To play the king fu-2

by Michael Dobbs

  'Downing Street's unattributable briefing…' Mycroft muttered feebly.

  'Of course it is!' snapped the King as if talking with a backward pupil. 'They even suggest I'm caving in to pressure in agreeing to pay tax, that I've been forced into it by the hostile press coverage. That man Urquhart is abominable! He can't help but twist everything to his advantage. If he even stumbled by accident upon the truth he would pick himself up and carry on as if nothing had happened. It's preposterous!'

  A copy of The Times was hurled to the farthest corner of the room, settling like huge flakes of snow. 'Did any of them bother to enquire after the facts?'

  Mycroft coughed awkwardly. 'The Telegraph. Their story is fair…'

  The King snatched the paper from amongst the pile, scanning its columns. He seemed to calm a little. 'Urquhart is trying to humiliate me, David. To cut me to ribbons, piece by piece, without even a chance to explain myself.' He'd had the dream again last night. From the pages of every newspaper he could see staring at him the wide, expectant eyes of the grubby boy with the dribble of crumbs on his chin. It terrified him. 'I will not let them drag me like a lamb to the slaughter, David. I must not permit that. I've been thinking: I must find some way of explaining my views. Get my point across without Urquhart getting in the way. I shall give an interview.'

  'But Kings don't give newspaper interviews,' Mycroft protested weakly.

  'Not before they haven't. But this is the age of the new, open Monarchy. I'm going to do it, David. With the Telegraph, I think. An exclusive.'

  Mycroft wanted to protest that if an interview were a bad idea, an exclusive could be even worse, giving all the other newspapers something to shoot at. But he didn't have the strength to argue. He hadn't been able to think clearly all day, ever since he had answered a knock at the door early in the morning to discover a DC and Inspector from the Vice Squad standing on his front step.

  January: The Fourth Week

  Landless had driven himself, simply telling his staff that he would be uncontactable. His secretary hated mysteries; when he presented excuses she always assumed he was off being grubby with some young woman who had a strong back and weak bank balance. She knew what he was like. Some fifteen years earlier she, too, had been young and grubby with Landless, before things like marriage, respectability and stretch marks had intervened. Such insights into the inner man had helped her become an efficient and outrageously overpaid personal assistant, yet hadn't stopped her being jealous. And today he had told no one, not even her; he didn't want the whole world knowing where he was even before he had arrived.

  The reception desk was tiny and the waiting room dull, covered in mediocre early Victorian oils of horses and hunting scenes in imitation of Stubbs and Ben Marshall. One of them might have been an authentic John Herring; he couldn't be positive but he was beginning to develop an eye for such things; after all, he'd bought enough of the genuine article over the past few years. Almost immediately he was being summoned by a young footman in full livery, waisted tails, buckles and stockings, and ushered into a small but immaculately appointed lift where the mahogany shone as deep as the Palace servant's shoes. He wished his mother had been here: she would have loved it. She'd been born on the day Queen Alexandra died and had always believed it somehow tied her in, hinting at a mysterious 'special link', and in later life attending gatherings of spiritualists. Just before his dear old mum had taken her own trip to 'the other side' she had stood for three hours to catch a view through the crowd of Princess Di on her wedding day. She'd only seen the back of the coach, and that for no more than a few seconds, but she'd waved her flag and cheered and cried, and come home feeling she had done her bit. For her it was all patriotic pride and commemorative biscuit tins. She would be wetting herself if she were gazing down now. 'Your first time?' the footman enquired.

  Landless nodded. Princess Charlotte had telephoned him. An exclusive interview with the Telegraph, implying she had set it up herself. Would he be sure to send someone reliable? And allow the Palace to check the article before it was printed? Perhaps they could have lunch again soon? He was being led along a broad corridor with windows overlooking the inner courtyard. The paintings were better here, portraits of long-forgotten Royal scions by masters whose names had endured rather better.

  'You address him as "Your Majesty" when you first go in. Afterwards you can simply call him "Sir",' the footman muttered as they approached a solid but unpretentious door.

  As the door swung quietly open, Landless remembered Charlotte's other question. Was the idea a good one? He had doubts, serious doubts, about whether an exclusive interview would be good for the King, but he knew it would be bloody marvellous for his newspaper.

  'Sally? Sorry to telephone so early. You haven't been in contact for a day or two. Everything all right?'

  In fact it had been nearly a week, and although Urquhart had sent along flowers and two major potential clients, he hadn't found the right moment to call. He shrugged. They'd had a spat, she would get over it. She would have to if she wanted to retain an inside track. In any event, this was urgent.

  'How's the opinion poll coming along? Ready yet?' He tried to judge her mood down the phone. Perhaps a little cool and formal, almost as if he'd woken her up. Anyway this was business. 'Something's come up. Word is His Royal Conscience has given an exclusive interview to the Telegraph and they're hoping to get it cleared for publication in a couple of days. I haven't any idea what's in it. Landless is sitting on it as though he were hatching an egg, but I can't help feeling that in the public interest there should be a bit of balance. Don't you think? Perhaps an opinion poll, published beforehand, reflecting the growing public disaffection with the Royal Family? To put the interview in context?' He looked out of the window across St James's Park, where, beside the pelican pool, two women were struggling in the grubby morning light to pull their squabbling dogs apart. 'I suspect some newspapers like the Times might even infer that the King's interview was a hurried and somewhat desperate attempt to respond to the opinion poll.' He winced as one of the women, her smaller pet lodged firmly between the jaws of a large black mongrel, gave the other dog a firm kick in the testicles. The dogs separated, only for the two owners to begin snarling at each other. 'It would be really superb if the poll were ready for release by, say… this afternoon?'

  As Sally rolled over to place the phone back in its cradle, she stretched the aches of the night out of her bones. She lay staring at the ceiling for a few moments, allowing the mental instructions to seep from her brain down through her body. Her nose was twitching like a periscope above the sheets, tasting the news she had just received. She sat up in bed, alive and alert, and turned to the form beside her. 'Got to go, lover. Mischief afoot and work to be done.'

  ***

  Guardian, Page One, 27 January

  NEW STORM HITS KING 'IS HE A CHRISTIAN?'

  A new storm of controversy surrounded the Royal Family last night when the Bishop of Durham, from the pulpit of his cathedral, questioned the King's religious motives. Quoting the King's much-criticised newspaper interview earlier this week in which he revealed a deep interest in Eastern religions and did not discount the possibility of physical resurrection, the fundamentalist Bishop attacked such 'fashionable dalliance with mysticism'.

  The King is the Defender of the Faith and anointed head of our Church of England. But is he a Christian?'

  Buckingham Palace indicated last night that the King had simply been trying to emphasize, as King of a country with a large number of racial and religious minorities, that he felt it his duty not to take a narrow and restrictive view of his religious role. But the Bishop's attack seems set to fuel further controversy in the wake of the recent critical opinion poll which showed dramatically falling support for some members of the Royal Family such as Princess Charlotte, and a growing demand to restrict the number of members of the Royal Family who receive their income from the Civil List.

  Supporters of the King rallied to his defe
nce last night. 'We shouldn't be enticed into a constitutional supermarket, shopping around for the cheapest form of government,' Viscount Quillington said.

  In contrast, critics were quick to point out that the King, in spite of his own personal popularity, was failing to set a clear lead in many areas. 'The Crown should stand for the highest standards of public morality,' one senior Government backbencher said, 'but his leadership of his own family leaves much to be desired. They are letting down both him and us. They are overpaid, overtanned, underworked, and overly numerous.'

  The Royal oak is being shaken,' said another critic. 'It would do no harm if one or two members of the Family were to fall out of the branches…'

  ***

  News began trickling through shortly before four in the afternoon, and by the time it was confirmed the short winter's day had finished and all London was dark. It was a wretched day; a warm front had passed across the capital bringing in its wake a deluge of relentless rain which would continue well into the night. It was a day for staying home.

  Staying home had been the mistake, fatally so, of three women and their children who called 14 Queensgate Crescent, a tenement block in the middle of Notting Hill, home. It was the heart of old slumland, which in the sixties had housed streetwalkers and tides of immigrants under the stern eye of racketeers. 'Rachmanism' they had called it then, after the most notorious of the landlord-racketeers. 'Bed and breakfast' it was called in the modern parlance, where the local council housed one-parent and problem families while they searched around listlessly for somewhere or someone else to take over the responsibility. Much of the temporary accommodation provided in Number 14 had changed little in the thirty-odd years since it had been a brothel. Single rooms, shared bathrooms, inadequate heating, noise, rotting woodwork and unremitting depression. When it rained, they would watch the windowsills trickle and the damp brown stains creep even lower as the wallpaper peeled from the walls. But it was better than sitting in the middle of the downpour outside, or so they had thought.

  Institutional housing breeds indifference, and no one had bothered to report the smell of gas which had been lingering for days. That was up to the caretaker, and so what if he only turned up when he felt like it. It was somebody else's problem. Or so they had thought.

  As dusk had gathered the automatic timer had turned another gear and switched on the light in the communal hallways. They were only sixty-watt bulbs, one per landing, scarcely adequate, but the small spark caused by the electrical contact had been sufficient to ignite the gas and blow the five-storey building right out of the ground, taking much of the neighbouring building with it. Fortunately there had been no one in next door, it was derelict, but remnants of five families were inside Number 14 and of the twenty-one women, children and babies only eight would be pulled out of the rubble alive. By the time His Majesty reached the scene it consisted of little more than a huge pile of bricks, fractured door frames and twisted fragments of furniture over which firemen crawled beneath harsh arc lights. Several persons were believed to have been inside for whom there was still no account. A double bed teetered precariously on a ledge of splintered wood many feet above the heads of the rescuers, its sheets flapping in the squally wind. It should have been pulled down before it had a chance to fall on those below, but the mobile crane was having trouble getting through the rain and rush-hour traffic and they couldn't afford to wait. Someone thought they had heard a noise from the rubble directly beneath and although the infra-red image enhancer showed nothing, many willing hands were tearing at the ruins, lashed by the rain and the fear they would be too late.

  As soon as the King had heard the news he had asked to visit the scene. 'Not to interfere, to gawk. But a word to the bereaved at a time such as this can speak louder than a thousand epitaphs later.' The request had gone through to the Met Police Control Room at Scotland Yard just as they were briefing the Home Secretary, who had immediately passed the news on to Downing Street. The King arrived on site only to discover he had unwittingly been involved in a race he had already lost. Urquhart was already there, holding hands, comforting the injured, consoling the distressed, giving interviews, searching for the television cameras, being seen. It made the Monarch look like a man sent onto the field from the substitutes' bench, no better than an able reserve, following in others' footsteps, but what did it matter? This wasn't a contest, or, at least, shouldn't be. Or so the King struggled to convince himself.

  For some time the Monarch and his Prime Minister succeeded in avoiding each other as one took briefing and quietly sought out survivors while the other concentrated on finding a dry spot from which to give interviews. But both knew a meeting would have to come. Avoiding each other would be news in itself and would serve only to turn tragedy into farce. The King stood like a sentinel gazing at the devastation from atop a mound of rubble surrounded by a rapidly enlarging lake of slime and mud, through which Urquhart had to trudge to meet him. 'Your Majesty.' 'Mr Urquhart.' Their greeting had the warmth of a collision of icebergs. Neither looked directly at the other, but chose to examine the scene around them.

  'Not a word, Sir. There has already been too much damage done, too much controversy stirred. See, but do not speak. I must insist.'

  'No perfunctory expression of grief, Mr Urquhart? Not even to one of your own scripts?'

  'Not a wink or a nod, no sideways expressions or exaggerated lowering of the eyes. Not even to an agreed formula, since you seem to delight in untangling every knot we weave.' The King waved the charge away with a dismissive gesture.

  The Prime Minister spoke slowly, with great deliberation, returning to his theme. 'I must insist.' 'Silence, you think?' 'Absolutely. For some considerable period.'

  The King turned from the carnage and for the first time looked directly at the Prime Minister, his face frozen in condescension, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his raincoat. 'I think not.'

  Urquhart struggled to avoid rising to the challenge and losing his self-control. He wasn't willing to let the King escape with even a trace of satisfaction. 'As you have seen, your views have been widely misunderstood.' 'Or manipulated.' Urquhart ignored the innuendo.

  'Silence, you say,' the King continued, turning his face into the wind and spray, his nose jutting forward like the prow of some great sailing ship. 'I wonder what you would do, Mr Urquhart, if some damn fool bishop made you the target of such ludicrous misrepresentation. Shut up? Or stand up? Wouldn't you think it even more important to speak out, to give those willing to listen the opportunity to hear, to understand?' 'But I am not the King.' 'No. A fact for which both you and I should be grateful.'

  Urquhart rode the insult. Beneath the burning arc lights a tiny hand was spotted beneath the rubble. Brief seconds of confusion and hope, much scrabbling, only for the flicker of anticipation to die amidst the mud. It was nothing but a doll. 'I must make sure, Sir, that I am also heard and understood. By you.' To one side there was a crash of falling masonry but neither stirred. 'Any further public outpourings by you would be regarded as deeply provocative by your Government. A declaration of constitutional war. And no Monarch has taken on a Prime Minister and won in nearly two hundred years.' 'An interesting point. I had forgotten you were a scholar.'

  'Politics is about the attainment and use of power. It is a rough, indeed ruthless arena. No place for a King.'

  The rain ran in rivulets down their faces, dripping from their noses, creeping behind their collars. They were both soaking and chilled. Neither was young, they should have sought shelter but neither would be the first to move. At a distance onlookers could hear nothing beyond the rattle of jackhammers and the urgent shouts of command, they could see only two men staring face to lace, rulers and rivals, silhouetted against the harsh glow of the rescue lights in a monochrome scene washed by rain. They could not distinguish the insolence on the face of Urquhart nor the ageless expression of regal defiance that suffused the checks of the other. Perhaps an astute observer might have seen the King brace
his shoulders, but surely only against the elements and the harsh fortune that had brought him to this place? 'Did I miss a mention of morality in there, Prime Minister?'

  'Morality, Sir, is the monologue of the unexcited and the unexcitable, the revenge of the unsuccessful, the punishment of those who tried and failed, or who never had the courage to try at all.'

  It was Urquhart's turn to attempt to provoke the other. A silence hung between them for many moments.

  'Prime Minister, may I congratulate you? You have succeeded in making me understand you with absolute clarity.' '1 didn't wish to leave you in any doubt.' 'You haven't.' 'We are agreed, then? No more words?'

  When finally the King spoke, his voice had grown soft so that Urquhart had to strain to hear it. 'You may rest assured that I shall guard my words as carefully as you aim yours. Those you have used today I shall never forget.' The moment was broken as a shout of warning rose above the scene and men scurried from the rock pile as the wooden ledge shivered, jarred and finally collapsed, propelling the bed into a slow, graceful somersault of death before it was reduced to nothing more than another pile of matchwood on the ruins below. A solitary pillow sagged drunken in the wind, skewered upon the pointed shard of what that morning had been a baby's cot, its plastic rattle still singing in the wind. Without another word Urquhart began the trudge back through the slime.

  Mycroft joined the King in the back of his car for the return drive to the Palace. For much of the trip the Monarch was silent, lost in thought and his emotions, eyes closed – affected by what he had witnessed, thought Mycroft. When he spoke, his words were soft, almost whispered, as though they were in a church or visiting a condemned cell.