“What’s behind it, sir? Is it the death of Mr Partridge, like they’ve been saying?”
“Oh yes, it’s the death of Partridge. The murder of Partridge. Only it’s never going to be that officially now.”
And sitting there over their “cold tea,” and then over another, Sutcliffe told the sergeant something of his poking round into the death of Bootham’s MP. He was just getting round to Jerry, his SAS training, and his opportunity, when the gentleman-commentator at Bootham Town Hall began to show signs of excitement.
“It’s coming . . . I think the Declaration is imminent . . . yes, the Returning Officer is coming forward . . .”
Sutcliffe broke off as a heavy and self-important individual laboriously unburdened himself of the customary phrases:
“As returning officer for the constituency of Bootham East . . .”
“Get on with it,” muttered Sutcliffe.
“ . . . the following votes cast: Edward Armstrong, the Bring Back Hanging candidate, two hundred and fifty . . .”
“Oh Christ, we’ve got to go through the loonies,” swore Sutcliffe, to the offence of the sergeant, who had voted for Armstrong himself.
“Booth, Helen, Women for the Bomb, one hundred and six; Carter, Edward, National Front, six hundred and twenty; Craybourne-Fisk, Antony, twelve thousand, three hundred and sixteen . . .”
The Town Hall was rent by cheers, but Sutcliffe’s sharp ear detected a hollowness behind them, an element of whistling in the dark, as if Antony’s supporters knew that was not good enough.
“If I’m not mistaken, Bootham has not elected one of the New Tories,” he murmured.
“Crotch, Peter Thomas, Top of the Pops,” pursued the official, impervious to any sense of the ridiculous, “seven hundred and twenty; Fermor-Meddibrook, Constance, Home Rule for England, one hundred and seven; Fust, Jason, John Lennon Lives, forty-seven; Manciple, Michael, Richard III Was Innocent, seventeen; Nubble, Frederick, Communist, five hundred and ninety-four; Popperwell, June, Britain Out of the Common Market, one thousand and ten . . .”
“A surprisingly good result there,” purred the commentator.
“Get on, you burk,” snarled Sutcliffe.
“Singh, Percival Richard, Transcendental Meditation, eighty-six; Snaithe, Jeremy, Labour Party, thirteen thousand and forty-seven . . .”
Again, tremendous cheers rent the Town Hall, but again . . . could it be . . . ?
“Ward, Humphrey, Transvestite Meditation, seven; Worthing, Oliver, Social Democratic Party, fourteen thousand one hundred and—”
But his voice was drowned by a tremendous yell of middle-class radicals, countered by howls of disappointment from the young supporters of Jerry, and in the body of the hall the cameras focused on the beginnings of several scuffles, with the police immediately moving in. If the vote for Zachariah Zzugg, the I’m Coming Last candidate, ever got announced, Sutcliffe did not hear it.
“Well, well, well,” he said. “I wondered if he’d make it.”
“Can’t understand it, myself,” said the sergeant. “Seems a funny result for Bootham.”
“I don’t know about that. It’s vindicated the democratic process: it’s sent to Westminster someone no body much wanted, but nobody much objected to, and seen packing two people whom little groups of enthusiasts liked, but people in general couldn’t stand. It means that people saw through them.”
“Tell me more about this Snaithe, sir . . .”
And Sutcliffe did, breaking off only when, on the tiny screen, he saw the defeated candidates coming forward to give their speeches, their verbal gestures of acquiescence to the democratic will. Antony was first of the major ones, hideously disappointed behind an upper lip that was not so much stiff as paralysed.
“ . . . Perhaps I shouldn’t have hoped that at this time, after the government has had to take tough decisions—necessary, right decisions, but tough ones for the people of Bootham—that I could maintain a majority won by a very much loved predecessor . . .”
“Bullshit,” said Sutcliffe.
Jeremy hid his disappointment better. Was not his speciality coming up for the fourth time?
“We’ve seen during this by-election a media campaign of vilification and misrepresentation of unprecedented proportions, culminating tonight in events that I think most of you will have heard about by now. When the working people of this country are fed a diet of lies of this kind, we shouldn’t be surprised . . .”
“Bullshit,” said Sutcliffe, and in a moment turned away from the box, on which Oliver Worthing was now meandering through a speech of thanks both too long and too grammatically convoluted.
“What you’re saying, sir,” pursued the sergeant, “is that you think he did it, that Labour bloke.”
“I know he did it. He gave me that smile, that smile that said: ‘OK, I admit it, but prove it. You never will.’ And he was quite right. I never will.”
“Is there no way, sir? Surely it’s early days yet?”
“No way, except by an actual, unimpeachable witness, or preferably more than one. It’s not early days for witnesses. The time’s long past for them.”
“What you’re saying, then, sir, is that he’s going to get away with murder?”
Sutcliffe downed the last of his cold tea.
“Don’t politicians always?”
Chapter 17
Inquests
By-elections resemble bodies that have died unnaturally: inevitably they have inquests that sit upon them.
The political hacks had their say in the later editions the next day, or in the Friday weeklies and the Sunday heavies. They fed the votes, the swings, the turnout into the mincing machine of their psephologically-attuned minds, and came up with the conclusion that it was a triumph for the Social Democrats and a humiliation for the government. Then they went back to El Vino’s to forget about it all.
The Social Democrats’ inquest was really more of a small-scale orgy. The whole parliamentary party, all seven of them, were gathered in the party’s London headquarters, and when the result was announced they filled the available floor space with a rapturous dance. Since all seven members of the parliamentary party were male, it was fortunate that the police’s interest in MPs’ sexual habits was confined to sending their prettier PCs into the gay clubs of Soho to seduce them, and that they had not yet woken up to what could go on in party headquarters. The next day, when Oliver Worthing came to London, he found to his surprise that he had already been made his party’s spokesman on education.
The Labour leader sat at home watching on television, knowing that he would be telephoned for a comment as soon as the results were known. His feelings when the Labour candidate was a left-wing trouble-maker who had wangled himself the candidacy by thoroughly conspiratorial means were always ambiguous, and when he heard through a phone call from the Labour Agent that Jerry Snaithe was being interviewed by the police in connection with the murder of James Partridge, he became very het-up and Welsh indeed.
“Thank God we lost” was his reaction when the result was announced, though when one of the national newspapers rang him minutes later, he had a very different rigmarole at his practised fingertips.
But the final, authoritative judgment on the by-election was pronounced from No. 10, Downing Street.
It was one of those not-too-busy Fridays when the absence of important business in the House meant that time could be given to a consideration, not of day-to-day, bread-and-butter matters, but of more visionary schemes. Thus, while lackeys were scurrying hither and thither leaking libellous titbits of information to account for the poor showing of the Conservative candidate, the Prime Minister was sat at a desk stewing over a draft speech advocating the abolition of the old age pension. A knotty passage in the argument had just been reached when the phone rang.
“Yes? . . . The Chairman? Put him on at once . . . Well, that was a poor showing at Bootham yesterday.”
From the end of the line came a high-pitched, fluttery voice.<
br />
“I quite agree, Prime Minister, but—”
“A poor candidate, I would have said. A quite unsuitable candidate for that constituency.”
“I’m glad you realize—”
“If you’ll just let me finish, John. You people at Central Office should have given better advice to the selectors. And I don’t understand why the election had to be hurried in the way it was: it gave the impression that we wanted to get it out of the way before the Budget—”
“But, Prime Minister, you—”
“No excuses. There are going to have to be a lot of socks pulled up at Central Office, and I’ll expect you to see that they are.”
The phone was put firmly and finally down. On the blank wall in the office, on which were invisibly written the names of all the cabinet and all the party officials, there appeared against that of the party chairman one more black mark.
Then the Prime Minister returned to the text of the speech:
“Surely it is vital to encourage enterprise and initiative in the old—especially in the old . . .”
It was Business As Usual.
By the same author
FETE FATALE
OUT OF THE BLACKOUT
CORPSE IN A GILDED CAGE
SCHOOL FOR MURDER
THE CASE OF THE MISSING BRONTË
A LITTLE LOCAL MURDER
DEATH AND THE PRINCESS
DEATH BY SHEER TORTURE
DEATH IN A COLD CLIMATE
DEATH OF A PERFECT MOTHER
DEATH OF A LITERARY WIDOW
DEATH OF A MYSTERY WRITER
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Barnard, Robert.
Political suicide.
I. Title.
PS3552.A6737P65 1986 823’.914 85-25130
ISBN 0-684-18625-X
ISBN 978-1-4767-3721-8 (ebook)
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the permission of Scribner.
Political Suicide Page 18
