Kompromat

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Melissa Barnard let the phone ring for a while. She was listening to the Archers. She wanted to hear what had happened to Helen in her domestic abuse storyline. The phone wouldn’t be for her anyway. Not at 7:00p.m. All her friends knew she would be listening to the radio at that time. And Edward was out for a ride. As a matter of fact, it was the first time Edward had ridden Jemima since that evening at the Oxford Union when Jerry, the security man, had rugger-tackled him. Almost broke Barnard’s leg. He had a socking, great bruise on his thigh.

The phone went on ringing. In the end she picked it up. It was the Downing Street switchboard. ‘The prime minister’s trying to get in touch with Mr Barnard.’

‘Well, I’m afraid my husband’s out with Jemima. He doesn’t have his phone with him.’

‘Does Jemima have a phone? We could maybe get a message to him that way.’

‘Jemima’s his horse.’

Melissa didn’t add that sometimes she felt her husband preferred his lovely bay mare, 16.2 hands, to his own dearly beloved wife. She watched him sometimes, sneaking an apple from the basket, when he headed out to the stable. And he talked to Jemima in a low, crooning way. He never talked like that to her.

‘Could you possibly tell Mr Barnard that the prime minister would very much like to see him at 3:00p.m. tomorrow? We’ll leave his name at the gate, of course.’

‘Of course.’ What on earth was that about, Melissa thought?

Edward Barnard hadn’t the foggiest either. ‘Beats me,’ he said, when Melissa gave him the message. As far as he was concerned, now that the Referendum was over, he was out to grass.

Still, they watched the news on the BBC later that evening. A removal van was parked at the back entrance to Downing Street; men burdened with packing cases streamed out of the house like warrior ants.

‘Tomorrow, Mrs Mabel Killick, Britain’s new prime minister, will kiss hands with Her Majesty the Queen and take the oath of office. This is likely to happen around nine in the morning. She will then proceed to Number 10, Downing Street. She will spend her first day constructing her new Cabinet. There will be good news for some; bad news for others. One thing is sure: Mabel Killick will make up her mind what she wants and then she will stick to her decision.’

Barnard arrived at the Downing Street gate in plenty of time for his 3p.m. appointment with the prime minister. The press and TV were out in force, lined up with cameras pointing at the famous door. Who’s in? Who’s out? That was the story of the hour.

‘We don’t need to see your passport, Mr Barnard,’ the duty-guard said. ‘We know you very well. Good luck.’

A line from Coleridge’s ‘Ancient Mariner’ came to him, as he emptied his pockets at security.

‘We were the first /that ever burst/ into that silent sea.’

The door opened as Edward Barnard approached. He had been to Number 10 Downing Street often enough in the past but he always wondered just how they managed to open the door at precisely the moment you got there. Some secret sensor, perhaps. Or PC Plod looking through a spyhole. He’d find out one day, no doubt.

Giles Mortimer met him inside. ‘Very good of you to come in, Mr Barnard. I hope your leg is better. Let’s go straight on up.’

Mortimer had, like his colleague Holly Percy, moved with the new prime minister from the Home Office to Number 10. Barnard followed him upstairs, looking at the photos of former prime ministers on the wall. Mrs Thatcher had already waited more than a quarter of a century for some female company, so a few more days wouldn’t matter.

The prime minister was in the Cabinet Room. They shook hands. She motioned to him to take a seat. Barnard noted that her two aides, Giles Mortimer and Holly Percy, were in close attendance.

They spent a couple of moments in polite chit-chat. Then Mrs Killick said, ‘I suppose you’re wondering why you’re here? It’s quite simple really. You were the chairman of the Leave campaign. You were and are a national figure. I was tremendously struck by the shock and concern that people on all sides showed last month when an attempt was made on your life. People trust you.’ She paused and looked straight at him. ‘I want you to be chancellor of the exchequer. I’m sure you’ll be a great success.’

The news struck him like a thunderbolt. Chancellor of the exchequer! One of the great Offices of state!

‘But what about Tom?’ he blurted. ‘Tom Milbourne?’

‘I’ve just sacked him. He came and left by the back door ten minutes before you got here.’ She looked at her aides. ‘Short and sweet. Wouldn’t you say, Giles?’

‘Short, but not exactly sweet, Prime Minister,’ Giles Mortimer replied.

Later that evening media news bulletins carried the full list of major appointments, decisions on some minor posts being carried over to the next day.