Free A Delicate Truth by John le Carré

left of it now that its champion has moved on to richer pastures.’
    Pause for a judicious munch.
    ‘Fergus hates ideology and thinks
     he’s invented pragmatism. And of course he hates the Tories, although half the
     time he’s to the right of them. He’s got a serious supporters’ club in
     Downing Street, and I don’t mean just the big beasts but the courtiers and
     spinmeisters. Fergus is their boy and they’re putting their shirts on him for as
     long as he runs. Pro-Atlantic to a fault, but if Washington thinks he’s the
     cat’s pyjamas, who are we to complain? Eurosceptic, that goes without saying.
     Doesn’t like us flunkies, but what politician does? And watch out for him when he
     bangs on about the
G-WOT
’ – the prevailing in-word for the Global War on
     Terror. ‘It’s out of style and I don’t need to tell
you
of
     all people that decent Arabs are getting awfully pissed off with it. He’s been
     told that already. Your job will be the usual. Stick to him like glue and don’t
     let him make any more puddles.’
    ‘
More
puddles, Diana?’
     Toby asks, already troubled by some fairly loud rumours doing the rounds of the
     Whitehall gossip mill.
    ‘Ignore totally,’ she commands
     sternly, after another pause for accelerated mastication. ‘Judge a politician by
     what he did or didn’t do at Defence, you’d be stringing up half
     tomorrow’s Cabinet.’ And finding Toby’s eyes still on her: ‘Man
     made a horse’s arse of himself and got his wrist smacked. Case totally
     closed.’ And as a final afterthought: ‘The only surprising thing is that for
     once in its life Defence managed to hush up a force-twelve scandal.’
    And with that, the loud rumours are
     officially declared dead and buried – until, in a concluding speech over coffee, Diana
     elects to exhume them and bury them all over again.
    ‘And just in case anyone should tell
     you different, both Defence
and
Treasury held a grand-slam internal inquiry
     with the gloves off, and concluded
unanimously
that Fergus had absolutely no
     case to answer. At worst, ill advised by his hopeless officials.Which
     is good enough for me, and I trust for you. Why are you looking at me like
     that?’
    He isn’t looking at her in any way he
     is aware of, but he is certainly thinking that the lady is protesting too much.
     
    *
     
    Toby Bell, newly anointed Private Secretary
     to Her Majesty’s newly anointed Minister takes up his seals of office. Fergus
     Quinn, MP, marooned Blairite of the new Gordon Brown era, may not on the face of it be
     the sort of minister he would have chosen for his master. Born the only child of an old
     Glaswegian engineering family fallen on hard times, Fergus made an early name for
     himself in left-wing student politics, leading protest marches, confronting the police
     and generally getting his photograph in the newspapers. Having graduated in Economics
     from Edinburgh University, he disappears into the mists of Scottish Labour Party
     politics. Three years on, somewhat inexplicably, he resurfaces at the John F. Kennedy
     School of Government at Harvard, where he meets and marries his present wife, a wealthy
     but troubled Canadian woman. He returns to Scotland, where a safe seat awaits him. The
     Party spin doctors quickly rate his wife unfit for presentation. An alcohol addiction is
     rumoured.
    Soundings that Toby has taken round the
     Whitehall bazaar are mixed at best: ‘Sucks up a brief quick enough, but watch your
     arse when he decides to act on it,’ advises a bruised Defence Ministry veteran
     strictly off the record. And from a former assistant called Lucy: ‘Very sweet,
     very charming when he needs to be.’ And when he doesn’t? Toby asks.
     ‘He’s just not
with
us,’ she insists, frowning and avoiding
     his eye. ‘He’s out there fighting his demons somehow.’ But what demons
     and fighting them how is more than Lucy is willing or able to say.
    At first sight, nonetheless,