Paddy Bostock - Chosen

And here was Yuri Frumkin handing over to his partially crazed father evidence of the continuing existence of the very person his president most wished to stay dead and buried. In principle, Yuri should have been conflicted in his duty to father on the one hand and his country on the other. But Yuri had only recently returned from a trip to Moscow, there to protest against Ripurpantzov’s imprisonment of his only viable opposition candidate in the upcoming presidential election and lucky he too hadn’t been incarcerated, so duty to his country was out the window. Pissed off with his country and its oligarch leaders was how Yuri was feeling.

“Papa,” he whispered. “I know how these songs can be passed on to friends all across this country and in many others. Just give me the word.”

“You could do this?”

“ Da ,” said Yuri. “I have the means. Very very hush-hush it would have to be, but I could do it.”

“With your computer thingummy whatsit?”

“ Da .”

“And you would do it?”

“For you, Papa, and for your dream. Now our shared dream.”

That was when the tears came to Fyodor’s eyes. At first he swiped them away. But more came, then more until they were dripping down his cheeks and through his straggly beard.

“My son ,” said Fyodor, taking Yuri in the sort of bear hug for which Russians are famed and smothering him in kisses. “You are a good boy, the best boy. Of you I am proud.”

“ Blagodayra (thanks in Russian),” said Yuri. “Need a hand polishing that shrine of yours?

Had he known of such developments, Maurice Moffat would have been moved and encouraged, but even in our super-informed world some things remain private and this was one of them.

Dame Muriel sensed a certain je ne sais quoi in the air the moment she set foot in the Shepherd’s Hut and met Barry, Jeremy, Julie, Maggie and Dennis. Maurice had introduced her as “my boss, the head of MI6,” but nobody seemed much impressed by the prestigious title. They just smiled and said “hi.”

“Do take a seat. Cup of tea?” said Barry, at which Muriel said, “Thank you,” reflecting the fellow would likely have said precisely the same words had it been the queen who had stepped into his parlour. No sense of surprise, deference or hierarchy. It wasn’t even as though her visit had been announced in advance. All very peculiar.

“Sugars?” Barry was further enquiring as Pete, Colin, Hans and Shirley joined the party to investigate their latest guest—sniff her legs and so on—at which, unused to animals, Muriel recoiled a bit.

“Don’t worry, they won’t hurt you,” said Julie. “Checking you out, that’s all.”

“I see,” said the head of MI6, extending a tentative hand to pat a couple of canine heads. The pig she would leave for the moment, thank you very much. “And, um, no sugar or milk.”

“No sugar or milk ?” said Barry.

“No, I take it straight,” said Dame Muriel, looking to OO17 for assistance but receiving nothing bar but a shrug and a smile in return.

“Ooo-kay then,” said Barry. “But could I at least tempt you to a Hobnob to go with it?”

“A Hobnob would be nice,” Dame Muriel was saying, shortly before Pete poked his snout up her skirt and Jeremy ran over to drag him away.

“Sorry about that, he means no harm,” he said. “Oh, and by the way, I’m the bonkers banker.”

“Oink,” Pete confirmed.

Never mind a je ne sais quoi , it was all getting something of an overload for Dame Muriel, but struggling with her credentials and thinking of England, she strove to maintain her composure.

“Otherwise known as Mister Jeremy Crawford, I presume,” she said. “Britain’s most wanted man.”

“A title I never wished for,” said Jeremy. “But yes.”

“And the main chap in Maurice’s Reconstructed Beatles, as I understand it. The Lennon lookalike.”

“Indeed so,” said Jeremy as Muriel took to worrying less about her credentials, thoughts of England or composure maintenance. The fellow had honest eyes, which couldn’t easily be dismissed.

It was as Barry was returning with the Russian tea and a plate of Hobnobs that he and everybody else in the Shepherd’s Hut became aware of the thwacka-thwacka- thwack in the skies just above them.

“What the …?” said Maggie, leaping from his seat and heading to the door for a better look.

And what he saw didn’t please him as the helicopter landed and, escorted by two armed policepersons—one male, the other female—Prime Minister Phoebe/Clarissa came marching in his direction grinning ghoulishly.

“ Found the bonkers banker at last!” she warbled triumphantly as she marched.

And how, you will be wondering, had the normally clueless Clarissa achieved this feat of detection? In a rare moment of acuity, by appointing her super supremo smartphone tracker, Simon “The Sniffer” Southgate to track the phones of both Casanova and Milly to their current whereabouts, that was how.

“Duh!” I hear you say. “Two top-of-the-range spies leaving themselves open to such an easy ploy. Duh!”

And nine times out of ten, your derision would be perfectly understandable. But this was the tenth time and, far from being the result of operational fecklessness, instead marked the culmination of the cunning ruse Maurice had floated to Muriel on the last lap of their journey to the Shepherd’s Hut.

“You know, ma’am, thinking things over, it might be of benefit to us all, but in particular Jeremy, were we to take this opportunity to lure Clarissa into a little trap.”

“ Trap , Double O Seventeen?”

“Yes. As I understand it, she is keen to offload onto poor old Jeremy recrimination for all her government’s howlers by painting him as a criminal mastermind and thus get the press pack off her back. Not so?”

“Agreed. And?”

“Well, it did occur to me we might be of assistance to both Jeremy and Clarissa through a slight manipulation of the narrative.”

“You’re a demon for narrative manipulation, Double O Seventeen… um, Maurice .”

“Comes with the turf… Muriel.”

“And this new story?”

“Is the one in which our little enterprise, starring the same Jeremy Crawford albeit in a slightly different light, stands a much better chance of letting Clarissa off all sorts of hooks than the blame game she is currently working on. Just imagine if, by promoting Jeremy’s Lennon role, she were to be credited as the single world leader to have dented Ripurpantzov’s armour, even without recourse to threats of nuclear weaponry.”

Dame Muriel smiled. “Some skullduggery, Maurice, but as part of our current fictions, possibly worth a try. And how would you suggest we set this lure?”

Which was when OO17 proposed leaving both their smartphones turned on full blast for the remainder of their drive to meet Jeremy and his new friends.

“Should be easy peasy for one of her top smartphone sniffer chaps. So, just let’s give it a whirl, shall we? And hope Clarissa takes the bait.”

“I’m in this up to my neck already, Double O Seventeen.” Dame Muriel shrugged blithely. “Can an inch further make a signal difference?”

“My feelings entirely. So let’s go for it, shall we?”

Dame Muriel shrugged blithely again.

And so it was that “duh” was not the only explanation to the surprise arrival outside the Shepherd’s Hut of the RAF Puma HC2 helicopter bearing Prime Minister Phoebe/Clarissa and her two armed policepersons. Sorry about that.