Woman of State

by Simon Berthon

  ‘Let’s say some are easier than others,’ she replied, forcing herself not to rise to him. ‘And I have a personal connection to this.’

  ‘Not any more, you don’t.’

  ‘I should pass it to another minister. Indeed to you yourself.’

  ‘No, no. It’s just the sort of case I need your advice on. You’re the expert. You’ve read the file. You know the law. Is there sufficient evidence for our American partners to be justified in asking for this man’s extradition?’

  She tried not to appear a supplicant. ‘You won’t help me out with this, Steve?’

  ‘No, Anne-Marie. Nor should I. Nor should you ask for it.’

  If she were to be politically credible, she knew what the decision had to be – and what Zara would think of her. She cursed the state that made it so. She trudged back to her office. A fretful Dalrymple greeted her. ‘The Prime Minister’s press secretary phoned. Said it was urgent. And, er, private.’

  ‘Does my private office listen in to my private calls?’ she asked lightly.

  ‘Not perhaps in this instance, Minister.’ It was the first time she had seen Dalrymple ruffled and put it down to the spell of Number 10.

  ‘So where do I make a personal call?’

  ‘I tend to use the ladies’,’ piped up Nikki.

  ‘Of course,’ Anne-Marie replied, ‘wherever else?’

  She checked the row of cubicles – all unoccupied – leant against a window ledge and dialled Rob McNeil’s direct line.

  ‘McNeil here.’ He sounded brusque – she wondered if he was liking power too much.

  ‘It’s Anne-Marie. You called.’

  ‘Yes, Anne-Marie, of course. Sorry.’ He was flustered and she took back the thought. There was a moment of silence. ‘Look, this is going to sound odd. And it may be totally unnecessary but I thought I should—’

  ‘Say what you want to,’ Anne-Marie interrupted. It was as if electricity were fizzing through her body – she knew something bad was coming and was already working out her options.

  ‘It’s just that,’ continued Rob, ‘to put it briefly, a body has been found in Ireland. It was named as a certain David Vallely. He was a postgraduate student in Dublin in the early 1990s. He disappeared shortly before the end of his studies.’

  Anne-Marie took a slow, deep breath. The silence hung oppressively.

  ‘As I say,’ McNeil stumbled on, ‘this may mean absolutely nothing to you and my apologies if it doesn’t. But, since I heard this news, I began reflecting on those times and—’

  ‘It’s OK, Rob, you can stop explaining.’ She said it harshly.

  ‘So . . .’ he resumed after few more seconds.

  ‘It means something.’

  ‘I see.’

  She heard his slow breathing on the other end of the line – the world around her seemed shut off, barricaded. ‘I’d like you to go on.’

  ‘The body’s location was pinpointed a week ago by an anonymous caller. The day after the election in fact. A second call rather mysteriously referred to a fifth disappearance and said check out David Vallely. Something like that, anyway. The name caused some initial confusion.’

  ‘Why’s that confusing?’

  He hesitated. ‘Anne-Marie, it is you, isn’t it? Maire? That weekend? Dublin, Connemara?’ She did not reply. ‘After I heard this news, I thought back to seeing you at Number 10. I checked the Dublin dates in your biog. You look so different but your voice, your eyes. They’re . . . they’re unforgettable. Tell me if I’m wrong.’

  ‘You’re not wrong. But David left me. Disappeared without a word. I’d no idea what happened to him. I had to restart my life. And now you’re telling me he’s been dead for more than twenty years.’

  ‘Yes. I’m sorry. It’s horrible.’

  ‘You’d better tell me everything. You said there was some initial confusion.’

  ‘If you want to know it all – I mean as much as I know – you’ll need to prepare yourself.’

  ‘Give me a few seconds.’ She laid her phone on the window ledge, walked over to a basin and splashed her face with cold water. She rubbed furiously, scraping herself, then dabbed her eyes, cheeks and hands. She returned to the window, stared listlessly at the frosted glass, sat on the ledge and retrieved the phone. ‘I’m ready.’

  ‘Right.’ He sounded more businesslike – she was glad of it. ‘This may come as rather a shock. Vallely was not his real name.’

  ‘I see.’ She determined to match his tone, despite the nausea rising in her stomach.

  ‘It was an alias David was using in Dublin.’

  ‘An alias?’

  ‘Yes, his actual surname was Wallis. David Wallis. I’ve no idea why he was using a false name.’

  She couldn’t stop herself. ‘Did you know?’

  ‘Anne-Marie, this isn’t the time.’

  She took a deep breath. ‘OK, how did he die?’

  ‘It appears he was shot in the head. Twice.’

  ‘I see.’ She thought again of Joseph. ‘Are you sure this isn’t some kind of weird trick? Maybe it’s not the same David.’

  ‘I’m told there’s no doubt.’

  ‘How did you find out about all this?’

  ‘The Belfast police phoned Fiona to tell her.’

  ‘Fiona?’

  ‘Yes, Fiona.’ There was a tinge of impatience. ‘David’s sister.’

  ‘He had a sister?’

  ‘Yes. His sister. And for the last eighteen years my wife.’

  ‘Your wife?’

  ‘Yes. Two years after my best friend disappeared, I married his sister.’ He paused, expecting some reaction. There was nothing. ‘Read into that whatever you like,’ he continued, immediately wondering what had made him say it.

  She dabbed the cold sweat on her face with a tissue and stood up to repress the faintness. ‘David told me he had no family. His parents were dead. He had no sisters, no brothers. He called himself an orphan.’

  ‘He said that to you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘In that case, he was not telling you the truth.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Truly sorry.’

  ‘I mean why?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  Again, she had to ask him. ‘Did you know, Rob?’ Silence. ‘That weekend, Rob. Did you know he was using a false name?’

  ‘Anne-Marie, I can only assure you that, if you were deceived, I was deceived too.’

  ‘What else is there?’

  She sensed him wavering. ‘I’m not sure what more is to come. I thought I was close to him. I wanted to trust him.’

  ‘Just tell me this. Was he at Trinity to do a master’s?’

  A further slight hesitation. ‘Yes. Yes, he was.’

  ‘OK. If you can’t tell me more, let’s cut it.’

  ‘Anne-Marie, I’m more sorry than I can say. When it sinks in, perhaps we can talk.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ll want to talk.’

  ‘Perhaps not. I hope you will.’ He took a sharp breath. ‘In the meantime we must try to avoid any blowback. Political, I mean. Not that there should be. But we must be careful. Maybe it wasn’t before, but it could become an issue for you now.’

  ‘God in heaven above, Robert McNeil!’ she cried. ‘Isn’t the important thing that the body of your friend and my friend has been found?’ She clicked her phone. The line went dead.

  She went inside one of the cubicles and locked the door. She was unsteady, now burning hot, the sickness rising uncontrollably. Leaning over the bowl, she vomited until there was nothing left. She stood up, flushed the lavatory and shook herself. This was not the place to show frailty or hide away in self-doubt. She heard a tapping, and a voice outside.

  ‘Minister?’ It was Jemima. She wiped her face, shook herself again, tidied her shirt and skirt and opened the door.

  ‘Sorry, Minister,’ said Jemima, ‘I was a little worried.’

  Anne-Marie ran cold water and bathed h
er face. ‘It’s all right, Jemima, must be something I ate. Don’t worry, it’s not morning sickness. I don’t suppose a diary secretary’s duties include supplying a toothbrush and toothpaste, do they?’ she asked, managing a smile.

  ‘Of course, Minister, ‘I’ll fetch one from the office. Was your phone call with the press secretary satisfactory?’

  ‘As he said, it was just a private matter,’ replied Anne-Marie. ‘Nothing much really. Nothing important.’

  She inspected herself in the mirror while the toothbrush was found, but all she could see was that curl of his hair that first beguiled her. The unreality of it all, both then and now, was overwhelming – some improbable film noir that she was caught up in.

  Unreal. The word resonated like a thunderclap. The reality of David Vallely was the corpse of a man called David Wallis that had lain in a field for over twenty years.

  Now, with his body disinterred from an Irish mountainside and the discovery of his false name, she understood that, from the very first, he could not have been what he seemed. It was the order of things that mattered. When the final crisis came, he had begged her to believe one order. Right up until now, she had.

  Now she must face up to the alternative. Had he known at the outset that she would be there? In the library. At that table. Studying extradition law.

  General Bowman had asked for one final look at the skeleton of David Wallis, a.k.a. Vallely. Carne quickly agreed – it was a chance to pump him, however tortuous he suspected the conversation might be.

  ‘First, General, may I thank you for facilitating the contact with David Wallis’s sister.’

  ‘I will always help where I can, Mr Carne.’

  ‘It takes this investigation into unusually high places.’

  ‘Mrs McNeil told me she hopes the discovery of her brother’s body will be treated with the utmost delicacy and discretion. You can imagine what a shock this is to her.’

  Carne stopped himself bridling, his standard reflex to anyone trying to tell him how to do his job. He allowed a second or two’s silence.

  ‘Of course, this is your, er, bailiwick, Chief Inspector, but I felt you should be aware of these additional sensitivities.’

  ‘I will try not to be heavy-footed. To that end, it would greatly help me if you could fill in some background. When you phoned with David Wallis’s name and the connection to Mrs McNeil, you mentioned there was a military connection that would need careful handling. I didn’t want to push you at that moment.’

  Bowman turned to the skeleton. ‘This is not a place to speak ill of men.’

  ‘Let us hope we won’t need to,’ said Carne.

  Bowman gathered himself – Carne felt the rules of engagement being rewritten. ‘David Wallis’s father was a soldier. Major Hugh Wallis. I was his commanding officer.’

  He stumbled – Carne could sense a long shadow veiling him. ‘Go on, General.’

  ‘He was killed in the Falklands. He was posthumously awarded the Military Cross for his actions on Mount Tumbledown.’ Bowman turned to Carne and thrust out his chin. ‘The significant – and problematic – matter is that David Wallis joined the same regiment as his father. He was a British Army officer under my command for much of his short military career.’

  ‘I see. Did he serve in Northern Ireland?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied the general flatly.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Now let me see . . .’

  ‘The year and role please, General.’

  Bowman sounded resigned. ‘It will be in the public record that in 1988 he did a four-month tour in West Belfast. In uniform.’ He hesitated, Carne waited. ‘And 1990. Intelligence liaison.’

  ‘Intelligence.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What sort of “intelligence” precisely?’

  ‘He was on secondment. I don’t possess the details.’

  ‘In that case, just tell me where.’

  ‘He was mobile. Mainly South Armagh. Though I saw him at Lisburn a few times.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Wallis left the army in early 1993,’ continued Bowman bleakly. ‘What happened to him after that I don’t know.’

  ‘You don’t know?’ Carne struggled to hide his incredulity.

  ‘Correct. It is only since the discovery of his body that I have learnt he ended up in Dublin.’

  ‘With respect, General, You were his commanding officer, you must have taken an interest in his future.’

  Bowman’s eyes, half closing, were drawn again to the skeleton. ‘I wish I had. Perhaps if only I had. The truth is he disappeared from my sights.’ He looked up and smiled wanly. ‘To be honest, the common view amongst those who knew him was that he’d gone off on some madcap do-gooding expedition, probably in the most godforsaken part of the world he could think of. Now, it seems, we know differently. What a stupid waste.’

  Both men peered down again, trying to reconstruct the vigour the young body had once contained.

  Bowman made to leave, then stopped dead in his tracks. ‘David Wallis was a good, intelligent young man, certainly the David Wallis I knew as a schoolboy, a teenager and then all too briefly as a soldier. I wish it had been possible for him to stay in the army. We needed, and still need, brave young men who bear some nobility in their heart.’

  ‘Why was it not possible?’ For the first time there was an edge in Carne’s voice.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You said it was not possible for him to stay in the army. Why?’

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘Yes, General, you did.’

  Bowman was trying all too obviously to recover. ‘You misunderstand. I meant that he didn’t want to stay in.’ The general resumed his departure – as before without a goodbye.

  You’re a bad liar, thought Carne, not displeased. It was an asset for a detective. Bad liars were honest men. They understood the difference between truth and falsehood.

  ‘Right, Billy’ said Carne, back at Castlereagh.

  ‘It’s the dating, isn’t it?’ replied Poots. ‘Second half ’93, first half ’94. When the Gang of Four vanish into thin air.’

  ‘And a young ex-soldier called Wallis, a.k.a. Vallely, does too.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Except, unlike them, he’s come back.’

  ‘Dug up. And dead.’

  ‘The fifth disappearance, the fifth man,’ mused Carne.

  ‘Who’s seeing ghosts now?’ exclaimed Poots.

  Carne grinned. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Not sure it’s relevant, boss.’

  ‘Billy!’ Carne knew Poots hated speculation.

  ‘OK,’ he replied reluctantly. ‘Back in 1990 there are some other disappearances. In border country. A bunch of Provos known as the South Armagh snipers. They’re doing well – then it all goes quiet. Three go missing. Never heard of since.’

  ‘At a time when General Bowman says Wallis is in those parts seconded to intelligence liaison.’

  ‘Yes.’ Poots looked down at his hands, embarrassed by how far he had gone. ‘Probably just coincidence, boss.’

  ‘Sure, Billy.’ Carne patted him on the shoulder.

  Anne-Marie engaged her auto-pilot to negotiate the rest of the morning’s business – with one exception. Audax Chambers had asked formally for a meeting on the Al-Dimashqi case and the new government’s interpretation of asylum and extradition law. She knew she could not refuse the request; she also knew that Audax’s two representatives would be Kieron Carnegie himself and Zara Shah.

  When Dalrymple showed them into her office, she saw Zara as herself fifteen years before – the only difference was the olive skin, translucent against the bright blue scarf, and the clarity about right and wrong granted to the young.

  They began with chitchat: how strange her life must be; the surrounds of a private office and staff all to herself; the requirement to meet those she despised as well as those she respected. Perhaps the idea of respect was the prompt.

  ‘So, Al-Dimashqi?’ as
ked Zara.

  ‘I tried this morning to get out of it,’ she replied feebly, ‘but the Secretary of State won’t allow me to escape.’

  ‘In which case he was correct,’ said Carnegie. ‘It’s the bargain you’ve struck.’

  ‘What will you decide?’ asked Zara.

  ‘I already have,’ she murmured.

  ‘It’s bad for him, isn’t it?’ said Zara.

  ‘Yes. I’m afraid it is. I know you’ll hold me in contempt.’ She looked from one to the other, seeking the verdict in their eyes.

  ‘Not at all,’ said Kieron.

  ‘No,’ added Zara. ‘You had no choice. That’s what we came to tell you.’

  She looked at them and, after the terrible shocks of the past days, fought back the tears. Watching them leave, she hated her submission.

  CHAPTER 19

  Post-election, Monday, 15 May

  The mourners filed out – a desolate procession, in pitiable conformity with the surroundings.

  The gaunt, early Victorian building, with its squat central tower, sat squarely on the site of the ruins Thomas Cromwell’s destroyers had left behind. Around it lay an undistinguished jumble of late-nineteenth-century school boarding houses and ugly modern add-ons. It was the May half-term week. The greying brick walls were silent and deserted, bar an occasional monk in black cassock blending timelessly with the silence.

  From the vantage point he had staked out the previous evening, Carne could take in the setting of the Abbey in a dip surrounded by shallow, rolling hills still veiled by soft streaks of morning mist. He felt himself in an ancient England, imagining its people once cowering before their god.

  Yet primitive urges had continued to rule here. As in other institutions like it, stories had emerged of child abuse and degradation at Bowlby Abbey school. The bleakness without had been matched by a darkness within. Monastic frustration and divine authority had produced a noxious cocktail.

  Carne knew his investigation of David Wallis’s death would develop its own toxicity. Secrecy – and an instinct to cover up – were bound to be the reaction to a trail connecting David Wallis via his sister to 10 Downing Street. Immediately the dental records had confirmed the identity, Carne had asked for the body to be repatriated and the funeral held without delay. Fiona McNeil, Wallis’s only surviving relative, was quick to agree and, without any publicity, arranged a private ceremony. Carne’s best chance was that, somewhere out there, a shadowy figure or two might break cover to see David Wallis laid to rest.