The Complete Yes Minister

fifty quid.’

‘You said about fifty quid.’ My bowels had turned to water. I felt hot and cold simultaneously. I could hardly speak. I just tried to keep the conversation going somehow.

‘Yes. Fifty quid.’ She was looking at me strangely now. ‘Funnily enough, she thought it was genuine.’

‘She thought it was genuine,’ I repeated.

‘Yes, Bernard, you sound like an answering machine.’

I apologised.

Mrs Hacker then told me that the journalist, one Jenny Goodwin, had asked if she could ring up the Qumrani Embassy to ask what it was worth.

‘To ask what it was worth,’ I mumbled, hopelessly.

She looked at me keenly. ‘It is only a copy, isn’t it Bernard?’ she asked.

I managed to say that so far as I knew, and so I was led to believe, and so forth, and then the Minister hurried downstairs and my bacon was saved. For the time being. But I knew that the jig was up and that my career was on the line, my neck was on the block, and my next appointment was likely to be at the Jobcentre in the Horseferry Road.

My only hope was that the Minister would come to my defence when the facts came out. After all, I’d always done my best for him. I didn’t think I could expect much sympathy or help from Sir Humphrey. But I had no choice but to tell him the whole story as soon as I could.

[The following morning Bernard Woolley made a special request for an urgent meeting with Sir Humphrey Appleby. Sir Humphrey made a note about it, which we found in the Departmental files at Walthamstow – Ed.]

BW requested an urgent meeting. He asked for a word with me. I said yes, and waited, but he did not speak. So I told him that I’d said yes.

Again he did not speak. I noticed that he was sweating, but it was a cool day. He seemed to be in a state of considerable mental anguish, such as I had never observed in him before.

I asked the standard questions. I thought perhaps that Woolley had sent the Minister to the wrong dinner, given him the wrong speech, or – worst of all – shown him some papers that we didn’t mean him to see.

He shook his head silently, and I divined that the situation was even worse than that. So I told him to sit down, which he did gratefully. I waited.

It slowly emerged that the exquisite rosewater jar, given to the Minister in Qumran, was the root of the problem. Apparently the Minister’s wife liked it. Not surprising. BW had explained the rules to her, and she had looked terribly sad. They always do. Then she had asked if it was really worth more than fifty pounds, and said how marvellous it would be if it wasn’t. And BW, it seems, had agreed to ‘help’.

I understand his motives, but a seventeenth-century vase – well, really!

BW then explained that there was a ‘terribly nice Qumrani businessman’. And this fellow had apparently valued it as a copy and not as an original. For ?49.95. A most convenient sum.

I asked BW if he had believed this man. He wavered. ‘I . . . er . . . he said he was an expert . . . well . . . he spoke Arabic awfully well, so I er . . . accepted his valuation. In good faith. After all, Islam is a jolly good faith.’

Not a convincing explanation, I felt. I told him that he had taken a grave risk, and he was fortunate that no one had asked any questions.

I was intending to let the matter drop, and merely record a reprimand in his report. But at this juncture he informed me that a journalist from The Guardian had seen the jar in Hacker’s house, that Mrs Hacker had said it was a copy, and that further questions were to be asked.

It is a great tragedy that the press are so horribly suspicious about this sort of thing. But I told BW that we had no option but to inform the Minister.

[Hacker’s diary continues – Ed.]

May 23rd

Humphrey had made a submission on Friday (sounds like wrestling, doesn’t it?). In other words, he submitted a paper to me, suggesting various methods of hushing up this bribery scandal.

Obviously I was not intending to go out of my way to reveal it. But equally I couldn’t see how I could allow myself to be put in the position of sweeping bribery under the carpet. So if questions were asked, I had every intention of announcing a full independent enquiry chaired by a QC.

I explained this to Humphrey at the start of our meeting this morning. He started going on about the contract being worth ?340 million. ‘Get thee behind me, Humphrey,’ I said, and reminded him of the moral dimension of government. The contract may be worth ?340 million, but my job’s worth even more to me.

But then Humphrey told me that Bernard had something to tell me. I waited. Bernard was looking very anxious. Finally he coughed and began to speak, rather haltingly.

‘Um . . . you know that jar the Qumranis gave you?’

I remembered it well. ‘Yes, we’ve got it in the flat. Most attractive.’

I waited. Clearly he was worried about something.

‘I told Mrs Hacker that it was all right to keep it,’ he said, ‘because I had it valued at under fifty pounds. But I’m not sure . . . the man who valued it was awfully nice . . . I told him Mrs Hacker liked it a lot . . . but he might have been er, being helpful.’

I still couldn’t see any problem. So I told him not to worry, and that no one will ever know. In fact, I was rash enough to congratulate him for being jolly enterprising.