To the Lions

by Holly Watt

They contemplated him for a moment.

  Alexander Kingsley had followed the classic career path for an aspirant politician. Oxford – PPE, of course – and then a few years as a special adviser. After that, he had dropped out of politics, for a few years in the business world, so he could talk about real jobs and real people and real life.

  Eton was the only blot on his copybook.

  Kingsley had married smart; the pretty daughter of some minor aristocrat. Lucinda, Casey remembered. Sharper than she looked, in her Zara dresses and Jimmy Choo shoes. Lucinda worked for a clever pottery company, in the nexus of floral and knowing. The Kingsleys had two children, a boy and a girl: the perfect family. His mates call him Alex, his spokeswoman said again and again.

  In his early thirties, Kingsley had run first in a cannon-fodder seat somewhere in the north. That was the traditional baptism of fire. Five years later, he slipped into an ultra-safe seat deep in the Home Counties. Only four years into his parliamentary career, and already he was being talked about as a future leader. Casey had heard him on the Today programme, often, defusing the presenter like an IED.

  Kingsley was fast with a quote, every time. So the political editors came back to him, again and again. In Parliament, he sat first on a security select committee, an effective platform for a bright young MP. Soon he was a very junior minister. Then he joined the small team charged with coaching the Prime Minister before the weekly questions, when the party leader was hurled into the bear pit.

  The Prime Minister was struggling more and more these days, and suddenly Kingsley was being whispered about for the leadership. Not much experience, sure, but a breath of fresh air. A break from the past. Did you see him on that trip to India, with the elephant? The party needs someone like that.

  There had never been any gossip about Kingsley, Casey thought. No nannies or secretaries or pretty young aides. None of the bear traps laid for hopeful MPs. Occasionally, he was seen at the most exclusive members’ clubs, or the newest restaurants, with the longest waiting lists. But that just burnished his appeal, made older MPs look ever more antiquated. Lucinda was often on Kingsley’s arm, and always smiling.

  Sitting in the conference room, Casey dropped her head in her hands. ‘How do we get to Kingsley?’

  ‘Archie.’ Dash got the political editor on the line, put him on speakerphone. ‘Where is Alexander Kingsley today?’

  ‘He’s appearing before the Home Affairs committee at eleven a.m.,’ said Archie. ‘They want to bollock him about immigration numbers or something. Not that there’s a whole lot he could do about it, since the Treasury cut all the funding for the border agency, but there we go.’

  They could all hear it in his voice: Archie liked the clever young minister.

  Archie would have spent a lot of time with Kingsley, over the years. First as a special adviser, when Archie was a junior reporter. Back then they would get drunk at party conference, bawl karaoke in some dive in Soho and recover at the football on Saturday. Because Kingsley had picked a team and read up about it. He might even have picked Arsenal, like Archie, for convenience.

  This is the price of a pint of milk, sir – wouldn’t do to be caught out. A loaf of bread, and your team’s score for last night.

  As Kingsley rose up the ranks, he would be getting more and more useful to the Post’s political editor, tapped right into the centre. It was the tightest of cliques, that Westminster bubble. Miranda had worked in the lobby briefly, and hadn’t liked it. You never knew whether your back was going to be scratched or stabbed.

  ‘Any idea where Kingsley’ll be going after that?’ Miranda snapped.

  ‘It’s Thursday,’ Archie pointed out. ‘He’ll be heading back to his constituency at some point. He’ll probably have a surgery or something tomorrow. I can check.’

  Surgeries, where MPs are forced to interact with an endless stream of their constituents, are probably the low point of their week. Many of them avoided them. Kingsley was reputed to be fairly assiduous. After the surgery, he and Lucinda would spend a weekend at their pretty, but understated, cottage in the constituency. The cottage had roses round the door and was bigger than it looked from the road.

  ‘Don’t check just yet,’ said Dash, hanging up.

  Casey was throwing Red Bull cans and coffee cups towards the wastepaper basket. She missed twice for every time she got one in. Miranda rolled her eyes.

  Over the desks, Dash could see the editor arriving in his office, nodding at Janet, picking up his magazines.

  Dash headed towards the editor’s office.

  ‘Morning, Dash.’ Salcombe had evidently decided to suspend hostilities.

  ‘I need you to organise lunch with Alexander Kingsley today.’ Dash went straight in.

  ‘Kingsley?’ Salcombe’s eyebrows rose. ‘I saw him a few weeks ago. I can’t arrange a lunch today, he’ll be booked up.’

  If the editor of a national newspaper needs the Prime Minister on the phone, it probably takes fifteen minutes to organise, at the outside. They drop round for kitchen suppers, godparent each other’s children, sunbathe together in Tuscany.

  ‘You can,’ said Dash, ‘and you will.’

  ‘I don’t have time for lunch today,’ said Salcombe.

  Dash came closer.

  ‘Get Kingsley to lunch today. One o’clock at Russet. Parliament Square.’

  ‘This is ludicrous.’

  ‘No. It’s not.’

  For a second, Dash thought that Salcombe would refuse.

  Then: ‘Fine. I’ll call Kingsley.’

  Dash walked into the conference room, looked at the clock on the wall.

  ‘We’ve got five hours,’ he said, ‘to crack this.’

  48

  Russet, almost next to the House of Commons, is where a political editor can guarantee himself an hour and a half of a cabinet minister’s time with delectable food as bait. Casey had worked there before.

  Now she hesitated by the bay trees just outside the entrance. The maître d’ hurried towards her.

  ‘The Editor likes to sit beside the window,’ Janet had insisted earlier. ‘He requires it. It’s important.’

  ‘Of course, madam,’ they agreed, in hushed tones.

  Casey looked across. The beautiful Georgian windows dominated the room, the view out over the cold stone grey of the Treasury.

  Casey smiled sweetly.

  ‘I’d love to sit beside the window,’ she said to the waiter. ‘The sun is so gorgeous at this time of year, don’t you think?’

  The waiter hesitated. There was already a figure at the table for two beside the window. Next to the other window was a large round table for six, the only table for six in the room. Dash had reserved that table and would cancel in exactly five minutes.

  ‘I’m so sorry, madam,’ said the waiter. ‘Would the one along from that gentleman be suitable?’

  ‘Perfectly,’ she said.

  She smiled around her as she sat down on the brown leather banquette, straightened her black dress. Alexander Kingsley, sitting next to the window, smiled back; politicians are charming to anyone who might, some day, vote for them.

  Casey looked around the room, and fiddled with her pearls. In one corner, the Sun’s political editor was bending the ear of the shadow chancellor; barely letting him get a word in edgeways over the crab cakes. In another, the Sunday Times’s political editor was coquetting with a pollster.

  Casey turned away; they both knew her slightly.

  Kingsley’s phone bleeped. ‘Sorry, running fifteen minutes late,’ breezed Salcombe.

  Kingsley folded his arms, and scowled on to Great George Street.

  A moment later, the waiter rushed over to Casey’s table with a bottle of champagne.

  ‘Mr Lough sends his apologies, madam, but he will be a few minutes late.’

  ‘Oh, that is simply too irritating,’ Casey frowned. ‘He is utterly hopeless.’

  She sighed, as the waiter poured a glass of champagne. Kingsley smiled back at he
r.

  ‘Do have one too.’ She smiled at Kingsley. ‘Please. He’ll be hours now, and if I drink this bottle all by myself, it’ll be a catastrophe.’

  He hesitated only for a second.

  ‘I don’t normally drink at lunch,’ he said. ‘But why not?’

  They chatted about nothing much, at first. So irritating how some people just don’t care about being on time. I can’t bear it. It’s so rude, isn’t? Isn’t that fireplace just beautiful? I love it here. It’s very convenient. The turbot is absolute heaven.

  Kingsley’s phone bleeped again. Another fifteen minutes’ delay.

  ‘It’s just too bad,’ he said. ‘I’ve got so much to be getting on with.’

  ‘Have another glass of champagne,’ Casey suggested helpfully.

  They chatted on. Casey was getting a sense of Kingsley, now.

  Who are you?

  Tell me who you are.

  For a while, she moaned about the elusive Mr Lough. He’s a bit wild, but I think he will settle down, don’t you? I mean, boys do, don’t they?

  Another glass of champagne.

  ‘Of course he will.’ Kingsley was genial.

  ‘And who are you waiting for?’ Casey asked.

  ‘Andrew Salcombe,’ Kingsley namedropped. ‘You know, the Editor of the Post.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Casey. ‘And I know that I recognise you from somewhere. I am just completely hopeless with names.’

  ‘Alexander Kingsley,’ he said. ‘I’m the MP for Throwleigh South.’

  Time to attack.

  ‘Of course,’ said Casey, then dropped her voice slightly. ‘You know Josh Charlton.’

  Kingsley went still. ‘Josh?’

  ‘Out in Libya,’ Casey said. ‘In Salama.’

  His face registered no emotion. Casey’s eyes never left his. He glanced away.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Kingsley, but there was a quiver somewhere.

  ‘You went out to Salama.’ Casey had dropped the charm now, like shedding a coat. ‘You went shooting out there.’

  He hadn’t moved. It would look as if they were having a cordial chat, in the midst of the polite Georgian beauty.

  ‘You’re talking nonsense,’ said Kingsley. ‘I don’t mean to be rude, but . . .’

  ‘I know that you went out to Salama.’ Casey was going for the kill.

  ‘If you’re trying to blackmail me somehow,’ said Kingsley. ‘It isn’t going to work.’

  The MP’s eyes flickered to the political editor of the Sun, the political editor of the Sunday Times. He wouldn’t storm out, they had guessed beforehand. Those two political editors, apex predators, would smell blood in the water. They had thought about summoning Archie there too, to add to the crowd. Kingsley would do almost anything to avoid a scene in Russet.

  He wouldn’t know who she was, or what she knew.

  ‘You see, we have the dates of your trip,’ said Casey, barely changing her tone. ‘To Tunisia. I spoke to Paul Heyworth this morning. He remembered that you’d been on one of those parliamentary fact-finding trips not long after you’d joined Parliament. He said it was a funny thing, but you’d taken off on your own afterwards. You didn’t get the flight back from Tunis. He thought it was especially odd, because the MPs were all booked in first class. I gather you said you were going to meet your wife over in Morocco, for a romantic weekend down in Essaouira. Escape the kids, you said. First time in ages. Heyworth remembered it very clearly.’

  ‘He must have been confused,’ said Kingsley, a shade too swiftly.

  ‘I’m not sure the MP for Murchington gets confused that easily,’ said Casey, with cobra eyes. ‘Heyworth keeps meticulous diaries, you know. Very detailed. I think he plans to retire on them quite soon.’

  ‘I’ll talk to him,’ said Kingsley. He was sweating now.

  ‘So after that chat,’ Casey went on, ‘our lovely fashion editor, Cressida, rang up your wife. They’ve talked lots over the years, haven’t they? Lucinda’s always so helpful with the press, isn’t she? She really understands the value of publicity.’

  And now he knew she was from the Post, and she saw the jaw push forward.

  ‘I don’t see why you would approach my wife.’ Kingsley tried to sound outraged. ‘How dare you?’

  ‘Cressida said she was doing a Morocco-themed piece,’ said Casey. ‘Asking stylish celebrities about their memories of Morocco. You know the sort of thing. Lucinda said she’d love to, simply love to, but she’d never been to Morocco.’

  ‘She must have forgotten,’ said Kingsley. ‘Or maybe she just didn’t want to talk about it. She’s entitled to her privacy.’

  ‘Cressida really pushed her on it,’ said Casey. ‘Said Lucinda’s own PR had suggested it. Said she’d mentioned something about a weekend down in Essaouira three years ago. A romantic break. But Lucinda really didn’t know what she was talking about. Said that you’d talked about going but never quite got round to it. And, you know, sometimes you can just tell when someone is telling the truth. She really didn’t know.’

  ‘She’s been very busy recently. It’s harassment.’

  ‘She was busy herself that weekend you were abroad, it turned out. But not with you. We know that she wasn’t in Morocco that weekend.’

  It had taken hours to locate her, that weekend. Toby had watched an entire tennis match on slow motion, freezing it at every wide shot of the crowd. Not there. Then they had widened out to her friends, all of them. And finally, there she was, at the races, smiling, betting slip in hand.

  ‘Must have been a mistake.’

  ‘We can prove it,’ Casey shrugged. ‘And anyway, do you think all those people will forget Lucinda was there that day? And do you think they’ll lie for you, when they know the truth? And your passport, that will have a stamp.’

  ‘I lost my passport a few months ago.’ Kingsley blocked the shot. ‘Annoying, but what can you do? My secretary organised a new one.’

  ‘And then, of course, there was the Bombardier.’ Casey would not be deflected. ‘Paul Heyworth’s secretary dug out the flight times, when you were supposed to fly back from Tunis. Two hours after that flight took off, we can see the Bombardier leaving Tunis for Djanet. And then, a few days later, it flew to Geneva. So, of course, that threw us. Why would you be flying to Geneva? Then we did some more research, and it so happens that you were attending a meeting at the UN that day.’

  ‘My travel arrangements are none of your goddamn business,’ Kingsley lashed out.

  ‘But aren’t you starting to wonder,’ Casey taunted, ‘how I know so much? Because who do you think is talking? And who do you think snapped?’

  His eyes stayed on her face.

  ‘Was it Josh?’ Casey sing-songed. ‘Was it Leo? Or was it that ruthless shit, Rory? And do they have photographs? And what did they say? Because I’ve been there, Mr Kingsley. I’ve driven down that avenue, and up into those hills. I’ve looked down at Salama, just like you. And I’ve watched those children play.’

  There was a silence.

  You see my outside, but you know my heart.

  ‘I’ll deny it,’ Kingsley said. ‘I’ll deny every single word. You can’t prove a thing.’

  ‘Don’t.’ Casey’s eyes were blazing. ‘Don’t you dare lie to me.’

  Kingsley fell silent; shattering under her eyes. He seemed to get smaller, just sitting there.

  The political editors chatted on in their corners. And a minute later, a pretty waitress came across.

  ‘Can I get you anything, madam? Or you, sir? While you’re waiting.’

  I am Malak.

  ‘Just the bill,’ Casey said crisply. ‘Just the bill.’

  49

  ‘He doesn’t’ – Dash paused the video – ‘actually confirm it.’

  Kingsley froze mid-grimace on the screen in Dash’s office.

  ‘Miranda would have nailed it,’ Casey grinned. ‘If she didn’t look like . . .’

  ‘Shut up.’ Miranda threw some Post
-it notes at her.

  ‘Let’s start publishing,’ decided Dash. ‘Get the Selby stuff out there. That’ll ramp up the pressure on Kingsley. I think this recording is enough, personally, but we’ll see.’ He stopped. ‘We could always shake down the wife; imply that her husband was in Marrakesh with someone else.’

  ‘Let’s run the Selby story now,’ said Miranda, ‘and then go to Kingsley’s party HQ first thing tomorrow morning. Their director of comms is quite sharp. If he thinks Kingsley’s involved in anything like this, he’ll hold his feet to the flames for us.’

  ‘And then,’ Casey said, ‘they’ll throw him under the bus.’

  ‘Put a reporter on Kingsley’s doorstep,’ Dash said to Ross. ‘In London and in Throwleigh. Bump up the pressure on him. Get the family jumpy.’

  ‘Right,’ said Ross.

  Casey looked back at the screen, at Kingsley frozen against the elegant backdrop of Russet.

  The videos are the worst thing about undercover journalism, Miranda had said to her once.

  Not just a crook, but a fool too. Walking into the ambush, with your idiocy immortalised. A twenty-first-century stocks, with clicks instead of eggs.

  Casey looked at Kingsley, trapped for ever in the pixels, and shuddered.

  They were gathered around the digital desk, the subs looking on impassively. Dash, the ringmaster, glanced at his watch.

  ‘Send it live.’

  The Post website changed abruptly, the banner headline taking up a third of the screen.

  ‘Human safari,’ it screamed.

  There was a ripple of applause around the newsroom.

  The video dominated the homepage, cut together with a map and white-on-black writing. Alice’s voice, calmly talking the viewer through the nightmare. Casey’s footage was wobbly, but the sound was clear.

  ‘You got her.’ Josh’s voice. ‘Clean kill.’

  ‘Holy bleep. Bleep.’

  The video ended with Oliver Selby’s face, grinning, proud. And Casey knew it was with her for ever.

  As she sat at her desk, she saw the other papers startle, focus, and steal.

  Within minutes, the story was exploding across every outlet, with even the Financial Times screaming: ‘Cormium shares in freefall after boss named in Africa scandal.’