Rupert Thomson: Divided Kingdom

His eyes dropped to my cloak, then veered away again, lifting past my shoulder.

‘I seem to have mislaid my keys,’ I said. ‘Sorry to disturb you like this. I know it’s late.’

I waited while he went to fetch the spare set for me. I hadn’t mislaid my keys at all, of course. I’d left them in that hotel in Congreve, along with most of my clothes and the final draft of my lecture. At that point I hadn’t known whether I would have a use for them again — but here I was, four months later, with the pale-green carpet stretching before me and the marble-topped table standing over by the wall beneath the oval gilt-framed mirror. Nothing had changed. The lobby smelled as it had always smelled, of something sweet and baked. Like the inside of a cake tin.

When Loames returned with the keys, I thanked him and said goodnight, then I moved towards the lift and pressed the call button. Although I sensed him loitering behind me, I didn’t look round. He would pretend to be doing his job — checking the post on the table, or straightening the mirror — but he would actually be staring at my filth-encrusted garments and my ill-fitting boots, his curiosity more rampant than ever and even harder to articulate. Only when the lift’s cables looped down into the bottom of the shaft did I hear his front door softly close.

In my flat, all the lights were on. I stared at the switches, wondering if I could have forgotten to turn them off when I left for the conference. It would have been unlike me, certainly. And anyway, a light bulb couldn’t last four months, could it? Perhaps Loames had let himself in while I was away. After all, there might have been meters to read, or a gas leak to take care of — though surely he would have mentioned it … Perhaps he’d just wanted to have a snoop around. I was standing in the hall, weighing the various possibilities, when a rapid but subtle movement registered to my immediate right, in the very corner of my eye. I turned slowly. The toe of a man’s black shoe showed beyond the jamb on the right side of the living-room door. He was sitting in my favourite chair, it seemed, and if my reading of the movement I had caught a glimpse of was correct then he had just either crossed or re-crossed his legs. I walked towards the living-room. There in the armchair, and looking very much at home, was Ajit Vishram.

‘You must be surprised to find me here,’ he said.

But I wasn’t, not really. My capacity for surprise had been exhausted long ago. Instead — for a few seconds, at least — I found I was able to treat Vishram not as my superior, or even as a work colleague, but as yet another stranger whose significance had still to be determined.

‘I hope you’ll forgive me for intruding like this,’ he went on. ‘I wanted to be the first to welcome you when you returned.’ His right foot see-sawed in the air, suggesting that he was both intrigued and entertained by the unusual situation. Either that, or he was nervous. I couldn’t imagine why Vishram might be nervous, though.

I stepped into the room, but chose not to take a seat. I instinctively felt that the act of sitting down would signal acquiescence on my part, if not actual complicity. Whatever we said to each other from now on, it was somehow already apparent to me that our relationship had altered for ever.

I moved towards the picture window that opened on to the terrace. My dim reflection, the darkness of the night beyond. The coolness of the glass. Like Loames, Vishram would be studying my clothes, but I couldn’t imagine what he would be thinking. I had never been able to see into that intricate, shuttered mind of his.

‘You must have been worried about me,’ I said at last.

‘Yes.’ Vishram cleared his throat. ‘We did have some moments of anxiety.’

I looked over my shoulder, waiting for him to go on.

‘There were a number of occasions,’ he said, ‘when you eluded us.’ He paused again. ‘After the bomb, for instance.’

The clock on the nearby church struck midnight.

‘You wouldn’t believe how dangerous it is out there,’ I said.

‘That’s why we had you followed.’

‘How did you arrange that exactly? I’m curious.’

‘I can’t go into specifics, I’m afraid. Suffice to say that we have contacts.’

‘Adrian Croy.’

Vishram smiled to himself, then he looked down and picked a piece of lint off the sleeve of his jacket. For the first time in my life I found myself wondering whether there might not be some higher authority — a committee made up of representatives from each of the four countries, for example, that would convene in secret and oversee the running of the divided kingdom. It would be a natural extension of the clandestine meetings that had resulted in the Rearrangement. A rainbow cabinet … It seemed logical — even necessary. Before I could take the thought any further, though, Vishram spoke again.

‘Was she good?’

‘Was who good?’

‘Your shadow,’ he said. ‘Your guide.’

‘She was very conscientious. I was impressed.’ Then, keeping my voice impartial, I said, ‘You must care about me a lot, to go to such lengths.’

‘I would’ve thought that was obvious.’

‘Because I’m an employee?’

Vishram appeared to hesitate. ‘That would be one way of putting it.’

I studied him as he sat there in my favourite chair. He was wearing a typically elegant and yet understated suit. His feet were neat and slender in their highly polished shoes. He looked immaculate, omniscient.

‘Did you know I was going to do something?’ I said. ‘Have you always known?’

‘Not always.’ Vishram let the words sink in for a moment. ‘I didn’t know what you were going to do, of course, or when you were going to do it. I suppose I expected something out of the ordinary, though.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. I would have been disappointed otherwise.’

‘But I broke the law.’

‘Sometimes it’s the only way.’

‘I’m not sure I understand.’

‘You’ve been to so many places. You’ve met the people who live there. You’ve learned about their difficulties, their dissatisfactions, and that knowledge is invaluable.’ Vishram paused. ‘I’m almost a little envious.’

‘You could have sent me,’ I said. ‘Officially, I mean.’

‘Not for more than a few days. And anyway, you wouldn’t have seen half the things you’ve seen. You wouldn’t have gone as far as you did.’ He indicated my cloak and boots with one of his vague but graceful gestures.

‘In a sense, then,’ I said slowly, ‘you’ve been using me.’

‘You’re forgetting something. It was your decision to go missing, and yours alone. We had no control over you, and we chose not to interfere. All we did was arrange for someone to keep an eye on you.’

Each time I tried to better him, each time I thought he might be about to yield, he took the force that lay behind my words and turned it back on me. It was as if he had studied an oral version of the martial arts. And yet I sensed a weakness in him somewhere, an uncertainty, which made me want to probe further.

‘How did you explain my absence from the office?’

‘You were ill,’ Vishram said, ‘in hospital.’

‘No visitors?’

‘You were quarantined.’

‘What was wrong with me?’

‘Something that was never properly identified. Something that resisted diagnosis.’

‘A mystery condition.’

‘Exactly.’

We exchanged a smile, our first of the evening.

Rising to his feet, Vishram announced that it was late and that he really ought to be going. He was sorry, he said, if it had upset me to find him in my flat.

‘Have you eaten yet?’ I said.

Both Vishram’s eyebrows lifted. ‘No.’