three, then he snipped the white silk ribbon stretched across the open double door of the ultra-modern reflective glass and white concrete building squatting like a crash-landed space cruiser within world record javelin-throwing distance of the no man’s land that was allegedly going to blossom into the London Olympic village.
He acknowledged the applause, then stood aside and waved the public in towards the promised refreshments.
First to the barricades, last to the refreshments, that’s the way to win hearts and minds, Maggie said. He looked for her now, and saw her making sure that the Centre manager had taken control of the official civic party so that she could give her full attention to the much more important posse of journalists.
She’d vetoed Dave’s suggestion of a formal press conference.
‘That would make it look like it’s all about you,’ she said.
‘But it is,’ he objected. ‘That’s why Pappy said he’d stay away.’
‘Yes, but we don’t want it to look like that. It’s OK, you’ll get the coverage.’
To this end, she stage managed a series of semi-private conversations as they trailed in the wake of the civic party. All PAs like to claim they can deal with the press. Maggie was one of the few who actually could. So unobtrusive you never knew she was there till you stepped out of line, she was gaining a reputation for never failing to deliver on a promise, or a threat.
First up was the Independent. Not their top political man; you needed something a bit meatier than an upwardly mobile young politician opening a community centre to get him off his wife’s Norfolk estate on a Sunday. No, this was a pleasant enough young fellow called…he needed Maggie’s whisper this time.
‘Hello, Piers. Good to see you.’
‘Thank you, Mr Gidman. Your father must be disappointed he couldn’t be here today. How’s he keeping?’
‘He’s fine. Just a touch of cold. Thanks for asking.’
‘Hope he shakes it off soon. But we don’t seem to have seen a lot of him recently anyway. Not leaving the field clear so you can shine, is he?’
‘No one shines brighter than Goldie Gidman, isn’t that what they say? No, he just likes the quiet life nowadays.’
‘Quiet? I understand he’s in and out of Millbank all the time, helping the shadow chancellor get his sums right in the current crisis.’
‘He’s always available when his country needs him, but today he really is treating himself to a day of rest.’
‘Unlike you, eh? Busy busy, in and out of the House. Where do you get the energy? Your friends must be worried you’re taking too much on.’
‘You know what they say-if you want something done, ask a busy man.’
‘I’m sure the PM agrees with you. There’s a rumour going around that there may be something for you in the next reshuffle. Any comment?’
‘I am at my Party’s and my country’s disposal.’
‘And the rumour…?’
‘Almost impossible to stop a rumour, Piers, so do keep spreading it.’
Now Maggie Pinchbeck materialized between them and with a sweet smile indicated that the reporter’s time was up. Obediently he moved aside.
Next up was the Guardian. Again second string, though his well-worn bomber jacket and balding suede shoes looked as if they’d been handed down by his superior.
He too wanted to focus on Goldie Gidman’s contributions to the Tory coffers. When he started getting aggressive, suggesting that if Goldie wasn’t looking for some payback to himself, maybe he regarded it as an investment in his son’s career, Maggie stepped in again, turning as she did so to signal the next journalist on her list to move forward. It should have been Gem Huntley, a rather pushy young woman from the Daily Messenger. Instead it was Gwyn Jones, who was to political scandal what a blow-fly is to dead meat, and he’d been trying to settle on the Gidmans ever since Dave the Third burst on the scene.
‘Gwyn,’ she said, ‘good to see you! What happened? Shandy not sending double invites then?’
It never did any harm to let these journalists know that they weren’t the only ones who kept their eyes and ears open. She knew about the Shandy party because Gidman had been sent an invitation which she’d made sure never reached him. While fairly confident she could have persuaded him that cancelling the Centre opening to attend what the tabloids were calling the mega-binge of the month would have been a PR disaster, it had seemed simpler and safer merely to remove the temptation.
Jones smiled in sardonic acknowledgement of the suggestion that he would only have been invited on Beanie’s ticket and said, ‘Man cannot live on caviar alone. Give me a good honest sandwich any time. Anyway, young Gem wasn’t feeling too well this morning so they asked me if I could step in.’
He made as little effort to sound convincing as Maggie did to sound sincere as she replied, ‘I’m sorry to hear that, hope she’s OK. David, we’re honoured today. The Messenger’s sent their top man to talk to you.’
She had to give it to Dave. Not by a flicker did he show anything but pleasure as he smiled and said, ‘Gwyn, great to see you. Must have missed you at St Osith’s.’
‘Didn’t make the service, Dave, sorry. Good to see you’re taking your leader’s strictures to heart. What was it he said? Religion should have no politics. We will all stand naked before God. When doubtless we will find if size really does matter.’
Gidman’s heart lurched. Could the bastard be on to Sophie?
But his smile remained warm and his voice was light and even as he replied, ‘You’re talking about majorities, of course. So what do you think of the Centre?’
‘Looks great. No expense spared, eh? Folk round here must be very grateful.’
‘Gratitude isn’t the issue. We just want to put something back into the area.’
‘Yeah, I can see why you’d feel like that. Though it does raise the question, would it ever really be possible for your family to fully put back in everything you’ve taken out? You’d have to build something like Buck House, wouldn’t you?’
Maggie was taken aback. The Messenger was never going to be Gidman’s friend, and Jones hated his guts, but even so his approach here was unusually frontal.
Her employer’s initial reaction was relief. Sexual innuendo would have bothered him. Anti-Goldie slurs were old hat and easily dealt with.
‘Do what you can then do a little more, isn’t that what they say?’ he declared.
‘Is it? Who was that? Alex Ferguson?’
‘Someone even older, I think. Confucius, perhaps.’
‘That’s really old. But we should always pay attention to the past, right, Dave? You never know when something’s going to come up behind you and bite your bum. Man with a bitten bum finds out who his real friends are. Of course, it depends what’s doing the biting. A flea would just be irritating, but something a bit bigger, like a wolf, say, that could be serious. You wouldn’t have a wolf trying to take a bite somewhere behind you, Dave?’
Why the hell was he stressing wolf?
‘Not even a flea to the best of my knowledge, Gwyn.’
‘Lucky you. Talking of the past, I heard a rumour your dad was thinking of writing his autobiography.’
‘Another rumour! Definitely nothing in that one, Gwyn. I once suggested it to him and he said, who’d want to read about a dull old devil like me?’
‘Oh, I think there’s quite a lot of people who’d like to hear the whole moving story, Dave, wolves and all. If he ever does go down that road, I’d be more than happy to help him out with the research. It’s never easy digging up the past. People move on, disappear. That’s where a journalist could come in really useful. We’ve got the skills. Finding disappeared people’s a bit of a specialty of mine.’
‘That’s a kind offer. I’ll be sure to mention it to him, Gwyn.’
His gaze flickered to Maggie, who took the hint and brought the interview to a close by advancing the friendly face of the Daily Telegraph. For which relief much thanks, thought Gidman. The Telegraph loved him. But as he answered the bromidic questions, the voice he was hearing in his mind was still Gwyn Jones’s.
