Chosen

by Paddy Bostock

  “Oink, oink,” repeated Pete, who’d ambled off from the Shepherd’s Hut while the humans were busy inside to check out his old stamping ground and make sure everything was in order. Which, he was glad to see, it was. But then the peculiar stranger had arrived and, employing his normally underrated porcine intelligence quotients, Pete sensed he needed guidance. Possibly a friend of Master Jeremy’s, he surmised, hence the semiotic curly-tail-waggling he now offered as a lure. A sign Sir Magnus would never had read, but one new man Maggie—bamboozled but nonetheless—took as a gesture of friendship.

  “You would like me to follow you?” he asked Pete, who waggled his tail some more.

  “OINK OINK,” he said, beginning to trundle off towards Fanbury’s main drag. And for reasons he would forever question, Maggie, pushing the Lambretta, followed, although progress was slow.

  “Look, piggy,” he said after only twenty or thirty metres, “why don’t you climb aboard? It’d be faster that way.”

  “Oink,” Pete agreed, clambering onto the footplate and settling his trotters on the mid-section of the handlebars while Maggie slid back on his seat then leaned forwards around Pete to control the throttle and handbrake.

  “Just point me in the right direction, okay? I tell you what, you can wear my crash hat too.”

  “OINK OINK!”

  It was unsurprising given all the pressure he’d been under as the Internet’s most sought-after person that when Maggie beeped his horn to announce their arrival and Jeremy peered through the window and saw Pete—over whose unexplained absence he’d been fretting—now driving a motor scooter with a passenger on the pillion, he should have fainted and needed to be revived with a shot of Barry’s Special Reserve 80% beetroot brandy and a head massage from Julie.

  It was OO17 Maurice Moffat who stepped into the breach to greet the new arrivals.

  Twenty-two

  Maurice had been encouraged by the responses he’d received from Julie and Dennis to his proposal of a Jeremy/John Lennon lookalike video clip to compete with Ripurpantzov’s troll farm shenanigans. Like Barry and Jeremy before them, they had initially been incredulous, but with pleasing alacrity thereafter, both warmed to the idea.

  “Sounds too wacky to make much of a difference to anything,” Dennis said. “Could be fun, though. You up for it Jeremy, are you?”

  Jeremy laughed. “Couldn’t get myself into much more trouble, could I?”

  Julie was even more enthusiastic. “I wasn’t born when John got shot but my dad told me all about him. Drove my mam nuts singing his songs in the bath all the time. That’s how I learned the words,” she said, dabbing at the tear dribbling down her cheek. “Dad also told me about the fuss he caused with god freaks over in the US by saying The Beatles were more popular than Jesus. Took some guts that did, but the way Dad told it, John was just speaking the truth like he always did. Maybe that’s what got him shot.”

  Barry hoisted both eyebrows. “Mmm,” he said after a moment’s thought. “One wonders, doesn’t one, whether our little game might not have an equally affective impact on the mood of our cousins across the pond as in Ruskieland? Nothing like a reminder of times past to re-open some eyes, is there? I gather Mister Spielberg’s Watergate film has been rather well received. With luck pigs still might fly,” he was saying at the very moment Maggie beeped his horn and, before fainting, Jeremy peered through the window to see Pete apparently driving a motor scooter.

  As noted, it was OO17 Maurice Moffat who took charge of the situation.

  “May I be of assistance?” he said, watching on as Maggie and Pete got in each other’s way while struggling to disembark from the Lambretta, which, unaccustomed to such ineptitude, keeled over, tossing both passengers onto the mulchy ground.

  “OINK,” Pete protested, rolling about with all four legs pointing in different directions as Maggie climbed to his feet and did his best to appear in control of the situation.

  “Ah, um, hello there,” he said, dusting himself down.

  “And you might be?” said Maurice, fingering the little .22 Glock he kept in a secret pocket in case of emergencies.

  In his other life, Maggie would have said, “Sir Magnus Montague, who are you?” But this was new man Maggie, who apologised for the disturbance of his unusual arrival before requesting the chance to explain.

  “You have two minutes,” said Maurice, OO17-ishly. The bloke didn’t look like he intended mischief, but in these dark days one could never be too sure. In all his years on the spook circuit, Maurice was yet to confront a counter-agent riding pillion on a pig-driven motor scooter, but who knew what new sorts of camouflage they might have adopted. Maurice kept his finger on the mini-Glock’s trigger just in case.

  “Two minutes, eh,” said Maggie. “A tall order.”

  “Go for it.”

  So Maggie did, clocking one minute and forty-eight seconds by Maurice’s watch.

  “Blimey,” he said, relaxing his trigger finger. In Maurice’s world, concision was a rare virtue and a key tell. Liars waffled endlessly off the point.

  “So it’s Jeremy Crawford you seek?” he added as Pete clambered to his feet and peered accusingly at the fallen Lambretta.

  “As I said, in light of my conversion to his view of things, I should be honoured to meet him again,” said Maggie. “Always assuming the pig brought me to the right place, of course. To be honest, I had no way of knowing. Simply trusted to blind instinct.”

  Maurice liked that too. Real life spooks never admitted to blind instinct unless they were triple bluffing. Which remained a possibility but, looking into Maggie’s eyes, Maurice discounted the likelihood. Call it intuition. Call it anything you want, but the bloke’s highly compacted explanation for his visit had rung true, so…”

  “Okay,” he said. “Anything in your pockets I should see before we step inside? A smartphone? Any little wires leading to…?”

  Maggie took off his Hells Angels jacket and tossed it over.

  “Help yourself. You’ll find no bombs, though. And there’s not much else of me that could hide anything. Unless you’re going to frisk me, of course.”

  “Sorry, but actually I am,” said Maurice, checking the biker’s jacket pockets and linings before asking Maggie to spreadeagle himself against the Shepherd’s Hut garden railings. “I just need to be sure, that’s all. As you will be aware, Jeremy is a much sought after person these days.”

  “Understandable,” said Maggie over his shoulder while Maurice patted him down. “And may I be allowed to know exactly your connection to him?”

  In one minute and forty-six seconds, beating his previous personal explanation record by a whole second, Maurice introduced himself.

  “So that’s how important Jeremy has become?” said Maggie.

  “Indeed,” said Maurice, satisfied the stranger was clean. “Now if you would care to step this way. Sir Magnus, is it?”

  “Maggie.”

  “Apologies. Maggie.”

  “Oink,” said Pete.

  ~ * ~

  Despite his born again hippy/Hells Angel appearance, Jeremy and Julie recognised Sir Magnus aka Maggie straight away and exchanged disturbed glances. Barry and Dennis just stared and raised eyebrows at Maurice, who palmed air and nodded reassurance.

  “A friend,” he said, while Shirley, Hans and Colin checked out their new visitor with leg and bum sniffs before wagging their tails in approval.

  “Jeremy and Julie over there I’m sure you already know,” he added. “The other two gentlemen are: Barry, the owner of this fine establishment…”

  Barry smiled unreadably.

  “And Dennis, who used to be a Fanbury policeman until he saw the light.”

  “Hi,” said Maggie with a little wave. “As Barry indicated,” he added, acknowledging Jeremy’s and Julie’s suspicious eyeballing, “some of you will know well enough who I am. As for you other chaps, explanations are clearly in order. May I sit?”

  “Feel free,” said Barry, wafting an arm at
a battered old piano stool. “Looking a tad wobbly on your pins. A stiffener help at all?”

  “I’d be obliged,” said Maggie. “Non-alcoholic if you have it. On the wagon, these days, but a caffeine hit would be appreciated. No milk and just the one sugar,”

  Jeremy and Julie exchanged frowns and puzzled glances while Barry fixed the coffee. The Sir Magnus they’d known had always been at least half cut and chewing on one of his absurd cigars.

  “This time you have more than two minutes,” said Maurice with a grin.

  And so it was, sipping at Barry’s fine brew, that Maggie offloaded his recent change of heart to perfect strangers, with the exception of Jeremy and Julie that was. But, along with Dennis and Barry, they listened in amazement and even chuckled along with Maggie when he told of the cardiac arrest, which had threatened an actual change of heart.

  “Managed with just a bit of a bypass and a couple of stents as it happened,” he explained, “as things turned out it wasn’t the ticker that needed the transplant so much as the bally brain. Clearly needed a good clean out and some new nuts and bolts that little fella did.”

  “Is he for real?” Julie whispered behind her hand to Jeremy, who looked as perplexed as his new inamorata.

  It was Pete, sitting with Hilary, Hans, and Colin who answered her question.

  “Oink!” he said. Appropriately because this was the point in Maggie’s narrative at which he was moving on from his epiphanic comprehension of Jeremy’s motives in “leaving his life” to the need he felt to seek out his ex-HAA and compliment him on his decision. And how helpful Jeremy’s pig pal had been in this quest.

  “Couldn’t have done without him,” he said, leaning over to stroke Pete’s head. “Much maligned chaps, pigs. Sorry about the arrival, of course. Must have looked a tad bizarre.”

  “Oink,” Pete agreed.

  “Sir Magnus,” said Jeremy. “Are we really to understand…?”

  “Maggie. The name’s Maggie now.”

  “Sorry, Maggie. But are you telling us…?”

  “That I’m a new man? Yes, and not ashamed to say so. And for all my past misdeeds I full-heartedly apologise. To both of you, but especially to Miss Mackintosh, the best PA I ever had and the most maltreated.”

  Julie blinked.

  “And to you, Jeremy, I offer not only my most humble apologies but also my thanks for having presented me with the model upon which to reassess my own paltry existence and do something about it before it was too late. Which, of course, it almost was, what with the ticker problem and everything.”

  “And you really had to sluice out lavatories?” said Jeremy.

  “As I said, the beak required it for biffing the copper on his schnoz, poor chap. Got rather good at it, even if I say so myself. Cleanest lavs in town, they are. And the stint’s not finished yet. Still a few weeks to go. Just took a little break on the off chance of finding you, then I’ll be back at it.”

  Barry smiled. “More coffee, Maggie?” he said. “Unless you’re sure you wouldn’t fancy a drop of something stronger? I do a rather nifty raspberry champagne. Can’t imagine a drop or two would see you back in the A&E.”

  “Well put that way, I don’t see why not. A&E more likely to kill me than raspberry champers these days, eh, so I’ll take my chances.”

  “Tell you what,” said Barry, who admired anyone who could clean toilets and be proud of the results, “why don’t we all share a glass and perhaps indulge in a small toast to our new friend? Be up for that, would you, Jeremy?”

  Maggie waited with some apprehension, but was glad to see his ex-HAA first nod then rise from his seat and then amble over with a hand outthrust.

  “It would be a pleasure,” he said, dropping the hand at the last moment and instead taking Maggie in a man hug. Which surprised and confused Maggie who, new man though he was, had no prior experience of man hugging, which he had always assumed to be only for the gay boys.

  “Oooofff,” he said, as Jeremy enveloped him. But he was smiling.

  He smiled a lot more when Julie crossed the room to join the hug fest, although he was very careful not to touch her bottom.

  Dennis, Barry and Maurice watched on and clapped.

  “I like it when stuff comes together,” said Dennis.

  “Me too,” Maurice was saying only moments before his phone took to trilling in his pocket and he headed to the door apologising for the call “he just had to take.”

  “That corny old line again?” Barry called after him, but Maurice ignored it and headed for the door.

  Twenty-three

  Maurice’s caller on her super-unbuggable line from her MI6 office was Milly/Dame Muriel Eggleshaw, who was being plagued by calls from Phoebe/Clarissa over Casanova’s progress, or the lack of it, and getting fed up with them.

  “That bally woman calls me just one more time,” she had told Sir Hubert “Hubby” Humphreys during their lunchtime schmooze at her Park Lane hinterland club, “and I’m going round to number ten and whack her over the head with my old lackers stick.”

  At Girton, Muriel had been captain of the most successful women’s lacrosse team in college history and been given a blue for her troubles.

  “Possibly not the most appropriate move, old thing,” said Sir Hubert over vol au vents and Prosecco. “Not for one in your position. ‘MI6 head bashes PM unconscious with hockey stick’ not exactly the sort of media headline one would wish for.”

  “Lackers stick.”

  “Lackers, hockey, what’s the difference?”

  Pedantically, Dame Muriel was about to explain the precise difference between lacrosse and hockey sticks, but Sir Hubert placed the forefinger of one hand across his lips and, with the other hand, topped up her Prosecco glass.

  “Not the kind of news tidbit one would wish to reach old Ripurpantzov’s ears, either,” he continued. “Brit Secret Services at daggers drawn with their mistress and so on. Would send precisely the wrong message.”

  “Hrrummphh,” said Dame Muriel, sipping her wine and reaching for another vol au vent.

  “Bloody man,” she added in mid-munch. “One does so wish he would go away. Be toppled in an internal conspiracy or something.”

  “Fat chance,” said Sir Hubert. “Blighter looks nicely set to beat Stalin’s record, and by employing more or less the same methods.”

  “All very disappointing, Hubby.”

  “Indeed, my dear. Indeed. One only wishes there were something one could do about it. And, what’s more, about the maniac in the White House. A double-edged, covert, intelligence led coup is what we need, but our hands are tied. Diplomacy the name of the game and so on, which I doubt would be helped by leaving Clarissa even more braindead than she already is through being whacked over the head with a…”

  “Lacrosse stick,” said Dame Muriel.

  “Or hockey stick, or any other kind of a stick.”

  “You’re probably right. Sooo, what are we to do?”

  Sir Hubert shook his head. “Not the foggiest, my dear. But just think of the fillip for our reputations should something spring to mind as a means of upsetting apple carts in both Moscow and Washington simultaneously. Some really cunning ruse is what we need. Then we’d be talking feathers in caps, would we not?”

  “But how?” Dame Muriel was saying as Sir Hubert took a long swig at his Prosecco, selected another vol au vent, shrugged, and said, “Look, why don’t you just call Double O Seventeen and see if he’s got any ideas? Never mind whether he’s found Crawford or not. Always been pretty good at cunning ruses, Double O Seventeen.”

  “True enough,” mused Dame Muriel.

  “So let’s touch base with him, shall we? Can’t do any harm, can it? Clarissa or no Clarissa. Jeremy Crawford or no Jeremy Crawford.”

  “S’pose not. I’ll give him a ring when I get back to the office.”

  “And bonne chance, ma chère. Now if you would excuse me, I need to debrief Foreign Secretary Fat Slob. The prat’s just back from the UN where repor
ts have him speaking pig Latin during a Syria debate leading to calls from all sides for his summary exclusion and—this the French suggestion—emasculation.”

  “About bally time too. Good old Frogsters,” Dame Muriel muttered as Sir Humphrey levered himself from his chair and headed for the door.

  Then she scoffed the remaining vol au vents, polished off the Prosecco, called Clarence her driver on another super-encrypted number, and marched off downstairs to where the limo would be waiting.

  “Office, ma’am?” said Clarence, holding the door open with one hand and doffing his peaked driver’s cap with the other.

  “And don’t spare the horses,” said Dame Muriel, sinking into the leather seat, leaning her neck back against the super-padded headrest and, embarrassingly for Clarence when they arrived at MI6 HQ, although he’d known this happen to The Mistress on previous occasions, nodded off.

  “Oops,” she said as Clarence re-opened her door, coughed meaningfully, and said, “Sorry to wake you, ma’am, but we’re here.”

  “Just a little cat nap, Clarry. Helps clear the brain.”

  “Quite so, ma’am. And have a nice rest of the day,” said Clarry/Clarence before climbing back into the driver’s seat and heading off for another Secret Service duty trip with maximum obsequiousness.

  Once back in her 24/7 bug-swept office on the twelfth floor of MI6 HQ however, Dame Muriel got on the horn to OO17 straight away.

  “Casanova?” she said.

  ~ * ~

  “Milly, my dear. How nice to hear from you. What can I do for you today?”

  “Tell me what you’re up to, that’s what. I’m getting bloody Phoebe on the blower every five minutes wanting progress reports and all she’s heard so far is you’re ‘close’ to the Crawford creature. Otherwise her calls all go to message. So bean-spilling time, Double O Seventeen.”

  “Ah…”

  “Thick as a brick the woman may be, but she is the bally PM after all.”

  “At least this week. Rumour has it there could be a night of the long knives any time soon. Fat Slob and Lurch at each other’s throats and hers, and so on.”