‘Fit as fleas.’ Hunter had already been through a thorough medical check and MI5 would already have given Downing Street a copy of the report.

‘Good, good.’ With those words, the gentle, family-man image of the prime minister vanished, and sitting opposite Lord Hunter was the hard-nosed politician who had steered a Labour government through two general election victories in hard times. ‘The party cannot afford another cock-up like the Weatherby scandal. He sat in that chair and bloody lied to me.’ The prime minister’s eyes were cold and hard. ‘When that reporter from The Sun found her…found his bloody wife…’

Lairg went quiet and started brooding again. He didn’t need to finish. Everyone in the country had seen the pictures of Lady Weatherby and her lover. The scandal was not that she had cuckolded her husband, or the fact that her lover was twenty years her junior. It was the fact that the toy boy was an up-and-coming defence lawyer and she had judged a number of his cases whilst she still sat in the High Court. More worryingly he had always won. These cases were now all subject to appeal. Lady Weatherby had held the post of Lord Chancellor of England, the highest judge in the land, and her actions meant the whole legal system was now facing one of its worst crises in living memory.

‘Is there anything, any fuck-up, no matter how tiny it seems to you, in your past, that can come up and bite us on the arse, Edward?’ The PM was known for his language when stressed. ‘When you were a High Court judge, did you ever take a bribe? Did you ever knock up a secretary? Do you have a cocaine habit?’ These questions were not entirely ridiculous–they were specific rumours that had circulated about the last men to call themselves Lord Chancellor. The reason they were still referred to only as rumours was entirely due to the machinations of Connor Wilson.

‘I can wash my dirty laundry in public, Prime Minister.’ Lord Edward Hunter held the prime minister’s eye as he spoke. ‘And I can assure you there will be no bombshells. Although I rather suspect you know all of this already.’

The hush in the Downing Street study was oppressive. The prime minister finally spoke. ‘You’ve been briefed on why you are here, Edward. If I ask you to be Lord Chancellor, will you accept?’

‘Yes, Prime Minister.’ Lord Hunter could not stop the grin that had spread across his face.

‘Good, then we’ll make the press announcement tomorrow. You’ll be a great Lord Chancellor, an honour to us all.’

‘I am your servant, sir,’ he nodded at the prime minister. His response was rather formal but he felt elated–even if he had known that he would be offered this position long before he stepped over the threshold.