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He could find no answer himself, so he had gone straight along to the Chief Whip's Office and spilled the lot. There was a youth sitting in the Central Lobby blackmailing him for a brief and stupid fling they had had many months before, he had confessed. He was finished.
Never mind, don't worry, he had been assured. Worse things had happened on the retreat from Dunkirk. Point him out and leave it all to the Chief Whip.
Urquhart had been as good as his word. He had introduced himself to the boy, and assured him that if he were not off the premises in five minutes the police would be called and he would be arrested for blackmail. The boy was further assured that in such cases the arrest and subsequent trial were held with little publicity, no one would discover the name of the Member concerned, and few people would even hear how long he had been sent down for. Little more pressure was needed to persuade the youth he had made a terrible mistake and should depart as quickly as possible, but Urquhart had taken the precaution of taking down the details from Simon's driving licence, just in case he were to continue to cause trouble and needed to be tracked down.
And now he was back there, in the front row, ready to make unknown demands about which Earle's fevered imagination could only torment itself. The torment went on throughout the speech, which ended as a considerable disappointment to his followers. The content was there, printed in large type on his small pages of recycled paper, but the fire was gone. The faithful had come to listen to him, not his officials' tired prose, yet he seemed to be elsewhere even as he was delivering the lines.
They still clapped and applauded enthusiastically when he was finished, but it didn't help. The mayor had almost to drag him into the pit of the hall to satisfy the clamour of the crowd for one last handshake and the chance personally to wish their favourite son well. As they shouted at him and kissed his cheeks and pummelled him on the back, he was drawn ever closer to the youthful eyes staring benevolently at him, as if he were being dragged towards the gates of Hell itself.
But Simon caused no scene, did nothing but shake his hand warmly and smile prettily, one hand toying nervously with the gold medallion which swung ostentatiously around his neck. Then he was gone, just another face left behind in the crowd, and Earle was in his car speeding back towards London and safety. -
When he arrived back at home, two men were standing outside in the cold street waiting for him.
'Evening, Mr Earle. Simmonds and Peters from the Minor. Interesting rally you had. We've got the press handout, the words, but we need a bit of colour for our readers. like how the audience reacted. Got anything to say about your audience, Mr Earle?'
He rushed inside without saying anything, slamming the door behind him. He watched through a curtained window as they shrugged their shoulders and retreated to the estate car parked on the other side of the street. They pulled out a book and a thermos flask, and settled in for the long night ahead.
SUNDAY 21st NOVEMBER
They were still there the following morning just after dawn when Earle looked out. One was asleep, napping under a trilby hat pulled down over his eyes. The other was reading the Sunday newspapers, which bore little resemblance to the previous week's editions. A leadership campaign which then had been dead in the water had now, with Urquhart's intervention and McKenzie's catastrophe, sprung to life. And the pollsters were beginning to wear down the MPs' resistance to their probing.
'All square!' declared the Observer, announcing that the 60 per cent of the Parliamentary Party they had managed to cajole into giving a view were now evenly split between the three leading candidates - Samuel, Earle and Woolton, with Urquhart close behind and McKenzie now clearly out of it. The small lead to which Samuel had previously clung had entirely disappeared.
But the news gave no joy to Earle. He had spent a ruinous and totally sleepless night, pacing the floors but being able to find no solace. Everywhere he had looked for comfort, he could see only Simon's face. The presence of the two journalists had kept nagging at him. How much did they know? Why were they squatting on his doorstep? The long wait through the night until the first fingers of dawn spread cold and grey in the November sky had drained him of hope and resistance. He had to know for certain.
Peters nudged Simmonds awake as the unshaven figure of Earle, his silk dressing gown dragged tightly around him, appeared at the front door of the house and made towards them.
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