39: The flying visit

‘You have my permission to stop, that’s the third time your device has pinged.’

‘Not when I’m just getting into my work!’ We’d left the door of the treatment room ajar. It was an hour later that I finally checked my mobile device. There were three texts from Prudence, each purporting to be more urgent than the previous. Leaving Charlie at rest, I decided to call Prudence. ‘Yes, yes, I see ..and you’re going along with it? I see. Umm. Well I see no reason in principal, tell me, when is this all meant to happen? Tomorrow! Charlie!’

‘Sir?’

‘Good Lord, there you are. I’ll call you back in thirty minutes Prudence.’

‘So?’

‘Buffy, our new PM, not ten days into the job, wants a working breakfast at the Park tomorrow.’

‘Well what’s wrong with the silly tart just bothering the Secretary!’

‘I say! I’ve never heard another woman, call a woman a silly tart before. I thought that was a term of endearment reserved for us chaps?’

‘Oh shut-up!’

‘Actually, she’s already done that, he said fine and that he’d put a reserved sign on a couple of the larger tables. Prue, doesn’t think he appreciates the situation and wants me to exert oversight - from 6,00am when the first chopper arrives with advanced security. Apparently they’ll all want hot coffee and doughnuts whilst they liaise with the local constabulary, the Chief Constable herself will be taking full operational control. But that’s by the by, what Prue really means is there needs to be someone there from the Park who knows how Buffy operates, someone who knows what Buffy’s idea of a working breakfast is! We shall comply, pack an overnight bag, now - if you would be so kind.’

‘What’s it got to do with me? And why tonight?’

‘Because there is money to be made.’

‘How?’

‘By keeping Buffy’s chopper on the ground as long as possible. I am hoping you will disarm everyone with your famous feminine charm - the magician requires the distraction of an alluring assistant.’

‘What, whilst you piss in the helicopter’s fuel tank!’

‘Metaphorically speaking, yes.’

After one short conversation with the Sec - intended to keep him in the dark as much as possible - need to know and all that, and after briefly reassuring Prue that I’d be prudent, we were on the road.

‘The thing is, Buffy’s idea of a working breakfast is him tucking in and barking orders between mouthfuls, better not to sit directly opposite him on these occasions.’

‘But you said he’d chided you about self-discipline, diet, exercise - needing me.’

‘Chided. I like that word. You must use it more often. Yes, Buffy has an abiding love of the full English and has had it built into his regime since university, when he added it to his school practice of an afternoon run. It’s his one hot meal of the day. I think he must have caught the habit after staying in a few old-fashioned hotels where you could order the full works, then later ask the waiter for extra toast or pinch it from your companions.’

‘Does it work?’

‘Not noticeably, but it’s the absolute belief in its efficacy that counts I suppose.’

‘Or he could just be a cheap-skate.’

‘That too.’

We rose at 5,00am the following morning to do our prep, mainly rearranging furniture according to my understanding of proxemics and Charlie’s instincts. Then, in full dress uniform, she systematically herded the police, the security detail and finally the camp followers who arrived with Buffy himself. 

‘Good morning Prime Minister.’

‘Ah, Anthony, you here.’

‘Well, someone has to keep an eye on the silver, all original you know, Uncle’s crest emblazoned all over it.’

‘You forget, someone had me blackballed from that varsity dining club you all belonged to, the one where you had to pinch something to get elected.’

‘Oh yes! Happy days. How’s Carrie?’

‘You know I think she may be losing her touch, at the advance election planning meeting, she told the assembled company that if I gave her a baby and a pet dog, she could swing a dozen marginals on her own!’

‘What did the Mr Cummings and the Mr Gowing make of that?’

‘Oh, they just nodded sagely, they think she’s a bloody oracle.’

‘Well, I’ve always admired her ability to make stuff happen.’

‘Since you’re here, we plan on doing all our own media, freeze the bastards out, I’ve told people to consult you about that.’

‘Thanks very much! Ad hoc mind you, voluntary only. Contact direct. Just, no one else in the loop okay.’

‘Nice of you to clear the place out.’

‘My able assistant can do her maître d’hôtel act all day if required. So the harbour, then the hospital. Since when have you been interested in fish?’

‘Other way around, Rory and I can’t serve lunch on the ward in a plastic piny if we’re stinking of fish!’

‘Gosh, the things one has to know in your line of work.’

‘I want you in the group photo on the fish quay. Prominent local businessmen introduced to PM by local MP - and no we don’t remember each other from school and Uni.’

‘Okay, just don’t expect me to expound on fishery policy and international maritime law. Strictly speaking of course, I’m a member of the opposition and not the only one within these walls.’

‘Ha! Rat fucking.’

‘We’re both far too young, merely a legend.’

‘Word to the wise, they’ve closed that loophole in the rules and are now a little more tech savvy, so put the word around that when the annual reminder drops through the door, everyone quietly ignores it.’

‘Now then, here’s the bill for unfettered use of the Park until 6,00pm.’

‘Bloody hell!’

‘Sorry, you don’t get the twenty per cent discount until next time. Oh, and whilst we’re about it, if you want conference facilities, that is, the ballroom and the two adjoining withdrawing rooms, we’ll need a couple of weeks’ notice, we haven’t actually acquired the mobile, flat-packed TED style kit yet.’

‘You’re presuming a lot.’

‘Am I? You like cosy and discrete as much as I do. I grant you we’re never likely to be up to a G7 or a NATO summit.’

‘You might be surprised.’

‘But this year’s NATO will surely be a grand affair, seventy years and all that, you could actually hold it on board HMS Queen Elisabeth.’

‘You’d never get to the top in politics. No, no, that’ll all be very low key, all that happens at a cheap hotel conference place just off the M25, I’ve used it before. Our American cousins can wander in dazed and confused, then wander out again. Nobody, but nobody gets within a hundred miles of Portsmouth. Strictly royal standard bearers only for those two beauties.’

‘Anyway, I shall leave you now, before the other egg and fried slice go cold.’

As I wandered out, I discovered who was next in line. ‘Frimley! What on earth are you doing here?’

‘The PM asked me to join him, he’s made me an offer which I’m inclined to accept. I’m here to give him my answer. He wants me to be his special advisor on constitutional matters.’

‘How Pooterish of you.’

‘Come again.’

‘Wouldn’t do for me, I suppose I’m too much of my own man. You do realise you’ll be expected to join him in his full English? He’s not reached the toast and marmalade yet.’

‘Oh, good lord, surely not? I was rather hoping for my usual boiled egg.’

‘I rest my case.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Don’t mind me, catch you later, at the fish quay perhaps?’

As it happened, the whole day was over by 5,00pm. Buffy was last seen entering his chopper alone. The bag carriers, having elected to spend the day at the Park, decided to cram into the other conveyance, something about the smell of fish. Hence, Charlie and I could have a quite evening in, watching the reporting of the day’s events.

‘Trumpton’s detail had a female distraction too, only she was a blond. They implied they knew all about us.’

‘Inevitable I guess. Pick up any useful tips?’

‘They were really friendly, wanted me to know stuff.’

‘You’ve got the touch.’

‘Blimey! I haven’t even sorted the post.’

‘I’m not expecting anything.’

‘Crikey! Another addressed to the both of us. And it’s another invitation too. 

‘Well, you’re in demand now. A key contact in the social register of everybody whose anybody.’

‘We are, “cordially invited to the opening of The New Realist Gallery... any time after 11,00am on...” what on earth is this?’

‘Haven’t a clue.’

‘Well you usually do. Oh hang on, I’ve missed the small print “Reg. Co. Dir. Lady Victoria Herring”.’

‘Ah, so he hasn’t said anything to you?’

‘Who?’

‘Tuffy, I mean he confides more in you than me these days. That’s the Lady Victoria I was trying to steer him towards a while ago. He’s kept that dark, fifty quid says he’s the goffer on the door when we turn up.’

(End of season three – season four will commence in the New Year!)

38: The state of my estate

‘A solicitor’s letter, sir.’

‘Seriously? Oh, I see what you mean’. There on the Charlie’s silver salver, which she had so thoughtfully shoved in my face, was what can only be described as a fake envelope. The printing had an authentic old-world effect, but the feel of the paper remained cheap and nasty. On investigation the letter too looked classic, but lacked weight. It took but a moment to read. ‘Shame the language doesn’t live up to the typeface, someone called Steve from “Estate planning” wants me to make an appointment with Bernard for my “five-year review”, whatever that is. Sounds like “make work” to me - prime the mind of the client with the thought that their Will must surely be out of date.’

‘Brinkley’s going the same way, he thinks they’re becoming just “so, retro”.’

‘A bit of niche marketing eh, going against the trend. Well, I suggest they fire their marketing consultant and invest the money in stationary that at least has a watermark, and start using the Queen’s English again.’

‘A lot changes in five years.’

‘True, but I can’t think of anything that effects my Will.’

‘You’re still the end of the line.’

‘Yes, but there are reams of appendices or codices, or whatever they call them, attached to the bloody thing already, all to allow the Trust to operate wholly as a charity, in perpetuity, if every family member dies off. That’s one of the reasons you were made an employee of the charitable arm of it.’

‘I see.’

‘Either this is just an excuse to collect another fee, or a ruse to get me in there because someone has tipped them the wink, that either or both of Julia’s and Uncle’s Wills have, well - implications.’

‘There is another possibility.’

‘Oh, really.’

‘Brinkley seems to have decided lately that not only is he my real boss, but also my own personal financial advisor.’

‘Cheeky sod.’

‘The other day he made a cryptic comment to the effect that wouldn’t I feel more secure if you and I were married.’

‘He means he’d feel more secure, there’s all sorts of work he could make for himself, I know that much, Bernard too, come to that.’

‘They’re pretty thick with each other, what’s the nature of their relationship?’

‘Ah, well, umm, my lips are sealed, you’ll hear nothing about that from me. You’re on your own there. Tell you what though, Brinkley’s first name is Lawrence, which of course he never uses - whenever he starts getting up my nose, I call him Larry.’

I took the lift to the top floor. As the doors opened, I was met by a beaming smile atop a body dressed like a wealthy farmer in town for market day. ‘Tony my lad, come along, Brinkley’s here to hold your hand, sit thee down. Lawrence has pinched my seat, so I’ll do the pacing up and down for all three of us. Now then, to business, the thing is, we feel you should consider updating your Will, bring it in line with the current situation.’

‘What current situation? I’ve been racking my brain; I can’t think of any changes.’

‘Well, if you really have no instructions for us? Let’s say we take the opportunity to clear the air. We worry, it’s our job to. Fifty this year Tony. More than thirty years since we first met…’

‘You know Bernard, I’m a great believer in the “need to know principle”, even, on occasion, between close friends and colleagues. Wouldn’t you agree?’

‘Oh, absolutely! You’re with us on that aren’t you Lawrence?’

‘Observing the boundaries.’

‘If you two had been formally made aware of something, you’d have put it on paper already. Instead, you want me to chat away about all I’ve been doing in the hope that I will inform you of whatever you’ve heard a whisper of.’

‘We hate gossip Tony, we like facts. You fly pretty high these days, we’re just a couple of country bumpkins really, retirement creeping up on us, getting a step slow, youth running rings around us. Expect you feel a bit like that yourself. Feeling comfortably settled with your current partner? Lawrence is very impressed by her.’

‘Met him, have you?’

‘Who?’

‘Been up against him in court? Leading counsel for the prosecution. Appeared on circuit often enough I’m told. Head of a Chambers in Middle Temple now, does a lot work for HM Treasury… She was twelve the first time she felt she had no choice but to leave...’

‘Now Tony, we don’t need to get into all of this…’

‘You want instructions? Let me tell how it’s going to be. I won’t be the least offended if you feel the need to take notes Brinkley. That Trust, with all its out mode-ed clauses was set up to protect the widows, orphans and unmarried daughters of a large extended family. And that’s precisely what it's going to continue to do, keeping them in the style to which they are accustomed, no more, no less. My Will, as presently constituted, is entirely compatible with that. If I absentmindedly fall under a bus as a result of the stress of talking to you two; then you two, as Charlotte’s employer, landlord and executor of her common law husband - the principal beneficiary of the Trust - simply follow the rules. You know, she and I we’re young at heart, in our heads we’re still twenty-one, me irresponsible and she foolishly devoted, much better if you keep a tight rein on us with my monthly allowance and her subsistence wages.’ At which point I got up leave. ‘There’s only one way that lady is ever going to walk down the aisle, and that’s if her father arranges for the bishop to preside in our ancient cathedral, with him paying for all the trimmings, you might mention that the next time you find yourself doing a fraud case on behalf a wealthy member of the county set.’

‘Tony! Let me walk you out.’

‘Now who was it, who said that advocacy has practically nothing to do with the law? Good day to you, bonny Ber-nard!’

When I arrived home, I was shocked to find Charlie sat on the sofa watching tv, for all the world like a regular member of society. ‘What on earth is going on?’

‘Your arch enemy just got sixty-five point something per cent of the vote, he’s to kiss hands with the Queen in three days.’

‘It’s, kiss the hand of, Charlie, it’s not a mutual thing.’

‘What will she make of him?’

‘I would think he’d make quite a good impression, he’s more of a royalist than any of his recent predecessors. Anyway, he had a proper upbringing, so he knows the form when it comes to protocol and all that. The only danger for him is her parting shot could well be “Oh, and Mr Trumpton - get yourself a haircut.” ’

37: Doing good by stealth

‘Oh dear, I’ve been summoned.’

‘Aunt Elisabeth?’

‘No, Daphne, old flame of my youth. “Buy me lunch, today, at the club, explain to me what my mad husband is up to”.’

‘And that makes sense to you.’

‘Not, entirely. She means sit, listen, calm her down, then explain what Barmy has done in terms she can understand. The obligations of old friendship.’

‘What has Barmy done?’

‘No idea until she tells me.’

‘I’ll drive you, I’ve a couple of projects that need attention.’

On the road I attempted an explanation of just who and what Daphne and Barmy really were, an effort to deflect any lingering doubts Sparkwell might harbour as to where my loyalties and affections lay. I concluded, as we were entering the Park, with a description of their living arrangements; ‘So, the most unlikely of outcomes as you might imagine, having grown up in a German castle he chooses to live out his life in suburban England. I mean it’s a lovely house, detached, four bedrooms, nice bit of garden front and back, garage, all mod-cons. Daphne, very spick and span domestically of course. But the man has a garden shed. Outwardly it looks quite distressed, inwardly more like the bridge of a star ship!’

‘No pudding,’ was her only response, cutting the engine.

‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’

‘Oh! Was that the Valette disappearing down the corridor?’

‘Indeed, but she’s promised to leave us in peace. So, what ails?

‘Barmy announced last night he’s moving all his family’s assets to the UK - well, all those over which he has effective control.’

‘Really! Thinks he’ll be better off post-Brexit. Well, a touching faith in UK plc I must say.’

‘It’s a bit more than that actually, he’s changing his job too, very hush-hush, he’s been headhunted by the Americans with a view to being seconded to the Royal Navy.’

‘Well I’ll be damned, gosh, so he’ll be operating by stealth in the future then?’

‘Now that’s my point, you get there in one, he spent the whole evening explaining and I can’t say I’m any the wiser.’

‘Well he’ll be bound by the Official Secrets Act now, I on the other hand… Pretty demanding work though, they say that although the hardware should have a shelf life of a couple of years, novel software could be required well, as often as your mobile insists on system updating.’

‘Right, now just stop there. Go right back to the beginning, just what is he going to be doing because he says it involves him leading periodic training on board ship.’

‘Well, difficult to know where to start. Try this, the aircraft designers are planning on this being the last piloted fighter/bomber, okay. Now that’s not just because drones can do more and more, it’s because the plane comes in kit form, each module gets updated separately over the years to come - and all that’s possible, or necessary you might say, because the bodyshell is not only the best right now, it’s impossible to improve.’

‘But that doesn’t make sense. How do they know?’

‘Well the clue is in the title. For what it is required to do, it’s the best aerodynamically you can get.’

‘And?’

‘Well you know it can’t get better because it begins to display stealth properties simply by virtue of its shape. The more, easily it moves let’s say, the less sign it leaves that it was ever there, if you see what I mean. In the end nobody invented stealth capability, it was revealed as an emergent property of the body shape itself. You then just add all the stuff you know already helps the whole thing along, the metal, the outer surface or coating, more even finer curved surfaces, less kit inside that signals it’s presence etc.’

‘But surely in time the enemy must get the same capability?’

‘Eventually, sure. But even so the game has changed.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Some wags who don’t get it, say “oh but it’s not as good in a dogfight as such and such”. It doesn’t do dogfights, it’s a mobile missile launcher, it hunts, gets close enough, releases its payload, goes home, indeed could be halfway home already, doesn’t matter, it’s the bow, the missile the arrow, only the arrow can navigate on its own, up to a point. Opposing aircraft not only don’t see you, they may well be hundreds of miles away!’

‘So what of the pilots and their latest computer kit?’

‘They, are tracking, stalking, then playing a game of short-term anticipation on their screens about future action in a real space and time they will never enter.’ I paused. ‘Barmy’s work in science, even in the schoolroom, always has been an act of imagination, that’s the real reason he got called Barmy, although I admit some of his personal habits are strange.’

‘I get annoyed with him when he stares out of the window for hours on end, that’s why I insisted on the shed. Perhaps I was unkind?’

‘No, no, we chaps understand sheds.’

‘How about one of the gooier desserts?’

‘You choose, I can never decide.’

A while later I stopped by the office, it seemed deserted, then I realised the staff must still be on lunch break.

‘If you continue to break the rules I shall have to impose counter measures.’

‘Oh, for goodness sake, where have you been hiding?’

‘I was watching the two of you, live on screen, audio wasn’t up to much, but nonetheless.’

‘Don’t tell me, you told your new asset in security to take a hike in the grounds. I’m impressed.’

‘You should be. Do I inform Naval Intelligence or were you talking total bollocks?’

‘Ask Barmy the next time you’re ministering to the injured in the Games Room.’

‘I might just.’

‘Still, it’s a nice day, fancy an exploration of the rooftops?’

‘So, if you let your eye follow the road past the bungalows you get to the derelict stable block, further on, on the same levelled site is the remains of the walled garden, now used as a sort of temporary overflow carpark. The high clump of trees behind are the windbreak of the walled garden, which along with the twelve-foot walls and the glasshouses made the micro climate that put fruit and veg on the table three hundred and sixty-five days a year. It’s the obvious site for a modest apartment building following the shape and on the same scale as the stable yard which becomes a court, as it were, literally sheltered housing.’

‘Another cash cow?’

‘Well, there is one small problem, the veg and flower garden were at the very end of the water supply. It’s not at all clear how far off we are from the water usage of the house in it’s heyday. It’s the same problem as the pond, the water for the house has always had to be pumped back up from the lowest point on the estate, the only point where it’s a proper flowing river. At some point, as yet unknown, you need a new pumping station and several miles of underground piping. I suspect that is the tipping point, where the whole thing stops being a going concern.’

‘There’ll never be a championship golf course then?’

‘Certainly not, they can have their eighteen holes, but they’ll have to make do with what nature provides.’

‘Why didn’t you join the road to the helipad?’

‘To make sure it can’t be used, without using the club facilities as well. Right then, let’s take a look at the state of the flagpole. How many different flags do you think we need?’

‘Coat of arms. County flag? Union Jack. EU?’

‘Screw that.’

‘UN?’

‘No chance.’

‘Flags of all nations, for those visiting foreign statesmen of yours?’

‘Strictly Anglosphere.’

‘What’s that?’

‘That’s the big project.’

‘What are you on about?’

‘Behind the Eurosceptic, the Brexiteer, is the new Victorian free-trader. The Anglosphere are the nations whose first language is English, by which we mean the constitution and legal system is grounded in English common law, the law of contract and international trade. UK, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore - plus various hangers-on.’

‘Oh my God, Britannia rules the waves!’

‘Yes, but not the bureaucratic, empire building bit, rather the buccaneer free-traders. Three players, China, Russia and the Anglosphere. Ultimately we bury the hatchet, clear away sanctions, tariffs. Plus; “We take the golden road to Samarkand”, the new silk road, only it’s a bloody great new railway line from China through the heart of Russia, linking the Pacific to the Atlantic, once upon a time in Eurasia.’

‘It’s the view, its gone to your head.’