The Bell Ringers

by Henry Porter

  Cannon jumped to a section halfway down and read the account of the founding of the Ortelius Institute of Public Policy Research. It began with the allegation that Eden White set up his think tank specifically to infiltrate and influence the British political establishment and press home the sale of systems to government departments. The article described three stages to White’s operation. Ortelius Intelligence Services – referred to as OIS – researched the personnel and policy issues inside government using former civil servants and spies to gain access and information. When they had identified the business opportunity, the think tank created a policy task force, which commissioned research papers and gave grants to friendly faces in Whitehall and the academic world. The policy was drafted. At the moment the policy was published, lobbying and PR companies – owned or part-owned by Eden White – swung into action, gaining support among politicians and in the media. At a time when the country and civil service were short of funds, Eden White was always there with generous grants. He held networking parties and hosted all-expenses-paid conferences abroad.

  Seven separate systems had been sold to the government in this way. White’s first big campaign was ASCAMS, introduced to secure the Olympics. There then followed systems sold to the Inland Revenue, the health service, the police and the Departments of Defence and Work and Pensions. The total surveillance system known as DEEP TRUTH came later and was designed to draw on the data collection underway with the other systems. Allies of White’s people who spent time in one of Ortelius’ research projects or who had been given generous research grants under the think tank’s ‘Mapmakers’ scheme were spread throughout the civil service and government agencies. The list included the names of twenty people Cannon recognised – Derek Glenny, Christine Shoemaker and Dawn Gruppo were among them. John Temple had also been involved from an early stage. All those mentioned, said the email, continued to be paid by White and were effectively in his employ. The email ended with a promise of further revelations and documents to support them.

  Cannon let out a low whistle and scrolled to the top to read about White’s early years in Africa, his involvement with arms dealing, the arrest warrants, his subsequent flight from Kenya to Switzerland and business school then to the United States and a job working for a gaming magnate with links to organised crime. The account of his business dealings, the remorseless attacks on competitors, his treatment of business partners and the mother of his three children made Bryant Maclean look less threatening than a choirmaster. Feared and hated in American financial circles, White reformed his image in Britain through skilful publicity stunts and charitable donations, research grants and the foundation of yet another organisation called Civic Value, which sponsored various projects of community cohesion.

  The intimate portrait of White had to have been written by someone who saw through the ‘hypocritical sociopath’ who went under the guise of social reformer and philanthropist. He was struck by the elegant bite of the article and he knew exactly where he had read that style before: in some of David Eyam’s policy papers.

  He dialled the press officer who’d sent him the email and was still speaking when Lyme returned from the Security Council meeting and appeared at the side of his desk. Cannon indicated it was going to be a few seconds before he could hang up. Lyme scribbled a note. ‘Fancy a walk around the block?’

  They left Downing Street ten minutes later. ‘What is it?’ asked Cannon when they had gone a little way up Whitehall.

  ‘What the heck’s going on? Correction: I mean what the fuck is going on, Philip? There was nothing in the meeting about where TRA came from, nothing about the science or the damned filtration systems. Nothing! It’s like they’re preparing for a massive terrorist attack. All police leave has been cancelled. They’re constructing holding areas. What the hell are holding areas, for Christ’s sake? They are even threatening to use army patrols on the streets and to guard all major installations.’

  ‘Who was chairing?’

  ‘Glenny. Temple is out at the meeting of world finance ministers.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ said Cannon. ‘Dawn Gruppo told me he’d be using the next twenty-four hours to work intensively on the themes of his major election speeches. And where is he? Swanning around at a bleeding party. He always disappears when there’s something unpleasant going to happen.’ He paused. ‘Who’s going to be using these holding areas?’

  ‘Police. They expect large numbers of arrests in central London, and get this: there’s no plan to process these people through the courts – not immediately, anyway. All they talk about is securing major buildings and installations. That’s banging people up without charge or trial.’

  ‘We already do that,’ said Cannon.

  ‘Yeah, under terror legislation, but this is under emergency powers – a much more obscure process. It’s not clear these people will have committed any crimes, or present any kind of threat at all. One or two of the securicrats even seemed a bit doubtful about it all.’

  Cannon stopped and looked into Lyme’s worried face. ‘Who’s pushing this? Where are these large numbers of people coming from?’

  ‘It was all a little vague. MI5 has found some kind of site. Shoemaker said that people who log on are being told to go to London over the next twenty-four hours. Three thousand have gone into the site with passwords over the last day or so, but they appear to be communicating with each other using very sophisticated multi-layered codes.’

  ‘And they are saying these people are responsible for spreading red algae – involved in some kind of plot concerning the water supply?’ Cannon said incredulously. ‘Have they gone off the deep end?’

  ‘No one made a definite link between TRA and the site, but that was the implication. There was one context to the discussion. I repeat, what is going on, Philip? Has all this got something to do with Eyam . . . or what?’

  Cannon didn’t answer.

  They turned left as they reached Trafalgar Square, passed under Admiralty Arch and walked in silence. Then Lyme mentioned the name of one of Bryant Maclean’s editors. ‘I had a pretty hostile call from her. They don’t dish out that kind of shit unless Bryant is behind them. She asked whether the emergency powers were an election stunt. She also said the paper was investigating the outbreak of TRA and that her science editor would be putting some tough questions to the environment spokesman tomorrow.’

  ‘Good luck to them,’ said Cannon. ‘To tell the truth I’ve had enough of today. I’m going home and I’m going to switch off my bloody phone.’

  ‘What should I do?’ asked Lyme a little plaintively.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Cannon. ‘On second thoughts, take Gruppo out for her usual gallon of cider. She’s got a soft spot for you. Everyone knows that. See if you can find anything out.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Don’t be dim, George. About all this, for Christ’s sake!’

  He walked off in the direction of St James’s, but before switching off his phone he dialled Peter Kilmartin’s number.

  Kilmartin listened to the two sentences spoken by Cannon and hung up. He was at his usual table in Ristorante Valeriano, a reliably good Tuscan restaurant he’d used for the best part of a quarter of a century. What was unusual about the evening was that he was sitting opposite Carrie Middleton, who had arrived in a flawless outfit of dark-blue with a tight skirt and high heels that made the old patron’s eyes swerve to heaven.

  ‘I’m sorry about that call,’ he said, laying the phone aside, ‘and also for asking you out for our date so late.’

  ‘Stop apologising,’ she said. ‘It’s lovely to be here. I was all on my own so I couldn’t be happier.’

  ‘I wanted to ask you a favour, Carrie.’

  ‘I thought you might,’ she said amenably. ‘Is there something special you want me to store for you at the library?’

  ‘No, I need to lie low for a few hours or so.’

  ‘But of course,’ she said. Her eyes sparkled. ‘You can stay with me. M
y flat’s small but you’re welcome to the spare bedroom.’

  ‘Normally I would use a little hotel in Kensington, but on this occasion I need to remain completely below the parapet.’

  ‘This has something to do with the men who came to the library and that young woman.’

  He cleared his throat. ‘You wouldn’t be doing anything illegal. I’m not on the run or anything like that, but I do need to be sure that my movements cannot be traced tomorrow.’ He stopped as the waiter placed a dish of antipasti between them. ‘Some more Prosecco?’

  She smiled. ‘That’s settled then.’

  ‘There was something else I wanted to mention. You see, the authorities probably suspect I received some information from that young woman – Mary MacCullum – and that it was passed to me at the library. That information has now been made public. I believe she will be arrested and may be forced to say what she did.’

  ‘Poor woman.’

  ‘We may have a chance of getting her released if things go well over the next forty-eight hours. It is a delicate situation. To be honest, things could go either way.’ He coughed. ‘But what I wanted to say was that with present exigencies, I may have been guilty of fostering the impression that the library was the proper place for their attentions tomorrow.’ He looked at her.

  ‘The library! What will it mean?’ He had touched a nerve.

  ‘Not much – all those buffers returning volumes of Disraeli’s letters and Fulke Greville’s poems over the next days will be subject to rather more scrutiny than usual.’

  ‘The members, Peter! I mean . . .’

  ‘Well, it’s about time some of them were brought face to face with their government as it is, not how they think it is.’

  She put her hand on Kilmartin’s. He felt a surge of desire that was mixed with awe for Carrie Middleton’s decency and good sense.

  ‘Let’s talk about something else,’ she said gently. ‘I want to remember this evening. Tell me about your new book.’ If there was one way to distract Peter Kilmartin, it was to ask about the civilisation of Ashurbanipal II and his predecessors, and Carrie Middleton showed every sign of fascination.

  Later they took a cab in the rain to Cavendish Court, a large 1930s block of flats on the edge of Pimlico, and passed through Parliament Square, where the road was reduced to one lane. Army vehicles were lined up along the Treasury building, and riot vans were disgorging uniformed police with shields and batons who were being filmed by TV news crews.

  ‘People won’t like this,’ she said.

  ‘That’s the pity of it, Carrie: they’ll think the government is protecting them. They’ll be reassured.’

  Eyam and Kate watched the television news in silence – footage of helicopters circling reservoirs in the North of England; people queuing to fill water canisters at army tankers in Blackburn and behind trucks in Humberside where six-packs of drinking water were being dropped to the pavement; aerial shots of the red algae; reporters interviewing scientists in anti-contamination gear; armed patrols of reservoirs near Heathrow; and riot police in Westminster. Then came Glenny and Temple at the news conference, Temple making a statement to the House of Commons and a televised address to the nation filmed at Number Ten that afternoon.

  ‘He’s enjoying himself,’ remarked Eyam. ‘It’s interesting that nobody is asking where this thing came from. They have the best scientific advice available. I know most of the people involved. They should have got to the bottom of it by now.’

  ‘It’s bloody convenient that he’s taken these powers just as you’re about to go public. I wonder if they’ve cooked up all this stuff about toxic algae.’

  He considered this and pressed the TV remote. ‘No, Temple’s an opportunist and a gambler – he’s just using it.’

  She leaned forward from her chair so that her face was just a few feet away from Eyam’s. ‘But the point is, idiot, it’s going to be doubly difficult for you to get into the House of Commons if they’ve got police and armed soldiers guarding the buildings.’

  ‘I’ll make my arrangements tomorrow. Freddie will have some ideas. I have one or two.’

  ‘You put an awful lot of faith in that man: where did you find him?’

  ‘He found us. Fredde is a gangster of decidedly liberal hue. A member of his family had been misidentified by the system, or was at any rate being persecuted in the usual way, and he started to look into it and eventually got in touch with Tony Swift. A lot of people out there are very angry now that they understand what’s been going on.’

  ‘They know?’

  ‘Oh, they know all right. They’ve just been keeping quiet.’

  ‘So your project has become an open secret.’

  ‘A closely guarded secret among hundreds of people.’ He smiled and her heart turned over.

  ‘You do look better,’ she said.

  ‘I feel it. I can’t imagine what’s in those pills.’

  ‘Raw opium, I suspect.’ She slid from her chair and leaned against the sofa where Eyam was lying. ‘I want to talk about what you’re going to do tomorrow.’

  ‘Disappear,’ he said. ‘We shouldn’t be together. If they arrest me you can go ahead with Kilmartin in Parliament.’

  ‘You want to be found slumped on a park bench again?’

  ‘If they don’t find me I’ll be there on the day,’ he said. They both turned their heads to the window that was being pounded by rain. An explosion of lightning right overhead made her jump.

  ‘Jesus! I think that must have hit the church spire.’ She went to the window, looked out, then turned to face him. ‘I’ve got this feeling I’m missing something, David. What’s the deep truth about you?’

  ‘Ah, you called me David.’

  ‘Don’t get cocky – in my mind you’re still Eyam – the object of my eternal scorn.’

  He grimaced. ‘Generous.’

  ‘I’m serious. There’s something you haven’t told me. You’re so good at avoiding the subject.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Something essential.’ Her hands rested on the windowsill. She launched herself forward and walked a few paces to stand over him. ‘You were at the centre of things before you took over the JIC; you must have known about this system. It would be impossible for all that money to be hidden without you knowing about it.’

  ‘Oh, they’re very ingenious at manipulating accounts.’

  ‘When someone is concealing something from me I’ve noticed that they pick me up on the detail of a question. Forget the particular, what about the general? Did you know, or not?’

  ‘I knew about DEEP TRUTH from the outset, yes.’

  ‘So why didn’t you stop it, or go public earlier? Why did you allow Mary MacCullum go to jail?’

  ‘I didn’t allow her to go to jail. I did nothing to encourage her.’

  ‘Were you part of the planning?’

  ‘I was embroiled, yes, tangentially.’

  ‘You can’t be tangentially embroiled.’

  ‘Look, I was part of the decision-making process. At the very beginning I wrote something on the bottom of a memo and then forgot about it. Of course it wasn’t called SPINDRIFT or DEEP TRUTH then. It was simply presented as a rationalisation of all data collection systems. You’ve no idea how fast you have to react in that position, or the number of papers you read. Day after day of crisis, policy made on the hoof, a hundred different briefs to master. There’s no time to think. One day blurs into the next. You remember nothing.’

  ‘But the idea of spying on everyone in the country – that’s not a crisis decision. It’s a long-term project to give the state power over the people. From ASCAMS to DEEP TRUTH is one fluid movement. You’re not dumb. You understood where the process would end.’ She folded her arms, but catching sight of a disciplinarian image in the mirror, let them drop and hooked her thumbs in the pockets of her trousers. ‘You know what pisses me off? When you came to New York and lectured me about the pointlessness of corporate litigation you w
ere actually involved in the planning of DEEP TRUTH.’

  ‘By then I was trying to think what to do. There was just one memo, which I had forgotten about. I didn’t even make the connection at first.’

  ‘And you, the great liberator, the slayer of the database state! So when did you fall victim to your conscience?’

  ‘I didn’t,’ he said, raising his head. He leaned forward, blew into his cupped hands then rubbed them. ‘The story is very simple and it involves Tony Swift – Ed Fellowes, as you knew him originally. He asked for a meeting when I inherited the job from Sir Christopher Holmes, and he told me categorically that the head of the JIC had been killed because of his opposition to DEEP TRUTH and his plans to go public on it. He showed me the evidence that the inquest had been fixed and I didn’t believe it. But he didn’t give up. He came back with more proof and won me round. He didn’t tell me much about his circumstances, but it was obvious he’d left London and government and found himself another job.

  ‘What I didn’t know was that he had gone underground and invented identities for himself before, as he put it, the door slammed shut with the merger of all databases under the Transformational Government project. It was an act of defiance, as much as anything else, because he didn’t believe the state had the right to define or manage his identity. Tony was single and had neither close relations nor ambition to hinder him. That new identity was how he ended up in High Castle as the underpaid drudge of the coroner’s court. He worked himself into the town and listened and watched, and began to see how he could fight SPINDRIFT. He became a member of Civic Watch and the local community tension-monitoring groups which are really the ears of government, made friends and mapped the networks of local informers. He was the perfect undercover agent because he was working for himself, reported to no one, and possessed an unwavering allegiance to his cause. He was also the finest actor I’ve ever met. He inhabited every molecule of the lonely and disappointed figure of Tony Swift, so much so that I still think of Ed Fellowes and Tony Swift as different people.’