“Gentlemen, this has nothing to do with farming…”
“Dig for victory, eh, Prime Minister?”
The television lights seemed uncharacteristically warm this morning. He could feel the prickle of perspiration on his scalp and Prime Ministers aren’t meant to sweat, to show pressure or exasperation. The cruel eye of television allows them nothing more than a cheerful glow, but he wasn’t feeling cheerful.
“And what about Mr. Makepeace, Prime Minister? Has there been any contact between Downing Street and the Birmingham police about his arrest?”
Claire looked on from the wings, studying him closely while she twisted inside. Means, ends, truth, principle, pragmatism. Politics. Weeds choking the rose. She knew he’d have to lie, to deceive, perhaps she would too in his position—except she would never have got herself into that position, would she? She had been trusting, naive. She still had much to learn, even about herself. And much still to do.
The question hung in the air. Urquhart offered a reproachful glance at his wristwatch. “You’ll forgive me, ladies and gentlemen, but this is proving to be an unexpectedly busy day.”
***
She would attempt to make the walk that day even if she were on her own. Fifteen miles to Stratford-upon-Avon, from a sloping farmer’s field outside Bentley Heath, south of Birmingham, where the M40 and M42 motorways intersect. To show Tom he was not alone.
She had arrived early after the confusion of the night before and had sat on the dewy grass, waiting. Time hung heavily upon the morning air, weighing down her spirits. There was, perhaps, little point in this gesture, but gestures have to be made. Sometimes that is all there is.
And others seemed to agree.
Like daffodils in spring, Makepeace’s movement had grown, not yet in flower but already thrusting defiantly through the oppressive snow. They came, in families, with friends, on buses, by train and on foot, some solemn, some singing, carrying banners and babies, trickling into the field until they had grown to a river swollen on injustice. Then, with their unerring instinct for crowds, the first mobile kebab shops arrived. At last she ventured a smile.
She could imagine no more powerful symbol of success, of spring. The cuckoos of journalism would not be far behind.
By nine they numbered nearly five thousand. Not bad for a Monday morning.
Maria had grown with the movement, in confidence, in judgment and independence. She’d never stood before anything more formidable than a class of thirty infants, but armies march to the beat of a drum, and in Tom’s absence someone had to do it. They looked to her.
She clambered onto the roof of the small Renault support van to face them. Slowly, the shuffle of noise subsided until all eyes clung to her. She had no words for what was in her heart, but somehow she felt that they all understood and shared.
The breeze caught her face, blowing back her dark hair and rubbing into her cheeks the flush of rebellion. Then, slowly and as though in great pain, she raised her clasped hands high above her head. As Makepeace had done the previous day, in chains. Five thousand pairs of hands rose toward the sky, clenched in defiance, and as many voices sang out in chorus.
From the control van parked in a lay-by beyond the entrance to the field, hurried conversations were flowing up the chain of police command, from the Inspector on the scene all the way to the Chief Constable’s office. The marchers had started on their way before the decision came back down. There was little chance of the march being met by violent opposition, at least for the next few hours; skinheads wouldn’t be out of bed yet. Anyway, the march was heading away from Birmingham, out of West Midlands’ jurisdiction; so good riddance and the Warwickshire Constabulary could pick up the problem.
Anyway, what were they supposed to do, arrest the whole bloody lot?
“Kiss ’em good-bye, Inspector.”
***
In the pink light of dawn the cutting glistened like the inside of a wolf’s mouth, waiting to snap shut on its prey. It did not last. By midmorning the moisture had burned away and the rocks of pillow lava were batting the sun’s rays back and forth in a cruel game of solar ping-pong. The temperature at the road surface was ninety and climbing.
Nicolaou had slept badly. The strain of the last few days was telling on a body that even in youth had been far from robust, and the reserves of character and resilience he had drained during his time at the Lodge had proved impossible to replenish. The sharp cold of the mountain night had cut through to his bones and he was in no mood to eat breakfast, even had there been any. His eyes had grown glassy, he was beginning to run a fever.
But there was still pride.
They had made him as comfortable as the circumstances would allow in the back of one of the four-tonners. He had uttered not a single word of complaint, offering only a brave smile for his daughter, but she was not fooled and refused to disguise her concern. And by midafternoon the temperature even in the shade was over a hundred.
St. Aubyn made hourly rounds of the besieged convoy, trying to maintain morale, emphasizing to all that had the Cypriots been intent on personal harm they would undoubtedly have inflicted it by now.
“Cypos are nice people, sir,” a corporal confirmed, wiping his reddened face with a rag. “Funny thing is, though, when I was a kid we had lots of beetles on the farm. I never got into trouble for crushing them, it was only when I tried to burn the bleedin’ things alive with a magnifying glass that me old man gave me a belt. Think I’m beginning to understand what he meant.”
St. Aubyn passed on quickly, unwilling to tangle with such singular logic. The next truck was Nicolaou’s.
“Fetch me a little water, Elpída,” her father asked, as St. Aubyn appeared at his feet.
When she was gone he turned to the soldier. “Colonel, I am desperately sorry to tell you this, but I’m not sure if I shall be able to last very much longer.”
St. Aubyn knelt beside him. “Mr. President,” he whispered, “the water your daughter is fetching is all but our final cup. I’m not sure how much longer any of us will be able to last.”
***
They were able to maintain intermittent radio contact with the outside world through the helicopters that flew surveillance at regular intervals high over the cutting. From this they were able to inform their base that their supplies were exhausted, and to learn that as yet no one had any idea how—or when—they might be released.
As dusk drew in a Wessex appeared on the horizon flying fast and low, no more than two hundred feet, the door to the rear cabin latched back. As it passed overhead two drums emerged, sprouted silken wings and began floating down, laminated red in the light of the melting sun. A straggling cheer rose from hoarse throats as the soldiers watched the water drums floating toward them and the Wessex begin its turn to start another supply run.
The drums were about a hundred feet from the ground when two shotgun blasts rang out on the ridge above. The parachutes exploded into a cloud of rag feathers and the supplies plummeted to the ground. On impact they burst, one drum almost taking a startled soldier with it into the afterlife.
With a dip of its nose, the Wessex abandoned its run and vanished into the evening sky.
***
Mortima woke to a clap of summer thunder. It was three a.m., the air dank and oppressive, outside the curtain of night was being torn by the white lightning of the storm. He was at the window; he hadn’t slept.
She joined him, her arm snaking through his like links in a chain. “You are troubled, Francis.”
“The gods are troubled tonight. I feel…” He shrugged, unable to finish.
“Francis, this is no time for secrets between us.”
He breathed deep and tried again. “I feel as though they are waging war over me, the gods out there. Fighting over who will dispose of Francis Urquhart.”
“Who will sit at his side in triumph,” sh
e corrected.
He did not argue, nor was he convinced. In the bursts of sharp light pouring through the window she could see nothing but shadow across his eyes, which made them appear as the empty sockets of a skull. Thunder rattled like the chains of the Underworld. The mood frightened her.
“What is it?” she demanded. “Don’t lock me out.”
His eyes flickered back into life, he bowed his head in apology. “We have always shared, Mortima. Everything. The triumphs and the wounds. But now I’m afraid to.”
“Sharing a fear is to cut it in two.”
“I haven’t wanted to burden you.”
“Am I so weak or loose-tongued you feel you have to protect me?”
“I wish to protect you,” he chastised gently, “because I value you beyond all others. And my fears seem so infantile and superstitious. Yet so very real.”
She squeezed his arm more tightly. The atmosphere was stifling, the storm was about to break.
“I told you about Cyprus. Of sacrifice, many years ago,” he continued. “It took place not three miles from where the convoy is being held, near the village of Spilia. And it was marked by a symbol, a sign. A flaming pine. Like a torch that has flickered through my dreams in all the years since.”
“Sometimes it’s not healthy to dwell on dreams.”
“I saw the tree again. The other day beside the Lodge. Burning once more.”
“A symbol of future triumph,” she offered.
“Perhaps a life come full circle.”
“Then a completeness. A whole. Signifying strength.”
“A life that has come full circle can never go around again, Mortima.”
Mortality. With that she could find no argument. Yet the words had helped, he appeared more at ease now, the burden shared, his inner doubts confronted and out in the open. Better to see them. A mile away a trident’s fork of lightning struck the BT Tower and a final, massive drum roll of thunder vibrated across the rooftops.
“What will you do, Francis?”
“Do what I have always done, the only thing I know how to do. Fight. And hope my gods win.”
He turned to embrace her and the rains came. The gods’ battle was done. They were ready to dispose of him.
***
It was almost two a.m. when Maria heard the knock on her motel door. She hadn’t been able to sleep, exhilarated by the success of the day’s march and tormented by thoughts of what might happen to Tom in the morning. The knocking grew persistent. She threw the covers aside and was halfway across the room before she hesitated. Who was it? What could be so urgent and why the hell hadn’t they telephoned? Anyway, she was wearing nothing but one of Tom’s shirts.
“Who’s there?” she inquired cautiously.
From out in the corridor a woman’s voice replied; it earned no hint of threat. Maria opened the door but kept it on the chain.
“I’ve brought a message for Tom,” the woman announced, addressing the eye and loose strand of hair that appeared around the door.
Tom. The password to Maria’s new life. Resolved, she slipped the chain and slowly opened the door. It was Claire. Maria didn’t fully recognize her, but Claire had already recognized the shirt—so it was true, they were lovers. The legs were great, long and finely toned. Tom always had appreciated good legs. “I think I’d better come in. Both you and I are a little too exposed here in the corridor.”
The shirt, the legs, and the attractive face with its long and darkly rumpled hair made way.
“Hello, I’m Claire Carlsen,” she said, extending her hand. “Francis Urquhart’s PPS.”
Instantly Maria took a step back and her look of sleepy half recognition turned to sharp disfavor. “Get out. I have nothing to say to you.”
“But I have something to say to you.” Claire held her ground. “Something for Tom.”
“Francis Urquhart wouldn’t lift a finger to help Tom.”
“You’re absolutely right. But I would.”
“You?” She made no attempt to disguise her ill feeling. “Why?”
How could she explain, to Maria of all people? “Perhaps because in helping him I may be able to help myself.”
Maria studied the other woman. The blond features were so different from her own. The salon-chic hair, the Italian shoulder bag, the considered, discreetly expensive style. Everything Maria was not. She had many reasons for distrusting this other woman, but there were also the raw eyes that said Claire hadn’t slept, not since she’d heard of Tom’s arrest and understood why Corder had been so keen to ensure that the driver was well out of trouble’s reach. Trouble Corder knew to expect. Trouble he must have planned. And behind Corder stood only one master.
“I don’t believe I want to help anyone associated with Francis Urquhart,” Maria said firmly.
“We are all associated with Francis Urquhart, whether we like it or not. Tom above all.”
Maria stood in the middle of the bedroom, her arms folded across the shirt, aggression squeezed aside by her concerns for Tom and, perhaps, feminine intuition about this woman.
“You would betray Urquhart?”
“I prefer to think of it as being true to myself. I don’t think I have been at times in these past weeks. I want to make up for it.”
“How?”
“By warning Tom. His arrest was no accident. There were politics behind it. Downing Street politics.”
“Where’s your proof?”
“I have none. It’s no more than a suspicion.”
“Not much to go on.”
“Enough for me to take the very considerable risk of driving through the night to come here.”
“Risk?”
“If Francis found out, there wouldn’t be much point in going back.”
“This could simply be a ruse, a distraction of some sort. Another trick.”
“Please. Let Tom decide that. Tell him I think it was Urquhart.”
Maria made no reply.
“One other thing,” Claire continued. “Urquhart knows you are lovers. He’ll certainly use it against you if he needs to.”
“Don’t try to threaten me.” There was anger now.
“I’m trying to save you.”
“He can’t prove a thing!”
“My advice to you is to stay out of his bed until the election is over. And stay out of his shirts.”
Maria started, looked down at her nightwear and then back at Claire, her intuition suddenly wide awake. “He said there had been someone who’d hurt him. Someone in politics, very different from me.” She studied the tired eyes closely, trying to find the woman within. “Someone who would know his shirts.”
“Someone who still cares for him very much.”
“We have more in common than I thought,” Maria acknowledged grimly. “He still thinks about you.”
“And I still think about him, as you see.”
“But more about yourself.” Maria’s tone carried accusation.
“Perhaps. And particularly about my family.” She hadn’t intended all this self-exposure and sharing of secrets, she wasn’t sure it had helped. “What are you going to do?”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Funny thing is,” Maria replied, showing her the door, “neither am I.”
Forty-Three
Never trust a Greek man. The women of Greece don’t, and they know them best.
A photograph of a grizzled old Cypriot dominated the front page of the Independent. He was seated on a splay-footed dining chair, old military beret pulled askew over his brow, a gap-tooth smile splitting his walnut face. A battered musket of pre-1914 vintage was propped against one knee and a lissom sixteen-year-old schoolgirl seated on the other. By such an army were the British being humbled, “held to ransom by a combination of ho
ckey stick and blunderbuss,” as the Independent claimed.
The Sun was less tactful—FU! SAY CYPOS ran its headline. Of the carnival atmosphere among the Greeks there was much coverage; of the growing fear and suffering among the British troops very little.
The message of the media was unanimous: FRANCIS URQUHART: FROM TRIUMPH TO TURKEY. Two days is a long time in Fleet Street.
“So what is the military solution, Air Marshal Rae?”
A smell of furniture polish lingered throughout the Cabinet Room; it takes more than war to disrupt a Whitehall cleaning schedule. Over the satellite link to COBRA came the sound of an apologetic cough. “That’s difficult, Prime Minister.”
“Difficult?” Urquhart snapped. “You’re telling me you can’t handle this?”
Across the Cabinet table, Youngblood began to color. Out of sight, the climate was changing in Cyprus, too. The Air Vice-Marshal was a man minted at Harrow and molded by his passion for the brutality of croquet; an unsuitable case for bullying. Rae blew his nose stubbornly, a noise that across the link sounded like a bull preparing to resist the matador’s goad.
“Difficult, sir, because as you will remember this was an expedition that I recommended against.”
“Schoolgirls!”
“Precisely. And I cannot envisage a military solution that would not risk endangering the lives of either those schoolgirls or my men, or both.”
“Are you telling me you can find no solution?”
“Not a military one. A political solution, perhaps.”
“You’re suggesting I negotiate with a bunch of pirates?”
“They’re not exactly that, Prime Minister. Which is part of the trouble. They have no clear leadership, no individual with whom to negotiate. These are simply ordinary Cypriots united around a common purpose. To get us out.”
“What about President Nicolaou?”
“Seems they want him out, too. It’s difficult to find much enthusiasm for politicians in this part of the world right now, sir.”
Urquhart ignored what he was sure was the intentional irony. He needed Rae. “I have worked hard to bring peace to the island. If they throw out Nicolaou, they throw out the peace deal with him.”
The House of Cards Complete Trilogy Page 94