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Tom Watson is the former deputy leader of the Labour Party and
the MP for West Bromwich East between 2001 and 2019. He first
folded Labour Party leaflets in the family kitchen in Kidderminster at
the age of seven and has been involved in every single General
Election since then. Tom served as a Minister for Tony Blair and
worked at the very heart of Downing Street with Gordon Brown. In
September 2015, he was elected as Labour’s Deputy Leader. Tom is
well known as a campaigning politician. He took on the tabloid
newspaper industry during the phone hacking scandal and more
recently has campaigned against exploitative and addictive practices
in the gambling industry. After changing his diet and getting fit, Tom
now has the sugar industry in his sights and is committed to raising
awareness about the dangers of excess and hidden sugars, and
improving public understanding about conditions like type 2
diabetes.

Imogen Robertson is a writer of historical fiction. Now based in

London, she was born and brought up in Darlington and read
Russian and German at Cambridge. Before becoming a writer, she
directed for TV, film and radio. She is the author of several novels,
including the Crowther and Westerman series. Imogen has been
shortlisted for the CWA Historical Dagger three times (2011, 2013
and 2014), as well as for the prestigious Dagger in the Library. She
has also written King of Kings, a collaboration with the legendary
international bestseller Wilbur Smith, and Liberation, a wartime
thriller, with Darby Kealey.
 Copyright

Published by Sphere

ISBN: 978-0-7515-7878-2

All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly
in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real
persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Copyright © Tom Watson and Little, Brown Book Group Ltd 2020

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

The quote Owen is trying to remember on pg 182 is: I recalled what

Imo said about size and attraction and felt it like a gun quite close to
my head, by which I mean cold and true.

From Farewell to Bread by Roddy Lumsden, published in Not All

Honey (Bloodaxe Books 2014), used with with kind permission of the
publisher.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any
means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that
are not owned by the publisher.

Sphere
Little, Brown Book Group
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ

www.littlebrown.co.uk
www.hachette.co.uk
 Contents

About the Author

Copyright
Dedication

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56

Acknowledgements
To Ned and Sarah
‘May they never lead the nation wrongly through love of
power, desire to please, or unworthy ideals but, laying aside
all private interests and prejudices, keep in mind their
responsibility to seek to improve the condition of all mankind.’
from the Daily Prayer of the House of Commons
 Chapter 1

Monday 7 March 2022

Philip Bickford gets to his feet and takes the magic half-step forward.
He opens his folder and places it on the despatch box then rests his
left hand on it, index finger brushing the figures he needs.
The honourable members scattered behind him are quiet. It’s an
ordinary morning and no one is expecting much drama during Oral
Questions to the Minister for Patient Safety. Philip is not a dramatic
performer. No one perks up waiting for him to be funny or cruel, or
both. They are expecting bland words and his usual flurry of
percentages delivered in – well, it’s not quite a monotone, but
sometimes it gets close.
This is ‘local press release fodder’ questions. This is ‘get your MP a
line for his Facebook page’ time. It’s celebrating the NHS, welcoming
this, reviewing that, consulting widely and acknowledging tough
choices will be made without getting into the weeds of what those
tough choices will actually be. Philip’s senior, the Secretary of State
for Health, will make any important announcements and probably in
front of a bank of cameras rather than in the Chamber of the House
of Commons, so these regular sessions of parliamentary questions
are usually mere skirmishes on the edge of the battlefield. Still, an
opposition backbencher might try to make a name for themselves by
inflicting a flesh wound with a flourish of their rhetorical blade, or
open a campaign which could make the whole government bleed
with an innocent-sounding enquiry into something local, specific.
The sort of thing you might miss. The ground is treacherous.
 In the warren of corridors and committee rooms the enquiries into
the government’s handling of the outbreak are continuing. The Royal
Commission on Virus Control daily demands further disclosures of
emails and minutes of meetings and the civil servants parry and
prevaricate; across the river the Commission takes day after day of
evidence from nurses who didn’t get the Personal Protective
Equipment they needed even as their colleagues started dying
around them, and care-home workers weep into the microphones as
they talk about their residents left to die alone in their rooms; then
there are all the public consultations as regulations made in haste
are unpicked with tortuous slowness. Unexploded ordnance is still
scattered over the field, in other words, so Phil, swallowing to clear
his throat to speak, has to be careful where he treads.
Phil knows he got this job after the 2019 election because nobody
in government was paying much attention. The Brexit hardcore had
got the top jobs and they still had dozens of junior Cabinet positions
to fill. A working-class boy whose mother had been a nurse, and
who hadn’t made too many enemies in the party? He’ll do
somewhere in Health. The Prime Minister’s political secretary
shrugged, scrawled Phil’s name on a Post-it note, stuck it up on the
whiteboard in the ‘Health’ column and then got back to the really
important business of Brexit. Those were the days.
Phil was never going to be a great parliamentary performer, but
he turned out to be competent and reassuring when that’s what
people needed. He kept his job. Won the grudging respect of his
colleagues and the opposition, and got on with it.
So, OK, this isn’t one of the grand pitched battles of parliament, it
is a dawn patrol, a routine survey of the battleground. A warning
exchange of fire as the pickets and snipers remind each other they
are still there.
But. If you’ve never been there you can’t know what it feels like,
that half-step into the glare surrounding the despatch box, the feel
of the New Zealand hardwood under your fingertips, the blank,
hostile faces of the opposition and the sudden jolt of adrenaline, of
fear which makes the hairs on the back of Phil’s neck stand up. He
gives it a beat, then speaks.
 ‘I thank my honourable friend for her question and am delighted
to join her in congratulating the staff of NHS Kent on the opening of
the new wing of Kent Central – another demonstration of this
government’s ongoing commitment … ’
He trots out the phrases, hardly needs to glance down for the
numbers. The jackals on the opposition benches have nothing to
cling onto, no room for a heckle, no hook for a joke. They grumble
and sulk their way through his answer, scratching at their cuffs,
hunching their shoulders.
Philip sits down to polite ‘hear, hears’ from the men and women
on his own benches. They sound like sheep when they see the hay
truck winding up the hill. So far so good. He controls his expression.
Don’t look smug. Don’t look scared. Don’t look nervous. Don’t look
bored. Look calm. Look engaged. Don’t smirk. The battlefield is
quiet, but the cameras are still on and the snipers are still watching
through their scopes even while they smother a yawn. Spot who
among the bobbing MPs the Deputy Speaker is turning to next and
listen.
‘Donald Black!’
The Deputy Speaker raises her voice for the first time this session.
More members are coming in to find their places before the next
item on the order paper. The Prime Minister is coming in to make a
statement about the tortuous progress of the trade talks and offer
some bullish bromides about great days ahead. Jam tomorrow. Just
ten minutes of topical questions left and Phil can get out of here and
back to work. An afternoon of meetings in his parliamentary office,
then a strategy session at the department which is scheduled to run
till seven, but will probably bleed on until nine.
Yes. The Honourable Member for Southampton West, face like a
misshapen orange with tiny dark eyes – cloves stuck in the pith of
his pockmarked skin. Collar too tight, knot in his tie too small. Voice
nasal.
‘Would the Honourable Member agree with me that as we
approach the second anniversary of the peak of COVID-19 in the
United Kingdom … ’ What’s left of it. The thought, heavy with the
bafflement and fear of those first weeks, hits heavy behind Phil’s
eyes. He thinks of the camp beds in rows in sports stadia, that
photograph of a nurse coming off shift in Lewisham, his face gaunt
and grey with exhaustion. The slow unravelling after the first crisis
passed. The spiralling unemployment figures, shuttered restaurants
and bills. The endless brain-aching bills. ‘ … that now is the time to
commemorate that moment in some significant way, and particularly
offer some public memorial to the frontline NHS workers who lost
their lives in their heroic struggle against the virus.’
An easy one. Surprisingly easy from the opposition. Phil stands
up. Half-step forward again, the words ready behind his lips. More
people are coming into the Chamber and a movement in the visitors’
gallery catches his eye.
A man in his late sixties, wearing the open collar, thin sweater and
jacket of a retired white-collar worker, is finding his seat behind the
glass panel. He nods politely to his neighbour as she lifts her scarf
and bag out of his way.
Something deep in Philip’s brain twitches into anxious, vigorous
life. The man sits and faces into the Chamber. Dark eyes, pale brown
skin. A stutter of memory. A summer’s evening. Distant pounding
music. Owen’s voice shouting something, Georgina crying. The yelp
and squawk of a siren. Philip’s brain goes white. He’s frozen for what
feels like minutes. Two point three seconds, he’ll learn later. Long
enough.
The tricksters and hecklers on the opposition benches snap to
attention. Blood in the water. Say something, Philip tells himself.
Stop looking at that ghost in the gallery and say something.
He clears his throat.
‘The government believes that a lasting public memorial would
indeed be appropriate to celebrate the deaths of frontline workers
whose selfless actions … ’ Laughter, cries of ‘Shame’ bouncing off
the walls. What has he said? How has everything changed? Three
minutes ago he was listening to the birdsong and now the air is full
of explosions. Order papers rolled into clubs are being pointed,
fingers stabbing the air like knives. Keep going. ‘ … saved thousands
of lives. But the Mayor of London must cease distorting this simple
sign of national recognition into a political football.’
 It redoubles. The Deputy Speaker is looking at him with barely
disguised contempt. Why? Then he hears his own words repeated in
his head and he feels the blood rush to his face, the prickle of sweat
behind his collar. Sauve qui peut.
‘Madam Deputy Speaker … I … with many apologies. We wish to
commemorate those workers. I … misspoke.’
Too late. Too slow. The moment has flown. The opposition
benches are fake roaring themselves purple, but among them he
sees faces twisted with genuine rage. They have the full sentence.
Government ministers didn’t just allow the deaths of our nurses,
they celebrate it! He can see the newspaper and social media
headlines next to a picture of his own sweating face.
Phil sits down, knowing he looks like a child. He doesn’t know
what to do with his hands. Humiliation runs through his arteries,
pumps through his organs and poisons them. He folds his arms and
looks at the benches opposite him with loathing, then upwards. He
needs a moment, just a moment to stare at the vaulted roof.
It’s fine. It’s fine. These things happen. A slip of the tongue. How
many times have people warned about the perils of breakfast rather
than Brexit? Appeals to aid the shitting industry rather than
shipping? God, his own mother is a nurse! They can’t forget that,
can they? Of course they can. The opposition were bored and are
now going wild for it.
The pith-faced member for Southampton West can’t believe his
luck, and has just enough nous to act on it.
‘Point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker!’ The idiot can’t help
licking his lips.
She allows it.
‘The minister has just revealed the government’s true thoughts on
the hundreds of thousands of public sector workers who were
ground down by a decade of austerity then forced to risk their lives
daily to save others. What remedy does this House have to force the
Minister to apologise to the families of every lost public servant?’ He
reaches a near hysterical pitch. ‘Isn’t it the case, Madam Deputy
Speaker, that no one will ever trust the party opposite to run our
public services again?’
 He sits. His eyes have almost entirely disappeared, he is smiling
so broadly. The MPs behind him reach over the bench to pat him on
the shoulder. He’s the most popular kid on the playground. It was a
mistake! A simple mistake!
Phil gets to his feet and says words. Reminds them that the
government knows better than anyone what is owed to the NHS, the
exemplary care given to the Prime Minister, and thousands of others.
Reminds them about his mother, about the record investment in the
NHS, the pay rise for the frontline, the writing off of its crippling
debt, yanking hospitals out of the financial black holes the opposition
had driven them into with its private financing initiatives when in
government.
It should be a strong recovery but nobody hears him – they don’t
even pretend to listen. In Hansard this sensible, well-constructed
answer will be printed in full and look no more or less important
than his last answer. But right now he’s the kid who’s spilled juice
down his crotch in the playground, the girl with her skirt caught up
in her knickers walking through the office, the cuckold, the viral
pratfall, the gazelle at the back of the pack with the injured leg.
Final question. The Deputy Speaker has called someone else.
Christ, they are actually going to make him stand up again. It’s
another of the government backbenchers who looks, as he’s
thanking Phil for his department’s swift action on something or other,
as if he’s going to throw up. Phil knows how he feels. Phil lurches
back onto his feet. Muscle memory. He says more words. He speaks
for the microphones, hardly audible in the Chamber. He is on
automatic pilot now and feels like his own ghost as he gives a
lacklustre answer to the follow-up under the cacophony of heckles
and sneers, pausing only when the Deputy Speaker, her voice
starting to crack, calls for order again.
Philip looks up again at the man in the balcony. Remembers being
young. Remembers the sirens and the smell of damp grass, the
feeling of drying mud on his hands. The interview room. The man
stares back at him then leans towards a woman sitting next to him
and says something. She nods, then flicks her long braids back over
her shoulder.
 What in God’s name is Sabal Dewan doing here?
His hair has gone completely white, and even sitting you can
notice the slight stoop in his shoulders.
The Deputy Speaker moves on to the next item of parliamentary
business. Phil can escape. He passes the Prime Minister as he leaves
the raucous Chamber behind him. The Prime Minister blanks him. No
– worse than blanks him: lets his eyes flicker over Phil then his
expression resolves into one of mild disgust. That chancer, that
scatterbrained blustering … It was a mistake! One mistake! After
years of dutiful shit-eating during Brexit and then twenty-hour days
and sleeping in his office for half of 2020 trying to save lives! Then
Sabal Dewan turns up and brings back the memory of the worst
night of his life, his losses, and in that sudden moment of reliving it
he made one mistake and now the mop-haired martyr of
Westminster looks at him like he’s the excrement on his shoe.
Damn it. Damn these people, damn them to hell. Let the sodding
building collapse in on itself, cordon off the Palace with yellow tape
and leave it to rot, let sewage flood the basements, let the frayed
wires flame and consume, leave the statues for looters and let the
busts of parliamentarians serve as garden ornaments, let the terrace
tumble into the Thames and take all these failed comedians,
nonentities, intellectual lightweights, tribal warriors and braying
asses with it.
Phil needs a minute. Just a minute to clear his head and recover
from the solar plexus punch of it, to get his game face back on. Out
of the Chamber he risks touching his forehead. Good. Not clammy.
Maybe it wasn’t as bad as he …
Owen McKenna, Labour Member of Parliament for Warwick South,
is standing in the Central Lobby with his researcher. Damn. Phil
hears the throbbing music again. It just had to be Owen, didn’t it?
Owen will take one look at him and know exactly how nightmarish
the last fifteen minutes have been. And it will make his day. His
week. His month.
Owen sees him and grins wolfishly then turns slowly back to his
researcher. Philip has a sudden memory of Owen in the house in
Lambeth, a can of Stella in his hand and seeing that same grin. They
are both in suits now. They both have staff and homes and status
and, compared to most people in this staggering, staggered country,
power. Phil has stayed slim, Owen still looks like a brickie but he’s
kept his hair, while Phil is afraid he is beginning to thin at the
temples. Whatever. It’s the same grin, the look Owen got when he’d
really managed to get one over on someone, his hungry delight in
the fall of an enemy – and now it’s directed at Phil.
Owen’s researcher nods, writes something down on the legal pad
held across her chest, asks a question. Phil wants to walk across the
lobby, grab the pad and strike Owen across the face with it, send his
owlish glasses flying onto the patterned tiles. How many punches
could he get in before security reacted, the cameras and phones
came on? How would the squeals of Owen’s researcher echo up the
gothic stonework? How would it feel for once to wipe that self-
satisfied vicious smirk off Owen’s face?
‘Mr Bickford? Minister?’
‘What?’ Phil turns round and finds himself looking into the face of
a dark-haired woman he doesn’t know. He manages a tight smile.
She has a visitor’s pass. She fingers it with neatly manicured nails.
‘Can I help you?’
The woman is with a group. Students, Phil guesses. He tries to
breathe through the humiliation, the flush the fantasy of smashing
Owen’s glasses off has given him. Two of the girls, probably the
ambitious ones, wear boxy jackets. Mother Hen must have been
taking them on a tour. Phil nods, keeping the smile going while he
scans the perimeter to see who their guide is and recognises the
researcher for the Member for Maidenhead, the constituency next to
his own.
‘Good afternoon,’ Phil says. If they’ve been on the tour, they
probably didn’t see his meltdown in the Chamber. That is some sort
of blessing. A temporary one.
‘These are some of my best students doing the A-level politics
course at Jude Levy College. Can we ask you just a quick question?’
Phil nods again. ‘Of course. I have to get back to my office,
though … ’ What was his next appointment? Where was Ian? ‘So
we’ll have to be quick.’
 The teacher thanks him and points to one of the girls in a boxy
jacket. Long dark hair, Indian parents probably. Eager look to her.
She reminds Phil of his last researcher, now working in Conservative
Central Office in Matthew Parker Street and looking for her own seat
to run for. He waits. It will probably be something technical,
designed to ingratiate and impress, but as the girl draws breath a
taller boy, his hair long and curled on top, his T-shirt patterned with
cartoon characters, gets in first.
‘What’s the point of all this?’ The boy waves his hand around,
taking in all Westminster, the arches and mosaics, the statues and
the security guards, the researchers fast-walking up the shallow
steps, the TV screens showing the committees in progress, the BBC
Parliament feed from the Chamber. ‘This Punch and Judy nonsense
carrying on as usual while the world goes to hell?’
‘Jason!’ the teacher says sharply. Jason shrugs. Thirty seconds ago
Phil was feeling the same way, but now his anger switches back and
runs the opposite way. Phil’s been answering this question ever since
he ran for his seat in 2012, offering the usual words, sincere but
apologetic, acknowledging past failures and promising to do better,
but now suddenly, today, who knew? He’s had enough.
‘Yes, sometimes I think it’s a complete waste of time,’ Phil says.
Angry Boy’s eyes open wider and Keen Girl bites her lip. The
teacher’s apology for her student’s rudeness stops in her throat.
‘I mean, democracy – we gave it a good go, but it is basically
reality TV, isn’t it? Celebrity politicians who make used-car salesmen
look trustworthy, advisors knifing each other in the back, journalists
who don’t know or care about policy but just want to make
politicians sweat under the studio lights and voters who are led up
the garden path. You say parliament is Punch and Judy? Spend half
an hour on Twitter and tell me you still support universal suffrage.
What do you think?’ The boy gapes at him. Phil shrugs. ‘Maybe we
should put every policy to the popular vote. Free beer to everyone
and we put the PM in the stocks if the market drops two per cent?’
He waits. The boy says nothing. ‘No? Or maybe we could ask a bit
more from the people. From the voters. Maybe you could actually
think about who you were electing and why, rather than acting like
it’s a game show where you vote for your favourite four-word
slogan, or don’t vote at all and tell yourself politicians are all the
same because you are too lazy to find out what the differences, the
profound differences, are? Maybe if you want us to be better you
should better yourself.’
The shock on Jason’s face acts on Phil like a drug. So this is what
it is like to say what you mean! He remembers it now, like a
reformed smoker taking a long, filthy drag.
‘I—’ Jason begins, but Phil cuts him off. This feels too good. His
blood is up. He will, for once, say what he thinks.
‘Because this place matters. It is the mother of parliaments. You
saw what happened in some countries – cities and states fighting
each other over masks, authoritarians grabbing power. The roots of
democracy run deeper here. Centuries deep. And they start here.
Our system has emerged out of wars, rebellions, plagues and
struggle. It adapts. And that culture of fierce debate and challenge,
that stuff that looks like nonsense and Punch and Judy to you –
that’s what makes us strong. We bend but we do not break because
a system grown up over centuries might look eccentric but it is
adaptable and it is resilient. You want efficiency and nice packaging?
Go to the Apple Store. Where were your Silicon Valley disrupters
when the virus came? Letting the usual lies spread along with COVID
and tinkering with their apps. We were here. Risking our lives to do
everything we could for the frontline workers, the terrified and the
sick. And fighting to come up with the best solutions to impossible
problems where there were no good answers. So don’t you sneer at
this place, young man. Don’t you dare. And while we are at it, learn
some manners. Young lady, I think you had a question?’
Phil turns from the boy, who is staring at him slack-jawed, to the
girl in the jacket. She blinks.
‘Yes … I … I just wanted to ask, why did you want to be an MP in
the first place?’
Phil smiles again and he means it this time.
‘I wanted to do something that mattered. And it does matter. If
the last couple of years have proven anything, they proved that. We
haven’t managed to save everyone, we haven’t managed to save
every job or business but the people who work here come in to fight
for their constituents every single day, give us the room to build, to
put lives together again. Whatever side of the floor they are on. You
want to make life better for ten people? Fine. Be a good person. You
want to make life better for a million people? Get into politics.’
The teacher and her students offer slightly dazed ‘thank-yous’ and
Phil heads towards the stairs up to his parliamentary office. His
senior researcher, Ian Livingstone, is waiting for him.
‘What was that about?’
‘Students.’
They keep moving, taking the shallow stairs two at a time.
‘You seemed quite worked up. And one of them was filming you.’
Phil doesn’t answer. What had he said? Some stuff about
democracy. A brief respite from the shitshow of his day. He sees the
jeering faces on the opposite benches again, like cherubs floating in
the air in front of him.
‘Did you see it?’
‘Yes. What the fuck happened?’ Phil doesn’t reply so Ian ploughs
on. ‘And I wanted to warn you Toby Dale is waiting in your office.
That vein in his forehead is popping.’
Perfect. Of course Toby Dale is waiting for him. The current
favourite special advisor shovelling crap in and out of Number 10.
Must have sprinted to Phil’s office before he even got out of the
Chamber, his lips puckered and head down, his hand-made shoes
thrumming along the carpet like a wind-up toy in leather brogues.
He nods. ‘OK. Thank you for the heads-up.’ He pauses in the
committee corridor and stares out of the window at the crumbling
stonework of Cloister Court. He has to know. ‘Ian, can you find out
why a man called Sabal Dewan was in the visitors’ gallery in the
Chamber today? Do it quietly if you can.’
‘Of course, boss.’
 Chapter 2

Owen McKenna watches as the students swarm round Philip. When

Owen arrived here, first walked the corridors in the glory days at the
turn of the century running messages between parliament and party
headquarters in Millbank, the older Labour MPs had taken it in turn
to share a worn-out shibboleth with him: ‘Remember, son, the
opposition is in front of you – your enemy is behind you in your own
party.’ Maybe. As a rule. But Philip Bickford is an exception. He is
Owen’s enemy and that meltdown in the Chamber was bloody
delicious.
Phil is listening to one of the students now, a lanky kid with a sod-
you look about him, like the goths and playground anarchists Owen
grew up with. Philip hadn’t needed to grow up. He’d been born on a
rough Essex estate with the mind of a forty-year-old Tory junior
minister. He’d fooled Owen for a while, but then finally the scales
had fallen from Owen’s eyes and he’d recognised Phil as the
arrogant, narrow-minded self-hating, traitorous …
Pam, his researcher, is waiting for an answer.
‘Sorry, Pam. That all sounds good.’ She has been briefing him
about the social media grid for the week. She is good at it. A digital
native, and a smart strategic thinker. Witty, too. He won’t be able to
hang on to her for long.
‘Are you going back to Portcullis House now?’ she asks. ‘There are
a few constituency emails which need your attention.’
There are always ‘a few’ constituency emails. Owen looks at his
watch. Better to launch into the inbox when he’s had a chance to
shake himself out of this bitter mood. God knows, you always had to
make sure you were feeling emotionally robust before diving into the
constituency work, but now? With half his people up to their necks
in debt and scared with it? Walk fast. Breathe the air. Get back to
the desk with the fizz and pop of oxygen in the blood.
‘Quick walk first,’ he says. ‘Did you remember to have lunch?’
He sounds like a dad.
He heads down St Stephen’s Hall and his phone rings. Christine.
‘Hey, Chris.’
‘Where are you?’ Christine has a good telephone voice. Low
pitched, but clear. Those elocution lessons her mama made her take.
Sounded good in the Chamber too. Not for the first time, Owen
silently curses the voters of Newcastle South West for kicking his ex-
fiancée out of office. She should be on the front bench by now. So
should he.
‘St Stephen’s Hall, being looked down on by those weird statues.’
She laughs. ‘I like them. I found it very inspiring to tell every one
of them to sod off on my way into the Chamber. Look, Owen, any
word on the written question to the health department yet?’
Damn. He’d meant to ask Pam to chase that up, but enjoying
watching Philip get shredded in the Chamber had distracted him.
‘No. I’ll get Pam on it.’
‘What about getting the Select Committee to report on data
security?’
Another reason the emails kept piling up. Owen was glad to be
part of the Select Committee which shadowed the work of the
Department for Digital, Media, Culture and Sport, but its remit was
mind-shatteringly wide.
‘I’ve raised it, Christine. But we’ve got other fish to fry and the
chair would rather punt the data issues over to the health
department.’
‘Of course he would.’ Christine sighs, and Owen stops, moves to
the side to let another tour group pass. He finds himself staring up
at one of the mosaics. Not his sort of thing. The artwork in his flat is
mostly classic band posters and street art. Framed now, rather than
stuck up with Blu Tack, because you have to start acting like a
grown-up sometime. These weird Edwardian murals have always left
him cold. He knows about them, though. He gave the tour a
hundred times when he was working in Labour headquarters in his
pre-MP days. This one shows Richard the Lionheart heading off on a
crusade. A culture war. What sort of message is that? A man
heading off on a fatal fool’s errand and leaving his country to shift
for itself. Not Owen’s sort of hero. Maybe when they get round to
rebuilding this gothic palace they should replace the murals with
protest signs. BLACK LIVES MATTER, TAKE BACK CONTROL, bring a bit of
the chaos and battle of Parliament Square into the bubble.
‘Owen, don’t you think it’s strange?’
For a moment he thinks she means the mural. He turns away from
it, rubs the side of his nose, pushing up his glasses as he thinks. Six
weeks since the Select Committee had poured cold water on the
idea of an inquiry. Four weeks since he’d filled in the form and
pressed submit. Most answers to parliamentary written questions
come back in a fortnight. Sometimes you get a message saying the
answer will be delayed because they need to collate complex data.
But this time … silence. Owen keeps thinking. The minister gets the
question and his civil servants draw up an answer, then if the
minister approves of the answer he or she puts their name to it and
back it comes. But if the minister doesn’t like the answer the civil
servants have suggested, if it reveals something sensitive or
politically damaging, back it goes for redrafting. The more
dangerous the question, the longer the pause.
‘Could be.’
Her voice snaps. ‘Could be? Oh, give me a break! It’s been weeks.
I’m telling you, Owen, there is something going on. They promised a
formal consultation on the loosening of the data protection laws
months ago. And now they aren’t even answering a simple question
about when it might be?’
Data laws. Even the opposition members on the committee had
shuddered at the idea. Important, of course, but people need to be
fed and housed, the economy propped up before it collapses
entirely. Not for the first time he finds himself about to ask if it is
really important? Why does it matter?
‘I’ll chase it up, Chris.’
 ‘Fine. Don’t over-exert yourself.’
‘I’m doing it now.’ He taps out a WhatsApp message to Pam and it
swooshes away. ‘Done.’
‘Thank you. Let’s see if anything happens before I see you
tomorrow.’
That catches him out. ‘Tomorrow?’
‘We’re having lunch. It’s in your diary. How about the Strangers’
Dining Room?’
‘So a public affair, is it? What are you doing, Chris?’
‘What the idiot who replaced me in parliament should be doing –
and you!’
Owen glances at his watch. His window to stretch his legs is
closing.
‘Fine. Tomorrow. How are Rob and the kids?’
‘Fine. Phil is trending on Twitter, by the way.’
‘Yeah, he fucked up good and proper in the Chamber,’ Owen says
with a certain relish.
‘No, not that. Something he said to a bunch of students in the
lobby.’ She goes quiet and Owen can hear her listening to Phil’s
voice. Weird. He was standing two yards away when it happened.
Now Phil has ghosted his way into Christine’s home office in the
Newcastle suburbs and Owen can hear the trace of him over her
phone. ‘Hmm.’
It’s the noise she makes when someone has managed to impress
her. Owen feels a wave of jealousy, then a backwash of guilt. She
married someone else. She has a family. You had your chance,
McKenna.
‘What’s the arsehole saying, then?’
She sighs. Owen hears a tap at the other end, imagines her with
her afternoon tea in her hand, setting the mug onto the table top.
Would he recognise the mug? Do you ditch all your old mugs when
you break up? What’s the shelf life of a mug? Is twelve years
unreasonable?
‘A spirited defence of British democracy. Twitter is lapping it up.
See you tomorrow.’
 She cuts the connection. Owen puts the phone away, feeling
weirdly rejected, and he’s back in St Stephen’s Hall staring up at the
bearded knights in chain mail off to right imagined wrongs in the
Holy Land. Walk. He nods to another backbencher in the doorway to
Westminster Hall and one of the Leader’s Office political advisors
cruises by him without a flicker of recognition. Owen is pretty sure
he helped get that arse hired. Now he’s got a decent tie and a
serious expression and he thinks he’s saving the country. We’re all
trying, fella.
He walks down the shallow stone steps to the landing overlooking
Westminster Hall. A change of mood. Hits him every time. The
Victorian gothic fantasy is replaced with the austere grandeur of the
oldest part of the parliamentary estate. A vast space the length of a
football field, its hammerbeam roof a masterpiece of fourteenth-
century engineering. Guy Fawkes and Charles I were both sentenced
to death here. It’s been a shopping arcade, a courtroom, a church, a
concert hall, a feasting chamber. It is full of ghosts.
Owen sees one.
He stops in his tracks, rocks back slightly to let another group
pass by him. He’s older, a little frail perhaps, but it is him. Sabal
Dewan. Owen feels the years disappear, leaving him cold and afraid,
suffering those first punches of guilt and horror.
Sabal looks up and sees him. Owen tries to smile, but Sabal just
looks away. Should Owen go and speak to him? It’s been what,
thirteen years? He can’t cower here behind a bunch of schoolkids.
He wonders who the woman with the braids is, standing at Sabal’s
side. She is wearing a claret sheath dress, high heels, dark raincoat.
Go and ask if you’re interested, he says to himself. He takes a deep
breath, rehearsing the questions in his head, then Sabal turns away;
his narrow face is transformed by a wide smile, a warm smile. It
triggers another memory, another punch in the stomach. A day in
the shared house when Sabal came to have lunch with them in the
garden. To meet Jay’s friends. Summer of 2008 when even the
banking crisis was just a shadow on the horizon and all they could
talk about was Obama’s nomination. Happy days. Sabal holds out his
hands, palms up ready to embrace … who? No. No way.
 Sabal is greeting Georgina Hyde like she’s a long-lost daughter.
They’ve kept in contact? Georgina opens her arms and then bows,
all smiles, and leads them both away, staying close to Sabal.
‘Owen? Got a sec? As you’re just standing there.’
The voice is coming from behind him. He takes a second to put
some sort of professional smile on his face.
‘Charlotte! How are you? I was just contemplating the future of
democracy.’
Charlotte Cook. Lobby journalist for one of the many papers who
loathe Owen, his party and his leader, but Owen suspects Charlotte
is not as loyal to the party in power as her bosses believe. She keeps
her reports factual, calls for comment before she runs something.
Also a very careful gossip. She is wearing TV make-up, which makes
her look a decade younger than she is under TV lights, but
disconcertingly ‘done’ in the greyish natural light of the hall.
‘Yeah, like you care. And don’t try that democracy nonsense,
either. One – we both know it’s empty cant, and two – Philip Bickford
is our knight in pound-shop armour today.’ They are in danger of
causing an obstruction. Charlotte sighs noisily at a middle-aged
couple who brush her shoulder. ‘Off for one of your walks? I’ll keep
you company to the edge of the estate.’
‘Fine.’ They walk down the steps together and the ceiling rises
above them. Owen notices she’s wearing trainers. A lot of women in
parliament do this, switching into heels for any time the cameras are
nearby, keeping their Converse and Nikes handy for the rest of the
time when they are wandering the endless corridors, chasing division
bells, bills, stories. ‘And why would a lowly backbencher like me
deserve such an honour?’
‘I must have started drinking earlier than usual today,’ she replies.
Owen’s never seen her drink anything stronger than mineral water.
‘I’m giving you a heads-up. And you’ll owe me one. The Labour Party
leadership are launching an anti-bullying investigation.’
‘OK.’
She shoots him a side-eye. ‘The word is a slightly skeezy
freelancer called Edward Barns has whipped the editors of the
Chronicle into a frenzy with the prospect of a damning exposé. Your
leadership wants to get out in front of the story.’
Owen feels a tight knot of anger in his stomach. A government
with unprecedented powers, a country reeling and wounded by the
social and economic shock of the century and all his party can do is
disappear mournfully up its own arse. Whatever it is, publish and be
damned. Trust the people to work out what matters.
They go out through the doors and into the spring air, damp and
chill. Three steps out onto the tarmac, she puts a hand on his arm.
‘2009, Owen,’ Charlotte says, looking up at him with her heavily
mascaraed eyes. ‘It’s Jay Dewan’s case they are investigating.’
That hits him like a punch in the gut. He should have known. So
that’s why Jay’s father is in the building.
‘Why? After all this time?’
Damn. He normally has a good poker face but Charlotte is
watching him, sees the shock. He wonders what she remembers
about those times.
‘It’s a good story, Owen. The former housemates. Jay makes a
great tragic hero, and now you and Georgina are on one side of the
house, eager to govern, and Phil is on the other, rising through the
ranks. Human interest and a whiff of dark deeds. Of course the
Chronicle is eager.’
‘There were no dark deeds,’ Owen says, as firmly as he can.
She watches him, professional cynic, but then so is he. ‘You might
need a better line than that, Owen.’
Now they are on the tarmac forecourt, the echoing space of the
ancient hall is replaced by traffic noise, the smell of the caramel-nut
vendors, the chants of the protestors. The sky is overcast.
‘Thanks, Charlotte.’
‘Pick up when I call you, Owen.’
Is that a threat, or a promise she’ll tell him more when she can?
Probably a bit of both, knowing journalists, and Charlotte. She
releases his arm and turns back into the hall. Owen leaves through
the turnstile and heads straight across Westminster Bridge. For the
first time in a year he doesn’t take note of the number of tourists,
tally them with the month before and pray for continued growth. He
walks towards County Hall and the Southbank, head down.
2009. The Jay Dewan case.
The past is coming for him.
 Chapter 3

Phil doesn’t look at his secretary as he passes through the outer

office; she half gets up before she catches Ian’s ‘not now’ signal, and
sinks back miserably into her seat as Phil shoulders his way into his
own office. Toby bloody Dale is sitting in his chair. Behind his desk.
‘Get out of my chair, Toby.’
He does.
‘What in God’s name happened? Did you have a stroke? Did your
brain literally start bleeding in there? That was the most humiliating
thirty seconds of TV I’ve seen in my entire life.’
Phil walks past him, throws his folder on the coffee table then
drops into his chair. The office, with its high narrow windows and
tatty panelling, feels like a prison today. There is a letter on his
letterhead lying on the blotter in front of his keyboard.
‘What’s this?’
Toby is typing something on his phone, he finishes then shoves
the handset into his pocket. ‘It’s your apology, of course. And you
should be bloody grateful it’s not your resignation. Did you hear your
dear old friend Georgina Hyde on the Today programme this
morning? Slagging us off again on behalf of all the key workers –
you’d think they’d be happy to be in work without another pay rise –
and then, just when the press are getting bored rehashing her
thought-for-the-fucking-day-touchy-feely-bollocks you hand them a
gift-wrapped cherry for a second bite.’
Phil reads the letter. It’s snivelling. Abject. He’s exhausted. ‘I’m not
signing this.’
‘You are. Or the PM will sack you himself.’
 Phil looks up. Toby is the sort of person who wears a Union Jack
waistcoat at fundraising dinners, can’t stop banging on about the
Great British spirit but despises from the depths of his soul the fifty
per cent of the British people who think he’s full of shit and his plans
for the future wishful bollocks. They lack pluck, apparently.
‘No, he won’t,’ Phil says. ‘Not now, anyway. It’ll make him look
panicked. Just like this letter does. It was a mistake. It was
corrected. You’re the one turning a five-minute story into a whole
news cycle, Toby.’
Toby goes purple. Patches of it in his cheeks. A miracle he’s
survived the virus so far with blood pressure like this.
‘Listen to me, Philip. You’ve managed not to screw things up till
now, but I know at heart you’re not just a remoaner, you’re a
socialist and I can’t believe we were stupid enough to let you into
government. If I scratch you, you’ll bleed red.’
‘We all bleed red, Toby.’
That doesn’t help. The vein in his forehead is throbbing.
‘You are hanging on by a thread, a thread. We need a united
party, and the PM doesn’t trust you. Neither does the Secretary of
State and neither do I! If I go back and tell the PM you won’t sign
this, you won’t be sacked tomorrow or next week. First we’ll have a
good trawl through the archives for every fuck-up, every sin being
laid at the health department’s door and then work out how every
one of them was your fault, then we’ll throw you out. Sign this letter
or I will personally see to it you are the sin-eater for the whole
fucking department.’
Philip has to take a moment now. This was always the danger.
What had made him valuable to the Cameron government and
useful to this one – his past as an activist on the other side, his
working-class roots – also made him vulnerable when someone was
looking for a scapegoat and God knows, they need a farm full of
them now. He looks back down at the letter. Maybe it’s not so bad.
Toby is breathing hard, sensing a win.
A knock and the door opens.
‘What?’ Toby shouts over his shoulder.
Another random document with
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absent, and there are no chitinous folds in the position it usually occupies.
The true stomach is small, and only commences in the fourth abdominal
segment. It has a prolonged lobe on each side in front, and in addition to
this eight sacs; thus there are formed ten diverticula, fastened to the
posterior part of the oesophagus by ligaments. The terminal portion of the
stomach is small, and apparently only distinguished from the short
intestine by the point of insertion of the Malpighian tubes; these vary in
number from about twenty to sixty. There are two pairs of large salivary
glands. In Pteronarcys the caecal diverticula of the stomach are wanting.
In some Perlidae the terminal parts of the gut are more complex than in
Perla maxima; Newport figures both an ilium and colon very strongly
differentiated, and states that these parts differ much in Perla and
Pteronarcys. According to him the stomach is embraced by a network of
tracheae, and Imhof tells us that he found the stomach to contain only air.

Fig. 255.—Alimentary canal and outline of body of Perla maxima. (After

Imhof.) l, Upper lip; mh, buccal cavity; ap, common termination of
salivary ducts; o, oesophagus; s, salivary glands; ag, duct of salivary
gland; b, anterior diverticula of stomach; lg, their ligaments of
attachment; mp, Malpighian tubes; r, rectum; af, anal orifice.

The brain is small, but, according to Imhof, consists of four amalgamated

divisions; the infra-oesophageal ganglion is small, and placed very near
the brain. There are three thoracic and six abdominal ganglia on the
ventral chain. The nerves to the wings are connected with the longitudinal
commissures of the ventral chain by peculiar, obliquely-placed, short
commissures. The reproductive glands are peculiar, inasmuch as in each
sex the pair of principal glands is connected together in the middle. The
testes thus form an arch consisting of a large number of sub-spherical or
pear-shaped follicles; the vasa deferentia are short in Perla maxima, and
there are no vesiculae seminales; the ejaculatory duct is divided into
three parts by constrictions. In Pteronarcys and in Perla bicaudata,
according to Newport and Dufour, the vasa deferentia are very long and
tortuous, and there are elongate vesiculae seminales. The arrangement
of the extremely numerous egg-tubes is analogous to that of the follicles
of the testes, so that, as Dufour says, there is but a single ovary;
connected with the short, unpaired portion of the oviduct, there is a large
receptaculum seminis, and near the terminal orifice of the duct there is in
P. maxima an eight-lobed accessory gland.

Fig. 256.—The pair of united ovaries of Perla maxima: o, egg-tubes; ov,

oviduct; r, receptaculum seminis concealing the orifice of the duct and
an accessory gland.

Fig. 257.—Egg of Perla maxima. (After Imhof.) c, chorion; d, oolemn; gs,

glass-like covering of micropyle apparatus; l, cavity under same; g,
canals penetrating chorion.

The eggs are produced by Perlidae in enormous numbers: they are rather
small, but peculiar in form, and possess at one extremity a micropyle
apparatus, covered by a glassy substance through which Imhof could find
no orifice. On the other hand, the chorion on another part of the egg is
perforated by several canals.

The Perlidae being of aquatic habits in their early stages, and,

notwithstanding their ample wings, very poor adepts in the art of flying,
are rarely found at any considerable distance from their native element.
They are specially fond of running water, and delight in the
neighbourhood of waterfalls, or other spots where the current is broken by
obstacles so that a foaming water results. It is probable that the larvae
which breathe by means of gills find an advantage in living in strongly-
aerated water. Mountain streams and torrents are therefore specially
affected by them; but Pictet informs us that they do not like the waters
descending from glaciers. The food of the larvae is believed to be chiefly
young may-flies, or other small, soft creatures, and it may possibly be
owing to the absence of these that the Perlidae do not affect the glacier
streams. Although Perlidae are remarkable for their capacity for enduring
cold, it is possible that they may require warmth of the water at some
period of their development, and this the glacier-streams cannot offer to
them. They are among the earliest Insects to appear in the spring in
Europe. Mr. Barnston says that on the Albany river in Canada the nymph
of Capnia vernalis comes up frequently in the cracks of the ice and casts
its skin there; "it frequently comes up when the thermometer stands at
freezing." Of Nemoura glacialis, which inhabits similar localities, he says
that "it appears in the spring (end of March or beginning of April) when the
ice becomes honeycombed, and even before then, at the same time as
Capnia vernalis. It pairs in the crevices of decaying ice. The male has
long antennae, and his wings are generally rumpled as if glued together."
Newport entertained the idea that those Perlidae that live at low
temperatures are of lower organisation than the other forms of the family.

It is a remarkable fact that several Perlidae frequently have—like

Nemoura glacialis—the wings of the male much reduced in size; this
being the contrary of the rule that usually prevails among Insects to the
effect that, when there is a difference in the powers of flight, or even in the
size of the wings, it is the male that is superior. Mr. J. J. Lister met with a
very interesting Perlid at Loch Tanna in Arran at the beginning of April
1892. In this Insect, which is, according to Mr. M‘Lachlan, a form of
Isogenus nubecula, the wings of the female (Fig. 258, B) are reduced to a
size much less than those of ordinary Perlidae, while those of the male
(Fig. 258, A) are mere useless rudiments. Morton has pointed out that in
Scotland more than one species of Taeniopteryx occasionally produces
micropterous males, and he associates this phenomenon with the early
time of their appearance "almost in winter."[327] In Nemoura trifasciata this
reduction of the wings takes another but equally curious form; the hind
wings of the male being long enough to cover the body, while the anterior
pair are reduced to mere rudiments.

Fig. 258.—Isogenus nubecula, Loch Tanna. A, Male; A', wings of male

more magnified; B, wings of female.

The phenomena of micropterism in Perlidae are well worthy of more

detailed investigation. Mr. Morton informs the writer that the male of Perla
maxima (Fig. 251) in North Britain has the wings so short that they cannot
be of any use as organs of flight. In Central Europe the wings are ample,
as shown in our figure. In Perla cephalotes the male is short-winged in
both Britain and Central Europe; of the male of Dictyopteryx microcephala
only the micropterous form is known to exist. In Isogenus nubecula (Fig.
258) it appears that the wings of the female are always more ample than
those of the male of the same locality, and that local micropterism affects
the two sexes unequally. Within the Arctic circle this Insect is usually of
the Scotch form, though the male there occasionally has more ample
wings.

It has been observed that in some Perlidae the eggs, after they have
been extruded, are carried about by the female; for what reason is not at
all known. They are said to be enclosed in a membranous capsule at the
apex of the abdomen. The number of eggs deposited is sometimes very
large, amounting to five or six thousand, and they are often of very minute
size.

About twenty-four species of Perlidae occur in Britain.[328] The species

from all parts of the world existing in collections probably scarcely exceed
two hundred. The insignificance of this number is no doubt chiefly due to
the fact that these unattractive Insects are rarely captured by collectors,
and are so fragile that unless good care is taken of them, specimens soon
go to destruction after being dried. Perlidae are known to occur in most
parts of the world, so that the number of species really existing may reach
two or three thousand. They are known to anglers as stone-flies and
creepers and are a favourite bait for trout.

The family in its character comes near to the Orthoptera, especially to the
more simple forms of Phasmidae, but the two groups differ in the texture
of the front wings and in the structure of the mouth-parts, as well as in the
different proportions of the mesothorax and metathorax. According to
Pictet, in the Australian genus Eusthenia the trophi (Fig. 259) approach
nearer to those of the Orthoptera, so that it appears possible that a more
intimate connexion will be found to exist as more forms are discovered.
Of the groups we include in Neuroptera, Perlidae are in structure most
allied to Sialidae, but the development in the two groups exhibits very
important distinctions. Brauer treats the Perlidae as forming a distinct
Order called Plecoptera, a name applied to the family by Burmeister
many years ago.

Fig. 259.—A, Maxilla, B, labium of Eusthenia spectabilis. (After Pictet.)

Several species of Perlidae, considered to belong to existing genera,

have been found in amber. A fossil from the Eocene deposits in the Isle of
Wight and another from the Miocene of Continental Europe are referred
to the family. Brauer has recently described[329] some fossils from the
Jurassic formation in East Siberia as forming three genera, now extinct, of
Perlidae.

Brongniart informs us[330] that several fossils have been found in the
Carboniferous strata of Commentry that justify us in asserting that allies
of Perlidae then existed. He considers these Carboniferous Insects to
have belonged to a separate family, Protoperlides. The fragments are,
however, so small that we must await further information before forming a
definite opinion as to these Protoperlides.
 CHAPTER XVIII

AMPHIBIOUS NEUROPTERA CONTINUED—ODONATA, DRAGON-FLIES

Fam. VI. Odonata—Dragon-flies.

(LIBELLULIDAE OF SOME AUTHORS)

Elongate Insects with very mobile head and large eyes, with small
and inconspicuous antennae ending in a bristle; with four elongate
wings sub-equal in size and similar in texture, of papyraceous
consistency and having many veinlets, so that there exists a large
number of small cells. All the legs placed more anteriorly than the
wings. The earlier stages of the life are aquatic; there is great change
in the appearance of the individual at the final ecdysis, but there is no
pupal instar.

The dragon-flies form a very natural and distinct group of Insects. All the
species are recognised with ease as belonging to the family. They are
invariably provided with wings in the perfect state, and many of them are
amongst the most active of Insects. Their anatomy is, in several respects,
very remarkable.

The head is large and is concave behind; it is attached to the thorax in

such a way that it rotates on two cervical sclerites that project forwards,
and in some cases almost meet in a point in front; hence it possesses
extreme mobility, the power of rotation being very great.

The eyes are always large; in some cases they are even enormous, and
occupy the larger part of the area of the head: the upper facets of the eye
are in many cases larger than the lower, and in a few forms the line of
division is sharply marked transversely. There are three ocelli, which,
when the size of the compound eyes is not too great, are placed in the
usual manner as a triangle on the vertex; but in the forms where the
compound eyes are very large the portion of the head between is, as it
were, puffed out so as to form a projection just in front of where the eyes
meet, and one ocellus is then placed on each side of this projection, an
antenna being inserted quite close to it; the third ocellus is placed in front
of the projection we have mentioned, by which it is often much concealed;
this anterior ocellus is in some cases of unusually large size, and oval or
transverse in form.

Fig. 260.—Anax formosus, Britain. (After Migneaux.) (The legs are not in a
natural position.)

The parts of the mouth are very peculiar, especially the lower lip: we will
briefly allude to its characters in the highly modified forms, premising that
in the smaller and less active species it is less remarkable. The
Libellulidae are carnivorous, their prey being living Insects which are
captured by the dragon-fly on the wing; it is believed that the mouth is
largely instrumental in the capture, though the flight of these Insects is so
excessively rapid that it is difficult, if not impossible, to verify the action of
the mouthpieces by actual observation.

Fig. 261.—A, Maxilla of Libellula quadrimaculata; B, labium of Aeschna

grandis. p, p′, Palpus; a, terminal spine of palpus; c, cardo; t, stipes; s,
squama; le, outer lobe of maxilla, partly covered by, li, inner lobe; m,
mentum; r, intervening lobe. (After Gerstaecker.)
For the purpose of securing the prey a mouth that can change its capacity
to a considerable extent and with rapidity is a desideratum, and these
qualities are present in the mouths of those Libellulidae that capture their
prey while hawking. The upper lip is very mobile, is pendent, and closes
the mouth above, while the lower lip entirely closes the under part by
means of two mobile plates; these in some forms (Libellula) meet
together in the mesial line, while in others a third plate separates them in
the middle (Fig. 261, B, li). These plates are, according to Gerstaecker's
view,[331] portions of the much changed labial palpi, the part that
separates them in Aeschna being the inner lobes of the labial maxillae; in
Libellula, where the dilated and valve-like joints of the palpi meet in the
middle line, the labial lobes remain small and are overlapped by the
dilated portions of the palpi. The maxillae proper (Fig. 261, A) are less
peculiar, their chief character being that the inner and outer lobes are not
separated, and that the palpus is of only one joint. Some entomologists
take, however, another view of this structure, looking on the palp-like
outer part (p of our figure) as the true outer lobe of the maxillae, the
palpus proper being in that case considered to be entirely absent. The
mandibles are very powerful, and armed with largely developed teeth. In
the interior of the mouth there is a large, free, semi-membranous lingua,
the posterior part of its delicate inferior lamina being connected with the
mentum; the upper lamina of the lingua is stronger and is pilose. The
antennae of the dragon-flies are always small, and consist of two stouter
joints at the base, and a terminal part which is very slender and pointed,
and formed of four or five joints.

The prothorax is always small; the pronotum is distinct, though in some

forms it is quite concealed in the concavity of the back of the head; the
sternum is small; the anatomy of the pleura and basal pieces of the legs
is obscure.
 Fig. 262.—A, Agrion pulchellum, natural size; B, Aeschna cyanea, profile;
C, same from front to show position of legs. ⅔ natural size.

The meso- and meta-thorax are very intimately combined, and their
relations are such that the former is placed much above the latter. This
peculiarity is carried to its greatest extent in some of the Agrioninae (Fig.
262, A), where not only are the wings placed at a considerable distance
behind the three pairs of legs, but also the front pair of wings is placed
almost directly above the hind pair. In the Anisopterides these
peculiarities are much less marked (Fig. 262, B), nevertheless even in
them the three pairs of legs are placed quite in front of the wings. This
peculiar structure of the wing-bearing segments is accompanied by an
unusual development of the pleura, which, indeed, actually form the
larger part, if not nearly the whole, of the front region of the dorsal aspect
of these two segments. We shall not enter into more minute particulars as
to the structure of the thorax, for difference of opinion prevails as to the
interpretation of the parts.[332] The abdomen is remarkable for its
elongation; it is never broad, and in some genera—Mecistogaster, e.g.—it
attains a length and slenderness which are not reached by any other
Insects. It consists of ten segments and a pair of terminal calliper-like or
flap-like processes of very various sizes and forms.

The wings of the dragon-flies are usually transparent and provided with a
multitude of small meshes. The hind wings are about as large as the front
pair, or even a little larger; the main nervures have a sub-parallel course,
and are placed in greater part on the anterior region of each wing. The
relations of the more constant nervures and the cells of which they are
parts form a complex subject, and are amongst the most important of the
characters used in classifying these Insects. The wings are always
elongate in comparison to their breadth and have no folds; they are held
partially extended, or are placed so as to project backwards, or
backwards and outwards. They exhibit another peculiarity, inasmuch as
the front or costal margin is slightly uneven before or near the middle,
giving rise to an appearance such as might result from the breaking and
subsequent mending of the marginal rib at the spot in question, which is
called the nodus. In some forms a peculiar character exists in the shape
of a small opaque space called the membranule, lying close to the body
of the Insect in the anal area of the wing, as shown in Fig. 260.

The legs are slender and are chiefly remarkable for the beautiful series of
hair-like spines with which they are armed, and which in some forms (e.g.
Platycnemis, Fig. 264) are of considerable length. We believe that the
legs are of great importance in capturing the prey, they being held
somewhat in the position shown in Fig. 262, C. The tarsi are three-jointed.
In the male of Libellago caligata the legs exhibit a remarkable condition,
the tibiae being dilated, and on the upper side of a vivid red colour, while
below they are white. This coloration and form are each unusual in the
family. The male of Platycnemis pennipes, a British species (Fig. 264),
shows a similar dilatation of the tibiae, but to a less extent and without
any great difference in the colour of the two faces of the dilatation. This
dilatation reaches its maximum in Psilocnemis dilatipes M‘Lach. The
position of the legs in relation to the other parts of the body is peculiar to
the dragon-flies; the legs seem to be unfit for walking, the Insects never
using them for that purpose.

Several peculiarities in the internal anatomy deserve notice. The

alimentary canal in Libellula is about as long as the body, the oesophagus
and chylific stomach being elongate, while the intestine is short and
divided into only two parts; there is no definite proventriculus. The
Malpighian tubules are shorter than usual; they are about forty in number.
The male has no vesiculae seminales; the vasa deferentia are elongate,
and the ejaculatory duct is very short, being in fact merely a common
sinus formed by the terminations of the vasa deferentia. The opening of
this duct is situated on the penultimate ventral plate; the organs of
intromission are, however, placed much anterior to this, on the under side
of the second segment. The mode in which the fertilising fluid is
transferred from the ninth to the second segment is not well understood,
but it is known that the abdomen is flexed by the Insect so as to bring the
ninth ventral plate into contact with the second. The three thoracic ganglia
of the nervous chain are all contiguous, though not completely
amalgamated; the abdominal ganglia are seven in number, and are all
separated, the terminal one being larger than the others. Dufour, after
repeated dissections, was unable to find any salivary glands, but Olga
Poletajewa[333] states that they exist.

The Odonata must be ranked among the most highly-organised Insects

so far as external structure and powers of locomotion are concerned; the
peculiar modifications of the thoracic segments and the relative positions
of the wings and legs mark a great departure from the normal type of
Insect structure. Their prey consists of living Insects, which they capture
on the wing by their own superior powers of flight. They destroy a great
many Insects, their appetite for food being, as in the cases of the
Mantidae and of the tiger-beetles, apparently almost insatiable. They are
admirably constructed for the purposes of their predatory lives; they fly
with great swiftness and change the direction of their flight with admirable
facility. They are, however, dependent on sunshine, and conceal
themselves in dull and cloudy weather. The larger Insects of the family
belong to the division Anisopterides (Fig. 260, Anax formosus) and some
of these may, in our own country, usually be seen, in the bright sunshine
of the summer and autumn, engaged in hawking in their favourite haunts.
Places where other Insects abound are naturally those most frequented;
the glades of woods, country lanes and hedge-sides, the borders of
streams and the margins of sheets of water are the places they most
affect. They inspire the rustics with some feeling of fear, and hence have
received the name of "horse-stingers," and in North America are called
"devil's darning-needles." The aversion to dragon-flies may perhaps be
due to their appearance, which is certainly, in the case of some of our
species of Aeschna, Cordulegaster, and Gomphus, very remarkable,
consisting of a dark ground-colour with bars and spots of vivid green or
yellow, giving, it must be admitted, a peculiar, even savage appearance to
the Insects. Whatever the reason may be, they are, it is certain, held in
much fear, and it is difficult to induce a country lad to touch one even
when it is captured and held by another person. The idea of dragon-flies
being dangerous to anything but their Insect victims is, however, entirely
erroneous; they may be captured and handled without their inflicting any
injury. It is probable that the life of the imago may endure for several
weeks if not months. It is known that Sympycna fusca—a common
European though not British dragon-fly—hibernates in the imago state.

In the case of the large dragon-flies we have mentioned, each individual

appears to have a domain, as it were, of its own. Westwood tells us that
he has seen what he believed to be the same individual hawking daily for
several weeks together over a small pond. The writer observed a
specimen of Cordulegaster annulatus to frequent a particular bush, to
which it returned—frequently to the same leaf—after an excursion in
search of food. The way in which these Insects actually seize their prey
has not yet been made clear; it is certain that they capture flying Insects,
and it seems most probable, as we have already said, that this is done by
means of the legs. These, as we have said, are inserted so as to be very
near to the mouth; they are directed forwards, and are held bent at right
angles so as to form a sort of net, and are armed with a beautiful system
of fine spines; it is probable that if the dragon-fly pursue an Insect on the
wing and strike it with the trap, formed by its six legs (Fig. 262, C), then
these immediately come together under the mouth, so that the victim,
directly it is captured by the leg-trap of its pursuer, finds itself in the jaws
of its destroyer. It is perhaps impossible to verify this by actual
observation, as the act of capture and transfer is so very brief and is
performed in the midst of a rapid dash of flight, but it seems more
probable that the prey is first struck by the legs than that the mouth is the
primary instrument of capture. The excessive mobility of the head permits
the victim to be instantly secured by the mouth, and the captured fly is
turned about by this and the front pair of legs, and is nipped rapidly so
that the wings and drier parts fall off; the more juicy parts of the prey are
speedily squeezed into a little ball, which is then swallowed, or perhaps
we should rather say that the mouth closes on it, and submits it to further
pressure for the extraction of the juices. We have already noted that many
of these large and active dragon-flies, particularly in the Libellulinae and
Aeschninae, have their eyes distinctly divided into two parts, the facets in
the lower part of the eye being different from those of the upper part.
Exner considers[334] that the upper division is for the perception of
movement, the lower for the perception of the form of resting objects.
Plateau thinks[335] that the dragon-flies perceive only movement, not
form.
 Fig. 263.—Inner view of a portion of the left side of body of Libellula
depressa, showing a part of the mechanism of flight, viz. some of the
chitinous ridges at base of the upper wing, and some of the insertions
of the tendons of muscles. A, line of section through base of upper
wing, the wing being supposed to be directed backwards; C, upper
portion of mechanism of the lower wing; b, lever extending between
the pieces connected with the two wings. (After von Lendenfeld.)

The splendid acts of flight of the Anisopterid Odonata are accomplished

by the aid of a complex arrangement of chitinous pieces at the bases of
the wings (Fig. 263). In Insects with considerable powers of flight the hind
wings are usually subordinate in functional importance to the anterior, to
which they are attached by a series of hooks, or some other simple
mechanism, on the wings. In the Odonata the two wings of each pair are
quite free, but they are perhaps brought into correlative action by means
of a lever of unusual length existing amongst the chitinous pieces in the
body wall at the base of the wings (Fig. 263, b). The wing muscles are
large; according to von Lendenfeld[336] there are three elevator, five
depressor, and one adductor muscles to each wing: he describes the
wing movements as the results of the correlative action of numerous
muscles and ligaments, and of a great number of chitinous pieces
connected in a jointed manner.

Amans[337] has suggested that the mechanism of flight of the dragon-fly

would form a suitable model for a flying-machine, to be propelled by
electricity.
 Fig. 264.—Platycnemis pennipes, ♂, Britain.

The Zygopterides—the second of the two divisions of the Odonata—are

Insects different in many respects from the large and robust
Anisopterides. The division comprises the delicate Insects called
"demoiselles," damsel-flies, by the French (Fig. 262, A, and Fig. 264).
Great power of flight is not possessed by these more fragile Insects; they
flit about in the most gentle and airy manner from stem to stem of the
aquatic plants and grasses that flourish in the localities they love. To this
group belong the fairy-like Insects of the genus Calepteryx, in which
various parts of the body and wings are suffused with exquisite metallic
tints, while sometimes the two sexes of one species have differently
coloured wings. The smallest and most delicate dragon-flies that are
known are found in the tropics; some of the genera allied to Agrion
consist of Insects of extraordinary fragility and delicacy.

Although the mature Odonata are so pre-eminently endowed for an aerial

and active life, yet in the earlier stages of their existence they are very
different; they are then, without exception, of aquatic habits; though
carnivorous also in this period of their existence, they are sluggish in
movement, lurking in concealment and capturing their prey by means of a
peculiar conformation of the mouth, that we shall subsequently describe.
Their life-histories are only very imperfectly known.

The eggs are deposited either in the water or in the stem of some aquatic
plant, the female Insect occasionally undergoing submersion in order to
accomplish the act. The young on hatching are destitute of any traces of
wings (Fig. 265), and the structure of the thoracic segments is totally
different from what it is in the adult, the rectal respiratory system (Fig.
265, x) to which we shall subsequently allude, being, however, already
present. The wings are said to make their first appearance only at the
third or fourth moult. At this time the pleura of the second and third
thoracic segments have grown in a peculiar manner so as to form a
lateral plate (Fig. 266, B, shows this plate at a later stage), and the wing-
pads appear as small projections from the membranes at the upper
margins of these pleural plates (Fig. 266, A, B). The plates increase in
size during the subsequent stadia, and meet over the bases of the wing-
pads, which also become much longer than they were at first. The
number of moults that occur during growth has not been observed in the
case of any species, but they are believed to be numerous. There is no
pupa, nor is there any well-marked quiescent stage preceding the
assumption of the winged form at the last ecdysis, although at the latter
part of its life the nymph appears to be more inactive than usual. When
full grown, the nymph is more like the future perfect Insect than it was at
first, and presents the appearance shown in Figs. 266 and 270. At this
stage it crawls out of the water and clings to some support such as the
stem or leaf of an aquatic plant; a few minutes after doing so the skin of
the back of the thoracic region splits, and the imago emerges from the
nymphal skin.

Fig. 265.—Larva of Diplax just hatched. n, a ganglion of the ventral chain; d,

dorsal vessel; x, tracheal network round rectum. (After Packard, P.
Boston Soc. xi. 1868, p. 365.)
 Fig. 266.—Ictinus sp., nymph, Himalaya. A, Dorsal, B, lateral view. (After
Cabot.)

The nymphs never have the body so elongate as the perfect Insect, the
difference in this respect being frequently great, and the nymphs of the
subfamily Libellulinae being very broad (Fig. 266, nymph of Ictinus sp.);
consequently the creature on emergence from the nymph-skin is very
much shorter than it will soon become. Extension begins to take place
almost immediately; it has been thought by some that this is
accomplished by swallowing air; this is, however, uncertain. At first the
wings have only the length of the wing-pads of the nymph, and their
apical portion is an unformed mass. The colour of the perfect Insect is not
present when the emergence takes place. The wing grows quickly until
the full length is attained. In the genus Agrion the expansion of the wings
is accompanied by frequent elevations and depressions of the body, and
occupies an hour or so; the elongation of the abdomen is not so soon
completed, and its brilliant colours do not appear for several hours.

Fig. 267.—Young nymph of Aeschna sp. (Cambridge) about fourth moult.

The mouth of the nymph bears a remarkable structure called the mask
(Fig. 268). It is apparently formed by a backward growth of the bases of
the labium and lingua, a hinge being formed between the two at the most
posterior point of their growth. The prolonged portions of these parts are
free: usually the mask is folded under the head, but it can be unfolded
and thrust forward, remaining then attached to the head by means of the
more anterior parts of the lingua and by the maxillae, the whole of the
elongate apparatus being, when used, extended from this anterior part of
its attachment. The front parts of the labium form a prehensile apparatus
armed with sharp teeth, so that the structures make altogether a very
effectual trap, that can be extended in order to secure the prey.

Fig. 268.—Under side of head of Calepteryx virgo, nymph, with mask

unfolded. a, Lingua; b, line from which the mask swings; c, line of
doubling up; d, lower lip proper; e, articulated lateral processes
thereof.

The fact that the dragon-fly passes suddenly, in the middle of its
existence, from an aquatic to an aerial life, makes the condition of its
respiratory organs a subject for inquiry of more than usual interest.
Réaumur was of opinion that the nymph was, in spite of its aquatic
existence, provided with an extensive system of stigmata or orifices for
breathing air; this was, however, denied by Dufour, and his opinion
seemed to be supported by the fact that other means of obtaining air
were discovered to exist in these nymphs. The inquiries connected with
the respiration of Odonata are still very incomplete, but some interesting
points have been ascertained, the most important of which is perhaps the
existence in some forms of a respiratory system in connexion with the
posterior part of the alimentary canal (Fig. 269). In the nymphs of
Anisopterides the system consists of four main tracheal trunks, traversing
the length of the body, and by their ramifications and inosculations
forming an extensive apparatus. Connected with the four main trunks we
have described, there is a shorter pair confined to the abdomen, where it
supplies a large number of branches to the walls of the stomach. The
dorsal pair of the main tubes give numerous subsidiary branches to the
outside of the rectum, and the ventral pair furnish a smaller number. The
walls of the gut are penetrated by the branches, which inside the rectum
form numerous loops; these, covered by a membrane, project into the
interior in the form of multitudinous papillae (Æschninae). In the
Libellulinae the papillae are replaced by more flattened processes or
lamellae. The structures attain a remarkable development, there being in
Aeschna cyanea upwards of 24,000 papillae.

Fig. 269.—Portion of tracheal system of nymph of Aeschna cyanea. R, R,

R, R, rectum; A, anus; td, dorsal; tv, ventral, tracheal tubes; M,
Malpighian tubes. (After Oustalet.)

These rectal gills obtain air from water admitted into the rectum for the
purpose; the extremity of the body being armed with projections of
variable form, that can be separated to allow ingress and egress of the
fluid, or brought into close apposition so as to close the orifice. The water
so taken in can, by some species, be ejected with force, and is used
occasionally as a means of locomotion. These rectal branchiae can
absorb free air, as well as air dissolved in water. If the fluid in which the
creatures are placed has been previously boiled, so as to expel the air
from it, the nymphs then thrust the extremity of the body out of the water
and so obtain a supply of air.

Oustalet and Palmén state that at the last ecdysis the lamellae, or the
papillae, do not disappear, but remain quite empty, and are consequently
functionless, while on the tracheal trunks there are developed air vesicles
to fit the creature for its aerial career. Hagen says that in Epitheca the
whole structure of the gills is shed at the final moult.

The subject of the rectal branchiae of Libellula has been discussed and
illustrated by Chun,[338] who states that Leydig has made known that in
Phryganea grandis a structure is found connecting the rectal branchiae of
Libellula with the rectal glands of some other Insects. We have not been
able to find a confirmation of this in the writings of Leydig or elsewhere.
 Fig. 270.—Calepteryx virgo, mature nymph, Britain.

In the nymphs of the Zygopterides the highly-developed rectal

branchiae found in the Aeschninae and Libellulinae do not exist, and
the respiration seems to be of a complex character. In one division of
the Zygopterides—Calepteryginae—rectal gills of an imperfect
character are said by Hagen and others to exist.[339] The nymphs of
the Zygopterides are provided with three mobile processes at the
extremity of the body (Fig. 270); these serve the purposes of
locomotion. They are believed to possess also a respiratory function,
but this must be of an accessory nature, for the nymphs live after the
removal of the processes, and indeed reproduce them; the skin of
these processes is harder than is usual in Insect gills. In the nymph
of Euphaea—a genus of Calepteryginae found in tropical Asia—
there are also external abdominal gills, and in this case respiration
may, according to Hagen,[340] take place in four different manners:
(1) by ten pairs of stigmata; (2) by lateral branchiae well furnished
with tracheae; (3) by caudal branchiae; (4) by rectal branchiae. It is
further said that in this Insect the lateral branchiae persist in the
imago.

Although the means of respiration of the nymphs have been fairly

well ascertained, yet the mode in which the nymph is prepared for
the sudden change from the aquatic to aerial life is still obscure, the
condition of the stigmata not being thoroughly elucidated. It appears
probable, however, that the young nymph has no stigmata; that
these organs appear in the course of its development, being at first