The House of Cards Complete Trilogy (37 page)

He was in a determined mood by the time the press conference gathered shortly after lunch. With no time to make more formal arrangements he had summoned the media to meet him on the Albert Embankment, on the south side of the river directly opposite the Houses of Parliament. He needed a dramatic backdrop and the gingerbread palace with the tower of Big Ben would provide it. As soon as the cameramen were ready, he began.

“Good afternoon. I’ve got a short statement to make and I’m sorry I’ll not have time afterwards for questions. But I don’t think you’re going to be disappointed.”

He waited as another camera crew arrived and heaved their equipment into position.

“Following the ballot on Tuesday, it seems as if only three candidates have any realistic chance of success. In fact, I understand that all the others have already announced they’ll not be standing in the second round. So, as you gentlemen have put it, this is a three-horse race.”

He paused. Bugger it, but this was hard. He hoped they were all freezing, too.

“Of course, I’m delighted to be one of those three, honored, but three can be an unlucky number. There aren’t really three alternatives in this election, only two. Either the Party can stick to the practical approach to politics that’s proved so successful and kept us in power for over a decade. Or it can develop a new raft of policies, sometimes called conscience politics, which will get Government much more deeply involved—some would say trapped—in trying to sort out every problem in the world. Big Brother it’s called, and as you all know that’s never been my brand of tea.”

The reporters stirred. Everyone knew there were divisions within the Party but it was rare for them to be given such a public airing.

“However well intentioned, I don’t believe that a new emphasis on conscience politics would be appropriate—fact is, I think it would be a disaster for the Party and the country. I reckon that’s also the view of the clear majority within the Party. Yet that is just the way we could end up drifting if that majority gets divided between two candidates. The two candidates who support pragmatic policies are Francis Urquhart and myself. Now I am a practical man. I don’t want my personal ambitions to stand in the way of achieving those policies in which I’ve always believed. But that’s just what might happen.”

Despite the cold air his words were catching fire, sending spirals into the air.

“That place”—he cocked a thumb at the Parliament building behind him—“means too much to me. I want to make sure the right man is running it with the right policies in place. So, ladies and gentlemen”—he gave one last look around at the mass of cameras and bodies that pressed around him, toying with them for a second more—“I’m not going to take any risks. Too much is at stake. So I am withdrawing from the race. I shall be casting my own vote for Francis Urquhart, who I sincerely hope will be our next Prime Minister. I have nothing more to say.”

His last words were almost lost in the clatter of a hundred camera shutters. He didn’t wait but began striding up the riverside steps toward his waiting car. A few gave chase, running after him, but were able to get no more than the sight of him being driven off across Westminster Bridge. The rest stood in a state of bewilderment. He had left them no time for questions, no opportunity to develop theories or detect hidden meanings behind his words. They had only what he had given them so they would have to report it straight—which is precisely what Woolton intended.

He drove home, where his wife stood waiting on the doorstep, no less confused. He was smiling ruefully as they went inside; she allowed him a kiss on her cheek, he made the tea.

“You decided to spend more time with your family, Pat?” she asked, skeptical, as they sat on opposite sides of the kitchen table.

“Would do no harm, would it?”

“But. There’s always a ‘but’ somewhere with you. I understand why you had to back out and I suppose that’s going to have to be punishment enough.”

“You’ll stick with me, love? That’s more important than anything, you know that.”

She chose her words carefully, not wanting to let him slip so freely off the hook. “I shall go on
supporting
you, as I always have. But…”

“That bloody word again.”

“But why on earth did you decide to support Francis Urquhart? I never knew you two were that close.”

“That superior bugger? We’re not close. I don’t even like him!”

“Then why?”

“Because I’m fifty-five and Michael Samuel is forty-eight, which means that he could be in Downing Street for twenty years until I’m dead and buried. Francis Urquhart, on the other hand, is almost sixty-two. He’s not likely to be in office more than five years. So with Urquhart, there’s a chance of another leadership race before I’m reduced to dog meat. In the meantime, if I can find out who’s behind that tape, or they suffer some really brutal and horribly painful accident, as I sincerely hope they will, then I’m in with a second chance.”

His pipe was hurling thick blue smoke at the ceiling as he worked on his logic.

“In any event, I’ve nothing to gain from remaining neutral. Samuel would never tolerate me in his Cabinet. So instead I’ve handed the election to Urquhart on a plate and he’ll have to show some public gratitude for that.”

He looked at his wife, forced a smile for the first time since they had heard the tape.

“Hell, it could be worse. How do you fancy being the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s wife for the next couple of years?”

Forty-Four

To lie about one’s strength is the mark of leadership; to lie about one’s faults, the mark of politics.

Friday, November 26

The following morning’s weather was still well below freezing, but a new front had passed over the capital bringing crystal skies to replace the leaden cloud of the previous day. It felt like a fresh start. From the window of his office Urquhart gazed out at what seemed for him to be a future as bright as the sky. After Woolton’s endorsement he felt invulnerable. He was almost home.

Then the door burst open with the sound of an exploding shell and from the rubble emerged the tattered figure of Roger O’Neill. Even before Urquhart could demand to know what on earth he was doing, the babbling commenced. The words were fired like bullets, being hurled at Urquhart as if to overwhelm him by force.

“They know, Francis. They’ve discovered the file is missing. The locks were bent and one of the secretaries noticed and the Chairman’s called us all in. I’m sure he suspects me. What are we going to do? What are we going to do?”

Urquhart was shaking him to stop the incomprehensible gabble. “Roger, for God’s sake shut up!”

He pushed him bodily into a chair and slapped his face. Only then did O’Neill pause for breath.

“Now slowly, Roger. Take it slowly. What are you trying to say?”

“The files, Francis. The confidential party files on Samuel you asked me to send to the Sunday newspapers.” He was panting from both physical and nervous exhaustion. The pupils of his eyes were dilated, the rims as raw as open wounds, the face the color of ashes. “You see, I was able to use my pass key to get into the basement without any trouble, that’s where all the storage rooms are, but the files are in locked cabinets. I had to force the lock, Francis. I’m sorry but I had no choice. Not very much but it bent a little. There’s so much dust and cobwebs around that it looked as if no one had been in there since the Boer War, but yesterday some bitch of a secretary decided to go in there and noticed the bent lock. Now they’ve gone through the whole lot and discovered that Samuel’s file is missing.”

“You sent them the original file?” Urquhart asked, aghast. “You didn’t just copy the interesting bits as I told you?”

“Francis, the file was as thick as my arm, it would have taken hours to copy. I didn’t know which bits they’d be most interested in, so—I sent them the lot. It could have been years before anyone noticed the file was missing, and then they’d have thought it was simply misplaced.”

“You absolute bloody fool, you…”

“Francis, don’t shout at me!” O’Neill screamed. “It’s me who’s taken all the risks, not you. The Chairman’s personally interrogating everyone with a pass key and there are only nine of us. He’s asked to see me this afternoon. I’m sure he suspects. And I’m not going to take the blame all on my own. Why should I? I only did what you told me…” He was weeping. “Francis, I can’t go on lying. I simply can’t stand it anymore. I’ll go to pieces!”

Urquhart froze as he realized the truth behind O’Neill’s desperate words. This quivering man in front of him had neither resistance nor judgment left; he was beginning to crumble like an old wall without foundations. Not even for a week, not even for this week of all weeks, could O’Neill control himself. He was on the edge of his own personal disaster, the slightest wind would send him hurtling down toward destruction. And he would take Urquhart with him.

When he spoke his voice was firm but conciliatory. “Roger, you are over-anxious. You have nothing to fear, no one can prove anything and you must remember that I’m on your side. You are not alone in this. Look, don’t go back to the office, call in sick and go home. The Chairman can wait till Monday. And tomorrow I would like you to come and be my house guest in Hampshire. Come for lunch and stay overnight while we talk the whole thing through—together, just the two of us. How does that sound to you?”

O’Neill gripped Urquhart’s hand like a cripple clinging to his crutch. “Just you and me, Francis…” he wept.

“But you mustn’t tell anyone you’re coming to visit me. It would be very embarrassing if the press were to find out that a senior party official was my house guest just before the final leadership ballot—it wouldn’t look right for either of us. So this must be strictly between the two of us. Not even your secretary must know.”

O’Neill tried to mutter words of gratitude but was cut short by three enormous sneezes that had Urquhart reeling in disgust. O’Neill didn’t seem to notice as he wiped his face and smiled with the newfound eagerness of a spaniel.

“I’ll be there, Francis. You can trust me.”

“Can I, Roger?”

“Course you can. Even if it kills me, I’ll be there.”

Saturday, November 27

Urquhart slipped from his bed before dawn. He hadn’t slept but wasn’t tired. He was alone, his wife away for the weekend, he wasn’t entirely sure where, but it was his choice, he had asked her for a little time alone. She had searched his face carefully, trying to spot the reflection in his eye of some lover or inappropriate entanglement. He wouldn’t be so stupid, of course, not on the weekend before such a week, yet men had the capacity to be so inexplicably stupid.

“No, Mortima,” he had whispered, understanding her concern. “I need a while to reflect, walk a little, read a little Burke.”

“Whatever it takes, Francis,” she had replied, and left.

It was early, even before the first light of morning was breaking above the New Forest moors. He dressed in his favorite hunting jacket, pulled on his boots, and walked out into the freezing morning air along a bridle path that led across Emery Down toward Lyndhurst. The ground mist clung closely to the hedgerows, discouraging the birds and damping down all sound, a cocoon in which only he and his thoughts had any existence. He had walked nearly three miles before he began a long, slow climb up the southern face of a hill, and slowly the fog began to clear as the rising sun cut through the damp air. He had just emerged from a bank of swirling mist when he saw the stag across the patch of sun-cleared hillside, browsing among the damp gorse. He slipped gently behind a low bush, waiting.

He wasn’t prone to introspection but there were moments when he needed to dig inside himself, and in that inner space he found his father, or elements of him. It was on a patch of moor similar to this, but in the Highlands of Scotland, beneath a bush of yellow flowering gorse, that they had found his body. Beside him had been his favorite twenty-bore Purdy, handed down from his own father, only one cartridge used. That was all it had taken to blow off half his head. A stupid man, weak. Brought shame upon the name of Urquhart that still made the son twist inside and feel somehow lessened.

The stag, a fallow deer, had his head high, sniffing the morning air, his broad oar-like antlers catching the young sun, a scar on his mottled flank suggesting he might have fought a recent rut and lost. This was a young buck, he would have another day, but Urquhart knew he wouldn’t be so fortunate. The fight in which he was engaged would be his last, his time wouldn’t come round again.

The stag edged closer as it continued to browse, oblivious of his presence, the rich chestnut coat shining in the light, its short tail twitching. It was a sight that when he was younger he might have watched for hours, yet he couldn’t sit here now, not with his father. Urquhart stood, not thirty yards in front of the buck. It froze in confusion, sensing it should already be dead. Then it leaped to one side and in an instant was gone. Urquhart’s laughter followed it into the mist.

When he returned home he walked straight to his study, without changing, and picked up the phone. He called the editors of the four leading Sunday newspapers. He discovered that two of them were writing editorials supporting, one was waving the flag for Samuel and the other was noncommittal. However, all four were in varying degrees confident that he had a clear advantage, a conclusion confirmed by the
Observer
’s pollsters who by now had succeeded in contacting a substantial majority of the Parliamentary Party. The survey predicted that Urquhart would win comfortably with 60 percent of the vote.

“It seems it would take an earthquake to stop you winning now,” the editor had said.

“Or the truth,” Urquhart whispered, after he had put down the receiver.

Urquhart was still sitting in his study when he heard O’Neill’s car draw up sharply on the gravel driveway outside. The Irishman parked carelessly and clambered out wearily. As he stepped into the hallway, Urquhart couldn’t help but note that his guest was almost unrecognizable as the man he had taken to lunch in his club less than six months before. The casual elegance had turned into outright scruffiness, the hair that was once informal was now unkempt, the clothes were creased, the collar unbuttoned and crumpled. The once suave and fashionable communicator now appeared like a common tramp and those deep, twinkling eyes, the features which both women and clients had found so captivating, had sunk without trace, replaced by two wild, staring orbs that flashed around the hallway in constant pursuit of something they could never find.