Whispers of Betrayal

by Michael Dobbs

  Oh, mother’s milk. That time – two minutes to three.

  The train.

  Elizabeth.

  He has missed her. Mislaid her, until this moment. And now she has gone to Paris.

  He will have fame. More fortune than he has ever dreamed of. Plus the woman of his dreams.

  He is one phone call away from his destiny. All he has to do is to save Jonathan Bendall and claim his prize. But in making that phone call he will also destroy Peter Amadeus, a man who in so many ways Goodfellowe secretly admires. The body of his friend used as a stepping stone for his own ambition.

  It will make him no better than Bendall.

  The phone in his hand is ringing insistently. A minute to three. Sixty seconds. Then it answers.

  ‘Downing Street. How may I help you?’

  Goodfellowe stares at it for what seems a moment longer than an entire lifetime.

  Then he throws the phone as far as he can after the radio.

  AFTERMATH

  The words of defiance and high principle uttered by Bendall on the step of Number Ten would have carried more weight had he not first, on the dot of three o’clock, had to announce that he was resigning. After that, the media quickly came to indulge in lurid headlines and speculation as to who would succeed him rather than bathing in the dead waters of constitutional principle. The plain truth was that no one liked Bendall and precious few came to his defence.

  And when, in the following days, the most rigorous search of the many corners and crevices of the City failed to detect a single trace of either explosive, weaponry or even a mislaid catapult, his noble sacrifice came to seem more a lack of nerve. He’d bottled it. Like a poker player with a knave, queen and king all held in his hand – or at least locked up in the top security wing of Paddington Green police station – yet lacking the grit to call the other man’s bluff. For bluff it clearly was. Beaky might have had a shy at a couple of traffic lights and an architectural eyesore, but the City of London? Never! Hell, he was the bravest animal in the land! Which was more than could be said of Jonathan Bendall. A man who had created a crisis out of, well, in hindsight, out of practically nothing.

  They didn’t stay in Paddington Green for long. The prosecution had a whole confection of suspicions and circumstance, but no hard evidence beyond a mobile phone and an inspired punt on the Stock Exchange that was, of course, no evidence at all. If that were evidence they’d have to lock up at least six former Ministers.

  So they were released. McKenzie took up a position with Mèdecins Sans Frontières and never returned to Britain, while Mary was engaged by a leading firm of City insurance brokers that specialized in terrorism and political risk. She spent much of her time in Latin America negotiating the release of kidnap victims, and fell in love with a prominent Colombian lawyer after obtaining his release from eight months in captivity. Like all her emotional adventures, it didn’t work out. Freddie Payne stayed in London, got divorced, then got drunk, and afterwards went skiing near his bank in Switzerland.

  Some months after the incident, Goodfellowe found he could no longer resist the temptation to discover what had become of Amadeus. His enquiries revealed that his old schoolfriend had long since left both the Barbican and his wife. There was a report that a senior British Para officer had been killed fighting in Chechnya against the Russians, but it came from a source that had also tracked down Lord Lucan to a cave in Scotland. Yet it might have been true, for no one ever heard of Peter Amadeus again.

  He didn’t call her for several days afterwards.

  ‘You didn’t call,’ she said when at last Goodfellowe came round.

  ‘No, neither did you.’

  ‘But, darling, I never do. You know me.’

  ‘Yes, I guess I do.’

  They were both circling, already sparring. How typical, he thought.

  ‘Good trip?’

  ‘Excellent. Although I was half expecting you to try and head me off at the railway station.’

  ‘Funny enough, so was I. But I got distracted.’

  ‘Something wrong? You sound … different.’

  ‘Things are different, Elizabeth.’

  ‘Why, because of Paris?’

  ‘Not just because of Paris.’

  ‘What, more of your silly jealousy? Bloody men!’

  ‘No, not jealousy – at least, not just jealousy. You knew how much it would hurt me, but I could deal with that. I always have. The point is that I could have stopped you going to Paris, yet I didn’t. I was on the way to Waterloo, it seemed the most important thing in my life, yet … I got distracted. I suppose I’m always going to get distracted. And what with your distractions …’ He took a long look around The Kremlin.

  ‘This is an insurance policy, not a distraction,’ she insisted. Her voice was beginning to catch with apprehension. He was preparing the ground for something, she wasn’t sure what. For once she wasn’t in control. ‘Anyway, it’s all sorted. I got the loan.’

  ‘You didn’t need the loan. You didn’t need to go to Paris.’ A raised voice, a touch of irritation. ‘In truth, the only reason you went to Paris is because you insisted on doing it your way. Throughout all this I’ve been an irrelevance. You wouldn’t let me be involved.’

  ‘There was no other way! Come on, Tom, you know you don’t have seventy thousand!’

  ‘You don’t need seventy thousand. On Thursday morning I went to see your landlord. A certain Mr Sandman. Difficult fellow. One brown eye, one blue, so I didn’t know which one to look at. Foreign, I think. Anyway, I explained to him the foolishness of putting up your rent in the middle of a recession. Told him frankly that it would put you out of business and then he’d get no rent at all.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Sadly he remained desperately unconvinced. Didn’t give a damn. Told me to sod off, in fact, until I told him about his other problems.’

  ‘What other problems?’

  ‘It seems that Mr Sandman has got his claws into several restaurants in central London. He’s been trying to turn them into bars. Apparently bars are more recession-proof, people drink through their miseries even if they can’t afford to eat. That’s why he’s been jacking up the rents, trying to force people like you out in order to turn everything into high-profit watering holes.’

  Her eyes began to fill with misery.

  ‘However, in order to do that he needs the consent not only of the planning authorities but also the licensing justices. So I explained to him that the whole of the local residents’ association in this part of town is on e-mail, which means that with a single touch of a button I can get four thousand objections put in to any planning or licensing application he might make. That’s when he began to concede that I might have a case. Then I told him that the four thousand included a couple of hundred Members of Parliament and the chief licensing justice herself. At which point, for reasons which are beyond me, Mr Sandman became overwhelmingly convinced by the logic of my argument.’

  ‘You mean …?’

  ‘The rent’s been frozen.’

  She uttered a cry of joy and threw her arms round him, but somehow it was an unconvincing gesture and he remained uncharacteristically wooden.

  ‘I could have helped, if you’d asked. But then I could have stopped you going to Paris, if I hadn’t allowed myself to get distracted. My fault.’

  ‘Paris meant nothing.’

  ‘No, it meant so much, to me at least, not just because of jealousy but because you were cutting me off. You knew how much that hurt, yet still you went. And that’s your fault.’ He bit his lip until it hurt.

  ‘A relationship shouldn’t be a set of shackles.’

  ‘Whatever happened to commitment and loyalty?’

  ‘For God’s sake, what is this, a sheep-dog trial?’

  ‘Yes, a bit old fashioned, I agree. But over the past few days I’ve had a couple of refresher lessons. In commitment that goes too far – and the type that doesn’t go far enough.’ She flushed. ‘You remembe
r when we talked, about motivations being more important than actions? On the whole, I think I prefer the motivations of the sheep dog.’

  ‘But I love you, Tom.’

  ‘When we’re together, yes. But commitment needs to be a full-time thing, not something that gets squeezed in between courses.’

  ‘Or punctures.’

  ‘My point exactly. Both our faults.’

  ‘You’re being silly. You’re always looking for a fight, Tom. Can’t resist it. Your bloody nature.’

  He wasn’t sure if she was talking about his politics or their relationship. It scarcely mattered which. ‘There are things we both want too much, Elizabeth. Most of all, perhaps, we want each other to be different to what we are. You want me to be on show in the back of a ministerial car, but sadly I seem condemned to be on my bike in the gutter.’

  ‘And me? What do you want me to be?’

  ‘Perhaps it’s that I want you to be in love with me as much as I am with you. And that’s never going to happen.’

  She could, perhaps, have contested the point. She could have cried, but that would come later, in private. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of a public display. Instead, very softly, she damned the whole race of stubborn men and their inherent and extraordinary capabilities for letting women down. She should be used to it by now, yet – oh, how it always hurt.

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘Lucky for me I held on to the restaurant, then,’ she offered stubbornly.

  ‘I think I ought to go.’

  He rose.

  ‘Even with the frozen rent I would still have needed more capital. Needed Paris.’ It was a last defiant charge thrown at him across the room. He turned.

  ‘Oh, I was forgetting. Bendall introduced me to the Ukrainian Ambassador the other day. He’s arranging a presidential visit here. Turns out the president is a cousin of your mayor in Odessa. Small world. So I took the liberty of mentioning the problem a very close friend of mine was having with a shipment of wine from that city. The ambassador was charming and very understanding. I think he saw my request as part of the general back scratching that goes on between presidents and prime ministers – you know, giving each other pandas and horses and handing out contracts to each other’s sons. I think he assumed you were Jonathan’s mistress. Anyway, he promised to look into it.’

  ‘Another political promise?’

  ‘The wine will be with you by the end of the week.’

  He turned towards the door.

  ‘Why, Tom? Why are you so angry?’

  ‘Angry?’ He paused to consider. ‘I’m angry because I can’t help wondering whether you slept with him. I ought to be above that, but I’m not. And I’m angry because you think it’s none of my business. But most of all I’m angry because I think I shall miss you so very much.’

  ‘I’ll see you,’ she whispered.

  Did she mean it, or were they simply words to fill an awkward space?

  He didn’t reply.

  His hand was on the doorknob.

  ‘And a pox on Paris.’

  They were sitting on the Terrace of the House of Commons, enjoying the sun while they ate, watching the Millennium Wheel revolve slowly against the sky. The tables around them were crowded, filled with the frenzied buzz of speculation and rumour that accompanies the installation of any new Prime Minister.

  ‘Thank God you got here, Sam. You’re the first grown-up I’ve talked to all day.’

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Reshuffle time, and suddenly the farmyard’s full of headless chickens hoping to be a big cock by the end of the day.’ He tried to make it sound as if it were a matter of complete inconsequence to him, but knew he hadn’t succeeded.

  ‘I thought you said you might have a chance …’

  ‘That was a week ago.’ He shook his head to clear it of regrets. ‘So much has happened since then. We’ve a lot to catch up on.’

  ‘At my end, too …’

  ‘But let’s start with the good news. Your art course in Italy. I can let you have the money.’

  She seemed oddly underwhelmed.

  ‘Daddy, there’s a small problem.’ A pause. ‘It’s not eight hundred any more, it’s a thousand.’

  ‘And there was me about to tell the good people of Marshwood that we had conquered inflation.’

  ‘It’s not for Italy any more, either.’

  ‘Not for Italy? Curiouser and curiouser. So what’s it for, Sam?’

  She reached for his hand, squeezed it. She was upset. The look in her eye wasn’t that of a confident young woman any more but that of the unhappy little girl who used to run to him for help after Stevie’s Action Men had taken over the doll’s house. ‘Something’s come up, Daddy, something really important and I …’

  She wasn’t allowed to finish. Their lunch was interrupted by the arrival of Mickey, who seemed uncharacteristically flustered. She squatted at Goodfellowe’s elbow in conspiratorial fashion, but as he looked down all he could see was cleavage trying to escape.

  ‘Oh, dear, didn’t they have anything in your size?’

  ‘Be quiet. It’s all a secret.’

  ‘That’s supposed to be secret?’

  ‘Daddy!’

  ‘Sorry, Sam. OK, what’s this big secret?’

  ‘A summons. From the Prime Minister.’

  ‘I didn’t realize George Vertue might need a new secretary.’

  ‘Not me, idiot. You. You are respectfully instructed to get your Marks & Spencer three-button over there as quickly as possible. And say nothing to anyone.’

  ‘Me?’ He was about to swear in surprise, but found himself fresh out of breath.

  ‘Rumour in the powder room is that he’s fed up with all the altar boys and spin doctors who surrounded Bendall and he wants to balance it out by bringing back a bit of experience.’ She picked a piece of lint from his lapel. ‘At first I thought they said elegance and I was about to tell Downing Street they had got entirely the wrong man, but apparently it’s experience they’re looking for.’

  ‘Daddy, if you want a new job, it’s fine with me,’ Sam offered softly.

  Mickey grabbed his sleeve and shook it excitedly. ‘Hey, Goodfellowe, takes a hell of a lot to kill off an old soldier, eh?’

  ‘Some old soldiers, at least,’ he muttered wistfully, his frown a mixture of puzzlement and alarm. ‘But do you really think of me as old?’

  ‘Let’s put it this way. If you were a party, we’d be on to the jelly and musical chairs by now.’

  Sam giggled.

  ‘But maybe that’s it,’ Goodfellowe continued, still frowning. ‘He might want me to resign. Kick me into the House of Lords to make way for someone else. Someone younger.’

  ‘You’re ten years younger than he is!’

  ‘But I like Barry Manilow …’ Goodfellowe had slipped into melancholy, indulging his Celtic roots, which always found it easier to visit the dark side first.

  ‘There’s only one way to find out, Daddy. Will you call me later?’

  She was squeezing his hand again, and suddenly her words came back to him. She had been in the middle of telling him that something had come up, something that was really important to her. A father and daughter thing that both instinct and experience suggested he was going to find difficult. ‘Look, there’s half a bottle of Chablis left and I can’t go wasting good wine on the whim of any old Prime Minister. We’re going to finish lunch, Sam, just you and me. I suspect Downing Street will still be there when we’ve done.’ He turned to Mickey. ‘Phone back. Tell them I’m with my mistress and can’t possibly be disturbed before two thirty.’

  ‘Should I say which mistress?’

  He waved a vague hand. ‘Oh, find me one, will you? There always seem to be plenty around this place.’

  ‘Good luck, boss.’ Mickey kissed him on the cheek and wiped away the lipstick with a manicured thumb before leaving.

  Goodfellowe returned to his lunch and swallow
ed a large mouthful of wine. ‘I suspect it’s going to be one of those days. Again. So, what were you saying has come up, Sam?’

  She remained silent, concentrating on chasing a slab of vegetable terrine around her plate.

  ‘You said it was something really important, that’s what you said. Sounded as though it was going to cost me a hell of a lot of money.’

  She pushed the plate aside and studied the grain on the wooden table in front of her. ‘It’s Darren and me. We …’ She looked up at him, needing to gauge his reaction. ‘This is really awkward. I’m sorry, Daddy, but we’ve got ourselves into a bit of trouble.’

  ‘Oh, Sam! Darling, don’t tell me you’re …’

  ‘The Big P.’

  ‘You’re …’ He couldn’t find the words, neither could he stop himself gazing with horror at her stomach.

  ‘No, Daddy! I’m not pregnant. What the hell do you think I am, an amateur?’

  ‘Then …?’

  ‘Big P. Prosecuted. For obstruction. It was during one of our demonstrations to save the streets. I didn’t want to tell you unless … But the magistrates found us guilty.’

  ‘And now you need a thousand pounds?’

  ‘For the fine and the costs. Sorry, Daddy, I hope this won’t embarrass you. But I think it’s worth taking a few risks in order to save London, don’t you?’

  Goodfellowe laughed until he thought they might hear him in Heaven.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  This book has taken me more than a quarter of a century to write. When I was a student of security studies in America, I wanted to write a thesis about the vulnerability of modern cities. Manhattan Island in New York seemed a classic example. However, in the climate of domestic dissent created by the Vietnam War, I was dissuaded from going ahead with the project on the grounds that it might have given the wrong kind of people ‘too many ideas’.

  The security of cities continues to be a problem – indeed, it’s one that is growing. As cities become more technologically sophisticated, so they grow more vulnerable. I still have no desire to give too many specific ideas to those wrong kind of people, so although this is a book about bringing London to its knees and, like any writer, I have wanted to make the book as authentic as possible, in several instances I have modified my description of the attacks in order to alter or leave out vital components of any such operation. Whispers of Betrayal is to be read for fun, not as an instruction manual.