A Very British Coup (27 page)

And now he was being asked to sneak into Perkins' flat and sift through his personal effects. Page would do it because he was under orders, but he did not like doing it. Not one little bit.

To avoid prying neighbours he parked his car in the Clapham Road and walked back round the corner about fifty yards to Perkins' flat. He glanced quickly up at the window of neighbouring flats and, when he was sure no one was looking, let himself into the front entrance hall with a Yale key. He glided up the three flights of stairs, taking the steps two at a
time, turned the two Chubb locks on Perkins' front door and let himself in, closing the door quietly behind him.

It was, thought Page, a very modest home for a Prime Minister, being rather smaller than the inspector's own semi in Willesden. There were two bedrooms and a medium-sized living room. The smaller of the two bedrooms was a storeroom. There were boxes of papers and magazines, piles of bound volumes of Hansard, and two metal filing cabinets. This is going to take all bloody night, thought Page, as he surveyed the flat.

He started by looking at the photographs. The one on the desk in the living room of an elderly lady with grey hair was, he guessed, Perkins' mother. On the mantelpiece there was a picture of Perkins with some orientals. On the wall in the bedroom a large photograph, taken in the bar of a Sheffield Labour club, showed Perkins surrounded by party members. In the wardrobe Page found an old shoebox full of black and white prints, some of them dating back to Perkins' childhood. There was one girl in her early twenties, but it seemed to have been taken years ago and the name Anne was scribbled on the back.

Next he went through the letters on the desk. They were in wire baskets labelled ‘Constituency', ‘Personal' and ‘Party'. Page flipped through the basket marked ‘Personal'. It consisted mainly of unpaid bills, some bank statements and two or three letters from people who appeared to be relatives. There were drawers in the desk and he went through them one by one. Postage stamps, typewriter ribbons, paper clips, a pile of old election addresses and several books of old Co-Op coupons. Jesus, thought Page, it must be ten years since the Co-Op stopped giving stamps.

He had been there about an hour when he started on the small bedroom. He tugged at the top drawer of one of the filing cabinets. It was open. Inside it was crammed with green folders, all neatly labelled. He ran his eye quickly along the labels which were in little plastic mounts clipped on to the metal ridge of the files. Every so often he came to a folder that was not labelled and drew it out for inspection. They mostly
contained newspaper cuttings, many of them about Perkins, some dated years back. There were copies of letters sent on behalf of constituents to various government departments and to the housing department of Sheffield City Council.

Page did not strike lucky until he reached the third drawer. The folders now seemed to consist of old newspaper cuttings arranged under subject headings … CIA … Indian Ocean … Income Tax … they did not seem to bear much relation to each other … Microchips … Molly … Multinationals … Molly, Molly. That was it. The name of the girl he was looking for. He whisked the folder out and walked with it into the living room. Opening it, he laid the contents out on the desk. There was very little: a postcard from Austria dated March 1977 and half a dozen notes on scraps of blank paper. These were variously signed Molly, Moll and M, but bore no address. Some were dated, some were not. They mainly concerned shopping arrangements. Surely the head of DI5 had more important matters with which to concern himself? Page shrugged. His was not to reason why.

He scooped the notes and the postcard back into the green folder, closed the filing cabinet and glanced around the flat to make sure everything was as he had found it. Then, with the folder under his arm, he let himself out of the front door.

At the end of the street he found a phone box and rang the number Sir Peregrine had given him. It was after seven o'clock on a Friday evening, but the DI5 chief was at his desk. Page drove directly to Curzon Street.

If Sir Peregrine was disappointed at the meagre contents of the Molly folder, he did not show it. Using the photocopier in the outer office he made two copies of each item and then returned the folder to Page. “Put this back where you found it,” he ordered. “And remember, not a word to anyone.”

Molly Jarvis had just finished loading the dishwasher when she noticed a tall man striding down the gravel drive towards the house. He would have stood out anywhere in Derbyshire, indeed anywhere north of Mayfair. He was dressed in a perfectly cut navy blue suit with a waistcoat. On his lapel she
caught the glint of a watch chain. On his head he wore a hat, a homburg she thought it was called. An umbrella was hooked over his left arm and in his right hand he carried a black leather briefcase of the sort that is standard Civil Service issue.

Drying her hands on a teacloth she went to the front door. She had opened it even before the man reached the house. The man doffed his hat. “Mrs Jarvis?” he said from a distance of about five yards.

“Yes.”

“My name is Craddock.” He had reached the doorstep now and was standing, hat in hand. Molly guessed he was aged about sixty. A handsome man by any standards. His greying hair still covered the top of his head. His square chin and straight back suggested he might once have been an officer in the Guards. “I'm with the security people in London,” he added in a voice which reflected generations of refined breeding.

“Oh,” said Molly.

“One or two questions to ask. Hope I'm not disturbing you.” He took another step forward.

“Not at all,” said Molly standing aside to let him enter. If the man had said he was the Prince of Wales, she would not have argued.

They passed into the living room. The man had to stoop slightly to avoid hitting his head on the oak beams in the ceiling. There was a Handel organ concerto playing softly on the stereo.

“Like Handel, do you?” asked the man.

“Yes,” said Molly.

He arranged himself on the sofa and laid down the hat and the briefcase at his side. The umbrella he propped against the arm of the sofa. Molly went to make a cup of tea and while she was out of the room the man got up and inspected the bookshelf. When she returned he was standing by the window leafing through a biography of Harry Perkins. It was not a very good book. Molly had bought it on the spur of the moment at a shop in Sheffield two years ago.

“You once knew Harry Perkins, I believe.” Molly nearly dropped the teatray.

“Yes,” she said, “in my old job at British Insulated we had to go and negotiate with him once or twice. About reactors.”

“No,” said the man turning to face her, “that wasn't what I meant.”

Molly was seated by now. The tray was on the floor at her feet. The Handel concerto was still playing softly. “How did you know?” she whispered.

“Never mind about that.” His voice seemed harder now. He walked to the bookshelf, replaced the volume and returned to the sofa. Molly poured the tea. “Mrs Jarvis,” he said eventually, “I want you to tell me everything you know about Harry Perkins, starting from the day you first met him.”

She told him of the meetings at the Public Sector Department. About the note Perkins had slipped to her. About that first lunch at his flat in Kennington. About all the other Sundays. About how she used to ring first from the Oval tube station so that he would leave the door open for her.

The man had taken a notepad from his briefcase and a felt-tipped pen from an inside pocket. Occasionally he scribbled on the pad. Sometimes he asked a question.

“And all this time you were living with Michael Jarvis?”

“Yes,” said Molly quietly, her eyes downcast.

“And all this time Mr Jarvis was negotiating the sale of his company's reactors with Perkins.”

Molly's eyes widened. Suddenly it dawned on her where all this was leading. No, she protested, her affair with Perkins had nothing to do with the reactors. Michael knew nothing about it. Even to this day she had not told him. She had never discussed the reactors with Perkins. No, never. Not once, not ever. It was a love affair, nothing more.

The more she protested, the more the man probed. Had she ever given Perkins a present? A watch, a pair of cufflinks perhaps? Not even at Christmas?

No, she said, it wasn't like that. She was crying now and the man's voice became more gentle. The chimes of the grandfather clock in the hall reminded her that it was almost time to collect the children from school. The man said he would soon be finished.

“Mrs Jarvis,” he said, “did Perkins ever give you a present?”

“No,” she said quickly. And then she remembered
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
. He asked if he could see the book and she led him up the wrought iron spiral staircase to the attic room where she kept her souvenirs of Perkins in the blue vanity case.

She blew the dust from the case. It had been at least two years since she last opened it. The key was in a jamjar on the window sill. She unlocked the case and took out the book. Its paperback cover had faded. The man opened the book and read the dedication on the inside of the cover:
To a slightly Tory lady in the hope that she will see the light. Love, Harry
, and then the date. Molly looked embarrassed.

“And these letters,” said the man indicating the half dozen or so envelopes bound together with an elastic band. “From Perkins, were they?”

Molly nodded.

The first was the note Perkins had passed her that day in the Public Sector Department:
Lunch Sunday? Ring me at midnight
. It was undated, but the notepaper was inscribed at the top: ‘From the Secretary of State.' The man shook his head in amazement. How indiscreet politicians could be.

Taking each of the other notes from the envelopes, he inspected them and put them back. Molly stood in silence, watching.

Then he came to the cheque for £5.20 drawn on Perkins' personal account. “For shopping,” said Molly quickly.

The man raised an eyebrow.

“What the hell do you think it was for?” said Molly sharply.

The man said nothing. He collected the envelopes and the cheque together and bound them again with the elastic band.
They went downstairs in silence. The man was carrying the letters and the book.

“Mrs Jarvis,” he said when they were back in the living room, “I am afraid I must borrow these.”

What was he going to do with them, she demanded? Michael would be furious if he found out about her affair with Perkins. And as for Perkins … Her voice trailed off as the awful panorama of possibilities opened up before her eyes.

The man's voice was reassuring again. “My dear, you have nothing to worry about. All this will remain a secret between you and me.” He was putting the book and the letters in his briefcase. “In due course they will be returned to you.” He paused and glanced around the room. “It's just that, if any of this got into the wrong hands, the Prime Minister would be gravely embarrassed.” He spoke as though embarrassing the Prime Minister was the last thing he wanted to do. “Particularly,” he added, “in the light of the accident at Windermere.”

The man then collected his hat, umbrella and briefcase and walked to the front door. Molly offered him a lift to the station. He thanked her, but said he would rather walk since he did not get to the country very much these days.

With that he strode away up the gravel drive. Molly stood on the doorstep and watched him go.

Sir Peregrine was back at his home in Queen Anne's Gate by about eight that evening. His maid had prepared a light meal which he ate alone in his study overlooking the park. Before settling down for the evening with a glass of port and a book of John Donne's poems, he made just one telephone call on the scrambled line. It was to Sir George Fison at his home in Cheyne Walk.

“George, dear boy.” He toyed with the port glass. “The PM's been looking a bit off colour this evening, don't you think?”

Fison said he thought so too.

“Strain's beginning to tell at last,” said Sir Peregrine.

Fison gave a little snort of laughter and said he would not be in the least surprised.

“I was wondering,” said Sir Peregrine, “if you could get your chaps to run a little speculation on the PM's health.”

Fison said he would see what could be done.

Indeed Perkins had not been feeling well for months. The colour had drained from his cheeks. The optimism had gone from his eyes. He smiled less often now and when he did his smile looked artificial. Thompson had been advising him for months to take it easy, but the advice went unheeded. Everyone in Downing Street was talking about how worn he looked. The garden girls, the policemen on the door, the housekeeper, even Tweed and the civil servants in the private office.

There was a time when he had ignored what the newspapers said about him, but nowadays he seemed obsessed by them. Every night when the first editions arrived he would spend an hour poring over them, sometimes by himself, sometimes with Thompson. “Lying bastards,” he would shout as he read the editorials, particularly those in the
Express
or the
Mail
.

“Take it easy, Harry,” Thompson would say.

But Perkins did not take it easy. As the attacks in the media mounted, he became bitter and short tempered. It showed in his performance on the floor of the House. The Tories could see when he was riled and jibed him mercilessly.

For some weeks now, ever since the Chequers conference, there had been reports of a plot against him in the Parliamentary Party. There was talk in the tea rooms of a substantial revolt over the proposed cuts in the defence budget. Up to one hundred MPs were, it was said, prepared to abstain or vote with the Tories. There was even talk of the Parliamentary Party choosing a leader of its own. A small group of MPs around Wainwright were said to be behind the rebellion. Relations between the Prime Minister and the Chancellor had sunk to an all-time low.