The House of Cards Complete Trilogy

by Michael Dobbs

  “I always have.”

  “And know that whatever it is I do, I do for us both.”

  “Then nothing has changed.” She seemed to relax, understanding bringing a measure of reassurance. She had always known he was not like other men; he lived by his own rules, it could come as no surprise to her that he intended to depart by his own rules, too. Whenever the time came. A time perhaps of his own choosing. She managed a smile as she reached for him.

  He kissed her with great tenderness. “I have so many reasons to be grateful to you, I scarcely know where to start. But let me start with your cake. It’s delicious, Mortima. I think I shall have another slice.”

  “I’ll join you. If I may.”

  Forty-Eight

  In the total darkness of fear and defeat, even a spark of misery can bring welcome light.

  The morning broke wound-pink beyond the cupola of St. Paul’s Cathedral, and already the preparations had been under way for many hours. Road diversions had been posted along the route to Trafalgar Square, lamp posts and shop windows festooned with posters and his portrait, banners were being painted, reporters were turning phrases such as “an Armada of faith” and “the irresistible gale of revolution.” Makepeace was everywhere, the word upon all lips.

  No one knew precisely how many would be joining Makepeace on the final stretch of his march from Watford or how many would be there to welcome him on his arrival, but after the derision that had been piled upon the West Midlands force following the fiasco in Birmingham, the capital’s Police Commissioner had decided it was not a time for taking chances. Although there was no indication of trouble beyond the pressure of unknown numbers, the fountains in Trafalgar Square had been emptied, the great pump rooms beneath inspected for suspect packages, the metal crowd barriers collected like supermarket trolleys in neat rows across the square. The population of pigeons, avian mongrels, complained at the unexpected clatter and noise, rising in feathery spirals of protest and darkening the sky before trying to settle once again, furious at the continued disruption. Their homeland was being invaded; for the day, at least, the square would be snatched from them.

  Urquhart had bathed early, Mortima bringing him a great soup cup of tea in the bath while the steam and hot waters restored the color in his sleep-starved cheeks. She thought she heard him muttering, perhaps calling for her, but when she inquired he answered that he was simply practicing a few lines for his final election speech. She had noticed that the bulky draft provided by his team of speech writers remained untouched. “They believe I can’t win,” he explained, “and it shows.” Neither had he touched his Ministerial boxes.

  By the time he had completed his ablutions with a meticulous manicure, as though he had all the time in the world at his disposal, the crowd barriers were being put in place and interlocked around the square. A small number were left at sensitive points around Whitehall and particularly near the entrance to Downing Street, just in case. To keep the hounds from the bear. But little trouble was expected; in less than a week Makepeace’s militia would be occupying the corridors of power as of right.

  He selected from his wardrobe his favorite dark blue suit and a white cotton shirt, laying them out across his bed for inspection. He tried several silk ties against the suit; he wanted to wear the one Mortima had bought for him from the craft stalls beneath the castle in Edinburgh, a token from her last visit to the Festival, but it was hand-painted, a little florid perhaps. He put out his regimental tie instead. Then, attired in his silk dressing gown, he breakfasted. He was in good humor and of hearty appetite; the crossword was finished before his eggs had boiled.

  There had been only two disputes concerning the organization of the rally that day. Superintendent Housego, the police officer responsible for security, would not allow into the square the two mobile kebab vans that had accompanied the march from its very first day. They were like mascots, Makepeace argued, veterans of some great battle who claimed their right to be present at the victory ceremony, but the Superintendent insisted that the congestion around them would be simply too great and potentially dangerous; in large crowds people could become so easily crushed, and in violent crowds such vehicles might become battering rams, barricades, or simply bonfires. No. Not worth the risk. Makepeace resolved the problem by inviting Marios and Michaelis, the two owner-drivers, to join him on the small podium that was being erected for his speech between the Landseer lions at the foot of Nelson’s Column. “And next week you can drive all the way up Downing Street,” he joked. It was the first time he had allowed himself even to hint that he would be there to greet them.

  The second dispute concerned the numbers themselves; Housego wanted a limit of fifteen thousand but on this issue Makepeace was unable to offer any guarantee. He had no idea how many would be joining in. He did not control the marchers; on the contrary, as he explained to the Superintendent, they controlled him. But in any event the problem would be much reduced, he suggested with only a hint of perceptible irony, since it was customary for the police count at demonstrations to be so much lower than the reckoning of the organizers. Discretion being the better part of promotion, the Super decided to take his cue from Nelson and turn a blind eye. He would put on a couple of extra serials—self-contained police units, twenty-two strong—as a precaution. He saluted and departed content.

  Others were also busy. St. John Ambulance set up a field station in the crypt of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, grateful at being able to borrow the facilities of the homeless shelter, while all morning television crews haggled to gain access to windows and rooftops around the square, determined to find the optimum vantage point and paying a handsome “disturbance fee” in hard cash to office maintenance staff. Even if they numbered only fifteen thousand it would still be the largest election gathering in living memory.

  To it all Urquhart appeared oblivious. He nestled in his favorite leather chair, still wrapped in his dressing gown, and read. First from Margaret Thatcher’s memoirs, The Downing Street Years. The final pages. Scenes from a great drama. Anger. Heartache. Betrayal. Then Julius Caesar, his favorite play. Another great assassination. Yet how much kinder they were to him than to her, Urquhart reflected, ending great Caesar’s misery with a single blow, a final cut. Not lingering. In death to find the acclaim that those jealous and petty men around him would not confer in his lifetime. The way to finish great lives.

  And Makepeace marched. All the way down Watling Street, the old Roman thoroughfare that led from Chester to the heart of London. Like the legions of old they tramped, five or six abreast, in a great phalanx that stretched for over two miles and which grew ever longer as the morning progressed and the great column drew nearer the heart of the capital. Two brass bands and a group of Scottish pipers appeared as if from nowhere to add to the carnival atmosphere, and garlands had been placed around the necks of Makepeace and Maria as they passed before a Hindu temple in Edgware. Even the mobile police control van that hovered in constant close attention had been decorated; policemen in shirtsleeves smiled and waved at the children as though competing to rub salt into the still-weeping wounds of their colleagues in Birmingham. The noise of celebration grew so enthusiastic that Makepeace had difficulty in making himself heard to the radio and news reporters who accompanied him all morning, but there were others keen to make up for any deficiency of sound bites. Waiting for Makepeace in Trafalgar Square was a patchwork quilt of pressure groups spread right across the political spectrum, all chewing media microphones and trying to identify themselves with Makepeace. Even Annita Burke was there, arguing that her “old colleague and friend” represented so many of the values that lay at the heart of what she and her party had traditionally stood for. When asked if tradition excluded the present, she smiled. “Perhaps the immediate past,” she conceded.

  As they proceeded down Piccadilly they passed by what had once been the town house of Lord Palmerston, a great Victorian Foreign Secretary who had become a
still greater Prime Minister. Omens all the way; the flags that decorated the route seemed to stiffen in salute. The window of Hatchards was laden with copies of a book Makepeace had penned several years earlier and that until a few hours before had been heavily out of print; he signed several without breaking his pace. Drivers leaned on their horns, people waved from buses, tourists asked for autographs. The March for Peace had turned decisively into a celebration of victory. Yet even Makepeace was astonished as he came out of Pall Mall and into the amphitheater of great buildings that surrounded Nelson’s victory column. He had lingered behind in Hyde Park, allowing the body of the march to move ahead of him. In that great river alone he knew there were some fifteen thousand souls, but what he had not known was that the river was flooding into the still greater sea of those gathered to greet him in the square. As they sighted him, led by a skirl of pipers, they broke into an emotional tide of waving hands and banners that washed back and forth across the basin of the square, growing stronger as it did so in shouts and accents that represented all parts of the country and some parts even beyond its shores. More than forty thousand people were gathered under the unseeing eye of Lord Nelson until Trafalgar Square brimmed and overflowed with their enthusiasm. Makepeace walked through their midst like Moses carving his path through the Red Sea, his hands raised, clenched above his head, and they thundered their approval.

  Even behind the thick shatterproof glass of Downing Street, Urquhart could not mistake the roar, like the cry heard by Christians as they waited in the pit of the Colosseum, armed only with their faith in God. Urquhart had never placed much store in Faith, not if it meant being devoured by lions and the bones being quarreled over by rats. How much better to believe in oneself, to die a Caesar rather than a humble sinner. There came another clamor as Makepeace mounted the podium. Only then did Urquhart set aside his books and begin to dress. He had forgotten to put out any cuff links; he chose the pair of nine carat gold engraved with the family monogram that had once belonged to his father. He stood in front of the dressing mirror, checking all aspects of his appearance in the manner of a suitor about to propose marriage. He asked Mortima for her opinion. She approved, apart from the tie.

  “But what are you planning to do this afternoon, Francis, that you should be dressed up so?”

  “Why, I intend to address Tom Makepeace’s little rally.”

  ***

  Urquhart was adjusting his tie in the mirror, one ear tuned to the radio and the speech upon which Makepeace had just embarked, the other turned deafly in the direction of Corder. “Friends. Brothers. My apologies—and sisters!” he heard Makepeace exclaim, before Corder’s voice pushed all else aside.

  “You can’t do this,” the Special Branch officer was stating, emphatic to the point of shouting.

  “You cannot stop me, my dear Corder,” Urquhart responded with complete equanimity.

  “There are no security arrangements in place.”

  “Our security is in the surprise. No one expects me.”

  “There are thousands of your opponents out there, Prime Minister. They’ve traveled from all over the country for the specific purpose of letting you know how much they dislike you. And you want to walk right into their midst?”

  “Right into their midst. Exactly.”

  “No!” Corder’s vehemence was genuine. “This is crazy.”

  “This is history, Corder.”

  “May I talk as an old friend, Prime Minister?”

  Urquhart turned to face him. “So far as I am concerned, Corder, you always have.”

  “You’ve been under an immense strain recently. Might this have”—an awkward pause—“clouded your judgment?”

  “Gently put. Thank you.” Urquhart moved to place hands of reassurance on the shoulders of the other man. “But on the contrary, old friend, the immense strain about which you talk has brought great clarity. You know, the prospect of being hanged and all that? I know what I’m doing. I absolve you of any responsibility.”

  “They’ll have me issuing parking tickets after this. You know that, don’t you?”

  “In which case you will be the first knight of the realm to be doing such work. I have already written out my resignation honors, Corder. I’m a Scot, not given to undue generosity, but you should know that you are on my list.”

  Corder blinked, shook his head to free himself of what was clearly a distraction from his purpose and returned to the attack. “I have to stop you.”

  “Corder, you cannot.”

  “Mrs. Urquhart,” he appealed, changing tactic, “will you stop him?”

  Mortima had, like Urquhart, been examining her appearance in the mirror, brushing away a few imaginary creases from her jacket. “I can scarcely do that, Corder.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m going with him.”

  “Are you, by God?” Urquhart exclaimed, challenging her.

  She moved over to him, with care and great tenderness enfolded him in her arms and looked closely into his eyes. “Yes, Francis, I am. I have come with you this far, I’ll walk with you a few steps further, if you don’t mind. And even if you do.”

  His face began to move in agitation, trying to find some words of contradiction, but she placed a finger upon his lips to still them.

  “It’s only a little walk down the road,” she whispered. “I won’t hold you back.”

  Forty-Nine

  A man may die a thousand times in Westminster; on the field of battle, only once.

  He stood on the front step of Number Ten, hand in hand with Mortima. Above him white clouds hung like gun smoke in the summer sky, while behind him Corder was ranting into his personal radio. Urquhart turned in rebuke.

  “No, Corder! No great posse of police. I want no human wall to hide behind, no excuse for confrontation with the crowd. I’ll not have it.”

  The tone was severe, brooking no argument. Corder muttered something into the radio and put it aside.

  “Then may I accompany you, Prime Minister? As a family friend?”

  Urquhart smiled. “In that capacity you have always been welcome.”

  They began walking down the street. As they approached the tall stressed-steel barriers at its end, a uniformed policeman outside the guard booth saluted while another jabbered excitedly down the telephone. But it was too late. The great gate swung open, and they were in Whitehall.

  Large numbers of people were still trying to squeeze into the square, crowding pavements, beginning to clog the approach roads. The Superintendent had need of his extra serials, and more. And as the Urquharts made their way up Whitehall, recognition of them had an immediate effect.

  “FU too! FU too!” barked one youth with the appearance of having been lifted from the front half of a dry-cleaning commercial, but Mortima turned to launch a look of sharpest feminine rebuke directly at him and he subsided, his voice faltering like a slipping fan belt. His chant was not taken up; instead, a ripple of attention ran through the crowd at the sight of the great opponent, normally only seen through television screens and surrounded by the trappings of power, who to all appearances was enjoying a weekend stroll in the sun with his wife. Cries of recognition the Urquharts received with a civil nod of acknowledgment, chiding rewarded with one of Mortima’s most devastating stares. As they made their way the five hundred yards up Whitehall, past the mounted sentries at Horseguards, a tremor of interest rather than intolerance ran before them like a bow wave, heralding their arrival. By the time they had reached the crowded edges of the square, the tremor had become a shock wave that began to force its passage through the mass of bodies ahead. Urquhart was coming! Urquhart was coming! And many, particularly those who did not have a good view of Makepeace speaking on the far side of Nelson’s Column, turned to face their adversary.

  Urquhart’s timing was providential—or pestilential, depending on the viewpoint. As Makep
eace was about to begin his peroration, he sensed a distinct loss of interest among a substantial part of his audience. He looked out across the sea of upturned faces in front of him, through which a turbulent crosscurrent seemed to be sweeping past and dragging their eyes from him. Caught by their interest, Maria walked to the edge of the raised speaking platform to inspect the source of the disturbance; the look of alarm and confusion that took hold of her was enough to make Makepeace himself falter, serving only to fuel the distraction.

  Superintendent Housego was there to meet them. At the first hint of the Urquharts’ imminent arrival, relayed through the Information Room at Scotland Yard, he had uttered curses both profuse and profane. Then he had summoned the Tactical Support Group, his reserve of specially trained officers who were on standby in coaches parked in nearby Spring Gardens. But he hadn’t enough; he wished he had a hundred more.

  “I cannot allow this, Prime Minister.”

  “You cannot stop me, Superintendent.”

  “But I don’t have enough men to force a way for you through the crowd.”

  “I want no force,” Urquhart responded sharply. Then, more softly: “Please. Ask your men to stand aside.”

  Housego, bewildered, subsided.

  Urquhart was still grasping the hand of Mortima when he crossed the roadway and came face-to-face with the crowd. From this point on he knew he would lose all control, becoming little more than another pawn in the great game upon which he had embarked. The faces confronting him were impassive, frozen by surprise. He nodded, smiled, and took two steps toward them.

  The British are cynics, always willing to believe in human weakness and bathe in the oils of collective skepticism that seep from their daily press. Yet on a personal level they are civil to the point of deception, hiding their real feelings behind a cloak of wooden etiquette in much the same way as they ask for the News of the World to be delivered wrapped between the sheets of the Sunday Telegraph. Had Hitler flown to London rather than requiring Chamberlain to come to Berchtesgaden, the entire country might have queued to shake his hand. The British are bad at personal confrontation.