The Knives

by Richard T. Kelly

  Afterward he convened the spads. He felt physically diminished, and they looked etiolated themselves.

  ‘I hate to sound a wimp but I’m not sure how much of this attrition I can handle. Outside our little circle, who really thinks I should stay? Maybe we’re outside reality. In our bunker. “The last days.” Maybe I should keep the cyanide capsule close at hand.’

  Deborah shot a withering look, more like her old self. ‘Forgive me, mein Führer, this ain’t Berlin, okay? And I’m not fucken Eva Braun.’

  Tallis seemed to rise to the grim spirit. ‘Nor am I Goebbels, if that’s the typecasting. And I don’t see any Russian tanks rolling up the Mall.’

  Blaylock felt a helpless hissing laugh escape him, the laughter that awfulness encouraged. ‘Who are you in this role-play then, Ben?’

  Ben, though, was subdued. ‘I don’t much care for the tone of it.’

  Poor Scarecrow, he’ll miss me most of all, Blaylock thought.

  *

  He took his seat for Prime Minister’s Questions to the Captain’s right, between Caroline Tennant and Dominic Moorhouse, who shrunk from him such as to give him rather more room on the bench than he needed. Then came the onslaught.

  ‘Isn’t it clear that the Home Secretary cannot give his department the leadership it’s crying out for?’

  ‘I will take no lessons on leadership from the Right Honourable Gentleman. The Home Secretary has my complete confidence …’

  Vaughan’s declaration roused the Opposition to jocose heights. Blaylock smiled, arranged his features condescendingly, trusting that the whole government bench were doing likewise in solidarity. In his heart, though, the Prime Minister’s words felt like the serving of the proverbial cup of hemlock. It can’t go on like this. It has to stop.

  *

  He headed for his Commons office with the first sentence of a resignation letter having formed an ineluctable shape in his head. The Chief Whip lay in wait by his door.

  ‘David, a word, the chair of the backbench committee has been to see me …’

  Blaylock nodded. Trevor Parry was also drawing near, undeterred even by the Chief Whip. At close quarters Blaylock realised the alarm on Parry’s face. ‘David, it’s urgent, there’s a gunman on the loose up in your part of the world.’

  Inside his office the challenge was to power up the small television and locate its remote control. The scene on the small too-bluish monitor was a live unfolding story, the TV news image presented split-screen, and still Blaylock knew at once that he was watching RAF helicopters in the air over Sedgefield and Trimdon in County Durham, evidently vying for airspace with TV choppers.

  ‘Police are reporting a number of fatalities, at least two people feared dead, the same suspect in each case, currently in a vehicle.’

  ‘Carol,’ Blaylock uttered without looking to his secretary, ‘please can you get me the Durham Chief Constable on the phone?’

  *

  ‘What we know – he’s been identified, his name’s Billy Darrow, he’s in a Ford Mondeo armed with a twelve-bore sawn-off and a twenty-two rifle. We’ve got multiple crime scenes. It looks very likely that he’s targeted certain individuals he’s borne a grudge against. Mind you, he’s shot at least one totally innocent bystander. So the message is out for people to stay indoors.’

  ‘Where’s it all begun?’

  ‘We got our first call about eleven, the neighbour of a woman named Joyce Fairlove, who’s Mr Darrow’s ex-missus. This neighbour was away out to her car from her front door and saw Darrow shoot Mrs Fairlove on her own doorstep. Mrs Fairlove had her daughter with her, her and Billy Darrow’s kid, and the child runs screaming to the neighbour who locks them both in and calls us. Darrow, he legs it, he’s off.’

  ‘The daughter’s safe now?’

  ‘Aye, safe, but Mrs Fairlove was gone by the time the ambulance got there. From there Darrow’s drove into the village – we get a call about shots fired, he’d shot Mrs Fairlove’s solicitor dead then shot someone who just got in his way as he’s driving off. A constable who’d heard the radio call was near enough to get after him, but he got in a collision with another of our cars arriving to the scene. The latest I’ve just heard is Darrow’s brother’s been found dead in Trimdon. Talk is there’s a lot of bad blood in that family.’

  ‘How close are you? To snagging him?’

  ‘We’ve had officers in pursuit since the first call, we’ve just not been lucky yet. But I’ve every armed officer out, choppers supporting us, support from every neighbouring force – we’ll get this man, Mr Blaylock.’

  ‘I’ll take no more of your time, Chief.’

  He watched the TV screen as a photograph filled it, the snapped face immediately if vaguely familiar – Blaylock felt the shock of recognition.

  ‘And this just in, Cleveland Police have named the gunman they are hunting as William Darrow, forty-six, from Port Clarence, and they have issued this photograph …’

  Now he felt faintness creeping down his legs, as he realised that William Darrow had once sat before him in his surgery at the Arndale Shopping Centre in Thornfield. But whatever he had said, Blaylock had no recall, and no appetite for phoning the Thornfield office to find out.

  *

  Mark Tallis was instructed to come and get him out of Select Committee in the event of major developments in Durham. He met Phyllida Cox with a nod outside Committee Room Three, his grave demeanour seeming to ward away the truculence that had lately become her signature. Since she was off-guard, he attacked.

  ‘Anything to report on the hunt for our leaker?’

  ‘There is … no news.’

  ‘Why am I not surprised?’

  They took their seats and Blaylock surveyed the familiar panel: relatively youthful Labour Members, reliably troublesome Tories, none of them ever to be counted sympathetic, with the possible exception of Nigel Rhodes, a Tory whose career had been entirely expended in committees and who occasionally sought favour by this route.

  Centre-stage at top table Gervaise Hawley had a prim, exquisite air as he sifted his pages. Blaylock found it hard to see past the immaculate bulging knot of the man’s salmon tie. An aide came to pour a hushed briefing into his ear – regarding Durham, Blaylock assumed – and Hawley’s brow and the set of his mouth assumed consternation.

  ‘Good afternoon, Home Secretary. I gather there are urgent matters that have required your attention today. Thank you for joining us. We shall aim to be brisk. The Home Office seems suddenly to be coming apart under your stewardship, as a consequence of regrettable decisions on your part. Now there is the case of Mr Quarmby’s report, and the disreputable delay of its release. You seem to have tried to sit on it and rewrite its conclusions?’

  ‘Chairman, I respect Mr Quarmby’s expertise. His report had issues and needed work before publication. I don’t see that the leaking of it to the press is a minor concern. I don’t see that the problems the report discusses are greater than that of releasing misleading data.’

  ‘Well, Home Secretary, if you would let us see a little data now and then it would surely be appreciated.’ Hawley put down a page. ‘Dame Phyllida, was the delay of this report necessary in your eyes?’

  ‘Obviously the point of having an Independent Inspector is that he will shed light where there has been darkness. Where there are problems it is better we know about them … We are charged with serious duties, things do go wrong but there must be accountability …’

  ‘And where, in your view, does the buck stop?’

  Phyllida glanced at Blaylock. He felt only irritation now. Go on, strike the fucking blow, it’s what you’ve waited for.

  Tallis re-entered the room with the clerk, who approached Hawley just as Tallis went to Blaylock’s side, there to whisper hotly in his ear. ‘David, a police officer’s been killed.’

  Hawley was nodding gravely. He snapped his folder shut.

  *

  Out in the corridor he walked abreast with Phyllida, since they would sha
re a car back to Shovell Street. Once they were together as two in the lift to ground, he addressed her without looking at her.

  ‘Whenever this business is done – whichever way it falls out – it’s clear, isn’t it? One of us must go.’

  ‘Yes. For once we are in complete agreement.’

  ‘You agree, if, by whatever miracle, I’m still here next week – then you would need some very compelling reason to be here too?’

  ‘It would be impossible for me to continue, given my opinion of you.’

  Nodding, he invited her to exit the lift first.

  *

  He reached Shovell Street to be told the havoc was over, the damage done, for Billy Darrow, too, was dead, his body en route by emergency ambulance under police escort to University Hospital North Tees. It was all now just a reckoning of the cost of the rampage.

  Blaylock listened gravely to the account of what he had missed. Darrow had gone to the gated rural home of an ex-boss of his, a building contractor, but found him not at home. Police Constable Christopher Tweddle had then arrived at the scene in response to radio reports. Unarmed, he had been shot fatally by Darrow through the windscreen of his vehicle. Darrow again fled but shortly thereafter an armed response vehicle was on his tail, whereupon he dumped his car and went on foot into woodland, carrying his shotgun. The police formed a hasty cordon, got marksmen into position, and made forlorn shouted efforts at dialogue with Darrow before he put the shotgun barrel in his mouth and fired.

  The BBC’s anoraked live reporter stood summarising on Blaylock’s office screen. ‘I’m sure the officers are relieved it’s over, the whole community will be. But the deep sadness, the tragedy that innocent people have died and a police officer has fallen … And the questions will begin – how could this have happened and could it have been avoided?’

  Blaylock sat at his desk, paralysed. In a moment he would get on to the Chief Constable, offer his condolences, thank him and ask him to thank his men. His conscience sat uneasy. But he was already resolving to think no more of it, never to speak of it – otherwise he would never hear the end of it, it would surely be the end of him, after so many thwarted attempts. Still, the idea that anything in his own livelihood was truly ‘at stake’ now felt accusingly emptied of meaning.

  *

  ‘Well,’ Lord Orchard offered with a heavy, practised sigh, ‘I am the devil on your shoulder but tomorrow you will be off the front page.’

  Such were the manners Blaylock expected from his old associate as they passed around the chutneys and sipped their lagers with a near-ceremonial solemnity. They had both been of the view that Andy Grieve should sit and eat with them, but Andy was tucking in like one who only ever permitted himself ten minutes to pack away a feed.

  ‘What if I’m back on the front pages come Friday?’

  ‘No matter how big the fuss, it is forgotten as soon as the public move on. Usually within a week. You’ve had a bad, what, three days?’

  ‘I’m still getting hammered. And I can’t change the channel.’

  ‘I know, it’s like the weather, isn’t it? You have the PM’s support?’

  ‘Who knows? I’m supposed to go to his place on Sunday, I still don’t know if I’m welcome.’

  ‘I agree if it dragged into the weekend … you may need to think hard.’

  ‘If I could just – get my hands on the leaker. Draw a line. Stop the flow. But I don’t know who it is that’s bleeding me.’

  ‘You’ve really got no useful intelligence?’

  ‘All I can think is I just haven’t ever made enough friends.’

  ‘Don’t rule out the possibility that people you thought were your friends became disaffected. People you didn’t give enough hugs to. Or people you may have hugged too close, when they were never really with you?’ Orchard set down his lager with a look of hangdog emphasis. ‘Could it be your mistake was of that larger order?’

  *

  He lay on top of his bed and watched Billy Darrow’s life unpicked on the nightly news: his form for assault, the alienation of his former friends, the gun licence he held on account of his ten-year membership of a rifle and pistol club. A member of the public told the BBC’s man in an anorak that she had been nearby when the police were bawling for him to drop his gun, and she had heard ‘animal-like’ wails. The tragedy, Blaylock knew, was going to be turned over and wrung endlessly.

  At 10.37 Mark called, sounding almost medicated in his heaviness.

  ‘They’ve got emails of yours, patrón. Emails that I typed, obviously. The ones where you, I, we, say that you’re afraid of negative media coverage. The public shouldn’t know about this, it’ll be “open season” on the Home Office …’

  Blaylock no longer knew what to think. Overhearing his name on the television he turned the sound back up.

  ‘… and the Home Secretary did make clear in a statement that gun licence laws will be looked at in light of this but that he didn’t think the arming of police needed review. Now, how long this will be David Blaylock’s concern …?’

  ‘Indeed, Tom, what’s the latest, will he go?’

  ‘Nick, one backbencher told me tonight that he is amazed David Blaylock is still there. There are three reasons I think he may stay. He seems – I stress “seems” – still to have the Prime Minister’s support. Two, as bad as things look at the Home Office right now, some will say he needs to stay to sort the mess out. And, three, the Home Secretary himself is known to be a fairly robust character. However, I just wonder – it may be that David Blaylock himself, reflecting on the pressure he’s facing, which tonight shows no sign of abating – he himself may decide that the right course is to walk.’

  3

  The crispness of the morning and its lukewarm sun made plain the turn of autumn into winter: Blaylock skidded on the frost-coated pavement on his way into Downing Street by the back entrance. He found Vaughan awaiting him in the Cabinet Room, and kept his coat on.

  ‘I’ve not stopped feeling concerned that my continuing in this job has gotten to be a distraction from the government’s work. I remain willing to see it through, but if you feel I should leave …’

  Vaughan was either deeply thoughtful or giving his politician’s impersonation of thoughtfulness. He stood up, went to the window, pondered the cluster of hardy red roses.

  ‘No Prime Minister wants to lose a Home Secretary. People told me I should have had a more pragmatic sort in the job. But I’ve had cause to be glad of your … grit. The trouble now – part of it, anyway – is that you don’t quite seem yourself to me, David.’

  Blaylock considered this. ‘I have … yeah … felt the strain.’

  Vaughan returned to sit by him. ‘Look, we want the same thing. And I believe it’s what the public want. Properly enforced borders. Proper vigilance. Deporting every illegal who’s deportable. Right?’

  ‘If we call ourselves a nation, yes.’

  ‘If you stay, do you believe you can turn things round?’

  ‘Can we power through some great revamp of immigration systems? No, Patrick. We’ve not got the resources. The costs are too high – for the times we’re in, anyway.’

  ‘We have no other.’ Vaughan smiled slightly. ‘So, can we call it the devil’s share? Do some other things that are a bit cheaper but still effective? By legislation?’

  ‘We can make it harder for immigrants to get a job, rent a flat … We can make Britain seem a grimmer place to live, sure, yeah. Arguably, over time, you’ll see a deterrent to people coming here. What Caroline and Jason feel about that, of course … And then, ID cards … not cheap, but I do believe they will help.’

  ‘Okay. If you still believe you can win that argument, fine. If you think you can’t, maybe we should cut our losses.’

  The Captain stood again, evidently finished with this particular piece of captaincy. ‘You need a hard think. You need the fight back in you – the old David, eh? Otherwise it’s pointless. I’ll give you two hours. I have to make a statement to th
e House at 11.30 about the awful business in Durham. If you’re ready to fight on then I need you to have given me the nod before then, okay?’

  *

  He repaired to his office, sat at his desk, pushed aside a pile of the morning’s sorry press cuttings, and stared sightlessly at Geraldine’s trusty A4 page of engagements by his muted computer. He contemplated the impotence of backbench life; and what Thornfield would think of him as ‘just’ their MP. He wondered, for what seemed to him the first time since the army, what he ought to be doing with his life. The sense of emptiness amazed him.

  He plucked a sheet of letterhead from a sheaf in a tray, took up a pen, and mentally rehearsed an opening gambit – ‘Dear Prime Minister: It has been my privilege to serve …’ – then set down the pen again, oppressed by the moment and all that would follow if he simply succumbed to it.

  The top of the cuttings pile caught his eye – another Correspondent sidebar to his woes, for which they had dug up some more of his private and personal failings. If one rat had made trouble for him initially, more of them, clearly, had followed in its stead.

  Once a leading light of the ‘modernising’ Tory left, Blaylock’s behaviour in office has caused old allies to wonder whether his true opinions weren’t always more to the right. A history graduate, he is known to enjoy making bizarre allusions to incidents in the lives of Hitler and Mussolini, which have struck some staffers as deeply inappropriate.

  He had to laugh at the sheer dullard pettiness – as if he were at it all the time. Wasn’t a man permitted a sewer-level gag at certain low moments, among friends who knew him better? He could remember perfectly well the trifling instances that some humourless berk had seen fit to make a song and dance about.