You're not paranoid, Bill. They really are out to get you

STARTING today: exclusive extracts from Jeffrey Archer's great new novel, 'The Insider Story']

ALONG the street in London known as Pall Mall there are several great clubs, but none perhaps quite so great as the Memorial Club, and it was here on one summer's evening that Frank Swithin and Lord Hacker met.

Lord Hacker was a face familiar to the British public - one of those figures who have been on television so often that when you bumped into him in the street you automatically nodded, as if to an old friend. Lord Hacker was famous as a writer, and as a politician and as a face. Being famous three ways is not given to many men. But most of those to whom it is given like to belong to a club like the Memorial Club, all of whose members are famous. Inside those portals one can relax, knowing that everyone there is famously recognisable in one way or another.

Indeed, as Frank Swithin had once observed to Lord Hacker, the only reason anyone ever gets stared at in the Memorial Club is through not being recognised. Nobody recognised Frank Swithin. His only known claim to fame was through being Lord Hacker's oldest friend. All famous people prize the friends they made before they became famous. It is to them that, in the last resort, they tend to turn when they need help and advice, and no words minced.

'Will you have a drink, Frank?' said Lord Hacker.

'A large gin and tonic, please, Bill,' said Frank.

The waiter took their order and left them sitting at the table at which Palmerston, perhaps, once sat. The air of tradition in the Memorial Club was very strong. So was the amount of dust in the air.

'Are women permitted to become members here yet?' asked Frank, staring round the dark premises. He knew perfectly well they weren't - the lighting and the colour scheme would be a lot better if they were - but he liked to tease Bill Hacker a bit.

Lord Hacker thought about it for a moment. He had certainly never seen any women in here. When the waiter came with the drinks, he decided to ask him.

'George, do we have any women members in the club?'

'No, my Lord,' said the waiter smoothly. 'They apply regularly, and occasionally some of them picket the club, and even try to set fire to it, but most get tired of trying to join, and go off and become bishops instead.'

'Bishops?' said Lord Hacker.

'Yes, my Lord. I believe it is now far easier for a woman to join the Church of England than the Memorial Club.'

Frank Swithin laughed as the waiter retreated.

'Well,' he said, 'you may not have any members with a sense of humour, but the staff make up for it. So, what's it all about, Bill? Why do you want to see me?

'Someone's out to get me, Frank. And I don't know why.'

'Get you, Bill? In what way?'

'As you know, I have worked my way up from nothing.'

'Several times, Bill.'

'I have lost fortunes and made them. I have been the subject of a scandal. I have been made a peer. I have written books which sold in their millions. I have been close to the famous and the royal. But I still have one ambition. Do you know what it is?'

'To win the Booker Prize?'

Lord Hacker thought seriously about this for a moment. Yes, it would be nice. But he would rather be a millionaire.

'No, Frank. I want to be chairman of my party. It isn't much to ask. But someone is out to stop me. And I am not sure who.'

'How do they want to stop you?'

Lord Hacker replied with another question.

'Do you know what insider trading is, Frank?'

Frank Swithin said nothing, but reflected that Hacker had two great failings. One was to have a high opinion of himself. The other was to take everyone else for an idiot. If he, Frank Swithin, had a personal crisis, he could not imagine turning to Lord Hacker for advice. In Bill Hacker's world, everything revolved round Bill Hacker. For instance, it had not occurred to Hacker for some 20 years to ask how Swithin was getting on.

It might have surprised Hacker considerably to know that Frank Swithin was, by now, deputy head of MI5. And he knew exactly who was out to get Lord Hacker, and why . . .

Another instalment of Jeffrey Archer's new novel coming soon]