Old Enemies Read Online Free PDF Page B

drawer beneath it for hot coals, which during long nights of old had been used to heat tea and scones. A few strides took Harry into the long carpeted corridor with its deep primrose walls and Henry Moore sculpture that led towards the Cabinet Room, but before he reached as far as the inner sanctum he was intercepted by Mary.
    ‘Sorry to keep you waiting,’ he said.
    ‘No, it’s the Prime Minister who apologizes,’ she replied.
    ‘That’ll be a first.’
    She pretended not to hear. She led him not to the Cabinet Room but into the claustrophobic lift that served the five ramshackle and much reconfigured floors of Number Ten. He was surprised to see her punch the top button – the private quarters, way up in the attic. She didn’t bother knocking, but took him straight in through a ludicrously small hallway and into the sitting room.
    Iain Campbell was sitting on a windowsill on the far side of the room, his bottom warming above a radiator, his body twisted so that he was looking out through nearly two inches of blast-proof glass across the military parade ground of Horseguards. He seemed slow to react to the intrusion, lost in thought as he stared into the gathering darkness of the winter evening, turning stiffly and almost in surprise to face Harry, by which time Mary had already gone.
    ‘I come up here to think,’ he said, as though he felt the need to offer an explanation. ‘Cabinet Room’s no bloody good. Even on a clear day you have trouble seeing further than the end of the garden. Sometimes you need a little more than that.’ He rose to shake Harry’s hand. It was when he got to his feet that it became clear how small he was – in fact, the smallest man in the Cabinet. ‘More Tom Cruise than Napoleon,’ he had claimed to an election interviewer, though only idiots believed him.
    ‘Sorry to keep you waiting, Prime Minister,’ Harry said.
    ‘No, nothing formal, Harry. That’s why I chose here, rather than the Cabinet Room. No record. One of those meetings that never really took place, eh? Drink?’ He waved a hand in the direction of a small collection of decanters and glass tumblers on a side table.
    ‘No thanks, Iain. Just got off a plane. I never drink until I’m over the jet lag.’
    The Prime Minister resumed his seat above the radiator while Harry perched on the arm of a sofa. ‘You’ve been in the States.’
    ‘Guilty.’
    ‘Doing your impression of Marc Antony.’
    Harry’s brow wrinkled in confusion.
    ‘Friends, Romans, countrymen – lend me your ears?’ Campbell smiled wearily. ‘No, not a very good joke. Best I could do at short notice without a speechwriter. You’ll have to forgive me.’
    ‘Perhaps you’re right. A new ear. It’s an inexcusable vanity, of course. I’ll probably get laughed out of my seat by my electors,’ Harry said.
    Campbell nodded thoughtfully. ‘But not by the President. I understand you made quite a hit with our Mr Munroe.’
    The Prime Minister was clearly well informed. Harry said nothing; he wasn’t sure where this one was going.
    ‘Harry, something I must ask you to treat in the strictest confidence.’ He didn’t wait for a reply. ‘We’ve managed to screw things up pretty sensationally with the Americans – you know, after the god-awful mess we left behind between us in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Gulf, come to that, and all the blame we threw at them during the election. Somehow seemed like the right thing to do at the time.’ He stared at Harry. ‘No, not you, I know, but me, and too many others.’
    Harry sniffed the guilt and the rare acknowledgement of error. No wonder the Prime Minister didn’t want an official record of this.
    ‘We went too far, Harry. We pissed in their pockets and now it’s payback time. We need to renew our nuclear deterrent, which we lease from the Americans, and . . .’ He curled over, head down, his hands clasped beneath his chin as though in prayer. ‘They want to rape us, Harry. Make us pay full