by Carl Andrew
“This data is vitally important to MI5 to help protect the country from home grown terrorism. The chatter that led to the N5 protocol being breached was based on a home grown plot against the public.”
David had been planning this story for the last hour. It was the most believable he had been able to concoct.
“I made a difficult call but I made the right call and I need to know I have your support,” David spoke powerfully. It was the sort of statement that left very little doubt in either Russell or Vanessa’s mind.
Vanessa looked at Russell, he reciprocated. There was an awkward silence, awkward again. This was an awkward decision; they were in an awkward position.
The word that summed up the meeting weighed down heavy on the attendees.
Finally, Russell broke the silence, awkwardly. “David,” he mumbled, “I want it recorded that I object to this decision,” he said. “However, I am not going to rock the boat. Externally, you shall have my support. Internally, I think this is wrong.”
“Understood Russell, Vanessa?”
All eyes on the black sheep in the room, she had just been brought back into the fold. How could she go against David and still keep her career intact? It was an impossible position to be in,
“David, I echo Russell’s objection but you are the Prime Minister and I’ve supported you up to this point. I’ll continue to support you in spite of this decision.”
“Thank you Vanessa,” David said with obvious relief. “That’s all I can ask of you both. Thank you for being honest and thank you for your understanding.”
Vanessa and Russell nodded in David’s direction.
The meeting had run its course. They both shuffled out still bemused by what had just transpired.
When they were out of earshot of David and his staff, Vanessa turned to Russell and said:
“There’s something not right about this.”
“I agree. We shouldn’t go back on our word. If this gets out, the public will hang us out to dry,” Russell replied.
“I don’t mean about the decision, I mean about the explanation from David just now. I think there’s more to it than he’s revealing,” Vanessa said.
“I’d leave it alone Vanessa. It won’t serve you to go digging,” Russell cautioned, but Vanessa’s mind was set and Russell knew it…
Chapter 27:
Early February - Finsbury Park, London
Leon stopped typing the article he was working on. He was thirsty, again. He walked to the kitchen, filled a glass with water and gulped it down.
He’d noticed that a lot recently. He was often thirsty and then needed the toilet more frequently. He put it down to stress. It had been quite a year and a half for him. The blog had grown exponentially, he had a girlfriend who he was now living with, he had been attacked no less than three times and, most recently, his dad had died.
It was a perfectly plausible explanation that there would be a few changes to him. There was always that nagging doubt that it might be more than that but the fact he had been fatigued a lot recently and needed what he called ‘Nana naps’ lent even more credence to his belief that it was stress.
Abby walked in to the kitchen and noticed that he was deep in concentration.
“If you’re thinking about what to get me for my birthday you’ve still got a few months yet,” she said in jest.
Leon looked at her without really looking at her. “Hey, huh, oh yeah right,” he said, unconvincingly.
“Are you ok?” Abby was concerned. She had noticed that he’d become a little more vacant since Christmas.
“I think I just need a break Abby. I’m exhausted.”
“Then why don’t we get away somewhere? You haven’t had a holiday from work in almost two years. Let’s find a cottage in the country and disappear for a few days. It’ll do you some good. Give you a chance to recharge the batteries.”
“But, what about the blog, who’s going to keep it going,” his concern was justified. You can’t run a popular news site without producing any news. It was a sure fire way to lose readers.
The truth was that Abby had been thinking about the two of them taking a break for a while now. She wanted to be with him but without the distraction of work.
She had the perfect response but needed to make it appear like she’d just thought of it. She didn’t want Leon to know she’d been planning this for a week or so.
Doing her best impression of someone searching for an answer to a particularly challenging conundrum, she acted out her eureka moment with precision: “Perhaps we can get a freelancer in. Do you know anyone who could look after it for a couple of days?”
She knew full well there was Leon’s friend Sam who had already offered to help out if required. She’d initiated the conversation in front of Leon at a party they went to over the Christmas period. Her plan was to keep his name in her back pocket in case Leon didn’t mention it from all the clues she was giving him. Ideally, she wanted it to be his decision.
Leon thought for a moment. “I suppose I could always ask Sam,” he said.
“Sam?” She asked, maintaining her character with confidence.
“You know,” said Leon. “We met him at that drinks thing we went to a few weeks ago in Covent Garden.”
“Oh right, Sam yes. I remember now. What a good idea. Why don’t you ask him?”
“Yeah, I suppose I could. It would be nice to have a few days away. I’ll do you a deal,” he said.
“I’ll speak to Sam and you find us a place to go. Look for something we could travel down to tomorrow. We’ll hire a car and get out of the city. Agreed?”
“Sounds good to me, one luxury spa retreat with manicures and pedicures it is,” she smiled as she said it.
“But where would you stay if I’m going there?” Leon knew she was winding him up and played along with the game.
“Ha ha very funny, I’ll look for something that we’ll both enjoy. Leave it to me.”
An hour or so later, they had their freelancer and they had their accommodation, a quaint little cottage in the New Forest. The perfect place to go for long walks, enjoy the fineries of many a country pub and most important of all, somewhere for alone time.
This represented the next step in their fledgling relationship, their first holiday together.
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Mr and Mrs Bradbury’s house, Ipswich, Suffolk
Jean Bradbury was going about her daily chores. The weekend had been kind to them for this time of year. The sun was shining and the cold was, well, bearable.
It was as much as they could ask for. There was no snow and the wind was light.
Her husband Roger was upstairs working on his model aeroplane. He’d bought it from a car boot sale a few months ago and had finally found the time to try and get it working again. There was a bit of structural damage to the main body of the plane but nothing he couldn’t fix.
Jean had packed and unloaded the washing machine regularly that morning to try and get the weekly wash out of the way before she started on Sunday lunch. They’d had it for about five years and she was hoping it would hang on for at least a couple of years more.
The previous summer had seen them complete the final renovation to their home to turn it into their dream property. The downstairs kitchen and lounge area had been completely done and they’d extended out into the back garden to provide a little extra space.
As expected, the whole project had pushed them well over budget and they had to rely on credit cards to see them through. Since then, they’d had to tighten their belts to try and pay everything off. The last thing they needed was a large expense.
Unfortunately, their old reliable washing machine had other ideas. On Jean’s fourth load it started spewing out water, covering the kitchen floor.
“Roger,” Jean called out. “Roger, quick, there’s something wrong with the washing machine.”
She heard footsteps traverse the study room up
stairs and then descend down the wooden staircase.
“What is it dear? What’s happening….” He didn’t need to complete his sentence. It was obvious as soon as he came in to the kitchen what was going on.
Fortunately, the machine cycle had stopped but the floor was still drenched.
“Jean love, if you could start to mop up the water, I’ll give old Bob a call and see what he thinks.”
The community they lived in was what could be described as ‘close knit’. Everyone knew each other and, more to the point, knew each other’s value. Bob was the plumber.
About ten minutes later, Bob appeared on the scene to survey the damage. After a good while dismantling and rebuilding he reached his conclusion. “It’s buggered Jean,” he said.
“You’re going to need a new one I’m afraid. Not much I can do now.”
They thanked Bob the plumber and let him get back to watching the football.
“Well, there’s nothing else for it. We’ll have to nip into town to pick up a new one. Ok love,” Roger said reassuringly.
“Can you take a look through the local paper and see if there are any volunteer jobs on this morning. We could do with getting a Behaviour Discount what with all the other bills we’ve got on at the moment. It’s just typical timing I’m afraid.”
Jean did as requested.
Since the Anti-Social Behaviour Act had come in, families up and down the country took advantage of the Behaviour Discount when they needed to buy expensive things. The Bradbury’s were no different. They did the same when they were renovating the house.
Jean went on her hunt and within a few minutes found what she was after. “Roger, if we leave now, we can get to a park clean-up day at Martlesham Heath,” she said.
The journey to Martlesham was pretty easy with traffic at a minimum. However, it still didn’t stop Roger waiting at almost every junction to let other cars through. He was determined to get his Behaviour Discount and nothing was going to stop him.
As a result, it took them ten minutes longer than usual to get to their destination.
When they finally arrived, a large crowd of people had gathered. It seemed as though the Bradbury’s weren’t the only ones looking to make an expensive purchase that day. There must have been people from every part of Suffolk volunteering their services.
They strolled up to a man with a loudspeaker. He was looking particularly flustered. They were told that there were too many people and that they only had bags for 100 volunteers. There must have been at least 500 people there.
It was chaos which quickly descended to frenzy when Mr Loudspeaker announced that they only needed 100 people. A scrum ensued, each person feverishly grabbing at bags quicker than the poor man could give them out. It was like a scene from January sales shopping in a London department store.
Roger tried to get amid the thronging mass and ended up with a bloody nose. Jean was pushed to the floor. Others suffered worse injuries and finally the police were called.
As they were being tended to by St John’s Ambulance volunteers, Roger and Jean were told that this situation wasn’t unusual nowadays. Since they last volunteered a few months ago, word had spread about different ways to get the Behaviour Discount. Volunteering was becoming more popular than ever and brawls had become commonplace as a result.
Bemused and sore, the Bradbury’s left Martlesham Heath and headed into town hoping that they had done enough to get their discount but vowing to never volunteer again.
When they eventually arrived home later that afternoon, Roger wrote an email detailing what he entitled ‘The Battle of Martlesham Heath’. He attached some photos he took and sent the email to [email protected] for the attention of the editor.
The following day, it ran on the front page and received an array of comments echoing the experience of Roger and Jean.
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The next day - Clapham, London
The last week or so had been a time of contemplation for Vanessa. She was debating what to do following the situation with David and the story he tried to pass off to both she and Russell about the decision to share the liquid chip data with MI5.
Something just didn’t sit right with her and she couldn’t shake the feeling. Her instincts tended to be spot on and she was weighing up the pros and cons of digging further.
Finally, after her fourth sleepless night in a row, she decided to find out more. She pulled out her private phone and dialled a familiar number…
“Hello, it’s me,” she said.
“I know it’s been a while but I need you to do something for me. This one is dangerous and highly confidential.”
She explained what she was after and had to do a bit of coaxing to get her contact to agree. Essentially, she was asking him to gather evidence about the Prime Minister. It was going to be costly and she fully expected that.
They had worked together for a number of years and had built up a trust in each other but this request had taken that to a whole new level.
She relayed the story David had told her and agreed a timeline for her contact to work to.
Her move had been made. She knew that she was risking everything but something told her it was the right thing to do. There was no turning back now…
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A cottage in the New Forest
Their time away had been amazing. They had even extended their stay an extra day and were enjoying their last 24 hours away from London.
That time of year in the New Forest was magical. There was still the mud and rain to contend with but the fresh air cleared away the smog from their lungs and the views enriched their passion for the countryside.
They had ambled, strolled and hiked pretty much every route within a five mile radius of their cottage and sampled more pub food than they would care to admit.
In the three days that they had been away, they discovered more about each other than the year or so prior, so much had happened to them over the last 12 months or so that they hadn’t really had time for each other.
One thing was starting to disturb Abby though and that was how tired Leon said he was. Whenever they went out, they had to cut it short because Leon was exhausted.
At first she put it down to him having a chance to finally relax and taking full advantage of it but after a few days, it became clear to her that something wasn’t right.
On their last night together, she decided to broach the topic.
“Hey listen,” she said as he was taking a sip of a rather nice red wine they had secured from the local pub that afternoon.
“Don’t take this the wrong way but…”
“Oh no, here it comes. What have I done?” Leon joked in response.
“No, nothing like that, it’s just that… well it’s just I noticed you’ve been really tired on this holiday.”
“Yeah, well I’m taking a break. I’m just recharging my batteries, you know.” Leon said with just a hint of defensiveness.
That tone only served to confirm to Abby that something was indeed wrong. The fact that he was being defensive suggested that he recognised it as well as far as she was concerned.
“But it’s not just recharging your batteries though is it. I mean, it’s much more than that. You’re tired all the time. You never used to be like that.”
“What are you saying Abby?” Leon realised that they were having one of those conversations where he had to be serious and they had to discuss things, in full.
“I’m just wondering if you’ve noticed anything wrong,” she said.
He was about to take another sip and placed the glass so the rim just glanced against his bottom lip. He looked down and put the glass back on the table.
It was like someone had finally put the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle together. The denial he had allowed to cloak his judgement these last few days had finally been breached.
He had noticed
something was wrong but he was too stubborn to accept it. It needed Abby’s intervention to finally believe it.
“Actually, I have felt that things haven’t been right. I’ve just put it down to stress you know. What with everything we’ve had to deal with over the last year. It makes sense that there could be a little stress there don’t you think?” He said.
All the while, Abby stared into his eyes and nodded reassuringly as he spoke. She reached over and took hold of his hand.
“Don’t you think you should see someone and get it confirmed?”
She was right. He knew it. It didn’t take long for him to succumb.
“I probably should Abby. Even if they tell me it’s just stress, at least they can let me know how to manage it, right?”
“Absolutely,” she said.
“Ok, I’ll go and see my doctor. I’ll book an appointment when we get back tomorrow.”
“I think that’ll be a good idea Leon,” she said.
And that was it. The conversation was over and the topic was not raised again that evening. It was replaced by discovery. They talked long into the night about each other’s lives, adding more chapters to the mental encyclopaedia of their relationship.
The wine was merrily consumed and, when they eventually fell into bed, Leon enjoyed the best night’s sleep he’d had for weeks.
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Silicon Fen, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire
The man in the casual shirt checked through his email. One caught his eye, it was from a pseudonym that he recognised and simply said: “Call me when you get this.”
He collected his private mobile from its secure location and dialled the number.
“How can I help,” he said.
“Vanessa Lim…” The voice the other end was disguised, sinister. “She’s digging somewhere she shouldn’t be. Keep an eye on her.”
“Sure, I’ll get someone on it right away.”
“If she finds anything that causes a problem, remove her.”
