Urquhart cleared his throat. 'I hate to interrupt my Right Honourable Friend – I was rather enjoying his contribution – but all this talk about morality, and bishops. So muddled and misleading. You know, Mr Speaker, I find it extraordinary that those who spend so much time warning about the dire consequences of wrong-doing in the afterlife are often so silent about it in this life. Turn the other cheek, they suggest.' He sighed. 'But if that's the self-appointed role adopted by the bishops, that cannot be the role for Government – at least not my Government. Our job is not to forgive those who have done wrong. Our job is to protect those who haven't.'
If Makepeace had thrown down the gauntlet of morality, Urquhart seemed intent on retrieving it and using it as an offensive weapon.
'Don't misunderstand me, I have a high regard for the contribution made to the success of my Government by the Right Honourable Gentleman while he was a member of it…' He offered a slow smile soaked in derision. 'Although I don't recall sitting round the Cabinet table hearing him expound on how we were making such a mess of things. Not until I sacked him. But loss of office can have such a distorting effect on a man's perspective and memory.' The gauntlet struck again. Slap!
'I don't doubt the sincerity of his personal values, but I do find them odd. Odd when he says we must do this or that, simply because the bishops say so. Even more extraordinary that we should follow this or that course of action because the rest of Europe says so. Where's the morality in that? In secondhand opinions which follow the herd like dogs follow a dust cart?' Slap.
'Morality is about deciding for yourself what's right. Then doing something about it. Let me have around me men of action, not moralizers with empty words. I've nothing but scorn for those' – Urquhart's eyes lashed in the direction of his former colleague – 'who sit back and carp at the efforts of others. Who descend from their high moral vantage points after the battle is over and tell the wounded and dying how they got it wrong…'
Makepeace tried not to flinch, but inside he hurt. Claire's taunt still echoed in his ears – sitting on the sidelines, she'd accused – and now this. They were out to humble him, together. He looked around him as the blows rained down. Those he regarded as supporters were shifting uncomfortably in their places while Annita's expression urged him on – do something! He rose to his feet, asking for the floor.
'No, no,' Urquhart slapped him down. 'I've heard enough theology from him to last me a good long while.'
Makepeace held his ground, demanding to be heard, his clenched hand raised – it still gripped Urquhart's letter – while Urquhart loyalists were jeering, shouting at him to resume his place. Slap, slap, slap! Makepeace stood alone, defying the blows, but was he simply to stand there – doing nothing, as Urquhart had taunted – allowing himself to be gouged and mauled? Annita's eyes brimmed with sorrow as his own brimmed with the injustice of it all.
'Since he lost office,' Urquhart was saying, 'his attitude has become so critical, so negative, so personally embittered and destructive that I sometimes wonder what he's doing in the same great party as me.'
SLAP!
So there it was. The public challenge. He had no choice but to respond. All around him those with whom he had discussed and conspired were examining him, wondering whether he was up to the duel. Makepeace against Urquhart. He knew that if he ducked the challenge at this moment it would be all but impossible to persuade some of the conspirators to join with him at a later time. Yet it was too soon, too early, he wasn't fully prepared. Don't be too impatient, emotional, Annita had warned… but even eagles must fly with the wind. And if he played the politician then he had also been born a man, and that man was hurting inside, his cheeks smarting, his thoughts misted by a dark and deepening fury which demanded satisfaction.
Satisfaction. For the humiliations delivered publicly on the floor of the House. Satisfaction for the insults delivered more privately in the letter in his hand. Satisfaction for denying Maria and her father. And for stealing away Claire. Satisfaction for it all. Now!
From his position on the benches three rows up, Makepeace stepped sideways into the gangway. Was he running away? The prospect brought the House to instant and observant silence. He stepped down towards the floor of the great Chamber, to the red lines drawn on the carpet which separated Government side from opponents by the measure of two swords, the boundary between friend and unremitting foe. Then he stepped across. Not a heart beat anywhere, not a sound to be heard, a Chamber so packed with emotion yet as though frozen. They watched as Makepeace mounted the steps through the benches of Opposition, one, two, three rows, and took a vacant seat.
The House exhaled with a single breath as life returned and tumult was restored. They had witnessed a slice of parliamentary life so rare it would fill their chronicles and be retold to grandchildren around the fire. Makepeace had crossed the floor, abandoned his party, torn up the rule book and declared war on Urquhart, to the last breath.
Yet as he looked across the Chamber to the benches from which he had fought for so many years, Makepeace thought he saw the shadow of a faint, fugitive smile cross Francis Urquhart's lips. The eye of an inhospitable Levantine sun stared down upon the Cypriot capital, baking the narrow streets of the central city like bricks in a kiln. Hugh Martin was relieved to reach the air-conditioned sanctuary of the Power House, a former electricity generating station which had been turned with considerable imagination into one of the old quarter's most exclusive restaurants. Works of fine contemporary art competed with menus and wine lists for the attention of the well-heeled clientele, one of whom, Dino Nicolaides, was editor of the Cyprus Weekly and intent on conducting an in-depth interview with his guest. For that purpose he had commandeered the seclusion of the table by the door which led to the rear courtyard.
Martin apologized to the editor for the presence of Drage – the atmosphere in Nicosia in recent days had soured like uncollected rubbish, and demonstrations of one sort or another had become a daily occurrence, with the demonstrators becoming increasingly confused about whether the target of their protest was the Turks, the British or the Cypriot Government itself.
'Summer madness,' the editor agreed, and Drage was deposited on a stool by the bar.
If the furniture and decor were fashionable, the hospitality was in best Cypriot tradition and Martin was soon relaxed. Drage, however, could afford no such luxury, having been inducted by his superiors into the Order of Toasted Testicles with crossed pokers after the fiasco outside the museum. 'Never again,' his superiors had admonished. 'Better a widow's pension for your wife than you make a complete ass of yourself on the main evening news.' Never again, Drage had vowed. He sat eagle-eyed on his stool, the innocuous flight bag in which he carried 'the necessary' perched on the bar beside him, fingers tapping nervously upon his knees. He offered a perfunctory smile but no conversation to the two Cypriots who stood beside him at the bar ordering drinks.
The incident, when it arrived, did so with extraordinary speed. Halfway through the meal a guest from a nearby table rose and crossed to greet the editor and diplomat, an action which in itself aroused little suspicion in such a small community. Drage, however, was immediately on his guard, cursing that the bright sunlight which streamed through the window was burning into his retina as he stared, turning all those around the table into silhouettes. He blinked, blinked again, searching the profile of the new arrival for any sign of the unusual. Drage did not notice – could not have noticed in the circumstances – the eyes of the High Commissioner growing large with alarm and searching in his direction. Martin's arms remained motionless on the table, as he had been ordered. It was in the same moment when Drage thought he might have detected the outline of a small barrel protruding from beyond the far side of the intruder that the door immediately behind the table and leading to the courtyard began to open. Fear began to rise through his veins. Drage made a grab for his bag.