Michael Dobbs - To play the king

The reception desk was tiny and the waiting room dull, covered in mediocre early Victorian oils of horses and hunting scenes in imitation of Stubbs and Ben Marshall. One of them might have been an authentic John Herring; he couldn't be positive but he was beginning to develop an eye for such things; after all, he'd bought enough of the genuine article over the past few years. Almost immediately he was being summoned by a young footman in full livery, waisted tails, buckles and stockings, and ushered into a small but immaculately appointed lift where the mahogany shone as deep as the Palace servant's shoes. He wished his mother had been here: she would have loved it. She'd been born on the day Queen Alexandra died and had always believed it somehow tied her in, hinting at a mysterious 'special link', and in later life attending gatherings of spiritualists. Just before his dear old mum had taken her own trip to 'the other side' she had stood for three hours to catch a view through the crowd of Princess Di on her wedding day. She'd only seen the back of the coach, and that for no more than a few seconds, but she'd waved her flag and cheered and cried, and come home feeling she had done her bit. For her it was all patriotic pride and commemorative biscuit tins. She would be wetting herself if she were gazing down now. 'Your first time?' the footman enquired.

Landless nodded. Princess Charlotte had telephoned him. An exclusive interview with the Telegraph, implying she had set it up herself. Would he be sure to send someone reliable? And allow the Palace to check the article before it was printed? Perhaps they could have lunch again soon? He was being led along a broad corridor with windows overlooking the inner courtyard. The paintings were better here, portraits of long-forgotten Royal scions by masters whose names had endured rather better.

'You address him as "Your Majesty" when you first go in. Afterwards you can simply call him "Sir",' the footman muttered as they approached a solid but unpretentious door.

As the door swung quietly open, Landless remembered Charlotte's other question. Was the idea a good one? He had doubts, serious doubts, about whether an exclusive interview would be good for the King, but he knew it would be bloody marvellous for his newspaper.

'Sally? Sorry to telephone so early. You haven't been in contact for a day or two. Everything all right?'

In fact it had been nearly a week, and although Urquhart had sent along flowers and two major potential clients, he hadn't found the right moment to call. He shrugged. They'd had a spat, she would get over it. She would have to if she wanted to retain an inside track. In any event, this was urgent.

'How's the opinion poll coming along? Ready yet?' He tried to judge her mood down the phone. Perhaps a little cool and formal, almost as if he'd woken her up. Anyway this was business. 'Something's come up. Word is His Royal Conscience has given an exclusive interview to the Telegraph and they're hoping to get it cleared for publication in a couple of days. I haven't any idea what's in it. Landless is sitting on it as though he were hatching an egg, but I can't help feeling that in the public interest there should be a bit of balance. Don't you think? Perhaps an opinion poll, published beforehand, reflecting the growing public disaffection with the Royal Family? To put the interview in context?' He looked out of the window across St James's Park, where, beside the pelican pool, two women were struggling in the grubby morning light to pull their squabbling dogs apart. 'I suspect some newspapers like the Times might even infer that the King's interview was a hurried and somewhat desperate attempt to respond to the opinion poll.' He winced as one of the women, her smaller pet lodged firmly between the jaws of a large black mongrel, gave the other dog a firm kick in the testicles. The dogs separated, only for the two owners to begin snarling at each other. 'It would be really superb if the poll were ready for release by, say… this afternoon?'

As Sally rolled over to place the phone back in its cradle, she stretched the aches of the night out of her bones. She lay staring at the ceiling for a few moments, allowing the mental instructions to seep from her brain down through her body. Her nose was twitching like a periscope above the sheets, tasting the news she had just received. She sat up in bed, alive and alert, and turned to the form beside her. 'Got to go, lover. Mischief afoot and work to be done.'

Guardian, Page One, 27 January

A new storm of controversy surrounded the Royal Family last night when the Bishop of Durham, from the pulpit of his cathedral, questioned the King's religious motives. Quoting the King's much-criticised newspaper interview earlier this week in which he revealed a deep interest in Eastern religions and did not discount the possibility of physical resurrection, the fundamentalist Bishop attacked such 'fashionable dalliance with mysticism'.

The King is the Defender of the Faith and anointed head of our Church of England. But is he a Christian?'

Buckingham Palace indicated last night that the King had simply been trying to emphasize, as King of a country with a large number of racial and religious minorities, that he felt it his duty not to take a narrow and restrictive view of his religious role. But the Bishop's attack seems set to fuel further controversy in the wake of the recent critical opinion poll which showed dramatically falling support for some members of the Royal Family such as Princess Charlotte, and a growing demand to restrict the number of members of the Royal Family who receive their income from the Civil List.

Supporters of the King rallied to his defence last night. 'We shouldn't be enticed into a constitutional supermarket, shopping around for the cheapest form of government,' Viscount Quillington said.

In contrast, critics were quick to point out that the King, in spite of his own personal popularity, was failing to set a clear lead in many areas. 'The Crown should stand for the highest standards of public morality,' one senior Government backbencher said, 'but his leadership of his own family leaves much to be desired. They are letting down both him and us. They are overpaid, overtanned, underworked, and overly numerous.'

The Royal oak is being shaken,' said another critic. 'It would do no harm if one or two members of the Family were to fall out of the branches…'

News began trickling through shortly before four in the afternoon, and by the time it was confirmed the short winter's day had finished and all London was dark. It was a wretched day; a warm front had passed across the capital bringing in its wake a deluge of relentless rain which would continue well into the night. It was a day for staying home.

Staying home had been the mistake, fatally so, of three women and their children who called 14 Queensgate Crescent, a tenement block in the middle of Notting Hill, home. It was the heart of old slumland, which in the sixties had housed streetwalkers and tides of immigrants under the stern eye of racketeers. 'Rachmanism' they had called it then, after the most notorious of the landlord-racketeers. 'Bed and breakfast' it was called in the modern parlance, where the local council housed one-parent and problem families while they searched around listlessly for somewhere or someone else to take over the responsibility. Much of the temporary accommodation provided in Number 14 had changed little in the thirty-odd years since it had been a brothel. Single rooms, shared bathrooms, inadequate heating, noise, rotting woodwork and unremitting depression. When it rained, they would watch the windowsills trickle and the damp brown stains creep even lower as the wallpaper peeled from the walls. But it was better than sitting in the middle of the downpour outside, or so they had thought.