by Henry Porter
‘We need ammunition, Mary. I can do nothing without it.’
She began shaking her head. ‘Sorry, I’ve really got to go.’ Then she turned and hurried from the crypt, but he noticed that she had taken the form and the card with her.
Kilmartin looked at his watch. There were three hours before the discussion programme for the Persian service at the BBC World Service headquarters in the Aldwych. He rose and thanked Hopkins, handing him a cheque for £500, which he had written out beforehand. It wasn’t the first, by any means. The income from his share of the family brewing business had become embarrassingly large and he saw no reason why the alcoholics who relied on Hopkins for shelter and support shouldn’t benefit from the sales of Kilmartin’s Ales, which under his brother’s management had bought whisky distilleries and several other drinks businesses. Besides, Hopkins was one of the few genuinely good people that he knew.
He left the crypt knowing he could have handled Mary MacCullum better. But when so little was known about what happened at those secret meetings of the Security and Intelligence Committee, there was no other way. He had to break through somewhere even if it did mean scaring her a little and perhaps worse, showing his hand.
He came to a junction in Soho, and crossed to a newsagent where he bought one of the disgusting small cigars he occasionally succumbed to. He had two more stops before he was due at the BBC World Service in Bush House. He set off briskly down Charing Cross Road and headed across Trafalgar Square to Whitehall. A hundred yards before Downing Street he entered the familiar door marked Cabinet Offices and swiped his pass at the security door. The man at the desk recognised him and dialled the secretary to the head of the Joint Intelligence Committee without Kilmartin asking. Ten minutes later Andrew Fortune appeared in shirtsleeves, a figure of neat anaemic brilliance with almost white blonde hair and a ready smile. He took Kilmartin by the elbow and led him to a large office, where two young civil servants were clearing up after a meeting.
‘Terrific review in the TLS, Peter. I was very pleased to see it.’
‘I can’t believe you’ve got time to read book reviews, Andrew.’
‘My wife spotted it. Your publishers must be terribly pleased.’ This was followed by a quizzical smile. ‘You’re not due in here are you? No crisis in the tribal areas that I don’t know about? No Uzbek turmoil that has escaped the notice of the Joint Intelligence Committee?’ Fortune was a career bureaucrat who went home to Hertfordshire most evenings and had never enjoyed serving abroad with SIS. He’d got himself into a couple of homosexual scrapes, one with a young Turkish art dealer who’d attempted to blackmail the happily married father of two with a photograph of him snorting cocaine. Kilmartin had helped him – saved his career probably – yet there was something about Fortune that he had never liked. He looked down at the beautifully ordered desk. ‘I thought I’d pop in to ask you about one of your former charges on the South East Asia desk.’
‘Is it important?’
‘Not especially. I would value your advice though.’
‘It’s good to see you. Now who is it?’
‘Her name is Kate Lockhart, formerly Koh. Used to do for us in Indonesia.’
‘Yes, I remember her well. Her husband died and she moved on. To be honest, I never took to her much. A rather self-contained woman, though she turned on the charm for the job. Professionally, she was very good, when you managed to point her in the right direction. Trouble was she was schooled by McBride and she had learned a lot of bad habits from him. What’s this for – a job?’
‘No.’
‘Then are you going to tell me what it is for?’
‘Certainly. Is she reliable – solid?’
Fortune thought. ‘God, I can’t remember much about her. Resistant is the word that comes to mind.’
‘I see. She was a friend of David Eyam’s.’
Fortune’s expression changed: Eyam’s name was still radioactive. ‘Really. Yes, well, that was all a very sad business. I mean his death, of course.’
‘Just looking into the other matter – keeping an eye on it, you know. But I would like you to keep that ultra-quiet. Not a word, Andrew.’
Fortune’s eyes narrowed while the smile remained. ‘What are you up to, Peter?’
‘As I said, looking into it.’ He stopped. ‘For the prime minister, Andrew.’
‘But surely that’s all over with – long gone?’
‘Er . . . yes. But there are concerns. As you know, after things die down people are apt to talk because they think the toxicity of a particular situation somehow diminishes.’
Fortune placed his palm on his chest. ‘Not me, Peter.’
‘Of course not.’
‘I don’t quite understand what you’re saying then.’
Kilmartin touched the back of the chair. ‘May I?’
‘Please do,’ said Fortune, sitting down on the sofa. ‘There’s surely no danger. She’s an ordinary citizen with none of the necessary knowledge. I mean, this stuff was very restricted. Very, very restricted. I didn’t – don’t – even know about SPINDRIFT.’
‘Quite,’ said Kilmartin. Now he had got the name of the project that had put Mary MacCullum in jail and caused Eyam’s fall from grace. ‘It’s like this: I’m just standing in the outfield, Andrew. Should any ball be lobbed my way, I hope to catch it.’ He paused. ‘So, nothing comes to mind about Kate Lockhart?’
‘Well, I gather she is of interest. I imagine that’s who they are referring to, though I have not heard her name mentioned. There was some concern about his heir. Has she inherited his estate?’
‘The heir could be a worry, I agree. It is – how shall I say – a possibility that his estate includes damaging material.’
‘Well, exactly, and the situation politically is not good. Not good at all.’
Fortune was, unsurprisingly, on the other team, not an important player perhaps, but someone who saw the present government as the only solution to the nation’s problems and either consciously or unconsciously had jettisoned the neutrality of a civil servant to become a party member. At some stage he would have to ask him about Eyam’s time at the JIC and the events leading up to his fall, but now was not the moment. He looked around the room. ‘This job must be tough. The sheer volume of material coming over your desk makes me feel faint. You don’t need another headache. None of us does.’
‘Well, it’s not that we can’t cope,’ Fortune said hastily. ‘It’s just that this stuff is very sensitive and it has now become essential for the country’s future.’ The little bastard did know what SPINDRIFT was and he was a supporter. The country’s future, my arse, thought Kilmartin and rose with a grave nod.
‘You’re looking very trim, Peter. Very fit indeed.’
‘The result of almost ceaseless food poisoning in the East,’ he said. ‘But thanks. You’re scrubbing up well yourself. There’s nothing else you can remember about Kate Lockhart, is there?’
‘It will all be in the personnel files at the office.’
‘Yes, but they’re dry as dust, as you know well. Never tell you anything really interesting, do they?’ Fortune knew that he was referring to Ali Mustafa Bey and it would be enough to sharpen his memory. He thought for a moment.
‘Drugs . . . maybe she used cocaine after her husband died. There was some suspicion of that when we interviewed her to see if she wanted to stay on.’
Kilmartin doubted that. It was typical of the office to mistake grief for chemical dependence. ‘Really, how interesting. That may be of great help. Thank you. I’m glad I dropped in. I do hope I haven’t messed up your afternoon.’
‘Not at all.’
‘And all this is very much entre nous. Let’s keep a watch on this thing. Lunch next week?’
‘Yes, I think I can.’
‘I’ll ring your secretary.’
Fortune gave him a boy-scout grin. Kilmartin smiled also and patted the untrustworthy little shit on the back. He had found what he came for: the name of the pro
ject and maybe the beginning of an angle.
An hour later he was crouched down marvelling at the bas-relief of a herd of gazelle in the Assyrian rooms of the British Museum when Murray Link joined him. He rose and handed him a paperback copy of Assyrian Sculpture.
‘The DVD is taped to the inside back cover,’ he said, looking round the hunting scenes from Ashurbanipal’s palace in Nineveh and taking in the handful of people in the room at the same time. ‘Seen any of this before, Murray?’
Link, a short man with a narrow, furtive face, unwrapped his scarf. A shelf of fine hair was brushed forward over his forehead and he blinked from inside the drained complexion of a night worker. ‘It’s the film that was on TV, as you said.’
‘No, you idiot, I mean these sculptures. They were carved in 645 BC, or thereabouts. Astonishingly lifelike aren’t they?’
Link shrugged. ‘About the film,’ he said.
‘The DVD you’ve got there is a second- or third-generation copy so . . .’
‘So, we won’t be able to tell whether the camcorder wrote all the film to the original disc. You should have emailed it to me or used the post. It would have saved us both a lot of time.’ Link looked at him hard. He knew there was something else Kilmartin wanted from him.
‘It’s good to see your face, Murray. Good to see you prospering in the private sector.’
Link shrugged. He had been removed from the Technical Department of MI6 after being found guilty of one too many lapses in security. He went on to set up Blink Forensics in East London. ‘Only part of the film was shown in court and on TV,’ continued Kilmartin. ‘There’s some material at the beginning before the main action. I want you to examine it and see if anything strikes you. We’re looking for any known faces and anomalies – anything which tells us more about that afternoon in Cartagena and the death of David Eyam.’
‘You think we killed him?’
Kilmartin gave a shake of the head. ‘You’ve spent a lot of time analysing films of explosions from the Middle East and Pakistan, Murray. You know what to look for.’
‘It wouldn’t be the first time local hoods did our work for us.’
Kilmartin’s eyes returned to the herd of gazelle – a male turned its head towards the sound of the king’s men who were about to drive the herd into the arms of death – and considered the idea of David Eyam’s assassination. ‘The question is whether we believe David Eyam was more of an inconvenience alive, or dead. You could argue that he was more of a threat dead, because he had nothing to lose. A man like Eyam would not go gentle into that good night. He wouldn’t take it lying down, Murray.’
‘I’ll look at the film over the weekend. Are you in a rush?’
‘Yes.’
‘Right, I’ll be getting along then. Where should I send the bill for the analysis?’
‘Of course! I’m sorry. I was forgetting you’re in business these days. Would you like me to give you something upfront? Or you can send the account to St Antony’s and I will settle up at the end of your work.’
Link looked embarrassed. ‘I’d welcome something now. It’ll come to about a thousand pounds – say half.’
Kilmartin moved to a small gallery off the main rooms where there were no other visitors, wrote out a cheque for the full amount and blew on the ink before handing it to him. ‘There was something else, if you wouldn’t mind sparing a little more of your time, Murray.’
Link folded the cheque and placed it in his inside pocket. His manner softened. ‘How can I help?’
‘I know none of us is meant to gossip; cross fertilisation between agencies is frowned upon. But we all know things are occasionally shared between the technical departments – the various specialists at the office and with MI5 and GCHQ. You get to know each other, you talk the same language, share your problems.’
‘That’s what they chucked me out for.’
‘Yes, I know. But I wonder if you have come across the name SPINDRIFT? Have you ever heard it referred to?’
‘Sounds like a fucking washing powder. No, I haven’t.’
Kilmartin persisted. ‘We’re both grown-ups, Murray. We’re intelligence practitioners – signed the Official Secrets Act. You’re not passing anything to the enemy, to the outside. And you should know that I am working at the request of the highest authority.’
‘Then why don’t you ask that high authority?’ said Link.
‘That’s not possible, but come on, Murray, your friends and colleagues must have heard of this, surely.’
Link eyed him for a few seconds. ‘What scenario are we talking about?’
Kilmartin had an unreasonable hatred of the word ‘scenario’. ‘Context,’ he said without thinking. ‘I have little sense of the context. But this is something the Joint Intelligence Committee is aware of.’
‘Has it got a label?’
‘What sort of label?’
‘The one that says, “This will burn your fucking face off.” I mean, if I go typing the name into Google it will set off government trip wires; next they’ll be ripping my fingernails out before I know it, Mr Kilmartin.’
‘See what you can find out anyway, Murray. Have a word with your friends. It’s important.’
‘If you say so; but I’ll need paying for the information – properly.’
‘Of course, Murray,’ said Kilmartin, his eyes drifting to the two-and-a-half-thousand-year-old relief of a lioness speared and crippled, dragging herself through the desert sand.
11
A Creature of Habit
Kate moved gingerly to the side of the Audi, aware of the smell of petrol. It was much darker in the thicket of hazel and holly where the car had come to rest at an angle. The front had ploughed into the far bank of a ditch with a savage force, reared up then tilted at twenty degrees. There was a good deal of water in the ditch, which perhaps explained why the car had not caught light. She worked her way along the driver’s side and, placing a foot on the trunk of a fallen tree in the ditch, looked inside the car. Held by the seat belt, Russell’s body sagged over the passenger seat; his head lolled forward and his arms had dropped from the wheel. That struck her as odd. He would surely have tried to control the car until the last moment, unless he had passed out before hitting the brush. There was far less blood than Nock had made out. A lot of mud had come through the smashed windscreen. Russell was cut below his right eye.
She moved round to the passenger side, climbed down into the water and pulled the door open. As she examined the body, her mind replayed his amiable conversation on the way to Dove Cottage. He had spoken about family holidays in Scotland, the outing in June every year to the Opera at Glyndebourne and the annual weekend in France’s vineyards with university chums. A creature of habit was the way he apologetically described himself, and she had liked him for that. His face had frozen in a look of mild expectation, almost a smile. Controlling her shock, she reached out and touched his neck with the hand that had shaken his in the cafe a little over twenty-four hours before. Russell was utterly cold. He must have died instantly, though she couldn’t see what injury had killed him. Possibly it was the blow to the head from the night before: a delayed haemorrhage perhaps, which struck suddenly as he left the drive.
She was now aware that she was shaking and had a curious stale taste in her mouth. She stood up and controlled herself, withdrew from the car and went to join Nock in the road. There were no skid marks visible, no signs of any other vehicle being involved; merely evidence that Hugh Russell had swerved on the stony track as he approached the gateway and, rather than slowing down as he met the road, slammed his foot on the accelerator and careened through the stand of hazel on the other side.
Nock gave her a roll-up to smoke.
‘Jesus,’ he said.
She blew out the smoke and shivered. ‘Did you hear anything? See anything?’
‘No – my dogs noticed something had happened first. I wouldn’t have seen it if the terrier hadn’t dived in there.’
‘Wher
e are they?’
‘They took themselves off back to my place.’
‘Oh God,’ she said, looking back at the car. ‘Poor Hugh. This is awful.’ She was still shaking and she held her hand very tight to stop Nock seeing.
Twenty minutes later the accident investigation team arrived and paced out the likely sequence of events under arc lights. There seemed no good explanation for his bolting across the road like that, and the skid marks on the gravelly incline puzzled them. It was as though he had shot off from a standing start. A pathologist arrived and examined the body in situ with a head torch, while murmuring into a digital recorder. When he withdrew his head from the passenger window Kate approached and told him about the injuries Russell had received in the attack at his office. The man listened carefully to her description and asked whether Russell had fallen forward in the attack. She thought not.
‘Then my gut tells me that this man suffered some other kind of trauma. That’s what I am feeling.’
Presently the body, wet and drenched in petrol, was removed from the car by two policemen and was laid on a stretcher where the pathologist examined Russell again. A few minutes later he stood up in the headlights of one of the police cars and called out to the inspector. ‘You should see this. I believe this man was shot. The cut below his eye is a bullet wound.’
The operation to lift the Audi on to a flatbed truck was immediately halted and quarter of an hour later a .22 calibre bullet was found in the roof of the wreckage. That probably meant it had passed through the open window on the driver’s side as Hugh Russell approached the road. The skid mark on the gravel marked the spot where he had been hit and his foot came down hard on the accelerator in reaction.
‘I should have seen it before,’ said the pathologist, pointing with latex finger to Russell’s face for the edification of a group of officers. ‘You see the stretch marks running like tears down the face away from the point of impact. That is always a classic sign of a gunshot. They follow the tension lines in the region of the eyes and the nasolabial folds. A bullet can freeze the face in the victim’s most characteristic expression.’
