The Wormwood Code (15 page)

'Everyone else has names for these things, though, don't they?' said the PM. 'They have Labour Day and Independence Day and Corpus Christi and Yom Kippur and Ascension Day. We have early spring Bank Holiday, late Spring Bank Holiday, August Bank Holiday. I think we should start giving them names.'

The three other men in the room – who, with the demise of Thackeray had gone from being the Gang of Four to the Three Musketeers, or the Three Stooges – raised an eyebrow each, and then returned to reading the paper, making notes, and buttering a piece of toast respectively.

'We could have the Queen's Birthday, for example. The Royalists would like that. Then, I don't know, maybe we could have a day named after, say, the Prime Minister of the time. Maybe the name wouldn't change with PM, but would stay the same as the PM who introdu...'

'It's a British tradition, Sir,' said Williams.

The PM sighed.

'You can fight some of them,' added Williams, 'but you're just going to have to leave the bank holidays alone.'

The PM glanced over.

'I'm not so sure,' he said. 'Draft me something for later today. Might put it out there and see what the hardworking, decent, honest people of Britain think about it.'

Williams nodded. Barney Thomson ruffled the newspaper. Igor took a large bite out of a small piece of toast. The PM tapped at the desk.

'Have to go to Ikea today,' he muttered, not telling anyone anything they didn't already know. 'That's what it means to be PM, you know. You have to go to Ikea and eat breakfast. It's that tough.'

'It's the Ikea generation, Sir,' said Williams. 'Lots of votes in it, lots of votes.'

'Barney?'

Barney Thomson glanced up once more from the newspaper.

'Like the meatballs, not so keen on the furniture,' he said.

'Arf!'

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1011hrs

I
t was Barney Thomson's turn to be interrogated by DCI Steve Grogan, the man tasked with the delicate job of investigating the murders amongst the PM's staff, and he was surprised it had taken him so long to be called. He was used to being the first suspect in the queue. He knocked on the door to the small office and stepped inside. Two windows were open today, and the office was warm and almost smelled as much of the air outside as it did of the cigarette smoke which Grogan belched out into the world like a 1950s Eastern European chemicals factory.

'Sit down,' said Grogan sharply, and Barney took his place. Wasn't sure how this would go, as there were plenty of policemen who would blanche at the sight of his record, and have him in prison in minutes.

'You've been around,' said Grogan. Barney didn't reply. Grogan lit another cigarette. 'Heard you were tapped up by the leader of the opposition.'

'That's impressive,' said Barney. 'How d'you hear that?'

'Like I'm going to tell you,' he said. 'Anyway, over at Tory HQ they think the difference in the campaign is the great hair you're giving the PM. You think that?'

Barney smiled. Of course he didn't. The leader of the opposition had the air of the undead about him and was as charismatic as a block of tasteless Dutch cheese. That was the difference.

'Rather a liar than a nondescript,' said Barney.

'Very fucking sage,' said Grogan, laughing, then calculatedly wiped the smile off his face. 'So this all started when the PM's barber got murdered. What's to say that you're not working with someone in the PM's office, you engineered the murder of the last guy, your insider here persuaded the PM to get you down here, and now the two of you are working to undermine the PM's campaign for some nefarious purpose?'

Barney smiled. It all sounded so simple. Except that the length of time it had taken to get Grogan round to interviewing Barney, showed that even he didn't think much of the theory.

'You're right,' said Barney. 'We're trying to get Igor to be the next Prime Minister.'

Grogan didn't smile.

'I take it you're joking, cowboy,' he said, voice deadpan, 'but that might turn out to be not a hundred miles from the truth.'

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1411hrs

T
he two men sat at the table outside of the small café south of the river, well away from Westminster and the sparring campaigns which were slowly driving the country to insanity. Dane Bledsoe, who had installed himself as the main advisor to the leader of the opposition, and his colleague from Langley, Virginia, whose name may or may not have been Roosevelt. Four days to go and their work here would be finished. It may not have all been going exactly to plan, but then what covert operation ever did? It was the end result which mattered, and they were confident that their objectives would be achieved. The cost was immaterial.

'Where are you going to be on Saturday?' asked Bledsoe.

Roosevelt drained his coffee, screwing his face up as he had with every sip.

'Why the hell is it that you can't get a decent cup of coffee in this country?' he said. 'We even gave them Starbucks and they still managed to screw it up.'

'They're backward,' said Bledsoe. 'We're going to be gone in four days. Forget about it. Where are you going at the weekend?'

Bledsoe sucked at the dregs, as though there might be some vestige of taste in the remnants of the cup.

'New York,' he said, 'I'm going to New York. I'm going to find a small café and drink coffee. There are three or four places I like, but it doesn't matter where I go, because they'll all be better than this crap. I'm going to sit there all day, listening to the Mets on the radio, drinking coffee and eating doughnuts. Then I'm going to watch a movie in a decent movie house, then I'm going to a decent hotel and I'm going to crash, then I'm going to get up on Sunday, read some decent papers, and repeat the day I had before.'

Bledsoe nodded, smiling. It all sounded so perfect, and would have been too, if not for the fact that by that weekend, Roosevelt, or whatever he was called, was going to be dead.

'What about you?' asked Roosevelt.

'Miami Beach,' said Bledsoe. 'Check out some babes. Tell me about Saturday night.'

Roosevelt snapped his fingers at a passing waitress and pointed to his cup.

'I walked in through the front door and I left through the front door. The place is a joke. Can you imagine getting into the White House like that? I don't think so.'

'So how did you do it?'

'I took care of my non-business with the guy Williams, then I just happened to bump into Thackeray on my way out. The guy was wired. Hadn't slept in four weeks, God knows what he was popping. I offered him a few things, we went into some small, uninhabited office. The place is a maze.'

'How did you kill him?'

'Bludgeoned him to death with a copy of
The Da Vinci Code
.'

'Nice,' said Bledsoe laughing. 'Hardback?'

'Totally,' said Roosevelt.

His third cup of coffee arrived. Bledsoe chose the moment to order his third with a snap of the fingers, which he could've done at the same time as Roosevelt. The waitress smiled and thought,
I hate you, you ignorant American fuck
.

'So did you get the information?' asked Bledsoe.

Roosevelt took a drink of coffee, started nodding his head. Into the Italian gangster part of the conversation.

'Under the hair, just above the left ear,' he said.

'You took in a magnifying glass?' asked Bledsoe.

'Totally. So last century. Felt like Sherlock Holmes or something.'

'What did you get?' asked Bledsoe, pushing the question.

Roosevelt fished around in his pocket for a small piece of folded paper, which he passed over. Bledsoe kept his eyes on Roosevelt and then opened up the paper and read the words quickly, seven or eight times.

And the name of the star is called Wormwood

Bledsoe looked up at Roosevelt, his eyes narrowing.

'What does that mean?' he asked.

'I have no idea,' said Roosevelt. 'I was hoping you'd know.'

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1503hrs

T
he Leader of the Opposition was having a bad day. His every day was bad. Sure, when he appeared in public he wore the confident grin of a man who thought he was just about to become Prime Minister, but realistically he knew he was finished. He had four more days effectively leading the opposition, and then, come Friday morning, he was going to have to stand before the press and accept defeat, and announce that it was time for the Conservative party to find a new leader to take them through the next parliament, and to try and build a platform which might lead them to power in 2009 or 2010. A few weeks from now he would return to being a nobody, like the previous two leaders, and he could crawl back into his coffin and only come out after the hours of darkness, to make after-dinner speeches at seven hundred pounds a time to anyone who would take him. (At least, he hoped he might get seven hundred. He'd heard that Duncan-Smith only got fifty quid and that Hague would do it for fourteen pints.)

Detective Sergeant Tony Eason, undercover at Tory Party HQ in an attempt to get under the skin of Dane Bledsoe – a task which he had manifestly failed to do – sat and looked at the back of the Count. He was bored, wanted to return to his desk at the office. He wanted to be out investigating commonplace murder and the like, not the murder of the PM's staff. This wasn't for him, hopelessly out of place as an undercover marketing executive.

'Where's Bledsoe?' asked the Count.

'Wish I knew,' said Eason, forlornly. Not only had he been unable to find out who Bledsoe was really working for, he generally had no idea where he was on an hourly basis.

'We're screwed, aren't we?' said the Count pitifully.

Eason tried to put himself into the role of the crack marketing man, which he was supposed to be.

'Well, you know,' he said, 'kind of depends on what you're looking for.'

The Count turned and gave him a hard stare.

'What d'you mean?'

'Well,' said Eason, struggling. 'You'll probably give the Lib Dems a good kicking. That didn't always happen back in the 19th century.'

The Count stared at him, wondering if he was being serious, then he let out a great sigh and slumped further into his seat. Checked his watch. His ten minutes respite was almost over, then he was going to have to be back out on the campaign trail. The last three days and, along with the other two leaders, he was visiting as many marginal constituencies as possible. Kicking himself – or rather, kicking his advisors – that they hadn't come up with the brilliant Ikea idea of the other mob.

The door opened and Dane Bledsoe walked in, fresh from conspiracy.

'We should get going, Sir,' he said, without trace of duplicity, a true covert operative.

The Count nodded and tried to switch on the grin.

'Probably should,' he said.

He stood up. Eason joined him, fidgeting, wondering if he could just excuse himself.

'Either of you know what or who Wormwood is?' asked Bledsoe, with the brazen lack of subtlety of the intelligence services.

'A plant,' said the Count. 'A bitter plant. You think we could feed it to the government? I'm afraid it's probably what we'll be eating on Friday. Bitterness.'

He pulled on his jacket, lifted a couple of papers.

'Won't need the jacket,' said Eason. 'It's a hot one. Probably an opportunity for an ice cream photo,' he added. The Count took his jacket off, fished around in the pockets for a couple of things.

'Something to do with a star,' said Bledsoe, 'a star called wormwood. Anyone know what that's all about?'

The Count shook his head, distracted, trying to get into the character of a confident politician.

'Revelations,' said Eason, and Bledsoe looked interested and also slightly confused. Not a Bible man.

'The third angel,' said Eason. 'There fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of water; and the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.'

Bledsoe stared at him; the Count was ready and walked out the door. Not a New Testament man after all.

'You don't look like a Bible thumper,' said Bledsoe.

'Nah,' said Eason. 'You know how it is when you're a teenager. Iron Maiden, Denis Wheatley, all that shit. You read Revelations to death. All that seven angels standing in the sun, 666 stuff. The Omen and the like. I looked and behold a pale horse, and his name that sat on him was Death. Fantastic. Load of baloney, right enough, but fantastic all the same. Couldn't tell you how many gospels there were, but I know Revelations inside out.'

Bledsoe looked impressed, for some reason felt pleased with himself for immediately identifying someone who could help him out, when all that had been required was a quick two minutes on Google.

'That pale horse thing was in the Bible?' he said. 'I always thought it was just for the movies.'

'Nah,' said Eason.

'So what has it got to do with any of this?' asked Bledsoe.

Eason looked at him, obviously no idea what he was talking about, and shrugged. And they followed the Count out the door, back onto the campaign trail, to fight a losing battle against the Magnificent Two – the PM and the Chancellor – out on their bank holiday afternoon, eating lunch, eating ice cream, drinking pints and glad-handing it around the marginal constituencies of the deep south.

0615hrs

D
ane Bledsoe hung up the phone and rolled back over in bed. Glanced at the clock. Just after one a.m. in Washington and these people were still at work. What would they have been like if Britain had actually mattered to them? He put his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling. How many of his days began with an abrupt awakening via the phone? He needed to get up anyway, the usual early campaign start. Another day trailing around the marginal constituencies of the country, giving the leader of the opposition advice that ranged from the pointless to the ridiculous.

'Work?' said a voice next to him.

Took another look at the clock. If she was awake anyway, then there was still time to continue what they'd started the night before.