The House of Cards Complete Trilogy (72 page)

The Bank of England and other European banks moved to support sterling as soon as the markets opened but could not prevent further speculative selling driving the currency down hard against the bottom of its EC limits. There were reports of a major holder of sterling in the Far East dumping significant quantities of the currency. It is feared that interest rates may have to be raised substantially to prop up the ailing pound.

“This sort of situation is a new one for us,” one dealer commented. “The markets hate the uncertainty, at times this morning they were in turmoil. The sheiks are saying if Buckingham Palace crumbles, how safe is the Bank of England? The City has the atmosphere of a farmyard before Christmas…”

Forty-Three

Damn his stubbornness! If I crucified him he would only expect to rise again on the third day.

It was a good day for a hanging, McKillin thought. The Chamber was packed beyond capacity with many Members, deprived of a seat on the benches, standing at the Bar, crouching in gangways or crowding around the sides of the Speaker’s Chair. The pressure of so many mostly male bodies crushed together gave rise to a heady, boisterous atmosphere, overflowing with expectation. It was said there had been similar scenes at Tyburn when they came to hang some wretch from the three-legged gallows, and that they even paid for the privilege of watching the poor bastard swing.

There had already been a long queue of victims today. The waves of panic rippling through the currency markets had washed over into the Stock Exchange, and by lunchtime share prices were off, badly. The cries of pain emanating from those with exposed positions could be heard from all over the City, and it was going to spread faster than a lassie’s legs at the Edinburgh Festival. The building societies were meeting in emergency session; mortgages would have to be raised, the only question was by how much. It wasn’t the King’s fault, of course, but people had lost their innocent belief in bad fortune, in catastrophes simply happening; they had to have someone to blame. And that meant that McKillin, too, was in the firing line, reflecting ruefully on his recent public displays of indulgence on behalf of the Royal Family, wincing at one hundred percent. He had thought all morning of defense through aggression, making a full-scale charge in support of the King, but decided that the King’s position was too well covered by hostile guns. The troops behind him were no Light Brigade, and he wasn’t Errol Flynn. No point in getting shot in the Trossachs for nothing, much better to fight another day. Some question about human rights, perhaps, high-ground stuff, related to the PM’s lightning trip to Moscow that had been announced for the coming week. That would do, give him some distance from the sound of battle, get him out from under the gibbet…As he waited, he began to feel sticky with the heat and pressure from the bodies of overfed men crowding around.

He saw Urquhart appear just in time for the three fifteen p.m. start, forcing his way through the scrum that surrounded the Speaker’s Chair and squeezing past the outstretched limbs of other Cabinet Ministers perched untidily along the Front Bench. Urquhart smiled across the Dispatch Box at McKillin, a fleeting parting of thin lips to expose the incisors, the first warning shot of the afternoon’s campaign. Behind Urquhart’s position sat the Honorable Lady Member for Dorset North, bobbing obsequiously as her master took his seat, wearing a garishly crimson outfit that stood out like a traffic beacon amid the gloom of gray suits and that would show well on the television screens. She had been practicing her expressions of support all morning in front of a mirror. She was a handsome and well-presented woman, early forties, with a voice like a hyena, which rumor had it could reach top C in bed, as even some members of the Opposition claimed to know. She’d never make Ministerial office, but her memoirs would probably outsell the rest.

McKillin leaned back, giving the impression of a relaxed demeanor while he studied the press gallery above his head; over the finely carved balustrade he could see the heads of the scribblers, faces strained in expectation, their pencils and prejudices sharpened. He wouldn’t keep them waiting, he would get in there at the first opportunity, show his colors and retire from the field before the real battle started and it all got out of control. Human rights, that was it. Damned good idea.

Already Madam Speaker had called the first question, to ask the Prime Minister his engagements for the day, and Urquhart was giving his standard and calculatedly unhelpful response, detailing a few of his official appointments “in addition to answering questions in the House.”

“It’d be the first bloody time.” It was The Beast, from his seat below the gangway that he claimed by right of constant occupation. He looked dyspeptic; perhaps his sandwiches and pint of bitter had disagreed with him.

Urquhart gave short shrift to the first question, about a local bypass, posed by a conscientious constituency member with a small majority, and it was McKillin’s opportunity. He leaned forward and inclined his head toward Madam Speaker.

“The Leader of the Opposition.” Madam Speaker’s voice summoned him to the Dispatch Box. He hadn’t even finished rising to his feet before another voice cut through the bustle.

“You couldn’t mistake him for a Leader of the Opposition, the groveling little shit.”

McKillin felt his cheeks flush with anger, then astonishment. It was The Beast. His own side!

“Order! Order!” trilled Madam Speaker. In an atmosphere charged like this, with so many hot MPs rubbing shoulders and jostling elbows, she knew it was vital to stamp her authority on proceedings from the first moment of disruption. “I heard that. The Honorable Member will withdraw that remark immediately!”

“What else would you call someone who threw away all his principles and got caught licking the boots of the Royal Family? He’s made a complete balls of it.”

Opposition Members sat largely silent, stunned. Government backbenchers, too, were uncertain, not knowing whether to agree with The Beast or to denounce his vulgarity, but knowing it was essential to make as much noise as possible and stir the pot. In the midst of the growing uproar The Beast, his tangled forelock tumbling across his face and his baggy sports jacket unbuttoned and open, was on his feet and ignoring the repeated demands of Madam Speaker.

“But isn’t it an undeniable fact—”

“No more!” shrieked the Speaker, her half-moon glasses slipping down her nose as she flushed uncomfortably hot beneath her wig. “I shall have no hesitation in naming the Honorable Member unless he withdraws his remarks immediately!”

“But…”

“Withdraw!” Cries demanding his retraction grew from all sides. The Serjeant at Arms, the parliamentary constable, dressed for the part in executioner’s garb of black cloth court dress, complete with silk stockings and ceremonial sword, was standing to attention at the Bar, waiting on Madam Speaker’s instructions.

“But…” began The Beast once again.

“Withdra-a-a-a-w!”

There was pandemonium. The Beast looked around, seeming unperturbed, as if he could hear none of the noise nor see the flailing hands and Order Papers. He smiled, then at last seemed to appreciate that his game was up for he started nodding his head in agreement. The din subsided, allowing him to be heard.

“OK.” He looked toward the Speaker’s Chair. “Which words do you want me to withdraw? Groveling? Little? Or Shit?”

The tidal wave of outrage all but drowned Madam Speaker’s cries. “All of it! I want it all withdrawn!” Eventually she was heard.

“The lot? You want me to withdraw the lot?”

“Immediately!” The wig had been shaken askew and she was attempting to readjust herself, desperately struggling to maintain her temper and sense of dignity.

“All right. All right.” The Beast held up his hands to silence the tumult. “You all know my views about groveling to their Royal Mightinesses but”—he stared around fiercely at the pack of parliamentary hounds snapping at his heels—“if you rule I can’t say such things, that I’ve got to retract it, then I shall.”

“Now. This instant!”

There was a baying of approval from all sides. The Beast was now pointing at McKillin.

“Yes, I was wrong. You obviously
can
mistake him for a Leader of the Opposition. The groveling little shit!”

In the cacophony of shouts from all sides there was not the slightest chance for Madam Speaker to make herself heard, but The Beast didn’t wait to be named, gathering up his papers from the floor and throwing a lingering look of insolence in the direction of his party leader before withdrawing himself from the Chamber. The Serjeant at Arms, who could lip-read the Speaker’s instructions, fell in beside The Beast to ensure he remained withdrawn from the premises of the Palace of Westminster for the next five working days.

As The Beast’s back passed through the doors and beyond, some semblance of order began to be restored to the Chamber. From beneath her wig, still slightly askew, Madam Speaker gazed in the direction of McKillin, her eyes inquiring after his intentions. He shook his head. He didn’t want any longer to ask some fool question about human rights. What about his own human rights? All he wanted was for this cruel and exceptional punishment to come to an end, for someone to come and gently cut him down from the parliamentary gallows on which he was swinging, and hope they might give him a decent burial.

***

“How do you do it, Francis?” Stamper demanded as he strode into the Prime Minister’s office in the House of Commons.

“Do what?”

“Get The Beast so wound up that on his own he’s more effective at stuffing McKillin than a dozen Barnsley butchers.”

“My dear Tim, you’ve become such a sad old cynic. You look for conspiracies everywhere. The truth—if you could ever recognize it as such—is that I don’t have to wind him up. He comes ready wound. No, my contribution to the fun is more along these lines.” He indicated the television with its display of the latest teletext news. The building societies had finished their emergency meeting and the result of their deliberations was flashing up on the screen.

“Christ. Two percent on mortgages? That’ll go down like a shovel of shit in drinking water.”

“Precisely. See how much concern the average punter has for the homeless when the mortgage on his own semidetached roof starts burning its way through his beer money. By closing time tonight the King’s conscience will seem an irrelevant and unaffordable luxury.”

“My apologies for ever having uttered a cynical remark in your presence.”

“Accepted. Voters appreciate clear choices, Tim; it helps them concentrate. I am presenting them with a choice that is practically transparent. The King may be a rare orchid to my common cabbage, but when the buggers start starving, they’ll grab for the cabbage every time.”

“Enough cabbage to give the King chronic wind.”

“My dear Tim, you might say that. On such matters I couldn’t possibly comment.”

***

The King was also seated before his television screen, where he had remained silently watching events since the televising of Prime Minister’s Question Time had begun. He had left instructions not to be disturbed but eventually his Private Secretary could restrain his sense of unease no longer. He knocked and entered with a deferential bow.

“Sir, my apologies, but you must know that we are being inundated with calls from the media, wanting some reaction, some guidance as to your feelings about events in the House of Commons. They will not take silence as an answer, and without a press officer…”

The King seemed not to have noticed the intrusion, staring fixedly at the screen, unblinking, his body taut, the veins at his temple a vivid blue against the parchment skin of his skull. He looked ashen—not with anger; the Private Secretary was well used to the flashes of fire that sparked from the King. The stillness suggested more a man on a different plane, driven deep within himself, the strain indicating that the search to find equilibrium had proved futile.

The Private Secretary stood motionless, watching the other man’s agony, embarrassed at his intrusion yet not knowing how to dismiss himself.

Eventually the King spoke, in a whisper, but not to the Secretary. “It is no use, David.” The voice was parched and hoarse. “It cannot be. They will no more let a King be a man than they would any man be King. It cannot be done—you know that, don’t you, old friend…?”

Then there was silence. The King had not moved, still staring, unseeing, at the screen. The Private Secretary waited for several seemingly endless seconds and then left, pulling the door gently behind him as if he were closing the lid on a coffin.

Forty-Four

I do deference; of course I do. I always raise my kneecap in His Majesty’s presence.

Sally rushed across to the House of Commons as soon as she received the summons. She had been in the middle of a pitch to a potential new client, one of the country’s leading manufacturers of processed beans, but he had been most understanding, impressed even, and had assured her of the business. With contacts like that he seemed uninterested in further credentials.

A secretary was waiting for her at St. Stephen’s entrance to escort her like a VIP past the long queues of visitors and through the security gates, rushing her past several hundred years of history. It was her first time; one day, she promised herself, she would be back and take a calmer look at the glories of Old England, when she had the patience to queue for several hours with all the rest. But for the moment she preferred the preferential treatment.

They showed her straight into his office. He was on the phone, pacing around the room in his shirtsleeves, trailing the cord of the telephone behind him, animated, issuing orders.

“Yes, Bryan, I am well and my wife is well. Thank you very much, now shut up and listen. This is important. You will be receiving details of a new poll tomorrow afternoon. A telephone poll following the panic in the markets. It will be a startling one. It will show the Government in a ten-point lead over the Opposition, and my personal lead over McKillin having doubled.” He listened for a moment. “Of course it’s bloody front-page news, why on earth do you think I’m giving it to you? That front-page poll will be supported by an editorial inside your newspaper, something along the lines of ‘Mortgages and the Monarchy.’ It will blame the problem with sterling and international confidence foursquare on the King and his flawed personality, and those opportunistic politicians who have sought to encourage him in what you will conclude are his grave errors of judgment for seeking to take on the elected Government. Are you listening?”