The Dying Light (44 page)
‘But surely there will be some kind of statement expected from the government?’
‘Not at this stage,’ said Glenny.
Ferris put away his phone and pushed his chair back. ‘Prime minister, I wonder if I might . . .’
‘By all means do leave, Jamie; we’ve all got a lot to do.’
The night went badly. Kate was dropped off in a side street in west London by Freddie after Miff received a message on his laptop. The engine of the high-powered car bringing Eyam through the ANPR mesh that surrounded London had blown up after a chase through Hertfordshire involving two saloons. Eyam’s driver, an associate of Eco Freddie’s from Essex, had shaken off the pursuers at speeds of 130 mph but now the car couldn’t travel above forty mph and they had abandoned it. The driver, navigator and Eyam were holed up in an agricultural shed ten miles north of St Albans. Freddie went off to collect Eyam while Kate, knowing that there could be no official record of her short-term let at the apartment block in Knightsbridge, simply hailed a cab and went home.
She now had three phones, the third having been provided by Eco Freddie to match the ones distributed among the group at the church. On waking at seven thirty a.m., she switched it on together with Kilmartin’s phone and put her own phone on charge. She made coffee and listened to the BBC’s Today radio programme while taking a bath. Much of the programme was devoted to the developing water crisis and the government’s action. The coverage was linked to the speculation about a general election that had appeared over the weekend. Quoting Downing Street sources, the BBC’s political editor said it seemed unlikely that an election would be called when the government could not predict when the water crisis would be resolved. There was also a firm view from one of Temple’s main supporters, Bryant Maclean, that an election would be easily won in the autumn.
Kate loaded the washing machine with her laundry and went down to a newsagent nearby to buy a newspaper and a packet of cigarettes. She strolled in the gardens behind the block of flats for a few minutes and then returned to the flat. It was just past nine when she heard one of the phones ringing as she put her key in the apartment door. The face of Eyam’s phone was illuminated. She snatched it up and answered.
‘Tony’s been killed,’ said Eyam’s voice.
‘Oh God! How?’
‘They were hit from behind by a truck loaded with sand last night. They didn’t stand a chance.’
‘Christ, I’m sorry.’
Eyam tried to say something.
‘Don’t,’ she said.
‘Chris Mooney was with him. Tony took him because Chris was having doubts.’
‘Jesus! He had a family.’
‘The truck came from behind and flattened the car. There’s a picture on the BBC website.’
‘Are you certain it was them?’
‘Yes, apparently Mooney had ID on him. It was found in the wreckage. The police were on his wife’s doorstep this morning.’
‘And what about the package?’
‘They were on a stretch of road in Berkshire so they had made the collection. We must assume it’s lost or destroyed.’
‘Where’s the driver of the truck?’
‘Vanished. There were no witnesses. It happened in the early hours.’ He paused. ‘The sand truck used to be notorious in the Balkans as a means of assassination. That’s the type of country we’re now living in,’ he added bitterly.
‘How important are the documents in the package?’ she asked.
‘Very. Freddie is going to try to get a look at the car. It was registered in his company’s name so he stands an even chance of being able to search it. We’ll see.’
‘Are you OK?’
‘No,’ replied Eyam. ‘But that’s not important.’
‘Tony was your friend.’
‘Yes. I loved the man but we’ve got to continue. I am going to have to rely on you now. Are you making the arrangements we spoke of?’
‘I will do,’ she said. ‘How did they track yours and Tony’s car?’
‘I don’t know, but I’ve got a good idea.’
‘And the others?’
‘They all arrived in London safely. Where are you?’
‘In my flat - it’s a company let. Secure and anonymous.’ She gave him the address.
‘I’ll see you later. I have things to do.’
‘Are you going to be OK?’ she asked, but Eyam had already gone.
She lit a cigarette and paced the flat for a few minutes, convinced that the sand truck - like the sniper’s rifle that killed Hugh Russell - was not a means that the British government would employ. It was much more likely that the two killings were organised - if not carried out - by OIS, which was leeching information from the state’s surveillance systems. The important part of the night’s events was that the cars carrying Eyam and Swift had both been targeted. Eyam said he had an idea why that was, which must mean that he suspected that one of his group was a traitor. If there was an informant, he or she must have sent a message after the church meeting because only at that stage would it have been clear which cars Swift and Eyam were travelling in. A simple text with the two registration plates was all that was necessary. Somewhere along the route Eyam’s car had been picked up by new ANPR cameras, whose position hadn’t been put into the system his navigator had been using. Swift and Mooney, who did not have a navigator, must have been tagged from a very early stage in the evening.
She picked up the knapsack and took out Eyam’s paper on Eden White, which she had all but forgotten, together with the papers Kilmartin had given her - the transcript from the Intelligence and Security Committee and the emails in response to Eyam’s evidence, and also the executive summary from Eyam’s dossier. She put the paper about White aside and sat down to read the transcript and the emails, but then had another idea and reached for her purse. Nick Parker’s business card for Uriconcoins was still lodged amongst her credit cards. She took it out and dialled the number of the part-time coin dealer in High Castle.
‘Hit back,’ she said to herself. ‘Hit the bastards hard and low.’
Parker answered.
‘It’s Kate - the woman who was in your shop on Saturday with that piece of film that you stored on your site.’
‘Yes,’ said Parker unenthusiastically.
‘Is there something wrong?’ she asked.
‘A mate of mine - Chris Mooney - has been killed.’
‘I heard.’
‘It’s been on the local radio. He advertised his business in the shop. He had a wife and two children. It’s brutal.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I want you to release that film. I believe the film has some bearing on Mr Mooney’s death.’
‘You mean . . . Chris’s death and Hugh Russell’s are connected?’
‘That’s what I believe, yes.’
‘Jesus! What do you want me to do?’
‘Put that film on the most public site possible - we need people to see those faces. But wait until you get emailed copies of transcripts and emails from a firm in London. Just get it out there and try not to leave a trail of any sort.’
‘This is big.’
‘It’s very important, but don’t add any of your own comments. Just let people make up their own minds about this.’
‘I’ll wait for your email.’
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I’ll call you when I can.’
Then she dialled one of the partners in the Calverts London office and asked his secretary to collect a package from her address, scan all the contents and send it to the email address written on the top. After that the originals should be returned to her. As she spoke she started making rapid notes on a pad, which she continued when she hung up. With Swift dead and Eyam ill and weak, there was much work to do.
Kilmartin had, of course, taken copies of the emails and the proceedings of the Intelligence and Security Committee, and it was these that he pushed gently across the desk towards Beatrice Somers with his fingertips. Baroness Somers of Crompton, a title she had chosen after being ennobled for her thirty-year service in SIS during the Cold War, and much else besides, did not touch or look at the papers but fixed him with hooded eyes which in her eightieth year still displayed unnerving acuity. Beatrice Somers was old-school: no memoirs or indiscretion had flowed from her pen since retirement and she had contempt for those that let slip the slightest detail about the workings of SIS. She had been at the top of the service when Kilmartin was a young man and she was still one of the very few people who could make him feel uncomfortable. He shifted in his seat, wondering if she was going to acknowledge what was in front of her, or not.
‘You could have gone a lot further in your career,’ she observed, ‘if you hadn’t been trying to be two things at once. You can’t be an academic and an intelligence officer: I always told you that, Peter.’
‘You were probably right.’
‘Yes. Still, I suppose all of us have to make accommodations with our natures. Talent, character and ambition - you had the first two but not the last. With most intelligence officers it is the other way.’ She shook her head with affectionate despair and the dewlaps beneath her chin and the folds of skin where her cheeks ended at her mouth shuddered. ‘I suppose that you wouldn’t have been happy stuck in the office.’
‘That’s certainly true - I had a good career in the field, Lady Somers.’
‘Don’t be such a silly ass, Peter. Call me Beatrice like everyone else does.’ In a hundred years he would not be able to bring himself to do that. ‘And you have been working for John Temple, I hear.’ She continued looking out of the window. ‘As some form of special envoy?’
He nodded.
‘Yet now you come to me out of the blue with tales of conspiracy and surveillance systems and more acronyms than a person of my age wants to hear. It seems rather disloyal of you.’
‘Maybe, but the evidence is very persuasive and the witness, whose name must remain a secret, is one of the most reliable people I know. I offer my personal guarantee on that.’
She placed her un-ringed left hand on the papers and drew them towards her. She gave Kilmartin one more penetrating look, then put on her glasses and began to read. He watched in awe at the speed with which she seemed to absorb the contents of the pages. Her intelligence was always beautifully camouflaged by a vague manner and her taste for capacious two-piece suits that reached two thirds of the way down her calf. No more than five foot five, she had surrendered to dumpiness at an early age, although her skin and the pale-grey eyes gave some idea of the pretty young woman who had been sent to the British Embassy in Moscow in the late fifties. Her entire career in the field was spent in the communist bloc or in countries threatened by the Soviets. When she returned to the old SIS headquarters at Century House in Lambeth to take up a senior desk job, her colleagues found to their cost that they had made the same false assumptions about Beatrice Somers as the agents of so many foreign powers had done. She possessed a fierce political acumen that had served her well in SIS and was occasionally seen in the proceedings of the Lords and Commons Joint Committee on Human Rights.
She put down the papers and stared from the window across the Thames. ‘I can do little for you on the basis of this evidence,’ she said.
‘It is nothing like the entire case,’ said Kilmartin.
‘I have to have more to persuade my chairman.’
‘The documents cannot be made available until the committee agrees to hear the evidence.’
‘Well, that isn’t on, Peter. I am sorry but I am not prepared to allow this committee to be used. And I can assure you that will be the first thought of my chairman, who is a member of the governing party. I want the name of this witness and as much as you know of what he is going to say and how it affects the business of my committee.’
Kilmartin addressed her demands in reverse order and started by making the case for putting the committee in the forefront of the fight for civil liberties in Britain. She was unmoved by this. Her interest only picked up when he expanded on what she had read about Eden White’s penetration of and influence in the highest councils in the land. At length he revealed that David Eyam had faked his own death and had returned to Britain.
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