‘But surely he can’t choose his wife’s friends?’
‘All the government husbands do it,’ said Edona wearily. ‘They can’t afford to make mistakes. The wives aren’t invisible women who sit in the background any more, they help to lift up their husbands’ careers. It’s the same in my country.’
‘Do you think Sabira believes in her husband?’
‘I don’t think she believes in the power of the British government.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘She’s seen it from the inside now, the way it works. When we were small, we dreamed of living in England, the lovely gardens, the friendly police, please and thank you and everyone saying sorry all the time. So proper, so well behaved. The well-spoken county ladies, confident and sure of themselves. We thought that to be English was to be fair, to be decent. Reasonable. Now she knows this is a lie. To survive in the English government, it is to hide, to cheat, to bury the truth. This is what she told me.’
‘Was there some specific incident that changed her mind?’
‘Something – yes. I don’t know what it was. Something I think she discovered.’
‘From her husband?’
‘No, from the wife of one of his colleagues. Her name was Russian – Anastasia.’
‘Edgar Lang’s wife.’
‘I think so, yes.’
‘Do you remember when this was?’
‘Maybe two months ago.’
‘That was when her behaviour started to change?’
‘Yes. She had a relapse.’
‘A relapse? What do you mean?’
‘Do you not know this? How Oskar and Sabira met?’
‘She was here on holiday, wasn’t she?’
‘She came here for treatment,’ said Edona. ‘Sabira was … well, she had an addiction problem. Nobody knew. She had never broken the law. But there had been bad episodes. Sabira is the one person who should never take drugs. She’s very emotional, very highly strung.’
‘What was she taking?’
‘At first, prescription medicines, painkillers, anti-depressants. She trained as a figure skater but hurt her back when she was sixteen. Then later, I think it was cocaine and ecstasy.’
‘You think.’
‘I don’t know for sure. But I have seen such behaviour before.’
‘How did these “episodes” of hers show themselves?’
‘She became paranoid, thought everyone was out to get her. Oskar cleaned her up, kept it out of the papers, looked after her. She’s one of those people who has everything going for her: brains, drive, beauty; but she has this one fatal flaw. So you see, Mr May, Sabira is not having a breakdown. She’s having a relapse.’
Janice Longbright was arranging interviews for Kasavian’s colleagues. While Jack Renfield went off to meet Charlie Hereward, she met up with Edgar Lang at the Athenaeum Hotel on Piccadilly.
Seated in a wing-backed green leather armchair sipping coffee, Lang looked like a dissipated film star. He was an advertisement for old-school grooming, wrong for television but right for government. His eyes were hooded and half-shut, useful for hiding secrets, his skin too frequently buffed by red wine. Longbright sensed his type and involuntarily recoiled as she shook his hand. Lang seemed like the kind of man who would humiliate waitresses.
‘Thank you for taking the time to see me,’ she said, seating herself. ‘I’ll only be a few minutes.’
‘Good – I’m due at the House of Commons for a meeting in about half an hour.’ He checked his watch, an unobtrusive but vintage silver Cartier.
‘So it’s not a Monday to Friday job.’
‘The government part is – you won’t catch civil servants working late unless they have to. At the weekend I operate in a private capacity.’
‘That’s right, Pegasus. Security arrangements?’
‘You make it sound as if we repair locks. We act as the link between scientific institutions and the press.’
‘Like a PR company?’
‘It’s more to do with the government-sponsored prevention of negative publicity.’
‘I’m sorry, I’m being a bit thick …’
‘Scientific breakthroughs are achieved by the global sharing of information, or at least they used to be. Now that information is in the hands of private companies, it has to be safeguarded rather than published.’
‘We were discussing a similar problem with the privatization of forensic laboratories.’
‘Then you’ll understand the issues at stake. But I thought you wanted to talk about Sabira Kasavian.’
‘We were unofficially appointed by Mr Kasavian to uncover the reasons behind his wife’s behaviour. Excuse me.’ She felt her phone vibrate and saw a message from John May: ‘SK former addict may have relapsed’.
As she talked, she texted back: ‘Find out what Ana Lang said to SK that upset her’.
‘I understand she’s had issues with substance abuse in the past. The obvious conclusion is that she’s using drugs again.’
‘There are stringent precautions taken to protect everyone in the department against coming into contact with dangerous substances, Miss Longbright. The country is on a high alert from the threat of terrorism. All packages are opened; all rooms are checked.’
‘Does that include home premises?’
‘On occasion, yes.’
‘But there are a great many social events to attend. It is feasible—’
‘If someone is desperate enough, they’ll always find a way. If you were to ask me, is there drug-taking in the House of Commons, I would have to answer yes. One has to be realistic about such things.’
‘How often does Mrs Kasavian see you or your wife?’
‘Once a week or so, sometimes more often. We cover the same ground.’
‘Do you discuss your work in front of her? Does she know what you do?’
‘You mean, is she a security risk? No, we don’t discuss the Home Office or our private work with spouses. I doubt they’d understand it if we did. To outsiders, it would seem abstruse and tedious. Now, if that’s all …’
‘Just one more thing. Do you like her?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean as a person? Do you like her?’
‘I neither like nor dislike her. My business colleague chose to marry her, so my opinion hardly matters, does it?’
‘I’m sorry to have taken up your time.’ Longbright rose. ‘I believe Mr Kasavian is putting up the UK’s plans to revise Europe’s border-control initiative some time in the coming week?’
‘Indeed, on Friday morning, at the conference in Paris.’
‘I read that you oppose his views. I assume there are others in the department who share your opinions?’
‘I rather think that’s outside of your jurisdiction,’ said Lang curtly, closing his briefcase and rising. ‘You shouldn’t listen to gossip.’
‘My point is that it might be in his opponents’ interests to discredit Mr Kasavian through his wife.’
‘If you’re planning to make a case of that, you’d better be very sure of your facts.’ Lang abruptly turned away from her.
‘Well, I’ll make sure you’re the first to know if we do,’ Longbright couldn’t resist adding.
Renfield was having a little more luck with Charles Hereward. They met late on Saturday afternoon in a cramped coffee bar used by barristers behind the Inns of Court.
Hereward was a blunt, broad-beamed Yorkshireman with a spectacular comb-over, an old-school former Labour politician who still went for a beer with his pals on Saturday night and a kickabout with his kids on Sunday morning.
‘She’s a smart lass,’ he told Renfield. ‘Gives as good as she gets. But she’s not the sort of woman the other wives take to. They support their men unreservedly but they can be a bunch of vituperative bitches when they get together. I tend to stay out of their way.’
Renfield didn’t really understand why he had been asked to interview Hereward. There were two unso
lved deaths to investigate, and he thought they should be concentrating on Waters’s friends and relatives first. Taking the obvious route of inquiry had never been the way at the PCU.
O’Connor hadn’t made any close friends in London and even her workmates barely seemed to remember her, so they had drawn a blank there. The photographer, though, he must have made plenty of enemies. Renfield didn’t think the deaths were related, and certainly didn’t believe that Sabira Kasavian’s breakdown was connected in any way, but who was he to argue with his bosses?
‘She nicked a file from your office,’ said Renfield. ‘It was full of taxi receipts. How did she get hold of it?’
‘The registered headquarters of Pegasus is not at the Home Office, obviously,’ said Hereward, looking suspiciously at his minuscule coffee cup. ‘It’s in Whitehall Place. Sabira knows the place well enough. She sometimes comes there to meet Oskar. I can only assume she picked it up when she was last in.’
‘Security a bit lax, is it?’
‘Well, I don’t pat down my wife’s pockets each time she leaves, but then I don’t leave stuff lying about.’ He sipped his coffee and was shocked to find the cup now empty. ‘I doubt an outsider would be able to make much sense of anything unless they knew exactly what they were looking for.’
‘I suppose you must have a lot of sensitive documents locked away,’ Renfield pressed.
‘Enough to bring down this and the last three governments,’ Hereward admitted. ‘I probably shouldn’t say this but we’ll all feel a bit safer with Sabira locked up, away from her junkie friends. Lean over and ask the waitress for two more, bigger cups this time.’
‘You mean people gave her drugs?’
‘That photographer who got stabbed in the park, he was supplying her with cocaine.’
‘You know that for a fact?’
‘It’s common knowledge he was knocking her off and paying her with coke. It’s no skin off my nose what people get up to in their own time, but she should have remembered who she was married to.’
‘You think it’s damaging Mr Kasavian’s career?’
‘Not if he acts fast and puts her out of harm’s way. I’m on record as being in favour of Oskar’s border-control proposals. It’s in my interest to make sure that he pushes it through.’
‘Bit of a dilemma for him, though, isn’t it? Choosing between his wife and his work?’
‘You don’t know the Home Office.’ Hereward gave a graveyard chuckle. ‘If you saw your spouse or your career falling out of a window, you wouldn’t think twice about which one to save. The wife’s replaceable, the job’s not. Everyone thinks Oskar’s a hard case, but I can tell you he’s done everything he can to help her out. Depending on his performance in Paris, Her Majesty’s Government will decide whether he’ll take complete control of the initiative. That’s why his wife has been taken off the streets. She can’t do any more damage while she’s banged up. The doctors will bring her to her senses, but it’ll be too late by then.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Renfield.
‘If you ask me, one of the government’s conditions to Oskar will be to keep his wife far away from the corridors of power.’
‘You mean …’
‘He’ll have to file for divorce. Mental illness is good enough grounds.’
21
BREAKING FREE
HAVING PLANNED HER escape, she waited until they had finished serving afternoon tea.
There was no point in trying to get away at night because the front door was locked and alarmed. The shift ended in ten minutes’ time, and the staff nurses would go to change out of their uniforms in five minutes. Sabira’s screaming fit had not singled her out as someone to watch more carefully. The clinic’s brochures didn’t advertise the fact, but such behaviour was hardly out of the ordinary; much worse happened in the solitary first-floor bedrooms of the east wing at night. She had heard the nurses telling stories and laughing behind the patients’ backs when they thought no one was listening.
And now they were heading off duty, down to the back of the house.
She listened for their tread and conversation on the stairs. The danger was that the first of them – Sheryl Cooper was the most gimlet-eyed of the clock-watchers – would reach the front door in under five minutes. Sabira searched about her room, trying to think what she might need, but her head was still full of clouds. She knew there was something she was supposed to take with her, but whenever she tried to think what it was the object of her attention slipped away.
She knew she was not at all well.
Being well meant being able to exert control over your actions, but it grew more difficult to do so with each passing day. It was much worse now than it ever had been before. If she remained here, in a place that encouraged so much introspection, she would never find her way back to the normal world. It was better to get out now and worry later about the consequences.
Taking a bag would only slow her down and make her more visible. It was a warm evening and she needed to travel light. She wished she had written the plan down somewhere, just so she could remember it, but at some point she had decided not to leave evidence.
Take it one step at a time, she told herself, fighting down panic. The first thing you must do is get out of the building without being seen – if you fail to do that, there will be no plan.
She had gathered the few things she needed in the top drawer of her dresser, and stuffed them in her pockets. Outside, she could hear footsteps in the corridor – not a nurse because they wore trainers, but one of the other patients.
Opening her door a crack, she peered out and saw the door on the other side of the hall close. That room belonged to Spike, an American musician with a shock of dyed black hair and a body so thin that he could surely feel his bones rubbing when he walked. He looked seventy but Sheryl had told her he was just forty-two.
Stepping into the silent corridor she ran quickly to the head of the stairs and looked down. At the moment there was a clear path to the front door, but the ground-floor hall was fed by four corridors. Any number of people could appear within seconds.
I could be going to the newspaper stand, she told herself, remembering the stack of journals that stood beside the front door. That’s what I’ll say if anyone stops me. If I get caught this time I mustn’t make them suspicious enough to report me. There won’t be any second chances.
She headed downstairs as if it was the most casual thing in the world. It was just five or six metres to the front door and the brass latch that could be popped smoothly and silently. She peered into the side corridors as she passed. Someone was laughing in the dining room but there was nobody in sight.
Dinner was being prepared in the kitchen – she could smell the usual stale aroma of warm potatoes and boiled vegetables. The clinic offered a full international menu including vegetarian and gluten-free options, but everyone seemed to opt for mash and pastry and gravy. Denied drugs and alcohol, they comforted themselves with carbohydrates.
She tried to imagine what would happen beyond the door, the path, the gate. She would make her way to Hampstead High Street and the Tube station, head south on the Northern Line. It was too risky to take a taxi. Taxis had talkative drivers.
She needed to do more than just get out of the clinic. She had to break free in her mind and start thinking clearly again, but try as she might she could not find a shape to her thoughts. Something grey and cotton-woolly had soaked them up and wiped them away.
Her hand was on the lock, pressing down on the trigger that would spring it, when an image appeared before her. Less a man than a devil in black, watching and waiting for her to make an attempt at escape, knowing that she would try and fail.
She faltered, heart speeding, hand dropping, suddenly sure that if she stepped across the divide from captivity to freedom she would be playing into his hands. She saw a thin crimson line extending and dripping, staining the floor, and realized that the wound on her wrist was bleeding through the bandage.
She pushed at the lock and heard it pop, felt the cool evening draught come in around the lintel. But there was nothing she could do to make the black figure step aside. He was smiling benignly at her, amazed by her capacity for self-delusion, blithely coming to this country and marrying into the upper echelons, and then happily assuming she could destroy reputations and wreck the status quo without any risk to herself.
You are dead to us now, he told her.
I am dead, she repeated, losing her resolve and lowering her hand from the lock as the door to the outside world began to swing open.
‘Where are you going?’ asked smiling Amelia Medway, the senior nurse who was just arriving to start her shift. ‘You know you’re confined to the clinic now.’
She gripped Sabira’s arm firmly and led her away to the dining hall, passing her over to the annoyed Sheryl, who was now out of uniform, thinking that her duties were over for the night.
‘Take Sabira back upstairs and keep her there until the dinner bell,’ said Nurse Medway, adding softly, behind Sabira’s back, ‘I don’t want her left alone this evening, do you understand? Not after what happened last night.’
‘I’m off duty now,’ said Sheryl, who was going on a date, and didn’t get them very often. ‘I made sure she took her medication at three. I can get someone else to take over.’
‘No, I’ll do it,’ said Medway, raising her voice to the patient. ‘You can have dinner in your room tonight, Sabira. Would you like that? We usually have a special treat on a Saturday.’
Sabira stared dumbly back, barely seeing the face before her. Nurse Medway didn’t like the lack of focus in her patient’s eyes, and made a mental note to check her prescription dose. Paroxetine was an anti-depressant that helped treat panic disorder and social anxiety, just part of the cocktail of drugs her doctor had insisted on administering, but she wondered if it was cross-reacting to cause somnolence.
’Let’s not take the stairs,’ said Nurse Medway cheerfully. ‘We’ll use the lift for a change.’ Looking down, she noticed the freshly stained bandage. Sabira felt her hand being raised, but offered no resistance. ‘And we’ll get that nasty old dressing changed for you while we’re at it.’
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