The Friends of Harry Perkins Read online

  IN MEMORY OF THE LATE Jo Cox MP

  PREFACE

  Many times in the nearly forty years since A Very British Coup was first published I have been asked if I planned to write a sequel. For most of that time I had no such plan, but here it is. As with its predecessor, The Friends of Harry Perkins is set in the near future in a political landscape that will be recognisable to anyone familiar with contemporary politics. An air of pessimism prevails. Post-Brexit Britain is not a happy place although, contrary to what some predicted, there has been no great Armageddon, just a long slow decline into insularity and irrelevance. As for the Labour Party, I regret to report that it has been in opposition for as long as anyone can remember. Charismatic leadership is urgently required. Enter Fred Thompson, a veteran of an earlier era.

  The fact that Thompson turns out to be a pragmatist will be a disappointment to some. There are many in the Labour movement who prefer glorious defeats to the messy realities of victory. Had I known that Thompson was going to rise again from the ashes of the Perkins’ administration, I’d have given him a more memorable name. Suffice to say, as readers of the earlier work will know, Thompson, a former journalist, cut his teeth as a political adviser and confidant of Perkins and was present at The Fall. He married Elizabeth Fain, the daughter of an earl and a former equerry to the king, with no shortage of contacts in the secret world. After the fall of Perkins, the young couple moved away to the Western Isles where Thompson was last heard of scratching a living working for the West Highland Free Press.

  I had better mention, before someone else does, that as regards chronology a slight leap of imagination is required. A Very British Coup was set in the late 1980s and it is stretching the imagination somewhat to imagine that the movers and shakers of that era would still be active in politics today. Thompson himself would be in his mid-sixties, whereas here I would guess he is no more than about forty. Likewise Joan Cook and Jock Steeples, sole survivors of the ill-fated Perkins government, are unlikely to have remained active long enough to feature in a Thompson shadow cabinet. On this I must ask the readers’ forbearance.

  Two other veterans of the earlier work are worthy of mention. Molly Spence, wife of the managing director of British Insulated Fuels, the company responsible for the near meltdown of the Windermere nuclear reactor. Her affair with Perkins was used to blackmail him into resignation. Finally, of course, there is the shadowy Sir Peregrine Craddock, architect of the coup which brought down the Perkins government. Although now long retired and increasingly frail, Sir Peregrine is, as we shall see, still a man of influence.

  A Very British Coup has endured so long because a number of the events described were subsequently shown to be true. There was an M15 agent on the council of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. The security service was vetting senior BBC personnel. And in 1987 a senior M15 officer, Peter Wright, caused a sensation with his claim that a group of M15 officers, of whom he was one, had plotted to undermine the government of Harold Wilson. Suddenly the possibility that the Establishment might conspire to bring down an elected government no longer seemed so remote. With the rise of Jeremy Corbyn, accompanied by warnings from a former head of M16 that his election would be ‘profoundly dangerous for the nation’, the subject is suddenly topical again. The publishers of A Very British Coup are cunningly marketing the latest edition as ‘the novel that foretold the rise of Corbyn’ and it has been reprinted several times in the last two years.

  Harry Perkins, a former Sheffield steelworker, was brilliantly brought to life by that great actor Ray McAnally in the award-winning television series based on the novel. Fred Thompson is a less colourful character, but as we shall see he too is a man whose hour has come. Or has it? Now read on.

  Chris Mullin, December 2018

  ONE

  Harry Perkins was buried on the day that America declared war on China.

  He was seen off in style. Sheffield City Council declared three days of mourning. His coffin, draped in the banner of his old trade union branch, lay in state in the vestibule of the City Hall. By the end of the third day, an estimated 50,000 people had filed past. His request to be buried with ‘no flowers, no fuss’ was cheerfully ignored. Floral tributes lined the steps. People waited patiently in line to pass the coffin, straining to read the messages. Journalists amused themselves speculating about the origin of some of the anonymous wreaths. ‘All my love, M. x’, was widely held to be from Molly Spence, the woman whose affair with Perkins lit the long fuse that led to his downfall. Most interest, however, focused on a bouquet of white lilies bearing a handwritten message, ‘To Harry Perkins, with affection and respect’, followed by scrawled initials. The first letter was clearly a P, but the rest was illegible. Enquiry revealed that the order for the lilies had been placed in Somerset and the evidence pointed to Sir Peregrine Craddock. Nothing had been heard of Sir Peregrine for years (not that much was heard of him at any time during his long and distinguished career of public service). He would now be in his late eighties. Calls to his home, a Jacobean pile somewhat in need of renovation, were answered by an elderly woman who stated gruffly that Sir Peregrine was unavailable. Nothing new there. Sir Peregrine had never been available. Even now, nearly ten years after the momentous events that crowned his career and abruptly ended that of Harry Perkins, Sir Peregrine’s memoirs would have fetched a small fortune. There was no sign, however, that the great man had committed his version of events to paper. He remained discreet to the end.

  Perkins was buried on a cold, clear day in February. By special resolution the city council unanimously decreed that the General Cemetery be reopened so that he could be laid to rest among Sheffield’s greatest sons. A space was found for him under a weeping ash, near the grave of the Chartist Samuel Holberry, one of Perkins’ few heroes. The crowds who followed his coffin were greater even than those who had followed Holberry’s. ‘Harry Perkins,’ said one commentator, ‘was probably the last hero the British working classes will ever produce.’

  In death, Perkins attracted a much friendlier press than he had done in life. Those who had most reviled him were most fulsome in their tributes. ‘Honourable to his fingertips,’ said The Times. The Sun filled its front page with a flattering portrait taken on the night of his greatest triumph, alongside the headline, ‘Goodbye, Harry, We’ll Miss You’. So far as anyone could recall it was the only friendly reference to Perkins that had ever appeared in the Sun. ‘A giant among pygmies,’ said a leader in the Mail. It went on, ‘In an age of Labour politicians who would run a mile at the mention of nuclear disarmament or come over faint at the whisper of the word “socialism”, we pay tribute to a man who stuck to his principles to the end . . .’

  Everyone who had loved Harry Perkins came to see him off. And so did some who had not. Lawrence Wainwright, who briefly displaced him as prime minister, was there. His presence near the head of the procession provoked low hissing from some sections of the crowd. Jock Steeples, a wise old owl, now in his late seventies but still active in parliament, marched the whole way. His craggy features instantly recognisable. Joan Cook, the firebrand who had once been home secretary, was there too, immaculate as ever. Alongside her was Perkins’ loyal sidekick, Fred Thompson, who with his posh young wife, Elizabeth Fain, had disappeared to a croft in the Western Isles where he grew vegetables and scratched a living writing for a local newspaper. He was also an occasional columnist and book reviewer in the national press.

  But what really made the funeral of Harry Perkins a truly extraordinary event was the attendance, in defiance of protocol and much official advice, of the king. Escorted only by a single detective, His Majesty had appeared, unannounced, as the procession left Barker’s Pool. He paused to sh
ake hands with the mayor and other dignitaries and then, without ceremony, took his place at the head of the official party.

  * * *

  Later, much later, Jock Steeples, Joan Cook and Fred Thompson repaired to the Parkside Working Men’s Club where they were joined by Perkins’ agent, Vera Clarke.

  ‘Fancy His Majesty showing up,’ said Thompson. ‘That was a turn-up for the books.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Steeples. ‘The king always had a soft spot for Harry. Plus he no doubt felt bad about what happened. If he’d put his foot down, Harry might well have survived.’

  ‘Surprising that Harry stayed on at Westminster,’ remarked Mrs Cook.

  ‘Sad truth is,’ said Thompson quietly, ‘he had nowhere else to go. No hinterland, you see. Didn’t read much. No woman. Not since Molly, any rate. Fancied himself as a gardener, but never really got round to it and in the end his health wasn’t up to it.’

  ‘And of course there is no way he could have gone to the Lords, along with the rest of the great and the good,’ said Mrs Cook.

  ‘Offered a peerage, but he turned it down. “Too young to die,” he said.’

  ‘But of course he did die,’ said Mrs Cook ruefully, ‘that’s why we’re here.’

  ‘Truth is,’ said Steeples, ‘he never really recovered from the manner of his downfall. Knocked the stuffing out of him, it did. Self-confidence just drained away.’

  ‘He gave in too easily,’ said Mrs Cook.

  ‘Aye, that he did. And he knew it, too. Never forgave himself.’

  They talked of war with China. ‘Thank goodness that lunatic Trump is no longer in charge,’ remarked Steeples. ‘He’d have been the death of all of us.’

  ‘With any luck,’ said Thompson, ‘it will all calm down in a few days.’

  ‘Don’t count on it, son,’ said Steeples.

  He paused to watch a news clip of the funeral on the widescreen television at far end of the bar. ‘Fancy that snake Wainwright showing his face,’ said Thompson as the camera briefly alighted upon the face of Perkins’ nemesis.

  ‘Looks distinctly uneasy.’

  ‘As well he might.’

  ‘No sign of him at the reception.’

  ‘Just as well he didn’t hang around. There might have been an incident.’

  ‘Changing the subject,’ said Vera, ‘who is going to replace Harry? There will be a by-election and we need a decent candidate.’

  ‘You’ll need a good local man,’ said Steeples. ‘Or woman,’ he added hastily, with a sideways glance at Mrs Cook.

  ‘Better move fast, before central casting imposes some upwardly mobile young android.’

  ‘The problem is, we haven’t got anyone. A couple of councillors fancy themselves, but neither is fit to fill Harry’s shoes.’

  ‘How about a decent trade unionist? Surely there’s still one or two of them about.’

  ‘The unions are a shadow of what they used to be in the days when we had steel and engineering. Nowadays it’s all shopping malls and zero-hours contracts. Only the public services are still unionised and half their branches are in the hands of headbanging Trots.’

  Steeple’s eyes lit up. ‘There is one obvious solution: young Fred here.’

  ‘You’re joking.’

  ‘Why not? You’re a figure of substance. You’ve got – or at least you had until you moved away to that darn island – a national profile. Plus you were Harry’s right-hand man. You’re his natural successor. You’d be a shoo-in.’

  * * *

  A statement from the foreign ministry in Beijing said that the People’s Republic of China would not be intimidated by warlike noises emanating from Washington. China intended to reclaim territory that was rightfully hers, starting with the Diayou islands, ‘illegally occupied’ by the Japanese. After which she would turn her attention to the Paracels claimed by Vietnam and then to the ‘long overdue’ liberation of Taiwan.

  TWO

  An unmade track leading down to a sandy bay. A whitewashed stone house, solar panels on the roof. Shirts fluttering on a clothes line strung between a wooden post and the corner of an outhouse. Logs stacked neatly against the porch wall. Outside, evidence of children: a tricycle, a football, a rag doll sitting on a low wall by a bed of leeks. Beyond the garden, through a wooden gate, a path leading down to the beach where a small boat is moored. By the house, a battered red Volvo splashed with mud, a model no longer in production. Across the bay, more houses, also whitewashed. Ribbons of smoke rising from chimneys.

  Elizabeth was in the kitchen, back to the Aga, hands on hips, a dishcloth over her shoulder and wearing a red apron across the front of which was the slogan, ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’.

  * * *

  ‘You must be mad,’ she said.

  The years had been kind to Elizabeth. The island climate suited her. She had acquired a light tan, a sprinkling of freckles on her cheeks, a slightly fuller figure, one or two lines around the eyes, but was otherwise unblemished. Accent still unmistakably Home Counties, but no longer Chelsea. She still displayed the same infectious smile that had once drawn Fred to her. No longer a party girl, she had adapted well to motherhood, marriage and island living.

  Thompson, lately arrived back from Sheffield, bag still unpacked in the hall, had just announced that he proposed to apply for the Labour nomination for Parkside.

  ‘After all we’ve been through. I thought you’d done with bloody politics.’

  ‘It’s what Harry would have wanted.’

  ‘Never mind Harry. He’s beyond caring. What about me and the girls? Or didn’t you think of asking?’

  ‘Of course I was going to ask.’

  ‘What did you say to Jock Steeples?’

  ‘That I would think about it.’

  ‘Well, now you can tell him you have thought about it and decided against.’

  * * *

  That evening, after the children were in bed and the dishes cleared, Thompson returned to the subject. ‘For goodness’ sake, Lizzie. How long do you think we can stay here?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Look at us. Barely scraping a living. Our savings, such as they were, have gone. My work is running out. Your parents have been generous, but we can’t rely on them for ever. Sooner or later I’m going to have to find a job in the real world.’

  ‘The children are happy.’ This, said quietly. As though she knew he had a point. ‘They’ll be fine.’

  ‘And then what? The nearest secondary school is two ferry rides away. Either they’ll have to board or we’ll have to move.’

  * * *

  ‘Daddy, why was Mummy shouting last night?’ asked Catherine. They were sitting on a grassy mound above the beach, seal watching. Lucy was splashing in a nearby rock pool.

  ‘We had a little disagreement.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘I have been offered a job, in Sheffield.’

  ‘Where’s Sheffield?’

  ‘A long way away.’

  ‘You’re not going to leave us, are you, Daddy?’ A cloud passed across that radiant face.

  ‘No, of course not, darling.’

  ‘There’s a boy in my class called Calum whose father went to work in England and never came back.’

  ‘I’ll never, never leave you.’ He put his arm around her and held her close.

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘I promise.’

  * * *

  Later, after two days of uncomfortable silence. ‘If . . . if . . . we were to go back, where would we live?’

  ‘I don’t know. Either London or Sheffield.’

  ‘Sheffield?’

  ‘These days MPs are expected to live in their constituencies.’

  ‘In some 1960s tower block, I suppose.’

  ‘Of course not. We can do better than that. A house with a garden.’

  ‘And the schools?’

  ‘At least as good as here.’

  * * *

  On the fifth day Elizabeth conceded. ‘Okay,
Fred. If that’s what you really want.’

  ‘It is, Lizzie. It is. The alternative is a lifetime with nothing useful to do.’

  He held out his arms and they embraced.

  * * *

  So it was agreed. If he was selected, they would move to Sheffield. Renting, at first. If Elizabeth and the children didn’t settle, they would move to London, leaving Fred to commute. Elizabeth’s parents owned the flat in Chelsea where she had been living when she first met Thompson. No doubt they would allow her to reclaim it. For the time being, they would hang on to the croft and use it as a holiday home. Hopefully that would put paid to any withdrawal symptoms.

  Next day Thompson rang Jock Steeples with the news.

  ‘In that case you’d better get yourself down to Sheffield, sharpish. Events move fast in by-elections. There’s already half a dozen hopefuls snooping around, including a bright young fellow from central casting, fluent in the slogans of the hour. He’s the one you’ll have to watch.’

  Within two hours, Thompson was on a ferry to the mainland. By late evening he was closeted with half a dozen local movers and shakers in a back room at the Parkside Working Men’s Club. ‘We thought you’d given up on us,’ said Vera. ‘What took you so long?’

  Thompson explained about Elizabeth.

  ‘And has she come round?’

  ‘I think so, yes.’

  ‘If elected, are you going to live here? That’s the first question you’ll be asked.’

  ‘That’s the plan, yes.’

  ‘One other fly in the ointment. There’s talk of head office imposing a candidate. They can do that at by-elections. We’ve told them that people up here won’t stand for it, but I wouldn’t put it past them zealots in London to trample all over us.’

  Vera Clarke was a no-nonsense woman of indeterminate age. Such women are the lifeblood of almost every constituency association in the country, regardless of party. Fiercely loyal, relentlessly parochial and always on the side of the established order, whatever the established order might be. It just so happened that in Parkside for as long as anyone could remember the established order was Harry Perkins which meant that Mrs Clarke (she was a Mrs though no one could ever remember seeing a Mr) was not quite as parochial as her counterparts elsewhere.