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  She hesitated before answering. ‘Since we confide in each other and – hopefully – still trust each other, I can tell you what I am not supposed to divulge even to my nearest and dearest. That man Liam told me that if I wanted to keep the family out of trouble, especially Mo, I should keep in regular touch and inform him of anything I pick up. I don’t enjoy being a sneak but it is something I have to do.’

  Her words understated the pain she felt. Until now, she had successfully juggled her different identities without ever having to really choose. Now she was being forced to, and it hurt.

  ‘Is there anything happening I should know about?’ Steve asked.

  ‘Nothing much you don’t know already. But please understand: I can’t say any more. I have probably said too much already.’

  He held her hand for a few minutes before heading back to his work station, but before he left she added: ‘Sometimes I think he is right.’

  ‘You mean Liam?’

  ‘No, not Liam. Never mind. Let’s leave it.’

  Kate received a handwritten letter from her former Secretary of State – ‘My dearest Kate… Yours affectionately, Jim’ – asking if she would drop by his parliamentary office for a ‘catch up’. Having settled into the mind-set of a fully paid-up and thoroughly alienated rebel she was naturally suspicious. And their last serious encounter bore all the hallmarks of his political cynicism: the scapegoating of the innocent night watchman, now disappeared; the backdoor takeover of Pulsar by an American company with some very questionable connections; the side-lining of the talented if idiosyncratic Scottish CEO; the cheerful disregard for the wider consequences of throwing more fuel onto a smouldering Asian fire. Still, the tone of the letter suggested that he wanted something from her: much the safest position to start from. And she was curious.

  She went to his office after the last vote of the evening, along the gloomy ministerial corridor where Cabinet ministers held court when not at their departmental desks. Away from the prying eyes and twitching ears of civil servants, this was where the serious, political business of government got done.

  ‘Oh my dear! I am so sorry. How have you been?’ Chambers rushed up to plant a kiss on both cheeks, which she accepted before retreating to a safer distance.

  ‘Actually, I am quite enjoying being myself and getting to know something about the interesting characters in this place,’ she answered truthfully.

  ‘But I know you have been through hell, Kate. Problems at home. Your Indian friend shot and badly injured. I hear your local association has been making your life difficult too. The awful press.’

  ‘I am coping. But I’m sure you didn’t invite me here to offer a shoulder to cry on. I get a sense that you want something.’

  ‘Well, just let’s say I think we can help each other.’

  She grimaced rather than smiled, and hoped he was taking in her cynical detachment.

  ‘My last experience of helping each other ended with you smelling of roses and me face down in the dung heap.’

  ‘Not quite. But I realise I do owe you. Let me tell you what I can do to help you and then I will tell you what you can do for me.’

  ‘Sounds suspicious. But I’m all ears.’

  ‘For a start, I can get the local Tories off your back. I know Beale, your chair. Not the sharpest knife in the drawer. And a bit past it. But a decent cove. We can help him steer any motion against you into a procedural culde-sac.’

  ‘Not sure I care any more.’

  ‘That’s silly. You have real talent. People instinctively like and trust you; not many politicians have that. You speak well. Look good. I don’t want you to go to waste. And the PM agrees; if we try to rehabilitate you, he will do whatever is needed. And there is something else, more personal.’

  Curiosity was beginning to overcome her defensiveness. She waited a few seconds to suppress any sign of eagerness and then encouraged him to go on. ‘Such as…?’

  ‘Look, I don’t know what the situation at home is. None of my business. Whether you go back to your husband, John, isn’t it?’

  ‘Jonathan.’

  ‘Yes, of course, Jonathan. Or ditch him for your Indian friend. It’s for you to decide. I am not a marriage guidance counsellor. But I can sense that he is an angry man. Humiliated. Any bloke would be. Maybe we can make him less angry. It would help in any settlement you reach. Money. Access to the children, that kind of thing.’

  ‘I know you have great political skills, Jim. But how on earth do you propose to perform a miracle of anger management on my estranged husband?’

  ‘The Honours System.’

  Kate laughed. ‘Jonathan is quite vain and status conscious but I can’t see an OBE or MBE meaning much to him.’

  ‘I was thinking more of something else. The Lords. I understand that he has been a party donor – not premier league, but generous. And we need people to restore political balance. All those Lib Dems after the Coalition. Then we hoped that when the hard left took over the Labour Party they would stop demanding more. Not so. Every time there is a threatened strike on the tube or the trains we are told that some Fred Bloggs has to be given a peerage. They see it as a rest home for the Labour aristocracy. So, we need more credible Tories. Jonathan, as far as I know, isn’t gaga, isn’t a certified crook and isn’t a foaming-at-the-mouth nutter. We should be able to line this up. Would it help you if it was made clear, privately, that this was all your doing, fighting his corner?’

  ‘I suppose I shouldn’t be shocked any more,’ Kate answered. ‘And I suppose I should be grateful that you have taken the trouble to research what is needed to get me on board. What exactly is it you want me to do?’

  ‘India again. Continuation of what you were doing. This time an aircraft carrier. You are our emissary – we can call you whatever you like including your old role, or some posh new title. Make it clear that you are thoroughly rehabilitated.’

  ‘That’s a bit sick, isn’t it? Palming off our unwanted weapons like that. I take it you read the newspapers – about how close the subcontinent has been to a new war.’

  ‘Now, don’t go all moral on me. We have to earn our living like any other country. The Indians are grown up. Not a colony any more. A big power these days.’

  ‘I know all that. I am not a sentimental pacifist and I know everyone else does it. But—’

  ‘Look, Kate,’ Jim interrupted, ‘this country became great on the back of trade in slaves and opium. We shouldn’t have a fit of conscience about what we are doing.’

  ‘I’m not. But let’s get back to what you want of me. Just another visit to make the case for our ships?’

  ‘Not quite. Your friend has a role too.’

  ‘How? He was – if you remember – almost killed. Still on the danger list, if no longer critical. His sister, Veena, is actually running the company.’

  ‘Well, when he is able to communicate, we would like him to signal his support for this contract. His stock, I understand, is very high at the moment. Also, encourage his secular friends in the opposition not to oppose too vigorously. The technical stuff we can handle through the High Commission; we now have answers to most of the tricky questions. It’s the politics we have to get right. There will be quite a lot of work coming his way as well.’

  ‘When I last saw Deepak he was a long way from anything taxing. I hope this proposition isn’t time specific.’

  ‘There is a decision point in a month. But I am sure we can be flexible.’

  Kate thought for a moment. ‘And if I come back, even as a trade envoy rather than a minister, do I get my old private office team? I was just getting used to them and I trusted them, until you lot decided to get rid of me.’

  ‘Won’t happen again. Promise you. And, of course, your team. We’ll find a way round the rules and regulations. Parsons will do the necessary.’

  ‘I am also concerned about what happened last time. The way that Eritrean night watchman was made the scapegoat. The way the dodgy American company
finished up running the show.’

  ‘Ah! I knew you would ask me about that. Your contacts, whoever they were, got the wrong end of the stick. I asked the Admiral to look into it. He knew the set-up there. Knew the people.’

  ‘I’m not sure I find that completely reassuring. The Admiral gives me the creeps. Up to no good.’

  Jim shook his head. ‘My dear girl, you have got him all wrong. A bloody hero. Not just in the navy. His salesmanship – getting the armed forces of the world fitted out with British kit – has created more jobs than all the theories of John-bloody-Maynard Keynes put together. But I know he ruffles feathers. I have already made him apologise to the civil servants. And I’d tell him to keep out of your hair.’

  She stood still for a while, taking in how far she had retreated in a few moments from her initial show of cool indifference. Chambers had a special talent, she grudgingly admitted to herself.

  ‘This is a lot to take in. Both what you are offering and what you are asking me to do. Let me sleep on it.’

  ‘That’s fine. I half expected you to walk out and slam the door. Can’t ask any more, my girl.’

  She stiffened but decided not to take the bait.

  Even before she left the room Kate knew what her answer would be. Part of her detested the squalid, amoral world she was still part of. If she was a Christian or a socialist she would be indignant, walk away and campaign for a better, nicer world. But she wasn’t and couldn’t be, either. Or she could quietly disappear back to her family, her friends and her Indian textiles business, perhaps even her lover, a little older, a lot wiser, and put her recent experiences behind her.

  But the stronger part of her had no intention of escaping. She had been hurt and humiliated but it was through her own naïvety and clumsiness – and bad luck. ‘Don’t get mad, get even’ was a slogan she approved of. She would get even. Show she wasn’t a loser, a weak woman.

  To make a success of the second coming she needed a Praetorian Guard that would watch her back and prevent the wrong people getting too close. Susan was crucial. She also needed someone who could deal with the media, do the spinning that high-minded people disapproved of but was what communication was all about.

  Then there was the couple from the factory – or perhaps they weren’t a couple. The union and Labour man. She would need a line into the opposition and the labour force. And the Asian accountant. As someone usually described as ‘handsome’ or ‘attractive’, she had been conscious of being in the presence of a genuinely beautiful woman. And she had been taken with her poise and sharp intelligence: more than the man, she thought, who was given to using five words where one would do, like many politicians. Kate wasn’t going to be blind-sided again by not knowing enough about Deepak’s British business partners. She would set up meetings with them before the formalities kicked in.

  When Steve arrived at Calum’s office for a debrief, his way was barred by a formidable woman, large and loud, with a mid-Atlantic accent.

  ‘May I ask you what you are doing here?’

  ‘I have come to see the CEO.’

  ‘Do you have an appointment?’

  ‘We agreed that I would call in first thing this morning.’

  ‘Not in the diary. Your name?’

  ‘Steve Grant. And may I ask who you are?’

  ‘Gill Travers. I am part of the new Global executive team. And you are?’

  ‘Gill. My union represents the workforce here and I still have regular access to Calum.’

  ‘The company is considering whether and how consultation with employee organisations will take place in future. The new owners may wish to change things. We have generally managed without unions in our other operations. Can I also point out, Mr Grant, that you are not wearing a name badge? As from the beginning of this week company policy is that name badges should be worn at all times; by employees as well as visitors.’

  ‘And Mr Mackie? Is he free?’

  ‘No, he is busy. But I can text you with a meeting time. You should in the meantime go to the HR department to collect your name badge and complete a security questionnaire.’

  ‘Security questionnaire? I have been here for over a decade.’

  ‘I understand that there were some serious security issues here. You will know that better than me. We have now introduced the same rigorous procedures we employ in the rest of the group.’

  Steve could see that his role as union representative might be in jeopardy with a company unsympathetic to unions. He reminded himself that the reason why he had progressed so rapidly and enjoyed such esteem was the patronage of his boss – now outgoing, it seemed. Pulsar was an enclave of unionism in a private sector increasingly characterised by short-term employment contracts and tokenistic employee participation schemes. He would have to tread carefully.

  And in his short absence, he had also found himself in the middle of an impending national storm. He had gone to meet union representatives and organisers in the defence industry in Scotland. As one of only two delegates on the national executive with an engineering background – the other being the ailing Kevin Dubbins – he had been given a rapid immersion in a potentially toxic issue. Rumours were flying about that the aircraft carrier programme reaching its end in Rosyth and the linked frigate programme on the Clyde were in trouble: that the government was thinking of pulling the plug on some or all of it. When he had arrived to meet his union colleagues in Edinburgh and Glasgow there had been an acrid atmosphere, full of suspicion and accusation with cross-cutting themes of Scottish nationalism and socialist militancy. He realised that he badly needed advice. And Calum Mackie, now on his way out and surrounded by gatekeepers provided by his successors, was the obvious source of good advice. But those gatekeepers stood in the way.

  He completed the checks he needed to qualify for his name badge – conducted by an earnest young woman who stuck religiously to her script and treated him as if he had just walked in off the street. Then, he took the familiar route through the finance department. Shaida was in her office, clearly not concentrating and in some distress. He invited himself inside the, now familiar, glass office.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked with concern, discreetly taking her hand.

  ‘Mo. He has gone. Didn’t come back home last night. He took a knapsack and a few personal things. Vanished. No message. Nothing.’

  ‘Who knows about it?’

  ‘I notified Liam on an emergency number he gave me. No one else. Oh my God! He has gone off to fight. Do something mad. I know it.’

  Steve wanted to embrace her, but with the Three Witches in the background itching with curiosity and Gill Travers waiting in the wings, he could do nothing to comfort her.

  The latest domestic crisis had distracted Shaida from what had become a difficult and complex but satisfying task: integrating the accounting systems of Pulsar and Global. The old saw that Britain and America were divided by a common language applied, in spades, to accounting. Superficial similarities masked a wide variety of different conventions and standards. She realised also that the Americans were much less casual about data security. The endless checking of passwords was tiresome but the opening up of blocked passages started to give her a bigger picture of how the group operated. She had been playing with computers and solving mathematical puzzles pretty much since she had left her cot, and it wasn’t long before she was able to walk round the secret gardens that the top US management had designed for their own private convenience. Liam, who really understood these things, would be very impressed.

  CHAPTER 15

  THE TRADE ENVOY

  Press Association, 10 September 2019:

  At a US State Department press conference, the Secretary of State produced satellite photographs showing what appeared to be movements of troops and carriers of short-range missiles with what could be battlefield nuclear weapons at several points along the Indo-Pak frontier. He appealed to both sides to step back from a ‘dangerous confrontation’.

  China’s Presi
dent Ji has also offered to mediate. Reaffirming his support for Pakistan’s ‘historic claims’ in relation to Kashmir, he also expressed support, for the first time, for India’s ‘fully justified stance against terrorism’. He stated that China would ‘do everything in its power’ to prevent conflict.

  Steve was leaving parliament after a lobby of MPs on behalf of his industry, faced with a new round of defence cuts. He felt a pat on his arm. It was that Tory MP – Kate what’s-her-name. She gave him a slight, conspiratorial smile and said: ‘I think we need to talk.’

  ‘How did you know I was here?’

  ‘Never mind. Not important. Just follow me.’

  She signalled to him to follow her up a spiral staircase to the upper floor where she found an empty committee room. Its pervasive sense of gloom, like many rooms on the parliamentary estate, was deepened by a dark Victorian portrait of MPs – all men and seemingly all bearded – engaged in debate.

  ‘Sorry about the cloak and dagger,’ Kate began. ‘But I am back in government and I need to talk to you, strictly off the record. Our last meeting had mixed results for both of us. I realised then that there is something seriously fishy about the company Global. It has now, as you know, taken over your firm and seems to be spreading its tentacles everywhere. I expect to be dealing with them again in my new role.’

  ‘But how can I help?’ Steve asked. ‘Global seems to be firmly in charge now and they have the blessing of government. They don’t want me. I am on the way out.’