of Fiona's clutter but there wasn't even a dirty dish in the sink. He'd paced all evening, unable to settle, feeling ever more alone, drinking too much in a vain attempt to forget, drowning once again. Thoughts of Kenny only made him jealous. When he tried to distract himself by thinking of his other life, all he could feel was the force of the King's passion and his bitterness at the Prime Minister. 'If only I hadn't been so open with him, thought he might be different from the rest. It's my fault,' he had said. But Mycroft held himself to blame.
He sat at his desk, the King's emasculated draft in front of him, the photo of Fiona in the silver frame still not removed, his diary open with a ring around the date of Kenny's return, his refilled glass leaving rings of dampness on the leather top. God, but he needed someone to talk with, to remind himself there was a world out there, to break the oppressive silence around him and to distract from his feeling of guilt and failure. He felt confused and vulnerable, and the drink wasn't helping. He was still feeling confused and vulnerable when the phone rang.
'Hello, Trevor,' he greeted the Telegraph's Court Correspondent. ‘I was hoping someone would ring. How can I help? Good God, you've heard what . . . ?'
* * *
'I am not an 'appy man. I am not an 'appy bloody man.' The editor of the Sun, an undersized and wiry man from the dales of Yorkshire, began swearing quietly to himself as he read the lead item in the Telegraph first edition. The profanity became louder as he read down the copy until he could contain his frustration no longer. 'Sally. Get me that bastard Incest.'
'He's in hospital. Just had his appendix out,' a female voice floated through his open door.
‘I don't care if he's in his bloody coffin. Dig him up and get him on the phone.'
Roderick Motherup, known as Incest throughout the newspaper world, was the paper's Royal Correspondent, the man paid to know who was doing what to whom behind the discreet facades of any of the Royal residences. Even while he lay flat on his back.
'Incest? Why the hell did we miss this story?'
'What story?' a weak voice sounded down the line.
‘I pay you a whole truckful of money to spread around enough Palace servants, chauffeurs and snitches so we know what's going on. Yet you've bloody gone and missed it.'
'What story?' the voice chimed in again, more weakly.
The editor began reading the salient facts. The extracts from the King's draft speech excised by the Government. The replacement sections suggested by the Government, full of economics and optimism, which the King had refused to use. The conclusion that behind the King's recent address to the National Society of Charitable Foundations lay one hell of a row.
'So I want the story, Incest. Who's screwing who. And I want it for our next edition in forty minutes.' He was already scribbling draft headlines.
'But I haven't even seen the story,' the correspondent protested. 'Have you got a fax?'
'I'm in hospital!' came the plaintive protest. 'I'll bike it round. In the meantime get on the phone and get back to me with something in ten.' 'Are you sure it's true?'
‘I don't care if the damned thing's true. It's a fantastic ball-breaking story and I want it on our front page in forty minutes!'
In editorial offices all around London similar words of motivation were being relayed to harassed Royal-watchers. There was the sniff of a downturn in the air, advertising revenues were beginning to fall, and that meant nervous proprietors who would more happily sacrifice their editors than their bottom lines. Fleet Street needed a good circulation-boosting story. This would put many tens of thousands on tomorrow's sales figures, and had the promise of being a story which would run and run.
A long time ago, at a point lost in the mists of time, an incident took place during a war fought in Canada between the British and the French. At least, it was probably in Canada, although it could have taken place at almost any point on the globe where the two fiercely imperialist nations challenged each other, if indeed it took place at all. According to the reports two armies, one British and the other French, marched up opposite sides of the same hill, discovering unexpected confrontation on the brow. Heavily packed ranks of infantrymen faced each