|
'What proof do you have of this extraordinary tale, Miss Storin?'
That's the beauty of it. I don't need proof. I need just enough to stir up the most awful public row and you will find the politicians deserting your camp and heading for the hills, no matter what they have been saying during the leadership contest. You will find yourself without a single friend.'
'But according to your weird and wonderful hypothesis,
Francis Urquhart is my friend, and he will be in 10 Downing Street' Landless smiled mockingly.
'But not for long, Mr Landless, not for long. I'm afraid you know less about him than you think. Did you know, when you instructed Preston to use the opinion poll to undermine the Prime Minister, that it was Urquhart who had leaked it in the first place? He set you up.'
There was a sufficient look of surprise on Landless's face to let Mattie know that she was right and he resented being used like that.
'But all politicians leak' Landless responded. It's not criminal, certainly not enough to throw him out of Downing Street.'
'No, but insider share dealing, fraud, blackmail and theft are!' She delighted in the look of concern spreading across his fat jowls.
'I can show beyond a reasonable doubt that it was Urquhart who set up Charles Collingridge by buying Renox shares in his name in a deliberate and very successful attempt to implicate the Prime Minister. That Urquhart blackmailed Patrick Woolton into standing down by bugging his room at Bournemouth. And ordered, the theft of confidential personal files on Michael Samuel from party headquarters.' She was bluffing on the Samuel file, she had no proof only inner certainty, but she knew her bluff would not be called from the way in which Landless had by now lost his air of confidence. Yet he was one of nature's fighters. He hadn't given in yet.
'What makes you think anyone is going to believe you? By tonight Francis Urquhart will be Prime Minister, and who do you think is going to want to see the Prime Minister and the country dragged down by a political scandal of that sort? I think you underestimate the Establishment and its powers of self-protection, Miss Storin. If the Prime Minister is dragged down, confidence in the whole system suffers. It's not justice which wins, but the radicals and the revolutionaries. Not even the Opposition would welcome that. So you'll find it damned difficult to get any newspaper to print your allegations, and next to impossible to get a law officer to proceed on them.'
He was beginning to relish his own argument now, regaining his confidence.
'Why, it took them seven years before they were forced to indict Jeremy Thorpe who was only Leader of the Liberal Party, not even the Prime Minister. And he was arrested for attempted murder, which makes your charges of petty theft and blackmail look really rather pathetic. You don't even have a body on which to build your case!'
'Oh, but I do, Mr Landless,' she said softly. 'I believe he killed Roger O'Neill to silence him, and although I'm not sure I can prove it yet, I can raise such a storm as will blow down the shutters of Downing Street and will quite overwhelm your little business venture. Someone in the Thorpe case shot a dog. Here we are talking about murder. Do you really think your Establishment is going to keep quiet about that?'
Landless levered his great girth out of his chair and walked across to the large picture window. From it he could see the chimneys, steeples and hideous tower blocks of Bethnal Green less than two miles away where he had been born and where in the slums of his childhood he had learnt all he needed to know about survival He had never wanted to move far away from the area even with all his wealth; his roots were there, and if he screwed it all up that was where he knew he would have to return.
When he turned around to face her once more, she thought she could detect the signs of defeat etched deep into his features.
'What are you going to do, Miss Storin?'.
'I am too late to stop Urquhart getting elected. But I intend to make sure he stays in office for as short a time as possible. And for that I want your help.'
'My help! I... I don't understand. You accuse me of causing all this bleedin' chaos and then you ask for my help. Christ all bloody Mighty!' he spluttered in broadest cockney, his defences in tatters.
'Let me explain. You may be a rogue, Mr Landless, and you may run a rotten newspaper, but I suspect that deep down you care for the idea of a man like Urquhart running this country as little as I do. You have worked very hard to develop the reputation of a working class patriot. Corny to some people, perhaps, but I suspect you mean it - and if I'm right, you would never dream of conspiring to put a murderer in Downing Street.'
130/134 首页 上一页 128 129 130 131 132 133 下一页 尾页
|
