'Our leaders over there, the fearless guardians of the nation's welfare. Government is necessarily a secretive business, full of shared confidences, of information which is restricted because its public release would be sensationalized or abused. And every single one of those bastards would leak the lot if it served their purposes. There's not a political editor in town who doesn't know every word of what's gone on within an hour of a Cabinet meeting finishing, nor a general who hasn't leaked a confidential report about the nation's security before doing battle with the Treasury over the defence budget. And you find me the politician who hasn't tried to undermine a rival by starting gossip about his sex life.' His hands flapped in his trouser pockets like the sails of a great ship trying to catch the wind. 'Prime Ministers are the worst,' he snorted contemptuously. 'If they want to rid themselves of a troublesome Minister, they'll assassinate him in the press beforehand with tales of drunkenness or disloyalty. Inside information. It's what makes the world go round. And it's not a matter to our masters of if you use it, but when.' 'Perhaps that's why I never went into politics,' she mused.
He turned towards her, to discover her seemingly engrossed in removing a stray hair from her sweater. When she was sure she had his full attention she stopped toying with him and hid once again inside the folds of her jacket. 'So what is it you are going to suggest I do?'
Once again his tongue rolled distractedly around his mouth, this time in search not of the elusive piece of breakfast but of inspiration and the appropriate words. He sat down beside her on the sofa and the proximity of his shirt-clad bulk squeezed any suggestion of levity from the air. His physical presence was, surprisingly to her fashion-conscious eye, indeed impressive.
'I'm going to suggest you stop being an also-ran, a woman who may strive for years to make it to the top yet never succeed. I'm suggesting a partnership. With me. Your expertise' – they both knew he meant inside information – 'backed by my financial clout. It would be a formidable combination.' 'But what's in it for me?'
'A guarantee of survival. A chance to make a lot of money, to get where you want to go, to the top of the pile. To show your former husband that not only can you survive without him but even succeed. That's what you want, isn't it?' 'And how is all this supposed to happen?'
'We pool our resources. Your information and my money. If there's any action going on in the City I want to be part of it. Get in there ahead of the pack and the potential rewards are huge. You and I split any profit right down the middle.'
She brought her forefinger and thumb together in front of her face. Her nose offered an emphatic bob. 'Excuse me, but if I understand you right, isn't that just the tiniest bit illegal?' He responded with silence and a look of unquenchable boredom.
'And it sounds as if you would be taking all the risk,' she continued.
'Risk is a fact of life. I don't mind taking the risk with a partner I know and trust. I'm sure we could get to trust each other very closely; it would be vital.'
He reached out and brushed the back of her hand; there was no mistaking the glaze of distrust which flashed into her eyes.
'Before you ask, getting you into bed is not an essential part of the deal – no, don't look so damned innocent and offended. You've been flashing your tits at me from the moment you sat down so let us, as you say, cut through it all and get down to basics. Getting you on your back would be a pleasure, but this is business and in my book business comes first. I've no intention of cocking up what could be a first-class deal by letting my brains slip between my legs. You've got a body which I've no doubt you know how and when to use, but I can buy all the beauty and bum I want at very much less of a price than potentially I'm offering you. We're here to screw the competition, not each other. So… what's it to be? Are you interested?'
As if on cue a phone began to warble in a distant part of the room. With a grunt of exasperation he levered himself up, but as he crossed the room to answer the call there was also anticipation; his office had the strictest instruction not to bother him unless… He barked briefly into the phone before returning to his guest, his hands spread wide as though approaching a table laden with fine food.
'Extraordinary. My cup runs over. That was a message from Downing Street. Apparently our new Prime Minister wishes me to call on him as soon as he's back from the Palace, so I'm afraid I must rush off. Wouldn't do to keep him waiting.' His candle-wax face was contorted in what passed for a grin. She would be the focus of his attention for only a few moments longer: another place, another partner beckoned. He was already climbing into his coat. 'So make it a very special day for me. Accept.'
She stretched for her handbag on the sofa but he was there also, his huge labourer's hand completely encasing her own. They were very close and she could feel the heat from his body, smell him, sense the power beneath the bulk which was capable of crushing her instantly if he so chose. But there was no threat in his manner, his touch was surprisingly gentle. For a moment she caught herself feeling disarmed, almost aroused. Her nose twitched.
'You go sort out the nation's balance of payments. I'll think about mine.' 'Think carefully, Sally, and not too long.' 'I'll consult my horoscope. I'll be in touch.'
At that moment the seagull made another screeching attack, hurling insults as it pounded against the window, leaving it dripping with guano. He cursed. 'It's supposed to be a lucky omen,' she laughed lightly.
'Lucky?' he growled as he led her out of the door. 'Tell that to the bloody window cleaner!'
It hadn't been as he had expected. The crowds had been much thinner than in years gone by; indeed, fewer than two dozen people standing outside the Palace gates, skulking tortoise-like beneath umbrellas and plastic raincoats, could scarcely be counted as a crowd at all. Perhaps it was the approach of Christmas and the foul weather which had kept them away. Maybe the great British public simply didn't give a damn anymore who their Prime Minister was.
He sat back in the car, a man of bearing and distinction amidst the leather, his tired smile implying a casual, almost reluctant acceptance of his lot. He had a long face which led from a high and distinguished forehead to thin lips, the skin ageing but still taut beneath the chin, austere like a Roman bust with lank silver-sandy hair carefully combed away from the face. He was dressed in his habitual charcoal-grey suit with two buttons and a brightly coloured, almost foppish silk handkerchief which erupted out of the breast pocket, an affectation he had adopted to distance himself from the Westminster hordes in their banal Christmas-stocking tics and Marks amp; Spencer suits. Every few seconds he would bend low, stretching down behind the seat to suck at the cigarette he kept hidden below the window line, the only outward show of the tension and excitement which bubbled within. He took a deep lungful of nicotine and for a while didn't move, feeling his throat go dry as he waited for his heart to slow, pondering, only the small blue eyes moving sharply, never resting. They seemed perpetually strained, agitated, slightly damp and raw at the rims as if they had spent too long poring late into the night over official papers. The eyes attracted many women, stimulating their protective maternal instincts, while in men they aroused only anxiety. They suggested tension, an impatience, a man quick to ire and slow to forget.
The Right Honourable Francis Ewan Urquhart, MP, since six o'clock the previous evening the leader of his party and within minutes to be asked to accept the leadership of a new government, gave a perfunctory wave to the huddled group of onlookers from the rear seat of his new ministerial Jaguar as it passed into the forecourt of Buckingham Palace. His wife had wanted to lower the window in order for the assorted cameramen lurking nearby to obtain a better view of them both, but discovered that the windows on the official car were more than an inch thick and cemented in place. She had been assured by the driver that nothing less than a direct hit from a mortar with armour-piercing shells would open them.