SPECIAL RELATIONSHIPS

By

William Norris

© William Norris, 2009

This is a work of fiction.

Any resemblance to any

person, living or dead, is purely coincidental

CHAPTER ONE

The Prime Minister was naked. Standing on tip-toe, his ankles crossed, he stretched out his arms and held the pose, admiring himself in the full-length mirror across the room.

"I don't think that's quite right, dear," said his wife, wrapping her fluffy negligée around her as she munched on a chocolate biscuit. "I mean, shouldn't you have something wrapped round your, er, middle? That's the way I've always seen it in the paintings."

"Victorian prudery," he snorted. "This has to be the way it really was. You don't think the Romans would have passed up the chance of full frontal exposure, do you?"

"Well, I just don't think it's very nice, that's all. I mean, I'm used to the sight of your willy, but do you think the public is ready for it just yet?"

"What's wrong with my willy?" The Prime Minister's tone was indignant. He glanced down at the offending member where it rested limply in its curly nest. "You've never complained about it before. You certainly didn't complain about it last night." He smirked.

"I'm not complaining about it now, dear." She struggled to find the words that could avert the threatening argument. Men were always so sensitive about this sort of thing. "It's a perfectly good willy, and I've always been very grateful for his attentions. It's just that it seems a little undignified to put him on public display. I mean, people might laugh."

The Prime Minister dropped his arms and uncrossed his feet. His shoulders and calves were beginning to hurt like hell. "God damn it, woman, I'm not on public display. I'm in our bedroom. All I'm doing is practising the pose that that fellow Lucien Freud wants for his portrait of me."

"Oh, I see. I thought you were just role-playing again." She nibbled her biscuit and watched as his hands began their characteristic little dance. "Why do you think he wants you in that particular pose?"

"Why? I should have thought that was obvious, even to you." He could, she thought, be extraordinarily offensive without even trying. "He sees me as the saviour of the nation, crucified by the media. It's an allegory, that's what it is. An allegory."

"I see, dear. So he's not really suggesting that you're the risen Christ? I mean, some people have said…."

"Of course not!" The hands were now at full twitch. "I'm not responsible for what people say about me. Just because I have this saintly aura; this incredible propensity for telling the truth and shaming the devil; this undeniable urge to go into every church, any church, that I happen to be passing, doesn't mean I'm divine. I mean, I want to make this perfectly clear, I do not claim to be the son of God."

"No, dear. I never thought you were."

"You don't have to be so emphatic about it. I mean, y'know, a lot of people are saying it. And they must have some reason for thinking something like that, I mean, apart from what they read in the newspapers. Perhaps I should talk to that new Archbishop; make it perfectly clear to him that it's all a lot of nonsense got up by the media."

"I don't think that's a very good idea, dear." The First Lady was busily engaged in brushing biscuit crumbs from the duvet. "He doesn't like you very much, and I'm sure he doesn't think you're the Son of God. Judging from his last sermon, he has a very different idea of your origins."

"Oh ha, bloody ha. You don't have to remind me that I made a mistake appointing that bearded bastard. It was all your fault for having the kids brought up as Catholics - I felt I had to redress the balance and get someone who didn't believe in smells and bells for a change. How was I to know that the Welsh windbag wouldn't believe in me, either?"

The First Lady decided to change the subject. "Do put your dressing gown on, dear; you'll catch your death of cold. When does Lucien Freud want you to sit for this painting?"

"We haven't fixed a date yet. He wants me to find two suitable figures for the rest of the tableau."

"The rest of the tableau? You mean he's going to paint the whole crucifixion scene?"

"That's right. Says it's symbolic, or some such nonsense. Wants me to choose a pair of cabinet colleagues to share the experience."

"Who are you going to ask?"

"That's a bit of a problem. Jack Hay would do it like a shot - anything to get an interview on Today, explaining how we hung shoulder-to-shoulder - but it’s Gordon I really want. Christ, I'd like to see that bastard nailed to a cross for real."

"I wish you wouldn't blaspheme in the bedroom, dear. I'll have to sprinkle the place with holy water, and you know how expensive that is since the Chancellor subjected it to VAT."

"Another reason to crucify the bastard." The Prime Minister began to struggle into his underpants, tripping over the hearthrug as he managed to get both feet into one leg-hole and dragging the duvet from the bed as he reached out to save his balance. Somehow the mere thought of his Chancellor made him lose all co-ordination. One of the three telephones on his bedside table began to ring.

"Which one was that?" He lifted each hand-set in turn, finally getting an answer at the third attempt. "Bland", he barked. "Oh, it's you.." He listened a moment, then held out the receiver to his wife. "It's Derry. Wants to know why you're not in court this morning."

"Oh, my God!" There was a flurry of confusion as she flung aside the tangled bedclothes and grabbed the telephone. "Derry, sweetest, I'm so, sooo, sorry. We were up with young Leonard half the night and I'm afraid I overslept…."

"Liar," breathed the Prime Minister.

She listened for a moment, her face growing redder. "I see," she said finally, "well if that's the way you want to play it, Lord Chancellor, I'll see you in the Court of Appeal." She slammed down the receiver. "Would you believe the nerve of that man. Just because I couldn't get to court on time…and I had a perfectly good excuse….he's had the case dismissed. My junior was there. He could have handled it perfectly well, but no, your clever-clogs Chancellor argues that since I'm not in court we're clearly not interested in proceeding, and the cretinous old fool of a judge agrees with him."

"Which case was that?"

She rounded on him, eyes blazing. "You know bloody well which case it was. And if you hadn't kept me up half the night because you over-dosed on Viagra, I'd have been there to prosecute it."

"Sorry, 'fraid you've got me. I honestly can't remember." God, he loved her when she was angry. Those terrifying eyes; the hair shaken back from the noble forehead. How on earth had that Socialist idiot of a father managed to sire a creature like this?

"Baines vs Regina. Now do you remember? My client is suing your government for a fundamental breach of his human rights."

"Oh, that one." The hands were in full flutter once more. "I'm sorry, love, but you spend so much time suing me that I tend to lose count. Isn't Baines the fellow who had his 'phone tapped by MI5 because he was ordering too much cous-cous from the local takeaway?"

"Yes, and it's an utter scandal. Your security people think they can ride roughshod over the human rights of anyone they please. Well, I'm here to make sure they don't get away with it."

"I think the problem is that you were here, and not there, if you see what I mean." The Prime Minister giggled nervously at his own joke, then ducked as a hairbrush flew across the bedroom.

"I'll have you know, Tony Bland, that if it wasn't for all the work I put in defending people against your minions, this family wouldn't be able to afford one flat in Bristol, let alone two."

"All right, I'm grateful. But just you remember that if it wasn't for my policies you wouldn't be getting all that work. Anyway, don't I seem to remember that when Special Branch raided this man Baines' flat they found ten pounds of Semtex, an AK47, and a telephone number for Osama bin Laden?"

"Planted," she said firmly.

"What, all of it?"

"All of it."

"If you say so, love." The Prime Minister sighed. He was irresistibly reminded of those lines from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland:

"In my youth, said the old man, I studied the law

And argued each case with my wife.

The muscular strength which it gave to my jaw

Has lasted the rest of my life."

His own jaw had long ago given up the unequal struggle. Indeed, he sometimes wondered how the hell they managed to hold the marriage together when she was forever fighting his legislation in the courts. Q.C., in the mind of Her Majesty's First Lord of the Treasury, stood for "Querulous Cunt." But he would never have dared to say so.

"And I tell you this, Tony…" She was not about to be put off by soothing platitudes. "If you don't tell that fascist Home Secretary of yours to stop trampling over the civil liberties of honest citizens like Mr. Baines, you can forget all about any repetitions of last night's little macho exercise." She swept into the bathroom before he could think of a suitable reply.

Oh Christ, he murmured to himself, we're going to get the Lysistrata act now. Why the hell did I have to marry a woman who reads Aristophanes in bed?

CHAPTER TWO

Alone in his Downing Street study, the Prime Minister was surrounded by portraits of his predecessors. Whenever he looked at them he was reminded of Dylan Thomas's "dickey-bird-watching pictures of the dead." Not that they were all dead. Maggie Thatcher, to whom in private moments he lit a mental candle of remembrance, was still alive. Just. So was that idiot John Major, and that even bigger idiot James Callaghan. The one thing they all had in common was that they had failed to retain office. Beaten at elections or stabbed in the back by loyal colleagues, sometimes both, they had all fallen from power. It was not, the Prime Minister resolved, going to happen to him. To hell with Enoch Powell and his dictum that all political careers ended in failure.

Spread in front of him were the day's newspapers. Unlike many of those who watched from the walls, who had read the news in digest form prepared by the Press Office, Bland insisted on reading the unexpurgated….truth, he decided, was not quite the right word. The experience frequently gave him indigestion. Today it reduced him to splenetic rage. On the front page of the Daily Mail was a huge picture of him, full frontal, in his "crucifixion" pose. It was slightly out of focus and the picture editor had at least had the decency to put a black stripe across his private parts. But it was, unmistakably, him. The headline was mocking: "WHO'S A PRETTY BOY, THEN?"

"Angus!" he bawled.

"Yes, boss." The connecting door to the Press Secretary's office swung open so quickly that Bland had the uncharitable thought that Crawford had been peeking through the key-hole. The hooded eyes swept across the walnut desk and fastened on the Daily Mail. "Oh," he said. "You've seen it."

"Of course I've bloody well seen it. I could hardly fucking miss it, could I? How the hell did this happen, and what are you going to do about it?"

"Why should I do anything about it? You fired me, remember?"

"I did no such thing. You resigned to spend more time with your family."

"Oh yeah? Pull the other one; it's got bells on. And I suppose that it was just a coincidence that I 'resigned' in the middle of the Kelly debacle? Admit it, Tony, you fired me to save your own bloody skin."

"I did no such thing. And anyway, if I fired you, what are you doing here?"

"Because you bloody well can't do without me. You know it and I know it. And let me tell you this, boss: I'm sick and tired of having to come in and out of number 10 by way of the tunnel under the Treasury, just so the media won't cotton on to the fact that I've been here all the time."

"It's a perfectly good tunnel," Bland protested.

"That's not the fucking point. I'm fed up with skulking around like this, let alone getting groped in that tunnel by Mandelbaum every time he passes me on the way in."

"Leave it with me," Bland said wearily. "I'll think of something. In the meantime, what are we going to do about this?"

Crawford stroked his stubbled chin and leaned forward to pick up the offending newspaper. He studied the picture closely. "Not you at your best," he said. "Interesting pose, though. Should go down well with the Jesus freaks. From the angle, I'd guess it was taken from somewhere on Horse Guards Parade."

"Damnit, Angus, I asked what you were going to do about it. Doesn't the Press Complaints Commission have rules about this sort of thing?"

"Yes, and no. That's to say, yes, they have rules and, no, no one takes a blind bit of notice of them when they want to publish something really juicy, like this. In this particular case I guess they'd plead that (a) the photographer was in a public place, and (b) if you really valued your privacy you wouldn't stand there in the altogether with the curtains open. Oh, and they'd say this was a matter of pubic, I mean public interest."

"It's going to interest the bloody public all right," Bland said bitterly. Surely there's something we can do? I mean, we have to make a complaint about this, don't we?"

"Sure you can, if you want the story to run for another few weeks. But even if the PCC finds against the Mail, and I'm betting they won't, all you'd get would be the publication of their ruling - maybe not even that."

"But there must be sanctions. I mean, y'know, I this is ME we're talking about and not just some ordinary person. There has to be some way these people can be held to account?"

"Look, boss. You remember when you thought up that Ofcom caper? There were quite a few people arguing that the press should be brought under the same sort of control with the same sort of sanctions as radio and television. Who threw that idea out of court? You did. You said Uncle Rupert wouldn't like it if we started imposing fines and ordering compensation when innocent people got hurt by the newspapers. The Sun and The Times might decide to support the Tories at the next election. I'm afraid it's too late to change your mind now."

"But this is going to make me a laughing-stock. Isn't there some way we could spin it, Angus? You're so good at that."

"I thought we weren't doing spin-doctors any more."

"OK, OK, so I'm sorry I said that. Forget I ever said it….and take that stupid grin off your face."

"Well, now." Crawford's face resumed its normal deadly composure. "I suppose we could say you were demonstrating a new yoga position to help Charlotte get her figure back. That might go down well in Islington. What were you doing, by the way, if you don't mind me asking?"

"I do mind, but if you must know I was showing Charlotte the pose that Lucien Freud wants for his new portrait of me. It's going to be a very important picture: me, flanked by two cabinet ministers in a reproduction of the crucifixion scene. It's an allegory if you know what that means."

"Don' t worry boss, I know what it means. I got my education before you started charging student fees. Like you did. What I don't know, if you'll excuse my saying so, is why you let yourself be conned by such a fucking ridiculous idea."

"I'll have you know, Angus, that Lucien Freud is one of the leading painters, if not the leading painter of this century. He doesn't have what you are pleased to call 'fucking ridiculous ideas.' He creates art. And if Lucien Freud considers that portraying me as the crucified Christ is going to send a message to the world, a message of lasting peace, then I'm not going to argue with him."

"Did he really tell you that?" The Prime Minister noticed with annoyance that Crawford was scratching his bum as he spoke. "Good God, Tony, that's the biggest load of malarkey since you bought the idea that the Dome was going to make a profit."

"I'd rather you didn't use that word," the Prime Minister said stiffly.

"What word?"

"Dome. You know how it affects me."

"This little caper's going to affect you a damn site worse if you go ahead with it."

"Look Angus, I know you mean well, but I didn't bring you in here to discuss the merits of modern art. I want to know how to deal with the Daily Mail and this obscenity of a front page."

Crawford continued to scratch his backside reflectively, oblivious to the Prime Minister's pointed stare. "I suppose you could always try PressWatch," he said.

"PressWatch? What the hell is that?"

"They call themselves a 'media ethics watchdog.' Spend their time trying to teach young journalists not to do the nasty things they're going to do anyway, and sorting out problems for people like you when they do it. They're a registered charity, if you're interested in making a donation."

"I'll give them the Dome if they can get me out of this." He spotted the look on his Press Secretary's face. "That was a joke, Angus. Seriously, do you think they could help?"

Crawford shrugged. "I doubt it. They're a couple of old hacks themselves, which means they can talk the language and sometimes persuade an editor to pull something before the damage is done. They hate the PCC, which is something to their credit, but they don't have the power to actually do anything. Anyway, this thing is on the streets already. Nothing you can do except sue the Mail under the Human Rights Act, and can you imagine what fun the tabloids would have with that? Especially," he added with malice, "if you got Charlotte to take your case."

"Well, I'm going to talk to these PressWatch people, anyway. What have I got to lose? Have you got their number?"

"It's on my Rolodex somewhere. I'll get it for you." He was back within a minute. "It's run by a man called Mike Jamieson; bit of a hairy leftie. MI5 have got a file on him, but they've got files on everyone, so I wouldn't take too much notice of that. Just remember that he's a card-carrying member of the NUJ and, please, please be careful what you tell him. We're in enough shit already."

But the Prime Minister was already dialling the number.

CHAPTER THREE

The telephone is an instrument of marvellous deception. A voice across the wires can belong to anyone we imagine in any surroundings we can picture in the mind. It allows us to believe what we want to believe. And so it was that Tony Bland, clutching at the PressWatch straw to save himself from drowning in the wicked media sea, really thought he was dealing with a crusader of like mind. Not an equal, naturally, for no such being existed, but at least someone who would understand; who might even help. He pictured, as the receiver was lifted at the other end, a well-tailored man of mature years, seated at a desk as polished and as bare of papers as his own.

"This is Tony Bland," he said, his voice emollient as a bank manager's handshake.

"And this," came the irritable reply, "is the Angel Gabriel. Stop fucking about, will you Bill. I've got work to do." Mike Jamieson leaned back in his chair, pushing back the paper detritus from his desk as he searched in vain for the cigarettes he clearly remembered putting there not ten minutes before. A large, shambling man, he looked at the world through eyes that peaked out from a shock of untrimmed hair like a shy woodland creature emerging from the forest.

"No, I mean, it really is me. Tony Bland. Y'know, the Prime Minister." He gave a nervous giggle.

"I'll give you this, you bastard; you do a bloody good imitation of that clown. Now why don't you leave off with the Rory Bremner act and tell me what you're calling about."

The Prime Minister decided it was time to exert his authority. His voice stiffened, as though delivering an ultimatum to Iraq, or some other benighted dictatorship other than his own. "Is this PressWatch? Is that Mr. Michael Jamieson?"

"It is." Jamieson felt a frisson of unease.

"In that case, if you don't want to talk to me, perhaps you'd prefer to talk to Angus Crawford?"

"Christ, no! Anything but that." Jamieson regretted the words as soon as they were spoken. "I'm sorry, Prime Minister. It's just that we're not accustomed to hearing from…." He still thought his leg was being pulled, but it was as well to be on the safe side, just in case. "How can we help you?"

"Have you seen today's Daily Mail?"

"I have. Rather a good likeness, I thought, for a digital enhancement."

"What did you say?"

"A digital enhancement. You take different bits from different pictures and join them together digitally. They can do wonders with the technique these days. You really can't tell the difference."

"Are you saying that picture is a fake?"

"Well it has to be, doesn't it? I mean, you wouldn't be talking to me otherwise, not if it was genuine. If it was genuine, the only advice I could give you would be to resign and become President of the EU. They understand that sort of thing on the Continent. But since it's clearly ridiculous that someone like you would pose starkers in that position, I have to assume that this is a particularly nasty piece of character assassination on the part of the Daily Mail. Am I right, or did you really do it?"

"Well, er…" The Prime Minister was glad that Jamieson could not see the sweat that was beginning to drip from his forehead. He avoided the question with the skill honed in a hundred television studios. "What do you suggest I do about it?"

"The one thing I wouldn't do," Jamieson said firmly, "is sue for libel. You never know where that is going to end up. Remember what happened to Jeffrey Archer and Jonathan Aitken."

"But they were liars."

"Quite so," Jamieson said, smiling wickedly beneath the moustache that threatened to engulf his lower lip. "You get my point. No, you issue a press statement" - he glanced at his watch - "sometime within the next hour so that you can catch the mid-day bulletins and the Evening Standard. You express your disgust at such an underhanded piece of trick photography and announce that you're making an immediate complaint to the Press Complaints Commission."

"But Angus says they're useless."

"Angus is dead right. That's not the point. It puts the editor of the Mail on the spot. Either he tells the PCC that the picture is genuine, in which case he has to admit to hiring some low-life paparazzi to skulk outside your bedroom window - which is strictly against the rules - or he has to admit that it's been tampered with. Either way, you win."

"Would that really work?"

"It will if you keep your nerve. Remember, most of the rest of Fleet Street hates the Mail just as much as you do. They'll be furious that they didn't get the picture themselves - it must have put half a million on today's circulation - so they'll join in a chorus of pious condemnation of sleazy journalism. You wait and see."

Relief began to seep through the Prime Minister's brain. He felt a sudden flush of gratitude towards this stranger who had offered such unstinting help. The reference to "that clown" had quite slipped his mind. "I really am most grateful, Mr. Jamieson - may I call you Mike? - is there anything I can do for you?"

Jamieson grunted, not believing what he was hearing. Was there money in the offing? God knows PressWatch needed it; the organisation was on the perpetual verge of bankruptcy. "Well," he said cautiously, "we don't charge for our services, but we're always open to donations. We are a registered charity, so you could take it off your income tax," he added helpfully.

"I wasn't thinking of money." Bland was beginning to ooze his accustomed charm. "It so happens that we've got a vacancy for a Special Adviser here in Downing Street, and someone with your acumen and knowledge of the media might fit the job very well. Would you care to come in and discuss it next time you're in London?"

There was a long silence at the other end of the line. Mike Jamieson looked around the disaster zone that had been his life's work and constant ordeal for the past ten years, and suddenly thought: why not?

"I'll be up tomorrow," he said.

*******************

The Prime Minister looked up to find Angus Crawford at his elbow. He told him Jamieson's advice. "It's the perfect answer," he said. "Why couldn't you think of that? You're always telling me how well you understand the media."

Crawford ignored the jibe. "Did I hear you offering that wanker a job in my office?" he demanded.

"Well, not exactly. I did suggest he came in for a chat." Bland looked nervously at the irate expression on the face of his Press Secretary.

"I know what I bloody heard. You're trying to ease me out of this job, that's what you're trying to do. Bloody nerve! After all I've done for you; all the chestnuts I've pulled out of the fire. Who do you think runs this place, anyway? Not you, matey, I can tell you. If it wasn't for me you'd be licking Gordon Green's boots and begging for a seat in the Cabinet. Now, just because you find some smart Alec who comes up with a plausible way of getting you out of the latest mess of your own creation, you're getting ready to toss me aside like…." Crawford spluttered to a standstill.

"An old glove?" the Prime Minister offered helpfully.

"Right. Like a fucking old glove. And it's not going to work, anyway, this bright idea of Jamieson's."

"Why not?"

"Because that was a genuine picture; that's why not. You know it, I know it, and I strongly suspect that Jamieson knows it too. Whoever took it is going to have the negative, untouched by human hands, and he'll be offering it up to the highest bidder as soon as we make that complaint."

"Couldn't we issue a D-notice to stop any further publication?"

"Oh sure. We get all the editors in, tell them the true story, and then ask them politely to be good boys and to stop publication in the public interest. That's how the D-notice system works, in case you'd forgotten. Fine, if the story hasn't got out yet, but half the country have seen that picture already, so why bother? All those arseholes would just snigger behind their hands and ask what the hell you thought you were doing. Which is a good question."

"So what can I do, Angus?" The Prime Minister seemed on the point of tears.

"I'll tell you what we do. We go along with the Jamieson plan up to a point. We announce that we're complaining to the PCC, but we don't say on what grounds. With luck, that will make everyone keep their heads down for a day or two. Unless someone finds out about that Lucien Freud picture, and I don't see why they should because no one in his right mind would think of anything so daft, we should have a breathing space. Then…."

But before Crawford could complete the sentence one of the four telephones on the Prime Minister's desk shrilled loudly. It was the green one.

"Bland."

"Is that the Prime Minister?" The voice at the other end carried a Welsh lilt and more than a hint of amusement.

"Of course I'm the bloody Prime Minister. This is a direct line from your office to mine; who else did you expect?"

"This is Intelligence. MI5. Roderick Jones speaking. There's something I think I ought to bring to your attention."

"Go on."

"Well, it's a bit embarrassing like. We believe you just had a telephone conversation with a Mr. Michael Jamieson…"

"How the hell did you know that? Have you been bugging my line?"

"Oh no, sir, it was his line we were bug..er..intercepting. He's one of these dodgy characters we like to keep an eye on from time to time as a favour to Special Branch. Bit left wing, you know. And he's Irish, too."

"So? What's that got to do with me? We've all got a right to our political opinions, Jones. Why, I was even a bit to the left myself, once upon a time…" The Prime Minister forced a laugh at the memory.

"Oh, I know, sir. I've seen the file."

"You've what?"

"Your file, sir. I mean, you did know you had one, right? Me and the lads get it out from time to time just to have a good laugh, like. Hard to believe it's the same chap, really."

The Prime Minister made a mental note for certain personnel changes to be made at MI5. Swallowing his anger he said: "I still don't see why you're wasting my time to tell me you intercepted a perfectly innocent telephone conversation."

"Ah, but it wasn't that innocent, was it boyo?" This impertinent bastard was definitely going to have to go. "I mean, you were discussing a very delicate matter, and you ended up offering this chap a job. Anyone looking at the transcript of that conversation might think there was something a bit sniffy going on, if you see what I mean."

"You've made a transcript?" Bland could hardly believe what he was hearing.

"Standard procedure, that is."

"I demand that it be destroyed immediately. Who else has seen it?"

"Oh, only the usual people on the circulation list. The Met, Special Branch of course, the Home Office, MI6 - but that's just a courtesy - the Foreign Office, DEFRA…."

"DEFRA? What the hell have they got to do with security?"

"Don't know, really," said Roderick Jones. "Truth is, we push these things round to just about every Ministry in case they may be interested. So easy it is, with this modern technology. You just push the button and away it goes."

"What you're telling me," Bland said, hardly able to contain himself, "is that practically every Tom, Dick and Harry in Whitehall has now got a record of my private telephone conversation."

"If you remember, Prime Minister," Jones said primly, "it was your government which authorised the interception of private telephone conversations and e-mails without a warrant. Passed a law about it, you did. Lovely piece of legislation, if you don't mind my saying so."

"Goddamnit, I didn't mean my private conversations."

"Ah well now, perhaps you should have put something about that in the Act. We're only civil servants, you know. We only do what the law says we can do."

"You can start using some bloody common sense. Do you think I'm a terrorist suspect? Do you think I spend my time talking to Osama bin Laden? Do you think this Jamieson chap is about to blow up the Houses of Parliament?"

"Not exactly, Prime Minister, but then who'd have thought that you would have been posing in the altogether for the benefit of the Daily Mail? It's a funny old world. Anyway, I was just ringing to warn you like, before you get into bed with this fellow - just in a manner of speaking of course - you ought to know something about him. So I'm sending you round his dossier by special messenger."

"You do that," said Bland between gritted teeth. "And you can start looking for another job right now, you insolent bastard." He slammed down the 'phone.

CHAPTER FOUR

It had been, decided Henry Cruickshank, a very nice little earner. A pleasant early morning stroll through St James's Park and on to Horse Guards Parade, with his very long telephoto lens hidden under his shabby raincoat, and a quick shot through a lighted upstairs window in Downing Street. There had been something happening behind that window; too far away to discern with the naked eye, but the long lens had captured it to perfection. It was only when he got home and ran it through the developing bath that he realised the value of his prize. A quick call to an initially-disbelieving picture editor on the Mail, a brisk taxi drive through the morning traffic, and a satisfactory financial transaction. Cash, of course. He'd insisted on cash. None of that income tax nonsense or boring VAT; he riffled through the crisp stack of £50 notes, counting them for the third time.

Henry Cruickshank did not like the term paparazzi. He felt it undignified and hardly befitting his status as an artist. "Freelance photographer" was what he chose to call himself, and his sole excursions into the sleazier side of his profession before this had been the exposure of a Tory cabinet minister sans culottes, and the discovery of a minor member of royalty drunk in a gutter. Neither had been sufficiently unusual to merit much attention or reward. But this, this was very different. Now those snotty picture editors would have to sit up and pay attention. His name - and how he wished he had insisted on a credit beneath the Mail picture - would become a byword for audacious enterprise.

The telephone arrested his reverie.

"Cruickshank? This is the Mail picture desk. Have you got your passport handy?" Cruickshank's heart missed a beat. He was being offered an overseas assignment, and so soon.

"Of course," he said, his voice brimming with confidence.

"Then you'd better stick it in your pocket and get to Heathrow as fast as you bloody well can. Take a flight to somewhere warm and far away. I'd suggest Rio de Janeiro."

"Why? What's happening?"

"I'll tell you what's happening. We've got Special Branch crawling all over the office, thanks to that picture of yours. Nice job, by the way. They want to know who took it, and they want to know where you live. I've been able to stall them so far - confidential sources and all that shit - but they're starting to come on really heavy. Any moment now they'll be back with a warrant, so you'd better look lively, my friend, before they put a block on the ports and airports. Go. Now."

Henry Cruickshank was left holding an empty telephone, trying to absorb what he had just heard. It was ridiculous; the sort of thing that happened in a police state, not here in England. Whatever happened to the freedom of the press? Was this some sort of perverted joke? Somehow he knew that it was not. Henry called for a mini-cab and began stuffing a change of clothes into a bag.

********

In a crowded compartment of the 9.21 Great Western train from Bristol Temple Meads to Paddington, Mike Jamieson sat absorbed in thought, hardly noticing the announcement of delays through wet leaves on the line, signal failures, and the other ills to which the British rail system is perpetually prone. Why was he doing this? He had been anti-establishment from the day of his birth. Having failed to beat them, was he now to join forces with all that he disliked and distrusted? Was it really better, in the Lyndon Johnson phrase, to be inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in? Which reminded him: he shuffled down the aisle towards the loo, only to find it out of order. The next one was obstructed by a group of hippies squatting on the floor who seemed disinclined to move. In increasing distress, he finally found his objective two carriages further on, and was just beginning to sigh with relief when the ticket collector hammered on the door, causing Jamieson to jump with alarm and pee down his trouser leg.

"Sod it," he said. With feeling. Could this be an omen of the day to come?

The train finally groaned its way into Paddington station, disgorging its horde of disgruntled passengers on to Platform 2. Jamieson made his way through the fast food stalls, trinket boutiques, and the host of other establishments which had everything to do with profit and nothing to do with making the trains run on time. He debated taking a taxi, but since he was not yet on a Downing St expense sheet decided to settle for the Tube instead, getting off at St James's Park.

The entrance to Downing Street, fronted these many years past by heavy iron gates as a lasting tribute to the regard in which the British held their rulers, loomed in front of him. Jamieson's pulse began to beat a little faster as he approached the burly constable who was fingering a MP5 sub-machine gun with idle intent.

"My name is Jamieson. The Prime Minister is expecting me." The policeman looked him up and down, from tangled mane to scruffy shoes. His expression was one of inscrutable disbelief. Beside him, on a short leash, a sniffer dog was showing intense interest in Jamieson's trousers.

"Have an appointment, do we sir?"

"Well, not exactly. I spoke to the Prime Minister on the telephone yesterday and he asked me to come up and see him today. It's about a job."

"Oh yes, I heard he was looking for a new Chancellor. Or maybe you had Foreign Secretary in mind? Just be a good chap and run along please, sir. We don't want any trouble, do we?"

"I think," said Jamieson, "that if you don't want any trouble, constable, you'd better get on the blower and talk to someone in No.10. The name is Jamieson, I am Director of the PressWatch Trust, and can assure you that the Prime Minister wants to see me." Remembering why the gates had been put there in the first place, he did his best to subdue his Irish accent.

The policeman hesitated, then shrugged and pressed the button on his mobile radio. Better to be safe than sorry. "I have a gentleman named Jamieson at the gate. Says he has an appointment with the PM." He listened in silence for a moment. "Right. I see." He turned to Jamieson, his tone expressing total disbelief. "They say you're expected," he said. "Go on through." The gate swung open just far enough for admittance, and Jamieson made his way to the hallowed black door of No.10.

Once inside, Jamieson was ushered into an ante-room and told to wait. He waited. And waited. After half an hour a junior apparatchick with a bad smell under her nose (possibly emanating from his trousers) appeared to ask if he would like a cup of coffee. Jamieson accepted, hoping for the accompaniment of biscuits, having skipped breakfast and missed his lunch. In this he was disappointed. The sound of his rumbling stomach formed a counterpoint to the ticking of a carriage clock in one corner of the room. Otherwise all was silence. After more than an hour, when he was on the point of going home and forgetting the whole thing, a pin-striped figure appeared in the doorway, surveyed him with obvious distaste, and announced: "The Prime Minister will see you now."

He was led up a broad flight of stairs to a mezzanine balcony, in the centre of which was an imposing set of double doors. The flunkey knocked, then ushered him through and remained outside. Jamieson found himself in a large, rectangular oak-panelled room, with a huge walnut desk at one end and an assortment of armchairs and coffee tables scattered around. Behind the desk, rising to his feet and stretching a smile of utmost sincerity, was Tony Bland. Behind him stood the scowling presence of Angus Crawford.

"Glad you could make it." Jamieson took the outstretched hand, which turned out to be surprisingly limp. He muttered something through his moustache as Bland waved him towards one of the armchairs and sat down facing him, hands clasping his knees like a nervous teenage girl at her first dance. Crawford, who had not said a word, took up station behind his master and continued to glower.

"We've been talking over the situation," said the Prime Minister, "and we've decided to take you into our confidence." The fingers began to twist nervously. "It's all a bit embarrassing, really. You see…." He paused as Crawford drew a sheet of paper from behind his back and dropped it on the coffee table.

"Haven't you forgotten something, boss?"

"Er, oh yes…the Official Secrets Act. Angus insists that you sign this before we tell you anything. Sorry about that."

"Too bloody right," growled Crawford as Jamieson pulled the paper towards him and began to read. "And you don't have to read the thing. All you need to know is that we'll have your guts for garters if you breathe a single word of anything you hear in this room to your friends in the media."

Jamieson decided it was time to take a stand. He was not a bloody civil servant, and the journalist in him had an in-built dislike to any gagging clause. He was perfectly prepared to listen on an off-the-record basis, but they would have to take his word for it.

"I trained for the priesthood," he said, perfectly truthfully. "Your confession is safe with me, Prime Minister."

There was a pregnant pause. "You're pulling my fucking leg." Crawford was clearly unimpressed. "You're not going to be taken in by that Papist crap, are you boss?" he demanded angrily, for the moment quite forgetting the Rev. Bland's spiritual inclinations. "He might be a failed priest, and he might make a living out of teaching journalistic ethics - and that's an oxymoron if I ever heard one - but he's a bloody hack at heart and I wouldn't trust him further than I can spit."

"All right, Angus, you've had your say." The Prime Minister turned back to Jamieson and picked up the offending document. "I have to admit," he said, "that no one takes too much notice of this thing these days. Can I just have your word that we are talking in confidence?"

"You have it," Jamieson said, inwardly exulting that a point won off Angus Crawford was worth a paragraph in his memoirs if he ever got round to writing them.

"That's settled then." Crawford retreated into sulky silence, realising too late that the Papist crack had been a bad mistake. "I have to admit," Bland continued, "that I was possibly less than frank last time we spoke. Your advice about the altered photograph was excellent, and we have submitted a complaint to the PCC along those lines. However, I cannot deny that I was in that…er…position that morning. So the picture, however it was obtained, is probably genuine."

"Why?" said Jamieson.

"Why what?"

"Why did you stand stark naked on tip-toe with your arms outstretched, like someone being crucified? Is it some sort of sexual perversion that I've never heard of?"

"No, no, nothing like that." The Prime Ministerial hands were fluttering like demented moths. "It's just that I'd agreed to do this picture for Lucien Freud, along with two of my cabinet colleagues, and I was practising the pose. It was meant to be an allegory," he finished lamely.

"I see," said Jamieson, who didn't.

"Anyway, that's all behind us now. I've spoken to Freud and he's agreed to paint an entirely different picture, so the important thing is to get hold of that negative so that no one can prove it wasn't a fake."

"And where do I come in?"

"Ah, well…I did have in mind a senior position in our press office, but it turned out there were one or two complications about that." Crawford remained stony-faced. "Now I've had another idea. You see, we've found out who took the picture - it was a freelance named Henry Cruickshank. We wanted to make him an offer for the negative, but he seems to have taken fright, I can't think why, and he's disappeared."

Crawford snorted derisively. "If I got tipped-off that the Special Branch were on their way round I'd have disappeared bloody quick, too."

"Anyway," Bland continued, ignoring the interruption, "you can see it's important to recover that negative as soon as possible before it falls into the wrong hands. We can't use the usual channels, it's too personal, so I wondered if you, with your media connections, could possibly help us out?"

"You want me to play private detective?" Jamieson was genuinely astonished.

"We'd make it worth your while."

"How much?"

Bland hesitated. He couldn't think of any way of getting this past the Audit Commission. It was going to have to come out of his own pocket. "Shall we say £500 a day, plus expenses, of course."

Jamieson said nothing. He was stunned. This was three times his normal daily rate for freelance work, and it might go on for weeks. Misinterpreting his silence, Bland said hurriedly, "plus a £5,000 bonus if you get the negative back."

"Done," Jamieson said hurriedly before he could change his mind. "Cash?"

"Of course."

"What's this new picture that you're going to do with Freud?" Crawford asked when Jamieson had departed, his wallet unusually full.

"The last supper," said Bland with some pride. "Great idea, don't you think? Me and the whole of the cabinet round the table."

"Christ," said Crawford with feeling. "No prizes for guessing who'll be cast as Judas Iscariot. Still, at least you'll have your bloody clothes on."

CHAPTER FIVE

The great escape of Henry Cruickshank was not going well. He was not a seasoned traveller, and the frenetic confusion of Heathrow Airport left his mind spinning. For a start, which terminal did flights for Brazil leave from? There were four of the damn things, and nothing so logical as a signboard saying: "Fugitives from Special Branch use Terminal X". His taxi driver, an asylum-seeker from Armenia, spoke no English and was of less than little help. Cruickshank considered asking a policeman, but then decided against it. In desperation he stopped the cab at Terminal 1 and launched himself into the teeming concourse. Banks of television screens showed arrivals and departures; he searched the latter for "Rio de Janeiro" but found nothing. Was he in the wrong terminal, or were there simply no flights pending? Henry knew he was going to have to ask advice, but from whom? He harboured a suspicion that the British Airways girls in those ridiculous hats were bound to be in the pay of the government. One word to them, and Special Branch would be on to him in a trice.

Cruickshank remembered vaguely that Brazil had a national airline: Varig, or something like that. Then he recalled that the name had come to mind because of one or two recent crashes, and did not find the thought reassuring. However, it looked as though this might be the only game in town, so having located an information desk he turned up his collar, slipped on a pair of dark glasses, and having thus made himself as conspicuous as possible enquired at which terminal he might find Varig. Terminal 2, he was told.

Heading for the exit, Cruickshank found his way barred by a large policeman wearing a bullet-proof vest and carrying a sub-machine gun. He checked his stride, then realised that it might arouse suspicion if he turned tail at this point. He swallowed nervously and carried on. The policeman gave a half smile and moved aside to let him past. Cruickshank breathed again.

Terminal 2 proved to be engulfed in one of the perpetual building operations which plague travellers from Heathrow, and in consequence was even more chaotic than usual. Long and desultory queues stretched from every registration desk and the departure screens, otherwise blank, announced that there was a technical fault. Sorry. Cruickshank fought his way around the mountains of baggage and located the Varig ticket counter. There was, it seemed, a flight leaving for Rio in just over two hours and there were seats available. His luck was turning at last. He began to produce his credit card, then realised that this would be a bad mistake and announced that he would pay in cash. The girl behind the counter raised an immaculate eyebrow, but dutifully counted the requisite number of £50 notes from Henry's stack and sold him a one-way ticket.

Cruickshank headed immediately for the check-in counter. There was another raised eyebrow when he declared only hand-baggage for such a long flight and on a one-way ticket at that, but his passport was in order so he collected his boarding pass and moved on. He made for the departure lounge at a brisk walk, resisting the temptation to run.

It was then that things began to go wrong. Henry noticed that the queue to pass through the initial barrier was moving very slowly. Passports were being checked with unusual care, and behind the uniformed immigration official stood a second man in plain clothes looking over his shoulder. Though he had no previous experience of Special Branch officers, Henry knew one when he saw one. With a sinking heart he pocketed his boarding pass, turned casually away from the end of the queue, and headed for the terminal exit. What the hell was he going to do now?

***********

Away from the heady atmosphere of Downing Street, Mike Jamieson was suffering a crisis of conscience. He was a journalist, for God's sake, not a bloody snoop - even though some people thought they were one and the same thing. Now he had taken money from a man he held in some contempt as a reward for tracking down one of his erstwhile professional colleagues and depriving him of what could prove a veritable fortune. However it had been obtained, and Jamieson entertained some ethical qualms on that point, there was no doubt that Cruickshank held the copyright on that picture of the naked Prime Minister - a copyright that could be worth millions if skilfully marketed around the world.

Jamieson sat down on a bench in St James's Park and pulled out his bulging wallet. The three-day retainer of £1,500 was more than it had ever contained before by a very wide margin. His bank manager, if only he knew, was going to kill him for what he was about to do. From his briefcase he took a large manila envelope, discarded the contents in a nearby waste bin, and replaced them with the bank notes. Then he scribbled a brief message on a page torn from his notebook: "Sorry, I've changed my mind", and addressed the envelope to the Prime Minister. No point in wasting a stamp. He strode back towards Downing Street, thrust the envelope into the hands of the policeman guarding the door, and left hurriedly before he could change his mind.

Feeling better, though poorer, Jamieson decided that he would, after all, do a little investigating. He headed for the Grays Inn Road and the headquarters of the National Union of Journalists, of which he was a long-time member. There he consulted Annie Fraser, the girl who kept the membership records. Was one Henry Cruickshank, photographer, by any chance a member of the Freelance Branch?

She clucked. "I'm not supposed to disclose details of members, Mike. You know that."

"Aw come on. He's an old friend and I've lost touch with him," Jamieson lied. "All I want is his new address."

"Well…I don't know…."

"I won't tell anyone you gave it to me." They were alone in the office. "Tell you what - why don't you just happen to leave the file on your desk and go to powder your nose or something? I'll be gone before you get back."

Annie relented. After all, she had known Mike for years, and he was a member of the Ethics Council. It had to be all right. Still clucking, but only mildly, she punched up the appropriate computer entry, left it on the screen, and headed for the door. "Mind you turn the screen off when you've finished, and don't touch anything else," she said. "I know your reputation for wrecking computers."

Jamieson quickly copied down Cruickshank's address and telephone number, closed down the screen and left the office. He consulted his watch. There were still two hours to go before his next train, and the photographer's flat was not far from Paddington station. He decided to pay a call, just on the off-chance.

**************

For Henry Cruickshank, the crowded anonymity of the Piccadilly Line train from Heathrow was just what he needed to collect his thoughts. Not that thinking was doing much good. The Special Branch must have been to his flat, found it empty, and concluded that he had done a runner. Hence the watch at the airport. But did that mean that they were no longer watching his home? Was it worth the risk to go back, pack a proper bag, and make some sort of plan to go into hiding? Henry decided that he really had no choice but to take the risk. He could hardly spend the rest of his life riding round on the Tube. He got off at South Kensington and caught the Circle Line to Bayswater.

His flat was in Spring Street, on the unfashionable side of Sussex Gardens. As he began to walk towards it, Henry saw a large, hairy man, standing at the front door and ringing the bell. His heart sank as the man turned and looked directly at him. It was all up. After the stress of the last few hours Henry had suddenly lost all his fighting spirit; not that he had had very much in the first place. He wished he had never taken that damned photograph, £5,000 or no £5,000. Advancing slowly, conscious of the camera bag slung over his shoulder, he confronted the stranger.

"Henry Cruickshank?" said Mike Jamieson, hardly able to believe his luck.

"Er, yes, that's me."

"Good. I've been looking for you." He stretched out his hand, and was somewhat surprised to find two naked wrists stretched towards him.

"It's all right. I'll come quietly," said Henry. That was what you said, wasn't it?

"Don't play silly buggers," Jamieson said. "I'm not the fuzz. Name's Jamieson. Mike Jamieson of PressWatch." Cruickshank looked at him blankly. He had never heard of such an organisation, but whatever it was it seemed to have no powers of arrest. Unprotesting, he allowed Jamieson to take his arm.

"Let's go inside and talk." Jamieson smiled beneath his moustache. "I gather you're in a spot of trouble."

*************

There was consternation in the basement of No. 10 Downing Street. As was the usual practice, Jamieson's envelope had been sent down for proper scrutiny, along with the rest of the Prime Ministerial mail, before being passed on. Most of it, of course, was too trivial (or threatening) to reach the eyes of Tony Bland. It would be dealt with and replied to, if at all, by some lowly bureaucrat with a rubber stamp. Bombs were rare; envelopes containing anthrax almost unknown; but everything went through the X-ray machine before being opened with great care.

The clerk who was given Jamieson's envelope fresh from the machine opened her eyes in wide surprise as she drew out the crisp sheaf of £50 notes. "Just take a look at this!" she shouted, and the other girls in the mail room crowded round her to share her astonishment. Unnoticed in the excitement, Jamieson's accompanying note slipped out and fell into the wastepaper basket, the contents of which were destined for the shredder.

The mail room supervisor, a lady of uncertain years who ruled her young charges with the severe aplomb of a Victorian governess, was quick off the mark. She might work in the basement but her political antennae were acute. Since the days of Neil Hamilton, the very thought of cash in brown envelopes had been a scenario of potential disaster for every politician. And here was cash, a great deal of cash, intended for no less a politician than the Prime Minister himself. Seizing the notes and stuffing them back in the envelope, she clutched it to her less than ample bosom and addressed the room.

"No one is to say anything about this to anyone at any time," she said sternly. "I would remind you that you have all signed the Official Secrets Act, and any disclosure will have the severest consequences." She left the room to seek higher counsel, leaving behind her a twitter of excited conversation. The girl who had opened the envelope, Lucy Fairfax, found herself the instant centre of attention. Who had it been addressed to? How much was in it? For at least one of those in the room, the question was of more than academic interest. For politicians, of course, are not the only recipients of brown envelopes. As the persistence of "leaks" from government sources makes plain, the media are only too happy to reward those who, whether from principle or venality, are prepared to treat the Official Secrets Act with a certain degree of contempt.

As any newsman knows, there are two types of leak. One is transmitted by politicians or senior civil servants on a "lobby" basis, forbidding the recipient to disclose his source of information. This is known as "flying a kite" to gauge public reaction to a change in policy. The miscreants are never pursued under the Act, for the good and simple reason that their "leak" was authorised in the first place. The other type comes, usually, from a much lower level official who thinks that something is going on that the public needs to know about, but the government would rather it did not. Such whistle-blowers are pursued with the full rigour of the law, pour encourager les autres, but they are rarely caught and even more rarely convicted by honest juries. There is a suspicion in government circles that the civil service may even contain a few "moles" in strategic positions, paid a retainer by newspapers in case they come across something interesting. Perish the thought.

*************

Anthony Farnsworth-Jones was not a mole. He was the antithesis of moledom: a mid-ranking Information Officer seconded to the Downing St press office, whose role in life was to feed political correspondents what the government wished them to know, and to strive to prevent them from finding out anything else. It was Farnsworth-Jones' misfortune on the day following the discovery of the brown envelope to be put in charge of that morning's lobby briefing. Angus Crawford, anticipating a further barrage of questions on the matter of the disputed photograph, had decided to absent himself from the proceedings. Farnsworth-Jones was on his own. He stood at the podium in his charcoal-grey suit, sober tie immaculately knotted, and surveyed the casually-dressed rabble in front of him with ill-disguised dislike.

The questions were not long in coming. Had the Prime Minister yet made a formal approach to the Press Complaints Commission? Farnsworth-Jones had been well briefed on that one. "No," he replied, "but we expect to do so during the course of the day."

"What are the grounds of the complaint going to be?" This from the Daily Mail's political correspondent, whose editor had something of a vested interest.

"I should have thought that was obvious." The instructions were to stone-wall.

"Not to me it isn't."

"Well, you'll just have to wait and see. No doubt the PCC will be making a statement in due course."

The man from The Sun took a more robust course. "Can you tell us exactly why the PM was posing in front of an open window, stark-bollock naked?"

Farnsworth-Jones blenched. "You are assuming," he said with dignity, "that the picture in the Mail was genuine. That is a matter of dispute."

The Mail again: "Are you insinuating that my paper was guilty of perpetrating a fraud; printing a phoney picture?"

"I didn't say that. You must draw your own conclusions."

Farnsworth-Jones decided it was time to stop this. "I think we've dealt with that subject now," he said. "Unless anyone has a question about something else, I think it's time to call a halt."

A lanky figure stood up at the back of the room. With some apprehension, Farnsworth-Jones recognised Martin Lawrence of The Times. Lawrence had a disconcerting habit of asking the wrong question at the wrong time. The press officer mentally crossed his fingers.

"Yes, Martin?"

"I was just wondering," Lawrence said with apparent innocence, "whether you could confirm that the Prime Minister received a large sum of money in a plain brown envelope yesterday? If so, who was it from? What was it for? And what does the Prime Minister intend to do with it?"

There was a collective intake of breath before every correspondent in the room was on his or her feet. Farnsworth-Jones stood stunned, his mouth gaping open like a freshly-caught codfish. Damn Angus Crawford. Why hadn't the man briefed him about this? Now he was faced with the classic dilemma. Did he deny the allegation outright - and risk being proved a liar. Did he plead for time to investigate, and promise a later statement? Or did he claim simple ignorance and look like an idiot? There was no chance that this one would go away. True or not, the entire press corps was going to be on to the story like hyenas round a rotting corpse.

"That is an infamous allegation," he said stiffly. And left the seething room without another word. It was the wrong answer.

CHAPTER SIX

Thanks to the timing of the lobby meeting and the diligence of the Press Association, the evening papers were first with the story. Mike Jamieson, who had spent the night sleeping on his own settee after a rather drunken session with Henry Cruickshank, tottered down the road to pick up an early edition of the Bristol Evening Post and suddenly felt his hangover getting worse. The headline blared:

PM IN NEW BROWN ENVELOPE ROW

and he knew with a sinking feeling which brown envelope they were talking about. He had remembered to put a note in with the cash, hadn't he? Surely that would have explained everything? Something had clearly gone wrong, but what? All Jamieson knew was that he was somehow responsible for the best political story since a certain cabinet minister's night out in Hyde Park, and if he had any conscience at all he ought to ruin the papers' day by telling them the truth. But tell them what? That he, the self-styled ethical conscience of the journalistic trade, had been prepared to act as a private dick to save a politician's face? He would never live it down. There has to be a better way….a better way…..a better way, he mumbled to himself, but he was damned if he could think what it might be. Better, he decided, to lie low and let Bland sort the mess out for himself. He was good at that sort of thing.

Jamieson returned to his terraced house in an insalubrious Bristol side street and showed the paper to Cruickshank, to whom he had already related his crisis of conscience the previous day. The photographer had placed himself in Jamieson's hands for want of any viable alternative. "What do we do now?" he asked.

Jamieson thought about it. Then he rummaged in the bathroom for a couple of aspirin and thought some more. "Have you still got that negative?" he said.

"Of course. I just sold the Mail a print for one-time use. I'm not that daft."

"We need to get it verified," said Jamieson, "just to prove there hasn't been any digital hanky-panky."

"You can't digitalise a negative," Cruickshank protested. "You can only do that with the print you get from it. I thought everyone knew that."

"Well I didn't," Jamieson said crossly. "All I know is that you can fuck around with these things something rotten these days. And that's what Downing Street are going to say was done with yours."

Cruickshank laughed. "They didn't need to do anything to it, except put that blurry bit over his genitals." He had a thought. "If we sold it overseas, do you think the French would print the whole thing untouched?"

"Bound to," said Jamieson. "They've hated the English since Agincourt, and Chirac despises Bland for being an American lackey. They'd like nothing better than to cause him maximum embarrassment - which is one of the reasons Special Branch are so keen to get hold of the negative. Can I see it?"

Cruickshank delved into his bag and brought out the negative, encased in a plastic sheaf. Jamieson held it up to the light. "Oh yes," he said, "that is definitely embarrassing. Who'd have thought it?" He passed it back without further comment.

"So how do we manage to sell it abroad?" asked Cruickshank.

Jamieson considered the problem. "I'm pretty sure my office telephone is being tapped," he said, "so it's safe to assume that this one is as well. Same goes for e-mails; they'll be reading everything."

"Can they do that? Legally, I mean."

"They can do anything they bloody well like under that new law. George Orwell got it absolutely right, except for the date. This is a police state now, Henry. Big Brother is watching us." He laughed. "But I reckon we can avoid his eagle eye. Ever heard of Max Stafford?"

"The PR man?"

"PR man, fixer, agent, celebrity guru - you name it, Max does it. Point is, he's got contacts to die for in the media all over the world. If you want to sell a hot story for the top price, Max is the man to handle it. Mind you, he's expensive, and he's not exactly my cup of tea, but if he gets his hands on that negative I can guarantee that he'll be across the Channel like a dose of salts."

"But how can we get it to him? The Special Branch are looking for both of us."

"Ah," said Jamieson, "there I have an idea."

*************

As soon as he entered the Cabinet Room, with its long oval table surrounded by familiar faces, Tony Bland noticed a certain chill in the atmosphere. His cheery "good morning" was answered by grunts. No one was meeting his eye, and glancing round the table he could see various newspapers, their accusing headlines reflected in the faces. Ungrateful bastards. There wasn't a man or woman here who did not owe their position to him and him alone. Were they getting ready to stab him in the back on the basis of some unsubstantiated media frenzy?

"Prime Minister." It was the Lord Chancellor; pompous, avaricious bugger. Just because he was once his head of Chambers the old sod thought he could say and do whatever he liked. Well, thought Bland, Lord Chancellors could be re-shuffled just like anyone else. A spell as spokesman for the Welsh Office in the Lords might do him a world of good.

"Prime Minister," his Lordship repeated, "I think you owe this Cabinet an explanation for the stories which have appeared in the press this morning."

"What stories?" Half a dozen newspapers were raised from the table. "Oh, those stories." His hands began to flutter. "Utter nonsense, of course. I mean, y'know, I want to make it perfectly clear that there's not a word of truth in such a monstrous allegation. I mean, me? Accepting a bribe? The whole idea's absurd." Bland forced a laugh between clenched teeth, succeeding only in looking as though he had been struck in the face by a wet haddock.

"No one's suggesting anything, Tony," smarmed his Deputy, a man of sturdy girth and flexible principles. "We're just asking for an explanation."

"Well, there isn't one," Bland snapped. "At least, there is, but not one that concerns anyone here." He glared around the room, daring anyone to contradict him.

"I disagree," said the Chancellor of the Exchequer. "This is exactly the sort of thing that brought down the last government. All our jobs are on the line, including yours. We said we were never going to tolerate sleaze, and here we go again. The Eccleston affair was bad enough, but at least that was a million quid for party funds. That was a worthwhile bribe, even if we did get found out. Now we're down to a measly £1,500, and in a brown envelope for Christ's sake. Where's your sense of dignity, Tony? I always say, if you're going on the fiddle, at least do the thing properly."

"Oh yes, like your double-entry book-keeping and stealth taxes I suppose, Gordon. You just can't wait to get my job, can you? I wouldn't mind betting that you were behind this leak."

Incensed, the Chancellor leapt from his seat and began to crawl across the table, brandishing his fist and uttering inchoate Scottish noises. Bland backed away in alarm, upsetting his own chair in the process.

"Gentlemen, gentlemen." The Foreign Secretary, with schoolboy bravado, tried to interpose his body. "Not in the Cabinet Room, I beg you."

"Out of my way you skinny little runt." By this time the red-faced Chancellor had reached the other side of the table and was bearing down on his objective. The other members of the Cabinet had risen in alarm and were milling around aimlessly like goldfish in a bowl of gin. "I've been wanting to plant one in that smug face for years. Accuse me of leaking, would you? If I told the press half the things I know you'd have been out on your backside before the last election." There was a quickening of interest in the room. What did Gordon know that they didn't?

"My God, you hit me!" Jack Hay, having failed to get out of the way in time, slumped to the floor clutching a nose that was streaming blood.

"Serve you right for interfering, you snotty little bugger," growled Green. "You're always fucking around in other people's affairs. Jack the Creep - that's what they call you at the UN. Didn't you know that, laddie?" But now that he had drawn blood, even if it was the wrong blood, the Chancellor's anger was abating. He stomped back to his own seat, this time going round the table rather than over it. "We're still waiting for an answer," he threw over his shoulder.

The Lord Chancellor struggled to restore some semblance of order, waving everyone to their seats in a judicial fashion and rapping his pen on the table like a gavel. Bland remained standing at bay in front of the empty fireplace, clinging to the mantelpiece for support. "All right," he said finally, "I'll tell you what this is all about." And did. Well, almost. The money in the envelope, he explained, was his own. Which was true. It was, he said, the repayment of a cash loan made a few days previously to an old school friend who had needed the money urgently to settle a gambling debt. Which was a lie. There was no mention of Jamieson; none of the photograph. It was, he congratulated himself, a nice little piece of spin which would no doubt, if he knew his loose-lipped colleagues, find its way into the newspapers. Just helping out a friend; let them prove anything else.

**************

The formidable Diane Tucker, five foot seven of feminine muscle, had taken a cab to Jamieson's house, collected the negative and her instructions, and was settled comfortably in the train to London. It was not often that she got out of the office. As Jamieson's personal assistant, office manager and confidant, she was the still centre around which the chaotic wheel of PressWatch turned. Unflappable, reliable, and more than capable of putting her boss in his place if he needed it, Diane was the ideal courier for the precious negative. In the unlikely event that she was picked up by Special Branch, Jamieson was forecasting a swift kick on the shins and a rapid escape.

Once at Paddington, Diane lost no time in finding a public telephone and calling Stafford. She was looking forward to the encounter, having only seen the PR guru on his frequent television appearances. With the unspecified hint that she was carrying explosive material, she had no problem in circumventing his secretary and getting an immediate appointment.

Max Stafford turned out to be smaller than she expected; she topped him by at least two inches. A compact, silver-haired man, his pink face sported a boyish grin that somehow failed to reach his eyes. "I know Mike Jamieson," he said, when she told him who had sent her. "Had quite a few tussles with him on the box. Bit of a self-righteous sod in my humble opinion, if you'll excuse the language. What makes him seek the help of a villain like me all of a sudden?"

Diane explained and produced the negative. Stafford held it to the light and examined it closely. "Yes," he said, "definitely worth a few bob in the right places. The Mail wanted to syndicate it, you know, but the silly bastards didn't buy the copyright. Does Jamieson have it?"

"It belongs to the man who took it, Henry Cruickshank. He's authorised me to negotiate terms on his behalf."

"Got it in writing?" Stafford said suspiciously. She passed over a hand-written note from Cruickshank.

"How come he couldn't come himself?"

"Special Branch," she said, as though that were a complete and sufficient explanation in this day and age. Which it was.

"Oh." Stafford looked dubious. "That puts a different complexion on things. I can quite see why those buggers would be involved in something like this. Want to get their hands on the negative before someone can prove it's genuine, is that it?"

"That's what Mike says."

"Well, my dear…" Diane flinched slightly, fearing that he was about to put a hand on her knee. "That complicates things a bit. As soon as this picture appears overseas, those gentlemen are going to want to know who did the deal. And with my reputation they'll be knocking on my door in no time flat. Not that I would be doing anything illegal, but with Special Branch it doesn't have to be illegal."

"Does that mean you won't handle it?"

"I didn't say that. It's just that I'll have to ask for more than my usual percentage to compensate for the risk."

Diane sighed. "How much?"

"Well, I usually take twenty per cent. Shall we say thirty?"

"Twenty-five," she said firmly, though Cruickshank had authorised her to go to fifty if need be.

"Twenty-seven and a half."

"Done," she said.

Stafford rummaged in his drawer and produced a pro-forma contract which they both signed. Then he told his secretary to arrange a conference call with half a dozen leading continental newspapers and magazines. "No good trying the Americans," he said, "they're much too prudish for this sort of thing. Would you like to stay for the auction?"

Diane declined. It wasn't often that she got the chance to go to London, and she had some shopping to do. "Mike says not to contact him on the 'phone," she said, "he's sure it's tapped."

"Courtesy of the buggers' charter, I suppose," said Stafford. "Let's just hope they're not listening to this one. Tell Mike I'll write him a letter." He waved a languid hand in farewell as she slipped out of the door.

CHAPTER SEVEN

"They laughed at me, Angus. That was the worst part - they actually laughed."

Crawford, who was doing his best to keep a straight face himself, made sympathetic noises, but the Prime Minister would not be comforted. "They have no imagination, Angus, no imagination at all. One would have thought they would have seen the significance, the huge historical significance, the great honour of being painted by Lucian Freud in the setting of the Last Supper. But no, do you know what that oaf Green said?"

"No, boss."

"He said: 'does that mean you're leaving us at last, Tony?' Bloody cheek. Especially after the way he behaved earlier. I ought to fire him for punching poor Jack Hay. I mean, y'know, we just can't have that sort of behaviour at a Cabinet meeting."

"I didn't know about that," Crawford said with some surprise. True, the meeting had only broken up ten minutes previously, but his spies were usually quicker off the mark. "Why did he punch poor old Jack?"

"He was aiming for me, and Jack got in the way," Bland said bitterly. "He'll have to go."

"You can't do that, boss."

"Why the hell not?"

"Because Gordon's the only one of that mob who can add up, that's why. In fact he can not only add up, but he can do the same sums three or four times over and convince the voters that he's spending new money on them every time. Let's face it, boss, where would you be without him?"

"There's Cratchit," the Prime Minister said hopefully. "At least the civil service can't pull the wool over his eyes."

"They don't have to. They just slip his guide dog a bone and she takes the poor bugger anywhere they want him to go."

"Alistair Darling?"

"The public don't believe his eyebrows. What makes you think they'd believe his budget?"

"Jack Hay?"

"Too busy making eyes at Condoleeza Rice. Anyway, he's got his nose so far up Beauregard P.'s arse that we'd have a referendum on scrapping the pound in favour of the dollar before we know where we are."

"So what should I do, Angus?"

"Pretend it never happened; that's my advice. Tell Jack to say that Condoleeza bit him, or something equally convincing, and just be thankful that the television cameras weren't present."

"What if someone leaks it to the press?"

"Deny everything. Jack won't talk, and Gordon certainly won't. As for the rest, I'll put the frighteners on. Let them know that there's a re-shuffle in store for anyone who opens their mouth."

"I suppose it will work," Bland said doubtfully. "Trouble is, they don't seem to respect me the way they used to. I can't think why."

Crawford, who could, maintained a discreet silence.

"Anyway," the Prime Minister continued, "we've still got the problem of that damned photograph and trying to prove the thing was faked. Who else knows that it was genuine, apart from you and me?"

"Well, the people on the Mail think they know, but they can't prove it. I checked my contacts there yesterday and apparently Cruickshank only sold them the print and not the negative, so they can't prove it wasn't fiddled with. Assuming that you didn't tell the Cabinet…." Bland nodded, "…..that leaves Jamieson and Cruickshank himself. If you want my opinion, the reason Jamieson returned your deposit was that he managed to find Cruickshank and realised that he could make a lot more money selling the damn thing to all and sundry."

"But we can't have that, Angus. I mean, I'll be a laughing-stock all over the world. It's just the sort of thing the French have been waiting for, and you know how straight-laced the Americans can be."

Crawford fingered his stubble. "There's always a solution," he said carefully, "provided you can track them down before they pass on the negative."

"What sort of solution?"

"The permanent kind."

Bland was appalled. "I can't do that. Not if you mean what I think you mean. This is a democracy, Angus. We can't go around killing people."

"It didn't seem to bother you in Iraq."

"That was quite different, Angus," the Prime Minister said stiffly, "and you know that very well. That was a moral question. We had to kill the Iraqis in order to save them from a brutal dictator. Besides, he had weapons of mass destruction that he might have used to kill us as well as them if we didn't."

"We never found any," Crawford reminded him.

"That's beside the point. The CIA said he had them. Beauregard P. Shrub said he had them. So he must have had them. Somewhere."

"So how are you going to deal with your little local difficulty, Tony?"

"What would you suggest? There's always the SAS I suppose; they're used to killing people and not talking about it. Or I could use MI6 - do they still have those 00 people 'licensed to kill'?"

"You've been watching too many old movies, boss. Anyway, I thought you'd decided not to have them killed."

"I can change my mind, can't I?" As always when in petulant mood, Bland's voice rose half an octave. "It would be the tidiest solution, after all. Failing that, we could always arrest them under the Anti-Terrorism Act and have them held incommunicado. Thank God we got rid of habeas corpus, it was such a bloody inconvenience."

"But they're not terrorists," objected Crawford.

"How do you know? They might be. After all, Jamieson is Irish; that's enough for a start, and anyone with a name like Cruickshank has to be up to no good. Anyway, it doesn't matter. We arrest all sorts of people under the Act. They don't actually have to have done anything, but it makes Cratchit look good. Me too, I suppose."

"They'll talk," warned Crawford. "You'll have to let them out eventually, and then they'll talk."

"I suppose you're right. Very well then, better get the C.O. down from Hereford for a private briefing - we don't want any of this on paper." Bland brightened. "You know, Angus, this is one of the really enjoyable parts of this job: the power over life and death. Makes me feel positively God-like sometimes."

Crawford's hooded eyes narrowed, but he kept his counsel.

**************

In Bristol, Mike Jamieson was becoming distinctly nervous. He had a feeling in his water that something was about to happen. Just what, he did not know, but he doubted that he was about to draw first prize in life's lottery. By this time Downing Street and Special Branch would have added two and two together and reached the inevitable conclusion that he was in league with Cruickshank and therefore dangerous. Nor would they have the slightest difficulty in locating his home address. He peeked from behind the curtains and tried to decide whether the middle-aged woman whose dog was peeing against the lamppost outside his house was an undercover agent, then recognised her as his next door neighbour and breathed again. Nevertheless, he decided, it was time to get the hell out of there.

The problem was, how? He had no car, and in any case could not drive. There was an airport at Bristol but it would certainly be watched; if not for him, certainly for Cruickshank, and taxi firms would be the first to be questioned. There was only one alternative. He turned to Cruickshank:

"Can you ride a bike?"

"I suppose so. Haven't done it for years, but they say you never forget."

"Good. Now, do you know how to sail?"

"Sail?"

"That's what I said. Can you sail a boat - those things that float on water and get you cold and wet?"

Cruickshank looked doubtful. "I was in the Sea Scouts when I was a kid. We did quite a lot of sailing then, but they were only small boats."

"A small boat is all you're getting," Jamieson said grimly. "I've got a friend who keeps a yacht down in the harbour that I'm sure we can borrow. About 25 feet, I think. Can you manage that?"

"I don't know. I suppose I can try. But where the hell are we going?"

"Right now I like the thought of Ireland," Jamieson said. "I've got a couple of bikes in the hall. One of them belongs to my kid, but you can put the saddle up. Hang on while I grab some tins from the cupboard and we'll be on our way."

CHAPTER EIGHT

Charles Cruickshank looked on the good ship Estrelita with disfavour. Some twenty-five feet long with a single mast ("sloop rig" said Jamieson, knowledgeably) and tiller steering, she had clearly seen better days. The varnished brightwork was discoloured and flaking; the wooden hull, once white, was now a dirty shade of grey and bore the scars from numerous encounters with rubber-fendered docksides. The galvanised rigging had wept streaks of rust on to the deck below.

"He never locks it," said Jamieson, clambering on board and flipping open the padlock barring the way to the cabin. "Reckons there isn't anything worth stealing on board and no-one would want to steal the boat itself." Cruickshank could see why.

"Shouldn't we get the owner's permission?" he asked nervously.

"Can't," said Jamieson. "He's doing eighteen months for growing grass in his back garden."

"Since when was having a lawn a criminal offence?"

"Not that kind of grass, you idiot. Marijuana. Great crop it was, too." He sighed reminiscently. "Bastards waited until it was mature before they raided him. You can bet that was one sweet-smelling police station that night. Anyway, he asked me to keep an eye on his boat, so we're just going to give it a little exercise. It doesn't do a boat any good to lie idle." Jamieson spoke with an air of authority. Cruickshank didn't need to know that he had never set foot on the thing before, though he feared he might find out before long. "Better check the engine," he said.

Cruickshank looked around and lifted a promising ring-bolt in the floor of the cockpit. Beneath it was a large lump of rust with four sparking plugs protruding from the top. He shuddered. "I've found it," he said. "What do I do now?"

"See if the bloody thing will start, of course. I'll check the sails." He disappeared into the forepeak, leaving Cruickshank to stare aimlessly around in search of the ignition lock. There didn't seem to be one, which was just as well because he didn't have a key. Ultimately he located a silver on/off switch beside a small green button at the side of the companionway. He flicked it to 'on' and pressed the button experimentally. There was a grinding noise as the starter motor engaged, followed by a rumbling beneath his feet, and then silence. He tried again. This time nothing happened.

"I think the battery's flat," he shouted.

"There has to be a starting handle somewhere. Look around," came a voice from the depths.

Cruickshank climbed down into the cabin and discovered to his alarm that the floorboards were covered by an inch of water. "We're sinking!" he cried.

"Nonsense." Jamieson emerged from the forepeak clutching a bundle of mildewed canvas. "Just a bit of water in the bilges, that's all. We can soon pump it out. There's probably a pump driven by the engine. See if you can find that starting handle."

There were a remarkable number of cupboards around the cabin. Cruickshank tried them all and finally recovered a rusty piece of metal from one of the storage spaces under the bunks which certainly looked like a starting handle might look like, though he had never seen one. "What do I do with it?" he asked nervously. Cruickshank came from a motoring era which had never heard of starting handles.

"Christ, do I have to do everything?" Jamieson grumbled. Not that he had done anything up to that point. He pulled aside the casing at the aft end of the cabin, exposing the rear end of the rusty lump. There was a fly-wheel with a socket in the centre. "There," he said triumphantly, "stick the handle in there, turn it over a few times, and away we go." Doubtfully, Cruickshank did as he was told. Nothing happened. Sweating profusely, he straightened up and mopped his forehead with a handkerchief.

"Must be the plugs," he said.

"Good thought." Even Jamieson had heard of sparking plugs. He rummaged in a toolbox, brought out a plug spanner and handed it to Cruickshank. "Better give them a good clean and then try again."

Looking daggers at his benefactor, Cruickshank did as he was told. The sparking plugs appeared to be rusted in place, but he finally got them free and surveyed the result despondently. "Have we got any spares?" he asked. "These things need a good sand-blasting at the very least." Jamieson rummaged again. "No plugs," he said, "but I found this." He brandished a stiff wire brush.

Deciding it was time to take a stand, Cruickshank passed him the handful of ancient plugs. "Your turn," he said. Jamieson took them grudgingly and began to work, while Cruickshank peered anxiously along the quayside, expecting to see signs of pursuit at any moment. But the place was deserted. After some ten minutes of muttered cursing Jamieson eventually emerged with a bunch of marginally cleaner sparking plugs in his lacerated hands. Cruickshank screwed them into place and resumed his place at the starting handle.

There was a muffled explosion from within the rusty lump and the starting handle flew backwards out of his grasp to spin round and strike his wrist with a solid crack. "Sod it," he gasped. "I think the bloody thing's broken my fucking arm." Suddenly solicitous, Jamieson examined the damaged appendage. "Only a bruise," he said confidently. "Give it another try; there's obviously life in there."

"Fuck that for a game of soldiers. Do it yourself." The crew was becoming mutinous. Cruickshank nursed his aching wrist and climbed back to sulk in the cockpit. Somewhat to his surprise, he heard the engine turn over and burst into life.

"See. Easy when you know how." Jamieson emerged into the cockpit in triumph. "Now, let's untie those mooring ropes and get the hell out of here." Cruickshank gave him a venomous glance. "Do you know where we're going?"

"I told you," Jamieson said. "Ireland." He waved a hand in a westerly direction. "It's over there. Can't miss it." The Estrelita drifted away from the quayside and slowly gathered way.

***************

"What do you mean, 'they missed them'?" The Prime Minister was in a paddy. "This was the SAS, for God's sake. They don't just miss people."

"It was a fucking disaster," Crawford said, towering over his seated master like some Old Testament prophet addressing an unbeliever. "Your bully boys turned up in their full anti-terrorist gear - ski-masks, H&K submachine guns, the lot - and this mark you in the middle of the afternoon. They didn't even bother to knock. Oh no, they put plastic explosive around the front door, blew the damn thing in, and then went through the house lobbing stun grenades in every room and spraying the place with bullets."

"That's what they're supposed to do," Bland protested.

"Not when the fucking house is empty, for Christ's sake. The next door neighbour told them it was empty. He told them he'd seen Jamieson and his friend heading down the road on bicycles only half an hour before. He even offered to lend them a spare key so that they could go in and look for themselves. But no, they had to let off their fireworks. And to make matters worse, a friend of Jamieson's who's a reporter on the Bristol Evening Post only lives a few doors away and saw the whole thing. So now your little exercise is going to be all over the front pages of the local press, and probably the national tabloids tomorrow morning."

"Oh dear," said the Prime Minister, knotting his hands together in an incantation of despair. "I suppose we're going to have to make some sort of a statement. Explain that we were looking for an Al-Queda suspect….."

"It won't wash, boss. The press will know that that was Jamieson's house, and half of them know him personally. They may not like him much, seeing that he's appointed himself as some sort of watch dog over their professional morals, but they certainly know that he's no kind of terrorist."

"Anyway," said Bland, changing the subject, "what's all this about bicycles? I mean, it's bloody unfair. No one uses bicycles to escape; they use cars. And cars can be traced. I mean, how do you find two men on bicycles?"

"Maybe Jamieson had the same thought," Crawford said dryly.

**************

At that precise moment, escape from the law was the last thing on Mike Jamieson's mind. Survival was the first. The Estrelita, carried out of the Bristol channel on the strongly-ebbing tide, was now out in the Severn estuary. Sandbanks were beginning to appear on either hand, and Jamieson, trying to steer between them, was still trying to come to terms with the fact that when he moved the tiller to the left the boat turned right, and vice-versa. It seemed to him a thoroughly illogical arrangement. Meanwhile, in the bowels of the boat, Cruickshank was trying to get rid of the water in the bilge with an over-sized plastic stirrup pump that he had found in one of the lockers. Jamieson's prediction of a pump linked to the motor had proved groundless, and however hard he worked the handle, filled the bucket and tossed the contents overboard, the level of the water never seemed to go down. The Estrelita was leaking; no doubt about it. It was all he could do to keep pace with the ingress. We're sinking, he thought gloomily as he climbed the companionway for the umpteenth time and looked at the receding shoreline. And it's a bloody long way to swim. At least the engine was still chugging away in sullen fashion.

"How much petrol do we have in the tank?" Cruickshank asked breathlessly.

"Oh Christ, I forgot to look. Hang on to the tiller for a moment." There was no fuel gauge. Jamieson located a broomstick, unscrewed the filler cap, and lowered it inside. When he withdrew it, only the last two inches were wet. "Not much," he said. "We'd better get the sails up."

The wind was blowing briskly out of the south-east. Jamieson hauled the jib out on to the tossing foredeck and tried to decide which way up it was supposed to go while Cruickshank shouted helpful advice from the cockpit. At length he decided, correctly, that the clips went on to the forestay, the narrow corner fastened to the rope which he would have called the jib halyard if he had ever heard of such a thing, the broad corner was fixed to the bow, and the two trailing ropes which Cruickshank called "sheets" - for no good reason that Jamieson could see - were led astern. He was beginning to understand that sailors spoke a foreign language, and that the whole affair was a damn sight more complicated than it appeared from the beach at Weston-super-Mare on a sunny afternoon.

At last the jib was hauled up the forestay and sheeted home, the sail filled and Estrelita began to come alive. Jamieson, soaking wet, staggered below once more to find the mains'l, which lay in a mildewed heap in the tiny forepeak. He emerged with the soggy bundle half wrapped round him, looking like a Welsh bard after a night on the tiles.

"You do this one," he said, dropping his load on to the floor of the cockpit. "I'll take over the steering."

This was a mistake. Even under a single sail, Estrelita was quite a different beast from the placid creature she had been under power. She heeled over under the stiff breeze, the sail made it impossible to see where he was going, and the boom above his head was slatting wildly to and fro as Cruickshank struggled to rig and hoist the mainsail.

"Put her into the wind!" Cruickshank shouted. "I can't get the sail up otherwise."

"How the hell do I do that?"

"Push the tiller away from you!"

Jamieson did as he was told. Unfortunately, Cruickshank had neglected to tell him to stop pushing once the boat was headed into wind. Everything happened at once. There was a loud bang and a muffled scream as the boom swung across and knocked Cruickshank over the side. At the same moment came a grinding thump as Estrelita impaled her keel on a sandbank. Coughing and spluttering, Cruickshank came to the surface and discovered that the water was only waist deep. With a helping hand from Jamieson he struggled back on board the stranded vessel which was already beginning to list to one side on the falling tide.

"What do you suggest we do now?" he said.

CHAPTER NINE

Even Max Stafford was astonished by the response from the overseas media. By the end of the first day, armed with a telephone which hardly left his ear, he calculated that the Bland picture had netted at least half a million pounds. Whether this was due to general animosity against the self-anointed saviour of the universe, the mildly salacious nature of the picture, or the fact that it was a slow news day with few wars actually in progress, was hard to say. The fact remained that front pages throughout the world, excepting those countries dominated by the Catholic church, blossomed next day with the Prime Minister in full frontal glory. Few had had the Mail's sense of decency in blurring the vital parts, which gave Stafford another idea. He began contacting websites, of which there were many, advertising infallible methods for increasing the size of the penis. Another few thousand dollars rolled in.

In British embassies from Peking to Paris, from Berlin to Bangkok, the sense of outrage was universal. The Foreign Office was deluged with cables demanding that HMG did something, anything, to protest against this affront to British dignity. The Foreign Secretary, his nose still red and swollen, lost no time in hurrying round to No.10.

"I know, I know. You don't have to rub it in, Jack." The Prime Minister was distraught. "I've had Chirac on the 'phone laughing his bloody head off, and Shrub offering the services of the CIA to track down whoever's responsible. That's all I need. With their record they'd end up assassinating Ann Widdecombe. Anyway, I know who's responsible - it's that bastard Max Stafford. That's the last time he gets invited round to tea, I can tell you."

Behind his chair, Angus Crawford was his usual saturnine self. "Nothing you can do about Stafford," he said. "Too high profile. Do you want to go on looking for Jamieson and Cruickshank?"

Bland's hands performed a ritual dance and came to rest in mid air. "What's the point? The whole bloody world has seen the thing now. You'd better tell Special Branch to lay off and the SAS to stand down. Just let it be known that if they happen to turn up dead in a ditch one of these days I don't want to know about it. Oh yes, and tell the PCC that we're dropping the complaint against the Mail. They wouldn't have upheld it anyway." He turned to Jack Hay. "Is there anything you can think of, anything at all, that might restore my reputation overseas?"

The Foreign Secretary remained mute, pale eyes blinking behind his rimless spectacles, his hang-dog expression drooping over his celluloid collar. Crawford intervened. "You could try a penis transplant, boss. Or maybe run an ad campaign on the slogan "Size Doesn't Really Matter."

Bland rounded on him. "I don't need your warped sense of humour right now, Angus. If that's the best you can do I'll have you emptying the waste baskets in the press room and find someone else to spin me out of this mess."

"Temper, temper," breathed Crawford, but shut his mouth as he caught the full force of the Bland glare. The bastard, he decided, might just do it.

**************

Far out in the Severn estuary, a mile or more from land, the Estrelita obeyed the receding tide and reclined gracefully on her beam ends like a dowager Duchess after one glass of sherry too many. Wet, cold and miserable, Jamieson and Cruickshank perched on the cockpit coaming and stared gloomily at the acres of sand that now surrounded them.

"It's not as if we're in any danger," Jamieson said. "We've just got to wait until the tide comes back in, and then we'll be on our way again."

"How long will that be?"

"Oh, I don't know. Six hours; perhaps seven."

"Jesus, I'll have frozen to death by then. And it will be dark, for Christ's sake. Can't we signal for help? Get them to send a helicopter or something?"

Jamieson gave him a withering glance. "And end up in a police cell? Are you serious? Why don't you look around below and see if my mate has left some old clothes in one of the lockers?"

Grumbling, Cruickshank lowered himself gingerly down into the tilted cabin. He emerged ten minutes later clad in filthy jeans and an old sweater riddled with moth holes. "I smell like a goat," he complained. Jamieson wrinkled his nose. "That's being pretty unfair to the goat," he said. "More like an over-ripe Munster cheese, I'd say."

"I'm still bloody cold. I saw a couple of sleeping bags down there - why don't we kip down until the tide comes in? It's going to be a long night."

"Good idea," said Jamieson. At this point a prudent sailor might have laid out an anchor, but Jamieson was neither prudent nor a sailor. He bundled below with his reluctant crew, leaving the stranded Estrelita to look after herself.

There were three bunks in the cabin, one to starboard and two to port. The former, being on the "uphill" side, was completely unusable, since its occupant would have fallen straight out again. Of the two port bunks, one was a quarter-berth, running under the cockpit seating for all but the last two feet which were open to the cabin. This gave the distinct advantage that you could not fall out, but to Jamieson it looked uncomfortably like a coffin. Generously he offered it to Cruickshank, explaining that he was too big to fit in comfortably. They wriggled into the mildewed sleeping bags and settled as best they could, half on the bunk cushions and half against the inside of the tilted hull. An hour later a passing Coastguard helicopter noted the stranded vessel, saw no signs of distress on board, and passed on.

It was one o'clock in the morning when the Estrelita began to stir. It was a soft awakening. The wind had dropped, the sea was calm, and her hull lifted so gently to the rising tide that her sleeping crew were undisturbed. Little by little she came fully upright, her keel hardly grating on the soft sand as buoyancy lifted it free from its embrace. For a moment she hesitated, as if uncertain which way to go. Then the current swung her bow to the north-east and Estrelita began a stately uncontrolled progress towards home.

An hour later Jamieson, woken by the sound of gently lapping water beside his left ear, extricated himself from his sleeping bag and staggered clumsily up the companionway. The sight which confronted him left him completely disorientated. Where there had been sand there was now water, endless stretches of water, on which the Estrelita seemed to sit motionless. There was no moon, no stars, only far away pricks of light from the shoreline on either side.

"Come on up," he shouted into the cabin. "We're afloat." But that was the only thing he could be sure of. The Estrelita had no compass, and there was no way of knowing which way they were travelling if, indeed, they were travelling at all.

Cruickshank joined him, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "Well, brave captain," he said. "What do you propose we do now?"

"How the hell do I know? There's no wind, so there's no point in putting up the sails. I suppose we could try to start the engine again, but there's not much petrol in the tank and in any case I can't tell which way to steer. Instead of going towards Ireland we might land up back in Bristol for all I know." There is many a true word spoken in jest.

It is well known to sailors that every boat has a personality, some would say a soul. The Estrelita had not taken kindly to being wrenched from her accustomed mooring by a pair of incompetent strangers, and then suffering the indignity of running aground. She listened to Cruickshank suggest that the best course would be to wait until daylight before doing anything and gave a little chuckle in the depths of her bilge. She knew where they were going.

The tidal stream runs swiftly in the Bristol Channel, and with it ran the Estrelita, but there was no sense of motion on board. The sparse lights on the shoreline were still too far away to judge the boat's movement, and in any case Jamieson and Cruickshank had retired below once more with a sense of fatalism. There didn't seem to be anything to bump into out there, and no way that they could avoid it if there was.

Dawn was just breaking when they heard a soft bump on the side of the boat, followed by a prolonged grating noise. The Estrelita lurched sharply, then righted herself and carried on serenely. Alarmed, Jamieson vaulted into the cockpit. In the half-light he saw a large green buoy receding slowly astern, and on it in large white letters "Avonmouth No 1."

"Oh shit," he said. A few hundred yards away, clearly visible in the dim light, was the entrance to the harbour they had left the previous afternoon, the River Avon flooding to full tide. Jamieson gave up. "Come on," he said. "Start the bloody engine. We'd better put this thing back where we found it."

CHAPTER TEN

It was Question Time in the House of Commons, which was not the Prime Minister's favourite engagement. He had done his best to lessen the pain by reducing his weekly appearances from two to one, and then moving them from the early afternoons - when post-lunch euphoria encouraged aggressive questioning - to the middle of the morning when MPs would be half asleep. It was still an ordeal, and one he resented. What right did these hicks from the sticks have to interrogate their anointed leader? Who the hell did they think they were? It wasn't the Opposition he objected to; they mostly agreed with his policies anyway. It was those damned back-benchers on his own side who had been passed over for government jobs, or sacked from them, and took delighted revenge in reminding him of promises past and long forgotten.

As he waited his turn at the despatch box, Bland leafed through the folder of anticipated questions and suggested answers, thoughtfully provided by the Civil Service. No surprises here, but then there rarely were in the initial questions. It was the supplementaries that were dangerous and unpredictable; the sly innuendoes and vicious probes that were supposed to bear some relation to his first answer, but rarely did. At least there was nothing to fear from the Leader of the Opposition, a man with the job security of a coal miner during the Thatcher regime. He would be playing it safe after the drubbing he had received, according to reliable reports, from members of the Conservative 1922 committee the previous evening. Across the two swords-lengths which separated the opposing sides of the chamber, Bland watched his rival finger his order paper nervously.

"Mr. Ian Dudley Brown," intoned the Speaker, his Glaswegian accent thick as haggis.

The Leader of the Opposition unfolded himself from the green leather bench and grasped the brass binding of his despatch box as though it were about to fly away.

"Mr. Speaker," he said, "I would like to ask the Prime Minister what provision is being made for the Arts Council in the coming financial year." He sat down, giving way to Bland who rose, consulted his notes, recited a figure, and sat down in turn. The House hummed with bored conversation.

"How much of that money," Dudley Brown enquired sweetly, "is to be devoted to a portrait of the Prime Minister by Mr. Lucian Freud, in a pose which we saw recently in a certain national newspaper?"

Boredom vanished. From the Tory benches came cries of "Who's a pretty boy, then?" and, less elegantly, "get 'em off!". Noises, tactfully recorded in Hansard as "cheers and counter-cheers" swelled from both sides. The Speaker called for order. No one took much notice.

"Who told him about that?" hissed a disconcerted Bland to the Chancellor at his side. Gordon Green shook his head ponderously, claiming innocence. "I'll have the bastard's guts for garters," Bland said, quite forgetting that the microphone in front of him had been switched on in anticipation of his reply. Dudley Brown was back on his feet before he could rise.

"I'm sure we sympathise with the Prime Minister's sentiments," he said, "but that is hardly an answer to my question."

Bland rose, his face flushed with anger. "Let me make it perfectly clear," he said, stretching the truth to its outer limits and somewhat beyond, "no such painting has been commissioned. As regards the scurrilous photograph to which the Right Honourable Gentleman refers, I am sure he will be aware that new technology has made the falsification of images extremely easy."

"Perfectly clear. Perfectly clear," chorused the ranks behind him as they chanted the New Labour mantra.

"It may be perfectly clear to the Prime Minister," said Dudley Brown, "but it is less than clear to Mr. Lucien Freud to whom I spoke this morning. Mr. Freud assures me that such a picture was in fact commissioned; that this commission was withdrawn yesterday, and substituted by one in which the right honourable gentleman strikes a somewhat different pose. Would the Prime Minister care to enlighten the House on this latest gift to posterity?"

"No, I would not," Bland snapped peevishly. The House erupted. Dudley Brown persisted.

"I am reliably informed," he said, "that Mr. Freud is now being asked to produce a version of Leonardo's The Last Supper, with the Prime Minister in the role of Christ, and members of the Cabinet as his disciples. Can the Prime Minister assure the House that no public funds will be involved in this latest celebration of his personal glorification?" The opposition benches were blue with waving order papers as Conservative MPs roared their derision. The government side sat in stunned silence, unable to believe what they were hearing.

"I have to tell the Right Honourable Gentleman," Bland replied when the Speaker had finally restored order, "that his source of information is far from reliable." But his voice lacked conviction, and the growling noise from the benches behind him was hardly a roar of support.

Dudley Brown began to rise again but was waved down by the Speaker. "Ah hae nae doot," said the latter, "that the Right Honourable Gentleman wud like tae see the Prime Minister in the role of St Sebastian, but he must let other members hae a turn." He looked towards the Labour benches where some forty hopefuls were on their feet and consulted a slip of paper. "Mr. Thorburn."

Richard Thorburn, Labour member for Bristol North East, cleared his throat. He was a tall, balding man, who rarely spoke and never disobeyed the whips, thus making him an ideal MP in the eyes of Millbank apparatchiks. This was about to change. "I would like to ask the Prime Minister," he said, "a question of which I have given him private notice." Bland blanched. A Private Notice Question was permitted only on matters of importance, and he should have been briefed on it. He searched through the papers on his lap. There was nothing there. Someone was going to suffer for this.

"Is the Prime Minister aware," Thorburn continued, "of the incident which took place in my constituency yesterday afternoon, when members of the SAS raided the home of a highly respected journalist and caused serious damage to his property?" He paused for effect. "And is he further aware that the journalist in question has now disappeared and there are grave concerns for his safety?" Bland began to rise, but Thorburn had not yet finished. "Can he tell the House who issued the orders for this unprovoked attack, what measures he will take to discipline those responsible, and what is being done to locate the whereabouts and ensure the safety of my constituent?"

Thorburn subsided, amazed at his own temerity, to cries of "hear, hear," and a friendly slap on the back from his left-wing neighbour. Bland reflected that for once he knew the answers to all these questions, and formed a steely determination to give none of them.

"I am aware of this unfortunate incident," he said (since he could hardly deny knowledge of what had been spread over that morning's front pages) "but I can assure my honourable friend that no unit of the SAS was involved. We are treating this as a possible terrorist attack, and every effort will be made to locate the journalist concerned. For security reasons I can say nothing further." 'Security reasons,' he reflected, could cover a multitude of sins. In this case, his own. Thorburn, his courage exhausted, could only mutter grateful thanks for the Prime Minister's attention to the matter. "Creep," said his colleague.

***************

The good ship Estrelita had run out of fuel about twenty yards from her dock; a happy coincidence since it enabled Jamieson, who had been complaining about the absence of brakes, to strike the dock with less than fatal force. He scrambled ashore, realised he had forgotten to take the mooring rope with him, and scrambled back before the boat drifted away on the tide. With Cruickshank's reluctant help he finally got the Estrelita secured. They collected their bicycles and pedalled slowly towards the town.

"Where are we going now?" Cruickshank asked wearily. "I'm a bit fed up with this lark. I've half a mind to give myself up. What can they do to me, anyway? All I did was take a bloody picture."

"They'll think of something," Jamieson said darkly. "They always do."

"I suppose you're right." Despite himself, Cruickshank was developing quite an affection for his shaggy saviour. Life around Jamieson might be hectic, but it was never dull. "I'll have to get a change of clothes before long, though. I can't go anywhere smelling like this."

"Good idea. There's a charity shop just along here; they're bound to have something that'll fit us." Just then Jamieson spotted a billboard outside an Asian newsagent's shop. He slewed to a halt. "Jesus, look at that!"

The poster, left up after the previous day's edition of the Bristol Evening Post was dramatic: "JOURNALIST'S HOME RAIDED BY SAS." Heart racing, Jamieson dived into the shop and emerged with a left-over Post plus a copy of that morning's Western Daily Mail. Both had led with the story on the front page. He thrust one at Cruickshank and devoured the other himself.

"Oh my God," said the photographer, turning a lighter shade of pale. "They'd have killed us if we'd stayed at your house." "Very likely," replied Jamieson, trying to assume the nonchalant air of an intrepid war reporter accustomed to such things. In fact he had never heard a gun fired in anger, but this was no time to let down the profession. "I guessed this might happen; that's why I got you out of there in a hurry."

"Very grateful, I'm sure," Cruickshank said, though in fact he was far from sure. He noticed that the stories failed to mention him by name, only referring to "another man" seen leaving the house with Jamieson shortly before the raid. Perhaps the SAS had not been after him at all, only Jamieson. "But I think it would be best if we split up," he said.

"Not on your life." Jamieson was firm. "You got me into this and you're sticking with me until we can find somewhere safe. "How do I know you wouldn't go running straight to this police?" Cruickshank remained silent, mostly because this was precisely what he had in mind.

The front page photograph of Jamieson, wild eyes staring out over the luxuriant moustache, had clearly been chosen to make him look as much like a terrorist as possible. "I'll have to get rid of this," he said, tears forming as he contemplated the loss of an old friend. "Can you nip into the chemist's over there and buy me a disposable razor?"

Cruickshank did as he was asked. They pedalled on until they came to a pub which was just opening its doors, and Cruickshank nursed a beer while Jamieson dived into the gents to emerge ten minutes later minus his moustache.

"I wouldn't recognise you," Cruickshank said truthfully. "I don't bloody well recognise myself," Jamieson grumbled. "It took me years to grow that thing. Very fond of it I was."

"What about your hair?" asked Cruickshank, twisting the knife. "That's pretty distinctive, too."

"If you must know, I'm allergic to sodding barbers." This much was obvious. "Haven't been near one for two years or more."

"If you're staying with me you're going to find one now," Cruickshank said firmly. "I don't want to be mown down by the SAS just because you're too scared to get your hair cut."

"Oh, very well." They pedalled on until they spotted a red-and-white striped pole poking out from a shopfront in a quiet side street, and Cruickshank pushed Jamieson through the door. "He wants a crew-cut," he said to the amused barber, as though Jamieson were a small boy.

"No I don't."

"Yes you bloody do!" hissed Cruickshank. "Unless you want me to go to the police right now."

"In trouble with the law, is he?" the barber asked helpfully. ""We get a lot of that round here. Don't you worry, sir, by the time I've finished his own mother won't recognise him." He placed his hands firmly on the protesting Jamieson's shoulders, tied a sheet around his neck and got to work.

"I'm going to catch fucking pneumonia," sniffed Jamieson as they went in search of a charity shop and a change of clothes. Finally accoutred in second-hand jeans, sweat-shirts and denim jackets, they emerged feeling somewhat more respectable.

"What do we do now?" enquired Cruickshank.

"I wish you'd fucking well stop asking me that," Jamieson snapped. "Why can't you have a few ideas for a change?"

"I was only asking."

"Well, don't." Jamieson fished in his pocket for his mobile 'phone. "I'm going to ring Diane to find out how things are going with Max Stafford. We're going to need some money in a hurry."

CHAPTER ELEVEN

"Mike! Where the hell have you been?" Her voice was angry rather than concerned. "I've had the police round here, plus half of Fleet Street, and every damn television and radio programme you can think of has been on the 'phone. What was I supposed to tell them - that you'd gone off God-knows-where with that idiot who took the picture of Bland in the altogether?"

"What did you tell them?" asked Jamieson, ducking the question.

"I told them I was your PA, not your bloody keeper, and you'd probably gone where anyone else would go if the SAS were trying to blow their heads off."

"And where was that."

"Far away, of course. You are far away, aren't you Mike?"

"Not as far away as I'd like to be. We had a little problem with the boat."

"Boat? What boat? You don't have a boat, and to the best of my knowledge you don't know one end of a boat from the other."

"No need to be rude," Jamieson sniffed. "It's a long story and I haven't got much time. What I need to know is whether Max Stafford has managed to sell that picture, and how much we can expect to get."

She laughed. "Sell it? I'll say he's sold it. He's sold the thing all over the bloody world. Max rang me this morning to say that we're in for at least half a million quid, less his commission, of course."

"That's great. Do you think you can persuade him to advance us five grand? Cruickshank and I are going to need some ready cash to get out of this mess. No, on second thoughts, make that ten."

"I can ask him. How do you want it?"

"See if you can persuade him to give us a cheque made out to cash. Less chance of being traced that way."

"I never knew you had such a criminal mind. OK, I'll try. I'll ring you back when I've got an answer. Where are you?"

"Better you don't know," Jamieson said, acutely aware that his office line might be tapped. "I'm on my mobile. You know the number."

"Wherever you are, I suggest you don't stay there much longer," Diane said. "They can trace the location of mobile calls these days."

"Sod it, I forgot." He switched off the 'phone hastily. "Come on," he said to Cruickshank, "on your bike. Time we got out of here." They pedalled off down a maze of Bristol back streets.

The call came within half an hour. Diane sounded excited and slightly out of breath. "Right," she said, "I think we've solved your problem. Or rather Max has. Do you remember that pub where we had our Christmas party?"

"Sure. It was…." She interrupted him sharply. "No, don't say it. Can you be there in an hour?"

"No problem; at least, not for me." He glanced at Cruickshank, who was looking distinctly weary and saddle-sore.

"Right. When you get there you'll be met there by two young men carrying copies of last Sunday's News of the World. They'll take you to somewhere safe."

"Jesus," Jamieson said, "are you saying what I think you're saying?"

"Probably. Max has sold your exclusive story. They'll keep you out of everyone's reach, and pay you handsomely into the bargain."

"That's all I need," Jamieson said bitterly. "I spend half my life crusading against the tabloids for buying up people's stories, and now I have to sell mine just to save my skin."

"That's life," she said. And rang off.

*************

Alone in his study, the Prime Minister was morbidly contemplating the events of the morning. Disaster was the word which sprang most frequently to mind. A knock on the door broke the churning circle of his thoughts.

"Yes?" he snapped. It was Crawford. "What is it, Angus?"

"The party chairman wants to see you."

"Well I don't want to see him. Tell the bugger to come back tomorrow."

Too late. The tousled head of the party chairman was already through the door as he elbowed his way past Crawford. Bland sighed. The party chairman was a thug; not that he could complain about that, since that was why he had given him the job. But he was also a Scottish thug, which made him doubly repellent. For reasons he could never quite understand, Bland had found himself enfiladed by Scots - a race he hated for their braying accents, their overbearing arrogance, and their belief in a perfect right to sit in government over a country not their own. He had given the bastards their own parliament in the vain hope that those at Westminster would gallop back over the border and mind their own business. But no, they had clung to power over the English like ivy to a wall, safe in the knowledge that in hard times the Labour Party depended on Scottish votes to get a majority. Most galling of all, they had a Scottish Chancellor to feed them subsidies from the English taxpayer, which they used to implement for the Scots the very New Labour promises which he himself had long abandoned. University students were being given free tuition; the elderly were being looked after without having to sell their homes. It was unsupportable. Maybe, one of these days, the National Lottery would fund the re-building of Hadrian's Wall. Until then he could only scowl and bear it.

"Prime Minister, I have to tell you that the party is not happy about what happened this morning."

"They're not happy, I'm not happy. These things happen, Ian. Don't worry about it, it will all be forgotten next week."

"I don't think so, Prime Minister. These are serious issues."

"What issues did you have in mind?" Bland considered that he was showing remarkable patience. He had appointed this bastard. The party chairman was not, as had always been the case in the days of Old Labour, elected by the membership at annual conference. The post was now in the thrall of Downing Street, and there was just so much bullshit he would take before he found himself a new one.

"Well, for a start…" The party chairman made it sound like "wheel, for a sturt," Bland winced. He could tolerate the Edinburgh accent, just about, and Gordon Green was not too incomprehensible, his policies apart, but these buggers from Glasgow made English sound like a foreign language. Which, to them, it probably was.

"For a start," the chairman continued, "there's this question of a portrait. Ye'll be aware, Prime Minister, that the media have been calling you 'the Reverend Bland' for quite some time. They've even been suggesting that you have, er, Messianic tendencies. I'm afraid this story is going to make things worse. The worrd I have from the party" - he rolled his "r's" with relish - is that you have to make it perfectly clear that no such picture is contemplated."

Perfectly clear, thought Bland. My God, he's caught it now.

"And then," the party chairman continued relentlessly, "there's this matter of the SAS in Bristol. Frankly, they don't believe this story about terrorists raiding Jamieson's house. Why the hell should they? It may be terrorism, but to our members it sounds like state terrorism, and they don't like it."

"Ian," replied Bland, trying to sound placatory. He adopted the usual tactic, when faced with a double question, of answering the second and ignoring the first. "You know that I can't discuss or disclose operational details about the SAS. What's the point of having a secret army if you start revealing their secrets? No doubt the SAS, if it was the SAS - and I'm not at liberty to say - had very good reasons for what they did. Reasons, of course, that I cannot disclose in the interests of national security."

"That's all very well, but….." The party chairman knew when he was beaten. "You will bear in mind, will you not, that the party is very unhappy?"

"I'll bear it in mind. Do shut the door as you leave, there's a good fellow."

**************

Jamieson and Cruickshank sat nursing their pints in the saloon bar of the Ferret and Firkin. They had been there for half an hour without any sign of their presumed rescuers. At length two men entered the bar, one carrying a copy of the News of the World. Both were dressed as Arab sheikhs. "That has to be them," whispered Jamieson. "They always go around dressed like that on investigative jobs."

"Not exactly inconspicuous, are they?" said Cruickshank.

"It's a disguise. Whoever would think that an Arab sheikh is really a News of the World reporter?"

"Well you did, for a start."

The two men glanced around the room before advancing on the bar and ostentatiously ordering orange juice. "You see," Jamieson said sotto voce, "they're maintaining the characters. If they'd asked for pints of bitter it would have given the game away."

"What do we do now?" asked Cruickshank. "Do we approach them or wait for them to find us?"

"Let's wait and see what happens."

One of the fake sheikhs reached inside his burnous and palmed a photograph which he studied before showing it to his companion. They looked again around the bar, their glance passing the two fugitives without pause. Jamieson snorted with annoyance. "Right pair of idiots they've sent to find us," he said. "Let's give them five more minutes and then we'll go and introduce ourselves."

But the sheikhs had apparently decided they were on a useless errand. They downed their glasses of orange juice, grimacing slightly as they did so, and headed for the door. Jamieson was off his stool in a flash, dragging Cruickshank behind him. "Come on. If we don't make the contact we're going to be dead ducks."

They caught up with the white-robed figures on the pavement outside, where they were looking uncertainly up and down the road.

"I think you're looking for us," Jamieson said. The sheikh gave him a hard stare and looked at the photograph once more. "No mate," he said, his cockney accent at strange odds with his garb, "you don't look a bit like the bloke we're looking for."

"For Christ's sake…" Jamieson got a glimpse of the picture in the man's hand and suddenly remembered his shave and haircut. He did indeed look nothing like it. "You've got to believe me. My name's Mike Jamieson, and this is Henry Cruickshank, the man who photographed Tony Bland in the nude."

"And I'm Saddam Hussein. Come on Harry, let's piss off. We must have got the wrong pub."

"No, wait, I can prove it." Jamieson fished out his wallet and produced his NUJ card, complete with picture.

"Forged," said the sheikh, implacably.

"Stolen," said his companion.

Cruickshank intervened. "If we're fakes - and you’re fine ones to talk about fakery - how come we know that Max Stafford has a deal with your editor to sell our exclusive stories?"

"He's got a point, Joe," said Harry. "How would they know all that if they weren't the genuine article? I vote we get them to the safe house and sort it out with the guvnor later."

"Oh, all right. Have it your way." Jamieson and Cruickshank suddenly found themselves seized by the arms and thrust into the rear of a black Mercedes with tinted windows which was parked on a yellow line outside the Ferret and Firkin. Harry ripped a parking ticket off the windscreen, swore, and dived into the driver's seat. The two fugitives were thrust back in their seats as he accelerated away.

"Where are we going?" asked Jamieson.

"It's a secret."

CHAPTER TWELVE

Roderick Jones was an angry man. To be fired was bad enough; to be fired for doing your job properly was quite insupportable. When the Prime Minister had slammed down the 'phone Jones had exploded in a torrent of four-letter words - except, being in Welsh, they each took up twelve letters or more. He supposed the memo ordering his dismissal was being drafted in Downing Street that very minute. Or perhaps not. The Civil Service was noted for its obedience to political instruction, but not for the speed of that obedience. If he worked quickly there might still be time to exact a fitting revenge.

Jones approached a weighty filing cabinet fastened with a combination lock and dialled a sequence of numbers which, so far as he knew, were known to only two others within his department. A drawer slid open, and from it he carefully selected a number of files, each bearing the legend "Most Secret." Not for much longer, he thought gleefully. He moved swiftly to the copying machine in a corner of his office and set it in motion, copying the contents of each file and then replacing it in the filing cabinet before beginning the next. He had almost finished when the telephone rang.

"Jones?" The voice of the Director was unmistakable. "I want you in my office. Now."

"Sir." Jones replaced the receiver. He knew what the summons portended; knew also that there was not the slightest point in complying. He hurriedly finished his copying, replaced the last file and spun the combination lock. Then he stuffed the copies into his briefcase, left his office, and walked calmly out of the MI5 building for the last time. The duty security guard made no effort to stop him.

*******************

Of all the telephones which cluttered his desk at No. 10, the one Tony Bland feared most was a tasteless replica of Mickey Mouse, cradling a handset in the form of an inter-continental missile in its spindly arms. The thing had been a gift from the President to commemorate his theft of the November 2000 election, and was a direct line to the White House. Bland had wanted to be rid of it for years, but was fearful that such an act of insubordination would get back to the President, with unforeseeable consequences. You never knew with Beauregard P.

The thing did not even ring like a proper telephone. Instead, it solemnly intoned "Hi ho, Hi ho, it's off to war we go", finishing with a shriek of jet engines and the sound of exploding missiles until the receiver was lifted.

Bland was contemplating the injustice of being shackled hand and foot to a congenital idiot with the power to annihilate the human race when the thing went off. He managed to snatch the receiver from its cradle after the second "hi ho", thus sparing his eardrums considerable pain.

"Tony, baby." Bland winced. "What's this I hear about you having your portrait painted in the style of that Last Breakfast thing by some Italian guy. Vincento someone or other?"

"It's the Last Supper," Bland said stiffly, "and the artist was Leonardo da Vinci."

"Yeah, well, I knew it was some mafioso type. Anyway, great idea, but I think we have something of a problem here."

"What problem?" Bland's heart sank. He did not need any more problems.

"Well, my guys tell me that you're planning to be kind of centre stage in this picture, and the imprecation is….have I got that word right?"

"I think you mean implication," Bland said, gritting his teeth.

"Yeah, whatever. Well they say the imprecation is that this portrays you as some kind of world leader, like the guy in the original picture. That was Jesus, right?

"Right."

"So what I'm saying is this, Tony. You know and I know that I'm the only world leader round here. And I'm a born-again Christian with the religious vote to consider. You, if you don't mind my saying so, ain't nothing but a barrel of piss and wind. So I've got a suggestion to make."

"Go on." Bland's face was a study in injured pride.

"As I see it, we can do this one of two ways: either you invite me over to be part of this painting - with me in the middle and you sitting shoulder-to-shoulder like you always do - or we can try some of those economic sanctions that we're getting rather good at. What's it to be, Tony?"

Bland gagged. "Steady on, Beauregard. I mean…"

"Mr. President to you."

"Right. Er…Mr. President, don't you think you're taking this too seriously? I mean, it's only a painting."

"It's a goddamn symbol, that's what it is. My people tell me that it's you fucking Brits giving me the finger, and I go along with them on that. And if you think that economic sanctions sound tough, you should hear what Donald Runstein has in mind."

On balance, Bland decided that he would rather not know. "OK," he sighed, "I'll forget the whole thing."

"Like hell you will. Like I said, it's a great idea. We just have to change the cast list. Goddamnit, I always fancied myself in one of those, what-do-you-call-'em, tofus."

"You mean togas" Bland said wearily. "It's what the Romans used to wear. Tofu is a sort of bean curd. I think the Japanese eat it."

"Gee you Brits kill me. You know so fucking much. Anyway, there's one other thing."

"What's that?"

"Well, my guys tell me that there's wine on that table and all sorts of foreign food. The Christian lobby ain't going to like that at all. So what you say we drink Coke and eat hamburgers from McDonalds? That way everyone will get the right message."

"Anything else?" Despairingly.

"Nope, that just about does it. When do you want me to come over for the sitting?"

"I'll let you know." The Prime Minister restored the missile to the hands of Mickey Mouse and contemplated the future. A fat tear ran down one cheek.

***************

Mike Jamieson and Henry Cruickshank were driven fast down the M4, only stopping at a service station for the fake sheikhs to shed their robes. Hidden by tinted glass in the back of the Mercedes, they felt safer than they had for days. Jamieson's feeling of relief, however, was tinged with fraught anticipation. As a fervid opponent of chequebook journalism he knew only too well what was about to happen to them. Cruickshank remained in blissful ignorance, and for the moment he let him stay that way.

At length they left the motorway and followed a convoluted route to the south-east, finally stopping outside a nondescript house on the outskirts of Weybridge.

"Home sweet home," said Harry. "At least until the lads have finished with you."

"And then what?" asked Jamieson.

"Then I reckon you can use Uncle Rupert's ill-gotten gains to nip off and hide yourself somewhere far away. In any case, once the whole story's been printed there's not much point in them going after you, is there? You should be safe enough, come Monday morning."

Jamieson hoped he was right. He followed Cruickshank into the house and the fake sheikhs drove away. They were confronted by a large man whose appearance and demeanour shouted "minder" in a loud voice. "Welcome to the Screws of the World," said the man. "Not that you'll be getting much of that for the next few days. My name's Charlie, and this.." he indicated a small nervous woman who had been hidden behind him, "is Ellie. Ellie will be looking after you. She's a good cook, there's plenty of booze in the house, and the beds are clean. What more could you want?"

"And what do you do?" Cruickshank asked.

"I keep the other tabloid bastards at bay." Charlie grinned. "If they got wind that you’re here - not that they will - they'd be round here like fleas on a dog."

"OK," Jamieson said, anxious to get the whole thing over and done with. "When do we start to tell all?" Charlie consulted his watch. "Reporter and photographer should be here in about an hour I reckon. Why don't you get settled in and I'll give you a shout when they arrive. Ellie will show you your rooms; private showers, the lot." He sniffed the air. "And not before time, I reckon."

Jamieson and Cruickshank took their time getting rid of the salt and grime from their maritime adventure. They were feeling slightly more human when Charlie shouted up the stairs to tell them that their interrogators (as Jamieson thought of them) had arrived. They descended to find a pair of attractive young women, one clutching a camera, seated demurely on the sofa. This was not quite what Jamieson had expected.

"This is Jenny," said the elder of the two, indicating the photographer, "and I'm Suzanne Chalmers. Perhaps you've seen my by-line." Jamieson, who was not an avid reader of the News of the World, had not. He made a non-committal noise at the back of his throat.

"And these," she went on, drawing some sheets of paper from her briefcase, "are your contracts." She handed each man a copy. Jamieson began to read. "No need to read the fine print," the reporter said hastily. "You probably wouldn't understand it, anyway. Just sign at the bottom and we'll get to the important part." She reached into the briefcase again and took out two cheques. "Ten thousand pounds each, and just for a few hours of chat."

Jamieson ignored her and continued to wade through the contract. "It says here," he said, pointing a stubby forefinger at an offending paragraph, "that you not only have exclusive rights to our story as it stands, but we must never, ever, talk to another newspaper. That's a gagging clause, and I'm bloody well not going to sign it."

"Standard procedure," Suzanne said soothingly. "We have that in all our contracts. No one takes it very seriously."

"In that case you won't mind if I cross it out." He produced a pen and did so, taking Cruickshank's copy and repeating the procedure. "Now," he continued, "I see that you not only want the UK rights to our story, which is fair enough, but you're also taking the overseas syndication rights, the translation rights, the magazine rights, and the television and film rights, and even the inter-planetary broadcast rights as well. You don't want much, do you?"

"Look, mister clever dick," Suzanne was becoming annoyed. "I know all about you and your bloody ethics organisation. You're playing in the real world now, in case you haven't noticed. You seem to forget that we saved your arses out there. I've only got to make one call..." she waved her mobile at him ..."and the Special Branch will be round here at the run. The SAS too, if all I hear is true. And I'll just be a citizen doing my duty."

Jamieson grunted. She had a point. Grudgingly, he scribbled his name at the foot of the contract and handed it back. Cruickshank did the same. She passed over the cheques. "Now," she said, "we can get down to business."

"Hang on a sec." Jamieson had not finished yet. "Why can't I write this story myself? I'm a professional journalist, and we want to make sure we get the facts straight."

"Because, sweetie, you wouldn't write it the way I will." She smiled.

That, Jamieson reflected glumly, was all too true.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

"I won't do it, and that's final," said Lucien Freud.

"But Lucien, I mean, you promised. You said it was such a great idea. It was a way of portraying me…and my colleagues, of course…in a way that we would be remembered for generations to come. That was what you said, wasn't it?" The Prime Minister, alone in his office, was becoming more agitated by the moment. First his plans for singular immortality had been ruined by that blasted photographer. Then the amended version had been sabotaged by that vainglorious idiot in the White House. And now even the damned painter was turning against him. What had he done to deserve this? "I'll double your fee," he said in desperation.

"You can quadruple the bloody fee for all I care," Freud retorted. "I'm still not going to portray that murdering fraudster as the Son of God, and that's flat. To be perfectly honest, I had my doubts about you in the role, but seeing you had a life peerage in mind and the wife fancies me in ermine I decided to stretch a point." He paused for thought. "I'll paint him as Herod if you like. He's killed more than enough kids to fit the role."

Foolishly, Bland took the bait. "If you're referring to Iraq, Lucien, let me make it perfectly clear that those children had to be killed in order to save them from the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein. If he'd been allowed to keep his Weapons of Mass Destruction…."

"Which you never found," interjected Freud.

Bland ignored the interruption "….he'd no doubt have killed them himself like he did in 1988."

"With weapons supplied by the Americans," Freud said.

"I don't think there's much point in continuing this conversation," Bland said icily. "On reflection, I don't think the President would want to be painted by someone who's clearly so anti-American."

"He's not going to get the bloody chance." The two receivers crashed down as one and the Prime Minister slumped back in his chair, chin on chest. What the hell was he going to tell Beauregard P.? It was ten minutes later and he had still not found the answer when Mickey Mouse erupted. Bland snatched the missile from its cradle on the second "hi ho" and tried to compose himself for what promised to be an awkward conversation.

"Mr. President?"

"Tony, baby, how're they hanging? No, don't tell me, I've seen the picture." The Prime Minister flinched as a protracted Texan laugh assaulted his ear-drums.

"I'm fine, Mr. President."

"Aw, come on, call me Beauregard. We're buddies, ain't we? Shoulder to shoulder and all that crap."

"If you say so, Beauregard." Bland was still smarting from their last conversation.

"I do say so. I do. Hell, what would I do without my loyal British friends whenever I want to punch someone on the nose? Militarily speaking, of course."

Oh God, thought Bland, he wants me to help him invade Syria. Or Iran. Or North Korea. Maybe even some place that could fight back. But offhand he couldn't think of one.

"What are you calling about, George?" he asked cautiously.

"That goddamned painting, of course. What else? Remember you told me it was going to be done by some guy called Fred?"

"Freud."

"Whatever. Well I had this guy checked out by the CIA, and you ain't going to like what they found."

Bland felt his spirits rising. It sounded as though the CIA was going to get him off the hook, which would make a nice change. "What did they find, Beauregard?"

"They found out this guy was a commie. Well, good as. Do you know he actually wrote a letter to that commie paper, The Guardian, criticising our war in Eyrak?"

"I didn't know that, George. Thanks for telling me. I don't read it very often."

"Beats me why you let them publish that rag, Tony. If it was me I'd have that editor tarred and feathered, yes siree. Anyway, you can see why I can't have my picture painted by a guy like that. Hell, he might even make my ears stick out."

"That's great, er, I mean it's a good job you found out. I'll cancel the painting straight away." Bland's voice radiated relief.

"Hey, don't do that Tony. I said it was a great idea, and I meant it. We've just got to find another painter, that's all. Someone we can rely on to do us justice."

"Did you have anyone in mind?"

"I sure do. I had my people take a trawl through the really outstanding artists over there, and they came up with a dame called Tracy Nomen. You know her? They tell me she won some mega prize - the Turner, or something like that."

"I think I know the artist you mean." Bland's blood ran cold. Visions of an unmade bed flashed across his mind. He didn't even know if she could hold a paint brush.

"Can you get her?"

"Well, er, I'm not sure if her style would be quite suitable for something like this."

"Goddamnit, Tony, don't play hard to get with me. I want the best. My people say she's the best. So get her."

Bland sighed. "All right Beauregard, I'll try. But don't blame me if…." He found himself talking to an empty telephone. My God, he thought, the things I do for England.

**************

It began as a small paragraph on the inside page of the Richmond and Twickenham Times. A local resident by the name of Roderick Jones, aged 36, had been reported missing from his home. Mr. Jones, described as "a civil servant", had apparently failed to return from work three days previously. Police, said the story, were anxious to hear from anyone who might know of his whereabouts.

Nothing there to set the pulses racing. Grown men disappear all the time for a host of reasons, most of them marital. Even civil servants. A little unusual that the local paper should choose to give publicity to the disappearance. It was not as though Mr. Jones was a potential murder victim, being neither young nor female. Perhaps the Richmond and Twickenham Times was hard-up for copy that week, or maybe the subs needed a filler par to complete the page make-up. Certainly Mike Jamieson, bored out of his skull as he and Cruickshank waited in the safe house for publication day and their release to God knew where, paid little attention as he scanned the paper. His eyes flicked over the item and then, as a sudden thought struck him, flicked back. Why should the police be interested in the whereabouts of Roderick Jones? It was no crime to go walkabout, and if the police put out an appeal for the whereabouts of every errant husband they would have little time to do anything else. Perhaps the clue lay in the man's occupation. "Civil servant," as Jamieson knew very well, covered a multitude of sins.

The News of the World was delivered to the safe house two days later, at seven o'clock on Sunday morning. Jamieson considered it disgustingly early to be woken up by bad news. He had not expected to like what he was about to read, but given the amount of money being spent he had supposed it would be the front page splash, or at very least the inside lead. Thumbing through with increasing frustration, he eventually located the story of his adventures on page 17, sandwiched between a paedophile conviction and a talking dog. There were fuzzy thumbnail pictures of himself and Cruickshank, plus about 200 words of, in his opinion, crapulous copy. He flung the paper away in disgust.

"They paid £100 a word for that," he groaned. "After all that great copy we gave to that stupid bird, and this is what she does with it."

"Look on the bright side," said Cruickshank, who had picked up the paper from the floor. "At least it doesn't give us a high profile. Speaking for myself, a little anonymity will suit very well just now."

Jamieson snatched the paper back. "Let's see what they did lead on," he said. "Let's see what marvellous exclusive knocked us off the front page."

The headline screamed at them: IS GORDON ON THE FIDDLE? Beneath it, in bold type, Jamieson read: "Secret official documents supplied to the News of the World show that Chancellor Gordon Green has been under investigation by MI5 for the past six months. The reason: the spooks believe he has been cooking the books and pocketing large amounts of your cash. Full story on Page 3."

Jamieson flicked over the page. It hurt him to admit it, but the news editor had got it right. Compared to their own story, this exposé was dynamite to a damp squib. He wondered where the hell they had got it from. Inside, the copy left no doubt that this had been lifted from MI5 files. There was even a reproduction of a letter on Downing St notepaper, in which the investigation was personally authorised by the Prime Minister. Inquiries, said the concluding paragraph (undoubtedly inserted by the libel lawyers) were still on-going. There was as yet no proof that the Chancellor had done anything wrong.

"Jesus," breathed Jamieson, "I'd love to be a fly on the wall in Downing Street right now."

Just then they heard a car draw up outside. Through a crack in the curtains, Jamieson saw that it was the darkened Mercedes. Seconds later, Harry the fake sheikh came bounding through the front door, followed by a short, dark man, carrying a heavy briefcase.

"Move over you two," Harry said cheerfully. "We've got another lodger to keep you company." The small dark man stretched out his hand. "Roderick Jones," he said. "I'm very pleased to meet you."

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

"Of course I can bloody well paint." Tracy Nomen sounded irritated. "And who the hell do you think you are, waking me up at this time of night and asking fucking stupid questions?"

"I'm sorry about the hour. Fact is, I had quite a job finding your number." Think humble, Bland told himself.

"That's because I'm ex-directory. And the reason I'm ex-directory is to avoid being pestered at all hours by bozos like you, wanting to know about my dirty knickers. How did you get the number, anyway?"

"I, er, have friends."

"Well you can tell your bloody friends to forget this number, because I'm going to change it. Not that I suppose it'll do me any good," she added despondently.

"Look, I mean, I'm really sorry about waking you up like this, but it is rather urgent that I find out whether or not you can paint."

"I've told you once, and I'll tell you again," she snapped. "I can paint. Period. As a matter of fact I paint rather well. Only there's no money in painting, so I have to do stupid things like that fucking bed to make a living. Christ knows why anyone would buy something like that, or give the damn thing prizes, but that's the art world for you: silly as arse-holes. Now, are you going to tell me who you are, and why we're having this conversation, or do I hang up right now?"

"I'm Tony Bland," he said in some desperation, "and this concerns the President of the United States."

"And I'm the fucking Queen of Sheba. Goodnight." She slammed the telephone back on its cradle, only to have it ring again before she could get her head on the pillow.

"I'm talking about money," said the same voice in her ear. "Money for painting. Quite a lot of money, actually." Bland homed in on her Achilles' heel with unerring accuracy and hurried on. "I want you to do a painting of myself and the President, plus a few Cabinet members, in the style of Leonardo's Last Supper. Could you do that?"

"Do what? You must be out of your tiny mind. And how do I know you are who you say you are?"

"Would you like me to do my impression of Rory Bremner?"

"Now I know you're pulling my leg. The one thing I do know about our beloved Prime Minister is that he has no fucking sense of humour. None whatever. The man may be a joke, in addition to being a lying conniving shit in cahoots with our American cousins, but he never tells them."

If only I were a dictator, thought Bland, forgetting for the moment that he was, I'd have her flung in the Tower for less than that. He decided on one last ploy. "Tell you what," he said, "why don't I come round and see you?"

"Not on your nelly," she replied inelegantly, swinging her legs out of bed and holding them tightly together as though preparing to defend her honour against all comers, "I've come across types like you before."

Bland doubted this, knowing with certainty that no one like him existed on the face of the earth. He tried again. "You could come to my office," he said. "You know where it is: number 10, Downing Street. Say ten o'clock tomorrow morning?"

"Tomorrow's Sunday."

"It doesn't matter; I'm always on the job. I'll tell the security guard to expect you, shall I? Then we can get this whole thing wrapped up, sign contracts and that sort of thing."

"My God." She was half beginning to believe him. "You really are serious, aren't you. What sort of money are we talking about here?"

Bland named a figure that had her eyebrows shooting through her hairline. "I'll be there," she said.

***************

Sunday morning turned out to be an inopportune moment for Tracy Nomen's visit. Gordon Green had read the Sunday papers; more specifically, he had read the News of the World. Swinging his elbows, puce with rage, he barged through the door connecting No 11 with No 10 and let out a Scottish bellow of Knoxian fury.

"Wha the hell's the fooking Prime Minister then?" he bawled at a passing secretary. She backed away in alarm. "Ne'er ye mind. I'll find the wee cunt mysel." Making directly for Bland's study, he threw open the door without knocking and burst inside. It was not a well-timed entry. Tracey Nomen, with her back to him, was perched on the edge of the Prime Minister's desk, one nylon-clad leg perfectly displayed. She had dressed for the occasion with care, just in case it was not a hoax. Her black leather mini-skirt was topped by a white blouse which, with no underpinning, left little to the imagination. Her knickers, though out of sight, were immaculate.

The Chancellor ignored her. "Wha's this then, Tony?" He brandished the News of the World. "Ye horrible wee man. First ye accuse me of robbing the public purse, and now I find ye fornicating on public property. Have ye no loyalty, no sense of decency, man?"

Bland rose with as much dignity as he could muster. "Let me make it perfectly clear, Gordon," he said. "We are not fornicating, as you so crudely put it. Miss Nomen and I were discussing Art. As for the rest, I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about."

"Och aye, I know ye and yer 'perfectly clears' wee Tony. I did the course, remember, along with the rest of the bloody Cabinet. It's what they taught us to say on the Today programme when you mean exactly the opposite. Are ye denying what it says here - that ye authorised yer damn spooks to poke into my private affairs?"

"Well, I mean, I, er…." Bland suddenly realised that the irate Chancellor had shifted his attention. Miss Nomen had swivelled round on the desk and crossed her legs, revealing a tantalising glimpse of knicker. She smiled seductively. For a moment Green was transfixed, thoughts of anger and revenge blown from his mind by a sudden puff of lust.

"I'll be expecting yer answer when you're less engaged," he muttered, and stumbled from the room before his trousers betrayed him.

Miss Nomen returned her attention to the Prime Minister. "What was he so angry about?" she asked innocently.

"Oh, just some story in the tabloids. Don't worry about Gordon, he gets like that sometimes."

"But he sounded so serious," she persisted. "And what did he mean about 'spooks'?"

"I haven't the slightest idea," Bland lied. A worm of concern was beginning to gnaw at his political gut. It had seemed the logical thing to do, when he first came to office, to have all his colleagues checked out by MI5. Back then, everyone had passed muster. How was he to know that, uninstructed, the damned spooks had kept on looking without telling him. They'd even been poking into his own past, if that damned Welshman he'd fired a few days ago was to be believed. He paused, as an awful thought crossed his mind.

"That damned Welshman!" he said out loud.

"What did you say?"

"Oh, nothing." Bland cracked a smile that was more like a rictus of pain as he sat down again behind his desk. "Let's get on and discuss the picture, shall we? I've got a direct line to the President if you'd like to talk to him about it." He indicated Mickey Mouse.

She regarded the instrument with distaste. "Another day," she said. "I think I've had about all the excitement I can take for one morning."

*************

Back at the safe house, Jamieson regarded Roderick Jones with some awe. "You gave them this?" he asked, indicating the lead story.

"That's right, boyo. Straight from my files that is."

"Then you're from MI5?" To the best of his knowledge, Jamieson had never met a real spy before. Roderick Jones hardly fitted his imagined image, being small, dark, nondescript and, above all, Welsh.

"Was, boyo, was. Fired me they did, so I thought I'd take along a few mementoes like, just to get my own back."

"You mean you've got more stuff like this?"

Jones patted his briefcase. "Indeed yes. Lots of things in here, I can tell you."

"But haven't you signed the Official Secrets Act? I mean, this sort of thing could get you put away for years."

"Have to catch me first. These kind people," he indicated Harry, "have promised to get me out of the country, and there isn't much chance of getting extradited for blowing the whistle on a few dodgy politicians. They tried it on David Shayler, and he'd never have gone to jail if he hadn't been an idiot and come back."

"If you don't mind me asking, how much are the News of the World paying you for this story?" asked Jamieson.

"I'm not doing it for money. That wouldn't be right. Just for the satisfaction, see. Just for the pleasure of getting my own back. Mind you, they are getting me out of the country and looking after me for a while until I can get on my feet, so I suppose you might call that payment."

Jamieson was incredulous. "And what about all this other stuff? Are you giving that away as well?"

"I hadn't really thought about it. Maybe I'll hang on to a few things, just for insurance like."

"You need an agent," Jamieson said firmly. "Now I know a man….

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

"Right, Gordon, what have you got to tell me about this story in the News of the World?" Bland had decided that the best method of defence was attack. "What have you done with this £500 million that they say you've embezzled?"

"They got their facts wrong," Green grumbled. "Typical of that Murdoch rag. Do ye really think I'd bother wi' a measly five hundred million?"

"Jesus, you mean there's more?"

Green looked smug. "About five billion I'd say. Give or take a million or so,"

"But this is awful." Bland was aghast. "I mean, y'know, this could bring down the government. I'll have to have your resignation, Gordon. Right now."

"Why?"

"Why? Why the hell do you think? You can't go around embezzling all that money from the taxpayers and still be Chancellor of the Exchequer. The media would never stand for it. And you'll have to pay it back, of course."

"Who said I embezzled anything?"

"You just admitted it!"

"I did not."

"Did!"

"Did not!"

"Did, Did, Did!"

The two men faced each other like angry schoolboys in a playground dispute. Bland was the first to crack. "All right, Gordon, explain."

"It's your bluidy ministers," the Chancellor said. "Those numbskulls you put in the Cabinet. All they can think to do is spend, spend, spend. Spend on health, spend on education, spend on the police, spend on the environment. If you give them a million, they want two. If you give them a billion it's still not enough. They seem to think the Treasury is made of money."

"But we promised the people that we'd spend on these things," Bland protested. "And you raised their taxes to pay for it."

Green waved away the point as irrelevant. "Prudence," he said. "Have ye never heard of prudence?" Actually Bland had. Quite often. Green pressed on. "Something had to be done, and ah had to do it. So ah started deducting money frae their budgets. Just a million here and a million there at first. Nobody noticed, so ah've stepped it up a bit recently. Now ah've got quite a tidy sum tucked away - AND NOBODY CAN TOUCH IT!" He smiled in self-congratulation.

"Gordon, tell me now: what have you done with the money?"

"Och, dinna fash y'sel." Anger and good humour seemed to bring out the Scots in Green in equal measure. "It's safely tucked away in one of those numbered Swiss bank accounts. Ah'm the only one who knows the number, so it's safe as houses."

"Jesus fucking Christ," Bland exploded. "No wonder teachers are being sacked and the crisis in the health service isn't getting any better. You've got all the money tucked away in your bloody sporran."

"Ye canna make a haggis wi'out breaking eggs," Green replied complacently.

"You mean an omelette," Bland corrected. "You don't have eggs in a haggis."

"And what wud a Sassenach know about such things?"

"Oh, forget it. The point is that you've got all this cash tucked away that we ought to be spending on our promises. And if things don't improve we're going to lose the next election. Why don't you just give it back like a good boy? Angus can put out a statement saying there was an accounting error or something, and we can forget the whole thing."

"Prudence," said Gordon Green.

"Fuck Prudence!" Bland clenched his fists, took one look at the size of his opponent and had second thoughts. He unclenched them again. "Are you or are you not going to give me the number of that account?"

"Ah am not. You'd only spend it."

"Of course I'd bloody spend it. That's what taxpayers' money is for - to spend on the things the taxpayer wants so that they'll think we're good guys and vote for us again next time round. This is about your job and my job; nothing else. It's about power, Gordon; getting it and keeping it. Didn't you ever learn anything about politics?"

The Chancellor shifted his considerable bulk from foot to foot, peering down at his shoes in some perplexity, realising that one was brown and one was black. "Ah must have got them mixed up," he mumbled.

"That's not the only thing you've got mixed up," Bland said, capitalising on his momentary advantage. "You've totally mixed up your priorities. If we lose the next election it doesn't matter how many bawbees you've got tucked away. They won't do us a blind bit of good if someone else gets to spend them. Like the Tories, for instance."

"Ye dinna think ah wus going to let those bastards get anywhere near the account, Did ye?"

"So what are you going to do with it?"

"Ah'm keeping it for a rainy day."

"Gordon," Bland said patiently, as though addressing the educationally challenged, "it may have escaped your notice but it's bloody pouring out there. The back-benchers are revolting, the public think we're all lying crooks, the unions are refusing to fund the party, and the economy is going down the tubes. Oh yes, and the tubes aren't running, thanks to your bloody PFI scheme. What do you need before you unlock that money? Noah's flood?"

"Ah have to be prudent," Green said stubbornly. "Which, if ye don't mind my saying so, is a damned sight more than ye've been."

"What do you mean."

"Ye know bluidy well what ah mean. Putting MI5 on my back, and then leaking the results to your friend Rupert Murdoch."

"Gordon, Gordon, let me be perfectly clear. I mean, y'know, you're not the only one. When we first came to office I had Special Branch do a check on everyone in the Cabinet, because I didn't want to risk the sort of sleaze scandals that John Major had."

"Did'nae do a very good job, did they?" growled Green. "Remember Ron Davies?"

Bland winced. "We can't control everything that happens on Clapham Common," he said. "Anyway, the thing is that I want to make it absolutely clear that I was in no way responsible for the leak. I know who did it: a rogue MI5 officer called Roderick Jones. There's a warrant out for his arrest on charges under the Act."

Green paused for thought. "If this man knew aboot ma little savings account," he said, "do ye think he has any other little surprises up his sleeve?"

Bland paled. "Christ, I hope not."

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Mike Jamieson had crossed the line. He was aware of the fact, and it bothered him. For ten years he had inveighed against the sleazier side of the journalistic profession, and now he had become a part of it. The picture of Tony Bland in his bare-arsed embarrassment had undeniably interested the public; the cheque in the mail from Max Stafford was proof positive. But had it been in the public interest? Somehow Jamieson doubted it, and it gnawed at his conscience.

For all its worthy intent, his PressWatch charity had been in dire financial straits from the outset. Those who supported its aim of making the media responsible to the public, and they were many, were either too poor to make a contribution or so dependent upon their public image that they dare not offend those who made them famous. PressWatch had therefore been forced to exist on donations from charitable trusts and trade unions, but both were becoming harder and harder to obtain. He and his minuscule underpaid staff were forced to spend too much time fund-raising and too little doing what they set out to do. It was a constant battle for survival. To be a perpetual Don Quixote fighting the mighty windmills of the media was all very well, but it did little to pay the mortgage.

But now he was rich, at least by his own standards. Even after splitting the proceeds with Cruickshank and deducting Stafford's commission, he reckoned there should be at least £200,000 coming his way. So why was he unhappy? Why did his conscience trouble him so? The old motto advising "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" was all very well, but it sat in his stomach like a bad oyster.

The solution, when it came to him, was less a blinding light on the road to Damascus than the sublime easement of a satisfactory bowel motion. He would tell Max Stafford to make the cheques payable to PressWatch. The charity would survive, his salary would still be paid (OK, he might give himself a small raise), and there would be great satisfaction in the fact that, unwittingly, the media would be paying to sustain the burr beneath its saddle.

Before he could change his mind, Jamieson picked up the telephone and called Stafford.

"You're crazy," was the instant response. "Are you telling me that you want to give all this loot to that half-arsed charity of yours?" Max Stafford had never been a fan of PressWatch and its ridiculous, though fortunately ineffective, campaign for journalistic virtue.

"I am."

"Well, it's your money. Sure you don't want to change your mind?"

"I'm sure," Jamieson said. "And I've got something else you might be interested in."

"Don't tell me. Your mate Cruickshank has been snatching pictures of Anne Widdecomb in the altogether."

"Nothing like that." Jamieson winced at the thought. "You saw the lead in the News of the World ?"

" 'Course I did. That bloke's for the high jump if they catch up with him."

"He's with me now, and he's got a lot more where that came from. You interested?"

"I wouldn't touch it with a fucking disinfected barge-pole." Stafford was not about to mince his words. "That story must have come from MI5 or Special Branch files, which means that it has to be an inside job. That bloke's name and picture are going to be all over the media by tomorrow, and once they catch up with him he won't see daylight for ten years."

"But he's got files on the whole Cabinet and half the Opposition front bench. Dynamite stuff," said Jamieson, who hadn't actually seen them. Across the room, hunched on the settee with his briefcase clutched in his lap, Roderick Jones was nodding nervous agreement.

"Not for me," Stafford said firmly. "I've got a nice little business here, thank you very much, and I don't need to be charged with being an accessory after the fact of stealing official secrets. If you want to do it yourself, be my guest and I'll look forward to reading it. But leave me out of this one."

Jamieson hung up and turned to Roderick Jones. "Small problem," he said. "Seems you're too hot to handle, even for my friend Max. "Have you really got the goods in that case?"

"Things in here you wouldn't believe, boyo," Jones said. "Been collecting this stuff for years, they have. Just in case, like."

"Just in case of what?"

"Well, you know, just in case some politician decides they don't need MI5 or Special Branch any more. Could happen with one of these civil liberties fanatics, and then a lot of people would lose their cushy jobs. Don't want that to happen, do they?"

"You mean this stuff is for blackmail?"

"Oh no, nasty word that is, boyo. You might say it's a kind of insurance policy, like that chap J. Edgar Hoover had in the States. Kept his job for life, he did, all because of the little secrets he had in his files. That's where they got the idea from."

Jamieson thought for a moment. "But once this stuff got out, they wouldn't be able to use it for blackmail any more, would they?"

"You could put it that way, I suppose."

"So….the people in these files….we'd really be doing them a favour if we published the contents, wouldn't we?" Jamieson had a sneaking feeling that he was stretching logic to its limits at this point, but Roderick Jones was nodding slowly.

"I hadn't thought of it like that," he said. "All I really wanted to do was to scare the pants off those bastards who fired me. But now you come to mention it, I suppose you're right. I mean, no one likes to be blackmailed now, do they?"

"Are you sure all the stuff in those files is true?"

"True?" Jones rose indignantly in defence of his former profession. "Of course it's true, boyo. It's intelligence, that's what it is. How can you get truer than that?

Not wishing to give offence, Jamieson remained silent. Just then Harry appeared in the doorway. "Come on," he said to Jones, "you've got a plane to catch."

As the Welshman rose to his feet, clutching his precious briefcase, Jamieson suddenly saw his chance of a dozen major scoops about to disappear. "Where's he going?" he asked.

"Don't know," said Harry. "Nobody's supposed to know, except the pilot of course." He laughed. "Mind you, we only hope he knows where he's going. Last time he did a job like this for us he was headed for the Costa del Sol and ended up in Naples."

"Can I go along with Roderick?" Jamieson asked hopefully. "We've got some business to discuss and I'd just as soon be out of the country myself."

"Me too," chipped in Cruickshank. They had forgotten he was there.

Harry looked doubtful. "I don't mind," he said. "The paper's paying for the plane and it is a four-seater. But the pilot may worry about the weight." He looked dubiously at Jamieson's bulk. "We'll have to leave the decision up to him."

"I'll take a chance," Jamieson and Cruickshank said with one voice. The three men piled into the Mercedes before Harry could change his mind.

**************

Beauregard P. Shrub, President of the United States, was accustomed to getting his own way. Thus he was not surprised to learn that Bland had persuaded Tracy Nomen to accept the commission. The picture, he thought, would crown a distinguished career. Already he had become the first president in US history to enter office with a criminal record, and the first to have all 50 states of the Union go bankrupt simultaneously. He had attacked and taken over two countries, shattered records for the biggest annual deficit and the largest number of private bankruptcies, and spent more days on vacation than any of his predecessors. He was the world record holder for campaign contributions, had reneged on more international treaties than any of his predecessors, withdrawn from the World Court, and managed to cut both unemployment payments and healthcare benefits for war veterans. There was a good deal more to his c/v, including the record number of convicted criminals appointed to his administration, and the removal of more freedoms and civil liberties from the American people than at any time since the Founding Fathers. But sometimes Beauregard P. had difficulty in remembering it all. In order that no one else should remember either, all records of investigations into his insider trading, his tenure of the governorship of Texas, and his meetings on public energy policy had been firmly sealed away from the public gaze. The small matters of his desertion from the National Guard in time of war, and refusal to take a drug test, were long ago and long forgotten.

"I want Air Force One ready for takeoff in an hour," he told his fawning Chief of Staff.

"Where to, Mr. President?"

"Oh, er, Yurpp."

"Whereabouts in Europe, Mr. President? I think the pilot will need to know."

"Oh, er, what's the name of the place? England. That's it. England."

"Shall I issue a press release on the purpose of your visit?"

"Christ, no. Well, I suppose you'd better tell the bastards something. Just say this is a personal visit to my old friend whatshisname, Bland. That's it. Tony Bland." Pausing to tell the First Lady to look after the dog, the President ambled towards the helipad on the White House lawn and an appointment with immortality.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The aircraft looked terribly small. Jamieson had done a good deal of globe-trotting in the past few years, taking the gospel of journalistic ethics to the benighted heathen, but in his experience aeroplanes had at least two engines, more usually four, with vast wingspans and fuselages that could swallow half a regiment. This one was positively minute, with only one engine and a propeller at the front. Not even a jet, for God's sake.

"Is that thing safe?" he asked no one in particular.

It was the middle of the night. The Mercedes had decanted them on to what looked like nothing more than a large field, with a barn-like structure which he supposed was a hangar in one corner. There was no terminal building, no runway that he could see; only this thing which looked like an overgrown child's toy in the loom of the headlights.

"Where the hell are we?"

"Better you don't know," said Harry, tapping the side of his nose. "This is our little escape hole for people like you. The fewer people know about it, the longer we can use it."

Jamieson could see the sense of this, but was still uneasy. From the other side of the aircraft an overalled figure emerged, clutching a set of headphones. He waved a laconic greeting. "'Evening," he said. "Welcome to Fly-by-Night airlines. I'm your pilot for tonight, name of Jack."

"Jack what?" asked Roderick Jones, his civil service mind clicking into gear.

"Jack whatever you like," replied the pilot. "No names, no pack-drill, as we used to say in the Service. Actually it isn't really Jack either, so as my old mother used to say you can call me whatever you like as long as you don't call me late for dinner." He laughed at his own joke. No one joined in. The cloak and dagger atmosphere was beginning to drag on their nerves.

The pilot looked suspiciously at Jamieson. "How much do you weigh?" he said.

"About fifteen stone."

"Hmm. And you two?" They told him. The pilot did a quick calculation. "We should just about make it off the ground," he said cheerfully. "Trouble is we've got a full load of fuel and the field is a bit short. Still, if I can manage to avoid the trees at the far end I reckon the old kite will get us there. Very reliable, the Cessna 172."

"Where is 'there'?" asked Jamieson.

"Tell you when we get airborne. Now, who wants the honour of sitting up front and being my co-pilot?" No one spoke. "Any of you flown one of these things?" Silence. "Ah well, we'll just have to hope I don't have a heart attack en route. Don't worry, it hasn't happened yet."

Jamieson turned a light shade of green, which deepened in tone when the pilot informed him that, because of his weight, he was elected to the front seat. "Question of balance, lad. Too much weight aft and we're liable to stall the damned thing. Not a good idea."

Jamieson, who could not drive a car, let alone pilot an aircraft, had no idea what a stall was. Nor did he want to find out. He climbed gingerly into the right hand seat, keeping his hands off the wheel, while the pilot fussed with his safety harness. "Just keep your feet off the rudder pedals and your hands in your lap, and we'll get along fine." Jamieson had no desire to do anything else.

While the other two sorted themselves out in the narrow back seat, Jamieson surveyed the control panel. It contained an elaborate array of dials and gauges, none of which meant anything to him. To his relief, however, the pilot began checking them all with quiet confidence before shouting "clear prop" to warn the entirely empty field to stand clear, and starting the engine. The fellow seemed to know what he was doing. The propeller turned over slowly, the engine caught with a bang and a big puff of smoke, and then settled down to a comfortable rumble. The pilot increased the revs slightly and began flicking switches. "Got to check the mags," he said to Jamieson by way of conversation.

"What the fuck is a 'mag'?" Jamieson was tempted to ask. But he stayed silent to conceal his ignorance.

The Cessna bumped slowly down the length of the field until it almost touched the hedge at the far end and turned into the wind.

"Everyone OK?" Without waiting for an answer the pilot firewalled the throttle, released the brakes, and the Cessna lumbered forward at increasing speed. Jamieson shut his eyes, opened them briefly to see a line of trees dead ahead, and shut them again. Suddenly the bumping ceased, the aircraft seemed to come alive, and he realised they were airborne. "Right," said Jack as they cleared the trees by at least six feet, "that's the difficult part. Now you can relax and enjoy it. This is going to take about five hours, so I hope you all had a pee before we left." Now they came to think of it, no one had. "Too late now", said Jack.

The noise inside the cabin made normal conversation impossible. Jack handed Jamieson a pair of headphones and showed him how to operate the intercom. "Want to know where we're going?" he asked. Jamieson grunted an affirmative. His jaw, hands and buttocks were firmly clenched in fear. The ground seemed to be rushing past at astonishing speed as they skimmed over woodlands and dodged around the higher hills.

"Have to fly low to avoid the radar," Jack explained. "Now, this is where we're headed." He jabbed at an incomprehensible chart with a stubby finger. "Little place called Puivert, in the south of France near the Spanish border. Nice little strip, but they only use it for gliders so there won't be anyone around when we nip in just after dawn. I expect someone will come and pick you up. They usually do."

"How do we find our way there in the dark?" Jamieson was remembering the story about this man's navigation skills, or lack of them.

"No problem." The pilot leaned forward and tapped an instrument which showed a changing array of figures. "That's a satellite navigation system. Shows us where we are, where we're going, how fast we're travelling and how long it will take us to get there. It even shows us the nearest airfield to head for if anything goes wrong. Takes all the fun out of it, really."

Jamieson was happy to do without the fun part. He closed his eyes and tried to sleep as they crossed the English coastline and the pilot ducked even lower to almost wave-top height. If this maniac was going to crash he would rather not know anything about it.

************

Beauregard P. was flying rather higher. At 40,000 feet, the loudest sound in the lounge of Air Force One was the clinking of glasses. It was a small party: just the President, a couple of secret service minders, and the man who carried the ubiquitous "football" - just in case Beauregard P. should want to start a nuclear war. All things considered, this was less improbable than it might have been, given the amount of alcohol being consumed and the traces of white powder in the loo. Fortunately the secret servicemen were confining themselves to Pepsi-Cola, the makers of which had won a furious battle with Coke to become sole suppliers of the noxious beverage to Air Force One. It was just Pepsi's luck to have supplied the massive campaign contribution which helped elect a President who never touched the stuff.

"C'mon, show me the codes," said the President. "Promise I won't use them. Scout's honour." He held up two fingers, unfortunately getting them the wrong way round.

The man with the "football", whose name was Wolinski, put down his glass and clutched his precious burden close to his chest. "Shan't. Won't. Don't wanna," he slurred. "'S not a national emergenshy."

"I'm your Commander in Chief." Beauregard P. draped his arm around Wolinkski's shoulders. "You have to do what I tell you to do."

"No I don't."

"Yes, you do!"

"Shan't. Won't"

"Mr. President," one of the secret servicemen intervened, "it's getting kinda late. "Don't you think you ought to take a rest before we get there?"

The President relaxed his grip on Wolinski and the latter subsided into an armchair with relief. He had no idea what was in the briefcase, only that he was under strict instructions from the Joint Chiefs of Staff never, ever, to open it for Beauregard P. under any circumstances whatever. Unlike the bulk of his subjects, the wise heads at the Pentagon had few illusions about the stability and intelligence of their titular Commander. Just to make sure, they had stuffed the "football" with half a ream of blank paper. But no one, and certainly not Wolinski, knew about that.

"Good idea," said Beauregard P., turning towards the lavishly-furnished bedroom compartment. "You fellows stay here and enjoy yourselves. Wake me up when we get to Yurpp." The secret service detail relaxed as the door closed behind him.

"Are the British expecting us?" said the taller of the two, easing the bulge under his left armpit.

"Sure to be."

"I didn't hear the President give any instructions."

"Doesn't really matter, does it? I mean, we own the damn country."

And so it was, some four hours later, that Air Force One touched down at Heathrow to be greeted by a bevy of Customs officers. And no one else.

The Customs men were polite, but efficient. They had no instructions to treat this as a VIP arrival, and anyone could paint a Boeing 747 in attractive colours. Drug smugglers got up to all sorts of tricks these days. As for the tousled figure in pyjamas who emerged from a cabin to pronounce that he was President of the United States, well, they had heard that one before. A brief but thorough search of the interior revealed a bag of white powder in the toilet. The Customs man whetted his forefinger and transferred a little to his tongue. He smiled.

"I'm afraid you'll have to come along with me, sir," he said to the figure in pyjamas, ignoring the violent protests from the secret servicemen. Then he spotted the bulging jackets. "Get those guns," he said sharply to his companion, "and bring them along too. They're all under arrest."

***************

Throttled back, with flaps fully extended, Jack lowered the nose of the Cessna and began a vertiginous descent into Puivert airstrip. His passengers shut their eyes and held on tight as the aircraft skimmed the crest of the nearest mountain and zoomed down the vine-covered slopes, finally to flare out and touch down with the merest bump before rolling to a halt.

"You may congratulate me, gentlemen," Jack said as he opened the throttle again and taxied back towards a small group of hangars. "Right place and right on time, courtesy of Fly by Night airlines. We hope you had a pleasant trip, and look forward to serving you again the next time you need to flee the law." He gave a mock salute. The place was deserted, save for a battered little Renault van, which had once been yellow but had long ago given up the fight. Jack pointed towards it. "That'll be your transport," he said. "You can always rely on Raymond to be here on time. His wife runs the gîte where you'll be staying."

"What's a gîte?" asked Roderick Jones.

"Sort of bed-and-breakfast," said Jamieson, proud of his superior knowledge.

A squat figure emerged from the van and shambled towards them, pulling off a filthy pair of work gloves and extending a hand in greeting. "Bonjour, messieurs," he said, and followed the greeting with a stream of words only vaguely recognisable as the French language, while gesturing towards the van. Formal handshakes were exchanged all round, the Englishmen, observing the driver's growth of stubble, felt thankful that a kiss on the cheek did not seem to be required.

"I think he's saying that he wasn't expecting three of you and hopes he's got room for you all," translated the pilot. "Mind you, it's a bit difficult to tell with old Raymond. He speaks a sort of local dialect. You'll soon get used to it. I'd better be on my way before this place wakes up; I need to find somewhere to pick up some fuel." He climbed back into the cockpit, restarted the engine, and taxied away. Quite suddenly, the three men felt a long way from home.

They clambered into the van, Jamieson managing to grab the sole passenger seat, leaving the other two hunched uncomfortably on the bare metal floor at the back. They wrinkled their noses. The van had been used for something other than fugitives in the recent past; possibly goats. Raymond, grinning broadly, kept up a stream of conversation as they lurched away up a mountain road. He seemed not to expect a reply, which was just as well because they understood not a word. The drive seemed endless, and Jones and Cruickshank clung on desperately as Raymond hurled the Renault through a succession of hairpin bends. They were in no state to appreciate the scenic views which opened up at every corner. At length, after a long descent, they passed a sign reading "Rouvenac" and the road was flanked by a short stretch of ancient houses, most in need of urgent repair.

Raymond stopped the van and led them up a narrow path under a trellis burdened with ripening grapes. "Chez moi," he said proudly, indicating a rose-framed portico and a house in rather better shape than its neighbours. "Marie-Rose," he called. The door was opened by a short, bustling woman, who "bonjoured" them in turn before proffering the obligatory handshakes. Jamieson began to think that if he spent too long in this country his hand would fall off at the wrist. Marie-Rose led them inside and they found themselves in a plain but spotless kitchen-cum-living room. For future reference, Jamieson made a note of the computer and fax machine in one corner.

Wine appeared as though by magic. Jamieson glanced at his watch and saw that it was eight o'clock in the morning. This was clearly a country of civilised habits. "You would prefer coffee?" Marie-Rose said anxiously, seeing their hesitation. Her English was halting, but infinitely better than their French. They would; but even as they drank the brew and wolfed down croissants and baguettes, their eyelids began to droop. It had been a long, hard journey. Marie-Rose saw them swiftly to their rooms and they slept the sleep of the lucky which, as is well known, is sounder than that of the just.

It was mid-afternoon when Jamieson woke. He was sharing a room with Roderick Jones, and his bleary eyes focussed first on the latter's briefcase, tucked half under the bed. What secrets did it hold? Cautiously he slid his bare legs from under the duvet, sat up, and reached forward to grab the handle and slide the case carefully towards him.

"And what do you think you're doing, boyo?" Jamieson jumped a mile. "That's Her Majesty's property, that is. Top secret. Not for the likes of you to go poking about in."

"But you stole it, you Welsh git," Jamieson retorted when he had got his breath back. "You stole it and you flogged that story on Gordon Green to the Screws of the World. How secret does that make it?"

"Granted you might have a point there, boyo," said Roderick Jones. "And granted I gave one of the stories to the media - not flogged, mind you, gave - that was what you might call in the public interest. Now the rest of the stuff in here"…he patted the briefcase…"might well interest the public, but that's a different matter."

"But you agreed," Jamieson objected. "You agreed that we should get it all out in the open so that MI5 couldn't use it for blackmail."

"Did I now? Well, perhaps I did, but now I've slept on it like it doesn't seem fair, really, does it, letting all those little secrets out of the bag?" Jamieson could cheerfully have strangled him.

"Come on," he said, keeping his temper in check, "you can't change your mind now. Henry and I have come all this way, putting ourselves in grave danger,"… there was no harm in a little exaggeration…"just to help you get this stuff into the open. We've got the contacts; you've got the material. What's the problem?"

"Conscience, I suppose boyo. Just conscience. They trusted me, see; trusted me to look after all this material, and now I've betrayed them. Betrayed my country, I suppose." Roderick Jones was becoming positively lachrymose.

"Bollocks," said Jamieson. "They don't give a stuff for you, and you know it. Look at the way they fired you, just for doing your job. Why should you owe them any loyalty? As for that 'my country' crap, that went out with Kitchener. Are they going to sling Gordon Green in jail for what you exposed? Or any of the other bastards you've got locked up in that briefcase? Are they hell. But you, my friend, are going straight to chokey if they catch up with you, so you might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb."

There was a knock on the door and Henry Cruickshank's face appeared in the opening. "Am I interrupting something?"

"Not really," Jamieson said bitterly. "Our friend Mr. Roderick fucking Jones, upright pillar of the Civil Service, has decided that his conscience won't allow us to see inside that briefcase. Which means that you and I might just as well have stayed at home."

"Oh dear," said Cruickshank. It was a masterpiece of understatement. "What do we do now?"

"As I see it we've got two choices. We can find the nearest airport and go home, leaving this silly bugger to stew in his own juice, which I'm not inclined to do. Or we can beat the living shit out of him until he hands over the briefcase." Jamieson, clad only in his underpants, lowered threateningly over the cowering Welshman who was hunched against the headboard, clutching the briefcase to his stomach.

"You wouldn't…"

"I fucking would." He cocked a menacing fist.

"Oh dear," said Cruickshank nervously. He was beginning to realise that freelance journalism might involve more than getting exciting scoops by accident and reeling in the money. "Don't you think we ought to discuss this in a civilised way?"

"Look you," said Roderick Jones, eyeing Jamieson nervously, "I don't think our friend understands 'civilised.' Man of action he is, you might say. Perhaps…" he perceptibly loosened his grip on the briefcase…"perhaps I could say I acted under duress, like."

"Why don't you do that?" Jamieson reached out for the prize. "You just say we forced you into it, we won't argue, and perhaps the powers-that-be will let you off with a slap on the wrist. Perhaps. Anyway, it's worth a try. Now come on, hand it over."

Jones produced a small key from beneath his pillow, unlocked the briefcase, and handed it across. Jamieson and Cruickshank fell on it like wolves, dividing the contents and scanning them avidly.

"Bloody hell," Jamieson said at length, his tone filled with awe, "is this really kosher?"

"Verbatim telephone surveillance of every leading politician in the UK for the past ten years," Roderick Jones said proudly. "Interesting, isn't it?"

"Interesting? It has to be bloody illegal. Aren't there supposed to be rules about bugging members of the House of Commons?"

"Rules?" Roderick Jones' tone was dismissive. "This is MI5. What do we care about rules? National security this is. We can do what we bloody well like."

**********

Charlotte answered the bedside telephone, sitting bolt upright and tidying her hair with her free hand as she recognised the voice on the other end of the line. "Beauregard," she cooed, "how nice of you to call. And how's…….." Her voice trailed away. She never could remember the First Lady's name.

"She's fine." The President's voice was curt. "Is Tony there?"

"Er…yes, he's here." She swivelled to see the sleep-sodden figure beside her stir into life. "Do you want to speak to him?"

"Of course I want to speak to the motherfucker. Begging your pardon ma'am. Do you think I'd be calling at this hour in the god-damned morning if I didn't want to speak to him? And for Christ's sake hurry up; the police have only given me five minutes to use this 'phone."

"The police? Oh dear. Exactly where are you, Beauregard?"

There was a muttered conversation at the other end of the line. "I'm at Paddington Green police station. That's in London, right?"

"But what on earth…." The receiver was abruptly wrenched from her grasp. "Beauregard! What's happening? Why didn't you tell me you were coming over?" Bland held the receiver away from his ear as a stream of Texan expletives erupted from it. "Must be a mistake.." he stammered when the enraged President paused for breath. "I mean, you know, surely they must have recognised you?"

"These clowns wouldn't recognise a fuck in a brothel. What I want to know is, when are you going to get me out of here?"

"What exactly are they charging you with, Beauregard ?" The expletives resumed, interspersed with phrases that he recognised. "I see….possession of Class A drugs, impersonating a Head of State, illegal possession of firearms, contravening the Immigration Act, assaulting a police officer…anything else?" Bland began to feel a slow thrill of triumph spread through his veins. At last, after years of humiliation by this oaf, he had the upper hand. "I don't think you need me, Beauregard ," he said firmly. "I think you need a lawyer. It so happens I have one right beside me." He handed the receiver back to his wife. "You have a client," he said.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

"He might have given us more notice," Charlotte grumbled as she struggled into the appropriate legal garb, applied her make-up, and fussed with those female details essential before emerging into daylight. "Why does the damned man have to get himself arrested at such a ridiculous hour in the morning?" Her husband did nothing to hurry the process. Let the silly bastard stew in his own juice for a while, he thought.

It was more than an hour before her taxi finally pulled up outside Paddington Green police station; ample time for the Fleet Street Fusiliers to assemble in their droves outside the building. No one knew who had given the tip-off to the press and television, though the man from the Sun insisted that his call had come direct from Downing Street. Such a thing, of course, was quite ridiculous. Charlotte pushed her way through the crowd, ignoring the microphones and questions shouted in her face, and made her way inside. The desk sergeant, though he may have had trouble identifying the President of the United States, recognised her instantly and almost genuflected.

"I believe you have Beauregard P. Shrub in custody," she said curtly. "I wish to see him immediately."

"Yes ma'am. Certainly ma'am. Mind you, that's who he says he is, but frankly we don't believe him." She was ushered into an interview room where, after a few minutes, a very angry President was brought in none too gently by two large constables, one sporting a black eye, and placed in a chair before her. "Cheer up, Beauregard ," she said brightly. "We don't have the death penalty over here. Now then, why don't you tell me all about it?" She produced a legal pad from her document case and began taking notes.

Verbal coherence had never been the President's strong point. Now, after the stress and indignities of the past few hours, his syntax was reduced to a mangled garble of words in which "Limey motherfuckers" figured prominently.

"Calm down, Beauregard ," she said when the flood abated for a moment. "Let's take these charges in order. As to 'impersonating the President', I think we can get that struck off right away. After all, you may have stolen the election, but you are who you are and I doubt if they can prove otherwise. This drugs charge is a bit more serious; did you have cocaine on board that aircraft?"

"Never touch the stuff," he mumbled. "Bastard cops must have planted it."

"Beauregard , Beauregard , I'm your lawyer, remember. If you don't tell me the truth I can't help you. By the way, does your nose always run like that?"

"Well," the words came reluctantly, "maybe I did have a small snort on the way over. But what the hell, everybody does it."

"I don't," she said primly, "and we do take these things rather seriously over here. First offence, if I remember rightly - it is your first offence, isn't it? - carries a sentence of about two years."

"They can't do that to me. I'm the President of the goddamned Yewnited States."

"Oh, but they can." Charlotte was rather enjoying herself. "I thought you believed in law and order? I seem to remember you saying so quite often. Anyway, it's my job to see they don't. Maybe we can get you off with probation, or community service. Just leave it to me. Now then, what about this charge of carrying a firearm?"

"Second Amendment," he said firmly. "Every citizen has the right to bear arms. The Constitution says so, and so does the National Rifle Association."

"I hate to tell you this, Beauregard , but we don't have a Constitution, let alone a Second Amendment. Or a first, either, come to that. So we don't have freedom of speech, we don't have the right to bear arms, and we're not citizens - we're subjects of the Queen, and you've just broken a few of Her laws."

"I thought you were on my side, goddamnit."

"I am, Beauregard , I am, but I wouldn't be doing my job properly if I didn't point out what a serious spot you've put yourself in."

"I want to see the U.S. Ambassador," he said sullenly.

"In good time, Beauregard . In good time. Now, did you hit that policeman?"

"He hit me first."

"Hmm," she made a note on her legal pad. "I seem to have heard that one somewhere before, Beauregard , but we'll see what we can do with it. I have to tell you, though, that English magistrates do tend to believe the police version of events. Regrettable, but there you are."

"ARE YOU GOING TO GET ME OUT OF HERE?"

"Don't shout, Beauregard , please." The President had risen from his chair, his pose threatening. "You'll be going in front of the magistrate in an hour or so, you'll plead not guilty to everything, we'll apply for bail, and then you'll be a free man. Well, more or less."

"Whatdya mean, 'more or less?' "

"Well, they'll have to hold on to your passport, of course, just to make sure you don't leave the country before the trial…"

"Jesus H. fucking Christ, don't you guys realise that I'm the Leader of the Free World? You can't keep me stuck on this frigging little island. Hell, I might want to invade somewhere or something."

"I'm sure the free world will get along quite nicely without an invasion for the next few weeks. Anyway, it'll give you more time to pose for that picture that Tony and you are so keen on."

Beauregard P. had quite forgotten about the picture. Now he was reminded of it he wished he had never fallen for the crazy idea in the first place.

There was a knock on the door, followed by the head of the policeman with the black eye. "Sarge wants to know if either of you would like a cup of tea."

"How very kind of him. Milk and no sugar for me, please. How about you, Beauregard?"

"You can keep your goddamn Limey tea."

"Now, now, Beauregard , that's not very polite." She smiled at the constable. "You'll have to excuse the President, he's had a hard time."

"Not nearly as hard a time as he'll have if I get him on his own," muttered the policeman, and departed on his errand of mercy, returning moments later with a thick china mug. She sipped, stifled a grimace, and switched on the smile usually reserved for television cameras. "You were quite right, Beauregard," she said when the man had departed. "It's absolutely foul. Now then, let's talk strategy, shall we?"

"I thought you had it all worked out."

"Not the court appearance; that's easy. After all, they can hardly deny you bail. You're the President, and I'm not only a Q.C. but also the wife of the Prime Minister. I can't see any humble magistrate ruling against my application, can you? No, I mean the public relations angle. You do realise, don't you, that half the British press is waiting outside to see you come out of this place?"

"Hey, that's great. I love to talk to the press."

Slowly, Charlotte was beginning to realise that all they said about Beauregard P. was true, although his intelligence was possibly over-rated by his critics. "I was thinking," she said, "that you might like to leave by a back entrance and avoid them. I can get Tony to lay on a car with tinted windows."

"Nah, the people love me. I'll just go out there and tell them how great their English justice system is, and how proud I am to be over here working with one of your great English artists, and how much I appreciate my friend Tony lending me his very own sweet wife to help me out of this little local difficulty….."

"They're going to ask you some tough questions, Beauregard," she warned.

"The guys back home never ask me any tough questions. Bunch of pussycats."

"You're not at home now, Beauregard . These pussycats have teeth and claws, I can assure you." She winced at uncomfortable personal memories. "Anyway, we'll work something out. First we've got to deal with the formalities." She rose and blew him a kiss. "See you in court, Beauregard."

*************

Unaware that they had just been upstaged by the biggest story to hit the British press since the sinking of the Titanic, the Rouvenac conspirators were plotting strategy. The various peccadilloes revealed by the MI5 wiretaps were carefully sorted in order of seriousness and the prominence of those under surveillance. There was a brief argument on the relative merits of sexual misconduct as opposed to political chicanery, with Jamieson and Cruickshank arguing in favour of the former, and Roderick Jones insisting that exposure of the latter was more clearly in (or against) the public interest.

"The public don't give a fuck about politics," Jamieson said firmly. "It's sex that sells newspapers, and sex that will make us lots of lolly." There was little more to be said. Sex won the day.

Having been assured by Marie-Rose that there was a photocopying machine available in the nearby town of Esperaza, plus a hole-in-the-wall cash point which would supply them with Euros, the trio set about the next part of their plan. "This is what we do," Jamieson said. "We'll copy this stuff, then black out all the names, fax them over to Fleet Street and invite bids for the full uncensored versions. It'll be a sort of auction - highest bidder gets the story. Only trouble is that my contacts list is back on the office computer. I'll have to ring Diane and ask her to look up the numbers."

"No need." Cruickshank brought out his battered contacts book which contained the name, telephone and fax number of every national news editor and picture desk; not that he had ever had cause to call many of them.

Marie-Rose, blissfully unaware of the nefarious purpose to which her home was about to be put, readily agreed to use of her fax machine (for a small consideration in cash), and Raymond volunteered to drive them into Esperaza. Brimming with excitement, the three men clambered into the Renault van and set off on the first stage of their quest to sabotage the British Establishment.

CHAPTER TWENTY

The press bench at Paddington Green magistrates court, normally manned by one trainee agency reporter, if at all, was crammed to bursting. More hacks crowded into the public gallery, balancing notebooks on their knees, while the object of their attention was led up into the dock from the cells below. Charlotte, dressed in a severe black suit, but minus her wig and gown since this was a lower court, gave him an encouraging smile. The President did not return it. He was not, to be honest, looking his best. His clothes were rumpled, and there was a suspicion of a mouse under one eye which she was sure had not been there an hour previously. Police brutality, she thought. The Home Secretary shall hear about this.

The magistrate entered, and Beauregard P. was jerked to his feet by the two policemen who had dumped him in a plain wooden chair only moments before. He stood bemused, his arms hanging at his sides in the simian posture so loved by cartoonists. The magistrate, a woman of severe mien and uncertain years, stared at him curiously as though she had seen him somewhere before. She glanced down at the charge sheet before her and her face registered a slow smile.

"Oh Christ," muttered Charlotte beneath her breath. She recognised the magistrate as a former Labour MP who had lost her seat at the last election after being de-selected as a Party candidate on Tony's instructions. He had considered her too left-wing, and had become increasingly irritated at her insistence that he pay some regard to the promises in the 1997 Manifesto. Charlotte braced herself for the worst.

In a steady voice, the defendant gave his name as Beauregard Phinias Shrub, his address as the White House, Washington DC, and his occupation as President of the United States. Someone at the back of the court tittered, and was frowned into silence by the magistrate. The charges were read out sonorously by the clerk of the court:

"Beauregard Phinias Shrub, it is alleged that on the 23rd of September last, at Hounslow in the county of Middlesex, contrary to the peace of our sovereign lady Queen Elizabeth the Second, you did cause the importation of a Class A drug, namely five grams of cocaine. How do you plead: guilty or not guilty?"

"It was only five lousy grams," Beauregard P. burst out before Charlotte could stop him. She jumped to her feet. "I represent the defendant, your honour. The plea is not guilty."

The magistrate looked down from over her spectacles. "Ah, Ms Bland. Or is it Ms Booth? I can never remember. Welcome to my humble court. Perhaps you should have a word with your client. He seems to have a different view of his plea."

"Not guilty, your honour. Definitely not guilty."

"Very well, the clerk will proceed with the indictment."

"It is further alleged," said the clerk, adjusting his wig with an unsteady hand, "that on the same occasion you were found in possession of a firearm, namely a Smith and Wesson automatic pistol, contrary to the Firearms Act of 1991. How do you plead?"

Charlotte jumped to her feet to forestall any attempt by the President to plead the Second Amendment. "Not guilty, your honour," she said.

"Proceed."

"You are further charged with assault occasioning grievous bodily harm to the person of Police Constable Trevor Barnes, resisting arrest and obstructing him in the course of his duty. How do you plead?"

"Not guilty," said Charlotte. "At this stage, your honour, I would like to make an application for bail. The defendant is a well-known public figure of blameless character…"

"That's a matter of opinion," came an audible mutter from the back of the court. Charlotte turned to glare at the offender. "Of blameless character," she continued, "who, as I am sure the court will appreciate, has very heavy duties and responsibilities. He is willing to put up a surety of any reasonable amount that the court might require."

"Hmm." The magistrate looked down her nose and turned to a senior police officer in the well of the court. "Do the police have any objection to bail being granted, Chief Inspector?"

"Yes ma'am, we do."

"I think you'd better get in the witness box."

The Chief Inspector removed his braided cap, took the oath, and consulted a small notebook. "These are very serious offences," he said. "The assault on my officer was particularly vicious, and we take a very stern view of the carriage of firearms on aircraft. Even though the aircraft concerned has been impounded by Customs under the 2001 Act because drugs were found on board, we feel there is a serious risk that the defendant might abscond if bail were granted." He tucked the notebook back in his pocket.

"I'll give you my decision in a few minutes." The magistrate rose and beckoned to the clerk, and they disappeared through a door at the back of the court. Everyone got up, and then sat down again.

"What the hell was all that about?" hissed Beauregard P. "I thought you said there was going to be no trouble." Charlotte approached the dock and whispered in his ear. "Don't worry, Beauregard, they're just going through the motions. That bitch wouldn't dare remand you in custody."

"Remand me in custody? Does that mean what I think it means?" He was beginning to look worried.

"Probably, but don't worry about it. Trust me, it's not going to happen."

"Did I hear that goon say that they've impounded Air Force One under some cockamamie Act you've got over here? They can't do that, can they?"

"Well yes, Beauregard, they can. In fact I think you've got the same law over there if I remember rightly. Don't your Customs people auction off any planes or boats they find smuggling drugs?"

"That's different, goddamnit."

"Well, never mind, I expect Tony can sort it out for you. If the worst comes to the worst your government could buy it back. Gordon can always do with a bit more money."

A red-faced President was summoning up a suitable retort when the door at the back of the court opened. "All rise," intoned the bailiff. They rose.

"Be seated," said the magistrate. "No, not you." She fixed Beauregard P. with a basilisk glare. "I am advised that these offences carry a sentence in excess of what this court can impose. I am therefore remanding you to the next session of Middlesex Assizes, which will take place two months from this day." She looked down at Charlotte and smiled serenely. "The application for bail is refused," she said. "The defendant will be remanded in custody, and I am ordering a psychiatric report. Take him down."

Charlotte's mouth dropped open like a stranded halibut. She dimly heard an inchoate roar behind her as Beauregard P. was seized none too gently and hustled down the steps to the cells, and the press stampeded out in a brandish of mobile phones to file their copy. The magistrate paused as she turned to leave the court.

"So nice to see you again," she said, smiling. Revenge, she decided, was sweet indeed.

*************

Everyone agreed it was a hell of a story. Headlines splashed across front pages throughout the world, for apart from the unfortunate Milosovich, no Head of State since Napoleon had suffered the indignity of being consigned to a foreign prison. Editorials ranged from the Washington Times - demanding an instant invasion of the United Kingdom - to a sly comment from Iran that the Great Satan was getting his comeuppance at last. In France, President Chirac made a television appearance in which he could scarcely conceal his glee. It was watched with some despondency on French television by Jamieson, Cruickshank and Jones, who had no difficulty in getting the gist of what had happened.

"We're screwed," said Jamieson emphatically. "This thing is going to blast everything else off the front pages for the next two weeks. No news editor is going to want to look at our stuff until this one blows over."

"It'll keep." Cruickshank was philosophic. "After all, no one knows we've got the documents, and at least they'll be too busy to worry about our Welsh friend for a while. As I see it, we just have to keep our heads down for a week or two, then carry on with the plan when the time is right."

"So what do we do in the meantime?" Jamieson asked. "Sit on our arses in the sunny South of France?"

"I can think of worse ways to spend the time, boyo," said Roderick Jones. Come to think of it, so could they all.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

"What the hell was all that crap about a psychiatric report," demanded Beauregard P. when Charlotte was ushered into his cell and the door had clanged to behind her. "Is that motherfucking bitch of a judge…"

"Magistrate," she corrected.

"What's the fucking difference? Is that damned woman trying to say I'm crazy?"

"Well, not exactly, Beauregard." Charlotte was trying to choose her words with care. "I think she's trying to help you, really. She wants to find out if there might be some medical reason for doing such a stupid thing."

"Did you say stupid?"

"Well, it was a little silly to hit that policeman, wasn't it?"

"I am not STUPID!" A red flush had begun to envelop the President's face, beginning at his ears and spreading by degrees to his neckline. It was like watching a lobster dropped into boiling water. She backed away in alarm.

"Nobody said you were, Beauregard. I mean, most people would think that what you did was entirely in character." She had a vague feeling that she had got that slightly wrong. "What I mean to say is, that when faced with a crisis you acted decisively and in the true American spirit." There, that was better; his colour was beginning to recede. She hurried on.

"The important thing now is to plan your defence. You've got three charges against you: the drugs, the gun, and the assault on a policeman. Let's take the cocaine charge first. Tell me Beauregard, have you been suffering from toothache lately?"

"Nope"

"You're sure about that? I mean, cocaine is very good for tooth pain. Dentists use it all the time." His face took on a sly expression.

"I can see why you're a famous lawyer, Charlotte. Sure, now I come to think of it, I was suffering dreadful toothache on the way over."

"Good. That should dispose of that one. Now, the gun. Do you have any reason to think your life might be in danger? Have you had any assassination threats lately?" The President grew thoughtful.

"There's Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden," he said. "They're both out to get me before I get them. Not that there's much fear of that," he added despondently.

"Think again, Beauregard. Those two are hardly likely to be on Air Force One, are they?"

"Shit, they might be flying the damn thing for all I know. Say, that's an idea. How about I say there was a CIA warning about a plot to get me on the way over? That bunch are always coming up with cockamamie ideas."

"It might work, I suppose." Charlotte looked dubious. "We'll give it a try, anyway. That leaves the policeman's black eye. How do you explain that?"

"He hit me first?"

She shook her head. "It won't do, Beauregard. In this country it doesn't matter if the police beat you black and blue, kick you in the balls and drag you down the street by your hair; you're still not allowed to hit them back. Anyway, the judge wouldn't believe you. They never do."

"He ran into a door?"

"Come on, you can do better than that."

"I've got it," he said. "It wasn't me who hit that copper, it was one of my bodyguards, protecting me because that was his job."

"Can you get one of them to say that in court?"

"Sure can. That is, provided he wants to keep his job." He grinned.

"Right, I think that wraps it up. I'll get working on those angles and prepare the case for trial. I'm afraid they're sending you to Brixton on remand, and it's not one of our more comfortable prisons, but I'll try to get you a cell to yourself. I'll tell them you're homophobic. You are homophobic, aren't you, Beauregard ?"

"I sure am. Whatever the hell that is."

*************

In the situation room at the White House, confusion was total. The legal position appeared clear enough: under the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, if the President was unable to fulfil his duties, the Vice President should take over. Which left Dick Shiney in the saddle, since the President was going to find it hard to fulfil his duties from a cell in Her Majesty's Prison, Brixton. Once he returned, the Amendment laid down that he must inform the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House, in writing, that he was fit to resume his duties, and the status quo would be restored. All very simple, except….Did they really want him back? It was a tricky question. True, Shiney and his associates had been in de facto charge of the White House since Day One of the administration, but it had been comfortable to hide behind the cloak of the Shrub presidency. To be held responsible for what they were doing to the country was an unsettling thought. But then again, Beauregard P. had been showing dangerous signs of wanting to do his own thing just lately. Alienating the Jewish lobby by charging off to Israel to ask for a slightly fairer deal for the Palestinians had put their political fund-raising in severe jeopardy. The man was an idiot. Maybe it would be best if the Brits kept him in chokey for the remainder of his term.

But against all that there was the question of national pride. If the media were a reflection of the public mood, then Americans to the last man and woman were grossly insulted by the fact that their President was being treated as a common criminal by a foreign power. If you could call the British a power in this day and age. Arch criminality was one thing; they could forgive and forget the massacre of innocent civilians overseas, and even the stealing of elections. It was the "common" bit that hurt. So what was to be done?

They could go to war. Historically, wars had been fought on more slender pretexts. But modern wars needed to be fought by coalitions to achieve respectability, and that role had usually been filled by the United Kingdom. There was, it was felt, little chance that the Brits could be persuaded to co-operate in the invasion of their own country, though given the supine stance of the Bland government one could never be absolutely sure.

"We could try the U.N.", the Secretary of State said tentatively. "It's always better to try the diplomatic route first."

Donald Runstein rounded on him. "Are you out of your fucking mind? By the time that bunch of assholes get round to making a decision, poor old Beauregard will have served his full term in that crummy jail. Anyway, the Brits have got a veto on the Security Council, and the French will back them up out of pure spite. They hate us even more than they hate the English."

"We could rescue him," Shiney suggested. "We could raid the prison with Special Forces and bring him out by chopper. I saw it done in a movie on HBO the other night and it worked out just fine."

Runstein snorted. "Where's your sense of history, Dick? Remember Carter and that fiasco in Iran when they tried to rescue the embassy hostages? Cost the silly bastard the election. OK, so we did manage to get that woman POW out of Iraq, but that was only because we paid the Iraqis to pull out in advance so that no one would get hurt, and the media could have a clear run. We got some good PR out of that, even though the silly bitch is now saying it never really happened. I wouldn't count on the Brits rolling over. They'll have that place crawling with the SAS, and frankly I don't fancy our guys' chances against that murderous bunch."

"So what do we do?" Shiney asked helplessly. He looked around a silent room, with everyone avoiding eye contact. Finally Condoleeza Pasta, who had spent most of the meeting polishing her nails, spoke up.

"I have an idea," she said.

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