Chapter XXVIII Framden Lock

 

On Wednesday night, after the Council meeting, I left a text message on Roger’s mobile number: “Things are difficult. Need to talk tactics. Peter.”

I was alone in the flat. After two nights without my mother, I was beginning to appreciate for the first time how lonely nights in the flat could be without her. I was fed up with reading Council agendas. I watched some TV, including the news. I picked up the internet text from the BBC about Framden Borough. It had a sensational title “Smell of Moral Decay in Framden” but the text was quite objective. There were photos of Melanie Sheldrake and Ted Grayson. I was quoted over my comments on the nature of public meetings. I was aware that the duels in our Council chamber, hitherto a matter of local interest, had become a matter of titillation at national level. We had become gladiators subjected to the fickle justice of the tabloid editors and their readers who will be out for blood. Anybody’s blood. Well, it damn well wasn’t going to be my blood!

When the news programme finished at midnight my mind went blank as I watched the sleeping participants of Big Brother. Bored with that I found an erotic round of games on the internet. Then I watched a Mylene Farmer concert on video. Gradually I talked myself into going to bed.

I was woken at 8 in the morning by a telephone call. I was still half asleep as I answered.

“Yes?”

“Roger here. You wanted me?”

“Yeah. You’re damned right I do. Roger, this is overwhelming me. So much is going on. I need to know who my allies are. When do you want to strike? When will you know? Also I need to have arguments to defeat this proposal in Committee. So far Chris Finneston has all the information and is only filtering through what he wants me to know.”

“Peter, can we meet in the afternoon? I’ve got you someone in the Planning Department you can trust. I’ll introduce you.”

“Well I have the Smallbridge wedding at 3pm. After all, you know you were urging me to go. Can we meet somewhere for lunch. A quiet pub lunch somewhere? Say, one o’clock? The Framden University bar has a superb menu now run by their catering apprentices. I can really recommend it. Or we can try one of the ethnic food stalls at Framden Market. The weather looks nice.”

“OK, we’ll meet by the canal locks. Thanks, Roger.”

I drew up a list of the Committee members with seven from our side (myself, Noel Graham, Andy Trosser, Angela Craven, Fred Potts, Vincent Perera, Ahmed Kausar), five from the main opposition party (Sheldrake, Egerton, Mrs Wallace, King and Richards) and one from a minority party (Gurcharan Khan). Thirteen in all. I ticked off five names (myself, Graham, Craven, Potts and Sheldrake) and the remaining 8 names I left blank. I put the list in my pocket. 

I dressed in a smart lounge suit, picked up my wedding present and travelled to my office that morning after enjoying a giant full English breakfast in a local transport café. I tried to concentrate on my survey reports but it was not easy. Then on top of everything else I received a telephone call from Carlo Gambetti asking if I could order an extra ticket for another female colleague on the Love Boat for Friday evening. I had had no time to find a female companion for the night, so I was very pleased. I ordered an extra ticket on my credit card.

After 12 I took the wedding present and travelled to Framden Lock. I got there half an hour early and I was able to catch a table seat on the terrace overlooking the main lock. When Roger Clements arrived I waved to him to join me.

“In about half an hour someone will join us whom you will find helpful. In the meantime, Peter, tell me the present position.” 

 I gave Roger the list of Committee members and explained that I had kept largely to the plan. I had given neither Ted Grayson nor Chris Finneston reason to suspect that I could be changing my mind. I had also implied to Meena and to three Committee members that I was having second thoughts about the project and felt that I had their support for the change. I also mentioned my conversation with Andy Trosser and the optimism it gave me over the fact that he was not part of the conspiracy.

Roger listened but shook his head. “Peter,” he pointed out, “Nafta Ural have many ways to skin a cat. It is not just a case of personal bribery. How do we know that some Councillors do not support charity projects to which Nafta Ural have also given money? They use the cover of a number of charity organizations, remember, like the Volga Education Trust. We support your charity, they say, but please help us here with our project too, and so on. Then again, how do we know that some of them are not simply being blackmailed, often over some very trivial matter? History of a past transgression perhaps? Some sexual mishap? A crime committed by their kids? Who knows? These people employ a detective agency to do their dirty work for them and find out everything about their past. I know for a fact that Kolovetsky does a side-line in arranging surveillance for them and obviously uses his travel agency as a means of supplying free holidays to potentially useful people. You were but one example of that. We know also that they have an establishment near Eddington Station which acts as a bordello and where some of their thugs and their hostesses live. This combination of carrot and stick, of temptation and fear, makes for a very potent way of controlling a number of people. These are often just the little people, but because of the vagaries of our democratic system, these incidental little people have a powerful voice in certain specific issues. So how do we know what is really controlling the decisions made by your colleague Andy Trosser or this, what’s her name, Angela Craven?”

“But I have no doubt about the four people I mentioned. I talked to them.”

“I have no doubt that you may be right, but remember that if they are bound by fear or greed to supporting the scheme they will not tell you. I take it the vote is not a secret one?”

“No, usually by a show of hands.”

“Can you make it as public as possible. We don’t want them to pretend that someone else made the decision on their behalf. Incidentally, Peter, I forgot to ask you before. This is not an easy question to ask. Are you under any other form of pressure yourself from a potential blackmailer?” Roger looked me straight in the eye.

“No,” I lied. “I feel OK.”

“Well, be sure about this. They can be very persuasive and very frightening. If there is something they can hold over you better tell us now. So we can protect you. Remember we have a number of friendly journalists who can write about you as well as editors who can suppress the nasty piece of gossip or else give it prominence.”

I shook my head. “OK, Peter, but don’t come running to us when the shit hits the fan. You see the same thing may apply to some of your colleagues. Anyway we will investigate this list. Some of the names we already know because they were on the Committee before the May elections when people like you and Melanie Sheldrake first joined the Committee. This Fred Potts has been on this Committee for nearly 20 years. Generally he is his own man but Sheremovsky’s people have had more than 6 months to work on him and people like him.”

I was now getting even more nervous. Of course there was at least one incident that I could be pressurized about, my session with Valentina at the back of “Pinks”. I think that my stay in the House of Shame was relatively free of pitfalls but the very fact that I had been in that house for several hours, at times in moments of great intimacy with two of the girls, could be twisted against me. The very fact that I was keeping all this secret from Roger was already an alarming example of the treacherous double game I was playing. Also there was plenty I could have said about Lord Smallbridge’s perverted antics. But I did not.

“Well, I have to say that I did get very friendly with a couple of the Russian girls…”

“Oh? Where?”

“Just at “Pinks”. I thought I had already mentioned it. Anyway I remember that this girl Valentina told me there was a Belfast man at their training course who taught them English. Is that part of the Northern Ireland connection?”

“Do you remember his name?” Roger asks excitedly.

I shook my head. “Carson or something. Cayton, maybe?”

“Casey?”

“Yes, yes, she said Casey, I remember now, Bomber Casey.”

Clements whooped so loudly, the surrounding tables looked round at us. Is that how spooks should behave? “Casey is the chief UDA negotiator in their arms buying programme! A nasty character. He was imprisoned for murder and released after the Good Friday agreement under licence. He was in Moscow 2 years ago. That’s when he must have met Sheremovsky. Sheremovsky probably gave him that teaching job at their college as a cover. He travels a lot. He’s been to Iran and to the States recently, and he was in Moscow again last month. Dangerous guy. What else did she tell you?”

I gave him some of the juicier snippets of information that Ludmila and Valentina gave from their period of training. He listened with obvious fascination. “They were both being exceptionally open with you. Were they telling you the truth or were they lying? Were they just trying to impress you, perhaps?”

“I have to say that we got intimate, Roger. Then they both got very chatty.”

“Intimate, eh? Well who’s leading the life of Riley, then? If they got chatty, then how “chatty” did you get in return?”

“Well, actually, this is the moment that I mentioned my mother’s ambition to go on that famous cruise.”

“Well, Peter, you can see how they operate now. But your information could be very valuable all the same. Well, well, Peter. Well done!”

His words of praise did not lift my gloom. In all my years as a councillor I had never come across any corruption in the planning process, not among councillors anyway. Yet the impact of someone like Sheremovsky with his boundless millions and his utter ruthlessness undermines some of the best traditions of British local politics and sullies and besmirches everything that it comes into contact with. I hated Sheremovsky.

We were tucking into a scampi and chips in the sunshine when we were joined by a handsome young man with a vaguely familiar face.

Roger got up. “Councillor Axtell, do you know Phil Marchmont?”

I remembered him. He was a junior planning officer. Very bright. The reason I remembered him was because I had just agreed to his promotion to an area team manager. I remembered he was only 25 years old. “Yes, of course I do,” I said. “How are you, Philip?”

“Peter, Phil is your man in the planning department. Let him give you the low-down as to what is happening there. Also you said you need proper planning issues with which to argue against this development. He can find them for you. Trust him.”

Sure enough, Phil Marchmont gave me a short summary of some of the planning issues of which I had not been aware. It appeared for instance that there was a conflict between this development and the draft London Development Plan being prepared by the Mayor of London. Chris Finneston had not even warned me about the existence of this London plan. There were conflicts over traffic policy. Also the site of Daffodil Hill was one of the 25 strategic panorama sites that the Mayor of London intended to protect and this development would have been considered a serious infringement of that view. Also Chris Finneston had not told me about a key objection from Thames Water to the development on the grounds that it was building too deep and would have an adverse effect on the water table in the surrounding area. Finally, Phil had seen some of the surrogate plans with the same numbering which had been kept hidden from me and my colleagues.

This was excellent information. I could now happily build up my case for refusal, but I knew that it would not be so simple. I had to ensure that Finneston would allow Phil to attend the Planning Committee meeting and also the pre-meeting briefing so that he could advise on any possible misinformation from the Chief Planning Officer.

We exchanged e-mail addresses and mobile phone numbers and I promised to stay in touch with both Roger and Phil before the meeting.

“Apart from that, Peter, ring me after the wedding. I wonder what the old rogue is up to?” laughed Roger. “And, please,” his voice suddenly lowered and grew more serious, “please, Peter, be very very careful.”  I picked up the wedding present and headed for Westminster.