THIRTY-FIVE
‘Come on, come on!’
Hopping from foot to foot, Xavier Carlton sipped his beer nervously and glanced at the second hand skipping round the face of his TAG Heuer Carrera. It was 9.59 plus ten… eleven… twelve seconds.
His heart was beating so fast, Xavier thought it might burst out of his chest at any moment. This waiting was killing him. The final hour before the polls closed had dragged interminably, going on for what seemed like days. But now, finally, in less than a minute, they would know the outcome of the election.
… twenty-three… twenty-four… twenty-five…
The excited hubbub died down as everyone gathered round the television monitors placed all around the room, waiting for the news. The final opinion polls still had them in front, if only by five per cent or so. That should still be enough to give them a small but workable majority in the House of Commons, assuming that the polls were right.
… forty-eight… forty-nine… fifty…
Letting his eyes slip away from the massive cinema screen at the far end of the hotel ballroom, Xavier glanced at his brother. With his head bowed, Edgar looked gaunt and exhausted. They’d had it in the bag for so long now, all they really wanted was the relief of knowing it was all over.
In the distance, Xavier thought he could just make out the faint chimes of Big Ben, half a mile down the road, as it struck ten o’clock. For a second, all of the screens within the room went blank.
Heart pounding, Xavier held his breath.
Suddenly, finally, Egar’s face appeared on the screen.
There was a split second’s delay, then a massive cheer went up. All around, people were shouting and screaming, hugging each other and punching the air in celebration. One of the girls close by burst into tears.
Xavier stepped over and hugged his brother.
‘Thank God!’ Edgar closed his eyes and gave silent thanks.
‘Amen,’ said Xavier, feeling his knees buckle slightly. Regaining his composure, he grabbed Edgar by the arm and quickly led him past a couple of Trevor Miller’s security guys and down a hallway leading away from the noise. Round a corner, he swiped a key card that gave them access to the sanctuary of their own private hotel suite. Strict instructions had been given that absolutely no one, other than a handful of their closest circle, was to be allowed access. Even friends and family had been parked in rooms on the floor below, the brothers having insisted on a space which was for them alone. Those years of having, literally, their every move watched, exposed, dissected, debated and criticised were over. The campaign to claw back some of their privacy started here.
Grabbing a fresh beer, Xavier dropped on to the sofa in the middle of the large sitting room. On a TV mounted on the wall the presenter proclaimed: ‘The polls have now closed in today’s General Election. And tonight it looks as though Britain has a new government. We are predicting that Edgar Carlton will become the next prime minister, with a majority of twenty seats in the House of Commons.’
In the ballroom outside, the music started up as the victory party proper finally got under way. Xavier felt his brother’s hand rest on his shoulder as he gulped down his beer. Neither man said anything, their elation drowned in sheer relief.
They were still lost in their thoughts when the door swung open and William Murray fell into the room, eyes gleaming.
‘Congratulations!’ shouted the special adviser. ‘You’ve done it!’ In each hand, Murray held up a magnum of chilled Krug 1995, beads of condensation quickly forming on the dark green glass. An unlit Romeo y Julieta Short Churchill was wedged between his lips. Standing unsteadily on one leg, he kicked the door shut behind him with the other.
The little sod’s drunk, thought Xavier. But why not? I will be, too, soon enough. Everyone should get blasted on a night like this. The night of a lifetime.
‘Thank you, William.’ Edgar stepped forward, smiling broadly. The emotion of the moment had subsided, and he was regaining his composure. ‘And thank you for all your work on our behalf over the last few years.’
Tears in his eyes, the young man bowed his head. ‘It has been an honour…’
‘You have been a vital member of the team,’ Edgar burbled, ‘and, as I have always said, this is simply the beginning of our adventure.’ He gestured towards the door. ‘Please let everyone know that Xavier and I will be coming out right away. Let’s get the party started. Tonight we want everyone here to have a great time. Goodness knows, they deserve it. Can you tell them that we’ll be with them in a few minutes.’
Murray stared at him blankly. ‘No, I really don’t think so.’ Tossing one of the bottles on to the sofa, he skipped straight towards Edgar. Grabbing it by the neck with both hands, he lifted the remaining bottle high above his head. The two politicians appeared mesmerised. For a millisecond, as he struggled to keep his balance, it looked as if Murray might tip over backwards. Then, grunting with the effort, he brought the Krug bottle smashing down right on to Edgar’s head with a dull clunk.
‘What the…?’ Xavier watched in disbelief as his brother crumpled under the heavy blow. He tried to stand up, but Murray was upon him before he could force himself out of his seat. The first blow glanced off his arms, raised in defence, but the second caught him full in the face, sending him spiralling into darkness.
Xavier registered the smell of burning flesh before he heard the scream.
‘No-ooo!’
Reluctantly opening his eyes, it took Xavier another second or two to realise that he was lying face-down on the carpet, his hands tied behind his back and his feet taped together. Worse still, he was totally naked. The worst headache he had ever known was scouring at the inside of his skull, and he badly wanted to puke. Slowly, he turned his head in the direction of Edgar’s cries.
Lying about six feet away, his brother was also bound hand and foot, naked from the waist down. Edgar’s right buttock sported a nasty red burn about the size of a fifty-pence piece, clearly the result of William Murray’s casual deployment of the now lit cigar.
‘Help! Help! HELP!’ Edgar’s face turned crimson as he screamed with all his might. However, against the sound of Kylie Minogue thudding through the intervening wall from the party outside, it amounted to barely a squeak in his brother’s ears.
Xavier struggled to lift his head far enough from the floor to see Murray’s face. When his gaze reached the jagged neck of the bottle still clutched in Murray’s right hand, he felt his bladder spasm and a fearful warmth spread through the carpet beneath his groin. Scanning the boy’s face, he tried to make meaningful eye contact, while praying that someone else would finally wonder where they were and come to their aid.
‘What do you want?’ he gasped.
Murray stood between the two brothers, flushed, exultant, not flinching from Xavier’s gaze, but saying nothing. For a moment, the two men eyeballed each other, both ignoring the steady, heaving sobs of the soon-to-be prime minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Xavier realised that he had never really looked Murray up and down before. Now, on closer inspection, he realised that there really was nothing to the boy at all. Although he had been one of their inner circle, and a senior trusty, he was but one of dozens, if not hundreds, of similar helpers. If he were to leave tomorrow – and now, after this comical breakdown, he would be leaving tomorrow, if not sooner – there were plenty of others queuing up to take his place. All of them were young, bright, fiercely ambitious, and utterly disposable.
Utterly disposable.
Like a cheap razor. Or a tampon.
Xavier started laughing.
Maybe Murray had flipped simply because he was worried that he had already passed his sell-by date.
Maybe he’d just started partying too hard, too quickly. Maybe he had taken too much ecstasy and had suffered a brain meltdown. If that was the case, he certainly wouldn’t have been the first.
Maybe…
‘Oh my God!’ Looking deep into the boy’s eyes, Xavier suddenly realised what was going on. Struggling to breathe, his eyes misted up as he was transported back half a lifetime – to the true night of a lifetime.
Murray gave him a crooked smile.
‘Oh my God!’ Xavier repeated.
