‘The final act of our little play, Tom.’
‘I am sure you will go on to still more stunning performances, Lionel. Forgive me if I’m not around to applaud.’
‘It hurts me that we’ve had such misunderstandings. I hope we can put them all behind us, remain friends.’
‘Somewhere I seem to remember being instructed to forgive our enemies. It said nothing about forgiving our friends.’ Goodfellowe ignored the proffered hand and turned away. Lillicrap, with a reluctant shrug of his shoulders, crossed to his appointed place at the end of the Front Bench.
The final act, as Lillicrap had described it and for which they had gathered, was the Third Reading of the Press (Diversity of Ownership) Bill. With Goodfellowe’s capitulation, the Bill had made rapid progress through Standing Committee and was now to be brought for its concluding vote to the Floor of the House of Commons. The end of the line for the Bill, and for Goodfellowe. His colleagues might forgive him, he’d never forgive himself.
The House was crowded, as were the galleries above. The Chamber was quietly bustling, like a concert house before the curtain rises. Up in the gods Goodfellowe could see Corsa and, beside him, Diane Burston, come to witness their victory and the coup de grâce. Goodfellowe could not hide an acute sense of humiliation and Mickey had encouraged him to stay away. ‘What’s the point in turning up?’ she had asked. ‘A bit like staying away from your own execution,’ he had replied. ‘Somehow you just have to be there.’
The House was finishing off a half-hearted discussion of a Private Member’s Bill – some twaddle about the need to regulate the size and sharpness of stiletto heels to which no one except the proposer was paying any particular attention – as Goodfellowe claimed a seat on the benches. He found himself directly in front of Frank Breedon, who pointedly ignored him as he continued with an animated discussion about plans for the forthcoming summer holidays. The House was growing distracted as the Private Member’s proceedings droned on until, through the general clutter of noise, came a determined interruption. An Opposition MP had taken exception to the tedium of the Private Member’s Bill and decided to liven up proceedings with an injection of remarks that were gratuitously sexist. Madam Speaker intervened to demand an immediate return to order but he continued undaunted to barrack and to press his spurious point, arousing both annoyance and amusement amongst Members on all sides. Over his shoulder Goodfellowe became aware that Breedon was holding his arms out as though firing a shotgun, with his sights trained on the interrupter.
‘You shoot, Frank?’ Goodfellowe turned to enquire of his Chairman.
‘As often as I can. Glorious Twelfth almost upon us, can’t wait. Going to blast away at a few on the Tullymurdoch estate this year. Alongside our beloved Committee Whip.’ He fired another imaginary volley across the floor as those around him egged him on.
Goodfellowe felt his stomach churn, a sudden wicked turbulence that was a warning of still worse to come. Something was moving inside him, something unpleasant that left him ill at ease, as though he had been invaded by some angry parasite that was trying to force its way through his system. He turned once more to Breedon.
‘Costs a fortune, doesn’t it, Frank, the fishing and shooting game?’
‘No problem,’ he answered cheerily. ‘Lionel gets us a very good deal. A very good deal.’ He chuckled in satisfaction. ‘Bright lad, young Lillicrap. He’ll go far.’
But Goodfellowe had already gone. Even as Madam Speaker announced the start of proceedings for the Third Reading, the Member for Marshwood was hurrying back out of the Chamber.
The parasite got the better of him as he sat at his desk. It had entered his head, sending the blood rushing through his ears and agitating his thoughts to the point of incoherence. He was having difficulty catching his breath and seemed quite unable to find what he was looking for in the Register of Members’ Interests that lay open in front of him. He summoned Mickey.
‘You all right?’ she enquired, anxious.
‘Don’t worry about me.’ He waved in the direction of the telephone. ‘There’s a hunting estate in Tullymurdoch. That’s Perthshire. I want you to try and book me a week’s shooting and fishing. From August the twelfth.’ The parasite was multiplying, he thought he was going to burst. ‘Do it. Please. Now.’ He waved at the telephone again. He was visibly trembling.
Mickey perched on the edge of the desk and dialled. First directory enquiries, then another number, to which she chatted for several minutes while Goodfellowe could do nothing but suffer. Eventually she replaced the receiver and turned to him.
‘There’s good news and bad news,’ she announced thoughtfully. ‘The bad news is that you need to be in a party of eight and a week all-in at Tullymurdoch will set you back at least four thousand pounds a head, nearer five if you want the salmon fishing and other extras thrown in as well.’
‘And …?’
‘The good news, for you at least, is that they’re fully booked. Always are at this time of year. A corporate reservation. And I don’t know whether the rest of the news is either good or bad.’
‘What is it?’
‘It’s booked in the name of a Michael MacPherson.’
‘Who’s he?’
‘Apparently he’s from the Granite Corporation.’
Goodfellowe sprang from his chair like a beaten grouse and flew straight into her arms. ‘Mickey, you are the most wonderful woman on my staff,’ he enthused, planting a kiss full on her lips before rushing out of the door. The parasite had vanished.
When Goodfellowe returned to the Chamber the Minister was on his feet, defending himself and his Bill from the final desperate charge being mounted by the Indians of the Opposition. It was good sport. The result was already known, the Minister would escape with his scalp, the white men in grey suits would win. They always did. They had more guns. Goodfellowe bowed to Madam Speaker and sat down, not this time on the leather benches but on the carpeted steps of the gangway that cut across the middle of the Chamber. It put him directly alongside Lillicrap at the end of the Front Bench. Lillicrap was consulting the notebook which lay open on his lap, a small volume in which duty required him to record not the words but the performances of those who spoke from the Government backbenches, awarding them mysterious acronyms in the manner of military decorations, the meanings of which would be shared only around the Masonic brotherhood of the Whips’ Office. MM: Ministerial Material. VC: Virtual Chloroform. MIA: Malice In Action. DFC: Destined For Catastrophe. And so on. He was scribbling when he noticed Goodfellowe’s face appear at his elbow.
‘Who is Michael MacPherson, Lionel?’
‘Michael? We were at university together. Leicester. Why?’ Goodfellowe gave the impression of a friendly retriever squatting on the floor beside him; Lillicrap, busy with his notes, had no sense of alarm.
‘An old friend?’
‘Sure. What’s all this about?’
‘What does he do at Granite?’
In an instant Goodfellowe had all of Lillicrap’s attention. The Whip bent low in order not to raise his voice. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘Lionel, tell me what he does at Granite. I can find out with one telephone call.’
Lillicrap’s brow knotted. ‘He’s something in the Finance Department. The Director, actually. So what?’
‘Tell me, why does he pay for your hunting trip to Scotland every year?’
The pen Lillicrap was using escaped from his fingers and rolled to the floor. Lillicrap’s lips were moving, but no sound emerged.
‘You’ve been going every single year, yet you can’t afford that sort of money, you told me so yourself.’
With evident pain Lillicrap rediscovered his vocal cords. ‘He’s a friend, Tom. We go as friends, together. It’s a friendly arrangement.’
‘Oh, Lionel, you’ve been at it, you have.’ Goodfellowe’s tone was conciliatory, even indulgent.
‘It’s always been handled as friends, nothing more,’ Lillicrap insi
sted.
‘It must have been worth several tens of thousands over the years. Yet not a word of it in the Register. A straight gift. An inducement. You haven’t even scribbled overpaid articles about the pleasures of the peat moors to justify it. At least Frank Breedon has that.’
‘Michael and his family come to my house, as friends. I don’t charge them, of course I bloody don’t.’ He tried to sound offended at the thought. ‘So when I go to visit him, as a friend, at his home or his hunting lodge, he doesn’t charge me either.’ At this point Lillicrap’s bravado began to fracture, his tone grew less amenable. ‘Look, I was nothing of importance in politics when it all started. We scarcely discussed politics. No one was twisting my arm. There was nothing to put in the flaming Register.’
‘But then it changed, didn’t it? Slowly the time together became more political,’ Goodfellowe coaxed.
‘Maybe we discussed mutual interests over a drink or two …’
‘And he introduced you to Freddy Corsa. Who asked you to invite along some other friends. Political friends. Like Brother Breedon. And me. You started running his errands, handling the loans he made available, facilitating all his contacts, encouraging his schemes to buy friends with holidays and well-paid articles. In return he picked up your bills. You should have registered it all, Lionel.’
‘Tom, you must believe me. It’s not what you make it seem. This isn’t sleaze. It all happened so gradually. Perhaps I should have registered it as an interest at some point, but it was so difficult to know when I had crossed the line, between friendship and …’
‘Between friendship and corrupting influence. A line so difficult to see, so easy to cross, someone once told me. And he knew what he was talking about.’
‘Look, perhaps I made a mistake. A genuine mistake. I promise I’ll register it from now on, without fail. I’ll keep it all above board.’
‘Too late. Too late,’ Goodfellowe whispered, so that Lillicrap had to bend almost double to hear. ‘Your fingerprints are everywhere, leaving their grubby marks. On my membership of the Committee, where you thought I would do as I was told by you. And as you were told by Corsa. They were all over my first meeting with Corsa, at the toyshop. They’re on the loans, and on the money he offered me for articles. Worst of all, it was you who leaked the news of Sam’s adoption to him.’
‘I’ve told you that was a complete accident. I never intended …’
‘No one is going to believe you, Lionel, not when you’re blasting away at wildlife for free beside Freddy Corsa and the Chairman of the Committee which has just passed his Bill. They’re going to say it stinks. That you are in the jampot beyond your elegant cuffs and right up to your elbows. They’ll ask how you can afford the house and the big cars and the foreign holidays on the pittance you earn. They’ll ask where it all came from. And when they find out, your colleagues will transform into a pack of moralizing hypocrites, and do you know what they’re going to do?’
‘What?’
‘They are going to crucify you.’
‘Tom, for old times’ sake. As old friends. Please give me a chance.’ Lillicrap made a desperate grab for Goodfellowe’s arm. Their intense and sustained deliberation just below the Front Bench had begun to attract attention around the House, it was evident that something was afoot, but Lillicrap didn’t notice. His eyes saw only the horror of crucifixion and the dragging of his body through the dust of many streets.
Calmly, Goodfellowe bent to pick up the Whip’s fallen pen, placing it carefully back into Lillicrap’s hand.
‘One last chance. Please, Tom. I beg you.’
‘You should never have involved Sam in this,’ Goodfellowe concluded, and rose to take his seat on the benches.
The Minister had finished his speech and the Opposition spokesman was gathering his papers to make his reply when Goodfellowe rose to his feet.
‘On a Point of Order, Madam Speaker.’
‘Point of Order, Mr Goodfellowe,’ she intoned, staring at him through spectacles in an enquiring manner. At the end of the Front Bench, Lillicrap’s face had taken on the appearance of warm wax.
‘I must apologize, Madam Speaker, for being unable to give you any prior warning of my Point of Order. In all honesty, I am not entirely sure that a Point of Order is the correct manner in which what I have to say should be put. But I know it must be put, and before this debate goes any further.’
‘You’d better put it then, and quickly,’ the Speaker interjected, wary as always about self-indulgent Members who wasted both their own breath and their colleagues’ time.
‘Madam Speaker, it is well known that during the Committee stages I held serious doubts about the passage of this Bill. Those doubts have now become rock-hard certainties. For the House to approve the Bill at this time would be immoral, corrupt and probably unconstitutional.’
The atmosphere of the Chamber of the House of Commons does not travel well through television. The action can be seen and the words heard, but it is like experiencing sex through cartoons. The essence is missing. Yet for those who are there at the time, nothing else seems to matter. For many politicians, speaking from the Floor of a packed and attentive House is much like copulation. There is a tremor of terror and anticipation as you begin, and there is a mystery special to each occasion which decrees that no matter how many times you have gone through the motions before, you never know whether this time the earth will move or will simply fall in on top of you. That is the terror of failure, but it is risked time and again for the few elusive moments of fulfilment which leave a man, or a woman, exhausted and in triumph. Goodfellowe had begun with no teasing, no gentle anticipation but instead a full-frontal assault that left those around him gasping. Immoral? Corrupt? Unconstitutional? It was as though the fair maidens of the House were staring at the glinting point of a knife in some dark alleyway.
‘It is with great regret that I must inform the House that the passage of this Bill has been sought by means of bribery and blackmail by those who stand to gain from it.’
Up in the visitors’ gallery, Corsa turned to an elderly gentleman sitting next to him. ‘Can he do this? Accuse people? Slander them?’
‘Parliamentary privilege,’ the old man whispered. ‘In the Chamber he can say what on earth he likes and not a court in the country can touch him.’
Down on the Floor, Lillicrap began to squirm with dread. The end of the Front Bench was beginning to feel like the trapdoor on the gallows.
Goodfellowe continued: ‘As a member of the Standing Committee, and solely because I was a member of that Committee, Madam Speaker, I have been offered bribes.’
A collective drawing-in of breath could be heard around the benches. The Prime Minister, who had been preparing to leave after his colleague’s speech, sat transfixed as though nailed in position.
‘I have been offered substantial inducements for the explicit purpose of gaining my support for the Bill so that I would help push it through Committee.’
‘What sort of inducements?’ an Opposition Member could be heard muttering.
‘The inducements were of several kinds. Offers of free holidays.’ Behind him, Goodfellowe could hear Breedon clearing his throat as though preparing to intervene. ‘Most surprisingly, perhaps, I was offered an extraordinary sum of money in exchange for articles I might have written. Now, many Members of this House are gifted authors whose talents are justifiably rewarded when they contribute articles of substance to newspapers.’ He had to get that point in quickly, before he lost half of his audience. ‘But it is truly surprising that a man of my meagre literary talents should be offered any sum, let alone a King’s Ransom of nearly twenty thousand pounds. In my case. Madam Speaker, I can confirm that the offer was intended as a bribe.’
Up in the gallery Corsa had arched forward, gripping the carved rail in front of him. Goodfellowe momentarily caught his eye.
‘For a while, in an attempt to obtain documentary evidence, I played along with the idea.’ A useful point.
That would explain the note he had written to Corsa, should it ever come to light. But mentally Corsa was already resolving to burn it. ‘And when I thought the matter had gone far enough and I refused to co-operate, the sources involved then turned to blackmail.’
The whole House writhed with excitement.
‘But still I would not participate in their plans, so the sources turned to my family. Quite simply, Madam Speaker, they threatened my family in order to get at me.’
Further along the bench a female Member was all but swooning in emotion. She had never experienced anything like this before, not in the House, at least.
‘They invented stories about my family, invaded their privacy, took photographs in their most intimate moments, to try to get me to change my mind on the Bill.’ He had marked the photographs of Sam in the most public of manners. Corsa would never dare publish them now.
‘And all this has been done simply to speed the passage of this Bill, because to certain interests this Bill means profit. Vast amounts of it. And they want it now, at any cost.’
‘Who? Who is it?’ Urgent moans and sighs of anticipation began to rise on every side, but Goodfellowe was determined to keep them unfulfilled, breathless for more.
‘Behind the legitimate newspaper interests which this Bill seeks to regulate, there is a hidden network of money men who have little direct interest in newspapers, but great interest in news. They want to manipulate the news for their own benefit, and for the disadvantage of others. We thought the Bill was about selling newspapers; they knew it was about selling news.’ (‘Who? Who?’ the cries continued.) ‘But sadly their identity will remain hidden under this Bill for, as we discussed in Committee, the ultimate ownership of a newspaper can be extraordinarily difficult to identify.’
‘Hear, hear!’ Betty Ewing was stamping her foot in agreement.
‘Much to my regret. Madam Speaker, I have been unable to obtain documentary evidence of these matters, other than the photographs which, frankly, I would not care to have revealed.’ He knew this was going to be the difficult bit, the unexpected withdrawal. It induced a perceptible sense of disappointment. Breedon was beginning to mutter. ‘Charlatan. The whole thing’s preposterous.’ ‘Name them! Name them! Parliamentary privilege!’ others were beginning to demand. The House was beginning to wriggle out from beneath him.
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