He climbed into the cabin and the fine leather interior beguiled him for a moment. As a peer of the realm, certain privileges were owed to him, and he smiled to himself at the apt nature of his surroundings. He sat back and settled somewhat. It was a short flight after all, and they’d be in London soon enough. He’d told his wife that he was being driven by limousine from Cumbria back to the capital, a long and thoroughly dull journey by road. She didn’t expect him until late tonight. However, Bart’s last minute idea to fly, though at the time crazy, was a perk Donald’s ego couldn’t resist, despite the risk of the press getting hold of photos of them together. They’d managed to avoid direct contact in the public eye for a good few years, at the direct intervention of the prime minister. But Donald was confident that Bart was discreet. He’d had plenty of practice.

He reflected on the forty-eight hours that had just passed. This remained their most perfect secret. He trusted his host with his life. They’d known each other a relatively short amount of time, if one counted the political spectrum in the UK as one spanning centuries. Indeed, their friendship had taken up less than a decade. In that time, under-secretaries had come and gone, business interests had shifted and the prime minister had become older and greyer, prematurely, as they all did eventually. Donald had never fancied the top job: it was for show-offs and attention-seekers. Better to be out of the spotlight and able to continue one’s indulgences off the radar, rather than have them played out in the gutter press, for all to see and judge. Downfall was rarely as a result of bad performance on the political stage. It was more to do with ancient tweets, personal mistakes and unfortunate gaffes, usually involving sexual miscalculations.

He plopped himself onto the seat and placed headphones over his ears as he was told. The interior might be sumptuous, he thought, but the wind whipping through it made it feel as flimsy as a two-man tent on Dartmoor. He could barely hear himself think as the current of air travelled through the cabin like a knife cutting ripe camembert. The whole machine shook. The blades above his head made a deafening din and the whirring sound induced nausea. Back in the eighties, he’d avoided the machines like the plague, but unfortunately, as an officer in Her Majesty’s armed forces, he hadn’t had much choice. It was the preferred transportation when in theatre, and in the eighties there was enough deployment around the world to give everyone a ride occasionally.

The headphones gave him some comfort.