‘How was it?’ he asked at once. ‘Busy? Mad? Huge buzz?’
‘Enormous buzz. Good fun. But interesting, too.’
She told him about the constant battles with Westminster and Whitehall, bits of turf fought over again and again, often literally.
‘How do you mean?’
‘Southsea Common. They were always wanting to dig it up, lay more cables, sink more drainage. I don’t think it ever occurred to them that it might belong to someone.’
‘Like who?’
‘Like all of us. It was odd. We lived here. It was our city. But the bigger the event became, the more fingers there were in the pie. Security was the real nightmare. You can imagine, fourteen heads of state, people like Clinton, Major, Mitterrand, and all with their own little plans – top-secret, of course. We were the poor relations, really. Us and the veterans. They were the ones that really mattered. Which is why we fought so hard to keep them in the picture.’
Charlie was transfixed. The TV images from the D-Day weekend were still pin-sharp in his mind. Clinton and the Queen at the drumhead memorial service. The royal yacht gliding out through the harbour mouth. A Spitfire and a Hurricane dancing in the wake of the big black Lancaster bomber the RAF rolled out for special occasions. He glanced down at the pad. He’d circled the word TV.
‘There’s stuff in your licence about providing a community service, isn’t there?’ he said.
‘Yes. We run a text and graphics operation, a sort of electronic billboard. Channel Eight, if you’re interested.’
‘Nothing more elaborate?’
‘Next year, yes. Come March, we’ll be running a weekly special. Reporters, pictures, the lot.’
‘How long?’
‘An hour.’
‘An hour a week?’
‘Yes.’
Nicky looked briefly shamefaced. Money was tight. Production costs were astronomic. But it was, at least, a start. ‘You should try the BBC,’ she suggested. ‘Or Meridian, if you’re looking to run stories.’
‘We will, we will. It would just be nice to have a local tie-in,’ Charlie said. ‘That’s the essence of the thing. That’s the message. Your city. Your vote.’ His eyes drifted back to the map. ‘Have you lived here long?’
‘All my life. Born and bred.’
‘So what do you think? Seriously?’
‘I love it. Always have.’
‘And Pompey First?’
Nicky’s hand found the polystyrene cup beside the teddy bear. She sipped the coffee. ‘You want the truth?’ she said. ‘I think it’s a great idea. I think it’s years overdue. And I think it’s absolutely in tune with the way the city’s going.’
‘And do you think it’ll work?’
‘No.’ She smiled. ‘You haven’t got a prayer.’
Hayden Barnaby was leaving the health club at the Venture Hotel when he spotted Harry Wilcox. The Sentinel’s editor was emerging from the restaurant. With him was one of the city’s two MPs.
Hayden watched the ritual exchange of handshakes as the two men said their goodbyes. A taxi was waiting on the hotel’s forecourt. The lunch had been excellent. Their respective secretaries would be in touch. The MP swept across the lobby and disappeared into the gloom of a foggy afternoon. When Barnaby suggested a drink, Wilcox consulted his watch.
‘Twenty minutes,’ he said, ‘else I’m in bloody trouble.’
‘You’re the boss, Harry. You’re never in bloody trouble.’
‘Don’t you believe it. Mind you…’ he was leaning against the reception desk, watching the MP folding his long frame into the back of the taxi ‘… there’s trouble and trouble. Compared to some, we’re bloody lucky. The Tories are dead in the water. And they know it.’
They went into the bar. Wilcox ordered a double brandy. Barnaby settled for a long glass of orange juice topped with soda. They carried the drinks to a corner table, Wilcox eyeing the bulky sports bag. ‘Any reason for torturing yourself?’ he enquired. ‘Or is it still vanity?’
He patted Barnaby’s shoulder, no offence meant, and Barnaby countered with the usual dig about Wilcox’s fondness for big lunches. The experience of the riot outside the Imperial Hotel had warmed the relationship between the two men. Over the summer, they’d swopped notes on the phone, met for the odd drink, musing about the way the country was going. The comforts of middle age had embattled them. They’d become, to a surprising degree, comrades in arms.
Barnaby was asking about developments amongst the Sentinel’s owners. The paper belonged to a successful group of provincial dailies and the annual trading figures, due next week, were rumoured to be exceptionally good. So good that a modest expansion might be on the cards.
‘Am I right?’
Wilcox frowned, his left hand patting his chest. ‘Scout’s honour. Couldn’t possibly comment.’
‘That’s your wallet, Harry. Your heart’s on the left.’
‘I know.’ He grinned. ‘Why else do you think I stay?’
Barnaby laughed – just occasionally, when the mood took him, Wilcox could be genuinely funny. He reached down. The envelope Charlie Epple had dropped at the office was still in the pocket on the side of the sports bag. He took it out and emptied the contents onto the table, aware of Wilcox watching him. Like most journalists, he was eternally nosy.
Barnaby picked up one of the little calling cards and showed it to him. ‘It’s only a rough,’ he said, ‘but what do you think?’
Wilcox peered at the card. A thin blue line across the middle represented the horizon. A disc of crimson signalled sunrise. The word Pompey lay across the surface of the sea, flattened like a Welcome mat, while the word First occupied the sky around the rising sun. Beneath the logo, in elegant black script, was Barnaby’s name. Below it, slightly smaller, ‘Founder-President’.
Wilcox was looking baffled.
‘Founder-President of what?’
‘Pompey First.’
‘What’s Pompey First?’
‘Our new party.’
‘Really? Can anyone come?’
‘Sure.’ Barnaby nodded. ‘You can join if you like. We’ll even find you a ward to fight. How does Charles Dickens sound?’
Wilcox held the card at arm’s length, narrowing his eyes, pretending he hadn’t heard. The Charles Dickens ward included some of the toughest areas of the city, problem families caged in sixteen-storey tower blocks. Harry Wilcox hadn’t made it to the Sentinel’s editorial chair to dirty his hands with real life.
Barnaby gestured at the card. ‘Charlie’s been working with a young guy from the art college. That’s his first attempt. “Heaven’s Light. Pompey First.” The word made flesh.’
Wilcox had the grace to smile. ‘Heaven’s Light Our Guide’ was the city’s official motto, inscribed on the scroll beneath Portsmouth’s civic crest. He put down the card and sifted through the rest. Finding no other names, he looked up. ‘Who else is involved?’
‘At the moment? Kate, and that’s about it. It’s early days, yet. It’s a gleam in Charlie’s eye, and mine. But that’s the point, Harry. It’s a great story. And you’re absolutely the first to know.’
‘Kate Frankham? Your pal?’
‘My colleague.’
‘She’s leaving the Labour group?’
‘Obviously.’
‘Do they know yet?’
Barnaby glanced round. The bar was empty but Wilcox had the newsman’s knack of pushing the conversation faster and further than Barnaby would have liked. He thought about Kate, wondering whether he was being premature.
‘No,’ he said finally. ‘They don’t know yet.’
‘When will they?’
‘When Kate tells them.’
‘And when will that be?’
‘God knows.’
Barnaby began to shuffle the cards back into the envelope, unsure that it had been wise to have shared their little secret with the likes of Harry Wilcox, a pressman. He himself was a lawyer, for God’s sake. And lawyers were supposed to
be cautious. He began to outline the case for a brand new voice in the city’s political affairs but sensed straight away that Wilcox wasn’t listening. Instead, he wanted to know about the small print. ‘Where will you run candidates?’
‘In every ward. We’ll contest the lot.’
‘And where will you find them?’
‘The candidates? We’re launching next week. We’re planning a press conference – here as it happens. We’ll have a draft manifesto and a top table of founder-members.’
‘Like who?’
‘Can’t say yet. But the bid’ll be there, out in the open, and we anticipate major coverage.’ He paused, a delicate invitation for Wilcox to confirm the Sentinel’s interest.
Wilcox was warming his glass, his big hand cupping the balloon of brandy. Barnaby picked up the threads again. A constitution was under debate. Charlie was working on poster ideas. The time had come to return the city to the people who had its interests most at heart.
‘Like who?’ Wilcox asked again.
Barnaby sat back. He’d barely had time to bounce the idea off a handful of his friends but in every case he’d met with nothing but enthusiasm. Whether or not this would translate into solid support was far from certain. Recently people had wearied of the political game but the novelty of Charlie’s idea, the unwavering focus on a single community, seemed to have penetrated the growing sense of cynicism and Barnaby had been heartened by some of the comments his cautious phone calls had provoked. One fellow Rotarian, a top manager in the city’s hospital trust, had been positively gleeful: Ministry of Health demands for a savage management cut-back had just landed on his desk and he was sick to death of taking the knife to yet more of his employees. ‘These bastards just don’t understand how it is at the coalface,’ he’d muttered. ‘All they know is smoke and mirrors.’
Barnaby repeated the quote to Wilcox.
‘You’ve chosen a good time,’ Wilcox said slowly. ‘An excellent time.’ He waved towards the door, a reference, Barnaby assumed, to the guest he’d just lunched. ‘Nationally, the bloody Tories are all over the place. You don’t even have to get them pissed any more. It just pours out. Right wing, left wing, pro-Europe, anti-Brussels, One Nation, Ten Nations, they can’t wait to lose the election and get stuck in. The party’s falling apart. It’ll be bloody and it’ll be brief but God knows what kind of shape they’ll be in afterwards. I shudder to think.’
‘And Labour?’
‘Even worse. The polls are looking wonderful and the loonies are under lock and key for the time being but it won’t last. Give them six months in power, a couple of head-to-heads with the City, and the wheels will come off. It always happens. You can’t change society without spending money, and there ain’t no money to spend. Blair’s lot know that. They’re not stupid. But the loonies think otherwise. Did I say six months? Make that three.’
For once Barnaby was impressed. Kate had been telling him exactly the same, almost phrase for phrase. In her view, New Labour was heading for a place in the history books, perpetrators of the biggest political con-trick ever. Was individual choice really the same as equality? Wasn’t talk of empowerment and stakeholding just more meaningless flannel?
Wilcox picked up the calling cards again, thinking aloud. ‘We’d be the first city,’ he mused, ‘if you get it right.’
‘You mean win?’
‘No, I mean setting the thing up. It has to be serious. Good people. Strong candidates. It has to be resourced, too. Where’s the money coming from?’
‘Money won’t be a problem.’
‘That means you don’t know.’ Wilcox began to lay out the cards between them on the table, a hand of patience, column after column. ‘Have you talked to anyone? Tapped up any of the big players? IBM? Marconi?’
‘The money’s fine,’ Barnaby said again. ‘I guarantee it.’
‘You’ll fund it yourself?’
‘It’s possible, just to begin with, until the subscriptions come in.’
‘Thirty-nine candidates? Advertising? Phone bills? Transport? Publicity? Have you really thought this thing through?’
‘Yes. You think we’d be sitting here if I hadn’t?’
Wilcox heard the new note in his voice, a veiled warning that he was serious. ‘Of course I’ll send someone to your press conference,’ he said. ‘Be glad to. Who else are you inviting? Telly? Local radio?’
Barnaby nodded. Charlie had a hit list. He was up in Waterlooville now, talking to the cable people.
Wilcox looked dismissive. ‘Cable’s irrelevant,’ he said briskly. ‘They’ve got a community channel but fuck all’s on it, no pictures anyway. You’re wasting your time.’
Barnaby hesitated. His media knowledge was far from extensive and the last thing he wanted was an argument with Wilcox. The Sentinel would be the key to Pompey First’s success. One way or another, it went into every household in the city and he’d yet to meet a local politician who didn’t swear by its influence. When the Sentinel spoke, the voters listened.
Wilcox was toying with the last of his brandy. ‘You might think of giving us first bite,’ he frowned. ‘What time’s the conference?’
‘We’re thinking mid-morning. Charlie wants to catch the midday bulletins.’
Wilcox shook his head. ‘Make it two p.m. Give them lunch or something. Nibbles. Drinks. We’ll put on a special for our first edition. You’re talking midday on the newsstands.’
‘What about the rest? Telly? Radio?’
‘They’ll be pissed off but it won’t matter. In fact, it’ll probably help. The telly people don’t believe anything until it’s been in print and we only publish locally. The Beeb and the Meridian boys go region-wide. If you live in Brighton or Portsmouth, it’ll sound like breaking news.’
‘OK’ Barnaby found a pen in his inside pocket. ‘So what do you need from us?’
‘Names, principally. Who’s backing you, who might stand. Leave the reactive stuff to us. The Tories will do their best to ignore you. The Lib-Dems won’t say much, either, but the Labour lot will go ballistic. Especially about Kate.’
Barnaby interrupted: he wanted nothing mentioned, no conversations, until the day of the press conference. Otherwise the thing would go off at half-cock.
Wilcox agreed. ‘No problem. We’ll need to talk to Kate, though. Proper interview, embargoed until launch day. I’ll send someone round with a photographer. She loves all that.’
Barnaby collected the cards and slipped the envelope back into the pocket of the sports bag. Wilcox checked his watch and got up. He was out of time. He had to run.
‘I’m surprised,’ he said. ‘I thought you might have something for me on the dockyard story. Your Chinese mate. Zhu.’
Wilcox was struggling into his coat. Barnaby picked up his bag. ‘Mr Zhu keeps his cards close to his chest,’ he said. ‘Democratic he ain’t.’
‘But profitable?’
‘Very.’
‘Good.’ Wilcox led the way towards the door. ‘So why aren’t you holding the press conference at the Imperial? Why this dosshouse?’
Barnaby shrugged. The Imperial would make a wonderful venue but something inside him argued for keeping his distance. Charlie was especially sensitive to nuance and the Imperial, with its subtle décor and glorious cuisine, oozed serious money. Wrong image, Charlie would say. Wrong vibe.
Barnaby caught up with Wilcox in reception.
‘One thing we haven’t discussed,’ he said.
‘Oh? What’s that?’
‘Our manifesto. Our credo. What we believe in.’
Wilcox turned round, beaming. Barnaby could smell the cigar smoke in the folds of his long cashmere coat. ‘Fax it over,’ he said, and produced a pair of leather gloves. ‘You were always rather good with the bullshit.’
It was mid-afternoon when the call came through to Mike Tully’s office. He was sitting at the desk in the window, writing out an interim invoice for a big industrial customer. A week’s surveillance work, mob-handed, came
to four figures, and some of the technical gizmos they’d specified would more than treble the bill. Tully reached for the phone, still trying to work out the VAT on £4,378.12.
‘Hallo?’
‘It’s Liz. Liz Barnaby.’
Tully’s fingers hung over the calculator. He hadn’t seen Liz since before the summer, though a couple of brief conversations with Barnaby had suggested that family life was blooming.
‘How’s that daughter of yours?’ Tully asked.
‘Dreadful.’
‘Oh?’
Tully sat back, the calculator abandoned. Outside, it was nearly dark, the odd shopper hurrying home through the gloom laden with early Christmas presents. Liz came to an end. Tully checked his watch. His secretary would type the invoice. The rest of the day’s paperwork could wait.
‘I’ll come right over,’ he said. ‘Give me ten minutes.’
Liz opened the door to his second knock. She was wearing a pair of tracksuit bottoms and a big green pullover that Tully had last seen on Hayden Barnaby. She looked fit and well and her face had lost the puffiness that Tully remembered from their last meeting. She asked him to come in, indicating the long sofa beside the fireplace. One end was piled with holiday literature, the brochure on the top offering luxury breaks in Malaysia and Singapore.
Tully sat down. ‘How’s Hayden?’ he began. ‘Ever see him these days?’
‘Hardly. It’s politics, now. That’s the latest.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes. I think he wants to change the world. This week, anyway.’
Tully felt warmed by the fond look on her face. He had a great deal of respect for Hayden Barnaby but he couldn’t be the easiest person to live with. Too active. Too impatient. Too bloody clever. He watched Liz carrying a tray from the breakfast bar. She’d had time to brew a pot of tea and lay out slices of what looked like chocolate cake. Tully had been going to ask more about Hayden’s latest brainchild but Liz was already talking about Jessie. She was living in the house of a friend in Old Portsmouth, Charlie Epple. There was another lodger there, a girl called Lolly.
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