Agent Lavender: The Flight of Harold Wilson Read online

  “Here, what’s going on out there?” said Philip.

  The Queen’s attention was drawn to the window or, more specifically, the kerfuffle breaking out on the other side of it. Two of the dragoons in front of the carriage had now veered off and were attempting, still on horseback, to aid the policemen pushing back against the surging crowd. As Philip placed a calming hand on her arm, Elizabeth felt strange. Not afraid, just strange.

  The ensuing events – the collapse of two policemen, the breaking of the wall of bodies between her and her public, and the heaving sound of the shouting masses pressing themselves against the Irish State Coach – seemed to happen in slow motion. Before she knew it, the Queen found herself lying on her side and experiencing a queer sensation that suggested ‘up’ was now ‘right’. Well, that wouldn’t do. Steadying herself, she took stock of her surroundings. Philip looked confused but unhurt. She became aware that the mob seemed much quieter now, though there was now some screams of apparent terror in the mix – nothing so concerning as gunshots, however. That was something, at least. As she stood up, she felt a hand on her knee.

  “Dear, I don’t think that’s—”

  “Wait here, Philip,” she barked as sweetly as she could.

  Pushing upwards, she swung the door open with moderate ease. It was surprisingly heavy. Placing one foot on what was normally the edge of the seat but was currently the top, she stood up and surveyed the scene.

  The ‘mob’ was a lot smaller than she had perceived it to be – although she supposed the hordes of people running away as fast as they could would have depleted its numbers somewhat. Those who remained had largely stopped to stare, some open-mouthed in shock and others covering their faces in what she presumed was horror. Someone limply shouted something about inbred tyrants, while some police officers seemed to be running towards the overturned coach at breakneck speed, but The Queen was not paying attention. In the odd stillness of it all, she was able to scan for the only thing that particularly mattered to her at that moment.

  “Is anyone hurt?” she said in a loud, clear voice, before the first of three police officers hit her with a flying tackle that bundled her back inside the carriage.

  Airey Neave had an awful feeling in the pit of his stomach. This one was even worse than that which was brought on by a raised eyebrow from a German border guard or a request for papers from a gentleman on a train.

  Airey supposed it was because in all his days, he’d thought himself many things. Short tempered, perhaps. A scallywag on occasion, certainly. But a backstabber? A traitor? He winced as he considered the latter term, aware it had taken on a rather more literal definition in Whitehall in the last week. All the same, as he surveyed the cabinet table and searched for something to say, he couldn’t forget the guilt that Englishmen derive from foul play.

  “If Her Majesty’s Government cannot even assure the safety of Her Majesty, what is it good for?” Keith Joseph repeated with a phlegmy roar. Ian Gilmour rapped the table in support.

  Margaret looked awful. The white complexion she had borne when she arrived had been replaced with a beetroot red colour. Gilmour wound up to strike now.

  “From the perspective of the Home Office,” he said, apparently unaware that a law and order disaster normally led to criticism of the Home Secretary, “it’s clear that the government’s attempts to restore order have been incomplete and ignorant of the resources available to us. This–”

  “Mr Gilmour, you have agreed to every measure I have proposed–” Margaret attempted, but Gilmour carried on.

  “– this has become much more embarrassing since Civil Assistance started ‘aiding’ the police.”

  “Usurping the rule of law, more like!” Howe cut in.

  “And, Prime Minister with the greatest of respect,” Reggie Maudling lied, “the communiqué I have received from the American ambassador is incredibly concerning.”

  The room fell silent. Margaret turned an even deeper red.

  “What communiqué?” said Joseph, confused.

  “President Ford has offered us a ‘blank cheque’ of American security forces in order to retake control of the situation.”

  “Oh, bloody hell!” cried John Biffen over the ensuing uproar, “we’ve only just shaken off the Soviets, and now we’re about to become an American protectorate!”

  “Thank you,” thundered Margaret, shocking even Airey and stunning the room to quiet once more, “but I would like to hear from our colleagues in the Liberals. Mr Thorpe?”

  All eyes turned to the Lord President of the Council. In his usual weaving, oozing style, he proceeded to damn Margaret with the faintest of praise, then abruptly declare:

  “...in light of the situation with the trade unions and today’s events involving the Royal Family, my party is unable to support your government and leadership.”

  ‘Your’. Not ‘this’.

  As Thorpe, Grimond and the other Liberal (Airey had never bothered to learn his name) theatrically rose and left the room, the Conservatives left behind knew, as one, that blood had now been drawn. Airey’s eyes bored into the door, willing Mountbatten to enter and restore some semblance of dignity to the meeting, but the Lord had sent apologies from Buckingham Palace, where he was visiting his nephew and niece-in-law.

  “Prime Minister,” said Biffen grandly, “nobody respects your efforts more than me, but the time has come to face facts. The government’s majority has just walked out of that door. The Americans are about to send in the tanks. The economy is in chaos, the unions are not so much disobeying you as treating you as an irrelevance, and – and—”

  “You don’t seem to be up to it,” finished Keith Joseph bluntly.

  If Airey had dropped a pin, it would have echoed. The intervention had left four cabinet ministers open-mouthed, and Margaret herself looked shellshocked. The Chancellor spoke again.

  “It’s time to go, Prime Minister.”

  Airey had been silent for the entire meeting. Now, with hope all but lost, his mouth opened as of its own free will.

  “I think,” he had begun in a loud, clear voice. When all eyes turned to him, including hers, he felt his heart race like it hadn’t since realising that those mountains in the distance were Swiss after all.

  “I think,” he had repeated, before continuing more softly, “that there is some merit in what my colleagues are proposing, Margaret.”

  He sounded and looked as apologetic as he could. But even as she gave him a look that made Caesar’s final glance at Brutus seem brotherly, he realised that there was nothing else he could have said. It was over.

  He felt nothing as she gathered her papers, rose and informed them that in light of this new ‘lack of confidence’ from her government, she was going to privately consider her position. He’d felt distaste when Joseph clapped him on the back, and revulsion when the boys’ club began excitedly chattering the moment the door closed behind her, but not regret.

  History would be kind to her, he thought. Much of what she did was the right thing. She’d been overtaken by events. A catastrophe of a scale unseen since 1914. She was still the most brilliant woman he’d ever encountered. It was just... It was as if she was…

  “The right man at the wrong time,” he muttered. Around him, the men squabbling over her crown paid little attention.

  Margaret Thatcher was sat alone in her office for the first time since she became Prime Minister. Due to the dramatic nature of her workload and the events that precipitated it, she had until now always been in the company of someone else, be it a member of the cabinet, a civil servant or a lowly secretary. A few minutes ago, she had requested to be left completely alone to reflect on the situation.

  ‘The situation’ was dire. The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh were unharmed (barring a sprained wrist that Her Majesty may in fact have received when being bundled back inside the Irish State Coach) but the intended image of stability and continuity had been horrifyingly reversed. Now, it appeared to the world’s press, t
he United Kingdom could no more protect her sovereign from harm than her government from infiltration or her loyal workforce from violence.

  Not only that, but the ‘Emergency Queen’s Speech’ had obviously not taken place, and after several hours of discussions there seemed no clearly superior plan to set out the new legislative programme (if one ignored Biffen’s brusque ‘just get on and do it’). Margaret, for the first time, allowed herself to get angry over the past week’s mistakes. People were suffering, the country’s prestige was shattered, the Americans were on the verge of annexing Suffolk, and her grand attempt to ‘rally the nation around the crown’ had spectacularly failed. What she was feeling was more than embarrassment, she told herself as she poured a glass of water. It was genuine shame.

  There were members of the cabinet who had said the only thing that had a hope of saving the government was, ironically, an immediate dissolution. But an election now? In this chaos? Before today, a Conservative landslide was assured but would have been morally dubious in the circumstances. Now, nothing was certain. The Scottish Nationalists might win a landslide for all she knew. And that left aside the more practical problem of whether a General Election could be meaningfully and safely organised at a time when power stations were working half time and there were barely more than a dozen trains in and out of London a day. No, the present arrangement had to be made to work. In terms of parliamentary arithmetic, a Conservative minority was becoming more and more difficult as the last few Labour MPs trickled back to the green benches. It could still theoretically work, but…

  She had lost the confidence of her cabinet. If she had ever had it. The old boys’ club had been hard enough to penetrate from Opposition, but in the few short months since she destroyed Ted, she thought that she had made the right impression. Even if she had, that was gone now.

  Margaret composed herself as she fought against an instinct to well up. The nation would have to come first. It would, it seemed, require a national government. And if she could not command the confidence of a majority of the House, then that task would have to fall to someone else. After putting it off for as long as possible, she closed her eyes and considered succession possibilities.

  Du Cann? Too flamboyant. Howe? Not ready. Probably wouldn’t ever be. Maudling? A technocrat, a drunk, and superficially similar to Wilson. Biffen? Wouldn’t win the party. Airey? They were all traitors, but to reward the most egregious turncoat would make her sick. For the third time this week, she wished Macleod were still alive.

  Whitelaw? Whitelaw was weak. The TUC would break him within a month, and what was left of Britain’s pride at home and abroad would disappear down the plughole. But she would be around to help. Others, such as Airey, would be in the cabinet. Faced with a plethora of divisive, unready or incompetent successors, Margaret considered Roy Jenkins for about twelve seconds, then resigned herself to the prospect of Willie Whitelaw, Prime Minister. There was no alternative. She reached for the telephone, but stopped as there was a knock at the door.

  “Come,” she said with as much gravitas as she could muster.

  “Prime Minister,” began her guest, “I have been informed by Sir John Hunt that I may be of use here.”

  Margaret looked up. Of course. There was an alternative. Someone who embodied unity, calm, and charisma in his every movement. Could it be done, she thought, in this day and age? Her eyes giving away nothing as she looked him up and down, she mused. Extraordinary times called for extraordinary measures.

  “Yes,” she replied with a smile, “yes, I think you can be of great use.”

  “Whatever the country needs,” replied Lord Mountbatten.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Fipps said, his eyes apparently scanning the rug for something, “there’s no excuse. It’s just—”

  “I thought you said there was no excuse,” snarled Wright.

  “No, this isn’t an excuse, sir. Well,” Fipps swallowed, “I suppose it is, but I made use of my intuition. The houses we didn’t check, well, they, er—”

  “Spit it out, I might as well hear this.”

  “Two of them were uninhabited – wrecks, basically. We’d combed them on Tuesday. Of those that had people in, they were small and there was no way someone could have Wilson in there without them knowing. And these aren’t hardened communist harbourers we’re talking about sir, with respect. One of them was just an old bloke, stuffy academic type. One of the local fellas knows him, you can ask – Mr Brimson or something. Boring, but not dangerous. No point hassling him when—”

  “I decide who it is worth hassling!” Wright screamed, then froze, his hand halfway through sweeping a group of pint glasses off the table.

  “...sir?” Fipps ventured nervously.

  “Mr...Brimson?”

  “Mr Brimson. Yeah. Brim-something. Maybe Brimley?”

  Peter thought he could feel one of his eyeballs straining to leave its socket.

  “Brimley?” he said in an unnervingly quiet voice, “...Jacob? Jacob Brimley?”

  “Y-yes, sir, I think so, at any rate. You can ask PC Ro—”

  Wright threw himself across the room to his desk, feverishly scrambling through his papers. God, he thought, some of these read like the scribblings of a madman in a sanatorium. With a triumphant cry, he found the page he wanted, and all pretence of an internal monologue disintegrated.

  “‘Persons of Interest, B-C... Branston, Brightman, Brim -’”

  He froze, his mouth suddenly feeling very dry.

  “‘Brimley, J,’” he read aloud to the hapless and terrified Fipps, his tone growing more and more frantic, “‘Undergraduate in History, Jesus College, Oxford, 1934-1937. Overlapped with Wilson, anecdotally suggested to be a friend. Known member of Common Wealth in the 1940s, later signed a letter supporting the deposition of Pollitt within the CPGB in 1956. Wrote a paper defending Soviet invasion of Hungary. Wife is also academic, with strong links to Moscow University. Last publicly listed postal address was Winstanley Cottage, Nor—”

  He stopped speaking abruptly as he continued to read, his face now completely white. Without another word, he screwed up the page, thrust it into his pocket, and grabbed his coat from the stand. The revolver was in the right-hand pocket. Good. If you wanted something done properly, you had to do it yourself.

  PC Fipps watched as Wright marched past him and threw open the door. The Deputy-Director of MI5 staggered slightly against the full force of the wind and rain, then slammed it behind him. Even as Fipps pressed his nose against the window, Wright had disappeared into the night.

  Chapter eleven

  Monday 10th November 1975 – 7:00pm

  “Your problem, Harold, is that you have never quite had it in you to actually trust people to make their own decisions.”

  There had been a certain level of inevitability to the argument that was filling the dining room, kitchen and most of the hallway of Jacob Brimley’s cottage. Placing a Stalinist, a Leninist and a Luxembourger-Opportunist in the same house not only sounded like the start of a bad joke, but also carried with it the guarantee that a furious argument over a hitherto minor aspect of dialectic would materialise at some point in the evening. In this circumstance, what had started as a friendly discussion as to the best place to meet a hunter-killer submarine had denigrated into how best to run a command economy in the event of revolution. As ever, the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland was talking about his part in the war effort.

  “That is a lie, and you know it is, Jacob,” Harold Wilson responded. “You know as well as I do that even Stalin would have sent for Cripps if the Red Army had been forced to invade if the Nazis had taken over – why therefore is it such a massive stretch of the imagination to widen the net to include the most reliable civil servants?”

  Brimley sat back in his chair, not even countenancing the possibility of being wrong. This had always been the issue with his Leninist undergraduates – give them a copy of “Imperialism” and they all went
mad.

  “Look, I am not for a moment denying the benefits of expertise, but even a malleable and transient figure is prone towards capitalism.”

  “Jacob, if you are suggesting that I should be shot for…”

  “I am not for a moment suggesting…”

  Trapped between the two, John Stonehouse found himself wondering how cold Prague was at this time of year. Finding his eyes were resting on a large bust of Marx above the fireplace, his daydreams soon turned into slumber and thereafter, into a deep sleep.

  He suddenly woke up, not thanks to the sound of swearing and wood scraping against slate tiles, but rather to Jacob Brimley almost knocking him off his seat. Harold, he noticed, had for some reason decided to see what the underside of the kitchen table looked like. Groggily, the former Postmaster General stood up.

  “Is there someone at the door?” he found himself saying, before being silenced by a furious glance from Brimley.

  Harold Wilson – as if realising that even the most incompetent of policemen would have the ability to look downwards – stood up, shielding himself next to the Aga as Brimley looked at the erratic point of light a quarter-mile away.

  Jacob Brimley had been a law-abiding citizen for most of his adult life. In fact, barring a swiftly-paid parking ticket outside Methodist Central Hall, he’d never had a conversation with an officer of the law that didn’t involve asking for directions to the library. Now, as he saw the still-distant torch-bearing figure blustering against the elements towards his home, he suspected his clean sheet might be nearing an end.

  Harold was stood at his shoulder.

  “I should go.”

  “You won’t get very far, Harold,” Jacob sighed, “doubtless they’ve got officers combing the fields.”