The Final Cut fu-3

by Michael Dobbs

  Maria had grown with the movement, in confidence, in judgement and independence. She'd never stood before anything more formidable than a class of thirty infants, but armies march to the beat of a drum and in Tom's absence someone had to do it. They looked to her.

  She clambered onto the roof of the small Renault support van to face them. Slowly, the shuffle of noise subsided until all eyes clung to her. She had no words for what was in her heart, but somehow she felt that they all understood and shared.

  The breeze caught her face, blowing back her dark hair and rubbing into her cheeks the flush of rebellion. Then, slowly and as though in great pain, she raised her clasped hands high above her head. As Makepeace had done the previous day, in chains. Five thousand pairs of hands rose towards the sky, clenched in defiance, and as many voices sang out in chorus.

  From the control van parked in a lay-by beyond the entrance to the field, hurried conversations were flowing up the chain of police command, from the Inspector on the scene all the way to the Chief Constable's office. The marchers had started on their way before the decision came back down. There was little chance of the march being met by violent opposition, at least for the next few hours; skinheads wouldn't be out of bed yet. Anyway, the march was heading away from Birmingham, out of West Midlands' jurisdiction; so good riddance and the Warwickshire Constabulary could pick up the problem. Anyway, what were they supposed to do, arrest the whole bloody lot? 'Kiss 'em goodbye, Inspector.' In the pink light of dawn the cutting glistened like the inside of a wolf's mouth, waiting to snap shut on its prey. It did not last. By mid-morning the moisture had burnt away and the rocks of pillow lava were batting the sun's rays back and forth in a cruel game of solar ping-pong. The temperature at the road surface was ninety and climbing.

  Nicolaou had slept badly. The strain of the last few days was telling on a body which even in youth had been far from robust, and the reserves of character and resilience he had drained during his time at the Lodge had proved impossible to replenish. The sharp cold of the mountain night had cut through to his bones and he was in no mood to eat breakfast, even had there been any. His eyes had grown glassy, he was beginning to run a fever. But there was still pride.

  They had made him as comfortable as the circumstances would allow in the back of one of the four-tonners. He had uttered not a single word of complaint, offering only a brave smile for his daughter, but she was not fooled and refused to disguise her concern. And by mid-afternoon the temperature even in the shade was over a hundred.

  St Aubyn made hourly rounds of the besieged convoy, trying to maintain morale, emphasizing to all that had the Cypriots been intent on personal harm they would undoubtedly have inflicted it by now.

  'Cypos are nice people, Sir,' a corporal confirmed, wiping his reddened face with a rag. 'Funny thing is, though, when I was a kid we had lots of beetles on the farm. I never got into trouble for crushing them, it was only when I tried to burn the bleedin' things alive with a magnifying glass that me old man gave me a belt. Think I'm beginning to understand what he meant.'

  St Aubyn passed on quickly, unwilling to tangle with such singular logic. The next truck was Nicolaou's.

  'Fetch me a little water, Elpida,' her father asked, as St Aubyn appeared at his feet.

  When she was gone he turned to the soldier. 'Colonel, I am desperately sorry to tell you this, but I'm not sure if I shall be able to last very much longer.'

  St Aubyn knelt beside him. 'Mr President,' he whispered, 'the water your daughter is fetching is all but our final cup. I'm not sure how much longer any of us will be able to last.' They were able to maintain intermittent radio contact with the outside world through the helicopters which flew surveillance at regular intervals high over the cutting. From this they were able to inform their base that their supplies were exhausted, and to learn that as yet no one had any idea how – or when – they might be released.

  As dusk drew in a Wessex appeared on the horizon flying fast and low, no more than two hundred feet, the door to the rear cabin latched back. As it passed overhead two drums emerged, sprouted silken wings and began floating down, laminated red in the light of the melting sun. A straggling cheer rose from hoarse throats as the soldiers watched the water drums floating towards them and the Wessex begin its turn to start another supply run.

  The drums were about a hundred feet from the ground when two shotgun blasts rang out on the ridge above. The parachutes exploded into a cloud of rag feathers and the supplies plummeted to the ground. On impact they burst, one drum almost taking a startled soldier with it into the afterlife.

  With a dip of its nose, the Wessex abandoned its run and vanished into the evening sky. Elizabeth woke to a clap of summer thunder. It was three a.m., the air dank and oppressive, outside the curtain of night was being torn by the white lightning of the storm. He was at the window; he hadn't slept.

  She joined him, her arm snaking through his like links in a chain. 'You are troubled, Francis.'

  'The gods are troubled tonight. I feel…' He shrugged, unable to finish.

  'Francis, this is no time for secrets between us.'

  He breathed deep and tried again. 'I feel as though they are waging war over me, the gods out there. Fighting over who will dispose of Francis Urquhart.' 'Who will sit at his side in triumph,' she corrected.

  He did not argue, nor was he convinced. In the bursts of sharp light pouring through the window she could see nothing but shadow across his eyes which made them appear as the empty sockets of a skull. Thunder rattled like the chains of the Underworld. The mood frightened her. 'What is it?' she demanded. 'Don't lock me out.'

  His eyes flickered back into life, he bowed his head in apology. 'We have always shared, Elizabeth. Everything. The triumphs and the wounds. But now I'm afraid to.' 'Sharing a fear is to cut it in two.' 'I haven't wanted to burden you.'

  'Am I so weak or loose-tongued you feel you have to protect me?'

  'I wish to protect you' he chastised gently, 'because I value you beyond all others. And my fears seem so infantile and superstitious. Yet so very real.'

  She squeezed his arm more tightly. The atmosphere was stifling, the storm was about to break.

  'I told you about Cyprus. Of sacrifice, many years ago' he continued. 'It took place not three miles from where the convoy is being held, near the village of Spilia. And it was marked by a symbol, a sign. A flaming pine. Like a torch which has flickered through my dreams in all the years since.' 'Sometimes it's not healthy to dwell on dreams.'

  'I saw the tree again. The other day beside the Lodge. Burning once more.' 'A symbol of future triumph,' she offered. 'Perhaps a life come full circle.'

  'Then a completeness. A whole. Signifying strength.'

  'A life which has come full circle can never go round again, Elizabeth.'

  Mortality. With that she could find no argument. Yet the words had helped, he appeared more at ease now, the burden shared, his inner doubts confronted and out in the open. Better to see them. A mile away a trident's fork of lightning struck the BT Tower and a final, massive drum roll of thunder vibrated across the rooftops. 'What will you do, Francis?'

  'Do what I have always done, the only thing I know how to do. Fight. And hope my gods win.' He turned to embrace her and the rains came. The gods' battle was done. They were ready to dispose of him. It was almost two a.m. when Maria heard the knock on her motel door. She hadn't been able to sleep, exhilarated by the success of the day's march and tormented by thoughts of what might happen to Tom in the morning. The knocking grew persistent. She threw the covers aside and was halfway across the room before she hesitated. Who was it? What could be so urgent and why the hell hadn't they telephoned? Anyway, she was wearing nothing but one of Tom's shirts. 'Who's there?' she enquired cautiously.

  From out in the corridor a woman's voice replied; it carried no hint of threat. Maria opened the door but kept it on the chain.

  'I've brought a message for Tom,' the woman announced, addressing the eye and l
oose strand of hair which appeared around the door.

  Tom. The password to Maria's new life. Resolved, she slipped the chain and slowly opened the door. It was Claire. Maria didn't fully recognize her, but Claire had already recognized the shirt – so it was true, they were lovers. The legs were great, long and finely toned. Tom always had appreciated good legs. 'I think I'd better come in. Both you and I are a little too exposed here in the corridor.'

  The shirt, the legs and the attractive face with its long and darkly rumpled hair made way.

  'Hello, I'm Claire Carlsen,' she said, extending her hand. 'Francis Urquhart's PPS.'

  Instantly Maria took a step back and her look of sleepy half recognition turned to sharp disfavour. 'Get out. I have nothing to say to you.'

  'But I have something to say to you.' Claire held her ground. 'Something for Tom.'

  'Francis Urquhart wouldn't lift a finger to help Tom.' 'You're absolutely right. But I would.'

  'You?' She made no attempt to disguise her ill-feeling. 'Why?'

  How could she explain, to Maria of all people? 'Perhaps because in helping him I may be able to help myself.'

  Maria studied the other woman. The blonde features were so different from her own. The salon-chic hair, the Italian shoulder bag, the considered, discreetly expensive style. Everything Maria was not. She had many reasons for distrusting this other woman, but there were also the raw eyes which said Claire hadn't slept, not since she'd heard of Tom's arrest and understood why Corder had been so keen to ensure that the driver was well out of trouble's reach. Trouble Corder knew to expect. Trouble which he must have planned. And behind Corder stood only one master.

  'I don't believe I want to help anyone associated with Francis Urquhart,' Maria said firmly.

  'We are all associated with Francis Urquhart, whether we like it or not. Tom above all.'

  Maria stood in the middle of the bedroom, her arms folded across the shirt, aggression squeezed aside by her concerns for Tom and, perhaps, feminine intuition about this woman. 'You would betray Urquhart?'

  'I prefer to think of it as being true to myself. I don't think I have been at times in these past weeks. I want to make up for it.' 'How?' 'By warning Tom. His arrest was no accident. There were politics behind it. Downing Street politics.' 'Where's your proof?' 'I have none. It's no more than a suspicion.' 'Not much to go on.' 'Enough for me to take the very considerable risk of driving through the night to come here.' 'Risk?'

  'If Francis found out, there wouldn't be much point in going back.'

  'This could simply be a ruse, a distraction of some sort. Another trick.'

  'Please. Let Tom decide that. Tell him I think it was Urquhart.' Maria made no reply.

  'One other thing,' Claire continued. 'Urquhart knows you are lovers. He'll certainly use it against you if he needs to.' 'Don't try to threaten me.' There was anger now. 'I'm trying to save you.' 'He can't prove a thing!'

  'My advice to you is to stay out of his bed until the election is over. And stay out of his shirts.'

  Maria started, looked down at her nightwear and then back at Claire, her intuition suddenly wide awake. 'He said there had been someone who'd hurt him. Someone in politics, very different from me.' She studied the tired eyes closely, trying to find the woman within. 'Someone who would know his shirts.' 'Someone who still cares for him very much.'

  'We have more in common than I thought,' Maria acknowledged grimly. 'He still thinks about you.' 'And I still think about him, as you see.'

  'But more about yourself.' Maria's tone carried accusation.

  'Perhaps. And particularly about my family.' She hadn't intended all this self-exposure and sharing of secrets, she wasn't sure it had helped. 'What are you going to do?' 'What are you going to do?' 'I'm not sure.'

  'Funny thing is,' Maria replied, showing her the door, 'neither am I.' A photograph of a grizzled old Cypriot dominated the front page of the Independent. He was seated on a splay-footed dining chair, old military beret pulled askew over his brow, a gap-tooth smile splitting his walnut face. A battered musket of pre-1914 vintage was propped against one knee and a lissom sixteen-year-old schoolgirl seated on the other. By such an army were the British being humbled, 'held to ransom by a combination of hockey stick and blunderbuss,' as the Independent claimed.

  The Sun was less tactful, 'FU! SAY CYPOS' ran its headline. Of the carnival atmosphere amongst the Greeks there was much coverage; of the growing fear and suffering amongst the British troops very little.

  The message of the media was unanimous. Francis Urquhart: from triumph to turkey. Two days is a long time in Fleet Street.

  'So what is the military solution, Air Marshal Rae?'

  A smell of furniture polish lingered throughout the Cabinet Room; it takes more than war to disrupt a Whitehall cleaning schedule. Over the satellite link to COBRA came the sound of an apologetic cough. 'That's difficult, Prime Minister.'

  'Difficult?' Urquhart snapped. 'You're telling me you can't handle this?'

  Across the Cabinet table, Youngblood began to colour. Out of sight, the climate was changing in Cyprus, too. The Air Vice-Marshal was a man minted at Harrow and moulded by his passion for the brutality of croquet; an unsuitable case for bullying. Rae blew his nose stubbornly, a noise which across the link sounded like a bull preparing to resist the matador's goad.

  'Difficult, Sir, because as you will remember this was an expedition which I recommended against.' 'Schoolgirls!'

  'Precisely. And I cannot envisage a military solution which would not risk endangering the lives of either those schoolgirls or my men, or both.' 'Are you telling me you can find no solution?' 'Not a military one. A political solution, perhaps.'

  'You're suggesting I negotiate with a bunch of pirates?'

  'They're not exactly that, Prime Minister. Which is part of the trouble. They have no clear leadership, no individual with whom to negotiate. These are simply ordinary Cypriots united around a common purpose. To get us out.' 'What about President Nicolaou?'

  'Seems they want him out, too. It's difficult to find much enthusiasm for politicians in this part of the world right now. Sir.'

  Urquhart ignored what he was sure was the intentional irony. He needed Rae. 'I have worked hard to bring peace to the island. If they throw out Nicolaou, they throw out the peace deal with him.'

  They've never had peace, not in a thousand years. They're the sort who use sticks of dynamite even to go fishing. They'd manage to live without the treaty.'

  'Then if they want a fight, Air Marshal, I suggest we'd better give them one.' 'How does the defendant plead? Guilty, or not guilty?'

  Layers of dust and silence hung across the veneered courtroom, which was packed. Thousands more had congregated outside. The march had not happened today, they were needed here. Sunlight streamed in through the high windows, surrounding the dock in a surrealistic halo of fire as though Channel 4 were filming a contemporary adaptation of Joan of Arc. Did the defendant have anything to say before he was burnt? 'Not guilty!'

  Others apart from Francis Urquhart seemed prepared for a fight. 'If you can't get to the convoy, Air Marshal, then get the convoy to you. Drive it out. Smash the blockade. Call their bluff.' Red-hot coals seemed to roll around Urquhart's tongue.

  'You're willing to risk all those lives on a hunch they might be bluffing?'

  'Strafe the ridge. Keep their heads low. Blow them off if necessary.' He spat the coals out one by one.

  'At last count there were also half a dozen television crews on that ridge, Prime Minister.' 'You'd be surprised how fast a journalist can run.' 'And what about the schoolgirls?'

  'Tear gas. Scatter them.' Out of Rae's sight, Urquhart was waving his hands around as if he were already getting on with the job.

  'Schoolgirls can't run as fast as a speeding four-ton truck.' 'Are you contradicting me, Air Marshal?' 'Stating fact.' 'Enough objections. Take the simple route.' 'The simple-minded route.'

  The exchange which had thumped and pounded like h
ot blood through an artery had suddenly faltered, its wrists cut. 'Did I hear you correctly, Rae?'

  'This is not a game, Prime Minister. Lives are at stake.' 'The future of an entire country is at stake.'

  'Forgive me, Prime Minister, if I find it more difficult than you to equate my own personal interest with that of the nation.'

  'Do I detect even at this great distance the stench of insubordination?' 'You might say that.'

  'Rae, I am giving you a direct order. Run that convoy out of there.'

  There was a slight pause, as though the digitalized satellite system was having trouble encoding the words. When they came, however, they sounded throughout the Cabinet Room with the utmost clarity. 'No, Sir.' 'How many others were arrested for participating in the Peace March on Sunday, Chief Inspector Harding?' Makepeace was conducting his own defence. 'None, Sir.' 'And why was I singled out for your attentions?' 'Because we believed you to be the organizer of the march, Mr Makepeace.'

  'You were right, Chief Inspector. I was. The defendant admits it. I was, am, and shall be organizer of this march.'

  In the public gallery a portly matron with bright red cheeks and hair pulled back in a straw bun was about to start applauding, but Maria stayed her hand and advised silence. The Chairman of the Bench scribbled a note.

  'So this other march, Chief Inspector, the skinheads. This progress of pimples about which you had such concern for public order. How many were arrested from their number?'

  Although the policeman knew the answer, he consulted his notebook nevertheless. It added an air of authority, and gave him time to think. 'Fifteen, Sir.' The Chairman scribbled again. Clearly this had been a serious disturbance. 'For what offences, Chief Inspector?' 'Offences, Sir?'

  'Yes. Isn't it customary to arrest someone on the pretext of having committed an offence?'

  Laughter rippled through the public gallery and the Chairman frowned until it had dissipated.

  Harding consulted his notebook again. 'Variously for being drunk and disorderly, behaviour likely to cause a breach of the peace, four on narcotics charges and one case of indecent exposure.'