Читать книгу Power Play - Gavin Esler - Страница 8

By the time I stepped out of the Rolls-Royce at the embassy with the copy of ‘The Spartacus Solution’ in my attaché case in one hand and a bunch of flowers for Fiona in the other, the ice storm had rolled in over the Potomac and all down the Chesapeake Bay. The roads were slick, the air bitterly chilled, the sidewalks mostly empty. Dampness seeped through my coat like cold fingers. I stopped off at a florist’s near Dupont Circle to buy Fiona as large a bunch of flowers as I could find. I forget what, exactly. Roses. Maybe tulips. They were just closing because of the ice storm, and grateful for the business.

When I reached the Great House, as the Ambassador’s residence is sometimes called, I walked into the living quarters. I put the attaché case down. I had the flowers in my hand and I bounded up the red-carpeted stairs two at a time, like an eager suitor, anxious to make amends. Fiona sometimes worked at her interior designs in the library, and so I tried it first, but there was no sign of her. I checked my watch and decided that she might be exercising on the treadmill in the small gym next to the main guest bedroom, but there was no sign of her there either. I turned the flowers in my hand. I was about to head towards the final possibility, that she was still in our own bedroom, when I heard a noise from the guest quarters. I turned. You never know what twist of fate, what nerve or synapse drives you to take a decision, but I suddenly threw open the door of the guest quarters.

Fiona and her lover were in front of the three large mirrors above the dresser. They had angled the mirrors so they could watch themselves. He was naked. Fiona wore a black bra, nothing else. Their clothes had been discarded carelessly and were strewn on the floor. He was behind her, holding her hips with his big hands. She was grasping the table top of the dresser in front of the mirror and gasping. I could not see Fiona’s face. Her hair was stuck to her skin with sweat. The man turned and I recognized James Byrne, the Washington Post columnist, immediately. He had been over for dinner at the embassy a number of times, to parties and diplomatic receptions. I had known him since before I was Ambassador, and before he had been given his syndicated column. Byrne was standing upright, his hips moving. He is a big man, bigger than me, over six feet, slim and muscled, a Bostonian who had played American football for one of the Ivy League college teams. He had hair on his back and shoulders, like a monkey. The hair was slick with sweat and it disgusted me.

I said, ‘Get your dick out of my wife.’

Byrne looked at me and stepped away from her. Fiona turned too. She stood up slowly and put her hands to her face in shock. She gasped something which I did not catch, clasped her breasts and ran towards the bathroom. I heard her slam the door, but all the time I was watching Byrne. I walked towards him and hit him once, hard, in the throat with my fist. He fell to the floor like a puppet whose strings have been cut, gasping for breath. I stood for a moment and thought about killing him, but the moment passed. Instead I turned him over with my foot and looked at him gagging on the floor, then I walked out of the room. I had to step over the flowers, which were scattered all over the floor. Despite the ice storm, Fiona left for London that very same day, on the overnight flight from Dulles to Heathrow. Tulips. The flowers were definitely tulips.