‘If I may press … you stated that you were now 95% atheist.’

  ‘True, there is now room for doubt because some very clever people have all but proven in a court of law that I lived before, and fought in the First World War.

  ‘It’s kind of hard to dispute, and even his handwriting is the same as mine, but as my father pointed out recently, as a kid I did a school play, and I played Julius Caesar way too well.’

  They laughed, the PM smiling.

  ‘That’s all for now, thank you,’ the PM stated.

  We walked off, no shouted questions, and we collected the investors, who had been watching on a wall-mounted TV.

  At 8pm we all met at the posh Chinese restaurant that Trish had brought us to before, and unlike me … many of this lot could order their meals in Chinese. Bill and Ted, as well as Pat and Dingle, got a side table and could eat, so they were happy.

  I worked the room and spoke to most everyone, especially the man who was about to die in my meeting, which would have been very rude of him.

  Tony Blair turned up and met Lee Tong, talk of continuity when he was elected, a few snaps taken.

  I finally took Blair to one side with his assistant. ‘If I build all these nursing homes … it could make fifty thousand council houses empty!’

  ‘The councils will sell many of them, and get a boost, yes. And we’d need fewer social workers, so things will change.’

  ‘Fifty thousand empty houses and apartments could force house prices down, so we need to be ready, a shit load of fifty-percent mortgages issued.’

  They nodded.

  ‘And I’ll try and delay opening any nursing homes till you’re in power,’ I offered.

  He smirked. ‘When will the first one open?’

  ‘Here, four months maybe.’

  ‘Might be a June election,’ he noted.

  Coming out of the toilets, and a cute young Chinese-looking waitress screamed, a burn on her hand near the kitchens. I stepped to her, no one about, and held her hand, shocking her.

  ‘Hold steady, don’t talk.’ I closed my eyes, and when the heat in my hand had subsided I let go.

  She examined the hand and gasped.

  ‘Say nothing, or I’ll come to you in your dreams,’ I said, but not in a threatening way.

  ‘Come to me in my fucking apartment if you like, I get off at midnight,’ came in a London accent.

  ‘Tempting, but I have my hands full.’

  ‘Need to empty your balls every day.’

  My eyes widened, I turned, and I walked off.

  Back at the hotel, Blair and his assistant had followed, and my three assistants were still alert and not at all drunk, Lucas soon heading off to his wife.

  At the bar, I asked Bill, ‘Do you drink much?’

  ‘I used to, made a few mistakes, had to cut right down.’

  David was listening in. I made eye contact with him. He told Bill, ‘My wife drank herself into a car smash.’

  ‘Been there, done that,’ Bill told us. ‘But I survived intact fortunately, a fresh start.’ He faced me. ‘You have nightmares?’

  ‘No, fortunately. The plane crash should have fucked up my sleep some, but no.’

  ‘That old guy in the room, did you do some voodoo on him?’

  ‘Voodoo?’ I complained.

  ‘He looked like he was having a heart attack…’

  ‘Mind over matter, and he was lucky. Do people in the office think I can do voodoo?’

  ‘Most do, yeah, you’re well freaky, and way too lucky. You plan a few nursing homes, then go on holiday and come back with a few billion quid and some handy imports.’

  ‘I just talk to people, and they respond. We all have something to offer and we all want something, so we negotiate, not compete and measure dicks.’

  ‘Well if I’m going to have a heart attack, make sure you’re close by with some cold water, eh.’

  I smiled. ‘I’ll be there, I need you. And having just the right team makes a difference, because a highly-skilled twat might not do what you do.’

  ‘What do I do … that’s so good?’ Bill playfully puzzled.

  ‘See through the bullshit with the eye of a common man.’

  ‘Very common,’ David joked.

  Bill told David, ‘I take that as a compliment.’

  ‘And that’s what I need,’ I told them. ‘Not an office full of stuffed suits and yes men.’

  David put in, ‘There’s a barrister I know, wants to come work for us, and take on all the dodgy convictions around the country.’

  ‘Yes, do so, keep up the pressure on the police. Get him a desk and a car, or pay his travel expenses.’

  ‘He likes to go by train and study on the way. He has a clerk as well.’

  ‘Employ them both, free yourself up a little, but always have the last word with any decision.’

  Standing with Blair, I began, ‘What help will I get if you win?’

  ‘You get all you need, because what we’re keeping quiet is the cost projections.’

  ‘Which ones?’

  ‘If you open fifty nursing homes in our first term, and fifty soft prisons, then it’s a game changer, and we have to re-write the manual of how to run a country – and what it costs.

  ‘We have a costing system and we’ve made some large projections - what could happen at the extremes, and the nursing homes and the soft prisons will save a huge amount of public money.’

  I warned him, ‘If you overspend in the first term from such a windfall you’ll force inflation up, as well as house prices, and I’ll shout at you on the fucking BBC news!’

  ‘We’d have to plan it out, yes. But we could cut the council budgets from Central Office -’

  ‘And then do what is the national priority, which is to demolish all those horrid fucking concrete blocks built in the 1960s and to build proper houses in terraced streets!’

  ‘That’s a hell of a task,’ he warned.

  ‘So you’ll wait till they fall down and become drug dens?’

  ‘Hopefully not, no, but we’d have to take down some and then move the residents, year by year.’

  ‘I’m going to get involved, so be warned, those blocks promote crime and misery!’

  He nodded.

  I added, ‘I want to see it in your manifesto, a plan, pending some money saved elsewhere. And you could sell the land to me, and I’ll build new apartments, better ones, as well as houses.

  ‘But I’ll do that with or without you, private money. But if you want to make a difference, then invest money with me and get some good results, and earn money back – it won’t be a loan that just disappears.’

  ‘Plenty of those in government,’ he quipped.

  ‘And I worry about these interest-only mortgages, because if they keep getting easier to get then investors will buy up all the spare stock to rent out, and then we go back to how it was in Victorian times – the very rich and the very poor.

  ‘There need to be rules, and criminal punishment for fraudulent applications. The rules should be that you don’t have ten interest-only mortgages against your main house, they have to be limited.’

  ‘Yes, or someone buys up all the council houses and becomes a huge slum landlord.’

  ‘Have a think about it, but I will shout about it.’

  ‘Conference next week, Bournemouth.’

  ‘We’ll be there,’ I promised.

  The big sedate pow-wow

  In the morning, Rolf flew in with his partners, most of whom I had met at the club, and in the posh high-rise offices of Rolf’s London accountants they all signed and witnessed papers with David Hutton, Trench present as well as Swedish lawyers present, a restructuring of the basic consortium company.

  Rolf and his partners would have shares, I would have the bulk of the shares, but those shares would not make me much money because the terms of the newly structured consortium would mean that money loaned-in worked like having shares, and I had not loaned any money in.

  Our consortium partners soon had a copy document, and our Asian partners would now place money in the new account pro-rata, but not all of the promised money would come yet, we had no need of it yet.

  So if a man was to invest a hundred million in total this year, he would send us perhaps twenty million soon, but his percentage of the pot would be detailed, the other eighty million to arrive later as promised.

  My charity was also now a shareholder, a share issued free, and my charity was committed to putting in three hundred million pounds, a good return expected.

  And that promised money would make this one of the largest liquid-cash companies in the UK.

  When ready, we lined up and posed for the cameras, the image sure to make the newspapers here and in Europe.

  Afterwards, David Hutton told me, ‘We have the land next to the social home, a quick sale, a good price. Builders got a fax from us but they have the surveyors’ reports for it already.’

  ‘Send them money upfront, two shifts, to finish quickly.’

  ‘They said to tell you to keep your panties on, and that they’ll finish quickly.’

  I smiled. ‘I wonder how they all perceive me, playboy rich kid or serious businessman?’

  ‘They like you and respect you, which is rare.’

  ‘You like Glen?’

  ‘He knows his stuff, and as you said to Bill last night he cuts through the bullshit. He’s a working class lad from Derby.’

  ‘The ownership of the Leicester land will pass to the consortium, and money will be adjusted back and forth with the charity. The charity will get back a lot of money and then reinvest it.’

  ‘The accountants are working out the headache, yeah.’

  I approached Rolf and his team. ‘Are you lot … comfortable with the new arrangement, a sharing of the sweeties?’

  The senior partner of Rolf’s group began, ‘We could have made one or two nursing homes a year and retained control and the financial aspects, but this expansion gives us access to the cheap imported products and the cost savings.

  ‘Overall we will make more money, and we are more secure in that we have fellow investors. Already Lee Tong promises me an apartment off-plan in Kuala Lumpur, a great cost saving.

  ‘So we will help each other, and we will all benefit, and … this project will be worth ten times more than all of our previous projects, so we can scale down on other projects.’

  I nodded. ‘When Mandoch Valley is ready, a few months, pick a plot to buy and build, your villa cost will be around three hundred thousand, the villa worth three million by September.’

  ‘For us, such returns are impossible … impossible without you I mean. And the way the hotel and villa bookings for the island are progressing, land prices will rocket this year.’

  I told them, ‘And we hope to make some money from the pilgrims as well, big pilgrim hotels open next winter, a winter trade for the island.’

  ‘I own part of your hotel in Corsica, my investment up six fold it seems, at least on paper. In Sweden this never happens, we hope for fifteen percent a year from a good project.’

  I told them, ‘Now we have people flying down for the damn spring water.’

  ‘Stan is there, yes, and room bookings are fantastic for wintertime.’

  ‘I hope the water helps him, but it takes years to test a new medicine and to license it, and that’s how people are labelling it – a fucking medicine.’

  Rolf cut in, ‘It would be better to sell it as spring water, no claims of medical benefits, let others make the claims. We don’t want it regulated like a drug.’

  ‘We’re not in control, the fucking islanders think it’s Holy Water!’

  He tipped his head. ‘Yes, an issue, but it also fills hotel rooms.’

  The elder investor began, ‘If it stops the pain of arthritis, it is worth a thousand Euro a month. I take such medicine.’

  ‘Then try the water, but I think that if you stop taking it then a few weeks later the pain comes back. Question is … how many weeks.’

  ‘It is like this for me now, so I wait and see with some hope that this is a natural remedy, no more pills.’

  Grabbing a large sheet of paper, I drew Battersea Power Station as many men observed, then drew in a half-circle of curved buildings, lower building at the water’s edge for a view, higher behind.

  With David Hutton holding the large drawing, and most everyone focused on it, I began, ‘We should have buildings around the edges, high at the back and low towards the river, that way a view for residents.

  ‘They all connect with walkways, and a doctor could walk around without getting wet. Here, at the waterside, we have cafes, bars, shops, and offices for local government.

  ‘We build the roads and sewage first, we finish the nursing home inside the building and the cafes and bars and offices, and we open, then we build the lower buildings, finally the higher buildings, filling them as we go.

  ‘Here, near the road entrance, will be the main warehouse, goods brought in in bulk, sorted, issued to the various cafes at night, drugs sorted, issued to the buildings at night.

  ‘And we’d have a three month supply here of most things, topped-up each week. We supply our own cafes and pharmacy, that way we make great money.

  ‘The main road is an issue if many people use it, but our residents won’t use it, and we’d have a bus to take any Phase One people to the local train station free of charge. We’d hope that we don’t see traffic jams at that road.

  ‘But it could be three lanes in and three out, it’s a wide area -’

  ‘And fire hazards?’ a Swedish accountant asked.

  ‘Each building will meet British safety standards - as with a hospital; building materials, exits and fire-fighting equipment. All rooms will have a heat sensor, staff on all night, staff trained to fight fires.

  ‘When designing the nursing home in Leicester, I told the architect – make it concrete and fire proof, many easy exits, robust furniture and fire proof doors.

  ‘We have cameras, we have heat sensors and smoke detectors, and we have staff on all night, so I won’t be losing any sleep over it.’

  ‘Can we visit it now?’ a man asked, and I nodded.

  ‘Whoever wants to visit now, raise a hand? That’s most of you, so we’ll arrange minibuses and taxis, it’s not far.’ I pointed out the window. ‘The four tall yellow chimneys.’

  People peered out at the image as minibuses were arranged, but we had many waiting anyhow. Drivers called in their mates and they would bill me.

  At the site, cold-nosed security men letting us in, we stepped down into a freezing cold wind and peered up at the huge building.

  To Rolf and his partners I said, ‘The land to the railway line will be ours.’

  Rolf noted, ‘Enough for many tall buildings.’

  The elder Swedish investor noted, ‘A circle of buildings would suit, yes, still a view of the river for people in the main building.’

  Inside the shell building, we peered up, pigeons sent into flight, a few people snapping photos, David Hutton and Bill having a good look around.

  A few men from Wandsworth Council turned up unexpected, but this was their turf after all.

  I shook an old man’s cold hand as he explained, ‘I’m from the planning department, and we’re delighted that this place will be used finally, and someone did suggest a nursing home years ago, also sheltered housing, so to make a pensioners’ village here is a delight to us.’

  ‘A social … pensioners’ village, no rich people,’ I pointed out.

  ‘The rich can take care of themselves, yes.’

  I pointed upwards. ‘Do you think … we could have a lift in a chimney, and charge people fifty quid – paid to my charity – to go up and have a look out at the view?’

  ‘I don’t see why not, it makes money for the pensioners, but no stairs up the chimneys for the residents please.’

  I smiled widely. ‘That would finish them off, yes. And we’ll make the place warm for them. On the roof we’d have a garden, ponds, a café for summer use.’

  ‘Sounds great. And a great view from up there when it’s built.’

  ‘In here, the nursing home would be solid concrete, simple design, fire proof, and it would shore up the walls nicely.’

  He nodded. ‘They presented us with all sorts of strange uses, including a city garden of hanging plants, but the land is valuable, and the income will help us.’

  ‘Many developers wanted it?’ I asked.

  ‘Not really, because it’s a listed building, and expensive land. Some suggested posh apartments in here, swimming pools, but they’d not recover their costs.

  ‘Most just wanted to buy it and build apartment blocks, but we resisted, and tall blocks would spoil the view of the power station, and there’s an order against that – local people must be able to see part of it, it’s been here a long while and is symbolic of this part of London.’

  I nodded at that. ‘We’d have swimming pools, but therapy pools, hoists available. How many council houses and apartments do you have?’

  ‘About twelve thousand.’

  ‘When this place opens, do you get priority, or can anyone come here?’

  ‘We’d have priority, it’s on our patch, but if there were free places then of course other boroughs could send people.’

  ‘So you could then sell ten thousand local council apartments and houses...’

  ‘That would a fantastic amount of money for us, that would be almost a billion pounds at today’s sale prices.’

  ‘You … talk to the other boroughs?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, why?’

  ‘Find out which borough has the most need, and I can look at them after this project.’

  ‘I know just who to talk to, Barnet, but they tend to have more rich people up there. Bromley is the largest, but very rural. So Tower Hamlets should maybe be your next target, a great many poor social tenants there.’

  ‘Talk to them, find me some land.’

  ‘I can do, yes. They have a few blocks being demolished.’

  I spoke with each group and thanked our visitors, many soon heading to airports and warmer climates as I headed back to my hotel with my four security lads.