by Roger Pearce
Father Michael’s behaviour was the blend of solicitude, blarney and showbiz that Gavron had seen in so many abusive priests. He was still playing the Vatican’s favoured son, tactile but untouchable, and his recklessness left her stunned. She replayed her video, a groomer’s masterclass in ninety seconds, and thought of the survivor in her spare room.
A grey-faced woman in black suddenly appeared at the church door, thin hair stretched beneath a plain hat. Father Michael’s housekeeper squeezed sideways through the group, probably scurrying home to prepare his lunch. Head darting like a bird’s, she clocked Gavron’s white Saab as she drew level across the street and immediately spun back, tugging at the priest’s sleeve, leaning into his ear and pointing. Gavron was out of the car before either could react, dodging between a skip lorry and cyclist, holding their eyes. ‘Good morning, Father,’ she said, checking in her bag for the recorder’s green light.
His smile melted into unease before hubris took over. ‘As you can see, I’m busy right now,’ he said, spreading his palms in a flourish, though they both knew the pastoral gig was over.
‘Only take a moment,’ said Gavron, camera in hand as she smiled at a couple of his young disciples. ‘We can do it right here.’
Father Michael sent the kids away, warning them not to be late on Thursday evening, then led Gavron into the church porch.
‘What happens on Thursdays?’
‘Instruction in the Catechism,’ he said, curtly.
The housekeeper tried to squeeze inside but he dismissed her, too. ‘I won’t be long, Mary.’
‘I should stay, Father,’ she said, with a glare.
‘Why don’t you go back and uncork the Rioja?’ said Gavron, looking away to study the service and duty rosters.
‘Go on, Mary. I’ll be alright.’
‘She knows about Belfast, then?’ said Gavron, as Father Michael scraped the heavy door shut and flicked on the light.
He turned and squared up to her, his voice intimidating in the cramped space. ‘There’s nothing to know.’
‘About the children’s home. The Olive Tree. You didn’t ring me back, Father.’
‘What the hell are you doing here?’
She held up the camera. ‘And I see you haven’t stopped the inappropriate touching.’
‘Don’t give me that Channel Four guff.’
‘Do you still get a stiffy from ministering to the young?’
‘You’re disgusting.’
‘No, I’m sickened. Donal has told me everything you did to him.’
The priest’s derisive laugh echoed off the stone walls. ‘The word of one ungrateful, sinful boy? You’ve got to be kidding me. Priests get this shit all the time.’ Gavron saw that belligerence had displaced Wednesday’s shock, his eyes glimmering with relief that young Donny, immature, confused and troubled, was her only weapon. The door grated again as Father Michael tugged at the iron ring and a sliver of daylight found his surplice. ‘Go to hell. Fuck off out of my church.’
‘I know where you sent them.’
The door was suddenly still. ‘What?’
‘The other boys from the Olive Tree. I know the place where you took them in the black taxis every week. I have the lot, Father.’
The priest’s mouth gaped but no sound came as the colour drained from his cheeks. ‘What is this?’ he muttered finally, Adam’s apple wobbling against his dog collar.
‘The road and the number of the house. I’ve checked everything. The names of the rapists you delivered them to. I recognise all their faces. Well known, weren’t they, in that closed world, and threatened to kill the boys if anyone breathed a word. That’s why no-one ever came forward, isn’t it, Father?’
‘Every word a filthy lie.’ He had found his voice, but Gavron could almost hear the bombast deflating. ‘All garbage.’
‘It’s a scandal that’s going to rock Stormont and put you in jail.’
‘If you had a shred of proof you’d have gone to the police.’
‘Like I said, I’m giving you the chance to give me your story first.’
‘There is no fucking story,’ he said. ‘I’ve told you.’
‘You think I’m bluffing?’ said Gavron, incredulous.
‘And even if there was, it’s in the past, like the IRA. Lies from damaged kids about things dead and buried. You can’t write about any of this.’
Gavron shrugged and eased round him. ‘Suit yourself.’
‘No. I have…can give you something better,’ he said, the words almost lost. ‘About the present.’
‘You what?’
‘The bombs.’
‘Go on.’
‘I want to stop this,’ he murmured.
‘Tell me.’
‘Things I heard about…who is doing these wicked things.’
‘Heard when?’
‘Secrets I am forbidden to repeat.’
‘When?’
‘Friday.’
‘Secrets,’ repeated Gavron, tracing a finger down the church roster. ‘Confession, Friday afternoon? You’re saying someone confessed to you?’
‘It’s more complicated,’ said the priest, jowls shaking. ‘He was in distress. Look, I can’t do this here, not in church. You have to give me space.’
‘You know I’m recording every word, don’t you?’
‘Yes, I assumed…I will call you. I just need another day, to reflect and to pray.’
‘Alright, Father, make your peace with God,’ said Gavron, regarding him shrewdly. ‘Then unburden yourself to me.’
Chapter Thirty-Three
Monday, 17 October, 06.32, Bayswater
Naked beneath the satin sheets, limbs entwined, the lovers embraced and kissed deeply, oblivious to the alarm clock coming out of snooze mode. On Friday and Saturday nights the Home Secretary slept with her husband at their constituency home in Sussex, but Sundays belonged to Benita.
Avril Knight pressed the button and checked the time: less than an hour to get ready. She dragged herself from the bed, walked round to Benita’s side and peeked through a gap in the curtains, looking for her official car. The overnight rain had faded to a drizzle, glistening on the copper beech tree in the tiny front garden. It was still dark, the raindrops orange in the distant street light, and the only Toyota Prius in the narrow cul-de-sac belonged to Benita’s neighbour. At the start of her affair the car had turned up very early, but now she forbade her security team to arrive before seven-thirty. Knight felt a pulse of gratitude for the extra moments of privacy as she felt Benita’s hand gently take hers, tugging her back to bed. Squeezing her fingers, she bent to kiss her lips and tiptoed for the bathroom.
Knight had been driven by political ambition since attaining a First in PPE at Oxford, followed by her shoo-in as a special adviser at Westminster. After a lifetime’s plotting and manoeuvring she had scaled the pinnacle, one of the four great Offices of State, just as this stronger passion engulfed her. The two women had been introduced at a diplomatic drinks party before the summer recess, where Benita was seeking British government support for her Anglo-Spanish cultural endowment. Knight had found pretexts to see her again, first for a post-Referendum Home Office meeting including officials, then dinner for two at a discreet tapas restaurant in Notting Hill, with her protection officers ordered to wait in the car.
It was their first and only public outing. The Home Secretary’s London home was a heavily alarmed apartment in Pimlico, close to Dolphin Square, but she soon came to cherish every hour at Benita’s eclectic, cluttered flat on the top floor of a villa behind Portobello Road market. A professional artist thirteen years younger than Knight, Benita worked from home in the bright, airy studio she had converted from the second bedroom. Trained in watercolour landscapes, these days she used oils in primary colours and her hands instead of brushes, creating a dynamic, swirling style the critics loved. To Avril Knight, she was a tangle of paradoxes, the messy, earthy peasant in the studio, then elegant and quiet as they relaxed with red wine and pl
anned their future together.
During these stolen hours they would talk constantly, exploring anything but politics. Benita had scarcely mentioned the bombings or Knight’s TV appearances, not because she was heartless, but to give her lover a break. ‘The sun still shines over her abundant earth,’ Benita would say, whenever things looked bleak, and Knight found her optimistic love of life and indifference to Westminster’s intrigues utterly liberating.
Knight had two sons, lawyer clones of their father she scarcely knew in a conventional family unit that appealed to the party chiefs and voters. For the woman with high ambition, an uncomplicated personal life was the whips’ Rule Number One. Over two decades she had assiduously built her image, only for it to collapse beneath love at first sight.
Her professional life was a churn of secrets and risk. Weighing the odds of her own political survival, she placed adultery a long way beneath same-sex prejudice, which made privacy essential. She confided in no-one from her private office, and had been brutally intransigent with her security detail.
On Sunday afternoons, the protection team would collect Knight from the family home in West Sussex and drive her to London. For her first sleepover she had waited until they were halfway up the A3, then looked up from her red box and abruptly diverted them to Benita’s address, with the order to collect her in the morning. ‘Rejig the satnav or find another assignment,’ she had snapped when the team leader remonstrated about security checks. Her attitude came as no surprise. Secretaries of State endured 24/7 protection through friendly co-operation or grumpy intolerance, and Knight had been bloody-minded from day one.
‘And you don’t tell a soul,’ she had said, stepping from the car with her overnight bag.
•••
Monday, 17 October, 06.59, Portobello Community Garden
Directly across the street from Benita’s flat was a narrow patch of open land between two terraces, fronted by a mesh wire fence staggered to deter cyclists. A pitted asphalt path disappeared through an arch of overgrown trees into a wild plot half the size of a football pitch, screened on all sides by oaks, limes and leylandii. A sign in faded green italics said ‘Welcome to Portobello Community Garden,’ with an outdated 0171 phone number for ‘Jenno, Project Co-ordinator.’
Permanently shrouded from the sun, the garden smelt dank, with tracts of moss encroaching everywhere. A maze of red block footways led Fin through a jungle of willows, firs and holly, forcing him to stoop low as he searched for potential witnesses. The overgrown paths meandered beside uncultivated vegetable patches, tiled mosaic abstracts and an ancient brick barbecue, its grill rust red. Here and there smooth burrows had been moulded into the undergrowth by rough sleepers, every pitch marked by a crumpled tin of Strong Brew or empty vodka bottle, and all abandoned during the night’s downpour. A rustic bench faced a choked pond and a copper sculpture of a heron with a fish in its bill.
Bobby Roscoe was waiting by the garden’s shed, hands cupping his face as he peered through the mouldy glass window. The padlock on the rickety door gave easily under Fin’s chisel. It was damp inside, with the rotting timber floor holed in several places. A workbench stood against the far wall beneath a blanket of cobwebs, peppered with corpses and sagging from the roof like a hammock. The only other contents were a plastic bucket, a rusting hoe and a fork with a shattered handle. There were no signs of occupation, the shed too decrepit even for the neighbourhood’s homeless.
Hoods raised against the dripping roof, they hid and waited, neither saying a word as they checked their weapons. Kenny should have been there, too, but had injured his leg in the motorcycle crash during the getaway from Southwark. Shattered and fearful when they finally made it to the safe house after their narrow escape, Roscoe had shown only cold anger, as if Kenny had screwed up. Late on Saturday night Fin and Roscoe had almost come to blows again; now, minutes away from another risky attack, their mutual resentment was palpable.
Seven minutes passed before Roscoe’s mobile vibrated twice, then cut out. Roscoe heaved the door open. ‘Let’s go,’ he ordered, stepping back into the rain.
•••
Monday, 17 October, 07.11, Bayswater
Knight had her shower while a sleepy Benita prepared breakfast of espresso, churros and tostadas. Sitting in Benita’s bathrobe at the tiny kitchen table she tried some new Spanish phrases, waiting for her lover to chide her again. ‘Still so posh and touristy,’ she laughed, cupping Knight’s face, a thumb across her lips. ‘You must stay with me always and I will teach you everything.’
Knight’s phone rang twice as she hurriedly applied her makeup, followed by the agreed signal at the door, a single ring followed by a double knock. The car was early again, and Knight felt the familiar sadness as they embraced at the top of the stairs. With Benita in her life it was not political oblivion that unnerved her, but a dread that their romance would fall into the same black hole.
•••
Monday, 17 October, 07.13, Bayswater
From her regular TV appearances, Fin had all he needed to know about Avril Knight’s height, weight and build. The front door had two stained glass panels and he could see her coming down the last few stairs. She flung the door open so sharply that the heavy black knocker gave a double thud. In the hallway’s gloom she looked taller but slighter, her eyes immediately wide with shock at the two hooded strangers. Fin took stock of the black heels and pleated cream skirt beneath a belted navy raincoat. Easily manageable.
‘Oh God.’ Knight’s face turned to fear as Roscoe’s Glock levelled with her face.
‘You’re to come with us,’ said Roscoe, quietly, making it sound like an invitation, as Fin grabbed the raincoat and dragged her over the threshold. Knight’s voice returned as Roscoe snatched away her bag, so he rammed the gun beneath her chin. ‘And shut the fuck up.’ From the cover of the beech tree they checked the street, then hurried her across the road, one at each arm, Fin’s gun concealed against her waist.
By the time they reached the cover of the garden her voice had sunk to a groan, a plea to be saved from her fatal error. Fin wanted to say something back but was under orders to stay silent. They sat her on the bench by the pond while Roscoe taped her mouth and hooded her. Further along the path she twisted her ankle, then lost a shoe as she blundered through the drenched foliage. By the end, her upper body was soaked, the white cotton hood sticking to her face.
A section of floor gave way as they pulled her inside the shed, igniting a final spark of resistance. She thrashed about as they lifted her onto the bench, groaning and tossing her head from side to side. Roscoe lent on her shoulders while Fin ripped the belt from her coat and used it to bind her legs. She tried to say something as Roscoe took the hoe and pressed it against her throat until she was perfectly still. Then Fin aimed his weapon, waited for Roscoe’s nod, and fired a single shot through the side of her skull.
Diluted blood was radiating through the hood as Fin took a folded length of cardboard from his coat and placed it on her chest. TRAITOR, it said, in bold computer print. Then he used the hoe to hack at the cobwebs until they collapsed across Knight’s body, hiding her beneath a second skin, a dead spider curled over her mouth.
The exit to the garden was an arched brick tunnel leading to a maze of side streets, only a brisk four minute walk from Ladbroke Grove tube station. ‘Thanks For Visiting!’ said another sign on the wall. ‘Come Again Soon!’
Chapter Thirty-Four
Monday, 17 October, 08.03, Room 807, New Scotland Yard
‘So it’s alright for undercover officers to have sex with activists? In your professional opinion?’
‘Not at all.’ Kerr took a deep breath, choosing his words with care. ‘I’m saying a false friendship can evolve into a true relationship.’
‘Intimacy, yes. And you’re implying that’s a virtue?’
Paula Weatherall, former boss to Ritchie and Kerr in the SO15 Intelligence Unit, now carried even more braid as deputy assistant commissioner and ‘Di
rector of Equality and Diversity, People Development and Local Engagement Programmes,’ according to her updated résumé. She wore her hair piled in a bun, speared by a tortoiseshell clip that seemed to aim at Kerr’s heart whenever she turned her head.
‘The operative may fall in love,’ said Kerr. ‘It’s a reality. A risk of long-term undercover work.’
Weatherall’s eyes widened. ‘And that’s your excuse?’
‘No. An explanation.’
Fifteen minutes into his promotion board for detective superintendent, Kerr’s prospects were sinking fast as his three interrogators fidgeted behind a row of metal tables, their backs to the windows. Someone had raised the blinds, and the early daylight threw their faces into shadow. The evening before, Nancy had switched off House of Cards to help him research the Total Policing online blurb for any last minute eye-catching initiatives. Just before ten Melanie had called, still anxious about Dodge, but Kerr had cut her short to take an incoming from Bill Ritchie. The boss had made his own enquiries about the interview panel and was ringing to wish him luck. ‘Watch out for the torpedo attack,’ he had warned, ominously.
To Kerr’s left was a uniformed commander, a bulked up gym fanatic with a buzz cut and hairless forearms nick-named Steroids. He covered ‘Well-Being and Performance Betterment,’ and had a serious man-spreading problem, his left thigh constantly encroaching against Weatherall’s. To her other side was a thirtyish civilian with old acne scars, chewed fingernails and tinted glasses whom Kerr had never set eyes on before. He introduced himself as ‘Assistant-Director of Business Continuity slash Compliance and Risk,’ a title that required three lines on his name badge. ‘But everyone calls me Bizcon,’ he said, amiably.
The interview had started promptly at 07.45, with Kerr the opening bat in a field of seven, and they had already sought his views on police station closures, efficiency savings and the perils of stop and search. Kerr’s rare encounters with policy nerds always had a dusting of make-believe as they sailed through a blue sky of stats, trends and impact assessments. The brutal reality of street wars, savage cuts and stalled careers lay far beneath them, dark smudges on the landscape. Despite the tragedies of the past week, the panel had not posed a single question about covert policing, until Weatherall’s ambush about illicit sex.
