by Alan Judd
She was punctual, carrying a raincoat and wearing sensible grey trousers and a dark roll-necked jersey. She held out her hand, smiling. ‘Hallo, Charles.’
‘Hallo, Sarah.’
His file note recorded that they talked in the bar for an hour and a quarter. She started with orange juice, then acquiesced to white wine. They discussed mutual acquaintances and her and her husband’s careers. His note explained that they had known each other as undergraduates.
Martin Worth, the note explained, was a student on the law degree course she taught. Only half Irish, he had been brought up in Newcastle, where his English father had been a barrister. Following his father’s early death from cancer, his Irish mother had moved the family – Sarah thought there were a couple of sisters – back to Dublin. Martin was active in student politics, but Sarah had known nothing of his republican connections until she’d run into him one day as he was leaving the Provisional Sinn Fein office.
‘I said something stupid,’ she said. ‘You know, it was one of those moments when you can’t think what to say but feel you have to say something. I said, “What are you doing here? I didn’t know you were mixed up with that lot.” It must have riled him, because he immediately attacked me for being a British diplomat’s wife and supporting the army of occupation in the North. I’d never heard him speak like that, he’d always been very polite and pleasant, and his Irish accent was more pronounced than usual. Normally he has just a bit of one, though I’ve since noticed it fluctuates according to whom he’s with. Also, I was surprised he knew what Nigel did. As you can imagine, I don’t broadcast that here.’
‘Have you asked how he found out?’
‘No, I haven’t. I should, I suppose. Anyway, after that I didn’t see him for a couple of weeks. I teach part time here, you see, popping across for a few days a month for three seminars, so anyone who misses a class I don’t see for a while. When he did reappear, he seemed back to his normal self and I thought, well, that’s fine, neither of us will say anything about it. But he hung around afterwards and I thought, oh dear, trouble. Instead, he said he wanted to apologise for the way he’d spoken to me and asked if I’d have coffee with him. I said okay, assuming we’d go to the students’ union or somewhere, but he suggested we met half an hour later in a little tea shop just off O’Connell Street.
‘It was all very amicable – he’s a nice boy – but he seemed nervous. Eventually, he said, “Look, about that afternoon, what I said to you, I had to speak like that, you see, because we were right outside the PSF office where I’d just been. I work for them a bit, I’m involved in the Republican cause. Which doesn’t mean I approve of everything they do. I mean, I believe in a united Ireland and think the British should get out and that someone should have murdered that Thatcher woman for what she did to the hunger strikers. But that doesn’t mean I agree with everything that’s going on, all the bombs and that. I’m half English myself; I can’t really hate the British like many do here.” At least, that was the gist of it.’
Charles nodded. He was concentrating rather than taking notes. The hatred she had referred to was still palpable to him, from his time in Belfast in the seventies.
She took up her wine. ‘Then he told me some rambling story about a friend from school in England – sorry, Scotland, a boarding school, can’t remember which – whom he’d run into at an army checkpoint in Belfast before the ceasefire. His friend was a bit older than him and had become a British Army officer; he was standing there watching his soldiers search the cars. Martin said they didn’t recognise each other until he and his republican friends – all good Provos, he said – were made to get out and be searched. They recognised each other then, but neither said anything. They couldn’t, not in front of Martin’s Provo friends. It would have been the death of him, he said, to be pally with a British Army officer – a Para, I think he was, which was even worse. Fortunately, his friend must have realised that just as he did, and it was all right.
‘But he thought about it a lot afterwards, he said. You know – what kind of world are we in where we have to do that, where’s it leading us, and so on. Then he read in the papers that his army friend had both legs blown off by a bomb. His republican friends were making jokes about Paras getting legless and all that, but Martin just had to keep quiet. Then he read that his army friend had died. He wanted to go to the funeral – he’d stayed with the family once or twice in school holidays – but felt it would be dangerous for him, and maybe for his mother, if word got back. Eventually, he wrote to them, without giving his address.
‘Finally, he said to me, “All that made me realise it’s no good going on as we were, it’s not how you get anywhere you want to be. And now the ceasefire’s ended I’ve decided it’s time I did something to help, to increase understanding, to bridge the divide. We can’t always be killing, it gets no-one anywhere. Could you please tell your husband that.”’
‘He actually asked you to tell Nigel? It wasn’t that you offered?’
‘No, he asked. I’m sure of that. I was surprised. I didn’t see how Nigel could help anyone really, but I promised I’d pass it on. When I did, Nigel didn’t seem to think much of it at the time, but one day he said he’d mentioned it to your people – the Friends, he called them – and that someone would get in touch with me.’
That much Charles had summarised in his file note. It was there for the police to read if they wanted. He had not, however, recorded that she added, ‘He never said it would be you, Charles.’
‘He didn’t know, he really didn’t. I didn’t know myself till this afternoon.’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘Are you seriously saying you didn’t fix this? That it’s just a mighty coincidence? I mean, I know spies have to be professional liars, but this one’s just a wee bit implausible, don’t you think?’
‘Spies are the midwives of truth.’ He smiled. ‘This is coincidence, I promise you.’
She pursed her lips.
‘More wine,’ he said, standing and picking up their glasses.
‘I haven’t finished this one. I ought to be getting back. I’ve got work to do.’
‘Such a mighty coincidence shouldn’t be just a one-glass occasion.’
‘All right, but just a spritzer.’
‘I’ll tell you another coincidence,’ she said when he returned. ‘The evening I was about to tell Nigel what Martin had said, he started talking about changing his job. He finds the Foreign Office frustrating, can’t get anything done, no real power, narrow horizons, narrow pyramid. He said he was thinking of applying to the UN, or maybe going into politics. He still is, as a matter of fact. Anyway, quite suddenly he said, almost in the very words Martin had used, “I want to help create greater understanding, to do something for the world, build bridges between peoples.” Just the same sort of thing. It made me laugh. I said he wasn’t the only one, which didn’t please him very much. Thought I wasn’t taking him seriously.’
‘I thought he was doing well in the Foreign Office. He’s well suited, isn’t he? Good at it.’
‘He is, he’s doing very well. But he thinks it’s insufficiently internationalist.’ She shrugged. ‘That’s how he sees it, anyway.’
‘Its detractors are always saying the opposite.’
‘Nigel’s a citizen of the world now. He’s broadened his horizons. Unthinking loyalty to a narrow interpretation of the national interest doesn’t do any good for this country, nor for anyone else. He says.’ She picked up her glass. ‘Anyway, Charles, how are you? How is life? Do you like what you do? Why aren’t you married?’
‘How d’you know I’m not?’
‘You can tell with some men. Everything about you is obvious. You must be a useless spy.’
He talked about his job for a while, without saying much. When she asked why he had joined the army after Oxford he said, ‘Various reasons. No doubt something to do with my father having been in the war. Also, I wanted a new start, I guess.’
Their eyes met for a
moment.
It was not until she had got up to go and he was helping her on with her coat that he asked what he had wanted to ask all evening. ‘Have you ever heard anything from or of James – Baby Bourne? He’d be old enough to get in touch now, if he wants.’
She picked up her handbag. ‘No. Nor do I expect to. Where are you staying?’
Afterwards, he pondered the crow’s feet around her eyes and the faint vertical lines either side of her mouth. They had been etched into her since that dinner in Clapham. Her hands were changed, too. The girl’s hands he had known, soft, expressive, darting like swift birds, had become a woman’s, still quick and deft but more used and worn now, more noticeably veined. He thought of such changes with a tenderness that surprised him.
7
Corduroy was not interested in the origins of the case. ‘So the early volumes cover the years when Gladiator was working against the Provisional IRA. And the latest volume, or electronic record, covers the most recent period, including his trips to Pakistan.’
‘Yes. All recent case records are electronic, but older cases with paper origins are supposed to be maintained in that state with print-outs.’
‘Is this one?’
‘No. At least, it wasn’t. I doubt many of them are. If the case officer doesn’t bother, there’s no longer anyone to remind him, or her. But I’ve now printed out all the emails I could find and put them on it.’
‘Are you normally such a stickler for procedure?’
‘No, rather the opposite. But it’s quicker and easier to read a paper file, and I find I remember it better.’
Corduroy leaned forward, his elbows on the desk. ‘Would you say, then, that otherwise you’re a bit cavalier with procedures?’
Charles smiled. ‘Well, perhaps with administrative procedures I don’t see the point of. I imagine there might be comments to that effect on my own file.’
‘And with security procedures?’
‘I hope not. But, again, my file is probably a better record than my memory.’ He knew he had no major security breaches, though he also knew that, like almost anyone with an operational career, he had cut corners.
‘Does the file say why Gladiator went back to Pakistan this last time, the trip from which he never returned?’
‘No. It refers briefly to the debate as to whether he should go and the conclusion that he should not. It also records the excuse he gave for not going. But it says nothing about his change of mind, only that he had gone. It gives his flight number and shows that they checked he boarded it.’ He didn’t see where this tack would lead them. Whatever had happened to Gladiator had nothing to do with his own alleged leaks to the press, unless, like him, they suspected a hidden connection. But that was unlikely. They were probably just fishing because there was nothing left to ask about the leaks.
‘Why do you think he went back?’ continued Corduroy. ‘What is your opinion?’
‘I don’t know why. As I said, there’s nothing on file about it.’
That was true, so far as it went. The emails between London and the SIA station in Pakistan described a series of telephone messages through various cut-outs, including the man who wasn’t quite al-Jazeera, all purportedly concerned with Gladiator’s legal practice, just as Matthew had told Charles in his flat. They simply recorded that Gladiator, against all advice, appeared to have suddenly changed his mind and gone.
Charles had talked to the two case officers, Adrian and Katharine. Both in their twenties, both from Yorkshire, they made an attractive pair. She was open-faced and lively, with an infectious laugh; he was tall and sallow with black hair, hazel eyes, a sensitive face, two or three days of stubble and a quiet ironic manner. Charles at first assumed they were a couple, then that they weren’t, then that they might be after all, then had given up trying. They had both been to Cambridge.
‘City of spies,’ said Katharine, ‘but we never met there. He joined first so he’s my mentor and I’m his mentee, though it doesn’t feel like that.’ She laughed. ‘I bet they didn’t have a mentoring system in MI6, did they? Probably much nastier to each other.’
Questions bubbled out of her. They knew he had worked with Matthew Abrahams and wanted to know about him. Already the old MI6 and MI5 were becoming mythologised; he realised they must see him as part of history. They were talking over coffee in the basement staff restaurant. Adrian had an unopened packet of Mayfair cigarettes on the table before him, which he spun slowly with the tips of his fingers.
He saw Charles looking at them. ‘Sorry, I’ll put them away. Just something to play with till I get outside. Distraction therapy.’
‘Don’t. Dare to be different.’
‘Gladiator was such an awful chain-smoker, wasn’t he?’ said Katharine. ‘Is, I mean. I used to come away from meetings in the safe flat in a complete fug and my hair and clothes would smell for days. It just made Adrian worse, of course, the pair of them puffing away like steam-trains. I suppose that’s what it was like all the time in your day?’
Charles had forgotten that Gladiator smoked. He remembered overflowing ashtrays in Dublin bars and Gladiator lighting up in hire cars. Charles smoked during those meetings, too, to keep him company. ‘Conversion to Islam didn’t stop him, then?’
‘More the opposite,’ said Adrian.
‘Stress?’
‘Or he just likes smoking.’
‘You’re the one he mentions most out of all his old case officers,’ said Katharine. ‘He was disappointed that we didn’t know you, and he occasionally asked if we heard anything of you. We pretended we did, gave him your best wishes, that sort of thing. Such a pity former case officers aren’t allowed to keep in touch. Though I see it could cause problems.’
They had no idea why Gladiator had changed his mind about going. They hadn’t been his case officers for long and were a little in awe of him. When Charles asked why Gladiator continued to spy following his conversion, they couldn’t say. They hadn’t known him before he had converted, and he brushed away any attempt to discuss his beliefs.
‘I’m not sure how sincere he is,’ said Adrian. ‘He once said something like, “I could believe in Islam but not in Islamism”.’
Charles recalled the young law student he had met in Dublin fifteen years before, whose initial bravado and moderate dissipation only partially hid his seriousness. ‘I believe in a united Ireland,’ he said once, ‘but not in violent republicanism.’
‘I think he enjoys spying,’ said Katharine.
Charles nodded. ‘People do. Hard to give up, once you’ve got the habit.’
Adrian spun his cigarette packet round one more time, then put it in his pocket. ‘Maybe you should ask CEO Dep – Nigel Measures – if he has any idea about why Gladiator went back. I think he went to see him.’
Katharine put her hand to her head. ‘Of course, yes. I was completely forgetting. We got this call from CEO Dep last thing on the Friday before Gladiator went. He wanted his number and address from the file, which we held then. He said he used to know him but hadn’t seen him for ages and thought it might be a good time to get in touch. Did he know him? There’s nothing on file about it.’
‘He met him socially, years ago.’ Charles tried not to show too much interest. ‘Did he go to see him?’
They looked at each other. ‘Presumably not,’ said Adrian. ‘At least, if he did, there’s nothing on file about it. Maybe he didn’t ring until it was too late.’
Charles nodded again. ‘Maybe.’
The interview continued until the police really had run out of questions. Charles solemnly agreed that they might never know why Gladiator went back, unless he returned to tell them. Corduroy declared the interview over and switched off the machine.
Sarah said: ‘I take it Mr Thoroughgood is to be bailed?’
‘Police bail. Soon as we fill in the forms.’
She stood and handed Charles her card. ‘I’ll go back to my office. Ring me when you’re home.’
Freckles showe
d her out and a uniformed policeman escorted Charles to his cell. Again, he failed to get beyond the first page of Jane Eyre, distracted this time by worry about what people would think of him, particularly Katharine and Adrian. They were so young, so enthusiastic, and he felt that, merely by being arrested, he had somehow let them down. They would surely think it possible he was guilty, even if they wanted to believe him innocent. And they had no reason to believe him innocent.
Jeremy Wheeler, of course, would assume he was guilty, with relish. Charles imagined him shaking his head and lowering his voice over lunch, saying that between you and me, within these four walls, on a strictly need-to-know basis, not for onward transmission, it had come as no surprise to anyone who knew Charles well. There’d always been question marks and, frankly, he wouldn’t be surprised if there were more to come. Not outright treachery, of course – Charles probably wasn’t up to that – just a series of grubby, small-change indiscretions. It wasn’t even certain that money had changed hands – at least there was no evidence as yet – but it was yet another example of an Old Office old stager who couldn’t accept modernisation, didn’t know how to cope with the modern world. All very sad.
It was dark by the time the release and bail formalities were complete. They returned his possessions, minus mobile, diary, SIA pass and address book, and offered to drive him back to his flat, since it was coming on to rain. Conversation during the short journey was freer than in the morning.
‘It’ll be a while before you get your computers and phone,’ said Corduroy. ‘There’s a backlog in the section that goes through them. All these terrorist cases. That’s why your bail date is set for six months.’
Charles nodded. His own case didn’t concern him any more. They were beyond that. He needed to do a little fishing of his own. ‘Trouble is, it doesn’t take you any farther forward on the James Wytham leaks.’
‘No, that’s the big thing, of course. Your case was referred to us as part of that, you see, which was why we had to investigate.’
