The Final Cut

NINE

Victory. It had been the lead item on the Saturday evening news, even though there were as yet no new pictures to illustrate the story.

'I asked not to be included in the formal War Cabinet. People would start speculating that I was being lined up for the succession – you know, the youngest Home Secretary since Churchill. We're in an election, not a leadership race. So I declined. But, of course, Francis consults me, all the way.'

Across the table Booza-Pitt offered a smile which spoke of modesty, determination, achievement, I- know- you- want- to- touch- me- all-over-with- those-beautiful- lips- but-I'm- truly- very- important- and-business-comes-first. His dining companion purred in encouragement. After years of anguish she'd separated less than two months earlier from a parliamentary husband whose dedication to late-night lobbies, weekend surgeries, answering the telephone and endless piles of constituents' letters was as utterly selfless as it was, to her, irredeemably boring. She knew getting laid by Booza-Pitt would be folly, but it had been such a long time and it might be fun, particularly if he was as practised in the delivery as he was at finding the route. She hadn't climbed higher than a Minister of State before, let alone as far as a Home Secretary. She owed it to herself.

'Really?' she incited, wondering if his performance would be as inflated as his ego.

'It's pretty tricky right now – can't go into detail, you understand, but I advised that we should get in there as quickly as possible. Spring the hostages and teach those bloody Cypriots a lesson.' 'A good spanking.' 'Yes, something like that.'

'You're magnificent, Geoffrey.' She fluttered her eyelids outrageously, he smiled in self-congratulation – he was so lacking in subtlety that he belonged in a zoo. She hoped.

'It's a strain,' he admitted, heavy eyebrows twitching. 'Lonely at times.'

Here it comes. He was about as difficult to read as a tax demand.

'You know what I would like?' he continued, staring at her across a glass of wine which cast strange patterns across his forehead in the candlelight. 'To become Prime Minister?'

'I've no ambitions at present beyond…' he began the litany.

She reached out and touched a fingertip to his lips to put him out of his misery. Grief, he'd better be good in bed, he had no other redeeming features. At least it would avoid the complications of an extended affair.

'Tell me all your secrets, Geoffrey. I'm very good with confidences.' 'Are you? Are you really?'

'Yes. Tell me – don't if it's truly a state secret, but – are you a Virgo?' 'I wish you were here having breakfast with us, Mummy.' It was the one meal Claire insisted on trying to have with the children before politics dragged them apart for the remainder of the day. It didn't always work, even on a Sunday. 'I know, darling, but you remember what election campaigns are like from the last time.' 'Where are you?' 'Somewhere in the Midlands, to be quite honest I'm not sure where. I got picked up in a car yesterday afternoon from the train and the rest is all a blur. But I'll be back tonight. After you've gone to bed.'

'I've run out of the little bomb for my asthma inhaler.' 'The blue one or the brown?' 'Blue.'

'I'll find a chemist's open somewhere.' Claire scribbled a hurried reminder to herself in the margin of her Sunday Express, beside an exploding headline which shouted: 'F.U.'S FALKLANDS'. 'Bring you one back tonight. And I hope you and Abby are wearing the clothes I laid out for you.'

Diana ignored the question. Something else was on her mind. 'Mummy?' 'Yes, darling?' 'What is war?' 'What do you mean?' 'We're fighting Cyprus, aren't we? Why?'

'Not the whole of Cyprus, darling. Just a few bad men.' 'And all those ladies with the baby chairs.' 'Not really.' 'But Mr Urquhart killed the Bishop, didn't he?'

'No, not Mr Urquhart personally.' Although something in her daughter's naivety rattled chains within Claire.

'But why?' Diana persisted, munching her way through a mouthful of wholemeal toast.

Claire hesitated. The morning's press had been crammed to capacity with plaudits for the previous day's success in the Troodos. Even those who were not supporters of the Government couldn't avoid copious reference to 'Francis' Fusiliers'. Some of the more serious newspapers carried reports of disagreement with military advisers and of the Prime Minister unusually and perhaps inappropriately having taken single-handed control of the operation, but in light of its success the military appeared to be playing down any sense of injured pride. Victory argues its own case. So why did Claire feel so unenthused?

'I'll explain it all to you later, darling. And remember to brush your teeth.' 'Gotcha!'

With a snap of exultation and a flick of his remote control, Urquhart wiped the Leader of the Opposition from his Sunday morning screen.

For almost twenty minutes on breakfast television Dick Clarence had been struggling hard to avoid his fate, but persistent questioning had worn down his linguistic ingenuity and overrun every defensive position his advisers had prepared until he was forced to capitulate. Finally he had no choice but to admit it. Yes, Francis Urquhart had done the right thing.

'Not long for this world, I suspect, young Dick,' Urquhart reflected to Elizabeth. Fate was a harsh judge on an Opposition Leader who had lost the ability to oppose with only ten days of campaigning left.

From the other side of the breakfast table Elizabeth looked up from her newspapers. 'The press seem already to have reached that conclusion.' She passed across to him three editorials, carefully folded and highlighted, which effectively pronounced the election over.

He digested them alongside his Lapsang, then laid them to one side, shaking his head. 'They rush to judgement. Clarence is dead, because he is congenitally useless. But there is still opposition.' 'Makepeace?' 'Who else?' 'A man with no party.' 'But an army.'

'An army under attack, Sir.' It was Corder, who stood filling the doorway in the quiet way to which over the years they had grown accustomed. Elizabeth didn't even adjust her dressing gown. 'You have news from the front, Corder?'

'Yes, Sir. Mr Makepeace may have a battle on his hands. Since last night's news broadcasts, various of the extreme British nationalist groups have been organizing. Arranging a little reception for when he reaches Birmingham this evening. They want to do to him what you did to the Bishop.'

'How unfortunate,' Elizabeth mused with as much concern as if she were selecting tights. 'So what's to be done, Corder?'

'Depends on whether you want a riot on the streets of Birmingham.' 'Violence is certain?' 'Could be. If you wanted it, Prime Minister.'

'I think not, Corder. Too much uncertainty. Such things can get out of hand, make him a martyr. No, how much better if the threat of riots were sufficient to get Mr Makepeace to abandon his march.'

'You think he'd do that?' Elizabeth interjected sceptically.

'I doubt it. It would be the end for him. We could appeal, request, beseech, but I don't suppose he'd listen.' 'So?'

'So we would have to get the Chief Constable to order Makepeace to abandon the march as a threat to good public order, wouldn't we, Corder?'

'In my experience, Sir, Chief Constables don't always listen…'

'He's coming up for a knighthood, he'll be all ears.' '… and aren't always listened to in such matters.'

'But wouldn't that be wonderful?' Urquhart spread his hands in front of him as though confronting a heavenly host. 'Makepeace. Already branded a friend of terrorists. Now challenging the forces of law and order in this country. The threat of riot would seem to be his fault as much as any other's. From martyr to public menace. We'd have to arrest him.' He clapped, then subsided. 'With great reluctance, and after copious warnings, of course.' 'Public Order Act 1986, Sir. Section Thirteen, I think. Three months and a fine.' 'Precisely, Corder. Can do?' Corder nodded.

'And then we would have all the loose ends tied up.' 'Except for one, Mr Urquhart.' Corder was clutching the red file. It appeared thicker than on the last occasion. 'Passolides.'

'Yes, Sir. We've been keeping an eye on him. Not simply a harmless old crank, after all. Appears he carries a gun, been waving it about. And a record as an EOKA activist.'

He was standing right beside the burning tree, scorching his flesh as though an oven door had been opened in front of him.

'We should pick him up. But I wanted to check with you first.'

The voices were at him again, warning, instructing, clashing and confusing. It was many moments before Urquhart was able to push aside the debris in his mind and speak. 'Where is he now?' 'Skulking in his tent. The one with no windows.'

'Good. Then let us leave him there. Someone so close to Makepeace, armed, blood on his hands. British blood. Could prove very convenient.' 'Even old men have their uses, Sir.' 'You might say that, Corder…' Claire scurried through the swing doors of the local radio station, already a few minutes late for her interview and muttering darkly about faceless party officials who drew up election schedules. A woman needed a little more preparation time in the morning than some crusty Cabinet colleague who had no hair and wore the same soup-spilled pinstripe his wife had bought for him twenty years ago. Anyway, she'd had to try three pharmacies before finding one which was open and could fill Diana's prescription.

'I'm Claire Carlsen,' she explained to the young and unkempt receptionist.

He didn't look up, loath to leave his examination of the sports pages. 'Message for you,' he muttered through a mouthful of gum, waving a scrap of paper at her. 'You're to ring this number. He said it was urgent.'

There was no name, she didn't recognize the number but it was a Whitehall exchange. 'May I use the phone?'

He looked at her, less reluctantly now, his attention beginning to focus on the shape behind the name. He gave her a crooked smile before nodding slowly. She dialled. It was Corder. 'Is this a secure line?' he enquired.

The receptionist had begun to examine her with ill-disguised lust, unwashed eyes massaging their way across her chest.

'If you mean can we be overheard,' Claire replied, returning the stare, 'not by any intelligent form of life.'

Defiantly the receptionist blew a huge balloon of gum; both it and his confidence collapsed in a pink dribble across his chin. With a final sullen glance, he subsided back into his newspaper.

There was a brief silence on the telephone as Corder struggled to decode her cryptic remark. Irony was not his strong suit. 'Your friendly driver,' he continued cautiously, 'is he on duty today?'

'No,' she replied. During the last week the driver's time had been spent ferrying secretaries, correspondence and dry cleaning between London and the route of the march, and he'd little to offer by way of fresh indiscretion. Claire had felt relieved.

Now she felt dirty. Corder knew. Her secret was spreading, as was her feeling of remorse. At the beginning she had regarded it as no more than a little idle mischief but she could no longer hide from the fact that it had been a mistake. The betrayal of a friend she still cared for. She had demeaned herself, got carried away. Acted like Urquhart. The receptionist was staring once more, furtively; she turned her back on him, no longer able to meet his gaze.

'No, the driver's not on duty,' she mumbled, feeling much like a prisoner in the dock being asked to plead. Not guilty, she wanted to insist. But who was she kidding? 'Good,' Corder snapped.

'Why do you ask?' she was about to enquire, but already it was too late. Corder had rung off. Makepeace stood on the age-worn steps of the parish church of St Joseph's in Cannock, some fifteen miles north of the centre of Birmingham, having attended early morning Communion and received the vicar's blessing. He was a committed if undogmatic Christian, not unaware of the benefits for a politician of displaying occasional touches of piousness, and many Christian groups had begun to join him on the march, gathering beneath a large 'March For Peace' banner which had been draped across the bell tower of the church. Yet there were many others assembling that morning whose motivations were less spiritual, and two new elements in particular. For the first time, supporters and committed members of Dick Clarence's party paraded openly amongst the kaleidoscope of banners and protest groups in the crowd. They, like Urquhart, most editors and many others, had perceived Clarence as a lost cause and already written him off. Stranded between the rock of despair which was Clarence and the hard, unforgiving place over which towered Urquhart, they had turned to the only banner of defiance they could find. Thomas Makepeace.

The second new element was still more noticeable, noisy in spite of relative lack of numbers. Draped in Union flags and tattoos, their close-cropped heads appearing like battering rams above mean eyes and studded noses, surrounded by news photographers and penned in behind the hastily erected barriers of the local constabulary, the skinheads had begun to arrive, armed with their traditional weaponry of obscenity, spittle and abuse. It was early morning, their enthusiasm for the task not yet fully warmed, but they formed the skirmishing patrols of elements which would gather later in the day in the guise of nationalist warriors. 'Scum's risen,' Maria muttered to Makepeace. 'Not all of it. Too early for most of them.'

'Urquhart's supporters come in strange and unwashed shapes. I suppose we should take it as a sign of success.'

'I'd rather not. It worries me, these types, with all the families and children around.'

'Don't worry,' she reassured. 'The police will take care of it all.' They were much slower to stir in the Troodos, even taking into account the two-hour time difference. In the early hours of the previous evening Lieutenant Colonel St Aubyn had commandeered the top floor of the Pine Crest Hotel a few miles from the Lodge; it had caused the manager mild apoplexy and for a few minutes he was of a mind to refuse. But he was a German with an irregular work permit who had no care to tangle with the President of Cyprus, and was not paid enough to do so with several dozen well armed troops. There had been an hour of shuffle and squeeze – and also indignation, guests responding with an eclectic mixture of insults when they discovered that they were not to be allowed to set foot outside the hotel until after the presidential party had left the following morning. But Elpida had wandered around each of the dinner tables, thanking, explaining, asking for understanding. The harrowing details of her story plus the scar on her cheek had done much to repair frayed tempers, bolstered by the announcement that the Ministry of Finance would be picking up the bills for the entire week.

Of the President, however, there was no sign. Exhaustion had overcome him. As soon as he had talked by phone with a couple of his Ministers and ensured that his arrival the following day was to be expected, he had slept, until ten o'clock the following morning. Panayotis insisted on standing guard the whole night outside his door. No one had tried to wake him, there was little point. It would take only a couple of hours to drive to Nicosia.

By the time he rose the following morning the dew had disappeared and the crickets and martins on the wing had taken over from the morning chorus. It was a tender honey-coloured spot, surrounded with cherry trees and with unspoilt views across the valley, so different from the tree-choked gorge in which the Lodge had been built. Nicolaou, like his daughter, made an attempt to circulate and thank everyone but the strain of his adventure was all too apparent in the awkward shuffle of his frame and the bruise-grey shadows about his eyes. He had aged, clinging to Elpida's arm as though afraid someone else would try to snatch her away.

St Aubyn was growing impatient. It would be noon before they left, they would be travelling into the heat of the day and the President, already wan, was in no need of further ordeal. 'Do not worry on my behalf, Colonel,' Nicolaou had tried to reassure, 'I am a Cypriot. Used to a little heat.'

The Lieutenant Colonel deferred to the politician, which seemed to be the order of the day. He'd been even less impressed with the instruction to head for Nicosia than his military superiors had been,- the capital was a warren of intrigue where both streets and tongues forked in a confusion that offended the neat military mind. But as the Air Vice-Marshal had reminded him, soldiers don't get to choose.

The sun had passed its zenith but the thermometer was still rising when at last they set off, four-tonners in front and rear, Land-Rovers in the middle, carrying forty-eight British servicemen and the four liberated hostages. They had debated long and hard whether to send more troops up from Episkopi, but had decided against. This was supposed to look like a victory parade, not another invasion.

Darwin and his team as well as the signals squad had been sent back to base, doused in gratitude from the President.

'You must come and visit us in Nicosia, Captain. Accept a little of our hospitality.'

'And perhaps a medal or two?' Elpida added mischievously. 'It's been an honour, Sir – Miss.'

The Captain saluted starchly, but the President was too overcome with emotion for military etiquette. He threw his arms around his saviour in the manner of any Balkan bidding farewell to a much-loved brother, kissing both cheeks.

'Take care of yourself, Sir,' Darwin mumbled, colouring. 'Don't worry, my dear Captain Darwin. The worst is over. After what you have already achieved, the rest will be easy.' There was little Sunday spirit in evidence. With some three thousand people marching with him and more than ten thousand promised when he reached Birmingham city centre, Makepeace should have been content, but all day long the skinheads had been driving up and down their route, blaring their horns and sounding trumpets, waving flags, leaning far out of car windows to raise clenched fists, spitting, goading, warning of trouble to come. Several supporters had tried to intervene and appeal for moderation, but by mid-morning and Walsall, empty beer cans and other forms of garbage had joined the obscenities being thrown in their direction. A morris dancer had already been knocked to the floor, and several marchers with young families had decided to quit.

Makepeace had appealed several times to the police to take some form of action to quell the disruption but the number of officers on duty was small and entirely inadequate to deal with the incitement. He was relieved therefore when, up ahead in the far distance, he saw a congregation of police cars, orange flashes on white, surrounded by a flurry of officers whose animation suggested they were intent on business. One was striding purposefully towards him.

'Chief Inspector Harding, Sir.' The officer introduced himself with a courteous salute. Makepeace gave no indication of stopping or even slowing, forcing the policeman to fall in alongside.

'Welcome, Chief Inspector, delighted to see you.' He shook hands. 'These yobs are proving a damned nuisance, they're deliberately trying to provoke trouble.'

'I'm very much afraid you're correct, Sir. Our information is that a counter-march is gathering with the objective of coming into direct confrontation with you in the city centre. Many hundreds of skinheads, British National Union types, neo-nazis, assorted maggots. Those you've seen so far are just the outriders. Has all the signs of a nasty bit of violence.'

A car passed, horn blaring, heading away from the gathering of police cars. A pair of tattooed buttocks protruded from the window.

'Blast them,' Makepeace snapped. 'This is a protest for peace, a family event, not an excuse for mayhem. What are you going to do about it?' 'That's difficult, Mr Makepeace.'

'Don't just wring your hands, you've got to do something.' 'My instructions are to stop it, Sir.' 'Excellent.'

'I don't think you understand. My instructions are to stop all of it. The skinheads' march. And your march too, Sir.'

'You're bloody joking.' Makepeace came to an abrupt halt. Flustered, angered, he motioned those behind him to continue. The marchers parted to either side of them.

The policeman persisted. 'The two marches coming together will cause violence and disruption of the peace.' 'Then stop their march. Mine is peaceful.'

'For better or for worse – I sometimes wonder which, Sir – we live in a democracy. They may be pavement scrapings but they also have a vote and equal rights to demonstrate.'

'Sticking their unwashed arses out of car windows is demonstrating? Demonstrating what?' 'They are entitled to their political opinions, Sir.'

'This is a sick joke, Mr Harding. Just sweep them off the streets, for heaven's sake.' 'If I stop one march I have to stop both.'

Makepeace was growing irritated by the other man's dogged sophistry. He began walking briskly once again, swept along by his supporters, but now he found himself accompanied by four uniformed constables who had fallen in behind their officer. 'This is crude blackmail, Chief Inspector.' 'It's protecting the peace.'

'I'm the one trying to protect the peace. That's why I'm standing for Parliament.'

'And organizing a march of this size that in itself constitutes a strain on public order, that includes anarchists, militant animal liberationists, a group of extreme environmentalists calling itself "One World Warriors", the Anti-Nazi League, some…'

'The vast majority here are ordinary peace-loving families. I can't control everyone who wants to tag along behind.' 'Precisely.'

'Justice can't be this blind. It's a put-up job, isn't it, Chief Inspector?'

But Harding had no wish to debate further, not while swimming in a sea of Makepeace supporters. His brain locked into the appropriate criminal code and engaged gear.

'Sir, under Section 12 of the Public Order Act of 1986 I have reason to believe that this public procession may result in serious public disorder, serious damage to property or serious disruption to the life of the community, and therefore, under the authority accorded to me by that Act, I am directing you to bring this procession to a halt and disperse your supporters.' 'Not a chance.'

The officer was bobbing up and down on the toes of his highly polished shoes in a state of some agitation. 'Mr Makepeace, I must warn you that failure to comply with the lawful directions of a police officer in this matter is an offence and renders you liable to prosecution.' 'Bog off, you bloody fool!' The roadway down from the Troodos knotted and twisted like a child's ribbon, making the convoy's passage through the pines uneven and uncomfortable. Their four-tonners had not been designed for high-speed cornering. The air above the macadam boiled, throwing up little whirlpools of dust which irritated the eye and cloyed the tongue. From their right-hand side the ancient Amiandos asbestos mine glared grey at them as though it had been dropped from the far side of the moon, a dust-raped landscape destroyed by pick axe and bulldozer. St Aubyn licked his drying lips in distaste.

On the other side of the road they passed a small stone monument which remembered the Troodos of more gentle times, a drinking trough which trickled with the cool waters of a nearby spring. St Aubyn read the inscription: 'Erected to Commemorate the Construction of the Nicosia-Troodos Road – VRI 1900.' Victoria Regina Imperatrix. A hundred years gone by and still the British were bailing out these people. Or still interfering, perhaps. He ignored the faded Greek graffiti.

Around the bend they encountered their first serious opposition, a BBC television crew, the advance troops for what St Aubyn knew must be a formidable media invasion, waving their arms and pleading for assistance. They were standing beside the yawning bonnet of their car from which sibilant clouds of steam were emerging, the perils of an over-hasty hire and an intolerably impatient editor. St Aubyn looked the other way, passing by at the gallop.

The road continued to hug the side of the mountain, curling, dipping, disappearing around the bend into the pine trees ahead. That's when St Aubyn saw the cutting, a man-made valley slashed through the rock, an angry scar whose steep sides and unhealed slopes seemed to cry with pain at the memory of the explosives and mechanical shovels that had blasted this great wound through the mountain's side, then inexpertly cauterized it with hot tar. Scree trickled like tears to either side.

It was inhospitable, claustrophobic, no trees or any form of vegetation seemed to want to grow here, this was no place to tarry. Then some fool up front stamped on his brakes. There was a touch of Irish in Makepeace on his mother's side, buried a couple of generations deep, which seemed to rush to the surface at moments of indignation and perceived unfairness, blocking his judgement and making him desperate to find some physical outlet for his anger. As when he had crossed the Floor of the House. He was never entirely sure where principle stepped aside and old-fashioned Celtic passion took over, but that was his make-up, the way he was – anyway, there seemed little point in principle divorced from passion. Now there was some ridiculous policeman with pips on his collar standing in his way and telling him he was no better than some nazi who stuck his bum out of a window. Nuts! As the Chief Inspector moved closer, Makepeace raised his hands to push him away. Or was he going to strike the man? Quickly Maria restrained him, reaching out before any of the constables had the chance.

'Don't give them any excuse other than a political one,' she urged.

Makepeace had stopped walking and those following were beginning to falter, uncertain what was going on. They began to mill around Makepeace and the policemen, a march turning into a melee.

Harding attempted a placatory smile. 'Please, Mr Makepeace, no one regrets this more than I do. We want to make this as simple as possible for you, we've even arranged a venue about a mile down the road, a sports ground where we would be happy for you to wind up your march with your supporters. But with the threat of violence hanging over the whole community, there is no way we can allow you into the centre of Birmingham.'

Makepeace was blinking rapidly, trying to brush away the mists of rage and clear his thoughts. Maria was there first. 'What of tomorrow, Chief Inspector? And the next day? And next weekend in London?'

Harding shrugged. 'Not in my hands, Miss. That would depend on the local police force. But if the threat of violence is still there…'

'So you would allow a bunch of thugs to run my election campaign completely off the road,' Makepeace snapped. 'I'm sorry.' 'And what will you do if I refuse?'

'Mr Makepeace, I have given you a lawful direction to stop this march. If you don't, you would leave me with no choice but to arrest you. Neither of us wants that. Wouldn't do your election campaign much good either.' 'You'll allow me to be the judge of that.'

But others were also judging, pressing around more closely as they began to understand that the police presence surrounding Makepeace was not for his protection. The mood was turning edgy.

'I don't pretend to understand politics, Sir, but I have a job to do. So let's wind this march up peacefully.'

'No, I think we'll take the other route. Arrest me or get out of my way.' Makepeace began marching once more, trying to clear a path through the bodies in front of him. 'Please, Sir…'

Harding was reaching out after him; Makepeace brushed aside the restraining hand. Harding hurried to bring himself alongside.

'Sir, you do not have to say anything. But if you do not mention now something which you later use in your defence, the court may decide…'

The rest was drowned in a growl of opposition from various members of the Akropolis weightlifting team who had begun pushing forward through the crowd. Parents with children in arms were getting jostled, someone tumbled, cries of confusion sounded on all sides, the march had suddenly tugged on the edge of chaos. Is that what Harding intended? Makepeace arrested in the midst of violence without a neo-nazi in sight? Forcefully Maria thrust herself between Makepeace and the advancing muscle, shouting reprimands in seaman's Greek and waving them to subside.

Makepeace had a constable latched on to either arm but he did not struggle or resist. Instead he, too, was calling out for order. 'Relax. Get on with the march,' he shouted to those around. 'I'll be back with you as soon as I've got this nonsense sorted out.'

But Harding's placatory smile had disappeared. 'No, Mr Makepeace, I don't think we can allow that. Not at all.' The cutting had been blocked by a barricade of eight buses, ancient Bedford and modem Mercedes, parked sideways and four deep, fronted by a low rampart of boulders and pine trunks. There was no way through and, since the sides of the cutting rose steeply from the roadway, no way round. The buses were empty, doors ajar, curtains flapping at dust-streaked windows, yet the silence had an unmistakable menace which filled St Aubyn's throat with bile.

'Back!' he yelled, waving his hand in a circular motion above his head as the driver made an agile three-point turn and started off for the far end of the cutting. The four-tonners snorted and complained like beached whales as they struggled in the narrow confines to follow suit.

It had been less than three minutes since they had passed into the rocky valley, but when they returned to it the entrance was not as it had been. Seated in the road as though engaged in a summer's picnic were two hundred chattering schoolgirls, in uniform, none more than fifteen. A barrier as unbreachable as rock. The Land-Rover slid ungracefully to a halt in a cloud of dust.

Trapped. And he could see something else out of the comer of his eye. Shadows were falling across his path, cast down from on high. St Aubyn looked to the top of the cutting, towering above him some forty feet, where the silhouettes of men were shooting up like a field of thistles. Every one of them was armed.

Then he saw two further dark shapes appear against the hard blue sky. Men holding to their shoulders not weapons, but television cameras.

With a certainty that sickened him, St Aubyn suddenly knew he was going to be famous. Makepeace was, of course, already famous, and about to move up to the category which would label him notorious. As soon as he had been arrested he had moved to the side of the road, out of the path of the march and against the wall of a church. There, framed against the statue of Mother and Child which dominated the churchyard, he refused any further co-operation. At least for the next couple of minutes. He had spotted a television van parking a short distance away, its crew tumbling forth. He needed to make a little time for them; there was little to be gained from being arrested if the drama couldn't be played out on primetime television.

Maria was at his side, gesticulating to the marchers to continue, while Makepeace refused to budge, his arms folded and studiously ignoring the eye and the commands of the beleaguered Harding. But then all was ready, the mike boom was thrust forward, the red eye glaring on the front of the video camera.

Slowly, as though in prayer, he clenched his hands and held them well away from his body. Once more he was asked to co-operate, again he refused, shaking his head. He held the hands out still further, his eyes shut tight. They took his arm, he shook them off. He was going nowhere. Reluctantly the Chief Inspector gave the order and a pair of handcuffs were snapped around his wrists.

When his eyes flicked open, they shone with vivid intensity. Makepeace held his cuffed hands aloft, like a warrior triumphant in battle, shaking them for all to see. 'The chains of an Englishman!' he exclaimed.

Maria held out her hands, too. Then another, and yet another. All around there were marchers asking, almost demanding to be arrested. The confused constables looked to the Chief Inspector for instruction. Hell, he couldn't turn it into a massacre of the innocents. Makepeace would have to be enough. He tugged nervously at the cuffs of his sleeve and shook his head.

Then, and only then, did Makepeace allow himself to be led away.

And the marchers continued marching. Every time a policeman approached they held their hands out in front of them, priests, mothers with babes in arms, children, even some in wheelchairs. And each time the policeman turned away. Two issues confronted the editors of television news programmes that night.

The first was how on earth to get political balance into their programmes, to ensure that during the election period all sides got roughly equal coverage to avoid accusations of bias. In the end, most said to hell with the alternative of Clarence cuddling grannies on the seafront at Skegness. Delivered unto them had been the enviable combination of hard stories and gripping pictures, TV news at its best. They went with it. The second was more difficult, to decide which of the two contending items should get top billing. Some chose Makepeace, most featured Colonel St Aubyn. A 'Double Whammy!' as the Minor was to call it the following morning. Disruption, diversion and editorial delight.

Elizabeth glanced across at Urquhart, creases of concern about her eyes. He recognized the look.

'I don't know, Elizabeth, how this will end. We don't control it any more. Fools are afoot and our fate lies in the hands and upon the votes of the graceless mob.'

'St Aubyn. Makepeace. Are these stories of help or hindrance?'

'Who is to tell? All I am sure of is that these are contrary winds, and some boats will be quite swamped before the gale has blown itself out.'