Gillian Slovo: Ten Days

He buffed his trainers against the doormat, watching the dust rise, and then he took them off and strode upstairs to shower, fast, as he did everything, while still taking care to systematically wash and dry himself.

And now the moment that had been so long in its anticipation.

He put on a gleaming pair of white briefs that he had removed from their packaging the night before. Then the socks, black and new as well, and a crisp white shirt — he’d ironed it twice to make sure — and after that the black trousers that he’d had specially fitted to suit his athletic frame. He knotted the black tie but, seeing it marginally off kilter, redid the knot before fitting it snugly, but not too tightly, under his collar. And finally two items that set the seal on his newfound status: his tunic and his cap.

The black tunic — also especially fitted — with its gorget patches and ceremonial aiguillettes that passed from the pocket to the top button sat nicely across his broad shoulders. He fastened the buttons, starting from the bottom and ending at the point parallel with his jacket where the black and grey striped bar of his Queen’s Medal and the red, blue and white bars of the two Jubilees were lined up. Such a pleasure to see them there, especially since he had every expectation that, come the new year, they would be trumped by the yellow and brown of a K.

He smoothed his jacket down. It looked clean and pressed and right.

And finally, not that he needed it just then, his cap. This, with a crown above the Bath Star and its wreath-enclosed tipstaves, and the oak leaves that ran along both the inner and outer edges of the peak, would tell even the most casual onlooker that he was the most senior policeman in the land. He placed it carefully, using the mirror to ensure that the peak sat along the line of his forehead. He closed his eyes and felt along the cap, and then, with eyes still closed, took it off, breathed in and out, before replacing the cap. Eyes open. It was perfectly aligned. Now he’d be able to do it like this every time, even in a hurry.

He took off the cap and was about to make his way downstairs when something else occurred. Yes, why not? He went over to the wall behind his bed and, leaning across, lifted off the framed photograph that, taken on the occasion of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, had him beside the Queen. It would go nicely in his new office. With photograph and cap in hand, he made his way downstairs.

5.25: he clicked on the radio and remained standing as he ate his usual breakfast of two slices of wholemeal toast (both with marmalade) and a percolated coffee to which he added just the tiniest dash of milk.

He was just putting his plate in the dishwasher when the item he’d been half expecting came on.

‘Today,’ he heard, ‘is the new Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Joshua Yares’s first day.’

He straightened up and smiled.

‘To give the background to the appointment which saw the Prime Minister and Home Secretary involved in a public spat, we go to our home affairs correspondent…’

5.35 a.m.

As his Jaguar drifted through the deserted streets, in the wake of an unmarked Rover, Peter sat back and listened to the news.

‘Following reports of corruption at the heart of the Met,’ he heard, ‘and the unexpected resignation of the last Commissioner, the new man, Joshua Yares, whose nickname of “The Wall” is said to derive from his refusal to accept lower standards, was the Prime Minister’s choice.’

Now the test of whether they were going to fall into the trap that he had set for them.

‘In a recent interview,’ he heard, ‘the Home Secretary, Peter Whiteley, suggested that Yares’s well-documented friendship with the Prime Minister might put the independence of the Met at risk. In expressing his disgruntlement, and in such a forthright manner, the Home Secretary gave grist to the rumours that there has been a rift between the two politicians and that he is about to launch a leadership challenge — something that many in the Party have long anticipated.’

Yes — he smiled — they’d taken the bait.

Clever Frances: it had been her idea for Peter to go public with his defeat over the new appointment. That the Prime Minister had overruled his Home Secretary had increased the Party faithful’s dissatisfaction with their leader’s rising control-freakery, which, according to the latest poll, was also beginning to annoy the electorate.

‘That’s the news this morning. Now let’s see what the weather has in store for us.’

No prizes for guessing that what the weather had in store was hot, even hotter or the hottest day since records began. ‘Switch it off,’ he said.

When his driver obeyed, he settled himself into the silence, ignoring the pile of red boxes and early editions beside him and blurring his vision so that the flashing past of dim street lights and the night buses carrying a cargo of workers on their way to wake the city did not intrude. He yawned.

He was able to function on little sleep, and pretty well, but on the rare occasions when it was possible just to be, and not to act, this same weariness would wash over him. He could feel it in his bones, as if he had just run the marathon, although the truth was he couldn’t remember the last time he’d done any exercise. The swimming pool at Chequers two weekends ago might have been his chance — especially in the heat — but the hosepipe ban and the resulting surface of green slime that no amount of straining seemed to shift had put him off. Another yawn. The strain of preparing to launch a leadership challenge — even though he was convinced that it had to be done — was telling on him.

‘Tired, sir?’

Although he pretended he hadn’t heard the question, it did break his reverie.

He glanced at the boxes, thinking of the heap of briefing and official papers they contained. He’d gone through the lot the previous evening: glancing at the ‘to see’; reading more carefully through the summaries of the ‘to decide’ papers and then deciding; and after that he had spent some considerable time pondering the ones that had been specially marked as having potential presentational problems. These — the problems that the press might seize on — he couldn’t risk. Not now when the stakes were about to go sky high.

This thought carried him back to Yares, whose appointment the Prime Minister had bludgeoned through. Why had such an adept politician, whose deviousness included giving his ministers their heads (along with rope to hang themselves), interfered in Peter’s choice? Sure, Yares looked good on paper, but the other candidate, Anil Chahda, was already Deputy Commissioner. Having served under the last bod, Chahda knew the ropes, and given he was also Britain’s highest-ranking ethnic officer his promotion would have been a coup not only for Peter but also for the whole government. Never mind that Chahda was the kind of policeman that a Home Secretary could do business with.

Yet the PM had been so intent on seeing Yares in the job he’d left Peter with no choice other than to concede. It was all too odd. The Prime Minister was far too ruthless to do anything for the sake of friendship, so his actions could not be explained by his connection to Yares.

Something else was going on, although Peter couldn’t figure out what. He must set somebody to solving the mystery, somebody he could trust, which thought sunk him into the soup of wondering, at this, the most decisive moment of his career, who he could and couldn’t trust. This led him in turn on to the things he knew and the things he didn’t know, and then to facts and figures and questions he hadn’t answered, and questions he might be asked at the dispatch box, all of them piling up one against the other, so that it was as if he were being sucked under a particularly boggy marsh, the gluey waters closing over his head about to suffocate him and…