In the Attorney-General’s chambers in Buckingham Gate, the Attorney and the young, red-headed Solicitor-General were in the former’s room. ‘Have you seen the piece in today’s Diary column in the Telegram?’ he asked. ‘They say it’s about him. I can’t believe it.’
‘I have been in Court of Appeal so I haven’t myself seen it,’ replied the Solicitor. ‘But Belinda rang from home and read it to me. The sly old dog! Fancy him … and all these years. Belinda says the woman must be Sylvia Benedict.’
Spenser was settling into his new office. Satisfactory terms had been agreed with Ogilvy Grant. He had been put in charge of the takeover of News Universal. ‘There’ll be a battle with the Monopolies Commission,’ Ogilvy had said. ‘But if we don’t get it, their Sunday and Daily will have to close.’
‘I think, Chairman,’ said Spenser, ‘that we ought to be able to get it through. Leave it to me.’
In the safe, the safe in his new office, rested the manuscript of Francis Richmond’s diary.
Chapter Nine
Tancred passed the night of his arrival in Rome at the Hotel Raphael not far from the Piazza Navona. After checking in he went to a café opposite the Bernini Neptune fountain in the piazza and sat sipping a small cup of black coffee and smoking a Havana cigar, a large Cohiba, the best the hotel could supply. Your only indulgence, Harry had said. Harry was right. As he sat in the floodlit piazza under the warm Roman sky, watching the families, with their small children still abroad although the hour was late, he wondered again, as he had when he had first read the diary, why Francis Richmond had recorded Peregrine McClaren saying, ‘Tancred was drinking heavily.’ Was that McClaren being mischievous? Or Richmond inventing? In either event, it was untrue. He never permitted his head to become clouded.
Back in the hotel he undressed and lay on the bed in the darkness. He was glad it was all over. And he was glad to be on his own. He needed some solitude.
Next morning early he picked up a hired car from Hertz and drove north into Umbria along the autostrada A1, direction Firenze. At Sinalunga he left the autostrada, turning east towards Perugia along the north side of the lake to Passignano sul Trasimeno and parked in the nearly empty car park. He bought a wide-brimmed straw hat and, looking at his watch, went to the kiosk and booked a ticket on the lake boat for Isola Maggiore. There were only a few other passengers and he sat on the deck in the hot sunshine as the boat sailed slowly over the shallow water towards the island.
It had begun with the knock on the door of his Chelsea flat, late one rainy night almost three years ago. He was working on his Cabinet papers. It was the young actor with the diary How Streatley had found his home address he’d never discovered, but he had, and he had wasted no time. He could have the diary – for money. ‘Your relationship with Oscar Sleaven, your talks and meetings,’ Streatley said, ‘how easily they could be misconstrued.’ And if it got into the newspapers, the harm it would do to him – and to the government, which he, Streatley, so warmly supported! It was, of course, blackmail. Streatley had hardly bothered to dress it up. He had read the diary while Streatley sat opposite him, preening, studying himself every now and then in the looking glass across the room, fiddling with his dyed blond hair. When he’d finished reading he had snapped the book shut and handed it back. ‘I’ll have to consider,’ he’d said. ‘Return in three days.’
‘Not more than three days,’ Streatley warned. ‘The newspapers would be interested.’
Streatley was right. They would. And Digby Price of News Universal most of all. Price had a score to settle, from the days way back in southern Africa.
He had been the MI6 man in the embassy in Pretoria, South Africa station and had got wind of an arms deal with what was then Salisbury, Rhodesia and the breakaway government of Ian Smith. The weapons were to come secretly across the border from Zambia. He had been responsible for putting a stop to it. Price had been arrested near the border, taken to Lusaka, strip-searched, kept in jail for two days. Price, the only white in the cell with ten others, who had amused themselves with him, abusing him brutally, humiliating him, raping him – while the warders looked through the bars of the cell, laughing. Price had bought his release. No charges, no publicity. What had happened to him no one was to know. It was later that Price discovered who had been responsible for the tip-off that had led to his arrest – and degradation. By then Tancred had moved on. But Price would not forget. Price had pursued him throughout his political career but could never get his finger on anything personal. If Price got his hands on the diary, he would. Price would pay much to get his revenge. Price, he knew, would buy Richmond’s diary
That night the plan began to form in his mind. He was through with politics. For a time he’d enjoyed the battle in the House of Commons and later the responsibility of administering a department of State. He’d been amused by the elaborate performance and the cynical manipulation of his colleagues by the canny Prime Minister. But now he’d had enough. Enough of public life, as earlier he’d had enough of the secret world of MI6. What he wanted was ease and comfort; and for that he needed money. He was interested in money, now more than ever. Oh, yes, he’d said what Richmond had recorded: about getting money – and about the Prime Minister. As he considered Streatley’s threat, the idea had come to him. A chancy, risky idea but if it came off he’d get what he wanted.
Harry happened to be in London on one of his regular trips and they spent the next two nights together, planning. Helena, Harry told him, was in France. She’d come from Palm Strings, Harry said, where she’d fled after a dangerous entanglement in Moscow. Helena, Harry said, might be persuaded to play a part.
Harry was the only one of the family who’d kept in touch with his schoolgirl half-sister when the family had disowned her and banished her after the birth of her child. Harry was the only one she’d contact as she crossed the world from one rich man’s bed to another’s. She might be willing to help, Harry had said. For old times’ sake? he’d asked, smiling. For her first love, Harry had said. To amuse herself, she said later when she had agreed.
Streatley returned on the Thursday. He’d opened the door to him and kept him standing in the hall. ‘Do what you like with it,’ he said. ‘Now get out. You’re lucky I haven’t sent for the police.’
‘You wouldn’t dare,’ Streatley had said.
‘Get out.’ And he slammed the door. Publish and be damned, he’d thought. Or rather, let Price publish and, if all went according to his and Harry’s plan, he’d not be damned. He’d get money.
Since his days as one of ‘the friends’, as MI6 were called, he’d kept his contacts. A few days later he got the message. News Universal had a story about him that they were going to publish. This was just before his ministerial trip to Hong Kong and Beijing. On the stopover in Hong Kong from London, he and Harry talked again. Next day he went on to Beijing and Harry flew to Paris. Harry was back in Hong Kong when he returned from Beijing and they met in the Mandarin Hotel. By then the story had broken and Harry had engineered Helena’s meeting with Price. Soon, if it had not happened already, she’d be in his apartment. A sting, she’d told Harry, a sting always amused her.
Tancred walked off the boat, up the wooden quay through the small village to the restaurant under the awning of vine leaves overlooking the lake. She was sitting alone with her back to him. He saw her dark head as he approached, the hand with the scarlet nails tapping the ash of the cigarette into the ashtray. He put his hands on her shoulders, standing behind her.
She put hers over his. ‘You are late.’
He took the seat opposite her. ‘You were wonderful,’ he said.
‘It amused me.’ She poured him a glass of white wine. ‘Sleaven, I cannot say I mourned him.’
No, he thought. Their daughter, too, had died.
‘What will you do now?’
‘Move on.’
‘Are you all right—’ he began hesitantly.
She interrupted him. ‘Oh, yes, I took my wages when I le
ft. I had earned them.’
‘Where will you go?’
‘Now? Back to the mainland, on the last boat.’
‘And then?’
‘Rome. Los Angeles. I have an apartment up the coast.’ She laid her hand on his. ‘I shall survive. I always have, I always shall.’
When they had eaten the local fish and finished two flasks of white wine, they wandered back through the village, past the few honey-coloured stone houses with the old women sitting on their doorsteps selling lace to the small number of tourists who came from the mainland. They climbed the hill to the chapel and the ruined villa, and stood looking over the lake. Soon she would be on her way south. And he north.
They came back down the hill and talked of the other woman, Harry’s woman, Elspeth Turville. She must have her share, he said. She’d borne the brunt of those years in Sydney raising the difficult girl. He used to visit Sydney and see the child, not often but sometimes. That he had been unaware of her existence, as he had told the court, was a lie. He had known all along. The rest of the story he’d told had been true – or partially true. Not the whole truth. He had been, as the man said, ‘economical with the truth’.
But it was true that Helena had given up the daughter she’d borne to the young English student. Like mother, like daughter, fourteen years later, both were teenagers when they had conceived. The difference was that when the Cheung family disowned and banished her, she had lived. She had gone away and lived off the rich in Taiwan, in the States and in Europe. Lived, at the end, off Digby Price. But the other teenage mother, their daughter, had not lived. She had died. That was the difference.
In the late afternoon they caught the boat back to the mainland and stood, leaning over the rail, looking down at the reeds and shallow bottom of the lake as the boat made its slow, stately progress back to Passignano. He told her about Burrows’s visit to Pontaix when Burrows had warned him that Price’s people had failed to unearth any financial link between him and Oscar Sleaven. If they had no evidence, Burrows had said, they might abandon their defence and make an offer. If they did, the damages would not be great, not as great as they would were News Universal to come across evidence of money passing between him and Oscar Sleaven. Then they’d fight. And if News Universal fought and failed, the damages would be enormous.
So, unknown to Burrows or Foxley, he himself had sent Goodbody the bank statements that showed the Sleaven payments. That was the bait. When Digby Price saw them, Tancred knew that he would go on. For Price would then believe that he had the evidence that proved the corruption. Helena had allowed Price to discover the letters showing that she and Tancred had once been lovers, and convinced him of her bitterness over the lover who had deserted her all those years ago. But not about the child. That, Tancred insisted, must be kept for the court.
They had known that Oscar Sleaven would suffer, exposed not as a corrupter of a minister of the Crown but of a child, their child. He’d gone to Sebastian Sleaven to warn him about what was to happen but he had felt no compassion for Oscar Sleaven. Their daughter had been a child of fourteen when Sleaven had abused her. She, too, had killed herself.
He walked her to the hotel where the car was waiting for her. He held the door as she climbed in. ‘I have never been able to resist a sting,’ she said. ‘Ciao.’ The car drove away. She did not wave, she did not look back. She just went.
He collected his car from the car park. The empty little town reminded him of the Riviera in his childhood thirty-five years ago. Few people; only the cars passing through on their way to Perugia. And not many of them. He drove west, then north towards Lisciano Niccone. Turning off the main road he followed the winding track up into the hills. It was early evening when he went through the open gate and pulled up in front of the villa with purple bougainvillaea climbing up the white walls.
Harry came from the house and they walked to the terrace and sat in the blue cane chairs overlooking the valley lined with olive trees.
‘I expected you sooner,’ Harry said.
‘I’ve been with Helena.’
‘Where is she?’
‘Gone. To Rome and then to Palm Springs.’
Both remained silent for a time.
‘Have you seen the newspapers?’ Harry asked.
‘No. I’ve seen nothing since I left London.’
‘News Universal is crashing. If they go under there may be no money for you.’
Tancred stared at Harry, who looked away over the olive trees to the valley and hills beyond. Then he pushed back his chair, threw back his head and laughed. ‘None? There may be none for me?’
‘Maybe.’
‘And Price? At least there’ll be none for Price.’
‘Price will be all right,’ said Harry. ‘Those sort of people always are.’
In London, Oliver Goodbody came to Mordecai’s chambers at Albany.
‘Why not at Penns?’ Mordecai asked as he led him to the drawing room.
‘I’m having to resign,’ Goodbody said. ‘I’ll have to make a settlement with my creditors. I’ll have to leave my clubs.’ Mordecai looked at him. Goodbody appeared to have shrunk, the distinguished face grey and the cheeks fallen in. ‘I didn’t get sufficient fees on account,’ Goodbody went on. ‘Spenser was difficult but I never imagined there would be any problem in the end. Now News Universal appears to be collapsing and Spenser has gone. He has joined Ogilvy Grant at the Telegram. Heaven knows when or if ever I’ll get my fees. In any event, it will be too late for me.’ He paused, then added, ‘By the rules of the profession I am obligated to pay you your fee personally.’
‘When you told me you were coming,’ said Mordecai, ‘I thought it might not be good news. So I sent for a bottle of Scotch.’ He went to the dining room and came back, pushing the trolley. With the Dom Perignon was a bottle of J&B whisky. He poured and handed the glass to Goodbody who said, ‘I should never have got you involved. I wouldn’t have if I had not been so hard pressed.’
Mordecai looked at him over the rim of his tankard of champagne. ‘Forget about my fees,’ he said. ‘You will not be indebted to me.’ He drank a deep draught. Oliver Goodbody sat silent. ‘I shall miss you at Penns,’ Mordecai went on. ‘I don’t expect I shall go there myself now very often.’
‘I got you into this,’ Goodbody began, ‘and – I’
Mordecai interrupted him. ‘It’s over. It was a monstrous case for a monstrous man.’ He paused. ‘So even the victor may never receive a cent?’ he asked.
Goodbody shrugged.
‘What a lot of trouble that man Francis Richmond caused with his scribbling gossip,’ Mordecai went on. ‘A businessman exposed and driven to blow his brains out; a newspaper empire brought to its knees; you ruined.’ If he had known, Mordecai might have added a Prime Minister driven into retirement. ‘The sole winner’, he concluded, ‘has been the venal young man who sold the diary. Only bad has come from it for everyone else.’
But Mordecai was wrong, for nothing but good had come of it for Patrick Foxley and Anna James.
Envoi
A few days after their meeting in Albany Mordecai received a letter from Oliver Goodbody, written from his office in Lincoln’s Inn Fields.
Dear Mordecai,
I thought you might be interested in what I came across when my secretary and I were clearing the filing cabinets in my room before I left these chambers for the last time. It was on a single sheet of writing paper, which must have become detached from the file on Francis Richmond’s estate. It appears to have been written just before he died. The handwriting is very shaky but it was decipherable and my secretary has typed up a copy. I thought you should see it.
From your friend,
Oliver
Enclosure
The Clinic
Job has promised me that he will destroy my diary that I left at home.
I do not know why I have kept a journal, except that it was to amuse myself. Now on a sheet of paper, I scribble my final entry—my epitaph. For
soon I shall be dead. I have achieved nothing in my life. I have made no stir in the world. The memory of me will fade like the scent of lavender off a handkerchief flourished in an empty room.
Francis Richmond
Also by Peter Rawlinson
Fiction
The Colombia Syndicate
Hatred and Contempt
His Brother’s Keeper
The Caverel Claim
Indictment for Murder
Nonfiction
A Price Too High: An Autobiography
The Jesuit Factor: A Personal Investigation
THE RICHMOND DIARY. Copyright © 2001 by Peter Rawlinson. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.
An imprint of St. Martin’s Press.
www.minotaurbooks.com
First published in Great Britain by Constable
An imprint of Constable & Robinson, Ltd
eISBN 9781429979580
First eBook Edition : March 2011
First U.S. Edition: May 2001
The Richmond Diary Page 26