House of Cards

HOUSE OF CARDS

Michael Dobbs has spent many years at the most senior levels of British politics, advising Mrs Thatcher, Cecil Parkinson and many other leading politicians. He worked as a journalist in the United States throughout the Watergate crisis, and after returning to London in
1975
played major roles in the general elections of
1979
and
1983,
and was Chief of Staff at Conservative Party headquarters during the
1987
elections. He has a doctorate in defence studies. He is currently Deputy Chairman of Saatchi & Saatchi and lives in London with his wife and young son.

'Pace and readability
...
a well-written and well-
constructed political thril
ler. Let's hope it is the firstof many
Sunday Times

The exciting ne
w thriller that has Westminster
buzzing
...
here is a p
olitical-thriller writer with a
marvellous inside track knowledge of government.
House
of
Cards
is fa
st-moving, revelatory and bril
liant. '
Daily Express

'Watergate set in Westminster
...
House
of
Cards
must not be allowed to fall into the hands of impressionable Tory backbenchers.'
Daily Telegraph

'Whipping up a storm
...
the thinking man's Jeffrey
Archer.'
Today

'Michael Dobbs' first n
ovel makes an appalling tale of
skulduggery at
Westminster into a tremendously
exciting affair
...
h
e weaves his story convincingly
with pace and style
’
Newsline

HOUSE
OF
CARDS

FONTANA
’
Collins

MICHAEL
DOBBS

First published in Great Britain by William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd 1989

A continental edition first issued in Fontana Paperbacks 1989

This edition first issued 1990

Copyright © Michael Dobbs 1989

Printed and bound in Great Britain by William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd, Glasgow

CONDITIONS OF SALE

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

Part One

THE SHUFFLE

THURSDAY 10
th
JUNE

It seemed scarcely a moment since she had closed her eyes, yet already the morning sun was waking her as it crept around the curtain and began to shine on her pillow. She turned over irritably, resenting the unwanted intrusion. The past few weeks had been hard, with days of poorly digested snacks washed down by nights of too little sleep, and her body ached from being stretched too tightly between her editor's deadlines.

She pulled the duvet more closely around her, for even in the glare of the early summer sun she felt a chill. It had been like that ever since she had left Yorkshire almost a year before. She had hoped she could leave the pain behind her but it cast a long, cold shadow which seemed to follow her everywhere, particularly into her bed. She shivered, and buried her face in the lumpy pillow.

She tried to be philosophical. After all, she no longer had any emotional distractions to delay or divert her, just the challenge of discovering whether she really did have what it took to become the best political correspondent in a
fiercely masculine world But it was bloody difficult to be philosophical when your feet were freezing.

Still, she reflected, sex as a single girl had proved to be excellent basic training for politics - the constant danger of being seduced by a smile or a whispered confidence, the unending protestations of loyalty and devotion which covered, just for a while, the bravado, the exaggeration, the tiny deceits which grew and left behind only reproach and eventually bitterness.

And in th
e last few weeks she had heard more outrageous and empty promises
t
han at any time since - well, since Yorkshire. The painful memories came flooding
back and the chill in her bed closed unbearably around her.

With a sigh Mattie Storin threw back the duvet and clambered out of bed.

As the first suggestion of dusk settled across the June skies, four sets of HMI mercury oxide lamps clicked on with a dull thud, illuminating the entire building with 10,000 watts of high intensity power. The brilliant beams of light pierced deep behind the mock Georgian facade, seeking ou
t and attacking those inside. A
curtain fluttered at a third floor window as someone took a quick glance at the scene outside before retreating quickly.

The moth also saw the lamps. It was resting in a crevice in the mortar of the building, waiting for the approaching dusk. As the shafts of light began to pierce through its drowsiness, the moth began to tingle with excitement.

The lamps glowed deep and inviting, like nothing it had ever known. It stretched its wings as the light began to warm the early evening air, sending a tremor throughout its entire body. The moth was drawn as if by a magnet and, as it approached, the glow of the lamps became more intense and hypnotic. The moth had never felt like this before. The light was as brilliant as the sun yet much, much more approachable.

Its wings strained still harder in the early evening air, forcing its body along the golden river of light. It was a source of unimaginable power which seemed to be dragging the willing moth ever deep
er into its grasp. Nearer and
nearer it flew - until, with one final triumphant thrust, it was there!

There was a bright flash and crackle as the moth's body hit the lens a millisecond before its wings wrapped around the searing glass and vaporised. A charred and blackened carcass fell back from the lamp towards the ground. The night had gained the first of its victims.

A police sergeant cursed as she tripped over one of the heavy cables. The electrician looked the other way. After all, where the hell was he supposed to hide the miles of wiring which now ran around the square. The graceful Wren church of St John peered down darkly in disapproval. You could almost feel it wanting to shake itself free of the growing crowds of technicians and watchers who now clung tenaciously around its footings. The ancient steeple clock h
ad long since stopped at twelve,
as if the church was willing time to stand still and trying to hold back the encroachment and pressures of the modern age. But like looting heathens they swarmed over and around it more vigorously with every passing minute.

Above the church's four soaring limestone towers, the dusk was slowly spreading red streaks through the skies ove
r Westminster. Yet the day was f
ar from over, and it would be many hours before the normal gentility of Smith Square crept back over the piles of discarded rubbish and empty bottles.

The few local residents who had remained in the square throughout the devastation of the campaign gave up a silent prayer to St John and his Creator that at last it was almost over. Thank God elections only happen every three or four years.

High above the square, in a portable cabin perched temporarily on the flat roof of party headquarters, the Special
Branch detectives in their election base were taking advantage of the relative lull while the senior politicians were out of London making one last effort in their constituencies. A poker school was in full session in one comer, but the detective inspector had declined to join in. He had better ways of losing his money. All afternoon he had been thinking of the WPC who worked on traffic control at Scotland Yard, all starched efficiency on duty and unrestrained passion off. He hadn't seen his wife since the start of the campaign nearly a month before, but he hadn't seen the WPC either. Now his first free weekend beckoned, and he would have to choose between the open pleasures of his mistress and the increasing suspicions of his wife. He knew that his wife would not believe him if he told her he was on protection duty again this weekend, and he had spent all afternoon trying to decide whether he cared.

He cursed silently to himself as he listened once more to the raised voices inside him, tearing him in different directions as they argued between themselves. It was no damned good; the decisiveness which he had displayed to all of his police promotion boards had simply deserted him. He would have to do what he always did in such situations - let the cards decide.

Ignoring the jibes of the poker school, he took out a pack of cards and slowly began building the base of a house of cards. He had never got above six levels before; if he got up to seven now, he would spend the weekend with the WPC and to hell with the consequences.

He decided to give Fate a helping hand and reinforced the base with a double layer of cards. It was cheating, of course, but wasn't that what it was all about? He lit a cigarette to calm his nerves, but the smoke only got in his eyes, so he decided on a cup of coffee instead. It was a mistake. As the strong dose of caffeine hit his stomach, he felt the little knot give an extra twist of tension and the cards began to tremble in his hand.

Slowly, carefully so as not to disturb the rising construction of cards, he got up from the table and walked to the cabin door, taking in the view as he gulped down the fresh evening air. The roof tops of London were bathed in the red glow of the setting sun, and he imagined himself on some Pacific island, stranded alone with the incandescent WPC and a magical supply of ice cold lager. He felt better now, and with fresh determination returned to the cards.

The cards seemed to rise effortlessly in front of him. He had now reached the sixth level, as high as his card houses had ever gone before, and he started quickly on the seventh level so as not to destroy his rhythm. Two more cards to go - he was nearly there! But as the penultimate card got to within half an inch of the top of the tower, his hand began to shake again. Damn the caffeine!

He cracked his knuckles to relax his fingers, and picked up the card once more. With his left hand clamped firmly around his right wrist for extra support, he guided the card slowly upwards and sighed in relief as he watched it come to rest gently on top of the others. One more to go, but try as hard as he
could he was unable to stop th
e tremble. The tower had become a great phallic symbol, his mind could see nothing but her body, and the harder he tried to control it the more his hand shook. He could no longer feel the card, his fingers had gone numb. He cursed Fate and implored it for just one last favour. He sucked in another lungful of breath, positioned the shaking card a half inch above the tower and, scarcely daring to look, let the card fall. It dropped precisely into its appointed place.

Fate, however, had other ideas. Just as the inspector watched the final card complete his masterpiece, the first cool breeze of evening passed across the top of Smith Square, lightly kissed the tall towers of St John's, and wafted through the door of the cabin which the inspector had left open. It nudged gently into the house of cards, which first trembled, then twisted, and finally crashed to the table top with a roar which cut dead the inspector's inner cry of triumph and echoed inside his head as loudly as if the house had been built of brick and steel.

For several long moments he stared at the ruins of his weekend, trying in desperation to convince himself that he had after all succeeded, if only for an instant, before his house of dreams had crumbled. Perhaps he had, but he knew now he would have to make up his own mind. He felt more miserable than ever.

His private misery and the poker game were cut short by the crackling of the radio in the corner. The Party Chairman was on his way back from visiting the troops at the front line, and soon other senior politicians would be joining him in party headquarters. The work of the long night was about to begin for the Special Branch protection officers. Just time for the inspector's colleagues to lay a few final bets as to which Ministers they would still be protecting next week, and which would by then have been dumped in the great waste bin of history.

The Right Honourable Francis Ewan Urquhart was not enjoying himself. Ministerial office brought many pleasures, but this was not one of them. He was squashed into the corner of a small and stuffy living room pressed hard up against a hideous 1950s standard lamp, which showed every sign of wanting to topple over. Try as he could, he had been unable to escape the devoted attentions of the posse of matrons who doubled as his constituency workers and who now surrounded him, chattering proudly about their canvass returns and pinched shoes. He wondered why they bothered. This was suburban Surrey, where Range Rovers stood in the driveways and only got mud on their tyres when being driven carelessly over the lawns late on a Friday night. They didn't count votes here, they weighed them.