It was 30 March and Constable Jack Sprat was standing on the doorstep of Number Ten Downing Street, sweating inside his bulletproof jacket and talking to the Prime Minister. The sun was shining through the Prime Minister's thinning hair. A car had just brought him back from the Angolan embassy.
'How's your mother, Jack?'
'She's getting over it slowly; I'm going up to Leicester to see her tonight, thank you, sir.'
'Mugging's a very real problem,' said the Prime Minister.
Jack, who had last seen his mother with her face covered in black bruises like storm clouds, agreed with him.
The Prime Minister squeezed the top of Jack's arm and whispered, 'Tell her I'll pray for her, Jack. God listens.'
Jack was not comforted. He watched as the Prime Minister gave his shy smile to the cameras opposite before unbuttoning the jacket of his navy-blue suit and waving to the photographers. An unseen hand opened the door and the Prime Minister disappeared inside.
Jack spoke into the tiny microphone pinned to his lapel and confirmed that the PM had arrived safely. Jack doubted if the Prime Minister's prayers would make much of a difference to his mother. She was an avowed atheist who had stopped believing in God when Jack's brother, Stuart, had died in a squalid room in Bristol from an injection of adulterated heroin.
A voice in Jack's ear told him that Ms Amelia Badstock and a group of teenage supporters were on their way to Number Ten to present a petition demanding recreational facilities for the youth of Newtown Linford.
He muttered 'OK' and prepared for the first of five petitions that were expected that day.
It was an ordinary day at Number Ten. The shiny black door opened and closed hundreds of times, admitting trades people, florists, dictators, an oil sheik, a pensioners' group, civil servants, a manicurist, spin doctors, Poppy's nanny, Su Lo, cabinet ministers, secretaries and MI5 operatives posing as telephone engineers.
Visitors were so used to seeing a policeman standing in the vicinity of the door that they tended to forget that behind the uniform and under the helmet was a sentient being with ears and a brain. Jack heard bits of conversation and pieces of dialogue and he stored them in his memory.
Inside, the Prime Minister was talking about saving Africa to his closest political friend and colleague, his press officer, Alexander McPherson.
McPherson had enjoyed notoriety at an early age. He was the youngest of six children, five of them girls, and throughout his childhood was petted and indulged by his elder sisters to such an extent that unless he got his own way he would fly into a rage and stage spectacular tantrums in the shopping street of the commuter village where they lived.
His first memory was of being wheeled around the garden in a doll's pram while his sisters bickered over whose turn it was to push him next. He took female attention for granted and had lost his virginity by the age of thirteen. His sisters had a taste for novels that featured strong heroines -Wuthering Heights, What Katy Did, Lolita - and they would read to him at bedtime.
After leaving Balliol College, Oxford, he drifted into publishing and became the letters-page editor of an erotic magazine called Fetish; with Krafft-Ebing at his elbow he composed scurrilous answers to the mostly sad and sometimes boastful letters he received from readers.
There was an ugly rumour doing the rounds at one time that McPherson's first contact with Edward Clare was via such a letter, but the truth was that their first meeting had been at Cambridge when McPherson had taken several of his girlfriends to see an amateur rock band called Vile Insinuations. The future Prime Minister was playing bass guitar and wore his hair in shoulder-length ringlets. However, McPherson had left in disgust, taking his girls with him, when Clare announced the band's next number by saying, 'I hope you enjoy this one, it's called "Rockin' Round the Cross" and was inspired by Almighty God.'
Their paths next crossed at a fund-raising reception at the House of Commons, where publishers were invited to contribute to Labour Party funds. McPherson stumped up fifty pounds and told Edward Clare, then still in opposition, what needed to be done if Labour were to win an election.
'You've gotta bland everything out, you've gotta duck and dive, you've gotta be all things to all men and you've gotta appeal to the women and so long as you're never pictured in the press kicking a dog to death or something like that, and so long as you smile nicely and remember your manners, and so long as you let me manage the media, you'll get in.'
The pair were now in the private sitting room of Number Ten. A GCSE geography coursework folder lay on the coffee table.
'We can save Africa, Alex.' The Prime Minister's voice shook with emotion.
Alexander swung his big-framed fleshy body up from the arm of the cream sofa where he had been perching and began to roam around. 'Africa?' he said. 'You are, of course, joking?'
It was not a rhetorical question. In Alexander's opinion, not only was Africa the white man's graveyard, but also wanting to save Africa was a sign of serious mental derangement. Nothing and nobody could save Africa apart from the Africans themselves.
Alex said, 'Tell you what, Ed, it's perhaps not a good idea to talk about Africa at the moment, not when we're still trying to get the trains to run on time.'
But Edward was ready for him. 'Africa is a dark stain on the conscience of the world. Somebody must lead the people out of the darkness of dying economies and into a sense of fiscal responsibility.'
Alex said impatiently, 'Ed, we've gotta sort out fox hunting before we can start arsing about with the African subcontinent.'
Edward said quietly, 'I do wish you wouldn't swear, Alex. Adele's in the next room feeding Poppy.'
Alex said, 'Excuse me if I larf, but isn't Adele the one who wrote a book called Arseholes in History?'
Edward's smile slipped for a moment, then he said, 'That was a book of serious scholarship. Henry Kissinger told me he has it on his bedside table.'
Adele shouted from the next room, 'And it was at the top of The New York Times bestseller list for twelve consecutive weeks.'
'Anyroadup,' said Alexander, 'can we sort out a few things, Ed? We've got an arse of a week. There are half a dozen reports out, crime's up, and, according to the Rowntree Trust, five outta ten of the population are outta their minds on drink or drugs at any given time. Oh, and the mortuary workers are striking on Monday unless they get a ten per cent pay rise and a thirty-five-hour week.'
Edward said, 'In Africa a little kid dies every ten seconds from a water-borne disease.'
Alex replied, 'Yeah, my heart bleeds at the thought, but we'll be knee-deep in fuckin' corpses if we don't sort the body-washers out, and the hot weather's on the way, according to Michael Fish-face, so can I steer you back to this dark continent, Ed?'