Michael Dobbs - The Final Cut

As luck – no, the fortune of family connection -would have it, a second cousin to the mother of Elizabeth Urquhart (nee Colquhoun) still owned substantial Northern acreages in the vicinity of Cold Kirby, along with the hereditary titles pertaining thereto, and Elizabeth had engaged her noble cousin to extend an invitation to drinks on the terrace.

The terrace of the Palace of Westminster fronts the northern bank of the great river where once had strolled Henry VIII, through the blossom trees and hedging of what at that time had been his palace garden. It was always a problem site, being immediately adjacent to the medieval City of London with its teeming humanity and overflowing chamber pots. Perhaps it was on some fetid summer's day while walking through the overpowering air that the King grew envious of the sweet-scented palace that stood further upstream at Hampton Court, where his Lord Chancellor lived, Cardinal Wolsey, a man whose fortunes and grasp on his home were to decline as the tidal flow of the Thames washed its noisome waters beyond, and then back again, past the King's door. In any event, the spot never achieved great popularity until those mightiest of urban redevelopers, the Victorians, built both sewers and solid embankment and thereby transformed its attractions. By the side of the river the architects Barry and Pugin erected a great orange-gold palace for Parliament in the manner of a sandcastle by the beach, complete with flags and turrets. On its fringe they formed a terrace where on warm summer days members of either House of Parliament might sit and sup, the lapping waters easing the passage of time and legislation instead of launching, as in days of old, an assault on their senses.

Major the Lord 'Bungy' Colquhoun travelled to London infrequently, but when he did he found the House of Lords a most convenient club. He had therefore been amenable to his cousin's prompting that he should hold a small drinks party on the terrace and invite a few carefully selected guests. He did not know his near-neighbour and soon-to-be-noble brother from Cold Kirby, but was happy to meet him. As was Elizabeth.

Watling was an affable man, courteous but cautious, feeling his way on uncertain soil. Like Boycott at Headingley in the overs before lunch, he was not a man to rush. For a while on the terrace he stood quietly, staring across the silt-brown river to where an army of worker-ants were transforming what had been St Thomas's Hospital into what was to become an office and shopping complex with multi-screen cinema. 'Progress?' she enquired, standing at his elbow. 'You mean the fact that if my heart were to stop right now they'd take an additional fifteen minutes to get me to treatment?' He shook his head. 'Since you ask, probably not.'

'But it wouldn't, you know, not in the House of Lords. Every Gothic nook and cranny in the place seems to be stuffed with all sorts of special revival equipment. Every closet a cardiac unit. You're not allowed to die, you know. Not in a royal palace. It's against the rules.'

He chuckled. 'That's reassuring, Mrs Urquhart. I suppose as a judge I'd better stick to the rules.' 'I don't profess to understand the legal system…'

'You're not supposed to. Otherwise what'd be the point of all us lawyers beavering away at the taxpayers' vast expense?'

He was shy, mellowing a little; it was her turn to laugh. 'And are you taking the King's shilling at the moment?' 'The Cyprus shilling, to be precise.'

'Oh, that one's yours?' She allowed the breeze to ruffle through her hair, anxious not to appear – well, anxious. 'Is the case a difficult one?'

'Not unduly. The areas of difference are clear and not especially large; it's a finely balanced matter. So the panel sits in judgement for about twelve hours a week, the rest of the time we go off and… compose our thoughts.' He raised his glass of champagne in self-mockery.

'So there's a panel? For some reason I had the idea it was an entirely British affair.'

'And it would have been all the better for it. Sometimes I find the entente cordiale neither an entente nor particularly cordiale.' The previous day Rodin, the Frenchman, had been at his most persistently illogical and truculent. But then he usually was. 'So the French are involved, too?'

'And a Malaysian, an Egyptian and a Serb. In theory the heat we generate is supposed to reforge swords for the service of a better world, although in practice the ploughshares often have edges like razors.'

'I suspect you're secretly very proud of what you do. But – forgive my ignorance – doesn't having such a mixture of nationalities, and particularly the French, in this case make your task a little… awkward?' 'In every case,' he agreed with vehemence. 'But why especially in this?' 'I mean, with the oil…' 'Oil? What oil?'

'Don't you know? Surely you must. They will have told you.' 'Told me what? The seismic showed no oil.'

'But apparently there's another report, very commercially confidential, or so I've heard – perhaps I shouldn't have? – which says the place is floating on a vast reservoir of oil. And if it goes to the Greek side, the French have been promised the exploitation rights.' She looked puzzled. 'Doesn't that make it difficult for a French judge?'

So that's what the bastard Breton's been up to… Watling's face clouded with concern, while the great River Thames, and Elizabeth beside it, rushed on.

'Forgive me. Forget everything I've said. It was probably something I overheard and shouldn't have – you know, I never really take much notice of these things, whether I should know or shouldn't know.' She sounded flustered. 'I'm a silly woman stumbling into areas I don't understand. I should stick to dusting and Woman's Hour.'

'It is probably something we shouldn't be talking about,' he conceded, his face soured as though his drink had been spiked. 'I have to deal with the facts that are presented to me. Impartially. Cut myself off completely from extraneous material and – forgive me – gossip.'

'I hope I haven't embarrassed you. Please say you'll forgive me.'

'Of course. You weren't to know.' He spoke softly but had become studiously formal, the judge once more, gazing again across the river, at nothing. Working it out.

Elizabeth held silence for a moment as she fought to recompose herself, twirling the long stem of her glass nervously. It was time to occupy new territory, any new territory, so long as it wasn't sitting on oil. She offered her best matronly smile. 'I'm so glad you could bring your mother; I understand Bungy gave you both tea.'

He nodded gently. 'My mother particularly enjoyed the toasted teacakes. Couldn't stand the Earl Grey, though. Said she was going to bring her own tea bags with her next time.' Watling experienced a sudden twinge of anxiety – 'next time'. Had the baron-to-be let slip a confidence by appearing to assume too much? Would the Prime Minister's wife know about New Year? But surely the invitation to tea and the terrace was simply a means of easing him into The System? 'And your father?'

'No longer with us, I'm afraid. Indeed, to my enduring regret I never knew him, nor he me.'

'How very sad.' Once more she was ill at ease, flushed, seeming incapable of finding the right topic, distressed by her clumsiness. She took a deep breath. 'Look, all my nonsense about oil, please don't think I was implying that it might affect the opinion of the French judge. I respect the French, they're a nation of brave and independent spirits. Don't you agree?'

Watling all but choked on his champagne. She took his arm, fussing with concern. His eyes bulged red, his complexion bucolic. She began to wonder about the revival equipment.

'My apologies,' he coughed, 'but I'm afraid I don't entirely share your opinion about the French. A little personal prejudice.'