Free Redlaw - 01 by James Lovegrove Page A

face it, would be nothing short of a miracle.”
    Wax fixed Slocock with the only kind of smile he knew how to give: wan and fleeting. “Surely you want your lot at the wheel next time round.”
    Slocock blew out his cheeks noncommittally. “Frankly it doesn’t bother me. I find MP-ing pretty boring, as a matter of fact. I thought it would be fun helping run the country, the thrill of power and all that, but mostly what it involves is endless committee meetings, late-night sittings that go on ad nauseam, and hours spent in my surgery listening to constituents whinge on. Opposition, government, what difference does it make? I’d still have to do the same sort of shit either way. I might not even stand for re-election come October. I’ve other irons in the fire. Plenty more fish to fry.”
    “Pick your cliché,” said Wax dryly. “The fact is, Slocock, I couldn’t sell Lambourne’s master plan to the PM even if I wanted to. He just wouldn’t wear it. He’s a man of high moral fibre and a statesman well aware of his standing on the international stage.”
    “The Prime Minister can be made to see sense. Anyone can.” Slocock’s expression tightened. “It just takes the right application of pressure.”
    “Oh, and is that how you’re intending to make me see sense?” Wax sat back in his chair, folding his arms. “You can try.”
    “It needn’t have come to this, Maurice. Let’s be clear about that. You’ve brought this on yourself.”
    “What’s it going to be? Bribery? I know Lambourne’s pockets are deep. I’d be curious to see how deep—not that I can be bought, at any price.”
    “No, you can’t. I’m not even going to waste my time waving money about.”
    “Blackmail, then. Yes?”
    “Afraid so.”
    “You have nothing on me. No one does.”
    Slocock had to admit, Wax had a hell of a poker face. The man could bluff for England.
    The trouble was, everybody had some sort of secret they didn’t want the world to know. There wasn’t a person alive you couldn’t get dirt on if you looked hard enough and dug deep enough. Nathaniel Lambourne had the resources and the wherewithal to winkle out the ugly truths and bring them squirming into the light. He’d prepared a dossier on Wax months ago. It was part of an arsenal of precision-targeted blackmail weapons aimed at all of the nation’s great and good, which he stockpiled in case of need. The contents of the Wax file had been delivered to Slocock’s door that very morning by courier in a card envelope. Slocock now produced the envelope and fished out a four-gigabyte memory stick from within.
    “It seems,” he said, “that Maurice Wax, Member of Parliament for Washington and Sunderland West, has a very seamy side to his life.”
    Wax’s naturally grey complexion greyed just a fraction further.
    “I’ve watched the footage myself.” Slocock winced. “Fair put me off my breakfast, I can tell you.”
    “There’s nothing,” Wax said. “Nothing on there.”
    “Really? Then you wouldn’t mind me running off a copy and sending it to the Daily Mail .”
    “You’re lying. This is a barefaced bluff.”
    “How do you know I’m lying?
    “Because...”
    “Because there aren’t video cameras at Mistress Sterne’s Parlour of Correction just round the corner from Tooting Broadway? Well, none that you know of. But Mistress Sterne, a.k.a. Nadine Blevins, is not a stupid woman. She takes covert film of all her clients, especially the high-profile ones. Insurance policy; you’re not going to get prosecuted if you have images of girls tying up and whipping high court judges and top-ranking cops safely stored on a hard drive in a lockup somewhere. It’s how she’s managed to survive several busts for pandering and keeping a house of ill repute. And you, Maurice, are a regular visitor to her rather bijou terraced property, so there are plenty of shots of you here in all sorts of compromising positions.” He waggled the memory stick. “Gimp