David Belbin: Bone & Cane

She explained what had happened with Jasper March.

‘You don’t waste much time, do you? I only moved out yesterday.’

‘He said he wanted advice, not a date. Or a beard for the tabloids.’

‘They won’t get to me, but thanks for the warning. You ought to tell Winston.’

Winston was Sarah’s electoral agent. She poured herself a pint of water before getting into bed. It was a double bed, though Dan had rarely come over from Nottingham to share it with her. His social-work job kept him there in the week and often left him drained at the weekends. They had been together for two years and could easily have drifted on for another two. Until one of them met somebody who really excited them. But Sarah was too busy to meet new people and Dan quite enjoyed having an MP as his partner. He didn’t seem to mind theirs being a weekend-only relationship. Nor did he object vociferously when Sarah suggested that he move out. Indeed, he’d managed the whole thing in less than a month.

‘At least they called you “a rising star”,’ Steve Carter told Sarah, six days later. Steve Carter was the closest friend Sarah had on the Labour benches. They were having a late lunch in Sarah’s favourite small Italian restaurant, at a table well away from the window. The purpose of the lunch was to discuss damage limitation after the Jasper March story had been splashed all over the Tory tabloids. Sarah often acted as a soundboard for Steve and he, less often, did the same for her. ‘And the serious Sundays didn’t touch it,’ he went on. ‘They could tell that the story was a crock.’

‘The Mail On Sunday had a nasty paragraph,’ Sarah said. She had glanced at the papers on Sunday but not really taken them in.

‘People who vote for you don’t read the Mail On Sunday .’

‘If I had some of their readers, I might have a chance of winning. “How did they know we were going to be there?” I asked him. “Somebody at the restaurant must have called them,” he said. No fucking way. You should have seen him grab me as we went through the door – he knew they were outside. What I don’t know is why he needed to do it.’

‘His divorce is about to hit the papers,’ Steve said. ‘He’s doing what we do every time we announce a watered-down policy – getting his betrayal in first .’

‘You mean he’d rather be exposed as an adulterer than a cuckold?’

‘My guess is he’s hardly a cuckold. It was always a marriage of convenience, but she’s fallen for someone else.’

‘You mean. Oh shit, I mean, I knew about . . .’ Sarah named the three most prominent gay Tory MPs, ‘but March . . .’

‘I’m pretty sure that’s it. He escaped my gaydar for a while. But here’s how I guessed: during my first few weeks here, he was quite friendly. When I came out, he became perceptibly cooler. He’s too slick to be a homophobe. Ergo . . .’

‘He didn’t want to be gay by association. Fuck me.’

‘You’re asking the wrong man, sweetie.’

Steve had got in at the last election, after nine years working for the Low Pay Unit. He had come out shortly after being elected, and survived a lot of stick in his constituency as a consequence. Shortly after Steve came out, the former party leader, John Smith, showing his tolerance, made him an education spokesman. More recently, Tony Blair had made Steve shadow second in Transport. As Steve’s career prospered, the local prejudice had quietened down.

‘Excuse me.’ Sarah looked round to see that she and Steve weren’t the only MPs in the restaurant. ‘I just wanted to say, treat it like water off a duck’s back. It’s the only way.’ The speaker was Gill Temperley, a Home Office minister who had prospered under the current Prime Minister. ‘Gossip’s the engine oil of politics,’ she went on. ‘If you can, best to be flattered by it, to use it.’

‘Like Jasper used me?’ Sarah asked.

‘I’m sure you’ll find a way to use him back.’ Gill gave her a wink which was almost dirty before gliding out of the room, followed at a discreet distance by a tall young man with a mop of blonde hair.

‘Didn’t know you two were friendly,’ Steve said when they’d gone.

‘That’s the first time we’ve spoken.’

‘A Compassionate Conservative. I thought they were a media myth.’

Sarah tried to work out how to phrase a delicate question. Steve was better at collecting gossip than she was. Pushing fifty, Gill was attractive, but not overwhelmingly so. In Parliament, as Sarah had found, a reasonable figure and a pretty face made any woman into an object of lust. Men had to have someone to fantasize about during long debates. She lowered her voice.

‘Do you think the dirt on her is true?’

Gill was reputed to have an open marriage. Her husband was a Euro MP who spent weekdays in Brussels. Gill certainly had a different, always handsome, male ‘researcher’ every year, but that proved little.

‘Oh yes.’

‘But the papers leave her alone.’

‘Tories are better at managing these things than we are. Gill’s discreet. Both her and her hubby are friendly with the papers’ owners. And they’re rich enough to sue. A paper that wanted to get her would need its story spot on, fully backed up.’

‘Whereas I can’t afford to sue anyone,’ Sarah pointed out.

‘There was nothing in any of the papers for you to sue over. Litigation only benefits lawyers. Anyway, I’m telling you, babe, if the punters think you’re fucking a handsome bastard it isn’t going to hurt you one little bit.’

4

Sarah’s fortnightly surgeries rotated around every ward in the constituency. The second surgery of the second month was in Stoneywood Library. Most of the cases she took on could be handled by a Citizens’ Advice Bureau but an MP carried more weight with the agencies concerned, usually branches of the Home Office or Social Security. This Saturday, her last visitor was a member of the Shanks family, the dead police officer’s younger sister, Polly Bolton. The poor cow had adopted the murdered couple’s children.

Sarah had seen to it that Polly was the last appointment. They could go on as long as necessary. However, she was already running half an hour late.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she told Polly. ‘But I can stay as long as it takes.’

‘I can’t.’ Sarah’s age, with hard, grey eyes, Polly looked nearer forty. For all that, her platinum blonde hair was professionally done and her steely, over made-up face formed a striking carapace, beneath which beauty might lurk. ‘I go on shift in half an hour,’ she continued. ‘I’ve a taxi coming in ten minutes.’

‘I do apologize.’

‘Doesn’t matter. What I have to say won’t take long. That Ed Clark was all over the paper yesterday, going on about justice and the compensation he has coming. What I want to know is, where’s justice for my brother, rotting in his grave? Where’s justice for our Liv?’

‘I share your concern,’ Sarah said, wishing she could explain how true this was. She talked about police systems, about due legal process. Polly interrupted.

‘Police talk to me. Terry was one of theirs. They say they’ll reopen the case but there’s no point, because they know who did it: Ed Clark. They say if Ed Clark puts a single foot wrong, they’ll have him back inside, but they have to be careful or it’ll look like victimization. Far as I can see, you and his lawyers are the only people who think Ed Clark’s innocent. So tell me, who do you think did it?’

‘I don’t know,’ Sarah said. ‘Whatever officers who aren’t connected to the case are telling you, the investigation is ongoing. Believe me, nobody will rest until they find out who killed your brother and sister-in-law. We all want to see that monster brought to justice.’