“Couldn’t have done without him,” he said, leaning over to stroke Pete’s head. “Much maligned chaps, pigs. Sorry about the arrival, of course. Must have looked a tad bizarre.”
“Oink,” Pete agreed.
“Sir Magnus,” said Jeremy. “Are we really to understand…?”
“Maggie. The name’s Maggie now.”
“Sorry, Maggie. But are you telling us…?”
“That I’m a new man? Yes, and not ashamed to say so. And for all my past misdeeds I full-heartedly apologise. To both of you, but especially to Miss Mackintosh, the best PA I ever had and the most maltreated.”
Julie blinked.
“And to you, Jeremy, I offer not only my most humble apologies but also my thanks for having presented me with the model upon which to reassess my own paltry existence and do something about it before it was too late. Which, of course, it almost was, what with the ticker problem and everything.”
“And you really had to sluice out lavatories?” said Jeremy.
“As I said, the beak required it for biffing the copper on his schnoz, poor chap. Got rather good at it, even if I say so myself. Cleanest lavs in town, they are. And the stint’s not finished yet. Still a few weeks to go. Just took a little break on the off chance of finding you, then I’ll be back at it.”
Barry smiled. “More coffee, Maggie?” he said. “Unless you’re sure you wouldn’t fancy a drop of something stronger? I do a rather nifty raspberry champagne. Can’t imagine a drop or two would see you back in the A&E.”
“Well put that way, I don’t see why not. A&E more likely to kill me than raspberry champers these days, eh, so I’ll take my chances.”
“Tell you what,” said Barry, who admired anyone who could clean toilets and be proud of the results, “why don’t we all share a glass and perhaps indulge in a small toast to our new friend? Be up for that, would you, Jeremy?”
Maggie waited with some apprehension, but was glad to see his ex-HAA first nod then rise from his seat and then amble over with a hand outthrust.
“It would be a pleasure,” he said, dropping the hand at the last moment and instead taking Maggie in a man hug. Which surprised and confused Maggie who, new man though he was, had no prior experience of man hugging, which he had always assumed to be only for the gay boys.
“Oooofff,” he said, as Jeremy enveloped him. But he was smiling.
He smiled a lot more when Julie crossed the room to join the hug fest, although he was very careful not to touch her bottom.
Dennis, Barry and Maurice watched on and clapped.
“I like it when stuff comes together,” said Dennis.
“Me too,” Maurice was saying only moments before his phone took to trilling in his pocket and he headed to the door apologising for the call “he just had to take.”
“That corny old line again?” Barry called after him, but Maurice ignored it and headed for the door.
Twenty-three
Maurice’s caller on her super-unbuggable line from her MI6 office was Milly/Dame Muriel Eggleshaw, who was being plagued by calls from Phoebe/Clarissa over Casanova’s progress, or the lack of it, and getting fed up with them.
“That bally woman calls me just one more time,” she had told Sir Hubert “Hubby” Humphreys during their lunchtime schmooze at her Park Lane hinterland club, “and I’m going round to number ten and whack her over the head with my old lackers stick.”
At Girton, Muriel had been captain of the most successful women’s lacrosse team in college history and been given a blue for her troubles.
“Possibly not the most appropriate move, old thing,” said Sir Hubert over vol au vents and Prosecco. “Not for one in your position. ‘MI6 head bashes PM unconscious with hockey stick’ not exactly the sort of media headline one would wish for.”
“Lackers stick.”
“Lackers, hockey, what’s the difference?”
Pedantically, Dame Muriel was about to explain the precise difference between lacrosse and hockey sticks, but Sir Hubert placed the forefinger of one hand across his lips and, with the other hand, topped up her Prosecco glass.
“Not the kind of news tidbit one would wish to reach old Ripurpantzov’s ears, either,” he continued. “Brit Secret Services at daggers drawn with their mistress and so on. Would send precisely the wrong message.”
“Hrrummphh,” said Dame Muriel, sipping her wine and reaching for another vol au vent.
“Bloody man,” she added in mid-munch. “One does so wish he would go away. Be toppled in an internal conspiracy or something.”
“Fat chance,” said Sir Hubert. “Blighter looks nicely set to beat Stalin’s record, and by employing more or less the same methods.”
“All very disappointing, Hubby.”
“Indeed, my dear. Indeed. One only wishes there were something one could do about it. And, what’s more, about the maniac in the White House. A double-edged, covert, intelligence led coup is what we need, but our hands are tied. Diplomacy the name of the game and so on, which I doubt would be helped by leaving Clarissa even more braindead than she already is through being whacked over the head with a…”
“Lacrosse stick,” said Dame Muriel.
“Or hockey stick, or any other kind of a stick.”
“You’re probably right. Sooo, what are we to do?”
Sir Hubert shook his head. “Not the foggiest, my dear. But just think of the fillip for our reputations should something spring to mind as a means of upsetting apple carts in both Moscow and Washington simultaneously. Some really cunning ruse is what we need. Then we’d be talking feathers in caps, would we not?”
“But how?” Dame Muriel was saying as Sir Hubert took a long swig at his Prosecco, selected another vol au vent, shrugged, and said, “Look, why don’t you just call Double O Seventeen and see if he’s got any ideas? Never mind whether he’s found Crawford or not. Always been pretty good at cunning ruses, Double O Seventeen.”
“True enough,” mused Dame Muriel.
“So let’s touch base with him, shall we? Can’t do any harm, can it? Clarissa or no Clarissa. Jeremy Crawford or no Jeremy Crawford.”
“S’pose not. I’ll give him a ring when I get back to the office.”
“And bonne chance, ma chère. Now if you would excuse me, I need to debrief Foreign Secretary Fat Slob. The prat’s just back from the UN where reports have him speaking pig Latin during a Syria debate leading to calls from all sides for his summary exclusion and—this the French suggestion—emasculation.”
“About bally time too. Good old Frogsters,” Dame Muriel muttered as Sir Humphrey levered himself from his chair and headed for the door.
Then she scoffed the remaining vol au vents, polished off the Prosecco, called Clarence her driver on another super-encrypted number, and marched off downstairs to where the limo would be waiting.
“Office, ma’am?” said Clarence, holding the door open with one hand and doffing his peaked driver’s cap with the other.
“And don’t spare the horses,” said Dame Muriel, sinking into the leather seat, leaning her neck back against the super-padded headrest and, embarrassingly for Clarence when they arrived at MI6 HQ, although he’d known this happen to The Mistress on previous occasions, nodded off.
“Oops,” she said as Clarence re-opened her door, coughed meaningfully, and said, “Sorry to wake you, ma’am, but we’re here.”
“Just a little cat nap, Clarry. Helps clear the brain.”