The Bell Ringers

by Henry Porter

  Temple nodded to the other three, and allowed a smile to break surface. ‘Give us a minute or two, would you?’

  They left without looking at Cannon.

  ‘Sit down for a moment, Philip.’

  Cannon remained on his feet and from the corner of his vision noted the time. It was ten twenty-three a.m.

  ‘Let’s make this brief. You can resign in your own time, go to the House of Lords and head any bloody organisation you like, if that’s what you want, Philip: a respectable retirement with as much or as little work as you want.’

  Cannon shook his head. ‘I’m not interested.’

  ‘Then what do you want?’

  ‘Abandon DEEP TRUTH. Close it down. Give people their privacy back.’

  Temple sat on the arm of his favourite chair and leaned forward with his hands together. ‘But it’s an essential tool of modern government, Philip. Your request is the equivalent of demanding I drive to Buckingham Palace in a coach and four. This is twenty-first century government: we need such systems to run the country, to help people help themselves. Surveillance is part of all our lives. The gathering, processing and sharing of personal data are now an essential element in the armoury of social policy. You don’t hear people complaining about it because they know it’s necessary and want us to look after them, without having to bother with all the details. They want a strong and smart state, Philip, a state that is capable of taking action on the issues that really affect them – energy and food prices, disorder . . .’

  ‘I’ve heard the list before, prime minister. If you were so confident about the system, why is it secret? Why have you hidden it from Parliament and the public? Why destroy those who have threatened to speak about it?’

  ‘Eyam destroyed himself. Are you going to take the word of a paedophile over mine, Philip? Be reasonable, man. I am fighting for what is right here. You and I – we believe in this government. Let’s see a way out of this.’ Cannon had become aware of the faint noise around them – the murmur of political expectation, the rumination of all those who held the power together in the cockpit of the British state. Indistinct sounds reached them from outside the door and twice someone knocked and looked in, but Temple just shook his head with irritation. ‘We need to resolve this now. I want to go to the country with you by my side, or at least knowing that we are not at war.’

  ‘You just relieved me of my duties.’

  ‘But there are ways round that. Tell me what you want.’

  ‘I just have.’

  ‘Within reason.’

  Cannon glanced at the little silver clock on the table. It was ten thirty-five. He would keep the prime minister there for a little while yet. ‘You can start by suspending the emergency powers and letting all those people go free; clearing the army and police from the streets. You can’t go on using the Civil Contingencies Act to beat David Eyam.’

  ‘Eyam is a traitor. I will use any powers any way I like to destroy a foul, dirty-minded traitor. And as for his friend Peter Kilmartin . . . well, you trust people and they take advantage. It’s always the same. I’ll see them suffer a little – eh? I’ll make these bastards pay for their lies and treachery.’ Then he did something that Cannon had only seen once before, when Temple thought he was going to lose a vote in the House of Commons. It was a spasm that he remembered started with a black look in his eyes, and quickly affected his vocal cords, which involuntarily emitted a sound of strangulation and made his mouth open and shut rapidly.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Temple, working his jaw and massaging his throat. He reached for a water bottle and drank from it with short, greedy sips, looking away. ‘You know, Philip,’ he said conversationally, just as Cannon was beginning to wonder if Temple was losing his mind. ‘We should sort this out now.’ He picked up the phone and said, ‘Change the appointment to eleven. Make my apologies; say there’s a lot on.’ He replaced the receiver. ‘We’ve got ten minutes.’

  Now Temple was also playing for time, and that suited Cannon.

  The downpour came as Kate reached the Sovereign’s Entrance and was redirected to a temporary security cabin at the other end of Old Palace Yard, which had been erected because of flooding in the usual checkpoint. Police and soldiers stood about aimlessly hoping for something to happen. What did they expect? Attacks from people carrying phials of water containing toxic red algae? She pleaded that she had no umbrella and added that her name was on the door, but the guard shook his head and said it was more than his job was worth to let her in without checks and a search of her belongings; even in normal times it was out of the question. Then he fetched an umbrella from inside the peers’ entrance and escorted her to the cabin. She kept her head bent down but her eyes moved restlessly ahead, absorbing the fact that Parliament Square had not been completely closed to traffic, and that pedestrians were still being allowed through, although most were being stopped.

  By the time she reached the queue of a dozen people it was evident to her escort that she needed to sit down and when he had pushed to the head of the queue he found her a plastic chair. She gave her name as Koh and smiled shyly at the policeman as he flipped through an extensive file of photographs, glancing up at her face. Someone else checked her name against the list of those expected and she was handed a pass. She stood up and was asked to place her two index fingers on a fingerprint reader and stare into an iris scanner, which she did with equanimity, knowing that none of her biometric details were on record. She explained that she did not have an ID card because she had recently moved from America and no one seemed to care. There was a good deal of haste and tempers were frayed in the hot, humid conditions of the security hut.

  Her bag was fed through the scanner, and she moved unsteadily towards the horseshoe metal detector. On the other side there was a camera fixed at eye-level and two security guards wearing latex gloves were running their hands over visitors. Both had patches of damp under their arms. Kate stepped through the metal detector and held her arms out for the female guard but did not undo her coat. The guard said she must go back and put it through the machine. At that moment Kilmartin’s phone went off in her bag. ‘Sorry, they’re expecting me in Committee Room Five,’ she said and she explained about the lack of taxis; that her pregnancy had not been an easy one; she’d left home without the papers she needed; and Lord, what was she going to do about her hair? All this was delivered in a breathless, academic clip while she removed her coat. She went back through the metal detector and laid it in one of the large plastic trays. As the conveyor belt took it through the scanner, she looked around and with a start noticed Kilmartin’s courier move to the second scanner and carefully place the shopping bag containing the bound volume in a tray.

  Kate passed through the metal detector for the third time and raised her arms. With some irritation the security guard glanced at her then looked over her shoulder to the press of people escaping the rain, which was now beating down on the roof. She began to feel along her sleeves but suddenly seemed to lose patience and simply waved her through. Kate picked up her coat and bag and moved to the door. The courier had been frisked and now stood immaculately composed in front of the guard by the scanner, who was examining the book. ‘You may check the book, but you may not read it,’ she said firmly and proffered a letter on House of Commons notepaper, but the guard ignored it and handed it to a plainclothes policeman, who looked through its pages then skimmed the letter. That was all Kate saw because someone opened the door and gestured her out. Struggling into her coat she went down the wheelchair ramp and headed for St Stephen’s entrance thirty feet away.

  Two policemen with automatic weapons stood on the steps of the entrance, sheltering from the rain. She passed between them, then turned to follow their gaze across the street to a small group of people who, despite the security, had managed to assemble on the other side of the road beneath the Henry VII Chapel of Westminster Abbey. Slightly detached from the group was a tall figure in a dark-green an
orak. His hood was up but she was almost certain that this was Sean Nock and beside him was her mother and a very large figure whose face was obscured by an umbrella. At least that had gone to plan.

  At that moment an ambulance, with lights flashing but no siren on, drifted to a halt on the westbound lane of St Margaret’s Street and blocked her view. A policeman approached the driver’s window and the ambulance lingered. She had to be sure it was Nock so she made some show of arranging her coat, at the same time aware of the churning in her stomach and the unusual dryness in her mouth. Telling Nock to come had admittedly been a risk, which was why she hadn’t consulted Eyam or Kilmartin, yet she was sure not just of his attraction to her but also of Nock’s troubled decency. The ambulance was waved on and moved towards an opening on the black metal barrier that separated Old Palace Yard from the traffic, and she looked once more at the group, but didn’t see him again. She turned and climbed the remainder of the steps to the gothic doorway, where another policeman gave her directions to Central Lobby.

  There were no cameras; no one was watching. She walked the length of St Stephen’s Hall, quickly removing the reading glasses and the woolly hat, then unfastening the grip and shaking out her hair. Passing through the Central Lobby – the intersection of the two main axes of Barry’s masterly hybrid of religious and secular architecture – she turned once to see if the woman with Eyam’s book was following, but saw no one. The screens in the lobby told her that a debate on Britain’s fish stocks was in progress in the Chamber of the House of Commons and that the Joint Committee on Human Rights was already in session.

  But there was little sign of activity in the wide, tiled Victorian thoroughfares. A feeling of evacuation, or maybe obsolescence, pervaded and for a second she was struck by the hopelessness of bringing Eyam’s bits of paper to the site of the near-extinct cult of democracy. They might as well be lighting candles in a Tibetan monastery for all that the world outside cared. But outside there were real threats that seemed all the closer now she approached her destination.

  She went through some swing doors and reached a desk where an usher directed her to the first door in the corridor on her right. A little beyond the committee room was a lavatory, which Kate entered. She tore off the coat and maternity smock, stuffed the back support into a flip-top bin, then removed the make-up with some moistened wipes and splashed her face with cold water. Having run a comb through her hair and straightened her jacket and shirt, she checked herself in the mirror and returned to the procedural calm of the corridor. A murmur of voices came from inside Committee Room Five. She cracked open the door and felt a tug from inside. An usher’s face appeared with a finger to his lips. He pointed to a place in the public benches. She sat down, closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, willing her heart to stop pounding and her head to clear.

  She looked up. The panelled room was large, with a high ceiling and several chandeliers that were switched on because the storm meant that little daylight came through the windows on her left. The fourteen members of the committee sat on three sides of a square with the chairman, a thin-faced man in his mid-forties called Nick Redpath, and the committee staff occupying most of the middle. In front of them were a table and three chairs from which witnesses gave evidence. At the moment there was just one – a woman in a vivid orange top was answering a question on something that she had just read out.

  All Kate’s misgivings came to the fore. She had abandoned any idea of seeing Eyam in Committee Room Five, and without the documents it would be impossible to claim the committee’s ear before the election was called. The committee itself seemed hardly the liveliest of bodies: the atmosphere in the room was inert, and it was clear that things were slowly grinding to a halt. The MPs wanted to be away to the constituencies and the peers were resigned to their enforced holiday. But for the bird-like energy of the chairman, who pecked at the evidence, invited observations and generally tried to keep everyone on their toes, the hearing might simply have expired. From the remarks offered from different sides Kate tried to gauge those who might be her opponents when she came to speak. She noticed an elderly woman studying her hard with animated, shrewd eyes. Kate craned her head to see Baroness Somers printed on a nameplate. The woman wagged a finger at a clerk, spoke to him and handed him a note, while gesturing in Kate’s direction. ‘Lady Somers wants to know if you are Miss Koh,’ he said when he arrived at her side.

  She read the note. ‘Indicate when you want to be called if we are still going ahead. Where’s PK?’ Kate looked up and opened her hands in answer to the question about Kilmartin, but gave Somers an encouraging nod nevertheless.

  The chairman saw all this and put a crooked finger in the parting of his hair where it remained for a few seconds while he considered his notes. He looked up at the witness. ‘Well, I think we have learned a great deal this morning from you, Ms Spicer, and I thank you for giving us the benefit of your knowledge.’ As the witness rose, his gaze moved to his right. ‘Lady Somers, I understand you are anxious for the committee to hear evidence on this subject from a Miss Koh, which you say is compelling. Is that correct?’ The committee members began to mutter amongst themselves and look with puzzlement at their papers.

  ‘Indeed,’ she said slowly. ‘I want to make a few remarks before we hear Ms Koh. Firstly, Mr Chairman, I thank you for your kindness and your trust. Over the course of the next hour or so you may have cause to regret both.’ She paused and looked at the faces round her, then she began to speak, by turns warning, beseeching, craving indulgence and playing to every conceivable vanity in the room until the point was reached when, seemingly at the end of her personal supply of oxygen, with her head sinking to her chest and her voice dwindling to a whisper, she reminded the committee that in these last moments as it was presently constituted it possessed a solemn obligation to the name, Joint Committee on Human Rights. ‘The JCHR is where the two Houses of this Parliament meet: we are joined in the defence of democracy. I would ask members to stay your hand, reserve judgement and listen as never before.’ Then she looked straight at Kate and gave a nod. Kate rose and walked to the witness table, leaving behind the dread and panic that she’d felt in the last few minutes. She sat down, folded her hands on the table and leapt into the void.

  Ten minutes before, another speech had come to an end in Downing Street. The prime minister had talked without drawing breath about his vision and the merits of his government – the project, as he called it, to inaugurate an age of firm and fair government, where rights are a privilege accorded only in return for manifestations of responsibility. Cannon had heard it all before; indeed many of the phrases came from his own pen, though now it all seemed rather sinister. From the corner of his eye, he watched the hands of the clock moving gradually from ten thirty-five to ten forty. It was like holding his breath underwater. Then, exactly tweny minutes after Temple had launched into his homily, he allowed his eyes to drift from Cannon to the door, which opened without a knock. Dawn Gruppo came in and said that Buckingham Palace were postponing for half an hour. ‘They’re telling you who’s boss,’ she remarked.

  ‘Quite right,’ said Temple, slapping his knees lightly, ‘a little more time is just what we need, Philip.’

  But the operation to delay Cannon and keep the document about TRA in the room was over. Smith came through the open door with two men. One said to Cannon, ‘We’d like you to come with us, sir.’

  Cannon snorted a laugh and turned to Temple, shaking his head. ‘Special Branch? You surely can’t be serious, prime minister.’

  But Temple had done his usual trick of removing himself from what was happening and was now skimming a paper just handed to him by Gruppo.

  ‘The computer has been secured, prime minister,’ said Smith. ‘Nothing has been sent from it or Mr Cannon’s telephone in the last forty-five minutes. We presume that he only has the hard copy because there is no trace of it on his home computer, which has been accessed remotely. There have been no outgoing calls from his home in that ti
me either, or from his wife’s mobile.’

  Temple nodded, then the Special Branch officer who had spoken moved to where Cannon was sitting. ‘We believe that you have in your possession certain classified documents that you plan to make public. This would be a breach of the Official Secrets Act. We also have reason to suspect that you were instrumental in the unlawful release of a woman held under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004.’

  Cannon drew the document from his inside pocket and flourished it. ‘By all means have it – the more people who read it the better.’ He clambered to his feet and handed it to the officer, then looked at his watch. ‘A copy left the building by messenger an hour and a quarter ago, after I discovered that you’d blocked my phone. I imagine George Lyme is already answering questions on it.’

  Temple’s eyes flashed at Gruppo. ‘Get Bryant Maclean on the phone: I want to speak to him personally.’ His gaze levelled at Cannon and he was about to say something when Jamie Ferris stormed into the room. ‘We’ve just started tracing two phones that we are now certain are being used by Peter Kilmartin and Kate Lockhart. Both are now switched off, but it is clear from the conversations over the last week that these two are at the centre of this conspiracy. We know they spent last night in the British Museum and understand that a number of packages were delivered to them during the night.’

  ‘In the British Museum?’ said Temple stupidly.

  ‘Kilmartin has contacts there.’

  ‘Where’s Eyam?’

  ‘We don’t know. Possibly with them. The phone we were monitoring is turned off also. Still, we now have a complete picture of all the people involved in the core group.’

  ‘What about the hotel conference centre?’

  Ferris look perplexed. ‘The meeting began at nine thirty but the strange thing is that they’re actually talking about bell ringing. They’re listening to recordings and attending workshops. We can’t arrest hundreds of campanologists.’