the night trying to persuade a demented Declan that they’d got to shop Tony, not just for seducing Maud and bugging their houses, but because Seb was working on excellent evidence that Tony had bribed Beattie Johnson to sing to the rooftops, just at a time when it would be most damaging to Venturer.
But like Wellington at Waterloo refusing to turn the guns on the enemy commandant, Declan refused to let anyone condemn Tony. He didn’t want Maud’s name dragged into it. He was clearly still suffering from shock. He looked terrible.
‘A black ram is tupping my white ewe,’ he kept saying over and over again, ‘and it was all my fault.’
Rupert, who arrived with Bas, didn’t look much better, but at least he’d got a grip on himself. The meeting had to be got through. There were people not to be let down, there would be the rest of his life to mourn for Taggie and probably his children as well. Helen had rung this morning, saying she was applying for a court order to deny him access.
Even Henry Hampshire arrived walking wounded, wearing a dark suit with uncharacteristically flared trousers, and with his leg in plaster.
‘Horse put its foot down a rabbit hole,’ was all he would say about it.
‘’Morning.’ He went up to Rupert, who was huddled on the sofa trying to keep down a cup of coffee. ‘Enjoying your memoirs; great stuff.’ He lowered his voice. ‘I had a crack at Mandy Hamilton myself twenty years ago. God, she was pretty. Might have made more progress if I’d known she liked having her bottom smacked.’
Rupert managed a pale smile. ‘At least it kept you out of the papers.’ Then, also lowering his voice, he added, ‘Look, I don’t think there’s any chance now of us getting the franchise. Tony’s now odds on and we’ve gone way out.’
‘Better have a bet then,’ said Henry, limping towards the telephone. ‘Anyway, I’ve had more fun in the last six months than I can ever remember. We’ll have to bid for another area next time.’
Dame Enid arrived next, resplendent in a pinstriped trouser suit with an even wider white stripe than Tony’s, a bright blue tie, and an Al Capone hat.
‘Stick ’em up, it’s a shoot out,’ said Marti Gluckstein, who came with her. He was dressed in a lurid green Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers, and sucking on a pipe.
‘Did you get that at Valerie’s boutique?’ said Bas, then hastily shut up in case Freddie overheard.
‘Thought I ought to appear as the country squire,’ said Marti. ‘Where’s the Bishop?’
‘Pulled out, I’m afraid,’ said Freddie, handing him and Dame Enid cups of coffee.
‘Good riddance, pompous old fart,’ said Dame Enid, helping herself to sugar. ‘Can’t you pull a rabbi out of a hat to replace him?’ she added to Marti.
Marti smirked. ‘For you, my dear, anything.’
‘Crispin Graystock’s pulled out too,’ said Freddie.
‘Well, thank God we’ve got rid of the two worst wafflers,’ said Dame Enid philosophically. ‘Graystock’s got complete verbal diarrhoea.’
‘Which reminds me,’ said Henry, hobbling off at great speed towards the lavatory, ‘had the most ghastly trots all night. Sure I’m going to botch my answers.’
The moment he arrived, Lord Smith went straight up to Rupert. ‘Really feel for you, lad,’ he said. ‘But everyone regards the
‘I know,’ said Rupert flatly. ‘He was my cross.’
‘He’s not cross now. Told me to wish you luck today. Said you were the best Sports Minister they’ve ever ’ad. They all wish you’d come back. What’s up with Declan?’
‘Wife trouble,’ said Rupert.
‘Happens at franchise time,’ said Lord Smith. ‘When we bid for the Midlands eight years ago, the wives got so fed up, they was all at it — even mine.’
‘Only two more to come,’ said Freddie, trying to cheer up his own and everyone’s spirits. ‘And ’ere they are,’ he went on, as Seb and Charles came through the door.
‘We’re going to have a fuller house than you thought,’ said Charles. ‘I’ve just seen Billy, Janey, Harold White and Sally Maples getting out of a taxi.’
Freddie had tears in his eyes as he welcomed them. ‘You shouldn’t have come. It’s totally out of order,’ he said. ‘I know what you’re risking, but I won’t say I’m not bloody pleased to see you.’
Declan seemed hardly to notice, but Rupert’s jaw quilted with muscles when he saw Billy. ‘You’re fucking insane,’ he said roughly.
‘I like “lorst” causes, as Henry would say,’ said Billy cheerfully. ‘Anyway, I brought you luck at the LA Olympics. And you brought me luck, too. If I hadn’t done the commentary for the BBC, they’d never have given me a job.’
‘Which you’re about to lose.’
As the hands of the clock inched past nine-thirty, they decided that there was no point waiting any longer. Cameron wasn’t coming.
‘Pity,’ sighed Hardy Bissett, going round straightening ties. ‘Now, don’t forget, no sniping — solidarity is all. Sit up straight. Burst with enthusiasm. You’re bursting a little too much, Janey darling.’ He did up two buttons of her shirt. ‘Although, on reflection, if you’re sitting anywhere near the Prebendary, undo them again and press your elbows together.’
It was still bitterly cold when they set out for the IBA in their cars. The snow in the park was the colour of dirty seagulls. In High Street, Ken. the shop windows with their jolly snowmen, spangled Christmas trees and mufflered bright-eyed tots hurling snowballs were at variance with the sullen sky outside, and the shoppers shuffling blue-lipped and bad-tempered along the slushy pavements.
Janey’s scent was making Rupert feel sick. In a greengrocer’s shop, he noticed, they were already selling mistletoe, the one thing he wouldn’t need this Christmas.
‘Oh look, there’s Father Christmas,’ said Janey, pressing a button to lower the window, as the car swung round The Scotch House into Brompton Road.
‘Please Santa,’ she called out to him, as he marched alongside the car, ‘will you put a franchise in my stocking?’
‘Ho, ho, ho,’ said Father Christmas, hoisting his sack onto his back and batting his long black eyelashes at Janey. ‘For a pretty little girl like you, I just might.’
‘My Christ,’ said Janey, with a scream of laughter, as he turned right in front of the car and strode purposefully across the road through the revolving doors of the IBA. ‘It’s Georgie Baines.’
‘I wish I’d thought of that,’ said Charles petulantly. ‘I wanted to come as Gwendolyn Gosling again, but I thought I’d better play it straight.’
To avoid the press, and preserve the utmost security, the convoy of cars turned right down Lancelot Place, entering the IBA from the back by the underground car park. From here their passengers were whisked up to the eighth floor and, although the moles nervously looked for reporters in every dark corner, they were all safely led along the corridor and installed in an empty office.
‘I feel like a courtier waiting for an audience with Louis XIV: “Please don’t banish me to my estate in the Loire, Sire”,’ said Charles, as he peered out of the window on to another IBA block of offices, where every secretary seemed to be clutching paper cups of coffee and reading Rupert’s memoirs.
‘God, I’m nervous,’ said Henry, mouthing the answers to possible questions. ‘D’you think I should say brilliant wild life “photographer” or “cameraman”?’
‘Cameraman,’ said Billy. ‘Photographer is press, and we don’t like them very much at the moment.’
‘I wish I could take in a calculator,’ said Marti in a hollow voice.
‘D’you think they’ll shine lights in our faces?’ asked Janey.
‘They didn’t yesterday, but then Corinium has a better track record,’ said a voice. It was Georgie Baines, who’d shed his Father Christmas disguise and was now wearing a dark suit and fluffing up his dark curls.
Everyone crowded round him in delight.
‘Of course! You went in yesterday afternoon with Corinium,’ said Freddie.
‘Wearing a different tie,’ said Georgie.
‘How long were you in there?’ asked Seb.
