Time of Lies

by Douglas Board

  Pat can stand taller and he does (Pilates, I wonder). ‘The selfless men and women who make the deterrent work have done an outstanding job. Trident, and Polaris before it, have kept the peace. And your manifesto backs the Dreadnought programme.’

  ‘Expands it to six boats, in fact.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘But when I said shock and awe, Pat, I wasn’t thinking about fission and fusion. I was thinking about your briefing. Every new prime minister comes along, and from day one in Number Ten – well, in my case, day five – a mandarin like you swanks around, scares the shit out of us and ties us up in secrets so we can’t move. So things keep running smoothly, which means the way you want them to. So is that why we have a nuclear deterrent – to keep democracy safe in the hands of experts? Experts like you?’

  ‘With the greatest respect…’ Pat stops, seeing the next punch coming.

  ‘Yes, Minister. Great series. Perfect for Boxing Day afternoons with a glass of Scotch, wouldn’t you say? But maybe you’re more of a port man.’

  Try the civil servants’ emergency brace position, why not? Everyone should practise it occasionally. ‘Our role is simply to advise, Prime Minister. To put such expertise as we have at the country’s service.’

  ‘At the country’s service, Pat? Or at my service?’

  He doesn’t miss a beat. ‘At your lawful service, Prime Minister.’

  It’s ridiculous but something bugs me about the fact that he’s taller than me. I stand up anyway. At the same moment Annabel Wale and the sound of laughing crash through the door, followed by a hapless, oldest Bill and three of Annabel’s girl-friends from college in Essex.

  ‘Deputy Prime Minister,’ says Pat, slightly off-balance. A good moment to strike, and I don’t intend to lose it. General Wale is of course Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Defence, with responsibility for all four of our armed (well, within twelve months the Vigilance will be armed) services.

  ‘I heard you were here, Patrick,’ Annabel replies. ‘But actually I’m just showing the girls around. Bob, join us when you can?’

  I nod and tell Bill to get cracking on a couple of buckets of Prosecco. No, Bill, not bottles, buckets – ice buckets, more than one, with more than one bottle in them… Yes, in the living room of my flat upstairs. Give me strength.

  The interlopers withdraw. I return to Pat. ‘So, be of some lawful service, then. If you can. Show me your expertise. Tell me something about the letters of last resort which I can’t find out in some book by Peter Hennessy. I’ll give you a clue. I’ve read three books by the prof. He’s top man when it comes to books on Britain’s government.’

  Pat rises to the challenge. He says with one hand on the door: ‘Decide whether to target Coulport, or leave it to the Americans. You know, national pride, that sort of thing? The kind of shit decision that’s right up your street, Prime Minister, as far as I can work out.’

  ***

  When Pat’s gone I look at the Ordnance Survey map for Loch Lomond and Inveraray which another Bill has laid out on my glass desk. Gare Loch is a thumb of water pressed hard against the witch’s finger of Loch Long. The Royal Naval Armaments Depot Coulport sits on the finger, barely two miles as the crow flies from Faslane on the thumb.

  However the crow’s path is of no use either to warheads trucked in road convoys from Berkshire to Coulport’s mountain bunkers, or to Faslane’s submarines, which need to U-turn in the Firth of Clyde before docking at Coulport to be armed. Ever since the Yanks first invented the atomic bomb, barring the occasional Cold War spy, they have kept their nuclear secrets to themselves. From Faslane our submarines travel to Kings Bay, Georgia to pick up and return our Tridents. A bit like a time-share, we own a share in the missile pool, not any missile in particular. But our warheads – up to twelve on each Trident, each with its own target – have to be Limey design and Limey manufacture, and they live at Coulport.

  And so to the puzzle which Patrick left me to work out. The puzzle wouldn’t have troubled Harold Wilson in 1968. Then, if any of his letters had been opened, Britain would have been lying under a Soviet nuclear cloud, spiralling perhaps out of an incident in Cuba, Czechoslovakia or perhaps behind the Iron Curtain in Moscow. Obviously not just London but Coulport and Faslane were on the Soviet list to incinerate within the first minutes – end of.

  But today Britain might be beheaded, politically and militarily, by a catastrophic attack on London which leaves Coulport untouched. Maybe untargeted, because the terrorists don’t need to bother – for them London is plenty. Or perhaps Coulport is targeted for conventional attack, aiming to nick the warheads. And so – Pat’s point about the Yanks – how long before the United States takes preventive action? Churchill would be their role model – we struck the French fleet after the fall of France: Mers-el-Kébir and Dakar, before finally they did the decent thing and scuttled themselves at Toulon. Do we do the decent thing and drop Loch Long into hell ourselves, or do we let the Yanks do it to us?

  ‘Bob!’ exclaims Annabel from the open door, Prosecco in hand. She’s in a pink shirt dress and bare feet.

  Don’t even go there. I’ll give you a clue: she’s got a partner. A partner who looks like Nassia Sotiris’s daughter.

  I say, ‘Five minutes, honest,’ and the Deputy Prime Minister retreats to shrieks of laughter. The Bills have prepared a list of 314 individuals who have phoned to speak to me since the election (the first thing they seized was my old mobile, ‘for security’. I didn’t argue once young Bill explained how easily it could get me assassinated). I rifle through the list to S and there is Professor Nassia Sotiris and her number in Oxford. She called Saturday morning to offer her congratulations. The Downing Street switchboard connects me to the number but it goes through to voicemail.

  ***

  It’s half midnight and I’m doing papers in bed when Nassia calls back. At this time of year, the chances are she’s been marking exam papers.

  ‘Bob! I can’t believe the switchboard put me through.’

  ‘I told you, anytime up to half one. Don’t you know, I’m the Prime Minister now? I get to lie in bed doing my red boxes till at least half one.’

  ‘Every night?’

  ‘I reckon. For the foreseeable, anyway. So midnight’s a great time to call, now the switchboard know who you are.’

  ‘And you are in bed?’

  ‘Deffo.’

  ‘And you’re wearing?’

  ‘Deffo.’ After a few seconds we both chuckle.

  ‘Well, many congratulations! You’ve made it to Number Ten.’

  ‘One Etonian beat me to it. They got one prime minister and one near-miss.’

  ‘Forget that – yours is a historic achievement. Enjoy it.’

  ‘Thank you. Come to dinner and enjoy it with me.’

  ‘Anyone you have dinner with is news. I’m not sure I want that.’

  ‘What’s the problem? Neither of us are married.’

  ‘The news is a cess-pit. You’re so close to the guys at Shock News, you don’t see it.’

  I laugh. ‘Oh the guys at Shock News? You mean Angela. You’re jealous.’

  ‘Jealousy’s not something I do; you know that. Except I am jealous of my sleep. However, besides congratulating you, I wanted to make sure that you haven’t forgotten my Christmas present.’

  ‘We’re going to announce our policy tomorrow. We want Guinness World Records to certify it as the fastest fulfilment ever of a political promise.’ Nassia’s present was a promise that if I got elected, I’d fix for European academics to stay in Britain. Don’t just fix it for me, she said; remember how Britain benefitted from all the scientists who fled from the Nazis. Which reminds me of that weird play of my brother’s – I forget what it was called, but Nassia got me to read it. I’ll tell you about it some time.

  We air-kiss and finish the call. The ad
renaline of the last fortnight refuses to die down, so I’m knackered but can’t sleep. I think of my predecessors watching from the main staircase and wonder which of them slept in this bed. None, probably; I seem to remember the furniture in the flat is private. Probably Annabel organised my bed, in the same way she organises everything else.

  The last two papers I read are the Treasury’s latest private numbers on the 2018 bank bail-outs (Jesus wept! We so need to fix those bankers), and an analysis of the likely European response to us breaking the rules of the single market – our nationality rules on housing, for starters. Seems the EU are looking to hit us hard and fast – faster than legal proceedings and fines. Bringing trade to a halt would hurt them as much as us, so what else can they throw? Hippolyte Ducros, the President of the European Commission, has tweeted that Europe can be ‘as creative as the UK is insolent’. Bring it on!

  Level with me: you can feel it surging through you, can’t you? The buzz of change?

  21

  London, Wednesday 13 May 2020

  Deputy Prime Minister Annabel Wale announced today that Britons living in the EU who wish to remain in those countries should register on the Fair Immigration website in the next thirty days. EU citizens living in the UK who wish to remain here should do the same.

  General Wale said, ‘BG will negotiate vigorously and confidently on behalf of Britons who want to remain in Europe. Here’s the deal: for every Briton accepted by the EU, we will accept one EU citizen in Britain.’

  Rules published on the Fair Immigration website state that to qualify, Britons must be up-to-date with their UK taxes. If more EU citizens want to live in the United Kingdom than Britons wish to live in Europe, points will be used to allocate places, with preference given to business owners who generate employment; surgeons, doctors and anaesthetists; and individuals with scarce skills or advanced technical or academic qualifications. Currently 3 million EU citizens are estimated to live in the UK and 1.2 million Britons in the EU.

  22

  Gare Loch, Tuesday 19 May 2020

  Cairstine stood on the spit, brought by her neighbours Barry and Joan. Kathy waved from the submarine, so Patrick followed suit. Cairstine was partly obscured by half a dozen serious walkers. Patrick and Kathy were easily close enough to see the red, white and red of Austria stitched into their knapsacks. But Cairstine’s wig was exposed rather than obscured. To judge by appearances it was receiving a testing from the brisk south-westerly breeze which it hadn’t received before.

  From the shingle strip, Kathy and Patrick were obvious: Kathy in her officer’s tricorn and jacket with sleeve lace (two and a half gold bands and a whorl), Patrick in a pin-striped suit and a John le Carré tan raincoat. Both wore slim-line inflatable life-vests. They were standing on Vengeance’s hull just behind the main fin. Further astern two ratings finished making the boat ready to vanish for two months. Before then a helicopter would winch them off.

  Before cast off, from his breast pocket Patrick had produced a slightly crumpled, stiff hand-written envelope for Vengeance’s commander and executive officer. They had watched while the commander had locked the letter in his personal safe. Then Patrick had presented gold pins to members of the crew who were starting their twenty-first nuclear deterrent patrol. They had spent four, perhaps five, years of their lives waking and sleeping in a steel tube; an underwater tube shared with the end of the world.

  ‘What’s four years?’ one of the crew had replied. ‘I’ve spent that long waiting for Microsoft to download frigging updates.’

  When they were topside Kathy commented that Bob’s letter of last resort had looked a little crumpled.

  ‘I’m afraid so. My last resort was to use a hair-dryer on it. Unfortunately my spaniel took too close an interest in Bob’s plans to guide us into the after-life.’

  ‘You didn’t replace it with a letter of your own?’

  ‘I might have been tempted,’ Patrick allowed. ‘Just for a minute.’

  Patrick and Kathy were riding more than ten feet above the waves, but standing on a hull with curved sides and no handrails was disorienting. They were head and shoulders above the little sailboats and motorised bath toys in Rhu Marina. Vengeance’s conning tower rose three storeys above them, her masts and periscopes higher still. Beneath their feet was a mini-city, population one hundred and thirty-seven. Gannets performed a diving display off the port bow.

  Gare Loch receded behind their flotilla of guard boats. To Kathy the sea on which, and beside which, she had grown up was a comforting blanket. Today the blanket was pewter and bronze, zipped together by Vengeance’s white wake. Sixteen black circles, like an eight-by-two blister pack of lozenges, stared up at her from the submarine’s hull. The diameter of each circle was longer than Kathy herself. Pop one lozenge for a giant headache.

  The Prime Minister could take the decision to ‘pop one’ anywhere in the world. The authorisation would need forty minutes to get from the bowels of the building in which Kathy worked to Vengeance at an unknown location. Fifteen minutes later one of the covers at which Kathy was staring would open underwater, expelling a sixty-ton missile in an amniotic cloud of steam and gas. The missile’s motor would ignite when it had cleared the watery deep. For thirty minutes the missile would arc through space, steering by the stars before chucking its warheads at targets 4,000 miles from the launch point. At which point stand by for a really giant headache.

  Turning west, Vengeance passed the ranks of seagulls perched on the capsized hull of the Captayannis. The wreck had sat half-sunk in the Clyde estuary like a broken paving stone since 1974. In that time the miners had been defeated, peace had been negotiated in Ireland and the British economy had been blown to pieces four times – once a decade, like clockwork.

  The south-westerly wind had nudged the channel between Largs and Bute into a gentle swell. Fine salt spray picked up by a gust struck Kathy on the cheek like a fencer drawing blood. When she had been a young girl, Kathy had spent hours on the seafront at Helensburgh, sniffing the air, dreaming that if she tried hard enough the Gulf Stream would bring her the smell of peat from Ireland, or juniper pollen and hot springs from the Azores. One day West FM had reported a deposit of sand from the Sahara.

  At the other end of the Gulf Stream, close to the northern tip of Florida, sat Kings Bay, the American base to which British ballistic submarines travelled to exchange and service their missiles. Kathy had once spent a weekend with a university friend camping and cycling in the local parks: they got close enough to the wild horses on Cumberland Island’s beaches to imagine brushing down their coats of chestnut and pebble. If events put her and Zack on the other side of the Atlantic, she would take him to Cumberland Island. Kathy sniffed the air again, straining for the least hint of horse-breath or saw palmetto. But what was in the wind today was the smell of betrayal.

  Patrick’s lips faced empty sea and receding grey-green hills: he had no intention of anyone other than Kathy reading them. ‘For a couple of nights I didn’t sleep well, but now I’m fine. Something somebody said to me helped. I want to pass it on, in case you’ve been getting the same heebie-jeebies.’

  Why are you telling me this? Kathy thought. She had given Patrick the idea, but on condition that it became his idea. She had offered her child up for adoption. Now it was being unwrapped from a stranger’s shawl, to show her how it had grown. The relationship between herself and Patrick had changed. Not romantically, at least not on her side: for Kathy power was no aphrodisiac. But she sensed Patrick moving on eggshells, for once the novice and not the expert. For once he was in a club with unfamiliar rules.

  ‘Commander Special Forces lives by need-to-know. So he was very happy not to know. But four days ago I met the team he picked. How would they react? I had no idea.’

  Kathy’s curiosity got the better of her. ‘How did you present it?’

  ‘You know me – as part of a war game, of course. In the past f
orty-eight hours we had uncovered suggestions of a plot to remove the Prime Minister at some point during the next few months. But large parts of the plot were entirely opaque. We needed a team to put themselves into the shoes of the plotters. Game it. Figure out the missing pieces of the jigsaw. So that when the time comes, we can all do our duty. It was the thinnest of disguises, intentionally so. I needed to know whether we understood each other. To be honest, I felt sick waiting for their reply.’

  ‘And?’ she said.

  ‘The four of them looked at each other. Then the captain said, “Thank God one of you’s got the bottle for it. We were wondering if we would have to do it on our own”. ’

  ‘So you’re sleeping again.’

  ‘I am.’ Patrick’s gaze shifted, warning Kathy that the onus of the conversation was also about to shift. ‘But they’re not. The team is good. They’ve identified the need to move very fast. I’m inviting you and Zack to dinner this Friday. I’ll make my pitch to him then – as my idea, of course. It will be good for the two of you to have the chance to talk it through afterwards, over the bank holiday weekend.’

  ‘That fast?’ Kathy gasped. ‘How quickly do you expect to act?’

  ‘Not quickly, but Zack will have some hard training. He’ll need to put on a few kilos. We’ll arrange acting school so he can walk like his brother and talk like his brother, and think like him too – albeit just for a few minutes. But I can’t see us lighting the touch-paper for a while yet. BG will have to do something so horrific that the opposition parties agree to work together.’

  ‘But does it have to be this weekend? We were planning…’ Kathy bit her lip.

  ‘Yes.’ Patrick was quite firm. ‘Zack’s been videoing a few sketches of himself as Bob.’

  ‘Yes, Troy thinks he can start his own YouTube channel, get a following and then get a contract. He’s planning to show Troy what he’s got next week. Oh, I see.’

  Betrayal was stickier, messier, blacker stuff than Kathy had rationalised. It had got onto her fingers like fingerprint ink. She had persuaded herself vigorously that in no sense was she betraying Zack. Patrick would lay the whole idea out over dinner, persuasively no doubt: Zack could get rich (well, rich by Zack and Kathy’s standards), give the acting performance of his life, do his country a favour and put the boot into his brother.