The Wormwood Code (12 page)

Igor raised another eyebrow.

'When Labour wins the General Election, Igor,' said Bledsoe, the man who may or may not have been from MI6, 'you'll be Prime Minister.'

Igor raised his third eyebrow. Dane Bledsoe stared intently across the table at him. Igor did not let his gaze waver.

'Well?' said Bledsoe. 'What d'you say?'

Igor thought about it, thought about the absurdity of the proposal, considered everything he knew about election law and whether any of what Bledsoe had just said was even remotely possible, which he was pretty sure it wouldn't be. But then, MI6 had their ways.

'Arf,' he said eventually.

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2211hrs

I
t had been a long day, the PM's worst on the campaign trail by a long, long margin. He was exhausted and beaten. He had no idea that someone from MI6, if they were who they said they were, had tapped Igor to replace him, claiming that he was about to resign, but they weren't that far from the truth. He sat alone in his study, nursing a slow glass of single malt, staring morosely at a pile of papers on GP's waiting lists which Williams had given to him after the battering he'd received on Question Time. He was bruised, bloody and sore. To paraphrase Nietzsche, as he often did: 'The thought of resignation is a great source of comfort: with it a calm passage is to be made across many a bad night.'

He muttered the words softly to himself, sat back in the chair and closed his eyes.

The other players in the strange little saga all busied themselves with whatever part they had to play, big or small. The main source of comfort to them all, however, was that there was only one week left and it would all be over...

0812hrs

T
he PM sat still for his morning haircut, watching the breakfast news on the TV. Felt a little more relaxed after the horror of the day before. Had woken up at just after five feeling much calmer, as if knowing that the hot coals he was going to have to tread upon this day would be more temperate. Or, at least, he was going to get to wear boots as he trod on them.

The newspaper headlines were full of the Iraq war, and it wasn't as if any of them were saying what a great move it had been. Express, Mail, Telegraph, Financial Times, Guardian, Independent, a great panoply of outrage. And yet, watching the news, it was apparent that the tempest had already passed. For the previous few days the storm clouds had gathered and a hurricane had threatened to sweep through his campaign, then yesterday it had arrived with all its great force, winds and rain seeming to tear the roof off his election battle and his premiership; yet now suddenly it had blown itself out, in an instant, overnight. The papers may have been full of it, but it was typical of why newspapers were becoming more and more outdated. They were already behind the curve of the new calm. It was almost as if everybody else involved in the election campaign, including the opposition, had suddenly thought, wait a minute, if we keep this up the Conservatives might get in. Let's start talking about something else.

So today he was going to have to discuss the GP waiting list crisis, which was tricky in itself, but there would be no cries of
liar, liar, pants on fire
, and at least it wasn't a resigning matter.

'I can feel the winds of change, Barney,' he said quietly.

Barney Thomson bouffed the top of the Prime Minister's head, following instructions to make his hair as big as possible to exaggerate the difference between him and the leader of the opposition.

'That's just the hairspray, Prime Minister,' said Barney.

The PM didn't hear him. Too busy thinking over the day ahead, another day when he and the Chancellor would ride around the country like Butch and Sundance. The day before notwithstanding, it was all going well.

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0821hrs

O
ver at Conservative Party HQ the leader of the opposition was standing at his office window, looking down on a London which was slowly beginning to warm up to spring. He was tucking into a strawberry jam doughnut, his back turned on his two new main advisors, Dane Bledsoe and Tony Eason.

'It's going well,' said the Count. 'He had an awful day yesterday and today's only going to get worse.'

'We need to move on from Iraq,' said Bledsoe.

The Count turned.

'What? We've got him on the flippin' ropes. He's squirming like, God, I don't know, a worm. He's all over the place.'

Eason bit into his third doughnut of the morning. Didn't have an opinion. The Count may have thought of him as his advisor, but he wasn't about to start giving anybody advice.

'Tony, what d'you think?'

Eason caught the look from Bledsoe, stared at the carpet

'I think you should try the blueberry,' he said, holding up the doughnut.

The Count stared at the two of them, his mind in flux.

'You're so damned sage sometimes,' he said, although neither of them knew to whom he was talking. 'I need to go poo-poo,' he muttered, and walked quickly from the office.

They watched him go, then Bledsoe sat down in the boss's chair and started looking through the small collection of papers which lay on the desk. Eason walked over to the side table and helped himself to another doughnut.

'So what have you come up with, Sergeant,' said Bledsoe from behind the desk. Appropriate that he should be sitting in the boss's seat, as he was definitely going to be in charge of the conversation.

Eason was hugely intimidated by him and so would use his usual defence mechanism. That of the overweight buffoon, the man who ate all the pies.

'Think I prefer the Danish to the doughnuts,' he said, without looking at him. 'At least, that's what I'm going to put in my report.'

'Look at me, Sergeant,' said Bledsoe, and Eason reluctantly caught his eye over a sugar-frosted topping. 'You came here to investigate the murder of the PM's last barber. What have you found?'

Eason stuffed an entire doughnut into his mouth, giving him an excuse not to say anything for a while. Unusually for him he dabbed at his cheeks with a napkin, taking all the sugar off.

'I've been pleased to discover,' he said through the food, 'that political campaigns involve a lot of bakery products on the go. And I have to go.'

He walked to the door. Bledsoe sneered and looked witheringly at his back. Eason turned at the door and smiled through the middle of the doughnut.

'The Conservative Party,' he said, 'For All Day Minty Freshness!' then he quickly left the room and closed the door behind him, feeling like he'd been put through the mincer.

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1143hrs

B
arney Thomson had been given the day off. The PM was out and about on the Battle Bus, touring the country, smiling at people who didn't want to be smiled at, making excuses for mistakes, promising to do things differently from the way he'd done them for the last eight years, promising anything in fact, to get an easy ride and another couple of votes. Igor, however, had asked if it was all right if he tagged along, and the PM had readily agreed, pleased for the chance to pitch for the deaf-mute hunchbacked vote.

So Barney had decided to do London for the day. Only one week left before he could go home, and he could look out over streets where hardly anyone walked, and he could listen to the mournful cry of the gulls and waves splashing up onto the rocks. He'd eaten second breakfast in a small café, drunk a cup of coffee and spent fifty quid on mineral water, and now he had meandered amongst the tourists up to Trafalgar Square and found his way into the National Gallery. Intending to do the Portrait Gallery next, if he'd not had enough of looking at paintings.

He was on the third floor looking at 16th century Italian religious works, you know the ones with the baby Jesus and the Virgin Mary, accompanied by hundreds of huge breasted naked lesbians. He remembered that that was what Wullie used to talk about in the old shop. Seemed so long ago, and suddenly he was taken by one of those moments when the past rushed over him, and he was engulfed by a shiver. He stood looking at a nativity painting, a scene bedecked with naked angels, and he was overwhelmed with melancholy. He shivered again, tried to break the thought and the feeling. It wasn't as if he'd been happy in those days.

'You have to admire the vision of the artist,' said a voice next to him.

Barney didn't turn. The path to the past had been snapped, which was no bad thing.

'How d'you mean that?' he said. He had been saved from his own gloom perhaps, but he didn't necessarily want to get drawn into a discussion on some perverse Italian, who saw naked women everywhere.

'It's great how there are so many naked women and no naked men. You have to admire that.'

Barney turned. His mood dropped a little further, he rolled his eyes.

'Detective,' he said. 'Nice to see that you appreciate art on your day off, and that you don't conform to the coffee-drinking, cigarette-smoking, alcoholic stereotype of your kind.'

'Sod off,' said Detective Chief Inspector Grogan. 'I'm here to see you.'

'Ah,' said Barney. 'How did you know I'd be here?'

'We've had you followed since the day you arrived in London,' said Grogan.

Barney nodded. He was working for the Prime Minister after all. It sort of made sense and wouldn't have been too hard to do either.

'Course, we're not the only ones following you, but we're not sure who the others are.'

Barney glanced over his shoulder. Had had no idea that he was so popular. Wondered if the group of old women up on a day trip from Bath, currently admiring a painting where the artist had had the vision to include as many naked men as women, were after him.

'I must be popular,' said Barney.

'Not as popular as your little hunchbacked guy,' said Grogan.

Barney gave him a quick look and then moved on to the next painting. It was more of a battle scene than an actual nativity painting, but there were still three naked women to every soldier. Assumed that Grogan was referring to the fact that Igor rarely went a night without attracting some woman or other back to his bed.

'He's a good looking guy,' said Barney.

'I'm not talking about the women,' said Grogan, unable to keep the edge of jealousy and bitterness from his voice.

'What then?' asked Barney, feeling disloyal even having the conversation.

'There's a character called Dane Bledsoe working for the leader of the opposition. Shadowy, if you know what I mean.'

'He's one of your lot?'

'No,' snapped Grogan, 'he's not. He's a spy. Says he's MI6, but he could be working for anyone.'

'Should you be telling me that the guy works for MI6?' said Barney. 'I mean, if the guy does work for MI6, then I probably ought not to know that.'

'He tapped up your friend yesterday at lunch, when you were giving your boss a lovely head massage.'

Barney gave Grogan a swift glance. God, they really do have me followed, he thought.

'What d'you mean, tapped up?' he asked.

'Not sure. We were wondering if the little fella had mentioned it.'

Barney moved on, walking through into the next small room, which seemed to have more of a landscape feel to it. Grogan walked beside him, still pretending to give a stuff about art.

'He's mute,' said Barney caustically, 'how could he have mentioned it?'

Barney stopped at a depiction of a Tuscan hillside, with naked women lying in amongst the trees.

'You got anything for me?' asked Grogan.

Barney shook his head, an edge to the smile.

'I told you I wasn't doing that. Do your own investigation, Chief Inspector, I'm not working for you.'

'Very public spirited of you,' said Grogan.

He looked at the same painting as Barney. Was struck by the resemblance of one of the women to his late Uncle Arthur.

'Anyway,' he said, turning. He stopped. Barney Thomson was gone.

He looked around. The gaggle of old women were still in the next room, and there were a couple of Spanish tourists. Grogan shrugged and moved on to the next painting. Had another three minutes before his craving for a cigarette would drive him outside.

Barney Thomson walked quickly down the stairs, wondering who else was following him, and curious as to why his deaf-mute hunchbacked assistant was being approached by MI6.

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1614hrs

T
he Prime Minister was having the easy day he had hoped for. Sure he was promising everything that anyone asked him for, and by default was admitting that many of his policies were rubbish, but he was relaxed and smiling again after the brutalisation of the day before. Williams and Thackeray, his advisors, groaned every time their man promised something new, but they knew that this kind of thing was inevitable this late into the campaign. Igor, Barney Thomson's assistant, had followed the PM around, dispensing advice as and when it was asked for, and wondering if what he'd been told by Dane Bledsoe the previous day had been true, and if it would be possible for him, Igor the deaf-mute hunchback, to become the next Prime Minister.

The leader of the opposition had taken the advice of his senior advisor and had dropped Iraq as a topic of discussion, yet had been curious as to how the PM had managed to wriggle off the hook.

Barney Thomson had walked around London, enjoying the mix of the free and the ridiculously expensive. He was currently combining the two, sitting in Hyde Park, enjoying the sun, and eating a smoked bacon, olive and melon sandwich on sun-roasted peanut bread, a snip at nine ninety-nine.

And, as the campaign continued on its slow, dreary way in London, the man who had murdered the PM's previous barber with a chicken, thus starting off the interesting sideline to the election which had yet to make it into the newspapers, boarded a plane in Washington DC, which would bring him back to London. He had taken the small wooden box which he'd stolen from Ramone MacGregor. He had shown it to the head of the CIA, who had in turn shown it to the President of the United States. Now he was bringing the box back to London, along with his instructions passed down from the leader of the free world. And, bizarre though it might have seemed to people in Britain had anyone known about it, the result of the General Election, and the future of the country, lay within that small box. That would have been something for the Express and the Mail to get their pants in a twist about.