‘They can try,’ Barnard said. ‘And if he refuses, they can lock him up for contempt of court. But it sounds to me as if they could charge Jordan with any number of things corruption, involvement in the IRA, and the murder of Doreen Darcy. That must be the easiest to prove, so I don’t understand why they’re not going for it. They could do that without evidence from your father.
Kate shrugged.
‘Maybe Jordan didn’t do it,’ she suggested. ‘Maybe it was one of the other men who were at the flat.’
‘A minister maybe? At least he must have been a witness.’ Barnard said. ‘A minister they’ve been asked to protect from another sex scandal before we get to another general election? The government must be terrified of another scandal erupting. That could be why the security services are involved. From what I hear, they specialize in covering things up.
‘Including the abuse of children?’ Kate said bitterly. ‘Nothing’s changed, then, since Father Jerome was conveniently spirited away when Tom and me were kids.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Barnard said. Kate sat silently for a moment, running through everything they had uncovered which would now be buried again.
‘If Jordan was working for the IRA before the war that could explain why DCI Strachan was so incensed,’ she said. ‘He would have hated to think he might get away with what he did. And according to my friend at the Echo, the paper had been digging up evidence of his dodgy business practices. One way or another, Terry Jordan was in deep trouble. But these people seem to be prepared to let him get away with it all.’
Barnard drained his coffee cup and looked at Kate speculatively.
‘Why did your man thank you for your cooperation?’ he asked quietly. ‘Was he joking?’ Kate looked away from the inevitable question she had been dreading, knowing that the poison had been deliberately planted and no less deliberately used against her by a man whose prejudices were icy cold and very deliberate.
‘He locked me up with my da for a while, and he explained a lot of the background to what has been going on. But what they told the two of us afterwards was that they had recorded everything we said. I suppose they might count that as cooperation. It never entered my head that they would have a microphone somewhere in the room, and it wouldn’t have crossed my father’s mind either.’ She pushed her damp hair out of her eyes, knowing that if she and Barnard were to have any sort of a future together she had to tell him everything.
‘But that wasn’t the whole of it,’ she whispered. ‘First of all they contacted me at work and tried to make me tell them what you were investigating at Dolphin Square. They threatened to make sure Tom got a long sentence if I didn’t help them keep tabs on you. I’m sorry, Harry. I didn’t have any choice.’ Tears streamed down Kate’s face as Barnard took a deep breath.
‘I’m sorry too,’ he said and took her in his arms. ‘They used you, blackmailed you, and now they’ve very effectively shut us both down. We’ll have to live with that.’
He cooked them both breakfast and after they had eaten he turned on the radio for the early news. A short item towards the end warned of traffic disruption on the M1 motorway out of London following a fatal overnight accident on the northbound carriageway involving a Jaguar. One of the two casualties was believed to be a senior cleric from Liverpool’s Roman Catholic Cathedral, the other a businessman who had been in London discussing the building of a new town in the north-west of England with government ministers. Both men in the car had died instantly. Police and fire officers were investigating the cause of the incident, in which no other vehicles were involved. The church authorities in Liverpool regretted the untimely loss of a valued colleague. There was no mention of who might be grieving for Terry Jordan.
‘How very convenient,’ Barnard said quietly.
‘You think it wasn’t an accident?’ Kate asked.
‘I think it was a problem solved,’ he said. ‘The bastards!’
Cover Up Page 23
