Free First Among Equals by Jeffrey Archer

second lesson when you’re next up in Leeds? We had rather hoped you would
read it this morning-your dear wife...”
    “Yes,” he
promised. “The first weekend I am back in Leeds.” The phone rang again as soon
as he placed it back on the receiver.
    “Raymond
Gould?” said an anonymous voice.
    “Speaking,” he
said.
    “The Prime
Minister will be with you in one moment.”
    Raymond waited.
The front door opened and another voice shouted, “It’s only me. I don’t suppose
you found anything to eat. Poor love.” Joyce joined Raymond in the drawing
room.
    Without looking
at his wife, he waved his hand at her to keep quiet.
    “Raymond,” said
a voice on the other end of the line.
    “Good
afternoon, Prime Minister,” he replied, rather formally, in response to Harold
Wilson’s more pronounced Yorkshire accent.
    “I was hoping you
would feel able to join the new team as Under Secretary for Employment?”
    Raymond
breathed a sigh of relief. It was exactly what he’d hoped for. “I’d be
delighted, sir,” replied the new Minister.
    “Good, that
will give the trade union leaders something to think about.”
    The phone went
dead.
    Raymond Gould,
Under Secretary of State for Employment, sat motionless on the next rung of the
ladder.
    As Raymond left
the house the next morning, he was greeted by a driver standing next to a
gleaming black Austin Westminster. Unlike his own secondhand Volkswage n, it glowed in the morning light. The rear door was
opened and Raymond climbed in to be driven off to the department. By his side
on the back seat was a red leather box the size of a very thick briefcase with
gold lettering running along the edge. “Under Secretary of
State for Employment.” Raymond turned the small key, knowing what Alice
must have felt like on her way down the rabbit hole.
    When Charles
Hampton returned to the Commons on Tuesday there was a note from the Whip’s
office waiting for him on the members’ letter board. One of the Environment
team had lost his seat in the General Election and Charles had been promoted to
number two on the Opposition bench in that department, to shadow the Government
Minister of State.
    “No more
preservation of trees. You’ll be on to higher things now,” chuckled the Chief
Whip.
    “Pollution,
water shortage, exhaust fumes...”
    Charles smiled
with pleasure as he walked through the Commons, acknowledging old colleagues
and noticing a considerable number of new faces. He didn’t stop to talk to any
of the newcomers as he could not be certain if they were Labour or
Conservative, and, given the election results, most of them had to be the
former.
    As for his
older colleagues, many wore forlorn looks on their faces.
    For some it
would be a considerable time before they were offered the chance of office
again, while others knew they had served as Ministers for the last time. In
politics, he’d quickly learned, the luck of age and
timing could play a vital part in any man’s career, however able he might be.
But at thirty-five, Charles could easily dismiss such thoughts.
    Charles
proceeded to his office to check over the constituency mail.
    Fiona had
reminded him of the eight hundred letters of thanks to the party workers that
had to be sent out. He groaned at the mere thought of it.
    “Mrs.
Blenkinsop, the chairman of the Sussex Ladies’ Luncheon Club, wants you to be
their guest speaker for their annual lunch,” his secretary told him once he had
settled.
    “Reply yes –
what’s the date?” asked Charles, reaching for his diary.
    “June
sixteenth.”
    “Stupid women,
that’s Ladies Day at Ascot.
    Tell her that
I’m delivering a speech at an environmental conference, but I’ll be certain to
make myself free for the function next year.”
    The secretary
looked up anxiously.
    “Don’t worry,”
said Charles. “She’ll never find out.” The secretary moved on to the next
letter.
    Simon had
placed the little sapphire ring surrounded by diamonds on the third