An Uncivilised Election Page 4

  “I had a directive to take a careful look at both groups,” Gideon told him. “This can fit in unobtrusively. I won’t be doing it myself for a week or two, I’m having a breather before the election breaks, but I’ll get it laid on.”

  Paterson looked anxious.

  “Whoever does this has got to be very discreet, George. If it leaked into the press that you were keeping a special watch on a candidate who was an M.P. there’d be a proper hullabaloo.”

  “I’ve got just the man,” said Gideon.

  “Who?”

  “Parsons.”

  After a reflective pause, Paterson said, “He should be all right, although I can’t say I would have thought of him. Parsons,” he repeated. “Will you ask him to have a word with me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Here are the three names,” Paterson went on, and took a postcard out of his pocket. “I was coming to see you this afternoon but got held up – one of the waitresses in the restaurant helped herself to a couple of wallets. She’ll be up in the morning, by the way.” He handed the card over. “And you see the names I’ve pencilled under the members’ names? They’re the contacts I’m a bit suspicious about. Corby and Hetherington are very extremist antinuclear chaps, and they both know a hatchet-faced little weirdie named Tenby, Amanda Tenby.”

  “Daughter of Sir William Tenby?”

  “Daughter disowned,” Paterson reminded Gideon.

  Gideon nodded. “I remember her. She’s been inside three times for causing too much trouble at the rallies and for contempt of court. Do you seriously think she’s dangerous?”

  “I think she’s really dedicated,” said Paterson. “She’s always pestering members, and I’ve got a feeling that Corby and Hetherington are very interested in her. I’d have thought she was too skinny for bed larks. On the other side, the Queen and Country group, the man I’m uneasy about is the leader, Quatrain. He’s cold-blooded as a fish, but puts up a big show of emotional flag-waving, and he’s got a lot of officer-class types about him.”

  “What do you think he might get up to?”

  “I think he hates the F.F.P. people so much he’d like to cut their throats. I see a lot of lunatic fringers, George, and the groups which come to lobby the members, and the pressure’s being stepped up. There’s more feeling generated by the present anti-bomb campaign than anything I’ve ever known. Had a chat with old Charlie Pearce the other day, he’s eighty-one and still around Westminster as a watchman, and he says that it reminds him of the suffragette days. Says he can’t remember anything so likely to get out of hand since then. I don’t know how close you’ve been watching, but take it from me, every member of Parliament is pestered by the F.F.P. people. They’ve got a genius for making bloody nuisances of themselves. They write to the poor swabs, telephone them, and come and push petitions in their faces. It’s damned well organized too. And it’s been getting fiercer and fiercer. I’ve got a feeling this election is going to spark something big. They talk mild and they look mild – Moncrieff, the chairman, looks as if he couldn’t say boo to a goose, but he gets the craziest ideas. And stubborn mules aren’t in it. They’re going to use the election as their biggest campaign yet. They’ll say how democratic and law-abiding they’re going to be and they’ll wash their hands of the wild men who go crazy, but the pressure’s on all the time. I wish I didn’t think so, but I do. The hell of it is, most of those I know not only mean what they say, they feel it. They’re fanatics, but they’ll make any personal sacrifice for this cause. I’ve got a feeling that they’ve been underestimated, George. And I’ve also got a feeling that the Q Men will start the biggest anti-anti-nuclear campaign they’ve done yet. I think Quatrain might come out as a new fascist leader. If the two groups do clash at election meetings, it could cause a lot of trouble – the kind of election trouble we’ve forgotten. I won’t be involved until the House assembles again – I’m going to take a week or two off too – but I thought I ought to have a word with you. Don’t think I’m a scaremonger, will you?”

  “You’re a scaremonger all right,” Gideon said. “I wish I didn’t agree with you so much.”

  He tucked the postcard into his pocket.

  4: Three Women

  When Gideon walked along Harrington Street, Fulham, where he had lived all his married life, over thirty years, he heard two lawn mowers clattering, saw three people clipping their box hedges and two watering their window boxes. Most of these red-brick terrace houses, each of them three stories high including a kind of attic floor, had been painted recently. His own, Number 43, looked as if it should be painted soon. The last paint job, which he and two of his sons had done between them, hadn’t lasted well even for do it yourself. It was probably something to do with the quality of the paint. The little front garden was immaculate, however, with a postage-stamp lawn and some yellow privet clipped recently – probably by Kate, although young Malacolm should have done it. Dark patches on the soil of the only flower bed, filled with chrysanthemums, showed that someone had been busy watering. As he pushed the gate open, Kate came with a full can held with very great care.

  “Oh, hallo, dear.” Her smile was warm and spontaneous. “I thought I’d get this done before you got here.”

  She was a tall, handsome woman, with grey hair, a good complexion, clear grey eyes. She carried the watering can with ease, leaning back a little to take the strain and so emphasizing her full bosom.

  “Let me take it,” said Gideon. He took the can from her, put his cheek to hers in a kind of kiss, began to sprinkle the bed, and went on, “What’s been happening across the road?”

  “Oh, it wasn’t much – you know how Lucy Marjoribanks fusses. Alice fell down some stairs and screamed the house down, bumped her nose and bled a little. She’s all right now. I’ll go and get supper out of the oven.” She turned and hurried off, quick-moving and graceful, and Gideon watched her for a moment, then finished the job and went in, swinging the watering can. As he stepped into the dining room, at the end of the passage by the stairs, Kate was coming out of the kitchen.

  “George!” she exclaimed.

  “Eh?”

  “Look what you’re doing with that water!”

  “Water?” He glanced down and saw a trail of spots from the spout of the can, which had dribbled out when he had swung it; he stopped the movement quickly and held the can up in front of his face, in mock defence. “I didn’t mean it, honest.”

  “I don’t know what this place would be like if you and the boys had your way,” Kate said, obviously vexed. “Only hope those marks will come out.”

  “They’re only water.”

  “What about the fertilizer mixed with it?”

  “Well, if you go mixing fertilizers—Oh, now don’t worry, Kate. It would be so diluted it won’t make a stain on the carpet.” He sniffed. “That smells good. What is it?”

  “You’ve got about as much sense of smell as you have house sense, “said Kate, the moment of vexation not really forgotten. “Sausage toad.”

  “Be ready in two minutes,” said Gideon. He washed at the kitchen sink, and when he came back the toad-in-the-hole was already steaming on his plate, with a huge pile of batter and a lot of sausages. “It’s a good job I don’t have indigestion,” he remarked.

  “Well!” exclaimed Kate. “What a thing to say!”

  She pushed her chair back from the table and stalked into the kitchen.

  Gideon stared after her, open-mouthed, fork poised in one hand and knife in the other. Kate was bending down in front of the oven. She surely couldn’t be seriously affronted. He took a mouthful, and the batter was so hot he opened his mouth and drew in cold air; he was looking like that when Kate came back with a vegetable dish in her hands, runner beans on one side, spinach on the other. She was not smiling.

  He. swallowed. “Kate, what’s the matter?”

  “If you don’t know—”

  “Of course I don’t know,” interrupted Gideon. He began to feel exasperated himself. �
��If I can’t make a perfectly innocent remark without you flaring up, it’s a poor show.”

  “An innocent remark. You take one look at your plate and talk about indigestion!”

  Gideon said. “Oh. Oh, yes, I did. I see what you mean.” He watched her spooning the vegetables onto his plate. I’ve dropped hundreds of heavier clangers than that, he reflected, and she hasn’t risen to them. I wonder what’s worrying her. They ate in silence for a few minutes, Gideon with increasing gusto. Then suddenly Kate stretched out a hand, pressed his, and said:

  “Sorry, dear. I seem to be so touchy these days.”

  “Touchy,” echoed Gideon, and grinned.

  Kate stared, not understanding, and he saw from her expression that it wouldn’t take much to drive her back to high dudgeon. He waved his fork at her, and noticed the bright sheen that emotion put into her eyes.

  “That’s exactly what Rogerson said to me this afternoon,” he told her. “And what Lemaitre thinks, too. Looks as if it’s contagious. I could have punched Rogerson on the nose. Do you know what he said? He said that I had lost the famous Gideon patience and was biting everyone’s head off, so it was time I had a long vacation. Have I been all that bad?”

  “Have you been.” Kate put down her knife and fork, and laughed in a way that sounded rather forced. There was the eagerness of expectancy in her expression; and hope. “Did he tell you you must take a holiday?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now?”

  “Starting Saturday.”

  “George, it’s just what we both want, what we need! I’d almost given up hope anyhow, and when I heard about the election I thought we could forget all about getting away this year. You’ll go, won’t you? You won’t let anything stop you?”

  “I thought we’d put the car on the train as far as Lyons, and then wander south and finish up at Cannes or Nice,” said Gideon. “We can have eight or nine days on the Riviera, and drive back leisurely. We should be about right for the grape harvest. And at this time of year it shouldn’t be difficult to get a hotel that doesn’t cost the earth. How about Malcolm, though?”

  “Oh, Malcolm will be all right. If he can’t manage to look after himself at fifteen, he never will. Priscilla and Penny will be here at night, and for the weekends too. George, I’m so excited I don’t think I want anything to eat.”

  “What you mean is that you’re frightened you’ll get indigestion,” Gideon said dryly.

  Next morning he put an elderly sergeant, Jefferson, onto the job of getting him some literature about the French Riviera, and finding out the times of trains and details of the car ferry and train service to central France. Once the inquiries were in hand, he put the thought of a holiday out of his mind and concentrated on the more urgent jobs. Lemaitre was already a different man, alert, eager, anxious to demonstrate his complete grasp of the situation and each case.

  He kept saying, “I’ve been thinking, George …”

  Together they briefed several senior officials on cases under review. The last was Fisher, who had been in charge of the investigation about the bank tunnelling job.

  “You coming over to West London for the hearing, George?” he wanted to know.

  “I don’t think so. How’s it gone?”

  “Thanks to Hugh Christie, couldn’t have gone better. We talked to Alice Bane first about her tenancy of the shop, and she cracked almost at once. Pretty kid, only about twenty-two, and Bane must be forty if he’s a day. He was having a celebration booze-up with some friends in Wapping when we tapped him on the shoulder. Incredible what fools they can be. He had some of the notes he took from the bank in his pocket – some of the new ones. Couldn’t resist the feel of them although he knew we’d have the numbers. Beats me,” went on Fisher with a shake of his big head. “He can have the intelligence to plan a job, start it months ago, burrow fifty yards underneath a busy street, break through three feet of reinforced concrete – only to slip up like that.”

  “Has he made any statement?”

  “He denies it, but we’ve got him all right. I thought of asking for the usual eight-day remand, we’ll have enough evidence to have him sent for trial after that.”

  “Then go ahead.”

  “Er—thanks.” Fisher obviously hadn’t finished, and as obviously wasn’t sure how to go on. “One other thing, George.”

  “Yes?”

  “Bane’s wife.”

  “What about her?”

  “We could charge her as being an accessory before and after the fact.”

  “Did she know?”

  “Oh, she knew all right.”

  “Then why the hesitation?”

  “I’m not sure that he didn’t compel her to help him,” explained Fisher. “She’s scared of him, no doubt about that. I wondered if it would be a good idea to let her ride, for the time being. We might be able to persuade her to go in the box when the time came. She could be very useful even without giving direct evidence against him. I’m not just being soft-hearted—”

  “You’re being mushy,” Gideon declared. “I shouldn’t charge her, though, just warn her to stay in London in case we want her.”

  “I’ll do that!” Fisher turned and barged out.

  Lemaitre clapped his hands together, making a surprisingly loud bang.

  “He’s mushy?” Lemaitre stood up, stretched, and strolled across to the window. He did not realize it, but some of his actions and his movements were modelled on Gideon, although they often looked out of place because they did not suit his spindly figure as they did Gideon’s massive one. Now he stood looking out onto the sunlit Thames, very earnestly. “Well, that’s the routine lot, George. What about the election? Can’t just sit back and let the water run under the bridge while you’re away, can we?”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “Well, if I was handling it from scratch, I’d make no fuss at all,” Lemaitre replied. “There are one or two members of Parliament who could do with watching, they could easily make fools of themselves. Then in each of the local committees of the F.F.P. boys and the Q boys …”

  Lemaitre was both eager and earnest for over five minutes.

  “Who would you put on the job from our end?” inquired Gideon.

  “Parsons,” Lemaitre answered promptly. “Best chap we’ve got for it. You agree, George?”

  “Let’s send for him,” said Gideon.

  The truth was, he reflected wryly, that it was easy to think one had a kind of divine right to be in charge; that personal belief in one’s own indispensability crept up on one, in spite of lip service paid to the creed that no one was indispensable. Lemaitre would do a thoroughly sound job, and the main thing was to make sure that Rogerson realized it.

  Parsons arrived at the office almost at once. He listened intently.

  “Really think you can handle it?” Gideon asked, when he had finished. “When things hot up it won’t be much fun.”

  “I know what it will be like,” said Parsons feelingly. “I think I can handle it, too.” The hard note in his voice belied the gentleness of his appearance. “It’ll mean contact with each of the divisions and choosing the right man at each. Will you start on that, or shall I?”

  “You.”

  “Thanks,” said Parsons. “First thing I’ll do is go and see Paterson.”

  “Yes. And second thing is to ask the Assistant Commissioner to see to banning all firework displays for the week of the election, Guy Fawkes Night or no Guy Fawkes Night.”

  “It will be a pleasure,” Parsons said. “Am I to drop everything else?”

  “Yes. Fix the handover with Lem here.”

  “Won’t you be in charge?”

  “I’m going away for a couple of weeks.”

  “Oh,” said Parsons. For a moment Gideon thought that his manner would offend Lemaitre, who could be very touchy if his competence was questioned even by inference. Then Parsons gave a broad, canonical smile. “We’ll show Gee-Gee how to run this office, Lem, won’t we?”


  Lemaitre clapped his hands like a pistol shot. Gideon bit back on a sharp comment, realizing that his reaction to the kidding was the clearest possible indication that he badly needed the coming holiday. One of the troubles was that he didn’t really trust Lemaitre or Parsons or anyone to handle their jobs without him; he was back in the indispensable mood, although he could not explain why Parsons had affected him like that.

  In the next hour Gideon’s mind roved over all the cases going through, the big and the small, and found himself fidgeting, particularly about the rumours of trouble over the election. Would he be able to pick up the reins where he had dropped them? Would he really be in charge of the situation during the election if he hadn’t followed it day by day? It could be more serious than he or anyone else wanted to admit.

  Was he right to go away at this juncture?

  There was a tap at the door, and grey-haired Jefferson came limping in.

  “I’ve got brochures and timetables and everything you need, sir,” he said. “The agency assures me there will be no trouble about booking any class of hotel at this time of year.”

  “That’s fine,” said Gideon, with forced heartiness.

  So he cleared his desk as best he could, and went away with Kate. For the first two days he was preoccupied with what might be going on back in London, but on the morning of the third day, driving toward Bordeaux, the warmth of the sun and the beauty of the autumn leaves of the vineyards drew worry and anxiety out of him. He slowed down so as to see the great clusters of grapes hanging from the vines, the families gathering them, the children and the women, young and old, carrying the big baskets to the carts, the huge carts with their round containers bulging with grapes, with men trampling on them, barefooted, to make room for more laden baskets.