The Final Cut

by Michael Dobbs

  'They were only boys, buried in those graves,' Passolides groaned.

  'You don't need Records,' the clerk had offered, convinced the old man with tears in his eyes was a little simple, 'you need a War Crimes Commission.'

  'But first I need a name.'

  THREE

  'Damn it! D'you think they've got a new editor or something, Elizabeth?'

  She looked up from her crispbread and letters.

  'The Times crossword has become so . . .' — he searched for the word - 'elusive. Impenetrable. They must've changed the editor.'

  No, she thought, it's not the crossword that has changed, Francis. It's you. There was a time when you would have slain the allusions and anagrams before porridge.

  Irritably he threw the newspaper to one side. The front page was miserable enough, now the back page, too. He searched around the crowded breakfast table and retrieved another sheet of paper. 'Fewer problems with this one,' he muttered with considerably more enthusiasm, and began marking off items like so many completed clues. He paused in search of inspiration. 'Four or five down, d'you think?'

  'Give me a hint of what we're talking about, Francis.'

  'A bit of Byng. Time to shoot a few admirals in full view of the fleet to encourage the others, I thought. Just as you recommended - to bring back a bit of fear?'

  'I see. A reshuffle.'

  'Four or five to go, I thought. Enough to cause a real stir, yet not so many as to look as though we're panicking.'

  'Who are you volunteering?'

  'The Euro-drones and iron-wits. Carter. Yorke. Penthorpe - he's so abrasive that every time he opens his mouth he all but sharpens the blade for his own throat. And Wilkinson. Do you know he actually spends almost as much time in France as he does in his constituency? Judgement's addled by cheap wine and fraternizing.' With a decisive thrust he ran another name through with his pen.

  'What about Terry Whittington? I never know whether he's half-cut or simply sounds it.'

  'Yes, a problem when the Minister in charge of the Citizens' Charter can't even pronounce the words without drenching the interviewer. Dull dog but, oh, such a sparkling and well-connected wife. Haven't I told you?' He looked over his glasses in remorse. 'It seems she's been indulging in what are known as continental conversations with the Industry Commissioner in Brussels while dear old Terry's been lashed down in all-night session with nothing more diverting than his fellow Ministers.'

  'Quelle finesse. Be a pity to lose such an interesting point of leverage within the Commission.'

  'Particularly with harsh words on car quotas coming up.'

  She bit into the crispbread which crumbled and fled, and for several seconds she distracted herself with reassembling the pieces.

  'So who else?'

  'Annita, of course. I know she's the only woman, but she sits twittering at the end of the Cabinet table and I can barely hear a word.' He shook his head in exasperation. 'It's not me, is it, Elizabeth?'

  'Francis, selective hearing is not only a Prime Minister's prerogative but also one of his most useful weapons. You've had years of developing it to a fine art.'

  It was more than that, she thought, but he seemed reassured. She picked up a knife and, with a deft flick of the wrist that seemed unnatural on a lady, sliced off the top of a soft-boiled egg. 'And what of Tom Makepeace?' The yolk flowed freely.

  'Dangerous to get rid of him, Elizabeth. I'd prefer to have him on board with his cannon firing outward than on another ship with his sights trained on me. But there might be some . ..' - he waved his hand in the manner of a conductor encouraging the second violins - 'rearrangement around the deck. Find him a new target. Environment, perhaps.'

  'Kick him out of the Foreign Office? I like that.'

  'Let him struggle with the wind and waters of our green and pleasant land. Purify the people, that sort of thing. What greater challenge could a man of conscience want?' He was already practising the press release. 'And meanwhile remind the buggers in Brussels we mean business by giving the foreign job to that hedgehog Bollingbroke. He suffers from flatulence. Late nights locked in the embrace of our European brethren seems the obvious place for him.'

  'Excellent!' She stabbed at the heart of the egg with a thin sliver of crispbread.

  'And put Booza-Pitt into the Home Office.'

  'That little package of oily malevolence?' Her face lit in alarm.

  'And so he is. But he's crass and vulgar enough to know what the party faithful want and to give it to them. To touch them where it matters.'

  'As he does half the Cabinet wives.'

  'But I in turn am able to touch him where it matters. I hold his loyalties in the palm of my hand and all I have to do is squeeze. There will be no trouble from Geoffrey.' Suddenly he sat bolt upright in his chair, sniffing the air, as a ship's captain senses the arrival of new weather from disturbed skies. 'Francis . .. ?'

  'That's it! Don't you see? Eight down. "European emergency". Twelve letters.'

  'What, "Bollingbroke"?' She was counting off the letters on her fingers, bewildered by his sudden switch of priorities.

  'No. "Nein. Nein. Nein!"' He gave a triumphant chortle and swooped once more upon his newspaper, filling in blank spaces on a flood tide of enlightenment. 'You see, Elizabeth. Old Francis still has what it takes.'

  'Of course you do.'

  Just in case, however, she decided a measure of insurance might be in order.

  The corridors of power resemble a Gordian knot of interwoven connections - relationships matrimonial, familial, frequently carnal, bonds of blood, school and club (beware the man who has been turned away by the Garrick), ties of privilege and prejudice which run far deeper than the seasonal streams of professional acquaintance or achievement. The nectar of tradition sipped at birth or grudges indulged during afternoons on the playing field or evenings in the dorm may provide a framework for a life, sometimes even a purpose. The British Establishment is no accident.

  In unravelling these inner mysteries and tracing the origins of influence, no tool is of more use than a copy of Who's Who. Most of the gossamer threads of acceptability are to be found within its pages, as well as the raucous buzzing from the occasional brash interloper who, like the insect charging the spider's web, rarely lasts.

  Elizabeth's copy was a couple of years old, but still gave her most of what she needed to know. It told her that Clive Watling was going to be a problem. He had no family of note, no schooling of eminence, no breeding, merely endeavour and honest accomplishment. Which, for Elizabeth's purposes, wasn't enough. He was proud of his humble origins in the small community of Cold Kirby, which lay at the edge of the Yorkshire Moors; his primary school had been given a place of honour in the list, as had his presidency of the Cold Kirby Conservation Society and membership of other local groups. This was a man whose booted feet were stuck very firmly to the moors, where gossamer threads were as rare as orchids. Yet...

  As luck - no, the fortune of family connection -would have it, a second cousin to the mother of Elizabeth Urquhart (nee Colquhoun) still owned substantial Northern acreages in the vicinity of Cold Kirby, along with the hereditary titles pertaining thereto, and Elizabeth had engaged her noble cousin to extend an invitation to drinks on the terrace.

  The terrace of the Palace of Westminster fronts the northern bank of the great river where once had strolled Henry VIII, through the blossom trees and hedging of what at that time had been his palace garden. It was always a problem site, being immediately adjacent to the medieval City of London with its teeming humanity and overflowing chamber pots. Perhaps it was on some fetid summer's day while walking through the overpowering air that the King grew envious of the sweet-scented palace that stood further upstream at Hampton Court, where his Lord Chancellor lived, Cardinal Wolsey, a man whose fortunes and grasp on his home were to decline as the tidal flow of the Thames washed its noisome waters beyond, and then back again, past the King's door. In any event, the spot never achieved great popularity until thos
e mightiest of urban redevelopers, the Victorians, built both sewers and solid embankment and thereby transformed its attractions. By the side of the river the architects Barry and Pugin erected a great orange-gold palace for Parliament in the manner of a sandcastle by the beach, complete with flags and turrets. On its fringe they formed a terrace where on warm summer days members of either House of Parliament might sit and sup, the lapping waters easing the passage of time and legislation instead of launching, as in days of old, an assault on their senses.

  Major the Lord 'Bungy' Colquhoun travelled to London infrequently, but when he did he found the House of Lords a most convenient club. He had therefore been amenable to his cousin's prompting that he should hold a small drinks party on the terrace and invite a few carefully selected guests. He did not know his near-neighbour and soon-to-be-noble brother from Cold Kirby, but was happy to meet him. As was Elizabeth.

  Watling was an affable man, courteous but cautious, feeling his way on uncertain soil. Like Boycott at Headingley in the overs before lunch, he was not a man to rush. For a while on the terrace he stood quietly, staring across the silt-brown river to where an army of worker-ants were transforming what had been St Thomas's Hospital into what was to become an office and shopping complex with multi-screen cinema.

  'Progress?' she enquired, standing at his elbow. 'You mean the fact that if my heart were to stop right now they'd take an additional fifteen minutes to get me to treatment?' He shook his head. 'Since you ask, probably not.'

  'But it wouldn't, you know, not in the House of Lords. Every Gothic nook and cranny in the place seems to be stuffed with all sorts of special revival equipment. Every closet a cardiac unit. You're not allowed to die, you know. Not in a royal palace. It's against the rules.'

  He chuckled. 'That's reassuring, Mrs Urquhart. I suppose as a judge I'd better stick to the rules.'

  'I don't profess to understand the legal system .. .'

  'You're not supposed to. Otherwise what'd be the point of all us lawyers beavering away at the taxpayers' vast expense?'

  He was shy, mellowing a little; it was her turn to laugh. 'And are you taking the King's shilling at the moment?'

  'The Cyprus shilling, to be precise.'

  'Oh, that one's yours?' She allowed the breeze to ruffle through her hair, anxious not to appear - well, anxious. 'Is the case a difficult one?'

  'Not unduly. The areas of difference are clear and not especially large; it's a finely balanced matter. So the panel sits in judgement for about twelve hours a week, the rest of the time we go off and . .. compose our thoughts.' He raised his glass of champagne in self-mockery.

  'So there's a panel? For some reason I had the idea it was an entirely British affair.'

  'And it would have been all the better for it. Sometimes I find the entente cordiale neither an entente nor particularly cordiale.' The previous day Rodin, the Frenchman, had been at his most persistently illogical and truculent. But then he usually was.

  'So the French are involved, too?'

  'And a Malaysian, an Egyptian and a Serb. In theory the heat we generate is supposed to reforge swords for the service of a better world, although in practice the ploughshares often have edges like razors.'

  'I suspect you're secretly very proud of what you do. But - forgive my ignorance - doesn't having such a mixture of nationalities, and particularly the French, in this case make your task a little . . . awkward?'

  'In every case,' he agreed with vehemence. 'But why especially in this?' 'I mean, with the oil...' 'Oil? What oil?'

  'Don't you know? Surely you must. They will have told you.'

  'Told me what? The seismic showed no oil.'

  'But apparently there's another report, very commercially confidential, or so I've heard - perhaps I shouldn't have? - which says the place is floating on a vast reservoir of oil. And if it goes to the Greek side, the French have been promised the exploitation rights.' She looked puzzled. 'Doesn't that make it difficult for a French judge?'

  So that's what the bastard Breton's been up to . .. Watling's face clouded with concern, while the great River Thames, and Elizabeth beside it, rushed on.

  'Forgive me. Forget everything I've said. It was probably something I overheard and shouldn't have - you know, I never really take much notice of these things, whether I should know or shouldn't know.' She sounded flustered. 'I'm a silly woman stumbling into areas I don't understand. I should stick to dusting and Woman's Hour.'

  'It is probably something we shouldn't be talking about,' he conceded, his face soured as though his drink had been spiked. 'I have to deal with the facts that are presented to me. Impartially. Cut myself off completely from extraneous material and - forgive me - gossip.'

  'I hope I haven't embarrassed you. Please say you'll forgive me.'

  'Of course. You weren't to know.' He spoke softly but had become studiously formal, the judge once more, gazing again across the river, at nothing. Working it out.

  Elizabeth held silence for a moment as she fought to recompose herself, twirling the long stem of her glass nervously. It was time to occupy new territory, any new territory, so long as it wasn't sitting on oil. She offered her best matronly smile. 'I'm so glad you could bring your mother; I understand Bungy gave you both tea.'

  He nodded gently. 'My mother particularly enjoyed the toasted teacakes. Couldn't stand the Earl Grey, though. Said she was going to bring her own tea bags with her next time.' Watling experienced a sudden twinge of anxiety - 'next time'. Had the baron-to-be let slip a confidence by appearing to assume too much? Would the Prime Minister's wife know about New Year? But surely the invitation to tea and the terrace was simply a means of easing him into The System?

  'And your father?'

  'No longer with us, I'm afraid. Indeed, to my enduring regret I never knew him, nor he me.'

  'How very sad.' Once more she was ill at ease, flushed, seeming incapable of finding the right topic, distressed by her clumsiness. She took a deep breath. 'Look, all my nonsense about oil, please don't think I was implying that it might affect the opinion of the French judge. I respect the French, they're a nation of brave and independent spirits. Don't you agree?'

  Watling all but choked on his champagne. She took his arm, fussing with concern. His eyes bulged red, his complexion bucolic. She began to wonder about the revival equipment.

  'My apologies,' he coughed, 'but I'm afraid I don't entirely share your opinion about the French. A little personal prejudice.'

  'So, you're a Yorkshire-pudding-and-don't-spare-the-cabbage man, are you?'

  'Not quite, Mrs Urquhart. You see, my father died in France. In 1943.'

  'During the war . . . ?' Her face had become a picture of wretchedness but this was not a subject from which, once engaged, he was to be easily diverted.

  'Yes. He was an SOE agent, parachuted behind the lines. Betrayed to the Gestapo by the local French mayor who was a quiet collaborator. Most of them were, you know. Until D-Day. The French got back their country, and in return my mother got a small pension. Not much on which to bring up four children in an isolated Yorkshire village. So you will understand and forgive, I hope, my little personal prejudice.' There was no mistaking the restrained hurt.

  But there was more. The oil. The French. The Breton bastard. Now Watling knew why Rodin was being so stubborn. Suddenly it was all a mess. How could he impugn the integrity of a fellow judge? He had no proof, nothing but suspicions which some would call prejudice. In any event, the smallest reference to oil would throw the proceedings into chaos. No, he would have to resign, wash his hands of it, his own judgement undermined by gossip and private doubt. But that would also cause chaos. Inordinate delay. Endanger the peace, perhaps. And he could kiss the barony of Cold Kirby-by-the-edge-of-the-Moors goodbye.

  'But I know your reputation for impartiality, Professor Watling,' he heard the silly woman protesting. 'I feel certain none of this will affect your views .. .'

  There was one other way. He could stay quiet. Pretend
he hadn't heard. Get the job done, as everyone was begging him to do. Dispense justice, in spite of the French.

  'And your father - I'm so sorry,' she continued. 'I had absolutely no idea.'

  At least, no more idea than had been supplied by Who's Who and a few minutes spent perusing Watling's press cuttings.

  He crossed himself in the laborious manner of the Orthodox and knelt in the new-cropped grass beside his wife's grave, positioning his bones like a man older than his years. 'Eonia mnimi - may her memory live forever,' he muttered, running his hand along the lines in the marble, ignoring the complaints of his splayed leg. At his elbow, Maria replaced the fading flowers with fresh, and together they reached back with silent thoughts and memories.

  'This is important,' he said, 'to do honour to the dead.'

  Greek legend is built around the Underworld, and for a man such as Passolides who knew he must himself soon face the journey across, the dignities and salutations of death were matters of the highest significance. Throughout the history of the Hellenes, life has been so freely cast aside and the dark ferryman of the Styx so frequently paid that elaborate rituals of passage have been required in order to reflect a measure of civilization in a world that was all too often uncivilized and barbaric. Yet for George and Eurypides there had been no ritual, no honour, no dignity.