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CHAPTER 25

P RINCE M AJID BIN T ALAL A L Saud checked his watch. This was one meeting he wasn’t going to be late for.

When he left his office on the forty-third floor, a lift that could only be occupied by one person whisked him to the ground floor without stopping. He stepped out and headed for the entrance where another door was being held open for him. He then strode out of the building to find his chauffeur standing by the car. He didn’t open the back door until the Minister was three paces away, as the intense, humid heat could turn the car into an oven in a matter of seconds.

As the car drove off, the Minister of Defence glanced out of the window and once again marvelled how much the skyline had changed in his lifetime. He had been born in a tent in a hot and freezing desert, and five decades later he was being driven along a six-lane highway in an air-conditioned car at seventy miles an hour through the most modern city on earth.

During the next twenty minutes, the Defence Minister considered a dozen scenarios for why the King would want to see him. Eleven of them were unfavourable. He stared at the phone in the armrest, but despite his fingers twitching, he left it in its place untouched.

He’d received a call from the King’s private secretary the previous evening, asking him to attend a meeting with His Majesty at 10 a.m. the following morning. He hadn’t slept. The King only requested an audience if you were about to be promoted or sacked, and Prince Majid was sure of one thing – he wasn’t about to be promoted.

But why? Could the stories about his son possibly be true? Because he’d dismissed them as tittle-tattle, was he about to lose his job?

At last, the palace gates came into sight, and he knew it would not be too much longer before he discovered his fate. The gates began to open slowly when the car was still a hundred yards away from the entrance. Two uniformed guards sprang to attention and saluted as the ministerial car swept by and continued along a drive that led up to the largest palace in the world.

Al Yamamah Palace made Buckingham Palace look like a semi-detached and the gardens of Versailles like an allotment. A vast marble building that housed one monarch, nine hundred and eighty-nine servants and four wives. The gardens stretched as far as the eye could see and the boundaries were surrounded by a thousand pines imported from Norway. A lake larger than the Serpentine contained four hundred Japanese carp that had to be fed twice a day.

Behind the trees, well out of sight, were four helicopter pads and a runway for the King’s three private jets. His Majesty didn’t visit airports.

When the limousine finally came to a halt outside the entrance, a tall, elegant man in a long white thawb stepped forward and opened the rear door. His only job.

Prince Majid got out of his car to see the King’s private secretary was waiting on the top step, but he turned his back on the Minister of Defence even before they could greet each other. Without a word passing between them, he led the Minister slowly down a long, wide, thickly carpeted corridor past full-length portraits of former rulers – some of whom had never lived in a palace – and on towards a stateroom he’d only entered once before. When he was still a few paces away, the two vast doors that led into the throne room opened like a trap door.

The Minister entered and walked slowly along the red carpet towards the King. When he reached the throne, he looked up at his monarch, bowed low and said, ‘Good morning Your Majesty.’

He received no salutation in reply, nor was there any suggestion that he might sit on one of the many comfortable cushions surrounding the throne.

‘Does the name Simon Hartley mean anything to you?’ asked the King.

‘He’s the British representative for the arms deal, Your Majesty.’

‘And where is he at the moment?’ the King asked.

The Minister of Defence hesitated.

‘You clearly know where he is, and it is your son who is responsible for him being there.’

Prince Majid didn’t suggest otherwise.

‘And Avril Dubois?’

The Minister bowed his head. He had read about her death in the newspapers, but couldn’t accept that his son was in any way involved. All Khalil had told him was Hartley was responsible for the hooker’s death.

‘I am willing to believe,’ said the King, ‘that a father’s love for his child is the reason you have overlooked some of your son’s minor indiscretions. But causing the death of an innocent man while having another man jailed for the offence – and all for the sake of another five per cent – is unacceptable by any standards.’

So the rumours were true, thought the Minister, and no one had had the courage to tell him … except the King.

‘Your son will be stripped of any position he currently holds and will be punished according to Sharia law, while the Englishman will be released from prison without delay. Do I make myself clear?’

‘Yes, Your Majesty,’ mumbled the Minister, his head still bowed.

‘I will allow you one week to sort out the problem, and should you fail to do so, you will also be relieved of your duties.’

The King didn’t need to say another word, because it was clear the meeting was over.

The private secretary bowed, took a few paces backwards and left the Minister standing there.

Prince Majid forgot to bow, turned and chased after the private secretary. He only caught up with him by the time he’d reached the entrance to the palace. The Minister kept on walking down the steps and disappeared into the back of his car. When he looked up, the private secretary was nowhere to be seen and the palace doors had already been shut behind him.

During the journey back into the city, the Minister considered his options and came to the conclusion that he didn’t have any, if he hoped to survive. A career ruined by the black sheep of the family – although he accepted he had not been a good shepherd.

When his limousine finally came to a halt outside his office, he leapt out of the car and hurried into the building before the chauffeur had time to open the back door. He took the lonely elevator up to the forty-third floor, and went straight to his office.

He’d begun dialling even before he’d sat down at his desk.

The Chief of Police had never before received a personal call from the Minister of Defence. Usually from a secretary, and on rare occasions his deputy, but never the Minister himself. He even wondered if it was really him on the end of the line.

‘What can I do for you, Minister?’ asked the Chief of Police, standing to attention behind his desk.

···

O’Driscoll sat up as the key turned in the first lock.

‘I think the money must have been transferred,’ he said.

The key turned in the second lock.

‘Then I must be a dead man,’ replied Simon, smiling. ‘But remember, when you’re negotiating with the Governor, you have nothing to lose.’

‘You’ve taught me well,’ said Sean, as the heavy door was pulled open. ‘I only wish we’d met thirty years ago.’

‘O’Driscoll,’ said a prison officer, standing in the doorway, ‘the Governor wants to see you. Now!’

Sean winked at his cellmate before he stepped out into the corridor and followed the armed guard on the long walk to the Governor’s office. A sharp knock on the door before he was allowed to enter, where he found the Governor seated behind his desk.

The guard closed the door and waited outside. The moment the Governor saw O’Driscoll, he began to dial. When a voice came on the line, he handed the phone across to the prisoner.

‘You’ve got one minute,’ he said, ‘no more.’

O’Driscoll grabbed the phone. ‘Is that you, Molly?’ he asked.

‘Yes, my darling,’ said a familiar voice that came crackling down the line.

‘Did you get the money I sent you?’

‘Yes, but I couldn’t believe it, Sean. A hundred thousand dollars has been deposited in my account. But then you always said you’d make a fortune if you went to Saudi.’

He couldn’t get the words out to express his feelings.

‘When will they be releasing you?’ she asked. ‘The kids can’t wait to see you, especially Patrick.’

‘It won’t be long now,’ he said, but what he didn’t tell her was it would be in a coffin.

The Governor pressed down the receiver, and the line went dead.

‘I think you’ll agree I’ve kept my part of the bargain,’ said the Governor. ‘Now I expect you to keep yours.’

‘Consider it done,’ said O’Driscoll, bringing his fingers together as if he was clutching someone’s throat. ‘But you’ll need the coffin to have left the prison, before the doctor comes on duty at eight o’clock tomorrow morning.’

‘However,’ said the Governor. ‘There’s been a slight change of plan.’ His turn to take O’Driscoll by surprise. He opened the top drawer of his desk and this time produced two small white pills, which he placed on the table in front of him. ‘Cyanide,’ he explained. ‘Just drop them in a glass of water and he’ll die within moments. If you were able to get a suicide note with a written confession, that would be a bonus. If you do, I’d send your wife another hundred thousand.’ Not that he had any intention of doing so.

‘Fifty thousand in advance,’ said O’Driscoll, ‘in cash, if you want a suicide note as well as a written confession.’

The Governor hesitated before he opened the top drawer of his desk and handed over the fifty cellophane packets, confident he would be able to retrieve every last cent long before Hartley’s body had been buried.

It was only after O’Driscoll was being escorted back to his cell, his pockets stuffed with notes, that the Governor began to wonder why he wanted cash.

···

Tony Blair sat alone in his study at Number 10, waiting for a call that had been booked for three o’clock. She was never late.

The phone rang at one minute to three.

Blair picked up the phone after one ring and said, ‘Good afternoon, Your Majesty,’ aware there could only be one person on the other end of the line.

‘Good afternoon, Prime Minister,’ said the Queen. ‘I have, as you suggested, had a word with King Fahd, and he assured me he will resolve the matter we discussed earlier.’

‘I am most grateful, ma’am.’

‘And I think we might still be in with a chance of the contract, after he told me he wanted to buy one of my thoroughbreds – a negotiation that took considerably longer. You should be hearing from Riyadh soon. Good day, Prime Minister.’

The line went dead, and moments later his private secretary came into the room.

‘How did it go?’ he asked.

‘That woman’s an Exocet,’ said the Prime Minister. ‘I think she might have just blown the French out of the water – and Hartley will be on his way home by the end of the week.’ He paused, looked up at his private secretary, and said, ‘If only the British people knew the half.’