Chapter Thirty-Two
Vidal went up the stairs with one hand on the banister and the sling stiff across his ribs.
The flat was quiet. Wallis had let himself out at six, and Mercè came pattering down the corridor at the sound of his key in the door.
He picked her up one-handed and carried her through to the kitchen, where the broth was still on the hob, gone tepid and gathering a thin grey skin across the surface.
He stood at the cooker for a long time with Mercè against his good shoulder, trying to decide what to do next.
He should pour it down the sink, wash the pot, and avoid Connor for a few days while they both recovered from what had ostensibly been the most amiable break-up Vidal had ever experienced.
But he also couldn’t stand the thought of Connor sniffling away miserably downstairs…
No. He had to go ahead with the plan: tomorrow he would carry it down to Connor, alongside the sourdough rolls he’d baked, and there would be no scene.
The handover would be simple, just Vidal saying ‘heat it for ten minutes, the bones are good for one more pass’.
Then Connor would say ‘ta, sweetheart’, and that would be all.
Vidal had cried himself out less than an hour ago against the front of Connor’s T-shirt. Now he had to sit with the fact that Connor had asked him a single question, ‘are we still having fun, Vidal?’ and had given him the option to choose him.
He could have, because Connor was so easy to be with and to love. But Vidal hadn’t been able to because the man he wanted wasn’t Connor, it was the one who’d left with a John Lewis gift card in a Smythson envelope.
? ? ?
Wallis arrived at six the next morning. He let himself in with his own key, set the kettle on, and was at the kitchen counter going through the day’s diary when Vidal came down the corridor in his silk robe with Mercè under his good arm.
“Good morning, sir.”
“Good morning, Captain.”
“Tea?”
“Yes, please.”
Vidal took the mug offered him, sat down at the kitchen table, and watched Wallis run through the day’s schedule on his iPad.
Two o’clock, they had a visit to the consultant at the Royal London for a follow-up on the arm.
Half past four, a courier from the Cardonan embassy was scheduled to drop by with urgent documentation Pare had asked him to sign.
At six there was the dinner reservation at Scott’s with Lex and Barnaby that Vidal would not be keeping.
“Cancel the dinner with Barnaby and Lex, Captain. I am not up to it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Vidal watched him over the rim of his mug. Wallis was cut from the same cloth as Beauchamp; career military and Sandhurst-trained. The sort of man who’d write reports in numbered paragraphs that left nothing to interpretation. If the dossier hadn’t come from Beauchamp…
“Captain, may I ask you something?”
“Of course, sir.”
“During the handover, did Major Beauchamp leave you a written review of my associates?”
Wallis’s pen stopped against his iPad and he turned to face Vidal across the kitchen. “Sir. The Major left me a comprehensive handover document. He was very detailed about your security arrangements at the building, your medical contacts, and your household staff. It ran to about forty pages.”
“That was not my question, Captain. Did the Major leave you a written assessment of the people I see socially? My friends. My neighbours.”
Wallis paused. “The Major is a thorough officer. His handover work was the most detailed I’ve received in eighteen years of this kind of work. There was very little I could fault.”
“You are quite carefully choosing your words, Captain.”
Wallis looked at him. “Sir, as a matter of standard operating procedure, when I take over a principal protection role, I conduct my own review of the residents of the building and the principal’s social associates.
I do this regardless of the quality of the handover I’ve received.
It’s not a comment on my predecessor. It’s simply how I orient myself to my principal’s daily life. ”
“I understand.”
“In the course of that review, sir, I noted that the Major’s overview of Mr Connor Evans and the Evans family was — ” Wallis licked his lips, “rather light. Glossed over. The Major’s coverage of every other associate in your circle was exhaustive.
The Evans entry was not. For the sake of completeness, I emailed my own assessment to you, while also CC’ing the family office, which is standard procedure on principal protection for a high profile family.
It lets the Montcadas maintain a unified picture of risk across all of your family members.
The Major would have done the same with any review of his own.
It’s just…he might have missed some detail in the risk profile for Connor Evans. ”
“I see, Captain. Thank you.” Vidal had more than 5000 unread emails in his inbox, and most likely had overlooked it because of the competing mass of adverts and boring administrative communications he received.
“No worries, sir,” Wallis’s shoulders came down and he returned his eyes to the screen.
So the dossier had come from Wallis, then.
Vidal had been absolutely convinced, as he listened to his father read out the report’s careful itemised list of the Evans family’s faults, that this had been the work of Beauchamp. It had taken Connor being a better man than Vidal deserved to bring him around.
You want to be angry at him because that’s easier on you than missing him.
The thing he now couldn’t get past was that Beauchamp had let him go.
Beauchamp had seen the bruises Connor had quite cheerfully sucked into the hollow of his throat, watched the unmistakable shape of a domestic life between Connor and Vidal forming right in front of him, and decided that the best thing for him to do was to step out of the way.
Disappear into the background and just…notice all the things about Vidal that he had no business noticing, if he had no intention of doing anything about the feelings that they drew out of him.
Beauchamp had loved him, and had not fought for him.
Not once, in three months of living in the man’s careful orbit, had he registered what was actually being handed to him, because Vidal was a man whose entire understanding of love had been formed by men who announced themselves and their intentions.
He’d had an Eton rowing captain who pinned him against walls, or Connor, who lavished him with attention and constant praise.
He was used to big men who made big gestures.
Beauchamp just bought him cupcakes and went out to pick up his Fonte di Foiano with no complaint.
Vidal had spent most of last night going back through the last three months. Tallying up every careful kindness or small act of care. He had laid them all out in his head like exhibits, and the verdict had assembled itself somewhere around three in the morning.
All it would have taken was the slightest of signs.
The smallest crack in the professional surface.
A simple, I’d like to stay. Anything at all to suggest that Beauchamp’s meticulous care had come out of his affection rather than obligation.
Vidal would have done the rest, as he had spent his entire life recognising openings.
Give him an inch of door, and he was through it.
Beauchamp had instead conducted himself with such relentless professional dignity that Vidal might well have tried to go on with his life as usual, had Connor not forced him to confront all the signs.
“Captain Wallis.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Be a love and pop down to that Italian place on Mount Street for me, would you? The one with the green awning. Ask Marco for two of his cannoli, and a box of those chocolate-covered orange peels Pare likes. I should like to send something down to Connor. He’s been feeling poorly.”
Wallis lifted his head. “Sir, I can ring through and have it brought up — ”
“No, Captain. I should like you to go in person, please. Marco will not give them to a courier. He is very particular. He has told me on three separate occasions that the cannoli must be filled at the moment of collection, or the shells go soft, and he refuses to entrust this to anyone he has not personally vetted.”
“Sir.”
“And while you are out, would you ring Hassan and tell him I shall not require the car at two for the consultant. I shall ring the Royal London myself and reschedule. I am not, on reflection, up to a hospital visit this afternoon.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Thank you, Captain. Take your time. Marco will want to chat. He always does.”
Wallis closed his iPad, slid it into his bag, and let himself out of the flat.
Vidal stayed sat at the table for a count of thirty.
Then he got up and went into the hall. He took his camel overcoat off the hook by the door and worked his good arm into the sleeve, draping the other side across his shoulder over the sling.
Mercè had come to sit at his feet, watching him with the intentness she reserved for when she expected him to take her out on a walk.
“Not this time, amor,” Vidal crooned at her. “Papa is going to make a scene, and I cannot have you ruining it by being adorable at the man I must have words with.”
He let himself out of the flat, and then he carried on down to the front hall towards Green Park.