Woman of State

by Simon Berthon

  That left six and a half hours. He gulped the coffee, burning his throat, and drove the few miles down a minor road to the Old Witham turning. The lane into the hamlet was a cul-de-sac. On the other side of the road a wheat field rose gradually to a brow affording a view of the junction and the lane’s comings and goings.

  He could find cover for himself, less easily for the car. He remembered a pub a mile or so back and dumped it there. He slung the new jacket over his shoulder, gathered the camera and long lens, put on the cap and cut up by hedgerows to reach the brow. And then he waited. Was ‘Uncle’ Jimmy Brooks going to play it solo – or would he invite some friends?

  The first movement came within an hour, Brooks alone in his car turning from the lane into the road. He snapped him. The early afternoon dragged on. Around 3 p.m. a grey SUV turned into the lane. There were two men in it: a surveillance and recording team, perhaps. A minute or two later, Brooks reappeared. Carne was checking his photographs of the SUV and heard the car only just before it turned. He thought he saw a second man in the passenger seat, but missed the shot.

  At 4.30 p.m. a black BMW arrived, a man and woman in the front seat. He shot them. The photograph, marginally out of focus, revealed little more than that they were neither very old nor very young. It at least confirmed that a significant welcome party was gathering. He took the digital card out of the camera, transferred the photographs to his phone and emailed them to Poots. It hardly mattered now if they had traced his new phone and therefore him.

  With the meeting set for 5.30 p.m., he could not risk waiting longer and walked back to the car. A note had been taped to his windscreen. ‘This is not a free car park. Please pay inside.’ At least there was no clamp. He thought about it, decided to go in to the pub, apologize and offer payment. He was greeted with unsuspected warmth – perhaps it hardly ever happened – and promised he would be back for a drink later. He hoped they would not mind if he sat in the car for a few minutes as he was visiting his mother but was a little early. They did not.

  Travelling from London, the Minister’s driver would approach Old Witham only from this one direction. At 5.27 p.m. the ministerial car passed the pub car park. He felt his heart ticking and an overwhelming need to stay close and follow her. Instead, he waited and counted down eight further minutes.

  As Hinds slowed to turn into Old Witham lane, Anne-Marie turned to peer through the back window, assuming Carne would be close behind. The two cars following carried straight on – she was alone. Hinds checked the sat nav, picked up speed and drove on around the side of the churchyard and into the car park and front entrance of Rectory Garden Cottage.

  Brooks was waiting on the threshold. ‘Welcome, Minister.’ He was at his most oily and stretched out a hand. She shook it as briefly as courtesy allowed.

  ‘I had hoped our meetings were long over,’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘But at least this gives me the chance to congratulate you. I always understood what a talented woman you were. And are.’

  Brooks led Anne-Marie past the kitchen, where his wife was chopping vegetables, resisting any temptation to look up and into the drawing room. There a man and woman sat, legs stiffly together, on a sofa. They rose as one.

  ‘Hello, Jemima,’ said Anne-Marie. If she felt any surprise, it was well concealed.

  ‘Hello, Minister.’ Jemima Sheffield failed to hide her discomfort. There was no handshake.

  ‘And your friend, Jemima?’ continued Anne-Marie.

  The man stepped forward and thrust out his hand. He was early fifties, grey suit, light-blue shirt, subtly striped beige tie. ‘The name is Donald, Minister.’

  ‘Ah, Mr Duck, no doubt,’ said Anne-Marie. Jemima Sheffield winced.

  Brooks rubbed his hands, the whiskery grin in place. ‘Splendid. Teas? Coffees? Dorothy!’ he yelled towards the kitchen.

  A silver trolley, adorned and gently rattling with china cups, saucers and teapot, was wheeled in. Almost reverentially in the embarrassed hush, Brooks poured the tea, offering milks and lumps of sugar, which were politely declined with small asides about watching waistlines. Anne-Marie felt she might be in a genteel murder thriller denouement.

  The ring of a doorbell pierced the silence. Anne-Marie detected tiny frowns of anxiety flashing between Brooks and Donald. Reality returned and relief swept through her.

  CHAPTER 32

  Carne had left his car a hundred yards down the lane and walked into the Rectory Garden Cottage drive. Anne-Marie’s car was pulled up alongside the black BMW – Brooks’s car, presumably, was in the garage. There was no sign of the SUV. It confirmed its occupants were coverts. If they had arrived, installed their equipment, and left, he had missed them turning onto the road. Either the SUV was tucked away somewhere or there was an exit through farm tracks at the end of the cul-de-sac.

  He crept towards Anne-Marie’s car from an angle to avoid being seen in the rear mirror. Over the final yards, he quickened and snatched open the driver’s door. Hinds looked up from his newspaper with a start. ‘Who the hell—’ he began.

  ‘DCI Carne. Keep your voice down, please.’ Carne scanned the interior. ‘You know who I am. And the reason for my presence.’

  ‘Yes, sir. And, no, I had not been informed of your attendance.’

  Carne hid his surprise – they had not been as thorough as he had imagined. ‘But you know what this is about.’

  ‘Only what I need to know.’

  Carne moved close to him. ‘What she needs, Mr Hinds, is your protection.’

  ‘She has it.’

  Hinds gently closed the car door. Carne headed towards the cottage and rang the bell.

  Brooks opened the door and, to Carne’s satisfaction, registered surprise. ‘Mr Carne, I thought you were taking some well-deserved leave. I wasn’t aware an invitation had been extended.’

  ‘I’m invited all right, Brooks,’ Carne replied roughly, pushing through the door. Brooks slammed it shut, catching up with him just short of the drawing room.

  Carne added them up. Brooks, Mrs Brooks in the kitchen, Anne-Marie, the man and woman in the car. No passenger collected by Brooks, no driver and passenger from the SUV. Not two, but three coverts. Brooks motioned him to a chair.

  ‘Thank you for coming, Mr Carne,’ said Anne-Marie. She looked around. ‘Detective Chief Inspector Carne is investigating the death of David Wallis. He is also involved in the investigation of Joseph Kennedy’s death.’

  ‘I understand—’ began Donald.

  Anne-Marie interrupted. ‘I asked for this meeting with Mr Brooks. He decided to invite some colleagues.’

  ‘Former colleagues,’ said Brooks coolly.

  ‘Former colleagues,’ continued Anne-Marie, addressing Carne, ‘from the intelligence services. They have introduced themselves to me as a Mr Donald and Miss Jemima Sheffield. Do continue, Mr Donald.’

  ‘I understand the Metropolitan Police have confirmed Kennedy’s death was a clear case of suicide.’

  ‘It is certainly not that,’ said Carne.

  Brooks intervened. ‘Chief Inspector, as this is a private meeting, could I ask if you have any recording equipment on your person?’

  ‘Go ahead,’ replied Carne wearily. Brooks expertly frisked him. ‘I’m sure you have your own cameras here.’

  ‘Search me too,’ said Anne-Marie with a quiet fury.

  ‘There’s no need for that, Minister,’ said Donald.

  ‘So, Minister,’ said Brooks, busying himself with coffee pouring, ‘how may I assist you?’

  ‘DCI Carne tells me that you feel bound by the Official Secrets Act but are willing to correct any factual errors arising from his investigation.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘In that case I suggest Mr Carne tells us of his findings.’

  Carne stood. It was an involuntary movement. Four pairs of eyes were trained on him. ‘I am a detective. I collect evidence.’ He paused. ‘Then I try to come to conclusions.’ He paused to take in this bizarrely assembl
ed audience. ‘One living person links David Wallis and Joseph Kennedy.’ He was staring in Anne-Marie’s direction, but beyond her. ‘The woman who was once Maire McCartney.’

  Anne-Marie looked up at him, unspoken questions in her eyes. ‘No one disagrees,’ continued Carne, ‘that British intelligence, in the form of David Wallis, used Maire McCartney as bait. Could the reverse also have been true? Ms Gallagher herself told me that she had noticed David Wallis, whom she knew as Vallely, and targeted him before they ever exchanged words.’

  ‘Yes, I liked the look of him,’ said Anne-Marie. Brooks smiled limpidly, the other two remained motionless.

  ‘Wallis had served in Northern Ireland. He may have been recognized by someone connected to IRA circles when he arrived in Dublin. If Ms Gallagher’s brother had asked her to report on him, she may well have agreed.’

  ‘I was not in contact with my brother at that stage. We no longer saw eye to eye.’

  ‘Yes, Ms Gallagher,’ said Carne. ‘But we only have your word for it.’ Anne-Marie stayed silent. Carne had never felt more alone. ‘If this scenario is true, it would mean that Maire McCartney could have told her brother or intermediaries in the IRA of Wallis’s departure from Dublin in the early morning of Sunday, April the twenty-fourth, 1994. On the night of Wallis’s disappearance, some sort of ambush therefore lay in wait for him.’

  ‘Aren’t you forgetting one thing?’ Brooks asked with a condescending incredulity. Donald shot him a warning glance.

  ‘No, I am not forgetting it, Mr Brooks. To some extent, the plan failed. Although Wallis was captured, his squad managed in return to capture Martin McCartney.’

  Donald peered up at him studiously. ‘What you’re telling us, Mr Carne,’ he said, ‘is that David Wallis could himself have been unmasked by the IRA and that it was a premeditated IRA operation that led to his death.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And that this is consistent with the legitimate operation to cultivate Miss McCartney.’ He turned to Jemima Sheffield. ‘Which is properly recorded in the files and the Hawk reports.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ It was her first contribution and showed that she, a seasoned case officer, was far junior to the man beside her.

  ‘It seems plausible to me,’ said Donald. ‘Brooks?’ Carne wondered whether Donald was so senior that Brooks would now defer to him.

  ‘Yes,’ said Brooks. Carne had his answer. Brooks had been effectively silenced after his previous step out of line.

  Carne sensed Anne-Marie’s loathing of Donald. He caught her eye and made the faintest shake of his head. She drew back. He would see his gambit through.

  ‘If Maire McCartney was acting for the IRA,’ he said, ‘and instrumental in David Wallis’s death, it raises questions about the person we know today as Anne-Marie Gallagher.’

  ‘And what questions would those be?’ Donald asked silkily.

  ‘Her brother,’ replied Carne, ‘was the prime mover in a hardline faction that wanted to pursue a long-term war against the British. After his disappearance, would not his sister have wished to keep that candle alight?’

  ‘Interesting,’ said Donald. ‘Though our vetting did not throw up these indications.’

  ‘You told the new Prime Minister you don’t vet ministers,’ interrupted Anne-Marie.

  ‘There are exceptions,’ replied Donald smoothly. ‘Where the security of the state is at issue. Perhaps Mr Carne should continue.’

  ‘Since Ms Gallagher’s appointment as Minister,’ resumed Carne, ‘there has been the puzzling reappearance of Joseph Kennedy. I have become aware that you know every word of Ms Gallagher’s phone call with Kennedy before he died. And his apparent urging of her to take some form of revenge.’

  ‘Yeees.’ Donald elongated the word as he calculated the implications. Carne saw it was now his turn to stay quiet. Donald filled the silence. ‘Of course, given that your investigation into Wallis’s death has thrown up this result, it will naturally be referred to the highest levels.’

  ‘A theory, not a result.’

  ‘Yes, but one that accords with the evidence,’ insisted Donald.

  ‘And therein lies the problem, Mr Donald. The picture we have now been able to piece together of what happened that night at the Black Brimmer car park shows that the theory of Maire McCartney as an agent provocateur must be wholly false.’

  Donald’s eyes ignited with menace. ‘Then what the fucking hell have you been doing with this rigmarole, Mr Carne?’ His voice was steeped in menace.

  ‘I was demonstrating, Mr Donald,’ replied Carne, ‘how grateful some people would be for an explanation of David Wallis’s death which could lay the blame wholly and solely on the IRA. Even at the cost of an elected minister’s reputation and career. We now even have concrete evidence of this due to the recording I’m sure you are making of this meeting.’

  ‘You pointless, putrid, little pedant.’

  The mask had slipped. Donald’s rage vibrated through the room. Beside him, Jemima Sheffield kept her head down, staring vacantly at a notebook. Carne noted that Brooks was finding it hard to repress a smirk.

  ‘I had wondered,’ said Carne, ‘whether Mr Brooks would also be grateful for this theory. But I rather think he knows the truth too well to allow himself that luxury.’

  The smirk disappeared from Brooks’s face. ‘Go on, then, Carne,’ he said, ‘let’s hear what you’ve got.’

  Carne took a couple of strides to pick up his china cup. It gave him the chance to exchange glances with Anne-Marie. She gave him the slightest of nods.

  ‘There are facts,’ he resumed. ‘Operation Hawk. The disappearances of Sean Black, Brendan O’Donnell and Martin McCartney.’ He swung round to face Brooks. ‘Mr Brooks’s confirmation to me that there is no point in looking for their bodies, as they will never be found.’

  Donald turned sharply towards Brooks, who had removed his glasses and was studiously wiping them with a white handkerchief. Carne continued. ‘The capture of Martin McCartney. A few seconds later, the capture of David Wallis by Joseph Kennedy and his associates.’

  Carne paused and took a sip of coffee. Donald gave a long yawn. ‘This is all very fascinating, Mr Carne, but leading us nowhere.’

  Carne ignored him. ‘Kennedy was present at the final scene of Wallis’s short life. However, he was not in control of events. This had been assumed by two senior members of the IRA leadership who had been summoned to deal with what was clearly a delicate situation.’

  ‘You’re making this up,’ interrupted Brooks.’

  Before Carne could respond, Anne-Marie spoke. ‘He’s not. I was there.’

  Her five short words fell on the room like a sonic boom, spreading and subsiding to leave a stunned silence.

  ‘No, no that surely cannot be,’ said Brooks, his voice resigned and flat.

  ‘I was there,’ she repeated.

  A spasm of alarm was detectable in Donald. Their shock was unrehearsed. Neither Brooks nor his intelligence colleagues, both past and present, had known. Carne blessed whatever sixth sense it was that had led Anne-Marie to leave the flat he now knew to have been bugged and tell him her story by the riverside. Their surveillance at that stage could only have been electronic.

  ‘A driver came to my flat,’ Anne-Marie continued. ‘I was given no choice, I had to go with him. They were in a barn. David strapped to a chair. Two men interrogating him. Before you ask, no, I didn’t know them. I tried to comfort him. Then they took him into a field and shot him. That was it.’

  ‘Did David tell you anything?’ asked Brooks.

  ‘That is between him and me.’

  Her reply brought a further silence. Carne broke it gently. ‘Perhaps that question can be put differently. Did David tell you anything that might help us determine the circumstances of his abduction?’

  She took a deep breath, thinking, perhaps calculating. ‘He pointed the finger at Joseph and said, “The one that got away.” Joseph was standing apart. It was as if he’d been ostra
cized.’

  ‘What happened later that night to Joseph?’ asked Carne.

  ‘He drove off, scarpered, ran.’ Her eyes were lifeless, the memory unwelcome. Telling the whole story to Carne had been enough. ‘He was scared.’

  ‘From this eyewitness account,’ Carne resumed, ‘we know that Joseph Kennedy escaped the scene of the crime. He did not resurface for more than twenty years, when he made contact with Ms Gallagher, resulting in their one telephone conversation. Within forty-eight hours of that call, he was dead. A murder, dressed up to look like suicide.’

  ‘You have no evidence for that,’ said Donald.

  ‘That’s untrue,’ said Anne-Marie. Again, her intervention electrified the room. ‘The phone conversation I had with Joseph is proof positive that he was not going to kill himself.’

  ‘We only have your version of that conversation, Ms Gallagher,’ retorted Donald. Again, Anne-Marie bit her tongue.

  ‘Perhaps Miss Sheffield can help us here,’ suggested Carne. ‘I presume that phone conversation was recorded.’ Her moment of panic was transparent; he even felt a wave of sympathy for her. ‘Indeed, you yourself were close by.’ She looked at Donald for help, receiving no more than a shrug of the shoulders.

  ‘Thank you, Miss Sheffield.’ Carne paused, content with her lack of denial.

  ‘There is also the fact that the so-called suicide letter was not there when I discovered Joseph’s body,’ said Anne-Marie.

  Her intervention went uncontested; Carne allowed time for it to be digested. ‘My colleague and I visited the Black Brimmer and its car park. Today it’s a gastropub called the Black Hat, but the layout is essentially the same.’

  Carne passed round his diagram of the pub, car park, road, and cover and waiting places provided by hedgerows, corners and the lay-by. He went through his calculations of speeds and distances. ‘The window of opportunity for a snatch vehicle to arrive at the scene and capture Martin McCartney during his return from the hedgerow to the car park is simply too tight. It does not stack up. This was a highly skilled operation, run by professionals. They would not have run that risk.’