by KJ Griffin
Chapter 45: Oxshott, Surrey, 7:00 p.m.
The press were standing three deep where the two gargantuan, brass-pointed gates met at the centre of the driveway. Normally Marcus welcomed the sight of home, but these were not normal circumstances. He revved the MG's motor histrionically, forcing a small gap in the middle of the crowd, only to find himself blinded by lights and a barrage of questions shouted at him from all around out of the darkness. A middle-aged blonde reporter was particularly strident, shoving her face right up against the window.
‘Mr Easterby, how do you feel about the allegations made against your father?’
Marcus stared back at the woman. How the hell did she know who he was?
‘No comment,’ he growled, pushing the woman's legs back as he swung open his driver's side door. The were on him instantly, their flashlights ripping through the anonymity of his Burberry raincoat and its upturned collar.
But it was easier ignoring the questions than he would have expected; he didn't hear any of the words, so swiftly was the adrenalin pushing the blood through his veins at the thought of the scene with his father that lay ahead of him. He hardly even recognised Maria's voice when he buzzed through on the intercom and the huge iron gates opened before him with their slow, stately grandeur.
But he did hear the last question flung at him by disarmingly direct Antipodean accent from somewhere inside the rabble of reporters:
‘Marcus Easterby, are you proud of your father?’
He made it back inside the cover of the MG before they could see his reaction. His throat tensed and he could feel unwelcome tears mocking his manliness again as they had done so recently in front of Sophie of all people.
He let the MG ring out his answer, thundering away with a sudden burst of acceleration that sent the reporters spinning towards the cypress hedge on either side of the gates. The gravel spun off his tires, spraying the manicured beds that lined the two-hundred-yard drive, and he brought the MG right up to the front of the colonnaded porch, swinging the back end round in an aggressive arc.
Maria was waiting in the doorway and behind her, his mother. Normally he felt comforted by the sight of her well-preserved looks, which he appreciated as the source of his own, but the early crystal of dry sherry and the cigarette in her other hand only exacerbated his smouldering rage.
‘Hello, Mum,’ he barely whispered, kissing the cheek she offered his way. ‘Where's Dad?’
‘He's still holed up in his study. Hasn't been out all day. I do hope he has been busy on the telephone getting someone to remove all those reporters from the gates. I have had to cancel all my arrangements today. There's no way I'm going to even to attempt drive through that horde of hounds.’
Marcus stared at his mother, then away from her at the heavy oil paintings of English pastoral scenes that studded the rich oak panelling of the hallway. Both seemed detestably frivolous. Unbelievable! The fabric of the world was collapsing around them and all the response he got was church spires sprouting from behind large, leafy oak trees and a lament for cancellations at the tennis club.
The frustration boiled over and he started to run down the rest of the hallway, taking the stone steps two at a time, turning left at the top and sprinting the length of the first-floor corridor to arrive pounding and panting outside his father's study.
‘Dad? Dad!’ he shouted, pulling furiously at the door handle.
No answer. He was hot now underneath his raincoat, and the sweat prodded his anger back to life. He began thumping the door even harder. Still no answer. He collapsed exhausted onto the rich, cream carpet, sitting up against the wall with his head resting on his knees.
He had no idea how long he had been that way when the door finally opened; he didn’t' even hear the key turn in the lock; but he could smell the whisky on his father's breath.
‘Marcus?’ The voice was slurred and hesitant. ‘What the devil are you doing here?’
Marcus snorted in exasperation.
‘What am I doing here? What else am I supposed to be doing? That maniac terrorist is busy broadcasting to the world that Colonel Douglas Easterby is a murderer and a liar and all you can do is lock yourself away at home and get steaming drunk!’
Marcus spoke the last words with particular disgust, for he had never seen his father that way before – socially squiffy maybe but never demon drunk. The face was flushed bright red and the creasemarks around his eyes, mouth and jowl were bloated and accentuated, thriving parasitically on the drink.
‘So what would you have me do, then, my boy?’ he asked challengingly, lurching unsteadily back into his study to the safety of the large brown leather armchair behind the bureau.
Marcus followed his father inside. The study was unfamiliar territory, a place he could only remember visiting when he needed money. The shelves were lined with collectors' editions of classic literature which he was sure his father had never read; like the hunting trophies on the walls, they were mainly there to impress the odd business client important enough to warrant a home meeting.
Behind the bureau, head slumped chestwards, covered by the palm of a hand his father sat wallowing in his own defeat. Marcus felt unsure of himself, ruffling his blond thatch and sitting down in one of the guests' chairs. This was not what he had expected.
‘Dad, I've got to know,’ he continued sounding more conciliatory. ‘Is any of the stuff they've been saying about you true?’
His father shot him a bloodshot glance.
‘Have you become a turncoat too, Marcus? Joined the rebels and ganged up on me?’
‘No, not exactly,’ Marcus shrugged. ‘But what am I supposed to think? I've been fighting your battles for you every day since that damned report from Ramliyya broke in the Guardian. I was proud to fight for you, because I was sure that any day you would get your own interview on TV and blow our enemies out of the water. That was until one dreadful thought struck me: maybe everything they've been saying about you is true?’
By now his father had both elbows on the bureau and he was cradling his head in heavy hands. Marcus thought he heard a sob, but it could have been a heavy sigh. A hand shot out for the whisky glass, but missed and knocked it at Marcus' feet.
‘Is it true, Dad?’ Marcus persisted, grown sterner again for having his shoes splashed in whisky.
‘Is what true?’ his father's face had reappeared, red, humid and defiant.
‘About that man Goss in Ramliyya?’ Marcus persisted.
His father waved a hand dismissively.
‘That wasn't my fault. Bailey thought he would take his revenge against that thug Phil Goss and try to make me pick up the bill for it at the same time.’
‘And what about the Falls Road? Is it true it was you who gave the order to open fire on the protesters?’
Again, another petulant wave of a dismissive hand.
‘I don't recall giving any order to fire on those scum. And anyway, who's accusing me? Have people gone out of their fucking minds? I have an OBE, I am chairman of one this country's top blue chip firms; I have a distinguished service record. And they let that… that piece of shit, a terrorist and a traitor to his queen and country, stand there on television spouting all these lies about me amid his subversive politics. Now you can see why this country is in the mess it is in, Marcus my boy. When people start to believe the word of a terrorist and a traitor against my own, it's obvious the whole bloody country is ruined.’
Marcus was taken aback by the sudden force of his father's drunken rage, all the more so because it seemed to be directed at him in the absence of more proximate adversary.
‘And what about the lawyer who was killed in Wales? Are we clean on that count, too, Dad?’
His father sprang up again on unsteady feet and spat at him across the desk.
‘Oh clear off out of here, Marcus. You're beginning to sound like one of those bloody media cretins outside. Go back to your books, my boy, and that pretty little Cockney girl of yours. Don't worry about me. I've got
that bastard Bailey fixed. No need for you to get involved.’
‘What do you mean 'fixed'?’
His father laughed maliciously. ‘It's all been arranged.’
‘Arranged?’
‘Yes, I've spoken to the top man himself. The SAS are going to go in, and whatever happens in there, I can promise you one thing: Bailey won't come out alive. And when Bailey's dead and gone, nobody will be interested in all the lies he spouted about me.’
This time it was Marcus' turn to feel angry.
‘Well that sounds just great, Dad. You may have fixed it with the PM or Deputy PM to get rid of Bailey, but in the meantime because you won't or can't come clean, I have to walk around with people treating me like the scum of the earth. Whatever happens in the Commons, we've still got our reputation to think about. That's why I have come. To ask you to do something.’
‘What's that, my boy?’
Marcus looked nervously past his father to the framed photos of fighter jets and tanks that were hung on the wall behind and cleared his throat.
‘I want you to volunteer to replace the remaining hostages inside the Commons. That way the whole world will see you're not afraid to face up to that bloody terrorist, and whatever truth there may be in the things he's said against you, people will forgive the lot when they see you're prepared to risk your own life for the safety of the remaining hostages.’
‘Go in there with that madman? You've got a bloody cheek, Marcus!’ his father stammered across the bureau, his anger mollified by confusion. ‘Have you quite lost your senses, my boy? Thanks for coming all the way down here to give me the benefit of your advice, but when it comes to handling scum like Bailey you've got an awful lot to learn. You don’t make deals with raving fanatics like Bailey; you obliterate them, you surgically remove the cancer so there's no chance of further contamination. I'm not going kowtow to some commie insurgent with a pathological grudge against me just so that you can have your media show. I've told you before, in less than twelve hours' time Bailey will be pumped full of SAS bullets and the world will be quickly forgetting about him and everything he has said and stands for. In the meantime, I suggest you get back to Christchurch and concentrate on developing your own career.’
Marcus wasn't sure what stung him most: the vehemence of the diatribe delivered so furiously that he had flecks of his father's spit all over his face; the put-down or the refusal.
He got up silently while his father fumbled for the bottle of old malt and left the study with the suppressed rage pounding so deeply inside he brushed straight past his mother at the bottom of the staircase and made directly for the door and his car outside.
The MG bore the full brunt of his anger. He thrashed it even faster than he had done on the way in through the gates at the end of the drive; too fast for Maria, for he had to wait several minutes for the gates to open, churning the accelerator while the throng of cameramen had time to reassemble from the shadows on the other side.
By the time Maria had eventually released the gates, the crowd of journalists ahead was impenetrable, blocking his path and forcing him to a crawl.
‘Marcus, what is your father's reaction to the siege of the Commons?" a BBC reporter that Marcus recognized asked.
His instinct told him to run for it but on an impulse he wound down the window.
‘Are you recording this?’ he asked.
The journalist nodded and pointed to the cameraman behind.
‘Then I do have a public statement to make - to the leader of the terrorists in the Houses of Parliament. His quarrel, or at least part of it, seems to be with my father. In that case I appeal to Mr Al-Ajnabi or Bailey, whichever name he prefers, to take me hostage and release the other people he is holding. If it's an Easterby he's really after, then here I am!’
‘Marcus, that's a noble offer, but why doesn't your father make it?’ the reporter fired straight back as Marcus wound the window up and started to pull away.
‘Because he's too much of a bloody coward,’ Marcus seethed quietly to himself when the last of the flashes began to fade behind him and he made his way towards central London.