‘Gosh. Thanks. You look … you look wond—’
She waved the compliment away.
‘Enough of that. Why am I here?’
He traced the condensation on his pint glass with the tip of one finger.
‘Perhaps I just wanted to see you. Is that so hard to believe?’
‘No. I know you always want to see me, but you wouldn’t humiliate yourself to ask unless it was something important.’
She was right, as ever. With Hannah, you never had to second-guess or be mired in a moment’s indecision. She was the kind of woman who drove ambulances in war zones and made jam for jumble sales and knew how to roast potatoes in goose fat and sew curtains while casually saving an entire nation from sliding into irrelevance. Hannah knew exactly who she was and what to do and how to do it and she frequently knew what other people should do too, which was why he needed to speak to her.
‘I’ve come into possession of some documents …’ he started.
‘Oh please do stop talking like you’re a lady detective. Cut to the chase, Richard.’
So he told her.
By the time he was done, she’d finished her first G&T and polished off a second. He was gratified to find that he’d made her think. She was unusually quiet.
Eventually, she said: ‘That poor woman.’
It was typical that her first thought was for Felicity Fitzmaurice. Hannah had inordinate respect for other women and was staunchly loyal to her friends.
‘You want my advice?’ she asked him.
‘Always.’
At this, she gave a brief smile.
‘I’m glad you trusted me with this, Richard. And just because the romantic part of our life together is over, I hope you know that I still consider you family.’
He was embarrassed by how much this moved him.
‘And as for what I think you should do?’
He nodded.
‘You know what I think.’
He realised that he did; that he had known all along.
‘Burn the fuckers down,’ she said, placing one of her heavy, capable hands over his. ‘Then throw away the matches.’
Walking into the garden at the back of theWitness’s offices, the first person he sees is the Tory peer Lord Cunningham sucking on the end of an obscenely large cigar. Oleander Wellington, the current editor, is standing next to him, obsequiously proffering a lighter.
‘Oleander,’ Richard says. ‘Hi.’
‘Well, as I live and breathe, if it isn’t Richard Take, the kingmaker,’ Oleander says in his high-pitched Welsh accent. He is wearing a linen suit and a pale pink shirt with one too many buttons undone. He is deeply tanned. Last week his Instagram Stories showed him dancing in front of a Mykonos DJ booth. He slaps Richard lightly on the back. ‘Good of you to join us,’ Oleander says. ‘Ben’s coming later, isn’t he?’
‘Yes, yes. He wouldn’t miss it. Neither of us would. We’re very grateful for theWitness’s support.’
‘You’re welcome. We can’t have Graham Bunn in charge. He voted against gay marriage. My husband wouldn’t hear of it.’
It was one of the strange anomalies of the right-wing British cognoscenti that they could be liberal when it pertained to their own lives but harshly condemnatory when it came to anyone else’s. Oleander routinely savaged feckless benefit claimants and workshy immigrants in the pages of his magazine, but also marched every year for Pride in an assortment of sequins and feathers, holding signs proclaiming that Love is Love.
‘Ben’s doing very well,’ Lord Cunningham says.
