A Scandalous Man

‘Good,’ she responded. ‘Because I really do want to see you again too.’

It took a couple of days for us to fix a date because I was – as I told her – busy with the spending review. It meant I had to call in ministers from various departments to tell them why they could not have any money. The newspapers called the process the Star Chamber, after the medieval torture.

‘That’s illogical,’ Michael Armstrong’s replacement as Home Secretary, Lewis Jones, challenged me on the cuts I was forcing him to make. In the political pecking order he was senior to me. But the Lady had offered me his job, and I had turned it down because I wanted to complete my work at the Treasury. Plus, I did not want the Home Office. Who’d want to be responsible for law and order? Kiss of death to any political career. I had Lewis Jones’ budget in my hand and I squeezed hard. He squealed.

‘You want more effective policing, more spending on new prisons, and yet you want to give me less money overall …’

‘Correct, Lewis. I do.’

He looked astonished.

‘You want more for less?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s …’

I stared at him the way you do at something on your shoe. Lewis Jones was a fool, but clever enough to realize I thought he was one. He carried some weight among the backbenchers in the 1922 Committee. I had made an enemy, and I didn’t care. I chose my enemies carefully. He harrumphed.

‘… it’s illogical.’

‘Illogical?’ I replied.

‘It doesn’t add up.’

‘I’ll tell you what doesn’t add up, Lewis.’ I pointed my finger at him like a stick. ‘What doesn’t add up is the idea that a Conservative Home Secretary cannot shake up the worst bureaucracy in Britain, which you happen to be presiding over, Lewis, without spraying more money on it like petrol on a fire. I can think of at least three different ways of dividing up the Home Office to make it less unwieldy and far more efficient. If you would like me to outline in Cabinet my plans to reduce your department from underneath you, then I will gladly do so, Lewis, but you might find it more convenient to come up with your own savings.’

He was reeling from this verbal assault. I could see it in his face.

‘Three little words, Lewis: cut the fat.’

Before my second date with Leila, I wanted to do some research. I got the senior Treasury press officer to do it for me. It turned out that ‘Qajar’ was not just a Persian name like Smith or Jones, it was the dynastic name of the Persian royal family before the Pahlavi dynasty. If there was ever to be a restoration of the Iranian monarchy, it might not be a Pahlavi after all. It might be a Qajar. Leila’s father did indeed have to leave Tehran, but mostly because he was a potential rival to the Pahlavis and had demanded democratic reforms. The Shah had refused to take his advice and thought he was potentially a traitor, hence the attentions of SAVAK, the secret police. I called Leila again.

‘Good morning, princess.’

‘What?’

‘I checked you out. You are a princess.’

‘No,’ she said. Can people blush on the telephone? I think she blushed. ‘Not really.’

‘So, I’m more or less clear of the Star Chamber. Can we meet?’

‘Yes.’

I paused, but only for a second or two.

‘Listen, Leila, I very much want to see you. But we must be careful. If I am seen with you, it will get into the papers. There is no way round it.’

Without missing a beat she said, ‘There is, if you come to my apartment.’

And so there it was. My fate was settled. Our fate was settled. Fate, Destiny, Providence, or something like it. I sensed again that it would end in disaster, but I did not care. I embraced the possibility of catastrophe with both hands. I did it with both eyes open, and I hugged my fate like an old friend. A few months later, Leila confided in me that at first she thought it was just a bit of fun.

‘Alone, in Britain, an attractive, powerful Englishman,’ she said. ‘What’s not to like? I wanted a little adventure.’

‘And then?’ I said.

I remember she looked at me with her wet eyes.

‘And then, I fell in love, which was a terrible personal and professional mistake. A catastrophic error of judgement.’

I loved her from the first moment I saw her, and I told her so. She giggled.

‘Don’t be silly. There’s no such thing as love at first sight.’

I was not being silly. It was the truth. I remember it now so well because after that moment, the truth and I became strangers.

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

HARRY BURNETT’S STORY

It was now dark, but something drew Harry Burnett back to the study of his father’s Hampstead apartment. Perhaps it was the memory of the defiant girl looking up from the bench on the heath below. He checked the bench again but this time it was empty. He returned to the kitchen, fetched water from the tap in a crystal pitcher and poured a couple of fingers of Glen Moray into a whisky tumbler. He splashed a drop of water on top.

‘Just a wee splash to open the nose,’ he said in a mock Scottish accent. ‘As faither would say.’

He stared at the picture of his father with Leila Rajar again, then switched on the television. His father’s suicide attempt was the last headline on a specially extended edition of the Ten O’Clock News. The top story was, of course, the beginning of the General Election campaign with polling day set for 5

May 2005.

‘5 – 5 – 5,’ Harry said. ‘Very auspicious. Probably. In China, or somewhere.’

Historic, the journalists said, repeatedly. They loved adjectives, Harry thought, so everybody knew what to think. The news presenter – historic, historic – explained that the parties were preparing to launch their campaigns for this – historic – battle of historic ideas. He tried to make it sound exciting, which was a bit of a stretch since everyone knew that Blair would win. The Tories were in the same mess they had been since the Lady left office. That was the great thing about the Conservatives, Harry thought. They hated each other more than they hated anyone else. To a Tory, Labour was just the Opposition. The real Enemy was always on their own side. It was half an hour into the extended bulletin and two whiskies later before they got to his father, a political footnote to the main news of the day.

‘Now to a story – and a man – the Conservatives wouldrather forget. Robin Burnett. He’s credited with being one ofthe great brains behind Thatcherism in the late seventies andeighties, and he has been found close to death in mysteriouscircumstances at his home in Gloucestershire. Empty pill bottlesand a knife were discovered by his side, and it is knownthat his wrists were cut. Police sources are saying that it mayhave been a suicide attempt, but foul play has not been ruledout. Here’s our political correspondent, Sheena Hayworth.’

Harry let the whisky trickle over his tongue. The report that followed looked and sounded like his father’s obituary.

It began with the tribute from the American Vice President David Hickox and the commentary noting that Robin Burnett had ‘helped put the word Special back into the Special Relationship with the United States.’ There followed more familiar TV clips from the past, threaded together with interviews with his father’s contemporaries.

‘Robin Burnett was talented,’ Jack Heriot, the former Prime Minister and Cabinet contemporary of Burnett was saying. Heriot was now a puffy-faced elder-statesman in a grey pinstripe suit. ‘No doubt about it. Brilliant, even. Mrs Thatcher certainlythought so. Driven. Charismatic. But he had a fatal flaw.’

‘Which was?’

The puffy face broke into a grin.

‘He always wanted to be the centre of attention. If RobinBurnett were invited to a wedding, he wanted to be the bride.If it was a funeral, he wanted to be the corpse. What happenedto Robin was a classical tragedy. His fatal flaw was pride.Arrogance. He thought he could get away with it. And he verynearly did.’

The voice-over continued.