The House of Cards Complete Trilogy (116 page)

“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 that 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 dialed. It was Corder.

“Is this a secure line?” he inquired.

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 inquire, but already it was too late. Corder had rung off.

Forty-One

Downing Street has a simple dress code. When you come in you should leave your principles at the door.

Makepeace stood on the age-worn steps of the parish church of St. Joseph’s in Cannock, some fifteen miles north of the center 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 that 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 among 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 that 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 that 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 Elpída 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-colored spot, surrounded with cherry trees and with unspoiled 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-gray shadows about his eyes. He had aged, clinging to Elpída’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 traveling 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 impressed 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.”

“And perhaps a medal or two?” Elpída added mischievously.

“It’s been an honor, sir—miss.”

The Captain saluted starchly, but the President was too overcome with emotion for military etiquette. He threw his arms around his savior in the manner of any Balkan bidding farewell to a much-loved brother, kissing both cheeks.

“Take care of yourself, sir,” Darwin mumbled, coloring.

“Don’t worry, my dear Captain Darwin. The worst is over. After what you have already achieved, the rest will be easy.”

***

There was little Sunday spirit in evidence. With some three thousand people marching with him and more than ten thousand promised when he reached Birmingham city center, Makepeace should have been content, but all day long the skinheads had been driving up and down their route, blaring their horns and sounding trumpets, waving flags, leaning far out of car windows to raise clenched fists, spitting, goading, warning of trouble to come. Several supporters had tried to intervene and appeal for moderation, but by midmorning and Walsall, empty beer cans and other forms of garbage had joined the obscenities being thrown in their direction. A Morris dancer had already been knocked to the floor, and several marchers with young families had decided to quit.

Makepeace had appealed several times to the police to take some form of action to quell the disruption but the number of officers on duty was small and entirely inadequate to deal with the incitement. He was relieved therefore when, up ahead in the far distance, he saw a congregation of police cars, orange flashes on white, surrounded by a flurry of officers whose animation suggested they were intent on business. One was striding purposefully toward him.

“Chief Inspector Harding, sir.” The officer introduced himself with a courteous salute. Makepeace gave no indication of stopping or even slowing, forcing the policeman to fall in alongside.

“Welcome, Chief Inspector, delighted to see you.” He shook hands. “These yobs are proving a damned nuisance; they’re deliberately trying to provoke trouble.”

“I’m very much afraid you’re correct, sir. Our information is that a countermarch is gathering with the objective of coming into direct confrontation with you in the city center. Many hundreds of skinheads, British National Union types, neo-Nazis, assorted maggots. Those you’ve seen so far are just the outriders. Has all the signs of a nasty bit of violence.”

A car passed, horn blaring, heading away from the gathering of police cars. A pair of tattooed buttocks protruded from the window.

“Blast them,” Makepeace snapped. “This is a protest for peace, a family event, not an excuse for mayhem. What are you going to do about it?”

“That’s difficult, Mr. Makepeace.”

“Don’t just wring your hands; you’ve got to do something.”

“My instructions are to stop it, sir.”

“Excellent.”

“I don’t think you understand. My instructions are to stop all of it. The skinheads’ march. And your march too, sir.”

“You’re bloody joking.” Makepeace came to an abrupt halt. Flustered, angered, he motioned those behind him to continue. The marchers parted to either side of them.

The policeman persisted. “The two marches coming together will cause violence and disruption of the peace.”

“Then stop their march. Mine is peaceful.”

“For better or for worse—I sometimes wonder which, sir—we live in a democracy. They may be pavement scrapings but they also have a vote and equal rights to demonstrate.”

“Sticking their unwashed arses out of car windows is demonstrating? Demonstrating what?”

“They are entitled to their political opinions, sir.”

“This is a sick joke, Mr. Harding. Just sweep them off the streets, for heaven’s sake.”

“If I stop one march I have to stop both.”

Makepeace was growing irritated by the other man’s dogged sophistry. He began walking briskly once again, swept along by his supporters, but now he found himself accompanied by four uniformed constables who had fallen in behind their officer.

“This is crude blackmail, Chief Inspector.”

“It’s protecting the peace.”

“I’m the one trying to protect the peace. That’s why I’m standing for Parliament.”

“And organizing a march of this size that in itself constitutes a strain on public order, that includes anarchists, militant animal liberationists, a group of extreme environmentalists calling itself ‘One World Warriors,’ the Anti-Nazi League, some…”

“The vast majority here are ordinary peace-loving families. I can’t control everyone who wants to tag along behind.”

“Precisely.”

“Justice can’t be this blind. It’s a put-up job, isn’t it, Chief Inspector?”

But Harding had no wish to debate further, not while swimming in a sea of Makepeace supporters. His brain locked into the appropriate criminal code and engaged gear.

“Sir, under Section 12 of the Public Order Act of 1986 I have reason to believe that this public procession may result in serious public disorder, serious damage to property, or serious disruption to the life of the community, and therefore, under the authority accorded to me by that Act, I am directing you to bring this procession to a halt and disperse your supporters.”

“Not a chance.”

The officer was bobbing up and down on the toes of his highly polished shoes in a state of some agitation. “Mr. Makepeace, I must warn you that failure to comply with the lawful directions of a police officer in this matter is an offense and renders you liable to prosecution.”

“Bugger off, you bloody fool!”

***

The roadway down from the Troodos knotted and twisted like a child’s ribbon, making the convoy’s passage through the pines uneven and uncomfortable. Their four-tonners had not been designed for high-speed cornering. The air above the macadam boiled, throwing up little whirlpools of dust that irritated the eye and cloyed the tongue. From their right-hand side the ancient Amiandos asbestos mine glared gray at them as though it had been dropped from the far side of the moon, a dust-raped landscape destroyed by pickax and bulldozer. St. Aubyn licked his drying lips in distaste.