The Final Cut

  Across the table Booza-Pitt offered a smile which spoke of modesty, determination, achievement, I- know- you- want- to- touch- me- all-over-with- those-beautiful- lips- but-I'm- truly- very- important- and-business-comes-first. His dining companion purred in encouragement. After years of anguish she'd separated less than two months earlier from a parliamentary husband whose dedication to late-night lobbies, weekend surgeries, answering the telephone and endless piles of constituents' letters was as utterly selfless as it was, to her, irredeemably boring. She knew getting laid by Booza-Pitt would be folly, but it had been such a long time and it might be fun, particularly if he was as practised in the delivery as he was at finding the route. She hadn't climbed higher than a Minister of State before, let alone as far as a Home Secretary. She owed it to herself.

  'Really?' she incited, wondering if his performance would be as inflated as his ego.

  'It's pretty tricky right now - can't go into detail, you understand, but I advised that we should get in there as quickly as possible. Spring the hostages and teach those bloody Cypriots a lesson.'

  'A good spanking.'

  'Yes, something like that.'

  'You're magnificent, Geoffrey.' She fluttered her eyelids outrageously, he smiled in self-congratulation - he was so lacking in subtlety that he belonged in a zoo. She hoped.

  'It's a strain,' he admitted, heavy eyebrows twitching. 'Lonely at times.'

  Here it comes. He was about as difficult to read as a tax demand.

  'You know what I would like?' he continued, staring at her across a glass of wine which cast strange patterns across his forehead in the candlelight.

  'To become Prime Minister?'

  'I've no ambitions at present beyond ...' he began the litany.

  She reached out and touched a fingertip to his lips to put him out of his misery. Grief, he'd better be good in bed, he had no other redeeming features. At least it would avoid the complications of an extended affair.

  'Tell me all your secrets, Geoffrey. I'm very good with confidences.'

  'Are you? Are you really?'

  'Yes. Tell me - don't if it's truly a state secret, but - are you a Virgo?'

  'I wish you were here having breakfast with us, Mummy.'

  It was the one meal Claire insisted on trying to have with the children before politics dragged them apart for the remainder of the day. It didn't always work, even on a Sunday. 'I know, darling, but you remember what election campaigns are like from the last time.' 'Where are you?'

  'Somewhere in the Midlands, to be quite honest I'm not sure where. I got picked up in a car yesterday afternoon from the train and the rest is all a blur. But I'll be back tonight. After you've gone to bed.'

  'I've run out of the little bomb for my asthma inhaler.'

  'The blue one or the brown?'

  'Blue.'

  'I'll find a chemist's open somewhere.' Claire scribbled a hurried reminder to herself in the margin of her Sunday Express, beside an exploding headline which shouted: 'f.u.'s falklands'. 'Bring you one back tonight. And I hope you and Abby are wearing the clothes I laid out for you.'

  Diana ignored the question. Something else was on her mind. 'Mummy?'

  'Yes, darling?'

  'What is war?'

  'What do you mean?'

  'We're fighting Cyprus, aren't we? Why?'

  'Not the whole of Cyprus, darling. Just a few bad men.'

  'And all those ladies with the baby chairs.' 'Not really.'

  'But Mr Urquhart killed the Bishop, didn't he?'

  'No, not Mr Urquhart personally.' Although something in her daughter's naivety rattled chains within Claire.

  'But why?' Diana persisted, munching her way through a mouthful of wholemeal toast.

  Claire hesitated. The morning's press had been crammed to capacity with plaudits for the previous day's success in the Troodos. Even those who were not supporters of the Government couldn't avoid copious reference to 'Francis' Fusiliers'. Some of the more serious newspapers carried reports of disagreement with military advisers and of the Prime Minister unusually and perhaps inappropriately having taken single-handed control of the operation, but in light of its success the military appeared to be playing down any sense of injured pride. Victory argues its own case.

  So why did Claire feel so unenthused?

  'I'll explain it all to you later, darling. And remember to brush your teeth.'

  'Gotcha!'

  With a snap of exultation and a flick of his remote control, Urquhart wiped the Leader of the Opposition from his Sunday morning screen.

  For almost twenty minutes on breakfast television Dick Clarence had been struggling hard to avoid his fate, but persistent questioning had worn down his linguistic ingenuity and overrun every defensive position his advisers had prepared until he was forced to capitulate. Finally he had no choice but to admit it. Yes, Francis Urquhart had done the right thing.

  'Not long for this world, I suspect, young Dick,' Urquhart reflected to Elizabeth. Fate was a harsh judge on an Opposition Leader who had lost the ability to oppose with only ten days of campaigning left.

  From the other side of the breakfast table Elizabeth looked up from her newspapers. 'The press seem already to have reached that conclusion.' She passed across to him three editorials, carefully folded and highlighted, which effectively pronounced the election over.

  He digested them alongside his Lapsang, then laid them to one side, shaking his head. 'They rush to judgement. Clarence is dead, because he is congenitally useless. But there is still opposition.'

  'Makepeace?'

  'Who else?'

  'A man with no party.' 'But an army.'

  'An army under attack, Sir.' It was Corder, who stood filling the doorway in the quiet way to which over the years they had grown accustomed. Elizabeth didn't even adjust her dressing gown.

  'You have news from the front, Corder?'

  'Yes, Sir. Mr Makepeace may have a battle on his hands. Since last night's news broadcasts, various of the extreme British nationalist groups have been organizing. Arranging a little reception for when he reaches Birmingham this evening. They want to do to him what you did to the Bishop.'

  'How unfortunate,' Elizabeth mused with as much concern as if she were selecting tights.

  'So what's to be done, Corder?'

  'Depends on whether you want a riot on the streets of Birmingham.'

  'Violence is certain?'

  'Could be. If you wanted it, Prime Minister.'

  'I think not, Corder. Too much uncertainty. Such things can get out of hand, make him a martyr. No, how much better if the threat of riots were sufficient to get Mr Makepeace to abandon his march.'

  'You think he'd do that?' Elizabeth interjected sceptically.

  'I doubt it. It would be the end for him. We could appeal, request, beseech, but I don't suppose he'd listen.'

  'So?'

  'So we would have to get the Chief Constable to order Makepeace to abandon the march as a threat to good public order, wouldn't we, Corder?'

  'In my experience, Sir, Chief Constables don't always listen .. .'

  'He's coming up for a knighthood, he'll be all ears.'

  '... and aren't always listened to in such matters.'

  'But wouldn't that be wonderful?' Urquhart spread his hands in front of him as though confronting a heavenly host. 'Makepeace. Already branded a friend of terrorists. Now challenging the forces of law and order in this country. The threat of riot would seem to be his fault as much as any other's. From martyr to public menace. We'd have to arrest him.' He clapped, then subsided. 'With great reluctance, and after copious warnings, of course.'

  'Public Order Act 1986, Sir. Section Thirteen, I think. Three months and a fine.' 'Precisely, Corder. Can do?' Corder nodded.

  'And then we would have all the loose ends tied up.'

  'Except for one, Mr Urquhart.' Corder was clutching the red file. It appeared thicker than on the last occasion. 'Passolides.'

  'Yes, Sir. We've b
een keeping an eye on him. Not simply a harmless old crank, after all. Appears he carries a gun, been waving it about. And a record as an EOKA activist.'

  He was standing right beside the burning tree, scorching his flesh as though an oven door had been opened in front of him.

  'We should pick him up. But I wanted to check with you first.'

  The voices were at him again, warning, instructing, clashing and confusing. It was many moments before Urquhart was able to push aside the debris in his mind and speak.

  'Where is he now?'

  'Skulking in his tent. The one with no windows.'

  'Good. Then let us leave him there. Someone so close to Makepeace, armed, blood on his hands. British blood. Could prove very convenient.'

  'Even old men have their uses, Sir.'

  'You might say that, Corder ...'

  Claire scurried through the swing doors of the local radio station, already a few minutes late for her interview and muttering darkly about faceless party officials who drew up election schedules. A woman needed a little more preparation time in the morning than some crusty Cabinet colleague who had no hair and wore the same soup-spilled pinstripe his wife had bought for him twenty years ago. Anyway, she'd had to try three pharmacies before finding one which was open and could fill Diana's prescription.

  'I'm Claire Carlsen,' she explained to the young and unkempt receptionist.

  He didn't look up, loath to leave his examination of the sports pages. 'Message for you,' he muttered through a mouthful of gum, waving a scrap of paper at her. 'You're to ring this number. He said it was urgent.'

  There was no name, she didn't recognize the number but it was a Whitehall exchange. 'May I use the phone?'

  He looked at her, less reluctantly now, his attention beginning to focus on the shape behind the name. He gave her a crooked smile before nodding slowly.

  She dialled. It was Corder.

  'Is this a secure line?' he enquired.

  The receptionist had begun to examine her with ill-disguised lust, unwashed eyes massaging their way across her chest.

  'If you mean can we be overheard,' Claire replied, returning the stare, 'not by any intelligent form of life.'

  Defiantly the receptionist blew a huge balloon of gum; both it and his confidence collapsed in a pink dribble across his chin. With a final sullen glance, he subsided back into his newspaper.

  There was a brief silence on the telephone as Corder struggled to decode her cryptic remark. Irony was not his strong suit. 'Your friendly driver,' he continued cautiously, 'is he on duty today?'

  'No,' she replied. During the last week the driver's time had been spent ferrying secretaries, correspondence and dry cleaning between London and the route of the march, and he'd little to offer by way of fresh indiscretion. Claire had felt relieved.

  Now she felt dirty. Corder knew. Her secret was spreading, as was her feeling of remorse. At the beginning she had regarded it as no more than a little idle mischief but she could no longer hide from the fact that it had been a mistake. The betrayal of a friend she still cared for. She had demeaned herself, got carried away. Acted like Urquhart.

  The receptionist was staring once more, furtively; she turned her back on him, no longer able to meet his gaze.

  'No, the driver's not on duty,' she mumbled, feeling much like a prisoner in the dock being asked to plead. Not guilty, she wanted to insist. But who was she kidding?

  'Good,' Corder snapped.

  'Why do you ask?' she was about to enquire, but already it was too late. Corder had rung off.

  Makepeace stood on the age-worn steps of the parish church of St Joseph's in Cannock, some fifteen miles north of the centre of Birmingham, having attended early morning Communion and received the vicar's blessing. He was a committed if undogmatic Christian, not unaware of the benefits for a politician of displaying occasional touches of piousness, and many Christian groups had begun to join him on the march, gathering beneath a large 'March For Peace' banner which had been draped across the bell tower of the church. Yet there were many others assembling that morning whose motivations were less spiritual, and two new elements in particular. For the first time, supporters and committed members of Dick Clarence's party paraded openly amongst the kaleidoscope of banners and protest groups in the crowd. They, like Urquhart, most editors and many others, had perceived Clarence as a lost cause and already written him off. Stranded between the rock of despair which was Clarence and the hard, unforgiving place over which towered Urquhart, they had turned to the only banner of defiance they could find. Thomas Makepeace.

  The second new element was still more noticeable, noisy in spite of relative lack of numbers.

  Draped in Union flags and tattoos, their close-cropped heads appearing like battering rams above mean eyes and studded noses, surrounded by news photographers and penned in behind the hastily erected barriers of the local constabulary, the skinheads had begun to arrive, armed with their traditional weaponry of obscenity, spittle and abuse. It was early morning, their enthusiasm for the task not yet fully warmed, but they formed the skirmishing patrols of elements which would gather later in the day in the guise of nationalist warriors.

  'Scum's risen,' Maria muttered to Makepeace.

  'Not all of it. Too early for most of them.'

  'Urquhart's supporters come in strange and unwashed shapes. I suppose we should take it as a sign of success.'

  'I'd rather not. It worries me, these types, with all the families and children around.'

  'Don't worry,' she reassured. 'The police will take care of it all.'

  They were much slower to stir in the Troodos, even taking into account the two-hour time difference. In the early hours of the previous evening Lieutenant Colonel St Aubyn had commandeered the top floor of the Pine Crest Hotel a few miles from the Lodge; it had caused the manager mild apoplexy and for a few minutes he was of a mind to refuse. But he was a German with an irregular work permit who had no care to tangle with the President of Cyprus, and was not paid enough to do so with several dozen well armed troops. There had been an hour of shuffle and squeeze - and also indignation, guests responding with an eclectic mixture of insults when they discovered that they were not to be allowed to set foot outside the hotel until after the presidential party had left the following morning. But Elpida had wandered around each of the dinner tables, thanking, explaining, asking for understanding. The harrowing details of her story plus the scar on her cheek had done much to repair frayed tempers, bolstered by the announcement that the Ministry of Finance would be picking up the bills for the entire week.

  Of the President, however, there was no sign. Exhaustion had overcome him. As soon as he had talked by phone with a couple of his Ministers and ensured that his arrival the following day was to be expected, he had slept, until ten o'clock the following morning. Panayotis insisted on standing guard the whole night outside his door. No one had tried to wake him, there was little point. It would take only a couple of hours to drive to Nicosia.

  By the time he rose the following morning the dew had disappeared and the crickets and martins on the wing had taken over from the morning chorus. It was a tender honey-coloured spot, surrounded with cherry trees and with unspoilt views across the valley, so different from the tree-choked gorge in which the Lodge had been built. Nicolaou, like his daughter, made an attempt to circulate and thank everyone but the strain of his adventure was all too apparent in the awkward shuffle of his frame and the bruise-grey shadows about his eyes. He had aged, clinging to Elpida's arm as though afraid someone else would try to snatch her away.

  St Aubyn was growing impatient. It would be noon before they left, they would be travelling into the heat of the day and the President, already wan, was in no need of further ordeal.

  'Do not worry on my behalf, Colonel,' Nicolaou had tried to reassure, 'I am a Cypriot. Used to a little heat.'

  The Lieutenant Colonel deferred to the politician, which seemed to be the order of the day. He'd been even less impre
ssed with the instruction to head for Nicosia than his military superiors had been,- the capital was a warren of intrigue where both streets and tongues forked in a confusion that offended the neat military mind. But as the Air Vice-Marshal had reminded him, soldiers don't get to choose.

  The sun had passed its zenith but the thermometer was still rising when at last they set off, four-tonners in front and rear, Land-Rovers in the middle, carrying forty-eight British servicemen and the four liberated hostages. They had debated long and hard whether to send more troops up from Episkopi, but had decided against. This was supposed to look like a victory parade, not another invasion.

  Darwin and his team as well as the signals squad had been sent back to base, doused in gratitude from the President.

  'You must come and visit us in Nicosia, Captain. Accept a little of our hospitality.'