The Watchers (4 page)

‘Thirty million spent on upgrading security at RAF Croughton since the protests! Something called Project Caesar. I don’t know what it is, but it’s some sort of black operation – has to be. It could help me find out what happened that night. They’re hiding something. Selina, I need to know what it is.’

Her smile had vanished. I think it was starting to dawn on her that I might never let this drop.

For weeks Bestford and I had rehearsed the questions he would put that afternoon to Lieutenant Colonel Conrad Corso, the last in a very long line of American military witnesses who stood accused of covering up whatever had happened at RAF Croughton in February 1963. For reasons of ‘national security’ the inquiry had been delayed again and again. Any longer and we might never have discovered the truth. But now we were finally making progress. If we were lucky, the secret memo in my possession could be the smoking gun we needed.

I tried to make her see. ‘Without those figures, all we have to go on is rumour and speculation. Mum would have wanted me to do this. I need to know why she was injured, Selina. I have to prove they were keeping nuclear weapons on the base!’

‘Where did you get this document, Robert?’

I held my tongue as she stared at me.

‘Does Bestford know you have it?’

‘No.’

‘Well, you need to be damn sure he has your back! No risks. Remember, you signed the Official Secrets Act.’ She considered me for a long moment with an expression somewhere between frustration and admiration, all the while fingering the delicate silver crucifix around her neck. ‘You do a lot for him. More than you should – you know that?’

I felt a need to acknowledge the ongoing issue to which she was referring – Bestford’s shaky appearances on the floor of the House; his raging moods when he woke from his drunken sleeps – but there was nothing I could add that Selina didn’t already know.

‘You can’t allow his behaviour to go on for much longer, Robert. The risks to you and the party are enormous.’

She was right. Problem was, I didn’t care much for the party, a ramshackle collection of loud, aggressive old union men. I didn’t feel part of a group, not in Parliament, not anywhere. I was in this for answers, that was all.

Suddenly I felt my heart pound, and deep within my brain the distracting rhythm of another thought began to beat:
Did you lock the office door before you left yesterday?

Yes
,
I answered.
I remember doing it.

But you might be wrong
, came the cruel taunt.

Once again that awful, familiar frozen feeling in my head made me doubt myself, to imagine the worst. What if I hadn’t locked the door? What if someone had broken in, stolen all our files?
What if? What if? What if?

‘Robert, are you all right?’

Was I? I wasn’t sure. I squeezed my eyes shut and returned to Selina’s concerns about Bestford’s drinking. I knew our boss was far from perfect and wanted to help him if I could. There weren’t many MPs who would tolerate my doubts and anxious distractions. He had been good to me.

‘Robert?’

I nodded and tried to smile.
She must think I’m crazy
.

‘You know, sometimes I think you need something else to care about, something other than your work. You could get away for a while, go back to the constituency?’

I shuddered, remembering with a chill the loneliness and isolation, the indefinable feeling of danger, of being watched. Even though I had not been back to the Havens since I left my grandfather’s farm at eighteen, I saw it clearly. That lazy seaside community, the green hill which sloped down to St Brides Bay, the cluster of houses stranded around the choppy steel-grey waters, serpentine roads clogged with fog, fishing boats tethered in a tiny cove. And, in the distance, half a mile out to sea, Stack Rocks rising menacingly from the waters.

Selina had given up and was again sifting through the newspaper cuttings strewn across the coffee table. My gaze touched her bare shoulder again, the blue towel, her necklace, before skimming over the sensational headlines. One from late December read,
YOUNG MOTHER AND CHILD IN FLYING FOOTBALL PERIL.
‘Not exactly your typical constituency casework, is it?’ I said, picking up the cutting. Hoping the article would lighten the mood, I scanned down to the body of the story.

A single mother described yesterday how she and her daughter were followed for more than a mile by a ‘flying football’ in the latest in a spate of UFO sightings in west Wales.

Ms Araceli Romero, proprietor of the Haven Hotel, said she was driving near Little Haven when her ten-year-old daughter Tessa spotted a light dropping from the sky towards their car.

Ms Romero accelerated under the falling object. But Tess, watching through the back window, saw it stop and then charge at the car. She described the phenomenon as a yellow ball, about the size of a football, with a torch-like beam coming from its base . . .

‘I was petrified, we both were,’ Ms Romero told our reporter Frank Frobisher.

‘It’s a scam,’ I said, laughing. I expected Selina to laugh as well. She didn’t.

‘You seem very sure.’

How many wild stories had I heard about flying saucers? Publicity seekers or people who were just too keen to believe, zealots like my grandfather deriving pathetic self-importance from fantastic tales. ‘Trust me. This woman’s just trying to drum up some bookings for her hotel.’

That seemed likely. The Haven Hotel was a converted fortification stranded on the cliff above St Brides Bay and looked like a place of nightmares. The children at school used to say it was haunted by the ghost of the White Lady, that ancient smuggling tunnels ran from its basement through the cliffs down to the beach below. But to me the greatest mystery was why anyone would want to stay in such a grim establishment. Run by a strange Italian woman who didn’t mix with the villagers, the building, with its dusty Gothic windows, some of them broken, didn’t look anything like a hotel; it looked like the newest residence of the Addams Family.

I studied the cutting again. The photograph beneath the headline showed a sad-looking young woman with a narrow face and long dark hair. She was holding the hand of a thin girl with terrified eyes.

Something about that woman . . .
A memory almost sparked, connected to the lighthouse from my dreams. Its yellow beam pulsing, pulsing before the image slipped away. As it always did.

‘Well, this Araceli Romero wants our help,’ said Selina. ‘Phoned the office twice this week.’

‘And she expects Bestford to do what, exactly? Demand the aliens pay landing fees?’

‘She’s in a state, and so are many of the locals. There’s been a whole spate of reports about lights in the sky and strange things appearing out of nowhere. Not helped by this reporter, Frank Frobisher.’

‘Never heard of him.’

‘He’s with the
Western Telegraph
,’ Selina said. She rose and stood beside me. ‘And when you think about it, the locals have had their fair share of uncertainty after what happened with the Jacksons.’

I nodded absently. I didn’t know much about the disappearance of the English couple who had stayed in the area last summer. Only that dealing with correspondence on the issue had become an almost full-time job for Selina.

‘Any developments on the case?’

‘Don’t get me started.’

According to the police report, Thomas and Joan Jackson were gentle churchgoing wildlife enthusiasts who knew the Pembrokeshire coast intimately. On the day of their disappearance, beneath the morning’s honeysuckle heat and the bluest sky, they’d set off for a walk along the coast to a remote beauty spot on a footpath running over the cliffs of St Brides Bay. They were never seen alive again.

Selina sighed. ‘If I get this job, you’ll have to stay close to the police investigation.’

I had no wish to stay close to the case. ‘My grandfather lived near that footpath. Ravenstone Farm,’ I said quietly.

I’d had no contact with the man since the day I left home. Dead or alive, wherever he was made no difference to me.

‘You’ve never spoken about him,’ she probed gently.

‘No . . .’ I trailed off. The truth was, I’d blocked out much of my time at Ravenstone Farm. And I was thankful for that.

‘What sort of man was your grandfather?’

Cruel. Extremely paranoid
. Those were the words that leaped to mind.
A man of nightmares.

‘He had religion bad,’ I said, remembering the rosary in his truck, remembering the shock as his Bible struck the back of my head. ‘He thought there were hidden dangers everywhere.’

‘What do you mean?’

I hesitated. How much to say about the guardian who had raised me to be the man I was? ‘As a young man he was in the air force. He quit, became a farmer.’

She nodded encouragingly. Smiled

‘When I lived with him he would scare me with fairy tales about fires in the sky and giants in the ground, watching us. He said their faces were made of shadows.’

Selina’s smile vanished. ‘What else did he say?’

And suddenly, from long ago – the worst time – I could see the wild contempt in my grandfather’s eyes as we stood together on the cliffs overlooking Stack Rocks; could see him crossing himself; could hear his rusty voice:
Your father was a monster!

Dad had deserved better. Much better.

I stood up abruptly.

‘Robert?’

‘I’m sorry. I need to focus. Big day!’

Before I could reach the door, Selina grabbed my arm and said, ‘You take care of yourself when I’m gone. Promise me.’

A sort of prophecy. I see that now.

– 3 –

The journey to work took barely fifteen minutes, but on grimy mornings like this it felt much longer. I walked swiftly along the Albert Embankment through a thin low-hanging mist, crossing Westminster Bridge, dodging one of the new Silver Jubilee buses.

Weaving through the crowds on Parliament Square, I couldn’t ignore the weary realism in everyone’s eyes. It looked nothing like the hopeful optimism the police said we needed to get through this difficult time. The IRA West End bombings the previous year had left a black cloud over London.

The Houses of Parliament loomed grandly before me as I joined the procession of young men and women filing into St Stephen’s Entrance. Parliamentary researchers, we were easy to spot in our ill-fitting suits and scuffed leather shoes – glorified bag handlers weighed down with thick files and bundles of papers.

I didn’t know anyone who wasn’t intimidated by the grandeur of Parliament; the mantle of history that weighed on your shoulders in a complex of buildings that felt both like a cathedral and a museum; an eight-acre maze of stone where a hundred staircases connected three miles of passages and over one hundred rooms. But today it wasn’t the building intimidating me. Under my left arm I was carrying a folder packed full of notes on the inquiry: witness statements, official letters, everything except the pivotal document mentioning Project Caesar. That was tucked safely in my inner jacket pocket.

‘You know where you’re going, sir?’ The question had come from a young policeman.

‘Yes, thank you.’ I flashed my parliamentary pass and hurried on my way. The admiral would be waiting.

I paced past the darkened library that was my second home, heels clipping on the ancient flagstone floor, until eventually I came to the octagonal Central Lobby on the principal floor, the heart of the palace. Ahead of me and on either side symmetrical corridors lined with frescoes stretched away to the debating chambers of the two Houses: the Members’ Lobby and Commons Chamber to the north, and the Peers’ Lobby and Lords Chamber to the south. And there, in the far corner, was the stairwell leading to the roof.

What made the roof garden at Parliament special aside from the fact that hardly anyone ever went up there was the view. It hit me now with the same force as the plummeting temperature as I stepped out into it on that iron-cold morning. On my right the Thames wound its dark, permanent course through the city; on my left and directly ahead were Westminster Abbey, Whitehall and Horse Guards, the last once the headquarters of the British Army and the scene of countless parades and ceremonies since the seventeenth century.

‘Remarkable, isn’t it, old chap?’

The admiral was just a few metres away, his leather-gloved hands gripping the railings and his head tilted back in appreciation of the view. I had expected to find him here.

‘Democracy,’ the admiral said quietly. ‘Whenever I need to remind myself of what we’re defending in this endless war of attrition, I come up here.’

He was immaculate, refined – as always. Silver hair neatly side-combed, gold cufflinks catching the sun as it rose over the glittering buildings on Whitehall – the cogs and gears which ran our country: the Cabinet Office, the Treasury, the Ministry of Defence.

‘You must be freezing,’ he said, scanning my thin suit jacket. ‘We’ll make this quick.’

‘Thanks for your call this morning,’ I said.

He nodded cryptically but didn’t smile. ‘I have something to discuss with you. But first it’s a vital day for you. I know that. How are you faring?’

‘Fine. Selina’s helping.’

‘Will she be at the evidence session this afternoon?’

I felt sure she would make it and told him so. The admiral didn’t know Selina personally, but he always expressed interest in her work and her relationship with me.

‘Still, you really don’t look well, old chap. You haven’t skipped your pills?’ Curiosity in his voice, and concern.

‘No, still taking them.’

He raised a sceptical eyebrow. Perhaps he knew me too well. I had been skipping my medication for weeks. The tablets made me feel drowsy and unfocused, but without them . . . that was when the dreams began. Dreams about the lighthouse and the beat of its peculiar yellow light.

‘You’re afraid of lack of control. That’s the heart of the problem. But you must keep faith, never give in.’ He dropped a hand on my shoulder. His face was pinched red from the cold. ‘Remember what I told you. Keep a tight hold on your thoughts, or they’ll take control of you. When it gets too much, close your eyes. Breathe deep.’ He inhaled, breathed out slowly. ‘And keep taking your medication.’

Lord Hill Bartlett, one of the highest-ranking members of the military: chairman of the Military Committee of NATO, with an impressive office located in the north-east turret of the MoD Main Building on Whitehall. He had entered the Royal Navy as a cadet in 1928 and served as an officer in various ships in the Far East and Pacific Fleets during World War Two, being promoted to lieutenant commander in 1944. But my high regard for him had nothing to do with his military credentials. The admiral was my anchor in a sea of stress. Less of a mentor, almost a surrogate father.

From somewhere on the Thames sounded the hooting of a passing tug. The admiral produced a pipe from his pocket and gave me a sage smile.

‘I’m concerned about Paul,’ I blurted, burying my hands in my pockets. ‘If the fight’s going out of him we may not have much time. I need something else to go on now. Something solid.’

‘Under the circumstances I’ve given you all I can,’ he said, keeping his watery blue eyes on me. It wasn’t what I wanted to hear, but still there was something reassuring in the admiral’s appraising stare, a familiarity born of his many attempts at professional and personal counsel.

I found myself remembering the embarrassing day we had met three years earlier. I had just started as Bestford’s researcher and, fresh out of university, was naive and drunk on the need to find out what had happened. We were getting no answers from the MoD or the Americans about RAF Croughton despite the scores of letters that I had written and Bestford had signed. The admiral must have seen those letters and the many parliamentary written questions Bestford had put down about the Croughton arrests and protestors’ injuries, because soon after I was asked to attend a private meeting in his office. Although he was forty years my elder, we became friends quickly, and he taught me the value of the long game. It was, he said, ‘the gentleman’s way’, like succeeding in a chess tournament.

I produced from my inside jacket pocket the document mentioning Project Caesar, running my finger down a column of numbers. ‘See here, thirty million pounds allocated to a black project run out of RAF Croughton for the last fourteen years. What is it – a secret unit, a weapons storage facility?’

‘Ah yes, you’ve brought me back to why I wanted to speak to you in the first place. This is a little awkward, Robert. I’m sorry. I know I gave it to you, but I’m afraid I can no longer allow you to show this document to Bestford today. Or anyone on that committee.’

That came as a shock. Since I had first been summoned to meet the admiral, he had been nothing but accommodating. He had been respectful of the Defence Committee, of Bestford and my loyalty to him even as he had illegally passed me sensitive intelligence about Project Caesar. I was never entirely sure why he had taken an interest in me. I suppose I might have wondered if he was homosexual. Even if he was, I didn’t care. I liked him, trusted him. And his help with the Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases meant far too much to me to risk.

‘You know I have always assisted where I can.’ The admiral inhaled on his pipe, taking his time, then lowered his voice to a confidential tone. ‘But new intelligence has come to light, even since this report.’

‘What intelligence?’ I asked with more hostility than I intended.

‘Something that would make any mention of this money, this project, deeply unwise.’

‘But you gave me these figures. They could make all the difference! Please, you have to tell me what it is.’

The admiral frowned and brought his face closer to mine. ‘Robert, you know as well as I do that there are forces in this country of which we know little. People watching, all the time . . .’ He paused, shook his head, then looked away.

I turned my back on the admiral’s stony expression, wondering what he was holding back.

He laid a heavy hand on my shoulder. ‘Project Caesar does not exist, old chap. It never did, and you never heard about it. All right?’

It’s very far from all right
, I thought, fixing my eyes on the Cenotaph in Whitehall. I was so close, and this was way too important for me to fall at the last hurdle.

‘Why don’t you stay away from the inquiry today? Let Bestford handle it?’

‘I can’t do that.’

Suddenly he grimaced, jerked as if pricked with a needle in his side.

‘Admiral?’

‘No, no. I’m all right. You know I want the best for you,’ he continued, now walking towards the exit. ‘But I strongly urge you not to attend this afternoon’s session.’

I turned, opened my mouth to speak.

But the admiral was gone.