“Get away from me,” I shouted through the cloth. “You’re fucking mad.”
“Mad?” he cried with mock astonishment. “Mad? Yes, I suppose I am mad. But Anthony, Anthony, you’ve seen nothing here to shock the firmer sensibility. Can you imagine the effect of my burning bath on a living body?” He laughed maniacally. “Yes, think of that. How else do you think Jones and Rutherford disappeared in Moscow without trace? Do you suppose that, all by themselves, the Russians would have been so daring with British subjects? Oh, you should have been with me in the main office of our Party Legation in Moscow. I led them in, claiming I needed help with the wording of a manifesto. I was so deferential—that class enemy I’ve just cleansed from the world had nothing on my manner then! Jones was in up to his waist before he realised what was happening. He splashed about and screamed a little. But he was dead almost before he knew he was suffering.
“It was Rutherford who was forced slowly and knowingly into the bath of pain. You should have seen the clothing dissolve from his body. You should have heard his squeals and then bellows of pain. You should have heard his desperate and prolonged attempts to negotiate. Even as his stomach burst, he was offering me sole leadership of the Party.”
Foot broke off for another long coughing attack. Now Macmillan took charge.
“Get everyone upstairs,” he snapped at the men as he walked past me to the door.
I drained the brandy glass in two gulps and reached for my cigarettes. The butler leaned forward to light it for me, then straightened again.
“Will that be all, Sir?” he asked.
“Yes, Bellamy, that will be all,” Macmillan said, reaching for the decanter. “Thank you for waiting up. It is much appreciated.”
“Am I to understand, Sir,” the butler asked again, “that young Edward will not be rejoining us?” I looked at the man. Was this some elaborate game? If so, was it for my benefit or theirs? Hard to say. Macmillan shook his head sadly and sipped at his brandy.
“Tell the other servants that young Edward has left us,” he said. “It was not what I should have wished, and I am sure he will be missed below stairs as much as above. But he will not be rejoining us.” The butler nodded. He went over to the fire and put on another log. He looked about the room and straightened a rug that I’d kicked aside as I was brought into the room. He walked slowly over to the door and closed it behind him. I was now alone with Macmillan in his study.
“Look, Anthony,” he said, “I know that our relationship has not developed as I might have wished it. But I would urge you with all passion to put aside any conceptions you may have formed of me since our last conversation. Indeed, I’d even ask for some indulgence of dear Michael. I’ll not deny that, since his break with the Labour Party, he’s fallen into a set of rather unpleasant people. But he was a most distinguished President of the Oxford Union. And all those lost elections to Parliament—why, they’d sour anyone of his background.”
“Young Edward will not be rejoining us,” I said in a mocking impersonation of his own voice. “Is that how you write off one of your bum boys? ‘Young Edward will not be rejoining us’? Is that how you write off all your servants when Foot takes it into his mind to strangle one?”
“Dear me, Anthony, of course not,” came the smiled answer. “’Bum boys’, as you well know, can be picked up for 7s.6d a go. A proper servant is much harder to find—especially in these modern days of prosperity.
“By the way, dear boy, I heard most of your speech to those Labour chappies. Would you care for a safe seat at the next election? I’ll need all the eloquent young men I can find once I’m in Downing Street.
“That assumes, I hardly need clarify, that I don’t let Michael murder you first.”
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
I rubbed my uncuffed wrists. I’ll not say the cellar horrors had faded. But the return to an outward semblance of normality had steadied my nerves and allowed me to do a little thinking. I pushed my glass across the desk and waited for Macmillan to refill it. I dropped my cigarette end into the ashtray his butler had provided, and lit another. I looked over at Macmillan and smiled.
“Let’s not argue about the details, Harold,” I said with what I hoped was bright insolence. “We can simply agree that every word you said to me last night was a lie. You do know that I heard everything you and Foot discussed in this room when I was supposed to be in bed.” He raised his eyebrows. I twisted round and pointed up at the cracked panelling just below the ceiling. He pursed his lips and nodded wisely. “So why don’t you tell me what you’re really up to—and what my Churchill Memorandum does to advance it?” I took another mouthful of brandy, and then a more delicate sip. It’s surprising how calm a man can feel when he knows he probably can’t escape death in one form or another in the next few days. Even the most cowardly murderers, I’m told, walk to the gallows with a firm tread. I was resigned to death. And, if I can’t say exactly how I felt, Krellburger’s end had filled me with a righteous anger that still flattened any native tendency towards gibbering terror.
“I did say to you last night,” Macmillan began, “that it can be hard to summarise whole volumes into a few words. This is really hard when the volumes are real and the words need to be true. But I’ll do my best by starting with a little background.” He lit his pipe and watched contentedly as its smoke rose in a slow and aromatic column.
“There is an apparently pleasing symmetry about the balance of world power,” he said. “Since 1917, the country everyone has most wanted to check has been Soviet Russia. This is effectively checked in the West by Germany and in the East by Japan. The Germans and the Japanese have better, though smaller, armed forces. What might be Germany’s decisive advantage in the atom bomb is effectively nullified by the terror they share with us of the effects of ever using it. Germany and Japan have a formal alliance against Russia, though they are separated by half the world.
“Each relies on our vague support in its own sphere of resistance. At the same time, while each relies on our vague support, each has its own disputes with us. The Germans would like us to get out of their way in the Middle East. The Japanese would dearly love to set hands on the Dutch colonies.
“This system, as it has evolved, is inherently unstable. It relies on the fact that Halifax will not make any commitments that might allow a repeat of the crisis that got us into the Great War—and on the continuation in power of some ageing and very cautious men in Berlin and Tokyo, and in Russia itself. As required, Halifax will even give the occasional support to Russia.
“We ride the system as a man does a bicycle. Though, in relative terms, we are far weaker than in the golden days of Queen Victoria, we remain the hegemonic power, and, so long as we do not push our luck, can usually get our way against any one other power. Of course, any two of the other powers would sink us in no time if they dared combine against us. But they won’t, because we give them no reason, and because they fear the support we could bribe out of the one other uncommitted power. If it was first envisioned by Chamberlain, the system has been perfected by Halifax, and he is openly pleased with himself that it has lasted so long as it has.”
“And, all considered,” I broke in, “it’s surely the best anyone could have wished for. But I suppose you want another big war.”
“No, Anthony,” he replied, “I don’t want a big war. I just think that one may ultimately be necessary. But look at your phrasing—‘all considered’, ‘the best anyone could have wished for’! This is the language that has guided our foreign policy since the War. It’s always a matter of ‘safety first’, or ‘appeasement’, or ‘muddling through to the other side of the storm’. There is no imagination here—no long term vision for our race and our civilisation.