Heads You Win

Alex took Anna in his arms and kissed her. “I got lucky when I stepped onto the wrong train.”

Urged on by Alex, the cabdriver broke the speed limit several times in an attempt to get to Lawrence’s home before the press beat him to it. But his efforts were in vain, because by the time they reached Beacon Hill a marauding pack of journalists and photographers had already pitched their tents on the sidewalk in front of Lawrence’s town house, and clearly had no intention of budging until the candidate emerged from his castle and made a statement.

For the past month Alex had been trying to get even one of them to attend one of Lawrence’s rallies and give him some coverage, only to be met with, “Why should we bother, when the result’s a foregone conclusion?” Now they no longer believed that was the case, they were hovering like vultures who’d spotted a wounded animal attempting to hide in the undergrowth.

“Is Mr. Lowell going to withdraw?” shouted one of the reporters as Alex stepped out of the cab.

“Will you be taking his place?” Another.

“Did you know he had sex with a minor?” A third.

Alex said nothing as he pushed his way through the baying pack, almost blinded by the photographers’ flashbulbs. He was relieved when Caxton opened the front door even before he knocked.

“Where is he?” he asked as the butler closed the door behind him.

“Mr. Lowell is still in his room, sir. He hasn’t appeared since I took his breakfast up over an hour ago, along with the morning papers.”

Alex bounded up the stairs, not stopping until he reached the master bedroom. He paused for a moment to catch his breath, then knocked softly on the door. There was no reply. He knocked a second time, a little louder, but still nothing. Tentatively he turned the handle, pushed open the door, and stepped inside.

Lawrence was hanging from a beam. A Harvard tie his noose.

31

SASHA

Merrifield

“This one’s from the butcher,” said Charlie. “It’s their monthly account.”

“Pay it immediately,” said Elena. “Sasha insists on paying all our suppliers by return of post; that way we’re guaranteed the finest cuts, the freshest vegetables, and bread that’s come out of the oven that morning. A week late and you get what’s left over from the day before. Two weeks late, and they palm you off with whatever they haven’t been able to pass on to their regular customers. A month late, and they’ll stop supplying you.”

“I’ll write out a check now,” said Charlie. “Sasha can sign it when he gets back from the constituency, and we can drop it off at the butcher’s on the way to the station tomorrow morning.”

“It was good of you to take the day off and give me a hand with all this,” said Elena, staring despairingly at the stack of post on the table in front of her.

“Sasha’s only sorry he’s not here to deal with it himself, but he can’t afford to take even a couple of hours off at the moment.”

“Does that mean he’s going to win?” asked Elena.

“No, it does not,” said Charlie firmly. “Merrifield is a rock-solid Tory seat. Mother Teresa couldn’t hope to win it, even if she was up against the devil himself.”

“But Sasha is up against the devil,” said Elena.

“Fiona’s not quite that bad.”

“But if he can’t win,” said Elena, as Charlie opened the next letter, “why is he bothering, when there’s still so much work to be done here?”

“Because he feels he has to win his spurs and prove himself on the field of battle, if he hopes to eventually be offered a safe seat.”

“But surely the people of Merrifield can work out that Sasha would make a better MP than Fiona Hunter?”

“I have no doubt that Sasha would win if it was a marginal seat,” said Charlie, “but it isn’t, so we’ll just have to accept he’s going to lose this one.”

“I’m not sure I’ll ever understand English politics. In Russia, they know exactly who’s going to win, without bothering to count the votes.”

“Just be grateful that cooking is an international language,” said Charlie, “that doesn’t require translation. Now, this one,” she said as she read the next letter, “is a reminder that the dishwasher in Elena Two is now three years old, and the company have recently launched a new model which has double the capacity of the old machine, and can wash everything at twice the speed.”

“So when will the by-election take place?” asked Elena.