Fifty-First State

by Hilary Bailey

‘Point worth making,’ Joshua said. And, in the darkening garden they went on discussing the programme. Julia found Millie asleep, a red bucket and spade having materialized at her feet while they’d been speaking. She carried her and the bucket and spade upstairs to bed. While she was gone, Joshua’s phone rang. It was Saskia, back now and wanting to see him. He leaned back. To one side was the wall of Julia’s house and on the other, separated only by walls and short yards, were the backs of the houses in the next street. Overhead, in one of the houses, a man, woman and child sat in the window eating. Down the street someone started up the radio.

  He wondered why Julia didn’t try to do a little better for herself. A Member of Parliament earned approximately double the average national wage and, if you added on the allowances and expenses, it was more like eight times as much. He almost asked her when she came downstairs but decided not to. She poured each of them more wine, sat down and suppressed a yawn.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I came back to a pile of messages and letters from the constituents.’ Joshua knew that in a constituency as poor at Julia’s – the tenth poorest in the country, wasn’t it? – the elected representative would have plenty to deal with.

  ‘I’ll be off,’ he said. Julia raised her eyebrows, wryly. Because of some last-minute complications about the filming of Westminster Unplugged Joshua had been forced, several months ago, to tell Julia where he was to be found – at Saskia’s. Now he felt annoyed. This was the second time today his affair with Saskia had been treated satirically. He didn’t like it.

  106 St George’s Square, London SW1. August 25th, 2015. 11.30 p.m.

  After lunch with Joshua – which, as Joshua had guessed, had nothing to do with the election or the party leadership – Edward Gott went to his office at Clough Whitney Credit and Commerce in Leadenhall Street and spent the afternoon on business. He then walked to a planning committee meeting at Freedom House, the Conservative Party’s headquarters in a street behind the National Gallery. The party was housed on one vast floor of a circular, green-windowed prize-winning building, largely owned by Lord Haver, and popularly known as the ‘Granny Smith’.

  In a large boardroom seventeen key party men and women were assembled, including Damian Jefferson, the Deputy PM, though not likely to be so for much longer, Jenny Bennett, Head of the party’s PR and Advertising, Graham Barnsbury, the Party Leader, Lady Jenner, who led the party in the House of Lords, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Foreign Secretary and Jordan Landsman who was responsible for liaison with the local parties. Also present was Gerry Gordon-Garnett, who, it was known, would become Petherbridge’s Principal Private Secretary when he became PM. Petherbridge himself was not present.

  At this meeting Edward Gott had all the importance of the man who collects, preserves and advises on the organization’s money. He sat solidly beside the Chairman, staring at his agenda paper and knowing there was only one item on his personal agenda, and that was not what he was reading. He had to minimize the expenses in what he saw as a pointless election. As he had expected, the collective mind of the meeting was on more interesting subjects than how the bills would be paid – on a fleet of battle buses to tour the country, public meetings in every city, a leaflet to go through every door in the country. When it was Gott’s turn to report he was brief. ‘You will see from the document I’ve prepared that the party has an overdraft of a million a half. Interest is currently running at £150,000 a year. Our revenues do not cover this sum and will not in the foreseeable future. As you all know, we have recently moved our headquarters into this building, at preferential rates. I must therefore advise that the national election campaign should be planned on the basis of ten thousand pounds a week. This is lower than any of us would like, but it is all I can advise. Indeed, it is all we can produce.’

  This sobered the meeting, though not for long, and Gott made no further comments as it continued, except to ask, neutrally, for costings on each suggestion. These were seldom available. He preserved an expression barely short of gloom. Meanwhile, the temperature in the room rose, was readjusted and rose again. It was as the Chairman of the Policy Group was making her report that a secretary entered the room and leant over his shoulder. She handed him a message from his own secretary at the bank, asking him to call her. Gott apologized and left the room, fearing that Mrs Jasmine Dottrell had bad news of his family. Little else would have caused her to call him in the middle of the meeting.

  He was nervous until he saw her face on the monitor. ‘Ed-ward,’ she said on her usual, Caribbean rising note, ‘Don’t worry. It’s only some payments received.’ Gott frowned. Surely that was no reason to interrupt him in the middle of a meeting? ‘A Mrs Caris Brookes has sent half a million pounds to the Conservative Party. Lord Haver has set two million. And Mr Julian Finch-O’Brien has asked for account details as he wants to contribute a substantial sum. That was what he called it. And he wished to speak to you personally about the donation.’

  Gott had expected Haver to contribute, although less than the two million he had, apparently, given. The other two names were unknown to him. He asked Mrs Dottrell, who had been with him for fifteen years, if she had any information about these donors. She had already checked, and said she had not.

  He went back into the meeting, curious about the sudden good fortune for the Conservative Party and resolving to say nothing about it until the details were clearer. He did not want the spendthrifts of the committee on him like a plague of locusts before he was ready.

  The meeting broke up at seven thirty and would reconvene at six the next day, and every day after that until the voters went to the polls in October. Graham Barnsbury caught Gott as he left and invited him for a quick drink.

  They sat at the back of a shining steel-floored bar by the river, selected more because it was convenient than because it was congenial. They faced a whole-wall screen opposite, where a man and a woman, ten times life size, were having an argument. It wasn’t clear what the actors were saying – the sound on wall-screens was almost always bad. They ordered.

  Barnsbury leaned forward over the shiny steel table and said, ‘I just wanted a quick word, Gott. I appreciate that as the treasurer you have a duty to ensure the party doesn’t overspend – but I couldn’t help feeling you were being too discouraging. In future, as a favour to me, would you mind saying what can be done, rather than what can’t?’

  ‘Point taken, Graham,’ Gott said easily. ‘It was tactics – better to throw a bucket of cold water over the big spenders at the outset – and I don’t need to tell you, the party’s financial position is very bad. If we were a company we’d be bankrupt.’ He decided it was fair to Barnsbury to tell him about the offers that had just come in. ‘There might be some light at the end of the tunnel,’ he said and told the Party Chairman what he had heard from Jasmine Dottrell. He watched Barnsbury closely as he spoke, but got no impression the other man knew anything about the donations. Barnsbury seemed as surprised as he had been. On the wall the two giants went into a naked clinch.

  ‘This Mrs Brookes – Caris Brookes – have you ever heard of her?’ Barnsbury shook his head. ‘Or Finch-O’Brien?’ Gott asked. Barnsbury denied knowledge of him either, adding, ‘Do you think Petherbridge has been doing some intelligent fund-raising?’

  ‘Could be,’ answered Gott. ‘Do you know where he is, by the way? I rang this morning to talk about the meeting and his secretary didn’t seem to know where he was.’

  ‘I suppose he’s entitled to a week or two out of contact,’ Barnsbury said vaguely. He was thinking about the money. ‘We’re out of debt,’ he announced. ‘We ought to take over the floor above for the election. It’s empty.’

  ‘Possibly,’ said Gott. After the two men parted he got into a taxi and drove to a north-west London suburb. He wondered where Petherbridge was. He was on the verge of becoming Party Leader, possibly the next Prime Minister, if the party won a General Election only two months off. It was a funny time for an ambitious man to disappear.r />
  He banged on the door of an Edwardian semi in a tree-lined street. There, he ate the leftovers from supper – macaroni cheese and beans, warmed up in the microwave, sat in the kitchen chatting with the couple who lived in the house, called another cab and went back to St George’s Square, where he had a first-floor flat. Feet up, he called his assistant, Jeremy Saunders. Jeremy, always thin, his face now looking drawn and weary, was on his way back from Heathrow.

  ‘All right, Jeremy?’ Gott asked encouragingly. ‘Good holiday?’

  ‘Apart from the diarrhoea and a twelve-hour flight,’ Jeremy told him, thinking Gott looked fit, well, healthily tanned and had a surprise in store for him.

  ‘Can you look in?’ asked Gott. ‘I need you.’

  ‘I’m pretty tired,’ said Jeremy. ‘And I’ve got to go to my sister’s to pick up Finn.’

  Gott was displeased. ‘Well, get the dog, have a shower and I’ll see you in forty-five minutes.’

  ‘Right, boss,’ said Jeremy gloomily.

  It was midnight before Jeremy, showered and in his pyjamas, came downstairs from the top-floor flat, where he lived with Gott as his landlord. He entered with his intelligent dog, who knew better than to wag his tail at Gott and pattered over the polished floor to lie down under the long windows overlooking the square. The long lace curtains hung still above his head. The leaves on the trees outside lay heavy with heat and traffic fumes.

  Long, lean Jeremy moved as if drawn by a magnet to the table on which Gott had hospitably placed some packages of wrapped sandwiches. He began to eat. Gott silently placed a weak whisky and water beside him then went across the room to stand near the small grand piano he could not play. He said, ‘I want you to go to Yorkshire.’

  ‘What – is it, Rodon?’ Jeremy asked. Rodon was Gott’s car firm in the North West. The research team was headed by the awkward eccentric genius, Leslie Mundy, who was working on a system to re-power, internally, the Citycar, a short-range electric vehicle. He was a perfectionist. He would seldom let his work out of his hands because he always had further improvements in mind. Five years earlier Gott and Jeremy had gone to Rodon. Gott was desperate. Mundy and his research team had been at work for three years, and as yet not one car worker had come through the factory gates and not one spanner had been lifted on the empty factory floor. Costs were spiralling. On that occasion Gott had bullied Mundy into handing over the research and this had at last resulted in the Citycar going into production. Following this episode, either Gott and Jeremy, or Jeremy alone, paid regular unscheduled visits to Rodon.

  The Citycar was now in use by people wanting to make short journeys – its range was only forty-five miles before it required re-powering. Early on it had become a national joke, being seen so often standing uselessly at the roadside because the owners had underestimated how long they would be on the road, because they had handed the keys to teenage children, or because it had been stolen and driven away. Mundy pointed out that he had predicted this when production began. Gott had been forced to set up another company, Citycar Rescue. There were enough people ready to pay the relatively large purchase price to use the low-maintenance, ecologically friendly runabout but it was a small market and Gott wanted to expand. Mundy was working on finding a safe way to re-power the vehicle in transit. That way, though it might still be slow – its maximum speed was 40mph and even that speed drained its power faster – it would be able to cover longer distances. Gott was beginning to suspect Mundy might have solved the problem, but was concealing the result.

  ‘Well – I was going to ask you to look in unexpectedly as usual and see what you can find out. It’ll be Saturday morning. With any luck they won’t be there.’ Gott said. ‘But your main task is to go to a Pennine village, Kirkby Rodney, and see what you can find out about the early life of Alan Broderick Petherbridge. He lived there until he was twenty – away a lot of the time at school and university, but that was his home. His father died when he was very young, so I suppose it would have been him and his mother.’

  ‘I’ve been to Kirkby Rodney. I used to climb round there before I took up an open-all-hours post with you.’

  ‘We all have to pay the rent,’ Gott said unsympathetically as Jeremy demolished the last of the sandwiches. ‘That’s why they call it work.’ He handed him a copy of Who’s Who open at the page containing Alan Petherbridge’s entry. Jeremy scanned it. ‘Conventional enough. School, Oxford, Harvard Business, Barclays, Conservative Party research; wife – Annabel; address – Backhurst, Chapping, Gloucester.’

  ‘Go and see her, too, on the way back,’ Gott said. ‘She’s supposed to be potty but someone must know something.’

  ‘I’m not sure what you want.’

  ‘He’ll be the Prime Minister soon. I’m concerned.’

  ‘What about?’ asked Jeremy.

  ‘That’s for you to find out,’ Gott told him. He doesn’t know, thought Jeremy. ‘Usual arrangement. Poppy Burroughs at the Observer will vouch for you, if necessary. You’re researching for a feature she’s writing about Petherbridge. Here’s a printout of all the press stories about him.’ He pushed a heavy file of paper across the table at Jeremy.

  ‘Right,’ said Jeremy, who on two other occasions had gone ferreting for Gott, pretending to be a journalist and covered by Poppy Burroughs, whose parents owed Gott some unspecified, but presumably significant favour.

  ‘I’ll need you back in a couple of days,’ said Gott. ‘Things will start hotting up in early September.’

  ‘Right,’ said Jeremy and left, with his dog at his heels.

  Gott frowned, stood up and went to bed.

  Four

  Chervil Cottage, Church Street, Kirkby Rodney, Yorkshire. August 26th, 2015

  Jeremy walked wearily up the narrow stairs of the pretty cottage belonging to Mrs Debby Carshaw, who had taken him in for bed and breakfast when he arrived in Kirkby Rodney in the late afternoon. There had been no room at the local pub. Mrs Carshaw, a short, bright-eyed woman in her sixties, as broad as she was long, was the retired headmistress of the village school.

  Jeremy had spent a frustrating late morning at the Rodon works near Preston. He had parked his car in an empty space near the building, a space with MUNDY painted on the concrete, ignored the cry of the security guard at this violation, raced into the lift, noted Mrs Jackie Mundy, secretary and guard dog to Leslie Mundy, at her desk in the outer office, charged past her and ran into Mundy’s empty office. Mrs Mundy jumped up with a cry as he passed.

  A high, screaming whine penetrated the room. Jeremy was reminded of his two-year-old nephew in the supermarket – of Leo lying on the floor by the checkout sobbing and screeching, snot and tears running down his face, yelling, ‘No – no—no – not going – toy – no – no – no.’ The noise was much like that inhuman howl. Under the window a small steel engine, which Jeremy recognized as a replica of the Citycar engine, was running. Jeremy noted a black box suspended at the rear of the smooth-running engine. The unpleasant noise was coming from this.

  Jeremy crossed the room quickly and whipped up the outer casing of the black box. By this time Jackie Mundy, dyed red hair flying and stilettos clacking, had launched herself into the room, run up to him and cried, ‘You can’t look at that!’

  The black casing held some kind of fuel cell, Jeremy concluded, and it looked possible that it was in some way feeding the Citycar battery. Which might mean that Leslie Mundy had managed to create a fuel cell which would boost the electric battery while the car was in motion, in which case you could rechristen the vehicle the goes-all-over-the-country car and Leslie Mundy would become a billionaire and so, for that matter, would Lord Gott and even, he, Jeremy, would do pretty well out of it. If Mundy could eliminate the noise, he thought.

  Mrs Mundy somehow stilled the engine. Then she swiftly threw a large metallic sheet over it and turned to Jeremy, pushing at his chest with both hands. ‘You’re not allowed in here,’ she said. ‘Mr Mundy isn’t here. You’re not allowed in here while
he’s out of the office.’ She had tossed that sheet of anti-static, dust-repellent sheeting, as used in the space programme and operating theatres, over the engine with a practised hand, Jeremy noted. Presumably this was what she always did when her husband had to meet someone in his office.

  ‘I need all the research notes for that fuel cell, or whatever it is – what it is, how it operates on the motor, how it’s mounted. The lot, Mrs Mundy – and now.’ Jeremy held out his hand.

  ‘You can’t have it. Them. They’re in the safe. I don’t know the combination,’ she told him.

  ‘OK,’ said Jeremy. ‘Where’s Leslie?’

  ‘He’s in Aberdeen, at the university. It’s about that noise – getting rid of it.’

  ‘It’s enough to make the driver kill all the passengers,’ Jeremy agreed. ‘Still, Mrs M, you’d better tell Leslie, with all due respect, he’s an arse-hole if he’s cracked the problem and elected not to tell Lord Gott. To be honest, when Lord Gott hears this, he’ll be furious. Can you blame him? R and D running at two hundred thousand pounds a year here – Lord Gott paying every penny of this without a fuss – and when there’s a breakthrough it turns out he’s the last to hear. Tell Leslie I sincerely hope he isn’t thinking of selling this to anyone else.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ she protested. ‘He’d never do that.’

  Jeremy believed her. Leslie Mundy had faults, but he did not think him dishonest. Something struck him. ‘Where’s the safe?’ he demanded. She gave him a sulky look. ‘Mrs Mundy,’ he said, ‘if Leslie’s found a way of boosting the electricity without having to recharge a battery, the research is worth a fortune.’

  ‘Nobody knows,’ she said.

  ‘He’s got a team of five in that expensive lab – that’s not nobody. I need to know where the safe is to put a guard on it. Has he taken the research to Aberdeen?’

  Her look answered the question. ‘I’ll kill him,’ he said. ‘I know Lord Gott would want me to.’ This cowed her.