Michael Dobbs - The Final Cut

'And the only other likely source of sound is Tom Makepeace. He's under arrest.' The Attorney General sounded positively cheerful.

A mood of enthusiasm began to warm the room, gradually beginning to thaw Urquhart's frozen thoughts. Perhaps the fly was not entombed in amber, perhaps it had only brushed against a web and might yet struggle free.

A low knock at the door interrupted their deliberation. A tentative head appeared around the door, followed by the rest of a private secretary who made his way towards the Prime Minister's chair. He placed a piece of paper on the table, then retired. Slowly Urquhart's eyes began to focus and read.

No matter how hard the fly struggled, there was no escape. Thomas Makepeace had been acquitted.

The dying sun had cast a hard shadow across the cutting. The temperature was still over a hundred but Nicolaou was shivering, as he had been all afternoon. His heartbeat was irregular, his voice a low tremble, but his mind had not lost its edge. 'I cannot leave, Elpida.'

'If you stay, Father, you will die.' She knelt beside him, mopping his brow.

'I'm not afraid. I've grown used to being threatened with death in the recent days.' It was his attempt at being light-hearted to dispel oppression, but it failed. The atmosphere remained fetid, laden with failure. The pool of pale light cast by the lamp inside the truck had drained the colour from his face, leaving only two small spots of protest which suffused the very tops of his cheeks. The rest of him looked like congealing wax.

'Come with me. Now.' Her plea betrayed her desperation. She pulled at him, feeling every bone in his frail hand, but he refused to rise from his mattress of blankets. He was no longer sure he was able, even if he tried.

'You should think about it, Sir,' St Aubyn intervened, his squatting form indistinct in the gloom which was slowly beginning to devour the far end of the truck. 'There's nothing to be gained from senseless suffering.'

'That is… noble of you, Colonel.' Nicolaou's breathing was growing shallow, he was struggling for his words. 'But you risked your lives to rescue us. I cannot desert our British friends.' 'Father, grow up.'

Her rebuke slapped across his face. His eyes, soft-glazed and distant, struggled to focus.

'They did not come to save our necks but those of their High Commissioner. And Mr Urquhart,' she continued. 'Isn't that right, Colonel?'

St Aubyn shrugged. 'I am a military man. I do as I am instructed. A soldier isn't trained to ask why.'

Nicolaou flapped his hand in feeble protest. 'But Mr Urquhart has been such a good friend to us, Elpida. The peace…'

'It is our peace, not his. And it's probably lost, anyway.'

The old man flinched. His suffering had been borne on the hope that all he had fought for would yet come to pass; the contemplation of failure drained him like leeches. 'Please tell me I haven't thrown it all away.'

'You cannot fight on two fronts at once, Father, seeming to give so much away to the Turks while giving in to the British. As much as we want peace, we Cypriots also have our pride. Sometimes that's more important.'

His hand shook in confusion, reaching for his daughter. 'All I have done, Elpida, I have done for you and those like you. For the future.' 'No, Baba. You haven't.'

Nicolaou started choking in confusion. St Aubyn leaned forward, whispering – 'Steady on, Miss' – but she ignored him.

'That's why I want you to leave here and join those people outside,' she continued. 'Why? Why?' her father moaned.

'Because, Baba, they are right. And for the British to occupy Cypriot land as lords and masters is wrong.' 'You never said such things before.'

'You never asked me. Nor did you ask anyone else. But Cyprus is changing. Growing up.' She turned to St Aubyn. 'Colonel, believe me, you will be welcomed in my house at any time. As a friend. But I don't want you in my house as of right.'

He nodded, but said nothing. The concept of retreating from distant outposts was not a novel one to a British soldier.

'Why do you scourge me so, Elpida?' Flakes fell from the President's fading voice.

'Because I love you, Baba. Because I don't want your life to end in failure. Because if we cross the line, join them, you will not only be doing what I believe to be right for our island, but also what is best for you. Salvaging pride, yes, and a little justice from the wreckage that has been strewn about Cyprus by the British. Maybe even saving the peace, too.'

St Aubyn coughed apologetically. 'The gentlemen outside, Sir, have insisted that you and your daughter will only be allowed across the line if you submit your resignation.'

'The presidency has become an uncomfortable bed on which to lie.'

'You cannot make peace with the Turks, Father, until you have brought peace back to our own community.'

'And, it would seem, to my own family.' Nicolaou sank back onto his rough pillow of blankets, exhausted but alert. His bony fingers gripped his daughter's hand, flexing like the beat of his heart as he struggled to find a way through the maze of his emotions. 'What is to be done? Can I achieve more by remaining in office, or by resigning?' 'Father, you can achieve nothing by dying.'

'To lose everything? The presidency? The peace? You, Elpida?'

'Baba, you will never lose my love,' she whispered, and he seemed to gain strength from her words. He squeezed her hand with more certainty, propping himself awkwardly on an elbow, barely able now to see beyond the small pool of lamplight that lit his makeshift bed.

'Colonel, if I decided to leave, would you allow me to?' 'You are not my prisoner, Sir.' 'Then, if you don't mind, I think I shall.'

The Colonel nodded and reached forward as though to help Nicolaou rise. Elpida waved him away.

'No, thank you, Colonel. If he can, I would like my father to walk back to his fellow Cypriots without leaning on a British arm.'

'I do feel stronger somehow,' her father acknowledged.

'Why do you think I have been kicking you so hard, Baba7.' she asked, kissing him gently. 'You always become so stubborn when you get angry.'

As she helped her father down from the truck she turned to St Aubyn. 'I did mean what I said, Colonel. That you will always be welcome in my house. As a friend.'

It was twilight. The candles flickered, the gentle song of a Cypriot schoolgirl quavered on the evening air as the final colours of purple and fire stretched out along the horizon like fingers drawing on the curtain of night. Leaning heavily on the arm of his daughter, the President of Cyprus turned his back on the British and walked the fifty yards to rejoin his countrymen. The new glass and front door had arrived that morning. A tax demand, too, along with an invitation to arrange a meeting with a VAT inspector. 'Vangelis'' was ready to resume business and already the wolves were circling, drawing nearer.

He felt hounded in every direction he looked. On television he had watched the scenes of Makepeace rejoicing outside the magistrates' court, raising his hands high above his head as though still manacled, receiving the same sign back from the spilling crowd and accepting their adulation and fervent endorsement. The victor. An Englishman who, so far as Passolides knew, had never set foot in Cyprus was now treated as his homeland's saviour. Honour built on the sacrifices of others. Sacrifices, thought Passolides, like his own.

The screen showed scenes of rejoicing from the island itself, too, as old men, gnarled and bent double like ancient olive trees, danced with young girls and waved rifles and flasks like some scene out of Zorba in celebration of the defection and deliverance of Nicolaou.

Everywhere he saw the happiness of others, but Passolides had no part in the joy. These should have been his victories, his accomplishments, yet once again as throughout his life he had found himself excluded.