A Delicate Truth A Novel

done worse things in its time. Suzanna thinks they could, anyway. So do I.’
    ‘Then watch my lips.’
    From under furrowed brows, Kit was doing just that.
    ‘Kit. There was zero – repeat: zero – loss of life. Want me to say it again? Not one drop of blood, not anyone’s. No dead babies, no dead mothers. Convinced now? Or do I have to ask the concierge to bring a Bible?’
     
    *
     
    The walk from the Connaught to Pall Mall on that balmy spring evening was for Kit less a pleasure than a sad celebration. Jeb, poor fellow, was obviously very damaged goods indeed. Kit’s heart went out to him: a former comrade, a brave ex-soldier who had given in to feelings of avarice and injustice. Well, he’d known a better man than that, a man to respect, a man to follow. Should their paths happen to cross again – which God forbid, but should they – he would not withhold the hand of friendship. As to their chance meeting at Bailey’s Fayre, he had no time for Crispin’s base suspicions. It was sheer coincidence, and that was that. The greatest actor on earth couldn’t have faked that ravaged face as it stared up at him from the tailgate of the van. Jeb might be psychotic, hemight be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or any of the other big words we throw around so easily these days. But to Kit he would remain the Jeb who had led him to the high point of his career, and nothing was ever going to take that away, period.
    And it was with this determinedly honed formulation in his head that he stepped into a side street and called Suzanna, a thing he had been dying to do, but also in some indefinable way dreading, ever since he had left the Connaught.
    ‘Things are really good, Suki’ – picking his words carefully because, as Emily had unkindly pointed out, Suzanna was if anything more security conscious than he was. ‘We’re dealing with a very sick chap who’s tragically lost his way in life and can’t tell truth from fiction, okay?’ He tried again. ‘Nobody – repeat: nobody – got hurt in the accident. Suki? Are you there?’
    Oh Christ, she’s crying. She’s not. Suki never cries.
    ‘Suki, darling, there was no accident . None plural. It’s all right . No child left behind. Or mother. Our friend from the Fayre is deluded . He’s a poor, brave chap, he’s got mental problems, he’s got money problems, and he’s all muddled up in his head. I’ve had it straight from the top man.’
    ‘Kit?’
    ‘What is it, darling? Tell me. Please. Suzanna?’
    ‘I’m all right, Kit. I was just a bit tired and low. I’m better now.’
    Still not weeping? Suki? Not on your life. Not old Suki. Never. He had been intending to call Emily next, but on reflection: best give it a rest till tomorrow.
     
    *
     
    In his club, it was the watering hour. Old buddies greeted him, bought him a jar, he bought one back. Kidneys and bacon at the long table, coffee and port in the library to make a proper nightof it. The lift out of service, but he negotiated the four flights with ease and groped his way down the long corridor to his bedroom without knocking over any bloody fire extinguishers. But he had to run his hand up and down the wall to find the light switch that kept eluding him, and while he was groping he noticed there was a lot of fresh air in the room. Had the previous occupant, in flagrant contradiction of club rules, been smoking and left the window open to conceal the evidence? If so, Kit was minded to write a stiff letter to the secretary.
    And when eventually he did find the switch, and put on the light, there on a Rexine-covered armchair beneath the open window, wearing a smart dark-blue blazer with a triangle of white handkerchief in the top pocket, sat Jeb.



4
    The brown A4 envelope landed face upwards on the doormat of Toby Bell’s flat in Islington at twenty past three on a Saturday morning, shortly after his return from a rewarding but stressful tour at the British Embassy in Beirut. Immediately on security alert, he grabbed a hand torch from his bedside and tiptoed warily along the corridor to the sound of softly retreating footsteps down the stairs and the closing of the front door.
    The envelope was of the thick, oily variety, and unfranked. The words PRIVATE & CONFIDENTIAL were written in large inked capitals in the top-left corner. The address T. Bell, Esquire, Flat 2 , was done in a cursive, English-looking hand he didn’t recognize. The back flap was double sealed with sticky