A Parliamentary Affair (80 page)

In order to ensure that the package was not forgotten a second time the distinctive bag was put on Mr Sparrow’s desk. As an afterthought, since they would have gone home before his return, one of the ladies wrote a note in large capitals, and pinned it to the handle.

The evening news made gloomy watching with its pictures of war and starvation and mayhem from all over the world. It looked as if the bloodshed in former Yugoslavia would never come to an end, nor the cycle of famine and war that swept one African country after another. ‘Where ignorant armies clash by night’ just about summed it up.

Roger Dickson poured himself a drink, tried to recall the origin of the phrase and gave up. His political schooling had included little experience of foreign affairs. When he was a child, Dean Acheson’s acute remark about Britain having ‘lost an empire but not yet found a role’ was quoted but not quite believed in Whitehall or Westminster. Successive governments of all colours had accepted the free-market elements of the European Community but firmly denied and derided any wider political influence for Europe. Nobody had figured out how to react when the West won the Cold War; once America showed it was not prepared to be the world’s policeman the ignorant armies could rampage without restraint. Dickson wondered how Clinton would fare in the forthcoming US
presidential elections. His regime, like Jimmy Carter’s, had been high on hope but low on substance and achievement. Maybe, in the closing years of the century, Europe would have no choice but to get its act together and impose peace on its near neighbours.

In a few days’ time it could be his pigeon. The Secretary of State for Environment was due for a big move upwards, all being well. That environmental subjects were no longer a matter of political controversy was entirely due to Dickson’s adroitness in winning a cross-party consensus on the main issues. Certain controversial ideas had been dropped long before any Commons row. Good intelligence, the fruit of those years in the whips’ office, told him how many recalcitrants would vote against the government: if a measure could not be pushed through, however desirable, it was a waste of energy even to try. The Department had even cut its budget, gently, without too much howling, while the emollient style of Dickson and Muncastle had charmed hostile councillors across the country into relative quietude. In all, he was a considerable success.

Now, however, he would be moving to something much tougher. His next appointment could easily be the Foreign Office itself.

If he got that far, he would seriously consider appointing Elaine as his PPS. It was the least he could do. She had spent most of this Parliament fretting about her lack of preferment. It was safe enough now, surely; he was not climbing the ladder but close to the top. After four years of avoiding detection they both knew how to behave in public. Several male ministers had women MPs as their PPSs and vice versa, all without comment or nuance. Nor was she a new star flashing gaudily across the sky. People had become used to her – there were even several imitations, pretty, blonde, tough Tory women on the hustings this time. And she was coming up to forty, hardly a chicken. It would be worth trying.

He stood in front of the television set, brooding. Several years in Cabinet listening to debates on overseas policy had given him general background knowledge. If, however, the UK under his guidance was to move into a different era, he would need an ear, a sounding board, he could trust. Elaine would not only be useful; for him, she would be essential.

And if the election were lost… Dickson raised the glass to his lips and took a long swallow. Then all bets were off. He was sure of his place as a prominent member of the front bench, one of the party’s two or three leading names. There would be a leadership contest. His name would have to go forward: to refuse would be an abdication, with complete uncertainty about whether any other chance would ever present itself.

And he might win.

He had not started out, all those years ago, with the idea of becoming Prime Minister. Only prats did that, their prattishness proven by their telling everybody on the first train to London. He had wanted what then seemed an impossibility, a modest position of influence at the heart of British life. For a long while the whip’s post had seemed to satisfy that need and he had thought no further. Then along came Elaine Stalker, with her insight and originality and confidence-building, her willingness to take risks, indeed to seek out those risks. It was not all that surprising that renewed ambition had awoken in his breast. Without her he would never have been able to charm a stranger or spin a tale or tell a lie so effectively. But with her…

Danger: there was danger all around. She was dangerous to him, and he to her. Especially if others knew. Instinctively he glanced over his shoulder, then pulled out the photocopied note with its compliments slip from
The Globe.

The scrawled signature of the sender was unreadable and Roger was not about to telephone the paper to enquire. It was odd, however, that no journalist had contacted him about it in all the weeks since it had arrived. The note had lain near his heart, an ever-present reminder of fallibility, a warning against complacency and arrogance, almost as when, in ancient times, the Romans sent a
slave to follow heroes on their victorious tour of the city and cry to them: ‘Remember – you are only human.’

Suddenly he knew what he had to do. If the note were as incriminating as he suspected then he would not harbour a copy of it, not for a moment longer. A scrabble in the drawer produced a booklet of matches from some long-forgotten dinner. He tore letter, slip and envelope into tiny fragments, dropped them into an ashtray, struck a match and set the shreds alight, poking awkwardly at the small flames until the evidence had disintegrated into ashes.

The thing had gone; but the worry would remain, and stab him in unguarded moments.

He wished she would phone.

Betty Horrocks was doing her comfortable best. The South Warmingshire constituency was perennially short of money and had never been able to afford a proper trained agent. In recent years Mrs Horrocks herself had fulfilled many of the necessary duties. Since the office was tumbledown and seedy it was now mainly used for storage, and most election activity took place instead in a large modern glass conservatory attached to her home, with views over the immaculate garden where an elderly gardener toiled three times a week. A coffee-pot and chocolate biscuits were permanently available. Mrs Horrocks presided with good sense, warmth and somewhat scatty organisation. All concerned were doing their level best to win, but if they were to lose it would at least be from mellow surroundings.

She looked up as Elaine entered. ‘Phone’s been on the go all day.
South Warmingshire Gazette
want your views on the proposal for a new sewage farm, for or against. Central Television want to come and film you losing on Thursday – I told them they’ll be welcome, but disappointed. Diane is arriving tonight for the weekend. I’ve offered to put her up here – you’ve enough on your plate. Tom Sparrow at North-West Warwickshire will send a carload over tomorrow, so you’ll have two strong teams of canvassers out. Karen I have fed and sent home, firmly: I gave her a record token for her birthday, as you never know what young people’s tastes are these days. I hope that was all right.’ Elaine thanked her warmly as she glanced through a small pile of messages, cards and letters. One postmark caught her eye. She slit open the envelope to reveal a cheque.

‘Well, I never,’ she breathed. ‘My former father-in-law has sent a donation. Five hundred pounds, the old darling. To be recorded as anonymous, please, Betty. He wishes us luck, and says not to tell “Mother”. That’s the old lady, who never approved of me.’

‘Families do turn up trumps occasionally,’ Mrs Horrocks remarked. ‘You’ll meet my brother-in-law on Thursday night – that’s Johnny’s younger brother, George. He was appointed Deputy Lord-Lieutenant last year and will be reading out your results. You’ll like him. Not as daft as Johnny: a different generation.’

‘You sound quite fond of him,’ Elaine teased.

‘Me? Oh, rubbish. Much too young for me – there were ten years between them. Not my type either.’ She eyed her MP briefly and seemed about to continue, then stopped. Matchmaking was definitely not Mrs Horrocks’s line, though she resolved to introduce the two properly at the right moment.

One other matter remained. Mrs Horrocks steeled herself. ‘And please would you phone Roger Dickson right away, on this number.’

With a disapproving air she handed Elaine a piece of paper. The number was Roger’s home in London. Elaine frowned. Caroline and the children would already be in Warwickshire for the weekend.

Without further comment, Elaine put the note in her pocket, picked up her papers for the evening’s engagement and headed for the door.

The last Saturday of any election campaign is always the busiest. It was not helpful that the morning dawned cool and changeable. Tom Sparrow cursed as he rose and quickly shaved. Volunteers did not enjoy dodging showers, while posters, already close to the end of their useful life, would become soggy and torn and need replacing in time for election day on Thursday. The radio news was not good: polls, showed that Labour was now three points ahead. The gap was still well within the margin of error which even the pollsters would now accept, but it worried him more than he liked to admit. This time Labour had done nothing stupid, or at least not yet. The Prime Minister was no longer young and fresh and new, nor did anyone pretend there were easy answers to the nation’s worries. This time he felt even less sure about the overall outcome than last time, and that had been
nerve-racking
enough.

There had been letter-bombs in London. One had gone off in the portico of Lord Prior’s block of flats behind Westminster Roman Catholic Cathedral and blown chunks of masonry sky high. At least nobody had been hurt. Another had turned up at the Home Office. It was thought more might be found after the weekend. The item intercepted at No. 10 was not mentioned, for dodgy packages there were a regular occurrence: drawing attention to them might encourage every loony in the country. All participants in the election campaign were warned to be especially careful.

The office was briefly quiet and empty as Tom Sparrow let himself in and switched off the alarm. He pottered around for a few moments, shifting boxes, picking up bits of equipment to create a clearer passage from the street door to his own office.

On his desk were various scraps of paper with reminders from the day before. And a green Commons carrier bag, which, according to the note pinned to it, had been left behind by Karen Stalker. Curious, he tipped out its contents: various unopened letters addressed to her mother the MP, a magazine, a cotton sweater, and a parcel wrapped in House of Commons paper. A gift of some kind, possibly from Karen to her mother. She was a decent kid. Sparrow picked up the box and idly tried to guess what was in it. He shook it experimentally, then sniffed at it and noticed the faint whiff of chocolate.

And something else, the faintest possible chemical smell, which he had known before, in the army, long ago.

Delicately, not daring to breathe, he put the box down on the desk and backed away. He did not get far. With a great roar the bomb exploded, blasting air and heat at high pressure through the small room and lifting Sparrow’s outstretched body into the far wall. The ceiling first moved upwards, then disintegrated into crazy paving which came crashing down, covering the desk, the filing cabinets, the phone, the piles of paper, the floor itself. In one corner a fire began to flicker. The remaining air space filled with choking white dust mixed with smoke. A second later, almost in slow motion, the main window of the shop blew out, shattering glass over the pavement and seriously injuring several passers-by.

It happened so quickly. Then all hell broke loose. The alarms of nearby shops began to ring shrilly. A woman was screaming, sitting on the sidewalk, her face covered in blood, as a terrified shop girl tried to comfort her. A pensioner leaned against the wall, shaking uncontrollably, then sank slowly to his knees. A young mother stood rigid with horror, staring at the pram where her sleeping baby was covered in a shivering heap of plate glass. In whimpering disbelief a schoolboy rubbed his leg where a jagged piece of metal was sticking out. The police and emergency services were on the spot in minutes, blue lights flashing, doors slamming, radios crackling. And inside the shattered building, his face unmarked, a beam across his broken back, Tom Sparrow lay dead.

There would be a memorial service later, but the funeral was best out of the way as soon as possible. Best, as well, before the election rather than after. Among the few differences remaining between the main parties was their attitude to the Prevention of Terrorism Act, which permitted the incarceration and questioning of terrorist suspects for five days. The Conservatives were prepared to accept limitations on civil liberties in the pursuit of long-term peace while the Opposition were not. The attack on the office of a prominent member of the Conservative campaign team, a member of the Cabinet, was clearly politically motivated. Any public sympathy which could be garnered should not be ignored; not with the race so close.

A large crowd of friends, colleagues and the curious turned out to pay their respects. The press were there in force. Considering the haste of the arrangements it was all beautifully done, the coffin draped with a Union Jack and a single wreath of white lilies, with an honour guard from his old regiment, fresh-faced Royal Fusiliers young enough to be his grandsons. The path from the chapel of rest to the graveside was lined with wreaths and bunches of flowers from all over the country. Roger Dickson was a pallbearer, his handsome face dark and grieving. In the soft summer air a breeze blew through the tall trees of the well-kept cemetery. Mourners turned to each other for comfort, and found none, only the certainty that the fight must continue.