Jeremy went to work, following the money from bank accounts to offshore accounts and onwards. He looked into births, marriages and deaths, talked to people who knew people who knew other people. He called the USA, he called Switzerland, he called China, India and Japan. Mrs Caris Brookes of the Old Manor in a Wiltshire village, for example, turned out to be an oft-divorced lady, one of her ex-husbands being Harold Hambro, now a personal adviser to the US President. Mrs Maria Hughes was, in her public life, the Hughes of Hughes Hudson Hatt, PR consultants in New York and London. Pelman already had big building contracts in Iraq; Briggs-Anderson was in the arms trade and would be pleased to get any contracts he could from the US military; Opal Entertainments was partner in a big US entertainments consortium and, if the world were in ruins, there would still be TV networks set up.
The final giveaway was Jay Stanton, born in the USA, though a naturalized Briton, and living in yet another manor house in the British countryside. Jeremy found out that he was a retired CIA man. Though by that stage gaunt and very weary, he couldn’t help laughing about that one.
Strings had been pulled by US businesses and, pushed or bribed by US politicians, Petherbridge had got the money. Petherbridge had used it to buy a British election. Gott wondered why he hadn’t made the connection earlier. And Jeremy told him, ‘Because it’s so extreme.’
‘Oh – James Bentley, Star Casinos,’ Gott told Joshua in conclusion. ‘Mustn’t forget him. You’ll love this. Bentley owns several casinos and would like to get permission for more. But the British government is balky about casinos – they love them and they fear them. Bentley has good friends in Las Vegas and Atlantic City who would love to get into business with him here, if the government could be persuaded to give licences for another fifteen or twenty casinos. What do you think the deal is there?’
Joshua, believing but not believing, shook his head. ‘Petherbridge guarantees the permission and the friends in Vegas give the money to Bentley to give to the Conservative Party.’
‘When Jeremy worked that one out he panicked. He’s afraid of finding his dog’s head in his bed one night.’
Joshua had listened to the story silently. He still did not quite believe it. He had believed Gott, up to now, to be one of the sanest men he knew. Yet a sane man can turn into a monomaniac. A sane man in the grip of a conspiracy theory can still find all the evidence he needs to back the theory. But then there was the money – that cartload of money donated in the few short months before the election. His colleagues, the opposition, the political journalists had all been astonished by it.
Joshua was shaken. He said, ‘Edward – are you quite sure?’
‘Sure as death and taxes,’ Gott told him.
A well-known actor came up and asked for a light for a cigar. He gazed deep into Joshua’s eyes and saw something there he did not like. When he had gone, Joshua, still wrestling with his doubts, asked, ‘So where does this bill to sell the air force bases come in?’
‘The first payment on the debt,’ Gott said. ‘Petherbridge has had the money. Like all creditors, unless he has to pay up from the off, he’ll relax and forget. So here it is, written into the Queen’s Speech, bloody hard to get through the House, but he has to do it.’
‘So why not just go to the press? One article in a respectable paper and the whole can of worms opens.’
‘Petherbridge had me in and threatened me,’ Gott told him. ‘Bribed me, too – the Party Chairmanship when Barnsbury goes, as he may do soon. His wife’s sick. Petherbridge needs me to deny everything and maybe cook the books when some clever bastard works it out.’
‘What did he threaten you with?’
‘An old misdemeanour – and something to do with my family. I’m pretty sure I can manage the misdemeanour. Jeremy’s starting on it tomorrow, when he pulls himself together.’ Jeremy would be at Ford Open Prison first thing in the morning, suggesting to Derek Vigo that he might prefer becoming the proprietor of a thriving bar and restaurant in Toronto, which Gott had taken in payment for a bad debt, to early parole based on telling the story of Gott’s involvement in the financial scandal. Gott reasoned that serving his sentence in full and coming out of jail to emigrate and make a new life would appeal more to Vigo than early release, conversations with the Fraud Squad, the granny flat at his son’s house presided over by a resentful daughter-in-law. ‘I don’t like the threat concerning my personal life – but if Petherbridge follows through on it, I’ll take the consequences, if I have to. I’ve thought it all over, Joshua. It’s difficult. For one thing, it would be very hard for me to pull down the party I’ve worked for and supported all my life. If there’s another way, I’ll take it.’
‘Start by stopping the bill?’
‘As the first move to get rid of Petherbridge.’
Joshua drew in a deep breath. ‘Oh, shit,’ he said.
‘Not easy, as I said. I’ve let Petherbridge think I’ve taken the bait about the Chairmanship. That buys a little time. But we need to be quick because I think Petherbridge has to push the first reading through by Christmas. I’m guessing the US wants everything in place before the Iraqis nationalize their own oil. Those bases will be crucial, and so will Petherbridge’s sense that he has to go along with the American reinvasion.’
‘I’ll start talking to people,’ Joshua said. ‘Shall I drop a few hints on Westminster Unplugged? Nothing obvious.’
Gott shook his head. ‘Not at the moment, I think.’
Joshua, alarmed, looked at his watch. ‘I’m sorry. I have an engagement.’
‘And I have to get back to my office,’ Gott said.
They both stood. Joshua again realized the enormity of what Gott had told him and asked, ‘Why do it?’
‘Power?’ suggested Gott. ‘That’s the usual story.’
But Joshua thought Gott knew more than he was willing to say. ‘I meant,’ he said, ‘why are they doing it?’
‘The US economy is poor. They feel threatened. Like all countries they have a national myth about themselves which doesn’t always tally with what observers from outside see. Their narrative is to do with expanding – go west young man – new horizons. When times get hard you saddle up and head for a new place. It’s not that stupid.’
Joshua headed west to a dinner party. ‘What have I let myself in for?’ said the voice in his head. ‘Oh my God – what am I doing?’
He found it hard to keep his attention on his hostess, a political hostess of a kind still to be found in London, and his host, the editor of a tabloid newspaper. There were six guests round the well-appointed table in a high dining room. Joshua had brought Saskia, who had not wanted to come and sat, saying little, throughout the meal. There were tiny portions on exquisite old plates, served by a couple from the Philippines.
Gott wanted Joshua to play a prominent part in the rebellion against his own government’s bill. Instinctively, Joshua was against it – the Little Englander in him, no doubt. He was shocked by what Gott had told him about the campaign contributions. But he sensed that if he joined this particular dissident section of his own party, this time there would be no turning back. Whether they won or lost, while he was still PM, Petherbridge, energetic, efficient and determined, would seek to destroy him. He’d show no mercy. He’d make sure smears were published, he’d starve him of work and influence and, finally, make sure he would be deselected by his own constituency party.
What could Joshua do if he were no longer in Parliament? He’d started by abandoning a job as a lecturer at LSE to become a research economist with the party but there was little chance the LSE would want to take him back. Farewell to the fleshpots, no more invitations from the knowledgable and influential. He’d be out. His wife would hate him for it. He flinched at the idea of telling her. He put his knife and fork together on the plate, unconscious of having eaten anything.
They might succeed, that was the point. They might win. And he, Joshua Crane would be at the front of the victory parade. He was still a young man �
�� at that moment Joshua saw the premiership, like a holy vision, right before his eyes. What should he do now? To start with – no more high-maintenance Saskia. For the time being, while the campaign was running, he and she would have to keep their heads down. While he was looking at her, she stood up and left the table. Joshua realized he had half-noticed his old school friend, James, get up and go out of the room only moments earlier. Oh shit, Joshua thought, just as the pudding was coming round, they couldn’t sodding well wait. Never mind, he told himself, this is a big moment. Make the wrong decision and you’re fucked. Make the right one and you could go to the top, the real top, top of the world. And who could he talk to? Julia, he decided. Julia would understand all the issues and she wouldn’t tell anyone. He’d ring her next day.
After the guests went home, his hostess said to her husband, ‘I’d no idea Joshua Crane would be so dull. Terribly bad value.’
‘Not a word to say for himself,’ her husband agreed. ‘Don’t ask him again.’
Six
The Rose and Crown, Hamscott Common. November 18th, 2015. 8 p.m.
The Rose and Crown was one of two pubs in the short village street at Hamscott Common. It lay opposite a pretty row of 200-year-old cottages. Its interior, beamed and with a bright fire burning in a large grate at one side of the bar room, seemed to tell its customers that it reflected and preserved the values of the old, rural Hamscott Common.
The landlord, Geoff Armstrong, was a short, sturdy fifty-year-old ex-serviceman. On the pub door was a painted sign reading, ‘No travellers. No work clothes. No demonstrators.’ Travellers, men in working clothes and demonstrators took their trade to the other pub in the village, the Goat.
That evening, the Rose and Crown was not crowded. At the bar, in their usual positions, were the regulars: Tom, the postman, Warren, the former market garden owner and John, a local handyman. At a table beside the bar was a group of mid-to-late twenties and, at another table nearer the windows, another older quartet in sensible clothing, the men in corduroys and plaid shirts, the women in tweed skirts and sweaters. ‘I still say, it’s not good enough selling the base off. It’s no less than putting a foreign army in our midst,’ said one of the men, Julian Simms, to his friend, Harry Wainwright. Julian was an early-retired civil servant and Harry still employed at the Ministry of Health. Harry, with the responsible air of the still-employed, answered, ‘I’d say it was a lot less than that. It’s a rational solution. It only acknowledges a fact, after all. And there’s bound to be a cost benefit.’
‘Sell it off and the British government loses all control. They can fill the place with as many Yanks as they see fit – what’s that but a foreign army based on British soil?’ asked Julian.
At the second table Kevin Staithe, a young local estate agent, said to his girlfriend, Rosie Allen, ‘It’s disgusting – Hamscott Common becomes American territory – what the bloody hell’s all that about? What happens when one of their airmen rapes a local girl? We won’t see him in court, you can bet on that.’
Art Newcombe said, ‘Cool it. Hamscott’s been the Yanks’ since the Second World War. Own schools, own shop and if a serviceman fucks up, they cover for him – look at what happened when that barn of Joe Bridges’ went up in flames. No arrests, no trial and compensation paid. What difference will it make?’
Rosie, who had been at school with the dead teacher, Kim Durham and was her son’s godmother said loudly, ‘They’ve already killed Kim – and you want them to own the base! I’ll tell you the difference – we’ll never be able to kick them out. That’s the difference. They’ll take over more and more land. They’ll walk the streets as if they owned them. And next time they kill someone they’ll hardly need to apologize.’
Harry Wainwright’s wife, Wendy, glanced at Rosie, as perhaps pub etiquette suggested she shouldn’t. Her gaze was thoughtful. Geoff Armstrong leaned over the bar and looked towards Rosie. ‘A word of advice. No politics in my pub, young lady,’ he said. Geoff Armstrong would not hear criticism of the base or its occupants. He had been a serviceman himself and he benefited from the trade. He had created two rooms upstairs, with four-poster beds, for the relatives of the officers on the base who wanted to visit a traditional British inn.
‘Thanks for the advice,’ declared Rosie. ‘I hope you’ll still think the same when someone else gets killed. Or somebody bombs the base and all your windows blow out. This’ll make us more of a target than we already are.’ Rosie had said the unsayable. The Hamscott Common base provided many local people with work. She had broken the taboo against speaking about the possible dangers of living near the base.
‘That’s enough, young lady,’ said Geoff. ‘US personnel come in here, you know.’
‘Well, then,’ said Rosie standing up. ‘I don’t want to upset any of your well-paid customers. I think I’ll just take myself down to the Goat.’ She eased out from behind the table and began to walk out.
‘I hope you’ll enjoy the company of the smelly demonstrators there,’ Geoff called out to her back. ‘Because I don’t want you in here again. You’re barred.’
Rosie walked out and Kevin, out of loyalty, followed. ‘You, too,’ Geoff called after him. ‘You’re barred, too.’
‘I see the police have blocked off Templesfield Road,’ observed the postman, Tom.
‘It’s a liberty,’ said Warren, ‘cutting the village off like that.’ Without access by the road running past the airbase, many potential customers of the Rose and Crown would be forced to use the bypass and, once on it, might decide to carry on to the next town.
The landlord of the local pub in a two-pub village has enormous power over his regulars. If he bars them where can they go, every night, for a drink? In Warren and Tom’s case, only to the Goat, with its loud music and undesirable clientele. Because the inn, the centre of their lives, was controlled by Armstrong, they didn’t mind goading him a little.
Armstrong reacted with force, ‘The council’s seeing to that – getting rid of all these demonstrators and their bloody nonsense. And they’re putting pressure on the trustees of the almshouses to stop those daft old gits aiding and abetting them. Don’t worry. It’s all in hand.’ But he was rattled, and the regulars knew it.
With Rosie and Kevin gone, Art and his girlfriend drank their drinks in silence until they agreed quietly to follow their friends down to the Goat. Armstrong watched them leave, his face expressionless.
At their table the middle-aged couples, who had watched this scene, were silent. Julian said, ‘This bill is going to cause a lot of trouble. I’ve never seen so many demonstrators. Quite frankly, I’d defend to the death their right to say what they like, but not to pee on my roses like the one I caught today. But if this bill goes through certain elements are going to be very unhappy.’
Another silence fell. Harry said, ‘I’m beginning to worry about Wendy being by herself here, while I’m in London.’
‘I’m sure that’s not necessary,’ said his wife.
Julian said, ‘Quite frankly, I’ve been wondering whether now’s the time to go back to London. I’m worried if this bill goes through Hamscott Common could become a terrorist target.’
‘I suppose we all are,’ said Harry. ‘But let’s not jump the gun. It may not happen. There’s a lot of opposition to the bill. I’ll step up and get us all another drink.’
After Harry had gone to the bar Beth said to her husband, ‘We came here because you grew up here and wanted a garden.’
‘I know. But if the US gets hold of the base the air traffic overhead will intensify and there’s no point in blinking at facts, darling. If they start loading arms and troops for Iraq there’s danger of an attack, on land or from the air. What can you do about people who don’t care if they live or die?’
As Harry came to the table with two pints, followed by the landlord with the women’s drinks Wendy Wainwright burst out. ‘Why are they doing this? Why not leave things as they are?’
No one replied. No one knew what to
say.
Sugden’s, Fox Square, London SW1. November 30th, 2015. 8 p.m.
Edward Gott, his secretary Jeremy Saunders and Joshua Crane were all dining at Sugden’s.
‘There they are again,’ Leslie Smith-Dickinson, PPS to the Minister of Education remarked to the three others at his table. ‘Gott and his boyfriend. They don’t look happy.’
‘Lover’s quarrel,’ suggested another man at the table.
It was not that, and they knew it. That evening, the Ministry of Defence Lands Sale Bill had been passed at its first reading. Those in favour, 540; against, 83. There were dissidents from both parties: forty on the Labour side, ten among the Tories. Joshua Crane had been one.
It had not helped the government that two days earlier US bombing raids on Syria had been intensified. News reports and pictures were coming in of a hospital in flames, mosques destroyed, people fleeing wildly through the streets, a trail of men, women and children under bombardment, trying to escape from a Damascus in flames. A day earlier, two American oil executives had been kidnapped in Iraq. The raids on Syria were, the President said, to stop them from giving aid, comfort, training, weapons and money to Iranian terrorists.
From Petherbridge’s point of view the timing of the raids, many originating from British bases, was disastrous. Earlier in the day, standing in the rain outside the House of Commons, Joshua had asked Gott, ‘Why would the US make it harder for Petherbridge to put through legislation they want passed?’
‘It makes the job he’s doing for them harder. Increase the hours, increase the quotas, grind the faces of the workers, let them know who’s holding the whip…’
Fifty-First State Page 15
