Jeffrey Archer - As the Crow Flies

When the evening finally came to an end, Becky thanked the Prime Minister, who in turn thanked her.

"What for?" asked Becky.

"Taking telephone calls in my name, and making excellent decisions on my behalf," he said, as he accompanied them both down the long corridor to the front hall.

"I had no idea you knew," said Charlie, turning scarlet.

"Knew? Woolton told the entire cabinet the next day. Never seen them laugh so much."

When the Prime Minister reached the front door of Number 10, he gave Becky a slight bow and said, "Good night, Lady Trumper."

"You know what that means, don't you?" said Charlie as he drove out of Downing Street and turned right into Whitehall.

"That you're about to get a knighthood?"

"Yes, but more important, we're going to have to sell the van Gogh."

"You're a little bastard," remains my first memory. I was five and three-quarters at the time and the words were being shouted by a small girl on the far side of the playground as she pointed at me and danced up and down. The rest of the class stopped and stared, until I ran across and pinned her against the wall.

"What does it mean?" I demanded, squeezing her arms.

She burst into tears and said, "I don't know. I just heard my mum tell my dad that you were a little bastard."

"I know what the word means," said a voice from behind me. I turned round to find myself surrounded by the rest of the pupils from my class, but I was quite unable to work out who had spoken.

"What does it mean?" I said again, even louder."

"Give me sixpence and I'll tell you."

I stared up at Neil Watson, the form bully who always sat in the row behind me.

"I've only got threepence."

He considered the offer for some time before saying, "All right then, I'll tell you for threepence."

He walked up to me, thrust out the palm of his hand, and waited until I'd slowly unwrapped my handkerchief and passed over my entire pocket money for the week. He then cupped his hands and whispered into my ear, "You don't have a father."

"It's not true!" I shouted, and started punching him on the chest. But he was far bigger than me and only laughed at my feeble efforts. The bell sounded for the end of break and everyone ran back to class, several of them laughing and shouting in unison, "Daniel's a little bastard."

Nanny came to pick me up from school that afternoon and when I was sure none of my classmates could overhear me I asked her what the word meant. She only said, "What a disgraceful question, Daniel, and I can only hope that it's not the sort of thing they're teaching you at St. David's. Please don't let me ever hear you mention the word again."

Over tea in the kitchen, when nanny had left to go and run my bath, I asked cook to tell me what "bastard" meant. All she said was, "I'm sure I don't know, Master Daniel, and I would advise you not to ask anyone else."

I didn't dare ask my mother or father in case what Neil Watson had said turned out to be true, and I lay awake all night wondering how I could find out.

Then I remembered that a long time ago my mother had gone into hospital and was meant to come back with a brother or sister for me, and didn't. I wondered if that's what made you a bastard.

About a week later nanny had taken me to visit Mummy at Guy's Hospital but I can't recall that much about the outing, except that she looked very white and sad. I remember feeling very happy when she eventually came home.

The next episode in my life that I recall vividly was going to St. Paul's School at the age of eleven. There I was made to work really hard for the first time in my life. At my prep school I came top in almost every subject without having to do much more than any other child, and although I was called "swot" or "swotty," it never worried me. At St. Paul's there turned out to be lots of boys who were clever, but none of them could touch me when it came to maths. I not only enjoyed a subject so many of my classmates seemed to dread but the marks I was awarded in the end of term exams appeared always to delight my mum and dad. I couldn't wait for the next algebraic equation, a further geometric puzzle or the challenge of solving an arithmetic test in my head while others in the form sucked their pencils as they considered pages of longhand figures.

I did quite well in other subjects and although I was not much good at games I took up the cello and was invited to join the school orchestra, but my form master said none of this was important because I was obviously going to be a mathematician for the rest of my life. I didn't understand what he meant at the time, as I knew Dad had left school at fourteen to run my great-grandfather's fruit and vegetable barrow in Whitechapel, and even though Mum had gone to London University she still had to work at Number 1 Chelsea Terrace to keep Dad "in the style to which he'd become accustomed." Or that's what I used to hear Mum telling him at breakfast from time to time.

It must have been around that time that I discovered what the word "bastard" really meant. We were reading King John out loud in class, so I was able to ask Mr. Saxon-East, my English master, without drawing too much attention to the question. One or two of the boys looked round and sniggered, but this time there were no pointed fingers or whispers, and when I was told the meaning I remember thinking Neil Watson hadn't been that far off the mark in the first place. But of course such an accusation could not be leveled at me, because my very first memories had involved my mum and dad being together. They had always been Mr. and Mrs. Trumper.

I suppose I would have dismissed the whole memory of that early incident if I hadn't come down to the kitchen one night for a glass of milk and overheard Joan Moore talking to Harold the butler.

"Young Daniel's doing well at school," said Harold. "Must have his mother's brains."

"True, but let's pray that he never finds out the truth about his father." The words made me freeze to the stair rail. I continued to listen intently.

"Well, one thing's for certain," continued Harold. "Mrs. Trentham's never going to admit the boy's her grandson, so heaven knows who'll end up with all that money."

"Not Captain Guy any longer, that's for sure," said Joan. "So perhaps that brat Nigel will be left the lot."

After that the conversation turned to who should lay up for breakfast so I crept back upstairs to my bedroom; but I didn't sleep. Although I sat on those steps for many hours during the next few months, patiently waiting for another vital piece of information that might fall from the servants' lips, the subject never arose between them again.

The only other occasion I could recall having heard the name "Trentham" had been some time before, when the Marchioness of Wiltshire, a close friend of my mother's, came to tea. I remained in the hall when my mother asked, "Did you go to Guy's funeral?"

"Yes, but it wasn't well attended by the good parishioners of Ashurst," the marchioness assured her. "Those who remembered him well seemed to be treating the occasion more as if it were a blessed release."

"Was Sir Raymond present?"

"No, he was conspicuous by his absence," came back the reply. "Mrs. Trentham claimed he was too old to travel, which only acted as a sad reminder that she still stands to inherit a fortune in the not too distant future."

New facts learned, but they still made little sense.

The name of "Trentham" arose in my presence once more when I heard Daddy talking to Colonel Hamilton as he was leaving the house after a private meeting that had been held in his study. All Daddy said was, "However much we offer Mrs. Trentham, she's never going to sell those flats to us."