by Chris Mullin
* * *
‘We have set up a little dining club,’ said Jock Steeples, late one evening in an almost deserted members’ tea room.
‘Who’s “we”?’
‘Just a few of us, like-minded folk. Assuming, of course, that we still are of like mind.’ This last point a reference to those parts of Thompson’s maiden speech that had gone down uncomfortably well with the right-wing media.
‘Won’t it get us into trouble?’
‘Not if we’re discreet, like. No rules. No programme. Just a few friends, chewing over the issues of the day. A social occasion.’ There was a twinkle in his eye. ‘Anyway, we don’t have to meet on the premises. This place is dead at night since so-called family-friendly hours were introduced – not that most of us can go home to our families. They live too far away.’
‘Has it got a name?’
‘As a matter of fact it has. We call it “The Friends of Harry Perkins.”
* * *
They met in the upper room of a little club on the fringes of Soho. It was run by an Austrian of Jewish ancestry, whose father had escaped to London just before the Anschluss. The walls were hung with pictures of his heroes, an incongruous bunch ranging from Marx and Engels to George Orwell, Mikhail Gorbachev and Pope John Paul II. Also, pen and ink cartoons of George Bernard Shaw, Nye Bevan, Michael Foot and Tony Benn, all apparently one-time visitors to this establishment. Pride of place was reserved for a beaming photograph of Harry Perkins standing with his arm around the proud patron. The dedication read, ‘To Otto, one of the best, Harry’.
Besides Jock Steeples, Mrs Cook and Fred Thompson, there were half a dozen others: Stephen Carter, recently encountered in the members’ tea room; Jim Evans, the fiery Welshman who had been Perkins’ defence secretary, still going strong in his late seventies; Tom Newsome, one-time foreign secretary, whose political career had come to an abrupt end after he had been found in bed with a young woman from Hampstead Labour party; Sir Matt Someone, an elegant, sixtyish man, whose surname he didn’t catch, and was said to be a retired civil servant; Anne-Marie Freeman, an occasional Times columnist, said to command a large following in the Twittersphere.
Finally, there was a fifty-something woman, whom Thompson didn’t immediately recognise. ‘Fred, meet Molly who works for a bank in the City.’ Steeples put a finger to his lips. ‘Shhh. Top secret. She’d be in trouble if she were caught mixing with the likes of us.’ The woman smiled sheepishly as she shook hands. She had deep brown eyes, a complexion that suggested she had once lived in a hot climate and, Thompson noted, wore no wedding ring. Her face was familiar. It was a while before the penny dropped. Ah yes, Molly Spence. They hadn’t actually met, but she had been briefly famous as the woman whose affair with Harry Perkins had been used to bring him down. What was she doing here?
Jock Steeples, seated at the head of the table, was in charge. He tapped his wine glass. ‘Order, order. First, we have to welcome two new members: Fred Thompson, known to most of you, and Molly Spence, who is Something in the City.’ Molly was still an attractive woman: blond hair with just a streak of grey, dimpled cheeks and a radiant smile. ‘We come from different walks of life, but we have one thing in common. Most of us were friends and admirers of the late Harry Perkins and we all abhor the way in which he was done down.’
‘What do we say, if anybody asks what we’re up to?’ asked Sir Matt Someone who, it transpired, had once, before achieving his present eminence, been a junior official in Perkins’ private office. He added, smiling, ‘As we say in government, we need a line to take.’
‘The line, which has the merit of being true, is that we are just a group of like-minded friends come together for occasional dinners and to mourn our losses, nothing more. Discretion is the order of day. We’ve been meeting for several months without anybody noticing, but no doubt we will be rumbled sooner or later. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. In the meantime the rules are clear. What’s said in this room stays here. No tweeting, no blogging and, above all, no blabbing.’
* * *
They fell to talking about the latest of Labour’s successive election defeats. ‘The Labour Party has lost its soul,’ remarked Jim Evans. ‘All very well to talk about sticking to the centre ground, but the centre ground has moved so far right that it’s no longer worth occupying.’
‘I sometimes think our historic mission is over,’ said Mrs Cook gloomily. ‘And that maybe all we can look forward to is another long period of one-party rule until one day another party breaks through. In the meantime all we can do is try to mitigate the worst excesses of the current management.’
‘And who might that other party be?’ enquired Jock Steeples in a tone that reeked of incredulity. ‘The Liberal Democrats have been smashed out of sight. The Scots Nats are away on a trip of their own. The only threat to the Tories comes from the right.’
‘Who knows, the Tories may split,’ said Stephen Carter.
‘Don’t bank on it, son. Unlike our lot, the Tories are serious about power. True, they went through a bad patch over Europe, but that’s settled now.’
‘Or maybe they’ll be brought down by a sudden crisis – the collapse of sterling, another banking scandal . . .’
‘The bankers can hardly believe their luck,’ said Molly quietly. ‘They can’t believe they got away with it. You should hear them chortling. It’s as though the crash never happened.’
Otto the Patron appeared, notebook in hand, to take orders. He had a thick crop of white hair and large eyebrows. They toasted his health. When he had gone the conversation turned to the latest vacancy for a Labour leader.
‘Remind me. How many leaders have we got through since Harry?’ enquired Mrs Cook.
‘Four . . . no, five,’ said Jim Evans.
‘Aye,’ said Tom Newsome, ‘and none of them any use. We’re further away from power now than at any time in the last forty years.’
‘How about the current crop of candidates?’ asked Sir Matt. ‘Who do you favour?’
‘None of the above,’ said Newsome. ‘Second-raters every one. Too bland, too apologetic, too managerial. We need someone with a bit of passion and personality, not a desiccated calculating machine.’
‘But who at the same time doesn’t frighten Middle England,’ added Carter.
‘Maybe young Fred here is the answer to our prayers,’ said Steeples amid laughter.
FIVE
A statement from the Pentagon announced that the US Pacific Fleet was three days’ sailing from Japanese waters. In Tokyo, the captured Chinese soldiers were paraded on television prompting further outrage in Beijing. In New York the UN Secretary-General summoned an emergency meeting of the Security Council which broke up amid much shouting and table banging. The secretary general’s offer to mediate fell upon deaf ears.
In the House of Commons the foreign secretary made a statement. As usual with such pronouncements, it was a near-perfect replica of one issued by the US State Department two hours earlier. The situation, said the foreign secretary, was grave. The world was closer to war than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis. He urged restraint on all sides and added that Britain would be sending a frigate to join the American flotilla. This was followed by a big bout of me-too-ism as senior members on all sides vied to demonstrate their grasp of matters international and diplomatic, but no one had anything useful to suggest.
‘In the good old days,’ remarked Rupert Farquar afterwards in the tea room, ‘we’d have sent a gunboat.’
‘Isn’t that what we are doing?’ said Thompson.
‘Ah yes, but in those days we wouldn’t have been tagging along behind the Americans. One British gunboat would have been enough to keep the natives in their place.’ There was a wide grin across his ample features. You could never tell when Farquar was being serious or not. Anyway, he added, everything would all calm down in a few days.
‘Until the next time. The Chinese have a long list of demands – disputes with just about all thei
r neighbours.’
‘But they have always been cautious about pursuing them. War isn’t in their interests any more than it is in ours. They’ve too much to lose.’
‘Let’s hope so.’
‘Amen to that,’ said Farquar. And then, suddenly lowering his voice. ‘On another matter. Got a chap who wants to meet you. Might learn something to your advantage.’ He glanced around to make sure no one was listening. ‘Very hush-hush. Need to be discreet. Come to my house after the vote tomorrow and all will be revealed.’
* * *
As Thompson had predicted, the angry, tattooed white male was a regular visitor to his surgeries. Within a week he was back, demanding to know whether a reply had been received from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority. His name was Thomas Walter Merton and it turned out he had a lengthy criminal record, mainly for crimes of violence. As the weeks passed, his tone became more menacing. ‘Don’t think you can fob me off,’ he snarled. ‘I’ll keep chasing you until this is sorted. I’ll never give up.’
In due course a reply was received, but the news was not good.
‘It says here that you have criminal convictions for violence . . .’ said Thompson quietly.
‘So what? That’s got nothing to do with this.’
‘ . . . It says you served a prison sentence for beating up a woman. Is that true?’
‘She’s a lying bitch, it was a miscarriage of justice.’
‘The point is, Mr Merton, that the Authority will not entertain claims from anyone with a conviction for violence.’
A moment’s silence. And then, without warning, Merton leaned forward and slammed his fist down on the desk that separated them. The photo of Lucy and Catherine crashed to the floor, glass shattering. Mrs Jeffries let out a low cry. ‘Now look here . . .’ said Thompson weakly.
‘No, you look here . . .’ bawled Merton, eyes bulging, his face crimson with rage. ‘It’s your job to sort this out and, if you don’t, I’ll sort you out.’
‘Don’t you threaten me.’ Thompson had recovered his composure.
‘Just you try me.’ And with that Merton stormed out.
‘Phew,’ said Mrs Jeffries, ‘I thought he was going to brain you. Did you notice, by the way, he has a Union Jack tattooed on his right arm?’
* * *
The London residence of the Farquars was a street of Queen Anne houses, a stone’s throw from the Palace of Westminster. The light was fading when Fred arrived. Farquar himself, resplendent in a maroon velvet smoking jacket, answered the door.
‘Ah, Thompson. Do come in. My friend is upstairs. A quiet word before we go up. Not a word to anyone about my role in this – or his. You can use his information as you see fit, but it’s not to be attributed. Understand?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Good man. Knew I could count on you.’ Farquar patted his shoulder and ushered Thompson up the stairs, the wall lined with Vanity Fair cartoons of nineteenth-century statesmen, to a panelled drawing room on the first floor. On either side of the fireplace, watercolours. ‘By Nick Ridley,’ said Farquar. ‘Remember him? One of the geniuses who gave us the poll tax. A talented painter, though.’
Above the mantelpiece, illuminated by an overhead light, an oil of sunflowers. ‘Is that what I think it is?’
‘It is indeed. My grandfather came across it in a flea market in France in the twenties. Had an eye for a bargain and that certainly was a bargain. Worth more than the house.’
A man was standing by the window, puffing a cigarette. Aged about fifty. Small, bald, agitated. Out of place in a Queen Anne drawing room. ‘And this is Mr . . . Well you don’t need to know his name. Let’s just say he is a constituent of mine.’ Farquar addressed the man, ‘This is Mr Frederick Thompson.’ The last person to call Fred by his full first name was a long-dead and much-feared aunt.
The man offered a weak handshake. Farquar poured two generous whiskies and handed one to Thompson. ‘Do sit down, gentlemen.’
They sat. The little man perched bolt upright, precariously on the edge of the sofa
‘Mr . . . is it all right if I call you William for purposes of identification?’ The man nodded weakly. Farquar began again, ‘William here has come to me with some very interesting information about one of our colleagues. Perhaps I should say one of my colleagues.’
‘Who?’
‘A name that will be well known to you: Michael Christopher Flather.’
‘The one who is always going on about immigrants?’
‘The very same. Tabloid hero. Rising star. A future leader, some say. Heaven forbid.’ Only last week Flather had been making headlines for leading a noisy demonstration of righteous Home Counties citizens to the site of a proposed migrant hostel. ‘Any idea how he made his money?’
‘Tell me.’
‘Haulage. Made a fortune shipping live calves to the Continent. Disgusting trade. Did my best to get it banned, but to no avail. EU rules and all that. Eventually he sold the company for squillions. What’s interesting though is not what he was taking out of the country, but what he was bringing in. William here used to work for him.’ A pause. ‘William, Tell Mr Thompson what you have told me.’
‘You will keep my name out of it, won’t you, sir?’
‘You have my word.’
‘Well, of course, Mr Flather’s respectable now. But it wasn’t always that way. Self-made, you see. Began with just one vehicle which he drove himself. By the finish he had several hundred. Started with him as a driver, I did, but then I went into the office. That was where I found out about it.’
‘About what?’
‘There were two businesses. One that was legit and one that wasn’t. Two sets of books. One that was declared to the revenue and one that wasn’t.’
‘And what was he bringing in?’
‘That’s just it. That business last week was the final straw. I saw him on the television news outside that hostel and I thought “you cheeky bugger.” ’
He paused. A sliver of a smile crossed his lips. ‘He was bringing in migrants. Illegal migrants.’
Farquar looked at Fred, beaming. ‘Couldn’t make it up, could you?’
‘You can prove this?’ said Fred sceptically.
‘Well, sir, I can only tell you what I saw.’ The man was warming to his theme now, speaking with confidence. ‘It was a while ago. Long before everything started falling apart in Syria and the like. Actually immigration wasn’t much of an issue then. Nothing about it in the papers. One night I had to work late and a lorry arrived back from France. It had been to Brindisi in southern Italy, where the cattle are off-loaded for the Middle East.’
‘And?’
‘A lot of men got out. Dark skinned. I heard later they were from Albania.’
‘And what happened?’
‘Shortly after, a minibus arrived and they were taken away. I don’t know where to.’
‘How do you know it wasn’t just a bit of private enterprise on the part of the driver?’
‘Because I asked about it – discreet, like – the next day. There was man in the office, Stanley something or other, a cockney geezer. He didn’t have much to do with the rest of us, but was always in and out of Mr Flather’s office. Very hush-hush. I waited until he and I were alone and then said, sort of casual like, “Who were all them blokes I saw in the yard last night?” At first he came over ignorant. “What blokes? I don’t know nothing about no blokes.” Later, as I was getting ready to leave, he came up to me real close and whispered that if I knew what was good for me, I’d keep my mouth shut. It was nobody’s business, except him and the boss.’
‘And that was that, was it?’
‘No, no, it wasn’t. I let it go at the time, but it kept nagging at me. And then one day, about a year later. I came across the lorry driver. In Lanzarote, of all places. I was there with my missus. He was there with his. Recognised him at once on account of the dragon tattooed on his arm. Albert his name was. By this time he’d moved on. Had a bit of a
falling out with the boss, I heard. By now he was working for one of them big supermarket chains. We had a chat about one thing and another and then I said, out of the blue, “Who were all those foreign-looking blokes I saw getting out of the back of your lorry a year gone May?” Went pale, he did. Then he looked across to make sure his missus was out of earshot and said, very quietly, “Albanians. We was smuggling Albanians. Only Stanley in the office knew about it and four or five of us drivers. Sworn to secrecy, we were. And paid to keep our mouths shut. Easy then, it was. Not like today when they’re running infrared scanners over every lorry.” ’
Thompson sipped his whisky. ‘That doesn’t prove that Mr Flather knew about it.’
‘That’s what I said, but Albert said, ‘ “Course he did – a couple of times he was there when Stanley paid off the drivers. Once he was even there when the Albanians were being offloaded.” ’
‘What happened to this Stanley?’
‘Last I heard he’d retired, to a condo in Florida. Did very nicely out of it, so I’m told. I left soon after the business was sold and the new owners tried to put us all on zero-hours contracts. Got my own business now. A little newsagent’s.’
‘Who else knew what was going on?’ said Farquar.
‘Well there was a woman in the office. Mr Flather’s personal secretary. I don’t think she was in on it, but she must have noticed. Her name was Eames, Rosalind Eames. In her fifties. Probably retired now.’
‘Could you find her?’
‘Maybe. We’ve a couple of friends in common. You will keep my name out of this, won’t you?’