by Roger Pearce
When Melanie rang him back, Kerr told her to bring Masters up to the Fishbowl. She should conduct the interview, he said, as the officer who already knew her. He wanted her to get inside the woman’s head, exploit the weakness that had made her pick up the phone, cultivate her sense of dependency until she reached the point of no return. ‘You won’t even know I’m there,’ he said.
When Melanie arrived, she saw that Kerr had pulled the blinds and was already sitting on the wrong side of his desk. ‘Thanks for coming in,’ was all he said, as she introduced Masters, then sat back in the corner, as promised.
‘You sounded anxious, Pamela, like it was urgent,’ said Melanie, from Kerr’s chair. She wanted to avoid speaking to her across the barrier of the desk, so had squeezed in another chair beside her.
‘You said I could call you at any time,’ said Masters, looking between them.
‘When your conscience was ready, that’s right,’ said Melanie, pouring dusty water from Kerr’s chipped jug into paper cups, ‘and you can tell I’ve come straight from the plot to meet you, so let’s have it.’
The Fishbowl was warm but Masters had kept her coat on and was fiddling with the buttons. Her silk scarf was tied unusually high on her throat. ‘Someone has just tried to kill me,’ she said.
‘You what?’
‘Say again?’ said Kerr, unable to contain himself.
‘No need to look at me as if I’m completely bonkers,’ she said, glancing at Kerr across the desk. She was twisting the ends of the scarf now. ‘They blew up my car. Torched it, whatever. I’d just parked it to go shopping. Booby-trap on a timer or something. Another minute and I’d have been burnt alive. They must have found out you came to question me.’
‘Who?’ said Melanie.
‘They also sent me some pictures to frighten me off. But they obviously realised that hadn’t done the trick because you came back on Saturday. Must have thought I was co-operating, you know, telling you things.’
‘What kind of images?’
Masters threw Kerr an embarrassed glance, but he had already dropped his eyes. ‘Pictures. Filthy, disgusting photographs that made me throw up.’
‘Showing what?’ said Melanie.
‘Do I need to spell it out to you?’ She lowered her eyes to her lap.
‘You need to show me, so I know you’re telling the truth,’ said Melanie, calmly, pointing at the envelope in the woman’s bag. ‘May I?’
There were three enlarged colour photographs of a much younger, naked Pamela Masters having sex with multiple partners. While Masters looked away, Melanie gave each no more than a glance, just long enough to register the other faces, then returned them to the envelope without showing Kerr and handed them back. ‘Thanks. I’m sorry. Who sent them to you?’
‘A man called Harold. It was a threat to shut me up, before they tried to kill me.’
‘Harold who?’ said Kerr.
‘We just knew him as that.’
Melanie shot Kerr a glance to back off. The invective streamed across the desk as if Melanie had suddenly released a dam. ‘He’s a child abuser. A bugger who likes little boys, but little girls will do,’ she said, voice rising. ‘He’s a shit, a fucking bastard.’
‘Pamela, you need to calm down,’ said Melanie. ‘But this is your chance to tell me everything you know.’
‘He takes everybody in, then charms the pants off them. But Harold is a beast, a rapist.’
‘So you have to tell us who he is,’ said Kerr.
‘I can’t.’
‘Or won’t?’
‘It’s simply not possible.’
Melanie threw another warning look at Kerr. ‘Because you’re frightened of him. Is that right?’
Her voice was scarcely audible. ‘Bloody terrified.’
‘But you still choose to shield him,’ said Kerr.
‘I’m protecting myself!’
‘We’ll do that.’
‘Oh, bloody marvellous.’ She turned red-rimmed eyes on him. ‘Next time they burn me out you’ll come running, yeah?’
‘If you give him up now we won’t need to.’
‘With me as your star witness? No way.’ Masters burst into tears. ‘I’m trying . . . doing my best here. Do you people have any idea how ashamed I feel?’
Melanie wanted to respond but Kerr got there first. ‘Pamela, no one’s ever going to know, but for once in your life you have to be upfront.’ He leant forward. ‘I need this man’s name right now, so stop pissing about.’
‘And you need to stop bullying me.’ In an instant her mood had swung from tearful to aggressive, reminding Melanie of their first meeting in the classroom. She wrapped her coat around her, picked up her bag and glared at Melanie. ‘If he keeps this up I swear I’ll walk. Just try and stop me.’
‘No one’s going to force you to do anything, Pamela,’ said Melanie, gently, pressing a tissue into the woman’s hand to defuse the tension. She frowned at Kerr, trying to slow things down. ‘Why don’t you take your time and tell us how you know this man?’
Masters dropped her bag to the floor, wiped her eyes and took a deep breath. ‘Joint MI5 and MI6 section over at Century House. I was a young desk officer, green as grass but actually quite tasty in those days, believe it or not. He was already a rising star. And he overwhelmed me.’
‘You mean he raped you?’ said Melanie, quietly.
She wept softly, her head lowered again. ‘He introduced me to sex and I was willing. All of us were, you know, enthusiastically consenting adults. It was exciting, as much dope and as many partners as you could handle. Party-time every night, boy on boy, girl on girl, everyone doing as they pleased in the days when being gay would cost your vetting. No one raped anyone and no one ever knew because it was the best-kept secret. Christ, I can’t tell you how cheap this makes me feel.’
Melanie reached for her hand. ‘I know you had a child, Pamela.’
‘Lucy Ann. She died at ten months.’ She was quietly weeping now. ‘It’s the worst thing that ever happened to me.’
‘Was Harold the father?’
‘He was a charismatic man who picked me out from the crowd, simple as that. He finds a weakness and makes you believe it’s a strength.’
‘The mark of a good intelligence officer,’ said Melanie.
‘Don’t make excuses for him. He had massive sexual energy, and the capacity to inflict pain. Then everything changed in 1993 when I got pregnant. Suddenly I wasn’t family any more and he dumped me for a grasping, low-grade bitch.’
‘What did you do?’
‘Mourned for Lucy and picked up the threads of my life back in the Service. Never saw him again, but I was hearing bad things.’
‘From friends in MI5, yeah?’
‘They were making it all very organised,’ Masters continued, ignoring Melanie’s question, ‘and Harold was introducing people from outside the circle, you understand? It was an incredible security risk. I’m amazed they got away with it for so long before it went tits up.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Melanie.
‘They were targeted and compromised. The penetrators well and truly shafted. What a joke.’
‘Who by?’ said Melanie.
‘They introduced blackmail, with everything secretly on film.’
‘When are we talking about here?’ asked Kerr.
‘I don’t know exactly.’
‘But while you were still in MI5?’
‘Yes. Five, six years ago.’
‘Pamela, who were the blackmailers?’ said Melanie.
‘Harold had several postings in post-colonial Africa. Kenya, I think, mainly. But his early speciality was Eastern Europe. In 1989 the Bulgarian Secret Service caught him buggering a nine-year-old boy in the middle of downtown Sofia. A classic sting operation. I found this out much later. They ran him against the West until the collapse of the Soviet Bloc, then handed him over to the Russians, who have controlled him ever since.’
‘How many victims?’ said Kerr. ‘Do you have names
?’
Masters shook her head. ‘But I know it goes on. The whole thing is disgusting. It’s the reason I resigned.’
Kerr was on a roll again, sounding more assertive with each demand. ‘How did you find out?’
‘I can’t say.’
‘So why didn’t you report it?’
‘Work it out for yourself. Harold was fucking me and his country at the same time. Imagine what they would do to his spurned lover.’
There was silence for a moment as Melanie’s ‘shut up’ look pushed Kerr back in his chair. ‘It’s all right, Pamela. I understand,’ she said, trying to slow the tempo again. ‘But if you can’t bring yourself to name him, why have you driven all this way to see me?’
‘I saw something on television when I came home for lunch. Just before I got in the car and . . . you know,’ she said, faltering. ‘Anyway, it gave me the most dreadful realisation.’
‘Go on.’
‘Claire Grant was on TV talking about that missing girl. But she must be involved in the kidnap, don’t you see? Danbury got her sacked. He’s her main political enemy. This is her revenge, to torture the parents by appearing to empathise with them.’
Melanie made a face. ‘How can you know that?’
‘She’s the bitch Harold dumped me for. I just know something terrible is happening here.’
‘Pamela, do you have any idea what you’re saying?’ Melanie sat back in her chair and shot Kerr another glance. ‘I mean, do you have any proof?’
‘Please don’t stare at me as if I’m a complete lunatic. All that about getting the chief constable to brief her every day, it’s so she can monitor what they’re doing. Claire Grant is crazy. A complete pervert. I know her. I can read her body language, every fake expression. She hasn’t changed one bit in all the years since Harold betrayed me.’
‘How did they meet?’
‘Africa, I think. She had a job in international development after uni. These people are cunning in their madness. It’s what they do, Melanie. It’s what Harold has done all his professional life. Bring your enemies in close so you can watch them, don’t you see?’
Kerr was already by the door, back in charge again. ‘I need to check something out in 1830. I’ll be five minutes max. Pamela, this is only a pause. When I get back, you’re going to give me the name.’
Fifty
Wednesday, 26 September, 16.23, the Fishbowl
Melanie and Kerr had conducted countless interviews together. Like her, he would have preferred to maintain the flow of the interview, but Melanie guessed he wanted to brief Alan Fargo and initiate searches to identify ‘Harold’. Who knew what 1830 might unearth while they continued coaxing information from Pamela Masters? She knew Kerr would also be telling Fargo he had been right to suspect Grant all along, sticking by his hunch in the face of their initial doubts.
Making coffee in the main office, Melanie kept an eye on Masters through the open door. She believed she understood her reticence better than Kerr did because she viewed the situation in the same light as other abusive relationships. The man Pamela Masters was unable to name had exercised total control since her early twenties. He had dominated her, shamed her, filled her with guilt and paralysed her with fear. She had protected secrets all her professional life, and her torment by this man inside her tiny, enclosed circle would be the heaviest of them all.
After the break, Masters seemed visibly to withdraw into herself again, staring into her lap and nervously fiddling with her coat and scarf. But Melanie was unperturbed. She had no shred of doubt that, before Masters left the Yard, they would have the man’s true name, either by her own admission in the Fishbowl or Alan Fargo’s deduction in 1830.
She offered her milk and sugar, then squeezed back in beside her with her own mug of coffee, deliberately pushing in so close that Masters had to shift in her chair. The scarf slipped, revealing a glimpse of her neck. While people went about their business on the other side of the glass, she behaved as if she and Melanie were strangers brought together in the same empty waiting room. It was an odd atmosphere, but Melanie let the silence hang in the air while they waited for Kerr to return. She studied Masters carefully, but the scarf was in place again. They sipped coffee until Melanie could resist no longer. ‘Pamela, you told us you never saw Harold again. But that’s a lie, isn’t it?’
‘He dropped me years ago.’
Her bag was lying between them, so Melanie retrieved the envelope. She studied both sides, which were blank. ‘You said these were sent to you. But there’s no name and address, no postmark. Nothing.’
‘I put them in a different envelope.’
‘What did you do with the original? So we can do the forensics? And this isn’t a new envelope. You have to level with me, Pamela. I think Harold delivered these in person. Or someone working with him.’
‘That’s rubbish.’
‘Is that why you’re so afraid?’ Melanie gently lowered the woman’s scarf to reveal red blotches and weals around her throat. ‘Did he still want to play games with you?’
Masters tried to outstare Melanie, then broke down and wept again. ‘He came to my flat on Saturday night, after your second visit with that young man. And, no, he doesn’t want to have sex with me any more, if that’s what you’re thinking. Just to hurt me.’
She stopped speaking as Kerr reappeared and slipped into his chair. Melanie readjusted the scarf to demonstrate that had been between the two of them. ‘Go on.’
‘He brought the photographs and warned me against speaking out of turn. He threatened me and I told him to fuck off, I really did. So today they tried to kill me.’
Kerr was looking quizzical. ‘Later,’ mouthed Melanie. ‘You mentioned you still have friends in MI5, Pamela,’ she said. ‘And now that we’ve come this far, I want you to tell me who you called from the classroom immediately after I left you last Wednesday.’
This time there was no hesitation. ‘Jeremy Thompson.’
‘And where does he fit into this?’ asked Kerr, mildly.
Masters looked at him and gave a short laugh. ‘I think you know the answer perfectly well. Do you really think I’m stupid? I know it was Jeremy who put you onto me because he admitted it.’
‘That’s not what I asked you.’
She stayed silent for a moment. ‘Jeremy and I became friendly in the office because we were the only ones to have studied Latin at school. Ridiculous, isn’t it, the things that bring you together? It was a bit of a standing joke between us, really, and to the others. But there you are.’
‘And he was a party animal, too?’
‘Let’s say he knows about what I’ve been telling you,’ Masters said carefully. ‘We both felt disgusted. I left the office but he stayed on. Married with kids, too much to lose. He believes the terrible bombing in Walthamstow is somehow connected to all this.’
‘What makes him think that?’
‘I only know it’s something connected to that man Jibril they just released. There’s a special file under double cover, apparently. It never leaves Philippa’s office. He must have got hold of it. And now the knowledge is destroying him.’
‘Jerry told me about the file,’ said Kerr. ‘So why did he deny everything when I saw him? Why the hell couldn’t he tell me this himself?’
‘He says you’ve been putting him under the most terrible pressure. Threatening him. He wanted it to come from me because he thinks you won’t protect him.’
‘Bollocks. The coward’s cop-out.’
‘No. You mustn’t blame Jeremy for this. He has discovered far more dreadful things than I ever realised. He believed you would uncover this for yourselves once you’d met me. You wouldn’t be able to damage me. No one would. But I was wrong, wasn’t I? Others can and will.’
‘I think Jerry’s been spinning both of us a different line.’
‘I’ve talked to him a lot over the past week, believe me. Persuaded him to do the right thing. Jeremy will deal with this . . . in his own way. He
has to protect himself, don’t you see? The poor man truly thinks he’s going mad. How could a few years of partying end in all those innocent people blown to bits? That’s what he thinks. You have to promise not to harass him any more.’
Kerr threw Melanie a glance. ‘Show her,’ he said.
Melanie scrolled through Kerr’s emails until she found the photograph of Robert Attwell sent to Kerr the previous Wednesday evening, only hours after Melanie’s first brief meeting with Masters.
They waited while she studied the date and time. ‘Yes, Jeremy must have sent you this. I spoke to him after you left, as I said. Then I called him again later the same day. He told me the guilt was driving him crazy, but I calmed him down, told him he could put things right. He called me again in the evening, when he’d had time to think things through. Promised me he was going to send your boss something. Look at the heading. “Veritas vos liberavit.”’
‘‘‘The truth shall set you free,”’ said Kerr.
But Masters was looking directly at Melanie, as if Kerr wasn’t in the room. ‘He called it his suicide note. He told me that as soon as he revealed this MI5 would find out and destroy him.’
‘It’s not true. We can protect him.’
‘It’s what he believes.’
As soon as Melanie closed the photograph another email pinged into Kerr’s inbox. The sender was simply ‘A Friend’ and the subject ‘Ultima voluntas’. Hold on a minute, Pamela.’ She beckoned to Kerr and shifted her chair sideways.
Kerr came round Melanie’s end of the desk and leant between them. ‘Open it.’
All three of them stared speechless at the screen. The attachment was a good-quality colour video with sound showing a teenage girl being raped on a couch. She had her face turned to the camera, and Melanie recognised her instantly. ‘Tania,’ was all she could murmur.
The child’s attacker was naked except for his face, head and shoulders, which were concealed by a black hood; he also wore black cotton gloves. From inside the hood came a muffled crescendo of groaning and snorting.
‘Meet Harold,’ said Pamela, flatly.
‘What?’
‘He always grunts like that when he’s in sex-attack mode,’ she said. ‘It means he’s going to kill her and he won’t let himself come till the victim’s dead. There. I told you he was a beast, didn’t I?’
