He selected from his wardrobe his favourite dark blue suit and a white cotton shirt, laying them out across his bed for inspection. He tried several silk ties against the suit; he wanted to wear the one Elizabeth had bought for him from the craft stalls beneath the castle in Edinburgh, a token from her last visit to the Festival, but it was hand-painted, a little florid perhaps. He put out his regimental tie instead. Then, attired in his silk dressing gown, he breakfasted. He was in good humour and of hearty appetite, the crossword was finished before his eggs had boiled.
There had been only two disputes concerning the organization of the rally that day. Superintendent Housego, the police officer responsible for security, would not allow into the square the two mobile kebab vans that had accompanied the march from its very first day. They were like mascots. Makepeace argued, veterans of some great battle who claimed their right to be present at the victory ceremony, but the Superintendent insisted that the congestion around them would be simply too great and potentially dangerous; in large crowds people could become so easily crushed, and in violent crowds such vehicles might become battering rams, barricades or simply bonfires. No. Not worth the risk. Makepeace resolved the problem by inviting Marios and Michaelis, the two owner-drivers, to join him on the small podium that was being erected for his speech between the Landseer lions at the foot of Nelson's Column. 'And next week you can drive all the way up Downing Street,' he joked. It was the first time he had allowed himself even to hint that he would be there to greet them.
The second dispute concerned the numbers themselves; Housego wanted a limit of fifteen thousand but on this issue Makepeace was unable to offer any guarantee. He had no idea how many would be joining in. He did not control the marchers; on the contrary, as he explained to the Superintendent, they controlled him. But in any event the problem would be much reduced, he suggested with only a hint of perceptible irony, since it was customary for the police count at demonstrations to be so much lower than the reckoning of the organizers. Discretion being the better part of promotion, the Super decided to take his cue from Nelson and turn a blind eye. He would put on a couple of extra serials – self-contained police units, twenty-two strong – as a precaution. He saluted and departed content. Others were also busy. St John Ambulance set up a field station in the crypt of St Martin-in-the-Fields, grateful at being able to borrow the facilities of the homeless shelter, while all morning television crews haggled to gain access to windows and rooftops around the square, determined to find the optimum vantage point and paying a handsome 'disturbance fee' in hard cash to office maintenance staff. Even if they numbered only fifteen thousand it would still be the largest election gathering in living memory.
To it all Urquhart appeared oblivious. He nestled in his favourite leather chair, still wrapped in his dressing gown, and read. First from Margaret Thatcher's memoirs, The Downing Street Years. The final pages. Scenes from a great drama. Anger. Heartache. Betrayal. Then Julius Caesar, his favourite play. Another great assassination. Yet how much kinder they were to him than to her, Urquhart reflected, ending great Caesar's misery with a single blow, a final cut. Not lingering. In death to find the acclaim which those jealous and petty men around him would not confer in his lifetime. The way to finish great lives.
And Makepeace marched. All the way down Watling Street, the old Roman thoroughfare which led from Chester to the heart of London. Like the legions of old they tramped, five or six abreast, in a great phalanx which stretched for over two miles and which grew ever longer as the morning progressed and the great column drew nearer the heart of the capital. Two brass bands and a group of Scottish pipers appeared as if from nowhere to add to the carnival atmosphere, and garlands had been placed around the necks of Makepeace and Maria as they passed before a Hindu temple in Edgware. Even the mobile police control van which hovered in constant close attention had been decorated; policemen in shirtsleeves smiled and waved at the children as though competing to rub salt into the still-weeping wounds of their colleagues in Birmingham. The noise of celebration grew so enthusiastic that Makepeace had difficulty in making himself heard to the radio and news reporters who accompanied him all morning, but there were others keen to make up for any deficiency of sound bites. Waiting for Makepeace in Trafalgar Square was a patchwork quilt of pressure groups spread right across the political spectrum, all chewing media microphones and trying to identify themselves with Makepeace. Even Annita Burke was there, arguing that her 'old colleague and friend' represented so many of the values that lay at the heart of what she and her party had traditionally stood for. When asked if tradition excluded the present, she smiled. 'Perhaps the immediate past,' she conceded.
As they proceeded down Piccadilly they passed by what had once been the town house of Lord Palmerston, a great Victorian Foreign Secretary who had become a still greater Prime Minister. Omens all the way; the flags which decorated the route seemed to stiffen in salute. The window of Hatchards was laden with copies of a book Makepeace had penned several years earlier and which until a few hours before had been heavily out of print; he signed several without breaking his pace. Drivers leaned on their horns, people waved from buses, tourists asked for autographs. The March for Peace had turned decisively into a celebration of victory. Yet even Makepeace was astonished as he came out of Pall Mall and into the amphitheatre of great buildings which surrounded Nelson's victory column. He had lingered behind in Hyde Park, allowing the body of the march to move ahead of him. In that great river alone he knew there were some fifteen thousand souls, but what he had not known was that the river was flooding into the still greater sea of those gathered to greet him in the square. As they sighted him, led by a skirl of pipers, they broke into an emotional tide of waving hands and banners which washed back and forth across the basin of the square, growing stronger as it did so in shouts and accents which represented all parts of the country and some parts even beyond its shores. More than forty thousand people were gathered under the unseeing eye of Lord Nelson until Trafalgar Square brimmed and overflowed with their enthusiasm. Makepeace walked through their midst like Moses carving his path through the Red Sea, his hands raised, clenched above his head, and they thundered their approval.
Even behind the thick shatter-proof glass of Downing Street, Urquhart could not mistake the roar, like the cry heard by Christians as they waited in the pit of the Colosseum, armed only with their faith in God. Urquhart had never placed much store in Faith, not if it meant being devoured by lions and the bones being quarrelled over by rats. How much better to believe in oneself, to die a Caesar rather than a humble sinner. There came another clamour as Makepeace mounted the podium. Only then did Urquhart set aside his books and begin to dress. He had forgotten to put out any cufflinks; he chose the pair of nine carat gold engraved with the family monogram that had once belonged to his father. He stood in front of the dressing mirror, checking all aspects of his appearance in the manner of a suitor about to propose marriage. He asked Elizabeth for her opinion. She approved, apart from the tie.
'But what are you planning to do this afternoon, Francis, that you should be dressed up so?'
'Why, I intend to address Tom Makepeace's little rally.' Urquhart was adjusting his tie in the mirror, one ear tuned to the radio and the speech upon which Makepeace had just embarked, the other turned deafly in the direction of Corder. 'Friends. Brothers. My apologies – and sisters!' he heard Makepeace exclaim, before Corder's voice pushed all else aside.