The Lords' Day (retail)

by Michael Dobbs

  ‘You have lost me utterly,’ Paine remarked, in a tone that indicated he was beginning to find the conversation tedious.

  ‘This plot wasn’t really political. The terrorists in the chamber wanted the release of their leader, of course, and the wobbling of the Western Alliance was an added extra, a bonus. But at its heart, this was something desperately personal, about two boys, and two sets of parents.’

  ‘It was about the Queen.’

  ‘Yes, I wondered about that for a while, but if it was about her then why wouldn’t they take Charles when he had offered himself in exchange for the two boys? It was because he was the wrong son. This was about taking revenge on the President and the Prime Minister.’

  Paine’s fingers had stopped dancing, his body grown still and tense; the dog, sensing the change, slunk away, its tail curled between its legs. The ambassador’s gaze wandered back and forth between the two Englishmen, wondering who would strike next. It was Tibbetts.

  ‘How long ago did your own son die, ambassador?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Your son. He was a Robert T, too, wasn’t he? When did he die?’

  The American took his time before he replied. His features had frozen into a rigid mask but behind the eyes they could sense that some extreme and unremitting form of emotional warfare was taking place, a civil war, a war within that involved no one but himself, and different parts of himself, one that had been going on for a very long time. When at last he spoke, the voice came like a creeping frost. ‘Do you mean, how long ago was my son’s life wasted? Thrown away? That was almost two years ago.’

  ‘Is that what you think – that his life was wasted?’

  ‘He died for his country, fighting for a cause. Then his country forgot about him – your country, too. Their leaders washed their hands of the cause for which he had given his life and wandered off to other things, while their own sons were pampered, sent off to the glittering spires of Oxford where the greatest challenge they ever faced was a deadline for the weekly essay.’

  ‘I suspect they must know what it feels like now, the agony of watching their child suffer.’

  ‘They didn’t do too well, did they?’

  ‘You sound almost pleased.’

  ‘Pleased? What the hell have I got to be pleased about? Our governments begin these half-brained wars from the comfort of their armchairs, sending the best and the brightest of our young men to die, while the rest of the population reach for their remote controls to wipe away the last trace of any embarrassment.’ He all but spat in disgust. ‘They don’t suffer, they make no sacrifice, they never come down from their pulpits to mourn their dead. They simply wash their hands and look the other way. That should not be.’

  ‘But you are an ambassador, Mr Paine, committed to defending your government’s policy,’ Harry prodded, sensing the inconsistency.

  ‘And you, Mr Jones, are a politician who, like all of your kind, are committed to the highest standards of public integrity. So perhaps you can explain to me why politicians everywhere are despised and always seem to end up in the shit.’

  ‘Ambassador, we have this little difficulty, you see. Bulgakov needed help, and he was also murdered. And you are the only one we can find with anything that looks like a motive,’ Tibbetts said.

  ‘Motive?’

  ‘I think you have just set out a motivation very clearly.’

  ‘Being an ambassador with a private conscience is not yet a crime.’ Paine offered a smile of ill-disguised contempt. ‘You try to peer into a man’s soul, commander, and you will lose your way. This is nothing but idle speculation.’

  ‘Then let me speculate a little more. I’m pretty sure we’ll discover that you knew Bulgakov of old. That we can establish as fact. And what we believe is that you formed the idea and gathered all the insider information, while he found the resources in Masood and his merry men. A pretty lethal combination – not just for the gunmen in the chamber but also for Bulgakov. And you were the only one to leave the chamber, the only one with the time to kill him. You had both motive – and opportunity.’

  ‘I can see why you need to cover your own incompetence, commander, but this is all not only desperately circumstantial but also utterly implausible. I’m the United States ambassador, for God’s sake.’

  ‘You changed your clothes,’ Harry intervened. ‘After you left the chamber.’

  ‘Yes, I plead guilty to that and throw myself upon your mercy, gentlemen.’

  ‘Might we be allowed to see the clothes?’ Tibbetts asked. ‘Let forensics take a look.’

  ‘I would be more than happy,’ Paine replied, ‘but . . . I see a problem with diplomatic immunity. It would set an unfortunate precedent.’

  ‘No matter. I expect CCTV cameras will put some meat on the bones of our hypothesis. And forensics have found footprints by the bridge. Size ten.’

  ‘I’m size twelve.’

  ‘That’s size ten UK, ambassador – size twelve American.’ Tibbetts was staring at Paine’s feet.

  The ambassador shifted uncomfortably. ‘Me and around five million others,’ he suggested.

  ‘But only one with both motive and opportunity. And size ten feet.’

  Paine rose to his feet, letting forth a sigh of impatience. ‘Then I look forward to my day in court, gentlemen. In the meantime, I think it’s time you took your fantasies elsewhere.’

  Tibbetts rose reluctantly, but Harry stayed stubbornly seated. ‘Oh, it’ll never come to that, ambassador,’ he said. ‘They’ll never give you your day in court.’

  ‘They must. If they share your fantasies.’

  ‘You present the authorities with a formidable quandary, Mr Paine. Look, may I talk to you man-to-man? I have no official position in this, I’m little more than . . . I think the Home Secretary called me a passer-by.’

  ‘An astonishing woman,’ Paine said. But Harry had intrigued him; he sat down once more. Tibbetts stood quietly by the door.

  ‘There will be no public platform for you, ambassador, either in court or outside. They won’t charge you, that would simply be too humiliating. It would give Daud Gul and all the enemies of the West too much gratification, do their job for them. And they won’t let you go, either, because that would cause just as much embarrassment. Yet the truth will come out eventually, no matter how deep they try to bury it.’

  ‘I will insist!’ Paine barked.

  ‘Of course. And when the truth does emerge, they will simply say that these were the acts of a madman.’ He hit the last word softly, like the burying of a blade.

  ‘Ridiculous!’ the American snapped in exasperation.

  Harry twisted the knife. ‘They’ll say it, nonetheless. They will cast you down as delusional, put you away quietly, secretly. Your own very personal form of extreme rendition. You will disappear, no one will know. A padded cell made of silk. That’s what they’ll do, they’ve done far worse.’

  ‘I shall speak out!’

  ‘The screams of the lunatic asylum,’ Harry mocked. ‘Who will listen?’

  ‘Even they can’t cover up an act such as this.’

  ‘So you admit it.’

  ‘I admit nothing!’ the ambassador shouted, banging the arms of his chair.

  The two men were locked together like gladiators in an arena, eyes held fast, watching each other’s every move, oblivious of the outside world and bound within their own very private battle as they pushed each other to extremes.

  ‘So, you are the God,’ Harry said quietly.

  The American cocked his head slowly in puzzlement, thrown off balance. ‘What?’

  ‘It’s how I knew you were responsible. It was never just about Masood and the others – couldn’t be, they were just the choirboys, as I called them, singing to a score set for them by the cardinal. Bulgakov. But behind a cardinal stands God – God the Father, whose son died for others. That’s the role you’ve been playing, isn’t it?’

  ‘If I were guilty, why wouldn’t I ad
mit it? I have nothing to hide, nothing more to lose.’

  ‘I wonder what your son would be thinking now, if he were here. He was a brave man, one who was willing to lay down his life for his country. How do you think he would feel about the father who betrayed it, and him?’

  ‘I would never betray my son!’

  Harry shook his head dismissively. ‘You said you had nothing more to lose, ambassador, but you do. You have your good name, which is also your son’s good name.’

  ‘He was the last of the line . . .’

  ‘Don’t you understand what you have done? You’ve destroyed the only thing that was left of him – his memory. Because of you, the name of Robert T. Paine will stand for nothing but treachery, and because of you, his death will truly have been in vain.’

  Harry put the suggestion with force, and it seemed to shake the ambassador. The war taking place inside was slowly twisting out of control, tearing him to pieces. ‘I keep his photograph by my bed. I have his medals in my drawer. His sword and service pistol on my bookcase. I have the flag from his coffin. I talk to him every night. His memory means everything to me . . .’ Then he sobbed, a hoarse, dry sound, like the sputtering of a damp fuse before it dies. For the first time, doubt crept into his eyes. ‘Is it possible to love a son too much, Mr Jones?’

  ‘A friend of mine, last night, told me that fatherhood is a form of madness.’

  ‘I think perhaps he was right,’ the ambassador gasped. Then he fell to silence, retreating to a place deep within himself, his haunted expression suggesting he was finding nothing but ghosts. He stayed there some while. ‘What will happen?’ he asked eventually.

  ‘We can’t touch you,’ Tibbetts replied from the doorway. ‘You have diplomatic immunity. You will be recalled home. I suspect all that Harry has said is right. You will disappear for a while. If ever you are heard of again, it will only be to drag you out through Traitor’s Gate.’

  ‘What have I done?’ he gasped.

  ‘Done?’ Harry replied. ‘Why, you have lost, ambassador. Lost everything.’

  ‘I wanted nothing for myself, not like the others. I wanted nothing but—’

  ‘But to see those who had wronged you suffer, like you have suffered.’

  ‘I longed for my own death, not that of the others. Do you understand that? An end to it all.’

  ‘I think so,’ Harry said. ‘That was why you went back into the chamber. A stray bullet. A simple conclusion. It would’ve been seen as an heroic sacrifice, one fit for the long tradition of the Paines. And with you dead, none of this would have come out.’

  ‘A neat solution.’

  ‘For you. And your son. I would hate to see his name dragged down. He was a brave young man. He deserves none of this.’

  Paine moistened his lips as he tried to fashion the words. ‘If only I could turn the clock back, just a day. Finish things off properly.’

  ‘It’s never too late, ambassador.’

  Tibbetts flashed a look of alarm, but Harry’s own eyes lashed him into silence.

  ‘A soldier’s death, Robert. No shame in such things. So much better than what is to come.’

  ‘I have a choice?’ the American asked quietly.

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Thank you.’ The American stood from his chair, stiff, like a puppet. ‘If you’ll excuse me.’ Awkwardly, as though his joints needed oil, he turned and walked from the room. The red setter refused to follow.

  The policeman did not speak – there were many things best left unspoken at a moment such as this – but there was agitation in his eyes.

  ‘It’s better this way, Mike, believe me. For everyone,’ Harry whispered as he busied himself making a fuss of the dog.

  It was a few minutes later when, from somewhere upstairs in the great house, there came a sharp sound they both recognised. The dog lay down and whimpered.

  ‘I’ll take a guess he used his son’s service pistol,’ Harry said.

  ‘You pushed him into it.’

  ‘I gave him a choice, Mike, which is more than he gave others. Believe me, it was the only way.’

  ‘For who? The politicians?’

  ‘For his family, his son. But mostly for himself.’

  ‘I’m a policeman, Harry, this isn’t the way I work.’

  ‘Tell you what, Mike, if it happens again next year, we do it your way. In the meantime, I need a drink.’

  ‘And I’ve got a million forms to fill out.’

  ‘That’s fine, then. Business as usual.’

  Afterword

  IT WAS REMARKABLE HOW QUICKLY the British Establishment regrouped and repaired the hole that had been blown in it. A Royal Commission was set up to inquire into the siege and came up with two main conclusions. The first was that the security surrounding the State Opening was woefully lax and based on assumptions that were at least a decade out of date. The second conclusion was that no one individual was to blame for this state of affairs.

  The man who shouldered most of the responsibility was, inevitably, John Eaton. The following weekend he declared that he was resigning as Prime Minister and retiring from the House of Commons with immediate effect. It seemed ironic, after all that had happened, that after a period of grace no longer than six months he should be offered a peerage and became a member of the House of Lords.

  When the contest to succeed him began, Tricia Willcocks threw her hat into the ring. However, within days of her announcement a Sunday newspaper revealed that her husband, Colin, had been leading a double life and had fathered a daughter with one of the younger partners in his law firm. It seemed not only deceitful of Colin but also very clumsy of Tricia not to have known. Privately she blamed the leak on what she referred to as ‘that stick-sucking bastard at Five’, while publicly withdrawing her candidacy with as much grace as she could muster, declaring that she would fight another day.

  The Royal Family went through one of their occasional bursts of popularity. The Queen was raised almost to sainthood, while Charles’s offer to take the place of the other two sons was seen as being the dotty act of an evermore eccentric man, but one who was now admired for his peculiarities rather than reviled. The period of royal popularity proved to be prolonged.

  President Edwards ran for re-election and won. Robert T. Paine was buried with full honours, his suicide the result, it was claimed, of the unbearable stress brought on by his heroic defiance of the terrorists.

  Harry got himself both a George Cross, the highest civilian award for gallantry, and a divorce. The new Prime Minister offered him a Cabinet post, but he declined. The speculation was that he was too busy spending time with outrageously unsuitable women.

  Hastie and Tibbetts also got medals and promotions, but despite a whole paragraph in the Royal Commission’s report praising his dedication, Daniel never got his parking space. They might change the world but, it seemed, never the BBC.

  Statues to Archie and Celia were placed either side of Pugin’s entrance to the House of Lords, just as statues of Churchill and Lloyd George guarded the entrance to the chamber of the House of Commons. The day after the siege, a national newspaper began a campaign suggesting that the two of them should be buried together. Celia’s family gave their enthusiastic approval, but despite several days of searching for relatives, no one could be found to speak for Archie. So they were interred side by side in Westminster Abbey. The Queen, President Edwards, and several hundred thousand ordinary people attended. They closed down the centre of London for that, too.

  Acknowledgements

  THE INSPIRATION FOR THIS book began with a visit I made many years ago to the House of Lords. It was a private tour, and I was fascinated with the architectural glories of the place. But one anomaly stood out. As I stood amidst all the sumptuous detail I noticed a well-hidden door, one of two set into the gilded canopy behind the throne. I assumed these doors guarded deep secrets, but when I was given permission to look, I discovered secrets of an entirely unexpected kind. By now you will know
what I stumbled upon, but the discovery tickled my sense of humour. I decided that one day I would write a story set around those two cupboard doors. The Lords’ Day.

  Yet, there has been a darker side to this work. In the wider research for it I uncovered what I thought were alarming lapses in security around the State Opening, and since I was working solely from public sources the potential consequences of this worried me. We live in disturbing times and the laws of terrorism aren’t suspended simply because the British are having a bit of a royal jamboree.

  So, many months before its publication, I wrote to the Home Secretary to warn her of what I thought I had discovered. Naively I expected a prompt response, yet nothing happened, not even an acknowledgement, so I wrote to others who have responsibility for these security matters. At the time this caused a considerable fluttering in the dovecotes at Westminster. It was suggested that the book was irresponsible, that there were literally dozens of security breaches in the book, which to my mind rather missed the point. All these so-called breaches were in the public domain, and if I was able to discover that walking into the State Opening was easier than getting on to a domestic flight at Gatwick, so could others who had much darker intentions than me. If the Home Secretary chose to ignore my warnings, what else was I supposed to do?

  It has all turned out for the best. The changes required to the security of the ceremony have been or are in the process of being made. Future State Openings will go ahead with a much greater degree of safety and without any lessening of the fun. The book has, I hope, done its job and will now remain what it was always intended to be, a work of fiction.

  Yet, as a result of the controversy, there are many who have helped me with this book who are still serving in and around Westminster who may not wish to be counted publicly. They know who they are; I am deeply in their debt. However, one man I can include is Major Peter Horsfall. After his retirement from an illustrious career in the Coldstream Guards spanning thirty-four years, Peter became the Staff Superintendent in the House of Lords, where he assumed the awesome responsibility for keeping the place running smoothly. This he did with huge success and humour. He and his delightful wife, Mary, were my hosts that evening many years ago when I first discovered those two doors. Mary is no longer with us, but Peter remains a staunch friend. He has known nothing about the writing of this book – I suspect he might be horrified that anyone would want to do harm to an institution he loved and served so loyally – but I hope he will accept my thanks for a friendship that I have found inspiring in many ways.