Heaven's Light

by Hurley, Graham

  The chairman’s office was on the first floor. They took the lift, Briscoe running through the bullet points in his mind. The researcher had been more than candid on the phone. The chairman wasn’t prepared to give him more than five minutes, and even that – on this particular weekend – was a profoundly generous concession.

  The chairman was on the phone when the researcher slipped Biscoe in through the door. She went at once to the desk, picked up the crystal tumbler and topped it up with whisky from a decanter on the cabinet behind the long crescent of sofa. The chairman watched her, nodding when she’d poured two fingers. The phone call over, he stood up and ran a tired hand over his face before joining Biscoe on the sofa.

  ‘How’s tricks?’

  ‘Could be worse.’

  ‘But not much, eh?’ The chairman accepted the whisky from the researcher. ‘So what’s the problem?’

  Biscoe set out his case, tallying the points one by one. Portsmouth had spawned a brand new party. Four months ago they hadn’t existed. Three months ago they’d been a joke in his secretary’s constituency minutes. Now they were probably placed to win a minimum of twenty seats.

  ‘Who says?’

  ‘We do. We ran a telephone poll last week.’

  The chairman shook his head, the whisky still untouched.

  ‘Phone polls are crap,’ he said. ‘People lie all the time.’

  ‘Maybe. But it’s not just the polls. The local paper’s behind them and there’s been a lot of defections, the opposition mainly, but us as well. We’re talking serious people here, real talent, folk we can’t afford to lose.’ He paused. ‘This new lot seem to have caught the mood in the city. And they’re bloody well organized too. Here, take a look for yourself.’

  Biscoe produced a sheaf of photos. Each one showed a different billboard, and as the chairman leafed through, his interest quickened. He held up the poster that featured the Commons at bay.

  ‘They’ve got a bloody nerve,’ he said, ‘I’ll give them that.’

  ‘I’ve lodged a complaint.’

  ‘Was that wise? Extra publicity?’

  ‘I’m not sure we had a choice. We had to do something.’

  The chairman was back with the photos. He looked far from convinced. ‘So who did these?’ he asked at last.

  ‘Guy called Charlie Epple.’

  ‘Who’s he with?’

  ‘Pompey First.’

  ‘No.’ The chairman sounded impatient. ‘I meant which agency.’

  ‘Pompey First. He doesn’t work for an agency. He’s full-time. One of the founding fathers.’

  ‘Really?’

  The chairman looked away, distracted by a signal from the researcher, who was tapping her watch. He nodded and turned back to Biscoe.

  ‘So what are you telling me? That we’re in trouble? My friend, we’re in trouble everywhere. I could show you projections downstairs that would lose us more than half the seats we’re defending. That means we’d kiss goodbye to five hundred councillors. And you’re telling me that this … Pompey First outfit are a problem?’

  ‘I’m telling you, with respect, that they’re more than a problem. I’m telling you they may be the shape of things to come.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  Biscoe pursed his lips, taking his time, knowing that this was probably his one and only chance to concentrate minds at the top of the party before it was too late. ‘Whether they know it or not, I think there’s an agenda behind our new friends. Think the thing through, and it can’t possibly stop at the town hall. Say they win. Say they demand more local power. Say, God forbid, they get it. Then what happens along the coast? What happens in Southampton? Brighton? Poole? There’s an organization called Metropole. It’s a grouping of south-coast cities. Are the guys in Bournemouth going to be happy if Portsmouth steals a lead? Won’t they want something similar for themselves? And won’t they be right to want it?’ He paused, aware that the chairman was fidgeting. He was a gifted fixer but he had difficulty coping with anything longer term than a couple of days.

  Biscoe reached for the photos, undaunted. ‘And then there’s the dockyard.’

  The chairman seized the initiative again. Here was something, at last, that he understood. ‘The dockyard’s on hold,’ he said at once. ‘I saw Clive Samuels myself yesterday. Nothing on the record until after next week. That’s for very definite.’

  ‘And what happens then? Do you mind if I ask?’

  ‘Not at all. We sell the bugger. We have to. There’s no other way. Not if we want to free up money for the tax cuts. But don’t worry, my friend,’ he picked up his glass and sipped the whisky, ‘we’ll give it the right spin. Jobs, opportunities, lots of foreign money. Fair few votes in that, eh?’ He got up, bringing the interview to an end. Biscoe began to thank him for his time but the chairman was already back behind the desk, the phone in his hand. As Biscoe opened the door, he looked up, waiting for his call to answer. ‘I’ll be watching your results.’ He winked. ‘Be interesting to see if you’re right.’

  Biscoe muttered goodnight and left. The chairman put down the phone and checked his watch. Then he shuffled through his drawer for a directory. It wasn’t there, so he told the researcher to look in the safe beside the cabinet. She did so and produced a small, loose-leaf binder. The chairman named a senior backbench MP, and the researcher obliged with a number. A woman’s voice answered. Sir Giles was upstairs. She’d give him a call. The chairman waited for perhaps thirty seconds, drumming his fingers on the desk, staring at the name he’d scribbled on the pad. Charlie Epple rang a bell, but he couldn’t remember why. One of the privatization campaigns? British Gas? The electricity flotation? He heard Sir Giles picking up the telephone. Briefly, he explained about Biscoe’s visit and his problems with Pompey First.

  ‘These clowns are evidently pushing the democracy line,’ he said. ‘You know, returning power to the people. That’s subversion, isn’t it?’ There was a roar of laughter at the other end and the chairman smiled as he reached for his glass. ‘Quite,’ he said, after a while. ‘And I thought you might try your MI5 chum as well, the one you brought up here last week.’ He swallowed a mouthful of whisky, his eyes narrowing. ‘Chap called Jephson, wasn’t it?’

  Past midnight, on a small industrial estate deep in a northern suburb of Portsmouth, an ancient Transit van coasted to a halt in a cul-de-sac beside a row of factory units. The one at the end belonged to a firm of printers. Most of their start-up capital had gone on the purchase of two reconditioned colour presses, and the contract for printing Charlie Epple’s Pompey First posters had at last begun to make a dent in the daunting bank loan on which the business had been floated.

  The van gently nuzzled the roll-down doors that sealed the delivery bay. The driver kept the engine in first gear, easing out the clutch. There were heavy bull bars on the front of the van but it was several seconds before the doors began to buckle inward, triggering an alarm. The driver got out and pulled on a black balaclava and a pair of rubber gloves. From the seat beside him, he hauled out what looked like a gallon can of oil.

  Inside the unit, he made his way to the production floor, unscrewing the can as he ran. The machines were smaller than he’d expected. His torch lingered for a second on the control panel, a matrix of multi-coloured buttons, then he bent for the can, holding it at arm’s length, his head turned away. Up-ending it, he began to pour the contents over the working surfaces, taking care to avoid splashes. The liquid spilled over the control panel, draining deep into the machine, and the woollen balaclava muffled a laugh as he scented the acrid tang of burning plastic. The rest of the liquid he saved for the other machine, repeating the procedure, cursing in the darkness as the liquid dripped onto his new trainers.

  Back in the van, the can abandoned, he kept the gloves on while he tore off the trainers. The torch revealed the damage, the nylon eaten away, the stitching gone. He tossed the ruined Nikes into the darkness before gunning the engine and accelerating backwards into a savage U-t
urn.

  Minutes later, deep in the maze of streets that surrounded the industrial estate, he pulled the van to a halt, winding down the window and listening to the police patrol cars as they converged on the pealing alarm.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sunday lunchtime found Mike Tully en route, as usual, to the pub. It was the one day of the week when he permitted himself a pint or two of beer, burying himself in the papers in a quiet corner of the saloon. Occasionally he’d join the other drinkers round the bar but what he liked, above all, about the Pembroke was the general consensus that a man’s Sunday belonged to no one but himself. If you’d come for a pint and the chance to exchange gossip, there was nowhere better. If you wanted to retire behind the Observer or the Independent on Sunday, so be it.

  The nearest newsagent occupied a corner site opposite the cathedral. Outside on the pavement, the Sentinel’s usual weekday placard announced a special Sunday edition. DOCKYARD BOMBSHELL ROCKS CITY, read the scrawl. Tully added the paper to his usual order, trying to shield the thin eight-page supplement from the rain as he crossed the road towards the pub. Billed as an exclusive, the dockyard story spilled across the front page, columns of breathless prose heaped around two photos. One showed the saturnine features of Clive Samuels, the new Minister of Defence. The other, unmistakably, was Raymond Zhu.

  Tully collected his pint from the barman and settled behind a table in the corner. The circle of drinkers at the bar had already been through the Sentinel’s special edition and were busy trading opinions. These men were local to Old Portsmouth, mostly middle-aged or retired. They led solid, decent lives cushioned by success and a degree of modest wealth. One or two, like Tully himself, had served in the Navy or the Royal Marines and these were the men who salted the conversation with the riper expletives. Samuels was a jumped-up little creep who’d come from nowhere. Zhu was a Chinkie caterer from the other side of God knows where. What did either of these Johnny-come-latelies know about running the bloody dockyard?

  Tully finished the front page and opened the paper for the promised inside story. The Sentinel’s exclusive evidently revolved around a conversation with Zhu himself, and the details held few surprises for Tully. Ever since his meeting with Ellis at the turn of the year he’d been expecting something similar. Zhu, as he knew only too well, was an entrepreneur of genius and if he was sinking his roots as deeply as he claimed in the city, then bidding for the dockyard was an obvious commercial move.

  The inside pages spelled out the details of the Sentinel’s scoop. The naval dockyard had been effectively gifted to Zhu with a hefty down-payment against future environmental liabilities. This multi-million-pound deal had been secretly agreed by both parties, giving the lie to Samuels’s recent denials of either closure or sale. In Zhu’s hands, the dockyard was to become the centre of a huge new commercial development. There were plans for a financial district, office blocks, hotels, a retail park. Spare land would be set aside for an extension to the commercial ferryport and there was the promise of major investment in the naval heritage area.

  Tully turned the page to find an artist’s impression of the physical shape Zhu’s dreams might have taken by the end of the century. The linework was detailed, the product of weeks of work, and had plainly come from Zhu’s files. Beyond the soaring masts of HMS Victory stretched acres and acres of gleaming new office blocks, elegant towers in steel and glass, cleverly showcasing the best of the dockyard’s architectural gems. Buffering the old from the new were treelined walkways and water-filled dry docks. Half closing his eyes, Tully was reminded of similar schemes he’d seen in the Far East. This was exactly what you’d do in Hong Kong or Singapore, he thought, wrapping the heritage of empire in a tissue of hi-tech glitz.

  Beside the sketch, the Sentinel had run a terse editorial. The paper had become the voice of the city, demanding answers to questions it considered too important to defer even for twenty-four hours. Why had negotiations been such a closely guarded secret? Why hadn’t local interests been consulted? What were the implications for jobs? What would happen to other naval establishments in the area? And, most important of all, why had the minister told such a bare-faced lie?

  Overnight, reporters on the Sentinel had even had time to phone around for reaction, and the back pages of the supplement was given over to a range of local voices. Predictably, the unions were hostile. This was yet another sell-out from a government that gave no thought to the working man. Contracts would be renegotiated, rights lost, security threatened. Elsewhere on the back pages there were howls of rage from anguished patriots: how could any government simply abandon the country’s oldest naval port? Were we really so broke that we had to surrender the nation’s heritage to a foreigner?

  Tully reached for his beer and took a tiny sip, knowing that these were the questions that had so troubled him earlier in the year. He was as realistic as the next man, and he knew how fast the world was changing, but his years in the service had left him with a profound respect for the uniform and the flag. People were right to value discipline and self-respect. The guys at the bar had a point when they banged on about loyalty and national pride. These were things that mattered, the glue that kept society together. Chuck away these values, turn everything into figures on a balance sheet, and you’d be left with nothing but trading estates, video shops and fifty million people dedicated to grabbing what they could. Was that all it meant to be British? Was that what Mr Samuels and his friends really wanted?

  Tully picked up the paper again. The word ‘betrayal’ was everywhere. Promises betrayed. People betrayed. Tradition betrayed. The city betrayed. He returned to the front page and the two photos. Throughout the supplement, the Sentinel had been careful not to criticize Zhu. His role in capturing the dockyard had, if anything, been almost passive. He was simply doing what any entrepreneur would do. He’d been pushing at an open door, and if the editorial finger pointed anywhere, then it pointed to the men inside. Once again, the city had been steam-rollered. Once again, Westminster and Whitehall knew best.

  Behind the bar, the landlord was trying to intervene in an increasingly heated confrontation. One of the regulars, a recently retired surgeon, was standing as a ward candidate for Pompey First and had been quick to seize on the dockyard’s importance in the battle for city votes. This was dynamite, he kept insisting, proof-positive that the old politics had failed. Where were the local MPs in all this? Who was going to man the city’s defences? A Tory on the next stool told him he was talking through his arse. What mattered now were global markets, tidal waves of money washing back and forth across the face of the planet. No party, no politician, no bloody country, even, could stand in the way of all that. It didn’t matter a toss if this guy was Chinese or Martian or whatever the hell he was. Just as long as he had the money.

  Listening to the chorus of protesting voices, Tully winced. Money wasn’t everything. There was room, even now, for a bit of sentiment. The retired surgeon took up the running again, waving a flag for the man in the street, and Tully sat back in his chair, watching the koi carp hanging motionless in the fish tank beside the telephone, wondering whether the ex-surgeon really knew what he might be letting the city in for.

  On a shelf above his desk at home was a collection of audio cassettes. They’d all come from Liz, recordings of conversations transmitted from Charlie Epple’s place, and he’d spent hours sieving through them for incoming calls from Haagen Schreck. In this respect the intercept had been something of a failure. Calls had been recorded, more than a dozen, but not one had given Tully any clue to Haagen’s movements. On the contrary, they seemed to be couched in some kind of code. Without exception, Haagen talked about the weather. Some days he complained that it was raining. Some days there seemed to be a chance of some sunshine. Once or twice it couldn’t have been nicer. Quite what the vagaries of the Dutch weather had to do with Jessie Tully had yet to fathom, but there was certainly no sign that Haagen planned to risk the move back to the UK Other conversations, tho
ugh, involving Charlie, had been of profound interest, not just to Tully but to Liz as well.

  There was a roar of laughter from the bar, the political wrangle dissolving into another round of drinks, and Tully retreated behind the paper, remembering Liz’s face the first time he’d called round to collect a completed audio-cassette. A device in the recorder enabled her to monitor conversations, and she’d evidently been going through the wardrobe in the spare room when she’d heard her husband’s voice. He’d been on the phone to Charlie and Kate Frankham’s name had come up. She’d known, of course, that Kate was part of Pompey First. Barnaby had never made a secret of it. But she hadn’t realized, fool that she was, that political solidarity extended as far as a full-blown affair. At the time, Tully had been sceptical. He’d listened to the tape and while the references to Kate suggested a certain intimacy it was far from proof. Would Barnaby really be that foolish? Wasn’t he playing Charlie along? The way men do? At this, Liz had offered him a tired smile. Barnaby and Kate Frankham had been at it before. In fact their first affair had come close to ending her marriage. Hadn’t he heard the rumours? Picked up the tittle-tattle?

  Tully took a long pull at his beer, still shamed by his own ignorance, his own gullibility. Like Liz, he’d trusted Barnaby, and he’d admired him too. The man wasn’t short of self-confidence and he seemed to find it hard to pass a mirror, but he worked like a demon and he had a razor-sharp intelligence that Tully knew was all too rare. On countless occasions, he’d passed work his way, recommended him to clients, and not once had Tully been let down. The news that he’d betrayed Liz and Jessie not once but twice he found curiously disturbing, a feeling that had grown with every new conversation his equipment had recorded. Within days, it had been obvious that Liz was right and when she’d finally asked Barnaby to leave, Tully had felt profoundly sorry for her. She was a good person, a strong person. He liked her as much as he’d liked any woman in his life, and he’d begun to stay for the odd cup of tea, sometimes even a bite to eat, the evenings when he called round to collect the latest cassette.