by David Laws
She looked stricken when Tresham coughed and added, “With that, I feel I must concur.”
Jonny Boothroyd had enough about him to realise he had been patronised, entertained, used and manipulated. It was a truly frightening prospect to be head of the party… to be Prime Minister! Should he run away? His passage was being eased. Everything was being laid on for him. This was a life he could sign up to – a life of fine wine, good restaurants, top-rank society and the sort of luxury he’d never experienced. His path was being smoothed, with people ready to fetch and carry. This was the ultimate easy ride. Too good to be true? His mother had warned him about something-for-nothing tricksters, but he repressed that inner voice.
What had he to lose? He’d started out with nothing and had no expectations. If the good life fell into his lap for a time but was then snatched away, so what? Enjoy it while you can, he told himself. The whole idea was simply crazy. Incredible. Marvellous. What a gas!
He couldn’t wait to tweet.
A bitterly reluctant Prime Minister was induced to drive to Buckingham Palace to advise the Queen that she no longer held the confidence of her Cabinet and Government colleagues, and that Mr Jonny Boothroyd should be asked to form a Government.
That took some doing. That stuck in her craw.
“Jonny Who?” HM asked.
“An interim caretaker to tide us over in these difficult and extraordinary circumstances,” the outgoing PM said. “A limited arrangement which will end at the conclusion of the Brussels negotiations, when there will then be the time for a proper leadership contest.”
“I see.” HM looked doubtful. “Rather sad for you, I think.”
But Messrs Pinckney, Huckabee and Tresham had been insistent and would brook no backtracking. However, the party wasn’t pleased with its new leader and several backbenchers threatened to rebel – an empty gesture given the paper-thin majorities that would disappear in any resort to the polls. All this had a history, of course. It had happened when Anthony Eden resigned in 1963 and the Queen had consulted Churchill and Salisbury before choosing Harold Macmillan as Premier. In fact, many prominent figures of history had entered Number 10 without benefit of an election victory to back up their appointments: Lloyd George, Churchill, Chamberlain, Eden and Macmillan, and more recently Callaghan, Major and Brown. Over the past hundred years half of the country’s Prime Ministers had in that sense been unelected, and only five of them had won subsequent elections to justify and confirm their original appointments.
“Hardly a record to be proud of,” Jake mused later. “Still, it means our man won’t be the only one.”
Harry closely followed Boothroyd’s progress, not just on the news but through the added input of his friend Lufkin. And the word from Westminster was that the new Premier was not the compliant zombie they all expected. The new premiership took an immediate turn, in fact, for the unexpected. Boothroyd was resisting all the contradictory advice he was getting from his backstairs triumvirate. Instructions from the Remainer Tresham had been predictably soft: Buy into the single market, accept immigrant quotas, compromise everywhere. Signal to Brussels you’re ready to be reasonable and compromise, wink and tell them you’re only talking tough for the benefit of the folks back home.
Huckabee’s line was different, particularly on the so-called divorce bill: No deal, no cash; a firm exit on 29th March, no adherence to EU rules thereafter, and any transition only on the basis of agreed principles for a trade pact. In short, be ready to walk away…
But it wasn’t happening. All the advice was hitting a brick wall, as became obvious with the sudden appearance on ITN of a YouTube podcast. Exclamations of surprise greeted a very amateurish-looking Jonny Boothroyd slouching into camera, more akin to a bus-stop rant than a Prime Ministerial announcement. He scratched an ear, twisted his face into a frustrated expression, and his nasal twang gave vent to his thoughts.
“The powers that be expect me to be their puppet and to do what the big men of the Cabinet tell me. Well, I have a message for them.” A wave of a dismissive hand. “It’s not on. This puppet is cutting his strings and is dancing to his own tune. No point in doing this job if you can’t be yourself, wouldn’t you say?”
He turned his back to the camera, as if that was the end of the matter, then held up a hand. “Oh, and my first decision. I’ve invited the President of Russia round for a chat.”
The effect was immediate on the TV screens.
BBC news bulletin: Britain’s new Prime Minister has issued an invitation to Russian President Putin to make a state visit to the UK next month.
PA snap: Premier Boothroyd has asked Turkish President Erdoğan to visit the UK for talks. In a statement he says: “Putin and Erdoğan, these guys will tell us how to play Brexit.”
Reuters flash: Premier Boothroyd is setting up an anti-EU conference in London with invitations to Turkey, Russia, Finland, Poland and any EU states dissatisfied with their membership.
Then came the tweets. A succession of them, dutifully recorded in a strip running across the bottom of the TV monitor. The new Prime Minister says: “Putin and Erdoğan, these guys have great experience of dealing with the EU.” Quickly followed by another outburst of undiplomatic diarrhoea: I’m setting up an anti-EU conference in London with invitations to Turkey, Russia, Finland, Poland and any others fed up with being part of the enemy.
Some middle-ranking bureaucrat in Brussels made the mistake of issuing a reply along the lines of a possible breakdown of talks, of a cliff-edge exit for the UK.
Goodbye and we’ll send you the exit bill, came the instant Boothroyd response. Maybe we’ll impound your ships, charge your ferries for every illicit immigrant, cut you off at the Tunnel.
But he wasn’t finished. Just hours later Boothroyd was on the tweet once again.
BBC news bulletin: Britain’s new Prime Minister says in a tweet today: “Breaking off all contact with Brussels. Junking negotiations. Taking our business elsewhere. Wave goodbye to Europe.”
PA snap: Premier Boothroyd tweets today: “No more kowtowing to EC mandarins. Don’t need them. Hello new worlds, hello new horizons.”
Then an exhortation to British tourists: Ditch the Riviera. Give Paris the elbow. Make it America this year, Africa the next.
It was fast approaching a new cold war conducted by tweet.
When the triumvirate met back in the Commons later in the day, Jake was incandescent at his own creation. “Tried directing him, making it easy, showing him how, but the whole shebang has become nothing short of desperate. The puppet has cut his strings, is dancing to his own outrageous tune. Gone to his head. I ask you! He only scraped in by ten votes and now he thinks he’s the voice of the people.”
Tresham’s reaction was acerbic. “What made you think this little toerag would obediently sing your tune?”
“He looked like the perfect robot,” Jake complained. “Overshadowed, compliant, the ideal space on which to write our script—”
“You might have had a chance,” interjected Huckabee, “if you’d given him just one tune instead of three. Now he’s impervious to either sarcasm or suggestion.”
“Oh dear, what have we done?” Jake’s elbows were on his desk, his fingers steepled. “I’ve heard of making policy on the hoof, but Government by tweet?”
Tresham was still accusative. “You can’t control your own creation. You’ve created us a monster.”
“We’ve created a monster,” corrected Jake.
“What’s more,” Huckabee said, “he’s pulling us out of the EU. Shutting down the talks in Brussels. Walking away like we always threatened but never meant. No deal better than a bad deal. Hoist by our own propaganda.”
Jake’s head was in his hands. “How to retrieve the situation?”
Huckebee was unforgiving. “Learn the lessons of the new tweetdom, Jake – done and dusted in a few words and seconds, damag
e done and virtually irretrievable.”
Chapter 46
2 days to go
Harry had the sense that the country was sliding toward a crisis – just a couple of days away from Exit Day. Boothroyd was playing havoc but Tresham was still in place, wielding power, leaking his poison into the Cabinet system. Harry felt impotent playing the role of Mr Nobody in Bury, leaving it all to Patronella and Six. Why hadn’t she been in touch? What use was she making of all his information from Leipzig – the dossier and the Crab – and all the other damning evidence against Tresham gained at the dead-letter drop? What more could he do?
When he used her special telephone number all he received were soothing words: “Activity behind the scenes, Harry. Can’t explain. Just keep your head down. Don’t want our friends picking you up and spoiling everything. We want them thinking they’re in the clear.”
By now he’d picked up some of the spy lingo. ‘Friends’ were Five, ‘cousins’ the Americans. But that didn’t reassure him. It wasn’t his way to allow someone else to take the driving seat. It jarred to be reliant on what seemed to him to be Patronella’s whim. Then dark thoughts entered his mind. What if she was conning him? What if she was really part of the conspiracy? Or at least playing her own devious game?
Harry had one goal and one goal only – to expose Tresham – and he wasn’t going to risk being sidelined to some other purpose. Perhaps he could plant little parcels of explosive information in other locations. If one went bad, others might come good. One way or the other, the damning evidence against Tresham would leak out eventually.
Jake Pinckney. The name came to mind immediately. Having already established a personal connection there, it seemed an obvious move to update the Minister without Portfolio with the information gleaned so far.
Harry scrolled down to Lufkin’s number. The political correspondent was the man with the right contacts. He’d fix it.
Harry followed Lufkin’s instructions, impressed by his speedy reaction but wondering if the directions were really necessary. The word was, Don’t draw attention to yourself; don’t make any obvious move to leave town; don’t go the railway station.
Instead he took the Triumph out of the office car park, just like any other homeward journey, and rode straight past Blackthorpe Grange and on through the lanes past Wesley, Barrow and Higham until he came to the tiny railway halt at Kennett. Few trains stopped there; the car park was half empty. He chained the machine to a bollard next to the bike shed and took the 6.15 to Cambridge, changing for Kings Cross.
He wondered if Jake Pinckney was also under surveillance. It was clear the Palace of Westminster was not the right place for a meet. Full of MPs, lobby correspondents, mentors, activists, gossips and civil servants. You could be certain a few spies of various hues had wormed their way in there. Tresham would soon know if Harry arrived at the Commons.
Instead he went to the Paradise Club. Was that place also compromised? Harry felt reassured by Pinckney’s confidence on the question of security. Besides, beyond unscrewing a few light bulbs or running his fingers under the table, Harry had no expertise at uncovering illicit electronic bugs.
Upstairs, above all the flamboyant decor, he found Pinckney in a small room with a couple of armchairs and a table. The politician was in ebullient, if exasperated, form on the subject of Jonny Boothroyd’s tweets. “A damnable innovation from across the pond,” he said with a wide grin. “Shaking things up? The man has lost his marbles.”
“He’s making himself a uniquely divisive and controversial figure,” Harry suggested.
“Look,” Jake said, “this is the revenge of the little man. The voice of a nobody, the man who came from nowhere and who’s going nowhere – it’s all an uninhibited ego trip.”
A waiter arrived with their drinks, then Pinckney sank back in his chair. “You’ve something to tell me…”
Harry had rehearsed his briefing, comprehensive, succinct and to the point, and Jake listened without comment. When Harry was finished, Jake sighed and looked to the window as if for inspiration.
“So,” Harry asked, “what are you going to do with my information?”
There was a pause before the answer came. “One thing I’ve learned about the business of politics. Never act in haste, never let your enthusiasm run away with you. Just file it all away… and wait for the right opportunity.”
Harry took the train and then the Triumph back home, reckoning that, for the moment, he had done all he could. He was still in a sombre mood when he rode up the long drive to Blackthorpe Grange. As he cut the motor and glided to a halt he thought he saw the shapes of two heads in the front room, but they were too indistinct to identify. One would be Erika’s, obviously, but the other made him look again. The shape and size were all wrong. That wasn’t a boy. That was an adult. A man in the house?
Harry wasn’t a jealous person and always looked for the reasonable explanation. The gasman, a plumber, the boiler on the blink? He heaved the bike on to its stand and walked into the hallway, expecting to be greeted by some domestic crisis. Probably a hard-faced serviceman recommending an expensive replacement. As he closed the door behind him he thought he heard the back door bang.
Frowning, he entered the front room. It was empty. He went to the kitchen and saw Erika by the worktop, wrapping an object in a cloth.
“Who was that?”
“Who?”
He sighed. “I saw you with someone just now.”
She shrugged. “There was nobody.”
“Two people in the front room.”
She shrugged again. “You’re seeing things, Harry.”
“And who just went out of the back door?”
She bundled something into the kitchen drawer, turned and looked at him properly for the first time. “Is there something wrong? You seem to be all on edge today. Seeing and hearing strange things – what’s the matter?”
He walked to the window and looked into the garden. All seemed tranquil. He moved to the kettle and began to fill it with water. When he glanced behind she had moved away to take down some mugs, so he stepped smartly to the worktop, opened the drawer and pulled out the object she had thrust there.
It was unfamiliar, rough and heavy.
He heard her sharp intake of breath, ignored it and began unwrapping the cloth.
Then there was a heavy hand bearing down upon his, stopping all movement.
“That’s mine!” The voice in his ear was gritty and harsh, and bereft of its earlier tone of querulous innocence.
Without looking up, he needed all his strength to use his left hand to prise her grip free. She resisted, but he leaned into her and forced her hand away. Then he took the package to the sink and held the cloth high. A succession of loud clonks echoed through the kitchen as five objects clattered into the bowl. Three were blue-and-yellow cardboard packets with labels. He noted the words: .45 GAP. Then he picked up the largest object. A gun. Black and snub-nosed. He felt the weight and read the name on the handle: Glock 38. Also in the bowl was a black metal cylinder, doubtless a spare magazine.
He pursed his lips and drew in a deep breath. Harry hated guns. Regarded them as dangerous and ugly. To him, forbidden territory. He turned and gave Erika a hard stare, saying nothing. A frigid silence ensued but she didn’t wilt. She held his gaze. There was even a defiant tilt to her chin.
At last he spoke. “I thought I told you to get rid of that other gun last week… and now I find you trying to hide an even bigger weapon in my kitchen.”
But Erika was Erika. She would never sag or surrender. “Don’t try coming the bossy man with me, Harry. We both have our own hobbies and interests.”
“Hobbies?” His voice was sharp with anger. “You call this a hobby?”
“Sure. I love guns. The feel of them. Playing with them, stripping them down, cleaning them, putting them back together…”
&n
bsp; “Not in my house.”
“It’s not your house.”
“A house containing a young child, for goodness’ sake.”
She sighed. “Don’t worry. Not when he’s around. He won’t know anything about it.”
He was looking through the back window again and said, over his shoulder, “Someone was in this house when I arrived and left by the back door, and now I find you with a Glock and three packets of ammunition. I think I’m owed an explanation.”
“Your overactive imagination again, Harry – this gun came from the shop in the Buttermarket.”
He turned and almost spat. “So make sure it goes back there.”
They didn’t speak after that, Harry staying in his room, pummelling away on his keyboard and beginning to entertain negative thoughts about the woman he had, up to this moment, wanted to regard as his lover and partner. His mood wasn’t improved when he recalled another of their conversations several days back on the subject of the Kameraden. “They mean to get their way, Harry,” she’d told him. “Stay out of this for both our sakes. Just drop this story of yours. It’s too dangerous. You’re in way over your head against very determined and ruthless people. Drop it and stay safe.”
At the time he had taken this as just another instance of her fear and nervous state. Just lately, however, she didn’t seem nervous, instead rather mysteriously upbeat. And then he remembered her murmuring into the telephone one night and refusing to identify the caller. In the past he would have thought nothing of her put-off. That was just her way.
But now he was not so forgiving. Now he was beginning to have doubts.
Harry went to bed without reopening the conversation and left early the next morning.