Flashpoint (27 page)
The Prime Minister said, with an edge of exasperation showing for the first time in his voice, “I can’t force you to take my advice. But you realize what it’ll mean to you if you don’t.”
Will said, with a grin, “If you’re taking back your offer of the Ministry of Employment, that’s understood.”
“I didn’t mean that only. I meant to you personally. The sniping will go on. And if Killey gets his order, it’ll get a lot worse. I don’t doubt that when it finally comes to Court, you’ll win, but by then it’ll be too late. The thing’s got to be stopped now, once and for all. If the good of the party doesn’t weigh with you, you might at least consider the feelings of your friends, and your family.”
As soon as the Prime Minister had said this, he realized that he had made a mistake.
Will said, his face dark with anger, “We’ve had a basinful already. And I don’t only mean anonymous letters. They’re as good as newspapers to light fire with. But we’ve had phone calls, at home. And things said to my boy at school. And messages chalked up by some crackpot on the houseboat I’m living in. But I got one letter this morning that wasn’t anonymous. It was from an old friend of mine. He’s secretary of Mining and General Metalworkers. Bill Hancock. He told me he was retiring this autumn. What he said was, ‘Come back here, and the job’s yours. You’ve got a lot of friends up here. People who don’t believe lies just because they’re printed in newspapers. Politics is a dirty game. It’s not your cup of tea. Come back home.’ That seemed like sound advice to me, Prime Minister.”
On the Friday morning Jonas returned to London. When he appeared in Lambard’s office, Edward Lambard had to look twice to recognize him. His skin, which was normally pale, had reacted remarkably to a week of open air and blazing sun and was now a dark reddish brown. A handsome pair of mutton-chop whiskers had changed and broadened the outlines of his face. But it was not only his appearance. His personality seemed to have undergone a perceptible change. The most immediate impression was one of relaxation.
“There are one or two things I want to talk about,” he said. “My mother died yesterday.”
Lambard had noticed the black band on his arm. He said, “I’m very sorry.”
“It wasn’t unexpected,” said Jonas. The tone in which he said it defied Lambard to be sympathetic. “I should be obliged if your firm would undertake the winding up of her estate. You acted for my father in his litigation against the North-West Marine people. I believe it was your late senior partner, Arthur Sexton, who handled the compensation money he got from them.”
“I was in the army at the time,” said Lambard. “I don’t remember the details, but we can get the files up easily enough. Did your mother leave a will?”
“I have it here. It’s very short. She left everything to me. It’s quite a substantial fund, and well invested. That’s the next thing I wanted to talk about. I shall need four thousand pounds almost at once. I expect you can arrange a bridging loan from the bank?”
“That shouldn’t be too difficult. But I don’t suppose the appeal’s going to cost anything like that.”
“It’s not the appeal. I’m buying a small general store and post office in a village called Sambourne, in Wiltshire. I’ve arranged with a local firm to handle the actual conveyancing. I shall move in as soon as it’s completed.”
“Move in?”
“Certainly.”
“To run the shop?”
“Such is my intention. I think it has distinct possibilities. I plan to enlarge the scope of the business considerably. There are no real shopping centres nearer than Devizes on one side and Salisbury on the other. I see no reason why it should not develop other lines. Greengrocery, for instance. There are a lot of vegetables grown locally – they only want an outlet. Ironmongery, too. There are endless possibilities.”
“And your practice at Wimbledon?”
“I shall close it down. Now, if there is nothing else – I know you’re a very busy man.”
“Don’t you want to hear about what happened on Monday and Tuesday?”
“Oh, the appeal. Yes. I read the report in
The Times.
I thought Cairns handled it very well.”
“The general view is that we’ve got rather better than an even chance of success. You realize that if we get our order, there’ll be a great deal to do.”
“Yes,” said Jonas. “That was something I did mean to mention.” For the the first time a very slight note of embarrassment had crept into his voice. “The fact is, I’ve decided not to take the matter any further.”
Lambard stared at him, his mouth half open. He sometimes thought that thirty years in the law had deprived him of the faculty of surprise. He discovered that he was wrong.
Before he could frame any adequate comment, Jonas had continued.
“As I see it, there’s really no point in taking it any further. If we fail in the High Court, we can’t proceed anyway. But we have at least demonstrated, I fancy, that there was a case to answer. If we win, we’ve demonstrated the point even more conclusively. There’s nothing to be gained from rubbing it in. That would simply be vindictive. At least, that’s how I see it.”
Lambard had recovered his voice. He said, “If the Court gives you the order, surely you’re obliged to pursue it.”
“Certainly not,” said Jonas sharply. “If I decide to drop the matter, no one can force me to take any step at all. The authorities could, of course, pursue the action themselves, if they wished to, but I don’t see them doing it, do you?”
“No,” said Lambard.
“That’s how I reasoned it out. And that’s the decision I came to.”
“I suppose you realize that you’ve done Dylan almost irreparable harm.”
“It was entirely his fault. If he’d admitted in the beginning that I was right, none of this would have happened, would it?”
“I suppose not,” said Lambard.
Much of what happened afterwards is a matter of recent history.
On July 31st, the last day of the legal term, the Divisional Appeal Court rejected Jonas’ application for an order of mandamus by two votes to one. Leave to appeal to the House of Lords was refused. This loosed a further storm of abuse from the press, but it had little to feed on as neither of the principal characters in the drama seemed anxious to comment.
Will Dylan disappeared from the London scene with his family and buried himself in Union affairs. I don’t suppose for one moment that we’ve heard the last of him. When he does choose to re-emerge into the public eye, poor old Patrick may be able to use the Profile which he completed with such pains and which hasn’t yet been published.
I took my annual leave in August. When I got back Laurence Fairbrass sent for me and offered me the job of taking charge of Jonas’ abandoned practice. A solicitor can’t just shut up shop like a greengrocer. There are too many things going on. Not only litigation. Trusts and administrations and half-finished conveyancing matters. The Law Society has to step in sometimes and help to clear up the mess.
Mutt advised me to take it. She never had a high opinion of me as an administrator. Much too soft-hearted. It was a pretty fair shambles, but Willoughby agreed to stay on and we gradually got things under control. Jonas wasn’t much help. He was far too busy reorganizing the Sambourne General Stores.
The general election was held in the second week of October. The Government was thrown out and the Opposition came in with a majority of twenty-five seats. One of the first actions of the new Government was to set up an official enquiry into the Security Services. Most of its hearings had to be in camera and its report was a model of discretion.
Air Vice-Marshal Pulleyne was made a principal scapegoat and was removed from his job. But since no one felt able to explain what that job was, the effect of his dismissal was muted. Benz-Fisher was felt to be too dangerous to pursue and his name was never mentioned publicly at all. He continued to live very happily with his blonde girlfriend in the hills above Grasse, drawing from time to time on one of his bank accounts in Switzerland.
One odd result of the election was that the new Government honoured, as it often does, the less controversial sections of the dissolution list of its predecessor, and Edward Lambard got his Knighthood. As far as he was concerned it was from the wrong party, but a detail like that didn’t worry his wife, I imagine.
Only the other day I happened to see Jonas’ name in the papers again. It was a small paragraph in the
Evening Standard,
under the byline, ‘A Village Hampden’. It reported that Jonas Killey, an ex-solicitor now running the village store and post office, was commencing proceedings against the local squire, Edwin Lamplough, to have a right of way across the park reopened.
I felt deeply sorry for Mr Lamplough.
All Series titles can be read in order, or randomly as standalone novels
Inspector Hazlerigg
- Close Quarters
(1947) - They Never Looked Inside
(alt: He Didn’t Mind Danger) (1948) - The Doors Open
(1949) - Smallbone Deceased
(1950) - Death has Deep Roots
(1951) - Fear To Tread
(in part)(1953) - The Young Petrella
(included) (short stories)(1988) - The Man Who Hated Banks and Other Mysteries
(included) (short stories)(1997)
Patrick Petrella
- Blood and Judgement
(1959) - Amateur in Violence
(included) (short stories) (1973) - Petrella at Q
(short stories) (1977) - The Young Petrella
(short stories) (1988) - Roller Coaster
(1993) - The Man Who Hated Banks and Other Mysteries
(included) (short stories) (1997)
Luke Pagan
- Ring of Terror
(1995) - Into Battle
(1997) - Over and Out
(1998)
Calder & Behrens
- Game Without Rules
(short stories) (1967) - Mr. Calder and Mr. Behrens
(short stories) (1982)
Non-Series
- Death in Captivity
(alt: The Danger Within) (1952) - Sky High
(alt: The Country House Burglar) (1955) - Be Shot for Sixpence
(1956) - After the Fine Weather
(1963) - The Crack in the Teacup
(1966) - The Dust and the Heat
(alt: Overdrive) (1967) - The Etruscan Net
(alt: The Family Tomb) (1969) - Stay of Execution and Other Stories
(short stories) (1971) - The Body of a Girl
(1972) - The Ninety-Second Tiger
(1973) - Flash Point
(1974) - The Night of the Twelfth
(1976) - The Empty House
(1979) - The Killing of Katie Steelstock
(alt: Death of a Favourite Girl) (1980) - The Final Throw
(alt: End Game) (1982) - The Black Seraphim
(1984) - The Long Journey Home
(1985) - Trouble
(1987) - Paint, Gold, and Blood
(1989) - Anything for a Quiet Life
(short stories) (1990) - The Queen against Karl Mullen
(1992)
Published by House of Stratus
 | After The Fine Weather When Laura Hart travels to Austria to visit her brother, vice-consul of Lienz in the Tyrol, she briefly meets an American who warns her of the mounting political tension. Neo-Nazis are stirring trouble in the province, and xenophobia is rife between the Austrians who control the area and the Italian locals. Then Laura experiences the troubles first-hand, a shocking incident that suggests Hofrat Humbold, leader of the Lienz government is using some heavy-handed tactics. Somewhat unsurprisingly, he is unwilling to let one little English girl destroy his plans for the largest Nazi move since the war, and Laura makes a dangerous enemy. |
 | Anything For A Quiet Life Jonas Pickett, lawyer and commissioner of oaths is nearing retirement, but still has lots of energy. However, he leaves the pressure of a London practice behind to set up a new modest office in a quiet seaside resort. He soon finds that he is overwhelmed with clients and some of them involve him in very odd and sometimes dangerous cases. This collection of inter-linked stories tells how these are brought to a conclusion; ranging from an incredible courtroom drama involving a gipsy queen to terrorist thugs who make their demands at gunpoint. |