David Carlyle understood the importance of controlling information: when to leak, when not to leak, who to stick close to and who to betray. His only political ideal was winning elections, and he would go to the ends of the earth to achieve this end, no matter who he worked for. But, as Eddie Wellesley put it to the PM, an old friend, ‘Life’s too short to be spent in the company of arseholes, Tristram.’
And so David Carlyle was ‘reshuffled’ and a marvellous woman from Saatchi’s, Margot Greene, brought in to replace him.
Eddie Wellesley had won his little battle. But he had made himself a very dangerous enemy.
After David left Number Ten, his career had gone from strength to strength. He had landed the head of News job at the Echo, rising quickly to become editor when Graham Davies retired. Since taking over, David had tripled the paper’s readership and made it a serious Fleet Street player once again. The success was sweet, but nothing could quite replace the thrill of politics, the Machiavellian Sturm und Drang of life at Number Ten, pulling the strings behind the scenes. Even so, David knew he would never go back. That time had passed, and new challenges awaited. But he never forgot or forgave the plot to oust him. David saw what had happened to him as a straightforward case of snobbery. ‘Fast Eddie’ Wellesley, Tristram Hambly and two-thirds of his enemies in Cabinet had all been at either Eton or Oxford together. David’s father had been a printer and his mother worked in a butcher’s shop. He’d heard the sniggers and snide remarks at Number Ten, about his grey shoes and his ‘naff’ ties and his use of taboo words like ‘pardon’ and ‘toilet’. The bastards had been out to get him from the start.
‘Don’t let it bother you,’ his wife Louise used to tell him. ‘Who cares what they think?’ Louise was from a similar background, the middle daughter of a carpet fitter from Dagenham. And the wonder of it was, she really didn’t care. But David did. Desperately. He loathed the clubby-ness of the Tory party, and the myriad ways in which he was shut out of the PM’s inner circle. But what infuriated him most of all was the way that ordinary, working-class voters – people like him – seemed to warm to Eddie Wellesley. They found Eddie witty and straightforward and charismatic, and forgave all his foibles as endearing eccentricities. Little did they know how much Eddie and his clique of posho-cronies despised them and all they stood for. It was up to David to set them straight.
He spent years, and hundreds of thousands of pounds of his paper’s money, investigating Fast Eddie’s tax affairs. When he finally nailed Eddie he did it in style, publishing a brutal exposé of his dodgy offshore schemes and bribing all his whores to testify against him. Eddie’s resignation was a good day for David Carlyle, the day of his arrest an even better one. But the day that they carted the bastard off to jail? That had been the happiest day of David’s life.
But now Eddie Wellesley was back, and trying to reinvent himself as a television producer. David felt his chest tighten. The barefaced gall of the man! He planned to do a reality show, no less: stooping to conquer, a real man of the people. David felt sick. Media was his world, his business. Just as politics had been his business, until Eddie came along and poisoned people against him with his lethal blend of snobbery and charm. Eddie Wellesley was pure spite, wrapped up in a shining silver bow. And now, to top it all, the bastard had even followed David here, to the Swell Valley. Why couldn’t Wellesley have bought a house in the fucking Cotswolds like the rest of his posho Tory pals? No one wanted him in the Swell Valley with his TV cameras and his new posse of village cronies, lead by that popinjay Gabe Baxter.
David wondered exactly which Old Etonian strings Fast Eddie had pulled this time, to get Valley Farm off the ground. Apparently he’d already convinced some American bimbo to leave one of the big US networks and front the thing alongside Gabe, no doubt with an eye on the international market. Arrogant bastard.
The triumph and satisfaction David had felt, getting Eddie sent to prison, hadn’t lasted long. Inexplicably, the great British public still adored him. If Eddie made a success of things in the TV world, no one would remember his fall from political grace. He’d be a survivor. Teflon Eddie, the comeback kid.
But he wouldn’t make a success of it.
Not this time.
David Carlyle was going to see to that.
He wouldn’t rest until that son of a bitch Wellesley was a broken man.
Pulling in through the electric gates of his Southern ranch-style home, David left his car in the driveway. He heard the satisfying ‘beep beep’ of the Aston’s automatic lock, followed by the gentle splashing of water from the dolphin fountain he’d had put in as a centrepiece in front of the house. Louise loved dolphins, and David loved Louise. She’d been with him since the beginning, since they were both kids, back when he had nothing. Louise had believed in him even then, when all he could offer her was a cramped room over a Falafel King in Tufnell Park. She’d sacrificed endlessly for his career, never complaining about his long hours, or the meagre pay in the early days, or the black moods that could grip him when work wasn’t going well. Louise was the great miracle of David’s life, always seeing the funny side, always in his corner. His success was her success, their success, and if Louise wanted a dolphin fountain then she would bloody well have one. David knew that the local upper-class mafia mocked his house, but he didn’t give a rat’s arse. If they preferred to live in draughty old piles full of damp and mould and mouse shit, that was up to them. They could keep their tatty Persian rugs and Jacobean furniture, and he would keep his state-of-the-art sound system, dolphin fountain and marble Jacuzzi whirlpool bath, complete with rainbow light feature panel, thank you very much.
Louise greeted him in the doorway, looking strained.
‘You said you wanted tea at eight.’
In a pale pink dress and matching heels, and with her hair newly blow-dried, she’d clearly made an effort to look nice. Louise Carlyle was a big believer in working at one’s marriage. ‘Keeping the magic alive’ wasn’t easy, especially when you were married to an obsessive workaholic like David. But no one could say Louise didn’t try.
‘That’s right.’
‘It’s nine thirty, David. The lasagne’s ruined. What happened?’
‘It was bloody brilliant.’ David’s eyes lit up. ‘The whole village is up in arms about this TV show.’
‘Are they?’ Louise knew that there was some dissent. But she’d also heard plenty of people excited about Valley Farm and willing to give the idea a chance.
‘Oh yeah,’ said David. ‘Eddie Wellesley’s up to his neck in it this time.’
Louise sighed. Eddie Wellesley. Again.
‘By the time I’m finished with him there won’t be a voter in England who can stand the fucking sight of him.’ David grinned.
Louise Carlyle loved her husband and she was loyal to a fault. But David wasn’t the one who had to live here, day in, day out. While her husband was up in London, churning out newspapers, Louise had worked hard to make friends in the valley, not just in Hinton, but in the livelier villages of Fittlescombe and Brockhurst too. It wasn’t easy when one didn’t have children. But Louise had joined the WI, and in recent weeks had started to become close to its chairwoman, Jenny Grey, and to the lovely Penny de la Cruz, who also helped with the church flowers. Louise knew that Penny’s husband Santiago was friends with Gabriel Baxter, and that the Baxters were involved in this TV show of Eddie Wellesley’s. If David started making waves again (forget ‘if’, he had started), the ripples were bound to affect Louise’s own friendships. She wished, just once, that David would
