‘Daphne! Welcome! You look, resilient.’
‘I’ll take that as a compliment, as someone with teenage daughters. Belated, condolences by the way. How are you, seriously?’
‘Good, everything is working out the way it should.’
‘You’ve taken over her house on the right side of town I gather.’
‘How on earth…’
‘I’ve just been chatting to Charlotte; I was taking a look at the grounds, waiting out my fifteen minutes…’
‘Enjoying a crafty fag.’
‘As you say, and there she was. She, er, dropped the whole Valette thing instantly, she seems a very, sympathetic person.’
‘She’s been on a steep learning curve lately; she’ll be the only one of us with a genuine inside view of the actual Summit. Looks like I’ll be stuck at home.’
‘Funny, Barmy says he’s going to pull a sickie, and monitor the whole thing from his cabin. Says it should be the best laugh on screen for years. Can you actually livestream the whole thing to the portal, not that you would, of course!’
‘Well, bit beyond my skills, but I do know the only thing to hack into would be our club area security cameras, very dull, lousy audio. You know those live fly-on-the-wall reality shows, they only work because there is a very experienced director and cameraman in the control room with the editor.’
‘Really, Barmy seemed to think you could do it with your eyes shut. It sounds pretty loud in the bar, are they all de-mob happy or something?’
‘That, and more cricket. Coffee? Sticky bun?’
‘Thanks, and hat’s-off for the good old Duke, or whatever one is meant to do on such occasions.’
When we were settled, she said; ‘Talking of your Charlotte, you know way back, when she first appeared in the spa, she really put the wind-up the whole lot of them, simply by being there.’
‘She has a certain presence.’
‘They recognised the genuine article when they saw it. Two of them left of their own volition within weeks. Did you know that?’
‘No, but that was how I got her through the door in the first place, raising doubts about the spa and saying I was sure someone with her background could raise standards, so to speak.’
‘You know, now you’re only a mile or so down the road, we’ll all have to start making social calls.’
‘I draw the line at dinner parties. Charlie only tolerates the kitchen, because we take so many meals out - and of course enforces such a strict regime at home, she barely has to do any shopping.’
‘If I didn’t know the back story, I’d think you a very odd couple.’
‘Ha! A while back I made an effort to explain you and Barmy to her. I told her that what really needed explaining was how you two ended up embracing the English suburban lifestyle.’
‘Well, you should try explaining it to me sometime darling! I’m the one who really needs to know. Christ! Hear that? It’s Auld Lang Syne now.’
There ended-up being about fifteen members for lunch. Charlie, in uniform, could be seen shadowing the regular staff, physically rehearsing everything. During lockdown she’d made a few subtle changes to the position of the furniture. The Lady Vic managed to extract Tuffy from the bar a while before lunch, giving him the chance to calm down. At one point I noticed Prudence, apparently alone, and palely loitering, I feared the worst so waved her over. ‘What no Rory?’
‘He’s been recalled for more media training.’
‘Ah.’
‘And he’s been almost totally frozen out of the summit, all he gets is playing second fiddle to your Uncle at the meet and greet.’
‘Well, if it’s any consolation, the Earl and Countess will only be here for about an hour and a half. Their only permanent presence is the flag on the roof.’
‘Surely they’ll be insisting on the Union Jack,’ said Daphne.
‘No, that’s the only non-negotiable part of the deal. I’ve already had to pull Buffy up about his lack of constitutional knowledge. The Union Jack has no meaning or status in such matters what so ever. It’s merely a modern celebration of the Union. Short of the monarch being present, when obviously it’s the Royal Standard, it’s always his flag. Indeed, Uncle’s ancestors were granted their coat of arms by the Crown anyway, so...’
At which point Charlie passed behind my chair; ‘Gone in ten.’
‘Okay.’
‘Something on?’ Asked Daphne.
‘Scheduled video call, at home, with the man himself.’
‘Do you two never stop trying to get the better of each other?’
‘Never. Especially today. If we’re all going to be hacked during this whole thing, then it will start today, they will need to try and trawl all my kit in the Media Room first, and they’ll get twenty minutes.’
‘Will you know?’
‘Depends, their kit will have to learn as it goes, in stages, give itself feedback, there should be alerts.’
‘And if there aren’t?’
‘Either a hundred per cent success, or a hundred per cent fail, or they’re not trying. Things are rarely one hundred per cent in life.’
‘You could fail to notice, human error.’
‘Which is why, if they succeed, then it’s almost certainly Barmy who’s told them how.’
‘No! No way, Tony.’
‘He knows more than I. He may have made a judgement that it was the right thing to do for all our sakes.’
‘But he’s sold his soul to the Americans, you know that better than most.’
‘Exactly. Legally speaking, the US doesn’t snoop on its own citizens, nor the UK on its own subjects, they don’t have to, the GCHQ does it for them, the NSA for us.’
‘Rory has been assured that’s a complete myth.’ Declared Prue.
‘Well, I’m sure he has impeccable sources these days. Right then, time to make a move, see you, whenever.’
‘Good lord Anthony, you appear better set-up than any of us.’
‘Hang-on a second, I’ll give you a 360-degree view for the benefit of everyone watching, Charlotte’s in the room by the way.’
‘Ha! Carrie does that, lounge in the background. We’re all still looking for Nancy Astor’s missing chaise longue. Afternoon Sparkwell.’
‘Prime Minister.’
‘Palm trees, and a sea view. Well, well, well.’
‘One other thing, let me zoom in, there on my screen, security alerts, coming thick and fast, see? Each one a repeated attempt to trawl me.’
‘And failing presumably, why would we be doing that?’
‘Well, if you want to snoop on anyone, anything, at the Park, by hacking their devices, you have to take me out first. The entire Park is run from here, the only other significant shareholders are the Earl and Aunt Julia, and everything automatically back-ups to their devices.’
‘I’m forever telling them to fuck-off, but of course there’s no way of telling if they have!’
‘The problem is Charlotte will be carrying her work mobile, right, which is on this network, with an earpiece for emergencies. If she can’t carry them, she’s out of there.’
‘Hang-on Anthony, I’m being told something. How is that possible? Your joking! I’m not allowed to say. There are more ways than one to skin a cat. Anthony!’
‘Prime Minister.’
‘Who provides your security?’
‘Well, it’s a mix, of off-the-shelf commercial kit and software.’
‘Okay, well who tells you what to buy?
‘Well, most of the time I can work it out for myself, if I get stuck, I ask Barmy.’
‘Christ! He’s working for the Yanks.’
‘Well, only in the sense that he’s given up his intellectual property rights over his current project. All his personal digital assets are held in the UK now, he was even granted full UK citizenship the other day.’
‘Really. They’re still telling me not to tell you anything.’
‘In that case, why don’t I guess?’
‘Go on then.’
‘Yes, they were trying to trawl as a precursor to a hack. They got the same alerts I got. Thought I was attempting to trawl them, then realised as they got even more repeated fails, there is only one possible explanation, we are all using the same software, the same updates, they were attempting, in effect, to trawl themselves. This whole operation is being led locally by the Navy, therefore… You know Daphne told me at lunch he plans to throw a sickie over the whole four days and watch it all from his cabin on his screen.’
‘Bastard! I’ll have him out of there.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t do that, if the system goes down, he’s the only one who’ll be able to fix it!’
‘What does Sparkwell think?’
‘Sir?’
‘Don’t bother, she thinks it’s all boy’s games, she’s still reading The Beacon on her tablet, see?’
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