The Image in the Water by Douglas Hurd Page A

minutes of bends and stretches on the rug in his dressing room. He put on his clothes to the accompaniment of the seven o’clock news, softly tuned so as not to disturb Hélène next door. The routine was exact; even the exercises admitted no variety, having been prescribed ten years earlier at a time of backache now happily vanished. By seven twenty he was eating half a grapefruit in the dining room. During this process, none of which required thought, his energy gathered for the day. That energy met its first and one of its fiercest challenges in the spread of newspapers across the breakfast table. Here a change had been forced upon him. For the last fortnight all the national papers had been brought early from the Home Office, not just his usual diet of the
Mail
and the
Telegraph.
Though it often made for a fraught breakfast this addition saved time later when his campaign committee met to review tactics.
    So there, half hidden beneath the
Telegraph,
was
Thunder,
and the blow that Roger Courtauld had more than half expected ever since the letter from Joe Seebright. Sarah Tunstall and Simon Cresswick, the two optimists on hisgroup, had been sure that Seebright was bluffing and that nothing more would happen. The others had been silent. John Parrott, the PR man who knew the press best, had suggested that they try to get in touch with Friedrich Vogl to warn him of what was afoot. Roger had vetoed this on the grounds that any such approach, if it became known, would smell of an attempted cover-up. More deeply, he did not want to disinter that afternoon in Mothecombe. His own memory contained nothing more than he had revealed to the group; his meeting with young Vogl had happened exactly as he had told them. Those hours had receded from his mind like most past events, until jerked to the front by Seebright. A small silly fraction of his life had fallen into the hands of his enemies. The less it was thought and spoken of the better.
    But this would hardly do. Here they were again, a few distant agreeable hours made slimy by the malice of a newspaper. Seebright had followed exactly the plan for his front page revealed to Macdowell: side by side the Mothecombe photograph, the signed Christmas card, and Friedrich alone beckoning his vanished family. He had devised one extra flourish. The thick black headline across the top, MY FRIEND FRITZ, was connected by a pink noose, which dangled down the page until it lassoed the signature at the foot of the Christmas card ROGER COURTAULD.
    The leader overleaf addressed any readers for whom the subtleties of the front page might have been excessive.
    Thunder
promised to bring you the truth behind the premiership contest. Go to other papers for the political promises. At
Thunder
that kind of stuff goes down the drain before you even pull the plug. No, we at
Thunder
want to show you the two
characters.
We are tolerant, we respect the rights of private life. But we respect even more the right of the British people to see their leaders straight and clear. You are entitled to know how they’ve behaved in the past. Isn’t that the only way of judging how they’ll behave in the future?
    Last week we showed you Joan Freetown at Cambridge. Roger Courtauld studied at Exeter University. Nothing wrong with that. He got a good degree. But his life wasn’t all study. Not by any means. Our front page tells another story – young Roger holding hands on a Devon beach. Nothing wrong with that either – even though it’s a young man he’s fondling. Our front page gives proof that this relationship continued. It wasn’t a one-day canoodle. At
Thunder
we know who the other man is. We shan’t give you his name today. We can tell you that he’s German. But there are facts we can’t yet know, questions Roger Courtauld has refused to answer. What exactly was the relationship? How far did it go? How long did it last? Have there been other gay chapters in the Home