He watches me go. I leave part of my heart there.
Chapter Fourteen
I’m tired of London. Tired of the people and the noise. I never craved the city, preferring the smaller towns of the coasts and mountains, where there was grass that didn’t need protection orders and skies that weren’t polluted by high rises. But the capital is the centre for everything, so I’m told, and this is where we need to be to make decisions about our country.
I’m not headed to Westminster. The session in parliament has finished for the day, a ruling agreed on to support farmers in their trade with Europe that will now go to the House of Lords to be finalised and I’ve done my bit for my constituents for today.
The March skies are still grey although there are a few yellow daffodils poking their heads above the ground. It’s a sign that the world is continuing to turn, that even though the days have been dark, there is something else still there.
I find my father in his home, a townhouse near Kensington and a place I know is a haven for people he needs something from.
I’m let in without question, something that surprises me, given how we parted when I last saw him. Then I’m left to wait in the sitting room that hasn’t changed since I was a boy. The walls are decorated with a dark, classical paper and the fireplace has been left to dominate, portraits of members of the Goldsmith family hanging round the room and staring at whoever dares to sit there. There isn’t one of my grandfather. I suspect there was once, and it’s now being kept in the cellars where my father doesn’t have to look at it.
William Goldsmith appears dressed in a day suit and still straightening his tie. His hair is damp and it crossed my mind to wonder what the fuck he was doing that needed a shower at this time of day, but then I don’t want to actually know because I learned when I was a teenager about my father’s kinks. By accident. I still to this day don’t think he knows what I walked in on, overheard. He’s too arrogant to think he’d ever be caught.
“I assume you’re here to apologise.”
I laugh. “You know what they say about the word ‘assume.’”
He sits down. “Then we have nothing to say.”
“It doesn’t work like that anymore.” My words are slow and controlled.
He laughs, but it’s forced. “You have a few people telling you they’d like to see you as leader and you think you call the shots. Looks like my arrogance didn’t skip you after all.”
“I never wanted a political career…”
“Yet here you are. Having just finished a session at Westminster. How did it go, by the way? I assume the poor farmers have won their pitiful plight?’ His tone is exactly the same as my half-brother’s and my hands itch to show him in a way he’ll never have been used to.
“I’m not here to discuss politics with you.”
He raises his eyebrows and smiles. “Then what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Oil. And my brother.”
“And we’re pretending you give two shits about both of those things, are we? I think we’ll need coffee for this.” He heads out of the room and leaves me staring at the portraits. All men, all wearing elaborate suits with a pocket watch, the same one, a family heirloom.
When my father re-enters I see it on him.
I never want that watch.
“Coffee is on its way.”
“What’s your interest in the oil that was discovered in the North sea about two decades ago?”
He stands at the window. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I don’t believe you. Mainly because I’ve got something that shows you’ve been making payments to Alek Wray – before he was killed that is.” Information was gold. And no one was ever that safe from being hacked.
“Whatever you have, it’s fabricated. You’ll learn this, son, in time. There’s always someone who wants to prove you’re doing something you shouldn’t.” He sits down and one of his staff brings in a trolley laden with a French press and mugs, steaming milk and what looks like a rich fruit cake.
“Tell me about the oil.”
“There is no oil.”
I laugh, take the coffee and pour it, his first. “I know there is.”
“Is that what the princess told you? She knows fuck all, Isaac. You’d be best to distance yourself from her. Don’t let her ruin your career, even if you don’t think you want it.”
