Judd smiled benevolently. ‘Even if you don’t have a steering committee, you have decisions to make, and people helping make them. It’s possible that among that number are some who are there specifically for the purpose of reporting your intentions to what I suppose we’ll have to call the authorities. Or maybe they’re just hangers-on, joining your gatherings. If so, you’ll soon work out who they are. They’ll be the ones encouraging the others to pick up a brick and throw it through a window. Or suggesting that instead of moving on nicely when Mr Policeman instructs, you have a go at him instead.
‘And you’re saying that’s me.’
‘And by association, everyone who supports your movement.’ Judd put his cup down. ‘More? Sure? You don’t mind if I do?’ He poured. ‘I may already have managed to curtail these covert activities. If not, I shall do so in short order. Meanwhile, let me return to my opening argument. Political respectability. It’s not about being elected, it’s about having a voice.’
‘Oh, I have a voice. And it’s being heard loud and clear.’
‘Is it? Because as far as mainstream media goes, you’re a joke. The rabble at the gates. All that muckraking going on, digging up your CV. Non-payment of child support, some minor cases of affray. Mortgage fraud too, wasn’t it?’
‘That was a clerical error!’
‘Oh, I’m sure. But the point is, that’s what the headlines are saying every time your picture appears. But they’re not painting you a yob just because you’re a yob. They’re doing it because they’re frightened. What you need to do is make capital out of that fear.’
Flint was rubbing his stomach abstractedly. It looked very much like that was the sort of thing he did when concentrating, so was presumably already on Judd’s mental list of stuff that would need sorting out. He said, ‘What are you suggesting?’
‘That I help,’ Judd told him. ‘I can put you next to the right people, who’ll give you a fair hearing, and the opportunity to have your voice heard unaccompanied by editorial condemnation.’
‘And?’
‘And I’ll make sure you’re seen in the right places, and with the right company. At the moment you’re on the news pages, and a punchline on panel shows. But once you start appearing in the diary columns, well. Then you’re being taken seriously.’ He put his cup down. ‘Channel Go will do for starters. It has aspirations, and it’s looking for someone to pin its colours to. If it decides to back you, that means you’ll have got clout tomorrow you didn’t have today. And if that happens often enough, you become an unstoppable force.’
‘You make it sound easy,’ said Flint. ‘But what’s in it for you?’
‘Power.’
‘That’s very … frank.’
‘I often am. Oh, I lie my teeth off like everyone else when it’s in my best interests. But here and now, there’s no point lying. Your movement may be going places, and I’ve never wanted to be on the wrong side of history. That being the losing side, of course.’
‘And what if I decide I don’t want your help?’
‘Then I’ll put the same effort into destroying you. But don’t let that upset you. It’s nothing personal.’
Flint was nodding, agreeing with some conclusion he’d just reached. ‘I always thought you were just another posh dick. Like him in Number Ten. But you’re a hard bastard, aren’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Judd. ‘Also, my life’s not a super-injunction. And the number of children I have is a matter of public record.’
‘Out of interest—’
‘I said public record. I didn’t say I’d committed it to memory. I’ll call this evening. Have an answer ready.’
And just like that he switched his attention off, as if Desmond Flint had already left the room.
‘I should warn you,’ said Shirley Dander. ‘Last couple of times I teamed up with someone, they’re both dead.’
‘… Did you kill them?’
‘Uh-uh.’ She shook her head virtuously. ‘I mean, I might kill Ho given the chance. But it hasn’t come up.’
They’d bought enchiladas at Whitecross market and carried them up to the Barbican terraces; were eating perched on the concrete border of a dystopian-looking flowerbed. It struck Lech that this was the first time he’d shared a meal in months. Even half an hour ago, the notion would have sounded absurd. Shirley wasn’t a friend. She was just a nearby occurrence, like a disturbing weather pattern.
He took a mouthful and scanned both directions. There was nobody watching that he could see. That, though, would be the point of the exercise.
Shirley said, ‘Don’t do that.’
‘… What?’
‘Let anyone know we know.’
He ran that through translation software. ‘You spotted someone?’
Shirley shrugged. ‘There was a guy at the market might have been following. But once you know someone’s doing it, you see the bastards everywhere. Like mice.’
Lech thought of the mousetrap he’d once put in his bin, a little surprise for Roddy Ho, who’d been going through his rubbish. Good times.
