Goodfellowe MP

by Michael Dobbs

  It was as the constable stepped in to separate Jya-Yu from the executive that he noticed a small packet fall to the ground. A silver twist which, on closer inspection, contained a white powder he couldn’t identify. Not for certain, at least, not until it had gone for testing, but he reckoned he was already way ahead of the forensic lab at Lambeth.

  ‘Yours, sir?’ he asked the executive.

  ‘Mine? Never!’

  ‘Miss?’ the constable turned to Jya-Yu, but all he got was a stream of untranslatable abuse and a further indiscriminate pounding of fists. He was still holding her wrists when the wagon arrived and a WPC took control of the struggling girl. Jya-Yu was led to the cover of the alleyway where she was searched. That’s when the police discovered two things.

  The first was that, in the confusion, the executive had disappeared.

  The other was that in Jya-Yu’s jacket pocket, where the executive had thrust it during the struggle, was the second twist of powder.

  The retired actuary from Margate had still not budged, mesmerized by the swaying of the windscreen wipers, still desperately surfing his switches, wits dulled by the insistent horns of complaint which surrounded him. Up to this point he’d always been censorious about drink-driving; now he considered it might be the only option.

  Meanwhile the Silver Dawn had eased away and already Corsa’s attentions had been dragged elsewhere. There were always reasons for his attentions to be dragged elsewhere. As Chairman of the Granite News Group (‘one of Europe’s most rapidly expanding and profitable newspaper publishing companies’, as his annual report proclaimed), he lived on a diet of distractions. A headline on a front page. A detail in a corporate report. Finance. His charitable works, or perhaps an engaging woman, both of which he used for public effect. Then there was the new headquarters complex in Docklands. And more finance. Much More Finance.

  The newspaper world had changed almost beyond recognition in recent years, somehow skipping over several stages of the industrial revolution. A world that had once been centred on the Gothic wine bars and union chapels of Fleet Street had, in the shadows of night and through the legs of wild-eyed pickets, been shifted out into several large cakes of concrete scattered along the banks of the Thames. Printing presses and distribution operations, traditionally run by the Spanish practices of the union fathers and manned by phantoms and cartoon characters, were now run by New World Control Systems Inc of Korea and scarcely required manning at all.

  Corsa had been a prominent rebel in this revolution – ‘a modern-day Merchant of Venice who has fallen upon more refined table manners,’ as the Investors Digest had once jibed. The sensitive souls over at the Commission for Racial Equality must’ve been out to lunch that day and missed the point, but anyone of consequence in the newspaper industry understood. Corsa wasn’t ‘one of us’. Could never be. Bad blood. His father, the founder of the Granite Group, had been an Italian and a prisoner of war who had lost patience with his countrymen’s predisposition to chaos during his one-sided battle with Montgomery and sandflies in the deserts of North Africa. His flight from the true path had been encouraged still further by his POW indenture on a Norfolk farm, where he had come to admire the English, their inherent reserve and particularly the fair-skinned daughters. So Papa had stayed on. His admiration, however, was not always reciprocated in a country still struggling with food queues and black-market nylons. Many simply took the view that Papa Corsa was and would always be a first-generation wop and, still worse, an uppity wop at that. So he’d been cautious, conservative, bought a share in a failing local newspaper and slowly created what became a modest-sized yet comfortably successful newspaper operation. But no knighthood, certainly no peerage, none of the public respects normally accorded to newspaper proprietors and not even much of the fear, not even after he had rescued the ailing Herald and restored it to significance amongst the Fleet Street dailies. But Papa wasn’t bitter. ‘If we’d gone back to Italy to run newspapers there,’ he would explain in his pasta accent to his Winchester-educated son, ‘we’d probably be sweating in a prison cell along with all the rest. Be happy with what we have, Freddy.’

  Yet Freddy never was. He’d resented being two inches shorter than all the others at school, no way was he going to have others look down on him after he’d joined the family firm. ‘I bought my manners in Winchester,’ he would later relate with his habitual smile, ‘but I bought my boots in Naples. And neither place sold much scruple.’ Freddy developed an appetite as sharp as a flensing knife and, at the age of thirty-five, pushed his way past his ailing father to usurp the Granite chair, vowing that the Corsas would never again be ignored. In less than five years Freddy had been as good as his word. He had turned the starched and stuffy Herald into a tabloid, added an evening edition and several hundred thousand to its circulation, and bought a series of regional and magazine titles to support it until Granite had matched its corporate claim about being ‘one of Europe’s most rapidly expanding newspaper publishing companies’. Still not in the premier league, perhaps, but well on the way. Trouble was it had not, in spite of the hyperbole, also become ‘one of the most profitable’. He’d borrowed dear and floated the new Granite Group in a sea of debt, only to see interest rates rise and paper costs spiral. Advertising revenues had shattered, while his competitors took him on in a series of desperate price-cutting wars.

  And then it got worse. Just as all the froth and fizz was leaking away from the newspaper market the Government had announced, at the insistence of its masters in the European Commission, that it would introduce a new Press (Diversity of Ownership) Bill designed to break the stranglehold which in the view of Monsieur Bourgeois, the Commissioner, was enjoyed and abused by the largest newspaper groups. ‘Competition, not cartel!’ Monsieur B had declared with Gallic fervour and the British Government, almost alone in Europe, had taken him seriously. So the legislative knee was bent. Observers, unused to the inverted logic that a Government should push around the media, predicted conflagration. Having lit the blue touch paper, the Government would now be expected to retire.

  But the expected open warfare failed to materialize. The biggest players, already frustrated by the diminishing returns on their investments in newspapers, were growing increasingly distracted by new adventures. ‘I’ve packed my rucksack,’ one of Corsa’s fellow moguls had muttered over lunch in the Savoy Grill, explaining his decision to desert the rock face of Fleet Street for the fertile ground of cable television. ‘This ledge on which we press barons live has given us a great view, but it’s grown too damned draughty for my comfort. Time to find a new perch.’

  They’d had their fun and now the big boys seemed almost content to dump a few titles – to the advantage of the second-rank players like Corsa. Or so it seemed. During the first week of the announcement he’d vociferously supported the new Bill and the opportunities it represented to pick up still more titles and move into the big time. By the second week, however, the prospective sales had served only to drag down share prices across the sector, including the price of Granite shares. Shares that Corsa had used to guarantee his huge bank borrowings. Whoops.

  The bankers. Let me die alongside my bankers! That way I’ll be sure to take the bastards with me … They’d called a meeting for next week, wanted to discuss the covenants he’d given them for the most recent thirty million pounds. No problem. Not yet at least. He’d get through that one as he’d got through all the discussions with his bankers over the last eighteen months. Encourage them with praise, confuse them with inflated prospects, weigh them down with paper, above all allow them to be deceived by their own voracious appetites and ambitions. Corsa had added so many new companies and newspaper titles to the Granite chain that there had never been two consecutive balance sheets that were comparable. Assets, valuations, hypothecations and depreciations, he’d moved them all around the financial chess board with a speed that left his opponents, and occasionally even himself, bemused. No one knew that so much of the bottom line of the
Granite accounts which he proudly proclaimed as profit existed only on paper. No one knew, not yet. But they would. In those silent moments at the very end of day, when sleep eluded him and darkness allowed ghouls and hobgoblins to prey, he knew his time was running out.

  They were passing the statue of King Charles I which stood at the end of Whitehall looking down towards the parliament buildings. The Killing Field, where they had taken the King one freezing January morning, paraded him before the crowd and chopped off his head. Where so many others had found their ambitions and abilities dragged in the dust behind the baying mob. The men of the media were kings now. But here of all places he knew that even kings could fall. Torn to pieces and hurled onto the rocks which lay below the crumbling cliff face. He needed a lifeline. And in a hurry. He glanced at his watch. Already he was late.

  ‘Downing Street,’ he prompted his driver impatiently.

  By the time Goodfellowe had parked his bike in the rack at the front of Speaker’s Court he was out of breath and the third toe on his left foot was developing a blister. It was almost seven o’clock, a series of votes lay ahead of him stretching into the night, and he knew he was in danger of being late. He couldn’t remember what they were voting about but there would be trouble if he didn’t make it to the division lobby in time, so he was trying to hurry. Even on a good day the Government’s majority stretched only to nine and there had been few good days recently. Two colleagues on the Government backbenches were recovering from heart attacks, another had had an attack of conscience after his constituency association failed to reselect him, while a fourth was under attack from the tabloids for multiple philandering. She hadn’t been seen in Westminster since the last issue of the Sunday People, hoping in vain that colleagues and correspondents would lose interest in her reported non-culinary uses of lo-fat banana yoghurt. It was at times like these that Whips lost their sense of humour. He wondered whether in another life Madame Tang had been a Whip. Or merely a cat castrator. He’d better hurry.

  Then the phone started warbling again. It was getting to be a dangerous distraction. He should switch it off. Would switch it off. Next time.

  ‘Goodfellowe,’ he panted.

  ‘Mr Goodfellowe MP. Help. Help. Help!’ The voice was thin, perceptibly stretched by tension. ‘I am arrested. This is Jya-Yu. You know, Zhu’s niece. In prison. Help me. Please!’

  The phone was handed to someone else. ‘Detective Constable Ferrit here at Charing Cross. Is there any chance that I’m talking to Mr Thomas Goodfellowe MP?’ The policeman sounded deeply sceptical. When he’d offered the prisoner the one phone call, he hadn’t expected a Chinese girl whose anxiety had reduced her command of English to little more than gabble to suggest that she would phone a politician rather than a solicitor. She didn’t know any solicitors, she had struggled to explain.

  ‘What’s going on, constable?’

  ‘Lady here’s been arrested. Had your number and says she wants your help. I can always call a duty solicitor if it’s a pain, sir. Do you know the lady?’

  ‘Sort of. Her uncle’s herbal shop provides me with fresh tea. Gave her my number because I’m expecting a new supply to arrive. What’s the problem?’

  ‘Soliciting and being in possession of a controlled substance, sir.’

  ‘You’re joking.’

  ‘And we might throw in a charge of resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer. Actual bodily harm unless his nose stops bleeding in five minutes.’

  ‘She’s only – what – eighteen?’

  ‘Old enough, sir. You coming or not?’

  ‘Ple-e-e-ase Minister Goodfellowe.’ Jya-Yu’s fear was all too evident.

  The bells of Big Ben directly above him were already announcing the hour and the first vote. He’d miss it unless he started for the division lobby now, and his vote might make all the difference. Yet she was sobbing. He was wondering if he could find an excuse that might satisfy the Whips, rather like when he had failed to sign his last Inland Revenue cheque, but that hadn’t worked either. Perhaps if he hurried to the police station he might miss only the first couple of divisions, be back for the rest almost before anyone had noticed. Yet this was a running three-liner, a summons by the Whips which only death might excuse, and even then it had to be certified. There again, why should he bother with her? He scarcely knew her, no more than a passing smile and a request that she call when the tea came in.

  ‘They lock me up!’ she was wailing.

  He knew what it was like to be locked up. Arrested. To know the stench of fear and humiliation. That’s why he was riding a bloody bike rather than driving a car. You didn’t need a licence for a bike. He’d only been a little bit over the limit but it was during the pre-Christmas purge and whereas twenty years ago they might have made an exception for a Member of Parliament, nowadays they made examples of them. All over that Christmas his constituency had been plastered with the Government’s drink-drive posters – ‘Don’t Be An Idiot’, the posters had warned. ‘And Don’t Vote For One Next Time!’ his opponents had added in huge yellow graffiti across every single one.

  He had to go.

  ‘I’ll be there in fifteen.’

  His arrival at Charing Cross police station in Agar Street turned out to be less than authoritative.

  ‘You’re an MP?’ the reception constable had asked dubiously. The intervening fifteen minutes between phone call and arrival had not been kind to Goodfellowe. A sudden spring shower had ambushed him as he passed Downing Street; as though the Chief Whip were using his occult powers to give him one last chance to change his mind and turn. He had arrived at the police station red in cheek, dripping slightly, with his suit crumpled and his trousers still tucked inside his socks.

  ‘You sure you’re an MP?’ the constable repeated.

  ‘Used to be a Minister. Home Office,’ Goodfellowe responded, but this only served to make his appearance all the more unconvincing. His suits, even when dry, seemed to suggest faded elegance, memories of better times and evidence of several dry cleanings too far. His age lay somewhere in the late forties, that point in a man’s life which is neither young nor yet old, when ambition’s flame has begun to flicker if not yet die, when many a man grows preoccupied with the stretching of his waistline rather than his intellect. But not Goodfellowe. The hair at his temples was beginning to show grey in a manner which could seem distinguished when not frizzing in the rain, although it normally looked as if he had just been roused from a nap on the sofa – unruly, a little battered, much like Goodfellowe himself. But nothing about him suggested either sleepiness or indolence. He was a man of enthusiasms, sometimes excessively so, with a mind so open to possibilities that it worked best only when it was almost too late. A mind that had not always commended itself to party managers who preferred discipline and routine. They compared him to a great tanker, very difficult to turn or manoeuvre once set on his course, often in bad weather refusing to answer the helm, and as he glanced at the station clock which showed twenty past and the first two votes missed, he knew there would be more rough sailing ahead. But it was in his eyes that the depths of Goodfellowe were revealed. They were dark, almost blue-black like the night sky. Sometimes they would sparkle as though filled with a thousand stars and captivate all who were allowed close enough to see, yet at other times they would darken as though great clouds were passing and threaten the most violent of storms.

  He had once, until four years ago, been part of the constellation himself, one of the brightest and most rapidly promoted politicians of his time. A junior Minister who, although he did not hide his ambition, had sufficient sense to wear it with a smile and was regarded by an increasing number of colleagues as good Cabinet material and possibly, one day, even more. But at that time he had had a wife and a son, as well as Sammy. There had also been a driving licence and a Government driver too – all the trappings of success which, piece by piece, had fallen away, leaving him in a rain-sodden suit with his trousers tucked inside his socks standing in C
haring Cross nick.

  He reached into his pocket for his wallet. He didn’t have his House of Commons pass on him, couldn’t remember where he had left it, but his credit card had become one of his closest allies in his battle against misfortune, never leaving his side. ‘Thomas Goodfellowe MP’ it announced, and the constable at last seemed satisfied.

  ‘We have to be careful, you understand,’ he offered by way of apology, opening the heavily secured door that allowed Goodfellowe into the heart of the police station.

  ‘I understand all too well, Constable,’ he replied, bending down to release his trouser cuffs from captivity.

  He was led downstairs to the Charge Room, which resembled the ticket counter of a bus station, except that the boards behind the reception desk carried duty rosters and charge sheets instead of timetables. It seemed to be rush hour.

  ‘Sarge, I’ve got one for the Chinese girl,’ the constable announced.

  ‘You her solicitor?’ the custody sergeant enquired, continuing to give his attention to a large batch of forms in front of him.

  ‘A Member of Parliament.’

  ‘Ah, you must be Mr Goodfellowe.’ The sergeant looked up. ‘She a constituent, sir?’

  ‘No. A friend, I suppose.’

  ‘Your … friend’ – the policeman tested the term cautiously – ‘is in a spot of real trouble, Mr Goodfellowe. Soliciting. Possession. Punching an officer. We’re all going to have to be rather careful about this, if you take my meaning.’ Goodfellowe took it to be a friendly warning. ‘We tried to get her to call a solicitor but she insisted it should be you. I can still call the duty solicitor, if you want. If you’re too busy. Got more important things to do.’

  ‘Thank you, Sergeant. Might as well see her while I’m here, don’t you think?’

  ‘Up to you. Entirely up to you,’ the sergeant pronounced, washing his hands of any further advice. Rush hour was well underway, the Charge Room was getting backed up and it was going to be a long night.