The South Lawn Plot

by Ray O'Hanlon

  “Before we go in,” he said, “I want you to look into that question regarding the cardinal. What the bloody hell was that reporter doing asking it?”

  “I don't quite understand,” said Golding.

  “You should, Peter,” Spencer replied. “Think of it man! A rag like the Post is not going to drop a lead into a possible exclusive story all over a street full of rivals in the way that what's-his-name did.”

  “Bailey.”

  “And it was the Post that scooped the rest of the buggers with the Blackfriars Bridge business. That priest, the suicide.”

  “Yes, it was.”

  “Well, they must be on to something. Joining dots. Looking for links. I want to know what I'm going to be reading tomorrow, Peter. And I want you to find out. You have friends in the press.”

  “Good God, Prime Minister. You're not suggesting there's some lunatic out there seeing church clerics off to their eternal reward. A bit sixteenth century I should think,” said Golding, a half smile on his face.

  “But you said it yourself, or at least didn't deny it. The cardinal popped off in his sleep, called by the angels to his heavenly home and no more than that.”

  “That, of course, Peter, is how we should all understand it. How the government understands it. But I don't have to tell you that these Fleet Street people, or wherever it is they hang their hats these days, are quite capable of turning a misplaced parking ticket into a massive bloody conspiracy.”

  “Quite,” said Golding. “I'll find out what I can, although I'll have to be careful. If the papers hear of us coming back to them on this one they are going to really think that something funny is going on. But you're right, I do know one or two people in the business that can be trusted, who will answer questions and ask none.”

  “Tweedledum and Tweedledee?” said Spencer.

  “A little better than that. I'll get on it while you're meeting Her Majesty.”

  “Good man,” said Spencer.

  The car had almost reached the palace, and the two men lapsed into silence. This was typical. Before a meeting Spencer liked to mentally rehearse how he would brief the queen, what he would emphasize, and what he would play down. She would sometimes catch him out, ask questions about issues that he was less than fully inclined to go on about. But he had to oblige her, humor her, and, though rarely, indulge in a little flattery.

  The relationship between prime minister and queen was invariably cautious, rather extremely so at the beginning. Her Majesty had the upper hand, of course. She had dealt with and seen off a lot of prime ministers. She clearly had favorites down the years during her epic reign. It was easy to discern which of Spencer's predecessors had found particular royal approval. She would mention meetings with them, crises mulled over long ago, and still cherished moments of levity.

  Spencer didn't figure himself to be at the top end of the favorites list, but neither, he believed, was he at the bottom of it. He was hovering somewhere in the middle, a locality that, he was certain, would not have suited his hero Walpole.

  Spencer was not conscious of the fact that his hands were clasped together firmly. Neither was he aware of the fact that he was breathing rather rapidly. But Golding was taking note. The prime minister's man paid close attention to his superior's moods, habits and nervous ticks. And this pre-meeting assortment was typical and right on cue.

  Despite his bluster, his sometimes blasé remarks about the queen, Golding knew what many failed to appreciate. Leonard Spencer was passionate about the monarchy and to a degree that seemed at complete odds with the times. And now, though this meeting was a weekly event, he was preparing himself for something that he had dreamed off as a boy, a young man in the service and a callow MP with an eye for the main chance. It was the privilege of sitting in the presence of a woman who had inherited the mantle, and the burden, of a thousand years of glorious history.

  Leonard Spencer was now only moments away from bowing to his sovereign and remembering afresh that order in the world did not rise from the bottom of society, but was bestowed from its heights. If he had one regret in life it was that he himself had not been born a king in an earlier time, one when earthly rulers did not have to take direction from the emissaries of the common people.

  Leonard Spencer, in truth, was a most unusual prime minister. Some who had held his office had been closet republicans, closet fascists, and for all he knew, closet bloody Stalinists. But Leonard Spencer was something entirely different. He was a closet absolute monarchist, hemmed in by 21st century constitutional norms. And he was being driven to meet a woman whose reign was but a pale shadow of this deep and abiding belief in a monarchy more suited to times long past.

  “We're here.”

  Golding's words dragged Spencer back to the present and the sight of the palace gates.

  “Good, yes,” he said. “Are we on time, Peter?”

  “As always, Prime Minister.”

  21

  PENDER HAD GIVEN up his battle for sleep. But he had dreamed nevertheless.

  Just one more job, and he would be packing his bags for a new life. There would be marriage, perhaps, barefoot children and a hammock. Occasional forays to exotic parts of the world for photo shoots. Yes, one more job and all this would be his for the taking.

  And with a clear conscience, because his one unflinching condition with all clients was that his targets had to be bad guys, the badder, the better.

  Dawn was still a couple of hours away. The city's hum was at its lowest ebb but the relative silence made no difference whatsoever.

  For a time he had read Revolt In The Desert by T.E. Lawrence, and flicking on the bedside light he took another stab at it.

  “At dawn on the sixteenth of September 1917 Lawrence rode out from Rumm. Aid, the blind Sherif, he wrote, had insisted on coming, despite his lost sight, saying he could ride, if he could not shoot, and that if God wished it, he would take leave from Feisal in the flush of success and go home, not too sorry, to the blank life which would be left.”

  A blank life, if God prospered us. How simple. Lawrence of Arabia, a war and a simple mission: kill as many Turks as possible, win a vastness of sand for dear old England.

  Pender envied Lawrence. He envied all men who could refer to themselves as being of somewhere. Pender of Clapham, he thought. Who would write the book, produce the film? Who would play him when all this was done? Would anybody ever know?

  He put down the book and got out of the bed. A few steps across the bedroom and he stood before the mirror, the little light above it flickering because of a loose electrical connection. The time for a planned repair job was almost over, he thought. Leave it.

  Pender splashed his face with cold water and stared at his reflection. Not bad, he thought. Still on the young side of middle age and a visage that was of the sort that seemingly gave comfort to others. He certainly did not present to the world the kind of countenance that hinted at threat, or ill intent, quite the contrary. He might, indeed, have been a country parson, all tea and sympathy. Satisfied that his mask of innocence had made it to one more day, Pender returned to his bed and stretched out. He had a few hours before he was expected to show up for the rendezvous.

  It was a good thing indeed that he had set his alarm clock or otherwise he would not have been standing at the edge of Clapham Common at the appointed time which, as it happened, was the same moment that Bailey was lobbing his question at the prime minister on the other side of the Thames.

  Pender shuffled and pulled up his coat collar. It had started to rain. But the man he was meeting was punctual. Better than that, he was carrying a large red golf umbrella.

  “Good morning, Stephen,” the man he knew only as Father John said while walking right by. “Start walking with me. Here, there's plenty of room under my roof.”

  The old priest's cheerful greeting defied both the purpose of their meeting and the elements.

  “Sorry to have kept you waiting.”

  “Not at all,” Pender
replied. “You were not late at all.”

  “I was, by three minutes.”

  Pender shrugged his shoulders.

  “Let's take this path across the common,” the priest said.

  For his age, Father John could keep up a lively pace, and at first the considerably younger Pender, still stiff from his half sleep, had a little trouble keeping up.

  The old man had not moved much in Africa. Nobody did. Pender noted that the priest's face was still tanned and lined. The equatorial sun had left its mark and no amount of English rain was going to wash it away.

  The common, a 220 acre green lung for the great city, was almost deserted, the inclement weather imposing its own curfew. A few hardy dog walkers were about, but the hour for their meeting had been well chosen. The early morning joggers had departed and the lunchtime strollers were hours away.

  “So, how are things in the photo business Stephen?”

  “It's paying the bills,” Pender replied. “I recently got back from Ireland, managed to put together a coffee table book, rather a fine one if I say so myself.”

  “Ah, Ireland,” said the priest, his voice momentarily trailing away. “I was there once, many years ago, on a retreat. Best poker game of my life.”

  “Ireland's always a good bet for a relaxed time,” said Pender.

  Father John ignored Pender's little pun. He had stopped walking and had turned to face his companion, the umbrella now pulled down low over their heads.

  “One last time then,” said the priest. “Are you up for it?”

  He was looking straight at Pender, eyes boring into the younger man's face, seeking out the slightest hint of self-doubt, reluctance, fear, ennui.

  Pender returned the stare. “I still don't know yet what the job is exactly,” he said. “I have killed before and I presume I will have to do so again in the near future. You, both of us, are long past having any qualms when someone deserves to peg it.”

  A hint of a smile crossed the priest's face.

  “Of course,” he replied. “But I rather suspect that this job is going to give you cause for a little consideration, perhaps even a change of mind. Put any thoughts out of your head, Stephen, that this mission will be as easy as the African affair, or others before it. Anything you have done for us up until now has been puff pastry, sinecure stuff, compared to what follows from this minute onwards.”

  “As I said, Pender replied, “I will do what is required, so long as I have the time and resources. Given that this is my last outing, I have been readying myself for something big, very big. Are you going to let me in on the secret here and now? I'm sure we're in the clear here.”

  It was not unknown for her majesty's secret services to lace even corners of public parks with high-powered listening devices. The two men were standing on a swathe of the common that, in the rain and a wind that had steadily increased in force all morning, had all the charm of a storm over the Siberian tundra.

  “It's clean and clear,” said the priest. “We have a few favorite spots, and we check them regularly. Besides, what I'm going to say here is not going to mean much to anyone, including you.”

  Pender was not in the least bit surprised that his companion was only prepared to divulge the initial stages of the task ahead.

  “I can't reveal everything to you now, Stephen. However, I will say that it means traveling to the United States.”

  Pender's eyes narrowed, though due to a sudden gust of moisture-laden wind as much as surprise over his destination.

  “My favorite place in all the world,” he said, smiling.

  “That might be, Stephen,” the priest responded, “but also one of the more difficult places to operate given the level of security, especially since September 11. And, not, I should add, not only security enforced by the Americans. We have to consider our people, too.”

  “MI6,” said Pender.

  “Not them alone,” Father John replied. “MI5 as well. They work off a pretty broad definition of their domestic security remit.”

  “But right now there is no mission, no plot, no suspect, just two men talking in the rain on a patch of soggy England,” Pender said.

  The old priest said nothing for a moment. He seemed to shrink into his raincoat.

  “This mission will take you into their realm, Stephen. There's no way to avoid them, and the Americans and their myriad of security agencies. This is going to be like swimming in a shark tank.”

  “The more, the merrier. I'll spot them a mile off.” Bravado was cheap, and he well knew it. But why not, he thought. It would warm him up a bit.

  “Will you then?” the old man responded, a sharper tone to his voice.

  Both men, their backs now to the wind, had noticed a homeless man about thirty yards away rummaging in a litter bin.

  “Supposing, Stephen, that man was an agent. How would you rumble him? What might you look for?”

  Pender stared at the man.

  “Let's try him out,” he said, grinning.

  They began walking towards the man, who was paying them no heed. Within seconds they had passed him by.

  “Stop here,” Pender said.

  The homeless man was still rifling through the bin, with some success. He had plucked a newspaper and the better part of an apple. Pender walked right up to him and reached into his pocket.

  “Here you go, old chap,” he said, offering the man a pound coin.

  The man lifted his head, looked sideways and away from his benefactor and extended an open palm. He nodded, but said nothing. Pender gave him the coin and at once turned on his heel and walked back to the priest. “Walk,” he commanded the older man.

  They strode towards a grove of wind-blown trees, the sole inhabitant of which was a huddled gray squirrel.

  “I don't reckon he was a spy,” said Pender.

  “And how would you reach that conclusion?”

  “His hands,” Pender replied. “They were all dirty, hard and cut. If he ever worked in an office, it was when dinosaurs roamed this place.”

  “Not bad, Stephen,” Father John said. “You might make a spook someday but for now we only desire your services as…”

  “An assassin,” Pender interjected.

  “We would use a very different word, Stephen. You are, for us, simply a deliverer.”

  Before Pender could respond, the priest was stabbing his finger into the saturated air.

  “Did you know that a Luftwaffe bomber crashed over there during the war? They say the pilot was heroic in keeping his plane up long enough to avoid Clapham High Street. It's a funny thing, war, when you consider it. One minute you're killing people by the thousand and the next you're doing all in your power to avoid killing people you wouldn't think twice about annihilating from twenty thousand feet.”

  “Fancy a tea or coffee? There are some pretty decent cafés just off the common,” said Pender.

  “No thank you, Stephen. If it's all the same, I'll be on my way. And so will you, back to your flat. The first part of what you need to be aware of has been deposited there while we've been talking here. Don't worry, no damage done. Our man could pick the lock of the Bank of England and they wouldn't notice.”

  “So that's where you get all your money,” said Pender.

  The old priest did not respond. Instead he simply stood and smiled.

  “I'll be off then,” said Pender. “And you'll be in touch.”

  The priest nodded. Pender began walking briskly, giving silent thanks for the fact that the rain was easing a bit.

  The homeless man, now far in their wake, lifted his head from the remains of a discarded fish and chip meal. It had been wrapped in a tabloid newspaper adorned with the headline “Loony Bus Driver Bit My Bum.”

  The man stared hard after the figure now fading into the misty distance and then looked downwards at his open palm. It contained not just the coin, but also a bronze colored medal in the shape of a cross.

  He stood up. He had long given up hoping for relief from the
pain in his bones and took what comfort he could from spiritual balm. His eyes now focused on the old man, who had turned and was walking back in his direction.

  Good, the man in rags thought. If the pain of the body had to be suffered it was always more bearable in the company of one's confessor.

  22

  THE SKY WAS THROBBING. It flickered on and off as the storm rumbled over the East China Sea. A particularly strong flash made Henry Lau's eyes blink. This storm had its eye on the city. It was, he thought, at least an appropriate metaphor, if not an outright omen.

  Darkness had fallen over the towers of Taipei, and most of its inhabitants were bedding down for an anxious night.

  The city's frenetic routine, though unchanged at a casual glance, had been turned on its head by the government's decision to hold a referendum on Taiwanese independence. The natural storm that would strike within the hour paled against the political maelstrom that had followed the announcement. The island was feverish with rumor and speculation, much of it directed at its giant neighbor just across the Formosa Strait.

  Beijing's verbal fury had been unrestrained. The military equivalent, for years made plain in excruciating detail by the mainlanders, left little to the imagination.

  The Taiwanese leadership, in turn, had left no doubt that it wanted the roughly twenty-four million inhabitants of the island to back a proposal that would put more than the strait between them and the mainland.

  Henry Lau supported the idea of independence, but for the moment he was not especially concerned with the reaction of the hated Beijing Communists, or whatever they lately called themselves. His mind was mostly focused on the pulsating pain in his head.

  Still, he knew a vote for independence could mean war. Indeed, many felt that even an inkling that the vote would go that way could trigger an invasion well before the plebiscite itself. Perhaps, Lau thought, an invasion would offer an opportunity for an alternative form of death, and a far more glorious one at that.

  Beyond the office window, the storm unleashed the first drops of rain. Taiwanese people were used to tropical downpours. If nothing else it would churn up the waters out at sea and make the night uncomfortable for the Chinese navy ships.