Chapter 14: New Order, Order

After collecting his bedwear in his booked hotel room, Monty does a deliberate strip tease down to his briefs and socks, whilst singing “da-da-da, da-da-da-da” for the benefit of the hidden cameras and microphones, before putting on a bath robe, locking the door from the outside and following George to his room before going to sleep, aware that knowledge is both powerful and invigorating, while at the same time delivering peace of mind leading to a peaceful night’s sleep.

When he returns home Monty is determined to have it out with Mabel. He still isn’t sure that this plot is Mabel’s idea, but he cannot understand why it would be anyone else, bearing in mind the prenup that Mabel’s father, the wealthy Patrick Robertson Snr, had insisted they both sign all those years ago when Monty and Mabel were teenagers, her family was rich and Monty’s family was upper class but penniless. Being a lawyer by trade, he had the prenup checked for validity at regular intervals during the marriage and the reports were always that it was still workable under present law and the regular legal opinions were attached to his own signed copy of the prenup to back those legal opinions.

When Monty does eventually get back home, he will find that Mabel initially denies any wrongdoing on her part.

However, after talking to Cynthia about his missing the AGM because of what he finds out are deletions from his official Parliamentary email account, Monty got the IT specialists at Westminster involved to check his accounts. They discovered that his private emails had been hacked using his passwords and traced to an origin of access, a computer owned by Monty’s wife Mabel, who appeared to have selectively deleted certain emails of her choice. This was considered unacceptable by Westminster with regard to an MP’s communications, so Westminster asked the Metropolitan Police to investigate to see if they could use the IT department’s trace through to the discovery of IP addresses who had interfered with his official Parliamentary email account as sufficient evidence to prosecute. Monty wasn’t confident of any legal success with regard to the hacking but knew it would help speed up the divorce proceedings that he had put in training.

Monty’s electoral agent Cynthia confirmed that many years before, due to Monty’s frequent absences from weekend constituency surgeries, that she had set up email accounts as monty.westminster firstly at aol and later at gmail so she could answer constituents’ questions on”his” email and send it to herself, and show them to clients so they thought Monty was answering them in his absence.Cynthia had also got into the habit of sending herself apologies from “Monty” for not attending meetings, including the recent AGM, which she was able to show to Mabel when Monty’s wife demanded to see his apology for none attendance at the AGM. This ensured that Monty still got onto the candidates’ ballot and was still favourite to beat his wife who was the only other person standing for nominations as parliamentary candidates for the party ticket.

He won the general election in 2024 by a landslide and remains MP for Songlebridge South constituency, with a reduced majority, with the Reform party in second place, then Liberal Democrat, Labour and Raving Looney Party a distance fifth place.

In the morning Doreen wakes up seeing Oscar sitting up in bed reading the Sunday newspaper that she had ordered from Reception the day before. He hadn’t done that for a dozen years since suffering the stroke. She wonders if the Dementia-Away pills were finally kicking in and having the desired effect.

It turns out that Oscar has indeed been on this trial for Dementia-Away, an experimental drug for the relief of various forms of dementia, working, the pharmaceutical company claimed, by stimulating the brain into refocusing and strengthening the mind into re-establishing links to memory and speeding up immediate responses to external stimuli.

At breakfast, Sofija responds to Doreen’s enquiries regarding Oscar’s improvement, that there were two other residents of the care home that were on the drug and two other patients who were on a harmless placebo. Sofija felt it was counterproductive to explain any further, allowing Doreen to enjoy her father’s improvement without clouding the reasons behind his restored health.

Sofija had woken up at the same time as Sally, who rose early to prepare the breakfasts for the hotel with George as helpful in the kitchen. As Sally departed to the kitchens, Sofija started her nursing duties with a visit to Elsie’s room. Sofija had a second key for both Elsie’s and Boris’s rooms, although she really only needed the key for Boris in case of emergencies, but for bed-ridden Elsie the key access was essential to get her up, washed and dressed early in the morning.

As usual the ever-cheerful Elsie is already awake and welcomes the nurse as soon as Sofija knocks and enters her room. After being changed from her wet happy and cleaned up, Elsie cleaned her teeth and Sofija dressed the old lady ready for the coming day’s activities.

During the various procedures, Elsie chatters away dropping hints about how well Sofija slept etcetera and also asks why the nurse looks a little sad this morning, was it because the trip was coming to an end?

Well, Sofija thought, there was little point in lying to the old lady, someone who she has intimately cared for over the last dozen years or so, so she admits to Elsie,

“I’ve had a bit of a row viz Claire over ze phone last night ... und after ve exchanged angry verds I told Claire zat she could stick zis job vere ze sun don’t shine ... but it vill probably mean I’ll be leaving ze care home and vill be deported back to Belarus.”

“Ah, so you didn’t sleep with Monty last night, then, eh?” Elsie asks.

“No! Of course not! Vy vood you sink zat I vood sleep viz him? Ve’ve only known each uzzer fer a day und he is married. He is also an honourable man.”

“And so are you, my dear, well an honourable woman who is loved and respected in the care home,” Elsie soothes, patting the back of Sofija’s hand with her left hand, “and Claire and her cronies tried to insist that you did sleep with our MP and when you resisted they threatened you with being an illegal alien, right?”

“Zey did ... how do you know all zis?” Sofija asks.

Elsie points to her ear, “Hearing aids, intelligence service grade, highly effective and customisable over an app on my phone, and everything I hear is recorded to the cloud and constantly monitored; I can add markers so that our monitors at base can isolate interesting passages, so that speakers previously identified can be linked to each conversation.”

“Intelligence service?” Sofija asks, her eyebrows raised.

“Look, Sofija, we’ve known each other for quite a long time, almost as long as the care home opened. Yes, it must be some 12 years out of the last 15 years or so,” Elsie opens, “I know your history, that you’ve been here in the UK illegally for around 20 years. You’ve always worked since you got here, you’ve never been in any trouble with the authorities; you’re basically a model citizen. Everyone you nurse loves you, and I guarantee that you will never be deported. There is a note to that effect in your file, I ensured that is in there.”

“Er, should I sank you, Elsie?”

“No, you’ve deserved a better fate than being shipped off to places like that, I’ve been there and seen what a depressing place it is, even compared to a British care home! As for me, well I don’t have much longer to go, but my background is military, my brandfather, father and my husband were all British Army officers, before he joined the diplomatic service mostly as a military attaché. He would be seen as a likely intelligence officer but we always had him playing a straight bat while I was always the undercover agent. I was good at it so even when we both retired I was brought in for little jobs here and there, and have been full-time since I was widowed. When our Boris had his stroke and couldn’t manage on his own, we managed to place him in the Care Home with you, and I was assigned to keep an eye on him ... and on you.”

“Me?”

“You were very much low priority while Boris was a ‘sleeper’ and therefore an unknown entity who sat around quietly for years waiting for his ‘trigger’. These are the worse kind of secret agent that we have to watch closely because they hide by being almost completely inactive. Boris was clearly highly valued, judging by the level of his pay and the number of agents seen to be protective of him but we had no clue why. He has been monitored by agents since 1988, with me keeping an eye out since 2012. Anyway, by moving Boris and me to Songlebridge I could soon see that you were not an agent, just someone wanting a slightly better life.”

“A much better life, I assure you. So Boris is a secret agent for ... Belgium?”

“No, he was sent here as a sleeper on behalf of the KGB for USSR at first but since the break-up of the Soviet Union, he has been paid by Russia, the FSB. When Boris was first sent here from the USSR he was left to assimilate and lose himself but since 1990 has been in regularly contact with the KGB and their successors. The really interesting fact is that he worked under Putin in Dresden in the 1980s and Putin sent him here under his personal orders and instructed to stay under the radar until his mission pack arrived.”

“Ze Putin himself?”

“Yes, the Putin himself. Interesting, yes?”

“Da. Und ze ‘Mission pack’, vot is zat?”

“We are not sure. We assume it is canisters of nerve gas to do initial damage to important personnel, with an additional nuclear device designed to go off sometime afterwards perhaps to make a bigger statement on the world stage,” Elsie adds, “there are certain signals that the boffins can detect, so we have a general idea of the contents. The pack was delivered last week and Boris has brought it with him in his bag, well wrapped up to prevent casual prying and to make any physical opening immediately evident.”

“Und he us being allowed to carry zis bomb around viz him? On ze bus und everyfink?” Sofija asks, incredulous at this information.

“Oh, it is quite safe and secure, and he won’t deploy it until he reaches his target, and we are as far away across the country as we can get from that target.”

“But ve, you me und ze rest of ze patients, are as close to zis bomb as ve can get!”

“I really don’t think Boris will be setting his package off, my dear. For one thing, he is a long way from his target, he hasn’t detected any surveillance as I present a most unlikely Bond figure, and he feels safe. I think he is feeling a little remorseful of his mission already, as we suspected he would be if we could get him on the trip and interacting with his fellow passengers. You see how he responded during the dancing at the hotel and how generous he was. Even after I left the room I was sure he would continue to unwind. That was borne out as Boris spent much of last night watching news reports of the Ukraine/Russia war and his attitude towards the aggressors appears to be much as I expected. We have operatives standing by in any case and they will remove the microphones from his room after we have left.”