Hardly sticking the knife in, he thinks, scrolling through the article, which has been hastily compiled by a journalist who has transcribed his quotes directly from the TV interview and made several spelling mistakes while doing so. There is a freeze-framed image of Richardfrom this morning’s on-screen appearance, his skin so matt and poreless it looks like he’s wearing a latex mask of his own face. The caption reads: ‘An unprecedented guy’. Lower down, there is another story: ‘EXCLUSIVE: Fitzmaurice daughter is revealed as eco-activist’, accompanied by a picture of Ben’s eldest child, Cosima, in her school uniform next to a grainy image of a balaclava-ed protester spraying orange paint on a museum sculpture as part of an Oblivion Oil action. Someone on the picture desk has ringed the balaclava in red. ‘Circled: Cosima Fitzmaurice, the eldest child of Energy Secretary Ben Fitzmaurice’, the caption reads.
Well, thinks Richard, there’s a surprise. He recalls Cosima only vaguely from the funeral as a glowering teenager he didn’t pay much attention to. Now, he finds he rather admires her chutzpah. At least she’s one Fitzmaurice with a social conscience.
Richard leans back in his seat, turning his head to look at the west London streets out of the window. He watches the commuters surging out of White City tube station, sending pigeons scattering into traffic. He’ll go back to Westminster now and face the music. He has to speak to the chair of the 1922 Committee to see if he can get his name on the ballot.
Now that the adrenalin is leaving his body, he doesn’t experience the satisfaction he thought he would. Instead, he feels an unpalatable twinge of remorse. He underestimated the savagery of public condemnation and wonders if he should have spoken to Ben about his concerns beforehand, in private. It’s unfortunate that the Cosima story has come out at the same time. It makes it look more orchestrated than it has been. There’s really no coming back from this kind of double whammy.
He wonders, if they do allow Richard to run for PM, what his policies should be. Taking back control, obviously – whatever that meant. Tough on crime. Something sentimental about safeguarding the NHS, the nation’s jewel …
His phone rings. Unknown number. He doesn’t even think before he answers.
‘You fucking cunt,’ Ben says. His voice is dangerously calm. ‘After everything I’ve done for you.’
‘I don’t think it’s wise for us to talk—’
‘You don’t THINK IT’S WISE?’ Ben starts shouting and Richard has to hold the phone away from his ear. The driver pretends not to eavesdrop. ‘I think it would have been REALLY FUCKING WISE FOR US TO TALK. That’s what I think, you little bastard.’
In the background, Richard can hear a woman’s voice and the sound of a child wailing. Ben must be at home, which is strange given that Commissioner Dunstable had said ‘action’ would be taken immediately. Naively, he’d imagined Ben already in handcuffs, pleading his case from the back of a police car, but he supposes it works differently if you’re a member of the cabinet, part of the landed gentry and one of the Prime Minister’s closest friends.
‘I’m not going to listen to this,’ Richard says as firmly as he can, which is not all that firmly.
‘You don’t know anything about me or my family,’ Ben replies. ‘You haven’t got the first clue what you’re talking about.’
‘I know what I read in those files. I know that Felicity made a statement to police saying she’d been drugged and raped by your buddy, Andrew Jarvis, and that you covered it up.’
‘How dare you,’ Ben says, his anger now solid and glimmering. ‘That’s a disgusting thing to accuse anyone of.’
Richard notices that he doesn’t deny it.
‘I picked you out of the gutter,’ Ben continues. ‘I gave you a chance to return to the front bench and this is how you repay me?’
‘You did nothing of the sort,’ Richard says. ‘You needed me as much as I needed you.’
Ben gives a bark of laughter.
‘You vastly overestimate your talents. And now – what? – you think you can run for PM? You’re deluded. No one – I repeat, no one – in their right mind will vote for the snivelling weirdo who turned on one of his closest allies and stabbed him in the back.’
Richard wishes these words didn’t affect him as much as they do.His default has always been to feel, deep down, that he is an incompetent fraud and to act in ways that mask this terrible secret. But it’s too late to turn the clock back. He takes a deep breath. The driver has turned the radio down and is hanging on every word. He’s going to have a lot to tell his mates down the pub, Richard thinks.
‘It’s not the first time you’ve covered something up, is it, Ben?’ he says. ‘Didn’t you kill a girl at university and get someone else to take the blame? You paid Martin off for years and you thought it would never get out. Well, Ben, time’s up, I’m afraid.’ Then he adds, with a dramatic flourish he didn’t know he possessed: ‘Tick tock.’
There is silence on the other end of the line.
Slowly, Ben says: ‘I’m going to ruin you.’
‘You’re not going to ruin anyone,’ Richard replies, ‘apart from yourself.’
He ends the call.
Four hours later, just as Richard is emerging from his meeting with the chair of the 1922 Committee, a news alert beeps on his phone telling him that Ben Fitzmaurice and Andrew Jarvis have been arrested on suspicion of bribing a police officer and that Jarvis has been further detained for questioning over an historic allegation of sexual assault. Two retired detectives from the Gloucestershire Constabulary are also under investigation. He clicks on the link and his phone lights up with live TV news coverage of Ben and Jarvis walking into New Scotland Yard with grim expressions. Walking next to them is Ben’s lawyer, Dominic Malik-Edwards.
‘… they will be questioned here, probably for a number of hours,’ the TV news correspondent is saying, ‘and then a decision will be made on whether to press charges or release them on bail. As for Andrew Jarvis, founder and CEO of Dark Rock, well, as we know, allegations of historic sexual assault can be notoriously hard to prove, even more so given the alleged victim is no longer alive, but my hunch is that the authorities must have fairly robust evidence to have made this pretty dramatic intervention today. Back to you in the studio, John.’
Richard’s stomach grumbles and he realises he hasn’t eaten sinceyesterday lunchtime. Too many nerves. But now, he thinks, he will go home and treat himself to a large pepperoni pizza from his local fast-food joint. He might even open a bottle of his favourite Chianti. The chairman of the 1922 had said that, given the extenuating circumstances, he would consult with the board of the Conservative Party and see what could be done about replacing Ben’s name on the leadership ballot with Richard’s. The mood music had sounded broadly positive.
It is all going to be OK, he thinks as he walks out to the sound of bells ringing from Westminster Abbey, and for the first time in Richard Take’s life, he feels the clear-headedness of the unconfused. It was the right thing to do.
He keeps repeating it to himself all the way home – the right thing to do, absolutely the right thing – and in the repetition, it loses its meaning so that when he lets himself in through his front door to the cold hallway and stack of unopened mail, he is no longer truly sure if it actually was.
