Fifty-First State (7 page)

So, wishing Kim Durham's family some peace, temporarily at least, I'll go back to the way the world changed after Kim's death. Muldoon was finished by then. Whatever spin his friends and supporters tried to put on it, he was the man who'd agreed to the Marine landings at Hamscott Common and was held indirectly responsible for the death of an innocent bystander. Not only that, he'd sanctioned foreign soldiers firing on British protesters. There are times when spin is not enough, and this was one of them.

What Muldoon did next helped the plans of those working against us. We think the plans were already laid, but Muldoon, acting purely out of pride, egotism and malice, really sped them up. He could not have done more to help the plotters' cause if they'd been paying him. Of course, it's been rumoured that they were, but serious people don't believe it. Even now, when we know so much more about how a man is turned into a renegade, only conspiracy theorists believe Muldoon acted out of anything other than personal motives. But they were enough.

Hamscott Common, Kent. June 3rd, 2015. 11 a.m.

Rory Durham was taken to the hospital and passively endured washing, and being put into other clothes. As the doctor began to talk to his grandparents, Rory, standing beside his grandmother's knee and holding her hand, began to cry helplessly and insist on going back to his house. This was the last thing Matt and Katherine Arthur wanted, but Rory was unpersuadable. He wept, he demanded to go back to his house; he could not, or would not, explain why. Slender young Dr Mehmet, concerned for the little boy, hesitated and then agreed he would drive them back to Kim Durham's house in his own car. He suggested that, as the press was camped at the front of the hospital, looking for pictures of the bereaved family, they leave by a back entrance. With Rory holding his grandmother's hand and crying, the quartet went out into the reception area outside Dr Mehmet's consulting room to find it empty except for a tall man in American officer's uniform. He stepped forward respectfully and said, ‘Mr and Mrs Arthur, please accept my sympathy for your loss. A great tragedy – a terrible accident. Our hearts are with you in your bereavement. Now, I apologize for this and I don't want it to look like I'm rushing you, at this terrible time, but I'd appreciate it if you would let me come back with you to your home. There's a good deal to discuss.'

Matt Arthur looked at him blankly. Kim's mother, tightening her grip on Rory's hand, asked, ‘Discuss what?'

‘The accident – and, more importantly now, what to do about the media intrusion.'

‘We just want to take Rory home,' said Katherine.

‘Ma'am,' he said, ‘if you think about it, I'm sure you'll see the need for some help in protecting your privacy—'

The door of the waiting room banged open and another man entered. He was tall, tanned and wearing a cream linen suit. Acknowledging the presence of the other man he said, without pleasure, ‘Captain Struthers.' He advanced on the little group – the grandparents, trying to contain their grief for the sake of the weeping boy, Rory himself and the doctor. His hand extended as he moved towards them. ‘Mr and Mrs Arthur,' he said, ‘my deepest condolences. This has been a most terrible event.' As they shook hands he said, ‘I know this is a dreadful time for you. What we want to do is minimize the pressure from the media…'

‘I want to go home!' cried Rory. ‘I want to go home! Take me home!' He wrenched his hand out of his grandmother's and ran to the door. Mrs Arthur said, ‘All we want to do now is take Rory home.' She went to the door to talk to the boy.

‘Mrs Arthur…' said the Englishman.

‘I'm sorry,' said Rory's grandfather. ‘We have to take Rory home. Then we're going to stay with family in Brighton.'

‘For your own comfort and protection…' said the American, Captain Struthers.

Mr Arthur spoke with an effort, ‘No,' he said. ‘Thank you for your offer, but you – all of you – have already done enough.' He went to the door and picked up his grandson.

When they got to the small red-brick house where Kim and her son had once lived, but would live no longer, Rory and his grandparents got out of the car. Dr Mehmet, the driver, remained in the vehicle, watching the little group standing on the pavement.

In the car, Rory's crying had stopped. He sat between his grandparents, staring forward. They had not seen any alternative to taking the hysterical child back to his home, but both were afraid that in one part of his mind Rory had not accepted his mother's death and dreaded that he thought, perhaps, he would find her when they got back, as if nothing had happened. They had tried to find out why the boy wanted to go home. ‘You won't be able to live there any more,' Mr Arthur had told him.

‘I know,' he had responded angrily. Now they stood on the pavement. Kim's mother glanced up at the windows, where their daughter had hung curtains when she moved in with the baby, Rory. Beyond the gate was the little patch of lawn with its round, central bed. The roses Kim had planted were in bloom. Below them, in the ground, were the bulbs she had put in, which had flowered in the spring and would flower again in the following year.

The Arthurs were both looking at Rory, so only Dr Mehmet observed a man walk up the road, duck into the garden opposite the house and start taking photographs. He also noticed a car slide into a parking space down the road. Two men got out, and stood on the pavement looking towards the Arthurs.

Rory ran to the part of the pavement where he had thrown the bird's egg. He knelt down and tried to pick up the small blue fragments, most of which were stuck to the pavement.

‘It's my fault,' he shouted. ‘I said to go there! I said to go there!' He had three little pieces of bird's egg stuck to his palm now.

‘What are you doing, Rory?' asked his grandmother. ‘What do you mean?'

Still trying to scrape a piece of egg from the pavement, which broke
under the pressure of his nails, he began to cry again. ‘I threw my bird's egg away. It's my fault – I threw it away.'

Rory's grandfather did the only thing he could think of. He knelt down and began to lift tiny pieces of crushed eggshell from the pavement with his penknife. The photographer began to approach them from across the road. ‘You didn't do anything wrong,' Kim's grandfather told the boy. He dropped a few pieces into an old envelope he had in his inside pocket. ‘Mr Arthur!' the photographer called. ‘Are you Mr Arthur?'

‘We'd better go, Matt,' urged Mrs Arthur.

‘Just a minute,' said Matt Arthur. He lifted up another tiny scrap of blue and dropped it in the envelope. ‘That's it, I think. Do you think that's all of it, Rory?'

‘Yes,' said the boy in a low voice.

‘Mr Arthur?' asked the photographer, on the pavement now.

‘Go away,' said Matt Arthur. The photographer backed away as Rory and his grandparents advanced towards the car. He bent down, ‘Are you Rory Durham?' he asked.

Matt Arthur pushed him. ‘Get out of the way.'

‘Mr Arthur,' called one of the hurrying men. But the Arthurs' car was moving. Inside, Rory wept over his palm, in which three little pieces of blue eggshell lay. Kim's mother burst into tears herself. A car followed them for a while, then gave up and turned back.

43 Basing Street, London. June 12th, 2015. 4.30 p.m.

Julia Baskerville put a mug of tea in front of the Deputy Leader of her party and said, ‘I wouldn't have asked you round if it wasn't important.'

She and Mark Moreno were in the sitting room of her small house in Whitechapel. This room, because of the size of the house, a former workman's cottage, was also the dining room. The dining table stood against the back wall, covered in files and papers. Mark was on the couch, in front of the TV, Julia leaning towards him on a low, buttoned chair. Mark, a very tall, thin and balding forty-year-old, looked weary.

‘The point is,' Julia said urgently, ‘We all know Muldoon's on his way out unless there's a miracle. And Petherbridge is likely to be the next PM. He's tough and right wing. And who've we got? Carl Chatterton. So I and the usual suspects want to put you up.'

‘You always want to put me up, Julia,' Moreno said. ‘And I always refuse.'

‘It matters, Mark. More than ever—'

‘I know. But I don't want to split the party. That matters, too, now, more than ever.'

‘The last time I saw Chatterton he couldn't even remember my name.'

‘I'm not saying he's got spectacular people skills—'

‘He hasn't got any spectacular skills—'

‘He's a good number cruncher. He did an excellent job in the Treasury.'

‘And then he got promoted above his capacity,' Julia said. ‘Mark, we all know what happened. It was between you and Blackwood. Half the Party didn't want Blackwood. The other half didn't want you—'

‘That's how it works,' Moreno said.

‘That's how it worked. But the party in the House is with you now, ever since Blackwood backed US and British troops landing in the tribal areas in Pakistan, because they thought the Pakistan government hadn't done enough to root out Al Qaeda there. And now they can't find them if they were ever there and casualties are heavy – and that's one good reason why Chatterton and Blackwood are discredited – more and more so, day by day, with every squaddie who dies out there. Come on, Mark – we should challenge now.'

Mark Moreno looked at the thin, animated face opposite him. He
smiled. ‘Leave it until after the summer recess. Conference time. I'll make my decision then.'

‘It could be too late,' she warned.

‘No reason to think it will be.'

‘I've got a nasty feeling…'

Moreno stood up. ‘I've got a nasty feeling my wife will be an angry woman if I don't get home now,' he said. ‘She's going out for a coffee – first since the twins were born. She's like a kid on the way to Disneyland.'

Julia stood also. She kissed the tall man on the cheek. ‘I'm sorry, Mark. I wouldn't have called you if we didn't all think—'

‘I won't tell you I haven't been thinking about it. It's not just the Hamscott debate. Of course the Lib Dems will walk all over us. It'll be Amir Siddiqi. They'll walk all over the Tories, too. It won't make any difference. When Petherbridge takes over we'll need a credible leader.'

‘Think hard, Mark.'

He nodded and left to make his way back on public transport to Greenford and his screaming twins. Up to now he had never encouraged the left-wingers of his own party to think he'd challenge the leadership. Loyalty or strategy? Both, of course. But perhaps this time Julia was right. Chatterton was increasingly a liability. Petherbridge would be a bigger threat than Muldoon. As usual, timing was everything. Success or failure depended on it. Timing – and luck.

Fox Square, London SW1. June 12th, 2015. 8.30 p.m.

Two figures stood by the base of the statue of General Sir Galahad Montmorency Havelock. Facing the statue with their backs turned to the church they were unlikely to be noticed. Even if they had been observed, an accidental meeting in the Westminster village would not have been too surprising. However, this meeting was no accident.

Two days after Kim Durham's death, Alan Petherbridge leaked the memorandum revealing his plan to retake the base using trained officers from the Metropolitan Police and Kent Constabulary, a plan the Prime Minister had approved. Also leaked was the fact that about an hour later the Prime Minister had agreed to the landing of US Marines at Hamscott. The press leapt on it; there was noisy questioning of the Prime Minister in the House of Commons; a week later a poll showed that 82 per cent of the public blamed the Prime Minister for Kim Durham's death. The effect of the leak was devastating. Only one right-wing newspaper had dared, in an editorial, to suggest that the invasion of a base holding nuclear weapons demanded prompt and forceful action. This was followed by a flood of largely hostile correspondence.

It would have helped Muldoon if there had been one person with Asian or Middle Eastern connections among the arrested base invaders. But there were none. Those who had seized the base were peace activists, CND supporters and members of religious groups. There were a few hard-core left-wingers. There were nuns. And the Red Vicar, the Reverend Alec Hutchinson, who had been injured by a bullet in the calf but was soon back in full voice from his wheelchair. Admittedly, some of the arrested men and women had convictions for minor offences – trespass, criminal damage, attacks on the police – but hard as Canning and his Press Office tried, it was impossible to spin these characters into terrorists. Meanwhile, there was no escaping the pictures of Kim Durham and her son in newspapers, on TV round the world and now on banners carried by the government's opponents.

Two weeks later, a second poll showed that 75 per cent of the public, including 50 per cent of his own supporters, thought that Muldoon should be replaced as Prime Minister. Three weeks further on, the same number said that in the event of another election resulting in another hung Parliament, they would support a National Government.

Two days later, a firestorm was unleashed on Syria. Damascus and Aleppo were hit two nights running by a fleet of bombers. A third of the armada of bombers were launched from British bases, including Hamscott Common. The justification for the attack was, said the American President, that Syria had been harbouring international Muslim terrorists who had infiltrated Iraq over the border, flooding the country with subversive propaganda, agents and money. Syrian complicity had created the results of the Iraqi elections. In America, the public was divided about the attacks. The British public refused to believe the President's arguments. The European Parliament met to condemn the raids. The assault on Syria could not have been timed better if the intention had been deliberately to finish Muldoon as Prime Minister. Some thought that might have been the case.