House of Cards

by Michael Dobbs

  * * *

  The tide waits for no man and it was already ebbing for Michael Samuel. Almost as soon as Collingridge had announced his resignation he had consulted his mentor, Teddy Williams.

  “Patience, Michael,” the elder statesman had advised. “You will almost certainly be the youngest candidate. They’ll try to say you are too callow, too inexperienced, and too ambitious. So don’t look too much as if you want the job. Show a little restraint and let them come to you.”

  Which was to prove excellent advice but entirely irrelevant to the circumstances. No sooner had the Chronicle hit the streets promoting Samuel’s name than Urquhart appeared in front of television cameras to confirm that he had no intention of standing. “I’m flattered, of course, that my name should even be mentioned but I feel it would be in the Party’s best interests if I, as Chief Whip, remain entirely impartial in this contest,” he said, adding a self-deprecatory nod before disappearing, pursued by the shouted but unanswered questions of the mob.

  The search was on for Samuel, and the release later that morning of the detailed election timetable added fuel to the fervor. By the time the breathless inquisitors of the mob had tracked him down to the Intercontinental Hotel off Hyde Park, just before an early lunch meeting, they were in no mood to accept conditional answers. Samuel couldn’t say no, they wouldn’t accept maybe, not when they discovered that he had already appointed the nucleus of a campaigning team. So, after considerable harassment, he was forced into making an announcement on the steps of the hotel, surrounded by a chaos of baggage and raised umbrellas, that he would indeed be running.

  The one o’clock news offered a clear contrast between Urquhart, the dignified and elder statesman declining to run, and the apparently eager Samuel holding an impromptu press conference on the street and launching himself as the first official candidate nearly a month before the first ballot was to be held.

  Urquhart was watching the proceedings with considerable satisfaction when the telephone rang. He heard the sound of a toilet flushing, which faded into the unmistakable sound of Ben Landless laughing before the line went dead.

  Twenty-Nine

  Some political careers are like a book that has been misfiled in the British Library. It’s a small mistake, as mistakes go, but the result is perpetual oblivion.

  Friday, October 29—Saturday, October 30

  “This what you want?”

  Krajewski’s tone still carried the hurt of their last encounter. He’d been avoiding Mattie in the newsroom since then but now he was leaning over her shoulder, careful not to get too close, clutching a large manila envelope in his hand. He let it drop in front of her, and from it she withdrew a 10x12 color photograph. The face of the driver stared at her, grainy and distorted but with reasonable clarity.

  “Freddie came up trumps,” Krajewski continued. “He took this along to his AA meeting last night and the group leader recognized it immediately. The name is Dr. Robert Christian, who’s a well-known authority on the treatment of drug and alcohol addiction. Runs a treatment center in a large private house near the south coast in Kent. Find Dr. Christian, and my bet is you’ve found your Charlie.”

  “Johnnie, I don’t know how to thank you,” she said excitedly.

  But already he had gone.

  * * *

  The following day, Saturday, wasn’t a working one for Mattie. Immediately after an early lunch she climbed into her old BMW, filled it with petrol, and pointed it in the direction of Dover. The traffic was heavy as she barged her way through the shopping crowds of Greenwich before she emerged onto the A2, the old Roman road which pointed the way from London into the heart of Kent. It took her past the cathedral town of Canterbury and a few miles beyond she turned off at the picturesque village of Barham. Her road map wasn’t particularly helpful in finding the even smaller village of Norbington nearby but with the help of several locals she found herself some while later outside a large Victorian house, bearing a subdued sign in the shrubbery that declared itself to be the Fellowship Treatment Center.

  There were several cars in the leafy driveway and the front door was open. She was surprised to see people wandering around with apparent freedom, and no sign of the formidable white-coated nurses she had expected to find patrolling the grounds for potential escapees. She parked her car on the road and, sucking a mint for courage, walked cautiously up the drive.

  A large, tweed-suited gentleman with a white military mustache approached and her heart sank. This was surely the security patrol in pursuit of intruders.

  “Excuse me, my dear,” he said in a clipped accent as he intercepted her by the front door. “Have you seen any member of staff about? They like to keep out of the way on family visiting days, but you ought to be able to find one when you need them.”

  Mattie offered her apologies and smiled in relief. Fortune had followed her and she had struck the best possible day to avoid awkward questions. The place had the atmosphere of a fashionable country retreat rather than an institution; no straitjackets, no restraints, no locks on the doors, no institutional smells. She found a fire safety map on the wall of the hallway with a detailed plan of the house, which Mattie used to guide herself around the premises in search of her quarry. She found him outside on a garden bench, staring out across the valley in the last of the October sun. Her discovery gave her no joy. She had come to deceive.

  “Why, Charlie!” she exclaimed, sitting herself down beside him. “What a surprise to find you here.”

  He looked at her with a total lack of comprehension. He seemed worn down, his reactions slow, as though his mind was in some faraway place. “I…I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I don’t recognize…”

  “Mattie Storin. You remember, of course you do. We spent a thoroughly enjoyable evening together in Bournemouth a couple of weeks ago.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Miss Storin. I don’t remember. You see, I’m an alcoholic, that’s why I’m here, and I’m afraid I was in no condition a few weeks ago to remember very much at all.”

  She was taken aback by his frankness while he smiled serenely.

  “Please don’t be embarrassed, my dear,” he said, patting her hand like an elderly uncle. “I’m an addict. Trying to cure myself. Had a million ways of hiding it from everyone but only managed to fool myself. Want to get better. That’s what this treatment center is all about.”

  Mattie blushed deeply. She had intruded into the private world of a sick man and felt ashamed.

  “Charlie, if you don’t remember who I am, then you won’t remember I’m a journalist.”

  The hand was withdrawn, the smile disappeared, replaced by a look of resignation. “Bugger. And you look such a nice girl. Suppose it had to happen sometime, although Henry was hoping I could be left alone here quietly…”

  “Charlie, please believe me, I haven’t come here to make life difficult for you. I want to help.”

  “They all say that, don’t they?”

  “Don’t say anything for the moment, just let me talk a little.”

  “Oh, all right. Not as if I’m going anywhere.”

  “Your brother, the Prime Minister, has been forced to resign because of allegations that he helped you buy and sell shares to make a quick profit.”

  He started waving his hand to bring her to a halt but she brushed his protest aside.

  “Charlie, none of this makes any sense to me. It just doesn’t add up. I think someone was deliberately trying to undermine your brother by accusing you.”

  “Really?” His old oyster eyes began to wobble with interest. “Who would do that?”

  “I don’t know. I only have suspicions. I came to see if you could point me toward something more solid.”

  “Miss Storin—Mattie, may I call you that? You said we were old friends…I’m a drunk. I can’t even remember meeting you. So how can I be of help? My word carries no weight whatsoever
.”

  “I’m neither a judge nor a prosecutor, Charlie. I’m just trying to piece together a puzzle from a thousand scattered shards.”

  His weary eyes searched beyond the hills toward Dover and the Channel, as though a different world lay out there. “Mattie, I’ve tried so hard to remember, believe me. The thought that I have disgraced Henry and forced him to resign is almost more than I can bear. But I don’t know what the truth is. I can’t help you. Can’t even help myself.”

  “Wouldn’t you remember something about buying so many shares?”

  “I’ve been very sick. And very drunk. There are many things I have absolutely no recollection of.”

  “Wouldn’t you have remembered where you got the money from, or what you did with the proceeds?”

  “It does seem unlikely I would have had a small fortune lying around without my remembering it or, more likely, spending it on alcohol. And I’ve no idea where the money could have gone. Even I can’t drink away £50,000 in just a few weeks.”

  “What about the false address in Paddington?”

  “Yes, they mentioned something about that. A complete mystery. I don’t even know where Praed Street in Paddington is when I’m sober, so it is preposterous to suppose I would have found my way there drunk. It’s the other side of London from where I live.”

  “But you used it—so they say—for your bank and subscription to the Party’s literature service.”

  Charles Collingridge suddenly roared with laughter, so violently that tears began gathering at the corners of his eyes. “Mattie, my dear, you’re beginning to restore my faith in myself. No matter how drunk I was, I could never have shown any interest in political propaganda. I object when the stuff is pushed through my letterbox at election time; having to pay for it every month would be an insult!”

  “No literature?”

  “Never!”

  Autumn leaves scuttled across the lawn. The sun was settling lower and a warm, red glow filled the sky, lighting up his face. He seemed to be visibly returning to health, and to be content.

  “I can’t prove a thing. But on my word as a gentleman, I don’t believe I am guilty of the things they say I have done.” He took her hand once more and squeezed it. “Mattie, it would mean a lot to me if you believed that, too.”

  “I do, Charlie, very much. And I’m going to try to prove it for you.” She rose to leave.

  “I’ve enjoyed your visit, Mattie. Now that we are such old friends, please come again.”

  “I shall. But in the meantime, I’ve got a bit of digging to do.”

  * * *

  It was late by the time she got back to London that evening. The first editions of the Sunday newspapers were already on the streets. She bought a heavy pile of them and, with magazines and inserts slipping from her laden arms, threw them on the back seat of her car. It was then she noticed the Sunday Times headline.

  The Education Secretary, Harold Earle, not a noted Greenpeace lover, had just announced his intention to stand for the leadership and launched his campaign with a speech entitled “Clean Up Our Country.”

  “We have talked endlessly about the problems of our inner cities, yet they continue to decline, and the impoverished state of our inner cities has been matched by the degeneration of our countryside,” the Sunday Times reported him as saying. “For too long we have neglected such issues. Recycled expressions of concern are no substitute for positive action. It’s time we backed our fine words with fine deeds. The opinion polls show that the environment is an issue on which the voters say we have failed. After more than twelve years in office, they are right to say that this is unacceptable, and we must wake up to these concerns.”

  “Now why is the Education Secretary making such a fuss about environmental matters?” she asked herself as she came to the end of his thunderous speech. “Silly me. I’m getting slow in my old age. Can’t decipher the code. Which Cabinet Minister is supposed to be responsible for environmental matters, and therefore responsible for this mess?”

  The public fight to eliminate Michael Samuel had begun.

  Thirty

  There is no form of wickedness in which a politician can’t indulge and a journalist won’t inflate. Hysterical exaggeration is the hallmark of them both.

  Wednesday, November 3

  Mattie tried many times during the following week to get hold of Kevin Spence. Despite the repeated assurances of his gushingly polite secretary, he never returned her calls, so she waited until well beyond the time that secretaries usually have left for home before she called again. The night security guard put her straight through.

  “Miss Storin, no, of course I haven’t been avoiding you,” Spence lied. “I’ve been very busy. These are distracting times.”

  “Kevin, I need your help again.”

  There was a pause. He was braver and more focused when he wasn’t looking into her eyes. “I remember the last time I gave you my help. You said you were going to write a piece on opinion polls. Instead you wrote a story slandering the Prime Minister. Now he’s gone.” He spoke with a quiet sadness. “He was always very decent to me, very kind. I think you and the rest of the press have been unspeakably cruel.”

  “Kevin, that wasn’t my story, I give you my word. My copy was hijacked, my byline wasn’t on it. I was even more furious than you must have been.”

  “I’m afraid I have been very naive. Good night, Miss Storin.”

  He was about to put the phone down.

  “Kevin, give me just a moment. Please! There’s something strange about Mr. Collingridge’s resignation.”

  And he was still there.

  “Personally I don’t believe what’s being said about him and his brother. I’d like to be able to clear his name.”

  “I can’t see how I could assist you,” Spence said in a distrusting tone. “Anyway, nobody outside the Press Office is allowed to have contact with the media during the leadership campaign. Chairman’s strictest orders.”

  “Kevin, there’s a lot at stake here. Not just the leadership of the Party and whether you are going to win the next election. There’s something much more personal, about whether history is going to regard Henry Collingridge as a crook or whether he’s going to get a chance to put the record straight. Don’t we owe him that?”

  Another cautious pause, then: “If I could help, what would you want?”

  “Something very simple. Do you understand the computer system at Party Headquarters?”

  “Yes, of course. I use it all the time.”

  “I think your computer system has been tampered with.”

  “Tampered with? That’s impossible. We have the highest security. Nobody from outside can access it.”

  “Not outside, Kevin. Inside.”

  The silence from the other end of the phone was more prolonged this time.

  “Think about it, Kevin. Your opinion poll was leaked from the inside. Only explanation. Dropped you right in it.”

  She heard Spence whisper a mild curse as he battled with his doubts.

  “Look, I’m working at the House of Commons. I can be with you in less than ten minutes and I guess the building is very quiet at this time of night. No one will notice, Kevin. I’m on my way over.”

  “Come in through the car park,” he muttered. “For God’s sake don’t use the main reception.”

  She was with him less than seven minutes later.

  They sat in his small garret office, penned in by the mountains of files that tumbled over every available flat surface and onto the floor. A glowing green screen dominated his desk and they were sitting close beside each other in front of it. She had unfastened a button on her blouse; he had noticed. Mattie decided she would scold herself later.

  “Kevin, Charles Collingridge ordered material from the Party’s sales and literature service and asked them to be deliver
ed to an address in Paddington. Right?”

  “Correct. I checked it as soon as I heard, but it’s there all right. Look.”

  He tapped a few characters on the keyboard, and up came the incriminating evidence on the screen. “Chas Collingridge Esq 216 Praed St. Paddington London W2—001A/ 01.0091.”

  “What do these other hieroglyphics mean?”

  “The first set simply means that he subscribes to our comprehensive literature service. The second shows when his subscription expires. It’s our way of knowing what he wants—everything, or just the main publications, or if he was a member of our specialist book club, that sort of thing. Each one of our marketing programs has a different set of reference numbers. It also shows how he pays, if he’s up-to-date or behind on subscription.”

  “And Charles?”

  “Was fully paid up from the beginning of the year.”

  “Even though he’s an alcoholic with no money who can’t even read when closing time has come.”

  Spence shifted uneasily in his chair.

  “This information, can you bring it up on all the monitors in the building?”

  “Yes. It’s not information we regard as particularly confidential.”

  “So tell me this, Kevin.” She leaned forward a little, breathed deep; men were pathetic, it worked all the time. “If you felt like bending the rules a little, wanted to make me a subscriber to your comprehensive literature service, could you do that? Enter my details from this terminal?”

  “Why…yes.” Spence was beginning to follow her line of inquiry. “You think that Charles Collingridge’s details were hacked or invented. It could be done. Look.”

  His fingers flew like a concert pianist’s and within a few seconds the screen was showing a comprehensive literature subscription in the name of “M Mouse Esq, 99 Disneyland Miami.”

  “But that’s not enough, Mattie. You couldn’t get away with backdating it to the beginning of the year because…What a fool I am! Of course!” he exploded and started thrashing away once more at the keyboard. “If you really know what you’re doing, which very few people in this building do, you can tap into the main frame subdirectory…”