When Civil Servants Fail

by John Schou

get a free car wash if it was possible to drive straight ahead and where Mr. Smith’s house was to be found just before.

  It was ten past eleven as we all entered Mr. Smith’s office.

  “Dear Mr. Smith, thank you for sending help yesterday. And Mr. Gusto, thanks for saving my life, my wife just told me about it, I had not quite realized it before.”

  “My pleasure. It will all be on the bill,” I answered.

  “It is only part of the bill, Eric,” my boss supplemented. We’ve got to take care of that he stays alive long enough to pay it and to find out who performed the assault yesterday and who were behind it. Tell me how you got away from the hospital.

  I reported not only that, but all the occurrences in chronological order.

  “Mr. Lockwood, I understood that you were going to hold a press conference regarding your possible role in the leakage of certain documents in London in 2005. Are you going to maintain the plans for the conference?”

  “Definitely,” he said in a stout manner.

  “And what are you going to say?”

  “That I was the person who leaked the documents to the Times”

  “Which consequences do you expect from that revelation?”

  “Certainly no good ones. There are two aspects, both negative ones. First, if you make a lie straight enough, you may make those who expose it look like the bad people. The English, the Danish the Australian and the American government all made that clear in relation to the Iraq war, and now they are using largely the same arguments against Iran. Second, there is the consequence felt last evening. It was perhaps meant to prevent my statement today, but I am by no means safe afterwards. The clumsy murder of Dr. Kelly was meant as a warning to all whistleblowers. Nobody who studies the case more thoroughly can think that it was a suicide, whatever the official verdict told.”

  Having not yet found time to study that case, I could not agree with him, but at least I was now prejudiced.

  “Dr. Kelly was killed only after his public statements,” Mr. Smith added.

  “So I’ll better pay you tomorrow, but keep me alive this day. Even if there are few friends to win and many enemies to gain, I certainly want to make that issue clear. It is a matter of conscience. Besides, the time has come when ordinary people should start getting interested in the evil games their governments are playing against them.”

  “I am proud to hear these words from a wealthy manager. Here, you are almost considered an anarchist when you are critical of the government,” Mr. Smith surprisingly uttered. I never before heard him make a political statement.

  “Mr. Smith is Irish,” I explained to the Lockwoods.

  He ignored the insult. “I shall need the assistance of Mr. Gusto this afternoon, at least the first part of it. He will come to the conference, in fact, he should be at your firm at 3.30 p.m., would you make sure that he is given entrance?”

  “At best I pick you up around 3 p.m. on my own way to the firm,” Mr. Lockwood said addressed to me. Hurrah, there was another chance to drive a long Mercedes today.

  “But please take the car with the bullet-proof windows,” I said in a worried tune.

  Mr. Smith had some more questions of dubious relevance to the case, and then our guests left. I accompanied them to the car, looking sceptically in all directions as real bodyguards do on film. I would have preferred to play that role again in Charlottenlund, but now I noticed that a police car approached from the main road, Strandvejen. Behind two cups in front, I recognized Erlandsson.

  “Where are you going,” he shouted at Andrew.

  “Home”

  “All right, follow the patrol car, we’ll protect you. I shall come to your side.” And out he jumped, where after the patrol car turned around. At the other end of our small road, two police motorbikes stopped the traffic as they approached. With music and blue lights they bend northwards. It looked like a state visit.

  “What was the noise?” Mr. Smith asked as I returned.

  “King Umbabumpa visits Hellerup. He is coming with peace, although not very peaceful.”

  As usual, he did not comment. “You have just half an hour now and some two hours after lunch to search for details about the Kelly affair. When you leave, you can put the report on my desk.”

  “With a full judgement, in 150 minutes?”

  “Make the best what you can,” he said understandingly.

  What I found, stole my appetite. I called to the kitchen and told Juanita that she would have to keep Mr. Smith company alone as I was absorbed by work.

  4 – A Traitor Confesses

  It was five past 3 as I placed a printout of my preliminary research on Mr. Smith’s desk. He had not yet arrived, so I decided to wait for Mr. Lockwood in my own office. He was normally very precise, so he probably avoided me as I him. If Mr. Smith wanted to give my any instructions, he could use the phone. He didn’t. Without them, I had anyhow decided to take my handgun, discretely hid in the inner pocket of my jacket. I normally forgot it on outdoor missions – fortunately, because if I used it, my opponents would probably shoot back, and they were both better armed and better trained. In this case, however, I felt that our client had a right to be joined by an armed person, even if it was merely a symbolic act.

  Just five minutes later, the Snobbomobile arrived. I could not see it from my window, which is eastward towards the sea and Sweden, but I heard the engine and was out of the main door, before Andrew had ascended the steps. Also Mrs. Lockwood had joined her husband on this crucial mission. Now there was a new driver with a grey cap and uniform, as it suits such a car. Perhaps the reason was the difficulty to find a parking space for such a long sledge?

  The family did not express any joy, so I joined their mute appearance after a polite greeting, a short one since I had seen them all already today. They were all clad in black, almost as for a funeral, except for Mr. Lockwood’s light blue and his son’s green tie. Mrs. Lockwood was also clad in black, as elegant as any undertaker can allow.

  Approaching Copenhagen Centre, I agreed with Andrew how we would get first out of the car and then shovel his parents through, should there be any crowd waiting for us.

  When we arrived, the press was indeed already waiting. Even if the film has been made superfluous by the modern electronic media, flashlights seem not to have lost their importance, even by daytime. The journalists did what they felt was their duty, what people expected them to do: posing a lot of questions simultaneously.

  “Save your energy for the conference, there you will have possibility to pose your question – one at a time – and even get it answered,” I said. Mr. and Mrs. Lockwood remained silent, junior was too far away or the noise was too big; if he said something, I did not hear it.

  “Who are you?” a journalist suddenly wanted to know from me. I ignored him, being anyhow Mr. Nobody in this company.

  We managed to enter the building. The conference should take place in twenty minutes. Many journalists from London had arrived, and we agreed initially to declare English the language of the day. Then Mr. Erlandsson arrived, known by many of the Danish journalists. The crowd was too big for the company’s own conference-room originally scheduled for the occasion, so it was decided in an act of improvisation to hold it in the entrance hall. That caused a delay of 15 minutes until everything was ready.

  In Mr. Lockwood’s luxurious office, Mrs. and Mr. Lockwood waited with me for the signal to go down to the entrance hall. The first knock on the door was, however, caused by Mr. Erlandsson.

  “I see you have brought your own bodyguard, or how shall I interpret Mr. Gusto’s presence here?”

  I decided not to answer. “Mr. Gusto is our guest here,” the host said.

  “And Mr. Smiths projected ears and eyes,” added Erlandsson sourly. “I just want to inform you that we have two plain-cloth men among the press people. We wanted to make a weapons control, but the amount of cameras and cables found us unprepared. Instead, we checked the identity of the journalists and p
hotographers.

  “So if anybody shoot me, you have at least the name of the murderer,” the potential victim uttered ironically. “Never mind, I’m not afraid. I don’t think anything will happen in the crowd, and now, nobody shall prevent my talking.”

  “Actually, I got a request from the ministry to try to persuade you not to make any such statements,” Erlandsson surprisingly said.

  “And what did you answer?”

  “Actually, I didn’t answer at all. The minister wanted to talk and I let him, only interrupted by repeated intermission signals. Between us, I don’t think you should alter your decision.”

  “I have certainly no intention to,” Mr. Lockwood brusquely answered.

  “Why do you think that the minister intervened?” I asked Mr. Erlandsson, but Mr. Lockwood answered.

  “The Danish government has also a skeleton in the cupboard related to this problem, of entering a war on knowingly false premises. Perhaps they were also asked by the British government to avoid any discussion of the past. The amount of press representatives lets one assume that they are slowly waking up from their paralysis.”

  I was surprised to hear such critical words from an expectedly loyal police officer. “That you can only judge when you see how much is actually published of what is recorded here,” I commented.

  Andrew came and said that everything was ready, so we all went down to the lobby. I stopped, letting the Lockwood family pass. Only as they absorbed all attention from the journalists and cameramen did I discretely enter and placed me behind the crowd. Should any malicious persons enter from behind, I would be the first to notice. Should any such already be present in the crowd, it was Erlandsson’s job to deal with him or her, not counting possible malicious journalists whose weapons were of non-ballistic nature.

  Mr. Lockwood stood behind a forest of microphones, as if the art of picking up a voice in the last decades called for ever more sophisticated devices, against the general trend for electronics. “The reason for this conference is, that roomers have been spread in the British papers that I personally was the one, who leaked this information in 2005 when I was a servant of her Majesty’s government. That calls for a statement from me as the accused.” He made an intermission and drank a bit of water, as if to test the audience. Could so many representatives keep silent? They could, at least for now.

  The accused continued. “I thank you for giving me the occasion here to confirm, that these rumours are absolutely true. I was the one who contacted the journalist from ‘The Times,’ hoping to ameliorate the tragical decision to involve British forces into this colonial war.” He wanted to say more but now the audience could not keep quiet any longer and started shouting questions simultaneously.

  “Ladies and Gentlemen, one upon the time,” he stuttered. “Andrew, will you please take over?”

  “Let us start from this side. Yes ma’am, your question?”

  “Why did you find it necessary to act in hidden?” a young woman asked.

  “Because it was impossible to proceed openly. When you are a government employee, all secrecies are barred from being published.”

  “Even if it is the government which committed the crime?” a more mature man seconded.

  “That is exactly the problem here. If a prime minister lets his country enter a war due to a number of false statements, which he knows are lies, then I consider it criminal. I did not want to support it, and I wanted to disclose this fact …” Mr. Lockwood would say more but the audience wanted to pose questions, like the opera audience wanting to hear its own applause, so he hoped there would be occasion to make a full statement later.

  I could not see all those in front and decided it was not so important. I sat down near the entrance and just heard the discussion. “Why was the prime minister not