In a blessed moment one sleepless night, however, what the PM thought of as her “super-acumen” was catalysed. It was while watching re-tweets of the madman in the White House that she suddenly spotted light at the end of this awful tunnel. “Switch the story and find a worse one with a real BAD guy to blame” was the essence of the madman’s messages, which, albeit attributed to a madman, didn’t seem so mad at all.
“Mmm,” she mused as the woes reverberated through the few neurons still functioning in her ditsy brain.
And then, bingo, just like that, she had it. Of course, of course, the Trotskyite megalomaniac bonkers banker with links to the Kremlin! That should do the trick all right. Nothing the nation would love her for more than a spot of mudslinging at the old Ruskie enemy, especially if it involved one of the nation’s much-hated City bankers. A win-win situation, no question about it. All she needed on board now was the latest model 007 from MI5 or MI6 to hunt down the demon and haul him up before the courts to validate her tale. From zero to hero she could go overnight.
“YESSSS,” she yipped, punching her pillows and, by accident, her snoring husband who said, “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Clarissa.”
That was what all this had to do with Jeremy Crawford, who had been chosen yet again.
~ * ~
It was the following morning that the PM addressed an emergency meeting of her twitchy cabinet with her new brainwave idea.
“What we need at this historic juncture in our proud history, chaps and chapesses,” she told them, “is a dose of true British grit to steer Mister and Missus Joe Public’s attention away from all the smears and fake news threatening to envelop us. Instead we shall have the true story of roguery, treachery and international intrigue undertaken by the Trot megalomaniac bonkers banker chappie—only to be thwarted at the critical moment by the sang froid, suavity, sharp-shooting skills, and dare one say it allure, of the Secret Service’s top agent who will be answering directly to...me.”
“Jolly dee, tip top, Pee Em,” barked the home secretary, Janus facedly, seeing as she nurtured aspirations of ousting the PM and becoming PM herself.
“Great, triff, brill,” echoed the foreign secretary. Also Janus facedly, given he had exactly the same ambitions as those of the home secretary.
And, to her gratification, the rest of the ministers happily trilled along to the same song sheet, praising the PM with statements such as “genius,” “gosh,” “super,” and “go for it.” That was the measure of the hypocrisy of the British cabinet, all of them, unbeknownst to either the home or foreign secretaries, running covert campaigns to unseat the PM and replace her with themselves. And this latest batty idea looked the perfect means of achieving just that, a classic case of hoisting herself by her own petard, thus leaving the path wide open for any one of them to succeed her.
“Righty-ho, then,” said the PM, as oblivious to such internecine plotting as she was to practically everything else. “I’ll get right on it. Cabinet dismissed.”
At which the fractious bunch trudged out of the chamber swivel-eyed and muttering to each other behind their hands, while the PM picked up the phone to a top secret joint line shared by Dame Muriel Eggleshaw at MI6 and Sir Hubert Humphreys at MI5 to demand they appoint to the case the newest and most improved 007 they had on their books to serve up the head of the megalomaniac bonkers banker on a platter.
~ * ~
Initially when the PM got “right on it,” her call to MI5 and MI6 went unanswered as the result, so a recorded message told her, of a “temporary but catastrophic failure in the communication system caused by government austerity cuts.”
“Fuck,” said “Phoebe.” That was the Clarissa’s codename when calling the Secret Services.
But then she had another of her brilliant ideas and surprisingly this one worked.
“I know what I’ll do, I’ll call Milly on her smartphone,” she muttered, dialling the super-encrypted number. “Milly” was Dame Muriel’s secret codename. Sir Hubert’s was “Hubby.”
And, sure enough, the boss of MI6 answered on only the second replay of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, portentously the winter one.
“Yes, Phoebe?” she whispered, seeing the PM’s also super-encrypted number on her screen.
“A small favour I have to ask of you, Milly.”
“Hrrmph,” said Milly, who’d never liked Phoebe, and not only because of her fatuous politics. While they’d been undergrads at Girton College Cambridge together, Phoebe had stolen away Milly’s targeted inamorato, Nigel Jeffreys-Joynson, and had flagrant sex with him on a punt. “Flagrant” because the episode had been caught in delicto on camera by the punter, fellow undergrad Simon Snodgrass, and published across the university in the very next edition of Varsity.
Uncharacteristically for her, Phoebe intuited this lingering opprobrium and responded with what she thought of as Prime Ministerial gravitas.
“Listen, Milly. We’re both big girls now. I’m Pee Em and you’re head of Em-I-bally-Six, so let’s draw a line under the past, shall we?”
“Hrrmph,” repeated Milly, frowning meaningfully at Sir Hubert “Hubby” Humphreys with whom she was again sharing an intimate conversation at her club in the hinterland of Park Lane. That wasn’t all she was sharing with Sir Humphrey these days, but neither her current husband nor Hubby’s current wife needed to know anything about that.
“What we’re talking about here is a national crisis,” Phoebe continued.
“Your job on the line again, is it?”
“You can be a real bitch, you know that?”
“So I’ve been told. It’s more or less why I was appointed to MI6. Now, this ‘national crisis’ you spoke of?” said Milly, switching the phone to super-hushed speaker mode so Hubby could listen in. “Care to elucidate?”
Thinking she’d made a little progress, Phoebe explained—as long as you could equate lengthy specious periphrasis with “explanation,” which Milly couldn’t. Reckoned it to be the usual half-arsed politicospeak, the next best thing to lying.
Which was why she interrupted halfway through the PM’s verbiage and said, “Cut the crap, Phoebe. We all know you’re on a hiding to nothing and looking for any which way out you can find. Get to the point or I’m hanging up.”
Hubby nodded, sipped at his Dom Pérignon and flipped Phoebe the finger. Just as well they weren’t on Skype.
So it was that Phoebe finally hit the bottom line: how much she needed the sang froid, suavity, sharp-shooting skills, and allure of the latest model 007 Milly and Hubby had on their books to hunt down the Trotskyite megalomaniac bonkers banker clearly in cahoots with the Kremlin and bring him back from wherever he was to face justice. This was the only tiny favour she was asking.
In the following hiatus, Milly and Hubby swapped amused, knowing (and coded) glances, and allowed Phoebe to continue blethering down the line about the way her government was close to having its back broken by “false disinformation” under which she needed to draw a line smartish.
“Well?” she practically shrieked as the blether was drawing to a close.
And so it was that the deal was done. In exchange for an unprecedented hike of £2bn in the budgets of MI5 and MI6, Milly and Hubby were prepared to release into Phoebe’s command the very best operative they had come across in all the years they’d been in the Secret Services.
“Heavens. Heck. Thanks soo much,” said a humbled Phoebe after agreeing to the sum in question. “And his name and number?”
Milly and Hubby exchanged smirks.
“He answers to Casanova,” said Milly. “We think of him as Double-O Seventeen. Speaks the usual four European languages, plus Russian, Arabic, and garage-level Mandarin. Also he has computer skills Silicon Valley would die for, shoots like Wyatt Earp, and has black belts in karate, judo and taekwondo.”
“And does he also possess the sang froid, suavity, and allure I require? The kind of thing one associates with Roger Moore, my personal favourite Double-O Seven?”
“In spades. The sexiest beast on the planet,” said Milly.
Which was a minor distortion of the truth because OO17 Maurice Moffat/ “Casanova” was five foot seven and chubby, his argument being it was quality that counted, not quantity.
“Thanks soo much,” said Phoebe, practically genuflecting as Milly whispered his contact number on the secure line.
“Just make sure the money hits our accounts by close of business tomorrow, though,” said Milly. “Otherwise it’s no Casanova Double-O Seventeen for you.”
“You got it. Done deal,” said Phoebe, in what she thought of as American.
But by then Milly had already cut the call and taken to sipping at her glass of Dom Pérignon.
“Here’s to us, Hubby.” She giggled as the pair clinked flutes. “Poor old Phoebe though, eh? Not exactly what she had in mind, our Maurice, but I’m sure he won’t let the side down.”
Fourteen
Unlike James Bond, who never had a home address, “Casanova”/Maurice Moffat lived in a three-bedroom terraced house in Tooting, South West London, which he shared with a confused tabby he’d rescued from Battersea Dogs and Cats Home and named Terpsichore but only ever addressed as Tiddles, hence the cat being confused. But what was in a name? All Terpsichore/Tiddles cared about was getting her dinner on time and being allowed to sleep on Maurice’s bed.
Also unlike James Bond, Maurice didn’t drive an Aston Martin. If he drove at all, which he seldom did unless to stock up at Tesco once a month, it was in the classic Morris Minor Traveller he’d inherited from his father, Malcolm. In Maurice’s eyes, the car was his father. Whenever he switched on the ragged old engine, he felt his dad’s presence—on the driver’s seat, on the waggly gear stick, on the handbrake. But mainly the four-wheeled Malcolm was parked outside the house under a specially designed weatherproof blanket. If Maurice really wanted to go anywhere, he went by bike. And not on some latterday iron-man mountain-climbing monstrosity with thirty gears, on an old sit-up-and-beg called Janet with a wicker basket on the handlebars and a Sturmey Archer three-speed gear mechanism. That’s how Maurice liked life...slow and easy.
So how, you will ask, did this bloke get to be a top secret service agent? Because, unlike the hyped-up hero in the Ian Fleming stories, he was very, very secret, that was how. All his lights—and there were many of them, Milly hadn’t been lying about that—were so hidden under so many bushels, nobody would ever suspect he was anything more than an undersized, chubby, middle-aged man eking out his days on a small private income and causing no trouble to anybody. That was what his neighbours at numbers eleven and fifteen Oakshot Street thought, an oddity unquestionably but kindly and always with a good word to say about everybody. If they needed help, it was Maurice to whom they, and others in the street, would turn.
As had Milly and Hubby whenever they needed someone deep, deep undercover in capital cities across the world where there was suspected nastiness going on they needed to know about. Who better than OO17 to lurk and skulk unnoticed on the peripheries of Moscow, Beijing, Damascus, Tel Aviv, Paris, Rome, Berlin, Brussels et al when you wanted to know what was really going down? Not some conspicuous Beretta-toting dude with a gambling habit and a liking for flashy women and even flashier cars, that was for sure. That was all well and good for cinema audiences, but not for the real spymasters and mistresses. What they needed was a practically invisible person with a working knowledge of all the relevant languages and an eidetic memory who only tossed baddies off tall buildings or shot them when absolutely necessary. Which on occasion Maurice had been obliged to do, but never with maximum (or even minimum) machismo. Insignificance was his stock in trade, and it had opened all sorts of doors for him.
Posing as a Brit diplomat’s dogsbody, for example, Maurice had been deployed to Washington DC as a White House wine waiter shortly after the madman had been “elected” president and had relayed back to MI5 and MI6 in super-encrypted code the conclusion: “This fellow has the mind of a sewer rat and should never—double understroke never—be invited to our shores, let alone to meet Missus Queen or address parliament. He’s a catastrophe waiting to happen and if he’s to be shot, let it at least be someone on his own turf to do the dirty deed.” It was this sort of advice, amongst a plethora of other examples from all corners of the planet, for which Dame Muriel and Sir Hubert had been deeply grateful.
So that was Maurice Moffat for you. Unassuming, unknown to anybody but his neighbours, who thought he was called Michael, but nonetheless one of the most effective players in the world of global espionage. Alerted by “Milly” and “Hubby” to the possibility of a pleading call from “Phoebe” on his mega-encrypted, government-issue smartphone, “Casanova” was therefore ready and waiting.
“Phoebe,” he said. “What a pleasure.”
“Miaow,” said Terpsichore/Tiddles, who reckoned it was time for her dinner.
~ * ~
At much the same time as Casanova was getting his brief from Phoebe, Julie Mackintosh was beginning to feel ever more comfortable at chez Barry. After several more rounds of the Château Broadbent 2015 Premier Cru, Dennis had fessed up to being Betty on Twitter and even had a good laugh about it, saying he was like the bearded lady in the circus.
“Tell you what, if I can call you Betty, you can call me Jules,” sang Julie to the tune of the Paul Simon song her dad liked so much. “But thanks for telling me where Jeremy was. It’s been a real relief seeing him again. Knowing he’s okay.”
Jeremy smiled lopsidedly.
“And not even asking for the reward,” said Barry, refreshing glasses.
“Yeah. Why was that?” said Julie.
Which was when Dennis recounted the conversation he’d had with Barry and Jeremy after he’d found his way into the Shepherd’s Hut.
“See, it’s all about choosing or being chosen,” he concluded. “Like, having a good hard look at the life you’re livin’ and thinkin’ to yourself: Did I choose it, or did it choose me?”
Julie stared and frowned as little twinkly signals pinged backwards and forwards between the lobes of her cerebral cortex and occasionally into her hippocampus.
“Old Barry here used to be a prof at Oxford bleedin’ university,” Dennis continued. “Only he gave all that up to be a gardener. Didn’t you, mate?”
Barry’s turn to smile lopsidedly.
“And Jeremy used to be a banker wanker, but he’s been havin’ second thoughts too. Right, pal?”
Jeremy nodded.
“And me, I’m not a copper anymore.”
Julie’s eyes widened as the little twinkly signals intensified.
“So, who’re you all now?” she asked, when the twinkly signals abated sufficiently.
“Ourselves. Just ourselves,” said Jeremy, speaking on his, Barry’s and Dennis’s behalves. “Isn’t that right, Betty?”
“Couldn’t have put it better meself,” said the ex-copper.
“So, all three of you are...?” said Julie.
“No longer who we once thought we were,” said Barry. “Now how about a little supper? Homegrown carrots, asparagus, potatoes, runner beans and sprouts all whisked together in my blender to make a decent soup? Plus bread and rice, of course.”
“Sounds great,” said Julie.
And it was. As was the coffee and the Apfelstrudel from homegrown apples with Cheshire cheese course to follow. So was the tiny bunk bed she was offered when night began to fall. So were the sweet dreams that followed until the next day when she was awoken by Hans, Colin and Shirley snuggling up around her. It made for a packed bunk bed—even more packed when Pete made his way upstairs—but it was fun. And it had been a long time since Julie Mackintosh had had fun. Never in all the time she’d been working for Sir Magnus fucking Montague, that was for sure.
~ * ~
Speaking of whom, this was a man who, having already experienced a series of unaccustomed bad days, was losing the will to live. First his valued HAA (Head Assets Analyst) had gone bonkers and deca
mped to a barn before vanishing altogether, bequeathing to Sir Magnus his batty family. And now his all-go-rhythmic Girl Friday, who was supposed to be following up a red-hot lead to the ingrate Crawford, had also vanished. At least that’s how it seemed. No answer had there been to any of Sir Magnus’s furious phone calls demanding progress updates. Nothing from the Jackie Lamur Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google Plus sites, all of which Julie’s pro tem replacement, Jenny, assured him had been deleted. A case of “no such number, no such zone,” if Sir Magnus remembered the line from Elvis Presley’s “Return to Sender” correctly, which he was pretty sure he did. For, believe it or believe it not, back in the previous century when Sir Magnus was young, he’d been an Elvis fan. Had the oiled quiff, the sideburns, the wiggly hips, the tight trousers, the brothel-creeper shoes, the whole nine yards. But that was before he’d become a banker and, in the next century, been knighted by an ebullient “Third Way” Labour government for his contribution to “The Welfare of the Economy.” No such rock ’n’ roll fripperies after that ennoblement. But still the songs resonated. Such is the way of the songs of one’s youth.
Anyway, what with one thing and another, Sir Magnus was royally pissed off. So pissed off, his heart was starting to fibrillate all over again, which was not...a...good...sign. At least according to the wisdoms of his grossly overpaid Harley Street cardiologist, Professor Doctor Hugo Printemps, who’d warned him years ago his stress levels were far too high and to knock off the booze and the Havana Tranquillity cigars immédiatement.
“Bugger it all to buggery,” Sir Magnus said from the sanctuary of his high-backed, maroon-leather swivel behind his Chippendale mahogany desk before pouring himself six fingers of his favoured five-star Courvoisier which he downed in one, and firing up a fresh Havana Tranquillity. “Self-medicating” he called it and sod Professor Doctor Hugo poncy Printemps.
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