The House of Cards Complete Trilogy

by Michael Dobbs

  “’Ow much money?”

  A handful of others were joining in the interruptions from the Opposition benches. It seemed they might have found a weakness in the Prime Minister’s defenses and could not resist the temptation to exploit it.

  “The figures vary greatly from year to year because of exceptional items…”

  “Like what?”

  “…such as refits and modernization of the Royal Trains. Also the Royal Palaces require extensive upkeep that in some years is unduly heavy. It is often very difficult to extract the exact cost out of large departmental budgets.” Urquhart appeared to be suffering from the interruptions. He was noticeably under pressure, reluctant to give details, which only excited his hecklers further. The more he prevaricated the louder became the calls for him to “come clean”; even the Liberal leader was joining in.

  “The House must understand that the statement I am making today covers the Civil List only. On other items of expenditure I am bound by custom, and it would be most improper of me to make announcements about such matters without first consulting His Majesty. We must preserve the dignity of the Crown and recognize the esteem and affection in which the Royal Family is held.”

  As Urquhart paused to consider his words the noise levels around him rose sharply. His brow clouded.

  “It was only the other day that the Opposition benches were accusing me of treating His Majesty with contempt, yet now they insist that is precisely what I do.” This antagonized his hecklers; the language swilling around the floor became increasingly unparliamentary. “They are a pathetic lot, Madam Speaker.” Urquhart waved a menacing finger at the benches opposite. “They don’t want information, they just want a row!” He appeared to have lost his temper in the face of the constant baiting, and Madam Speaker knew that it would mark the end of any sensible dialogue. She was just about to curtail discussion and call the next business when an explosion erupted in the vicinity of The Knight, who was on his feet.

  “On a Point of Order, Madam Speaker!”

  “No points of order, please. We’ve already wasted enough time…”

  “But that wretched man just told me to go and have another heart attack!”

  Accusatory fingers pointed toward The Beast and the pandemonium grew worse.

  “Really!” snapped the Speaker in exasperation.

  “’E’s got it wrong, as always,” The Beast was protesting innocently. “I told ’im ’e would have another ’eart attack, if he found out ’ow much the bloody Monarchy cost. It’s millions and millions…”

  The rest was lost in the storm of outrage from all sides.

  Urquhart picked up his folder and started to leave. He looked at the parliamentary benches in turmoil. Great pressure would undoubtedly be brought to bear on him to reveal the full cost of the Royal Family, and he might have to give it. In any event, prompted by the row, every newspaper in Fleet Street would be setting journalists to dig and make inspired guesses, and reasonably accurate figures wouldn’t be too difficult to find. A pity, he thought to himself, that last year the King’s Flight replaced both their aging airplanes, and modern jets don’t come cheap. A still greater pity that it happened to coincide with an extensive refit for the Royal Yacht Britannia. The figures even the dimmest journalist would arrive at would be well in excess of one hundred and fifty million pounds, and that was too large a chunk of red meat for even the most loyal editor to ignore. Yet nobody could accuse Urquhart of being unfair or inconsiderate to the King, not personally. Hadn’t he done his best to defend the King, even while under considerable pressure? By tomorrow morning’s headlines it would be the King himself experiencing the pressure. Then for Sally’s opinion poll.

  Even for a Prime Minister it had been an exceptional day’s work, he told himself.

  Thirty-Three

  Better a man of any reputation than a forgotten one. I have no intention of being forgotten, and what does it matter if I’m not forgiven?

  “Mr. Stamper would like a word, Prime Minister.”

  “In his capacity as Privy Councilor, Chairman of the Party, Chief Bottle Washer, or honorary president of his football club?” Urquhart swung his feet down from the green leather sofa on which he had been propped reading Cabinet papers as he waited in his House of Commons office for a series of late-night divisions. He couldn’t remember what they were voting for next. Was it to increase punishment for offenders, or reduce subventions to the United Nations? Something, anyway, which would get the tabloids going and reveal the Opposition in the worst possible light.

  “Mr. Stamper didn’t say,” responded the humorless private secretary, who had still put no more than his head and left shoulder around the door.

  “Wheel him in!” the Prime Minister instructed.

  Stamper appeared, offered no word of greeting, and made straight for the drinks cupboard where he poured himself a large whiskey.

  “Looks like bad news, Tim.”

  “Oh, it is. Some of the worst I’ve heard for ages.”

  “Not another selfish swine in a marginal seat gone and died?”

  “Worse, much worse, Francis. Our latest private polls put us three points ahead. What’s even more worrying, for some reason people seem to like you, you’re ten points ahead of McKillin. Your vanity will be uncontrollable. Your ridiculous plan for an early election looks as if it could work after all!”

  “Praise the Lord.”

  “There’s something even more fascinating, Francis,” Stamper continued in more serious demeanor. Unbidden he had filled a glass for Urquhart and handed it to him before continuing. “I’ve just been having a quiet chat with the Home Secretary. The cock-up theory of politics rules supreme. Seems that little shit Marples has at last gotten himself caught with his trousers down, late the other night on the towpath at Putney.”

  “In January?” Urquhart asked incredulously.

  “Absolutely in flagrante. With a fourteen-year-old. Apparently he’s into little boys.” He made himself comfortable behind Urquhart’s desk, his feet up on the Prime Ministerial blotter. He was deliberately pushing his luck, teasing. His news must be particularly weighty, mused Urquhart.

  “But lucky. The police were going to charge him so he broke down and told them everything in the hope they’d go easy on him. Lots of names, addresses, gossip, suggestions of where to look if they wanted to find an organized prostitution ring.”

  “Castration’s too good—”

  “And it appears he came up with a very interesting name. David Mycroft.”

  Urquhart took a deep swig.

  “So all of a sudden our boys in blue have gone coy and are asking for a little informal guidance. If Marples gets prosecuted, he’ll implicate Mycroft and all hell will break loose. The Home Secretary’s given a nod and a wink that prosecuting the Honorable and Upright Member for Dagenham would not be in the public interest. So we’re saved a by-election.”

  Urquhart swung his legs down from the sofa. “What do they have on Mycroft?”

  “Not a lot. Just his name and the fact that Marples was tangling with him at some gay club on New Year’s Eve. Who knows where that could lead? But they haven’t interviewed him.”

  “Maybe they should.”

  “They can’t, Francis. If they go after Mycroft they’ve got to do for Marples as well, which in turn will do for us all. Anyway, if spending time at a gay club were a crime we’d have to lock up half the House of Lords.”

  “Listen to me, Tim. They can have Marples kebabed on a rusty skewer for all I care. But he wouldn’t be charged for weeks, not until after the election, by which time it won’t matter a bent farthing. Yet if they can put pressure on Mycroft now, it may be just the insurance policy we need. Don’t you see? Pieces for position. Capture the low ground today, in exchange for giving up a player later, when it no longer matters. I think they call it a queen sacrifice.”

&nb
sp; “I think I need another drink. Problems like that, so close to the heart of the Palace. If this were to come out…”

  “How long’s Mycroft been with the King?”

  “Known each other since they were both spotty youths. One of his longest-serving aides. And closest friends.”

  “Sounds distressingly serious. It would be awful if the King knew.”

  “And were covering up for Mycroft, in spite of the sensitivity of the work he does. Must know half the nation’s secrets in his job.”

  “Be even worse if His Majesty didn’t know. Fooled, bamboozled, defrauded for thirty years by one of his closest friends, a man he has put into a position of trust.”

  “A knave or a fool. A monarch who didn’t fulfill his responsibilities, or couldn’t. What will the press make of all this, if it gets out?”

  “Terrible news, Tim. This is terrible.”

  “Worst I’ve heard in ages.”

  There was a long moment of silence. Then, coming from inside the Prime Minister’s room, the private secretary heard a sustained, almost uncontrollable bout of gut-wrenching laughter.

  ***

  “Damn them! Damn them all, David! How could they be so cretinous?” The King hurled one newspaper after another into the air as Mycroft watched the pages flutter down to lay strewn across the floor. “I didn’t want the Civil List increase, but now I’m attacked for greed. And how can it be that only a few days after informing the Prime Minister that I wished the Royal Family to pay full taxes on our income, they report it as if it’s his idea?”

  “Downing Street’s unattributable briefing…” Mycroft muttered feebly.

  “Of course it is!” snapped the King as if talking with a backward pupil. “They even suggest I’m caving in to pressure in agreeing to pay tax, that I’ve been forced into it by the hostile press coverage. That man Urquhart is abominable! He can’t help but twist everything to his advantage. If he even stumbled by accident upon the truth he would pick himself up and carry on as if nothing had happened. It’s preposterous!”

  A copy of The Times was hurled to the farthest corner of the room, settling like huge flakes of snow.

  “Did any of them bother to inquire after the facts?”

  Mycroft coughed awkwardly. “The Chronicle. Their story is fair…”

  The King snatched the paper from among the pile, scanning its columns. He seemed to calm a little. “Urquhart is trying to humiliate me, David. To cut me to ribbons, piece by piece, without even a chance to explain myself.” He’d had the dream again last night. From the pages of every newspaper he could see staring at him the wide, expectant eyes of the grubby boy with the dribble of crumbs on his chin. It terrified him. “I will not let them drag me like a lamb to the slaughter, David. I must not permit that. I’ve been thinking: I must find some way of explaining my views. Get my point across without Urquhart getting in the way. I shall give an interview.”

  “But Kings don’t give newspaper interviews,” Mycroft protested weakly.

  “Not before they haven’t. But this is the age of the new, open Monarchy. I’m going to do it, David. With the Chronicle, I think. An exclusive.”

  Mycroft wanted to protest that if an interview were a bad idea, an exclusive could be even worse, giving all the other newspapers something to shoot at. But he didn’t have the strength to argue. He hadn’t been able to think clearly all day, ever since he had answered a knock at the door early in the morning to discover a DC and Inspector from the Vice Squad standing on his front step.

  Thirty-Four

  The free press talks of its principles like the accused talks about his alibi.

  January: The Fourth Week

  Landless had driven himself, simply telling his staff that he would be uncontactable. His secretary hated mysteries; when he presented excuses she always assumed he was off being grubby with some young woman who had a strong back and weak bank balance. She knew what he was like. Some fifteen years earlier she, too, had been young and grubby with Landless, before things like marriage, respectability, and stretch marks had intervened. Such insights into the inner man had helped her become an efficient and outrageously overpaid personal assistant, yet hadn’t stopped her being jealous. And today he had told no one, not even her; he didn’t want the whole world knowing where he was even before he had arrived.

  The reception desk was tiny and the waiting room dull, covered in mediocre early Victorian oils of horses and hunting scenes in imitation of Stubbs and Ben Marshall. One of them might have been an authentic John Herring; he couldn’t be positive but he was beginning to develop an eye for such things, after all, he’d bought enough of the genuine article over the past few years. Almost immediately he was being summoned by a young footman in full livery, waisted tails, buckles, and stockings, and ushered into a small but immaculately appointed lift where the mahogany shone as deep as the Palace servant’s shoes. He wished his mother had been here: she would have loved it. She’d been born on the day Queen Alexandra died and had always believed it somehow tied her in, hinting at a mysterious “special link,” and in later life attending gatherings of spiritualists. Just before his dear old mum had taken her own trip to “the other side,” she had stood for three hours to catch a view through the crowd of Princess Di on her wedding day. She’d only seen the back of the coach, and that for no more than a few seconds, but she’d waved her flag and cheered and cried, and come home feeling she had done her bit. For her it was all patriotic pride and commemorative biscuit tins. She would be wetting herself if she were gazing down now.

  “Your first time?” the footman inquired.

  Landless nodded. Princess Charlotte had telephoned him. An exclusive interview with the Chronicle, implying she had set it up herself. Would he be sure to send someone reliable? And allow the Palace to check the article before it was printed? Perhaps they could have lunch again soon? He was being led along a broad corridor with windows overlooking the inner courtyard. The paintings were better here, portraits of long-forgotten Royal scions by masters whose names had endured rather better.

  “You address him as ‘Your Majesty’ when you first go in. Afterwards you can simply call him ‘sir,’” the footman muttered as they approached a solid but unpretentious door.

  As the door swung quietly open, Landless remembered Charlotte’s other question. Was the idea a good one? He had doubts, serious doubts, about whether an exclusive interview would be good for the King, but he knew it would be bloody marvelous for his newspaper.

  ***

  “Sally? Sorry to telephone so early. You haven’t been in contact for a day or two. Everything all right?”

  In fact it had been nearly a week, and although Urquhart had sent along flowers and two major potential clients, he hadn’t found the right moment to call. He shrugged. They’d had a spat, she would get over it. She would have to if she wanted to retain an inside track. In any event, this was urgent.

  “How’s the opinion poll coming along? Ready yet?” He tried to judge her mood down the phone. Perhaps a little cool and formal, almost as if he’d woken her up. Anyway this was business. “Something’s come up. Word is His Royal Conscience has given an exclusive interview to the Chronicle and they’re hoping to get it cleared for publication in a couple of days. I haven’t any idea what’s in it, Landless is sitting on it as though he were hatching an egg, but I can’t help feeling that in the public interest there should be a bit of balance. Don’t you think? Perhaps an opinion poll, published beforehand, reflecting the growing public disaffection with the Royal Family? To put the interview in context?” He looked out of the window across St. James’s Park, where, beside the pelican pool, two women were struggling in the grubby morning light to pull their squabbling dogs apart. “I suspect some newspapers like The Times might even infer that the King’s interview was a hurried and somewhat desperate attempt to respond to the opinion poll.” He winced as one of
the women, her smaller pet lodged firmly between the jaws of a large black mongrel, gave the other dog a firm kick in the testicles. The dogs separated, only for the two owners to begin snarling at each other. “It would be really superb if the poll were ready for release by, say…this afternoon?”

  As Sally rolled over to place the phone back in its cradle, she stretched the aches of the night out of her bones. She lay staring at the ceiling for a few moments, allowing the mental instructions to seep from her brain down through her body. Her nose was twitching like a periscope above the sheets, tasting the news she had just received. She sat up in bed, alive and alert, and turned to the form beside her.

  “Got to go, lover. Mischief afoot and work to be done.”

  ***

  Guardian, Page One, January 27

  NEW STORM HITS KING

  “IS HE A CHRISTIAN?”

  • • •

  A new storm of controversy surrounded the Royal Family last night when the Bishop of Durham, from the pulpit of his cathedral, questioned the King’s religious motives. Quoting the King’s much-criticized newspaper interview earlier this week in which he revealed a deep interest in Eastern religions and did not discount the possibility of physical resurrection, the fundamentalist Bishop attacked such “fashionable dalliance with mysticism.”

  “The King is the Defender of the Faith and anointed head of our Church of England. But is he a Christian?”

  Buckingham Palace indicated last night that the King had simply been trying to emphasize, as King of a country with a large number of racial and religious minorities, that he felt it his duty not to take a narrow and restrictive view of his religious role. But the Bishop’s attack seems set to fuel further controversy in the wake of the recent critical opinion poll that showed dramatically falling support for some members of the Royal Family such as Princess Charlotte, and a growing demand to restrict the number of members of the Royal Family who receive their income from the Civil List.