The man sank back into his place as Giles returned to his seat with the sound of thunderous applause ringing in his ears.

The final question was about the power of the unions, and both Giles’s and Fisher’s responses were unconvincing; Giles, because he had lost his concentration, while Fisher hadn’t recovered from his demon fast bowler being knocked out of the ground.

Giles had recovered by the time it came to deliver his summing up, and it took him some time to leave the hall, as he had to shake so many outstretched hands. But it was Griff who best summed up the evening.

“We’re back in the race.”

Chapter 22

22

THE Bristol Evening News made a valiant attempt to present a balanced account of the debate that had taken place at the Hippodrome theatre the previous evening, but you didn’t have to read between the lines to be in any doubt who it felt was the winner. Although it had some reservations, the paper recommended that their readers should send Sir Giles Barrington back to the House of Commons.

“We haven’t won yet,” said Griff, dropping the paper in the nearest wastepaper basket. “So let’s get back to work. There’s still six days, nine hours, and fourteen minutes to go before the polls close next Thursday.”

Everyone set about their allotted task, whether it was checking canvass returns, preparing voting sheets for polling day, double-checking who needed a lift to the polling station, answering queries from the public, distributing last-minute leaflets, or making sure the candidate was fed and watered.

“Preferably on the move,” said Griff, who returned to his office and continued to work on the eve-of-poll message that would be dropped through the letterbox of every registered Labour supporter the night before the election.

*   *   *

At 5:45 a.m. on polling day Giles was once again standing outside Temple Meads station reminding everyone he shook hands with to “Vote for Barrington—today!”

Griff had designed a schedule that accounted for every minute of election day until the polls closed at 10:00 p.m. He had allocated Giles ten minutes for a pork pie, a cheese sandwich, and half a pint of cider in the most popular pub in the constituency.

At 6:30 p.m., he looked up to the heavens and cursed when it began to rain. Didn’t the gods know that between eight and ten in the morning, and five and seven in the evening, were Labour’s peak voting times? The Tories always got their vote out between ten and five. From seven o’clock in the evening until ten, when the polls closed, was anybody’s guess. The gods must have heard his plea, because the shower only lasted for about twenty minutes.