A Very British Ending (Catesby Series) (43 page)

The general looked at his watch. ‘We’ll rendezvous here again tomorrow. ‘I’m now off to another meeting.’

The mood in the exclusive gentlemen’s club was nervous, but expectant. It reminded the colonel of the sense of excitement before battle; in many ways, a very pleasant sensation. It made you feel so intensely alive – even if you were on the brink of being intensely dead

The general pinged his whisky glass for attention and silence.

‘Shhh,’ said the colonel. ‘He has an announcement to make.’

The general cleared his throat. ‘It’s set for next Friday, the twenty-first. The following weekend will be useful for calming things down. It would be a mistake to do it before a normal working day because of likely disruptions in public transport and other utilities.’ The general looked at the banker. ‘How are your friends in the city?’

‘A large mining company will be providing emergency generators and staff to keep electricity going in the event of strike action. Likewise, a number of newspaper owners have taken emergency precautions to make sure papers are still printed and distributed.’

‘What about the
QE2
?’ said JJ.

‘The
QE2
will be available for charter – that was, in fact, provisionally agreed last July.’

‘Continuing,’ said the peer, ‘a long proud tradition of British prison ships.’

‘And we mustn’t rule out deportations,’ said the colonel. ‘Ships are useful for that.’

‘I don’t want to sound like I’m having cold feet,’ said the banker.

‘Then shut up,’ said the colonel.

‘That’s a bit rude,’ said the peer, ‘so unlike you.’

The colonel nodded at the banker. ‘Apologies, Mungo, my nerves are a bit raw. It hasn’t been that long, you know? Just over fifty years ago when our homes were burnt down and members of my family were assassinated. We were British subjects living in an Ireland that was still British – and the government in London abandoned us to the mob. It must not happen here.’

‘It won’t happen here,’ said the general. ‘But can we hear what Mungo has to say.’

‘These things,’ said the banker, ‘can often have a bad effect on the markets. Markets don’t like uncertainty. Are there any alternatives?’

‘None,’ said the colonel.

‘Only Wilson’s resignation,’ said the general.

‘Can we get back to planning?’ said JJ.

‘A couple of my retired REME friends,’ said the colonel, ‘have a smashing plan to flood the House of Commons with sewage from the Thames.’

‘Who would notice?’ said the peer.

‘Quite,’ said the colonel.

The general cleared his throat. ‘Basically, we are going to put in place a plan that is called Transition to War. It’s a set of contingency plans for a nuclear conflict with the Soviet Union – and will, in fact, be much easier to implement without nukes going off. Another tactical operation is called Protective Control Zones. This effectively means sealing off harbours and airports.’

‘What are the Americans going to do?’ said the peer.

‘They’re going,’ said JJ, ‘to stay under the radar and operate
covertly as they did in Australia and Chile. They will provide valuable intelligence and psy-op.’

‘Most of the American news media,’ said the banker, ‘will welcome this. We will see carefully screened American “tourists” taking photos of smiling British soldiers.’

‘The psy-op theme,’ said JJ, ‘is that the coup will be a return to British normality, not a departure from it.’

The general looked at his watch. ‘I’ve got to paddle off.’

‘But you will be here next Thursday?’ said the colonel.

The general nodded. ‘Our final meeting before the balloon goes up.’

The retired colonel toasted the general. ‘We will be behind you every step of the way.’

Century House, Lambeth, London:
17 November 1975

‘You look awful, Henry.’

‘Thanks for your concern, Catesby.’

‘Lack of sleep, too much drink?’

‘I haven’t been sleeping well.’

‘Would you like to hear the latest from our friends in the billiard room?’

Catesby nodded and Bone turned on the recorder.

…
final meeting before the balloon goes up
.

It hadn’t been easy listening. Catesby’s face had turned ashen.

‘Any comments?’

Catesby shook his head.

‘I’ve never told you,’ said Bone, ‘exactly why I went to Paris.’

‘You seemed very cagey about it and brushed me off whenever I mentioned it. Why?’

‘Our listening device in the billiard room needs replacing.’

Catesby stared blankly.

Bone got up and went over to the eighteenth-century sideboard which tottered on its thin tapering legs. He opened a cupboard door, took out a cardboard box and put it on a coffee table between himself and Catesby.

‘I received this from a Dutch-registered yacht that arrived in
Orford last August. Customs and Excise are always late checking yachts there – and sometimes never arrive. I made sure they didn’t on this occasion.’

‘Are you okay, Henry? Your hands are shaking.’

‘Maybe I have been drinking too much.’

Catesby smiled. ‘It’s an SIS tradition.’ He then noticed that Bone really did look upset. ‘Sorry, Henry, I shouldn’t have been flippant.’

Bone folded back the cardboard and took a cassette recorder out of the box.

Catesby knew the recorder wasn’t what it seemed.

Bone opened the lid on the back of the recorder and revealed a pattern of wires and explosives.

‘What next?’ said Catesby.

‘We’ll have to use my neighbour’s friend who still works at the club. By the way, they now live together, thanks to Harold Wilson’s decriminalisation act which got rid of those barbaric laws.’

‘More ammunition for the bigots.’

Bone nodded. ‘In any case, I’ll have to make up a story as to why we want to replace the original listening device – which is compact and easy to conceal – with this lumpy thing. I’m going to tell him that the radio signal is being blocked.’

‘And when the thing blows up, your neighbour’s friend will know that you duped him into placing it there.’

‘I’m going to have to silence him. You can’t fight a war, even a just war, without civilian casualties. In any case, the bombing will be blamed on the IRA – all the components point to their bomb-making techniques. And they have bombed a gentlemen’s club in the past.’ Bone paused, but continued looking at the device. ‘What do you think, William?’

When Bone looked up Catesby’s back was turned and he was already heading for the door.

South Kensington, London:
20 November 1975

It was 2 a.m. and Henry Bone was unable to sleep. He was in his sitting room wearing slippers and a silk Chinese dressing gown
that he had inherited from a naval officer uncle who had served on China station in the nineteenth century. He had Vaughan Williams on the phonograph and was hoping that a combination of ‘The Lark Ascending’ and brandy would lull him to sleep.

The next day was going to be difficult, critical and heartrending. The neighbour’s friend, who was actually now a neighbour, didn’t leave for work at the club until 11 a.m., but then worked until midnight. Serving staff worked awful hours for pitiful wages. Bone was taking the morning off and was, in a gesture worthy of Judas, going to cook breakfast for his neighbour while explaining how to install the new ‘listening device’.

The awful part would come later. Bone insisted that the neighbour accept money for what he was doing and the risks he was taking. ‘If they find out what you’ve been up to,’ said Bone, ‘you’ll lose your job. We’re going to pay you a thousand pounds, but I have to draw the money in used notes from a special fund.’ It was agreed that they would meet in an underground car park near the club at 2 p.m. – two hours before the bomb would be discovered and detonated by an anti-disturbance device that became activated once the buzzer went off. Bone had to admit that the bomb was a brilliantly engineered piece of death. Bone hoped that at 2 p.m. the underground car park would be dark and deserted. But instead of receiving a thousand pounds in used banknotes, the neighbour – who was a very pleasant person with a beautiful smile and a great sense of humour – would receive three bullets in the back of the head from a .22 pistol fitted with a silencer. The extra bullets were necessary because of the low calibre of the pistol. A larger gun would be impossible to effectively silence in the echoing space of a car park.

The Vaughan Williams had finished. Bone replaced the record with a William Byrd Marian Mass. How, he thought, had Byrd, so obviously an undercover Roman Catholic, got away with it? Was it because Elizabeth was an undercover Catholic too? The fear of Communists in Downing Street was part of a long British tradition of suspecting treachery in high places.

Bone had finally begun to doze off when there was an urgent knocking at the door. He looked at his watch: it was nearly 3 a.m.
The knocking continued and became even more urgent. Bone looked at the desk drawer where he kept the pistol.

‘I’ll be there in a second,’ he shouted at the door.

Bone walked over to the desk, slid the drawer open and concealed the pistol in the folds of his dressing gown.

‘Who is it?’ said Bone when he got to the front door. He hadn’t turned on the hall light and was flat against the wall.

‘It’s me.’ The voice sounded slightly drunk.

‘Oh, it’s you,’ said Bone opening the door. ‘Come in quick.’

Bone’s visitor was an old friend and sometimes lover. He didn’t work for the intelligence service, but he was the ultimate White-hall insider. The visitor glanced down and saw the barrel of the pistol bulging in the pocket of Bone’s dressing gown. ‘I wish that you were pleased to see me instead.’

‘I am sure that isn’t the reason you are here.’

‘It isn’t – and I can’t stay long.’ He gestured over his shoulder to the sound of an idling car engine. ‘The meter’s running, but I’ve got something very important to tell you.’

‘What is it?’

‘Something that changes everything – but it’s not really surprising. How much pressure can you put someone under?’

‘What’s happened?’

The visitor told him.

‘Are you sure this is true?’ said Bone.

‘Absolutely, a hundred per cent.’ The visitor then gave a list of names with whom Bone could check to confirm the story.

‘Thank you.’

‘I’m off now, duty done.’

Bone shut the door and went back to the sitting room. He was in a much lighter mood, but the news was still disturbing. It meant the plotters were going to win by other means. Bone returned the pistol to his desk and took an ancient Underwood typewriter out of a cupboard. It was American-made and had a US typeface. Bone used the typewriter when he wanted to sow confusion – which was his intention now. But he would have to do something about the Underwood afterwards. There had been a rash of burglaries – and it would be awkward if
Special Branch ever got a search warrant and confiscated the typewriter. You could easily trace an anonymous letter back to the typewriter. Sadly, the Underwood was destined for a trip to the bottom of the Thames. Cautious of fingerprints too, Bone slipped on a pair of surgical gloves to handle the stationery. He began typing.

COMRADELY GREETINGS TO MY FELLOW BILLIARD ROOM PLOTTERS…

When Bone got back to his flat, it was six o’clock in the morning, but still dark. The Underwood had been rechristened an Underwater – and a letter addressed
BILLIARD ROOM: PLEASE DELIVER AT 4 P.M.
, had been dropped through the letter box of the Mayfair gentlemen’s club.

Bone was tired, but it wasn’t his first sleepless night of late. His next problem was how to explain to his neighbour that there had been a change of plan. Perhaps he ought to give him a thousand pounds after all. What does one say?
Sorry, I was going to give you three bullets in the back of the head, but perhaps you would be so kind to accept this money instead.

Pimlico, London:
20 November 1975

‘You haven’t slept at all, William.’

Catesby got up on his elbow and looked at the alarm clock. It was twenty past five. ‘Shit, I’d better get up.’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘I did sleep a little, but I had an awful dream.’

‘Can you remember it?’

‘Everyone was telling me why they don’t like me. It started with family. I was a bad son, a bad brother, a bad husband, a bad stepfather – and then it moved outwards. I was an incompetent officer, a disloyal colleague, not a team player, a lying subordinate, a bullying boss.’ Catesby smiled. ‘And then the Queen even got involved. She grabbed the OBE she had just pinned on my lapel. “Give that back,” she said, “you don’t deserve it.” Then I woke up.’

‘It sounds like a guilt dream.’

‘Thanks.’ Catesby gently rested his hand on Frances’s arm.
‘And thank you for coming. I didn’t want to be alone last night – I needed comfort.’

‘Please tell me what’s wrong.’

‘Just a small problem at the office.’

‘I don’t believe you, but I’m glad you’re smiling.’

‘I’ve decided to do something about it.’

The important thing, thought Catesby, was to find a telephone kiosk where no one who knew him would spot him. Instead of walking directly to Century House, he took a detour into a residential area of Kennington near where Charlie Chaplin was born. He dialled the number of the gentlemen’s club in Mayfair and hoped they would believe him.

Mayfair, London:
20 November 1975

The general was late. As he walked in, the colonel said, ‘You missed all the excitement.’

‘There was a bomb scare,’ said the banker.

‘And a very feeble one,’ said the peer. ‘The man on reception is from Waterford…’

‘We shouldn’t worry,’ said the banker, ‘he was thoroughly security-checked as soon as the Troubles began.’

‘Please let me finish, Mungo,’ said the peer. ‘In any case, our safe security-checked mick from Waterford told the cops that the caller’s Irish accent was totally bogus.’

The general shifted nervously. It was obvious that he wasn’t at all interested in the bomb scare and had something more important to deal with. The words came out quick and decisive. ‘I’ve come to tell you that it’s not happening.’