“Fuck off, you old ponce,” Daisy told him, and that was that: They were together again.
The cards were tidied away, and a fresh pot of tea made. CC’s bag held a big fish pie from a nearby supermarket, bags of prepared greens, and a bottle of Bushmills. That was for later. First was talk. CC was on his feet, his posture tutorish, his back to the door. Daisy remained on the sofa, and Avril joined her. Al leaned on its arm, every atom of his aura declaring,
Charles Cornell Stamoran—“Stam” to most; CC to his inner circle—held the floor.
“You’ll know David Cartwright passed a while ago.”
“And good riddance,” said Al.
“Hush now,” Avril said. “He was one of the good ones.”
“Was he, though? Was he?”
“By his own lights.”
“We’re all good by our own lights, Avvy. There’s no effort involved in being good on those terms.”
“Good or bad, he’s just as dead,” CC reminded them. “And we’re not here to argue about his merits, though I think it’s fair to say, Al, that the man well knew he’d stained his hands often enough.”
“Well, maybe he made a deathbed confession and that smoothed his path to eternal light. But I heard he came apart like a jigsaw in the end. The man had no more sense of things he’d done than he knew what day of the week it was. Which is not a state for making confessions in, wouldn’t you say? No, I think David Cartwright took his past to the grave unshriven.”
CC raised an eyebrow.
Al said, “What, I don’t get to use a vocabulary?”
Daisy said, “Pitchfork,” and they all looked at her.
“That’s what we’re talking about, isn’t it? Pitchfork.”
“Yes, Daisy,” CC said. “It’s Pitchfork.”
“So glad you could make it, Diana.”
“Well, family.”
Not hers, obviously, but Peter Judd’s.
The occasion was his youngest official daughter’s eighteenth; the location Nob-Nobs, a club on the far edge of Shoreditch which, if it survived its name, would only have its décor, acoustics and bar staff to weather if it hoped to see its anniversary. Diana assumed the choice of venue was the daughter’s, though a good half of the guest list, comprising former MPs, was clearly of Judd’s devising. So many recently unseated players, she might have been backstage at a rodeo. The pasted-on expressions of merriment would have been over the top for a pantomime, but then the election wipeout wasn’t so much a memory as an ongoing trauma.
Judd seemed to be enjoying their distress enormously—it had been some time since he’d sat in the House himself, and his resignation gave him licence to proclaim, loudly and often, that he’d never been ousted by the electorate. His air of dishevelled bonhomie was as cultivated as ever, and he could, when he wanted, make for a diverting companion. But accepting his invitation had been responding to a tug on the leash. This state of affairs couldn’t be allowed to continue.
“She’s looking very . . . robust,” she continued.
“Xanthippe? Yes, she takes after her mother.” As with so many of his statements, there was no telling whether Judd believed his own words or merely expected others to. In this instance, Diana compared Judd’s dad-bellied figure to his wife’s elegant form, and reached her own conclusion as to who their daughter was taking after. Judd, meanwhile, was leaning sideways to accost a passing former Cabinet Minister, the joke he whispered provoking huge mirth. “Just think,” he said to Diana in the man’s wake. “When he has someone explain that to him, he’ll laugh even harder.”
“Always an education, PJ. But do you mind if I slip away? I’m sure the young won’t notice, and I’ve a busy day tomorrow.”
“No, you hang on. I need a word.”
There was no pretence that this was a request.
She weighed her options, but it didn’t take long—releasing herself from Judd’s web wasn’t going to be achieved by making small stands. So she smiled, sipped her wine, and sidled into a corner where she could watch the young dance and the middle-aged ogle. The music was vaguely familiar and specifically unpleasant. When a short, bespectacled one-time holder of several great offices of state unknotted his tie, wrapped it round his forehead and joined the throng on the dance floor, she wondered if Judd’s personal protection team might escort him from the premises, but had to settle for hoping the excitement would see him off.
When Judd had finished making her wait, he led her down to the cloakrooms, where there was a lobby with a two-seater sofa, a giant plastic rubber plant and a mirror in which she looked old. Passing straight through that, he led her into the disabled toilet and locked the door behind them.
“For God’s sake—”
“Oh, don’t be a schoolgirl. Anyone clocks us, they’ll think we’re screwing or doing a line. Perfect alibi.”
“One of these days, your lack of decorum’ll get you into trouble. Meanwhile, it’s just the rest of us need worry. What do you want?”
“So abrupt. Maybe we
“Peter—”
