A Scandalous Man. Gavin Esler
Huge mess. Call me asap. Love A xx.’
He dialled her number.
‘Aitch! Thank god!’
‘Tell me.’
‘Where have you been? I’ve been desperately …’
‘Working. Sorry. Phone’s been off. Just found out … Shitty, shitty day, already. Tell me.’
‘The police called. A couple of hours ago. His cleaner found him lying on the carpet first thing this morning, fully clothed. Suit. Shirt. Tie. Pills of all sorts scattered by his side and an empty whisky bottle. Wrists slashed and a kitchen knife by his side. I came straight over. I’m at his cottage now.’ She stopped gabbling and took a deep breath. ‘Aitch, they are not sure whether it’s suicide or maybe murder done up to look like suicide.’
‘I heard,’ he said.
‘Attempted suicide. Attempted murder,’ she corrected herself and started gabbling again. ‘He’s at the hospital in Gloucester having his stomach pumped and a blood transfusion. I can’t see him until later and nobody can tell me what his chances are. The police wanted me here at the house in case they have questions, but I’m like, well, maybe I don’t have any answers.’
‘What are they doing?’
‘Mooching. It’s as if they think they ought to be looking for something, but haven’t a clue what it might be. It’s terrible, Aitch! Terrible, I …’
‘Who would want to kill him now? Twenty years ago, maybe you could understand it. He had enemies. But now?’
‘No idea,’ she replied. ‘The police are saying – you know – Inspector Morse-type bullshit – “keeping an open mind”. “Exploring all avenues.” But bottles of pills? Whisky and knife wounds? And they’re pumping his guts for a drugs overdose? So what does it sound like to you, Aitch? A mistake? He wasn’t the mistake type. Or the cry-for-help type.’
‘He wasn’t the suicide type either,’ Harry said.
‘What is the suicide type?’
‘I don’t know – but not him. He’d have done it years ago if he had any shame, but he didn’t because he hasn’t. It doesn’t make any sense.’
‘How would you know?’ Amanda shot back. ‘You are hardly the expert on what makes sense. Or on our father’s character, for that matter.’
Harry wondered what percentage of telephone calls with his sister ended in a row. He guessed at fifty-fifty.
‘Maybe,’ he conceded. ‘But all I ever remember was Mr Stand-On-Your-Own-Two-Feet, Rugged Individualism, every day is full of opportunities, seize it while you can blah, blah.’
‘I don’t see …’
‘He’d never top himself, Amanda. Never.’
‘People change, Aitch. You have.’
He let it pass. People change. His father used to say that all the time, as if he could actually talk in italics. People change. It was one of his favourite parables. Father loved his parables. Harry had seen the clip on TV.
‘It’s a flip-flop,’ some smirking BBC television interviewer was hectoring Robin Burnett when he was Chief Secretary to the Treasury.
‘Certainly, it’s a change in direction,’ Robin agreed smoothly.
‘A change in direction?’ the interviewer repeated, his voice dripping with scorn. ‘This government has just done a complete economic U-turn and …’
‘John Maynard Keynes,’ Robin Burnett interrupted, ‘was once asked why he had changed his mind about some aspect of economic policy. And do you know his reply?’
The interviewer opened his mouth like a goldfish.
‘Well, do you?’ Robin Burnett persisted.
‘I …’
‘No?’
Robin Burnett was on top form, intimidatory, like a pike about to swallow the goldfish. He leaned towards the interviewer and wagged his finger.
‘Keynes would thunder, “When the facts change, I change my mind.” And then he would say, “and what do you do, sir?” So, what do you do, Mr Day?’
And Robin Burnett laughed. The interviewer was crushed. Harry thought it was funny that his father would quote Keynes at all, given his views on Keynesian economics, but there you are. The TV viewers would laugh too.
‘Painkillers,’ Amanda was saying.
‘What?’
‘Painkillers. What he swallowed. Co-proxamol. Is that a name of a painkiller? And paracetamol. And some other –ol. Oh, yes, alcohol. I knew there were three –ols. Whisky. The police said it was The Oban. That would be father. Nothing but a good malt.’
‘That saves us identifying the body,’ Harry suggested. ‘If he had a bottle of The Oban beside him, it was him all right.’
‘Harry!’
She only ever called him ‘Harry’ like that when she was upset. ‘How can you talk like that when …’
He wanted to avoid tears.
‘I mean, Amanda, just as you suggested, if he did try to commit suicide, there would be a good malt whisky involved in the story somewhere,’ Harry replied emolliently. ‘That’s all.’
‘Anyway, Aitch,’ Amanda recovered, ‘the police are wandering around in white suits. Forensic officers, they call them. And then there’s something else. They asked me to check out father’s house in London.’
Harry blinked.
‘He hasn’t got a house in London.’
‘Exactly what I told them. Just the cottage in Tetbury, I said. So then this police officer says, very suspicious now, “Oh, really, Miss Burnett?” And he does something with his eyebrows while he’s saying it, like he regards me as a total toss-pot. And then this other one asks how often father visits his flat in Hampstead.’
‘His flat in Hampstead?’ Harry echoed.
‘Yes,’ Amanda went on. ‘They showed me papers scattered all around the floor where they found him, photographs of this mansion block and utility bills with a Hampstead address and the name Robin Burnett on them. The police need to check it out. Today, they said. And they want one of us – which means you, Aitch – to go along. I’ll stay here for a bit and then go to the hospital. One of us should be at the hospital in case he …’
‘Dies,’ he said brusquely.
‘Recovers,’ she corrected him. ‘In which case, I’ll call you. And if he dies, then I’ll also call you. You go check out the Hampstead place, yes?’
‘Yes,’ Harry agreed.
She gave him the details.
‘And you?’
‘I want to get out of here before the TV crews arrive. It’s already on the radio. “Disgraced Thatcher minister gravely ill.” Something ghastly like that.’
Oh, god. Harry’s heart sank. Disgraced Thatcher minister. His father’s life and career reduced to a headline. That headline. The nightmare really was starting again.
‘Funny thing,’ Amanda said, ‘after the card he sent me last week.’
‘The card?’ Harry felt numb. He knew he was sounding like an echo.
‘I kept it. Here, in my bag.’
He could hear her rustle around.
‘Pretty picture. Birds in clouds and blue sky. Inside a few lines of Persian poetry about