A Scandalous Man

A Scandalous Man
Gavin Esler

An absorbing new political thriller from the co-host of NewsnightRobin Burnett has spent years at the heart of power, pulling the strings. With friends in Downing Street, the White House and the CIA he is known as the brightest politician of his generation, tipped to go all the way to the top. But when the media discover that Robin is at the heart of a shocking sex scandal, his glittering career comes to an abrupt end. Robin and those close to him will pay the price of corruption, lies and ruthless ambition, and learn that with a twenty-four hour hungry media, scandal can be hard to avoid.Gavin Esler's novel gives a real sense of the adrenalin of power when you feel the top job is within your grasp. A Scandalous Man presents fascinating, wholly credible scenarios on relationships and secret arrangements with the United States and the Middle East.

A Scandalous Man

GAVIN ESLER

This book is dedicated to my friends from Iran,Turkey and the Arab world, India and Pakistan,whose friendship and love inspires me.

Too long a sacrifice

Can make a stone of the heart.

Oh, when may it suffice?

Easter, 1916. w. b. YEATS

Birds make great sky circles of their freedom.

How do they learn it?

They fall,

And falling, they’re given wings.

Rumi, PERSIAN POET, 13th Century

Contents

Epigraph (#u6f51e7d4-00ab-5f11-b218-acf68045a393)London, Spring 2005 (#ufe594fe7-7896-57b5-b070-7705f24dc0f9)London, 1982 (#u7f484c16-0af9-5f8f-ab67-43b1d7194d49)London, Spring 2005 (#u83ab9b2d-f77f-5548-acc5-940a9b604731)Pimlico, London, 1987 (#ufa6bbf1a-c423-594d-bc22-d39d842ef480)London, Spring 2005 (#u641706af-c295-5f9f-954a-7d2e1478ff07)Middleburg, Virginia, 1982 (#ufc0d5167-8315-5161-b1be-cb39abe7fabe)London, 1982 (#u5d5c3490-923a-5ae6-beeb-575f4405d535)Hampstead, London, Spring 2005 (#u7ab165f5-b2df-5a72-ac64-9be056c1f808)Pimlico, London, 1987 (#u82185816-fef0-5c60-bb21-da91b0a0e2d8)Muslim College, Acton, West London (#u3310e160-10e8-5427-b60f-0f56b4f36b28)Leila And Robin, 1982 – 1987 (#litres_trial_promo)Her Majesty’s Treasury, Autumn 1983 (#litres_trial_promo)Hm Foreign And Commonwealth Office, 1983 (#litres_trial_promo)Regent’s Park, London (#litres_trial_promo)Hampstead, London, April 2005 (#litres_trial_promo)Arabic For Beginners, April, 2005 (#litres_trial_promo)The Visitor, April 2005 (#litres_trial_promo)Queen Margaret’s Hospital, Gloucester (#litres_trial_promo)London, May 1987 (#litres_trial_promo)Gloucester, April 2005 (#litres_trial_promo)London, May 1987 (#litres_trial_promo)Gloucester, April 2005 (#litres_trial_promo)Hampstead, April 2005 (#litres_trial_promo)London, Autumn And Winter, 1987-88 (#litres_trial_promo)Hampstead, Spring 2005 (#litres_trial_promo)Hampstead And Tetbury, April 2005 (#litres_trial_promo)5 May 2005, Election Day (#litres_trial_promo)England, Various Locations (#litres_trial_promo)London, 7 July 2005 (#litres_trial_promo)London (#litres_trial_promo)Robin Burnett’s Story (#litres_trial_promo)The Whisperer (#litres_trial_promo)Author Note (#litres_trial_promo)Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

London, Spring 2005 (#u60bab662-c2d4-5ae2-9072-fb5008b43070)

Father was murdered today. Or it might have been yesterday. He might even have tried to kill himself. No one can say for certain, and that is typical of father, slippery and devious to the end. The television news said he is not dead yet, or not quite. He was found in a pool of blood on the floor of his cottage, clinging to life. My first thought was that I hoped he survived long enough to suffer.

I heard the news late because I had my mobile phone switched off all day, working, and because I had a row with my client. This never happens. I am too polite for that kind of thing, but he was an up-himself New York corporate lawyer for a private equity firm that was trying to buy up half of eastern Europe, and I was helping them. I’m not particularly proud of it, but there you are. Not many people in London speak fluent Czech, and they paid me five times my normal fee for a bit of translation and a bit of interpreting, and probably would have paid me twenty times if I’d had the nerve to ask. The New York lawyer and I finished going through the paperwork enabling his company to buy a sizeable slice of the Czech economy which he told me he intended to ‘remodel’. He signed the contract as I spoke to his opposite number in Prague confirming the deal. At the same time he talked to his office in Manhattan. I could hear him gloating.

‘Get Karl and the boys down from Frankfurt,’ he told New York. ‘Pink slip everything that breathes and flatten everything that doesn’t. Terminate all contracts. We need everybody out of all sites and everything levelled with immediate effect. We need this turned by the end of the year.’

I was at the other end of the room but could still hear him yakking. He told me to give him the thumbs up the moment I had confirmation the contract was signed in Prague. When I did so, he told New York, ‘It’s done,’ and then put the phone down. He was beaming, as if he had just had sex. Maybe at that point he needed someone to boast to and I was the only one in the room. Whatever the reason he turned to me and said that in that one instant, in that one stroke of a pen, his company had made more than seven hundred million dollars. He personally had pocketed around thirteen million, and was going to find a club and what he called some ‘broadminded women’ to celebrate with. I ran off at the mouth.

‘You’re celebrating putting thousands of Czech workers out of a job?’

He looked as if I had just hit him, then he laughed and started putting his papers into his attaché case.

‘Interpret this, Harry: Welcome to globalization. Welcome to the world where you make dust or you eat dust. Welcome to the twenty-first century.’

Then he handed me my cheque with all the good grace of a client stuffing money into the bra of a lap dancer.

‘Your interpreting fee. A thousand. Don’t spend it all at once.’

I wanted to hit him. He waved a finger at me.

‘You wanna know why people like you don’t like Americans, Harry? Because we’re so goddamn successful in every field of human endeavour.’

That angered me even more. It had nothing to do with his nationality. It had everything to do with his behaviour.

‘I do like Americans,’ I protested. ‘Most of them. But some of you don’t travel so well. The ones who have no values except what you can pay for. People like you.’

‘Well, fuck you too, Harry,’ he called out with another laugh as he stepped out of the door. ‘When people say they don’t care about money it’s usually because they don’t have any. G’bye now. I’ll be thinking of you.’

When I cooled down, I went home and switched on the TV news, only because I wanted to hear if Blair had finally got round to calling the General Election. And he had. But there was also a big surprise. Father’s picture suddenly appeared on the screen as he crawled towards his footnote in history.

‘A reminder of today’s top stories: the Prime Minister,Tony Blair, has given the go ahead for a General Election tobe held on May 5th. He’s bidding to win an unprecedentedthird term for Labour, an achievement which would matchthat of Mrs Thatcher … And one other piece of political newsthis hour: the former Conservative Cabinet Minister RobinBurnett – credited with being one of the chief architects ofThatcherism – has been found close to death at his homein Gloucestershire. Police refused to confirm local speculationthat Mr Burnett had been attacked and stabbed. Formore on this we can go over to our political editor TomAgnew at Westminster. Tom.’

An affable looking man in glasses standing in Downing Street started to speak. He was talking about my father. He appeared to know him better than I did.

‘… Robin Burnett, nicknamed by the tabloids “Big-BrainBurnett”, was one of the intellectual fathers of modernConservatism. A formidably clever economist, he was oncetipped to succeed Mrs Thatcher as Prime Minister until thescandal which toppled him caused devastation at the heart ofthe Conservative party. It still rankles even today …’

Then there was an interruption. The man in glasses held his earpiece with his index finger.

‘And I am just hearing that the Vice President of the UnitedStates, David Hickox, who is on an official visit to Europeand who met Robin Burnett in London earlier this week, isabout to pay tribute to his friend. Let’s go live to the ÉlyséePalace …’

They cut to pictures of Vice President Hickox, a thickset man with the build of an American footballer, standing next to a bemused French President Jacques Chirac.

‘Let me just say that Robin Burnett is a friend of freedom,a friend of the United States and a good friend of mine,’Hickox was saying. ‘He understood the need for Britainand the United States to stand shoulder to shoulder in a difficultand dangerous world. The Robin Burnett I have knownfor years is a brave man and a fighter – and I pray that he’llpull through. My thoughts are with him and his family atthis time.’

Then the Vice President put an arm round President Chirac and they walked inside. The affable reporter started to speak again.

‘Publicly neither the Labour party nor the Conservativesare saying much about Robin Burnett, but privately Labourcannot believe their luck. On the day Tony Blair has called aGeneral Election, here we have a reminder of all the sleazeonce associated with the Conservative party and attached tothe scandal involving Robin Burnett.’

He paused for a second to deliver his punchline.

‘In politics, of course, as in stand-up comedy, timing iseverything. Now back to the studio.’

Oh, god, I thought. It’s starting again. All over again. And there is nothing I can do to stop it. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Could this day possibly get worse? Another deep breath. Perhaps I should introduce myself properly. My name is Harry Burnett. I am a full-time translator and part-time interpreter. Despite what the New York lawyer said, I do a lot of work for American clients, most of whom I like, and I only very rarely lose my temper. I am also the estranged son of the former British Cabinet minister Robin Burnett. And he is a scandalous man.

London, 1982 (#u60bab662-c2d4-5ae2-9072-fb5008b43070)

ROBIN BURNETT’S STORY

The first time I saw the woman who was to change my life was in 1982. I had no idea who she was, but I had an instinct that she meant trouble. At the time I could not imagine how much trouble. Let me set the scene for you. It must have been early in 1982, because it was shortly after the Argentine junta had sent their troops to invade the Falkland Islands. I was preoccupied. Happy. Busy. Successful. Duties. There was a profound air of crisis within the British government, but it brought out the best in everyone, especially the Lady. She knew the old wisdom that the Chinese written script for the word ‘Crisis’ contains the characters for ‘Opportunity’ as well as ‘Danger’, and so did I. Up until the moment the Argies invaded, I was convinced we were going to lose the next election. It had to come by the spring of 1984 at the latest. Unemployment was very high. Not our fault, of course, but people thought it was. Cyclical factors. World downturn. They blamed us. In fact they hated us. I was spat at in the street at a housing project in Bristol. One of the other ministers, Henry Charlwood, had red paint thrown over him in Glasgow. Another, Michael Armstrong, was sprayed with slurry at a market in Leicester. Our economic policies needed more time to work, much more time – as I kept telling everybody and anybody who would listen. Thankfully, the Lady was one of those who did listen.

‘Prime Minister, you cannot turn around a pessimistic, unionized, programmed-to-fail economy like Britain in less than a decade.’

‘We do not have a decade, Robin,’ she reminded me. She actually looked at her watch as if the seconds were ticking away towards the next General Election and the end of her time in Downing Street. ‘We have five years. Four, actually. I intend to go to the country next year. So we have about twelve months remaining.’

‘It’s not enough.’