“Where’s the security guard?” Anna asked.
“No idea, Miss.”
He stood to one side, and waved her past him.
“This way,” he said pushing her gently towards the cells.
Anna stopped walking.
“Who is this man the clerk wants me to talk to?”
“As I said, Miss, I have no idea,” the man repeated.
He urged her on.
“This is very strange. And anyway, I need to get back to my case.”
“Your case has been delayed, Miss. I’ve already told you that.”
The man pointed with a bony finger into the gloom of the cells.
“He’s just down there, Miss,” he said.
Anna peered into the darkness.
“I can’t see anyone.”
“Just down there. The last cell, Miss,” the man insisted.
Anna took a single step further, then stopped again.
“No,” she said forcefully, “I need to get back upstairs.”
The man blocked her path.
“It will only take a minute. Go on,” he indicated the direction again, “just down there.”
Anna abruptly pushed past the man.
“No, it will have to wait.” She headed back to the stairs. “If the clerk wants a favour he can ask me himself.”
At the foot of the stairs she looked back. In the shadows she could see the man had not moved, and was eerily still. She climbed the stairway quickly and stepped back into bright light, then walked at a near run down the hallway towards her client.
“Do we have the Opinion for the ‘Gay’ thing?” said the voice on the phone.
“Yes,” said Thompson, “I picked it up the other day.”
“Is it all okay?” the BBC series producer continued, “I don’t want any problems, Thompson. The Director General is not in a good mood at the moment, what with the other lot getting this US Presidential coverage, and all.”
Thompson mis-swallowed his own saliva and choked.
“Are you okay?” the series producer asked.
Thompson fought with a glottal spasm and spluttered into the phone.
“What do you mean, ‘the other lot got it’?” Thompson asked.
“Well,” said the voice on the phone, “I think we were outmanoeuvred rather than out-bid. Those independent TV buggers are getting too good at this. The DG had set his heart on producing a really good coverage, and if you ask me, I think he thought he might get to meet President Harrington in person.”
“So, we’re not doing any coverage of the visit?”
“No, as I said the other buggers have it exclusively. I mean we’ll do some news coverage, but the idea of a special is no longer on the table. Anyway, you’ll get this ‘Gay’ thing Opinion over to me, right?”
“What about the visit to British Metals?” Thompson asked, trying to mask the level of concern in his voice.
“None of it, we got none of it. All going to those amateur wallahs on the other side.”
The producer rang off and Thompson replaced the phone.
He sank deep into a dark sea of thought, and was about to pick up the phone and beckon his PA, when his office door opened. His PA popped his head into view.
“I’ve just taken a call from Anna Jakes?” he said.
Thompson jerked his head towards the young man.
“What?… I mean… and…?” he asked.
“She said something about an urgent meeting.”
“What urgent meeting? I don’t know about any urgent meeting?”
“Sorry, Sir, she seemed in a bit of a hurry. She said, can you meet her at her office immediately,” the PA continued.
“Well, I can’t get away at the moment. I’ll call her,” Thompson suggested.
“Erm… She said she needed to talk to you in person? She said it was very important?” the young man insisted, but smoothed the demand with an upwards inflection at the end of each sentence.
“Okay… okay,” Thompson said getting to his feet. “What’s the time?”
“Two, Sir,” said the PA.
“All right, I’ll go over there,” Thompson said picking up a large, brown envelope from his desk. “Take this up to the top floor, will you? Anthony Martin is screaming for it.”
Joseph had bought coffees for Tilda, Cyril and himself. He tapped the car door with his foot. Tilda opened the rear door and relieved him of the beverages. Joseph slipped onto the back seat next to Tilda. Cyril, sitting in the driver’s seat, twisted his head to look at Joseph.
“Well,” said Tilda, studying the polystyrene cups, “did you manage to speak to her?”
She handed coffees to the other two.
“Yes,” Joseph sighed tensely.
“What?” Tilda said.
“They’ve deleted two more!”
“Two more Bedfellows, Sir?” asked Cyril.
Joseph nodded.
“How are they getting to them so quickly?” said Cyril. “No one else has the information we have.”
“I don’t know,” replied Joseph.
He looked hard at Cyril.
“What?” asked Cyril.
“It’s not you, is it, Cyril? You’re not playing both sides?”
“Do I have to dignify that with an answer, Sir, really?… Which two?”
“She would only give me code names… The Voice and Ezra.”
“Well,” Cyril reasoned, “most code names are not chosen arbitrarily. They usually have some connection to the thing they code for.”
“But that could be anything,” said Joseph.
“Yes, Sir, but we know a lot about the three it could be. It’s either Greg Thompson at the BBC, Simon Morrison at the Treasury or John Edwards the Government foreign policy advisor… Ezra?… Ezra?” A smile suddenly flashed across his mouth. “Ezra Pound, Sir… the poet.”
“Sorry, I don’t see it,” said Joseph shaking his head.
“Ezra Pound,” Cyril said pointedly, “Pound, Sir…”
“Pound, yes of course. It’s Simon Morrison at the Treasury,” Tilda cut in.
“Jesus!” Cyril exclaimed, “we only just saw him this morning.”
“… And I told him to be careful,” lamented Joseph. “So who’s the other one?”
Joseph sat back in the car seat and removed the lid from his coffee cup.
“Huh, very clever,” Cyril said from the depths of thought.
“What!?” Tilda demanded.
“The Voice – it’s the one they listen to. Who out of the five, uses their voice?” Cyril asked excitedly.
“The barrister… Anna?” suggested Tilda.
“Yes,” interjected Joseph, “but she’s still alive.”
“The government advisor! John Edwards is the Voice,” said Cyril.
“So,” Tilda concluded, “it’s just Thompson and Anna left alive. Without them the whole game’s over.”
“Unless I remember spontaneously,” said Joseph.
“Any luck on that front, Sir?” asked Cyril.
Joseph shook his head.
“Come on,” Joseph said with a wave of his hand, “let’s get going. I’m meeting Anna at six. She’s stuck in court until then.”
Thompson paid the cab driver and walked through the gateway into Lincoln’s Inn Fields. As usual he moved around the large grass covered quad, looking at each doorway, reading the wooden plaques, trying to find the right one.
‘What had happened?’ he thought, ‘that Anna needed him to go to her office straight away in person? And would that be more important than his news, that the BBC had lost out to an independent TV production company to cover the US President’s visit. How would the plan work now, if he no longer had privileged access by dint of his BBC ID badge?’
Two doorways ahead he saw something move. It was a couple of men behaving oddly. One had popped his head around the stone entrance, then ducked back in. Then they both craned their heads into view and seemed to stare at him, and then they both ducked back in a
gain. Within a few paces, and after checking door plaques as he passed them, he approached the entrance that he assumed still hid the two jack-in-a-boxes. He walked the final few steps to the doorway and stopped. The two men simply looked at him and said nothing. Their faces had strained expressions on them, as if they were trying to do something awkward; maybe thought Thompson, unsavoury.
One of the two suddenly stepped forward. Thompson looked expectantly at him. The man smiled a disingenuous smile, then reached under his jacket. A sudden surge of fear shot through him. He wasn’t sure why he should feel so frightened as the men looked pretty innocuous, but considering recent events, their behaviour unsettled him.
The man slowly withdrew his hand from under his jacket. He held a piece of paper, and showed it to Thompson.
“Err… you… err… help,” the man stammered in broken English with a thick accent.
Thompson looked at the piece of paper. It had a name written on it followed by the words, ‘Blythewood Chambers, Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Luckily, Thompson had just read that name only seconds before. He pointed to the previous entrance.
“There,” he said loudly and slowly, “there… the person you want is… in there.”
The two men emerged from the safety of the doorway, thanked Thompson and meandered to the next entrance. Thompson smiled to himself and shook his head as he moved on looking for Anna’s chambers.
He pressed the buzzer.
“Yes?” came the usual judgmental voice.
“Greg Thompson for Anna Jakes,” he said.
“Is she expecting you, Sir?”
‘Must we really go through the same ritual every time?’ Thompson thought.
“Yes, she is,” Thompson replied wearily.
The door buzzed.
“Third floor,” the voice said.
Thompson pushed the door open and started up the dark, narrow, stone stairway. He heard footsteps coming from above. They came clattering down until a short man came into sight, just above him. Something glinted in the man’s right hand, then Thompson felt a tingling sensation at the front of his neck. He instinctively put his hand to his throat as the short stranger pushed past him. Thompson’s hand sensed a thick wetness on his neck. He pulled his hand away, and looked at it. It was covered in blood. He slammed his hand back to his throat and tried to call out, but no sound came. Sudden weakness pulled him to an awkward sitting position. Then his vision started to fade.
The three had grabbed a hamburger to make use of the time until Joseph’s meeting with Anna, then parked near to the café that was their usual rendez-vous. Joseph crossed the road and went inside. Tilda and Cyril watched. It was five forty-five.
“Sorry,” said Tilda, “that coffee’s gone straight to my bladder.”
She started to open the car door.
“Well, be quick, Ma’am, they meet in fifteen minutes,” Cyril reminded her.
From within the café, Joseph threw an occasional glance towards the car, and Cyril nodded to indicate he was in place and paying attention.
At five to six the front passenger door opened and Tilda got back in. She breathed heavily.
“Found a loo?” asked Cyril.
“What?” replied Tilda absently, “Oh, yes, all taken care of.”
By six o’clock the pavements were quite busy with commuters. Cyril nudged Tilda as he spotted an early middle-aged woman, in a black trouser suit, walking towards the café.
“That’s her,” he said.
“How do you know?” asked Tilda.
“She’s not wearing jeans,” he answered.
Cyril caught Joseph’s eye and gave him a deep nod. Joseph gently bobbed his head in response.
“What’s this?” said Cyril sitting up in his seat.
A woman in jeans and a green T-shirt had approached Anna and stopped her. Cyril squirmed. He looked to Joseph and pointed towards the scene he was observing. Joseph got up and went to the door of the café. He looked out into the street. Another person had come up behind Anna, and the three were now engrossed in conversation. Joseph and Cyril exchanged looks a moment before Joseph left the café and started a fast walk towards Anna. As he got near, Cyril joined him. They could hear raised voices and the two strangers had become very animated. Joseph broke into a run with Cyril close behind him. The first stranger threw a punch aimed at Anna’s body. She recoiled and bent double.
“Oy!” Joseph shouted.
The two strangers spun around.
“Oy! What are you doing? Leave her alone,” Joseph called, accelerating to a full run.
The two strangers left Anna looking shocked, and took off in the opposite direction. Joseph grabbed Anna.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I… I don’t know what the hell that was about,” she gasped.
“What did they say?” Joseph demanded.
Cyril joined them after making a cursory check on the whereabouts of the two strangers, but not finding them. He supported Anna in unison with Joseph.
“I… didn’t understand what they wanted. They…”
She clutched at her abdomen and winced in pain.
“Come on,” said Joseph, “come into the café and sit down. You’ll be okay in a minute.”
They guided her towards the kerb pushing through a small crowd that had been attracted by the commotion, but as she lifted her leg to step onto the pavement she screamed out in pain and collapsed to the ground. Cyril knelt down in front of her, and took a closer look at the site of the problem. He stumbled backwards, only just staying upright.
“Oh my god! She’s bleeding,” he yelled.
Joseph inspected the injury, then turned to Cyril and spoke calmly.
“She’s been stabbed,” he said, “we need to get her to a hospital.”
They moved her across to the car. One man on each side; virtually carrying her. Her feet dragged along the tarmac, and by the time they got her into the car, both of her shoes had come off and lay abandoned in the centre of the road.
Tilda got out of the car and helped to put Anna into the back seat. She slipped in next to her. Joseph took the driver’s side and Cyril the front passenger seat. Joseph selected first gear and the car roared away.
“Anna, do you know who those people were?” Joseph called over his shoulder. He glanced at her in the rear view mirror. “Anna, stay with us!”
“It’s too late,” Tilda reported solemnly from the back of the car, “she’s gone.”
Joseph pulled the car to the kerb and slammed on the brakes.
“Fuck! Fuck!” he yelled and repeatedly banged his hands against the steering wheel. “I’m supposed to protect these people.”
“You’re doing your best, Sir, in very difficult circumstances,” offered Cyril.
“Well sometimes we need to do better than our best,” said Joseph.
“To be fair, Sir, I don’t think that’s possible.”
“Cyril, do me a favour,” Joseph said angrily, “and just shut up… So, that’s it then…?”
“Well, if I may…” Cyril said timidly.
“What, Cyril, what?” Joseph said tightly.
“There’s still Greg Thompson… the BBC guy.”
“If he’s not dead already,” offered Tilda from the back seat.
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Chapter 20
It had taken some time to find a place secluded enough to leave a dead body without drawing suspicion. Cyril’s Ford Fiesta drove away leaving the lifeless barrister sitting at a bus stop, propped up against the glass side of the shelter. The slow dripping of blood would take some time to collect into a big enough pool to attract attention, but by then the small car and its passengers would be long gone.
The growing number of good people that were dying, was causing a feeling of sickness in Joseph’s stomach. It was a sensation he had not known before. He had spent years killing people and feeling nothing but an overwhelming sense of duty. But that was the point, he had always kn
own what his duty was, and although it was a dubious honour, it had always been a conscious choice. Now people were being killed all around him for what he had to believe was the greater good, but without any knowledge of what that good was. He was believing in the righteousness of a man he did not know. He was being guided by the moral compass of an unknown warrior. Joseph neither knew what he had committed to do or why he had committed to do it. Yet he was committed. So many people had already died, and he could not stop now. He had to see it through. But how was he going to do that when, in truth, he was able to see very little at all.
The three booked into a small hotel on the outskirts of London. Although it was only nine o’clock in the evening, they were exhausted and retired to their rooms. Tilda had showered first and as soon as she was out of the cubicle and applying a plump white towel to her wet body, Joseph had jumped in. He heard Tilda leave the bathroom while a torrent of hot water rained down over his naked body; a body that was a study in the art of escaping death. There was not a limb that was not at least lightly scarred with bullet holes or knife wounds. Likewise, the front and back of his torso was equally marred by thick and thin ribbons of scar tissue. It was good to get physically clean, but the confusing sickness he felt would not wash away.
As he dried himself, he could hear Tilda pottering around and getting ready for bed. His mind wandered to thoughts of his wife. She had been dead. He had watched her body go into the ground. He had thrown the first handful of earth onto her coffin; and his heart had broken. It was the only recollection he had access to of feeling totally adrift.
Before Tilda he had never seen much point in connecting with people. There are so many of them. So how do you even begin to work out who you can trust and who you cannot? Cocaine had been a much easier choice. You know what it will do, and more importantly, it makes no demands on you. It never has moods, it never asks for anything in return and it always performs. It is the perfect, reliable and ever-ready friend.
But of course it does make a demand… eventually. It demands that you consume it in ever increasing amounts if you want it to deliver its part of the friendship; if you want it to continue loving you. It demands your money, your health, and finally every ounce of your self-esteem. You cannot be you without it. You become a shell, a puppet that is imbued with personality only with its help. You are no longer a worthwhile person without it. You are a non-person without it.
If The Bed Falls In Page 16
