If anybody noticed that Malcolm and Jamie had arrived together,1 sprung from the same coffin and smelling of the same kind of transcendental rage, they were persuaded not to mention it by the blind white fury suffusing Malcolm's face.
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Halfway through the journey, Malcolm and Jamie had been effectively distracted from carving off each other's skin by the news that the press were outside Richmond Terrace. They'd been alerted to the occurrence of something by a Whitehall mole whom Jamie instantly vowed to mount on the wall (especially if it were Julius Nicholson). Circling the wagons round either DoSaC or Downing Street was out of the question, since it would definitely give the press gimps the erroneous impression that that something had happened.
Since Nothing had happened, this was inadvisable.
Between vowing each other's imminent destruction and the dissolution of all personal ties, Malcolm and Jamie (the former looking like death; he'd been on three hours sleep for weeks, which pissed Jamie off, but not as much as being pissed off by it pissed him off) had agreed that what they needed to achieve was a summary execution of James Murray, James Murray's prozzer girlfriend, whoever gave James Murray the coke, and all the Soho clubgoers who mistakenly believed they'd seen some, any combination of the above.2
Circling the wagons at the Murrays' home was, equally, a fucking disastrous idea, since the media cumcloths would probably go there next. Noone had a clue where Glenn lived, and Malcolm said he wasn't spending the night in Zone fucking fifteen even for politics.2.5 Terri actually had a backbone.3 The obvious choice, since he was already awake and a fucking gutless wonder, was the home of Mr. Olly Reeder.
"I still don't know why we had to do this here," was their host's greeting, as Malcolm (Armani, death-glare, cufflinks) and Jamie (psycho anorak, Trade Unionist grey shirt) walked in, volleying as many insults at his postcode, decor and legs as they could. Time was running short