Michael Dobbs - The Final Cut

Mackintosh considered, and rejected the option of prevarication. Urquhart wanted it straight. 'Nothing. It's not what you've done, it's what you are. You're a giant, your shadow falls across the political world and leaves others in the shade. You've been a great man, Francis, but it's time for a change. Let others have a chance to grow.' He smiled gently; he'd put it rather well, he thought. 'It's business, you understand. The business of politics and of newspapers. Nothing personal.'

Urquhart seemed unaffected by the obituary. 'I'm obliged to you, Jasper, for being so direct. I've always thought we had a relationship which was robust and candid, which could withstand the knocks of changing times.'

'That's extremely generous of you…' Mackintosh began, but Urquhart was talking straight through him.

'And speaking of the knocks of changing times, I thought it only fair – in equal candour and confidence – to share with you some plans which the Treasury are proposing to push forward. Now you know I am not a man of high finance, I leave that to the experts like you. Extraordinary how the nation entrusts the fate of its entire national fortune to politicians like me who can scarcely add up.' He shrugged his shoulders, as though trying to slough off some unwelcome burden. 'But as I understand it you've undertaken to buy the Clarion and are going to pay for it all by issuing a large number of bonds to your friends in the City.'

The newspaper man nodded. This was all public knowledge, a straightforward plan to raise the money by huge borrowings, with the interest payments being set off against his existing company's profits. Overall his profits would plummet but so would his tax bill, and in effect the Inland Revenue would end up paying for the expansion of the Mackintosh empire, which in a few years' time would be turned into one of the biggest money spinners in the country. Debt today, paid for by the tax man, in exchange for huge profit tomorrow, paid directly to Mackintosh. Creative accounting and entirely legal. The money men loved it.

'The point is,' the Prime Minister continued, 'and this is just between the two of us, as old friends…'

Somewhere inside, at the mention of friendship, Mackintosh felt his muesli move.

'… the Treasury is planning to make a few changes. As from next week. Something about the losses of one company no longer being able to be set off against the profits of another. I don't profess to understand it, do you?'

Of course Mackintosh understood. So well that he grabbed the wall for support. It was a proposal to slash the canvas of his creative accounting to shreds. With those rules his tax bill would soar and even the dullest underwriter would realize he'd no longer be able to repay the debt. He was already committed to buying the Clarion, no way out of it, yet at the slightest hint of a rule change the money men would wash their hands of the whole plan, walk away to their champagne bars and Porsches, leaving him with… 'Ruin. You'd ruin me. I'd lose everything.'

'Really? That would be a pity. But the Treasury button counters are so very keen on this new idea, and who am I to argue with them?' 'You are the bloody Prime Minister!'

'Yes, I am. But, apparently, one not long for this world. On the way out.'

'Oh, God.' Mackintosh's shoulders had slumped, the tailored suit seeming to hang like sacking. A man reduced. He raised his eyes in search of salvation but all he could find were the long drapes which stood guard beside the tall sash windows of the hallway, coloured like claret, or blood. His blood. Time to swallow pride, words, self-respect. He cleared his throat with difficulty. 'It seems my editors have badly misjudged you, Prime Minister. You appear to have lost neither your acumen nor your enthusiasm for office. I shall inform them of their error immediately. And I think I can assure you that no editor who holds anything but the highest regard for your many and varied talents will ever work for one of my newspapers.'

For an endless breath Urquhart said nothing. The lips closed, grew thin, like the leathered beak of a snapper turtle, and the eyes ignited with a reptilian malevolence and a desire to do harm that Mackintosh could physically feel. It was the stuff of childish nightmares; he could taste his own fear. 'Good.' At last the lips had moved. 'You can find your own way out.' Urquhart had already turned his back and was a step away from the dejected Mackintosh when he spun round for one final word, the features now bathed in a practised smile.

'By the way, Jasper. You understand, don't you? All this. It's business. Nothing personal.' And he was gone. It was a night out for the boys. Loud, rumbustious, earthy, scarcely diplomatic, not at all ecclesiastical. Hardly the place one expected to find His Grace the Bishop of Marion and the High Commissioner of the Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. But the Cypriot Bishop was one of the new breed of clerics who sought orthodoxy only in their religion.

'Welcome, most high of high commissioners.' The Bishop, clad in the black of the clerical cassock, spread his arms in greeting and chuckled. As Hugh Martin, the British diplomat, entered, three of the four men who had been sitting alongside the Bishop rose and melted to the sidelines. The fourth, who was as broad as the Bishop was tall, was introduced as his brother, Dimitri.

'I'm delighted you could come and enjoy what, with God's grace, will be a night of momentous victory for my team,' the Bishop continued, while two girls who said nothing through enormous smiles offered trays of wine and finger food.

'Your team, your Grace?' Martin enquired light-heartedly.

'Indeed,' the Bishop responded in his most earnest of tones. 'I own the team. In the name of the bishopric, of course. A fine way of extending God's bounty to the masses, don't you think?' On cue the thousands of ardent soccer supporters packed into Nicosia's Makarios Stadium erupted into a stamping war cry of delight as twenty-two players filed onto the pitch. The Cyprus Cup Final was about to get underway.

In the corner of the private box high up in the stadium a mobile phone warbled and one of the besuited assistants began muttering into the mouthpiece. Martin looked afresh at the scene. He was new to the posting in the Cypriot capital yet already had heard of the extrovert Theophilos, still only in his forties, who controlled an empire which covered not only hearts and souls but also pockets – a newspaper, two hotels, several editors, still more politicians and a vineyard which was arguably the finest on the island. But Martin hadn't known about the football team. Clearly there was much to learn about this Harvard Business School-educated, well-groomed cleric.

The Englishman was grateful for the whirring fans which spilled the air around the box. Nicosia was one of those capitals which seemed to be in the wrong place, tucked behind the Kyrenia mountains on the wide plains of Mesaoria, touched by neither rippling sea breeze nor fresh mountain air, where even as early as May the heat and exhaust fumes built to oppressive levels. The Makarios Stadium had become a concrete cauldron nearing the boil, bringing sweat and fanatical passion to the brows of the packed crowd, yet beneath his ankle-length bishop's robes Theophilos remained cool. Elegantly he dispatched instructions via the assistants who sat behind him, all of whom were introduced as theology teachers yet who, judging by their frequent telephone conversations, were equally at home in the world of Mammon. Only his brother Dimitri, a highly strung man of fidgeting fingers whose tongue ceaselessly explored the comers of his cheeks, sat alongside the Bishop and the High Commissioner; the others remained in a row of chairs behind, except for a single man who neither spoke nor smiled but stood guard beside the door. Martin thought he detected a bulge beneath the armpit, but surely not with a man of the cloth? He decided that the sweet, heavy wine they were drinking must be affecting his imagination.