The Engineer’s cheeks flushed, as though Payne had slapped him. ‘So you do want away, then?’
There was the slightest pause before Payne responded, a hesitation that spoke all too loudly. ‘What I want to know is what the hell we’re supposed to do next.’
It was clear that things had changed between them, between them all, and inevitably their eyes began to settle upon Amadeus. He offered no reply, seemed distracted.
‘Peter?’ McKenzie pressed. First names. No ranks, not in public. Use a military rank in a pub in South Armagh and your life expectancy might be measured in minutes.
When at last Amadeus responded, softly, he seemed not to want to join in their concerns, almost as if he wanted to escape entirely from the problem. ‘I was never much of a reader, Andy. How about you?’
The Scotsman seemed startled. ‘Why, Penthouse, Hustler. On a quiet evening maybe a few bomb-disposal manuals …’
‘What about Livy? Ever read him at the Academy?’
‘No’ exactly from cover to cover.’
‘It’s coming back to me. I seem to remember you spent most of your spare time chasing the commandant’s daughters. Although, if I recollect properly, neither of ’em ran too far.’
McKenzie’s tongue passed briefly across his lips as he tasted sweet memories, but he wasn’t to be deflected. It was a characteristic of his, refusing to be deflected from his target, even while under heavy fire. That’s why he’d been mentioned in despatches in Bosnia. Twice. ‘I believe we were discussing your chum Livy.’
‘So we were. Roman historian. Worth struggling with. He wrote about Hannibal. You remember? The guy who wanted to take his elephants on tour to Italy?’
‘Seem to remember one o’ the commandant’s daughters made a wee mention o’ the matter. Said I looked like Hannibal in my uniform, and reminded her of an elephant when I took it off.’
‘Must’ve had something to do with your wrinkled arse,’ Mary suggested, attempting to sound disdainful, but McKenzie simply smiled.
‘Hannibal wanted to invade Italy,’ Amadeus continued, ‘but couldn’t figure out how – until he had a dream. Now the dream told him to march his elephants over the Alps. Most people thought this wasn’t so much a dream as an extended nightmare, but Hannibal had something of the Para in him.’
‘He was clinically mad, you mean?’
‘I was thinking more stubborn. Bloody stubborn. There was something else, too, because the dream also told him that, once he’d started, he could never stop. That he mustn’t even look back. But, as I said, he was a Para …’
‘Too thick to understand an order, let alone obey it.’
‘Obstinate. Unable to resist temptation and a challenge. So he turned to look behind him and saw this huge set of teeth ready to swallow him.’
‘Must remind you of your nights with the general’s daughters, Andy,’ Mary tried again.
‘Some o’ them, maybe,’ McKenzie replied, staring directly into her eyes. Inside he was laughing at her. And why not? If you played with bombs, when every day you risked having your brains blown out through your backside, you were entitled to laugh a little. ‘But since it’s clear that my brains are located in an entirely different part of my anatomy to the rest o’ you, could someone give me just the smallest wee hint where the hell Livy enters into all this?’
‘Something to do with not stopping, I guess,’ Scully offered.
‘Correct. Yesterday was only Day One. We daren’t look back, not now. Not unless my balls are to join yours dangling from Big Ben.’
‘None of us were trained to run, Peter,’ McKenzie added, almost as a challenge to them all.
Payne spoke next, his tone no longer aggressive. ‘So the next step is … what?’
Before Amadeus could answer, any further attempt at conversation was drowned by an eruption of protest from all sides. While they had been talking, the bus had been inching forward ever more slowly, like a boat rowing through thick weed, until any trace of progress had disappeared and it had come to a full stop. It could advance no further, yet neither could it retreat, and it was blocking one of the main escape routes from Piccadilly Circus. Exasperated drivers in other vehicles began to push forward, trying to squeeze round the obstruction, but every yard they gained succeeded only in strangling the other escape routes until everything began to choke. The Circus was dying, and the horns of a hundred vehicles wailed in dismay.
‘This is Hell!’ Payne barked, resentful.
‘No, no,’ Amadeus roared above the clamour, suddenly exhilarated. His eyes had grown several watts brighter as they cast around the scenes of disorder. ‘Can’t you see? This is like Hannibal’s dream! London is talking to us.’
‘And telling us what?’
‘That we should give Mr Bendall precisely what he wants.’
‘Which is?’
‘An opportunity to get to know us a damn sight better.’
He drew them into a huddle around him, and as they bent their heads he began gesticulating forcefully, one hand chopping repeatedly across the palm of the other as he made his points. It was several minutes before Amadeus straightened his back. The Circus was still blocked, the chaos continuing to grow. A few feet away, the statue of Eros rose disdainfully above it all.
‘By the time we’re finished with Mr Bendall, he’ll wish he had wings to fly away,’ Amadeus concluded.
‘Balls of lead, too,’ Scully added.
‘Are we all agreed, then?’ He looked around at faces filled with renewed expectation. ‘Good. Let’s go round up an elephant.’
They prepare to depart. Payne picks up his copy of the Financial Times and heads for the stairs. When he reaches them he pauses, glancing back at Mary. ‘Fancy a spot of lunch? Terrific little Italian bistro just around the corner. Superb linguini …’
‘Sorry, can’t,’ she replies in a flat tone. His gaze is a little too obvious. Something instinctive, feminine, tells her she doesn’t much like him. Anyway, she’s already agreed to have lunch with McKenzie.
Payne shrugs, his smile suggesting it’s a matter of considerable indifference to him, and disappears.
They make their way off the bus, one by one, Scully the last to leave with Amadeus. The RSM scratches away at a stubborn tuft of grey stubble that has survived beneath his left ear. Perhaps he isn’t yet back into the routine of shaving every morning. Or perhaps nowadays he simply misses little pieces of the picture.
‘You look troubled, Andrew.’
The scratching stops abruptly. ‘Can’t help thinking about bloody Hannibal, sir.’
‘What about bloody Hannibal?’
Furrows stretch across Scully’s brow. ‘You know, after the elephants and the Alps. Didn’t they end up kebabbing the bastard?’
Following his encounter the previous day with the Prime Ministerial lash, it might have been understandable if Goodfellowe had felt a little sorry for himself. He didn’t. He was surprised to discover that he saw it not so much as a humiliation as a rite of passage, like some Tuareg initiation ritual designed to summon up the blood before setting out on a lion hunt or mounting a raid on the slaver caravans. The scars were necessary, even welcome, because they would remind him. No more wandering distractedly into the Chamber with only half a mind on the game, no more flippant gestures aimed at Ministers in the guise of ‘being helpful’, no more succumbing to the temptation to throw bricks into the pond for the simple pleasure of watching everyone getting soaked. He wished once more to be part of the tribe, to come in from the shadows and share the warmth of the campfire. He couldn’t achieve this by force of arms, he had to be invited, so he was decided. Whatever it took.
However, much to his discomfort, this was not the line taken by Sam when she telephoned him early at his apartment. He was preparing his diet herbs, a broth of strange substances that smelt so foul it was little wonder it persuaded the appetite to run away and hide.
‘I just had to call, Daddy. You were wonderful. Standing up for us like that. D
arren and I – he’s really become your biggest fan – we thought you were magnificent. We saw it on the late night news and I’m so sorry about what I said the other day.’ The words tumbled out breathlessly and from the heart. ‘Say you’ll forgive me.’
She was under a considerable misapprehension, of course, but Goodfellowe was in no mood to enlighten her. What she had seen and heard was not Goodfellowe doing battle in defence of his environmental principles but the Prime Minister attacking him for what Bendall, and now Sam, assumed them to be. His new-found hero status was much exaggerated. Still, better a live, tick-infested sheep than a slab of frozen lamb.
‘You’re beautiful and I’m glad you called.’ He stirred the sense-numbing herbal gruel that bubbled in the pot in front of him. The steam curled up slowly, in a mood of malevolence, as though it were looking for someone to strangle.
‘You do forgive me, don’t you?’
The steam swirled closer to him, settling on his exposed skin and making the hair on his forearm prickle. He wondered whether the concoction was also a depilatory if applied externally. Or maybe they’d just given him the wrong bag of herbs.
‘Course I do, silly.’ He laughed, then hesitated. ‘Er, for what?’
‘For ever suggesting that you were …’ The words melted in embarrassment.
‘The shiny bit on Jonathan Bendall’s trousers?’ He laughed again. ‘I really must send you a Dictionary of Insults. Your horizons need broadening.’
‘Oh, Daddy,’ she blurted.
He paused to take maximum advantage of her discomfort, squeezing the last drop of credit for his case. ‘I still want to be a Minister, Sam. You must realize that. Work from the inside.’ He swirled the spoon around the bubbling liquid, sending a fresh fog of vapours onto the attack. They caught his throat, he could say no more.
‘I know I can trust you.’
He wasn’t going to argue, for soon he would need all her support, and then some. For walking hand-in-hand with ambition went desire. His desire was simple. Elizabeth. To lie between her legs so long that she would begin to tremble and cry for him to stop, then to march to the House and do the same to the Opposition. These things he wanted. Together. He wanted once again to be a Minister, and once more to be married.
To Elizabeth.
Which meant setting aside poor, innocent, mind-broken Elinor, and for that he would need all the love and forgiveness Sam could possibly give him.
He felt dampness on his cheek. Damned steam.
When it came to matters of the media, Jonathan Bendall was a wholehearted disciple of the Art of Anticipation. He knew that of all the conflicts made by man, that between Prime Minister and Political Journalist was the most difficult to avoid. Almost a law of the jungle, ordained by the gods of wrath. You cannot have both harmony and two people in the same room who think they know all the answers. So in order to delay the inevitable onset of verbal violence, Bendall often indulged in anticipation.
Which is otherwise known as keeping the bastards waiting.
It was Bendall’s firmly held view that the Fourth Estate was populated by two kinds of creature. The first were those exotic birds who nested on top of the many ivory columns that had been erected around the estate. These ‘columnist’ birds were unlike the other creatures of the colony, for they were never forced to forage for themselves. Their food was laid on for them, usually in vast quantities, in return for which they were supposed to act as lookouts for the estate, to give advance warning of impending peril or inescapable doom. However, bred into their genes was a fundamental flaw, for these were birds of exceptionally colourful plumage and typically would spend their days (and particularly their feeding times) preening themselves and competing to adopt ever more outlandish poses. So involved would they become in their own vanities that frequently they would neglect their duties, burying their heads so deep within their feathers that most of them, in truth, could hear nothing but the lunch bell and would have missed the arrival of Armageddon. At the very last moment they would be overcome by panic and would attempt to justify themselves by squawking in the most outrageous fashion. As a result, no one paid them the slightest attention.
The other creatures of the Estate all had an unmistakably canine quality. Some developed into intrepid hunters who would patiently and courageously track down their quarry, no matter what its size. Others proved to be excellent guard dogs, even managing on occasion to rouse the attentions of the columnist birds on their lofty perches. But the majority, it must be said, were scavengers, animals who hunted in packs and preyed on the weak, the sort of creatures who spent much of their time with their noses firmly stuck up each other’s arse. They had not a single redeeming quality, but such were their numbers that they were feared, for they brought terror to public servants and piled torment upon princes. They could even reduce princesses to tears. Anyone was potential quarry, except their own. Some base instinct manifested itself within the pack and drew them to the vulnerable which, once bloodied, would be attacked time and again until it had been torn to pieces.
This was where the Art of Anticipation came into its own. Bendall knew that the sight of food can throw dogs into a feeding frenzy, a raw, primitive call of the wild that has no limits and allows no mercy, yet in anticipation of that food, a dog will slaver and come quickly to heel. So it was Bendall’s custom to keep the media in a state of constant anticipation, telling them what they were going to get, and when. In the meantime he would watch them sit up and drool. (He also relied heavily on the principle of idleness, which states that most dogs will eat almost anything so long as they don’t have to go looking for it.)
Out of this grew the idea for what came to be known, in the first instance, as the Surf Summit.
It seemed inspired. Bendall would travel or ‘surf’ around Europe, meeting separately with seven other heads of government in a single day – a day that would, in the portentous words of the press briefing, ‘shake up the politics of indifference and kick-start the European economies out of recession.’ Well, up to a point, Lord Copper. That sort of schedule allowed for no more than forty minutes for each meeting, barely enough time for handshakes and photo-calls. But if modern statesmanship was all about imagery, then those images would be superb. A politician on the move, shoving aside apathy through sheer force of character, his thinning hair tussling in the wind as he ran down stairs, stepped off trains and planes and waved to the carefully prepared camera positions. Look up, young man, look up! And let the whole world follow your gaze, lest they see the nature of what it is you’re standing in …
So the Surf Summit was born, although one early problem emerged. The French President was recuperating from a reported illness at his holiday home near Porto-Vecchio in Corsica. It seemed so much better for his health than Paris, where the streets were plagued with violent protests by impoverished farmers and overindulged students. He had no intention of returning anywhere near the French capital until either the barricades had been swept from the streets or his hapless Prime Minister swept from office, he didn’t much care which. Yet either eventuality was likely to take some considerable while, and in the meantime the emphasis was on caution – and clean hands. In the circumstances, illness seemed a far better option. The most he would agree to was a video link-up, but at least it was pictures. It would suffice.
Preparations were made, then remade, and at last the day had arrived. As a confident new sun crept across the rooftops of Whitehall and set fire to the gilding on top of the Victoria Tower, Bendall’s private secretary checked the schedule one final time. It had been honed by experts and polished by repeated examination until it shone.
At eight a.m., with breakfast television and radio drawing their largest audiences, Bendall would greet the Irish Prime Minister on the steps of Downing Street. The press communiqué had been agreed well in advance; they only had to sign. They would even have time to discuss the merits of remarriage, a shared interest.
At a quarter to nine Bendall would make the thr
ee-minute ride in armoured convoy to Leicester Square where, after a walkabout of precisely ninety seconds, he and the assembled press corps would occupy one of the picture halls of the Moviemax cinema, at which point Monsieur le President would appear many times life size on the screen behind him. Stunning. (It was mere coincidence, of course, that the Moviemax was owned by a close friend of Bendall, who was also a considerable contributor to party funds and soon to be included very publicly in the Honours List. Much less publicly, he would then be touched for a contribution to match the size of the enormous publicity he was pulling from the summit. But that was for the future.)
For today, Bendall would hurry out of the cinema, coat tails flying, to be greeted by a crowd of well-wishers. It was certain that the crowd would consist of well-wishers since every single one of them had been hand-picked and shipped in by party headquarters. Nothing was to be left to chance.
He knew where the cameras would be positioned. He knew which part of the future to gaze at, forty-five degrees, no higher, otherwise his neck would begin to look scraggy, then, with a theatrical sweep of his arm, he would leave them all behind as he made the six-minute dash to the international terminal at Waterloo, where he would be met by the Swedish Prime Minister, Kristen Svensson. A railway station in south London might seem an unlikely location for an Anglo-Swedish summit but there was no time for Bendall to get to Stockholm. Anyway, the Swede was delighted to cooperate. She and Bendall had always hit it off, their public relationship full of clinches and clutches to the point that some suggested it could only be built on a private and much more intimate relationship. Disgraceful suggestion, of course, but it gave him instant sex appeal, made him a real lad, while she’d made it onto the front cover of Private Eye almost as often as Prince Edward.
So, after more synchronized smiling it would be a quick wave through the window of the Eurostar on its way to Brussels. And still only ten-fifteen!
Whispers of Betrayal Page 13