‘As it has turned out, my plan was thwarted. I lost. I have no regrets that I tried. As for you, Robbie, whatever side you’re on, you’ve ended up in love with mediocrity. You are a false leader without point or purpose. You will achieve nothing. You were once my friend. I was fond of you. I saved your skin. All for nothing.’ Fowkes stood. ‘That’s it. May I go please?’
‘Thank you for that, Jed,’ said Sandford. ‘The door’s open. The car that brought you here is still outside with instructions to drop you off wherever you wish. If you’ve made other arrangements, no one will get in your way.’
Fowkes turned to Quine. ‘I heard about your accident, Joe. I told them you and your book would never be a threat and to leave you alone. Looks like I got that one wrong.’ He walked to the door and stopped. ‘By the way, who was that young woman who acted as your spy?’
Quine shrugged his shoulders and displayed the empty palms of his hands.
Fowkes nodded and looked at Sandford. ‘Goodbye, Robbie,’ he said softly. He allowed a moment and then spoke softly. ‘It will come.’ He paused. ‘One day, it will come.’ He turned on his heel and exited through the front door held open by the protection officer.
The square was darkening, street lights brightening. Quine and Sandford watched Fowkes stride purposefully past the car that had delivered him. As he reached the corner, a different black car drew up beside him. Its passenger door opened from inside. Fowkes got in.
‘My God,’ said Sandford, ‘he’s mad.’ He walked back into the house.
Quine said nothing. Lingering behind on the doorstep, he looked again at the photograph. The ring could have been a silver coin of the same era. Had there been a flicker of recognition in Jed’s eyes when he looked at it? No. Wanting it, he had imagined it. He had craved finality but it was not to be.
He returned to the sitting room. Isla had not appeared which was good; Sandford might want to unwind with him alone.
He was standing, staring at the street through the front window. ‘What do you think?’ he asked, not turning. ‘Is he mad?’ Now he swung round sharply. ‘Or am I?’
Quine knew what his role had to be. ‘You’re not mad. Whether or not he’s mad, he’s certainly deluded.’
‘Is that certain? I suppose if your theory about the German girl’s true, then it would show what he was capable of. And it would mean he also raped Andrea. I know I’m right. He was drugging me.’
‘There’s no reason,’ said Quine, ‘why the German girl theory shouldn’t be any more or less true than any other theory.’ And, he thought, she could at least be an alibi body if one were ever needed.
Sandford shrugged. ‘My God, he must be bitter. I’ve always said he was odd. But this is another level.’ He paused. ‘All this stuff about revolution and counter-revolution. Does he honestly believe that? Does he still think it could ever happen like that?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Quine with feeling. ‘And he’s not alone. Not by a long chalk.’
Sandford slumped on the sofa. ‘I’m tired. Unusual for me.’
‘It’s not surprising. But it’s done. Nothing Jed ever says again will be believed. He’s right. His career and life are over.’
Sandford looked up at him. ‘Am I a mediocrity?’
Quine felt a curious relief that this was the question at the forefront of his mind. ‘No, Robbie. You’re not a mediocrity.’
53
The day after the State Opening of Parliament and the reading of the Royal Speech, simultaneous dawn raids were mounted on Quentin Deschevaux MP’s Westminster office and his Chelsea home in The Boltons. Joe Quine later realized it was one of the grand houses he had passed on his first day back in London.
Deschevaux had been successfully photographed retrieving the package containing the Royal Speech from the gap by the side aisle of St Margaret’s Church where Fowkes had dropped it. It was decided to delay his arrest until after the speech was delivered in case it spurred him into further illegal action. The statement released by IPRM on its China deal was strong evidence but only circumstantial. The raids revealed a series of confidential government documents dating from the time Fowkes had joined the Treasury. Deschevaux was charged under Section 22 of the Theft Act with handling stolen goods, which carried a maximum sentence of fourteen years’ imprisonment, and released from custody on substantial bail.
The already sensational media coverage of his arrest was enhanced by a further knock-on effect from the Royal Speech.
Quine had felt an inevitability about it.
‘SENIOR TREASURY MAN FOUND HANGED AT BLACKFRIARS BRIDGE’ and variations on the theme were the headlines on the front pages of the Sunday newspapers.
Quine could not help admiring the elegance of the reference. Jed was found at the very spot where on Friday the 18 June 1982, Roberto Calvi, the man who became known as ‘God’s Banker’, was also found hanging by the neck. Calvi had been chairman of Banco Ambrosiano; the Vatican was its major shareholder. The year before, he had been convicted of illegally spiriting tens of millions of dollars of bank money out of Italy. At the time of his death, the bank was collapsing with a billion dollars of debt it could not repay. Calvi’s death was initially recorded as suicide but, in the years to come, it became a fertile source of conspiracy theories. He had fallen foul of the P2 Masonic lodge; or the Mafia; or the Vatican itself. The facts that, the previous day, his secretary had thrown herself from her office window in shame at the bank’s collapse and Calvi had already attempted suicide in prison became lost.
That evening Quine dissected the fallout with Isla.
‘If Jed killed himself,’ said Quine, ‘it was a deliberate choice of location. He wasn’t just disappearing, he was becoming a story. A legend. Fueller of conspiracy theories for years, even decades to come.’
‘It also suited plenty of people to have him dead,’ Isla said. ‘IPRM for one. He was carrying a lot of secrets.’
‘And he’d failed. No use to them any more.’
‘There were other interested parties.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Our Prime Minister for one. If the skeleton ever gets traced to that flat, it must be Fowkes, mustn’t it? The weird one. The one who committed suicide. Who felt such shame he couldn’t go on living.’
Quine allowed the unspoken implication to drift by in silence. ‘Oh, I never asked,’ he finally said, ‘I guess you must have listened in to the rest of the Fowkes/Sandford discussion.’
‘You bet.’
‘But it’s our secret, yes? You didn’t switch that recorder back on.’
‘No, I didn’t,’ she replied firmly. It was not a lie. It might have looked like it to him when her finger hovered over that button, but she had never switched it off in the first place.
Carol was upstairs lying on the bed, waiting. Ever since the girls were old enough to know not to barge in, it had always seemed the place for their most private chats and few rows.
‘I got your message,’ she said as he entered. ‘So, you’ve cancelled all your evening engagements to spend time with your wife.’
Sandford sat down beside her and allowed a second of silence. ‘I can tell you everything now.’
‘Everything?’
‘Yes, everything.’ He pursed his lips. ‘I won’t even ask you to sign the Official Secrets Act.’ A glimmer of a smile – a small softening.
The version he contrived for her told of many things that were true and some that were not. Others were omitted altogether. There was no mention of skeletons or severed hands or incidents in a South London flat three decades earlier.
‘You’re saying that right from the beginning it was all about Jed and his one-man revolution with Deschevaux his partner-in-crime,’ she said, as he came to the end. ‘And the story Jed first told you about M-C and his Spad having it off in his office was because M-C was getting in his way.’
‘You’ve got it,’ he said. ‘Though no one, not even Jed, I suspect, could have foreseen the chain reaction.’
‘Poor M-C.’
‘Yes, poor M-C.’
‘Robbie,’ she said, ‘why didn’t you share it with me? The strain you must have been under. I could have helped.’
‘Carol,’ he said, smiling with a certain sadness, ‘I couldn’t have done that. Say a single hint had slipped out, however accidentally. The monitoring of Jed had to be watertight.’
‘I realize that,’ she said, ‘but I’d have been there for you.’
‘Yes. I know you would.’
‘I’m sorry. Truly sorry.’
‘There’s a lesson in it for both of us.’
She frowned. ‘Forgive me for asking this, it will finally clear the air. Couple of things on those emails. The R woman. I checked the link but didn’t see where she fitted in.’
‘Yes, Roisin Osborne. She’s a director at Coulthard’s private bank. Jed and I met her way back through Mikey Miller. She’d kept in touch with Jed more than me over the years so I asked her to see Joe. We were trawling to see if Jed might have let slip anything with his friends and contacts. Without making them aware of it, of course. Turned out Roisin had rather a crush on me. I’m afraid I didn’t reciprocate.’
‘I’m very glad you didn’t. Just one more. “Artefact”. What was that?’
‘You and your memory!’ He kissed her on the forehead. ‘It might be funny if it wasn’t so tragic. There was an element of code. Joe and I were both aware emails could never be fully secure. If you really want to know, the artefact was a sex aid found in M-C’s office by a cleaner. It was handed in to the head of property. I think in that email “boss” and “subject” were being used to describe the same person—’
‘You mean M-C.’
‘Yes.’
‘And the sex aid?’
‘Come on!’
‘Don’t be shy.’
‘All right. It was a deflated and folded rubber doll. How on earth it was left there remains a mystery. Just imagine what the tabloids would have made of it.’
Peace has been finally restored, reflected Sandford, lying in bed an hour later. Carol’s even breathing and rising and falling chest the only sound and movement in range. The apology and reconciliation. He had been careless, not anticipating that she would drill down into the emails. He should have known her better. Roisin was easy enough to explain away but he had felt himself stumbling on ‘Artefact’. He had no idea how the sex aid suddenly came to the rescue. Perhaps it was just thinking about Morland-Cross.
Please forgive me, M-C, if you’re looking down from above or up from below. Your final service as a cover story is gratefully appreciated.
54
One month later
Quine could not decide. Was he enjoying being back in the limelight? Or did he miss the peace of life in exile?
Certainly he was in demand. Deschevaux’s arrest had rekindled interest in the circumstances of the libel case. With the fallen MP now so disgraced that he had no reputation left to damage, journalists could throw caution to the winds. One serious investigative journalist, guided by Quine, was about to be funded by Channel Four to go to Sierra Leone to re-investigate the massacre. Once he had hoovered up all the available evidence and any witnesses on the ground, the ultimate prize would be to persuade Jack Edgerley to go on the record.
Quine also had a head start on the Jed Fowkes story. Even without any reference to young women disappearing from a South London flat where a future Prime Minister had lived, it was a remarkable one, not least the Stasi connection. Sir David Vaughn had been as good as his word in helping with Quine’s questions arising from the Cherwell article. Vaughn had, in his twilight years, become a man of great moral rectitude, he concluded. Perhaps he always had been.
That morning, sitting in the editor’s office of The Post newspaper, there had been a further surprise as he opened an envelope handed to him by the editor himself. It was headed ‘Private and Confidential’ and addressed to ‘Joseph Quine, c/o The Post’. The stamp was foreign. Inside was a postcard showing a beach in Brazil. On the back was a handwritten message.
Sorry I let you down. They gave me no choice.
Don’t give up.
The world seemed suddenly full of possibility.
‘What are you thinking about, Dad?’ asked Sophie, interrupting his thoughts.
He looked at his empty wine glass. ‘A top-up would be nice. What about you?’
‘Your book. I’ve persuaded my boss to join the auction.’
‘Brilliant. Though I think I remember once saying you weren’t the target publisher.’
‘Maybe you did. But now Deschevaux’s neutralized, we’re suddenly feeling brave.’
‘Riley says it could go for a lot of money.’
‘We’ll have to beat the competition, won’t we?’
He chuckled. ‘Be fun, wouldn’t it, Sophie?’
‘Yes, Dad, it’d be fantastic.’
Isla walked into the room. ‘What are you two plotting?’
‘Dad and me working together,’ said Sophie.
‘Aye well, he’s not a bad ally,’ said Isla.
They lapsed into a companionable silence. What next, Quine asked himself. Sandford was ever more serious about pursuing the biography. Another option was the events of recent weeks that had given him a hell of a story if he was ever allowed to tell it.
He thought of Cornwall and Mrs Trelight. And then he thought of Robin Sandford, the ‘good’ Prime Minister. Was he? Had he ever truly known him? The only certainty was that, somehow, he always managed to come out on top. As for what had happened in that flat, it was better not to think about it.
One a.m. The Prime Minister sat alone in the 10 Downing Street flat. A night of rest from his family, his staff, his colleagues.
He had survived. Henry Morland-Cross and Jed Fowkes had not. He missed neither of them, but they would not let him go. Spectres in the night. Women in the night. Carol. Roisin. Andrea.
It will come.
Who was she? Surely he could remember the name. Because, as it grew on him in the days and weeks after Jed died, the image of the ring became ever more vivid. She had flaunted it at him. ‘It’s valuable, posh boy. Silver coin, hundred years old. Hungarian boy give it me, then I give ’im what he wanted.’
One day, it will come. Jed’s parting words. The girl from that sweaty, crowded, alcohol, drug-fuelled club, appropriately called Hell’s Bunker. The memory was growing. They bumped into each other just before closing, both far gone. On the walk back to the flat she talked. How she’d had years in care – father raped her, beat her mother up – but now she was nineteen she was out and had her freedom. ‘Owe nothing (‘nuffink’) to no one’, ‘no old hag of a foster mum any more’, ‘fuck off to care homes too’, ‘I can have the life I want, I can fuck who I want’, ‘I can even have a good-looking lad like you if I want.’
‘What you do anyway, posh boy?’ The words, the accent, the high-spiritedness all came back, the fun. And he had replied, ‘I’m just chilling too. Between things.’ There would not have been much more chat than that. And then they arrived at the flat.
With Jed waiting.
What would happen if – when – the skull was discovered? The police would investigate, revisit all missing persons around that time. She would be on the list – even if no one cared about her. No family keeping a watch, written off by the state, transient friends. But yes, they would investigate. Chopped-up bodies could not be ignored. There would be records – including dental records. Care homes and foster parents would have made her go to the dentist. So they would have a name. Maybe one of those transient friends would say the last they knew of her she was off to Hell’s Bunker. They would ask for witnesses. That long back, the dates vague, the chances would be one in a thousand. But just say someone did remember. Say they could track the date. Everyone was made to sign in at Hell’s Bunker. But that would be all right. There used to be hundreds there on a Friday night.
Say, even, someone saw her leaving with a boy w
ho looked just like him at that age.
That would be all right too.
There would be no witnesses to what then happened.
Because Jed is dead.
Sandford closed his eyes and allowed his head to relax into a cushion. Waves of fatigue began to wash over him, that exquisite moment when, at last, he could bury his memories and his conscience and tip into the black hole of sleep.
Acknowledgements
My thanks to those whose expertise, insight, support, inspiration and introductions made such a difference; Julian Alexander, Tom Burton-Page, Sue Carney of Ethos Forensics, Hugh Dent, Joanna Frank, Paul Greengrass, Val Hudson, Sophie Nelson, David Penn, Tom Smith, Laura Westbury, Robert Young. All at HQ have been as terrific as always, Clio Cornish, Finn Cotton, Melissa Kelly, Lucy Richardson, Fliss Porter and Darren Shoffren. I owe special thanks to the brilliant Bill Massey who, by a set of chances, became my editor on this book and to Lisa Milton for all her continuing support. And, as always, Penelope, Helena and Olivia, thank you so much for everything – patience, love, editorial insight, support, the list goes on.
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Chapter 1
July 1991
‘The movement needs your help.’ She’s lying next to him in Falls Park, the summer of 1991. A-levels are over, the sun shines, university beckons. A scholarship at Trinity College, Dublin, is in the offing and, in the case of clever Maire Anne McCartney, the teachers are confident.
‘Whaddya mean, Joseph?’ she asks, propping herself on an elbow and looking down into his eyes.
‘You’re committed, aren’t you,’ he says. It’s a statement – a confirmation – not a question.
A Time to Lie Page 29
