Kompromat

They all laughed dutifully. When you come to see a king, you first pay homage. Listening to the fella, laughing at his jokes, even when they are shit-awful, is part of the deal.

After that, they got down to business.

Later that evening, sitting with his laptop on the patio outside his room – no mozzies, thank heavens – Barnard skyped Harriet Marshall.

‘Harriet, is that you? Look at the screen. I can only see the top of your head.’

‘I can’t see you at all. Turn the camera on.’

When they had sorted out the technicalities, Barnard explained, ‘We’ve done the deal. Nothing in writing, of course. That’s not the way Selkirk works but it’s in the bag. Rosie Craig said she had the full authority of her father. If they win the election, they’ll rip up the regulator, the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission. If they don’t abolish it, they’ll bring it to heel. Appoint a new commissioner. And as far as Russia’s concerned, an incoming Craig administration will press President Popov to allow Selkirk Global to expand throughout the whole of the territory.’

‘Why would Popov agree to that?’ Harriet asked.

Barnard leaned into the screen. He pressed his right forefinger to the side of his nose. ‘President Popov didn’t become one of the richest men in Russia just by sitting around scratching his bum.’

‘What about the UK?’ Harriet asked. ‘Did Selkirk have some specific “asks” there too?’

‘He certainly did. He wants a post-Brexit government in Britain to dismember the BBC. To break it up, like we broke up British Rail. He believes the tax-payer-funded Beeb totally distorts the market-place in Britain. He wants a level playing field as far as the media are concerned.’

‘And what did you say? Did you stick to the script we agreed?’

‘Well, I didn’t give him what he wanted. I told him that even a radical post-Brexit government in Britain couldn’t sacrifice a sacred cow like the BBC, not overnight anyway. But I did point out that the BBC’s Charter was up for renewal at the end of the year and that having a new Brexit-led government in power in Britain could make quite a difference.’

‘I like it.’ Harriet Marshall’s leering face was hugely distorted by the camera angle. ‘Did you fill in the details?’

‘I didn’t need to. Mickey Selkirk may be over eighty but he doesn’t miss a trick. He just said, “Good on ya, mate.” Then we shook hands on it.’

Before turning in, Barnard Skyped his wife as well. He hadn’t spoken to Melissa for days.

‘Where are you?’ she asked.

When Barnard told her that he was staying at Mickey Selkirk’s million-acre cattle station in the Kimberley, Western Australia, Melissa Barnard asked, ‘What about the mosquitos?’

‘The mozzies are fine. I’m sitting here on the terrace outside my room with the doors open.’

They chatted on.

‘If you’re going to be jetting around the world for the next few days,’ Melissa said, ‘I think I’ll go to visit Fiona and Michael in Ireland. They’ve got such a lovely place there. So calming.’

Fiona, their daughter, was a marine biologist. Her boyfriend – partner might be the better word, because they seemed quite seriously taken with each other – was a young Irish lawyer called Michael Kennedy, who specialized in Arctic environmental issues.

‘The Arctic’s done for, Mrs Barnard, unless we act now’, is what he’d told her on her last visit.

‘Yes, do go to Ireland,’ Barnard urged her. ‘God’s own country, isn’t it? Please give my love to Fiona and say hi to Michael too.’

Melissa was about to disconnect, when she suddenly remembered something she had been meaning to say all along.

‘And, Edward, I was thinking about that that disgusting film. I knew all along the man on the bed wasn’t you.’

‘You told me that already,’ Barnard mildly reminded her. ‘You said I wouldn’t have been up for the rumpy pumpy, not that kind of rumpy pumpy anyway!’

‘Oh, Edward. Don’t take things so literally. You’re fine in that department, I promise you. Quite fine enough, anyway, so far as I’m concerned. No, there’s something else. Do you still have the film?’

‘No, I handed it in to MI5.’

‘Can you manage to contact them?’

‘I could try. Why do you ask?’

‘I’m thinking about the boxer shorts.’

‘I didn’t see any boxer shorts. The man who wasn’t me was stark bollock naked as far as I could see.’

‘“The Man Who Wasn’t Me” could be the title of a film!’ Melissa wiped the tears from her eyes.

‘Please get on with it.’

Melissa managed to stifle her laughter before continuing. ‘Remember when the man who wasn’t you pulls the two blondes onto the bed, and one of them sucks his cock and I can’t remember what the other does… pees on him, I think. Well, just as all that’s going on, I’m pretty sure I glimpsed a pair of boxer shorts on the far side of the enormous bed, which the man had obviously taken off in his hurry to get cracking.’

‘And I don’t wear boxer shorts. Have I got that right?’

‘Well, you might wear boxer shorts on rare occasion,’ Melissa conceded. ‘But not these shorts. They were red, white and blue, sprinkled with silver stars, so they looked like the US flag!’