The Final Cut

TWO

A glorious spring dawn brimming with rose-tinged enthusiasm had advanced across London, delighting most early risers. Elizabeth Urquhart could not know her husband shared none of the collective spirit.

'Good morning, Francis. The weather gods seem to be smiling in celebration. Happy birthday.'

He didn't move from his position staring out from the bedroom window and at first offered only a soft 'Oh, dear' and a slight flaring of the nostrils in response. He lingered at the window, captured by something outside before shaking his head to clear whatever pest was scratching at his humour. 'What have you got for me this year? Another Victorian bottle for the cabinet? What is it – eighteen years of bloody bottles? You know I can't stand the things.' But his tone was self-critical, more irony than ire.

'Francis, you know you have no interests outside politics and I'm certainly not going to give you a bound copy of Hansard. Your little collection has at least given you something for the hacks to put in their profiles, and this particular piece is rather lovely. A delicate emerald green medicine bottle which is supposed to have belonged to the Queen herself.' She puckered her lips, encouraging him along. 'Anyway, I like it.' 'Then, Elizabeth, if you like, so shall I.'

'Don't be such a curmudgeon. I've something else for you, too.'

At last he turned from the window and sat opposite her as she held forth a small package with obligatory ribbon and bow. Unwrapped, it teased from him the first sign of pleasure. 'Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France. And an early edition.' He fingered the small leather-bound volume with reverence.

'A first edition,' she corrected. 'The pioneer volume for the Urquhart Library, I thought.'

He took her hands. 'That is so typically thoughtful. And how appropriate that our Library should start with one of the finest anti-French tirades ever written. You know, it might inspire me. But… I have to admit, Elizabeth, that this talk of birthdays and libraries smacks all too much of retirement. I'm not yet ready, you know.'

'The young pretenders may seem fleeter of foot, Francis, but what's their advantage if you are the only one who knows the route?'

'My life would be so empty and graceless without you,' he smiled, and meant it. 'Well, time to give the ashes a rake and discover whether the embers still glow.' He kissed her and rose, drawn again to the view from the window. 'What is out there?' she demanded.

'Nothing. As yet. But soon there may be. You know the Thatcher Society wants to erect a statue to the Baroness on that piece of lawn right out there.' He prodded a finger in the direction of the carefully manicured grass that lay beyond the wall of the Downing Street garden, opposite St James's Park. 'You know, this is a view that hasn't much changed in two hundred and fifty years; there's a print hanging in the Cabinet Room and it's all there, same bricks, same doors, even the stones on the patio are original. Now they want to put up a bloody statue.' He shook his head in disbelief. 'And the erection fund is almost fully subscribed.' He turned sharply, his face twisted by frustration. 'Elizabeth, if the first thing I'm going to see every morning of my life when I draw my bedroom curtains is that bloody woman, I think I shall expire.' 'Then stop it, Francis.' 'But how?'

'She doesn't merit a statue. Thrown out of office, betrayed by her own Cabinet. Is the statue going to show all those knives in her back?'

'Yet almost all of them are hacked from office, my love. By their colleagues or the electorate. Like Caesar, taken from behind by events they hadn't foreseen. Ambition makes leaders blind and lesser men bloody; none of them knew when the time had come to go.'

'There's only one Prime Minister who should have a statue there, and that's you!'

He chuckled at her commitment. 'Perhaps you're right – but flesh and blood turn to stone all too soon. Don't let's rush it.'

He turned himself to stone two hours later, as fixedly as if he had spent the night wrapped in the arms of the Medusa. It was his press secretary's habit to arrange on a regular basis a meeting with representatives of charities – ordinary members, not experienced leaders – inviting them to the doorstep of Number Ten but not beyond, a visit too brief to allow for any substantial lobbying but long enough to show to the cameras that the Prime Minister cared – the 'Click Trick', as the press secretary, a hockey player and enthusiast named Drabble, termed it. Having been at his desk since six collating the morning's press, extracting from it selected articles he thought worthy of note and preparing a written summary, he met Urquhart in the entrance hall shortly before nine thirty.

'What is it today, Drabble?' Urquhart enquired, striding briskly down the red-carpeted corridor from the Cabinet Room.

'A birthday surprise, Prime Minister. This week it's pensioners, they're going to make a presentation.'

Somewhere inside Urquhart felt part of his breakfast liquefying. 'Was I told of this?'

'You had a note in your box last weekend, Prime Minister.'

'Sadly, kept from me by more pressing letters of state,' Urquhart equivocated. Damn it, Drabble's notes were so tedious, and if a Prime Minister couldn't rely on professionals to sort out the details…

The great door swung open and Urquhart stepped into the light, blinked, smiled and raised a hand to greet the onlookers as though the street were filled with a cheering crowd rather than a minor pack of world-weary journalists huddled across the street. A group of fifteen pensioners drawn from different parts of the country were gathered round him, arranged by Drabble, who was giving an advanced simulation of a mother hen. The mechanics were always the same: Urquhart asked their names, listened with serious-smiling face, nodded sympathetically before passing on to the next. Soon they would be whisked off by one of Drabble's staff and a junior Minister from an appropriate department to be plied with instant coffee and understanding in a suitably impressive Whitehall setting. A week later they would receive a photograph of themselves shaking hands with the Prime Minister and a typed note bearing what appeared to be his signature thanking them for taking the trouble to visit. Their local newspapers would be sent copies. Occasionally the discussions raised points or individual cases which were of interest to the system; almost invariably the majority of those involved went back to their pubs and clubs to spread stories of goodwill. A minor skirmish in the great war to win the hearts and votes of the people, but a useful one. Usually.

On this occasion Urquhart had all but completed the ritual of greeting, moving on to the last member of the group. A large package almost five foot in height was leaning against the railings behind him and, as Urquhart swung towards him, so the pensioner shuffled the package to the fore. It turned out to be a huge envelope, addressed simply: 'To the Prime Minister.'

'Many happy returns, Mr Urquhart' the pensioner warbled.

Urquhart turned round to look for Drabble, but the press officer was across the street priming the cameramen. Urquhart was on his own.

'Aren't you going to open it then?' another pensioner enquired.

To Urquhart's mind the flap came away all too easily, the card slipped out in front of him.

'We are for you, F.U.' was emblazoned in large red letters across the top. Across the bottom: '65 Today!'

The group of pensioners applauded, while one who was no taller than the card itself opened it to reveal the message inside.

'Welcome to the Pensioners' Club,' it stated in gaudy handscript. 'OAP Power!' The whole thing was decorated with crossed walking sticks.

Urquhart's eyes glazed like marble. Rarely had the photographers seen the Prime Minister's smile so wide, yet so unmoving, as if a chisel had been taken to hack the feature across his face. The expression lingered as he was drawn across the street, more to lay his hands upon the wretched Drabble than to go through the ritual of bantering with the press.

A chorus of 'Happy Birthday!' mingled with shouts of 'Any retirement announcement yet, Francis?' and 'Will you be drawing your pension?' He nodded and shook his head in turn. The mood was jovial and Drabble enthusiastic,- the fool had no idea what he'd done.

'Are you too old for such a demanding job at sixty-five?' one pinched-faced woman enquired, thrusting a tape recorder at him.

'Churchill didn't seem to think so. He was sixty-five when he started.'

'The American President is only forty-three,' another voice emerged from the scrum. 'China's is over ninety,' 'So no discussions about retirement yet?' 'Not this week, my diary is simply too full.'

Their slings and arrows were resisted with apparent good humour; he even managed to produce a chuckle to indicate that he remained unpricked. Politics is perhaps the unkindest, least charitable form of ritualized abuse allowed within the law; the trick is to pretend it doesn't hurt.

'So what do you think of today's poll?' It was Dicky Withers of the Daily Telegraph, an experienced hand known for concealing an acute instinct behind a deceptively friendly pint of draught Guinness. 'The poll.' 'Yes, the one we carried today.' Drabble began an unscheduled jig, bouncing from foot to foot as though testing hot coals. He hadn't included the poll in his digest, or the intemperate editorial in the Mirror entitled 'It's Time To Go'. Christ, it was the man's birthday, one day of the year to celebrate, to relax a little. And it wasn't that Drabble was an inveterate yes-man, simply that he found it easier to accept the arguments in favour of circumspection; all too frequently messengers who hurried to bring bad news from the battlefield were accused of desertion and shot.

'Forty-three per cent of your own party supporters think you should retire before the next election,' Withers elaborated.

'Which means a substantial majority insisting that I stay on.'

'And the most popular man to succeed you is Tom Makepeace. Would you like him to, when the time comes?'

'My dear Dicky, when that time comes I'm sure that Tom will fight it out with many other hopefuls, including the bus driver.'

'Makepeace = Bus Driver,' Withers scribbled, noting the uncomplimentary equivalence. 'So you intend to go on, and on, and on?'

'You might say that,' Urquhart began, 'but I wish you wouldn't. I'm enjoying a good innings and, though I'm not greedy for power, so long as I have my wits and my teeth and can be of service…'

'What do you intend to do when eventually you retire, Mr Urquhart?' Pinch Face was thrusting at him again.

'Do?' The creases of forced bonhomie turned to a rivulet of uncertainty. 'Do? Do! Why, be anguished and morose like the rest of them, I suppose. Now, you'll excuse me, ladies and gentlemen. I have a Cabinet meeting to attend.' He turned and embarked upon what he hoped was a dignified retreat back across the street – like a lion regaining his den, Drabble decided, tail thrashing ominously. He declined to follow.

Urquhart brushed into his wife as she was emerging from the lift to their private apartment. 'Everything went well?' she enquired before she had noticed his eyes.

'They say it's time for a change, Elizabeth,' he spat, grinding his teeth. 'So I'm going to give 'em change. Starting with that bloody fool of a press secretary.' 'Astonishing,' Urquhart thought to himself as the Cabinet filed in around the great table, 'how politicians come to resemble their constituencies.'

Annita Burke, for instance, an unplanned Jewish suburb full of entangling one-way systems. Richard Grieve, a seedy run-down sea front (which he had once plastered with election posters stating 'Grieve for Rushpool' and had somehow managed to live it down). Arthur Bollingbroke, a no-frills Northern workingmen's club with a strong tang of Federation bitter. Colin Catchpole, the member for the City of Westminster, a ruddy face with the red-brick architectural style of the Cathedral, while other parts of his anatomy were rumoured to linger in the back-streets of Soho. Geoffrey Booza-Pitt – yes, Geoffrey, an invented showman for the invented showtown of New Spalden. Middle class and entirely manufactured, lacking in roots or history – at least any history Geoffrey wished to acknowledge. He had been bom plain Master Pitt to an accountant father with a drinking problem; the schoolboy Geoff had invented an extended name and some mythical South African origin to explain away untidy gossip about his father which had been overheard by friends across a local coffee shop. And it had stuck, like so many other imaginative fictions about his origins and achievements. You could fool some of the people all of the time, and Geoffrey reckoned that was enough.

Then there was Tom Makepeace. With the flat humour of the East Anglian fens, the stubbornness of its clays and the moralizing tendencies of its Puritan past. He was an Old Etonian with a social conscience which Urquhart ascribed to an overdeveloped sense of guilt, unearned privilege in search of unidentified purpose. The man had undoubted talent but was not from Urquhart's mould, which is the reason he had been despatched to the Foreign Office where his stubbornness and flat humour could bore for Britain and help fight the cause in the tedious councils of Brussels, and where his moralizing could do little harm.

Urquhart's Cabinet. 'And few of you seem to be keeping your eye on the ball, if I may be frank.' The mood was all flint; Drabble had gone missing, the ghost of his folly not yet exorcized.

'We must finish in ten minutes, I have to be at the Palace for the arrival of the Sultan of Oman.' He looked slowly around the long table. 'I trust it will be rather more of a success than the start of the last state visit.'

His gaze set upon Annita Burke, Secretary of State for the Environment. She was both Jew and female, which meant that the doors of power started off double-locked for her. She had stormed the drawbridge by sheer exuberance but now she sat rigid, head lowered. Something on her blotter appeared to have become of sudden importance, monopolizing her attention.

'Yes, it was a great pity, Environment Secretary. Was it not?'

Burke, the Cabinet's sole female, raised her head defiantly but struggled for words. Had it been her fault? For months she had planned a great campaign to promote the virtues and dispel the tawdry myths surrounding the nation's capital; from their comers and quiet tables in some of London's finest restaurants the publicity men had examined the runes and pronounced – a press conference and brass band had been organized, a fleet of mobile poster hoardings assembled and seven million leaflets printed for distribution around the city on launch day. 'Making a Great City Greater.'

What they had not foreseen – could not have foreseen, no matter how many slices of corn-fed chicken and loch-reared salmon they had sacrificed – was that launch day would also coincide with the most catastrophic failure of London's sewer system, a progressive collapse of an entire section of Victorian brickwork which had flooded the Underground and shorted the electrical control network. Points failure, and humour failure, too. A million angry commuter ants had erupted onto the streets, creating a gridlock that had extended beyond the city to all major feed roads. On one of those feed roads, the M4 from Heathrow Airport, had sat the newly arrived President of Mexico, expecting a forty-minute drive to the royal and political dignitaries already assembled for him at Buckingham Palace. But nothing had moved. The truck-borne poster hoardings had been stuck and defaced. Most of the leaflets had been dumped undelivered in back streets. The press conference had been cancelled, the brass band had not arrived. And neither had the Mexican President, for more than three hours.

It was a day on which the dignity of the capital died, swept away in a torrent of anger and effluent. Failure required its scapegoat, and 'Burke' fitted the tabloid headlines so well.

'Great pity,' she concurred with Urquhart, her embarrassment exhumed. 'The Ides were against us.'

'And you've come up with a new idea for re-establishing our reputation for caring environmentalism. The Fresh Air Directive. Article 188.' He made it sound like a charge sheet. 'Health amp; Safety at Work. Sensory pollution.' 'Smells.' 'Yes, if you like.' 'And we're against them, are we?'

'The European Commission has proposed that all urban workplaces be monitored for excessive sensory pollution with a strict enforcement code for those sites which don't meet the set standards.'

'You know, there's a curry shop at the end of my street…' Bollingbroke began in his usual homespun fashion, but Urquhart drove right through him.

'Clean up or close down. And you approved of this.'

'Wholeheartedly. Cleaner air, better environment. Honours our manifesto commitment and gives us a ready answer to those who claim we've been dragging our feet on Europe.' She tapped her pen on her blotter for emphasis, betraying her unease. He seemed in such acid humour.

'Have you ever been to Burton-on-Trent, Environment Secretary?'

'I visited for two days when I was sixteen, for a sixth-form symposium.' Her dark eyes flashed; she wasn't going to let him patronize her.

'And it hasn't changed very much in the many years since. Still five breweries and a Marmite factory – On a hot summer's day the High Street can be overpowering.'

'Precisely the point, Prime Minister. If we don't make them clean up their act they'll not lift a finger themselves.'

'But the entire town lives on beer and Marmite. Their jobs, their economy, breakfast and tea, I suppose. And far be it from me to remind you that the brewers are amongst the party's staunchest corporate supporters.'

The Environment Secretary became aware that the two Ministers seated on either side, though still in the same claret leather seats, had yet managed to distance themselves physically from her, as though fearful of getting caught by a ricochet.

'And you'd close them down. Wipe the entire town off the map. My God, not even Goring was able to do that.'

'This is a European proposal which we are obliged to…'

'And how many towns will those ill-begotten French close down? In August the whole of Paris reeks when the water level drops. Small wonder they all flee to the seaside and abandon the city to the tourists.'

'This is a collective decision arrived at after careful study in Brussels. Our future lies in Europe and its…'

There she was, driving up her one-way street again, in the wrong direction. 'Bugger Brussels.' He could no longer contain his contempt but he did not raise his voice, he must not seem to lose control. 'It's become nothing more than a bureaucratic brothel where the entire continent of Europe meets to screw each other for as much money as possible.' Bollingbroke was rapping his knuckles on the table in approval, tapping out his fealty. The curry shop could stay.

'If you had spent as much time there as I have, Prime Minister, you would realize how…' – she reached for a word, considered, weighed the consequences and compromised – 'exaggerated that description is.' One day, one day soon, she promised herself, she would no longer hold back the strength of her views. She wouldn't let herself be emasculated like most of the men around the table. She was the only woman, he daren't fire her. Dare he? 'This directive is about chemical plants and refineries and…'

'And fish markets and florists' shops! Environment Secretary, let me be clear. I am not going to have such Euro-nonsense pushed through behind my back.'

'Prime Minister, all the details were in a lengthy position paper I put to you two weeks before the Council of Ministers in Brussels approved the measure. I'm not sure what more I needed.'

'Instinct. Political instinct,' Urquhart responded, but it was time to back off, move on. 'I can't be expected to take note of every tiny detail buried in a policy document,' he parried, but the effect was ruined as he fumbled for his reading glasses in order to locate the next item on the agenda.

What motivated Makepeace to join the fray even he had trouble in identifying. He was by nature an intervener. A friend of Annita and strong supporter of Europe, he didn't care for Urquhart's arguments or attitude. Perhaps he felt that since he occupied one of the four great offices of state he was in a strong position to conciliate, lighten the atmosphere, pour oil on troubled waters. 'Don't worry, Prime Minister,' he offered light-heartedly as Urquhart adjusted his spectacles, 'from now on we'll have all Cabinet documents typed in double space.'

The oil exploded. It was as if he had offered an accusation that Urquhart was – what? Too old? Too enfeebled for the job? Fading? To Urquhart, deep into humour failure, it sounded too much an echo of the demands for change. He rose with such sudden venom that his chair slid back on the carpet.

'Don't deceive yourself that one opinion poll gives you special privileges.'

The air had chilled, grown exceptionally rarefied, thinned by rebuke. Makepeace was having difficulty breathing. A tableau of deep resentment had been drawn in the room, growing in definition for what seemed several political lifetimes. Slowly Makepeace also stood.

'Prime Minister, believe me I had no intention…'

Others grasped the opportunity. Two Cabinet Ministers on their feet must indicate an end to the meeting, a chance to bring to a close such extraordinary embarrassment. There was a general rustling of papers and as rapidly as seemed elegant they departed without any further exchange of words.

Urquhart was angry. With life, with Drabble, Burke and Makepeace, with them all, but mostly with himself. There were rules between 'the Colleagues', even those whose ambition perched on their shoulders like storm-starved goshawks.

'Thou shalt honour thy colleagues, within earshot.' 'Thou shalt not be caught bearing false witness.' 'Thou shalt not covet thy colleague's secretary or job (his wife, in some cases, is fair game).'

'Thou shalt in all public circumstances wish thy colleagues long life.'

Urquhart had broken the rules. He'd lost his temper and, with it, control of the situation. He had gone much further than he'd intended, displayed insufferable arrogance, seeming to wound for the sake of it rather than to a purpose. In damaging others, he had also damaged himself. There was repair work to be done. But first he needed a leak.

It was as he was hurrying to the washroom outside the Cabinet Room that, near the Henry Moore sculpture so admired by Elizabeth, he saw a grim-faced Makepeace being consoled by a colleague. His quarry had not fled, and here was an opportunity to bind wounds and redress grievances in private.

'Tom!' he summoned, waving to the other who, with evident reluctance, left the company of his colleague and walked doggedly back towards the Cabinet Room. 'A word, please, Tom,' Urquhart requested, offering the smallest token of a smile. 'But first, a call of nature.'

Urquhart was in considerable discomfort, all the tension and tea of the morning having caught up with him. He disappeared into the washroom, but Makepeace didn't follow, instead loitering outside the door. Urquhart had rather hoped he would come in; there can be no formality or demarcation of authority in front of a urinal, an ideal location for conversations on a basis of equality, man to man. But Makepeace had never been truly a member of the club, always aloof, holding himself apart. As now, skulking around outside like a schoolboy waiting to be summoned to the headmaster's study, damn him.

And damn this. Urquhart's bladder was bursting, but the harder he tried the more stubborn his system seemed to grow. Instead of responding to the urgency of the situation it seemed to constrict, confining itself to a parsimonious dribble. Did all men of his age suffer such belittlement, he wondered? This was silly – hurry, for pity's sake! – but it would not be hurried. Urquhart examined the porcelain, then the ceiling, concentrated, swore, made a mental note to consult his doctor, but nothing seemed to induce his system to haste. He was glad now that Makepeace hadn't joined him to witness this humiliation.

Prostate. The old man's ailment. Bodily mechanics that seemed to have lost contact with the will.

'Tom, I'll catch you later,' he cried through the door, knowing that later would be too late. There was a scuffling of feet outside and Makepeace withdrew without a word, taking his resentment with him. A moment lost, an opportunity slipped. A colleague turned perhaps to opponent, possibly to mortal enemy. 'Damn you, come on!' he cursed, but in vain.

And when at last he had finished, and removed cuff links and raised sleeves in order to wash his hands, he had studied himself carefully in the mirror. The sense inside was still that of a man in his thirties, but the face had changed, sagged, grown blemished, wasted of colour like a winter sky just as the sun slips away. The eyes were now more bruised than blue, the bones of the skull seemed in places to be forcing their way through the thinning flesh. They were the features of his father. The battle he could never win. 'Happy birthday, Francis.' Booza-Pitt had no hesitation. In many matters he was a meticulous, indeed pedantic, planner, dividing colleagues and acquaintances into league tables of different rank which merited varying shades of treatment. The First Division consisted of those who had made it or who were clearly on the verge of making it to the very peaks of their professional or social mountains; every year they would receive a Christmas card, a token of some personal nature for wife or partner (strictly no gays), an invitation to at least one of his select social events and special attention of a sort that was logged in his personal secretary's computer. The cream. For those in the Second Division who were still in the process of negotiating the slippery slopes there was neither token nor undue attention; the Third consisted of those young folk with prospects who were still practising in the foothills and received only the encouragement of a card. The Fourth Division, which encompassed most of the world who had never made it into a gossip column and were content in life simply to sit back and admire the view, for Geoffrey did not exist.

Annita Burke was, of course, First Division but had encountered a rock slide that would probably dump her in the Fourth, yet until she hit the bottom of the ravine there was value to be had. She was standing to one side in the black-and-white-tiled entrance hall of Number Ten, smoothing away the fluster and composing herself for the attentions of the world outside, when Geoffrey grabbed her arm.

'That was terrible, Annita. You must be very angry.' There were no words but her eyes spoke for her. 'You need cheering up. Dinner tonight?' Her face lit at the unexpected support; she nodded.

'I'll be in touch.' And with that he was gone. Somewhere intimate and gossipy, he thought – it would be worth a booth at Wiltons – where the flames of wounded feelings and recrimination might be fanned and in their white heat could be hammered out the little tools of political warfare, the broken confidences, private intelligences and barbs which would strengthen him and weaken others. For those who were about to die generally preferred to take others with them.

Dinner and gossip, no more, even though she might prove to be vulnerable and amenable. It had been more than fifteen years since they'd spent a romping afternoon in a Felixstowe hotel instead of in the town hall attending the second day of the party's youth conference debating famine in the Third World. They both remembered it very keenly, as did the startled chambermaid, but a memory it should remain. This was business.

Anyway, Geoffrey mused, necrophilia made for complicated headlines. It stood in a back street of Islington, on the point where inner city begins to give way to north London's sprawling excess, just along from the railway arches which strained and grumbled as they bore the weight of crowded commuter trains at the start of their journey along the eastern seaboard. During the day the street bustled with traffic and the bickering and banter from the open-air market, but at night, with the poor street lighting and particularly when it was drizzling, the scene could have slipped from the pages of Dickens. The deep shadows and dark alleyways made people reluctant to pass this way, unless they had business. And in this street the business after dusk was most likely to be Evanghelos Passolides'. His tiny front-room restaurant lay hidden behind thick drawn curtains and a sign on the grimy window which in loud and uncharitable voice announced that the establishment was closed. There was no menu displayed, no welcoming light. It appeared as though nothing had been touched for months, apart from a well-scrubbed doorstep, but few who hurried by would have noticed. 'Vangelis'', as it was known, was unobtrusive and largely unnoticed, which was the point. Only friends or those recommended by friends gained access, and certainly no one who in any life might have been an officer of the local authority or Customs amp; Excise. For such people 'Vangelis'' was permanently closed, as were his accounts. It made for an intimate and almost conspiratorial atmosphere around the five small tables covered in faded cloths and recycled candles, with holly-covered paper napkins left over from some Christmas past.

Maria Passolides, a primary school teacher, watched as her father, a Greek Cypriot in his mid-sixties, hobbled back into the tiny open-plan kitchen from where with gnarled fingers and liberal quantities of fresh lemon juice he turned the morning's market produce into dishes of fresh crab, sugar lamb, suckling pig, artichoke hearts and quails' eggs. The tiny taverna was less of a business, more part-hobby, part-hideaway for Passolides, and Maria knew he was hiding more than ever. The small room was filled to chaos with the bric-a-brac of remembrance – a fishing net stretched across a wall and covered in signed photographs of Greek celebrities, most of whom were no longer celebrities or even breathing; along cluttered shelves, plates decorated with scenes of Trojan hunters fighting for control with plaster Aphrodites and a battalion of assorted glasses; on the back of the door, a battered British army helmet. There was an abundance of military memorabilia -a field telephone, binoculars scraped almost bare to the metal, the tattered and much-faded azure blue cloth of the Greek flag. Even an Irish republican tricolour.

In pride of place on the main wall hung a crudely painted portrait of Winston Churchill, cigar jutting defiantly and fingers raised in a victory salute; beneath it on a piece of white card had been scrawled the words which in Greek hearts made him a poet the equal of Byron: 'I think it only natural that the Cypriot people, who are of Greek descent, should regard their incorporation with what may be called their Motherland as an ideal to be earnestly, devoutly and feverishly cherished…'

It was not the only portrait on the wall. Beside it stood the photograph of a young man with open collar, staring eyes and down-turned mouth set against a rough plaster wall. There was no sign of identity, none needed for Michael Karaolis. A promising village boy educated at the English School. A youthful income tax clerk in the colonial administration, turned EOKA fighter. A final photograph taken in Nicosia Gaol on the day before the British hanged him by his neck until he was dead. 'Vangelis".

Since he had buried his wife a few years before, Evanghelos Passolides had been captured more than ever by the past. Sullen days were followed by long nights of rambling reminiscence around the candlelit tables with old comrades who knew and young men who might be willing to listen, though the numbers of both shrank with the passing months. He had become locked in time, bitter memories twisting both soul and body; he was stooped now, and the savagely broken leg that had caused him to limp throughout his adult life had grown noticeably more painful. He seemed to be withering even as Maria looked, the acid eating away inside.

The news that there was to be peace within his island only made matters worse. 'Not my peace,' he muttered in his heavy accent. He had fought for union, Enosis, a joining of all Greeks with the Motherland – one tongue, one religion, one Government no matter how incompetent and corrupt, so long as it was our Government. He had put his life on the line for it until the day his fall down a mountain ravine with a thirty-pound mortar strapped across his back had left his leg bones protruding through his shin and his knee joint frozen shut forever. His name had been on the British wanted list so there was no chance of hospital treatment; he'd been lucky to keep his leg in any condition. The fall had also fractured the spirit, left a life drenched in regret, in self-reproach that he and his twisted leg had let his people down, that he hadn't done enough. Now they were about to divide his beloved island forever, give half of it away to the Turk, and somehow it was all his fault.

She had to find a distraction from his remorse, some means of channelling the passion, or sit and watch her father slowly wither away to nothing.

'When are you going to get married?' he grumbled yet again, lurching past her in exaggerated sailor's gait with a plate of marinated fish. 'Doesn't family mean anything to you?'

Family, his constant refrain, a proud Cypriot father focused upon his only child. With her mother's milk she had been fed the stories of the mountains and the village, of mystical origins and whispering forests, of passions and follies and brave forebears – little wonder that she had never found a man to compare. She had been born to a life illuminated with legend, and there were so few legends walking the streets of north London, even for a woman with her dark good looks.

Family. As she bit into a slice of cool raw turnip and savoured its tang of sprinkled salt, an idea began to form. 'Baba,' she reached out and grabbed his leathery hand, 'sit a minute. Talk with me.'

He grumbled, but wiped his hands on his apron and did as she asked.

'You know how much I love your stories about the old days, what it was like in the village, the tales your mother told around the winter fires when the snow was so thick and the well froze. Why don't we write them down, your memories. About your family. For my family – whenever I have one,' she smiled. 'Me, write?' he grunted in disgust.

'No, talk. And remember. I'll do the rest. Imagine what it would be like if you could read the story of Papou, your grandfather, even of his grandfather. The old way of life in the mountains is all but gone, perhaps my own children won't be able to touch it – but I want them to be able to know it. How it was. For you.' He scowled but raised no immediate objection.

'It would be fun, Baba. You and me. Over the summer when school is out. It would be an excuse for us to go visit once more. It's been years – I wonder if the old barn your father built is still there at the back of the house, or the vines your mother planted. And whether they've ever fixed that window in the church you and your brothers broke.' She was laughing now, like they had before her mother died. A distant look had crept into his eyes, and within them she thought she saw a glint of embers reviving in the ashes.

'Visit the old family graves,' he whispered. 'Make sure they're still kept properly.'

And exorcize a few ghosts, she thought. By writing it all down, purging the guilt, letting in light and releasing all the demons that he harboured inside.

He sniffed, as though he could already smell the pine. 'Couldn't do any harm, I suppose.' It was the closest he had come in months to anything resembling enthusiasm. Elizabeth despaired of trying to check her face in the flicker of passing street lights as the car made its way up Birdcage Walk. 'So what kind of woman is Claire Carlsen?' she asked, snapping away her compact.

'Different.' Urquhart paused to consider. 'Whips don't much care for her,' he concluded, as though he had no identifiable opinion of his own. 'A troublemaker?'

'No. I think it's more that the old boys' network has trouble in finding the right pigeon-hole for a woman who is independent, drives a fifty-thousand-pound Mercedes sports car and won't play by their rules. Has quite a tongue on her, too, so I'm told.'

'Not something of which you as a former Chief Whip would approve. So why are we going to dinner?'

'Because she's persistent, her invitation seemed to keep creeping to the top of the list. Because she's different.'

'Sounds as if you do approve, Francis,' she probed teasingly, her curiosity aroused.

'Perhaps I do. As Chief Whip I welcomed the dunderheads and do-nothings, but as Prime Minister you need a little more variety, a different perspective. Oh, and did I say she was under forty and extremely attractive?' He returned the tease. 'Thinking of giving her a job?'

'Don't know. That's why we're going this evening, to find out a little more about her. I could do with some new members of the crew.'

'But to make room on the life raft you have to throw a few old hands overboard. Are there any volunteers?' 'I'd gladly lash that damned fool Drabble around the fleet. And Annita Burke was born to be fish bait.' 'I thought she was loyal.' 'So is our labrador.' 'Go further, Francis. Much further. Bring it back.' 'What?'

'Fear. They've grown idle and fat these last months, your success has made things too easy for them. They've found time to dream of mutiny.' They were passing Buckingham Palace, the royal standard illuminated and fluttering proud. 'Even a King cannot be safe on his throne.'

For a moment they lost themselves in reminiscence.

'Remind them of the taste of fear, the lash of discipline. Make them lie awake at nights dreaming of your desires, not theirs.' The compact was out again, they were nearing their destination. 'We haven't had a good keelhauling for months. You know how those tabloid sharks love it.'

'With you around, my love, life seems so full of pointed opportunity.'

She turned to face him in the half-light. 'I'll not let you become like Margaret Thatcher, dragged under by your own crew. Francis, you are greater than that.' 'And they shall erect statues to my memory…'

She had turned back to her mirror. 'So make a few examples, get some new crew on board. Or start taking hormone therapy like me.' The door of the buttermilk stucco house set in the middle of Belgravia was opened through the combined effort of two brushed and scrubbed young girls, both wearing tightly wrapped dressing gowns.

'Good evening, Mrs Urquhart, Mr Urquhart,' said the elder, extending a hand. 'I'm Abby and this is Diana.'

'I'm almost seven and Abby is nine,' Diana offered with a lisp where soon would be two new teeth. 'And this is Tangle,' she announced, producing a fluffy and much-spotted toy dog from behind her back. 'He's very nearly three and absolutely…'

'That's enough, girls.' Claire beamed proudly from behind. 'You've said hello, now it's goodbye. Up to bed.' Stereophonic heckling arose on either side. 'Pronto. Or no Rice Pops for a week.'

Their protest crushed by parental intimidation, the girls, giggling mischievously, mounted the stairs.

'And I've put out fresh school clothes for the morning. Make sure you use them,' their mother called out to the retreating backs before returning to her guests. 'Sorry, business before pleasure. Welcome, Francis. And you, Mrs Urquhart.' 'Elizabeth.' 'Thank you. I feel embarrassed knowing your husband so much better than you.' 'Don't worry, I'm not the jealous type. I have to share him with the rest of the world. It's inevitable there should be a few attractive young women amongst them.'

'Why, thank you,' Claire murmured, acknowledging the compliment. In the light of the hallway's chandelier she seemed to shimmer in a way that Elizabeth envied and which she had thought could only be found in combination with motherhood between the pages of Vogue. Was Claire also the type that had herself photographed naked and heavily pregnant, just to show the huddled, sweating masses with backache and Sainsbury's bags just how it was done?

Claire introduced her husband, Johannis, who had been standing back a pace; this was his wife's event and, anyway, he gave the impression of being a physically powerful man who was accustomed to taking a considered, unflustered view of life. He also had the years for it, being far nearer Urquhart's age than his wife's, and spoke with a distinctively slow though not unpleasant accent bearing the marks of his Scandinavian origin. Carlsen's self-assured posture suggested a man who knew what he wanted and had got it, while she displayed the youthful vitality of a woman with ambitions still to be met. Contrasts. Yet it took only a few moments for Elizabeth to become aware that in spite of the superficial differences, somehow the Carlsens seemed to fit, have an understanding, be very much together. Perhaps she hadn't married him simply for the money.

Claire led the way through to a reception room of high ceiling and pastel walls – ideal for the displayed works of contemporary European artists – in which the other eight guests had already assembled. Urquhart knew only one of them, but knew of them all; Claire had provided him with a short and slightly irreverent written bio. of every diner, including Johannis. She'd made it all very easy, had chosen well. A bluff Lancashire industrialist who did extraordinary things with redundant textile mills that kept his wife in Florida for half the year and in race horses for the rest. The editor of Newsnight and her husband, a wine importer who had provided the liquid side of the meal which he spiced with spirited stories of a recent trip to vineyards in the mountains of Georgia where, for three nights, he had resided in a local gaol on a charge of public drunkenness until he had agreed to take a consignment of wine from the police chief's brother. The wine turned out to be excellent. There was also an uninhibited Irishman-and-American-mistress partnership who had invented the latest departure in what was called 'legal logistics' – 'profiling alternative litigation strategies,' he had explained; 'Lawyers' bullshit, it's witness coaching and jury nobbling,' as she had offered.

And Nures. Urquhart had known he would be there, a relatively late addition to the guest list while on a private visit to London for dental treatment; his family's fruit firm had used Carlsen freight facilities for more than a decade. The Foreign Office would normally have expressed qualms about his meeting the President of Turkish Cyprus in this manner, without officials present, but Nures was no longer an international pariah. Anyway, the Foreign Office couldn't object because Urquhart hadn't let them know,- they would have felt obliged to parley with Nicosia, Ankara, Athens, Brussels and half a dozen others in a process of endless consultation and compromise to ensure no one was offended. Left to the Foreign Office, they'd all starve.

Claire thrust a malt whisky into Urquhart's hand – Bruichladdich, she'd done her homework – and propelled him towards the Newsnight editor and the developer, neither of whom would be sitting next to him during the meal.

'Pressure groups are a curse,' Thresher, the developer, was protesting. 'Am I right, Mr Urquhart?' He pronounced it Ukut, in its original Scottish form, rather than the soft Southern Urkheart so beloved of the BBC, who at times seemed capable of understanding neither pronunciation nor policy. 'Used to be there was a quiet, no-nonsense majority, folks that mowed their lawns and won the wars. But now everyone seems to belong to some minority or other, shouting t'odds and lying down in t'road trying to stop other folk getting on with life. Environmentalists' – Thresher emphasized every syllable, as though wringing its neck – 'will bring this country to its knees.'

'We have a heritage, surely we must defend it?' Wendy the Newsnight editor responded, accepting with good grace the fact that for the moment she had been cast in the role of lonesome virtue.

'Green-gabble,' Urquhart pounced, joining in the game. 'It's everywhere. Knee-jerk nostalgia for the days of the pitchfork and pony and trap. You know, ten years ago the streets of many Northern towns were deserted, now they're congested with traffic jams as people rush to the shops. I'm rather proud of those traffic jams.'

'Could I quote you. Prime Minister?' Wendy smiled. 'I doubt it.'

'Here's something you might quote, but won't, lass.' Thresher was warming to his task. 'I've got a development planned in Wandsworth centred around one old worm-eaten cinema. Neither use nor ornament, practically falling to pieces it is, but will they let me knock it down? The protesters claim they prefer the knackered cinema to a multi-million-pound shopping complex with all the new jobs and amenities. Daft buggers won't sit in t'cinema and watch films, no, all they do is sit down in t'street outside, get up petitions and force me to a planning inquiry that'll take years. It's a middle-class mugging.'

'Not in my house, I trust.' Claire had returned to usher them to the dining room. As they followed her bidding, Urquhart found himself alone with Thresher. 'So what are you going to do, Mr Thresher?'

'Happen I'll take my money away, put it in some Caribbean bank and buy myself a pair of sunglasses.' 'A great pity for you. A loss for the country, too.'

'What's Government going to do about it then, Prime Minister?'

'Mr Thresher, I'm surprised that a man of your worldly experience should think the Government is capable of doing anything to help.' Urquhart had a habit of talking about his colleagues in the manner of a world-weary headmaster confronted with irresponsible schoolboys who deserved a thrashing. 'So it's off t'Caribbean.' 'Perhaps the answer might lie a little closer.' 'How close?' 'Brixton, perhaps?' 'You interest me.'

'I was merely wondering why, if the protesters want a cinema, you don't give them a cinema.' 'But that's not the game. Anyway, nobody comes.'

'You're obviously showing the wrong films. What do you think would occur if, for instance, you started showing cult films with a strong ethnic flavour? You know, Rasta and dreadlocks?' 'I'd have to start giving the tickets away.' 'Lots of them. Around the black community, I'd suggest.'

'God, the place'd start swarming with 'em. But what would be the point?'

Urquhart plucked the other's sleeve to delay him at the entrance to the dining room, lowering his voice. 'The point, Mr Thresher, is that after four weeks of Bob Marley and ju-ju, it wouldn't surprise me if the good burghers of Wandsworth changed their minds about your cinema; indeed, I harbour the strongest suspicion they'd crawl to you on hands and knees, begging you to bring in the bulldozers.' He raised a suggestive eyebrow. 'It's a pathetic fact of middle-class life that liberalism somehow fades with the nightfall.'

Thresher's jaw had dropped; Claire had appeared once more at their side to organize them. 'This is a decent house. So whatever you two are plotting had better stop,' she instructed genially. 'Otherwise no pudding.'

'I think I've just 'ad that, pet. You know, your boss is a most remarkable man.' Thresher's voice vibrated with unaccustomed admiration.

'I'm glad you agree. Does my feminine intuition sense a substantial cheque being written out to party headquarters?' she enquired, twisting his arm as she led him to his place. 'For the first time in my life, I think I might.'

Claire found her own seat at the head of the table, flanked by Urquhart and Nures. 'I'm impressed, Francis. I've been trying for five years to get him to open his wallet, yet you did it in five minutes. Did you sell the whole party, or just a few principles?'

'I merely reminded him that amongst the grass roots of politics are to be found many weeds.'

'And in the bazaar there are many deals to be done,' Nures added.

'A touch cynical for someone who's off-duty, Mehmet,' she suggested.

'Not at all. For what is the point of going to the market if you are not intending to deal?' he smiled. 'Window shopping?'

His eyes brushed appreciatively over her, taking in the subtle twists of silk – she had no need of excessive ornamentation – not lingering to give offence, before running around the dining room, where modern art and soft pastel had given way to Victorian classic displayed upon bleached oak panelling. 'You do not leave the impression of one who spends her life with her nose pressed up against the window, Claire.'

'That's true. But at least it enables me to lay my hand on my heart and deny any ambition of grabbing your job, Francis.'

'How so?' he enquired, in a tone which suggested he wouldn't believe a word.

She puckered her nose in distaste. 'I couldn't possibly live in Downing Street. It's much too far from Harrods.' And the evening had been a great success.

It was as Urquhart and his wife were preparing to leave that Nures took him to one side.

'I wanted to thank you, Prime Minister, for everything you have done to help bring about peace in my island. I want you to know we shall always be in your debt.'

'Speaking entirely privately, Mr President, I can say how much I have admired your tenacity. As we both know to our cost, the Greeks have never been the easiest of people to deal with. Do you know, the Acropolis is falling down around their ears yet still they demand the return of the Elgin Marbles? Intemperate vandalism.' 'The Greek Cypriots are different, of course.'

'Accepted. But Balkan blood runs thicker than water. Or logic, at times.' 'And oil.' 'I beg your pardon?'

'You know the seismic report of the offshore waters has been published?' 'Yes, but it didn't show any oil, did it?'

'Precisely.' Nures paused, a silence hung between them. 'But I wanted you to know that if there were any oil, and if that oil were under my control, I would very much want my British friends to help us exploit it.'

'All this talk of oil, you sound as if you expect it. But there was nothing in the report.' 'Instinct?'

'I hope for your sake those instincts are right. But it would then depend upon the outcome of the boundary arbitration.' 'Precisely.' 'Oh, I think I begin to see.'

'I have very strong instincts in this matter, Mr Urquhart. About the oil.'

Urquhart was clear that his feet were now standing directly in the middle of the bazaar. 'I cannot interfere, even if I wanted to,' he replied softly. 'The arbitration is a judicial process. Out of my hands.'

'I understand that completely. But it would be such a pity if my instincts were right yet the arbitration went wrong, and the Greeks gave all the exploitation rights to their good friends the French.' 'A tragedy.'

'Great riches for both your country and mine…' – why did Urquhart feel he really meant 'for both you and me'? Instinct, that was it – 'great riches lost. And I would lose most. Imagine what would happen to me if my people discovered that I had given away a fortune in oil? I would be dragged through the streets of Nicosia.'

'Then we must hope that fortune smiles on you, and wisdom upon the judges.'

'I would have so many reasons to be exceptionally grateful, Mr Urquhart.'

Their confidences balanced carefully on a narrow ledge; any move too swift or aggressive, and they would both fall – would Urquhart attempt to run, or would he push? They spoke in whispers, taking care to maintain their poise, when suddenly they were joined by a new and uninhibited voice. 'Such a rare commodity in politics, don't you think, gratitude?' It was Elizabeth who, farewells indulged, had been hovering. 'You'd rather be flayed alive than let the French run off with anything, Francis. You really must find a way of helping Mr Nures.'

'I shall keep my fingers crossed for him.' And, nodding farewell to the Turk, Urquhart crept back off the ledge.

Claire was waiting for him by the front door. 'A truly exceptional evening,' he offered in thanks, taking her hand. 'If only I could organize my Government the way you organize your dinner parties.'

'But you can, Francis. It's exactly the same. You invite the guests, arrange the menu, decide who sits where. The secret is to get a couple of good helpers in the kitchen.'

'As it happens I've been thinking of rearranging the table, playing a bit of musical chairs. But you make a good point about the backstage staff. What do you think?' 'You want me to be indiscreet.' 'Of course. Drabble, for instance?' 'A disaster.' 'Agreed. And Barry Crumb?' 'So aptly named.'

'No Crumbs in the kitchen Cabinet, you think?' he laughed, enjoying the game.

Barry Crumb was the Prime Minister's Parliamentary Private Secretary. The PPS is a Member of Parliament but in the view of many the lowest form of parliamentary life. The job is that of unofficial slave to a Minister, performing any function the Minister may request from serving drinks to spying on colleagues. As such it is unpaid, but the cost to the individual is high since the PPS is deprived of any form of independence, being required to follow the Government line on all matters of policy. Thus it is an excellent means of shutting up a backbencher who is becoming troublesome.

Yet the job is more, and much sought after, for it provides privileged insights into Ministerial life and is regarded as the first step on the ladder, the training ground from which new Ministers are plucked. Those involved in the process liken themselves to a 'Tail End Charlie', a rear gunner who with luck may survive and move forward through the ship to become a navigator, perhaps one day even the captain. Those of more cynical disposition suggest that it is merely the start of the process whereby a backbencher is deprived of the capacity for independent thought and action, thereby making him suitable to be selected for higher office.

A PPS dwells in the shadow of the Minister and has no independent existence. But that shadow may be long, and the PPS has rights of access, both in the Palace of Westminster and at the Department of State, even at times in the Minister's private life. And to have access in abundance to a great Minister, let alone a Prime Minister, to hover at the right hand and to sit in the rear seat, is one of the most fascinating opportunities available to any young parliamentarian, which is why so blithely they trade their independence for insight and opportunity, and the rudimentary beginnings of influence.

It was a pity about Barry Crumb. He jumped when he should have tarried, hovered when he should be gone, an enthusiast but a man so afraid of getting it wrong that self-consciousness deprived him of initiative and any ability to read Urquhart's mind or moods. The man had no subtlety, no shade. No future. 'He's not up to it, is he?' Urquhart stated. 'No. But I am.'

He took his coat and chuckled at her impudence. In the whole of Christendom there had never been a female PPS, not to a Prime Minister. The boys wouldn't like it, lots of bad jokes about plumbing and underwear. But, Urquhart reflected, it was his intention to shake them up, so what if it upset a few, all the better. Remind them who's in charge. He needed a fresh pair of legs, and at the very least these would be a young and extremely attractive pair of legs, far easier to live with than Crumb's. And he had the feeling she might prove far more than merely a mannequin.

'Would you get rid of the Mercedes and start buying your suits at Marks amp; Spencer?'

'No. Nor will I as your PPS shave my head, grow hair on my legs or allow myself headaches for three days every month.'

He waved goodbye to the rest of the guests, the business of departure replacing the need to reply. 'Time to depart.' He summoned Elizabeth who was bidding Nures farewell, but Claire was still close by his shoulder, demanding his attention. 'I am up to it, Francis.'

He turned at the door. 'You know, I do believe you are.' There was no longer pleasure for her, nothing but dark childhood memories dragged from within by the rhythmic protest of a loose bed spring. She couldn't hide it, he must have noticed, even as his frantic climax filled the bedroom with noise.

That is much how she remembered them, the childhood nights in a small north London semi with Victorian heating and walls of wafer, filled with the sounds of bodies and bed springs in torment. When the eight-year-old had enquired about the noises, her mother had muttered sheepishly about childish dreams and music. Perhaps that's what had inspired Harrison Birtwistle, although by preference she'd rather listen to the torturing of bed springs.

Did anybody still sleep in those classic cast-iron bedsteads full of angry steel wire and complaints, she wondered? It had been so many years since she had, and no regrets at that. Nor did she miss the sitting-room carpet, a porridge of cigarette bums and oil blots and other stains for which there had never been any explanation. 'I'll go down to Hardwick's and get you another,' her father had always promised her mother. But he never did.

Claire Carlsen had left so much behind, yet still the distant echoes tugged at her; she remembered the fear more than the physical pain and abuse, the disgust where later she learnt there might have been love, the tears made scarcely easier to bear by the fact they were shared amongst all three children. She had escaped, as had her sister, but not her younger brother, who still ran a small fish wholesalers around the street markets of south London in between extended bouts of hop-induced stupefaction and wife beating. Like his father. He'd probably go the same way, too, unless his drunken driving intervened. Their father had come home late for Sunday dinner as usual, had cursed them all and thrown his over-cooked food away, slumped on the floor in front of The Big Match, belched and closed his eyes.

The doctor later declared it had been a massive coronary. 'No pain, Mrs Davies,' he had assured. Better than the bastard deserved. They had burnt the sitting-room carpet on the same day they'd burnt him.

The memories sprouted like weeds and she knew that no matter how much she hacked and raked, the roots would always remain buried deep inside.

'Where were you?' Tom Makepeace, still breathless, raised his flushed head from the pillow.

'Oh, a million miles away and about thirty years ago. Sorry,' she apologized, gently levering his weight off her.

'In all the years I've known you I don't think I've ever heard you talk about your childhood. Locked doors.' With a finger he began rearranging the blonde hair scattered across her forehead. 'I don't like you having secrets from me. When I'm with you like this, I want to have you all. You know you're the most important thing to happen in my life for a very long time.'

She looked at him, those kind, deep, affectionate eyes, still retaining a hint of the small stubborn boy that made both his politics and personality emotional and so easy to embrace. And she knew now was the moment, must be the moment, before too much damage was done. 'We've got to stop, Tom.' 'You've got to get back to the House?' 'No. Stop for good. You and me. All this.'

She could see the surprise and then injury overwhelm his face. 'But why…?'

'Because I told you from the start that falling into bed with you did not mean I was going to fall in love with you. I can't fill the gaps in your life, we've got to stop before I hurt you.' She could see she already had.

He rolled onto his back and studied the ceiling, anxious that she should not see the confusion in his eyes,- it was the first time in many years he wished he still smoked. 'You know I need you more than ever.'

'I cannot be your anchor.' Which was what he so desperately needed. As the currents of politics had swirled ever more unsteadily around him, some pushing him on, others enviously trying to snatch him back, the lack of solid footing in his private life had left him ever more exposed. His youngest son was now twenty and at university, his academic wife indulging in her new freedom by accepting a visiting fellowship at Harvard which left her little more than a transient caller in his life with increasingly less to share. He was alone. Fifty had proved a brutal age for Makepeace.

'Not now, Claire. Let's give it another month or so, talk about it then.' He was trying hard not to plead.

'No, Tom. It must be now. You have no marriage to risk, but I do. Anyway, there are other complications.' 'Someone else?' Pain had made him petulant. 'In a way. I spent an hour with the PM this morning. He wants me to be his PPS.' 'And you accepted?' 'Don't make it sound like an accusation, Tom. For God's sake, you're his Foreign Secretary.' 'But his PPS, it's so… personal.' 'You're jealous.'

'You seem to have a weakness for older men,' he snapped, goaded by her observation.

'Damn you, leave Joh out of this!' Her rebuke hit him like a slap in the face and hurt more.

'Forgive me, I didn't mean… It's just that I'm concerned for you. Don't get too close to Francis, Claire. Don't lash yourself to a sinking ship.' 'Dispassionate concern for my welfare?' 'I've never advised you badly before.'

Which was undeniable. Makepeace had guided Claire in her first political steps, sustaining her when successive selection committees had determined that her looks were too distracting or that her place was with the children. When she had persevered and her persistence paid off, he'd helped her find her feet around the House and prepared her for its sexual bombast, had even tried to gain her entry to one of the exclusive dining clubs which generate so much useful contact and mutual support around the House of Commons – 'like smuggling an Indian into Fort Apache,' he had warned. He'd been a constant source of encouragement – although, she reflected, he had never suggested that she become his PPS.

'PPS to Francis Urquhart,' he continued, 'is such a compromising position. Politically.'

'We all have to compromise a little, Tom. No point in being the virgin at the feast.'

'Moral ends justifying compromising means?' He was accusing again.

'Do you mind if I get out from between the damp sheets of your bed before we discuss morality? Anyway, you know as well as I do that politics is a team game, you have to compromise to have any chance of winning. No point in pretending you can score all the goals by yourself. I want my chance on the team, Tom.'

'Some of the games Urquhart wants to play I have no desire to join, let alone help him win.'

'Which is another reason why we have to stop seeing each other like this. There's so much talk about the two of you being set on collision course, you must have heard the whispers.'

'Drumbeats accompanied by a native war dance, more like. Tony Franks on the Guardian bet me that either I or Urquhart would be out of Government within a year. He's probably right.' His face hovered above hers, creased in pain. It would hurt, losing his place in politics. He came from a long line of public servants; his great-grandfather had been a general who had insisted on leading from the front, and in the mud of Flanders had died for the privilege. But politics was so much more dangerous than war; in battle they could kill you only once. 'Is that the real reason you want us to stop? Divided loyalties? Are you backing Urquhart against me?'

She took his head in her hands, thumbs trying to smooth away the lines of distress. 'I am becoming his PPS, Tom, not his possession. I haven't sold my principles, I haven't suddenly stopped supporting all the things you and I have both fought for. And I haven't stopped caring about you.' 'You mean that?' 'Very much. In another life things might have been much closer between us, in this life, I want to go on being friends.'

She kissed him, and he began to respond passionately.

'One last time?' he whispered, running his hand from neck to navel. 'Is that what we've been about? Just sex?' 'No!' he retorted. 'Pity,' she replied, and kissed him again. Passolides put down his cup with a nervous jolt, caught unawares by the high double beep of the electronic pager which summoned them. Maria leaned across the table to mop up the spilt coffee with her napkin. 'That's us, Baba. It's time.'

They had been waiting a little more than half an hour in the small coffee shop of the Public Record Office in Kew, Evanghelos refusing to take his eye for one instant off the red-eyed pager issued to all searchers after truth – at least, what passed as truth in the official British archives. Anything that smacked of British officialdom made him nervous and aggressive, a habit he'd not lost since the old days in the mountains. Even in Islington they had always wanted to snoop, to control him, sending him buff-coloured envelopes which demanded money with menaces. Why should he, of all people, pay the British when they owed him so much? A health inspector had once spent an entire week spying on his front door, convinced Passolides was running a business, refusing to give up his vigil until he was dragged away by influenza and other more pressing hazards to the health of the citizens of Islington. He hadn't known about the back door. While he'd been suffering on the cold dank street, behind the tightly drawn curtain the friends of Evanghelos Passolides had spent their evenings toasting his victory over the old enemy. 'To Vangeli!'

The ageing Cypriot had little faith that the enemy would help him now. It had been Maria's idea, something to pursue his interest in the old days, to refresh his memories, an excuse to get him out from behind the drawn curtains by suggesting they might see what information, explanation or excuse the British documents of the time might offer. So they had travelled across London to the PRO in Kew, a concrete mausoleum of the records of an empire gained, grown and ultimately lost once more.

The amiable clerk in the reference room had not been optimistic. 'The EOKA period in Cyprus? That'll have a military or security classification. Used to be a standard fifty-year embargo on those. You know, anything marked SECRET and vital to the continued security of the country. Like old weather forecasts or if the Greek President picked his nose.' He shrugged. 'But they review the records every ten years now, and since the cutbacks at the Ministry of Defence I think they're running out of bomb shelters to store all the boxes. So when they can they throw them away or throw them at us. You might be lucky.'

And they were. In Index WO-106. Directory of Military Operations and Intelligence. '7438. Report on security situation and EOKA interceptions in Troodos Mountains, April-October 1956.'

Passolides stabbed his finger at the entry. 'They chased us across the mountains for two days, with me on a stretcher and rags stuffed in my mouth to stop me screaming,' he whispered. 'That's me.' They had entered their order for the file on the reference computer terminal. And waited. And been disappointed.

The PRO at K ew is not all that it seems. Away from the reference room, behind the scenes in the repository, computerization hands over to dusty fingers and cardboard boxes. Nearly a hundred miles of them. In a temperature- and humidity-controlled environment and to the strains of Roy Orbison and Lulu blaring over the loudspeakers (the whole point of the PRO is that it is not up to date) a young man had sorted through the vast banks of shelving in search of one file amongst the millions. Once found, it had been transported slowly on a system of electric trolleys and conveyor belts to the general reading room, when Maria and her father had been summoned.

But it was not there. Beneath the air-conditioned hush and white lighting they had searched WO-106/ 7438 for any reference to the pursuit of Evanghelos and his EOKA comrades during those days of high summer. How they had hidden in an underground hide with British soldiers less than six feet away and where one grenade would have killed them all. How he had begged his comrades to shoot him rather than abandon him to the clutches of the enemy. How they would have done it anyway, to avoid any risk of his betraying what he knew.

There was nothing. The tired manila folder was stuffed with individual sheets of paper secured with a string tag, mostly fuzzy carbon copies which appeared to have been retained at random rather than with any sense of logic or in an attempt to preserve a comprehensive record of events. Particularly difficult period, the clerk had explained. The Suez War had erupted in October and everything had been chaos as the British Army turned its attention from the defence of Cyprus to the attack on Egypt. Entire regiments had been transferred and the island had become a churning transit point for the armies of invasion. Paperwork, never the greatest strength of soldiers at war, in many cases had simply been abandoned. For the British, it seemed, Passolides didn't exist, had never existed.

But there was something else. A memory. His finger was once again pointing at the single sheet index at the front of the file. Item 16. May 5. Above the village of Spilia.

The date. The location. He had difficulty scrambling through the file to locate the reference,- when he had done so, he trembled all the more. A single photocopied sheet of paper, an intelligence report of an action in the mountains near to where it was believed an extensive EOKA hideout was located. Two unidentified terrorists intercepted while transporting weapons and other supplies. An exchange of fire, the loss of a British private. The killing of the two Cypriots. Burning and burial of their bodies to reduce the risks of reprisals. No further indication as to the location of the hideout. A recommendation that further sweeps be conducted in the area. Signed by the officer in charge of the operation. The officer's name had been blanked out.

'That's why it's photocopied. To protect the identities of British personnel,' the clerk had explained. 'Not a cover-up, just standard procedure. No way the name will be released, not while he's still alive. After all, imagine if it had been you.' But it had been me, and my brothers!

Passolides had tried to explain, to insist, to find out more, but his voice and clarity were cracked by emotion and the clerk was bemused by the old man's talk of murder on a mountainside. In any event, there was nothing more to be found. No other archive, no other records. Whatever the British system had to offer was all here; there was nothing more to be found, except the name. And that he couldn't have.

'They were only boys, buried in those graves,' Passolides groaned.

'You don't need Records,' the clerk had offered, convinced the old man with tears in his eyes was a little simple, 'you need a War Crimes Commission.' 'But first I need a name.'