Whispers of Betrayal

by Michael Dobbs

  Of course he was jealous, he couldn’t deny it, he hated the idea of Elizabeth going off to Paris to spend time with another man, but he had also come to realize that he was suffering from something deeper than simply a dose of male insecurity. He was back in that mire of despair where his private life and his political life were heading in separate directions. It was scarcely a new sensation, for his wife, Elinor, had never enjoyed politics. She’d been there at his side, loyally but without any real interest, never truly participating. In truth, holding him back. Not her fault, not anyone’s fault, no one to blame, just one of those things. Yet a modern political career is all-consuming, there is no room for the half-hearted, no longer time as there once had been for a politician to read or write great histories in the manner of a Macmillan or a Churchill. The profession of politics is all-consuming; it hadn’t consumed Elinor with interest, but it had finally, and tragically, consumed her. As they said, just one of those things.

  When, finally, he had crawled out from beneath his guilt and self-loathing, he had found a new start. He had also found Elizabeth. Out of misery had come an opportunity for a second chance, with a woman who was not only interested in his career but almost insistent. She would become one of the great political hostesses, working alongside him, cementing his political alliances as he pushed his way back up the slippery slopes of Westminster, through COBRA, into the Cabinet, then perhaps even into Downing Street. A career that would emerge from the darkness of its recent years.

  So why did he feel so bloody miserable? Was it still the malevolent remnants of his guilt? The turning worm of jealousy? The fact that the closer he and Elizabeth got, the more they seemed to be passing each other by like travellers in the night? The fear that on his progress up the slippery slope he would have to sit and sup with men like Bendall, and that he might lose the thing that mattered to him beyond all, his daughter Sam? His wretchedness had to be more than simply his monumental hangover.

  His brain felt horridly mechanical and rusted, yet as he sat in this airless room, something moved under the impact of Bendall’s obscenity. With a pitiful jolt, some part of his brain collided with another, forcing upon him the enormity of what had happened. They had shot an unarmed man for doing nothing more than ridding the London landscape of a monstrous carbuncle. It was practically a public service, not an excuse for executive execution. A man had died, and by sitting in this room he, Goodfellowe, was partially responsible.

  He stirred in his seat, sufficient for Bendall to notice. ‘God, you look awful, Tom.’

  ‘Thank you, Prime Minister. But not half as bad as Scully, I’ll be bound. Why did we have to kill him?’

  ‘He was trying to kill me, for God’s sake.’

  ‘Kill you? With a bit of old iron scaffolding?’ Goodfellowe’s thoughts were beginning slowly to coalesce. ‘Not unless he was trying to break his way into Downing Street and club you to death.’

  ‘Not literally, man. You know what I mean.’

  ‘I just think it’s a pity he’s dead.’

  The room seemed to have grown suddenly stifling for many of those present. The Defence Secretary wriggled uncomfortably and ran his finger around his collar. Dame Patricia began making notes in her precise, minuscule handwriting, as though drafting a bill of indictment.

  ‘I think these things need saying,’ Goodfellowe added softly. ‘And if they can’t be said here, where can they be said?’

  There was a moment of silence that was strained with both awe and fear, like children watching parents having sex through an open door. Then Bendall spoke again, his tone full of formality. ‘Did you have a point to make, Tom?’

  ‘Yes.’ Slowly his thoughts were beginning to coalesce, emerging like a chrysalis from its cocoon. ‘I think Colonel Gittings must be connected with the case.’

  ‘But he’s clean –’

  ‘There’s a connection of motive, you see. They’re making fools of us’ – well, of Jonathan Bendall, at least; they all knew he meant Jonathan Bendall – ‘and they’ve made a fool of the colonel.’

  ‘But why? He’s not responsible for cuts in the military.’

  ‘Agreed. Which makes the attack on him seem almost like a bit of – dare I use the word? – private enterprise. A bit on the side. Can anyone say whether the explosives used at Battersea were the same as were smeared on his car?’

  Jevons responded. ‘Forensics aren’t complete yet, but – certainly it’s possible. All the early indications are that both were standard Army-issue PE4.’

  ‘So let me get this straight. You’re suggesting that after they blow up the power station in Battersea they hightail it over to Clapham and have a go at the copulating colonel?’ Bendall sounded incredulous.

  ‘It’s a possibility. Worth considering.’

  ‘It’s demented! Who the hell would be vicious enough to take time out to arrange for a man to dangle by his balls like that on primetime television?’

  Silence. Goodfellowe didn’t know, and no one else had yet caught up with him. Bendall was right, it did seem vaguely ridiculous. Then the image of gunge poured into fuel tanks of a luxury yacht came into Goodfellowe’s mind, and a flicker of sadness crossed his eyes. ‘A woman.’

  The suggestion swept them into a confusion that left even Dame Patricia stranded.

  ‘Oh, I see. We’re going to run this investigation on the basis of masculine instinct, are we?’ Bendall sneered.

  Goodfellowe stared back and knew he despised the man.

  ‘Why else would the phone call about the colonel’s car be disguised through a voice simulator?’ Goodfellowe responded. ‘Beaky’s never bothered with that before. So the voice had to be totally distinctive. I’d bet a Ministerial salary that it’s a woman.’

  The Prime Minister and backbencher held each other’s eyes in a hypnotic contest of wills. They both knew that that was precisely what Goodfellowe was doing, gambling with his Ministerial salary.

  ‘So,’ Bendall broke the spell, ‘Beaky is really Boadicea. From the regiment of Amazons.’

  ‘Try Signals.’

  Bendall shook his head slowly, disbelieving, disliking. ‘How the hell d’you figure that one out?’

  ‘Look at what they’ve done. Water. Traffic lights. Fairly low grade stuff. But then telephones. Now bombs. That’s technical. Which means we’re probably looking for expertise in communications and explosives. Signals and Engineers. So let me ask – how many female explosives experts are there who could make a real mess of Battersea power station?’

  The Defence Secretary searched for someone else who might help him, but he was on his own. ‘Perhaps about twenty,’ he guessed.

  ‘OK, twenty. And how many women officers have left the Signals regiment over the last few years? Probably ten times that number. And if Gittings has managed to make an enemy of any woman, there’s got to be a damned good chance she’s in the same regiment. Which means Signals.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘No. But one of the two’s a woman,’ he insisted.

  ‘The two?’

  ‘The CCTV has only ever shown four. Four of them stuffing up the water system. Four of them knocking over the traffic lights.’

  ‘And at Battersea?’

  ‘After Payne they were down to three. The watchman couldn’t see for sure in the dark, but three chimneys, three chimney sweeps. Stands to reason. Now they’re down to two.’ Goodfellowe winced – God his head hurt.

  ‘Two. And one a woman …’

  ‘And if we can avoid shooting her in the back, all the better,’ Goodfellowe added. He didn’t know why he said it but, like the emerging chrysalis, he found himself driven on. It sounded like an accusation, and everyone knew it.

  The Prime Minister and the Backbencher. There could be no doubt about it now, theirs wasn’t so much a relationship as a collision, an encounter of fire that one day would burn their relationship to ashes. Maybe that day had already arrived. Every single member sitting around the briefing table was looking at Ben
dall, waiting for the sign. The Prime Minister clearly should no longer tolerate this insolent man, not if he were to retain his dignity and authority, yet he still needed him. How would Bendall act, from strength or from need? A turning point in the story of both men.

  Bendall cleared his throat. ‘Check it out,’ he instructed. ‘Engineers and Signals.’ The creases across his face began to lighten. From a cast list numbering in the tens of thousands, they were now looking for a mere handful. If Goodfellowe was right, the odds had shifted dramatically in his favour. ‘We need to look for someone with a grievance, or someone who’s been acting strangely,’ he concluded, attempting to appear as if he had taken charge of the proceedings once more.

  The members of COBRA sat with their heads lowered, scribbling as though dutifully taking note of his instructions. None of them wanted to raise their eyes and acknowledge that their Emperor no longer had his clothes.

  It was as they were dispersing from COBRA that the Prime Minister took Goodfellowe to one side. The top had finished spinning, now things must lie as they had fallen.

  ‘Trouble is with you, Tom, I don’t always like you very much. The damnable thing is, at the moment I can’t do without you.’

  Goodfellowe considered, then nodded. ‘Prime Minister, I think I know exactly how you feel.’

  It is the middle of the day, the sun has at last come to London after days of dishwater skies, yet Mary is lying in bed in the small faceless hotel in Bayswater that is all she has left to call home. She is crying softy, shedding tears into her pillow for Scully whom she now knows is dead.

  As her tears fall, Mary has no idea how much danger she is in. She is unaware that she is on the list of 286 former women officers of the Signals and REME regiments for whom the security services have been searching frantically during the last twenty-eight hours. She has no inkling that as one by one they have located and eliminated the others, Mary has risen to the very top of their list. She is the one who knew Gittings, who threw a punch at him in the middle of the mess, who had a grievance, who is now acting strangely. Who has left home, but no one knows for where.

  Except Barclaycard.

  The only advance warning Mary gets is a slight scrabbling at the door before it splinters off its hinges and she is faced by half a dozen armed men in hoods with weapons drawn and pointing at her. She is left defenceless, doesn’t even have time to reach for her clothes or even to shout.

  She barely has time to realize that it’s all over, to wonder whether they are going to shoot her, too. She has only a fleeting moment before they grab her. She uses it to squeeze the hand of Andrew McKenzie, who is lying in the bed beside her.

  SEVENTEEN

  Mickey heard about it over a cup of tea and an Eccles cake she was sharing with a lobby correspondent in the Press Gallery. He’d got it from a colleague, who had picked it up from one of the assistant press secretaries at Downing Street with whom he was trying to start an affair. Something was up.

  A call to the Downing Street press office half an hour later had all but confirmed it. The lobby should expect an imminent summons for an important announcement. A Very Important Announcement. Don’t go rushing off for lunch too early, chaps, you won’t want to miss this. You’ll get the summons as soon as the Prime Minister is free from the meeting of COBRA.

  All of which, in Mickey’s mind, raised an interesting question. If COBRA was meeting, why wasn’t Goodfellowe there?

  The answer proved simple enough. He hadn’t been invited. Obviously some administrative foul-up. So he hurried across to the Cabinet Office, breaking into a skipping run as he crossed Parliament Street, braving red lights and the wrath of taxi drivers.

  His efforts were in vain. The meeting had finished. Even as he sprinted up the stairs inside the Cabinet Office, the powers in the land were dispersing to their respective corners of the empire with barely the courtesy of a nod in his direction. He’d missed it. Goodfellowe stood breathing fire, feeling the sweat beginning to gather around his collar, his hair looking as if it were desperate to escape. Then Bendall emerged, with Jumpers at his elbow and surrounded by the usual dithering of altar boys.

  The Prime Minister spotted the backbencher, frowned as though in reprimand, then extended an arm. ‘Tom! Walk with me.’

  They traced the private way to the back door of Downing Street, through the ancient Tudor corridors of ghosts and faded glories.

  ‘Glad you’re here. Want to thank you for your help, Tom, now that it’s over.’

  ‘Now what’s over, Prime Minister?’

  ‘Of course, you don’t know. We found the last of them a couple of hours ago. Wrapped up in bed together, wouldn’t you know. Mobile telephones by their side. Signals and Engineers, just as we said.’

  Goodfellowe noticed the use of the plural pronoun. History was being rewritten before it had time to go cold, and by the morning it would have been entirely Bendall’s own idea.

  ‘It was good to have you on board, Tom –’

  Past tense?

  ‘You’re a sour-faced bastard at times, in all honesty you can be a real irritation in the rectal area, know what I mean? I suppose it’s your ability to be unconventional that’s made you useful. Anyway, it’s over. Time to get on with the rest of life.’

  Bendall halted his progress and turned to face Goodfellowe in the manner he might use to scold a disobedient spaniel. ‘I’m not sure what to make of you, Tom. Never quite know whose side you’re on. So far as I’m concerned, there’s only one side. Mine.’

  ‘That’s very black and white –’

  ‘How black and white do you want it, for Pete’s sake? These bastards’ve brought London grinding to a halt, held the Government to ransom, been responsible for the resignations of two Home Secretaries and completely screwed up my teatimes. To say nothing of what they’ve done to our opinion poll ratings in the run-up to next week’s by-election.’

  ‘Ah, I see.’

  ‘We need a victory, Tom. We need it rather more than I care to admit, and we need it very, very publicly. Time for a little good news, which I intend to announce in about ten minutes. One dead, three in maximum security. Hell, we’ve ripped the guts out of the bastards! Time to celebrate. And time for you to stop pissing on my parade.’

  Bendall took up a brisk pace, intent on leaving his problems behind, sweeping Goodfellowe along in his wake as they entered through the back door of Number Ten.

  ‘I’m sorry to have missed COBRA. Some mix-up …’

  ‘No mix-up, Tom,’ Bendall responded, still forging ahead. ‘You weren’t invited.’

  ‘Not invited?’

  ‘Understand me. It’s over, finished. I’m fed up with all this discussion. We don’t need COBRA any more. If there’s any sweeping up to do, it’ll be done on a strictly need-to-know basis. And, my friend …’ – Bendall smiled, enjoying his little power play – ‘you don’t need to know.’ It was time to reestablish who called the shots. Goodfellowe faltered, fell half a step behind as they passed before Cromwell’s disapproving eye.

  ‘You’re saying … I’m out?’

  ‘Out of COBRA. Out of that loop, yes.’

  ‘But I gave you everything. The water shares. The Signals woman. Without me –’

  ‘I’m grateful, naturally. I’m also a man of my word, Tom. Be patient until the next reshuffle. Your Cabinet job is safe.’

  ‘So long as you’re safe.’

  ‘And so long as you behave yourself. Learn to be a team player.’ Bendall shook his head slowly, as though the spaniel had peed on the carpet yet again. ‘In all honesty, I get fed up with the lack of respect you show at times. I’m the bloody Prime Minister. I don’t appreciate all this aggravation coming from a man like you.’

  ‘A man like me?’

  ‘A man who’s been given a second chance. A man who’s been brought back from the graveyard. A man who ought to be down on his bloody knees with gratitude. A man who’s got no right to play the high-minded moralist and have a go at me in front
of colleagues just because some bastard gets himself killed in the process of blowing up Battersea power station. No right at all, not while he’s off screwing some Westminster barmaid while his wife’s in her sickbed. You get my drift, Tom? I’m sure you do. By the way, you’re going to have to sort out that little nonsense. Get rid of the wife or get rid of the girlfriend. I’ll not have any Minister of mine skulking around in the dark like a mushroom waiting for the press to throw thirty kinds of shit over him.’

  ‘It’s getting sorted …’

  ‘Good. Great. Nice to know we can do business together, Tom.’

  They had come to the entrance to the Garden Room, the basement secretarial room of Downing Street where calm, experienced women translated the frenzied outpourings of the men upstairs into neat documents and coherent English before being transmitted to the farther outposts of Government. On the walls outside hung official photographs of past Commonwealth Conferences where Prime Ministers of many countries sat alongside the Queen. Most of the faces were black, and many had been guests of Her Majesty on previous occasions, mostly locked up in colonial gaols on charges of terrorism or some other form of treason.

  ‘Funny old business, politics,’ Goodfellowe muttered.

  ‘Like being roasted on a spit. As they turn you, half of you is overjoyed that things aren’t as bad as they were, while the other half’s just about to suffer a serious loss of humour.’ Bendall indulged the joke, his tone softening. The deed was done, the point had been made. Time to put away his cosh. ‘Tell you what, Tom, how about practising to be Prime Minister for five minutes?’

  ‘Does it involve either actual bodily harm or goats?’

  ‘I’m running late and I’ve got to prepare for the “rejoice-rejoice” bit at the press conference in half an hour. Trouble is, I’ve got some ambassador waiting to see me. Apparently he wants to convey a personal and very private message from his president. Usually means the president wants a favour; either he’s trying to get his mentally retarded son into Cambridge or his sister off shoplifting charges, some such nonsense. If only I were the brutal dictator they seem to think I am, eh? Anyway, I need another ten minutes before the press conference – change of suit, different tie, you know. So can you stand in for me until I’m ready? Entertain him. You’ve been a Foreign Office Minister so you’re used to soothing Johnny Foreigner. Push the boat out – I’ll arrange tea in the White Drawing Room, biscuits too. Give him the usual bullshit.’