Stanley Johnson - Kompromat

Christine Meadows, an eminent scientist with a sheaf of publications to her name, was beginning to be seriously worried about Harriet. As a researcher, she was used to reaching evidence-based conclusions and one of the conclusions she was coming to was that her partner was, quite frankly, losing it.

‘Hold on a moment, darling,’ she protested. ‘I know we or rather you want to win this Referendum but does that mean anything and everything goes?’

Harriet looked at her in surprise. She gestured at the television. ‘This stuff is like gold dust for us. This refugee crisis couldn’t have come at a better time. First, Chancellor Helga Brun, then President Ahmet Ergun. Both of them coming in right on cue.’

‘I think I’ll leave you to it.’ Christine went up to her study. She was still trying to finish her latest book. She switched on the computer, found the file, picked away at the keyboard. But still she couldn’t concentrate. What on earth had got into Harriet? She was working day and night. Kept on popping out to visit the newsagent at the end of the road with some lame excuse about picking up the evening paper.

Given the pressures of the campaign, with Harriet being awake half the night, they had been sleeping in separate rooms in recent weeks. When she came down to breakfast next morning, Harriet had already left. The car had gone too. She was surprised. Harriet normally took the tube to Westminster, then walked over the bridge to the Leave office in Westminster Tower.

She noticed a crumpled piece of paper on the kitchen table. Maybe Harriet had left her a note.

It wasn’t actually a piece of paper. More like one of those cards they stick up in the newsagent. Yes, that was exactly what it was. Another of those notices about a missing three-legged black cat. ‘Three-legged black cat found’ the notice said. ‘Ring 077238954978’.

On a whim, Christine Meadows rang the number. There was a strange screeching noise at the other end of the line. Then an automated voice said. ‘This number has been disconnected.’

Odd, Christine thought. Very odd indeed. What on earth was going on?

With one week to go before polling day, Barnard took the day off. He spent the morning on farm chores, went for a ride after lunch (his bay mare, Jemima, though getting on in years, was still good for a day’s outing with the local hunt), then worked on his papers at the table in the drawing room.

The French windows opened out onto the terrace. In the middle distance, beyond the water meadows, the gentle hills of the Wiltshire Downs glowed in the afternoon sunshine.

What a lucky man he was, Barnard thought. When all this was over, he could spend a bit more time at Coleman Court: dam a chalk stream, make a pond, build a folly. That kind of thing.

His musings were interrupted by his wife, Melissa, carrying a tray of goodies.

‘Scones, clotted cream and strawberry jam,’ Melissa proclaimed. ‘Only seven more days left. Let’s celebrate.’

‘Let’s wait at least till tomorrow before we open the champagne,’ Barnard cautioned. ‘I may fall flat on my face tonight.’

‘I’m sure you won’t, darling.’

Truth to tell, Edward Barnard, who was usually as unflappable as they come, was just the tiniest bit nervous about the event in which he would be participating that evening. Not since 1933 when the Oxford Union had considered the motion ‘this House will in no circumstances fight for its King and Country’ had an occasion been so widely heralded.

Back then, the whole country had awaited the outcome with bated breath, and when the Oxford Union decisively approved the motion, waves of anger and disgust had risen across the land. The Daily Express trumpeted: ‘DISLOYALTY AT OXFORD: GESTURE TOWARDS THE REDS’. Cambridge University threatened to pull out of the annual boat race. Winston Churchill made a tub-thumping speech calling the result ‘That abject, squalid, shameless avowal’.

There was every chance, Barnard thought, that the evening’s debate in the Oxford Union, more than eighty years later, would prove equally if not more controversial. The Referendum was rapidly descending into a free-for-all knockout contest with Marquess of Queensberry rules suspended for the duration.

Melissa Barnard was just clearing the tea things away when she heard the sound of tyres crunching on gravel. She looked up to see a black four-wheel drive Range Rover with tinted windows enter the courtyard. She put the tray down and went outside.

Jerry Goodman, thirty-four years old, ex-Royal Marines and now a member of the Met’s Special Security Squad, got out of the vehicle.

‘Good evening, Ma’am,’ he greeted Melissa.

‘Hello, Jerry,’ she said, Then, as two other plain-clothes officers emerged from the vehicle, she added, ‘Hello, Tom; hello, Anna. Come in and have some tea. We’ll be ready in a jiffy.’

She took them into the kitchen and left them there, cradling mugs of tea in their hands, while she went upstairs. Barnard had already put his dinner jacket on.

‘The team’s here,’ she said. Strange, wasn’t it, she thought, how quickly they had got used to having ‘security’ around.

The Barnards had a Range Rover too. They left in convoy.

‘You go first,’ Jerry said. ‘You may as well head straight for the Union. They’ve got parking spaces for us there.’

‘That’s something,’ Barnard said. ‘Last time I made a speech at the Union in Oxford, I spent half-an-hour looking for a place to park.’

Barnard studied the order paper while his wife drove. The terms of the motion, he observed, deliberately echoed that famous ‘King and Country’ debate so many years ago. It stated ‘that this House will in no circumstances vote to leave the European Union’.

The motion was due to be proposed by Lord Middlebank. It was to be seconded by none other than the current chancellor of the exchequer, Tom Milbourne. The first speech for the opposition was to be made by Andromeda Ledbury, one of the rising stars of the Leave campaign, with Barnard himself scheduled to fire the last salvo against the motion before the floor debate and the final vote.

‘Do you know what you’re going to say tonight?’ Melissa asked as they turned off the A34 into Oxford. ‘The whole debate’s going to be televised apparently. Have you got some notes at least?’

Edward Barnard laughed. ‘If I can’t make a speech about Europe without notes, after months of campaigning, it’s time I headed for the knackers’ yard.’

Harriet Marshall was waiting for them at the entrance to the Oxford Union building. She ushered Melissa to her seat in the chamber, while Barnard met the other speakers in the anteroom. Lord Middlebank of Upper Twaddle had already arrived. His flowing fair hair had turned a silvery colour with the years, but he was still strikingly handsome.

‘Hello, Edward.’ Though he proffered his hand there was a frosty edge to his voice. ‘I sincerely hope you lose this debate and lose the vote next week. You are doing great damage to the country.’

‘I’m sure you’ll say so this evening,’ Barnard replied. No point having a fight now, he thought. Fisticuffs could come later.

He moved out of range to study the photos displayed on the wall of the anteroom. Back in the day, he’d been a competent performer at the Oxford Union himself, though he had never made it to President. If he had, he too would be hanging on the wall in a silver frame. So many famous names, he thought, as he moved along the row. Gladstone, Wilberforce, Curzon, Asquith, Hogg, Foot, Heseltine, Bhutto, Johnson – what a galaxy!

The photographs were arranged in chronological order. When he came to the 1990s, he paused to peer more closely. Howard R. Marshall, it said. President, Trinity Term, 1995. How odd, he thought. Howard. R. Marshall could have been Harriet Marshall’s twin, the resemblance was so striking. Did Harriet actually have a twin brother, Howard? If so, why had she never mentioned him?