6
“HOW KIND OF YOU to find the time to see me, Mr. Clifton,” said the cabinet secretary, ushering Harry to a seat at the small oval table in the center of the room, “especially remembering how busy you are.”
Harry would have laughed if he hadn’t been sitting in No.10 Downing Street opposite one of the busiest men in the country. A secretary appeared and placed a cup of tea in front of him, as if he were a regular at his local café.
“I hope your wife and son are well?”
“They are, thank you, Sir Alan.” Harry would have inquired about the cabinet secretary’s family, but he had no idea if he even had one. He decided to cut the small talk. “I presume it was Martinez who was behind the bombing?” he ventured, after taking a sip of his tea.
“It was indeed, but as he’s now back in Buenos Aires, and all too aware that if he or either of his sons ever set foot in England they’ll be arrested immediately, I don’t think he’ll be troubling you again.”
“And his Irish friends?”
“They were never his friends. They were only interested in his money, and as soon as that dried up, they were quite prepared to dispose of him. But as their ringleader and two of his associates are now safely behind bars, I can’t imagine we’ll be hearing from them for some considerable time.”
“Did you find out if there were any other IRA operatives on board the ship?”
“Two. But they haven’t been seen since. Intelligence reports that they’re holed up somewhere in New York, and aren’t expected to return to Belfast for the foreseeable future.”
“I’m grateful, Sir Alan,” said Harry, assuming the meeting was over. The cabinet secretary nodded, but just as Harry was about to rise, he said, “I must confess, Mr. Clifton, that wasn’t the only reason I wanted to see you.”
Harry sat back down and began to concentrate. If this man wanted something, he’d better be wide awake.
“Your brother-in-law once told me something that I found difficult to believe. Perhaps you’d be kind enough to indulge me, so I can see if he was exaggerating.”
“Politicians do have a tendency to do that.”
Sir Alan didn’t reply but simply opened a file in front of him, extracted a single sheet of paper, slid it across the table, and said, “Would you be kind enough to read that through slowly?”
Harry looked at a memo that was about three hundred words in length, containing several place-names and details of troop movements in the Home Counties, with the ranks of all the senior officers involved. He read the seven paragraphs as instructed, and when he’d finished, he looked up and nodded. The cabinet secretary retrieved the piece of paper and replaced it on the table with a lined pad and a biro.
“Would you now be kind enough to write out what you’ve just read?”
Harry decided to play the game. He picked up the biro and began writing. When he’d finished, he passed the pad to the cabinet secretary, who compared it with the original.
“So it’s true,” he said a few moments later. “You are one of those rare people with a photographic memory. Though you made one mistake.”
“Godalming and not Godmanchester?” said Harry. “Just wanted to make sure you were paying attention.”
A man who was not easily impressed was impressed.
“So are you hoping to recruit me for your pub quiz team?” asked Harry.
Sir Alan didn’t smile. “No, I’m afraid it’s a little more serious than that, Mr. Clifton. In May you’ll be travelling to Moscow as the president of English PEN. Our ambassador there, Sir Humphrey Trevelyan, has come into possession of a document that is so sensitive he can’t even risk sending it in the diplomatic pouch.”
“Can I ask its contents?”
“It’s a comprehensive list of the name and location of every Russian spy operating in the UK. Sir Humphrey hasn’t even shown it to his deputy. If you could bring it back in your head, we would be able to dismantle the entire Soviet spy network in this country, and as no documents would be involved you wouldn’t be in any danger.”
“I’d be quite willing to do that,” said Harry without hesitation. “But I will expect something in return.”
“I’ll do anything within my power.”
“I want the foreign secretary to make an official protest about the imprisonment of Anatoly Babakov.”
“Stalin’s interpreter? Didn’t he write a book that was banned—what was it called…”
“Uncle Joe,” said Harry.
“Ah yes, of course. Well, I’ll do what I can, but I can’t guarantee anything.”
“And he must also make an official statement to all national and foreign press agencies the day before I fly to Russia.”
“I can’t promise you that, but be assured I’ll recommend that the foreign secretary supports your campaign to have Mr. Babakov released.”
“I’m sure you will, Sir Alan. But if you are unable to assist me with Babakov’s plight,” he paused, “you can bugger off and find someone else to be your messenger boy.”
Harry’s words had exactly the effect he had hoped for. The cabinet secretary was speechless.
* * *
Emma looked up as her secretary entered the office, accompanied by a man she knew as soon as they shook hands she wasn’t going to like. She ushered Mr. Mellor toward two comfortable chairs by the fireplace.
“It’s very nice to meet you at last, Mrs. Clifton,” he said. “I’ve heard, and read, so much about you over the years.”
“And I’ve recently been reading a great deal about you, Mr. Mellor,” said Emma as she sat down and took a closer look at the man seated opposite her. She knew from a recent profile in the Financial Times that Desmond Mellor had left school at sixteen and begun his working life as a booking clerk at Cooks Travel. By the age of 23, he’d started up his own company, which he’d recently sold for close to ￡2 million, having had several well-chronicled scrapes along the way. But Emma accepted that that would be true of most successful entrepreneurs. She had been prepared for his charm, but was surprised to find that he looked far younger than his forty-eight years. He was clearly fit, with no surplus pounds that needed to be shed, and she had to agree with her secretary that he was a good-looking man, even if his dress sense hadn’t quite kept pace with his financial success.
“Not all bad, I hope,” he said with a self-deprecating laugh.
“Well, if your recent takeover battle is anything to go by, Mr. Mellor, you certainly don’t believe in taking prisoners.”
“It’s tough out there at the moment, Mrs. Clifton, as I’m sure you’re finding, so sometimes you have to cover your backside, if you’ll excuse the expression.”
Emma wondered if she could come up with an excuse to cut the meeting short, despite the fact that she had instructed her secretary that she was not to be disturbed for at least thirty minutes.
“I’ve been following your husband’s activities on behalf of Babakov,” said Mellor. “Seems he might also have to cover his backside,” he added with a grin.
“Harry feels passionately about Mr. Babakov’s plight.”
“As I’m sure we all do. But I have to ask, is it worth the candle? Those Russians don’t seem to give a damn about human rights.”
“That won’t stop Harry fighting for something he believes in.”
“Is he away often?”
“Not that much,” Emma said, trying not to show she’d been taken by surprise by the sudden change of subject. “The occasional book tour or conference. But when you chair a public company, that can sometimes be a blessing in disguise.”
“I know just how you feel,” said Mellor, leaning forward. “My wife prefers to live in the country, which is why I stay in Bristol during the week.”
“Do you have any children?” asked Emma.
“One girl by my first marriage. She’s a secretary in London. And another by my second.”
“And how old is she?”
“Kelly is four, and, of course, I know your son Sebastian has recently joined the board of Barrington’s.”
Emma smiled. “Then perhaps I can ask, Mr. Mellor, why you want to join us on the board?”
“Des, please. All my friends call me Des. As you know, my experience is mainly in the travel business, although since I sold the company, I’ve started dabbling in the odd property deal. But as I still find myself with time on my hands, I thought it might be fun to work under a woman chairman.”
Emma ignored this. “If you were to become a member of the board, what would be your attitude to a hostile takeover bid?”
“To begin with, I’d pretend I wasn’t interested and see how much I could milk them for. The secret is to be patient.”
“There wouldn’t be any circumstances under which you’d consider holding on to the company?”
“Not if the price was right.”
“But when National Buses took over your company, weren’t you worried about what might happen to your staff?”
“If they were half awake they must have seen it coming for years, and in any case I wasn’t going to get another chance like that.”
“But if the FT is to be believed, within a month of the takeover, half your staff, some of whom had been with you for over twenty years, were made redundant.”
“With a six-month salary bonus. And a number of them had no difficulty finding employment elsewhere, one or two at Barrington’s.”
“But within another month, National Buses had dropped your name from the company masthead and, with it, the reputation you’d built over many years.”
“You dropped your name when you married Harry Clifton,” said Des, “but it didn’t stop you becoming chairman of Barrington’s.”
“I wasn’t given a choice, and I suspect even that may change in the future.”
“Let’s face it, when it comes to the bottom line, you can’t afford to be sentimental.”
“It’s not difficult to see how you’ve become such a successful businessman, Des, and why, for the right firm, you’d make an ideal director.”
“I’m glad you feel that way.”
“But I still need to speak to my colleagues just in case they don’t agree with me. When I have, I’ll be back in touch.”
“I look forward to that, Emma.”