The Wormwood Code by Douglas Lindsay

it onto the floor. Wasn't his fault if he was running the country well, that people liked him and that the opposition were a bunch of tubes. He smiled, picked up the Independent. "Enough is Enough - Labour Peer Defects to LibDems." Shook his head, added it to the pile dumped on the floor. Just something else for the media to ask him about this morning, while he was at a successful London school talking about the real issues.
    The door opened and Barney Thomson, barber, and Igor, deaf-mute hunchbacked barber's assistant, came into the room. The PM looked up and smiled, although it has to be said that the smile was pretty much etched permanently onto his face now. The wind had changed at some point when he was out meeting real, ordinary, hardworking people, and his face had stuck. Of course, that had been in 1997.
    'Barney, Igor, come in, come in. Bacon, pancakes and maple syrup?' he offered. 'There's plenty.'
    'Arf,' said Igor, and he sat down and immediately began to tuck in.
    Barney had already had breakfast at the hotel, but he wasn't about to turn down bacon, pancakes and maple syrup.
    'Thank you, Prime Minister,' he said, taking a seat at the table. He glanced at the papers strewn around the floor, as he helped himself to food. The trouble with bacon, of course, is how quickly it loses heat once it's at the table.
    'What is it today?' he asked.
    The PM smiled and looked at the ceiling.
    'Education, education, education,' he said, and the smile increased a little bit more. 'Giving the press conference from a school this morning. The place used to be rubbish, you know, under the Tories, but thanks to this government's policies it's now a model for all that is good about our system, and illustrative of why a Labour government is the only way forward for Britain and the hardworking, decent honest...'
    'You're not on TV, Prime Minister,' said Barney.
    'Yes, well, I need the practice.'
    'I don't think so.'
    'Got the headmaster doing a nice little speech, then me, then...'
    'That's forcing him to be a bit partisan, isn't it?' said Barney.
    The PM crammed down another piece of cold bacon, the smile racked up a notch or two.
    'Not sure what it is this afternoon, usual stuff, you know how it is. Tonight we're going up to Liverpool. You want to come?'
    Barney and Igor looked at each other and shrugged.
    'Arf.'
    'Sure.'
    'Dan Dan's written me a great little number for tonight talking about Count Dracula and all his crap. Really, you should see his record on all the main issues, the real issues which affect the hardworking people of middle England. It's incredible that someone like that...'
    'Prime Minister,' said Barney. 'Eat your breakfast.'
    The Prime Minister nodded, accepting his admonishment. He looked back at the pile of papers, the smile waning slightly, but not going completely.
    'Daily Star are talking about flippin' Beckham again,' he muttered.
    ––––––––
    1203hrs
    D etective Sergeant Tony Eason, investigating the murder of the Prime Minister's original personal hair stylist, Ramone, was undercover at Conservative Party HQ; his cover was that of Tony Eason, crack London marketing executive, brought in to beef up the opposition's election campaign and to bring some fresh air to the heavy stench of defeat which already seemed to hang, like thick, rancid smog, over the building.
    A day into his undercover investigation and he hadn't progressed very far. Yet to come up with any insights into the case, neither had he produced a killer election slogan. He was sitting at his desk, playing around with the words, education , crime and poverty , when the door behind him opened and the leader of the opposition stuck his head round, the smile already stamped to his face. He was accompanied by one of his young PR guys, Dane Bledsoe, the only other man in the building who knew that Eason was not who he was supposed to be. Not that Bledsoe had shared this information with anyone else, being a bit undercover himself.
    Eason