A Delicate Truth A Novel

her my love, if she exists, and take a lot of care because I have a bad feeling you’re going to need it, now that our old friend Giles, alas, is no longer with us.’
    ‘Not with us ? You mean he’s dead ?’ Toby exclaimed, ignoring in his concern the implication that Oakley was in some way his protector.
    But Charlie was already chuckling away:
    ‘Dear me, no! I thought you knew. Worse. Our friend Giles Oakley is a banker . And you thought he was dead. Oh dear, oh dear, wait till I tell Beatrix. Trust our Giles to make timely use of the revolving door, I say.’ And lowering his voice to one of sympathy, ‘He’d got as high as they’d let him go, mind you. Reached his ceiling, hadn’t he? – as far as they were concerned. Nobody’s going to give him the top billet, not after what happened in Hamburg , are they? You’d never know when it was coming home to roost – well, would you?’
    But Toby, reeling from so many blows at once, had no words. After only a week back in London and a full tour in Beirut, during which Oakley had vanished into mandarin thin air, Toby had been curious to know when and how his erstwhile patron would surface, if at all.
    Well, now he had his answer. The lifelong foe of speculative bankers and their works, the man who had branded themdrones, parasites, socially useless and a blight on any decent economy had taken the enemy’s shilling.
    And why had Oakley done that, according to Charlie Wilkins?
    Because the wise heads of Whitehall had decided he wasn’t bankable.
    And why wasn’t Oakley bankable?
    Lean your head back on the iron-hard cushions of the late train back to Victoria.
    Close your eyes, say Hamburg , and tell yourself the story you swore you would never speak aloud.
     
    *
     
    Shortly after arriving at the Berlin Embassy, Toby happens to be on night duty when a call comes in from the superintendent of the Davidwache in Hamburg, the police station charged with monitoring the Reeperbahn’s sex industry. The superintendent asks to speak to the most senior person available. Toby replies that he himself is that person, which at 3 a.m. he is. Knowing that Oakley is in Hamburg addressing an august body of ship-owners, he is immediately wary. There had been talk of Toby tagging along for the experience, but Oakley had scotched it.
    ‘We have a drunk Englishman in our cells,’ the superintendent explains, determined to air his excellent English. ‘It is unfortunately necessary to arrest him for causing a serious disturbance at an extreme establishment. He also has many wounds ,’ he adds. ‘On his torso, actually.’
    Toby suggests the superintendent contact Consular Section in the morning. The superintendent replies that such a delay might not be in the best interests of the British Embassy. Toby asks why not.
    ‘This Englishman has no papers and no money. All are stolen. Also no clothes. The owner of the establishment tells us hewas flagellated in the normal manner and regrettably became out of control. However, the prisoner is telling us he is an important official of your embassy, not your ambassador, maybe, but better.’
    It takes Toby just three hours to reach the doorstep of the Davidwache, having driven at top speed down the autobahn through clouds of ground mist. Oakley is lolling half awake in the superintendent’s office wearing a police dressing gown. His hands, bloodied at the fingertips, are bandaged to the arms of his chair. His mouth is swollen in a crooked pout. If he recognizes Toby, he gives no sign of it. Toby gives none in return.
    ‘You know this man, Mr Bell?’ the superintendent enquires, in a heavily suggestive tone. ‘Maybe you decide you have never seen him before in your life, Mr Bell?’
    ‘This man is a complete stranger to me,’ Toby replies obediently.
    ‘He is an imposter, perhaps?’ the superintendent suggests, again too knowingly by half.
    Toby concedes that the man may indeed be an imposter.
    ‘Then maybe you should take this imposter back to Berlin and interrogate him sharply?’
    ‘Thank you. I will.’
    From the Reeperbahn, Toby drives Oakley, now in a police tracksuit, to a hospital on the other side of town. No broken bones but the body a mess of lacerations that could be whip marks. At a crowded superstore, he buys him a cheap suit, then calls Hermione to explain that her husband has had a minor car accident. Nothing grave, he says, Giles was sitting in the back of a limousine without his seat belt. On the return