The Bell Ringers by Henry Porter Read Free Book Online Page B

office where the casket – if that was the word – remained like a container left behind by a catering company.
    She had learned all this from the coroner’s clerk the night before when she’d taken refuge from the hotel in a pub called The Mercer’s Arms. Rather to her surprise he lumbered over from a table, saying he’drecognised her from the inquest, then introduced himself as Tony Swift. He seemed intelligent and pleasant enough and although she wondered whether he fancied his chances with her she let him buy her a drink.
    Between deliberated sips from a pint of Old Speckled Hen, he told her that it had taken over two weeks for anyone to realise that Eyam had been killed in the explosion. They might never have known for certain if the hotel room key hadn’t been found by construction workers near the spot where Eyam had fallen and matched with the room he’d occupied at the Hotel Atlantic until the day of the blast.
    â€˜What about the hotel bill?’ said Kate. ‘Surely the hotel reported him missing?’
    â€˜Why? To whom? There was no need. They had his credit card details and authorisation for payment. I checked with one of the managers. There was a small amount of luggage in his room and after a few days they just put it in store, thinking he would collect it: they assumed he’d gone on a boat trip up the coast.’
    A big man with a slow, amiable manner, Swift consumed a pie and chips while they talked, looking over his glasses to consider her questions. Why had he come to High Castle? What was he doing in Colombia? And how the hell had someone as smart and dedicated and charming as Eyam lost his job in government? The inquest had established the facts of Eyam’s death but the fall, the calamity that pitched him into Mrs Kidd’s exciting local arts scene was a mystery. Swift smiled at this but said he couldn’t help her on any of these things.
    The peal of bells was now abruptly replaced by the toll of a single bell. She stubbed the cigarette out, carried the butt to one of the waste-baskets, and walked to the main door where two policemen stood with weapons undisguised. A woman police officer searched her bag and patted her down and she was handed an order of service with Eyam’s photograph and dates on the cover. She took a place halfway up the aisle. About two dozen people had already found places: Diana Kidd was at the front, fanning herself with the order of service. Kate read the short appreciation on the inside cover, recording Eyam’s time at Oxford with all its honours and awards, his work in think tanks and the civil service – the Home Office, the Research and Analysis Department atthe Foreign Office, Number Ten and finally the Joint Intelligence Committee. It possessed no more feeling than an entry in
Who’s Who
.
    No mention of his two years in High Castle. No salutes to his intellectual distinction, the range of his interests, his flair, his largely hidden physical prowess. No colour, no observation, no humour. David Eyam was being sent on his way without love.
    Just before noon there was a respectful rush of mourners and by the time the bell fell silent well over a hundred people filled the pews around her. The clearing of throats and murmurs ceased; people stopped nodding to each other as the presence of the coffin – of death – imposed an awkward hush on the congregation. In the front row was the actress Ingrid Eyam, David’s stepmother and next of kin, who Kate concluded would inherit the entire fortune left by David’s father a few months before. She had gone the whole distance with a fitted black two-piece suit and pillbox hat with a springy black mesh veil, from which peeked a dubious tragic beauty. Behind her the mourners fell into three distinct groups: the people from the centre of government, who included two permanent secretaries, the home secretary Derek Glenny, a large man in his fifties with