The Final Cut

THREE

'Damn it! D'you think they've got a new editor or something, Elizabeth?' She looked up from her crispbread and letters.

'The Times crossword has become so…' – he searched for the word – 'elusive. Impenetrable. They must've changed the editor.'

No, she thought, it's not the crossword that has changed, Francis. It's you. There was a time when you would have slain the allusions and anagrams before porridge.

Irritably he threw the newspaper to one side. The front page was miserable enough, now the back page, too. He searched around the crowded breakfast table and retrieved another sheet of paper. 'Fewer problems with this one,' he muttered with considerably more enthusiasm, and began marking off items like so many completed clues. He paused in search of inspiration. 'Four or five down, d'you think?'

'Give me a hint of what we're talking about, Francis.'

'A bit of Byng. Time to shoot a few admirals in full view of the fleet to encourage the others, I thought. Just as you recommended – to bring back a bit of fear?' 'I see. A reshuffle.'

'Four or five to go, I thought. Enough to cause a real stir, yet not so many as to look as though we're panicking.' 'Who are you volunteering?'

'The Euro-drones and iron-wits. Carter. Yorke. Penthorpe – he's so abrasive that every time he opens his mouth he all but sharpens the blade for his own throat. And Wilkinson. Do you know he actually spends almost as much time in France as he does in his constituency? Judgement's addled by cheap wine and fraternizing.' With a decisive thrust he ran another name through with his pen.

'What about Terry Whittington? I never know whether he's half-cut or simply sounds it.'

'Yes, a problem when the Minister in charge of the Citizens' Charter can't even pronounce the words without drenching the interviewer. Dull dog but, oh, such a sparkling and well-connected wife. Haven't I told you?' He looked over his glasses in remorse. 'It seems she's been indulging in what are known as continental conversations with the Industry Commissioner in Brussels while dear old Terry's been lashed down in all-night session with nothing more diverting than his fellow Ministers.'

'Quelle finesse. Be a pity to lose such an interesting point of leverage within the Commission.'

'Particularly with harsh words on car quotas coming up.'

She bit into the crispbread which crumbled and fled, and for several seconds she distracted herself with reassembling the pieces. 'So who else?'

'Annita, of course. I know she's the only woman, but she sits twittering at the end of the Cabinet table and I can barely hear a word.' He shook his head in exasperation. 'It's not me, is it, Elizabeth?'

'Francis, selective hearing is not only a Prime Minister's prerogative but also one of his most useful weapons. You've had years of developing it to a fine art.'

It was more than that, she thought, but he seemed reassured. She picked up a knife and, with a deft flick of the wrist that seemed unnatural on a lady, sliced off the top of a soft-boiled egg. 'And what of Tom Makepeace?' The yolk flowed freely.

'Dangerous to get rid of him, Elizabeth. I'd prefer to have him on board with his cannon firing outward than on another ship with his sights trained on me. But there might be some…' – he waved his hand in the manner of a conductor encouraging the second violins – 'rearrangement around the deck. Find him a new target. Environment, perhaps.'

'Kick him out of the Foreign Office? I like that.'

'Let him struggle with the wind and waters of our green and pleasant land. Purify the people, that sort of thing. What greater challenge could a man of conscience want?' He was already practising the press release. 'And meanwhile remind the buggers in Brussels we mean business by giving the foreign job to that hedgehog Bollingbroke. He suffers from flatulence. Late nights locked in the embrace of our European brethren seems the obvious place for him.'

'Excellent!' She stabbed at the heart of the egg with a thin sliver of crispbread. 'And put Booza-Pitt into the Home Office.'

'That little package of oily malevolence?' Her face lit in alarm.

'And so he is. But he's crass and vulgar enough to know what the party faithful want and to give it to them. To touch them where it matters.' 'As he does half the Cabinet wives.'

'But I in turn am able to touch him where it matters. I hold his loyalties in the palm of my hand and all I have to do is squeeze. There will be no trouble from Geoffrey.' Suddenly he sat bolt upright in his chair, sniffing the air, as a ship's captain senses the arrival of new weather from disturbed skies. 'Francis…?'

'That's it! Don't you see? Eight down. "European emergency". Twelve letters.'

'What, "Bollingbroke"?' She was counting off the letters on her fingers, bewildered by his sudden switch of priorities.

'No. "Nein. Nein. Nein!"' He gave a triumphant chortle and swooped once more upon his newspaper, filling in blank spaces on a flood tide of enlightenment. 'You see, Elizabeth. Old Francis still has what it takes.' 'Of course you do.'

Just in case, however, she decided a measure of insurance might be in order. The corridors of power resemble a Gordian knot of interwoven connections – relationships matrimonial, familial, frequently carnal, bonds of blood, school and club (beware the man who has been turned away by the Garrick), ties of privilege and prejudice which run far deeper than the seasonal streams of professional acquaintance or achievement. The nectar of tradition sipped at birth or grudges indulged during afternoons on the playing field or evenings in the dorm may provide a framework for a life, sometimes even a purpose. The British Establishment is no accident.

In unravelling these inner mysteries and tracing the origins of influence, no tool is of more use than a copy of Who's Who. Most of the gossamer threads of acceptability are to be found within its pages, as well as the raucous buzzing from the occasional brash interloper who, like the insect charging the spider's web, rarely lasts.

Elizabeth's copy was a couple of years old, but still gave her most of what she needed to know. It told her that Clive Watling was going to be a problem. He had no family of note, no schooling of eminence, no breeding, merely endeavour and honest accomplishment. Which, for Elizabeth's purposes, wasn't enough. He was proud of his humble origins in the small community of Cold Kirby, which lay at the edge of the Yorkshire Moors; his primary school had been given a place of honour in the list, as had his presidency of the Cold Kirby Conservation Society and membership of other local groups. This was a man whose booted feet were stuck very firmly to the moors, where gossamer threads were as rare as orchids. Yet…

As luck – no, the fortune of family connection -would have it, a second cousin to the mother of Elizabeth Urquhart (nee Colquhoun) still owned substantial Northern acreages in the vicinity of Cold Kirby, along with the hereditary titles pertaining thereto, and Elizabeth had engaged her noble cousin to extend an invitation to drinks on the terrace.

The terrace of the Palace of Westminster fronts the northern bank of the great river where once had strolled Henry VIII, through the blossom trees and hedging of what at that time had been his palace garden. It was always a problem site, being immediately adjacent to the medieval City of London with its teeming humanity and overflowing chamber pots. Perhaps it was on some fetid summer's day while walking through the overpowering air that the King grew envious of the sweet-scented palace that stood further upstream at Hampton Court, where his Lord Chancellor lived, Cardinal Wolsey, a man whose fortunes and grasp on his home were to decline as the tidal flow of the Thames washed its noisome waters beyond, and then back again, past the King's door. In any event, the spot never achieved great popularity until those mightiest of urban redevelopers, the Victorians, built both sewers and solid embankment and thereby transformed its attractions. By the side of the river the architects Barry and Pugin erected a great orange-gold palace for Parliament in the manner of a sandcastle by the beach, complete with flags and turrets. On its fringe they formed a terrace where on warm summer days members of either House of Parliament might sit and sup, the lapping waters easing the passage of time and legislation instead of launching, as in days of old, an assault on their senses.

Major the Lord 'Bungy' Colquhoun travelled to London infrequently, but when he did he found the House of Lords a most convenient club. He had therefore been amenable to his cousin's prompting that he should hold a small drinks party on the terrace and invite a few carefully selected guests. He did not know his near-neighbour and soon-to-be-noble brother from Cold Kirby, but was happy to meet him. As was Elizabeth.

Watling was an affable man, courteous but cautious, feeling his way on uncertain soil. Like Boycott at Headingley in the overs before lunch, he was not a man to rush. For a while on the terrace he stood quietly, staring across the silt-brown river to where an army of worker-ants were transforming what had been St Thomas's Hospital into what was to become an office and shopping complex with multi-screen cinema. 'Progress?' she enquired, standing at his elbow. 'You mean the fact that if my heart were to stop right now they'd take an additional fifteen minutes to get me to treatment?' He shook his head. 'Since you ask, probably not.'

'But it wouldn't, you know, not in the House of Lords. Every Gothic nook and cranny in the place seems to be stuffed with all sorts of special revival equipment. Every closet a cardiac unit. You're not allowed to die, you know. Not in a royal palace. It's against the rules.'

He chuckled. 'That's reassuring, Mrs Urquhart. I suppose as a judge I'd better stick to the rules.' 'I don't profess to understand the legal system…'

'You're not supposed to. Otherwise what'd be the point of all us lawyers beavering away at the taxpayers' vast expense?'

He was shy, mellowing a little; it was her turn to laugh. 'And are you taking the King's shilling at the moment?' 'The Cyprus shilling, to be precise.'

'Oh, that one's yours?' She allowed the breeze to ruffle through her hair, anxious not to appear – well, anxious. 'Is the case a difficult one?'

'Not unduly. The areas of difference are clear and not especially large; it's a finely balanced matter. So the panel sits in judgement for about twelve hours a week, the rest of the time we go off and… compose our thoughts.' He raised his glass of champagne in self-mockery.

'So there's a panel? For some reason I had the idea it was an entirely British affair.'

'And it would have been all the better for it. Sometimes I find the entente cordiale neither an entente nor particularly cordiale.' The previous day Rodin, the Frenchman, had been at his most persistently illogical and truculent. But then he usually was. 'So the French are involved, too?'

'And a Malaysian, an Egyptian and a Serb. In theory the heat we generate is supposed to reforge swords for the service of a better world, although in practice the ploughshares often have edges like razors.'

'I suspect you're secretly very proud of what you do. But – forgive my ignorance – doesn't having such a mixture of nationalities, and particularly the French, in this case make your task a little… awkward?' 'In every case,' he agreed with vehemence. 'But why especially in this?' 'I mean, with the oil…' 'Oil? What oil?'

'Don't you know? Surely you must. They will have told you.' 'Told me what? The seismic showed no oil.'

'But apparently there's another report, very commercially confidential, or so I've heard – perhaps I shouldn't have? – which says the place is floating on a vast reservoir of oil. And if it goes to the Greek side, the French have been promised the exploitation rights.' She looked puzzled. 'Doesn't that make it difficult for a French judge?'

So that's what the bastard Breton's been up to… Watling's face clouded with concern, while the great River Thames, and Elizabeth beside it, rushed on.

'Forgive me. Forget everything I've said. It was probably something I overheard and shouldn't have – you know, I never really take much notice of these things, whether I should know or shouldn't know.' She sounded flustered. 'I'm a silly woman stumbling into areas I don't understand. I should stick to dusting and Woman's Hour.'

'It is probably something we shouldn't be talking about,' he conceded, his face soured as though his drink had been spiked. 'I have to deal with the facts that are presented to me. Impartially. Cut myself off completely from extraneous material and – forgive me – gossip.'

'I hope I haven't embarrassed you. Please say you'll forgive me.'

'Of course. You weren't to know.' He spoke softly but had become studiously formal, the judge once more, gazing again across the river, at nothing. Working it out.

Elizabeth held silence for a moment as she fought to recompose herself, twirling the long stem of her glass nervously. It was time to occupy new territory, any new territory, so long as it wasn't sitting on oil. She offered her best matronly smile. 'I'm so glad you could bring your mother; I understand Bungy gave you both tea.'

He nodded gently. 'My mother particularly enjoyed the toasted teacakes. Couldn't stand the Earl Grey, though. Said she was going to bring her own tea bags with her next time.' Watling experienced a sudden twinge of anxiety – 'next time'. Had the baron-to-be let slip a confidence by appearing to assume too much? Would the Prime Minister's wife know about New Year? But surely the invitation to tea and the terrace was simply a means of easing him into The System? 'And your father?'

'No longer with us, I'm afraid. Indeed, to my enduring regret I never knew him, nor he me.'

'How very sad.' Once more she was ill at ease, flushed, seeming incapable of finding the right topic, distressed by her clumsiness. She took a deep breath. 'Look, all my nonsense about oil, please don't think I was implying that it might affect the opinion of the French judge. I respect the French, they're a nation of brave and independent spirits. Don't you agree?'

Watling all but choked on his champagne. She took his arm, fussing with concern. His eyes bulged red, his complexion bucolic. She began to wonder about the revival equipment.

'My apologies,' he coughed, 'but I'm afraid I don't entirely share your opinion about the French. A little personal prejudice.'

'So, you're a Yorkshire-pudding-and-don't-spare-the-cabbage man, are you?'

'Not quite, Mrs Urquhart. You see, my father died in France. In 1943.'

'During the war…?' Her face had become a picture of wretchedness but this was not a subject from which, once engaged, he was to be easily diverted.

'Yes. He was an SOE agent, parachuted behind the lines. Betrayed to the Gestapo by the local French mayor who was a quiet collaborator. Most of them were, you know. Until D-Day. The French got back their country, and in return my mother got a small pension. Not much on which to bring up four children in an isolated Yorkshire village. So you will understand and forgive, I hope, my little personal prejudice.' There was no mistaking the restrained hurt.

But there was more. The oil. The French. The Breton bastard. Now Watling knew why Rodin was being so stubborn. Suddenly it was all a mess. How could he impugn the integrity of a fellow judge? He had no proof, nothing but suspicions which some would call prejudice. In any event, the smallest reference to oil would throw the proceedings into chaos. No, he would have to resign, wash his hands of it, his own judgement undermined by gossip and private doubt. But that would also cause chaos. Inordinate delay. Endanger the peace, perhaps. And he could kiss the barony of Cold Kirby-by-the-edge-of-the-Moors goodbye.

'But I know your reputation for impartiality, Professor Watling,' he heard the silly woman protesting. 'I feel certain none of this will affect your views…'

There was one other way. He could stay quiet. Pretend he hadn't heard. Get the job done, as everyone was begging him to do. Dispense justice, in spite of the French.

'And your father – I'm so sorry,' she continued. 'I had absolutely no idea.'

At least, no more idea than had been supplied by Who's Who and a few minutes spent perusing Watling's press cuttings. He crossed himself in the laborious manner of the Orthodox and knelt in the new-cropped grass beside his wife's grave, positioning his bones like a man older than his years. 'Eonia mnimi – may her memory live forever,' he muttered, running his hand along the lines in the marble, ignoring the complaints of his splayed leg. At his elbow, Maria replaced the fading flowers with fresh, and together they reached back with silent thoughts and memories.

'This is important,' he said, 'to do honour to the dead.'

Greek legend is built around the Underworld, and for a man such as Passolides who knew he must himself soon face the journey across, the dignities and salutations of death were matters of the highest significance. Throughout the history of the Hellenes, life has been so freely cast aside and the dark ferryman of the Styx so frequently paid that elaborate rituals of passage have been required in order to reflect a measure of civilization in a world that was all too often uncivilized and barbaric. Yet for George and Eurypides there had been no ritual, no honour, no dignity.

Since their metaphorical stumble across the brothers' graves an appetite for his own life seemed to have been conjured within Passolides. He had gained a new fixity of purpose, and if for Maria it seemed at times to be excessively fixed, at least it was a purpose, a mission, a renewed meaning, which had produced within him a degree of animation she had not witnessed since the happier times before her mother had passed away. Even his leg seemed to have improved. During the day he had begun to leave the shadows of his shrine, taking frequent walks at the hobble through Regent's Park, often muttering to himself, relishing the open green spaces once again, the arguments of sparrows along the hawthorn paths, the rattle of limes beside the lake. It was as close as he could get in the centre of London to the memories of a mountainside.

As Maria polished the cool marble headstone she examined her father carefully, sensing how much he had changed. His small round face was like a fruit taken too long from the tree, wizened, leathered by age and ancestry, his hair sapped steel white, cheeks hollowed by the pain of his clumsy and uncomfortable body. Yet the eyes glowed once more with a renewal of purpose, like an old lion woken from sleep, hungry.

'What was the point, Baba? What were the British hiding?' 'Guilt.'

He knew his subject well. Guilt had filled his own life to exclusion, the feeling that somehow he had failed them all, comrades and kin. He had failed as the eldest son to protect his younger brothers, failed again as a cripple to pick up the banner of resistance dropped by them. He would never admit it to anyone and only rarely to himself, but secretly he resented his martyr brothers, even as he loved them, for George and Eurypides were the honoured dead while Evanghelos was inadequate and miserably alive. He struggled in their shadow, unable to live up to his brothers' memory, uncertain whether he could have found the same courage as they had, and deprived of any chance to try. He would never be a hero. He'd spent a lifetime trying to prove to the world that his dedication was the equal of his brothers', even while in his cups blaming them. He blamed them and in turn blamed himself for the worm of envy and unreason that turned inside him. Yet now, it seemed, and at last, there was hope of relief, somebody else to blame.

'Guilt,' he repeated, rubbing his leg to help the blood circulate. 'What else does a soldier hide? Not death, that's his business. Only guilt has to be buried away. Burnt.'

She plucked a few stray strands of grass from around the grave as she listened. He thought she knew nothing of his hidden shame but she had lived with it all her life and understood, even though she could do nothing about it. 'Go on, Baba.'

'They had a right to kill my brothers, under the British law. George and Eurypides had guns, bombs; who but a few toothless Greeks would have complained? The British once hanged an eighteen-year-old boy, Pallikarides, because he was found carrying a gun. It was their law. Mandatory.' He had trouble with the word, but not its meaning. 'No, it was not their death they tried to hide. It must have been the manner of their dying.'

'So that's why they burnt the bodies, because of what they had done to them. Torture?'

'It happened.' He stopped, his eyes focused on a land and a point in time far away. 'Maybe they weren't bodies when they burnt them. Maybe they were still alive. That happened too.' On both sides, although he didn't care to remember and it was something else he would never admit to his daughter. But even after all these years it had proved impossible to wipe his memory of the figures soaked in petrol and vengeance. 'Prodoti!' Traitors, Greek convicted of informing on Greek, stumbling down the village street, still screaming their innocence through charred lips, eyes no longer sighted, burnt out, their bodies turned to bonfires that branded a terrible message of loyalty into all who saw. But George and Eurypides had betrayed no one, weren't prodotes, hadn't deserved to die like that.

'You know what this means, Baba7. There may be more hidden graves.'

For the Greeks of Cyprus, on long winter's nights when the womenfolk stoked the fires of remembrance and told stories of the life of old, no memory cut so deep as that of 'the missing ones'. In 1974 Greek extremists in Athens, frustrated at the lack of progress towards Enosis, union between island and mainland, had conspired to overthrow the Nicosia Government of Archbishop Makarios. It was a fit of madness from which Cyprus would never recover. Five days later the Turks had retaliated and invaded the island, dividing it and breaking up the ethnic jigsaw in a manner that ensured it could never be remade. During that time a thousand and more Greek Cypriot men had disappeared, swept up by the advancing Turkish Army and swept off the face of the known world. Their suspected fate had always been a source of unfeigned outrage to the Greeks and embarrassment to the Turks – such things happened in war, misfortunes, examples of isolated barbarity, even wholesale mistakes, but who the hell liked to admit it afterwards? Yet in the quest for peace the Turks had admitted, surrendered all they knew about 'the missing ones', which after nearly a quarter century was painfully little – a few scattered graves, old bones, fragmentary records, faded memories – but even a small light shining upon the island's darkest hour brought understanding and helped ease the suffering, had allowed families to mourn and do honour to the dead. Myrologhia. Yet now it seemed there were more graves. Dug even earlier, by the British.

For Maria, who had never known her uncles and could therefore not share fully in their loss, the issue was a matter of politics and of principle. Yet for her father it was so much more. A matter of honour and of retribution. Cypriot honour. Vangelis' retribution.

'We must find out what we can about these hidden graves, Baba.'

'And about the crimes they tried to bury in them.' He heaved his bent body up straight, like a soldier on parade. 'And which bastard did the burying.' At the south-facing entrance to the Chamber of the House of Commons stands an ornate and seemingly aged archway, the Churchill Arch. Its antiquity is exaggerated, the smoky pallor having been produced not by the passage of time but by its presence so close to one of Reichsmarshal Goring's bombs, which razed the Chamber to the ground on 10 May 1941. On either side of the archway stand bronze statues of the two great war leaders of modem times, David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill. Lloyd George's pose is eloquent, Churchill's more aggressive, as though the old warrior were hurrying to deliver a booted blow to the backside of the enemy. A little further along is a plinth bearing no statue, perhaps left as an act of encouragement to all those who pass and who hope, by dint of endeavour and great achievement, to join the rank of revered statesmen.

Roger Garlick would not, in any passage of lifetimes, number amongst them. Of course, he had a high opinion of himself which fitted his role as a Junior Whip, one of those whose task it was to round up Government MPs and herd them through the voting lobbies. Garlick was a man of considerable girth but limited oratorical ability; he recognized that his chances of achieving high public acclaim were thereby limited and relished the opportunity to exercise his influence more privately, through the dark arts of whipping. He feasted on abuse, his favourite diet being new members and any woman.

'Roger!' The cry of recognition came from Booza-Pitt, making his way through the Members' Lobby where MPs gather to collect messages and exchange gossip and other materials necessary to their work. Booza-Pitt reached out and squeezed the Whip's arm in greeting but didn't stop. Garlick was a useful contact, a man who was willing in private and under pressure from a second bottle of claret to share many of the personal secrets he had unearthed about his colleagues, but the middle of the Members' Lobby was not the place. The Transport Secretary made off in search of other indiscretions.

The Lobby was crowded, as was always the case in the half-hour before Prime Minister's Question Time when Members assembled for the ritual spilling of blood – occasionally Urquhart's, more frequently that of the questioner and particularly that of Dick Clarence, the youthful and ineffectual Leader of the Opposition who had a tendency to appear as a schoolboy attempting to be gratuitously rude to his long-suffering headmaster. There had to be order in class, and it was Garlick's job as one of the form prefects to impose it. Thus, when he spotted Claire entering the Lobby, his eyes extended like the glass beads on the face of a child's bear.

'Missed you at the vote last night, my dear. I stood Up for you, of course, but the Chief Whip threw a terrible tantrum. Took me half a bottle of whisky to calm him down.' He pinned her up against the base of Lloyd George.

'Sorry, Roger. Pressing engagement, I couldn't get out of it.'

'Not good enough, you know, old girl. I put my arse on the line for you, now you owe me. How about saying sorry over dinner tomorrow night?' He leant his thick arm on the statue behind her, bringing them closer together, an intimacy he claimed by right as a Whip. He reeked of Old Spice and other things less sweet. She was searching the Lobby for someone else – anyone else – to distract her attention, but he did not notice, his own eyes were clamped firmly upon her blouse.

'Sorry, Roger, can't do tomorrow. I'm having my hair done. Following night's out, too, I'm hoping to go to assertiveness class. If my husband lets me.' She smiled, hoping he might take the hint.

'Next week, then,' he persisted. 'It'd be fun. There's a hint of a reshuffle coming up, new jobs going, we could discuss your future. Might even be able to get you added to the Whip's List of new stars.' As he spoke, a fellow Member squeezed past and Garlick took the opportunity to move his body still closer, trying to brush against her. Claire voiced no objection; in this hothouse of stretched emotions and endless nights it was not uncommon for her to be propositioned, particularly after Members had indulged in a good dinner, and alienating every colleague who had put a hand on her knee or an amorous arm around her waist would leave her a member of a drastically reduced party. Boys' club rules, and she had asked to join. But she didn't have to take Garlick's crap.

'Not next week, Roger. I'm having a new kitchen fitted.' She continued to smile, but with great firmness she placed her fingers on his chest and pushed him away.

Both his attitude and the comer of his lip turned with the rejection. 'Bloody women! You're all the same in this place. Useless. How the hell can we run the country with you crying off every time you get a migraine or one of the kids goes down with mumps.' Other Members standing nearby had begun to tune in; he was aware he had acquired an audience and raised his voice. 'It's about time you got something straight. This isn't a knitting class or a creche, it's the House of Commons, and you're here to do as you're told. Leg up. Lie down. Roll over. Adopt as many different positions as a missionary in a pot. You were elected to support the Government, not to wander through the voting lobbies as though you're picking and choosing underwear at Marks amp; Spencer's. You turn up when we tell you and do as you're told!'

The blood was flowing early today; from amongst the colleagues gathered around came a shuffling noise, a mixture of embarrassment and expectation, like the sound of a butcher's apron being passed.

'I am very sorry I missed last night's vote, Roger. I had no choice.' She took great care to squeeze out any tremble or trace of emotion which might have crept into her voice.

'What was so important, then, that you had to let us all down? For God's sake don't tell me you had a pressing engagement with your bloody gynaecologist.'

'No, I wasn't on my back, Roger. I was with Francis. You know, the Prime Minister? He asked me to become his PPS.'

The audience around them stirred and Garlick's jowls began to take on a deeper hue of crimson. He appeared to be having trouble controlling his lower jaw. 'The Prime Minister asked you to become his…' He couldn't finish.

'His Parliamentary Private Secretary. And you know what kind of girl I am, Roger. Couldn't possibly say no.'

'But the Chief didn't know anything about it,' he stammered. He prayed he was being wound up.

Of course the Chief Whip didn't know, couldn't possibly have been brought in on the discussion. He was one of those marked to end up in the pot beside the missionary. Along with several of the Junior Whips.

'F.U. was planning to mention it to him over lunch today. It obviously hasn't come down the line yet. At least, not as far as you.'

A senior member of the audience plucked at Garlick's sleeve. 'Game, set and testicles, I'd say, old boy,' and walked off chortling.

Garlick appeared like a punctured Zeppelin, arms flapping uselessly, making gushing noises, deflating, half the man he had just been yet, as she knew, more than the man he was shortly to be. She had come upon the privilege of access and inside information, and Claire realized how much she loved it. Incapable of speech, all communications facilities shot away, Garlick turned and shuffled off in the direction of the Whips' Room and its bottle of whisky.

'I'm really delighted, Claire, always thought you were overdue for recognition. Put a word in for you with the Boss some time ago. Glad to see it helped.' Out of nowhere Booza-Pitt was at her elbow; his antennae were awesome.

'I can't believe all the good words that have been put in for me recently,' she replied cryptically.

'I hope I can be one of the first to congratulate you. Let's have dinner. Soon.'

The invitation. Which would be followed by solicitous enquiries about her husband and a small gift for the kids. In one bound she had jumped from Division Three straight into Division One, leapfrogging over the heads of some two hundred – mostly male – colleagues. It filled Geoffrey with unease. She had short-circuited his system, the system he had designed to protect him and promote his cause. She didn't fit and he didn't understand her, couldn't control her. He might have the authority of Ministerial office but she had the influence of access – she'd practically be living at Number Ten. She was competition, raw and naked – talking of which, there was no point in trying to get her to bed, he'd already tried.

The whispered news had already circumnavigated the Lobby and Geoffrey became aware that many eyes were upon them. In proprietorial fashion he took her by the arm. 'You and I are going to have so much fun,' he said, and led her into the Chamber. Urquhart stumbled into his place on the Government Front Bench, clutching his red folder. He would have preferred to stride into the Chamber, making a grand entrance from behind the Speaker's Chair, but the place was always packed for his appearances and he had to squeeze past bodies, elbows, legs and other outstretched impedimenta of Members who hadn't seen him coming. He'd almost made it to his seat, stepping high like a dressage exercise, leaning on Tom Makepeace's shoulder for support, when a Junior Treasury Minister experienced a cramp spasm and kicked his Prime Minister in the shin. Another volunteer for the view from the backbench gods.

In spite of it, Urquhart felt good, very positive. Over lunch he had informed the Chief Whip that his services as bosun would no longer be required on the voyage. The man had understood what it portended. The great ship of state rarely stopped to pick up those who had fallen overboard, let alone any who had been deliberately dropped; he'd've been better off as a barnacle. Yet at his point of greatest misery he had been thrown a Life belt, the promise of a peerage after the next election if he kept his mouth shut and caused no trouble in the meantime. So with that he had sat down and made a reasonable show of enjoying his final meal, in between the soup and fish helping his Prime Minister complete the final tally of those who would join him over the side. The sense of duty and discipline is instilled sufficiently deep within the psyche of most Whips that the sight of blood, even their own, does not appear to affect their appetite.

As he sat in his seat by the Dispatch Box, gazing at the army of Opposition assembled in layered ranks before him, Urquhart was struck by how much like a fairground shooting gallery it all appeared. Row upon row of ducks who in good order would flutter to their feet and present themselves for – well, dispatch, with the umpires of the press lobby gazing down in impartial anticipation as they waited to count the scorched feathers. He intended they should have a busy day. His eyesight might be going, but not his instinctive aim.

The first duck to squawk and break cover was a Welshman whose voice conveyed the gentle lilt of the Clwyd coastline and a wit of solid coal. With vigour and at seemingly interminable length, he was expressing his concern that the Prime Minister cared too little for matters European. Urquhart drew a deep breath of boredom and raised his eyes to examine the ceiling, his thoughts passing through it to the roof terrace above… Quickly he wrenched himself back to the business of the House.

'Finally, the Prime Minister says he believes in a single economic market, and so do I. But if he truly does believe, why oh why does he turn his back on a single currency? All these pounds, schillings and pesetas are so wasteful.'

He says it beautifully, Urquhart thought, practically eisteddfod standard. All Welsh wind. He rose and leant an elbow on the Dispatch Box to give himself better aim.

'If I might be allowed to intervene in the Honourable Gentleman's soliloquy…' He smiled to show there were no hard feelings. Then with a decisive flick he closed the red folder in front of him which contained his civil service briefing. Apparently this was not to be a civil service answer. 'I would like him to know that I entirely agree with him.'

There was a buzz of consternation. Since when did Urquhart agree with the Opposition?

'Well, almost entirely, on his main point. Which I take to be…' – adroitly and without the Welshman being fully aware of it, Urquhart was moving the goal posts, wanting to play an entirely different game – 'which I take to be what we have to do in order to bring about an effective single market in Europe? Although I fail to see why he should be so keen to do away with the British pound and banish the King's head from the coin of our realm.'

The Welshman was flapping his wings; that's not what he had meant at all. And who the hell was Francis Urquhart to put on the armour of Royal champion?

'But let me tell him.' Urquhart's finger was pointing, taking aim. 'If we want to build a single market, get rid of waste and inefficiency, there is something far more important than a single currency. And that's a single language.'

There was a stunned silence as the House digested this entirely new morsel. In the box reserved for civil servants to the side of the Speaker's Chair, an aide began riffling through the pages of his brief like a prompter desperately trying to return the play to the lines of its script.

'Oh, yes' Urquhart continued, raising his voice and preparing to hit the adverbs and adjectives. 'There is nothing more wasteful and expensive for business than having to deal in a multitude of different languages. The cost runs into billions every year, measure it in whatever currency you will. The economic logic is indisputable, our first priority must be to talk with one voice.' He shrugged his shoulders as if confronted with a problem he could do nothing about. 'I suppose it is simply an accident of history that the only language capable of meeting that bill is English.'

From his position along the Front Bench, Boiling-broke gave a roar of delight – his Saturday night special, as Urquhart termed it, a noise several octaves above steak and kidney pudding and more appropriate to celebrating a victory by Manchester United. Urquhart was grateful nonetheless and turned to acknowledge the cheer, which was being picked up widely behind him. He noticed that Tom Makepeace displayed little desire to join the celebrations.

'So, when the Europeans come and start talking to me about a single currency in English, that's when I'll start listening,' he declaimed. He was enjoying himself thoroughly. Sod the diplomatic etiquette. Was it his fault if Brussels had no sense of humour? 'And I shall expect the Honourable Gentleman's unflinching and Welsh-hearted support.' A nice touch; that'll go down in his constituency like a slut on a slide.

Urquhart beamed at the uproar all around and resumed his seat. Even before he had done so, the Opposition Leader was on his feet, stretching at his Armani seams, his face flushed with outrage. Urquhart nestled back on the leather. Having seen his colleague blown away in a flurry of feathers, only a complete turkey would be so eager to take his place. But Clarence was a complete turkey, practically oven-ready.

'I have rarely heard views expressed in this House that have been so unworthy and un-European. The Prime Minister's performance today has been a national disgrace. In a few days' time he is to fly to a meeting with the French President. Does he not realize the sort of greeting he will have to endure? What will it do to the reputation of this country to have its Prime Minister booed through the streets of Paris?' Paradoxical cheers came from his supporters behind, which quickly died in confusion as Urquhart accepted them graciously. Clarence battled on. 'When will the Prime Minister realize how much damage he is doing to the interests of this country with his stubbornness, his constant veto of new ideas, his abject refusal to be a good European?'

Tumult. It took a considerable time and the repeated intervention of the Speaker before Urquhart had any chance of being heard. He saw no reason to rush.

'Perhaps it's the Right Honourable Gentleman's youth which makes him so impetuous. Perhaps, too, it explains his apparent willingness to come to this House every week and learn by the good old Victorian method of a sound thrashing. But youth alone isn't enough to excuse ignorance.' Urquhart eased back the sleeves of his suit in the manner of a teacher preparing to chalk a blackboard. 'He seems to have climbed so high up his European Tower of Babel that he's become giddy and disorientated. Once more I shall have to bring him down to earth. Remind him of the other times when the world had cause to be grateful that we in Britain set our face against the fashion in Europe. When we exercised our veto. Said "No", "No" and "No" again. Showed ourselves stubborn and utterly unwilling to bend. As we did in 1940. We stood alone, backed only by God and the seas when all the rest' – he dismissed them with a broad wave of his hand – 'had capitulated.'

Bollingbroke was going all but berserk, determined that his support should be heard above the volleys of disorder being fired from the benches around. As he paused in the din, Urquhart was reminded of the pose adopted by the statue of Churchill beyond the doors of the Chamber and he decided to give it a try, left foot to the fore, jacket sides swept back, hands grasping hips, leaning forward to face the sound of gunfire.

'Our stubbornness – I believe that was the word he used – our stubbornness saved Europe then. And the British Prime Minister wasn't booed in the streets after we'd liberated Paris, they got down on their knees and gave thanks!'

God, that would cause chaos in France, but he could live with that. The French had not a single vote that counted on election night. Overhead he could see eager faces in the press gallery leaning out for a better view; more importantly, the benches behind him had become a raging sea of white Order Papers, as though to a man the Government Party was preparing to ward off another threat of invasion. Well, almost to a man. Makepeace was sitting, legs stiff and outstretched, dour expression cast in cement. He would be a problem when he unthawed. But Urquhart thought he had the solution to that. Urquhart strode briskly down the corridor leading to his office in the House of Commons, composing headlines.

'What d'you think? "F.U. Blasts Brussels Babble"'. "Francis 6; France 0"? How about "To Be or Not To Be – That is the Language"'. Yes, I like that.'

Claire struggled to keep up. He had left the Chamber with the zest of a soprano buoyed by a dozen curtain calls, motioning her to follow. Normally he would have been surrounded by a pack of civil servants but they had decided to fall into a protective huddle and linger while they counted their dead. He swept into his room, held the heavy oak door for her then slammed it shut with the crash of an artillery barrage. He stood to attention, facing her, presenting himself for inspection. 'How was I?'

'You were completely…' She searched for the word. What could she say? His mastery over the House amazed and inspired her in the same measure as the rabid jingoism of his words offended all she held dear. But her views, for the moment, didn't matter; she was here to learn. 'Francis, you were completely bloody impossible.'

'Yes, I was, wasn't I? Feathers everywhere. Best pillow fight in ages.' He bounced on his toes, a younger man by forty years, unable to contain his enthusiasm.

'Francis, were you serious? About a single language?'

'Course not. It'll never happen. But it'll bugger up all this nonsense about a single currency for a while, and our voters will love it. Worth another three per cent in the polls by the end of the month, you wait and see.'

He was unusually animated, the adrenalin still pumping. Question Time was trial by ordeal, when the most powerful man in the land was dragged to the edge of a great cliff and made to look down upon the fate which must one day await him on the rocks below. She had heard that in order to endure the ordeal some Prime Ministers had drunk, others had been physically sick beforehand, but in the Chamber Urquhart seemed always in control, almost nerveless. Yet here behind closed doors she could feel the tension flooding through his pores. His blood was hot, his passions high, a lover at orgasm. She was being permitted to share a moment of great intimacy. 'You are my lucky charm, Claire. I can feel it.'

He reached out, held her by the arms, claiming her, and at the same time seeking support from her as the fire within him slowly began to subside. She tried to pretend there was nothing sexual in the moment but in vain – here was power, the most potent of forbidden fruit, and authority, passion, vulnerability, all mixed as one, every indulgence she had ever dreamed about in politics and of which she was now part. She stared into his eyes, awed by the privilege of the moment, knowing that her political life would never be as simple again.

The moment was broken by the sounds of protest coming from outside the door and the hurried and unannounced entrance of a figure in a state of considerable agitation. It was Tom Makepeace. His agitation seemed only to grow as he caught the wake of the intimate moment between his leader and his former lover. He had been about to offer a cursory apology for bursting in but decided to dispense with any of the tattered formalities, glaring first at Claire before turning on the Prime Minister.

'Francis, that performance was little short of a disgrace. An insult to our European partners. In one afternoon you've managed to unravel everything I've achieved in my time as Foreign Secretary. And all for the sake of gratuitous parliamentary fisticuffs.'

'You've got to learn, Tom, that it's not all Queensberry Rules in Europe. Occasionally you need a bit of pepper on the gloves.'

'You can't go screwing around with foreign policy without having the courtesy to consult me first, I won't have it. How can you expect me to deal in good faith with my counterparts after that?' He tossed back the forelock that had fallen across his brow, trying to recompose his temper. 'Ah, good point. I don't.'

Claire took a step back. She knew what was coming and felt as if she were intruding. She experienced a strong twinge of embarrassment, too. Was it because Makepeace had until a few days previously been her lover, or because she was as yet unaccustomed to the rituals of humiliation? His gaze of suspicion followed her.

'Tom, you are one of my most capable and pious of Ministers, a great source of strength. Potentially. You are also the Government's most passionate Euro-enthusiast, a source of considerable confusion. Potentially. So – I'm moving you to Environment, where your piousness can find its reward and your enthusiasm can inflict less harm.'

The blow had been landed but the effect was not instantaneous. By degrees the forelock tumbled forward once more and his expression turned to confusion. Stiffly, his head began to shake from side to side as though trying to shake itself free from sudden confusion and disbelief.

'Think about it, Tom. You're a man of great administrative ability and considerable social conscience in a Government believed by most to be utterly heartless. That must cause you as much distress as it does me. So where better to display your personal credentials and the Government's best intentions than in the field of Environment? Good for you, good for us all.' The head was still shaking. 'I'll not accept.' 'It is not a matter for debate.' 'Environment or Out?' 'If that's the way you want to put it.'

Makepeace drew a deep breath, struggling for composure which, after a few moments, he found. 'Then I resign.'

Claire looked afresh at him; God, he really meant it. He wouldn't compromise. He was wrong, but she found herself appreciating more than ever that streak of stubbornness, both noble and naive, which was the most endearing and aggravating feature of Tom Makepeace. Urquhart, however, seemed less impressed. His euphoria had gone, to be replaced by unadorned exasperation.

'Tom, you can't resign! For God's sake stop being so petulant and look at what it means. It won't be so very long before I decide to retire and the party starts looking for a new leader. My guess is they'll go for a change of style, too. Someone with a little less stick and a bit more sugar than me. Someone who has a different bias to his politics, just for the joy of a change. Sounds like a pretty good description of Tom Makepeace. Environment is a great opportunity for you – grab it with both hands!' He allowed the thought to take root for a moment. 'What the party won't do, Tom, is to hand over its destiny to someone who's spent the last couple of years sulking on the backbenches.'

Makepeace was wound tight as a piano wire, feet spread apart for support, his arms knotted lest his hands betray the trembling emotions inside, his features set rigid as he struggled for control. Slowly, at the very edges of his mouth, Claire noticed the traces of a wistful smile beginning to appear, the picture of a man saying farewell to something of great importance to himself. But what? Position? Or principle? 'Francis, your logic is almost impeccable. It has only one small fault.' 'And what is that?'

'You underestimate how much I have come to dislike you.' And with that he was gone. The silence he left behind grew oppressive. 'I suppose that meant No' Urquhart muttered at last. 'Shall I go after him?'

'No. I'll not beg.' Nor would he forgive. 'And it was threatening to be such a pleasant day.' It might, perhaps, have made a difference if Makepeace had been allowed a few quiet moments for thought and reflection, an opportunity to set practicality alongside his sense of wounded pride in order to discover which would finish the day stronger. But the wind of fate blows capricious in Westminster, and it was not to be. The corridor from the Prime Minister's House of Commons office emerges directly beside the stairwell leading down from the press gallery. In his careless anger Makepeace all but bowled over Dicky Withers as the pressman emerged from the stairs.

'Arrest this ruffian, Sergeant!' Withers demanded of the policeman who guarded this sensitive section of palace corridor.

'Not likely, Dicky. I've just put five quid on him becoming the next Gaffer.'

'A pity,' Makepeace responded as he dusted down the pressman in apology. 'You'd have got much better odds in the morning.'

Withers eyed his assailant carefully, noting the unusually discomfited expression. 'That's one hell of a hurry, Tom. Tell me, are you flying or fleeing?' 'Does it make a difference?'

'Sure. When a Foreign Secretary is caught charging around like that it must be either a woman or a war. Which is it? You know you can confide in me. I'll only tell about a million people.' Makepeace finished straightening the carnation at the pressman's lapel. Everything in its order. 'Get the boys together for me, Dicky. Lobby Room in fifteen minutes. Then we can tell the whole bloody world. Can't give you an exclusive, but you'll get the first interview afterwards.' 'Sounds like war.' 'It is.'