“Okay, put something down on paper,” said the Prime Minister. “Remembering we don’t have much time. About three months, I think you said, Gerry?”
Farthing nodded. “That’s what they tell me it’ll take to get STV up and running. It also happens to be the magic hundred days, during which our masters, the people, are supposed to suspend judgement and allow us our heads. We’re aiming to change the way this country is run, so we’d better get a move on before anyone notices.”
Damian nodded, then turned to his new Home Secretary: “Anything we can do for you, Bessie?”
She shook her head. “Can’t think of anything beyond trying to make sure no one tries to knock you off your perch. I’ll talk to Jacob Wells, who’s the expert.”
“That’s it then.” The prime Minister looked around at his team. “Any other business?”
A collective shaking of heads.
As an afterthought, Adam said: “I suppose we’ve all seen today’s Daily Mail?”
“You mean their ‘Out of Africa’ story?” asked Damian.
Tichbold nodded. “They’ve dug up a so-called expert, who’s tipping a new plague from the ‘Out of Africa’ plane crash; due to bodies lying festering for days under the wreckage.”
“Load of codswallop,” said Bessie. “You know what the press is like – especially the Mail. Lives by lurid headlines, which have been harder to come by in recent days. It’s just a wheeze to boost their circulation.”
“You’re probably right,” said the Prime Minister. “But we don’t want the Mail spreading panic. If the story becomes too toxic, can I rely on you, Bessie, to dampen the fires?”
The Home Secretary nodded and they left it at that. Thought no more about it.
37
MARCH 27th.
The Mail’s ‘Out of Africa’ scare was soon submerged by the torrent of requests and advice which next morning descended on the new Prime Minister. Although MPs lay down the country’s policies, the actual job of running UK plc falls to a diverse band unelected organisations, the main ones being the police, armed forces and civil service.
The police and armed forces are happy enough to go away and do their own thing. Indeed, interference from on high tends to be a damned nuisance. The civil service is a different matter. Politicians and mandarins are joined at the hip, running the country in tandem, the biggest difference being that the unelected lot tend to be a good deal brighter than their political masters. If there’s a major cock-up, the mandarin will usually manage to slide away with a knighthood and fat pension, whereas the politician finds his face on every front page and out of a job.
Although a strange alliance, this has been the British way from time immemorial and it was unprecedented for the mandarins to have been left out in the cold for nearly two weeks. Even as the drama was unfolding and no one knew what was happening, Jacob Wells had been bemoaning the fact that he had ‘no one to report to’. During the following days the situation had stabilised but barely improved. Although Adam Tichbold had quickly been voted in as the new PM, he’d had his hands full sorting out the mess and trying to work out what to do next. The fact that the old PM’s widow was prostrate with grief and difficult to prise out of Number Ten hadn’t helped. Now at last the government appeared to have a reasonably permanent head. The pressure was on to get back to ‘business as usual’.
Which was why Prime Minister Damian White found himself facing Cabinet Secretary Sir Justin Hopgood at the unusually early hour of 9 am. Pinstripes and bowler hats are no longer de rigueur for Civil Servants and Sir Justin favoured casual more than most. It being early and the meeting informal, he was wearing grey slacks, white shirt, blue pullover and blue tie. He reckoned that a subliminal way to oil the wheels of government was to dress in the appropriate colour: blue for Tories, red with Labour.
Sir Justin was a well built man in his early fifties, with blue eyes and a ruddy face that was almost exactly spherical; the sort fellow one might take for a farmer. Any impression of innocence would be misplaced, because no one reaches the pinnacle of the civil service without being formidably clever. Sir Justin’s record included a Double First at Oxford and Fellowship of All Souls. He could digest and regurgitate at will more abstruse facts than most computers. Some people said that common sense did not match his other attributes, but such comments were probably mere jealousy.
With coffee dispensed, Damian led the way to his new- found anteroom, sat down and said: “I gather you’re impatient to get things moving again.”
The Cabinet Secretary took a sip of coffee and replied: “Number Ten has been like the Marie Celeste.” His voice was unexpectedly high, almost soprano.
“Never known anything like it,” he continued. “The place is usually a hive of activity. People coming and going; lots of action. Then suddenly…. Nothing. The ship of state wallowing in a storm with no one on board.”
“Just the grieving widow, sobbing in a corner.”
“She didn’t help. But Tichbold was quickly appointed and I saw him just twice. Briefly, at that.”
“He had a lot on his plate. We all did.”
“I understand your difficulties. But hopefully all that’s behind us. Can we now expect a return to normality?”
Damian gave it a moment’s thought. Replied: “No, I don’t think you can. There won’t be ‘normality’, as you put it, until we again have a full parliament. As you know, that won’t be for a few weeks. Until then, you’ll have to put up with the abnormal.”
“Won’t you even consider appointing people to some of the empty posts? Just pro tem?”
“You mean a new Chancellor?”
“No, I fancy the Treasury can keep things going quite nicely on its own for a while. I was thinking more of a Chief of Staff. We really could do with a link man here at Number Ten.”
“Originally Tony Blair’s idea, I believe,” said Damian. “Governments before that seemed to have done well enough without a Chief of Staff.”
“That was then. The world has changed. Take it from me, Number Ten needs a gatekeeper.”
“If you insist, I expect Chloe….Miss Pettigrew could fill that gap.”
“Pettigrew….!” The Cabinet Secretary’s face became even ruddier. He wasn’t often lost for words. Recovering, he said: “Chief of Staff is usually a political appointment. From amongst the PM’s closest supporters.”
“Miss Pettigrew is a very close supporter. Not politically, perhaps. In fact, I’ve yet to discover what her politics are. If any.”
“Then hardly suitable for the post. Chief of Staff is very political.”
“This must be rather confusing for you, Sir Justin, but Number Ten is now almost non-political – at least in the party sense. I’m a Conservative, but our flagship policy of electoral reform is being spearheaded by the Labour leader. Don’t worry: you’ll have the old familiar world back in a few weeks. Won’t have to put up with us for long.”
“So you look upon yourself as the Night Watchman?”
A reference to cricket always seems to defuse an awkward situation; the game where one can stand at silly-mid-on, bowl maidens over and collect a pair of spectacles by scoring two ducks. For the uninitiated, a Night Watchman describes a tailender, put in towards the end of a days’ play ahead of his usual position, so as not having to expose a better batsman. Is that also gibberish? Never mind.
Damian continued in similar vein: “An imperfect analogy, Sir Justin. In cricket they usually make an effort to dismiss tailenders, but I reckon I’m fireproof. At least until after the election. That’s because no one wants my job. It’s a political mix of arsenic, strychnine and cyanide: a poisoned chalice. Bessie Robotham and Gerry Farthing both claimed they were not PM material. Nonsense of course. Everyone wants the top job. Adam Tichbold’s excuse was he could not lead a government whose main policy he had always opposed. Fact is, all my colleagues have calculated that their careers would be best served by having someone else take the flak for this apology of an administratio
n.”
“Probably go down in history as the ‘Small Parliament’. To set against the Short Parliament of three weeks in the spring of Sixteen Forty; and the Long Parliament which sat for twenty years after that. An interesting trio.” Sir Justin smiled to himself as more data went into the human hard drive behind those blue eyes.
“We’re more like a Small-Short Parliament,” said Damian. “But whatever you call us, I suspect they’ll soon bowl out the Night Watchman when normal play resumes. The big hitters will take over again and I’ll be on my way.”
“Maybe.” The Cabinet Secretary paused for another intake of coffee. “But in the meantime it would help if you could at least pretend you were in it for the longer term. Talk to the department heads. Organise Number Ten. You never know: even tailenders have been known to knock up a century.”
“You’re right, of course.” Damian realised he had been so preoccupied by the Leaning Tower and its aftermath that he had been in danger of neglecting government’s housekeeping chores.
“People appreciate a call from Number Ten,” added Sir Justin. “Improves morale; makes them feel wanted. But try not to mention ships when talking to Horrocks.”
“You mean Admiral Horrocks, the sailor?”
“That’s the man. Admiral Sir Harry Horrocks, Chief of Defence Staff. Recently taken over from General Silvers. Buggins turn for the navy to get the top Services job. Nice chap, Horrocks. Most capable. But has a chip on his shoulder. About ships.”
“Aren’t Admirals supposed to like ships?”
“Oh they do, they do. Trouble is they never have enough of them. Same with the Raff: never enough planes. And our army could scarcely fight a war against the Isle of Man. Usual story. New lot comes into Number Ten, full of bright ideas, wouldn’t hurt a fly. Next thing you know, we’re off to war….. You’re not planning a war, by any chance?”
Damian shook his head.
“Just as well. Take my advice: don’t. We can’t. We’ve virtually disarmed this country to pay for the NHS, railways and other worthy causes. Horrocks says that if Norway felt like a repeat of Seven Ninety Three we’d be unable to stop them.”
“Seven Ninety Three?”
“Viking raid on Lindisfarne. Monks slaughtered. Start of a pretty beastly time. Horrocks says we’d have to let Norway keep Lindisfarne. Not enough naval power to stop them. He’s very touchy about.”
“Okay, I get the message. No war. I promise.”
“Excellent, Prime Minister.”
“But I am minded to let Miss Pettigrew run Number Ten.”
The Cabinet Secretary made no comment. Stomped out. Life is full of compromises. In exchange for no war he’d have to put up with Chloe in Downing Street.
38
MARCH 28th.
With legislation on track and the nation’s top dogs chatted up, Damian could now turn his attention to the rest of the world, which was eager to know more about Britain’s new young leader.
He spent nearly half an hour on the phone with President Galway of the USA. Likewise President Lacoste of France, who spoke good, if heavily accented English; and the German Chancellor, Heinz Freiwoller, whose English was near perfect.
To all of them Damian stressed he was just holding the fort until a permanent leader could be elected. In other words, it was nice talking to them, but not to expect any foreign affairs decisions. It would be way into the summer before Britain was again on the international map.
Chloe started learning how to navigate her way round Number Ten and getting to know the staff. Made a list of people she would like to invite round to dinner: might as well make use of her few weeks of glory.
Their honeymoon period lasted about 48 hours. Until Thursday’s Daily Mail arrived, with a big black headline: LONDON PLAGUE.
It was the same story as two days earlier, but more strident and detailed. It hinted at a replay of the Great Plague of the 1660s, the cause this time not rodents’ fleas, but a virus imported from the Africa, which had multiplied a billion times in the decaying corpses buried beneath the Palace of Westminster. A plague transported the modern way in an Airbus. The Mail’s star witness was Sir Marcus Merton, an ‘eminent epidemiologist’, who agreed that ‘a pandemic might be brewing.’
Damian and Chloe were into their toast and coffee, when the Mail’s bombshell landed on their breakfast table.
“Looks like we’ll have to barricade Number Ten and cancel your dinner parties,” said Damian, with a flippancy he didn’t really feel.
Chloe calmly took a sip of coffee. “Remember what Bessie said. The Mail loves lurid headlines. Tomorrow it will have found something else to entertain us: an alien invasion of Southend, perhaps; or transgender issues in our primary schools.”
“Thought you journalists were sticklers for the truth?”
“We are. But we also have to sell our stuff.”
Damian finished his toast. Then said: “I think we should find out what the Mail’s tame boffin has to say for himself. Sir Marcus….whatever?”
“Sir Marcus Merton. Did a series on BBC Four called ‘Invisible Bugs.’ Talked about bacilli and viruses as though they were friends and neighbours.”
“Neighbours from hell more like. Okay, let’s see if we can persuade Sir Marcus up here for a chat.”
Damian discovered that people did not need much ‘persuading’ if your address happened to be No.10 Downing Street. Sir Marcus, who worked in Cambridge, was ushered in just after lunch, an unlikely looking knight in a polo-neck shirt, hiking trousers and stout boots. He was an inch shorter than Damian, thus under medium height, slightly built with dark brown wavy hair and looked about twenty five, although Chloe’s research had put him at forty four.
Number Ten has around 100 rooms to choose from, many rather large, but Damian was able to find one that was less intimidating, almost cosy. Sir Marcus had said ‘yes’ both to coffee and Chloe’s presence; he didn’t object to their talk being recorded as long as it was only for background: “on the record, off the record”, as he put it.
“You seem to have stirred something of a hornets’ nest,” began Damian, when they had settled.
“The Daily Mail, not me,” he said in a lilting voice that came from the valleys of Wales.
“No plague, then?”
“Who knows? I never make precise predictions. But the signs do suggest we could be in for a pandemic.”
“So the Mail may be right?”
“It may be.”
Damian took breath. This slippery scientist was beginning to…. yes, bug him was the appropriate expression. Trying for some clarity, he said: “A respected newspaper wouldn’t be scaring the living daylights out of people without some reason.”
Sir Marcus took a sip of coffee, put his cup down, said: “The Mail, like all the media, has been having a ball with the Leaning Tower of London. Circulation up, everyone happy. But that cash stream is drying up, so they’re looking for something dramatic to replace it. When, lo and behold, they discover flu cases have risen sharply. With London attracting more than its fair share. A spike in flu deaths….. bodies under the Leaning Tower. Put two and two together and…. well, unfortunately for them that figure won’t be four.”
“There’s no connection between flu and the Westminster disaster?”
“None. Pictures of such events always show rescuers wearing masks and it’s assumed this is to ward off infection from the bodies. In fact it’s because of the stink; the smell of decomposition. The safest place to be in a pandemic is surrounded by corpses. It’s contact with the living that can kill you.”
“Why has the Mail gone out on a limb if it’s all nonsense?”
“Because it’s not all nonsense. Apparently they’d written the story and were ready to go to print when they decided to check with expert opinion. Yours truly. They asked if there were signs of a possible influenza epidemic and I replied in the affirmative. Said it looked like we might be in for a big one. They didn’t mention any Leaning Tower connection.”
>
“So eggs on Mail faces?”
Sir Marcus shook his head. “Not really. They have a column in an inside page for ‘Corrections and Clarifications’, where banner headline blunders can be amended in the tiniest possible type. Happens all the time. Anyway, the paper is correct in its main argument: We do seem to be in for a pretty bad bout of flu.”
“If not Leaning Tower corpses, where’s the virus coming from?”
Sir Marcus shrugged. “We always have our home-grown variety, usually worst in winter. But on top of that millions of people are always on the move. From starving Africa, the war-torn Middle East, everywhere. Some will-of-the-wisp infection is always ready to ambush us. We’ve become pretty good at tracking and fighting these enemies, but the battle is never over. Our worst defeat was the so-called Spanish flu of nineteen eighteen, which killed over fifty million people: more than all the guns of World War one put together.”
“That was before antibiotics,” said Chloe. “Now we have proper medical defences.”
“Maybe,” said the scientist. “Except we’ve thrown these defences around like confetti – to fatten livestock, cure every petty pain. Result is many of these life savers no longer work terribly well. The flu virus is a clever little bugger, ready to disguise himself with new mutations. If he manages a really effective fancy dress which hides a potent armoury, he could kill a lot of us before we unmask him.”
“So we have a problem?” asked Damian.
Again Sir Marcus shrugged, his favourite silent reply. “I can only say the potential is there for something pretty nasty.”
“It seems I’m temporarily in charge of this country,” said Damian. “What do you advise?”
“Damp down any panic that may appear. Which won’t be easy when even a single death can produce the most extreme reactions. Remember Princess Di? Just imagine what could happen if large numbers of people start dying. The country will be knee-deep in floral wreathes; the sound of wailing deafening; roads turned into rivers by the tears of grief. Forget the British stiff upper lip; we now can’t stop emoting.”
NIGHT WATCHMAN Page 13
