Mightier Than the Sword (23 page)

*   *   *

Every time the phone rang, Giles assumed it would be a journalist on the other end of the line—
We are in possession of some photographs, Sir Giles, and wondered if you’d care to comment
 …

The phone rang, and he reluctantly picked it up.

“There’s a Mr. Pengelly on the line,” said his secretary.

Pengelly. It had to be Karin’s father. Was he also involved in the setup? “Put him through,” said Giles.

“Good afternoon, Sir Giles. My name is John Pengelly. I’m calling to thank you for your kindness in helping my daughter when you were in East Berlin.” The same gentle West Country burr. “I’ve just read the letter from Karin that you kindly forwarded. It’s the first I’ve had from her in months. I’d almost given up hope.”

Giles didn’t want to tell him why that hope was likely to be short-lived.

“I write to Karin and her mother every week, but I never know how many letters get through. Now you’ve met her, I feel more confident, and will contact the Home Office again.”

“I’ve already spoken to the Home Office department that’s responsible for immigration. However—”

“That’s very kind of you, Sir Giles. My family and I are in your debt, and you’re not even my MP.”

“Can I ask you a personal question, Mr. Pengelly?”

“Yes, of course, Sir Giles.”

“Do you think it’s possible that Karin could be working for the Stasi?”

“No, never. She detests them even more than I do. In fact I keep warning her that her unwillingness to cooperate with the authorities could be the reason they won’t grant her a visa.”

“But they gave her a job as an interpreter at an international conference.”

“Only because they were desperate. Karin wrote in her letter there were over seventy delegates from more than twenty countries, and she felt very lucky that she was allocated to you.”

“Not so lucky, because I have to warn you that the press might have got hold of some photographs showing the two of us together, that at best can be described as unfortunate, and at worst—”

“I can’t believe it,” Mr. Pengelly eventually managed. “Karin is normally so cautious, she never takes risks. What came over her?”

“She is in no way to blame, Mr. Pengelly,” said Giles. “It was entirely my fault, and I must apologize to you personally, because if the press find out you’re Karin’s father, they’ll make your life hell.”

“They did that when I married her mother,” said Pengelly, “and I’ve never regretted it.”

It was Giles’s turn to remain silent, as he thought how to respond. “The truth is quite simple, Mr. Pengelly, and I haven’t even been able to share it with my wife.” He paused again. “I fell in love with your daughter. If I could have avoided it, I most certainly would have and, let me assure you, I am quite willing to go through the same pain you must have endured just to be with her. What makes it worse, I don’t even know how she feels about me.”

“I do,” said Pengelly.

*   *   *

The call came on a Saturday afternoon, just after four o’clock. It quickly became clear that the
Sunday People
had an exclusive, although Giles accepted that by midnight most editors would be resetting their front pages.

“I assume you’ve seen the photographs we have in our possession, minister?”

“Yes, I have.”

“Do you wish to make a statement?”

“No, I do not.”

“Will you be resigning from the government?”

“No comment.”

“How has your wife reacted to the news? We understand she’s gone to stay with her parents in Wales.”

“No comment.”

“Is it true you’re getting divorced?”

Giles slammed down the phone. He couldn’t stop shaking as he looked up the chief whip’s home number.

“Bob, it’s Giles. The story will break in tomorrow’s
Sunday People
.”

“I’m so sorry, Giles. For what it’s worth, you were a damned good minister and will be sorely missed.”

Giles put down the phone, only one word ringing in his ears—
were
. You were a damned good minister. He took a sheet of House of Commons paper from the letter rack in front of him and began to write.

Dear Prime Minister,

It is with great regret …

*   *   *

Giles entered the Privy Council office on Whitehall so he could avoid the scrum of Fleet Street hacks waiting for him in Downing Street, or at least those who didn’t know about the back door entrance to No.10.

One of the memories he would regale his grandchildren with was that as he entered the Cabinet room, Harold Wilson was trying unsuccessfully to relight his briar pipe.

“Giles, good of you to drop in, considering what you must be going through. But believe me, and I speak with some experience in these matters, it will blow over.”

“Possibly, prime minister. But it’s still the end of my career as a serious politician, which is the only job I’ve ever really wanted to do.”

“I’m not sure I agree with you,” said Wilson. “Just think about it for a moment. If you were to hold on to Bristol Docklands at the next election, and I’m still convinced you can, the electorate would have expressed their views in the ballot box, and who am I to disagree with their judgement? And if I’m back in Downing Street, I wouldn’t hesitate to ask you to rejoin the Cabinet.”

“Two ifs, prime minister.”

“You help me with one, Giles, and I’ll see what I can do about the other.”

“But, prime minister, after those headlines…”

“I agree, they were not edifying. It was perhaps unfortunate that you were minister for foreign affairs.” Giles smiled for the first time in days. “But several of the comment pieces,” continued Wilson, “as well as one or two leaders, have pointed out that you were an outstanding minister. The
Telegraph
, of all papers, reminded its readers that you’d won an MC at Tobruk. You somehow survived that dreadful battle, so what makes you think you won’t survive this one?”

“Because I think Gwyneth is going to divorce me, and frankly she has good reason to do so.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Wilson, once again trying to light his pipe. “But I still think you should go down to Bristol and test the waters. Be sure to listen to what Griff Haskins has to say, because when I called him this morning, he left me in no doubt that he still wants you to be the candidate.”

*   *   *

“Many congratulations, major,” said Virginia. “You’ve been single-handedly responsible for bringing Giles Barrington down.”

“But that’s the irony,” said Fisher. “I didn’t. It wasn’t our girl who spent the night with him.”

“I’m not following you.”

“I flew to Berlin just as you instructed, and it wasn’t difficult to locate an escort agency with offices on both sides of the wall. One particular girl came highly recommended. She was paid well, and promised a bonus if she could supply photographs of the two of them in bed.”

“And there she is,” said Virginia, pointing to a selection of that morning’s papers that normally wouldn’t have found their way into the flat in Cadogan Gardens.

“But that’s not her. She rang the following morning and told me that Barrington had relieved her of a bottle of champagne but then slammed the door in her face.”

“So who’s that then?”

“No idea. The agency say they haven’t come across her before, and assume she must work for the Stasi. It had sound and surveillance equipment in all the delegates’ hotel suites during the conference.”

“But why did he reject your girl, then allow himself to be taken in by this one?”

“That I can’t explain,” said Fisher. “All I am sure about is that your ex-husband isn’t necessarily finished.”

“But he resigned this morning. It was the lead story on the morning news.”

“As a minister, yes, but not as a Member of Parliament. And if he were to hold on to his seat at the next election…”

“Then we’ll just have to make sure he doesn’t.”

“How can we do that?”

“I’m so glad you asked that question, major.”

*   *   *

“I’m afraid I’ve been left with no choice but to resign as your Member of Parliament,” said Giles.

“Just because you went to bed with a tart?” said Griff.

“She wasn’t a tart,” Giles replied, as he did to everyone who made that assumption.

“If you resign, we may as well hand the seat to the Tories. The PM won’t thank you for that.”

“But if the polls are to be believed, the Tories are going to win the seat anyway.”

“We’ve defied the polls before,” said Griff. “And the Tories haven’t even selected their candidate yet.”

“Nothing is going to persuade me to change my mind,” said Giles.

“But you’re the only person who can win the seat,” said Griff as the phone on his desk rang. He picked it up. “Whoever it is, tell them to bugger off.”

“It’s the editor of the
Bristol Evening News
,” said his secretary.

“And the same applies to him.”

“But he says he has a piece of news you’ll want to hear immediately. It’s the lead story in tomorrow’s paper.”

“Put him on.” Griff listened for some time before he slammed the phone down. “That’s all I need.”

“So what’s the news that can’t possibly wait?”

“The Tories have announced their candidate.”

“Anyone we know?”

“Major Alex Fisher.”

Giles burst out laughing. “I can’t believe how far you’re prepared to go, Griff, just to make sure I stand.”

20

“Good morning, my name is Giles Barrington, and I’m the Labour candidate for Bristol Docklands at the general election on Thursday June eighteenth. Vote Labour. Vote Barrington on June eighteenth. Good morning, my name is…”

Giles had fought seven elections in the last twenty-five years, and won all seven of them, gradually increasing his majority to 2,166. The last two had resulted in Labour governments, when the Conservatives hadn’t been expected to win Bristol Docklands, and the Liberals knew they couldn’t.

The last time Giles had called for a recount was when his opponent was Major Alex Fisher, and on that occasion Giles had won by just four votes, and only after three recounts. It had been a dirty, personal campaign from beginning to end, with Giles’s ex-wife Lady Virginia entering the fray when she came down to Bristol to support the major, who she described as “an honest and decent man.”

Now, fifteen years later, Giles was facing a rerun against the same opponent, and talk of another divorce. Gwyneth, thank heavens, had made it clear that she would not be filing papers until after the election, and although she had no intention of visiting the constituency, she would not be suggesting that anyone should vote for Fisher.

“Thank the Lord for small mercies” was all Griff Haskins had to say. He didn’t raise the subject again.

When the prime minister asked the Queen to dissolve Parliament on 29 May 1970, Giles returned to Bristol the following day to begin the three-week election campaign. As he took to the streets and started canvassing, he was pleasantly surprised by the welcome he received, and by how few people raised the subject of Berlin, or asked where his wife was. The British are not a judgemental lot, Griff observed, although Giles didn’t admit to his agent that Karin was rarely out of his thoughts. He wrote to her every night, just before going to bed and, like a schoolboy, eagerly checked the post each morning. But there was never an envelope with an East German stamp on it.

Emma, Harry, and Seb, plus the redoubtable Labour Party stalwart Miss Parish, who had taken three weeks off work as she did for every election campaign, regularly accompanied Giles when he was out canvassing. Emma dealt with those women who expressed their doubts about Giles following his resignation from the Cabinet, while Seb concentrated on the eighteen-year-olds, who would be voting for the first time.

But the surprise package was Harry, who proved popular on several levels. There were those constituents who wanted to know how his campaign to have Anatoly Babakov released was coming along, while others wondered what Detective Inspector Warwick would be up to next. Whenever he was asked who he’d be voting for, Harry always replied, “Like all sensible Bristolians, I’ll be voting for my brother-in-law.”

“No, no,” said Griff firmly. “Say Giles Barrington, not your brother-in-law. ‘Brother-in-law’ isn’t on the ballot paper.”

There was a third group who thought Harry was Bristol’s answer to Cary Grant, and told him they would certainly vote for him if he was the candidate.

“I’d rather walk barefoot over hot coals,” Harry would reply, raising his hands in horror.

“Are you jealous, Mum?”

“Certainly not,” said Emma. “Most of them are middle-aged matrons who simply want to mother him.”

“As long as they vote Labour,” said Griff, “I don’t care what they want to do with him.”

*   *   *

“Good morning, my name is Giles Barrington, and I’m the Labour candidate for Bristol Docklands at the general election on Thursday June eighteenth. Vote Labour…”

Every morning began with a “prayer meeting” in Griff’s office, so the agent could bring the candidate and the core campaign workers up to date, before allocating them their daily tasks.

On the first Monday, Griff opened the meeting by breaking one of his golden rules.

“I think you should challenge Fisher to a debate.”

“But you’ve always said in the past that a sitting member should never acknowledge the existence of his opponents because it only gives them a platform to air their views and establish themselves as credible candidates.”

“Fisher is a credible candidate,” said Griff. “He’s got a three percent lead in the polls to prove it, and we desperately need to find some way of eating into his lead.”

“But he’ll use the occasion to launch a personal attack on me and capture cheap headlines in the press.”

“Let’s hope so,” said Griff, “because our private polls show that what happened in Berlin is not a high priority for most voters, and our daily postbag confirms it. The public are far more interested in the NHS, unemployment, pensions, and immigration. In fact, there are more voters complaining about overzealous parking wardens in the Broad than about your nocturnal habits when you’re not at home. If you want proof,” he said, extracting some letters from the pile on his desk, “just listen to any of these.
Dear Sir Giles, if everyone who slept with a tart or had an affair were to vote for you, you’d double your majority. Good luck
.”