Jeffrey Archer - Sons of Fortune

‘I wouldn’t be so sure of that,’ said Su Ling, just as Joe Stein came rushing through the door.

‘What can Joe want?’ asked Tom as he stood and waved at him. Nat smiled as his chief of staff rushed over to their table, but Joe didn’t return his smile.

‘We’ve got a problem,’ said Joe. ‘You’d better come over to the Commons immediately.’

Fletcher began pacing up and down the corridor, much in the same way as his father had done over twenty years before, an evening that had been described to him by Miss Nichol on many occasions. It was like the replaying of an old black-and-white movie, always with the same happy ending. Fletcher found he was never more than a few paces from the door of the operating room as he waited for someone — anyone — to come out.

At last the rubber doors swung open and a nurse rushed out, but she hurried quickly past Fletcher without saying a word. It was several more minutes before Dr Redpath finally emerged. He removed his face mask, but his lips weren’t smiling. ‘They’re just settling your wife into her room,’ he said. ‘She’s fine, exhausted, but fine. You should be able to see her in a few moments.’

‘What about the baby?’

‘Your son has been transferred to the special care nursery. Let me show you,’ he said, touching Fletcher’s elbow and guiding him along the corridor, stopping at a large plate-glass window. On the other side were three incubators. Two of them were already occupied. He watched as his son was placed gently in the third. A scrawny, helpless little thing, red and wrinkled. The nurse was inserting a rubber tube down his nose. She then attached a sensor to his chest and plugged the lead into a monitor. Her final task was to place a tiny band around the baby’s left wrist, displaying the name Davenport. The screen began to nicker immediately, but even with his slight knowledge of medicine, Fletcher could see that his son’s heartbeat was weak. He looked anxiously across at Dr Redpath.

‘What are his chances?’

‘He’s ten weeks premature, but if we can get him through the night, he’ll have a good chance of survival.’

‘What are his chances?’ Fletcher pressed.

‘There are no rules, no percentages, no laid-down laws. Every child is unique, your son included,’ the doctor added as a nurse joined them.

‘You can see your wife now, Mr Davenport,’ she said, ‘if you’d like to come with me.’

Fletcher thanked Dr Redpath and followed the nurse down one flight of stairs to the floor below, where he was taken to his wife’s bedside. Annie was propped up with several pillows behind her.

‘How’s our son?’ were her opening words.

‘He looks terrific, Mrs Davenport, and he’s lucky to begin his life with such an amazing mother.’

‘They won’t let me see him,’ said Annie quietly, ‘and I so much want to hold him in my arms.’

‘They’ve put him in an incubator for the time being,’ Fletcher said gently, ‘but he has a nurse with him the whole time.’

‘It seems years ago that we were having dinner with Professor Abrahams.’

‘Yes, it’s been quite a night,’ said Fletcher, ‘and a double triumph for you. You wowed the senior partner of a firm I want to join, and then produced a son, all on the same evening. What next?’

‘That all seems so unimportant now we have a child to take care of.’ She paused. ‘Harry Robert Davenport.’

‘It has a nice ring about it,’ said Fletcher, ‘and both our fathers will be delighted.’

‘What shall we call him,’ asked Annie, ‘Harry or Robert?’

‘I know what I’m going to call him,’ said Fletcher as the nurse returned to the room.

‘I think you should try and get some sleep, Mrs Davenport, it’s been an exhausting time for you.’

‘I agree,’ said Fletcher. He removed several pillows from behind his wife’s head, as she lowered herself slowly down the bed. Annie smiled and rested her head on the remaining pillow as her husband kissed her. As Fletcher left, the nurse switched off the light.

Fletcher raced back up the stairs and along the corridor to check if his son’s heartbeat was any stronger. He stared through the plate glass window at the monitor, willing it to flicker a little higher, and managed to convince himself that it had. Fletcher kept his nose pressed up against the window. ‘Keep fighting, Harry,’ he said, and then began counting the heartbeats per minute. Suddenly he felt exhausted. ‘Hang in there, you’re going to make it.’

He took a couple of paces backwards and collapsed into a chair on the other side of the corridor. Within minutes, he had fallen into a deep sleep.

Fletcher woke with a start when he felt a hand gently touch his shoulder. His tired eyes blinked open; he had no idea how long he’d been asleep. The first thing he saw was a nurse, her face solemn. Dr Redpath stood a pace behind her. He didn’t need to be told that Harry Robert Davenport was no longer alive.

‘So what’s the problem?’ asked Nat as they ran towards the Commons where the vote was being counted.

‘We were leading comfortably until a few minutes ago,’ said Joe, already out of breath from his trip there and back and unable to keep up with what Nat would have described as a jog. He slowed to a fast walk. ‘And then suddenly two new ballot boxes appeared, stuffed with votes — and nearly ninety per cent of them in favour of Elliot,’ he added as they reached the bottom step.

Nat and Tom didn’t wait for Joe as they bounded up the steps and through the swing doors. The first person they saw was Ralph Elliot — a smug look on his face. Nat turned his attention to Tom, who was already being briefed by Sue and Chris. He quickly joined them.

‘We were leading by just over four hundred votes,’ said Chris, ‘and we assumed it was all over, when two new boxes appeared out of nowhere.’

‘What do you mean, out of nowhere?’ asked Tom.

‘Well, they were discovered under a table, but hadn’t been included among those that were registered in the original count. In those two boxes,’ Chris checked his clipboard, ‘Elliot polled 319, to Nat’s 48, and 322 to Nat’s 41, which reversed the original outcome and put him in the lead by a handful of votes.’

‘Give me a few examples of figures from some of the other boxes,’ said Su Ling.

‘They were all fairly consistent,’ said Chris, returning to his list. ‘The most extreme was 209 for Nat, against 176 for Elliot. In fact, Elliot only polled higher in one box, 201 to 196.’

‘The votes in the last two boxes,’ said Su Ling, ‘are not statistically possible, when you compare them with the other ten that have already been counted. Someone must have literally stuffed those boxes with enough ballot papers to reverse the original decision.’

‘But how could they have managed that?’ asked Tom.

‘It would be easy enough if you could get your hands on any unused ballots,’ said Su Ling.

‘And that wouldn’t have been too difficult,’ said Joe.

‘How can you be so sure?’ asked Nat.

‘Because, when I voted in my dorm during the lunch hour, there was only one teller on duty, and she was writing an essay. I could have removed a handful of ballots without her even noticing.’

‘But that doesn’t explain the sudden appearance of two missing boxes,’ said Tom.

‘You don’t need a PhD to work out that one,’ chipped in Chris, ‘because once the poll has closed, all they had to do was hold back two of the boxes, and then stuff them with ballots.’

‘But we have no way of proving that,’ said Nat.

‘The statistics prove it,’ said Su Ling. ‘They never lie, though I admit we don’t have any first-hand proof.’

‘So what are we going to do about it?’ asked Joe, as he stared across at Elliot, the same self-satisfied look still in place.