Best Kept Secret (The Clifton Chronicles 3)

'What about the Tories?' Giles asked.

'Sixteen per cent.'

'How does that compare with 'fifty-one?'

'They're up one per cent,' admitted the committee room chairman.

By the time Giles had reached the eighth committee room, it was just after 4 p.m. Miss Parish was standing by the door waiting for him, a plate of cheese and tomato sandwiches in one hand, a large glass of milk in the other. Miss Parish was one of the few people on the Woodbine estate who owned a fridge.

'How's it going?' Giles asked.

'Thank heavens it rained between ten and four, but now the sun's come out. I'm beginning to believe that God might be a socialist. But we've still got a lot of work to do if we're going to make up the lost ground in the last five hours.'

'You've never called an election wrong, Iris. What are you predicting?'

'The truth?'

'The truth.'

'Too close to call.'

'Then let's get back to work.' Giles began to move around the room, thanking every one of the helpers.

'Your family have come up trumps,' said Miss Parish, 'remembering they're Tories.'

'Emma can turn her hand to anything.'

'She's good,' said Miss Parish, as Giles watched his sister transferring the figures just in from a polling station to the canvass sheet. 'But it's young Sebastian who's the superstar. If we had ten of him, we'd never lose.'

Giles smiled. 'So where is the young man at the moment?'

'Either on his way to a polling station, or on his way back. He doesn't believe in standing still.'

Sebastian was actually standing still, waiting for a teller to hand over the latest list of names so he could get them back to Miss Parish, who continued to fuel him on Tizer and Fry's milk chocolate, despite the occasional disapproving look from his mother.

'The trouble is,' the teller was saying to a friend who'd just voted, 'the Millers over there at number twenty-one, all six of them, can't even be bothered to cross the road, despite the fact that they never stop complaining about this Tory government. So if we lose by half a dozen votes, we'll know who to blame.'

'Why don't you get Miss Parish on to them?' said the friend.

'She's got enough on her plate without having to come down here. I'd do it myself, but I can't leave my post.'

Sebastian turned and found himself walking across the road. He came to a halt outside number 21, but it was some time before he plucked up enough courage to knock. He nearly ran away when he saw the size of the man who opened the door.

'What do you want, nipper?' the man bellowed.

'I represent Major Fisher, the Conservative candidate,' said Sebastian, in his best public school accent, 'and he was rather hoping that you'd be able to support him today, as the polls are showing it's likely to be a close-run thing.'

'Bugger off before I give you a clip round the ear,' said Mr Miller, and slammed the door in his face.

Sebastian ran back across the road and, as he collected the latest figures from the teller, he saw the door of number 21 open, and Mr Miller reappeared, leading five members of his family across the road. Sebastian added the Millers to his canvass return before running back to the committee room.

Giles was back at the docks by six o'clock, to meet the day shift coming off and the night shift clocking on.

'Have you been standing there all day, guv?' quipped one of them.

'Feels like it,' said Giles, as he shook another hand.

One or two turned back when they saw him standing there and quickly headed for the nearby polling station, while those coming out all seemed to be going in one direction, and it wasn't to the nearest pub.

At 6.30 p.m., after all the dockers had either clocked on or gone home, Giles did what he'd done for the past two elections and jumped aboard the first double-decker bus heading back into the city.

Once on board, he climbed on to the top deck and shook hands with several surprised passengers. When he'd covered the lower deck, he jumped off at the next stop and got on another bus going in the opposite direction. He went on jumping on and off buses for the next two and a half hours, continuing to shake hands until one minute past nine.

Giles got off the last bus and sat alone at the stop. There was nothing more he could do to win this election.

Giles heard a single chime echo in the distance and glanced at his watch: 9.30 p.m.; time to make a move. He decided he couldn't face another bus, and began to walk slowly towards the city centre, hoping the evening air might clear his head before the count.

By now the local constabulary would have begun to collect the ballot boxes from all over the constituency before delivering them to City Hall; a process that would take more than an hour to complete. Once they had all been delivered, checked and double checked, Mr Wainwright, the town clerk, would give the order for the seals to be broken so the count could begin. If the result was announced before 1 o'clock that morning, it would be a miracle.

Sam Wainwright was not a man destined to break speed records on land or sea. 'Slowly, but surely' would be the words etched on his gravestone. Giles had dealt with the town clerk on local matters for the past decade and still didn't know which party he supported. He suspected he just didn't vote. What Giles did know was that this would be Wainwright's last election, as he would be retiring at the end of the year. In Giles's opinion, the city would be very lucky to find a worthy successor. Someone might succeed Wainwright, but no man could replace him, as Thomas Jefferson had said when he followed Benjamin Franklin into the post of American ambassador to France.

One or two passers-by waved as Giles continued on his way to City Hall, while others simply ignored him. He began to think about his life, and what he might do if he were no longer the MP for Bristol Docklands. He would be thirty-five in a couple of weeks. True, no great age, but since returning to Bristol just after the war ended he'd only ever done one job, and frankly he wasn't qualified to do much else; the perennial problem for any Member of Parliament who doesn't have a safe seat.

His thoughts turned to Virginia, who could have made his life so much easier simply by signing a piece of paper some six months ago. He now realized that had never been part of her plan. She had always intended to wait until after the election in order to cause him the maximum possible embarrassment. He was now certain she had been responsible for putting Fisher on the board of Barrington's, and he even wondered if it was she who'd sown the seed in Fisher's mind that he could defeat Giles and replace him as Member of Parliament.

She was probably sitting at home in London right now waiting for the election results to come in, although in truth she was only interested in one seat. Was she preparing for another raid on the company's shares as part of her long-term plan to bring the Barrington family to its knees? Giles was confident that in Ross Buchanan and Emma, she had met her match.

It was Grace who had finally brought him to his senses about Virginia, and having done so, she never mentioned the subject again. He also had her to thank for introducing him to Gwyneth. She had been keen to come to Bristol and help him retain his seat, but she had been the first to acknowledge that if she'd been seen canvassing with him on the high street, the only person who would have gained from it would be Fisher.