Woman of State

by Simon Berthon

  ‘They’ve been watching, haven’t they?’ he said. The dryness made him hoarse. ‘Listening, too.’

  With a ratcheting of dread and his heartbeat pummelling the wall of his chest, the scales fell from his eyes. If they knew the details of his conversations with Anne-Marie, they must know, and have been monitoring, recording, perhaps even filming, everything. Carne chided himself for his innocence and felt an instant shame at his country for its loss.

  ‘I’ve no idea what folk have been up to,’ Walsh replied. ‘All I know is that such a message has been conveyed to the Chief Constable and he has delegated the matter to me to discuss with you.’

  ‘Who conveyed the message, sir?’ asked Carne.

  ‘I don’t know, Jon.’ He had returned to informality. ‘And, if I did, I’d have been under instructions not to tell you.’

  Carne was working it out. ‘It tells us they’re worried, doesn’t it? That they, whoever they may be, have got something to hide?’

  ‘You don’t want to go there,’ warned Walsh. His tone was friendly but Carne knew it was an instruction, not a suggestion. ‘Leave Kennedy to London. And write me a report on the results of your investigation into Wallis. I’ll be happy to forward it to the Director of Public Prosecutions here.’

  ‘My investigation is incomplete. You’re guaranteeing that nothing will happen. It will just go away.’

  ‘No, it will go where the evidence leads it.’

  Carne needed an idea, an inspiration. ‘Are you intending to bring disciplinary charges against me, sir?’

  ‘No. As you’ve indicated, there’s no lawfully obtained evidence to substantiate any.’

  ‘In that case,’ Carne continued, ‘I’d like permission to take five days’ leave. With immediate effect.’ Through the narrow spectacle frames he could see Walsh’s eyes boring in on him, penetrating and inscrutable. The eyes looked down at a piece of paper on the desk, then up again.

  ‘Permission granted, Chief Inspector. That will be all.’ There was no smile, no movement of facial muscle, no hint of connivance or collaboration. But the cold man had shown a beating heart within. Carne rose, surprised into silent retreat.

  He picked up his car and drove east to Newtonards to Billy Poots’s home, buying two cheap and simple pay-as-you-go mobile phones on the way. He tried to keep an eye out for followers but felt his lack of expertise. During his training, they had taught him how to spot a tail, and how to lose it. But that was nearly twenty-five years ago, a quarter of a century; he had never needed to use the knowledge. He had been a pursuer at times. This was the first time he was the pursued.

  Outside the Pootses’ pleasant, seventies, detached box on a quiet middle-class estate, the hooting of his horn sounded peremptory and displaced. He saw Billy push aside a net curtain and gestured him to come out. He quickly recounted the details of his conversation with Walsh and his forthcoming absence on leave.

  ‘You take care, boss,’ said Poots. ‘If they, whoever they are, killed Kennedy—’

  ‘I know,’ Carne interrupted.

  ‘You could just walk away.’

  ‘I walked away once before. I won’t do it again.’

  Poots fell briefly silent – there was no point in arguing the different circumstances. ‘It was a long time ago, boss. This is about her, too, isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s enough, Billy. A couple of things you can do for me.’

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  ‘First, see if there’s any immediate Kennedy family in Belfast. Parents, sisters, brothers. If there are, talk to them. Second, check out the grave of the McCartney parents. Have a peek at what’s written on the gravestone. Third, ask your Special Branch mates for the informer files of the early 1990s.’

  ‘You don’t ask much, do you?’ said Poots.

  ‘I try not to,’ replied Carne. ‘Good hunting, Billy.’ Carne gave him one of the two new mobiles and the number of the other one that he had kept. He suddenly wondered whether he would ever see his sergeant again and told himself not to be so melodramatic.

  Back in the city, he stopped to get cash, then, avoiding the Internet, at a travel agent, where he used some of the cash to book a one-way ticket to London on the first available flight in the morning. He returned to his flat, packed two changes of clothes and a washbag into the largest case he could take as hand luggage. He placed his passport into his wallet. He checked that his debit and credit cards and photo-ID driving licence were all there, hoping he could find a way to use none of them. He remembered his paper driving licence, fetched it from a filing cabinet and slid it inside the sleeve containing his boarding pass. He cancelled the milk delivery. He inspected his wallet again and removed his police ID. He opened up his smart phone and extracted the SIM card. He looked at the phone itself. Instead of returning it to his jacket pocket, he put it on his bedside table. He went to the bathroom and switched the hot-water timer to permanent off. He opened the bedside table drawer and looked at his service revolver. He decided to leave it and take only his camera for a weapon.

  And then he lay down on his bed, stared at the ceiling, and thought. He went over his diagram of the geography of the Black Hat, car park, main road, hedgerow, lay-by, corners, other concealed nooks. He calculated walking speeds, running speeds, car speeds, distances and timings. Five hundred yards, given nought-to-sixty acceleration in five seconds and time to screech to a halt. Five seconds to sixty, five seconds at sixty, five seconds down to zero. Fifteen seconds at, say, an average forty miles per hour. Distance two hundred and ninety-three yards. It did not add up. Increase the average speed and shrink the seconds to stop. It still fell short of the five hundred yards he and Poots were working on. Unless they had missed a hiding place. He looked again at the curvature of the road and was sure they had not.

  There was something missing. Something he was not factoring in. As the second hand of his bedside clock ticked round and round, and the noises of the night began to subside, he thought on and on about what it could be.

  As the morning light crept through gaps in the curtains, he at last reached a destination of sorts. An understanding of the missing factor. And how intricately the operation must have been planned. Above all, if he was right, the amoral genius of the mind that had planned it.

  He closed the curtains fully, undressed, and lay down beneath the sheets. He looked at the framed photograph of Alice on the table beside him, turned his eyes away and switched off the light. He could allow himself three hours’ sleep before leaving for the airport.

  CHAPTER 31

  Post-election, Wednesday, 24 May

  The early morning airport departure concourse seemed to him teeming with potential tails. No one stood out, though they could have been anyone. The baggage checkers were no less petty than usual, the stewardesses no more friendly, the CCTV cameras pointed in the same directions. He reminded himself not to look at them.

  During the flight, he considered the potential history and extent of their surveillance. He assumed, because of Anne-Marie’s background, that it had begun with her and spread to include him. They must have had voice-activated recording technology in her apartment, maybe pinhole cameras, too. That was not an overnight job.

  How long had they been monitoring her? From when the local party chose her as their candidate? Or when she began to make a mark as a lawyer?

  Or from further back? From the night of Wallis’s disappearance? The day he first laid eyes on her? The moment they alighted on her as a mark? Perhaps even before that? He imagined how they might see her: first the sister of a top terrorist, then the lover of a British spy who disappeared, finally a suddenly and unexpectedly promoted minister. A woman who might hold secrets, perhaps dangerous ones. A woman who could not be allowed ever to roam free.

  He imagined them observing her discovery of Joseph Kennedy’s body, her identification of it in the mortuary, and their attention switching to him. Then his meeting with Brooks – yes, he must have known precisely when to expect him. And perhaps, lik
e David Wallis two decades earlier, they had been hiding in those hedgerows opposite the Black Hat watching him and Poots measuring up the distances.

  As to who ‘they’ were, the whole nature of the Wallis and Kennedy cases, not to mention the involvement of Brooks, allowed no alternative. This was not police, or even Special Branch: this was a fully fledged state intelligence operation. It would have begun with MI6 and Brooks in Dublin but, as a domestic operation, must now be MI5. Given their rivalry, he asked himself whether they were in it together. Or was Five clearing up the mess of a rogue element in Six?

  A more troubling question reared up at him. If Anne-Marie had spent most of her adult life under their gaze, did they have reason? That way, he had told himself so often, lay madness. She had asked him to trust her; he had agreed. There was no turning back.

  He jolted his head to restore sense to a brain in unwelcome overdrive. That sense led him back to one overriding question. If they had got away with removing Kennedy, why were they still so worried? And so active? Was it something that he had discovered? Or that she might do?

  He took the train from Gatwick to Victoria, bought a third phone and new SIM card, and checked into an anonymous guesthouse in the Pimlico grid south of the station. The late morning was bringing premature summer heat. He changed into jeans and a T-shirt, put on dark glasses and a blue-and-white cap, and stepped onto Belgrave Avenue. A tourist out to see the sights. To complete the outfit, he walked north to Victoria Street and bought a compact camera to hang round his neck and a selfie stick.

  He had no detailed knowledge of her movements but she had mentioned that she usually escaped the office at lunchtime and went to relax among the ducks and trees of St James’s Park. He was too early and decided to kill time at Westminster Abbey. Entrance charge £18. He bridled at their cheek and settled for a free wander around College Garden, stretching the time by calculating the angles of the sunlight streaming through the tall plane trees.

  A few minutes before one. The Abbey exit led him back into Victoria Street, then first left into Great Smith Street, and across the lights into Marsham Street. Ahead on the right lay the exterior rectangle of the Home Office, its expanses of glass and inner atria. His memory from his time in London was of the three dull concrete towers of the Department of the Environment. He missed their ugliness. It suited the world they stood for.

  He reckoned he could afford to stroll once southwards down Marsham Street and once back northwards. Anything beyond could arouse the security cameras’ interest. He did the walks. No sighting. At the crossroads with Great Peter Street, the lights were green for east–west traffic. The forced stop allowed him to look back and around. There she was, just joining the pavement from the concourse outside the main Home Office entrance. Beside her was a woman. All he could see in the time he allowed himself to look was that she was young and blonde, and they were smiling and relaxed. An assistant perhaps. Certainly someone junior. He felt relief.

  He crossed the road into a Pret a Manger and queued to order a coffee. As he reached the front, they came past, heading north. He smiled ruefully at the assistant, explained that he had forgotten his wallet, exited and followed them. They continued up Great Smith Street and crossed into Storey’s Gate. Now confident that they were heading for the park, he could hang back.

  A few minutes later, he was within yards of them as they stood at the railings by the lake. He ranged alongside her. Wearing his best tourist smile, he said ‘Excuse me, madam, don’t I recognize you?’ and gave her a tap on the foot. She looked around at him, alarm turning to puzzlement to a flash of recognition. ‘Sorry, I think it must be from the television,’ he continued. As he said it, he placed a note in her pocket.

  As he was leaving, he heard the young assistant say, ‘An admirer, Minister?’ To which she had replied, ‘Rather nice-looking wasn’t he?’ For the first time in what seemed an age, he felt a spring in his step.

  Back in her office, the Minister read the note. ‘Meet me 9 p.m. riverside. Same bench.’ She looked up to catch Nikki grinning at her.

  Carne killed the afternoon seeing a film. He needed to give Poots at least a day to bring some answers. In the early evening back at the guesthouse, he asked to use the house phone to hold off using his new mobile for as long as possible. Despite the extortionate rate that was demanded, he called the mobile he had given him.

  ‘Yes.’ Poots’s voice.

  ‘Keep it brief, Billy,’ he said.

  ‘OK, boss. Number one, no immediate Kennedy family in the neighbourhood. If any are still around, they must have left, for whatever reason. Point two, it reads “In memory of Stephen and Rosa McCartney, who never recovered from losing their beloved children, Martin and Maire”.’ Carne allowed himself a subdued whistle. ‘Point three,’ continued Poots, ‘yes, there was someone big, 1991–1994. Codename “Salmon”. No clue to name, sex, age or which side. Identity kept as tight as a Fenian’s arse.’

  ‘You’re a genius, Billy,’ said Carne, ‘Thanks. See you in paradise.’ He put down the phone.

  There were two and a half further hours to kill. He spent much of it thinking about the ways a parent could lose a child. Death and disappearance. But also separation, for whatever reason. Geography, distance, no money to travel, claustrophobia, escape, going on the run. Saddest of all, the deadening of any need or wish to see each other, whether from apathy or sheer dislike, even hate.

  He could not imagine Anne-Marie not loving her family. But as a hater of place, of environment, of a society’s straitjacket, yes, that he could see. He could also imagine the parents not daring to breach her reinvented life. Always being guided, or perhaps misguided, by ‘what’s for the best’.

  And now there was ‘Salmon’, a high-up informer deep within the IRA; but no indication of which wing of that organization he, or she – he must not forget that possibility – inhabited.

  At precisely 9 p.m. Anne-Marie and he converged on each other at the park bench. He had added a tracksuit top to the tourist outfit; she arrived on her bike in Lycra pants and a loose sports shirt. As she dismounted and he saw the contours of her body, he felt goose pimples.

  ‘So . . .’ she said.

  ‘Let’s go by the river, see the sundown,’ he replied, raising a finger to his lips. She followed him and they looked down at the gleams in the water. Her face shone in the sun’s reflection. She raised her head and turned to him.

  ‘Your flat is bugged and probably being watched, inside and out, by secret cameras.’ He was talking down into the water and she strained to hear him. ‘It’s likely we’re being watched now but if we speak to the river, it will be hard, even for the long distance directional microphones they have, to get what we’re saying.’

  ‘I see,’ she said. Her poise, as always, seemed remarkable to him.

  ‘I think I understand what happened,’ he continued. ‘I can’t prove it. My only remaining move is to put it to the man you know as Jimmy and see how he reacts. He may not agree to see me again. But he won’t refuse to see you. He can’t. And there’s no point in me trying to surprise him, they’re watching everything. So I’m here to ask you to contact him – I have the numbers – and arrange a meeting at his home in Wiltshire. I’ll accompany you. I want you to be my accomplice, and my protection. Not to mention my key witness. I’m asking a lot.’

  She said nothing, eyes fixed rigidly ahead. He turned to her, breaking his rule. ‘I know you have to trust me.’ He looked back at the water.

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He handed her a piece of paper. ‘This contains his full name, address and contact numbers. Below those is where I’m staying. You can have a message delivered to me there when the meeting’s fixed.’

  A realization suddenly dawned on her. ‘Tomorrow’s the state opening.’

  ‘It can wait a day.’

  ‘No, I want to do it now. Give them as little time as possible. I’ll attend the formal ceremony and the speech, then I’ll leave. Sod them. You said it wa
s a couple of hours so I’ll try to set it up for 5 p.m.’

  ‘OK.’ He paused. ‘If you’re sure. The note also contains a different mobile number for emergency use only. All your present phones are bugged. Home, office, private mobile, office mobile.’ He cast a 360-degree look around and slipped the third mobile he had bought into her hand. ‘If you need to, use this to ring the number on the note.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘We should travel separately.’ She realized it was an instruction.

  ‘My driver will take me.’

  ‘That’s all right. In one sense he’s a protection for you. But he’ll also be working for them. By which I mean the Security Service.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. It was her first note of resistance.

  ‘Yes,’ he insisted. ‘Trust me.’

  ‘Jesus.’ He sensed her shock. ‘Five or Six?’

  ‘Five will be running it now. David was working for Six. One final thing. Don’t be surprised or frightened by anything I say. I’m testing them, not you. But rebut me where you should. And as fiercely as you want. They’ll be recording it, of course. Probably filming it too.’

  ‘OK.’ She raised a hand to his shoulder and gripped it fiercely. ‘I’ll be OK.’

  ‘Good. I’ll wait for your message.’ They looked hard at each other and he felt an overwhelming desire to hold her by the head and hair. Even before he discarded the thought, she had removed her hand and turned on her heel.

  Thursday, 25 May

  He rose early and hired a car at Victoria Station. He drove west without waiting for confirmation of the meeting from Anne-Marie. There was nothing else to hang around for, anyway. And, once the meeting was arranged, they would waste no time making their preparations.

  He reached Devizes by 9.30 a.m. Still in his tourist gear, he visited the grounds of the local castle, bought a green jacket and cap from the one men’s clothes shop in the high street, then awarded himself a coffee break at the seventeenth-century coaching inn bordering the market square. Inside was a picture of rural innocence: ruddy-faced men, broad-shouldered women with tinted grey hair, dogs lying comfortably at their feet. His phone beeped. The message was numerical only: ‘17.30’. It came from the mobile he had given her.