To which pinged back Ripurpantzov’s instant reply: “Forever. She’s fucking up the UK for us even better than we could. But nice work, keep the posts coming.”
~ * ~
After a few hours of fitful sleep and a breakfast of poached eggs on toast with tea or coffee according to preference, Barry suggested he and his guests take a ramble in the bluebell woods behind his mobile Shepherd’s Hut.
“Nothing better than a little nature to soothe the troubled breast into a magnitude of quiet, eh?” he said. “Bring the animals along too, shall we?”
Maurice was delighted at the proposal and, once persuaded they would be safe from prying eyes, so were Julie, Jeremy, and Dennis. Shirley, Hans and Colin were over the moon. The only one who wanted to stay at home was Pete the pig. As the others were ready to leave, he expressed this wish by lying down in Barry’s front garden, grunting contentedly, and refusing to budge even when prodded or offered a parsnip.
“You’re sure now, Pete?” said Jeremy, who during his recent adventures had never once been separated from his pig.
“Oink!”
“Okay then. So off we go. Sure you’ll be okay?”
“Oink, oink,” said Pete like a child reassuring an anxious parent he’ll be just fine left home-alone for the first time.
“Ookay then.”
And once satisfied Pete’s decision was final, Jeremy trotted off in the wake of Barry and company, who were waiting for him at the gate to a dense area of silver birches, old oaks, pines, and, by a rivulet, even two or three massive swamp cypresses. And yes bluebells. There were thousands of them stretching away along the borders of the single footpath, which would lead on a circular route through the woodland and back to the gate.
“Wow,” he said, taking a deep breath and Julie’s hand.
Shirley, Hans, and Colin were yipping and pawing at the gate, eager to be released from their leashes.
“So, young Jeremy, the world’s most wanted man,” said Barry. “Ready to ramble?”
Maurice and Dennis, who’d been getting better acquainted through spy/cop chat, smiled.
“Pete all right, is he?” Dennis asked.
“He’s fine.”
“So let’s hit the woods,” said Maurice. “Open the gate, Prof, and let us experience that magnitude of quiet of which you spoke.”
And apart from the barking of Shirley, Colin and Hans at the squirrels thumbing their noses at them from the branches of trees, and the twittering of birds, including a squawky flock of newly immigrant parakeets, the quiet was indeed magnitudinous. As he ambled along, Jeremy felt the pressures of recent days falling away. Julie’s hand in his helped too.
“Great, eh?” she said, skipping along beside him. “Haven’t felt this good since Dad took us up to the Lake District camping.”
Then she broke into song. “I love to go a-wandering, along the mountain track. Val-deri, Val-dera, Val-deri, Val-dera-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha...”
Jeremy smiled. “Only we’re in a forest,” he said.
“Never mind, same effect.”
Ahead of them, Barry, Maurice, and Dennis turned and smiled too.
“Young love?” said Maurice.
“New love maybe,” said Dennis. “Mind you, you can’t blame the bloke after Missus Sophie finicky fancy pants.”
“That would be his wife to whom you’re referring,” said Maurice, stumbling over a swamp cypress breathing tube.
“Yeah, how did you...?”
“One does one’s homework, old chap.”
Which was when, after throwing three sticks in three different directions for Shirley, Hans, and Colin to chase instead of chasing the squirrels they’d never catch anyway, Barry left Dennis in charge of the dogs, and, checking that “new love” Jeremy and Julie were still otherwise distracted, took Maurice by the arm and guided him down a side path which would re-join the main one at the entrance gate.
“You have yet to tell us of your ironic plan for friend Ripurpantzov, old fellow,” he said. “And possibly best for now were it to be shared only between the two of us, do you not think? For old times sake, before we pass it along to the troops. Give it a little scrutiny first.”
“I thought you’d never ask.” Maurice laughed. “Lost none of the old wiliness, gardening or no gardening, eh, Prof?”
“One does one’s best as one ages, young man. Vital to keep the mind sharp, whatever the circumstances, I have found.”
Maurice nodded. “Tell me about it.”
“Soo...any beans you’d care to spill?”
Which was when Maurice recounted to Barry his dream-inspired memory of the TV programme in which the old man in St Petersburg with lank hair was building a shrine to John Lennon and peering out at the sea awaiting his return. Thinking even one of the seagulls might be John flying home to where so many people still worshipped him.
“Very popular he and The Beatles were over there,” he said. “There are even those who claim it was their influence on youth culture that led to Gorbachev’s new thinking and the end of the cold war.”
Barry blinked. “And this has what to do with your ironic plans for Ripurpantzov, old chap?”
Maurice watched on with suggestively raised eyebrows as his old mentor struggled to compute the admittedly abstruse logic behind his plan. He didn’t have to watch on for long however. As he had already noted, Barry had lost none of his old wiliness.
“Maurice, old fellow, you don’t seriously mean...?”
“Well actually, Professor, yes I do. Only a little idea in its embryonic stages so far, of course, but it is hard to deny the manner in which the current occupant of the Kremlin is leading us back to days even more dangerous than those of the last cold war.”
Barry nodded. “Indeed. A very nasty piece of work.”
“Quite. And neither can one deny the continuing popularity of The Beatles as evinced by the TV programme I mentioned. John Lennon is a particular favourite.”
“The one who said The Beatles were more popular than Jesus and upset the Yanks?”
“The same.”
“Who you’re now suggesting could become more popular than Ripurpantzov and upset some apple carts over there,” said Barry as the tumblers fell in quick succession.
“I think he’s got it! By George he’s got it,” trilled Maurice in a poor imitation of Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady.
Barry laughed. “A fine idea. But, correct me if I’m past my sell-by date, only The Beatles split up, did they not? And poor old George and John are dead. Bit of a snag, eh?”
“Indeed. However, just as old Igor has tampered with the Internet to further his own nefarious interests, so too could we in order to undercut those interests.”
“Your irony.’
“My irony.”
“And you would achieve this by?”
“Creating through computer generated imagery a tribute Beatles band nobody could distinguish from the real thing.”
Barry’s eyes widened. “Despite two of them no longer being with us?”
“Trust me, Internet users will believe anything. Including revenants. And we start with the advantage of Jeremy Crawford looking more than a teensie bit like old John, would you not say? Same sort of nose. Similar eyes. Add a wig and a touch of makeup and…”
“Bob’s your uncle.”
“And Fanny’s your aunt. And, from his post-Beatles career, my new John will take to the Russian people the very messages Igor will least want them to hear. He will speak to them of making love not war, of giving peace a chance, of working-class heroism, of people coming together and sharing all the world…and so on. And woven into each clip will be subliminal cuts showing the manner in which Ripurpantzov ripped off the ex-Soviets’ oil, gas, and metal wealth before rigging elections and going for the record as the longest serving Russian leader since Stalin.”
“And all done on the naughty Internet?”
“Every last bit. I have all the kit I need. And call it serendipity but, as I said, Mister C
rawford has some of the very characteristics we shall need for the Lennon role,” Maurice was saying as Shirley, Colin and Hans came bounding towards them.
“Shhhh, shhhhh, here he comes,” said Barry as they reached the end of their side path and were re-joined at the woodland gate by Jeremy, Julie and Dennis, all of whom had had a thoroughly good time but were starting to feel peckish again.
Eighteen
Since biffing PC Jason Humphreys on the nose, suffering a (mercifully treatable) cardiac arrest, and, after an unexpectedly rapid recovery from his triple bypass being hauled up before the magistrates and handed down a six-week Community Service order sluicing out public lavatories, Sir Magnus Montague had become a new man. Not as the result of any single one of these events, of course. It was more of an accretional process.
Very grumpy he had been after his heart op. So grumpy with his nurses that Professor Doctor Hugo Printemps had threatened to discharge him early if he continued with such ungrateful behaviour as refusing his meds and yanking at the wires attaching him to his life support machine.
“Zree more strikings and you’re out,” said Hugo in Franglais. “Alzough it may soon not be me tellin’ you zis. Maybe some uzzer professor doctor.”
“Uh?” said Sir Magnus, with difficulty.
“Already I am receiving letter from ze ’Ome Office zaying I gotta register or I go back in France. Brexshit, non? Okai, je m’en fous. I go back in France an’ fuck you Brits,” he said before stalking out of Sir Magnus’s private room, slamming the door behind him.
“Hugo...Hugo...come back here,” Sir Magnus managed to squeak.
But his squeaks were silenced once nurse Angeles Rodriguez, who was also contemplating leaving the UK, told him to shut up and zapped him with a megadose of intravenous bisoprolol/hydrochlorothiazide spiked with Valium.
It was only upon regaining consciousness that Sir Magnus took the first baby step towards becoming the new man he now was. This he achieved by thanking Angeles and Hugo for saving his life. You know how it is when you’ve been spared a visit to the Pearly Gates, how grateful you feel.
“Sorry if I was a bit bitchy before,” he said. “But I am very grateful, truly I am.”
“It was nozzink,” said Hugo, who had conducted the surgery. “Every day we do zese sings. Tomorrow you will be good to leave.”
He was about to turn on his heels when Sir Magnus called him back.
“Look, if there’s anything I can do to help with your Home Office problem, you only need ask. Let us just say I have connections.”
Hugo shrugged Gallically. “We shall see what we shall see. Only first you could help my friend Angeles. She too has had ze letter.”
“Good God,” said Sir Magnus, who had thus far been an ardent Brexiteer. “You mean...? There must have been some kind of a mistake.”
More Gallic shrugging, this time accompanied by Angeles’s Hispanic equivalent, during which Hugo explained that if Brexit meant repatriating any more European doctors and nurses, the UK wouldn’t have a health service any more, let alone a “free-at-the-point-of-entry” national one. Then they were both gone, leaving Sir Magnus aghast.
It was PC Jason Humphreys who, bearing no grudges despite his broken nose and having visited Sir Magnus every day since his hospital admission, took the place of Hugo and Angeles at his bedside.
“Feeling better today, are we, sir?”
“Like a new man. They’re letting me out tomorrow.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“And look, Jason, I’m so sorry about the busted beak.”
“These things happen, sir.”
“And I don’t know if I can ever thank you enough for the on-the-spot resuscitation you gave me. I’d have been a dead man otherwise.”
“All part of the job, sir.”
“For which I hear you guys are not paid nearly enough. And no need for the ‘sir,’ you can call me Magnus.”
“Okay…Magnus,” said Jason, before giving the big city banker some of the facts of life for those dependent on public sector pay. How, as long as austerity continued to bite, nobody on the government payroll was looking at a wage hike anytime soon: police, firemen, doctors and nurses (e.g. Hugo and Angeles), teachers, and on and on. No wonder that morale in the NHS and so many other critical public services was at an all-time low. And all this while the I’m-all-right-Jack rich looked the other way.
Sir Magnus chewed at his lower lip and swallowed hard.
“Sorry,” he said, holding out a hand to Jason. “So sorry. What more can I say?”
Clearly there was more the knight of the realm might have said, but these were waters in which he never before swum and so he remained wordless. There was also plenty more Jason might have said. Such as, “The next time your Bentley won’t start, don’t waste police and hospital time by hitting it and having a heart attack, call the AA. But he didn’t. All he said was, “Sorry is fine, Magnus. Now, if you’d excuse me? Work to do?”
“Of course. Of course,” said Sir Magnus, racking up baby step two.
Which leaves baby step three, namely the manner in which he hung his head and told presiding magistrate Dame Sally Swinburne at his magistrates court appearance how remorseful he felt at breaking PC Humphreys’ nose, particularly when afterwards PC Humphreys had saved his life with CRP. So it was an unreserved guilty plea he was entering. At which Dame Sally told him he was a lucky man indeed to be facing no more than a Community Service order sluicing out public lavatories when, without the leniency plea from PC Jason Humphreys, the defendant might instead have been looking at six months of jail time.
“Thank you, ma’am. Thank you,” said Sir Magnus, “I shall do my very best to leave the toilets spic and span. And to review my future role in British society.”
Dame Sally raised her eyebrows. “With which project I wish you the very best of luck,” she muttered before ordering a flunkey to remove Sir Magnus from her court.
“Next case, please,” were the last words Sir Magnus heard echoing behind him before being released into the custody of his probation officer, Terry Wishbone, for an introduction to the latest lavatory-sluicing devices and a list of the conveniences, male and female, for which he would be responsible.
~ * ~
Sated after a lunch of sausages, mash and peas, Jeremy, Julie and Dennis said what a fine walk they had enjoyed, reiterated their thanks to Barry for his continued hospitality, and lay back with the dogs on the tatty sofas in the Shepherd’s Hut parlour looking as though they might nod off. Meanwhile in the tiny kitchenette, dressed in pinnies as they washed the dishes, Barry asked Maurice if he were truly serious with this Ripurpantzov revenge idea.
“I mean, on mature reflection, it does seem a little, how shall I put it?” he said.
“Preposterous?” said Maurice, rinsing a plate.
“Quite. Not just in conception but also in practice. Are you really asking me to believe that dressing up Jeremy as a John Lennon lookalike and shooting his image all around Russia on the Internet will change anything over there? Ripurpantzov is no Gorbachev, after all. And who are we, just the little people, to imagine we could make such a difference anyway?”
Drying the plate, Maurice nodded. “See where you’re coming from, Prof. It does sound a tad outré, doesn’t it?”
“Just a mite,” said Barry, squirting more washing-up liquid into the green plastic bowl.
“But,” Maurice said, “as you taught me back at Oxford, if a problem is to be addressed, first it needs to be broken down into its constituent parts. No chance of a workable principle being adduced otherwise. I believe it was Albert Einstein you used as an exemplar in those days.”
Barry smiled while teasing sausage remnants from a frying pan. “Indeed so. Some memory you have, Mister Moffat. And how, may one ask, does this bear relevance to our current discussion?”
“Well, so far you have mentioned two elements: little people and practicality.”
“Yes.”
“Well, ther
e are a couple points I would make.”
“Just as when you were a student, old chap. Although sometimes back then it was three or even four points. All of them always relevant, of course.”
Maurice held up his dried plate and asked where the plate cupboard was.
“Behind you, the red one. The blue one’s for cups.”
“Okay,” said Maurice, stretching backwards. “So let us take the ‘little people’ first, shall we?”
“With pleasure.”
“Well, it is my view they are no longer so little and they’re now basking in their new power.”
“Explain?”
“Because in America it was they who were directly responsible for electing the psychotic baby man to The White House, and here in Britain for severing our forty-year-old ties to the European Union. Far from being ‘little,’ these guys’ power grew in proportion to the opportunities offered them.”
“Um…I don’t quite see…”
“Populism, old chap. The manipulation, largely through the social media’s tribal mentality, of the disaffected underclasses which suffered most from the banking crash of two thousand and eight. There’s nobody a disadvantaged person is more likely to vote for than a superhero promising to fight for his rights. Ripurpantzov’s power works on much the same principle with Russians when he demonizes the West.”
Barry nodded as the logic hit home. Since his gardening days he had paid little attention to politics.
“Which,” Maurice continued, “left armies of white trash voters in the West easy prey to all manner of alt-right machinations. What were they told they should want? ‘Change,’ that was what. Any change which would put more money in their pockets and restore their national pride. And they fell for it hook, line and sinker. All that was then required were false enemies, normally ‘outsiders,’ for them to hate. Think Hitler here. So in the last two years, these ‘little people’ have changed Western politics out of all recognition while the liberal centre was caught napping and the extreme left and right took advantage by colluding in their fake news and post-truth versions of history.”
“Good God,” said Barry.
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