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without risk, which for a magnate like Lambourne was something akin to the Holy Grail: as close to a no-lose deal as you could get. BovPlas had undeniably, these past few years, prospered, and Lambourne had personally creamed off the rewards.
    “I never complain,” Lambourne corrected firmly. “What you need to appreciate, Giles, is that the public mood is turning against Wax and his softly-softly approach.”
    “I do appreciate that, Nathaniel, I do. Did you not hear me in the Commons this afternoon? I said just that. I was sticking it to Wax like you wouldn’t believe.”
    “So I gather. Wax, now, may sound like he’s talking tough, but it’s mealy-mouthed stuff. Weasel words. And the public can see through that. The electorate can see through that.”
    Slocock didn’t miss the emphasis. The deadline for an election loomed less than six months hence, and if the opinion polls were anything to go by, the government was in for a massacre. The constituency map of Britain, now predominantly red, was about to turn an apoplectic shade of blue.
    “And if—when—his lot get turfed out on their ear,” Lambourne went on, “it’ll be principally because they haven’t managed to get a handle on the Sunless situation. They’re not prepared to take radical steps. They’re not willing to do what really needs to be done.”
    “And I am,” said Slocock. He leaned across the table, lowering his voice. “You know I am.”
    “Of course you are, my boy. I know it because a seat on the board of Dep Chem awaits you at the end of all this, with the promise of a salary ten times what you can earn as an MP, even as a Cabinet minister. The reason you’re on-side is you think the right way but also, more importantly, you put your own self-interest first. Don’t pretend to pout, Giles. You know it’s true. Hence I’m perfectly assured that when the times comes you’ll be happy to institute the measures we’re busy putting in place. There’s just one small snag.”
    “What, you think I might not get returned?”
    Lambourne chuckled. “To the safest Tory seat in Buckinghamshire, which is to say one of the safest Tory seats in the country? Oh, there’s no danger of that. No, the snag I’m talking about isn’t anything to do with you. It’s our timetable. We’re going to have to accelerate it somewhat.”
    “Eh? Accelerate? Why?”
    “Never you mind why. All you need to know is that what I thought could wait until after the election, can’t. We’re going to have to get cracking sooner rather than later.”
    “How much sooner?”
    “Right away.”
    Slocock took a few moments to digest this.
    “What you’re saying is you want me to get to work on Maurice Wax,” he said. “Bring him round. Change his mind.”
    Lambourne looked pleasantly surprised, like a huntsman whose Springer spaniel pup has just broken its first game bird from cover. “That’s precisely what I mean. Not just a pretty face, Giles.”
    “I don’t know if it’s feasible. Don’t you have lobbyists to do this sort of thing for you?”
    “None of them has the same level of access. None of them could be nearly as influential on Wax as his mirror image in Her Majesty’s Opposition. None of them, frankly, has your winsome public-schoolboy charm, nor for that matter the incentive that you have.”
    Slocock mulled it over. “If I’m to do this, if I’m to stick my neck out for you, I’ll really have to know why. Is it a journalist? Someone snooping around, threatening to blow the lid?”
    “We’ve already had several of those,” Lambourne replied with a dismissive air, “and they’ve been dealt with. It’s amazing how little one has to pay to spike a story these days. I blame the internet. All those nosey-parker bloggers, tapping away for next to nothing, queering the market. The smallest of bribes, and crusading instincts go out of the window, along with scruples. No, if you must know, Giles, it’s simply the consortium. The three of us