Free The Final Cut by Michael Dobbs Page B

it would mean your waiting perhaps another eighteen months. You can have the lesser gong straight away, though, if you like.'
    The voice dripped goodwill while his eyes lashed coldly across Booza-Pitt, who showed little sign of being able to breathe.
    'You'd prefer to wait. I entirely understand. But you realize that this must remain utterly confidential until then. Won't stop you and Lady Tennent attending a Downing Street reception in the meantime, though? Good.'
    A tight smile of triumph.
    'One last thing. These things get pushed through a Scrutiny Committee, look at each individual case to make sure there are no skeletons in the closet, nothing that might prove a public embarrassment, cause the honour to be handed back or any such nonsense. Forgive my asking, but since your name will be carrying my personal recommendation, there's nothing on the horizon that might . . . ?'
    A pause.
    'Delighted to hear that. I must just repeat that if anything were to leak out about your upcoming award . . . But then the party has always known it can rely on you. Sir Richard, I am most grateful.'
    He chuckled as he threw the phone back into its cradle. 'There you are! The old Round Table gambit always works; give 'em a knighthood and a sense of purpose and they always come aboard. With luck that'll keep his mouth shut for at least another eighteen months and possibly for good.'
    Geoffrey had just begun to imitate the Prime Minister's bonhomie when Urquhart turned on him with unmistakable malevolence. 'Now get out. And don't ever expect me to do that again.'
    Geoffrey rose, a tremble still evident in his knees. 'Why did you, Francis, this time?'
    The light from the desk lamp threw harsh shadows across Urquhart's face, bleaching from it any trace of vitality. One eye seemed almost to have been plucked out, leaving a hollowed socket that led straight to a darkness within.
    'Because Francis Urquhart and only Francis Urquhart is going to decide when Ministers come and go from his Cabinet, not some shrivelling cuckold from New Spalden.'
    'I understand.' He had been hoping for some acknowledgement of his own irreplaceable worth.
    'And because now I own you. Today, tomorrow, and for as long as I wish. You will jump whenever I flick my fingers, whether it be at the throats of our enemies or into your own grave. Without question. Total loyalty.'
    'Of course, Francis. You had that anyway.' He turned to leave.
    'One last thing, Geoffrey.' 'Yes?'
    'Give me back my fountain pen.'
    The sun blazed fiercely outside the window, and the coffee on the table in small cups was dark and thick; in all other respects the office with its stylishly simplistic furniture; and modern art trimmings might have been found on the Skeppsbron overlooking the harbour in Stockholm. Yet most of the books along the light oak bookshelves were in Turkish, and the two men in the room were of dark complexion, as were the faces in the family photographs standing behind the desk.
    'Now, what brought you in such a hurry to Nicosia?'
    'Only a fool tarries to deliver good tidings.'
    There was an air of formality between them, two Presidents, one Yakar, chief of the Turkish National Oil Company, and the other, Nures, political head of the Republic of Turkish Cyprus. It was not simply that the oil man was a homosexual of contrived manner and the politician a man of robust frame, language and humour; there was often a distance between metropolitan and islander which reflected more than their separation by fifty miles of sea. It had been a century since the Ottomans had ruled Cyprus and differences of culture and perspective had grown. Mainlanders patronized and shepherded the islanders - had they not delivered their cousins from the clutches of Greek extremists by invading and then annexing one third of the island in 1974? At one moment during those confused days the Turkish Cypriots had found themselves on the point of a Greek bayonet, the next they had been in charge of their own state.