Authors: James Craig
Valcareggi smiled indulgently. ‘There is no question of it. We are absolutely sure. He’s had plastic surgery before, and is travelling on a fake passport of course …’
‘Of course,’ interjected Joe, who had woken up and was helping himself to a fresh cup of coffee from the pot by the reception desk. Taking a sip, he smiled at the receptionist, who made a show of blanking him. Shrugging, he sat back down next to Carlyle.
‘… but we have a DNA match,’ Valcareggi continued. ‘It is definitely the right man, and he is very worth catching. Pozzo has links to the various crime clans in the ’Ndrangheta syndicate. He has been a fugitive for almost two years now, and this is his second round of liposuction. We almost caught up with him the first time, at a clinic in Nice, but he left it about an hour before we arrived.’
‘It happens,’ said Joe sympathetically.
‘This time,’ Valcareggi beamed, ‘we’ve got him. No problem.’
‘Anaesthetic always slows them down,’ Carlyle quipped. ‘I don’t know why we don’t use it more often.’ Reaching down, he picked up another magazine and quickly flicked through the pages until he came to a large picture of two well-dressed men hovering on the cusp of middle age. The pair beamed at him as if they had just won an Olympic gold, taken the casino at Monte Carlo for ten million dollars
and
fucked Scarlett Johansson all ends up, all on the same day.
The strapline read:
Better than you, and they know it
.
Tossers, Carlyle thought. But he started reading anyway.
THE GOLDEN TWINS TAKE CENTRE STAGE
The Carlton brothers will be running the country soon; Eamonn Foinhaven profiles a new political aristocracy in the land.
One is known as ‘the Sun King’, the other ‘the dark prince’, nicknames they picked up on their fabled journey from the playing fields of Eton, the forge of leaders down the centuries, through Cambridge University to the House of Commons, and now on to the very gates of power, in front of No 10 Downing Street itself.
If the perception in Westminster is that Edgar Carlton is the prime minister in waiting – the odds on him taking the top job shortening every day, after every new fumble and misjudgement by the current incumbent – his younger sibling (by two minutes), Xavier, is hardly living in his shadow.
The political classes are now agreed that Edgar Carlton has all the necessary skills for great office: the charm, the drive, the appetite to lead from the front. Xavier, on the other hand, who is as likely to be found in the gossip pages as in parliamentary reports, has more doubters. Already handed the post of Shadow Foreign Secretary by his brother, it seems increasingly certain that he will get the chance to prove these doubters wrong. It is even whispered that the twins have agreed a secret pact, with Edgar promising to stand down as PM in favour of Xavier once a second term is secured.
The Carltons fit perfectly with the mood of the moment, the country’s new taste for austere glamour. Their story is now well known: the sons of the celebrated union between Hamisi Michuki, the Kenyan model who stormed London society in the 1960s, and Sir Sidney Carlton, a rakish tycoon who rose to the heights of Paymaster General in successive governments in the early 1960s, before his political ambitions were derailed by an unfortunate incident with a pair of strippers from the Cowshed Club, a notorious haunt of gangsters and other pre-Swinging Sixties lowlifes.
Happily for the boys, the best genes of both parents have been passed on; they acquired their mother’s stunning looks and their father’s political nous. Now, they are poised to sweep away both the gloom of the ‘new austerity’ and also the soul-destroying cult of the working-class rapscallion, or ‘cheeky chav’, both of which have plagued the country in recent years. In the class-ridden twenty-first century, the Carltons are the ultimate ‘anti-chavs’, standing against everything that is common, vulgar and ugly. Surfing a popular wave of optimism and glamour, they have, quite simply, left routine politics behind. ‘They are so in touch with the zeitgeist, it’s frightening,’ declares Chelsea-based style guru Sally Plank. ‘Their peers are footballers, pop stars and royalty, rather than other politicians. They realise that becoming a credible celebrity is ninety per cent of the job done; because if you’re a celebrity, the public will forgive you for being a politician.’
Potentially the first brothers to hold senior government office together since just before the outbreak of the Second World War, they are fiercely loyal to each other. ‘It’s almost like a gay political marriage,’ remarked one colleague who declined to be named. ‘They have an almost telepathic understanding and are constantly watching each other’s backs.’
Not that they have much to worry about in that regard at the moment, for whatever reservations ordinary members may have about the brothers’ grip on the party is more than offset by the current opinion polls. After many years in the wilderness, power once again beckons. Lucky or not, Edgar and Xavier Carlton are in the right place at the right time. They look young, modern and in touch with the public.
‘They will win, that much is certain,’ says pollster Martin Max of pressyourbutton.co.uk, the UK’s leading 360-degree sentiment-sampling service, ‘the only question is by how much. The Carltons could end up with the biggest majority in modern history, eclipsing the 232-seat majority of the Spencer government in the early nineteenth century.’
Joe Szyszkowski tapped him on the arm. ‘Look …’
Carlyle looked up at the television screen just in time to see a sleek Jaguar carrying the current prime minister sweep through the gates of Buckingham Palace.
‘Here we go,’ Joe said. ‘Election time.’
‘Big surprise,’ Carlyle grumbled. ‘The silly old sod left it as late as possible. Not that it’s going to do him any good.’
‘Who will you vote for?’ Valcareggi asked bluntly.
‘That’s between me and the ballot box, Edmondo,’ Carlyle said stiffly. He held up the magazine so that the
commissario
could see the article that he had been reading. ‘But you can safely assume that I won’t be supporting this bunch of over-privileged chancers.’
‘The inspector is a real inverted snob,’ Joe laughed, whereupon Valcareggi gave him a look that indicated he didn’t understand the phrase. Before the sergeant could explain, a nervous-looking man in a white coat appeared. Reflexively, Joe reached for his handcuffs.
‘Gentlemen,’ the doctor said quietly, ‘Mr … er, the patient is just waking up.’
‘Excellent!’ Carlyle pushed himself to his feet. ‘Let’s go and arrest the now not-so-fat fuck.’
THREE
Kitty Pakenham, a.k.a. Catherine Sarah Dorothea Wellesley, Duchess of Wellington (1773–1831), wife of Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, first Duke of Wellington, KG, KP, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS, looked down benevolently from above the library fireplace, her gentle, amused smile no doubt reflecting the fact that the St James’s gentlemen’s club that bore her name had never – and would never – permit women to become members. Beneath Kitty’s gaze, Edgar Carlton, MP, leader of Her Majesty’s opposition, sipped gently on his Cognac de Grande Champagne Extra Old and watched a series of familiar images that flickered on the television screen in front of him. The sound was muted – club members didn’t like noise, particularly when it was the news – but that didn’t matter, for Edgar knew it all off by heart. After grimly clinging on to power for as long as possible, the prime minister – the man Edgar would be replacing at No 10 Downing Street in a month’s time – had finally announced that a general election would be held on 5 May. The Queen had agreed that Parliament be dissolved next week. The election campaign had begun.
Edgar took a large mouthful of his cognac and let it linger on his tongue. A wave of ennui passed over him, since the prospect of spending the next three weeks scrambling across the country, meeting ‘ordinary people’ and begging for votes in marginal constituencies, was singularly unappealing. It was such a damn bloody chore. He knew, however, that there was no way round it. At least he didn’t have to worry about losing at the end of it all.
Finally letting the brandy trickle down his throat, he gazed at the television screen and scrutinised his opponent. Looking back at him was a tired, beaten, middle-aged man who had achieved nothing other than to feed his ego for a few squalid years. Even with the sound turned down, Edgar could interpret the man’s soundbite:
‘This election is a big choice. The British people are the boss, and they are the ones that will make that choice.’
‘I think that they already have, my friend.’ Edgar smiled. As if on cue, a graphic appeared on screen, displaying four opinion polls that had been published earlier in the day. They confirmed that Edgar’s lead had strengthened to between ten and sixteen points.
Short of being caught
in flagrante
with a couple of altar boys, there is no way I can lose,
he thought.
Simply no way.
Raising his glass to Kitty, he turned his back on the television and savoured the peace of the empty room. With a shiver, he realised that he wouldn’t be seeing much of this club from now on. Pakenham’s was almost two hundred years old, and for a while it had been the headquarters of the political party that he now led. Previous club members had included various princes of Wales, the writer Evelyn Waugh, and Joseph White the media magnate who rose to number 238 on the
Sunday Times Rich List
, before fraud and obstruction-of-justice convictions landed him in a Florida prison. If it was good enough for people like that, Edgar thought, it was good enough for him. Pakenham’s was one of the few things in life that gave him any sense of identity. Certainly, it was one of the few places where he could get any peace.
Catching sight of himself in a nearby mirror, Edgar smiled.
Black don’t crack
, as the saying went, and so it was with him. He had his Kenyan model-turned-mother to thank for that. The Audrey Hepburn of Africa, they’d called her, and she’d given him the good genes, the good looks and the non-receding hairline. He had his father, Sir Sidney Carton, to thank for everything else. Truly he deserved his ‘Sun God’ moniker. He let his gaze linger on the image in the mirror, and gave a small nod of approval. The flowing locks had gone, replaced by a number-one crop on back and sides and a number four on top, inspired by the new American President. On the edge of extreme, it was just on the right side of suggesting a football hooligan or a squaddie: utilitarian, athletic, a no-nonsense haircut that talked about control and focus. It worked well, too, with today’s ensemble: sober two-button grey suit, white shirt and gentle pink tie, rounded off by a pair of sharp, well-polished Chelsea boots. Suited and booted indeed! Not for nothing had he been placed in the top five in
Modern Men’s Monthly
magazine’s list of the world’s best-dressed men for the last two years, beating the likes of David Beckham, Daniel Day-Lewis, James McAvoy, Jude Law – and, best of all, his twin brother, political colleague and sometime rival, Xavier.
A polite cough drew Edgar from his reverie. He half turned to find William Murray standing behind him. One of the more important minions, Murray was one of twelve ‘Special Advisers’ in Edgar Carlton’s team. Now that he was on the brink of power, it was a team that had swelled to more than fifty people, and seemed to be getting bigger by the day. Murray was in his mid-to-late twenties, only four or five years out of Cambridge, and appeared charming, cynical and energetic. With an indeterminate brief, he was a general fixer who could turn his hand to PR, lobbying, and one or two other things that Edgar didn’t need to know about. Of somewhat brittle temperament, the young man had no pedigree to speak of, and was a ‘bit of rough’ who could take the fight to the other side whenever the going got heavy.
Of course, Murray was not a club member, but sometimes you had to let the hired help into the inner sanctum, in the course of performing their jobs. The young aide crossed the room, nodded a greeting to his boss and stood to attention by the far end of the fireplace. Pulling a sheaf of papers out of an expensive-looking briefcase, he waited expectantly.
It suddenly struck Edgar that the face looking back at him could be his clone from twenty or so years ago: when younger, fresher, smarter. Before he had time to get too annoyed by this thought, he felt his mobile vibrating inside his jacket pocket. Pulling it out, he quickly read the text that had just arrived. Smiling, he flashed the screen at his aide, not giving the boy time to read it. ‘It’s a good-luck message from my old headmaster. That’s very nice of him.’
‘Yes,’ Murray agreed, a little bemused. His own headmaster – at the Terence Venables Comprehensive in Hammersmith – had been sacked for getting one of the sixth-formers pregnant. Why anyone would want to keep in touch with their old schoolteachers was beyond him.
‘I will be the nineteenth boy from my school to become prime minister,’ Edgar explained. ‘
If
I am elected, of course. It’s quite a list: Walpole, Eden, Gladstone, Macmillan …’