Blott On The Landscape (6 page)

In her cell in the police station Lady Maud removed her dentures from her pocket and smiled at the sounds of revelry. If the price of justice was eternal publicity she was assured of a fair trial. She had done what she had set out to do.

In London the Cabinet, meeting to cope with yet another turn for the worse in the balance of payments crisis, greeted the news of the disturbances in Worford less enthusiastically. The evening papers had headlined the arrest of an MP’s wife but it was left to the television news to convey to millions of homes the impression that Lady Maud was the victim of quite outrageous police brutality.

“Oh my God,” said the Prime Minister as he watched her on the screen. “What the hell do they think they’ve been doing?”

“It rather looks as if she’s lost a couple of teeth,” said the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. “Is that a teat hanging out there?”

Lady Maud smiled bravely and collapsed on to the pavement.

“I shall institute a full investigation at once,” said the Home Secretary.

“Who the hell appointed Leakham in the first place?” snarled the Prime Minister.

“It seemed a suitably impartial appointment at the time,” murmured the Minister of the Environment. “As I remember it was thought that an Enquiry would satisfy local opinion.”

“Satisfy …?” began the Prime Minister, only to be interrupted by a phone call from the Lord Chancellor who complained that the rule of law was breaking down and even after it was explained to him that Lord Leakham was a retired judge muttered mysteriously that the law was indivisible.

The Prime Minister put the phone down and turned on the Minister of the Environment. “This is your pigeon. You got us into this mess. You get us out. Anyone would think we had an absolute majority.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” said the Minister.

“You’ll do better than that,” said the Prime Minister grimly. On the screen Lord Leakham’s Rolls-Royce was burning brilliantly.

The Minister of the Environment hurried from the room and phoned the home number of his Under-Secretary. “I want a troubleshooter sent to Worford to sort this mess out,” he said.

“A troubleshooter?” Mr Rees, who was in bed with flu and whose temperature was 102, was in no fit state to deal with Ministerial requests for troubleshooters.

“Someone with a flair for public relations.”

“Public relations?” said Mr Rees, searching his mind for a subordinate who knew anything about public relations. “Can I let you know by Wednesday?”

“No,” said the Minister, “I need to be able to tell the Prime Minister that we have the situation in hand. I want someone despatched tomorrow morning by the latest. We need to have someone up there who will take charge of negotiations. I look to you to pick someone with initiative. None of your run-of-the-mill old fogies. Someone different.”

Mr Rees put the phone down with a sigh. “Someone different indeed,” he muttered. “Troubleshooters.” He felt aggrieved. He disliked being phoned at home, he disliked being ordered to make rapid decisions, he disliked the Minister and he particularly disliked the suggestion that his department consisted of run-of-the-mill old fogies.

He took another spoonful of cough mixture and considered a suitable candidate to send to Worford. Harrison was on leave. Beard was engaged on the Tanker Terminal at Scunthorpe. Then there was Dundridge. Dundridge was clearly unsuitable. But the Minister had specified someone different and Dundridge was decidedly different. There was no denying that. Mr Rees lay back in his bed, his head fuzzy with flu and recalled some of Dundridge’s initiatives. There had been the one-way system for Central London, of an inflexibility that would have made it impossible to drive from Hyde Park Corner to Piccadilly except by way of Tower Bridge and Fleet Street. Then there was his pilot project for installing solid-state traffic lights in Clapham, a scheme so aptly named that it had isolated that suburb from the rest of London for almost a week. In practical terms Dundridge was clearly a disaster. On the other hand he did have a flair for public relations. His schemes sounded good and year by year Dundridge had been promoted, carried upward by an ineluctable wave of inefficiency and the need to save the public the practical consequences of his latest idea until he had reached that rarefied zone of administration where, thanks to the inertia of his subordinates, his projects could never be implemented. Mr Rees, semi-delirious and drugged with cough medicine, decided on Dundridge. He went downstairs and dictated his instructions by phone to the tape recorder on his secretary’s desk at the Ministry. Then he poured himself a large whisky and drank to the thought of Dundridge in Worford. “Trouble-shooter,” he said and went back to bed.

Dundridge travelled to work by tube. It was in his opinion the rational way to travel and one that avoided the harsh confusion of reality. Seated in the train he was able to concentrate on essentials and to find some sense of order in the world above by studying the diagram of the Northern Line on the wall opposite. Far above him there was chaos. Streets, houses, shops, blocks of flats, bridges, cars, people, a welter of disparate and perverse phenomena which defied easy categorization. By looking at the diagram he could forget that confusion. Chalk Farm followed Belsize Park and was itself followed by Camden Town in a perfectly logical sequence so that he knew exactly where he was and where he was going. Then again, the diagram showed all the stations as equidistant from their neighbours and while he knew that in fact they weren’t, the schematic arrangement suggested that they should be. If Dundridge had had anything to do with it they would have been. His life had been spent in pursuit of order, an abstract order that would have supplanted the perplexities of experience. As far as he was concerned variety was not the spice of life but gave it a very bitter flavour. In Dundridge’s philosophy everything conformed to a norm. On one side there was chance, nature red in tooth and claw and everything haphazard; on the other science, logic and numeration.

Dundridge particularly favoured numeration and his flat in Hendon conformed to his ideal. Everything he possessed was numbered and marked on a chart above his bed. His socks for instance were 01/7, the 01 referring to Dundridge himself and the 7 to the socks and were to be found in the top drawer left (1) of his chest of drawers 23 against the wall 4 of his bedroom 3. By referring to the chart and looking for 01/7/1/23/4/3 he could locate them almost immediately. Outside his flat things were less amenable and his attempts to introduce a similar system into his office at the Ministry had met with considerable – grade 10 on the Dundridge scale – resistance and contributed to his frequent transfers from one department to another.

He was therefore not in the least surprised to find that Mr Joynson wanted to see him in his office at 9.15. Dundridge arrived at 9.25.

“I got held up in the tube,” he explained bitterly. “It’s really most irritating. I should have got here by 9.10 but the train didn’t arrive on time. It never does.”

“So I’ve noticed,” said Mr Joynson.

“It’s the irregularity of the stops that does it,” said Dundridge. “Sometimes it stops for half a minute and at other times for a minute and a half. Really, you know, I do think it’s time we gave serious consideration to a system of continuous flow underground transportation.”

“I don’t suppose it would make any difference,” said Mr Joynson wearily. “Why don’t you just catch an earlier train?”

“I’d be early.”

“It would make a change. Anyway I didn’t ask you here to discuss the deficiencies of the Underground system.” He paused and studied Mr Rees’ instructions. Quite apart from the incredible choice of Dundridge to handle a situation which demanded intelligence, flexibility and persuasiveness, there was an unusually garbled quality about the syntax that surprised him. Still, there was a lot to be said for getting Dundridge out of London for a while and he couldn’t be held personally responsible for his appointment.

“I have here,” he said finally, “details of your new job. Mr Rees wants you …”

“My new job?” said Dundridge. “But I’m with Leisure Activities.”

“And very appropriate too,” said Mr Joynson. “And now you are with Motorways Midlands. Next month I daresay we’ll be able to find you a niche in Parks and Gardens.”

“I must say I find all this moving around very disturbing. I don’t see how I can be expected to get anything constructive done when I’m being shifted from one Department to another all the time.”

“There is that to be said for it,” Mr Joynson agreed. “However, in this case there is nothing constructive for you to do. You will merely be required to exercise a moderating influence.”

“A moderating influence?” Dundridge perked up.

Mr Joynson nodded. “A moderating influence,” he said and consulted his instructions again. “You have been appointed the Minister’s troubleshooter in Worford.”

“What?” said Dundridge, now thoroughly alarmed. “But there’s just been a riot in Worford.”

Mr Joynson smiled. He was beginning to enjoy himself. “So there has,” he said. “Well, now your job is to see that there are no more riots in Worford. I’m told it is a charming little town.”

“It didn’t look very charming on the news last night,” said Dundridge.

“Oh well, we mustn’t go by appearances now, must we? Here is your letter of appointment. As you can see it gives you full powers to conduct negotiations -“

“But I thought Lord Leakham was heading the Enquiry,” said Dundridge.

“Well, yes he is. But I understand he’s a little indisposed just at the moment and in any case he appears to be under some misapprehension as to his role.”

“You mean he is in hospital, don’t you?” said Dundridge.

Mr Joynson ignored the question. He turned to a map on the wall behind him. “The issue you will have to consider is really quite simple,” he said. “The M101, as you can see here, has two possible routes. One through the Cleene Gorge here, the other through Ottertown. The Ottertown route is out of the question for a number of reasons. You will see to it that Leakham decides on the Cleene Gorge route.”

“Surely it’s up to him to decide,” said Dundridge.

Mr Joynson sighed. “My dear Dundridge, when you have been in public service as long as I have you will know that Enquiries, Royal Commissions and Boards of Arbitration are only set up to make recommendations that concur with decisions already taken by the experts. Your job is to see that Lord Leakham arrives at the correct decision.”

“What happens if he doesn’t?”

“God alone knows. I suppose in the present climate of opinion we’ll have to go ahead and build the bloody thing through Ottertown, and then there would be hell to pay. It is up to you to see it doesn’t. You have full powers to negotiate with the parties involved and I daresay Leakham will co-operate.”

“I don’t see how I can negotiate when I’ve got nothing to negotiate with,” Dundridge pointed out plaintively. “And in any case what does it mean by troubleshooter?”

“Presumably whatever you choose to make it,” said Mr Joynson.

Dundridge took the file on the M101 back to his office.

“I’m the minister’s troubleshooter in the Midlands division,” he told his secretary grandly and phoned the transport pool for a car. Then he read his letter of authority once again. It was quite clear that his abilities had been recognized in high places. Dundridge had power, and he was determined to use it.

At Handyman Hall Lady Maud congratulated herself on her skill in disrupting the Enquiry. Released from custody against her own better judgment at the express command of the Chief Constable, she returned to the Hall to be deluged by messages of support. General Burnett called to offer her his congratulations. Mrs Bullett-Finch phoned to see if there was anything she needed after the ordeal of her confinement, a term Lady Maud found almost as offensive as Colonel Chapman’s comment that she was full of spunk. Even Mrs Thomas wrote to thank her on behalf, as she modestly put it, of the common people. Lady Maud accepted these tributes abruptly. They were she felt quite unnecessary. She had only been doing her duty after all. As she put it to the reporter from the Observer, “Local interests can only be looked after by local authorities,” a sufficiently ambiguous expression to satisfy the correspondent while stating very precisely Lady Maud’s own view of her role in South Worfordshire.

“And do you intend to sue the police for unlawful arrest?” the reporter asked.

“Certainly not. I have the greatest respect for the police. They do a magnificent job. I hold Lord Leakham entirely responsible. I am taking legal counsel as to what action I should take against him.”

In the Worford Cottage Hospital Lord Leakham greeted the news that she was considering legal proceedings against him with a show of indifference. He had more immediate problems, the state of his digestive system for one thing, six stitches in his scalp for another, and besides he was suffering from concussion. In his lucid moments he prayed for death and in his delirium shouted obscenities.

But if Lord Leakham was too preoccupied with his own problems to think at all clearly about the disruption of the Enquiry, Sir Giles could think of little else.

“The whole situation is extremely awkward,” he told Hoskins when they conferred at the latter’s office the next morning. “That bloody woman has put the cat among the pigeons and no mistake. She’s turned the whole thing into an issue of national interest. I’ve been inundated with calls from conservationists from all over the country, all supporting our stand. It’s bloody infuriating. Why can’t they mind their own confounded business?”

Hoskins lit his pipe moodily. “That’s not all,” he said, “they’re sending some bigwig up from the Ministry to take charge of the negotiations.”

“That’s all we need, some damned bureaucrat to come poking his nose into our affairs.”

“Quite,” said Hoskins, “so from now on no more phone calls to me here. I can’t afford to be connected with you.”

“Do you think he’s going to choose the Ottertown route?”

Hoskins shrugged. “I’ve no idea. All I do know is that if I were in his shoes I’m damned if I’d recommend the Gorge.”