The Knives (33 page)

First light on Monday required the call to the Captain. Vaughan offered Blaylock no surprises: just the grave, not wholly unsympathetic manner of a headmaster who expected him to do better forthwith, and would cast only dark looks his way until Blaylock proposed a viable solution to the trouble he had caused.

An hour after that sobering discussion Blaylock was then required to speak to Al Ramsay, and to hold his tongue throughout.

‘David, you’ll not be shocked to know you were the hot topic of the PM’s morning meeting. You and your department have got a pincer movement coming down on it – what are we supposed to say?’

‘As I told the Prime Minister, I take responsibility, we will get to the bottom of all of this, and it will not happen again.’

Ramsay – from whom Blaylock had never heard a single word that he took for the honest truth – only grunted as if to suggest he put no great faith in Blaylock’s current efforts either.

At 8.30 a.m. he closed his office door, as he expected he would be doing for the foreseeable, and huddled at the table with his spads.

‘Okay, as of now no one says anything on my behalf but Mark. This room is my golden circle.’

‘David, you can trust us, and the private office, you’ve got that much,’ said Tallis, so much the company second-in-command that Blaylock was touched.

‘Thanks. As for the rest, though, we have a serious mole here,’ he said, then added, despite himself, ‘a major fucking rat.’

‘We need to look at who’s resentful,’ offered Deborah, looking relatively dishevelled for once in a shirt and trousers, also more pensive than usual. Blaylock wondered if she and indeed the other two were suddenly mulling the possible loss of their jobs, too. ‘I just wonder, has someone done this alone or are they being worked by the other side?’

‘I’ve not got time to call in Sherlock Holmes,’ said Blaylock. ‘We need to do our own digging. Ben, any ideas?’

Ben seemed as subdued as Deborah. ‘I’ve a few thoughts. One or two ministers’ private secretaries. They might have been up to this.’

‘Paul Payne’s gone on air this morning and said something not terribly helpful,’ Tallis offered moodily. ‘Some bollocks about accountability being clear, going to the top?’

‘The trouble is, that’s not bollocks,’ Blaylock groaned.

‘Who’s your biggest enemy in the building?’ Deborah was abruptly reanimated. ‘Who’s given you the absolute biggest grief?’

Blaylock thought for a moment, then nearly laughed. ‘Phyllida. I mean, if I had to name one …’

The morning’s regular departmental meeting was devoted entirely to crisis management, though Blaylock didn’t detect a crushing sense of criticality in the air.

‘In respect of the Quarmby leak I have spoken to the Cabinet Secretary,’ Phyllida Cox announced assuredly. ‘The Cabinet Office’s investigative panel will convene and look into it forthwith.’

That’s going nowhere
, Blaylock thought. ‘My main concern today’, he spoke with care, ‘is that Sally Duffett’s family say she passed a letter along to us, via police – a threatening letter. What are our records? Have we established that we got the letter? Did we reply?’

He watched pens scribble all around the table. When the room emptied Phyllida Cox remained in her seat, studying him, scarf sharply pinned at her throat, and what he read as a gleam in her eye.

‘You’re remarkably serene, Phyllida,’ he said finally.

‘These things happen. I gave my view at the time, you might recall, on the wisdom of cover-ups? I don’t see government as a game, David, but if others persist in doing so then they will be played in turn.’

He settled his elbows in the table, as if to tighten himself against raising his voice. ‘Someone in this building has leaked a classified document. Someone we hired failed to correctly check a passport … I always like how responsibility falls here. There is a mountain of things in this department where I was assured that action would be taken—’

‘How odd,’ she butted in with uncommon boldness. ‘To hear you resort to the passive voice? I appreciate decisions are lonely in leadership, but you have taken them, very firmly, and let people know it was your view. The fact that miracles can’t be worked—’

‘I’ve never asked for miracles,’ he butted back. ‘Only that we all be judged. Now, the calm round here is stunning to me. Is that because no one feels their position is remotely compromised?’

‘David, need I remind, you said the buck stopped with you? Another thing on which you were advised?’

‘As I recall, I took that view because I sensed I was alone in all this, and on that score I think I was correct, judging by the size of the mess.’

‘It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.’

Well, well
, Blaylock thought, disarmed to a degree in the face of the combative glow she exuded. At length he stood up and forced a smile, keen that she see his teeth.

‘I can see, at any rate, that no one round here is inclined to the Roman way of contrition.’

Phyllida also stood, and with a bearing he could only call imperial, as one who had let slip war from the folds of that Liberty print scarf. ‘I’m sorry, you want me to fall on my sword? Like the noble Cato? You might consider that option yourself, martial type that you are.’

Geraldine rapped and entered simultaneously, a reminder to Blaylock that urgency was not entirely missing from Level Three. ‘David, after your statement Martin Pallister’s been granted an Urgent Question? “To ask the Home Secretary about the security of UK borders and the absconding of violent criminals.”’

Blaylock nodded, straining to stay self-contained. ‘Of course he has.’

‘Also, Gervaise Hawley’s being quoted by the news, he says, “Today’s reports make dismaying reading. We must have the Home Secretary, his Permanent Secretary and Immigration team before us without delay, as clearly there are many questions they must answer.”’

‘A date for you and me then, Phyllida?’ offered Blaylock, as his Permanent Secretary moved to the door.

Before that day Blaylock would have said he had never truly feared the House. He had been called worse names in school playgrounds, had heard far more daunting levels of din, and had never known the complete ignominy of being the baited bear in the bear-pit, guts all on the floor. But that day reset all records.

He delivered his contrite statement. ‘The error was profoundly regrettable – the public will, rightly, be angered and dismayed. I give my undertaking that the lapse will not be repeated. The unprecedented difficulties we have had with the passport system have happened. But they are already in the past, and we will move forward and make right.’

He heard himself clearly, knew he had been heard out. Martin Pallister, however, rose to the despatch box with an assurance
Blaylock had rarely seen even in one so proud.

‘Today we see the scale of the incompetence under this government, the shambolic state of border controls – for all the Home Secretary’s past pledges. The government talks tough on immigration and in private it flounders. It’s all just talk. Who gets in and out of Britain? The Home Secretary should stop pretending he is in charge of our borders, he should stop sending out his troops on pointless dawn raids. Because now we learn the truth hurts so much he decides it must be suppressed, sat upon for weeks –
he
decides it’s too hot for the public to hear. Does he not now think that honesty was the best policy? Wasn’t it his own convenience he had uppermost in mind? An easy life for the Home Office, keeping the government out of the headlines, instead of the truth that’s owed to the British public?’

There was huge and hearty support from the Opposition benches. Blaylock knew he had to get a rise in turn from his own side.

‘It is a fact that we inherited a broken immigration system—’

Instantly he was assailed by jeers.

‘And,
and
, we have battled hard to fix it. The deportation system remains clogged by years of mishandled cases and unreliable records, and the conditions that permitted the current state to come about were not engineered on our watch—’

The jeers intensified – as, in truth, he had expected.

‘
However
, we take responsibility for our own failings and for setting the failings of the past right.’

Pallister came to the box and leaned, insouciant. ‘Can the Minister tell us how many people are currently in the United Kingdom illegally?’

‘There are no official estimates of the number of illegal immigrants in the UK’ –
jeers! – ‘because
by its very nature illegal immigration is hard to measure, any estimates would be speculative.’

Jeers!
Pallister now had the high-nosed look of the emperor wielding say-so over outcomes in the Circus Maximus. ‘Oh, but
surely the Minister could make a fair guess based on data he has at his disposal? Isn’t it the case that he knows very well? He just has no clue what to do about it?’

Blaylock felt his face burn much as if it had been slapped. ‘My position, the case I have made, as the Right Honourable Gentleman well knows, is that so many of the needless obstacles we have faced will be avoided with the introduction of identity cards.’

Jeers!

‘The
fact
, the
fact
is that the law requires employers to determine if people they hire have permission to work in the UK. Likewise banks accepting new customers, likewise private landlords renting properties … But once we have identity cards and the national register I believe we will be where we need to be to see the end of this sort of farrago.’

Pallister shook his head, commanding the high tide behind him. ‘A farrago indeed, Mr Speaker – when people have suffered tragedies they might have been spared. When it could have been avoided by simple competence within a government department. This demands action. How many foreign national offenders are currently in the country? How many dangerous individuals have gone missing since this government took office? The Minister tells us often enough his number one priority is to protect our society and citizens. When he has failed so clearly, does he not feel his position is untenable?’

Blaylock got to his feet, aware he was flailing, aware of the subdued mood at his back, hating the sound of his own voice. The clamour in the Chamber was exceptional, his sense of sinking worsened by knowing there was no hole to swallow him. As he prepared to tell the House that he was the man to sort out the problem, he realised his own view was that he was nothing of the sort.

The battering done, he peeled himself off the canvas and retreated to his Commons office, where his PPS Trevor Parry – another ally
appearing visibly queasy about his own fortunes – made a show of a ringside exhortation.

‘That was a poor effort in there by our side. I am going to bloody well get onto some people and tell them support is needed.’

Blaylock sent Parry on his way in time to receive the Prime Minister, a drop-in for which he had prepared the painful words that seemed necessary.

‘Patrick, I want you to know that if you think it’s right then I’m ready to resign. I said the buck stops with me, and I will sort it out. I am fully focused on rectifying the situation. However, I appreciate public confidence is vital, and I’ve no wish to harm the government.’

Vaughan looked thoughtful. ‘We don’t throw in the towel in round one. What I need to know is, what’s actually going to make the difference here, David?’

Blaylock opened his mouth to speak then closed it. The difference would be the public having heard his apology, believing what had not been done before would be done now; the agenda moving on, no more front pages; and nobody else losing their lives as a result of bureaucratic failure. In all, it was a tall order. And it occurred to Blaylock that, even if he could pull it off, he would not survive if Vaughan had someone in mind to fill his shoes.

Back at Shovell Street he found that Eric Manning had been swift in uncovering the fate of the document trail. However, the outcome was yet more dismal. ‘Yes, the letter sent to Sally Duffett came to us from the police. We replied to the police that he “was no longer of interest to us”.’

‘Because we were just happy he was gone.’

Eric nodded. ‘However, it’s not clear the police had relayed that message to Ms Duffett before … what happened last week.’

Mark Tallis entered, cheerlessly bearing updates. ‘Quarmby has given a press conference saying he stands by all his figures in the
original report. Pallister’s reiterated the call for your resignation on the BBC. “If the standards to which we hold ministers have any meaning then the Home Secretary needs to consider his position.”’

Blaylock shrugged.

‘What irks me is this, from some mouthy anonymous. “Someone has to get a grip at the Home Office. Whether that person should be David Blaylock is debatable. If it’s such a long-term problem then let someone else try.” See, I reckon that’s Paul Payne.’

Blaylock’s mobile pulsed. He saw that it was Abby, but decided not to wave Mark away.

‘
David, is this an okay time?
’

‘There won’t be one of those for a little while, I don’t think.’

He heard her exhale. ‘
Listen, I haven’t felt great over how things have
…
come to pass. I wanted you to know that.
’

‘I … appreciate that.’ He saw Mark watching him, evidently wishing he was listening in on an extension.

‘
So I wanted to let you know, so you understand, so you’re ready. There’s more to come. The
Correspondent
will be running more.
’

‘Look, I know Quarmby’s report, obviously. They haven’t held anything back I can see.’

‘
It’s not just the report, David. There’s other stuff. About your department. About you. You’d just better get your tin hat on, okay?
’

He cast a baleful eye over the nightly news and saw Jason Malahide, on his way out of the Palace of Westminster, yet allowing himself to be flagged down by a microphone-waving reporter: ‘
David Blaylock is an honourable man, he can be trusted to do the honourable thing
.’