The video tape of a fleeing Charles apparently hiding in the back seat of the car and accompanied by the Prime Minister's wife was played on the late evening news, together with details of the Observer's allegations. The night duty editor at ITN had phoned the managing editor to get approval to play the tape before putting it on air. He wanted his arse covered by senior management on this one. As he had explained, 'Once this gets out, there's no way the Prime Minister can argue he's not involved right up to his neck.'
The scenes of the fugitive Charles Collingridge were still being played at midday on Sunday as Weekend Watch came on the air. The programme had been thrown together in frantic haste, and there were many untidy ends. The control room reeked of sweat and tension as the programme started. It had not been rehearsed fully, much of it was being done live, and the autocue for the latter stages of the programme was still being typed as the presenter welcomed his viewers.
It had been impossible to find any Minister who would agree to appear on the programme, and one of the invited pundits had not yet arrived. A special overnight opinion poll had been commissioned through Gallup and the polling company's chief executive, Gordon Heald, was presenting the results himself. He had been kicking his computer all morning and was sitting slightly flushed under the hot lights. The computer analysis did nothing to help his sense of ease, for his polling agents had uncovered still further disenchantment with the Prime Minister.
Yes, admitted Heald, it was a significant fall. No, he acknowledged, no Prime Minister had ever won an election after being so low in the polls.
The gloomy prognostications were supported by two senior newspaper commentators and an economist forecasting turmoil in the financial markets in the days ahead, before the presenter switched his attention to Peter Bearstead. Normally the garrulous East Midlands MP would have been videotaped beforehand, but there had been no time for recording. The Honourable and diminutive Member for Leicester North was on live. He was scheduled on the director's log for only two minutes fifty seconds, but the presenter soon discovered that it was the politician whohad taken charge of proceedings.
‘Yes, Mr Bearstead, but how much trouble do you think the Party is in?'
That depends.'
'On what?'
'On how long we have to go with the present Prime Minister.'
'So you are standing by your comment of earlier in the week that perhaps the Prime Minister should be considering his position?'
'Not exactly. I'm saying that the Prime Minister should resign. His present unpopularity is destroying the Party, and now he has become enmeshed in what looks like a family scandal. It cannot go on. It must not go on!'
'But do you think that the Prime Minister is likely to resign? After all, there are almost another five years before an election is necessary, and that must leave enormous scope for recovering lost ground.'
'We will not survive another five years with this Prime Minister!' The MP was clearly agitated, rocking back and forth in his studio chair. It is time for clear heads, not faint hearts; and I am determined that the Party must come to a decision on the matter. If he does not resign, then I shall stand against him for election as Leader of the Party.'
You will challenge him for the Party leadership?' the presenter spluttered in surprise. He was nervous, trying to follow the voluble MP while at the same time listening to instructions in his earpiece which were getting rapidly more heated. 'But surely you can't win?'
'Of course I can't win. But it's up to the senior figures within the Party to grasp the initiative and sort the problem out. They are all constantly griping about it, but none of them has the guts to do anything. If they won't take a stand or won't act, then I will. Flush it into the open. We can't let this continue to fester behind closed doors.'
‘I want to be absolutely clear about this, Mr Bearstead. You are demanding that the Prime Minister resigns, or else you will stand against him for leadership of the Party... ?'
'There has to be a leadership election no later than Christmas: it's Party rules after an election. Instead of a mere formality I shall make it into a real contest where my colleagues will have to make up their minds.'
There was a pained expression on the presenter's face. He was holding his earpiece, through which a shouting match was under way. The director was demanding that the dramatic interview should continue and to hell with the schedule; the editor was shouting that they should get away from it before the bloody fool changed his mind and ruined a sensational story.
'We shall be going for a short commercial break,' announced the presenter.
Shortly before midnight in London as the Tokyo financial markets opened, sterling began to be marked down heavily. By 9 a.m. and with all the Monday newspapers leading on the public challenge to Collingridge's leadership, the FT All Share Index was down 63 points, and down a further 44 points by ‘I p.m. when it became clear that Bearstead intended to proceed. The money men don't like surprises.
The Prime Minister wasn't feeling on top form, either. He hadn't slept and had scarcely talked since Saturday evening. His wife had kept him at Chequers rather than allowing him to return to Downing Street, and had called the doctor. Dr Wynne-Jones, Collingridge's loyal and highly experienced physician, had immediately recognised the signs of strain and had prescribed a sedative and rest. The sedative gave some immediate release in the form of the first lengthy spell of sleep he had had since the start of the party conference a week earlier, but his wife could still detect the tension which fluttered beneath his closed eyelids and which kept his fingers firmly clamped onto the bedclothes.
. Late on Monday afternoon when he had come out of his drugged sleep, he instructed the besieged Downing Street press office to make it known that of course he would contest the leadership election and was confident of victory. He was too busy getting on with official Government business to give any interviews, but undoubtedly he would have something to say later in the week. He effected to give a display of total authority and Prime Ministerial stature, but unfortunately no one had yet been able to get any sense out of Charles and there was not a word to be said to refute the allegations of illegal share dealing.
While Downing Street tried to give the impression of business as usual, over at party headquarters Lord Williams ordered additional opinion research to be rushed through. He wanted to know what the country really thought.
The rest of the party machinery moved less quickly. For a further forty-eight hours it was stunned into silence by events which had suddenly sprung off in a totally unexpected direction. The rules for a contested leadership election following a general election were dusted off both in party headquarters and in the media, with many discovering for the first time that the process was under the control of the Chairman of the Parliamentary Party's Backbench Committee, Sir Humphrey Newlands, although the choice of timing was left in the hands of the Party Leader. This proved to be a wise decision since Sir Humphrey, displaying an acutely poor sense of timing, had left the previous weekend for a ten-day holiday on a private island in the West Indies, and was proving extraordinarily difficult to contact. Some speculated that he was deliberately keeping his head low while the awesome but invisible powers of the party hierarchy were mobilised to persuade Bearstead to withdraw. It would be only weeks rather than months, they thought, before Bearstead found himself preoccupied wilii a senior directorship in industry, in Government as a Junior Minister, or silenced in some other lucrative fashion.
By Wednesday, however, the Sun had discovered Sir Humphrey on a silver stretch of beach somewhere near St Lucia along with several friends, including at least three scantily clad young women who were obviously nearly half a century younger than him. It was announced that he would be returning to London as soon as flights could be arranged, for consultation about the election with the Prime Minister.
Collingridge was back in Downing Street, but not in better spirits. Every day brought racy new headlines about turmoil in the Party as newspapers fought to find some new angle on the story. As still further reports began to circulate of growing disaffection between Downing Street and party headquarters, Collingridge began to find himself drifting, cut off from the information and advice which he had previously gained so freely from his wise and wily Party Chairman.
He had no specific reason to distrust Williams, of course, but the constant media discussion of a growing gulf between the two began to make a reality of what previously had been only irresponsible and inventive gossip. Distrust is a matter of mind, not fact, and the press had created strong and virulent perceptions. In the circumstances the ageing and proud Party Chairman felt he couldn't offer advice without being asked, while Collingridge took his silence as probable evidence of disloyalty. Anyway, rationalised Collingridge, party headquarters had let him down badly if not deliberately, and who was responsible for that?
Sarah went for the first visit to Charles, and came back late and very depressed. They were in bed before she could bring herself to talk about it. 'He looks awful, Henry. I never realised quite how ill he was making himself, but it all seems to have caught up with him in a few days. The doctors are still trying to detoxify him, get all the alcohol out of his system. They said he was close to killing himself.' She buried her head in his arms.
‘I blame myself. I could have stopped him. If only I hadn't been so preoccupied ... Did he say anything about the shares?'
'He's scarcely coherent yet; he just kept saying "£50,000? What £50,000?" He swore he'd never been anywhere near a Turkish bank.'
She sat bolt upright in bed, looking deep into her husband's eyes. Is he guilty?'
‘I simply don't know, darling. But what choice do I have? He has to be innocent. If he did buy those shares, then who on earth is going to believe that I didn't tell him to do so. If Charles is guilty, then I shall be judged guilty with him.'
She gripped his arm in alarm.
Collingridge smiled to reassure her. ‘Don't worry, my love, I am sure it will never come to that.' But his voice was tired, unconvincing.
'Couldn't you say that Charles was ill, he didn't know what he was doing, he somehow... found the information without your knowing...' Her voice faded away as she began to realise how transparent the argument was.
He took her gently in his arms, surrounding her with warmth and comfort. He kissed her forehead and felt a warm tear fall on his chest. He knew he was close to tears, too, and felt no shame.
'No, Sarah, I shall not be the one to finish off Charlie. God knows he's been trying hard enough to do that himself, but I am still his brother. On this one we will survive, or sink if we must, as a family. Together.'
Mattie's original intention had been to take the whole week off recovering from the after-effects of the media circus which had spent the best part of six weeks travelling around some of the country's less splendid bars and boarding houses following the various political parties' annual conferences. It was an exhausting schedule, and most of the following weekend she had intended to devote to sampling some exotic Chilean wines and soaking in the bath. But the relaxation she sought proved to be elusive. Her indignation at the way Preston had not only trampled on her story but also abused her sense of journalistic pride seemed to make the wine taste acidic and the bathwater turn cold.
So she tried burning off her anger with strenuous physical work, but after three days of taking it out on the woodwork of her Victorian apartment with sandpaper and paint, she could stand hex frustration no longer. On Tuesday morning at 9.30, Mattie was planted firmly in the leather armchair in front of the editor's desk, determined not to move until she had confronted Preston. He would not be able to put me phone down on her this time.
She had been there nearly an hour before his secretary peered apologetically round the door. 'Sorry, Mattie. He's just called in to say he's got an outside appointment. He won't be in until after lunch.'
Mattie felt as if the world was conspiring against her. She wanted to scream or smash something or put chewing gum in his hair brush - anything to get her own back. It was therefore unfortunate timing that John Krajewski decided at that moment to see whether the editor was in his office, only to discover an incandescent Mattie.
‘I didn't know you were in!'
I'm not,' she said between clenched teeth. 'At least, not for much longer.' She stood up to go.
Krajewski was ill at ease and awkward, glancing around the room to make sure they were alone.