A Friend in Deed Read online

  GD Harper is a past winner of a Wishing Shelf Red Ribbon for adult fiction, and has been shortlisted for the Lightship Prize for first-time authors and longlisted for the UK Novel Writing Award.

  Also by GD Harper:

  Love’s Long Road

  A Friend

  in Deed

  GD Harper

  Copyright © 2019 GD Harper

  Cover Design © 2019 Spiffing Covers

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  Ginger Cat Publishing

  Blackdown Mill Cottage

  Greenwoods Lane

  Punnetts Town

  East Sussex

  TN21 9HU

  United Kingdom

  ISBN 978-0-9935478-2-9

  Contents

  chapter one

  chapter two

  chapter three

  chapter four

  chapter five

  chapter six

  chapter seven

  chapter eight

  chapter nine

  chapter ten

  chapter eleven

  chapter twelve

  chapter thirteen

  chapter fourteen

  chapter fifteen

  chapter sixteen

  chapter seventeen

  chapter eighteen

  chapter nineteen

  chapter twenty

  epilogue

  Thank you!

  Acknowledgements

  London

  A few years from now

  chapter one

  Peter Capaldi was looking down, concentrating. His hands were clasped in front of him, fingers intertwined. The cuffs of his crisp white dress-shirt hung unfolded below his wrists. It looked as if he was at prayer. I scrutinised his face. There was a hint of irritation, a faint echo of the volcanic rages he had made famous as an actor. Whatever thoughts were going through his mind, there was a forcefulness in his demeanour, hinting at the intensity lurking within him.

  I scanned the description next to the photo. The photographer was Paul Stuart; never heard of him. Capaldi was born in 1958, which made him a year younger than me. I looked again at the image: salt-and-pepper hair, laughter lines rather than wrinkles. He was in much better shape than I was, high cheekbones still evident, no sign of jowls. Maybe the photo hadn’t been taken recently. Okay, 2012 – that wasn’t so bad. You can go downhill a lot in just over a decade.

  The exhibition was called ‘Celebrity’. Photos of famous – or infamous – people. A stroll around the National Portrait Gallery is how I clear my head when I come up to London for work. Like most columnists I write from home, but I do get stir crazy sometimes. So, if I want somewhere less isolated than suburban London I head up to Soho House, getting there early to grab one of the comfy chairs and a table in the corner. I can get lost in my own little world as I type away on either a Chronicle article or a piece for one of my blogs. Being a member is a bit of an extravagance, but it helps me project an image of being more successful than I really am these days. And writing to the soundtrack of a buzz of conversation keeps me connected to the human race, taking the sting out of living alone but not intruding on my thoughts.

  I hadn’t finished with Mr Capaldi. I stepped up closer to admire the way the photographer had lit the shot and stared again at the multi-layered expression on Capaldi’s face.

  A voice startled me. ‘This picture is good, I think. You know this guy?’

  From the accent, I knew she would be Russian or the like before I turned to see her. Mid-thirties, if I had to guess. Easily six foot tall and her cheekbones put Capaldi’s to shame. I straightened my back to just about match her height.

  ‘Peter Capaldi. Famous actor, been around a long time. Scottish.’

  She nodded in acknowledgement.

  ‘Like me,’ I added, in case she couldn’t tell.

  ‘Very fine photograph. He is movie star?’

  ‘No, not really. TV mainly. Started out in a Scottish movie, Local Hero, but he’s most famous for playing a foul-mouthed spin doctor on TV. And Doctor Who, obviously.’

  Her bemused smile told me she wouldn’t know a dalek from a pepper pot.

  ‘Doctor Who. Science fiction TV series that started in the 1960s. A time lord who travels in a spaceship that looks like a police phone box. Bigger on the inside … Never mind, it’s a long story.’

  ‘Very interesting. Thanks for information.’

  She wandered off, and I stepped away to look at the next photograph. Bill Nighy gave me a patronising sneer.

  ‘I know, I know,’ I muttered.

  I finished my tour of the contemporary gallery and headed up the stairs, walking straight past the early Tudors to get to Elizabethan England. I especially liked the paintings of the courtiers. They looked like a bunch of overdressed psychopaths, their raw cunning, intellect and fearsome belligerence staring out at me from across the centuries. Sir Henry Lee especially. Not someone who looked like he was in touch with his feminine side.

  I got to the end of the gallery and was pleased to see the portrait of Richard Foxe on display in the little alcove to the right of the stairs. A sixteenth-century churchman who was one of Henry VIII’s advisers, he looked like a nice bloke, which might be why his position in the gallery was not as secure as some of his more nefarious neighbours. ‘A man of wisdom, knowledge, learning and truth’, he was described as. Something to aspire to, which is why I chose him as my blogger name. He’d been in the basement the last time I visited, making way for an exhibition of Tudor financiers, and I was pleased to see him back.

  ‘Well done, old chap,’ I said.

  ‘You talk to paintings?’

  I turned to see the Russian gazelle standing next to me. A flush crept across my cheeks.

  ‘Not normally, no. But this one is special to me.’

  She nodded like this was the most reasonable explanation in the world. ‘So, is he another time lord who has mouth like toilet?’ She delivered the words carefully, as if she was playing a game in which the most important part was to keep from laughing.

  ‘Not quite. A Tudor bishop who was at the court of Henry VIII.’ I decided it was time to regain some dignity. ‘Do you know much about Henry VIII?’

  ‘Guy with six wives? A little.’

  ‘He’s back through here. Let me show you.’

  We walked back to the Tudor Gallery and stood in front of the Holbein study. Henry VIII in his aggressive, defiant, manspreading stance, complete with thrusting codpiece and phallic dagger hanging from his belt. A study of testosterone in ink and watercolour. Subtle, it wasn’t.

  ‘Start of the greatest period in English history. Henry didn’t know it, but after all his efforts to produce a son and heir, it was his daughter who surpassed him as a monarch. Look, here she is on her coronation day.’

  We paused in front of the Accession portrait, Elizabeth looking demure and serene as she posed with crown, orb and sceptre, a simple row of pearls around her neck. Dressed in deep yellow silk to emulate wealth, swathes of ermine to symbolise her purity.

  ‘Such a beautiful dress she’s wearing.’ The gazelle went up close to the painting. ‘But she looks so young.’

  ‘Twenty-five. Looks younger. The royal coffers emptied after Henry’s excesses, two of her half-siblings gaining the throne before the crown passes to her. Heads getting chopped off left, right and centre, and this lot waiting to pounce.’ I gestured to the dandified Dick Dastardlys filling the walls around her. ‘She looks pretty chilled in this painting, but she must have been scared out of her wits.’

 
‘And she survived?’

  ‘More than survived. Here she is at the end of her reign.’ I brought her to the Ditchley portrait, painted thirty-four years later. Elizabeth, haughty, self-assured, standing on a globe, her feet planted on the south of England. ‘She understood the PR value of a good image, like her father. Literally standing on top of the world. And no more yellow silk to make out she had a bit of dosh. There are more jewels and pearls on this dress than you can shake a stick at.’

  By now we’d wandered back to the Richard Foxe painting. It reminded me I needed to get back to Soho House to meet my six o’clock deadline.

  ‘Well, I must be going. Nice to meet you … Sorry, I don’t know your name?’ I looked straight at her for the first time.

  ‘Tanya. And you?’

  ‘Duncan.’

  ‘Well, Duncan, that was an interesting tour.’ She pronounced the first syllable of my name with a double ‘O’. ‘Do you work here?’

  ‘No, I’m a journalist. And a blogger. Used to be a novelist, but not anymore.’

  ‘Novelist? What do you write? I think historical fiction.’

  ‘No, maybe I should. I set my books in the 1970s.’

  ‘Ah, so they are historical fiction.’ I took the barb like a man and smiled magnanimously.

  There was an awkward silence. ‘I really must be going,’ I said eventually. ‘Look, I do have to go.’ I was repeating myself for some reason. ‘But I’ve enjoyed meeting you. Would you like to meet here again when we’ve both got more time? Later this week, perhaps?’

  Her reaction would be telling. When I reached fifty, I found out it didn’t even occur to women in their twenties that I was a sexual being. Moot point, of course; Patti was still alive then and dalliances weren’t my thing. Having reached my sixties, the no-fly zone had extended to women in their thirties. A lot of blokes would find this devastating, go into denial and become an embarrassment to all concerned. For me it was liberating, a chance to make new friendships unencumbered by sexual tension, to enjoy again the wasted days of youth. I’d always had mainly female friends; I found their conversation more interesting. Now they were getting younger. Some young women got it; some didn’t. Now I’d find out what camp Tanya was in.

  The question didn’t faze her in the slightest. ‘Sure, why not? Maybe Friday, but a little later. Will be busy in afternoon. When does this place close?’

  ‘At nine, I think, on a Friday.’

  That was a little more awkward. The gallery, on Friday’s late-night opening, was a classic first-date venue in London, as I’d found out when I reluctantly dragged myself back onto the dating scene a couple of years before. Free to get in, quiet enough to have a conversation, and there were always the paintings to talk about if it turned out to be a disaster. I wasn’t quite sure it was the vibe I was looking for.

  ‘Okay. Six thirty then, this same spot? I let you escape me.’ A quick touch on my arm and she was gone.

  I walked briskly back to Soho House. It was late, and I needed to finish writing my blog. We hadn’t exchanged phone numbers, but that was no bad thing. It would be easier for either of us to back out. If we did meet on Friday, it would mean we both wanted to.

  Inside, the atmosphere was changing. The daytime entrepreneur crowd was segueing into the more boisterous after-work scene, the background buzz of conversation becoming a bit more raucous. I slipped in some earphones, listened to some endlessly self-replicating Brian Eno music, and settled down to bash out the post.

  I post to my blogs under two identities – Richard Foxe for the political commentary and Mark Jackson, my old author name, for the more humorous, lifestyle stuff. The Mark Jackson one is for fun; it’s Richard Foxe who pays the bills, as I’ve built a decent niche as an irreverent, but hopefully insightful, commentator on any political scandals on the go. But I need to keep feeding the machine, and that means coming up with interesting content and getting it out quickly.

  I finished just in time to get over to Clapham Halls for the start of the ‘Politics, Prose and More’ evening at which I had been asked to speak. All a bit last minute: one of the speakers had pulled out the day before and I got an email asking me to step in. Jumped at the chance, to be honest. I don’t often get to do things like this, being more usually seen as someone on the way out rather than on the way in. I somewhat shamelessly demanded a fee, but I have to count the pennies these days. They must have been desperate – they said yes, told me not to breathe a word to the others. All felt a bit tacky, but needs must.

  A new political party, Act Now!, had recently shocked pollsters and pundits alike by winning the general election, a mere three years after the party had been created. Politics had never been more messy and unpredictable and, whatever you thought of their philosophy, Act Now! was manna from heaven for political commentators like myself.

  Ever since they came to prominence, politics had become trendy. All over the country, people were flocking to hear discussion, debate and commentary on their plans to break up vested interests and establishment cliques and to question the value of the organisations that underpinned the political system. They were part of a sea change in politics that had started ten years ago. The Brexit vote had been first, then Trump in America.

  To the horror of the establishment, a new type of politics was becoming triumphant. In almost every Western democracy, iconoclastic individuals, mavericks who had always prided themselves on being outsiders who took no part in mainstream politics, had started to form the same political party, same name, same philosophies, in almost every major Western democracy. Act Now! had enjoyed unprecedented success in nearly every election they had taken part in. Idealistic young people and older, disaffected, alienated working-class voters had formed an unlikely alliance to bring down the establishment in a way that hadn’t been seen since the 1960s. Back then it had been idealistic, naive and shambolic. The leaders of the counter-culture revolutionaries of today were organised, efficient, and ruthless in their pursuit of power.

  There were four of us on the panel. The local Act Now! MP would be defending her party’s achievements in already breaking up three government organisations and pulling us out of the G7; a brave member from one of the establishment parties would be trying to convey the danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Some novelist was coming along to plug her new political thriller, and then there was me. I suppose I was the ‘More’, there to make acerbic comments on whatever the other three said, and indulge in a few shameless plugs for my Richard Foxe blog.

  There was a good crowd when I turned up, a hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty in the audience. It went pretty well. The politicians delivered their practised lines; Act Now! telling us multinational organisations exist only to protect privilege and the status quo, that experts are always wrong, and that the secret to good decision-making is decentralisation. The establishment guy went on about the folly of protectionism and the risk to world peace from the destruction of united Western governments. The novelist’s book was a satire on the chaos of inexperienced politicians running the country, a few of the more outrageous plotlines bearing an uncanny similarity to real-life events. I did feel a pang of envy when she read out a couple of excerpts from the book, the chuckles and murmurs of appreciation from the audience reinforcing what a good read it was.

  For me, such days have passed. I was engulfed in a scandal back in 1995, when it was discovered that a novel I’d written fourteen years earlier had resulted in an innocent man being sent to prison – not that anyone could ever truly describe Michael Mitchell as innocent. I tried to keep going as a novelist, but every new book floundered as my demons came back to haunt me. I’ve tried three times, and three times I’ve hit a brick wall. Blogging and newspaper columns seem to be my limit now. I can still come up with a half-decent turn of phrase and bash out a couple of thousand words before panic sinks in.

  The liveliest part of the evening was when
someone brought up the latest political scandal. Over thirty politicians had been found to have signed up to a sugar-daddy website, propositioning young women thirty, forty years younger than them for sex in return for a monthly allowance. The klutzes that had been shopped had created anonymous profiles, but that hadn’t stopped someone hacking into the site and coming up with the politicians’ identities. Denials, resignations and humiliations were taking place right across the political spectrum; only Act Now! was in the clear. Scandals, fake news and personal vendettas were dominating the political scene like never before. I was beginning to realise that if I wanted to maintain any sort of profile as a political commentator, I would have to get my hands dirty and start doing some muck-raking of my own.

  That’s where Nigel came in.

  chapter two

  Nigel had latched on to me when I’d run an AI seminar a few months before. Artificial intelligence was the holy grail of computer programming and a lot of the big technology companies liked to use writers to teach programmers how to code computers’ responses to sound more human, teach them how to develop character and personality. Nigel was big into conspiracy theories, and when he found out I had a political column in the Chronicle, he offered to help me with his hacking skills to uncover scandals rather than just report on them. I’d set him a challenge to get him to go away – asked him to find out more about a rumour that Saudi Arabia was to be chosen over the French to build our new nuclear power stations. Bugger me if he didn’t send me a ton of data a few days later showing that plans for Saudi Arabia to do just that were more advanced than was being admitted.

  It had caused a bit of a stir when the Chronicle had run the story although, frustratingly, it did more to help Act Now!’s credibility than anything else. All the fault of the last government, they claimed. Now they were in power, a new broom was in Whitehall, sweeping away all the backroom deals that undermined Britain’s independence. But whatever the outcome, it had been the highest-profile piece I had written for months. Nigel had passed the audition to prove that he could be very useful in helping me become a better investigative journalist.