'Notorious spin doctor spotted among the corpses of parliament house' – at least, that's how the article would have read if Jamie still had his hacks' licence. Although, turning to The Mirror, he had to give the twats over there credit for, 'Evil Rises' even if they'd spelled his last name three different ways in two sentences. Illiterate cunts.
Jamie tilted the paper to the side, trying to get a better look at the politician cowering behind Tucker. The man who would be king... Well, it wasn't like he was going to be any worse than what they had at the moment. Could do with a new face though. Even smudged in the background he looked like a fucking snap-frozen bag of bleached vegetables. That was the only quality Miller had over the rest of parliament – wet housewives jacking all the way to the poll booth.
Ollie burst into Tucker's office only to find a lower order demon keeping the throne warm.
"Oh – I – was ah – looking for Malcolm..." Ollie stuttered, still gripping awkwardly at the door handle as though he were afraid of falling into the abyss.
"Yes."
"...is he around?"
"We're the same person." Jamie replied flatly, folding the paper up and tossing it onto the desk.
"I don't follow..."
"Tucker and McDonald – Jekyll and Hyde. Daddy's sleeping..." he added, with a sinister curl of his lip.
Ollie swallowed unsteadily. "Which leaves me with – the Victorian psychopath?" He wasn't reassured by any part of this roleplay. "You're not going to murder me, are you? Because – because I know he has rules about blood in his office. The last time you left corpses piled in the corner he was really quite upset." Ollie was suddenly very aware that Tucker's P.A. wasn't around to supervise.
"Was there something you wished to discuss?"
"D'you know what – it's completely left my mind. Total blank. I might just go."
"Mandarin?" Jamie held one out in offer.
"I – what?"
"Tucker... he's got them fucking everywhere. I feel like I should open up a juice stall but no one likes fuckin' mandarins so I'm auctioning them off. Except for these ones with faces on 'em. Don' know which sick bastard did that but they're a soddin' hilarious fuck."
"I -"
"Take a mandarin you frat fucking mop of Side-Show-Bob cunt."
Ollie decided that it was in the interest of his personal safety to take the offered fruit. He tried to put it in his coat pocket but it made him look like a one-breasted Dalek. "Can I go?"
"What's round, white, dead and bouncing through London?"
Ollie's knuckles were numb from hanging onto the door so tightly. He missed Malcolm... At least with him you knew if limbs were about to be torn off. "A – faded soccer ball?"
"Glen's fuckin' head. Tell him to come down here. I want a word."
"What exactly did he say?" Glen had entirely forgotten that he was wearing his glasses. They were slipping further down his nose as panic set in. He and Ollie had eloped to a stationary cupboard. Ollie was fiddling with a stapler, leaving bits of broken metal everywhere. It was inevitable that he'd staple himself to something.
"I don't know – it was kind of – vague. We talked a lot about mandarins and – Robert Louis Stevenson."
"Pirates?"
"No. Look, think carefully. Have you done anything in the last twenty-four hours that might warrant your torture and public execution?"
"No! I mean, I came to work – I helped you print out those Mannion flags for Terry's desk – I bought a sandwich and went home. Unless his finds ham and pickle offensive I don't -"
"You had," Ollie began, in his mocking drawl, "a ham and pickle sandwich for dinner – and that's it? Glen... I don't think there's a sad enough alternative to 'bachelor' to describe you. We'll have to call it, 'being a Glen'."
"Sod off, Ollie. At least I don't live with two other blokes in my girlfriend's flat."
"That was – do you know how expensive rent is?" He back-peddled defensibly.
"In answer to your question, no. I didn't murder any prostitutes, steal state secrets or appear naked in public. The only questionable activity I did involved you and our beloved minister. You still have all your fingers so it couldn't be that."
"You better go..."
"Go? That Scottish doormouse can't summon me, Ollie. I fall outside his purview and no matter what school yard understanding he and Malcolm might have, it's not official enough to extend to invitation-bollocking."
"So you'd rather Jamie come all the way down here to do it... Imagine how pissed he'll be if he has to get out of that comfy chair to shout at you."
"Ollie. I'm not going to see Jamie. I'm not."
Malcolm's car pulled up outside the building. He rolled down his window and smirked at the woman lingering outside, a hefty pile of files cradled in her arms. He could tell that she'd been there for some time by the way she was shifting her weight between her feet and the distinctly windswept look of her hair.
"I've only got a tenner but if you're after a good time..."
Sam rolled her eyes so hard they nearly fell onto the pavement. "You're late."
"I was busy. Lunch kept running away from me. I had to chase it down the fucking street and massacre it in the lobby."
"Yes, I saw. Your face is all over the internet again. You should model for GQ."
"Oy! Get that pervy mind of yours in this car before someone sees us and mistakes me for a minster."
Her heels clicked loudly over the cement as she wandered around to the passenger side. Once in her car, she tossed the files in the back and levelled a stern look at Malcolm. "You're spending too much time with Jamie. That mad, Scottish glisten has got stuck in your eye."
"Jamie's not the problem. This fucking inquisition is chewing into the hours I'd rather spend fisting myself into an early coronary. Did you get it?"
"The cabinets weren't exactly unlocked..." but yes, she got it.
"That's my girl. Ow!" Malcolm rubbed his chest where she'd hit him firmly with a book. Right. Shit. He'd forgotten. Sam was his P.A. - not his girl. Important distinction. "Right – you actually hit me." He wasn't mad, just surprised. No one dared touch him.
"Eyes on the road. The last thing I need today is blunt force trauma followed by a coma."
His eyebrows went up a little. "I think you're spending too much time with me."
Sam laid her head back on the seat and closed her eyes. That was probably true.
Jamie wasn't just occupying Tucker's comfy chair, he had a sizeable portion of the table claimed with his feet. They were resting on what was probably an important dossier, leaving prints much like a puppy that's walked mud through the house. It was a show of affection. An irritating, unnecessary, destructive affection.
Show no fear. Show no fear.
"Glen!" Jamie stretched his arms out enthusiastically as Glen popped his head through the door. He had a big, unsettling smile on his face. "Where have you been all this time, I was so worried about you! There's so much that can happen between here and DoSAC I mean, you might have been hit by a stray meteor or fallen victim to a drug-addled teenager. I was having nightmares that we were going to find you in a pool of excrement with spray cans embedded in your torso and one of those 'V' things carved into your forehead."
Jesus.
"Meteorite..." Glen replied. He elaborated when Jamie's eyebrows dropped. "Once a meteor impacts something it becomes a meteorite. If my demise is to be by space rock it'd be a meteorite."
"Don' correct me on that kind of shit."
Glen closed the door and made a strange sort of a face. "You know, if you wore a red beanie you'd actually look exactly like a garden gnome. With the curly hair – short build. You could buy yourself a fishing rod for Halloween and be done."
On reflection – probably shouldn't have said any of that.
Malcolm returned to his office to find Jamie and Glen holding some of his goddamn mandarins, laughing at Christ knows what. He paused at the entrance to his office, stuck his head back out into the hallway and shouted, "Sam... Sam! Can you order a hearse to take Glen back to DoSAC?" Tucker stalked into the room properly, edging up to the desk. The pair had gone quiet now. "And you -" he pointed at Jamie. "I wan' a word with you. Get yer feet off the fucking state secrets." Tucker swatted Jamie's shoes until they slipped off.
"You don' get given secrets," Jamie replied, shuffling in the chair – failing to relinquish it. "You're a press enforcer. All you get are fuck-up-cataclysms to resolve with a packet of bandaids."
Malcolm's unhappy gaze settled on Glen, who was returning a few errant mandarins to a fruit bowl by the couch. "I told you to get out and yet you're still here."
"That's right, Malcolm," Glen calmly got to his feet and gathered up a few personal items he'd managed to shed in the last few hours. "I'm still here. Like an oversight in the Treasury expense log."
"Hey!" Jamie piped up in immediate defence. "That was a genuine accident by a desperate man that in no way represents the government's approach to tax payer money."
Malcolm waved Jamie down. "Calm down. Calm down. Everyone knows it was the act of a desperate millionaire trying to make ends meet in this crazy world." He delivered that last bit quite plaintively.
Sam re-appeared to usher Glen away.
"Jesus, did you do this to my office?"
"The newspapers weren't me..." Jamie lifted his hands innocently.
"Go on, get out of here. I've got Baldy due any minute with another one of his glass-ceiling ideas to detonate all over me like a fucking teenage erection." Malcolm was scampering around the room, picking up everything that the others had left scattered on the floor. There was no difference between toddlers and politicians – except that it was seen as poor fucking taste to put them in play pens.
"Why are there antlers in your office?" Julius asked, pausing at the strange item stashed away near the TV. "I knew you were one for blood sports but I thought you preferred bipeds."
Tucker twitched. "How would I fucking know? This is parliament. Weird shit materialises from the aether all the time. That's how I was born. One day a corridor coughed me up. These things 'appen. Now come the fuck on or I'll nail you to a skateboard and drag you behind me like a proper pet."
Julius took that as a hint to lay his notes across the table and make himself comfortable.
"I keep lookin' fer you in the obituaries but so fucking luck yet." Malcolm added, tearing the skin off a mandarin.
"Sorry to disappoint you, Malcolm," Julius was the vision of celestial calm, "but thanks to a couple of opposition policies we have an excellent medical system. They keep bringing me back and all for a very reasonable price partly funded by your taxes, what can I say?"
"If that was a very un-fucking-funny stab at Nicola's failed Hospitals for the People launch last year, then I'm going to eviscerate you so completely that they're going to need a cold-case forensic team to piece together what happened. Your cock will be in the Highlands and your arse cheeks floating in the channel like some fucking sun sharks – or whatever the fuck they're called. The solar panelled sharks that drift around in warm waters doing fuck all. That'll be your corpse. Spotted – floating – flake with some chips on the side."
"Are we still doing lunch?"
"Sure. Sam – Sam!" It took Sam a few minutes to trek all the way back to Malcolm's office. "Bring us a coffee, a Fanta and some fish and chips." She was glaring at him. Why was she tearing him apart with her – oh. "Fucking please," Malcolm added.