It was then he felt the curious childlike sensation of a puzzle solved silently in his head. It was almost elating.
‘I’ve got him,’ he said aloud, feeling himself suddenly flooded by the charged possibilities of deceit and connivance, a state in which he took up the pen again and absently etched ‘FUCK YOU’ in big neat blocky capitals across the letterhead page.
Suppressing a chuckle, his brain now fully a-whirr, he folded the sheet of foolscap into a Conqueror envelope, then dialled the nearby Hilton and reserved a room, and then called Abigail Hassall, who answered with an exquisite wariness.
‘Listen, I saw the Prime Minister this morning.’
‘So … I hear. You were snapped leaving by the back onto Horse Guards Street.’
‘Of course. He’s going to make a statement later this morning. I’d like to talk to someone first. Someone I can talk straight to. Tell my side. All things considered I’d prefer it to be you. If you can keep a secret.’
‘Gosh …’ She went silent, her instinctive caution clearly not so easily bought off.
‘Bring your tape recorder, eh?’
*
She duly placed her recording device on the low glass table between them and smiled wanly. ‘Okay, so we agree you won’t have me shot for this?’
He merely tossed the Conqueror envelope onto the table beside the digital recorder.
‘That is …?’
‘This morning the PM and I agreed I ought to write a letter. That’s what I wrote.’
‘You’ve resigned?’
‘I am resigned – to my fate.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I can’t really blame you, you understand. But you must have known it was coming. It was the point of the whole pursuit, right? For your paper?’
She shrugged. ‘Maybe I’m still a bit green on these things. Obviously I was kind of hoping you would, y’know … muddle through.’
‘Within the department, the atmosphere is …’ He shook his head. ‘I know now how many bitter enemies I’ve got. The leak was so calculated. At least I figured it out. Who the leaker is?’
Abby twitched slightly, though her eyes invited him to continue.
‘My Security Minister, Paul Payne? Ever since he got that job he’s been totally brazen about his disagreements with me. Over this whole crisis he’s been open about wanting me out. Maybe I’ve earned it, but … the way he’s gone about it has been bang out of order. And I’ll be telling him that to his face before today’s done, quite forcibly, I expect. So there’s another story for you, okay?’
Abby winced. ‘David. It wasn’t that guy. Don’t waste your time.’
‘You know better?’
‘Yeah. I do.’ Her eyes flicked downward. ‘It was Ben, your special advisor.’
‘You what …?’ Privately Blaylock had expected some grim satisfaction, yet to hear it now confirmed was to feel there were worse things than heartbreak. ‘You’re sure? I thought it wasn’t your story?’
‘It wasn’t but … I guess I helped it to happen. Back when I wrote that profile of you? I’d asked around, and I got introduced to Ben. He was an interesting guy, clearly conscience-stricken. He said the smartest things out of everyone, I thought. Then, later, he got in touch with me, said he’d just … oh, got disillusioned with you, the more he knew you? He didn’t know about you and me … and I didn’t want to be in that position, but I agreed to make the connection for him, to a colleague.’
Blaylock studied her composure, finding at long last that he disliked her deeply. ‘He wasn’t the only one disillusioned? It seems like I don’t inspire much loyalty …’
She sighed. ‘I had to be objective. It was a story … Look, a spark is a spark, David. I was very drawn to you, at the start. You were definitely different. Hard to get, my god. Most men in your position, even the worst nerds, they do rather take it as their due that women find them irresistible. I had thought about you, a lot. I wanted to know what you were like.’
‘But you didn’t like what you found?’
‘Oh … some of it was just having to watch you going about all the petty deceits of politics … But, look, you can be, I have to say, pretty disagreeable. Being with you in a real way is – a challenge. I sort of imagined myself up in Teesside every weekend, being shouted at. Made me wonder how it was for your wife. Forgive me if that’s … too far?’
‘It’s alright, Abigail. You’re entitled to your opinion.’
She leaned back assuredly in the low sofa. ‘See, the anthropologist in me – I’ve never believed humans are innately aggressive, it’s socially learned, I’m sure of it. I think aggression is mainly a predictable reaction to frustration. What’s problematic is if it never brings any catharsis … You’re a damaged person, I think, David.’
‘Aren’t we all?’ It sounded a lame riposte to him, but unimportant, as he was now simply playing with time, despite the ticking clock. Perhaps she was right. And if he had given her insufficient room to talk when they were together, she was extracting some recompense now.
‘The fact your father died when you were young … I’ve had a few thoughts about that. Do you want to talk about it?’
This much he rated unacceptable, but he feigned a chuckle. ‘I intend to, one day soon. But, that’s another engagement.’ He stood up, offered his hand. All her wariness resurfaced instantly.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Back to work. Much to do. People to see.’
His trap was sprung, and he had clearly succeeding in stunning her, though it felt to him now like a small-time move.
‘What about your letter?’
‘Just one more petty deceit, Abigail. No, the letter’s for you.’
He noted her perplexity with minor satisfaction, then turned and made for the door.
*
From the Shovell Street atrium he took the stairs, not the lift, and as he hurdled two at a time he felt his breathing grow irregular but his body get set for confrontation, adrenalin coursing.
On Level Three he strode past the offices, past some curious looks, to the open plan area where Deborah sat with her hand on her brow, espresso by her side. She, too, beheld him with some surprise.
‘Where’s Ben?’
‘Uh, he went to one of the work pods?’
Blaylock spun and strode off around the central lifts to the long side aisle where the pods were lined up. He could feel his fists, indeed his whole person, clench and unclench. Keep a lid on, he muttered to himself.
The first two pods were occupied by studious seated females. The third stood empty, door wide, to Blaylock’s massive frustration – and then he saw Ben come round the other side of the lifts from the kitchen, bearing his pint mug of tea. Blaylock advanced and saw alarm spike in Ben’s eyes, the spad setting his mug aside as if to protect it.
Blaylock jerked a thumb at the empty pod. ‘In there, now.’
Ben stood his ground and raised a pacifying hand that Blaylock found incensing. ‘Take it easy, David, alright? Let’s—’
He grabbed Ben by both lapels and swung him about and through the pod door, advanced and shoved him against the black inner wall of the pod, then pulled the door behind them with a shuddering slam. Turning in the tight space he saw Ben was chewing his lip, breathing hard, clearly frightened. Blaylock cautioned himself to get a grip.
‘You’ve gotta calm down, okay?’ Ben ventured.
‘Aye, sure, first you tell me this. Why did you do it? Eh? Tell me. Why’d you go and do this pointless fucking thing?’
‘Not pointless. There was a point. I’d had enough.’
‘Enough of what, Ben? What?’
‘Of just doing the easiest fucking thing and talking tough about it, and dodging out of the consequences when it went wrong. Kidding yourself everybody else is incompetent … It’s just a job to you, David, but people’s lives are affected, man.’
‘You think I don’t know that? Who d’you think you’re talking to?’
‘I
don’t know. Really, I don’t. Not a clue who you are any more. I just know what goes on here isn’t good enough and I was sick of being part of it.’
‘Sick of working for me? Why didn’t you fuck off somewhere else then? Was it because I’m your patrón? No one else would have you? Or did you get a bit soft on Abby Hassall? Don’t be bashful, bonny lad, so did I. How bad is my judgement of people, eh?’
Blaylock felt calmer now by degrees, the confrontation done, as he saw it – though Ben, as if emboldened, stared back at him hotly.
‘Nothing more to say for yourself, Judas? You could try “Sorry”. Eh? How about that?’
‘No one gave us thirty bits of silver, David. I never got nowt. That’s not what it was about. It’s about how much goes on round here is bullshit. You think you’re some sort of reformer, you don’t change a thing—’
‘Alright, that’ll do,’ Blaylock snapped. ‘Howay with me to see Phyllida and let’s get this done.’
Ben didn’t move. Blaylock seized his arm.
‘Don’t put your hand on me or I’ll make a proper complaint.’
Blaylock studied his erstwhile protégé with real scorn. ‘Oh, now that would be a good one, son.’
*
He swung open Phyllida’s office door, to her clear consternation, and bade Ben enter.
‘Right, Phyllida, you can call off the master spies, Ben here is our leaker, he’s freely admitted it. No need for the police. Just a straight sacking, gross professional misconduct.’
He left them to it and strode round to the open plan area where Deborah and Mark, having stood in stunned conference, now peered at him somewhat aghast. He pulled a chair, sat down and looked straight back at them.
‘Then there were two.’
Mark looked about him, anxious. ‘Patrón, you know, in glass houses …’
‘Yeah yeah. Deborah, I need to speak to your pal Gavin Blount. I’ve a job for him.’
*
Blaylock reached the Commons Chamber by 11.27, just in time to take his seat on the frontbench between Caroline Tennant and Dominic Moorhouse, who moved aside smartly as he bore down. The Captain glanced up from his notes in respect of Police Constable Tweddle, saw Blaylock and raised his eyebrows over the top of his reading glasses, an enquiry Blaylock answered with a nod.
4
‘Home Secretary, do you appreciate why the public fear you can’t be trusted to make them carry identity cards?’
Chairman Hawley looked, as ever, as though he meant nothing by it but was merely curious on behalf of the rest of the world. Blaylock glanced down to his briefing before meeting Hawley’s eye.
‘You mean me personally? And by the public do you mean the forty-eight per cent who support the cards or the forty-one who don’t?’
‘Well, if you steer by such polls, let’s take the two-thirds who don’t expect you can keep their private data safe. Didn’t the merest rumour you would use the passport system as a form of coercion lead to a wild upsurge in passport applications?’
‘That rumour was put about irresponsibly.’
‘Ah, you think it’s better people don’t know what you’re up to, Home Secretary?’
Blaylock let that one roll off him. ‘My view on privacy is that nowadays it’s something all of us give away a little in return for fast and convenient services. We all more or less happily give out our bank details, health details, work details online. And we trust private providers to look after it … In terms of the services offered by the state, for which you routinely have to prove your identity, what we will guarantee is a gold standard of proof. Yes, we’ll put people to some inconvenience at first – they have to come and give a biometric scan and pay a fee, and after that we’ll ask them to keep their data current. But that’s because they are the custodians of their data. The card, it’s not so vital. It’s the register, the scan that’s tied to the person. The records have no meaning without the physical person. You are your identity.’
‘And this register will be used by …’
‘HMRC, the NHS, certain government departments, accredited private sector organisations. But never without the individual’s permission. Other than to investigate or stop a crime.’
‘Have you priced in the legal challenges you’re going to get from people who feel more entitled than yourself to some sort of private life?’
‘We have. It’s not a reason to shirk from the thing in fear. We can’t be making policy out of fear.’
‘And the total cost of this experiment? You don’t really know what that will be, do you?’
‘Our first estimate was five and a half billion, it crept to nearer six. The point is we don’t lack for bidders here. I believe it will come in as currently budgeted, around eight-point-five.’
‘We’ve heard sober estimates of twelve, one as high as eighteen.’
‘No. I don’t believe it. The Permanent Secretary and I will take a strong line in the procurement.’
‘Really? And what else could you buy with those billions? A great many passport inspectors. An awful lot of anti-terror police. We have heard James Bannerman’s grave doubts that your plan will do anything much to assist the police.’
‘You will have heard differing things from other senior policemen. I respect all those opinions. My view, obviously, is on one side.’
‘You choose to discount Commissioner Bannerman’s views on counter-terrorism?’
Blaylock paused, folded his arms and squared himself to deliver the hardest blow he had in his armoury. ‘I can only speak from my own experience. I really wish our existing systems were rigorous enough to deter terrorists. But they’re not. I was a British Army officer in Belfast, in the days before photographic driving licences became standard on the mainland. But every driver in Northern Ireland had a photograph on their driving licence. And nobody felt that was a great bother, other than those individuals who were plotting acts of violence – ferrying guns and explosives about and so forth. So I have to say, for me and my men? That small onus on the public to be able to prove they were who they said they were was very useful. And there’s an analogy, I think, to how these cards and this register will serve to impede the free movement of individuals who mean to do us harm.’
Hawley had looked increasingly displeased as Blaylock’s remarks wore on, and now he sounded so, too. ‘It is remarkable to me, Home Secretary, how, whatever compelling objection is put up, you weave to one side and dig up some new rebuttal as to why we need these cards.’
‘Well, yes, and I note, too, how you duck my rebuttals and go off to dig up some compelling new objection. It’s not a game, Chairman. I’m not jousting, it’s not “sport”, when I say the purpose is to defend the realm and uphold the law and better serve our citizens in terms of what they’re entitled to. We are asking the people to take a stake in making the state function better. It requires faith – just as much but no more than we would have in a search engine. I’m asking our citizens to trust in their representatives – to have faith in the state, if you like.’
‘“Faith”, Home Secretary …?’ Hawley, evidently, did not like that. His wintry half-smile sang of half-suppressed scorn.
‘Faith, Chairman. Yes. I’m sorry you find the idea so amusing.’
*
As Blaylock stepped into the corridor a waiting Mark Tallis gave him a nod, as if this were now the omertà of the family. But past the crowd of heads departing the public gallery he saw Madolyn Redpath, alone and turning a very acute look on him. She moved off, and he followed her into the stairwell, where their footfalls echoed crisply off the concrete and inclined them both to hushed tones.
‘How are you, Madolyn?’ he ventured.
‘I feel pretty sick from what I just heard. I must have gone soft, getting pally with you.’
‘I’m sorry you feel that way.’
‘Just answer me this. What you did for Eve, stopping the deportation – you didn’t do that just for me, did you?’
‘Well, yes, for you. Since
that’s how things work. By association. And that’s why Eve and not someone else. Because you chose her case and made it to me.’
‘So, basically, it’s still just all about contacts, right?’
‘What, as opposed to binding principles? Yes, it is. It’s still a way to get good things done. You should be proud of yourself. But, I see, I’m the world’s worst person again.’
‘No, but all your tricks and “tough” positions just to keep yourself in a job … Trading on what you call “public opinion”. You bloody do act out of fear, you know. Don’t ever kid yourself it’s honourable.’
‘I’m no saint. But I don’t kid myself.’
‘God, can you not see, if you would just … stop the bullshit, stop the wheel and get off, start telling the truth?’
‘No. It’s you who doesn’t see, Madolyn. I really do believe the things I say I believe. So we’ll just have to agree to disagree.’
He put out a hand. She looked at it so witheringly he was taken aback. He had wanted her to think well of him. There had been no complications to do with attraction, no designs on her. Just a rather paternal urge to show a bright young mind of a different persuasion that he was not such an ogre. Clearly, however, the peace talks had run into a ditch and they would just have to resume hostilities.
‘Okay, so be it,’ he said quietly, then headed past her and down the stairs, the sound of his footfalls sharp as tacks.
*
In the quiet seclusion of a Shovell Street basement room he was joined by Gavin Blount from the Northern Ireland office, whom he thanked for making the time.
‘I’m interested in your authoring a report for me. First I’d like your opinion on a few issues. What do you think about arming our police? Routinely, in greater numbers?’
‘After the awful business in Durham?’
‘That, but there’s also a broader context. Their being better armed for self-defence in the face of an armed attacker, an Islamist, say.’
Blount sighed. ‘Well, it’s not our tradition, is it? If the police are routinely walking around with guns, it changes things. Officers believe it would be daunting to the public, I know that. I rather think it raises public fears, too, when they see armed police.’
The Knives Page 36
