What he hadn’t foreseen was the ambition contained in that slender body of hers. When she accosted him in the House he could smell the ambition on her breath. No lunch, no break. ‘What about this?’ she would ask. ‘And are we going to do anything about that?’ He really did need to take her under his wing. Not to break her spirit exactly – didn’t he pride himself on mentoring new MPs? He knew that by and large they all went into politics to effect change. His role was not to disabuse them of their fancies. Experience itself would do that. No, his job was simply to point out that politics and the business of government involved hard choices. ‘It’s not Utopia,’ he was partial to telling them. ‘We live in the real world. The decisions we take are based on the general good, not what is best for one or two constituents.’
It was during a drink in the Commons bar that he glimpsed another side to her. With each glass of wine the whiff of worthiness evaporated. Her clothes had improved, her hair had been brought into line. He’d be damned, but in a certain light the woman looked almost attractive. If she hadn’t he wouldn’t have considered inviting her to the fundraising ball.
She turned up alone. Waved at him across the room. He had to look twice. Was it her? The transformation! He waved back then wrenched his eyes away. Didn’t want to make it too obvious. She was quite the vision, wearing an off-the-shoulder full-length dress in a distinctive emerald green that caught the light and shone like a jewel. Her hair, customarily tied back in a knot, was left down and snaked to the middle of her back where it settled between her shoulder blades. But it was the self-consciousness more than anything else, the sense that she was as surprised by her beauty as anyone, that did it for him.
He was formulating a plan for the evening, a slow, cool seduction, when he heard the question.
‘Who is that?’
His heart dipped. Curtis Loewe. He’d recognise that predatory tone anywhere. And now he would have to concede, find another Jane or Jemima to see him through the night. Second best. Curtis had dangled a considerable donation to the party in front of him. Tonight was all about sealing the deal. It wouldn’t do to thwart him in his conquest.
Politics is about the greater good, old boy.
‘Linda Moscow,’ he told Curtis. ‘One of our new intake.’
‘And there I was thinking tonight would be a bore. What do you say, Henry – an introduction?’
‘I’ll do my best.’
Linda, it appeared, was grateful for the company. Her husband was elsewhere she said with a hint of annoyance. More fool him, Henry thought. ‘Another drink?’ She asked for a martini. He told the barman to make it a double.
‘There’s someone I’d like you to meet. We’re hoping for rather a large sum of money from him tonight, boost the party coffers.’
Linda turned to him and smiled. ‘And you want me to charm him, I suppose.’
‘I can’t see how you’d fail.’
Later, they stumbled out into the night, the four of them: Henry, Linda, Curtis and one of the secretaries from central office whose laugh didn’t wait for the jokes. It was a warm evening. A light wind rolled off the Thames, catching Linda’s dress. She wore a shawl around her shoulders that slipped periodically to reveal her back.
‘Everybody back to mine,’ Curtis said. They hailed a cab and Henry, who knew the drill, toyed with ignoring the protocol just this once.
‘I’m afraid I can’t,’ he said, just as they pulled up outside Curtis’ Mayfair flat. ‘I have an early meeting. I’ll take you home, Sharon.’
‘Sarah, it’s Sarah.’
‘You go on, Linda. I wouldn’t want Curtis to think we are all spurning his hospitality.’
On Sunday, Curtis rang him at home to offer the money they had hoped for and then some.
‘It must have been a good night,’ Henry said.
‘Night?’ he said. ‘She’s only just left.’
Henry swallowed his coffee, surprised at how he could be simultaneously thrilled and disgusted.
After reading the emails, Henry decides it is time to pay Linda a visit, warn her off the little project upon which she is embarking. It’s hardly worth the effort, he’ll tell her, what with her political reputation in tatters. Who would believe anything she says?
The meeting does not go according to plan. Linda throws him out of her house (again), but not before she attempts to poison him by slipping putrid milk in his tea.
‘The lady’s not for turning,’ Henry reports to Curtis. ‘I tried, but you know what she’s like; gentle persuasion doesn’t work with Linda.’
‘This is all very inconvenient,’ Curtis says.
‘She’s meeting one of those women from the website next week.’
‘Is she indeed? I trust you’ll arrange for someone to keep her company.’
‘Already done, but it’s not the women who concern me. They can be dealt with. It’s Linda. We need to present her with a more convincing case.’
‘Do you have one in mind?’
‘As a matter of fact, I do. There’s only one thing left she cares about.’
‘Go on.’
‘Gabriel. Her son. We already know she’ll do anything for him.’
‘That was years ago and he was only a child. I don’t think you can compare the two situations.’
‘A mother’s love doesn’t wither with age, I’m told.’
‘If you say so. But how exactly do you suggest we use Gabriel as leverage?’
‘Well, we know he likes a party; what do you say we extend an invitation to him?’
Curtis pushes back into his chair and closes his eyes. For a moment Henry worries he is going soft, has found a scrap of sentimentality at last and will veto his plan. His fears are allayed when Curtis sits bolt upright and shouts to his PA. ‘Deirdre! Get me Gabriel Miller’s manager.’
It doesn’t take long. In the entertainment industry Curtis Loewe is not a man you keep hanging on the phone.
‘Palab, how are you, good sir?’
Henry hears a babble at the other end, imagines Palab rubbing his hands when Curtis says, ‘That comic of yours, Gabriel Miller, his voice is the exact thing I’m after for my new animation. I happen to be coming along to his show on Thursday. I’d love to meet him.’
‘It went well,’ Curtis reports a few days later. ‘I told him I was interested in using him for the part of the pig in my new film.’
‘And what did he say?’
‘He said he was a huge fan of my work. Apparently, The Bear Chronicles was his favourite film as a child.’
On Sunday Gabriel turns up in the papers. Henry pores over the pictures of him snorting cocaine off a woman’s breasts. Kimberly, aged twenty-one, says he was something else. He stayed up all night. He was so passionate. On fire. We drank champagne and then he poured it all over my body before licking it off. The story cements Henry’s plan. There is no way a man like Gabriel will turn down what’s on offer. He adds Gabriel’s name to the guest list for Curtis’ next party and pours himself a whisky in celebration.
Nothing is left to chance. Henry sends a car to collect their special guest and bring him to the party. He even puts a bottle of chilled champagne in the back so Gabriel will show up loose and inebriated. There’s a lot riding on his performance tonight. Before Gabriel arrives, Henry pulls Alexander aside and tells him to stick by him. Alexander is a DJ, once a household name though no one can quite place him now he’s on Southern FM. Years of partying have frayed his edges, and he’s teetering on the precipice. A single push, a sex scandal per se, would ease him over the edge. He’ll do what he’s told tonight or else.
‘Don’t fuck it up. We need him,’ he tells Alexander.
‘I hear you.’
Henry gives the waitresses instructions to steer clear of Alexander on their refill rounds but by the time Gabriel arr
ives his words are slurry. Either that or he’s doing a good impression of a sober person trying to act drunk. Damn fool, if he messes it up they’re all buggered. He gives Gabriel a wide berth himself, thinks it wise. Knowing Linda, she would have blamed him for the scandal that forced her exit from public life and he doesn’t want anything to upset him tonight. Instead he leaves it to Curtis to play the generous host and show him what is on offer.
They both remain uncharacteristically sober, Henry and Curtis. Tonight is not about their personal enjoyment, tempting though it is. Tonight is about survival. It’s about getting Gabriel to sign up to their club. See how Linda feels about her exposé once she realises her son has enjoyed the best of Curtis’ hospitality, that he is one of their gang.
‘I showed him to his room,’ Curtis tells him. ‘You should have seen the look on Gabriel’s face! Almost better than the sex itself,’ he laughs.
That Gabriel can’t be found in the morning doesn’t bother either of them unduly. They’ve held enough parties over the years to know everyone jumps off the ride at a different time. Some favour goodbyes, others the sharp, unannounced exit. He’ll suggest Curtis gives it a few days before he contacts him to ask if he had a good time, and if he would like to come again. What he wants more than anything is to watch the recording from the camera they set up in Gabriel’s room. He wants to see him with the girl. Once he has that, he’s certain Linda can be persuaded to drop her crusade. Her morals fade away when it comes to her protecting her son, the past has told him that much.
Except . . . there is no recording. He checks it over. This was the room Curtis brought Gabriel to, no mistake. And yet there is nothing. No card inside the machine. It can’t be. Is he going mad? He paces the room, lashed by sweat as a wave of pain breaks behind his temples. The worst hangover without the indulgence. It must be here. He personally saw to it, went so far as to test it out. There can only be one explanation.
He calls Curtis, tells him about the card, the lack of it. Curtis is silent. The loud silence of his anger.
‘I’ll call him,’ he says finally.
And he does. Once. Twice. Three times.
‘He’s probably out having sex with a prostitute right now, snorting a bag of white powder off her backside. He’s the type, if ever I saw one. Give it a few days, he’ll be in touch, begging for more,’ Henry says, but his statement carries no weight, it is void of belief.
Plan A has failed.
Worse than failed.
Five days later, Curtis is visited by a police officer investigating an allegation of underage sex at his party.
The officer introduces himself as Detective Sergeant Jay Huxtable.
Eleven Months Before
Jay Huxtable
Detective Sergeant Jay Huxtable is used to wiping his feet when he leaves people’s houses, showering when he gets home to scrub the shit of the day off his skin. This house isn’t like those other ones though, not by a long shot. It’s clean, for a start. No doubt the guy has staff, doesn’t look the domesticated type himself. Jay wouldn’t be afraid to accept a cup of tea – if one were offered, that is. In fact, the only thing that bothers him when he sits down on the leather sofa is thinking of how many women Gabriel might have had here.
And my God, girls must love this house, the sheer luxury of it. The way Gabriel walks around clicking his fingers for lights to come on and music to play. He presses another button and the blinds lower. Just like that. No wonder he pulls all those women with a house like this. It’s been a while since Jay had any action himself. Not since Stacey left. She wanted more than Jay could give her, apparently. Something bigger, better. That still hurts. He can’t get over her. Bet she wouldn’t have left him if he owned this place.
Turns out she already had a bloke lined up. Toby works in the City and drives a Beamer. He lives in Maida Vale. Course he does. Not Harlesden or Willesden Green. Maida Vale. Jesus, why did he have to think of Toby? Now he can’t get him out of his head. Him and Stacey and that peculiar little moan of hers that he thought was reserved especially for him. How could he have read it so wrong? He thought she was the one. She was the one for him. He had it all planned out: wedding, two kids, a boy and a girl. Today is their anniversary. Would have been. Five years together.
‘Aren’t you going to ask me anything?’ Gabriel Miller is still standing, which makes Jay’s decision to sit a little awkward.
‘Errr . . . yes. The details of the night. I need to go over them.’
‘Again?’
‘Again.’
‘Curtis Loewe invited me to his house. He said it was a party. I knew it was never going to be my scene. I mean come on, the guy’s north of sixty, but my manager was gagging for me to go. I should have said, he wanted me in one of his films, an animation . . . he wanted my voice to play the role of a pig . . . don’t look at me like that, you never heard Jack Black in Kung Fu Panda? Anyway, I went along. I like to keep people happy. Only, it wasn’t a party like I’d ever been to before, it was some kind of weird sex thing with girls. And I mean girls. They weren’t women. They were off their faces too.’
Jay shifts in the seat. He didn’t have breakfast, yet whatever contents his stomach contains are reacting to Gabriel’s allegations. He hates this kind of talk. It disgusts him. If it is true. But Curtis Loewe? He can’t quite believe it. The man’s a legend.
‘Are you saying they were drugged?’
‘You don’t get like that from drinking orange squash.’
‘Did you get any of their names?’
‘Yeah, they’d drunk a bottle of vodka and taken God knows what and gave me all their details.’
‘Without any victims, it’s hard to prove a crime.’
‘Do you think I’m making this up? Listen, that wasn’t his first party. No way. It won’t be the last. I don’t want to tell you how to do your job, but seriously, how hard can it be?’
Jay feels his bile rising again. He wants to like Gabriel, take him seriously. He totally rates his shows and Christ, he’s been watching enough TV these last few months, but the guy isn’t doing himself any favours. He’s a patronising knob, used to clicking his fingers and watching people jump. Jay isn’t going to jump. He did enough jumping for Stacey, and look where that got him.
‘Don’t tell me it’s OK to fuck young girls now.’
‘What I’m saying is, we only have your word that they were underage and . . . you know . . .’
‘And you know what? Whatever you’re thinking, I do have standards.’
‘We’ll be speaking to Mr Loewe in due course,’ he says, and then as an afterthought, adds, ‘I reckon you can kiss your dog role in his film goodbye though.’
‘It was a pig. He wanted me to be a pig.’
DS Huxtable is called into The Boss’ office before he pays a visit to Curtis Loewe. ‘Low key, do you hear me?’ DCI Patel says. ‘The press can’t get wind of this. I want it done properly. It’s not a circus, got it? If I see any of this in the press I’m going to personally boil your head. This man has friends everywhere, and we all know if you put the accuser in the witness box they’d tear him and his sex life to shreds. So we go easy. Got it? Go on then, what are you waiting for? Go and see how the other half live. And Jay . . . ?’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘Remember your manners.’
Curtis Loewe’s flat is in Mayfair. Where else? Jay’s not sure you call them flats in Mayfair. His nan lives in a flat in Peckham. This doesn’t look anything like his nan’s home.
There is something to be said for the estates his job takes him to and the filthy carpets and drug-addled inhabitants. By comparison he knows he’s achieved something with his life. He’s going places (all right, mainly he’s going back to the station canteen for a bacon butty, but he has a purpose nevertheless). Mayfair shrinks him and his achievements. His perception shifts,
he looks at himself through the eyes of antique dealers and Russian oligarchs and BAFTA-winning film directors and he doesn’t like what he sees. By the time he buzzes the number for Curtis Loewe’s flat he wishes he was dealing with a breach of the peace on the Mozart Estate instead.
‘Do come in. Huxtable, did you say?’
Jay lets himself into the lobby at the sound of the buzzer. Makes his way to the top floor in the lift. When he emerges, he finds the man himself waiting for him in the entrance, dressed in jeans and a navy jumper, all understated except for the red suede slip-ons, no socks, that encase his feet.
He looks like a well-preserved version of his younger self. Trapped between middle age and old age. His face shines like silk, as if he’s been buffing it all morning in anticipation of Jay’s arrival.
‘DS Jay Huxtable.’
Curtis shakes his hand. ‘Good to meet you. Come inside. Let me get you a drink.’
He’s pleased to see some celebrities have manners.
Jay sinks back on the leather sofa, his knees coming up to his chin, wishes he’d opted for the armchair where Curtis is sitting upright.
‘Now do tell me what brings you here.’
At the sound of Gabriel Miller’s name, Curtis claps his hands and slumps back into the chair laughing. ‘Good God, I’ve heard it all now.’ He chuckles away for a good minute before pulling himself upright again to face Jay. ‘We discussed a part. He has this manager, Palab, a very successful man, but he’s a pushy little fellow. He’s been trying to get Gabriel in one of my animations for a while. We discussed the role of the Elliot the pig . . . I know what you’re thinking, a part made for that man, but his voice is just too high. And between you and me, I need people I can rely on.’ He puts his index finger to his nose and sniffs. ‘I hear his reputation is well earned.’
An Act of Silence Page 15