A Delicate Truth A Novel

so he got the heavy treatment. Said the pansy-boy ranted at him like Hitler. Tried to persuade him he hadn’t seen what he saw. When that didn’twork, he offered him a hundred thousand dollars not to bubble. Jeb told him to shove it up his arse. Thinks he was confined in a special compound for non-accountable prisoners in transit. Thinks it’s where they would’ve put Punter if the story hadn’t been a lot of bollocks from the start.’
    ‘How about Jeb’s comrades-in-arms?’ Toby persisted. ‘Shorty and the others. What became of them?’
    ‘Thin air. Jeb’s hunch is, Crispin made them an offer they couldn’t refuse. Jeb didn’t blame them. Not that sort of chap. Fair-minded to a fault.’
    Kit had lapsed into silence, so Toby did the same. More headlights drifted across the rafters and vanished.
    ‘And now ?’ Toby asked.
    ‘Now? Now nothing ! The big empty. Jeb was due here last Wednesday. Breakfast 9 a.m. sharp, and we’d go to work. Said he was a punctual chap. I didn’t doubt him. Said he’d do the journey at night, safer. Asked me if he could hide his van in the barn. I said of course he bloody could. What did he want for breakfast? Scrambled egg. Couldn’t get enough of scrambled egg. I’d get rid of the women, we’d scramble ourselves some eggs, then put the story down on paper: his part, my part. Chapter and verse all the way. I’d be amanuensis, editor, scribe, and we’d take as long as it took. He’d got this piece of evidence he was all excited about. Didn’t say what it was. Cagey to a fault, so I didn’t press. You don’t press a chap like that. He’d bring it or he wouldn’t. I accepted that. I’d make the written presentation for both of us, he’d vet it, sign off on it, and it would be my job to see it through the proper channels to the top. That was the deal. Shook hands on it. We were –’ he broke off, scowled into the flames. ‘Happy as fleas,’ he said jerkily, colouring. ‘Eager for the fray. Pumped up. Not just him. Both of us.’
    ‘Because?’ Toby ventured.
    ‘Because we were going to tell the bloody truth at last, why d’you think?’ Kit barked angrily, taking a pull of Scotch and subsiding into his chair. ‘Last time I saw him, all right?’
    ‘All right,’ Toby agreed softly, and a long silence followed, until Kit grudgingly resumed.
    ‘Gave me a cellphone number. Not his own. Hasn’t got one. A friend’s. Comrade’s. Only chap he still trusted. Well, partly, anyway. My guess is it was Shorty, because they seemed to have a rapport in the hide. I didn’t ask, wasn’t my business. If I left a message, somebody would get it to him. That was all that mattered. Then he left. Left the club. Down the stairs and away, don’t ask me how. I thought he’d leave by the fire escape, but he didn’t. He just left.’
    Another pull of Scotch.
    ‘And you?’ Toby enquired in the same quiet, respectful voice.
    ‘I came home. What d’you think? To this place. To Suzanna, my wife. I’d promised her everything was all right, now I had to tell her it wasn’t all right at all. You can’t fake it with Suzanna. I didn’t tell her the details. I told her Jeb was coming to stay, and between us we’d sort it out. Suzanna took it – the way she does. “Just as long as it means resolution, Kit.” I said it did, and that was good enough for her ,’ he ended aggressively.
    Another wait while Kit wrestled with his memory.
    ‘Wednesday came. All right? Midday, Jeb still hadn’t shown up. Two o’clock, three, still hadn’t. I call the cellphone number he’s given me, get an automated answer, leave a message. Nightfall, I leave another message: hullo, it’s me, Paul, here again. Just wondered what happened to our date . Keeping Paul as my code name. For security. I’d given him our landline number here because we don’t get a signal. Thursday I leave another bloody message, get the same answering service. Friday morning, ten, we get a phone call. Jesus Christ! ’
    He has clapped a bony hand over his lower jaw and is holdingit there, muzzling the pain that refuses to be stilled, because the worst is evidently still to come.
     
    *
     
    Kit isn’t sitting in his club bedroom listening to Jeb any more. He isn’t shaking Jeb’s hand by the light of a London dawn, or watching him slip away down the club stairs. He’s not happy as a flea or pumped up, even if he’s still eager for the fray. He’s back home at the Manor and, having broken the bad