Michael Dobbs: The Final Cut

'There are some who will not forget, who cannot forget. Evil men who wallow in memories, in selfishness beyond belief, who will sacrifice an entire community in order to indulge their own personal vendettas.' He was staring straight at Passolides. 'That is the evil of ambition. Not the ambition to fight for peace, but simply to fight. Old battles, any battles. Sick minds which refuse to forget.'

Passolides' mouth was working in the greatest agitation. His eyes had filled with blood. Urquhart studied him with analytical care as might an actor on a stage involved in the greatest performance of his life, feeling for his audience, reaching for their emotions, flaying them alive. He believed in this role without reservation, nothing else in the world mattered.

'I have no family, apart from Elizabeth.' He turned to look at her, a look of absolute trust and gratitude. 'I have no children. No brothers or sisters. Tom Makepeace has claimed you all as brothers and sisters today…' A fog had entered his voice, he allowed the words to hang across the square. There was no applause, no one any longer rushing to be identified with Makepeace. Urquhart had them, had turned them. The play was nearly at its end.

He smiled at Passolides. The same cold smile with the touch of British arrogance he had held when photographed as a young Lieutenant in Cyprus. Sneering. Contemptuous. Spitting the words at him. The old man was fumbling at his belt; Urquhart's eyes never left him.

'Perhaps he had the right to do so. But if he claims the living, then let me claim the dead.'

Passolides seemed to be crying, his jaw adrift. Urquhart claiming the dead. George. Eurypides. This man was the Devil himself…

'The children and brothers and sisters who have dreamed fine dreams, as I have, who have laid down their lives in Cyprus over the years, sacrificed for the peace which I too have sought…'

And then he stopped. Caught his breath. Felt something on his chest. He looked down to see a dark patch beginning to grow on his crisp white shirt. Then a second patch appeared and he felt his knees begin to give way. But not yet. His body seemed reluctant to answer his calls but he turned towards Elizabeth, saw the look in her eyes, reached towards her, to embrace her, to protect her as another blow hit his back and pushed him into her arms. He slid to the wooden floor as he heard two sharp explosions very close at hand. His eyes were misting but he could see Corder standing with a gun in his hand, pointing it into the crowd. He could see Elizabeth bending over him, fighting to be brave. And he could see something very bright in his eyes. Was it the sun? Or a burning tree? It was growing brighter. 'Elizabeth? Elizabeth! Where are you?'

She was very close, but he could not focus; she was gripping his hand, but he could no longer feel. There was no pain. A sense of exhaustion, perhaps. And exhilaration. Triumph. At having cheated them all, even at the end. And cheated them by his end. Cheated them all, except Elizabeth.

His lips moved, she kissed them, cradled him as close as she dared, ignoring the blood and the screams about her.

He smiled, his eyes finding her once more, and whispered. 'Great ruins.'

She kissed him again, long, until Corder bent over to separate her from the body. A nation held its collective breath as it watched and rewatched the televised scenes of Francis Urquhart, his body already mortally wounded, throwing himself protectively in front of Elizabeth. A noble death. A great death, even, it was said.

Not so for Evanghelos Passolides. He died even before Urquhart, felled by Corder's bullets. It was never discovered why he had chosen to assassinate the Prime Minister, 'Britain's JFK' as the tabloids put it, but the public knew who to blame. Thomas Makepeace. Close associate and, as was almost immediately revealed, adulterous lover of the old man's daughter. Criminal-conspiracy charges were considered but nothing could be proved in court, although the circumstantial proof against Makepeace had been established in the minds of the voters long before election day.

From Monday until polling day Urquhart's body lay in state in the Great Hall at Westminster where the public filed past to pay homage without pause. And on polling day itself they queued to return his now-united party in numbers unprecedented in modern electoral history. He had won. The final victory.

Not everything was as Urquhart would have wished. The chairman of Booza-Pitt's constituency party, on opening the letter withdrawing his knighthood, had a heart attack and died on his kitchen floor. He was never able to denounce Geoffrey, who claimed that the photocopied letter sent to the Privileges Committee and the News of the World was a forgery. Indeed, his hand had shaken so much in the writing that his claim was persuasive, and in any event the editor decided there was little profit in attempting to disgrace such a new and obviously grieving widow. So Geoffrey survived, for the moment, in the new Administration.

That Administration was led by Maxwell Stanbrook, whose Jewishness and dubious parentage proved to be distractions rather than direct hits during his campaign to become Prime Minister. The party decided there was nothing wrong with ability. And he made Claire a Minister. It took a couple of years before Elizabeth, the Countess Urquhart, had founded the Library on a site beside the Thames donated by the Government, and it was many more years before peace talks began again in earnest in Cyprus. It was still longer before revisionist historians tried to dislodge the memory of Francis Urquhart from the hearts of a grateful nation. They did not succeed.