Whispers of Betrayal by Michael Dobbs Page B

upon the door. It swung open slowly and from behind it appeared the timid-eager face of Anita Chaudury, the Member for one of the Leicester seats and the Prime Minister’s Parliamentary Private Secretary. The ‘Parly Charlie’ was little more than an unpaid parliamentary gofer, a runner of errands, tasks which at times were of such menial standing that in any other profession they might have led to a lawsuit, but she loved every minute of it, from making sure there was enough Frascati in the fridge to keeping her master’s compact available but unobserved. It mattered not a jot to her that she had been chosen for the role solely to prop up the PrimeMinister’s credentials on sexism and racism, his ‘double whammie mammie’, as he had been know to refer to her. For Anita it was the first rung on the ladder, the pathway to higher things.
    ‘Excuse me, Jonathan …’ She looked flustered but couldn’t hide the reverence in her voice. ‘I thought you ought to know straight away. It’s Sampson.’
    ‘Who?’
    She took a couple of tentative steps into the room. ‘Sampson. One of our Members in Leeds.’
    Bendall knotted his brow, trying to locate him. ‘So what’s young Sampson gone and done?’
    She coughed. ‘Old Sampson,’ she began, anxious about the necessary correction. ‘I’m afraid he’s gone and died.’ She made it sound as if it were her fault.
    The furrows on the Prime Minister’s brow deepened. ‘I am inconsolable, Anita. What’s his majority?’
    ‘Over ten thousand.’
    ‘A fine man. And a fine legacy. Arrange the usual letters of condolence.’ Bendall was on the point of returning to his business with Vertue when he became aware that she was already clutching a sheaf of letters. ‘Ah, you have them already. Well done. I’ll sign them immediately.’
    She retreated half a pace. ‘No, no, Jonathan, these are … from the public. In response to Gerry Earwick’s letter in the
Telegraph
about defence cuts. Didn’t go down too well with some of the Old Contemptibles, I’m afraid.’
    Bendall sat back in his chair, contemplating his assistant. ‘Tell me, Anita, what did you think of the letter?’
    Her brown eyes grew large, she thought she had entered heaven. She was in the Cabinet room. Her opinion being sought. On her way. ‘To be frank, I thought it brutal.’
    ‘Absolutely right. Man’s a bloody Tojo.’
    ‘It would have been better, in my opinion,’ she continued, emboldened by his support, ‘to have found some common ground. Conciliated. Extended the hand of understanding.’
    Oh, and that’s where you are absolutely wrong, Bendall concluded silently. Politics is not a game of apologies. It’s war, bloody, at times bestial. No prisoners. If Earwick’s remarks had been atrifle intemperate, they had at least revealed all the brutal instincts required to ward off sharks. A necessary man. Which is why, at the forthcoming reshuffle, he will be getting a promotion. While you, little Anita, will be cast adrift alongside the Employment Secretary. With a big label marked No Longer Needed On Voyage.
    ‘Tell me, Anita, can you swim?’
    ‘N-no,’ she stumbled in surprise.
    ‘Thought not.’ He dismissed her with a wave of his hand.
    ‘The full tide of existence is here,’ Dr Samuel Johnson had once remarked about the crossroads that are now Trafalgar Square, and Goodfellowe was inclined to agree with him, although for the moment the tide seemed to have ground to a halt.
    Goodfellowe had retreated in late afternoon to his flat in Chinatown in order to escape the inevitable demands of the Tea Room. He had both a diet to defend and a backlog of personal correspondence to clear and was behind schedule on both, but now he was scurrying back to Westminster, braving the evening rush hour to make the seven o’clock vote. Except nothing was rushing. As he manoeuvred his bicycle around the queue of cars waiting their turn to enter the square he found his path obstructed, the intersection