House of Cards (59 page)

'But to do something like that effectively, Francis, I shall need support, some special status. I
...
thought we had mentioned a knighthood.'

‘Y
es, indeed, Roger. That would be no more than you deserve. You've been absolutely indispensable to me, and you must understand how grateful I am. But I've been making enquiries. That sort of honour may not be possible, at least in the short term. There are so many who are already in line to be honoured when a Prime Minister retires and a new Government comes in, and as you know there is a limit on the number of honours even a Prime Minister can hand out. I'm afraid it could take a while
...'

Urquhart was determined to test O'Neill, to bully him, disappoint him, torment him, subject him to all the pressures he would inevitably come under in the course of the next few months, trying to see how far O'Neill could be pushed before reaching the limit. He had not a moment longer to wait as the Irishman hit his limit and burst through it with volcanic passion.

'Francis, you promised! That was part
of the
deal! You gave your word, and now you're telling me it's not on. No job. No knighthood. Not now, not soon, not ever! You've got what you wanted and now you think you can get rid of me. Well, think again! I've lied, I've cheated, I've forged and I've stolen for you. Now you treat me just like all the rest. I'm
not
going to have people laughing at me behind my back any more and looking down their noses as if I were some smelly Irish peasant. I deserve that knighthood and I demand it!'

The tumbler was emptied and O'Neill, shaking with emotion, refilled it from the decanter, spilling the malt whisky as it flowed over the edge of the glass. He slurped a huge mouthful down before resuming his avalanche of anger.

'We've been through this all together, as a team. Everything I've done has been for you, and you wouldn't have been able to get into Downing Street without me. We succeed together- or we fail together. If I'm going to end up on the compost heap, Francis, I'm damned if I'm going to be there alone. You can't afford to let me tell what I know. You owe me!'

The words had been spoken, the threat made. Urquhart had offered O'Neill a gauntlet of provocation, which almost without pause had been picked up and slapped back into Urquhart's face. It was clear it was no longer a matter of whether O'Neill would lose control, but how quickly, and it had taken no time at all.

There was no point in continuing to test him, and Urquhart brought it to a rapid conclusion with a broad smile and shake of the head.

'Roger, my dear friend. You misunderstand me entirely. I am only saying that it will be difficult this time around, in the New Year's Honours List But there's another one in the Spring, for the Queen's Birthday. Just a few weeks away, really. I'm only asking you to wait until then. And if you want a job in Downing Street, then we shall find one. We work as a team, you and I. You have deserved it, and on my word of honour I will not forget what I owe you.'

O'Neill could not respond above a murmur. His passion had been spent, the alcohol burrowing its way into his nervous system, his emotions torn asunder and now pasted back together. He sat there drained, ashen, exhausted.

'Look, have a sleep before lunch. We can sort out precisely what you want later,' suggested Urquhart.

Without another word, O'Neill slumped in his chair and closed his eyes. Within seconds his breathing had slowed as he found sleep, but his fingers kept twitching with little spasms of energy as his eyes flickered beneath their lids in constant turmoil. Wherever O'Neill's mind was wandering, it had not found peace.

Urquhart sat looking at the shrunken figure. O'Neill was drooling, with mucus dripping from his nose. It was a sight which would have left some men feeling pity, but Urquhart felt a cliilling emptiness. As a youth he had wandered the moors and hills on his family's estates with a labrador which had earned his tolerance through years of faithful service as a gun dog and constant companion. Yet the dog had grown old and less capable, and one day the gillie had come and explained with great sorrow that the dog had suffered a stroke, and must be put down. Urquhart had visited the dog in the stable where it slept, and was greeted with the pitiful sight of an animal which had lost control of itself. The rear legs were paralysed, it had fouled itself and its nose and mouth, like O'Neill's, were dribbling uncontrollably. It was as much as it could do to raise a whimper of greeting as the tail swung laboriously back and forth. There was a tear in the old gillie's eye as he fondled its ear to bring it some comfort.

There'll be no more chasing o' rabbits for you, old fella,' he had whispered.

Urquhart had dispatched the animal with a single blow of his rifle butt, instructing the gillie to bury the body well away from the house. As he stared now at O'Neill, he remembered the dog, and wondered why some men deserved less pity than dumb animals.

He left O'Neill in the library, and made his way quietly towards the kitchen. Under the sink he found a pair of rubber kitchen gloves, and stuffed them along with a teaspoon into his pocket before proceeding through the back door towards the outhouses which served as garage, workshop and storage. The old wooden door groaned open on its rusty binges as he entered the potting shed, and the mustiness hit him immediately. He used this place rarely, but he knew precisely what he was looking for. High on the far wall stood an ancient, battered kitchen cupboard which had been thrown out of the old scullery many years before, and which now served as a home for half-used tins of paint, stray cans of oil and a vigorous army of woodworm. The door opened with a protesting creak, and he immediately found the tightly sealed can. He put on the rubber gloves before taking it from its shelf and walking back towards the house, holding the can well away from him as if he were carrying a flaming torch.

Once back in the house, he made his way quietly upstairs after checking that O'Neill was still soundly asleep. As soon as he had reached the guest room, he entered and turned the key in the door, securing it behind him. He was relieved to discover that O'Neill had not locked his overnight case, and taking great care not to leave any signs of interference he began methodically to search through its contents. He found what he was looking for in the toilet bag, crammed alongside the toothpaste and shaving gear. It was a tin of men's talcum powder, the head of which came away from the shoulders when he gave it a slight wrench. Inside there was no talcum powder but a small self-sealing polythene bag, with the equivalent of a tablespoon full of white powder nestling in one comer.

He took the bag over to the polished mahogany writing desk
which stood by the window, and
extracted three large sheets of blue writing paper from the drawer before slowly pouring the contents of the bag into a small mound oh top of one of the blue sheets. Gingerly he opened the tin he had brought from the potting shed and out of it spooned another similarly sized pile of white powder onto a second sheet. Using the flat end of the spoon as a spatula he proceeded with the greatest care to divide both mounds of white powder into two equal halves, scraping one half of each onto the third page of writing paper. With relief he could see that they were of an almost identical colour and consistency, the white grains standing out against the smooth blue background, and he mixed the two halves quickly together to hide the fact that they had ever been anything but one and the same. He made a single crease along the middle of the paper, and prepared to pour the mixture back into the polythene bag.

At that moment it hit him. The conviction which had filled his veins turned to burning acid, the certainty which had guided his hand suddenly deserted him, and the composure in which he took so much pride vanished. His will had become a battleground. The morality and restraint which the system had tried to beat into him from birth screamed at him to stop, to change his mind, even now to turn back, while his guts told him that morality was weakness. What mattered was reality. And the reality was that he was about to become the most powerful man in the country - so long as his nerve held.

It was clarity of purpose which he needed now, which the Government needed. All too often Administrations had been brought to their knees as leaders listened to the siren voices, confronting the harsh realities of power only to withdraw into weakness and compromise. Didn't they say that once they were elected, all politicians were the same? Most politicians
were
the same - weak, irresolute, insignificant characters, who fouled the nest and got in the way of those who had the resolve to move forward.

Great men had an inner strength, and he was furious with himself now for having doubts. Whether they wished to recognise it or not, all politicians played with other men's lives, and all lives had a price—not just in war, but in placing limits on the care of the sick and the elderly, in setting punishment for crime, in sending men down coal mines or out to the angry fishing grounds of the Arctic Circle. The national interest required sacrifice from many, and often of the few.

He looked out at the mists which still clung tenaciously to the tree tops of the New Forest, blotting out the horizon and transporting his thoughts. He felt as Caesar must have done when faced with the Rubicon, uncertain of what lay on the opposite shore, knowing that he could never retrace his footsteps. Few men were favoured enough to take control of the great decisions of life; most simply suffered the consequences of decisions taken by others. He thought of his brother in the hedgerows of Dunkirk, a pawn like a million others in the games of the great. Urquhart could be one of the
great, should
be one of them, and O'Neill was as insignificant a pawn as he could imagine.

Once more he picked up the paper with its load of white powder. His hand was still trembling, but less than before. He was glad he was not looking down the sights of a shotgun at some deer; he would have missed. Or building a house of cards. The powder slipped unprotesting into the polythene bag, which he then quickly resealed. It looked as if it had never been touched.

Five minutes later he had flushed all the remaining powder down the toilet, following that with the torn-up pieces of writing paper. The writing table was carefully wiped with a damp rag and polished with a towel to hide any trace that he had sat there, and he replaced the polythene bag in the talcum tin, the tin in the toilet bag and the bag back where he had found it. He was absolutely satisfied that O'Neill would never know his case had been tampered with.

He returned to the bathroom where he ran the taps at full flow. He washed the spoon meticulously and as the gushing water swirled down the drain, he poured the
remaining
contents of the tin into the water and watched it disappear.

Finally, he left the house once more by the kitchen door, walking across the carefully manicured lawns to a far corner behind the weeping willow tree, where his gardener always had a small pile of garden rubbish ready to bum. It was soon ablaze, with the empty tin and rubber gloves buried deep in its midst. When he was satisfied the fire was burning thoroughly, he returned to the house, poured himself a large whisky which he swallowed as greedily as O'Neill, and at last relaxed. It was done.

O'Neill had been asleep for three hours when he was roused by someone shaking him fiercely by the shoulder. Slowly he focused his eyes, and saw Urquhart leaning over him, instructing him to wake up.

'Roger. There's had to be a change of plan. I've just had a call from the BBC asking if they can send a film crew over here to shoot some domestic footage for their news coverage on Tuesday. Samuel has apparently already agreed, so I felt I had little choice but to say yes. They will be here in about an hour and will be staying all afternoon. It's just what we didn't want. If they find you here it will start all sorts of speculation about how party headquarters is interfering in the leadership race. We must avoid any confusion at this late stage. I'm sorry. I think it best that you leave right away.'

O'Neill was still trying to find second gear on his tongue as Urquhart poured some coffee past it, explaining once again how sorry he was about the weekend but how glad he was they had cleared up any confusion between them.

'Remember, Roger. A knighthood next Whitsun, and we can sort out the job you want next week. I'm so happy you were able to come. I really am so grateful,' Urquhart was saying as he tipped O'Neill into his car.

He watched as O'Neill's car edged its way carefully and with practised caution down the driveway and out through the gates.

'Goodbye, Roger,' he whispered.

SUNDAY 28
th
NOVEMBER

True to the information their editors had given him the previous day, the quality Sunday newspapers made good reading for the Chief Whip and his supporters.

'Urquhart ahead', announced the
Sunday Times,
adding the endorsement of its editorial columns to boost the Chief Whip's campaign still further. Both the
Sunday Telegraph
and the
Express
openly backed Urquhart, while the
Mail on Sunday tried
uncomfortably to straddle the fence. Only the
Observer
gave editorial backing to Samuel, but even this was deeply qualified by its front page report of Urquhart's clear lead in the opinion polls.

It took one of the more scurrilous Sunday papers to give the campaign a real shake. 'Samuel was a commie!' it screamed over half its front page, declaring it had discovered that Samuel had been an active left-winger while at university. Indeed, when contacted by a friendly sounding reporter from the newspaper who said he was 'doing a feature on the early days' of both Samuel and Urquhart and had discovered some youthful indulgence in radical politics, Samuel had rather reluctantly admitted to a passing involvement in many different university clubs, saying that until the age of twenty he had been a sympathiser with a number of fashionable causes which, thirty years later, seemed naive and misplaced.