The House

by Tom Watson

  Then he gets to his feet and heads for the filing cabinets. Collins. Papers could be filed under anything, but he’s going with his gut and guessing Collins is the best bet. He pulls open the first drawer of C. CA to CO. His fingers are sweating. There are five files at the back marked COLLINS, COLLINS MANUFACTURING, COLLINS ENGINEERING. What was the company called? Forward one. COLLINS COMPUTING. That’s it. It’s thick. How long has she been gone? He can measure her journey in his mind’s eye. Two flights of stairs, passing through the back corridor where the building IT department monitor their intranet for Russians and data activists, fighting back the incursions of anti-vaxxers who are searching for proof of a campaign to insert micro-chips into the population with the latest vaccine.

  He lifts the file out and shuts the drawer. Someone laughs. He looks up to see two of the men from the cocktail party pass by the open office door. He should look like he’s waiting. He grabs the file and places it by his coat, opens it. Sits with his back to the door. As he takes out his phone he feels a sick lurch of memory back to Owen’s room in the house and the list of marginals. Does he photograph every page? If only the fucking Secretary of State had clearer handwriting, he’d be able to see which notes were important at first glance. Sheets of Commons notepaper, thick stock and embossed with the crowned portcullis, are attached with bulldog clips to the submissions in the file. He hasn’t got time to try and read. He starts to take pictures of every note he can find along with the pages they are attached to.

  She must be on her way back by now. She just has to open the back door, look right and left. It’s not a big area, she’ll see immediately that his driver isn’t there. A thicker document; he catches the title in type, GATEWAY REPORT. Another note attached, slightly longer. The damn phone focuses on the floor as his hand shakes. He moves it back till the ink is crisp in the lens. Takes it, then lifts the camera higher to take in the whole page. Is it legible? Should he take more?

  The clunk and hum of the lift.

  He taps the papers back into shape and puts his phone in his pocket, takes the file back to the cabinet and opens the file drawer again. It sticks. He rattles it, pulls it out. Another laugh and he turns round. No one there. Just sound bouncing along from the increasingly merry sherry drinkers.

  Not between ENGINEERING and MANUFACTURING. In front of that. God, he can’t even remember his alphabet. There. You’d never know. He slides the drawer shut.

  ‘Minister?’

  He turns round. She is in the doorway. ‘He wasn’t there.’

  He lifts up his phone. ‘Yes, so sorry. Turns out he was in the café, just didn’t catch my call.’

  She’s still blocking the doorway. ‘Were you looking for something, Mr Bickford?’

  She did see. And he’s on thin ice. All she needs to do is mention this to the Secretary of State. Do they have CCTV in here? They could demand his phone. Should he lie? Should he brazen this out? Try the high-handed, looking-down-his-nose attitude and say ‘I have what I need’? No, she wouldn’t have this job if she was easy to intimidate. He just stares at her.

  She steps inside and round her desk, sitting down without looking at him.

  ‘I meant to say, Minister. I thought it was very brave of you to stand up for your friend Owen McKenna yesterday. Even though he’s not your friend anymore. It’s nice to see a man of principle.’

  ‘Thank you. Not everyone in the building would agree with you.’

  He moves away from the filing cabinet and reaches for his coat.

  ‘I’m sure they wouldn’t. But I thought how good it was, seeing someone do the right thing.’ She swipes her computer mouse from side to side and looks at the screen, then back at him. ‘Have a pleasant evening.’

  Phil picks up his coat and puts it on. ‘You too.’

  The sweat prickles under his collar.

  Chapter 50

  Friday 18 March 2022

  The buzzer on his front door wakes Owen just after midnight. The press pack has deserted him to haunt Georgina, so he ignores it at first, assuming it’s a drunk who has forgotten their keys, but it persists. After a while, struggling out of his half-sleep, he realises that someone is amusing themselves tapping out the Fibonacci sequence on the ringer for a minute then starting again. Not a drunk, then.

  He stumbles to the door and lifts the receiver. The little camera screen flutters into life and he finds himself looking into the face of a woman he doesn’t recognise.

  ‘I’m Sara Bickford,’ she says. ‘Thought it might be time we met.’

  He’s too sleep-addled to do anything other than buzz her in, then leaves the front door open as he stumbles back into his bedroom to get dressed.

  By the time he gets back the woman is in his flat, peering down his sink. He notices she’s opened the windows.

  ‘You’re pouring away Talisker?’ she says. ‘Are you insane?’

  ‘Greg Griffen left it for me.’

  She recoils. ‘Enough said. Got anything else to drink?’

  ‘There’s beer in the fridge.’

  ‘Thank fuck for that. Do you want one?’

  He shakes his head. ‘Too early for me, or too late. What are you doing here?’

  She opens the fridge door. ‘You mean what are we doing here. Say “hello”, honey.’

  ‘Hi, Owen.’

  Owen starts and stares at the phone on the table next to his chair. It’s on speaker. Sara closes the fridge door, opens the can and drinks, examines the label with approval and then sits down in the other armchair.

  ‘Should anyone want to see phone records,’ she says as she settles herself, ‘they’ll see Phil had a long, late-night conversation with his devoted wife. Very touching.’

  She points back at the counter. ‘I brought your files back, or rather I brought Jay’s files back. They were definitely copied from the central NHS data site. The long file names at the bottom of each page were a bit of a giveaway. I checked quietly with a health industry colleague. Just, you know … FYI.’

  ‘I see,’ Owen says and rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands, trying to wake up. ‘Thank you, that’s helpful.’

  ‘Darling, do you want to tell him the rest?’

  ‘Sara also has a thumb drive,’ Phil’s voice says out of the phone. Sara produces it from the pocket of her coat with a flourish.

  ‘This is like being on Charlie’s Angels,’ Owen says and Sara laughs into her beer. ‘What’s on it?’

  ‘A lightly smoking gun,’ Sara tells him and puts it next to the phone with a click. ‘Tell him, Phil.’

  ‘Sara and I read your notes about Greg and Maundrill Consulting. We thought if the Secretary of State had put a stop to the process of the government investing in Victor’s company, the most likely place to find evidence of that would be in the live files, where the civil service stores the red box submissions ministers have commented on.’

  ‘Seemed it would be a more discreet way of stopping things without too many questions being asked,’ Sara says.

  It made sense. ‘And?’ Owen asks.

  ‘We were right,’ Phil sighs deeply. ‘Though I wish it were all nonsense. That thumb drive has photographs of the notes he made on the gateway submission the Head of Procurement prepared for him, and the contracts of appointment they wanted to sign with Victor. It says, and I’m quoting here, “Useful. I have developed serious doubts however about this proposed solution to the data issues and will provide further details when I have the opportunity. For now, do not proceed on any front on this project.” It’s dated the day before you say the phone calls between the department and Victor stopped.’

  ‘That will lead to some awkward questions. How did you get it?’ Owen asks.

  Phil tells him, and Owen whistles softly. ‘Thank you. The professor is on-side, too. He’ll vouch for the tech. You got cover?’ Owen asks.

  Phil hesitates. ‘No, not much. I’m betting that if we do this right, they’ll be so busy trying to put out the fire, they won’t be looking for the g
uy who gave you the matches. Ideally, go to someone in the press who will know how to ask the right questions while shielding the specifics which could land me in jail. I’d appreciate that.’

  Owen is impressed. ‘OK. Are you doing this because of the marginals list, or because I looked after Liam?’

  ‘Bit of both maybe? Not to mention the fact it’s just wrong.’

  ‘Shall I punch Owen on the shoulder for you, honey?’ Sara says into the phone. ‘That’s the man version of a tearful embrace of reconciliation, isn’t it?’

  ‘Stop enjoying yourself so much, Sara,’ Phil says. Owen suppresses a smile.

  ‘Fine. But I did have some fun with the Register of Members’ Interests today,’ Sara goes on, more serious. ‘Or rather one of my researchers did. The current Secretary of State for Health, in the eighteen months since he took the job, has accrued a large second income through making very short public speeches. It’s quite clever. He hasn’t been paid huge sums by companies who buy and sell NHS data, but other Maundrill Consulting clients have paid a lot for his time. The Russians did something similar to smuggle cash out of the country. Works like this: Maundrill Consulting tells their clients who to pay and how much, and you can rest assured that some other person of note you want to influence is getting a similar amount of cash from a different Maundrill Consulting client. Makes the connections between favours and payments much harder to trace.’ She kicks off her shoes and curls her legs up on the armchair. ‘I don’t know why I say influence, I mean bribe. The person of note you want to bribe. Plausible deniability all round.’

  ‘And you are just giving this to me?’ Owen says at last.

  ‘Obviously,’ Sara replies. ‘My researcher’s notes are on the thumb drive.’

  ‘Why? What do you think you owe me, Phil, an election?’

  Owen hears Phil suck in his breath suddenly. ‘Like I said, Owen, because it’s just wrong. We don’t agree on much anymore, but we agree on that.’

  Owen gets up and goes to the sink, fills the kettle and switches it on. Sara leans over the handset. ‘It’s OK, honey, he hasn’t exploded. Just making tea.’

  ‘So we need someone who knows how to look after their sources. It’s got to be Charlotte, hasn’t it?’ he says as the kettle clicks off. ‘Christine is still in town. We’ll go and see her together.’

  ‘Do it,’ Phil says. ‘Tread carefully, Owen.’

  ‘I shall, and thanks, Phil.’

  Sara crushes her can and puts her shoes back on.

  ‘Right, I’ll hang up on you, Phil, and send for the car.’

  ‘Bye, Phil,’ Owen calls, then looks up from his tea. ‘You came in the ministerial car?’

  ‘I have my own car service, Owen,’ Sara says, an edge to her voice. ‘I’m the reason Phil can’t be corrupted by all that nasty cash.’

  Shit. ‘Sorry. I swear to God I am trying to get better.’

  She bows. ‘Good for you.’

  When Owen wakes up in the morning, the flat seems strangely empty. He wonders at first if he dreamed the whole thing, but he sees his mug in the sink, Sara’s can in the recycling, the file on the table and the thumb drive.

  He turns on the TV news and sets it to mute, then Radio 4. Georgina and reactions to her story echo around the room. He opens the window to let in some fresh air. Other snippets of trade deals and a new outbreak in Middlesbrough. But it’s mostly Georgie. He looks out onto the street. People still coming and going, a bus hissing past. People adapting.

  When he checks the phone after he’s showered himself into near consciousness and is finishing his first coffee, there is a message from Christine and another from Charlotte agreeing to meet. A coffee bar on The Cut near Waterloo in an hour. He packs the box of Elsie’s files and Sara’s thumb drive and orders an Uber.

  At the café he presents Phil’s evidence and Sara’s research, gives his account of Greg’s attempt to blackmail him, then leaves Christine to take Charlotte through the details. ‘I’ll report the blackmail attempt to the police this morning, then be in the Chamber this afternoon.’

  ‘This is quite the story, Owen,’ Charlotte says. ‘I’ll get a couple of researchers on it and we should be good to go to print Monday. You are sure the professor will back up the technical worth of the project?’

  ‘He will. And you’ll be careful how you use those photographs?’

  ‘My eyes only. It’s easy enough to suggest they might have come out of NHX or from a disgruntled civil servant. God knows there are enough of them about.’

  She taps her notebook. ‘So I have bribery, blackmail, suicide. Plenty there, but do people care about their data being sold in this way?’

  ‘They should,’ Owen says. ‘You have to make them care, Charlotte.’

  She lifts her hands. ‘Help me out.’

  He takes a second. ‘It’s all in Elsie’s notes, when you pay attention. Read the professor’s letter too. This government doesn’t want to pay for a National Health Service, not really. They’ve frightened as many people as they can into taking out private insurance, and are hoping that selling our data to insurance firms and pharmaceutical companies will refill the coffers. That’s what’s happening here. Patients are being treated as commodities, as assets to be bought and sold.’

  She nods. ‘OK. I can do something with that.’

  Chapter 51

  The interview with the police is brief and civil. Owen makes his way through the protestors and flag wavers in Parliament Square – no tractors today – then through the halls and into the Chamber itself for the debate about the urgent repairs needed on the parliamentary estate.

  He is in time to hear one of the members opposite quote Phil on the importance of parliament, how it has grown and changed as an institution over the centuries, and use it as a clarion call to avoid leaving this place, and allowing essential repairs to happen all around them. Another offers a litany of problems from the creaking sewers to the faulty electrics. Owen wonders if they remember the whole thing burned down in 1834. The building they are sitting in is a newcomer by London standards.

  Georgina slides in alongside him, close enough to talk.

  She speaks to him, while looking forward. In the moments they are caught on camera she will look like she is paying attention to the debate, while exchanging comments with an old friend.

  ‘I hoped I’d catch the hero of the hour here,’ she says. ‘From almost losing the whip to candidate for the front bench in seventy-two hours. I’m impressed.’

  Candidate for the front bench? Interesting.

  ‘No one was interested in me once the Kieron story broke.’

  ‘So glad the wreckage of my family could help.’

  ‘Georgina, I didn’t mean … ’

  ‘I know – your thoughts are with me at this difficult time. I read your statement. And now I hear we’re topping it all off with a government scandal which could bring down a government minister. The Times will go to print on Monday and I’m going to lead the charge from the front benches. They really aren’t wrong when they say a week is a long time in politics, are they?’

  ‘Charlotte called you?’

  ‘Obviously. We’re close.’

  That wry tone, with just an edge to it. He looks at her sideways, his beautiful, talented friend. He bends sideways towards her, still watching the honourable member talk about the danger of crumbling stonework. He has to ask her. That’s what this room is for, isn’t it? To ask questions.

  ‘Georgie, tell me you didn’t know. Please. Convince me that you didn’t understand what Kieron had done. I want to believe you weren’t complicit in what he did. I don’t want to think you helped cover up his crimes, and in exchange he supported your political career. Tell me you had a marriage, not a devil’s bargain.’

  ‘Of course I had no idea. I loved him and I was taken in completely.’ Her voice is flat. It’s like she’s not even trying.

  His heart sinks. ‘You’re cleverer than that, Georgina,’ Owen says. ‘You always ha
ve been smarter than the rest of us.’

  She nods slowly as if agreeing with the point being made on the floor of the House. ‘Did you know during the English Civil War they published woodcuts, like political cartoons, and the image they came up with to symbolise the utter horrific chaos of the time was a parliament of women? That was the most abhorrent thing they could imagine. It disgusted them! Is that it? Do women like me and Christine offend you? Have you met Phil’s wife, Sara? I have once or twice. She runs a hedge fund. Does that horrify you?’

  ‘Don’t talk bollocks, Georgie. We’re talking about you and Kieron and if you helped cover up his crimes in exchange for his political muscle. His support was critical for you! What were you willing to do for it?’ She doesn’t reply. ‘But I admit seeing you gain more power is beginning to frighten me. I have always supported women in parliament.’

  She smiles, pats his arm as if he’s just said something funny. ‘As long as it didn’t cost you anything. You used to know Coogan; no one ever spent more than ten minutes with him without him saying something foul about women. Did you ever challenge him? Did you ever, just you two men together, tell him not to talk about his colleagues as if they were pieces of meat? Or was that inconvenient? Didn’t you and Christine have a massive fight when you finally worked out she wanted to stand for parliament? She came to me in tears, and you know how upset she must have been to do that. Your blank incomprehension. Then your argument that it would be impossible for you both to be MPs and have a successful marriage. And your assumption that it should be you who got priority.’

  There’s a cold hard truth in that.

  Now one of the Labour MPs is speaking in support of the idea of moving parliament out of the building. It will be more efficient and be a greater saving in the end. A lone voice, crying in the wilderness. In this contracted, sickened economy that no one is going to support presenting the taxpayer with the butcher’s bill in one bite. Better to spend five billion, quietly over the decade, than four and face the truth all at once.