Dead in the Water by Brian Woolland Read Free Book Online

referring to him by his first name; but everything else about this situation reminds him of being up before the Head in the minor public school he attended as a teenager: the combination of leather and oak; the pompous vanity portraits; even the smell. Angela Walker’s modern perfume cannot compete with the overwhelming pungency of history and tradition. Although her personal office enjoys the benefits of modern lighting, in every other way it is probably as it was a hundred years ago. He is not the first to be standing where he is, feeling that he will be lucky to escape with a detention.
    “ I’ll be speaking to the Commons at four o’clock. Firstly, I shall deal with the terrorist issues. Officially, we haven’t a clue, although we know it’s not Al Qaeda.” She stops, folds her hands together, looks him in the eye and, after a studied pause, as if to affirm her unique trust in Mark, she adds: “Unofficially, and off the record, it looks like the work of an environmental terrorist group. The security people have a source, but we need to be certain that it’s genuine before we go public. The timing is not an accident…” Does she expect him to say something?
    “ They want to up the ante before the Summit; hijack the agenda. A week tomorrow eight world leaders arrive in this country. A week on Saturday I want to be engaged in meaningful discussions without the world’s media looking on and accusing us of giving in to extremists.”
    “ Of course.”
    “ What that means, Mark, is that the Transport Policy has to be put on hold.”
    The Transport Policy: Mark’s baby, the product of months of negotiations, a co-ordinated integration of road, rail and air; public and private; sticks and carrots. He looks quizzical – a studied look that he has developed to mask What the fuck does that mean? “If we bring it in on the back of this outrage,” she continues, “We shall be accused of giving in to terrorism. And that, Mark, I will not allow.”
    “ I don’t understand what you’re asking me to do.”
    She looks surprised, as if it should be self evident what he has to do. “I want you to write that part of my statement for me. I need it by 3.45. I need your backing for this, Mark.” He looks perplexed. “I do not want to abandon the Transport Policy, Mark. I want to introduce it from a position of strength.”
    “ You want to postpone the legislation to implement the Transport Policy because we are in a State of Emergency?”
    “ I know you’ll find the right words, Mark. That’s what you do so well.”
     
    As he’s leaving Angela Walker’s private office, David McTaggart, the Deputy Prime Minister, is waiting in an ante-room, reading the Times . Mark catches a glimpse of the front page, made up of the stark banner headline UNDERPASS BOMBERS TARGET POLICE and a full page aerial photograph of the rubble filled entrance to the Piccadilly Underpass. McTaggart looks up; and shakes his head almost imperceptibly.
    “ Boyd. What a surprise. How is she?”
    “ Seems to thrive on crisis.”
    “ Tough one, this, don’t you think.”
    “ Absolutely.”
    “ And what is the half life of the policy proposal you have just made?”
    “ Not my job.”
    “ What? To propose policies? Well exactly. That’s what we all think. Hasn’t stopped you in the past.”
    “ Glad to see the sun shining again,” says Mark, smiling. He enjoys Tag’s resentment. It reaffirms his special relationship with Mrs W.
    “ Nasty little policies, I’d say. And even though they decay quite fast, and sometimes mutate, they never quite disappear.”
    “ Nice metaphor,” says Mark.
     
    By early evening, it has started to rain again; the same warm gentle rain they have had for the past six weeks. At nearly nine, he decides to walk home.
    Mark regularly does this walk in the summer, wandering along the Serpentine, taking vicarious pleasure in Park Life – the tourists and the lovers, the hucksters and the suckers. As he leaves the