London Calling - James Craig [5]
‘I think that they already have, my friend.’ Edgar smiled. As if on cue, a graphic appeared on screen, displaying four opinion polls that had been published earlier in the day. They confirmed that Edgar’s lead had strengthened to between ten and sixteen points. Short of being caught in flagrante with a couple of altar boys, there is no way I can lose, he thought. Simply no way.
Raising his glass to Kitty, he turned his back on the television and savoured the peace of the empty room. With a shiver, he realised that he wouldn’t be seeing much of this club from now on. Pakenham’s was almost two hundred years old, and for a while it had been the headquarters of the political party that he now led. Previous club members had included various princes of Wales, the writer Evelyn Waugh, and Joseph White the media magnate who rose to number 238 on the Sunday Times Rich List, before fraud and obstruction-of-justice convictions landed him in a Florida prison. If it was good enough for people like that, Edgar thought, it was good enough for him. Pakenham’s was one of the few things in life that gave him any sense of identity. Certainly, it was one of the few places where he could get any peace.
Catching sight of himself in a nearby mirror, Edgar smiled. Black don’t crack, as the saying went, and so it was with him. He had his Kenyan model-turned-mother to thank for that. The Audrey Hepburn of Africa, they’d called her, and she’d given him the good genes, the good looks and the non-receding hairline. He had his father, Sir Sidney Carton, to thank for everything else. Truly he deserved his ‘Sun God’ moniker. He let his gaze linger on the image in the mirror, and gave a small nod of approval. The flowing locks had gone, replaced by a number-one crop on back and sides and a number four on top, inspired by the new American President. On the edge of extreme, it was just on the right side of suggesting a football hooligan or a squaddie: utilitarian, athletic, a no-nonsense haircut that talked about control and focus. It worked well, too, with today’s ensemble: sober two-button grey suit, white shirt and gentle pink tie, rounded off by a pair of sharp, well-polished Chelsea boots. Suited and booted indeed! Not for nothing had he been placed in the top five in Modern Men’s Monthly magazine’s list of the world’s best-dressed men for the last two years, beating the likes of David Beckham, Daniel Day-Lewis, James McAvoy, Jude Law – and, best of all, his twin brother, political colleague and sometime rival, Xavier.
A polite cough drew Edgar from his reverie. He half turned to find William Murray standing behind him. One of the more important minions, Murray was one of twelve ‘Special Advisers’ in Edgar Carlton’s team. Now that he was on the brink of power, it was a team that had swelled to more than fifty people, and seemed to be getting bigger by the day. Murray was in his mid-to-late twenties, only four or five years out of Cambridge, and appeared charming, cynical and energetic. With an indeterminate brief, he was a general fixer who could turn his hand to PR, lobbying, and one or two other things that Edgar didn’t need to know about. Of somewhat brittle temperament, the young man had no pedigree to speak of, and was a ‘bit of rough’ who could take the fight to the other side whenever the going got heavy.
Of course, Murray was not a club member, but sometimes you had to let the hired help into the inner sanctum, in the course of performing their jobs. The young aide crossed the room, nodded a greeting to his boss and stood to attention by the far end of the fireplace. Pulling a sheaf of papers out of an expensive-looking briefcase, he waited expectantly.
It suddenly struck Edgar that the face looking back at him could be his clone from twenty or so years