Michael Dobbs has spent many years at the most senior levels of British politics, advising Mrs Thatcher, Cecil Parkinson and many other leading politicians. He worked as a journalist in the United 22 страница

Mattie pressed another button, and the voices stopped.

‘I don't know whether you make a habit of taping all your colleagues' bedrooms, or just Patrick Woolton's, but I can assure you that Benjamin Landless tapes all of his tele­phone conversations’ she said.

Urquhart's face had frozen in the winter's air. He was beginning to feel the pain now.

'Tell me, Mr Urquhart. I know you blackmailed Roger O'Neill into opening the false address in Paddington for Charles Collingridge, but when the police investigate will they find his or your signature on the bank account?'

There was silence.

'Come now, as soon as I go to the authorities you will have to tell them everything, so why not tell me first?' More silence.

‘I know you and O'Neill between you leaked opinion polls and the news about the Territorial Army cuts. I know you also got him to enter a false computer file on Charles Collingridge into the Party's central computer-he didn't care for that, did he? I suspect he was even less excited about stealing the Party's confidential files on Michael Samuel. But one thing I'm not sure about. Was it you or Roger who concocted that silly tale about the cancelled publicity campaign on the hospital expansion scheme to feed to Stephen Kendrick?'

At last Urquhart managed to speak. He was breathing deeply, trying to hide the tension inside.

'You have a vivid imagination.'

'Oh, if only I did, Mr Urquhart, I would have caught you much earlier. No, it's not imagination which is going to expose you. It's this tape’ she said, patting the recorder she held in her hand. 'And the report which Mr Landless is going to publish at great length in the Telegraph.'

Now Urquhart visibly flinched.

'But Landless wouldn't... couldn't!'

'Oh, you don't think Mr Landless is going to take any of the blame, do you? No. He's going to make you the fall guy, Mr Urquhart Don't you realise? They are never going to let you be Prime Minister. I will write it, he will publish it, and you will never get to Downing Street.'

He shook his head in disbelief. A thin, cruel smile began to cross his lips. He couldn't tell whether it was the freezing weather or the frost he felt inside him, but he had that cold, tingling sensation up his spine once more. His breathing was steadier now, his hunter's instincts restoring his sense of physical control.

‘I don't suppose you would be willing to...?' He let out a low, chilling laugh. 'No, of course not Silly of me. You seem to have thought of almost everything. Miss Storin.'

'Not quite everything. How did you kill Roger O'Neill?'

So she had that, too. The frost finally gripped his heart. His ice-blue hunter's eyes did not flicker. His body was motionless, tense, ready for action. At last he knew how his brother had felt, yet this was no iron-clad enemy which confronted him but a stupid, vulnerable, defenceless young woman. Only one of them could survive, and it must be him!

His voice was soft, almost a whisper, melting into the snow around them. 'Rat poison. It was so simple. I mixed it with his cocaine.' His piercing eyes were fixed on Mattie; she was no longer hunter, but prey. ‘He was so weak, he deserved to die.'

'No one deserves to die, Mr Urquhart'

But he was no longer listening. He was hunting, in a game of life or death whose rules allowed no respect for moral cliches. When he gazed down the gun sights at a deer he did not debate whether the deer deserved to die, nature decreed that some must die in order for others to survive and triumph. No one, particularly now, was going to deprive him of his triumph.

With surprising energy for a man of his age, he picked up one of the heavy wooden chairs from the terrace and held it aloft, poised to strike- down at her head. But she did not cower as he had expected. She stood her ground, defiant in front of him, even as she tried to comprehend her own danger.

In cold blood, Mr Urquhart? Face to face, in cold blood?'

This was like no prey he had ever hunted. Here, face to face, not a thousand impersonal yards away down a rifle sight but staring right back into his eyes! As her words pierced home, the moment was broken. The look of doubt crept into his eyes, and in a single bound his stag and his courage had disappeared. He gave a whimper as the chair dropped from his hands and the awful truth of his own cowardice dawned upon him. He had faced his challenge, a fight to the death, confronted the truth, and had failed. He sank to his knees in the deep snow.

'You can't prove a thing. It's your word against mine,' he whispered.

Mattie said nothing at first, but pressed the rewind button on her recorder. As the tape spun round, she looked down upon Urquhart, who was shivering violently.

‘Your final mistake, Mr Urquhart. You thought I switched it off.' She punched yet another button. As she did so, the clearly recorded words of their conversation filled the air, damning him in every syllable, the proof which would condemn him.

As she walked slowly away, leaving him wretched in the snow, the silence in his head was filled with the ghostly, mocking laughter of his father.

The setting sun pierced through the frosty sky. As it did so, it glanced off the snow-covered tower of Big Ben and cascaded into a thousand tiny streams of light, blinding the American tourist who was trying to capture the scene on video.

He was quite clear later in his description of what had happened.

The Parliament building had suddenly become like a great torch, set alight by the sun. It was really a beautiful sight, as if the whole building were ablaze. And then from way up under Big Ben, something seemed to fall. As if a moth had flown into the heart of an immense candle, and its blackened and charred body was falling all the way to the ground. It's difficult to believe it was a man, one of your politicians. What did you say his name was?'

She was tired, desperately tired, yet she felt an unaccus­tomed peace. The struggle with her memories was over, the pain purged. She could stop running now.

He sensed the change and could see it reflected in her exhausted but triumphant eyes. You know’ he mused, ‘I think you might make a halfway decent journalist after all’

Johnnie, I think you may just be right,' she said softly. 'Let's go home’

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