The Partridge Kite by Michael Nicholson Page A

or rather the lack of it, that eventually won the day. Redevelopment would have to wait. In the meantime the family grocer, the shoemaker, the theatrical costumier, the hardware shop, the pubs and the dining rooms with their steamed steak and kidney puddings carried on with their daily chores, grateful for the reprieve.
    The clock in Rules restaurant showed twenty minutes past twelve midday, early for lunch by anyone’s standards. But the two men were important. More important than being important, they were also ‘well known’. So the headwaiter was not too put out at being asked for prosciutto, oysters and Sauvignon so soon in the day.
    The tall man, aged about forty-five, was wearing thin gold- rimmed spectacles. He was impeccably dressed in various shades of blue; dark blue pinstripe single-breasted suit, light blue soft-collar Oxford shirt, a silk knitted tie in a blue that blended shirt and suit.
    He was a financial adviser . . . an expert on money, the cost of it, things that were used in place of it; people it could buy. He was a director of seventeen different companies and was on the board of one of the City’s most famous merchant banks.
    He had become ‘well known’, a public figure, when he’d chaired a Royal Commission on Penal Reform following the long series of outrages by the IRA and the sudden but prolonged spate of urban guerrilla warfare that spread across Europe during the late seventies.
    His appointment, as a man not of the ‘Silk’, upset the Law profession. The findings of the Commission, named after him as is the custom, shocked the Government who had ordered it and the Left Wing and the Liberals who’d expected great things of it. For the Curran-Price Commission was accused of turning the clock back half a century with its recommendations for the reintroduction of the death penalty for acts of terrorism and certain murders if premeditation could be proven.
    John Curran-Price became a celebrity overnight and after a series of television, radio and press interviews following his Report’s publication he also became very popular in the country. This more than anything else disarmed and angered his opponents.
    The second man at the table was chairman of one of Britain’s nationalised industries. He was also a Knight of the Order of the British Empire. He’d been given it, it was said, as reward for reducing his industry’s output by half, doubling the price of its products and multiplying five times over its losses.
    They were unlikely lunch companions. But the fat knight had much to say, much know-how to impart; information that would be essential should the running of the country be taken on by other men.
    The other man, sipping his wine, gazing over the top of his expensive spectacles, had much to gain. Curran-Price was CORDON Director for London Area Seven. He was also on the Committee of the British Heritage Trust and godfather to the son of its Chairman, General Sir George Iain Renfrew Meredith.
    Curran-Price had courted the bulky knight for several months now. Not for the purpose of recruiting - nothing was less likely - but to learn how it was governed, its relationship with Government, its associations with private companies, and the character, background and inclinations of those who sat on the governing board.
    CORDON had nominated Curran-Price as the Minister responsible for transport, road, rail, sea and air, a totally integrated Ministry, once the takeover was under way. Curran-Price, an odd choice perhaps with his intimate knowledge of finance and his dabbling in Law, nominated Transport Minister. But he could guess at their reasoning and was well satisfied.
    The two men were drinking their coffee and cognac when the table waiter came holding a telephone. Would Mr Curran-Price take a call at the table? The white receiver was plugged into a socket hidden by the draped tablecloth.
    Curran-Price introduced himself to the caller but said no more. The caller replied with a number