want to carry me?’ she retorted, but her vision was skewed and she staggered a lot.

  We were like a bunch of shambolic squabbling schoolkids, I thought, hardly the elite society that Dalziel had envisaged. Without him, we fell apart immediately. I looked at us and for a moment, I saw what others might have seen. I thought of the scathing piece in the New Student. Not the sleek pack I believed I moved with, but a bunch of outsiders, lost and rather lonely. I shivered in the biting cold as James shoved Lena in front of him and towards the hotel. She was mumbling to herself; I was worried that she’d really overdone it this time.