Holly Lester by Andrew Rosenheim

said simply.
    â€˜I think that’s pretty much it, then,’ said Trachtenberg. ‘Anything I’ve forgotten, Hamish?’
    â€˜It would be good to fix a next meeting.’
    â€˜Why don’t we say two weeks’ time?’ said the pukka man. ‘Same time, same place?’
    â€˜Fine,’ said Trachtenberg and Ferguson in unison.
    â€˜I take it this place is safe enough. You said it belongs to Fritz Kimmo.’
    There was the slightest of pauses. ‘That’s right. So you could always say you were seeing him, and we can always say we’re seeing Sally. That’s what’s nice about a politically hybrid marriage.’
    â€˜As long as no one thinks
I’m
seeing Sally and
you’re
seeing Fritz.’ The man laughed maliciously. ‘This looks a right little love nest, if you ask me.’
    Ferguson laughed. ‘We could probably lend it to you if you like.’
    â€˜I’d better be off.’ Mr Pukka seemed less happy being teased than teasing.
    â€˜We’ll come with you,’ said Trachtenberg, and Billings exhaled slowly with relief. He waited patiently until he heard the front door close, listened for voices (there were none) then shot out of bed and got dressed. He gave it five minutes, then left the building, knowing that – as with the Thatcher memo he’d pocketed – he’d been privy to discussions not meant for his ears. What on earth would he have said if, say, the man named Ferguson had looked into the bedroom and found him lying there?
    He saw Holly again the next evening, but decided to say nothing about the episode from the night before. In his mind, he associated it with the Thatcher memo, and since he’d lied to her about that he felt it impossible to tell her the truth about the Trachtenberg meeting. He could tell that Hamish Ferguson was clearly Labour, and Trachtenberg he knew about by now of course, but who was the other man? The Tory spy Holly had mentioned? Possibly, but he sounded too grand for the low level gay Holly had mentioned.
    In the following days, as he continued to see her, his thoughts were in any case focused on Holly – on his growing feelings for her, coupled with the burgeoning realization that there seemed no possible real future to his relationship with her. This heightened the
carpe diem
freneticism of their encounters, and made the repeated meetings in those three weeks seem an unreal bonus. ‘I feel as if I’ve won the Lottery,’ said Billings one evening as he undressed her. She flashed a smile with complicit feeling, then frowned. ‘Even Lottery money runs out,’ she said sadly.
    And so he was not altogether surprised in the third week of their nightly – or really daily, since it was always early evening and in spring still light outside – assignations, when, as he lay talking quietly with Holly about Sebastian, her little boy, that he heard the front door of the flat open and shut, then a pair of shoes march in a quick and clicking pace across the sitting room floor. There was a knock on the door, Billings pulled the covers over them both, and the tall figure of Alan Trachtenberg entered the room. He looked once, witheringly, at Billings, then addressed himself to Holly.
    â€˜You had better get dressed, my dear,’ he said, with no affection in his voice.
    â€˜What’s happened?’ she asked, sounding scared.
    â€˜The press are everywhere and Harry’s waiting for you to return from your personal trainer.’ He resolutely didn’t look at Billings. ‘Come on,’ he said, spitting the words, ‘get a move on. That sad Tory cunt’s called a General Election. In six weeks’ time, if you listen to me, you’ll be living in Downing Street.’

Chapter 8
    He couldn’t tell how the picture had been stolen, or exactly when. Tuesday morning he went downstairs to unlock the vault room, and immediately noticed the empty