The Turning Tide (16 page)

‘Says nothing at all in as many words possible,’ Rab muttered.

‘Oh, fuck off Rab,’ Erykah whispered, her smile unwavering.

‘You are no doubt wondering why we’ve asked you to meet us at the home of some of the UK’s newest-minted millionaires,’ the Major continued. ‘Not only do most people agree that Scotland should be part of Great Britain, but this couple . . .’ the Major turned and smiled at Erykah and Rab with the dazzling hundred-watt gleam of expensive dentures, ‘have donated no less than nineteen million pounds to the Scotland Liberal Unionist Party.’

A sharp intake of breath from the press corps. A few mumbles as reporters did the sums. Wasn’t that almost their entire lottery win? That was a ridiculous amount, unheard of. Was it even legal? ‘That’s a lot,’ supplied one voice from the crowd. The EuroMillions winners who had given a million each to the Yes campaign and to the
SNP
a few years back had definitely been outplayed.

‘Yes, it is a lot of money, and yes, it is an unprecedented gesture of generosity from a private donor,’ the Major continued. ‘But I think I speak for all of us involved with the Scotland Liberal Unionist Party when I assure Mr and Mrs Macdonald that it will go to the best cause possible – seeing that the
SLU
is represented in Brussels, mounting a challenge to the nationalist stranglehold on Scotland, and ensuring a stable future for our British children and our children’s children.’

The Major paused to smile. Brussels would be a most welcome change. He had had it with London, with the backstabbing media who promised six-figure deals but delivered royalty statements that would have embarrassed a church mouse. Becoming an
MEP
would mean expense accounts, reimbursed travel, and crucially – time far, far away from the beady eyes of his wife.

‘My dear Mr and Mrs Macdonald,’ the Major said. ‘I speak on behalf of the Scotland Liberal Unionist Party, and I hope on behalf of the future of Britain, when I say we cannot thank you enough.’

Erykah beamed as a dozen flashes went off just inches from her face. She’d practiced the smile for hours beforehand, trying to get the right balance of pleased and modest. She knew how to work a look. ‘No, thank
you
Major, for giving us the opportunity to contribute in such a meaningful way to the debate,’ she said. Rab, meanwhile, looked as though he would rather be anywhere else. ‘I understand this has kicked off the discussion on the Internet, and I hope it encourages even more people to get involved with the cause of repairing the Union and healing the scars caused by that unfortunate and divisive referendum.’

Seminole Billy watched from the back. The woman was doing well. Not much could be said about the husband, which was for the best. No chance now the man might go to the police instead of holding up his end of the bargain. If anything did go sour a follow-up visit would discourage the idiot from breaking rank.

‘We’re the top trend in the country right now,’ Heather murmured to the Major. ‘Number two in the world trends. Let’s open it up to questions.’

Erykah nodded and clapped as the Major dispatched expected questions with well-rehearsed answers. ‘It’s scaremongering, it’s the very opposite of the truth,’ he rumbled in response to claims that English MPs were plotting to prevent Scotland recovering from the recession. ‘A narrow nationalism that makes cosy deals with media and prays for more recession to convince the Scottish people to support an independence they have told us they do not want.’ The Major was getting into his stride. ‘The evidence was never on the side of independence. The nationalists have not won hearts and they have not won minds,’ he bellowed. ‘Now is the time to talk about a constitutional settlement for all of the United Kingdom.’

Erykah exhaled slowly. She noted none of the questions were being directed towards her and Rab. Weren’t they the ones making the donation after all?

‘So why the need for the
SLU
?’ asked one reporter. ‘If most people are, as you say, on the side of staying with the Union, can’t they do that through the existing parties?’

‘It gives a unified voice to us in the silent majority,’ Erykah interjected. There was a flash of cameras when she spoke. She positioned herself behind and to the side of Heather and the Major so that they both had to turn away from the audience in order to hear her. A classic upstage.

‘For people like my husband, whose family left Scotland in bad economic times, and now, one or two generations later, are facing active discrimination from independence supporters for being proud to be British as well as Scottish.’ She stopped and smiled to make sure the reporters were able to get every word. ‘As his Glaswegian grandfather used to say,’ she paused to frown slightly, as if remembering halcyon days soaking up the wisdom of the long-dead alcoholic widower she had never met, ‘They may take our land, but they can never take our . . .’ No, no, that was too much, too
Braveheart
. ‘Um, they can never take our heritage.’

‘And the independence propagandists would do exactly that,’ Heather blurted, ‘take away your heritage.’ She smiled and swivelled back to face the crowd.

A reporter up at the front waved. According to his press card he was from one of those magazines that was given away free on the Tube and in railway stations. Not the lowest of the low by any means – but not far off the bottom of the totem pole either. Heather, feeling generous, gestured to him. He took a deep breath. ‘In an economy when most charities are struggling to get donations, considering the
SLU
has only existed for a short time, doesn’t the timing of this donation seem a little suspicious?’

The Major and Heather exchanged glances. What was this fellow on about? Heather hesitated. ‘Excuse me?’ she said.

‘Isn’t it odd that a group that . . .’ He scrolled down on his smartphone for information. ‘Registered only last month is already getting a larger donation than any political party to date? That’s the most effective fundraising I’ve ever heard about and many, many people are asking questions. I’m sure other groups would love to know your secret.’ The reporter smirked at Major Abbott. ‘We can assume it isn’t because of the quality of your up-and-coming political candidates.’

The Major glared at the weedy man. He’d been told the press conference was going to be straightforward. He didn’t have the time or patience to go off-piste. ‘Where are you getting this nonsense from?’

‘It’s all over the web,’ he said, turning the smartphone towards the rest of the press corps so they could see. Some were already looking it up themselves. ‘An anonymous account tweeted the link to your foundation at Companies House a few minutes ago; it’s already been retweeted over a thousand times already. Someone calling themselves Media Mouse,’ the man said. ‘Also, Mrs Macdonald? Your top button’s just come undone.’ Erykah clapped a hand to her chest.

‘Shut this down and get me out of here!’ the Major spat at Heather. But his eyes were glued to Erykah’s breasts. A dozen cameras managed to catch the moment, his moustachioed face poised between lust and hate as the
SLU’s
secretary cowered in fear. The picture was on the web in moments.

Erykah looked out over the group of reporters and spotted Seminole Billy by the rhododendrons. She raised her eyebrows almost imperceptibly. He shrugged and shook his head – no idea. The media monkeys were typing like mad on their phones. The virtual appearance of some unknown third party was going to take over the story instead of Scotland Liberal Unionists having the final word. This was a surprise, and Seminole Billy didn’t like surprises. The people who hired him usually didn’t either. This anonymous tweeter – whoever it turned out to be – was on his radar now.

All the reporters had their phones out now, either tweeting the events or hoping to catch a photo that might go viral. It was time to bail. ‘I’m very sorry, the Major has a prior appointment elsewhere this afternoon so we have to finish here,’ Heather said, and grabbed the Major’s sleeve to guide him to the waiting car. ‘Thank you all for coming today.’

: 14 :

The Major lay in bed as still as a soldier on sentry. As still as a man in his grave. It was quiet, too quiet, with his wife Betty still in Cameron Bridge. Usually he had her steady breathing to mark the seconds, and the dark room slowly brightening to mark the hours as morning entered their London home. The sheet draped over his legs like a clammy shroud.

The press conference. The money. The scam. What had he got himself involved in? What if the media found out? What then? Yes, he could try to weasel out of it. Deny any insider knowledge; distance himself from the key players. And hope that was enough to keep the police from his door. It probably wasn’t.

Nineteen million. No one had told him it was all coming from one donor. It smelled dodgy. No wonder the press had gone wild. He wouldn’t have believed a word of it either, if he wasn’t involved.

It was all his goddaughter’s fault; she was the one who had roped him into fronting the
SLU
in the first place. She couldn’t be the forward face, she said. We need someone with right wing credibility, she said. And he had lapped it up. Eager to believe the work would be as easy as she said it would be rewarding.

Why had he trusted her without question? All along she kept assuring him she had control of the media, that she knew what she was doing, that they were in her pocket. That she would do the hard work behind the scenes and the
SLU
staff would walk him through the rest. Then the disastrous press conference happened and everyone there looked foolish. Especially him. She wasn’t the one who was risking her image on this, he was. She was behind the curtain pulling the strings. He should have demanded more skin in the game from her. He should have anticipated that any negative outcome was going to fall on his shoulders.

And the press conference wasn’t the half of it. If the full story were to come out it would make them look like monsters.

The Major stayed in his bed until daylight, eyes wide open, waiting. Mornings were the worst. His insomnia was back with a vengeance. It was more exhausting than the speed marches in formation that they had cranked out during training. He was getting by these days on a diet of booze, instant coffee, and old-fashioned stubbornness. But for how much longer?

He rose the second the alarm sounded, showered and dressed in his kilt and tweeds. He patted the bed next to him to say goodbye to Betty for the day, forgetting for a moment that he was alone in the house.

The Major took a black cab to his office, the converted pied-a-terre in a South Kensington mews where he had written his memoirs. Years ago it had also doubled as a crash pad for the mistresses and escorts who might or might not have made the Major’s acquaintance. Once, many an afternoon had been whiled away over cocktails and sweaty sheets and where the receptionist now sat had been a bouncy king-sized bed and drinks cupboard. Good times.

These days his office was a hideout from his wife’s barely suppressed rage. After his affair was exposed in the tabloids she had supervised the conversion of the flat into a proper office, her mouth a tight white line as she watched removal men carry the bed down three flights of stairs. ‘Make sure that lot goes right to the tip,’ she said as they drove away.

Other marriages might have crumbled after what happened, but he was not the right generation for that, nor was his wife. Divorce was not in either of their vocabularies. His wife had made stony-faced endurance of her husband’s career into her vocation. Betty Abbott was far from ready to retire that particular commission.

‘Any messages?’ he asked the secretary, a battleaxe of a woman selected for reception duties by his wife.

Wilma shook her head. ‘Nothing,’ she said, her hands pounding away at a Cold War-era Selectric typewriter. ‘Maybe later.’ They rarely exchanged anything but essential information. Flirting with the help was verboten these days: the secretary was as fat as a butcher’s dog and old enough to be his mother. On paper he was her employer. He was under no illusions as to who Wilma’s real boss was.

With the coming political race, as well, he’d had to take on more help. A couple of interns dropped in most days, fresh young fellows with cheeks like slapped arses and thin shoulders in awkward suits, to help with the workload. Hugo and Oscar were identical apart from Hugo’s cowlick and Oscar’s mild stammer. Wilma had planted Oscar at a desk facing the wall to frank three hundred envelopes for posting in key swing vote areas. Whatever the young Oxbridge graduates had imagined life held for them after a 2:2 in
PPE
, this most likely was not it.

Whitney shut himself into the inner sanctum, a box room that had once served as a makeshift kitchen and storage. The old fittings had been removed. Blocked off ends of pipes jutted from the walls. When the office reshuffle happened, Betty had put him in the smallest room. He had no doubt it was on purpose.

She had been in last month for redecorating again. A power move to underline who was in charge, like a bulldog pissing in a bed of daisies. The room still smelled of fresh paint. The Major perused boxes of memorabilia collected over the years that he had yet to put back on the walls. Clippings of favourable book reviews. A photo of the Major shaking hands with Jimmy Savile when they met at a dinner at Lympstone – might be better to leave that one off the wall. A small walnut box with hand-cut dovetail joins that contained one of his father’s pistols.

He was gazing at the box when Wilma announced a call from a Mrs Macdonald waiting on line two.

‘Major,’ Erykah purred when he picked up the call.

‘Mrs Macdonald,’ the Major said. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure?’

‘I thought we could meet soon. I have a feeling we might have some . . . mutual interests to discuss.’

‘Is that so?’ the Major asked. He doubted all she wanted was a chat over a latte, but he was pleased for the distraction. ‘And remind me again what it is you have that I want?’

‘I think you know what that is,’ Erykah said. Her voice dipped just low enough to hint what that might be. If she was going to play the game, she was determined to play it right. ‘If the news stories were anything to go by.’

‘Ah yes, I remember, the famous chest,’ he said. Perhaps his day was picking up after all, the cheeky minx. ‘A cheap ploy.’

‘Cheap but effective. It had your attention,’ Erykah said. ‘So let’s meet. Talk. Out of the office.’

‘Let’s,’ he said, already imagining what might happen next. He was glad she hadn’t suggested dropping by. ‘Sooner rather than later. Today.’

‘Perfect,’ Erykah said.

‘What time suits you?’

‘Any time. As soon as you’re finished at the office.’ She suggested a café near Westminster.

‘I’m leaving now,’ the Major said, and rang off.

Thank the gods for womankind. He’d had enough of the office for one day. An afternooner sounded like just the thing. Although a drink would have been better than coffee. With any luck, maybe she would keep him out late enough for one of those too.

‘I’ve always wondered something,’ Wilma said as he made his way to the door.

‘What’s that?’ the Major paused to ask.

‘Does that really work with men?’ Her hands did not even slow as she continued to type at a violent speed. The Selectric crashed and clattered like a tractor on a country road. Hugo, or was it Oscar, paused his work, the better to eavesdrop.

‘Does what work?’

The Major’s secretary looked up and smiled. ‘The bedroom voice. She sounded like a bitch on heat.’ No doubt Wilma would be on the phone to his better half as soon as he was gone.

Crusted hag. ‘Well, if it does, I certainly don’t know who with,’ the Major said, and left.

The café Erykah had suggested was one of a chain that had seen better days. While a steady stream of tourist traffic still wandered in and out, these days they were as often asking for directions or looking for the toilets as ordering a drink. Flyers for local events were affixed to the community noticeboard, most of them out of date.

Whitney waited to order, tapping on the counter while the baristas busied themselves with emptying coffee grounds into an overflowing bin and laughing at each other’s small talk. Finally, after almost a quarter of an hour, one of them deigned to pour him a filter coffee. A tinny thump thump thump of music emanated from somewhere in the corner of the room.

Though with the prospect of hooking up with the lovely Mrs Macdonald on the cards, who could complain? The Major brushed his moustache with a knotted finger. His mind wandered to hotels he knew close by where they might remember his visits in past years. Maybe somewhere that could give him a room on account, discreetly.

The Major picked up a newspaper left by some previous customer. He turned the pages with almost no interest – there was no news, really, just scraps of distracting entertainment served up as journalism and press releases disguised as investigations. His eye landed on the society column.
News reaches us that everyone’s favourite goggle-eyed perv and erstwhile war hero, Major Abbott, has become an Internet meme
. Ugh. The Major crushed the tabloid in his paw and threw it onto the floor.

He checked his watch. It was half an hour since he’d arrived. Erykah had said she was coming straight away. He contemplated ordering another coffee but the teenagers behind the counter were still occupied with ignoring the customers. The Major began to wonder if he was being stood up. His jaw tightened. Well then, fine. At least it had got him out of the office.

Or maybe this wasn’t a date after all. He wouldn’t have put it past his wife to try to set him up. That was it. She was leading him on to make him look the fool. Maybe his wife was going to be the one who came through the door. Or maybe the Erykah woman would be wearing a wire while he propositioned her. Yes, that had to be it. He drank the cold dregs of his coffee in one mouthful and stood up to go.

‘I am so, so sorry,’ Erykah trilled as she came through the door, hands held up in apology, heels clicking on the scuffed linoleum floor. ‘Tube lines down all over and the taxi queue was insane.’ He sat down again.

‘No sneaky wire in there, I hope,’ he said and nodded towards her enormous designer handbag.

‘Hello to you too,’ she said as she shed several layers of outerwear and pulled off a frankly kinky looking pair of gloves. She dusted crumbs off a chair and perched on its edge.

‘Apologies,’ he said. ‘But you can never be too careful. After the last time and all.’ He searched her face for some kind of sign. There was a sheen of sweat on her brow, but that could as easily have been from running to make the meeting as from nerves. Underneath that, though, he thought he detected something else. Skittishness. As if she was trying to make her mind up about going one way or another.

If there was one thing he knew from experience, it was that uncertainty was the worst thing in the field. Be right, be wrong, whichever. But don’t be uncertain. Pick a line and stick with it. Anyone who didn’t? Those were the ones you had to watch the closest.

‘Oh, but we’re on the same team really, aren’t we?’ She laid her hand on his and he softened. ‘You want to know if you can trust me. Tell you what. As a sign of trust, you can look through my bag if I can look through yours.’ She pointed at the sporran on his lap. ‘Deal?’ The Major crossed his legs. ‘Didn’t think so,’ Erykah smiled. ‘Neither of us has much to gain from being exposed, am I right?’

The Major chewed this over and found it acceptable. ‘So, what can I do you for?’ he said.

‘I was hoping you could tell me,’ Erykah said. ‘You see, I have a feeling you might like to make sure your side –
our
side – whatever it is, that I stay on it.’

‘I hope this isn’t some sort of attempt at blackmail.’

Erykah opened her mouth, a hand fluttered to her chest. ‘Blackmail? Me? Far from it,’ she said. Was that the dark shadow of a lie he saw pass her face? Or was she genuine? ‘What I have in mind is more of a mutually beneficial arrangement. You’ll find I can be very discreet.’

‘You’ve been the model of discretion so far,’ the Major said. ‘Or did I imagine that smile on your face when you realised the entire press corps could see down your top?’

‘I’m more than window dressing,’ she said, looking him in the eyes. ‘You know what it’s like to be taken for granted, looked over. You never made colonel; why is that?’

His eye twitched – she had hit the mark. She had done her research. He was hungry for credibility.

‘What I want is to be more than a name and face for people to use.’ Erykah leaned forward and brushed the sleeve of his tweed jacket with her fingertips. ‘You know how that feels, don’t you?’ she said.

The Major straightened his posture and inhaled deeply. He stayed silent as she continued, ‘I bet I know what they say when you leave a room.’ Her voice dropped and she looked up through her lashes. ‘You’re on the way out. Washed up. How many years can you live off the memory of a war that happened when half the country wasn’t even born? Off a book that hardly shifted any copies?’ She leaned back. ‘I know it’s not the money you want. Otherwise, why would you bother with this SLU nonsense? There are easier pay cheques to be had. No,’ she said, ‘it’s not about money for you. It’s about being in the thick of it again.’

She looked at him. ‘Don’t be offended. I know because that’s how I feel too. You have to understand, a week ago I had a marriage, I had rowing, and I had the lottery ticket. Now I have nothing.’ She looked away and tried to hold back tears. That much, he felt sure, was genuine.

The Major shrugged. ‘And?’

‘I know the lottery was a scam,’ she said. She told him that she knew the Scotland Liberal Unionist Party was involved. She suggested that two men who had turned up at her house, and one later at the press conference, knew him. He couldn’t disagree.

‘The question is, what do we do about this?’ she concluded. ‘I am not interested in exposing your friends or the original deal – they made it clear what would happen, and in any case, I’m not the sort of woman who goes back on her word.’ Her diamond eternity band glinted as a shard of light broke through the window of the café. ‘Usually. But at the same time I do require some assurance that I won’t be cast aside.’