He meant, of course, what did Di Taverner know about Gimball that wasn’t already in the public sphere, which itself was a fair amount. While a party backbencher, Gimball’s few forays into the wider public consciousness had revolved around incidents in pubs and speeding offences, but he’d blossomed into celebrity once he found his USP: cheerleading the campaign to get the country out of the European Union and back into the 1950s. Spearheading this crusade had involved leaving the party, a departure he undertook with an oft-mentioned ‘great reluctance’ but few inhibitions about making bitter personal attacks on former colleagues, whose responses in kind he cited as evidence of their unworthiness for public office. With his tendency towards maroon blazers, slip-on shoes and petulant on-camera outbursts he made for an unlikely media star, and having him step centre stage had been, one sketch writer commented, like watching a Disney cartoon in which Goofy took the leading role: at once both unexpected and disappointing. What should have been a cameo became a career, and the whole thing went on for what felt like decades, and when it was over there was more than one bewildered voter who wondered if the referendum hadn’t swung Gimball’s way in the hope that victory would guarantee his silence on all future topics. So far, this wasn’t working out.
‘Well,’ said Lady Di. ‘I think we can safely say he’s found the new flag he was looking for.’
‘Critic-in-chief of the security services, you mean.’
‘I doubt it’s a matter of keenly held principle so much as a convenient handle on public attention,’ she said. ‘If that’s any comfort.’
‘Anything we know that he’d rather we didn’t?’
She gave him an approving look. ‘You’re coming on, Claude. Six months ago, you’d have been shocked at the very thought.’
Whelan adjusted the photo of his wife on his desk, then adjusted it back to the way it had been. ‘Adapt and survive,’ he said.
‘I’ll check his file. See if there’s any peccadillos worth airing. Hard to believe he’d have managed to keep anything under wraps, though. His wife makes Amy Schumer look like a model of discretion.’ She paused. ‘That was a cultural reference, Claude. I’ll make sure you get a memo.’
He smiled faintly. ‘Didn’t she once write a column describing refugees as earwigs?’
‘Which is exactly what she was fed during a reality TV show soon afterwards. Not often you see karma actually landing a punch.’
‘Did she say what they taste like?’
‘Somalians,’ said Lady Di. ‘You have to hand it to her. She doesn’t go out of her way to make friends.’
But as was often the case with columnists, the more contempt they expressed for those unlike themselves, the more popular they became. Or more talked about, anyway, which they deemed the same thing. A kill list of people actually harmful to the national well-being, thought Whelan, would vastly differ from the official one used in the bunkers where they steered the drones.
Lady Di said, ‘But we’re just the stick she’s beating the PM with. Once he expressed his absolute confidence in us, in you, we became the enemy. It’s a zero-sum game, remember. If the PM gave a speech in praise of lollipop ladies, Gimball would declare them enemies of the state. And Dodie would devote her next three columns to recounting how many traffic accidents they’ve caused.’
Most things Claude Whelan knew about the treacherous nature of those who sought power he’d learned from Diana Taverner, but rarely because she spelled it out like this. Mostly, he just observed her behaviour.
He said, ‘So what does that make Zafar Jaffrey? Our enemy’s enemy?’
‘You’re asking because we’re interested? Or because the PM wants to know?’
It was because the PM wanted to know. Earlier, before the meeting at which Whelan had been invited to address the Cabinet, the PM had taken him aside.
‘She’s been putting the boot into him too,’ said Whelan. ‘His picture appears on her page any time she’s referring to Islamist extremism. You don’t need a psychology degree to join the dots.’
‘Well, he’s black,’ said Lady Di. ‘They don’t actually use the words “send ’em back”, but I think it’s safe to say the Gimballs aren’t about to endorse a rainbow coalition.’ She paused. ‘Jaffrey’s been poked at by everyone from us to the transport police, and I expect the Girl Guides have had a go too. Nobody’s caught him making suicide belts in his basement yet.’
‘Any dubious connections?’
‘He’s a politician. They all share platforms with dodgy customers one time or other, because dodgy customers make it their business to share platforms with pols. But if he was into anything seriously muddy, it would have shown up by now. Let’s face it, he’s in his forties, he’s got a dick. If he was the type to fall for a honey-trap, he’d have done so already.’
‘No buts?’
‘There are always buts,’ said Lady Di. ‘We’ve been fooled before.’
