Chapter Three
At about noon the consular car drove him from Chek Lap Kok airport to the centre of the city. He had arrived in Hong Kong half an hour earlier off the Cathay flight from Beijing. An official from the consulate, grey-haired and solemn, had been at the airport to meet him. They had not spoken as the car carved its way through the traffic towards Central district and the official covertly examined the minister he had been deputed to greet. When the official had shown his pass at the barrier, he had seen approaching him a lean, tall man in a light-coloured suit, with dark hair liberally flecked with grey. Now that they were close together in the car he noticed the regular, rather hawklike features and the pockmarked skin on both sides of the face. And the dark circles beneath the brown eyes. I don’t wonder, he thought, if he knows what is being said about him.
From the window of the car Tancred watched the teeming crowds on the pavements, before the car slipped expertly into the heavy traffic crossing the suspension bridge.
‘Have you been here before, Minister?’ the official suddenly asked.
‘When I was a student. A long time ago.’
He thought of the day he’d arrived from Sydney. It was a very different city then. He had come again later when he’d been at the Bangkok embassy; his cover in Siam had been trade attaché. But those visits were secret, anonymous visits, known to few. He would not mention them. ‘Last week I was here for one night on my way to Beijing. But it was dark and I could see nothing, except for the lights.’
‘I was on leave when you came through.’
Once more they elapsed into silence, each staring out of the car window at the mass of humanity on the sidewalks.
‘The Hong Kong Chinese are of very short stature,’ the official began again, ‘which is why the women have such small breasts.’
At the airport, when Tancred had complimented the official on his excellent Cantonese, the man had replied, ‘I speak both, Mandarin and Cantonese.’ Now he added, ‘I have a Chinese wife.’ Which is why, Tancred supposed, he knew about the physiognomy. Still, it was an odd remark.
‘What brought you here on that first occasion, Minister? ’
‘Travel, curiosity. I was at the university.’ He paused. ‘I hardly recognise the city.’
In fact, he knew the city well enough from his later visits. But those secret entrances and exits to and from Bangkok would not have been recorded. They had not officially taken place.
‘Indeed, it has changed greatly,’ the official replied. ‘The high-rise development began, I think, in the Sixties.’
Again they drove in silence until the official said diffidently, ‘I have the English papers if you’d care to see them, Minister?’
So he too had read the Sunday News, thought Tancred. Who had not by now? ‘No,’ he replied. ‘I have seen them. They came in the bag to Beijing. What time is my meeting with Mr Cheung?’
He’d instructed the consulate to arrange the meeting at the Mandarin Hotel, making it clear that this was a social not a ministerial occasion, a private meeting with a personal friend.
‘Mr Cheung will be in the foyer at twelve fifteen. But we’re going to be late.’ The official reached for the car telephone. Tancred heard him speak to the hall porter in his excellent Cantonese.
It had been an exhausting trip and before him, in the early evening, there was the flight to London. But he was good at sleeping in aeroplanes. He’d had enough experience and his routine was neither to eat nor drink but read his ministerial papers and take a sleeping pill before settling down to sleep. Tonight he’d be alone, for Weston, who’d accompanied him from the ministry, was remaining in Beijing for two more days.
The ministerial visit had not accomplished anything serious: much talk, countless toasts, little real business. But they had not expected any. It had been goodwill, a promotional trip. His last official duty, he reflected, for in two days he would be a free man. But first he had to talk to Harry.
‘I shall be back to collect you at three, Minister’, the official said. ‘We must allow ample time.’
It was nearly one o’clock when Tancred and Harry greeted each other in the foyer of the Mandarin Hotel. Harry was short, even for a Chinese, very well dressed in a dark suit, very soft-spoken. They went together up the stairs to the dining room arm in arm.
‘Paris,’ Tancred asked. ‘How did it go?’
‘Well.’
‘You succeeded?’
‘It has been accomplished.’
Tancred ate little. Harry helped himself freely from the many Chinese dishes; both drank soda water. With the coffee they sat smoking, Harry cigarette after cigarette, Tancred a cigar. Your only vice, Harry had said. My only indulgence, Tancred had replied.
‘Digby Price is coming here,’ Harry said. Tancred nodded. ‘His people have set up a meeting with the regional government here. He has an appointment with C. T. Tung.’
‘Is he travelling alone?’
‘With his PA.’ The two men looked at each other. ‘His new friend will not be with him. We thought that wiser.’
The lugubrious official was waiting for them when they descended to the foyer. ‘We’ll meet at La Ferme Blanche,’ Tancred said, out of earshot of the official as Harry took his hand. ‘When will you be there?’
‘Next week.’
‘Don’t leave it any later.’
‘I won’t,’ Harry assured him.
It was an even slower drive back to the airport than it had been from there at noon but they were in the VIP lounge an hour before it was time to board. ‘Don’t wait,’ Tancred said as he took a seat in a corner of the lounge. He was anxious to be on his own.
But the official hovered above him. ‘There’s a message from your Private Office,’ he began. ‘The Prime Minister would like to see you immediately you arrive in London. Your office didn’t seem to know what it was about,’ he added. But he had a shrewd suspicion that they did. They would have read what had been published about their minister.
‘What time is it in London?’ Tancred asked.
‘The early hours of the morning.’
‘I won’t trouble to call.’
The official leant down and opened his briefcase at his feet. ‘I have this.. He handed Tancred a copy of the Sunday News. ‘In case you haven’t a copy.’
Tancred took it.
The official closed the briefcase. ‘I hope you have a comfortable flight, Minister. Bon voyage.’ Poor bastard, he thought as he sloped away. He’ll not have a very jolly homecoming.
With the newspaper in his hand Tancred watched the stooping figure disappear through the swing doors. Then, for the tenth time, he read the extracts from the diary of Francis Richmond.
As the plane flew westwards through the night, Tancred sat awake in the darkened first-class cabin. Thankfully the seat next to him, Weston’s seat, was empty. He waved aside the meal and the drinks, except for a bottle of mineral water. This time he took no sleeping pill; there were no ministerial papers on the table before him; there was no necessity. Someone else would have to read them now. The Sunday News was folded away in his briefcase; the reading light was off. For hour after hour he sat, reclining, his feet up on the footrest, his eyes open, thinking, left undisturbed by the stewards. Eventually he closed his eyes and slept.
An hour out from Heathrow he accepted a cup of black coffee and went to wash and shave.
Colin Senter, his personal assistant, was at the exit door of the plane – to avoid the press, Tancred supposed. ‘The Prime Minister has asked you to breakfast with him in the flat at Downing Street,’ Senter informed him when Tancred’s luggage had been collected. ‘I’ve told the driver to go straight there.’
‘No,’ said Tancred, ‘tell Downing Street I’m going home to have a bath and to change. Find out what time would suit the PM for me to see him later in the day.’
Senter was put out. ‘He’s expecting you for breakfast, Minister.’
‘Call them on the car telephone and tell them
I won’t be there. I’ll come later in the morning.’
‘It’s Prime Minister’s Questions today and he’ll be preparing in the late morning so—’
‘Then suggest the afternoon, after Questions, either in his room in the House or at Downing Street, whichever suits. Now take me to Chelsea.’
Downing Street was not best pleased by the rejection of the invitation to breakfast but fixed five thirty in the afternoon at No. 10.
There were no pressmen at the flat. But it was early and few knew where he lived. He had always kept that very private. Senter knew and the Permanent Secretary, no one else.
When Tancred entered the Cabinet Room, the Prime Minister was in his usual seat, his irritation at the rejection of his breakfast invitation apparently forgotten. He swivelled in his chair and waved genially. ‘Come in, come in, my dear fellow. I hope the journey was not too exhausting and the trip satisfactory. Those people in Beijing are devils to deal with.’ He chuckled. ‘I remember when I was Foreign Secretary—’
‘I’ve dictated my report on the trip, Prime Minister. The Foreign Secretary and your office should have it by now but I wanted to give you this personally.’ Tancred handed an envelope to the Prime Minister and remained standing.
‘A letter?’ The Prime Minister took the envelope and looked up at Tancred. He suspected he knew what it was about. ‘Am I to open it now?’ he asked.
‘As you wish. It is a formal letter tending my resignation.’
The Prime Minister pushed back his chair, the legs squealing on the polished floor. ‘Your resignation, Richard!’ – making a good show of surprise – ‘You are resigning from the Ministry! But why, my dear fellow, why in heaven’s name should you wish to resign? Which of our policies has—’
‘My resignation is not over policy. It has nothing to do with policy. I have made that clear in the letter. I shall continue to support your administration but not from Parliament for I intend to give up my seat in the House.’
‘You are leaving the House? You are abandoning politics? Not, I hope, because of the wretched tittle-tattle in the newspaper? You mustn’t throw up everything because of that nonsense. You must know that I have always considered you the most likely of all the colleagues to succeed me when I retire, as shortly I shall.’
‘I am resigning from the government and giving up public life, Prime Minister, for personal reasons, which I’m sure are obvious to you.’
There was a moment of silence. The Prime Minister looked at him warily, the envelope still unopened in his hand. ‘You’re not in trouble?’ he asked.
‘No, not in what I think you mean by trouble. No, I wish to be free to sue the Sunday News for libel. There is no truth in the innuendo that arises from what they published.’
‘I’m sure there is not.’ The Prime Minister half rose. ‘Sit down, my dear fellow, sit down. We must talk more about this.’
Tancred shook his head and remained standing. ‘My mind is quite made up. I have decided to take News Universal to court.’
‘Suing News Universal! Suing a newspaper! Think for a moment. My dear fellow, that man, the proprietor, Digby Price is malevolent and malicious. He has immense resources. If you sue he’d leave no stone unturned to ruin you. Think of the risk!’
‘I have considered that, but I am quite determined.’
‘You are the rising star of this administration. I do not want to lose your services. Why not talk with the Attorney-General? He’s a sensible fellow. I am sure he would advise you.’
‘I have already retained my own advisers and I have spoken to them this morning.’ Tancred looked at his watch. ‘Thank you for the kind words you have said about me. In my letter I have myself expressed how honoured I was to have served in your administration. I have authorised my letter of resignation to be made public at seven o‘clock. Good day, Prime Minister.’
‘One moment,’ said the Prime Minister. ‘If you are determined, we must observe the niceties. There must be an exchange of letters. Do not, I pray, release your letter until after the ten o’clock news bulletin.’
‘Very well, if that is your wish.’
The Prime Minister was fiddling with the still unopened envelope. ‘Before we finally part, you can help me about one other matter, a personal matter. It has been hinted to me that privately you may once have said something about me.’ He paused. ‘Something about my private life. Something that the diarist, Francis Richmond, is said to have reported, although it has not been included in what the newspaper published.’
Tancred looked at him steadily. ‘I have never’, he said at last, ‘spoken about your private life. I know nothing of your private life and even if I did, I would not have spoken of it. I may have said that in my opinion you are not perhaps all that the public may think you are. But who in public life is? The diarist may have reported that.’ He turned on his heel abruptly and went out of the Cabinet Room, through the ante-room and into the hall.
‘Goodnight, Minister,’ the hall porter said as he shut the front door behind him.
That is the last time I shall hear that, Tancred said to himself, or receive another salute – for the policeman outside saluted. He had dismissed his official car and walked rapidly along Downing Street, through the gates and into Whitehall. Out of public life, he thought – although not out of the limelight. For a time, yes. But not when the libel action came to court. There would be plenty then.
Once again there were no pressmen awaiting him, as he had feared there might be, and he slipped anonymously into the crowd making their way to Westminster underground station. He took a train to the Temple and walked solemnly to the chambers of Patrick Foxley QC, the counsel he had that morning retained.
The Prime Minister stayed on in the Cabinet Room, pondering on what Digby Price had told him at Chequers and on Richard Tancred’s denial that he had ever spoken about the Prime Minister’s private life. But, he reflected, there must have been something recorded in the diarist’s manuscript for Price to have said what he had. And if there had, then some of Price’s staff would have seen it. Eventually the story would come out. Sooner or later the rumour would get around, especially if Richmond’s diary came before the courts, as Tancred intended that it should. He had managed to placate Price by preventing two of his ministers from suing but there was nothing he could do to stop Tancred.
He passed a hand wearily over his forehead. The time had surely come for him to carry out what he had hinted to his colleagues so often and so tantalisingly. To go, to retire, to hand on the burden, to surrender the role he had once found so delightful. But he wanted to leave the stage honoured for his place in history and for his political skills, remembered as a master of the House of Commons. For seven years he had played out what he had liked to call ‘the charade of leadership’ at the very top of the greasy pole. The colleagues he had surrounded himself with were, he considered, an ordinary, unimaginative lot whom he had cheerfully despised. It had amused him to weave webs about them, spinning around their dull heads the literary conceits that had so well disguised his purposes and so bewildered them.
Except for Tancred. Not he. Tancred had been the one minister whom he had never been able to fathom and whom he had watched beneath his hooded eyes with respectful wariness. Now Tancred, with his lawsuit, threatened to bring it all to an end. In ridicule. As he sat alone at the Cabinet table he knew that it would take all the good fortune that had so providentially followed him for so many years, the luck that had given him office and the comfort of Penny Wills, to enable him to go in peace, without the jibes engendered from beyond the grave by the gossip of the homosexual diarist.
Chapter Four
After leaving the conference with Patrick Foxley, Tancred took a number 11 bus to his flat off the King’s Road in Chelsea. He rang his Private Office at the Ministry. It would remain ‘his office’ for a few more hours – until his letter of resignation was published after ten thirty that evening. Before he had left the Ministry for Downing Street he had warne
d the Permanent Secretary of the department of his intention to resign. The Permanent Secretary had in turn warned Colin Senter, the Private Secretary, so when Tancred telephoned from his flat, Senter knew what to expect. Tancred told Senter to inform the Permanent Secretary that Downing Street would release the news of his resignation to the media just after ten thirty that evening. He himself would not be returning to the Ministry.
Senter enquired where he should send the personal possessions in Tancred’s room.
‘There are none,’ Tancred replied shortly.
‘And any correspondence, Minister?’
‘Send it to my bank,’ replied Tancred. ‘Coutts, Lower Sloane Street.’ And rang off.
There had been no goodbye, no good wishes and no expression of gratitude for Senter’s services. In Whitehall, relations between minister and private secretary were usually close, but during the two years that Senter had served Tancred the relationship between them had never been more than formal. Tancred had been invariably polite and courteous, never criticising or losing his temper. Equally, he had never congratulated for work well done. He had been admired for his administrative skill, his swiftness in reaching decisions and the civil servants had been impressed by his performances in the House of Commons. When Senter had to call at Tancred’s flat on the ground floor of the tall Chelsea house to bring a red box, he had never once been invited inside. He’d stand on the doorstep and see only the long, gloomy corridor leading from the hall. He knew nothing of his Minister’s life outside the office, except that the Minister had been punctilious in his official duties such as attending receptions at foreign embassies or trade fairs in connection with the business of the Ministry. As far as he knew, Richard Tancred had no club and dined only occasionally in private houses. For official engagements in London he had used his official car, whose driver said his boss rarely spoke except to give instructions. On the few occasions Tancred had spent weekends away from London, he’d travelled by train. Of Tancred’s family and who were his friends no one at the Ministry knew anything. In the Private Office they had speculated about whether he had a girlfriend, but there was no evidence of one. No private letters came for him at the Ministry and no private telephone calls. Senter and the others in the Private Office felt they knew the man as little now as they had when Tancred had been first appointed.
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