Thank-you to everyone who has taken the time to read this and for all the lovely reviews and feedback. As you've probably gathered the election didn't go quite as I guessed it would; Con-Dem alliance, really, who would have thought that might actually happen? Feel like smacking Nick Clegg on the end of the nose with a rolled up newspaper. Bad Nick. No. Stop nuzzling David's crotch, he doesn't like it. (He is smiling though.)

Now this little story has come to an ending of sorts after five chapters, but I will be writing some new stuff in the next couple of weeks so please do check back through My Profile page soon and if you've enjoyed it do pass it on.

Grisette

DoSAC offices - May 4th, 8.35am

"Alright my little cock-holsters gather around daddy."

"Good morning to you too Malcolm," Ollie said, voice faux-sweet.

"Yeah, yeah, take the fucking pleasantries as implied. Glenn drag your carcass over here. Where's Nicola?"

"She's um - " Ollie pointed to her office. She was pacing, phone clamped to her ear. "Family stuff. She's had…"

"Unless she's run some cunt over or hired an illegal au pair I'm not interested. Talking of which - this UKIP cum junky she's about to lose her seat to…"

"Knightly," Glenn said.

"You've been doing that brain training haven't you," Malcolm said with an evil smirk. "Alright then Albert Wankstain - you've got a constituency poling around forty-four thousand votes and a minister holding a majority of two hundred - "

"Two hundred and fifty," Ollie put in.

Malcolm glared at him. "Five percent swing and you pair are out on the street hawking your mutton for Morrisons vouchers and Diamond White. So what's the line?"

Ollie and Glenn looked at each other for a beat too long and Malcolm groaned into his hand.

"Well it's all about her track record isn't it," Glenn said uncertainly. "Unemployment's down, they've had four percent growth - "

"No-one cares about growth unless it's popped up on their fucking balls."

"Immigration?" Ollie asked.

"In Leamington fucking Spa?"

"It's what we're hearing from the canvassers," Glenn said.

"Then it's the usual tack - long history of migration into the UK…what's made us a great nation…vital to the economy - Ollie, where are your people from? Moominland isn't it?"

Ollie rocked back on his heels. "We're the only people whiter than the Scots."

"You notice how the racists are the exact people who could use some attractive foreign DNA in their pool." Malcolm's phone peeped and he read the text message with a thin smile. "Knightly looks like someone poured semolina into a fucking surgical stocking."

"Oh, right well she can say that then."

"Wouldn't be the stupidest thing she's come out with." He trousered his mobile. "Look, just make it clear that UKIP is a fringe party for neo-Nazi's and bodged lobotomy jobs. Discreetly though, you - "

Malcolm froze midsentence, his eyes fixing on the television playing news24 a few metres away. A Lib Dem love-in at a nursery in Highgate, cute kids and photogenic mums all looking with adoring eyes at Toby Coyne and his Boden-wrapped wife. The cameras were going off but he ignored them effectively enough, everyone acting natural except for the short, grey-suited man in the background, who was turning away from the camera, smoothing a hand down his yellow tie as he snarled into his Blackberry.

"Is that Jamie?" Ollie asked. "Jamie's working for Coyne now?"

"I should have had the wee shite rendered."

"You didn't know he'd crossed the floor."

"I fucking knew," Malcolm snapped and it sounded like a lie.

"It's a diagonal cross," Glenn said, aiming for tact. "It's not like he defected to the wankers. I mean we could be working with Coyne's lot in a few weeks time."

Ollie looked down at his shoes. "If we're lucky."

"Over my cold, stiff one," Malcolm said. "And yours."

He stormed past the television and hammered on the glass wall of Nicola Murray's office.

"You've got an election to fight when you're done swapping falafel recipes." He turned to Ollie. "Get her to change out of that dress - looks like she's got a fucking wheat intolerance."

Malcolm stalked away towards the lifts, already dialling.

Glenn gave a wry smile. "Burke and Hare going head to head then."

St George's Golf Club - Leamington Spa - 11.22 am

"Jesus fucking Christ what was that?" Nicola Murray said.

Ollie and Glenn climbed into the back of the people carrier, avoiding answering. The cameras were still going off on the other side of the window, half a dozen photographers, local news crews, everyone interested in her now. She fixed a rictus grin until the car pulled away, swearing through her teeth.

"It escalated," Glenn said.

Her mobile rang. "Shit, it's Malcolm."

"Don't answer it," Ollie said.

"Full of good advice now aren't you."

He opened his mouth to speak, closed it again.

"Whose idea was it to come to a fucking golf club?" She glared at the rolling green fairway as they passed out of the gates. "I suppose we're off to the Women's Guild now are we? Jesus Christ. What next - tea and shitcakes with the Masons?"

"They requested fifty posters," Glenn said weakly.

"They're probably wiping their arses on them."

Nicola's mobile was still ringing, the tone becoming angrier. She closed her eyes, touched her fingertips to her forehead.

"Hi Malcolm."

"What the fuck was that?" he shouted. "Did we not run through the lines on this issue? Did I not make it abundantly fucking clear to you yesterday what you were to say? You get hit in the fucking head woman?"

"In my defence - "

"Darlin' we could mobilise the whole of Trident in your defence and it wouldn't be enough."

"He used the word Polack."

"And you used the word racist. To a voter. In front of the press. Do you see where the problem is? You called a sixty-five year old Falklands veteran a racist."

"He was a racist."

"And that twat in Rochdale was a bigot but we don't have the fucking luxury of honesty. We know they're a bunch of mouth-breathing racist shites but we have to pretend Nicola, we have to smile and nod and pretend we agree that yes, of course their feckless, tunnel-cunted daughters deserve first dibs on the council houses."

Ollie tapped Nicola on the knee, held his iPhone up and showed her the interview the man was giving to Sky News already. Red face clashing with his pink Pringle v-neck.

"Shit."

"Yes darlin', shit indeed. A big ole shitslide is thundering down the mountain towards you."

"I'm not apologising."

"You will suck that man's balls if that's what it takes to get your lead back"

"They hate us Malcolm." Nicola pressed the side of her face against the window. "I'm not going to humiliate myself for the sake of a seat that's already lost."

"Give Ollie the phone."

She handed it over. Ollie listened and nodded, tried to interject but was cut off sharply. Malcolm's voice flared one last time then he was gone.

"He's handling it," Ollie said.

"I'm not apologising."

Ollie's face twisted briefly.

"I'm not."

Lib Dem HQ - Cowley Street - 11.50am

The television opposite Jamie Macdonald's desk was playing muted but the red banner running across the bottom of the screen said it all.

'Minister apologises for outburst.'

Nicola Murray on a thrown together podium, flanked by Glenn and Ollie - it looked like the shittest threesome ever convened. She was doing that strained face they all pulled when there was a gun to the back of their heads, like she was trying to shit stickle bricks.

A fist rapped against his door and Jamie quickly shut down the photo file open on his desktop - a black granite worktop, three lines of coke, a teenaged blonde with a rolled up twenty hanging out of her nose

"A'right boss I'm on it," he said, getting up as Coyne came in, closing the door after the man.

Coyne had aged fifteen years in the last two hours, brown hair pulled about, pale under his tan. They'd need to get the girl back in Jamie saw, slather some more Touché Éclat over his eye bags. Looked like he hitched his bollocks up there.

"She said it was the first time she'd tried it."

Jamie forced himself not to grin, made a close approximation of a sympathetic expression.

"Aye well we all done stupid shite at her age."

"Can this be contained?" Coyne asked, pacing between the desk and the window.

"Depends where it's coming from."

Coyne stopped, shot Jamie a look which was supposed to be fierce; he'd seen clocks with tougher faces.

"This has got your mentor's fingerprints all over it."

"If Tucker wanted this out it'd be out now and your wee girl'd be splashed across the red tops like a tramp's pish. This - " he stabbed a finger towards the computer. "This is the wankers batting you round the ribs to see what you're made of."

Coyne sat down, propped his chin on his fist.

"What if we release it now before anyone can make any mileage out of it?" he suggested. "It's only coke isn't it?"

Jamie laughed at him. "Are you fucking serious? You think that'll play well in Cuntbridge Wells do you?"

Coyne chewed on the ball of his thumb. There was a tick of red felt-tip on the cuff of his shirt from the school visit they had just made.

"It must have been one of her friends…"

"Welcome to fucking politics," Jamie said in an undertone, picking up his mobile. "Alright shitrag what you got for me?"

Jamie watched Coyne's bottom lip wobble as he stared into middle distance. The man was barely cut out for second string opposition, leadership would probably kill him.

Too many skeletons in the closet for him to worry about.

The voice at the other end of his phone had begun to drag.

"If you don't fucking know why am I talking to you?" he snapped. "You're as much use as a cock ring in a convent."

Coyne looked up at him. "What now?"

"Best you're not here," Jamie said, punching a number into his phone. "Save you denying knowledge later."

Coyne nodded, shuffled out, closing the door behind him.

"Jamie Macdonald as I live and breath - I heard Malcolm had you sent to Guantanamo Bay."

"Aye well, I busted out."

Simon Hewitt's smirk was audible down the phone. "And now your man's pushing Malcolm's out of number ten. Must feel good to escape his shadow finally."

"You're the fucker shagging his sloppy seconds," Jamie said. "Alright that's the foreplay out'ae the way. Now this wank about Coyne's daughter and the coke party…"

There was a minute pause and Jamie heard Hewitt clicking his fingers at someone in the newsroom.

"She's eighteen Jamie. Fair game."

"You still think that when I've got a pair a jump leads hooked up to your bollocks?"

"How ever is Malcolm managing without your gift for understatement?"

"Don't fuck me about you bloated prostrate. I will not allow you to run this story."

"Ask me nicely."

"I'll ask you fucking nicely you cunt - I'll come into your fucking house tonight and carve 'please' into your fucking chest with a razor, how's that for you? Polite enough?"

Hewitt sighed. "This is all getting a bit tired Jamie, this Govan hardman act. Do you think Coyne is really going to keep you around once the election's over? JB won't wear it for one thing. Not after you leaked that photo of the future chancellor. No room for you in a coalition government, you wee radge."

"You want'ae worry about your immediate future."

"I'm feeling very secure thank-you."

"You're as secure as - "

The phone went dead.

"Fuck. Fucking spunk-chugging cunt."

Jamie's hands scrambled over his desk, found the printer and threw it across the room, smashing it into the wall, shattered black plastic and ink trails spattering the wall next to the open door. Coyne was standing watching, his mouth hanging open slightly.

"They're running with it," Jamie said raggedly.

"Oh my god."

"JB's people gave them it." He drew Coyne into the office, gripping his elbow. "One of their kids was there - some fucking double barrelledcuntophobic with an iPhone."

Coyne smiled weakly. "We've shaken JB. We can win this thing Jamie."

"Aye." He clapped him on the shoulder. "Fuck coalitions. You are going to be the next Prime Minister if I have to personally rip apart Tom and JB with my bare fucking hands and eat their raddled corpses."

Coyne blinked rapidly, eased himself away from Jamie. "How do we spin this?"

"I'm on it. You go kiss some wee baldy pensioners or something - hug a hooker."

He waved Coyne out of the office, humming Swanee to himself as he dialled. One ring. Two.

"They're running it."

"You've made your old man very proud," Malcolm said, a smile in his voice.

"Aye - viva la fucking revolution."