The Final Cut (55 page)

Urquhart had bathed early, Elizabeth bringing him a great soup cup of tea in the bath while the steam and hot waters restored the colour in his sleep-starved cheeks. She thought she heard him muttering, perhaps calling for her, but when she enquired he answered that he was simply practising a few lines for his final election speech. She had noticed that the bulky draft provided by his team of speech-writers remained untouched. 'They believe I can't win,' he explained, 'and it shows.' Neither had he touched his Ministerial boxes.

By the time he had completed his ablutions with a meticulous manicure, as though he had all the time in the world at his disposal, the crowd barriers were being put in place and interlocked around the square. A small number were left at sensitive points around Whitehall and particularly near the entrance to Downing Street, just in case. To keep the hounds from the bear. But little trouble was expected; in less than a week Makepeace's militia would be occupying the corridors of power as of right.

He selected from his wardrobe his favourite dark blue suit and a white cotton shirt, laying them out across his bed for inspection. He tried several silk ties against the suit; he wanted to wear the one Elizabeth had bought for him from the craft stalls beneath the castle in Edinburgh, a token from her last visit to the Festival, but it was hand-painted, a little florid perhaps. He put out his regimental tie instead. Then, attired in his silk dressing gown, he breakfasted. He was in good humour and of hearty appetite, the crossword was finished before his eggs had boiled.

There had been only two disputes concerning the organization of the rally that day. Superintendent Housego, the police officer responsible for security, would not allow into the square the two mobile kebab vans that had accompanied the march from its very first day. They were like mascots. Makepeace argued, veterans of some great battle who claimed their right to be present at the victory ceremony, but the Superintendent insisted that the congestion around them would be simply too great and potentially dangerous; in large crowds people could become so easily crushed, and in violent crowds such vehicles might become battering rams, barricades or simply bonfires. No. Not worth the risk. Makepeace resolved the problem by inviting Marios and Michaelis, the two owner-drivers, to join him on the small podium that was being erected for his speech between the Landseer lions at the foot of Nelson's Column. 'And next week you can drive all the way up Downing Street,' he joked. It was the first time he had allowed himself even to hint that he would be there to greet them.

The second dispute concerned the numbers themselves; Housego wanted a limit of fifteen thousand but on this issue Makepeace was unable to offer any guarantee. He had no idea how many would be joining in. He did not control the marchers; on the contrary, as he explained to the Superintendent, they controlled him. But in any event the problem would be much reduced, he suggested with only a hint of perceptible irony, since it was customary for the police count at demonstrations to be so much lower than the reckoning of the organizers. Discretion being the better part of promotion, the Super decided to take his cue from Nelson and turn a blind eye. He would put on a couple of extra serials - self-contained police units, twenty-two strong - as a precaution. He saluted and departed content.

Others were also busy. St John Ambulance set up a field station in the crypt of St Martin-in-the-Fields, grateful at being able to borrow the facilities of the homeless shelter, while all morning television crews haggled to gain access to windows and rooftops around the square, determined to find the optimum vantage point and paying a handsome 'disturbance fee' in hard cash to office maintenance staff. Even if they numbered only fifteen thousand it would still be the largest election gathering in living memory.

To it all Urquhart appeared oblivious. He nestled in his favourite leather chair, still wrapped in his dressing gown, and read. First from Margaret Thatcher's memoirs,
The Downing Street Years.
The final pages. Scenes from a great drama. Anger. Heartache. Betrayal. Then
Julius Caesar,
his favourite play. Another great assassination. Yet how much kinder they were to him than to her, Urquhart reflected, ending great Caesar's misery with a single blow, a final cut. Not lingering. In death to find the acclaim which those jealous and petty men around him would not confer in his lifetime. The way to finish great lives.

And Makepeace marched. All the way down Watling Street, the old Roman thoroughfare which led from Chester to the heart of London. Like the legions of old they tramped, five or six abreast, in a great phalanx which stretched for over two miles and which grew ever longer as the morning progressed and the great column drew nearer the heart of the capital. Two brass bands and a group of Scottish pipers appeared as if from nowhere to add to the carnival atmosphere, and garlands had been placed around the necks of Makepeace and Maria as they passed before a Hindu temple in Edgware. Even the mobile police control van which hovered in constant close attention had been decorated; policemen in shirtsleeves smiled and waved at the children as though competing to rub salt into the still-weeping wounds of their colleagues in Birmingham. The noise of celebration grew so enthusiastic that Makepeace had difficulty in making himself heard to the radio and news reporters who accompanied him all morning, but there were others keen to make up for any deficiency of sound bites. Waiting for Makepeace in Trafalgar Square was a patchwork quilt of pressure groups spread right across the political spectrum, all chewing media microphones and trying to identify themselves with Makepeace. Even Annita Burke was there, arguing that her 'old colleague and friend' represented so many of the values that lay at the heart of what she and her party had traditionally stood for. When asked if tradition excluded the present, she smiled. 'Perhaps the immediate past,' she conceded.

As they proceeded down Piccadilly they passed by what had once been the town house of Lord Palmerston, a great Victorian Foreign Secretary who had become a still greater Prime Minister. Omens all the way; the flags which decorated the route seemed to stiffen in salute. The window of Hatchards was laden with copies of a book Makepeace had penned several years earlier and which until a few hours before had been heavily out of print; he signed several without breaking his pace. Drivers leaned on their horns, people waved from buses, tourists asked for autographs. The March for Peace had turned decis
ively into a celebration of vic
tory. Yet even Makepeace was astonished as he came out of Pall Mall and into the amphitheatre of great buildings which surrounded Nelson's victory column. He had lingered behind in Hyde Park, allowing the body of the march to move ahead of him. In that great river alone he knew there were some fifteen thousand souls, but what he had not known was that the river was flooding into the still greater sea of those gathered to greet him in the square. As they sighted him, led by a skirl of pipers, they broke into an emotional tide of waving hands and banners which washed back and forth across the basin of the square, growing stronger as it did so in shouts and accents which represented all parts of the country and some parts even beyond its shores. More than forty thousand people were gathered under the unseeing eye of Lord Nelson until Trafalgar Square brimmed and overflowed with their enthusiasm. Makepeace walked through their midst like Moses carving his path through the Red Sea, his hands raised, clenched above his head, and they thundered their approval.

Even behind the thick shatter-proof glass of Downing Street, Urquhart could not mistake the roar, like the cry heard by Christians as they waited in the pit of the Colosseum, armed only with their faith in God. Urquhart had never placed much store in Faith, not if it meant being devoured by lions and the bones being quarrelled over by rats. How much better to believe in oneself, to die a Caesar rather than a humble sinner. There came another clamour as Makepeace mounted the podium. Only then did Urquhart set aside his books and begin to dress. He had forgotten to put out any cufflinks; he chose the pair of nine carat gold engraved with the family monogram that had once belonged to his father. He stood in front of the dressing mirror, checking all aspects of his appearance in the manner of a suitor about to propose marriage. He asked Elizabeth for her opinion. She approved, apart from the tie.

'But what are you planning to do this afternoon, Francis, that you should be dressed up so?'

'Why, I intend to address Tom Makepeace's little rally.'

Urquhart was adjusting his tie in the mirror, one ear tuned to the radio and the speech upon which Makepeace had just embarked, the other turned deafly in the direction of Corder. 'Friends. Brothers. My apologies - and sisters!' he heard Makepeace exclaim, before Corder's voice pushed all else aside.

'You can't do this,' the Special Branch officer was stating, emphatic to the point of shouting.

'You cannot stop me, my dear Corder,' Urquhart responded with complete equanimity.

'There are no security arrangements in place.'

'Our security is in the surprise. No one expects me.'

'There are thousands of your opponents out there, Prime Minister. They've travelled from all over the country for the specific purpose of letting you know how much they dislike you. And you want to walk right into their midst?'

'Right into their midst. Exactly.'

'No!' Corder's vehemence was genuine. 'This is crazy.'

'This is history, Corder.'

'May I talk as an old friend, Prime Minister?'

Urquhart turned to face him. 'So far as I am concerned, Corder, you always have.'

'You've been under an immense strain recently. Might this have . . .' - an awkward pause - 'clouded your judgement?'

'Gently put. Thank you.' Urquhart moved to place hands of reassurance on the shoulders of the other man. 'But on the contrary, old friend, the immense strain about which you talk has brought great clarity. You know, the prospect of being hanged and all that? I know what I'm doing. I absolve you of any responsibility.'

'They'll have me issuing parking tickets after this. You know that, don't you?'

'In which case you will be the first knight of the realm to be doing such work. I have already written out my resignation honours, Corder. I'm a Scot, not given to undue generosity, but you should know that you are on my list.'

Corder blinked, shook his head to free himself of what was clearly a distraction from his purpose and returned to the attack. 'I have to stop you.'

'Corder, you cannot.'

'Mrs Urquhart,' he appealed, changing tactic, 'will you stop him?'

Elizabeth had, like Urquhart, been examining her appearance in the mirror, brushing away a few imaginary creases from her jacket. 'I can scarcely do that, Corder.'

'Why not?'

'Because I'm going with him.' 'Are you, by God?' Urquhart exclaimed, challenging her.

She moved over to him, with care and great tenderness enfolded him in her arms and looked closely into his eyes. 'Yes, Francis, I am. I have come with you this far, I'll walk with you a few steps further, if you don't mind. And even if you do.'

His face began to move in agitation, trying to find some words of contradiction, but she placed a finger upon his lips to still them.

'It's only a little walk down the road
’
she whispered. 'I won't hold you back.'

He stood on the front step of Number Ten, hand in hand with Elizabeth. Above him white clouds hung like gunsmoke in the summer sky, while behind him Corder was ranting into his personal radio. Urquhart turned in rebuke.

'No, Corder! No great posse of police. I want no human wall to hide behind, no excuse for confrontation with the crowd. I'll not have it.'

The tone was severe, brooking no argument. Corder muttered something into the radio and put it aside.

'Then may I accompany you, Prime Minister? As a family friend?'

Urquhart smiled. 'In that capacity you have always been welcome.'

They began walking down the street. As they approached the tall stressed-steel barriers at its end, a uniformed policeman outside the guard booth saluted while another jabbered excitedly down the telephone. But it was too late. The great gate swung open, and they were in Whitehall.

Large numbers of people were still trying to squeeze into the square, crowding pavements, beginning to clog the approach roads. The Superintendent had need of his extra serials, and more. And as the Urquharts made their way up Whitehall, recognition of them had an immediate effect.

'F.U. too! F.U. too!' barked one youth with the appearance of having been lifted from the front half of a dry cleaning commercial, but Elizabeth turned to launch a look of sharpest feminine rebuke directly at him and he subsided, his voice faltering like a slipping fan belt. His chant was not taken up, instead, a ripple of attention ran through the crowd at the sight of the great opponent, normally only seen through television screens and surrounded by the trappings of power, who to all appearances was enjoying a weekend stroll in the sun with his wife. Cries of recognition the Urquharts received with a civil nod of acknowledgement, chiding rewarded with one of Elizabeth's most devastating stares. As they made their way the five hundred yards up Whitehall, past the mounted sentries at Horseguards, a tremor of interest rather than intolerance ran before them like a bow wave, heralding their arrival. By the time they had reached the crowded edges of the square, the tremor had become a shock wave which began to force its passage through the mass of bodies ahead. Urquhart was coming! Urquhart was coming! And many, particularly those who did not have a good view of Makepeace speaking on the far side of Nelson's Column, turned to face their adversary.