A Very British Coup Read Free Page B

unused, spurned, beside his desk, an incongruity among the Vietnamese watercolours and the Burmese Buddhas.
    Sir Peregrine pressed a buzzer and immediately a side door opened to admit a sharp-featured young man wearing a dark suit and a blue and white striped shirt. This was Fiennes, personal assistant to the Director General. Fiennes was a high-flyer plucked straight from St Antony’s College, Oxford, on the recommendation of his tutor.
    â€œThings not going too well, are they, Fiennes?”
    â€œNo, sir.”
    â€œWhat have you got for me, then?”
    â€œActually, sir, there is not very much.” He handed Sir Peregrine a beige file labelled ‘Perkins, Harold A., Member of Parliament (Labour)’. The file contained about 200 sheets of computer print-out, including records of telephone conversations, photocopies of letters and details of Perkins’ voting record on the Labour Party National Executive. There were also some photographs taken at demonstrations. On the top was a short summary of the contents, typed by Fiennes. Sir Peregrine read this and then looked up. “Is this the best you can do?”
    â€œSeems to be all we have, sir.”
    â€œWhat about his sex life?”
    â€œNot married, sir.”
    â€œPrecisely. The man must have buggered or screwed somebody at some time or other.”
    â€œNot to our knowledge, sir. Lived with his mother in Sheffield until she died about ten years ago. Then he moved to London and bought a flat near the Kennington Oval. Leads a fairly humdrum sort of life.” Fiennes flicked a lock of his blond hair away from his forehead.
    â€œWhat about East European embassies? Surely he’s in and out of those all the time. Most of these lefties usually are.”
    â€œPerkins never seems to have been much of a one for freebies, sir.”
    â€œWell, we are going to have to do better than this.” Sir Peregrine closed the file and handed it back to Fiennes. “When the new Cabinet is announced I want you to go through their files with a fine-toothed comb. And not just the Cabinet. Every minister of state, every under-secretary and, above all, any political advisers they bring in with them.”
    â€œYes, sir,” Fiennes was heading for the door. “And there is one other thing, sir.”
    â€œWhat’s that?”
    â€œEbury Bridge Road have been on. They want to know if they’re to keep the phone taps on Perkins and the other Labour people.”
    Sir Peregrine smiled. “Why not? Since the Prime Minister or the Home Secretary are theoretically our authority for tapping phones, Perkins and his men will be in the unusual situation of authorising taps on their own phones. I think that’s rather amusing, don’t you?”
    Around the corner from Curzon Street, almost within sight of DI5 headquarters, the nightshift were reporting for duty at Annabel’s. Annabel’s was not the sort of place where Harry Perkins had a big following.
    â€œWhy doesn’t someone turn that rubbish off?” A slick young man in a red velvet dinner jacket gestured to the colourtelevision set on the bar which was displaying the beaming features of Prime Minister-Elect Perkins.
    â€œSarah couldn’t come tonight,” said a girl in a light blue jumpsuit. “Her father said if she didn’t go down to Sussex and vote Conservative he’d stop her allowance.”
    â€œOh, the beast. Poor Sarah.”
    â€œBrilliant idea of Charlie’s to come on here. We’d have been cutting our throats with depression at the Cavalry Club. Who’s for a drink before we start noshing?” The young man in the velvet dinner jacket reached for his wallet.
    At the bar a woman strung with pearls the size of gobstoppers was saying she was too depressed even to
think
about food.
    Someone hung a gravy-stained napkin over the television screen, obscuring the view of Perkins.
    â€œSimply frightening that a man like