Powerscourt was standing by the window. Two policemen were stationed discreetly among the trees. Some stray American tourists in London for the Jubilee were admiring the houses in loud East Coast accents and wondering if Boston could offer anything finer. He felt weak from lack of sleep and sick with worry. He thought he had drifted off a couple of times in the night but terrible visions of Lucy being ill treated left him exhausted. He had resolved not to say anything to the Prime Minister or anybody else until this meeting was over.
There was a rush of footsteps up the stairs.
‘Right, Prime Minister.’ Schomberg McDonnell was a mild-looking young man with an innocent face and fine brown eyes. ‘Sorry that took so long. I had to explain to Mr Messel that we could not, under any circumstances, tell him the reason why we wanted the money.’
‘What’s the score?’ asked the Prime Minister, rising from his recumbent position on the sofa.
‘Five million pounds at five per cent, payable over ten years,’ McDonnell replied.
The Bank of England looked aghast. Rosebery turned pale. The Prime Minister seemed unconcerned.
‘We couldn’t lose that much in the Treasury accounts over ten years. We need a longer payback time, McDonnell.’
‘I understand, Prime Minister.’
‘Peerage,’ said Lord Salisbury firmly.
‘Set against the interest rate or term of loan?’
‘Both,’ said the Prime Minister.
‘Christ!’ said McDonnell, and fled downstairs to do his master’s bidding.
‘I was never very good at mental arithmetic at school,’ said the Prime Minister, turning to William Burke. ‘Don’t think I could ever have managed the Exchequer. But something tells me that we should have to find two hundred and fifty thousand pounds a year in interest charges alone on that deal. Couldn’t have managed it.’
Burke looked up from his account book.
‘You are absolutely right, Prime Minister. Perhaps you would like me to do the calculations for you as further bulletins emerge?’
‘That’s uncommon civil of you, Mr Burke. I’m much obliged.’
With that the Prime Minister sank back on to the sofa and closed his eyes. My God, thought Powerscourt, he’s not going to sleep at a time like this. The Governor of the Bank was looking desperately at his watch. Burke had opened a new page in his book and was writing five million in large figures at the top. He drew a line a third of the way down the page and put another heading of five million pounds.
Powerscourt wondered how much a human life was worth. Just one. Just Lucy’s. He thought of the other human lives, the Farrells and the thousands like them whose prospects would be ruined if Harrison’s Private Bank were forced to sell off all the properties they held for charities. He looked again at the portrait of Lady Lucy. He felt the tears starting in his eyes and thought of other things. He thought of Johnny Fitzgerald checking out the Brighton hotels, he thought of his meeting with the Metropolitan Police Commissioner late the night before, the Commissioner looking pale as he sat drinking brandy in Lady Lucy’s favourite chair.
‘My God, Powerscourt, this is the most terrible thing I have heard in all my days. I shall speak to my counterparts in Sussex. The resources of the Brighton force will be put at your disposal.’
Powerscourt had expressed his gratitude. ‘But don’t you see, Commissioner,’ he said, ‘how difficult the thing is. First we have to find her. But the kidnappers must not know we have found them. You have seen what they say in their note.’
Even the Commissioner shuddered.
‘If we find them,’ said Powerscourt, pacing up and down the drawing room like one of Nelson’s captains on his quarterdeck, ‘we have to work out a way of getting Lucy from their clutches. And, believe me, I cannot see how we do it at present.’
Out in the square a plain-clothes man was talking to the two policemen. A delivery van arrived and began unloading cases of wine at a house with a red door across the way. Life in Markham Square went on, even as the Prime Minister of Great Britain tried to negotiate the salvation of the City of London in Number 25 and Lord Francis Powerscourt was closer to despair than he had ever been in his life.
There was another rush up the stairs. A distant corner of Powerscourt’s mind automatically noticed that Schomberg McDonnell was not out of breath at all. Perhaps it keeps you fit, he thought, working for the Prime Minister.
‘Four and a half per cent,’ he announced, ‘fifteen years.’
‘Christ, he’s going to make even more money out of us that way,’ said the Prime Minister, opening his eyes.
‘Royal Commission, Prime Minister?’ asked McDonnell.
‘Not yet, not yet, dammit. Try him with some of that fashionable stuff. You know the sort of thing.’
‘Weekend at Sandringham with the Prince and Princess of Wales?’ said McDonnell. ‘Dinner in their London home at Marlborough House?’
‘Not weekend, McDonnell, weekends. Plural.’
‘God help him!’ said the private secretary, and shot back down the stairs. They heard a faint click as the study door closed on the floor below.
‘Interest charges would run on that deal at two hundred and twenty five thousand a year,’ said William Burke. ‘That’s not including repayment of the principal.’
The Prime Minister subsided on to the sofa once more. Burke prepared more sections of his book with headings of five million pounds. Powerscourt noticed that there was now a subsidiary row of figures labelled one per cent, half per cent, quarter per cent. Burke was preparing for all eventualities. The Governor wished most devoutly that he was somewhere else.
So did Powerscourt. Suddenly he could hear Lucy’s voice echoing in his mind. She was reading a bedtime story to Thomas, her tone soft and quiet in the hope it would send the little boy to sleep. It was a fairy story about a princess locked up in a tower. Only a handsome prince could rescue her from her prison on the top of the mountain. He went to the window to blink back his tears.
This time the negotiations seemed quicker than before. The Governor had only looked at his watch once before McDonnell was back.
‘Four per cent over fifteen years,’ he reported.
The Prime Minister snorted as though he had expected better tidings. ‘All right, McDonnell. Royal Commission.’
‘Member or Chairman?’
‘Start with member,’ instructed the Prime Minister, ‘see how you go.
‘Very good, Prime Minister.’
‘You’re down to two hundred thousand pounds interest charges a year now, Prime Minister,’ said Burke cheerfully. ‘Total interest charges of three million. Three to catch five.’
‘Could be worse,’ said the Prime Minister, ‘could be worse.’
Where is she? Powerscourt asked himself. What are they doing to her? He wished the meeting would end and he could tell his news to the Prime Minister and rush off to Brighton. He felt completely detached from this meeting, as if it were all a dream. It’s a Greek tragedy, he thought. McDonnell is the Chorus, forever coming back on stage with fresh news of atrocities and the unburied dead. Hold on, Lucy, I’m coming. Hold on.
Rosebery had ringed a number of entries in his racing paper. Burke was now marking out further pages of his notebook ready for new calculations of interest charges. Powerscourt saw that he now had a separate heading called Repayment of Capital, underlined twice.
‘Maybe we should open a book on how long each negotiation will be,’ said Rosebery, inspired by his study of the turf. ‘I say he’ll be back inside three minutes.’ There was not time for anybody to reply. Just inside the Rosebery timetable McDonnell returned.
‘Three and three quarter per cent. Twenty years,’ he announced.
‘Member or Chairman?’ asked the Prime Minister.
‘Chairman,’ said McDonnell. ‘I thought it was worth it for the extra five years.’
‘What have we left now?’ The Prime Minister was still lying back on his sofa.