At ten o’clock in the morning he will be back at Scotland Yard. As far as he’s concerned, the only evidence we have consists of the fingerprints on the photographs and a lot of circumstantial evidence. He will also believe that Josh and Don are pressuring the police to allow him to plead to a lesser charge and walk away with a non-custodial sentence. I think we can expect him to be unbearably smug, at least for a while.
My question is this. Do the two of you want to watch that interview from the conference room?”
“I suppose it’s too much to ask for me to be left in the same room alone with him for five minutes?” Don Fisher asked, without any hope of a positive answer.
“The offer is restricted to watching on a video screen, I’m afraid, but if you do want to see him face to face, I have an idea.”
I was torn between staying with Dee and watching Lord Hickstead’s world collapse around him. In the end, both Don and I agreed we would be there.
“Will you be wearing those attractive matching tracksuits?” Boniface asked, barely holding back a guffaw.
We both scowled at him, and bid him farewell.
Chapter 81
No.2 Parliament St. Westminster, London. Sunday, 8pm.
Alan Parsons, Lord Hickstead’s solicitor, sat on the Chesterfield sofa facing the peer, who looked comfortable as he sat in the wing chair sipping brandy.
“Arthur, we have a difficult meeting tomorrow morning, and based on what I have heard, the police are close to arresting you. I appreciate that the safety deposit box is now empty and that your papers have gone. I also understand that whatever the police hoped to find in there is not there, either. But - and this is a big but, Arthur - they still have witnesses who can connect you to the blackmail plot, and blackmail in this country carries a sentence of up to fourteen years.”
“Relax, Alan. They’ll do a deal. They won’t want the publicity, and by the time the politicians put the pressure on...”
“Yes, Arthur. Actually I was coming to that.”
Hickstead thought that this sounded rather ominous, and he was right.
“I did a ring around Friday and yesterday. No success, I’m afraid. The Commissioner wouldn’t speak to me, but had his assistant tell me that he couldn’t interfere in an ongoing investigation. The Home Secretary and Shadow Home Secretary wished you well in establishing your innocence, but they will not take your calls. The two Labour Leadership contenders you asked me to call said that the charges were so serious that they were unwilling to intervene, although one of them did say that if there was any hint of a political element in the prosecution he would try to help.”
“So, basically, they’re all running for the hills, are they?” Hickstead spat bitterly. “I’m on my own after all that I’ve done for them individually and for the Party.”
The lawyer looked down, in order to avoid the look of self-pity in his client’s eyes. For goodness’ sake, he was at least a blackmailer and probably a murderer, and he was behaving like some kind of martyr. ‘Everyone deserves a good defence’, he reminded himself, before imparting the last bit of bad news.
***
The lawyer had gone and Hickstead was pacing around the room. He was livid. Tomorrow he would strike some sort of deal with the police, the hostages would be released, and then he would get his payback.
They would be made to pay for betraying him. The former Prime Minister would be first on his list.
Alan Parsons had been contacted by the leader of the Labour Party in the Lords, who had said that they expected Arthur to resign if he was charged. He then reminded Alan of the changes to the legislation relating to their Lordships, currently being discussed; legislation that the Labour Party had commenced in 2009.
Arthur read the text once more.
The Baroness has today put forward proposals for new rules that include the ability to expel Members of the House of Lords from their duties if they are guilty of an offence, and she has said that in the cases that we know about, she is prepared to bring forward emergency sanctions to deal with those issues.
The underlining had been provided by the Party apparatchiks.
Arthur would get his deal and defy his party. If the whole house wanted to vote to suspend him, so be it, but it wouldn’t be so easy when they heard that he had walked away from Scotland Yard with a Conditional Caution.
Chapter 82
Highbury Clinic, Blackstock Rd, North London. Sunday, 8pm.
A bright young woman from Vastrick Security had delivered some clean clothes and a suit from my flat. She also brought Dee a couple of outfits. That was a little optimistic, as I didn’t think Dee would need them for a while yet. I was also informed that a new door had been fitted to my flat, courtesy of Vastrick, and that it had a seven lever security lock. I took the key for my new front door. The young woman kissed the sleeping Dee’s forehead and took a second to arrange her hair before departing.
Don Fisher had gone home with his tail between his legs after a tongue lashing from the redoubtable Mrs. Fisher. I could tell that she was a rock journalist by her extensive vocabulary of swear words. There was a time in the verbal tirade when she had used up her entire vocabulary of expletives, and she’d had to resort to foreign swear words.
Having heard this through the wall, I was more than a little scared when she came into Dee’s room. I stood up nervously. Maddie Fisher was still a good looking woman, and when she smiled she looked quite stunning.
“You must be Josh,” she said in a matter-of-fact way, taking hold of my chin between her thumb and forefinger, turning my head from side to side as if examining a racehorse. “Mmm. Lavender was right, you are a handsome boy.”
I hadn’t been a boy for close to twenty years, but who was I to argue with such an icon of good taste?
Maddie spoke to a smiling, and awake, Dee for a few minutes, and then said to me in conspiratorial tones, “Josh, if the arrangement Don made with Dee isn’t generous enough, let me know. Don can be a tight bugger if he isn’t watched.”
Dee said she would see Maddie in the morning, and wished her goodnight. Maddie responded in kind and added, “Oh, I almost forgot. Lavender said she wanted my opinion as to whether Josh was a good kisser.”
She walked towards me, put her manicured hand on my cheek, and said, “Just kidding.” I relaxed visibly, and she kissed me anyway.
“Mmm. Not bad,” she said, winking at Dee, who would laugh her stitches out if she wasn’t careful.
I yawned so widely that my jaw almost locked. I kissed Dee, and lay down on the sofa bed that the nurse had made up for me. I lay on my side and looked at Dee as she looked at me. I closed my eyes for a few seconds, and suddenly it was morning.
Chapter 8 3
New Scotland Yard, London. Monday, 10:30am.
The team that had parted on Friday afternoon had now reconvened. Alan Parsons was sitting next to Lord Hickstead, and opposite was Inspector Boniface and DCI Coombes.
We were watching from a room down the corridor via CCTV. When I say we, I mean myself, Don Fisher, Tom Vastrick, the two Detective Sergeants and an interloper, Lavender Fisher.
When I had been waiting for the car to take us to Scotland Yard, Don Fisher joined me on the kerb. A second or two later someone linked my arm, and I looked around to see Lavender linking arms with us both and grinning from ear to ear.
“The doctor said I could go, and Mum thought it was a good idea.”