“Home from home,” Elpída whispered, for whom the mountains had always been a place of adventure and refuge.
“And from here it’s a straight drive down to Akrotiri. If necessary,” Panayotis added, practical as ever.
Nicolaou remained silent, winding down the window and allowing the sweet resin air to flood in and revive his bruised soul. From beneath the wheels came the sound of pinecones being crushed. No flag was flying and there was no one in the guard hut, no welcoming flash of light or howl of dogs, but no one had known they were coming. The familiar green roofs—all corrugated iron, as was the fashion in the Troodos, to deal with the snow—flashed past as though in an old film, and behind the low wall of the vegetable garden the tomato plants were flourishing, waving gentle welcome in the breeze. The car circled slowly around the drive and approached the front of the Lodge. The moon, so angry above the skies of Nicosia, here in the mountains was the color of ripe melon and surrounded by a million shy stars. It gave greeting, dusting the front of the house and lighting their path to the green double door. Everything was as it should be.
“It’s open,” Elpída muttered in relief as she tried the handle.
“Let me, miss,” Panayotis insisted, and led the way into the dark hallway. He was fumbling for the light switch when he noticed a chink of light coming from under one of the doorways leading off the hall. Some fool of a maintenance engineer, leaving doors open and lights…
They entered the sitting room and looked around in numb amazement. It was busy with armed men, all standing, and pointing guns in their direction. Only two people were seated.
In one corner, bound to his chair and with a mouth taped beneath glassy, exhausted eyes, sat the British High Commissioner.
And by the fireplace directly in front of them, casually sucking at a small cigar, his lips twisted in a smile of greeting, sat Theophilos.
“Kopiáste.”
“Sit down and join us.”
***
“Little wonder we couldn’t find your lair.”
Theophilos raised a tumbler of Remy in salutation of the compliment. “You didn’t think to look in your own backyard, let alone your bedroom. Nor will anyone else. I have it all here—communications, security, food. Now, by the hand of God, even you.”
Nicolaou tested the bonds that tied him, like the High Commissioner and the other hostages, to a chair. It was, as he knew it would be, a futile gesture. “How did you know I would come here?”
“He moves in a mysterious way.” His deep voice had a lilt, as though he were singing the Eucharist. Then he laughed, raucously. “And He gave you only three choices.” He counted them off on his fingers. “Death in the ruins of the Palace. A political burial with our British enemies in one of their bases, which is what I would have preferred—your memory would have been kicked like a manged dog from every coffeehouse in the country. Or, thirdly, deliverance unto me here. For that, too, I prepared; obviously you did not see my lookout at the edge of the compound.”
“There are many things I appear not to have seen,” Nicolaou remarked with evident distress. He looked across the room to where his daughter was bound. “Do you intend to harm us?”
“If need be.”
“In God’s name what do you hope to achieve?”
“Why, in God’s name, everything. First, we shall blockade the bases until the British are forced to pack their bags and go home. In the meantime, I fear, you will be too preoccupied to fly to London for the signing ceremony with the Turks. Too many pressing engagements here. Such as signing a decree nationalizing all British assets in Cyprus. Then, I suggest, you are likely to find yourself too exhausted to continue with the strains of office. You will hand over the presidency.”
“To you? Never.”
“No, my dear Nicolaou. I am but a humble cleric. It is possible in time that I might become Archbishop of Cyprus, but I have no wish to hold your office. So much strain and uncertainty, don’t you find?” He settled back in the simple rustic furniture scattered around the small room; Nicolaou noticed that beneath his cassock he was wearing yellow socks. “Anyway, I have too much other…business, yes, business, to concern myself with.”
“Then who?”
“Why, my brother Dimitri.”
Dimitri smiled, an awful jagged expression.
“Then he’d better get his teeth fixed unless he wants to give the babies nightmares,” Elpída spat.
The smile went out.
“You can’t possibly hope to get away with it,” Nicolaou challenged.
“But of course I shall. I have every advantage. The company of the British High Commissioner. The ear of the Cypriot President…”
“I’ll not lift a finger to help you.”
“And not only his ear,” Theophilos continued unruffled, “but also his arse. And, perhaps more importantly, his daughter’s arse.”
Dimitri had moved across to Elpída with the apparent threat of thumping the insolence out of her, but had changed tactics and instead was stroking her hair, moving his finger slowly down her neck to her shoulder. He was smiling again.
A strangled cry of protest racked through Nicolaou’s throat.
“I think I hold all the aces,” Theophilos said, without a trace of compassion.
Thirty-Four
A manifesto is like a well-cut suit. Its function is to hide a politician’s nakedness.
Every step of his arrival had been greeted with a loud cry of “Huzzah!” from his troops. He had paraded before them, stiffening sinews, summoning up the blood. He could all but hear the impatient stamp of horse and the whisper of swords settling into well-oiled scabbards. An army ready to do battle.
The business was done, the Electoral Reform Bill passed, the sun setting on another Parliament. On the morrow they marched. All lungs were filled with courage, all nostrils with the scent of death—of others hopefully, perhaps of their own.
Urquhart’s troops took their farewells, hearts gladdened by the propitious omens. Every hour seemed to bring news of further polls and press barons marching to their support, and already several of the enemy’s generals had made it known they would be heading not to the sound of battle but only to the Chiltern Hills and, if favor shone upon them, to the House of Lords. As for the hapless Clarence, Leader of the Forces of Opposition, the soothsayers were already gathering outside his tent, their speculations vivid as to whether he would fall on his sword or have to be hacked. If, indeed, he managed to survive the battle. Three weeks on Thursday.
And of Makepeace there had been no sound, and scarcely sight. A general without troops.
Time to let slip the dogs of war.
***
She began to shiver and yelp, a noise like a beaten dog, her cries filling the room and tumbling through the open window, but still he did not stop.
Makepeace had called her, said he needed her, and she had jumped. And so had he, as soon as she came through the door and dropped her bag, but it was not an exercise of adventure, more in the manner of a savage reprisal and experimentation in pain. When it was over, he buried his head in the pillow, ashamed of her silent tears.
“You’ve never been like that before,” she mourned. She thought she could taste blood in her mouth.
When eventually his face rose from the pillow, his eyes were also rimmed red. “I don’t expect you to forgive me. I’ve never done anything like that before. I feel such a bloody fool. Sorry.”
“You ought to be.”
For a while she plotted retribution, thought she might hit him, take a bread knife and split him in two, but their relationship was more than sex, more even than love. Somehow she sensed that he was the victim. Instead of rushing for the kitchen she stared at the confusion in his eyes. “Rough day?”
“The bloodiest. Ever. Like I want to destroy the last thing that’s important to me. Before, like everyt
hing else I cherish, it turns and destroys me.”
She raised herself on an elbow, ready to listen. It was the moment to reach for a cigarette.
“It was the final Question Time. I arrived early but the bench was already crowded. They’d deliberately squeezed up to leave no room for me. So I shoved myself in, right at the end, all elbows and shoulders and nudging. Like a prep school bus trip. Then Marjory appeared—you know, the one who looks like a moulting orange squirrel and throws up barricades before breakfast? She just stood there, waiting to get past. So I…moved. Got up to let her past. Then they simply pushed again. Pushed me right out. They were all laughing, mocking me.” He cringed with the humiliation—“No room for me on either side of the House. I had to sit on the bloody floor.”
Slowly she began to gurgle with mirth.
“You too?” His eyes flared in accusation but already the truth was beginning to dawn. “It was so bloody childish.” An expression of self-ridicule trickled from between reluctant lips. “And so very effective.” He had the grace to look embarrassed.
Her lips brushed at the creases.
“But there was more. The frustration of knowing there was nothing I could do or say. Urquhart stood there accepting the plaudits of his acolytes and the rest of us were left like a crowd at a coronation.”
“Didn’t you try to say anything about Cyprus?”
“And give him the chance to play his Churchill impersonations? Didn’t you hear what he said in his speech last night? ‘Wherever an Englishman stands, there we shall stand also. Wherever an Englishman falls, there we shall be to raise him up…’” His fingers began to twist at the loose ends of her hair. “I’m facing the most important battle of my life and I don’t have a single ally. Except for you. Even Annita can’t look me in the eye.”
The rage was gone; the brutal man had become no more than a little boy lost.
“There were so many who promised to walk with me. Now not one of them seems able to find their feet. All I have is the hope that I might be able to hold on to my own seat. Otherwise…” He deflated into his pillow.
“There are plenty of people who will walk with you, ordinary people outside of Westminster. You’re not alone.”
“Truly?”
“You know it’s true.”
“But I’ve no time. No party. No friends. No issue anymore. Urquhart’s like some malevolent magician, he’s made them all vanish.”
“Go over Urquhart’s head. Stand up for fair play. Give people an excuse to march with you.”
“Without a political machine it’d be a damn long march.”
“That’s a great idea.”
“What is?”
“A Long March. Instead of burying yourself in your constituency, take your cause to the people in the country. Walk with them. Talk with them. Show the world your strength.”
He sat up. “What would be the point?”
“It’s a means of showing how much support you have. A way to become a figure of real power and authority after the election, even if you don’t yet have a party and a hundred parliamentary seats. Be a voice for all those who feel disillusioned and left out of the present system. A one-man revolution.”
He curled up his legs, placing his chin on his knees while he considered. “Great media possibilities. A march from—where, Manchester to London via Birmingham?—the country’s three greatest cities with speaking stops and interviews on the way.”
“Surrounded by supporters, real people, not ancient party hacks. Something fresh, a total contrast to all the other campaigns.”
“Best way of beating the Government machine in my own constituency, by showing national support.” He was beginning to bounce on the mattress, inflated by enthusiasm, when suddenly the air began to escape.
“Do we have time? It would need a big start. And would need to grow, momentum to keep it going.”
“I’ll provide the start. Give me three days and I’ll deliver two thousand Greek Cypriots anywhere in the country, with posters in every high street and organizational support in every town. After that it’s up to you and a lot of luck.”
“If it fails, peters out, my political career will be ruined.”
“If you don’t try it, you’re ruined anyway. What have you got to lose?”
“Nothing, I suppose. Apart from you.”
She pulled him toward her. “Come and show me how it’s done properly. Before we go out and do it to Francis Urquhart.”
“If I’m to do all this walking, hadn’t I better preserve my strength…?”
But already his protests were too late.
***
“Come, Corder, it’s a warm day. Into the garden.”
Superintendent Corder of the Special Branch followed his Prime Minister through the Cabinet Room and down into the walled garden. Urquhart indicated a bench beneath the shade of a rowan tree and they sat down together. Tea was ordered.
The privilege of such intimacy was not lightly bestowed, but Corder had earned the trust over many years of loyalty and unquestioning service. He was unmarried, had never displayed anything other than a mechanical sense of humor, a policeman with a university education but few apparent interests apart from his work of heading Urquhart’s personal security team, passing up promotion in order to remain in that task. He was an extraordinarily self-contained individual whose first name was known to very few. Mortima, who had tried to interest him in opera, occasionally speculated that the Urquharts were his only friends. But they were of different worlds. Once, while on a pheasant shoot in Northamptonshire, Urquhart had winged a bird that had crashed from the sky to lie fluttering pathetically in front of them. Before anyone could move, Corder had drawn his revolver and finished the job, the 9 mm bullet at such close range spreading pieces of giblet for several feet in every direction. As Urquhart related later to his wife, not very sporting but damned effective.
Corder had a small red file in his hand, which he opened in his lap.
“Probably not significant, but I’m not paid to take risks, sir.” He spoke in a series of assaults, short, rapid bursts, rather like machine gun fire. “Over the last few days the local Greek Cypriot radio station in London has been spouting like a volcano, throwing all sorts of criticism in your direction. Getting really carried away. But the worst has come from this man.” He handed across the file. “Evanghelos Passolides. About your age. Appears to own some sort of eating house in north London. We don’t know much about him, apart from the fact that he appears to have connections with Mr. Makepeace. And that he’s said on live radio—the transcript’s at the back of the file”—in a monotone Corder began quoting from memory—“that you deserve to have the skin ripped from your lying bones, various material parts of your anatomy thrown to dogs, and the rest of you buried in a deep grave and forgotten about in the same manner he suggests you’ve forgotten about his brothers. He’s the gentleman who…”
“Yes, Corder, I know who this gentleman is,” Urquhart whispered, staring at the photograph in the file. “And I haven’t forgotten his brothers.”
His mouth had run dry and he longed for the tea at his side, but he knew his hand would shake and betray him, so long as those eyes of long-festered malevolence were staring up at him. Abruptly he closed the file. So now he knew the name of the brother. Had seen him, practically on his doorstep, had felt his hate, which refused to die. It was as though ghosts from all those years ago had chased him around the world.
“Probably a harmless old crank,” Corder was saying, forgetting the age similarity with Urquhart, “but he has threatened you, and what with you being out and about on the campaign trail we can’t afford to take chances. What would you like me to do with him? Warn him off? Lock him away for a bit? Or forget about him? As it’s election time and this is all very personal, I thought this one should be your call. Even parking tickets can get political at a time lik
e this.”
“Thank you, Corder,” Urquhart responded softly. A gentle breeze riffled through the honeysuckle and ran across the lawn, glancing off Urquhart’s brow. He could feel prickles of sweat.
“Trouble is, if we do nothing it could simply get worse. His threats. The bilge on the radio. Do you want me to have him shut up?”
There were other voices, too, inside Urquhart’s head, whispering, blowing at the mists of doubt, helping him to see more clearly and to decide.
“No, Corder, not the man, don’t touch him. No martyrs. But the station…”
“London Radio for Cyprus.”
“It must surely have broken all sorts of codes. Race Relations Act, election law, any number of broadcasting regulations.”
“I’ll bet it’s probably got illegal substances hidden on the premises, too. Could almost guarantee it.”
“Yes, I suspect you could. Let’s pull the plug on them, revoke their broadcasting license. Silence their foul mouths. Then there would be no need to run the risk of turning Passolides into an object of public sympathy. What do you think?”
“Just tell me when you want their lights to go out, and it’s done.”
“Excellent. Now, Corder, tell me about the old man’s links with Mr. Makepeace…”
***
“And it turns out he’s been rogering the daughter.”
Tom hadn’t wasted much time, Claire mused. Rebounding like a badly sliced golf ball.
“The thing that surprises me,” Urquhart was saying, “is that you’d heard nothing about it. From the driver. Apparently they’ve been going at it like Caribbean cats in an alley.”
The House of Cards Complete Trilogy Page 86
