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I've been thinking about that all day,' she said. 'The simple explanations are always the easiest to accept, and the simple fact is that Grev Preston is a pathetic excuse for an editor who is terrified of getting anything wrong. Knowing that Landless was going to throw Urquhart's hat into the ring, he didn't have the nerve to upset his proprietor's plans and I suspect he found my story simply too hot to handle.'
'So you think Landless may be at the bottom of it all?'
It's possible. He certainly welcomed the leadership contest, but then so did many others. Urquhart told me the weekend after the election of all the internal rivalry and bitterness inside the Government. Whoever is stirring it behind the scenes, we have the entire Cabinet to choose from, as well as Landless. And I am going to find out who.'
'But how, without a newspaper?'
'Preston has been stupid enough to insist that I shall remain employed by the Telegraph for another three months. OK. They may not print it, but I'm still a journalist and I can still ask questions. If the truth is half as devious as I suspect it is, the story will still he worth printing in three months' or even three years' time. They can't lock up the truth for ever. I may have lost my job, Johnnie, but I haven't lost my curiosity.'
And what about your commitment? he asked silently.
'And will you be my spy on the inside, keeping an eye on what that bastard Landless is up to?'
He nodded, wondering just how much she was using him.
Thanks, Johnnie,' she whispered. She squeezed his hand, and disappeared into the night.
TUESDAY 16th NOVEMBER
The following day's news was still being dominated by intense speculation as to whether Urquhart would run. It was clear that the media had excited itself to the point where they would feel badly let down if he didn't, yet at 3 p.m. he was still keeping his own counsel. By this time, Mattie was feeling irked, not by Urquhart but by O'Neill. She had been waiting in his office with growing impatience for a full half hour.
When she had telephoned party headquarters the previous day wanting to get an official view about computers, literature sales, accounting procedures, Charles Collingridge and all the other things which were bothering her, she discovered that Spence had been absolutely right about the ban on staff contact with the media for the duration of the campaign. She could only deal with the press office, and no press officer seemed capable or willing to talk to her about computers or accounts.
'Sounds as if you are investigating our expenses,' a voice only half-jokingly had said down the telephone.
So she had asked for the Director of Publicity's office, and had been put through to Penny Guy. Mattie asked to come and talk the following morning with O'Neill, whom she had met a couple of times at receptions.
'I'm sorry, Miss Storin, but Mr O'Neill likes to keep his mornings free to clear his paper work and for internal meetings.' It was a lie, and one she was increasingly forced to use as O'Neill's time keeping had become spectacularly erratic. He rarely came into the office before 'I p.m. nowadays. 'How about 2.30 in the afternoon?' she had suggested, playing safe.
She did not comprehend the mind-pulverising effects of cocaine, which kept O'Neill hyperactive and awake well into the small hours, unable to sleep until a cascade of depressant drugs had gradually overwhelmed the cocaine and forced him into an oblivion from which he did not return before midday or later. She did not comprehend this, but she suffered deeply from it nonetheless.
Now she was getting increasingly embarrassed as Mattie sat waiting for O'Neill. He had promised his secretary faithfully he would be on time, but as the wall clock ticked remorselessly on, her ability to invent new excuses disappeared completely. Her faith in O'Neill, with his public bravado and his private remorse, his inexplicable behaviour and his irrational outbursts, was slowly and painfully fading.
She brought Mattie yet another cup of coffee.
'let me give him a call at home. Perhaps he's had to go back there. Something he forgot, or not feeling too well...'
She sat on the corner of his desk, picked up the direct line and punched the numbers. With some embarrassment she greeted Roger on the phone, explaining that Mattie had been waiting for more than half an hour and ... Her face became gradually more concerned, then anguished and finally horrified before she dropped the phone and fled from the office as if pursued by demons.
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