Peter Guttridge - City of Dreadful Night

I could see she was trying to figure out how she was supposed to be with me. She’d known me a long time. We were, by nature of my friendship with her husband, supposedly close. But I was no longer high status, no longer potentially useful. Rather the reverse.

I wondered if her husband had briefed her against me. I smiled as the word ‘briefed’ popping into my head in relation to a husband talking to a wife. In their case, I’m sure that was exactly how they conducted business.

She mistook my smile and pasted one on her own face for just an instant. Her sourness had affected her undoubted beauty. Her mouth turned down at the edges, her skin was taut against her high cheekbones. Her pursuit of thinness had made her gaunt. The cords of her neck were hawsers, her legs were sticks.

I was two steps down from her so our eyes were at the same level.

‘Bob. How nice. Is William expecting you?’

‘I doubt it.’

She turned, throwing over her shoulder:

‘I’ll tell him you’re here.’

‘I assume I don’t need to wait on the doorstep.’

She didn’t reply.

I went into the wide hallway. I hadn’t been in this house for several years but nothing seemed to have changed. Period prints in heavy frames on the walls, stripped pine floor and staircase, waxed not varnished, of course. Opulent flowers on a table – lilies and some exotic succulents.

I went into the sitting room to my left. Marble fireplace with a log fire laid but not lit. Two deep sofas with scatter cushions in expensive fabrics laid across them. Two floor-to-ceiling windows looking over the square.

Some of their art was on the walls. Lizzy liked BritArt. They had a small, early Damian Hirst just inside the door. There was a collage made of elephant dung and discarded snake skins by an artist whose name I had forgotten.

I walked to the window. How could someone who was essentially a public relations guy afford to live in one of these multimillion-pound Holland Park villas? Had he done a Mandelson and borrowed money from one of the party’s generous friends? Well, that was a question but not one of the ones I intended to ask.

‘He’ll be down in a moment.’

Lizzy’s voice was as tight as her face. She sat on the sofa at the far side of the room, bony knees together.

‘I hear you’ve been seeing a lot of our daughter.’

I sank into the sofa opposite. She pointed at the lapel of my jacket.

‘You’ll never get that pollen off.’ I looked at the brown dust from the lilies I didn’t realize I’d brushed against.

‘We’ve been working together on something.’

‘Her men aren’t normally as old as you.’ Her smile was mocking. ‘Though her women sometimes are.’

I let that go, though I realized I hadn’t given Kate’s sexuality a single thought – why would I?

‘How’s work, Lizzy? Got some interesting projects?’

‘I’m doing a couple of tellies, a few profiles. But I’ve been commissioned to write a novel.’

‘Sex and sleaze in Westminster?’

‘Naturally. Tres discreet, though.’

‘I didn’t think those books were supposed to be discreet.’

‘Well, you know – relatively speaking.’

‘Bob – what a surprise.’

Simpson was standing in the doorway. He didn’t come forward to greet me, I didn’t stand.

Lizzy uncoiled from the sofa.

‘Lovely to see you, Bob.’

Simpson closed the door behind his wife and replaced her on the sofa.

‘I can’t do anything for you, you know,’ he said. ‘You made your own bed.’

‘Other people tucked me in.’

Simpson’s mouth twitched in slight acknowledgement of a smile. I hadn’t really noticed until now how sinister he looked. That Prince of Darkness tag that used to be applied to spin doctors certainly applied to the way he looked now. His hair had gone grey but his eyebrows and goatee beard were black. His mouth was an ungenerous slash.

I thought about how pretty and warm his daughter was. How come?

‘You’ve been seeing a lot of my daughter,’ he said, reading my thoughts.

‘So I gather. You know she’s been threatened because of you.’

‘What?’

‘You know. Don’t pretend you don’t. What are you into? Is it linked to the Milldean mess?’

Simpson looked at me, then out of the window. He pouted a little.

‘It’s none of your business, Bob. Let me just say that it was a misunderstanding.’

‘ Was? Does that mean you’ve got it sorted.’

Simpson always had a poker face. Like most politicos, you could never tell what he was really thinking. But I thought I saw something in his eyes.

‘She’s still in danger, isn’t she?’

‘Absolutely not,’ he said.

‘But it’s not sorted.’

‘Just a little local difficulty, Bob, that’s all.’

‘Tell me about Little Stevie.’

‘Who’s Little Stevie?’ he said, looking genuinely puzzled.

‘One of the victims. The one who was shot sitting on the loo.’

‘Can’t help you there. Why would you think I’d know?’

‘He was a rent boy of some sort.’

‘I repeat my question.’

‘Was it blackmail? Are you still being blackmailed – did your account just get passed on to somebody else when Little Stevie was killed?’

‘Blackmailed about what?’ Simpson uncrossed his legs and leant forward. ‘Do you mean about my sexuality? You know I swing both ways – is that what you’re referring to?’

Although we’d never talked about it, I did know. There was an occasion years ago when Simpson and I had gone one lunchtime to hear some free jazz in the ICA.

It had been too free, even for me, but it was summer and hot and the wine had flowed freely. When the wine ran out, we’d left together and as we were walking across St James’s Park in the heat of the afternoon he said: ‘This is the kind of day to have a cool shower then spend the rest of the afternoon in bed with somebody.’

I laughed and nodded my head.

‘Shall we?’ he said.

I laughed again and gestured to the people sitting on the grass.

‘Who did you have in mind?’

He looked at me for a moment.

‘I was thinking you and me.’

It hung there as we threaded our way between the sunbathers. I remember distinctly wondering what the fuck I could say to that. I liked the guy but I wasn’t interested in sex with him. As best I recall, I pretended that we were just joking.

‘Another time, gorgeous,’ I probably said.

‘You’re on,’ he definitely said.

It was never referred to again.

Simpson laughed now without warmth.

‘I still remember your face as you attempted to fend me off without hurting my feelings. Priceless.’

‘I think you knew Little Stevie,’ I said

He gestured with his hands.

‘Prove it.’ He leant forward again. ‘Bob, let me give you some advice. Forget this obsession about the massacre. Get what remains of your life back together. Do your little radio spot about the Trunk Murders-’

‘You’re offering me career advice?’

I was pushing down the anger. I hated his imperturbability, hated the fact he’d been part of the train wreck of my recent life. My wife may have been right – I was looking for someone to blame because I wasn’t willing to take the responsibility myself. Maybe so, but I felt justified in focusing on my former friend. My anger seethed because I couldn’t see how to get him.

‘Your daughter is a good girl.’

‘Yes. Sometimes the apple falls far from the tree. She’s tediously good. Does she ever have fun?’

‘Lizzy suggested she was bisexual too.’

‘There’s a lot of it about. Family tradition. My father swung both ways. He liked the theatricals. A lot of married actors liked to go backstage, so to speak. He had flings with Olivier and Michael Redgrave, to hear him tell it. Maybe with your father too – who knows?’