Head of State, page 18
Ned had read the poetry anthologies. Wilmot Mercer’s ‘Ode to Danskin House’ celebrated an estate that was both lavish and wicked:
Garden of England; your transported beauties grow
From half the Earth on English soil, steadily and slow,
it began, before going on to refer to Mountstewart’s rapacious trading reputation:
Pluck’d from Carib isle and Indian plain,
And tended here – where once the Barb’rous Dane
Rais’d castle rude; but now with Temple, Fane
Column and Pilaster glorified – all forg’d
from noble trade.
Before concluding, accurately enough:
– where swoll’n cucumber, gourd engorged
Proclaims the manhood of fair Danskin’s Lord.
Last but not least, at Oxford Ned had enjoyed hearing Lord Briskett’s stories of visiting Danskin House in more recent times, when it was owned by Sir Rufus Panzer, from whom Olivia Kite’s father had bought it. During the Thatcher years Panzer had gathered right-wing politicians, journalists and academics there for long, argumentative dinners.
Briskett had recalled that one of Panzer’s favourite tricks was to invite first-time visitors up to the top of Danskin’s central tower. From there, one of the architectural oddities of the house stood out – literally. A free-standing slate wall protruded some sixty feet from the main building. Presumably it had originally been built for a planned extension of the tower which had subsequently proved unaffordable. Now it remained in eerie isolation, with a sheer drop on either side. Along the top a narrow pathway of rough brickwork, slimy with moss and grass, could be traversed by anyone with a good sense of balance and nerves of steel.
Panzer, a bottle of Saint-Émilion inside him, would put his hands in his pockets and saunter along the top of the wall to the very end, gazing carelessly down at the geese in the pond before spinning on his heel and walking slowly back. Then he would languidly address his guest with a lizard smile.
‘Funny thing. Windy fellers don’t much like this exercise. Lovely view, though. Margaret was here once. Did it after a couple of whiskies and in heels. Fancy a stroll, old boy?’
And the junior minister, or Daily Telegraph commentator, or Oxford historian, would feel obliged to take a deep breath and stride out, running the serious risk of a broken neck. If his guest was teetering and sweating, Rufus would wait until he had reached the furthermost point, where the bricks were especially slippery, chipped and easy to lose one’s footing on, before telling the story of a former visitor, a backbencher whom ‘we lost, poor chap. Panicked. Windy. Came down the wrong side.’ For one side of the wall overlooked a stand of rhododendrons which would have broken one’s fall, though not enough to prevent a considerable smash. On the other side, however, was bare soil, with a row of spiked railings running parallel to the wall, only a few feet from its base. Sir Rufus had erected them himself. They were intended to prevent local boys from climbing the wall, but from above they seemed designed to maim and impale.
Those who acquitted themselves well in this ordeal would be lavishly entertained and amused for the rest of their stay, for Sir Rufus could be a very genial host. But he had an abhorrence of ‘bores’, in which category he included physical cowards. The reputation of the wall, which circulated quickly through the lobbies of Westminster, ensured that those who accepted his invitations tended to be men and women of his own sort.
After hearing this story from the insouciant wall-pacer Briskett, Ned had always asked himself whether he himself would be able to walk the walk. He hoped he would never find out – not now that Sir Rufus had fallen to earth himself; and if his reputation was half-merited, to a darker and hotter place.
But still, all in all, Ned could think of nowhere he would rather visit than Danskin House, which now found itself the rebel capital of the patriotic insurrection. Where better to win the hand of Jennifer Lewis, humble servant of its current mistress?
As they walked north from Piccadilly to where his car was stabled (this car deserved to be more than merely parked) Ned mentally re-clothed Jen in a fawn coat, leather driving gloves and a silk print scarf. He pulled a pair of dark glasses from his jacket pocket and put them on. They had the desired effect of turning the whole world sepia, though combined with his beard, they left very little of his face visible.
An hour later they were sitting in almost motionless traffic, easing east out of the capital. They had another few miles of constipated East London roads to go, but Ned didn’t mind. He had been listening to Jen’s breathless explanation of what had probably been going on in Downing Street, and he was agog.
‘I am Gog and Magog, old thing’ – for he liked a phrase. ‘I hang on your very voice. I gape.’
Briskett would never forgive him for getting the story first, of course. That might be a problem, because Ned would need a good word from him when he applied for a proper teaching post of his own. But what a tale it was! Ned could see that it was easily big enough to change the result of the referendum, and thereby the country’s destiny – perhaps the whole of Europe’s too. Jen was quite right to be taking it straight to Olivia. She would know just how to use it to the most deadly effect. So this journey was therefore historic, in its own small way. One day television or movie producers would be phoning around to try to match his Bristol in order to recreate this very trip.
Ned Parminter was a man of honour and scruple. So when he turned in at a service station to fill up with petrol, his conscience dictated that he call Lord Briskett to fill him in. His timing could not have been better. His timing could not have been worse.
‘Boss?’
‘Ned! Enfin! I’ve been worried about you. There are some things I need to talk over with you. Suspicions …’
‘You can forget those. I’m with Jen. You remember her boyfriend used to be that journalist Lucien McBryde?’
‘Hmm. Perhaps. Rackety sort of fellow …?’
‘Yes, but thick with all sorts of people. And someone told him – and now Jen’s pretty sure he’s been killed, but just before he disappeared he told Jen – and now she’s told me – you see …’
‘Told you what? You sound not quite yourself, Ned.’
‘That the PM’s dead. Snuffed it. Heart attack. But they’re covering it up. Keeping it quiet until after the vote …’
‘Jesus. Who’s covering it up, Ned? Did the Chinese whispers tell you that?’
‘Not exactly. But I guess it’s all of them. Downing Street. Amanda.’
‘Fickle girl! But what a story, Ned …’
In the Number 11 dining room the PLS operator who’d been monitoring Briskett’s calls pressed a button to mark the recording as top priority, and called Dame Cecily and Dickie Greene over.
‘We have a situation.’
They listened silently to the recording.
‘Point one,’ said Cecily at last, ‘we need to shut this down. Now. Briskett and Mr Parmesan, or whatever he calls himself. And the girl too, obviously. Point two, who’s blabbed? That’s dirty business. It’s all dirty. So, point three, without shuffling off our responsibility, we need to get that foul castle-creeper Alois Haydn onto this. He can do things we can’t.’
‘Hush, old girl,’ said Dickie quickly. ‘No need to spell things out.’
‘Quite,’ Dame Cecily replied, putting a callused finger to her lips.
The Tea Game
Lord Briskett, armed with certainty at last, had rapidly decided where he needed to go. At that moment he was sitting on a leather sofa in the reception area of the National Courier.
Upstairs on the first, editorial, floor of the building, the long afternoon was being enlivened by the tea game. Editors, subs and correspondents would take it in turn to wander into the editor’s office and ask Ken Cooper, in the politest way possible, if he would like a calming cup of tea. For he was losing it. Visibly. And even by his standards, quite fast.
‘Cuppa, Ken?’ asked the deputy editor.
‘Nah, thanks. Busy.’
‘Like a cup of tea, boss?’ asked the man who wrote about new media.
‘No. Get out.’
Then the obituaries editor, a polite and elderly Old Etonian, sauntered in with two china mugs in his right hand.
‘Cha, Ken?’
‘Go and fuck yourself.’
In desperation the staff sent in the sixty-something fashion editor.
‘Ken, dear, time for a cup of tea?’
Cooper rose from his chair, buttoned up his suit jacket, walked to the window, turned around, unbuttoned his suit jacket, sat down again, and said, ‘No, thank you.’ He then glanced around suspiciously at what sounded like a quiet round of applause from somewhere out in the newsroom.
The next to arrive was the junior crime reporter, who knocked on the door and opened it with a plastic cup in one hand. Ken did not look up. ‘You’re fired,’ he said.
All his adult life Ken Cooper had thrived on stress. He was addicted to it. He took stress – fried, diced and with béarnaise sauce – for breakfast, lunch and supper. But over the last couple of days he had been a man possessed. Of all the people he had hired onto the Courier over the years Lucien McBryde had been his favourite. His death had shocked Ken, and he had dedicated himself to solving the mystery. But even with the help of the young policewoman who had found the body he hadn’t got far. No CCTV images of McBryde entering the building. No sign of a break-in. Now, however, since Lord Fucking Briskett – who was probably sitting downstairs right now – had rung him and babbled out his theory that the prime minister was dead, and that it had been covered up, Ken was beginning to put things together.
McBryde had had a political secret. He’d said so. He’d also told Ken that he was meeting Alois Haydn the day before he died. The death of a reporter may have seemed a small matter at a time when the country’s future was at stake. But perhaps Ken now had – motive.
He was sketching out a sidebar front-page piece about the political murder mystery. He’d put McBryde’s byline photo at the top. Next to it would be the main picture, showing Alois Haydn leaving Downing Street. Thus Haydn and McBryde would be visually linked in the reader’s mind. Stage one.
He simply had to insert Haydn’s name, delicately, into the murder story – a reference to his clandestine meeting with McBryde, perhaps – and, stage two, the fucking cat would be among the fucking pigeons, blood and feathers, giving them a good fucking over. Fucking pigeons, serve them right.
It was all a question of fine lines. At last Ken was finished, and threw down his marker pen. Knowing that he was skating close to the most libellous front page he’d ever drawn up, he called for the office lawyer, a burly, ponderous man in a shiny pinstriped suit who remembered the glory days before the internet and the Leveson inquiry into press misbehaviour. Ken could feel his heart thumping. Breathe out, boy …
‘Ah, Mr Cooper. Busy afternoon,’ said Gerald the lawyer. ‘Perhaps we should start with a nice cup of tea?’
Downstairs, Lord Briskett was startled by a scream of rage from somewhere above his head.
Shortly afterwards an off-white-faced young man – the trainee himself – arrived to apologise that the editor was unable to see him this afternoon.
As he left the building Briskett took his phone out of his pocket. He was in no mood to give up. If Ken Cooper wasn’t interested in hearing the truth about what had happened to his young reporter, and why, then he might as well stick it up the craw of Dame Cecily Morgan, the supercilious old bat.
‘You are completely barking, Briskett,’ she said after he had outlined the story to her. ‘You’ve absolutely lost it. Alois Haydn told some journalist that? Impossible. If you believe it you must be mentally ill.’
Quietly and calmly he took her through the whole story, step by step. McBryde’s meeting with Haydn. His messages to Jennifer Lewis. His mysterious disappearance.
‘Which bit of that, Cecily, with your long history of skulduggery, do you not credit? I’d be fascinated to know.’
‘Almost every bit. First, your missing reporter was an alcoholic, drug-addled maniac. I’m sorry to speak ill of the dead, but there’s nobody working in Westminster who wouldn’t agree with me. Second, you have not a shred of evidence linking Mr Haydn, a man I dislike as much as you do, with the unfortunate death of young Mr McBryde, whose demented scribblings to his girlfriend have about as much credibility as a poison-pen blog. All the rest is speculation. You have a fevered brain, Briskett, and I would take it off somewhere for a quiet rest before you air this nonsense and find the world divided between those who ridicule you and those who simply pity you.’
As a young woman, before the Service had called, Cecily Morgan had wanted to go to RADA. And she was very good. In fact, she had almost planted a seed of doubt in Briskett’s head. Yet all the while her focus had remained on calculating between the options that were open to her. Was it really possible that Haydn, of all people, had let the secret out? Why would he? And could she trust him to take care of Briskett and his little team? He’d do more than threaten them. It felt like a big moral choice. But without Haydn the whole carefully constructed edifice would come tumbling down. For the first time in years Dame Cecily didn’t know what to do.
9
Saturday, 16 September
Referendum Day Minus Five
Rewind …
Ned Parminter’s adventure had really begun the previous weekend – although he was not to know that – because Lucien McBryde had been bored and at a loose end early on Saturday evening. McBryde may have been uncontrolled and wayward, but he was not stupid. He understood himself well enough to know that for him, boredom was an exceptionally dangerous condition. But Westminster was dead. All the campaigning and the action had drained away elsewhere, to the marginal parts of the country. Hardly anyone was left to gossip to, or be briefed by. The PM seemed to have disappeared from the scene altogether. So McBryde – the self-proclaimed porcelain conduit, the raffish magician of minor scandal, the maker of five or six from two plus two – felt himself a man brimming with talents in a world that no longer needed them; an itchy-palmed electrician, as it were, during the New Stone Age.
He found himself mooching through Soho, eyeing the tarts and the gays, peering through windows at pornographic magazines, rare whiskies and the few traditional shops and cafés left in the area. Squinting through one window he spotted Ian Hislop of Private Eye earnestly and very solemnly working his way through a huge cream cake, waving his hand from side to side as if he were participating in some obscure religious rite. But McBryde was still bored, bored, bored. Perhaps he should try to get in touch with Jen. He changed direction, heading south-west towards Piccadilly Circus and the London Library. As he did so his phone began to vibrate.
He was surprised but pleased to hear the unmistakable sibilant lisp of Alois Haydn, the political legend in person. McBryde’s boredom evaporated at once. He had texted him a few weeks before, suggesting a profile, although with no real expectation of an answer. Ken Cooper had told him, ‘Understand Alois fucking Haydn, McBryde, and you understand modern fucking Britain. Trouble is, nobody does. Now get a fucking move on.’ To be asked to meet him was an unexpected break.
McBryde dipped into the nearest pub, avoided the barman’s eye and went straight to the toilet, where he took fifty quid’s worth in two loud sniffs, one up each nostril. Then, blinking and buzzing, he set off for Whitehall, feeling like a fisherman with a baited hook.
Alois Haydn did not want there to be any record of Lucien McBryde entering Downing Street, so he had suggested that they meet in the old-fashioned café opposite the Cenotaph. It was sometimes used by journalists after prime ministerial press meetings, but it was mainly a tourists’ place, and was quiet and anonymous. Haydn ordered a couple of cappuccinos and sat back, waiting for his prey. He didn’t look much like a fish that was about to be hooked.
After McBryde joined him the two men talked for twenty minutes about exactly how he would structure his profile, who Haydn would allow him to talk to, and what ‘line’ the Courier wanted to take. But then McBryde, whose slightly watering eyes and raw nose had been observed by his companion, was alarmed to hear Haydn say, ‘You know, I don’t think I want to do this after all. Like you, I’m a creature of the shadows. We need to keep the limelight for the elected ones, don’t you think? The fact is, I’m going through what in someone else would be described as a crisis of conscience, and I want to tell you something. But you must put that notebook away. And no recording either.’
McBryde rubbed his eyes, shrugged, closed his small notebook and jammed it back into his suit pocket, which had already begun to fray. Haydn then told him about the prime minister’s demise the previous day, and how the foreign secretary and the chief whip, backed by a mysterious group of mainly pro-European establishment figures called Professional Logistical Services, were conspiring to keep the whole thing a secret until after the vote on Thursday. McBryde asked a few questions, struggling to concentrate on the key facts he’d write down as soon as Haydn left. His excitement was tempered by a strong suspicion that he was being wound up.
‘You have got all this, haven’t you, Lucien?’ Haydn had said sharply. ‘You’re not just going to go off and have a swift one, and end up slumped on the pavement somewhere with piss down your pants?’
