off Peter to buy off Paul, now we have to go back to pick the pockets of them both. They’re not going to care for it.’ He paused, blinking rapidly as he ordered his thoughts. ‘That’s not all. We’ll take a beating from Brunei.’
‘What?’
‘The Sultan of that tiny oil-infested state is a great Anglophile and one of the world’s most substantial holders of sterling. A loyal friend. Unfortunately, not only does he know what a mess we’re in but he’s also got his own problems. So he’s going to unload some of his sterling – at least three billion worth sloshing around the markets like orphans in search of a home. That’ll crucify the currency and stretch the recession on for probably another year. For old time’s sake he says he’ll sell only as and when we suggest. So long as it’s before the next Budget.’
Stamper found difficulty in swallowing, his mouth had run dry.
Urquhart began to laugh but without the slightest hint of humour. ‘And there’s more, Tim, there’s more! To top it all, the Attorney General’s office has quietly let it be known that the trial of Sir Jasper Harrod will begin immediately after Easter. Which is March the twenty-fourth, to save you looking it up. What do you know of Sir Jasper?’
‘Only what most people know, I guess. Self-made mega-millionaire, chairman of the country’s biggest computer-leasing operation. Does a lot of work with Government departments and local authorities, and has got himself accused of paying substantial backhanders all over the place to keep hold of his contracts. Big into charities, I seem to remember, which is why he got his “K”.’
‘He got his knighthood, Tim, because he was one of the party’s biggest contributors. Loyally and discreetly over many years.’
‘So what’s the problem?’
‘Having come to our aid whenever we asked for it, he now expects us to come equally loyally to his. To pull a few strings with the Director of Public Prosecutions. Which of course we can’t, but he refuses to understand that.’
‘There’s more, I know there’s more…’
‘And he insists that if the case comes to trial he will have to reveal his substantial party donations.’
‘So?’
‘Which were paid all in cash. Delivered in suitcases.’
‘Oh, shit.’
‘Enough of it to give us all acute haemorrhoids. He not only gave to the central Party but supported the constituency election campaigns of almost every member of the Cabinet.’
‘Don’t tell me. All spent on things which weren’t reported as election expenses.’
‘In my case, everything was recorded religiously and will bear full public scrutiny. In other cases…’ He arched an eyebrow. ‘I’m told the Trade Secretary, later this afternoon to reinforce our glorious backbenches, used the money to pay off a troublesome mistress who was threatening to release certain compromising letters. It was made over to her, and Harrod still has the cancelled cheque.’
Stamper pushed his chair back from the table until it was balancing on its rear legs, as if trying to distance himself from such absurdity. ‘Christ, Francis, we’ve got all this crap about to hit us at a hundred miles an hour and you want me to be Party Chairman? If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather seek asylum in Libya. By Easter, you say? It’ll take more than a bloody resurrection to save anybody caught in the middle of that lot.’
His waved his arms forlornly, drained of energy and resistance, but Urquhart was straining forward in great earnest, tension stiffening his body.
‘By Easter. Precisely. Which means we have to move before then, Tim. Use the honeymoon period, beat up the Opposition, get in ahead of the recession and get a majority which will last until all the flak has been left well behind us.’
Stamper’s voice was breathless. ‘An election, you mean?’
‘By the middle of March. Which gives us exactly fourteen weeks, only ten weeks before I have to announce it, and in that time I want you as Party Chairman getting the election machine as tight as it can be. There are plans to be made, money to be raised, opponents to be embarrassed. And all without anyone having the slightest idea what we’re about to spring on them.’
Stamper’s chair rocked back with a clatter as he endeavoured to recover his wits. ‘Bloody Party Chairman.’
‘Don’t worry. It’s only for fourteen weeks. If all goes well you can have the pick of any Government department you want. And if not…Well, neither of us will have to worry about a political job ever again.’
A politician has no friends.
‘This is truly appalling.’ Mortima Urquhart screwed up her nose with considerable violence as she surveyed the room. It had been several days since the Collingridges removed the last of their personal effects from the small apartment above 10 Downing Street reserved for the use of Prime Ministers, and the sitting room now had the ambience of a three-star hotel. It lacked any individual character, that had already been transported in the packing cases, and what was left was in good order but carried the aesthetic touch of a British Rail waiting room. ‘Simply revolting. It won’t do,’ she repeated, gazing at the wallpaper, where she half expected to find the faded impressions of a row of flying china ducks. She was momentarily distracted as she passed by a long wall mirror, surreptitiously checking the conspicuous red tint her hairdresser had applied earlier in the week as she had waited for the final leadership ballot. A celebratory highlight, the stylist had called it, but no one could any longer mistake it for a natural hue and it had left her constantly fiddling with the colour balance on the remote control, wondering whether it was time to change the television or her hair salon.
‘What extraordinary people they must have been,’ she muttered, brushing some imagined speck of dust from the front of her Chanel suit while her husband’s House of Commons secretary, who was accompanying her on the tour of inspection, buried herself in her notebook. She thought she rather liked the Collingridges; she was more definite in her views of Mortima Urquhart, whose cold eyes gave her a predatory look and whose constant diets to fend off the advance of cellulite around her expensively clad body seemed to leave her in a state of unremitting impatience, at least with other women, particularly those younger than herself.
‘Find out how we get rid of all this and see what the budget is for refurbishment,’ Mrs Urquhart snapped as she led the way briskly down the short corridor leading to the dark entrails of the apartment, fingertips tapping in rebuke the flesh beneath her chin as she walked. She gave a squawk of alarm as she passed a door on her left, behind which she discovered a tiny galley kitchen with a stainless-steel sink, red and black plastic floor tiles and no microwave. Her gloom was complete by the time she had inspected the claustrophobic dining room with the atmosphere of a locked coffin and a view directly onto a grubby attic and roof. She was back in the sitting room, seated in one of the armchairs covered in printed roses the size of elephants’ feet and shaking her head in disappointment, when there came a knock from the entrance hall.
‘Come in!’ she commanded forlornly, remembering that the front door didn’t even have a lock on it – for security reasons she had been told, but more for the convenience of civil servants as they came to
