Political Suicide Read Free Page B

flaxen-haired girl who looked as if she was about to play Brynhild in some open-air Scandinavian pageant play. Sutcliffe knew all too well the sort of questions intelligent five- and six-year-olds ask when they have just lost a parent. Muttering that he would get in touch, and that he hoped Penelope Partridge would contact him if she thought of anything relevant, he made a discreet exit. Walking from the front door to his car, he thought what a very unsatisfactory interview this had been, without being able quite to pin down in his own mind the reasons for his dissatisfaction. But one thing was certain: Mrs Partridge had not been able to put on even a pantomime of sorrow or regret.
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    The press-cuttings on James Partridge which Sutcliffe found waiting for him in a folder on his desk at New Scotland Yard confirmed the picture that his wife hadpainted so pitilessly—that of a man whose career had never quite got off the ground. Early on in his stint as a junior minister a newspaper had called him “the thinking man’s Tory,” and the label had stuck, possibly because there was so little competition. The occasion for the label had been a thoughtful speech on the nature of conservatism which could, by a generous stretching of the term, have been called philosophical. He had made one or two more such speeches, and it was perhaps to give him more time to think his conservative thoughts that the Prime Minister had dropped him from the government after the election. He had apparently accepted his dismissal without bitterness, had only joined one revolt against the government since, and seemed determined to be a conscientious back-bencher and a good constituency MP. He had appeared three years before in the “New Boys” column in the scandal sheet Private Eye , but they had found little dirt to fling at him. He had busied himself in recent months with a Private Member’s Bill which one of the papers had dubbed “The Animals’ Charter.”
    Sutcliffe digested all this, and then he got on the phone to Conservative Central Office. The girl on the switchboard said that of course it was a Saturday, and there was only the tiniest skeleton staff there, just to deal with any emergency that came up, and naturally the Chairman wasn’t there, but he could come and talk to Terry if he wanted to. Who was Terry? Well, Terry was sort of deputy-under-constituency-organizer—she’d forgotten his exact title, but he was a sort of liaison man. Sutcliffe said he’d come and talk to Terry.
    Terry, it turned out, was just out of university, well-groomedbut amiable, with a shapely haircut of medium length that failed to hide the fact that he was wet behind the ears. Yes, actually he had known Jim Partridge, not just since he took up this job, but—well, his father was in the House, actually (“On the government side?” asked Sutcliffe innocently), and he’d got to know a lot of the members, well—ever since he was a kid, actually. And then he’d had a bit to do with Partridge more recently, actually over this Animals’ Charter as the papers were calling it, so really you could say that he’d known him quite well. Actually.
    â€œAnd what sort of man was he?”
    â€œQuiet, conscientious, a bit of a plodder. The sort Ted Heath used to like. Give him a job, and you knew he’d do it, and well, though he might take quite a lot of time over it. A good enough speaker, slightly dull—but actually this isn’t the golden age of political oratory, is it? They used to call Michael Foot one of the great speakers, so the standard must be low. If you were really prepared to listen, Jim’s speeches were worth the effort.”
    â€œYou never heard of any personal problems?”
    â€œNo. But I wasn’t on those terms. I’m frightfully junior here, actually. We came into contact over this animals bill, and that was giving him