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'Silly me' said Mattie. I'm getting slow in my old age. Can't decipher the code. Which Cabinet Minister is supposed to be responsible for environmental matters, and therefore responsible for this mess?'
The public fight to eliminate Michael Samuel had begun.
WEDNESDAY 3rd NOVEMBER
Mattie tried many times during the following week to get hold of Kevin Spence, but he was never available. In spite of the repeated assurances of his gushingly polite secretary, Mattie knew that he was deliberately avoiding her. He was therefore not at all pleased when, in some desperation, she called very late on Wednesday evening and was put straight through to his extension by the night security guard.
'No, of course I haven't been avoiding you' he assured her, 'but I havebeen very busy. Working very late.'
'Kevin, I need your help again.'
'I remember the last time I gave you my help. You said you were going towrite a piece on opinion polls and then you wrote a story slandering thePrime Minister. Now he's gone.' He spoke with a quiet sadness. 'Hewas always very decent to me, very kind, and I think the press have been unspeakably cruel.'
'Kevin, I give you my word that I was not responsible for that story. Youmay have noticed that my name was not on the article, and I was evenmore displeased about it than you. It's about Mr Collingridge'sresignation that I'm calling. Personally, I don't believe the allegationswhich are being made against him and his brother. I would like to be able to clear his name.'
'I can't see how I could assist you,' he said in a distrusting tone. 'Anyway,I'm afraid that nobody outside the press office is allowed to have contactwith the media during the leadership campaign. Chairman's strictestorders.'
'Kevin, there's a lot at stake here. Not only the leadership, of the Party,and whether you are going to win the next election or not, but alsowhether history is going to regard Henry Collingridge as a crook and acheat or whether he is going to have a chance to put the record straight.Don't we owe him that?'
He thought about it for a second, and she heard his hostility slowlymelting.
If I could help, what would you want?'
'Very simply, do you understand the computer system at partyheadquarters?'
'Yes, of course. I use it all the time to help analyse opinion research. I'vegot a screen in front of me which is linked directly to our main frame.'
'I think your computer system has been tampered with. Will you let mesee it?'
Tampered with? That's impossible. We have the highest security.Nobody from outside can access it.'
'Not outside, Kevin. Inside.'
There was a stunned silence from the other end of the phone.
I'm working at the House of Commons. I can be with you in less than tenminutes, and I suspect at this time of night the building is very quiet. Noone will notice. Kevin, I'm on my way over.'
Before he could mutter a flustered few words of protest, the phone wentdead as he held it. Mattie was with him less than seven minutes later.
They sat in his small garret office, dominated by the mountains of fileswhich tumbled over every available fiat surface and onto the floor, withtheir attention fixed rigidly on the glowing green screen in front of them.
'Kevin, Charles Collingridge ordered material from the Party's sales andliterature service and asked them to be delivered to an address inPaddington. Right?'
'Correct. I checked it as soon as I heard, but it's there all right. Look.'
He tapped a few characters on the keyboard, and up came theincriminating evidence on the screen.
'Chas Collingridge Esq 216 Praed St Paddington London W2 — 001 A'01.0091.'
'What do these other hieroglyphics mean?'
'The first set simply means that he subscribes to our comprehensiveliterature service and the second that his subscription has been fullypaid from the beginning of the year. If he wanted to receive only the mainpublications, or was a member of our specialist book club or one of our other marketing programmes, that would be shown by a different set ofreference numbers. Also if he were behind with his subscriptionpayments.'
'And this information is shown on all the monitors throughout mebuilding?'
'Yes. It's not information we regard as particularly confidential.'
'And if you felt like bending the rules a little and wanted to make me asubscriber to your comprehensive literature service, could you do that,enter my details from this terminal?'
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