The Dying Light (16 page)
‘Can I make an assumption? You were a high flyer. You must have been for them to entrust you with this information . . . with this project.’ He had added that wording hopefully. ‘But you see I’m at a disadvantage because I don’t know what it was. There’s no trace of a mention in the House of Commons Intelligence and Security Committee Annual Report, but then of course you wouldn’t expect that because—’
‘Because the prime minister
with the consultation of the committee
excludes part of the report that would be prejudicial to the discharge of the functions of the intelligence agencies,’ she said as though reciting something dull in class.
with the consultation of the committee
excludes part of the report that would be prejudicial to the discharge of the functions of the intelligence agencies,’ she said as though reciting something dull in class.
‘Exactly,’ said Kilmartin, saluting her good memory with a nod. ‘And because the hearings are held in private there is no Hansard record. No journalists’ notes. Nothing to say what was discussed in that committee. ’
‘So you’ve got nothing?’
‘Well, there are the members of the committee of course, but a glance down the list tells you that none of the nine is sufficiently onside to encourage an approach of the sort I have in mind. Yet they must have been interested in order for them to ask Eyam about this project in the first place. If the thing were so off limits, the chairman, who is very much the prime minister’s man, would have put a stop to it. So, I conclude that there was a move in the committee to examine whatever it was that you knew about, a move that may have been secretly frustrated.’
‘Look, this isn’t doing anything for me. I’m going.’
‘Please don’t, Mary,’ he said firmly. ‘We both understand how important this is. I am asking you to stay and hear me out.’ She sat back and looked the other way. ‘You said you were working for someone at the top. Why should I talk to you?’
‘I told you that so you would know there was a way we could both explain this conversation if ever you or I were asked about it. Look, I was a friend of David Eyam’s. I had complete faith in his judgement. I believe that what he and you did was the right thing.’
‘Not in the eyes of the law.’
Kilmartin offered her a look of regret. ‘I have managed to get hold of most of the transcript and I realise going through your case that you were not charged with passing anything to him; that there was no evidence that you ever met or communicated in anyway. But your lawyer made little of this.’
All the tension and angularity of her being flared in her eyes. ‘Don’t be so fucking dumb. You’re missing the whole point. I was charged with copying certain documents and information; that was enough to send me to jail. They didn’t have to prove that I passed the information to someone in order to demonstrate I was in breach of the Official Secrets Act. The mere act of copying was enough because it showed intent.’
‘Are you saying you never met Eyam?’
She leaned forward with her face close to the table. ‘Look, I can’t do this. I don’t know who the hell you are. If I admit anything to you they could charge me with the crime they never managed to bring to court - of actually leaking information.’
He drew back concessively and nodded. ‘I do understand your fears, but this isn’t about you.’ He stopped and slid an envelope towards her. ‘This is your membership of the St James’s Library. I have paid for your subscription. All you need do is go along with these forms signed and collect your membership card. It’s a private library, a wonderfully
private
institution.’
private
institution.’
She said nothing. He picked up the postcard. ‘On the back of this I have written the location and title of a book. If you want to talk, simply leave a message where you find a similar card in the book. If you wish to give me something, but fear leaving it in the book, ask for Carrie at the front desk and she will keep it. She is completely reliable. You will be able to devise your own means of disguising what you hand to her. A hollowed-out book may seem rather old-fashioned but I have always found it works perfectly in those circumstances.’
She looked down at the card.
‘Please think about this. I need your help. But please also remember we’re in the business of resistance, Mary. You will have to be very, very careful. Do not mention this to anyone. Memorise what’s on the card and destroy it.’
She rose suddenly, scraping her chair on the floor. Then she leaned towards him with her delicate white hands splayed on the Formica of the tabletop. ‘I’m going.’
‘Please,’ he said, gesturing to the chair. ‘I want to say one more thing.’
She remained standing but did not leave.
‘Unless we hit them, Mary, this will go on and people like you will be hounded and harassed for as long as they choose. We’re fighting for something here. It’s nothing less than the good order of government and freedom, two things I feel rather strongly about. I believe you do too.’
‘Fine words, Mr Kilmartin, but that is the kind of sentiment that put me in jail. I don’t know who you’re working for and that is the only thing that interests me.’
‘We need ammunition, Mary. I can do nothing without it.’
She began shaking her head. ‘Sorry, I’ve really got to go.’ Then she turned and hurried from the crypt, but he noticed that she had taken the form and the card with her.
Kilmartin looked at his watch. There were three hours before the discussion programme for the Persian service at the BBC World Service headquarters in the Aldwych. He rose and thanked Hopkins, handing him a cheque for £500, which he had written out beforehand. It wasn’t the first, by any means. The income from his share of the family brewing business had become embarrassingly large and he saw no reason why the alcoholics who relied on Hopkins for shelter and support shouldn’t benefit from the sales of Kilmartin’s Ales, which under his brother’s management had bought whisky distilleries and several other drinks businesses. Besides, Hopkins was one of the few genuinely good people that he knew.
He left the crypt knowing he could have handled Mary MacCullum better. But when so little was known about what happened at those secret meetings of the Security and Intelligence Committee, there was no other way. He had to break through somewhere even if it did mean scaring her a little and perhaps worse, showing his hand.
He came to a junction in Soho, and crossed to a newsagent where he bought one of the disgusting small cigars he occasionally succumbed to. He had two more stops before he was due at the BBC World Service in Bush House. He set off briskly down Charing Cross Road and headed across Trafalgar Square to Whitehall. A hundred yards before Downing Street he entered the familiar door marked Cabinet Offices and swiped his pass at the security door. The man at the desk recognised him and dialled the secretary to the head of the Joint Intelligence Committee without Kilmartin asking. Ten minutes later Andrew Fortune appeared in shirtsleeves, a figure of neat anaemic brilliance with almost white blonde hair and a ready smile. He took Kilmartin by the elbow and led him to a large office, where two young civil servants were clearing up after a meeting.
‘Terrific review in the TLS, Peter. I was very pleased to see it.’
‘I can’t believe you’ve got time to read book reviews, Andrew.’
‘My wife spotted it. Your publishers must be terribly pleased.’ This was followed by a quizzical smile. ‘You’re not due in here are you? No crisis in the tribal areas that I don’t know about? No Uzbek turmoil that has escaped the notice of the Joint Intelligence Committee?’ Fortune was a career bureaucrat who went home to Hertfordshire most evenings and had never enjoyed serving abroad with SIS. He’d got himself into a couple of homosexual scrapes, one with a young Turkish art dealer who’d attempted to blackmail the happily married father of two with a photograph of him snorting cocaine. Kilmartin had helped him - saved his career probably - yet there was something about Fortune that he had never liked. He looked down at the beautifully ordered desk. ‘I thought I’d pop in to ask you about one of your former charges on the South East Asia desk.’
‘Is it important?’
‘Not especially. I would value your advice though.’
‘It’s good to see you. Now who is it?’
‘Her name is Kate Lockhart, formerly Koh. Used to do for us in Indonesia.’
‘Yes, I remember her well. Her husband died and she moved on. To be honest, I never took to her much. A rather self-contained woman, though she turned on the charm for the job. Professionally, she was very good, when you managed to point her in the right direction. Trouble was she was schooled by McBride and she had learned a lot of bad habits from him. What’s this for - a job?’
‘No.’
‘Then are you going to tell me what it is for?’
‘Certainly. Is she reliable - solid?’
Fortune thought. ‘God, I can’t remember much about her.
Resistant
is the word that comes to mind.’
Resistant
is the word that comes to mind.’
‘I see. She was a friend of David Eyam’s.’
Fortune’s expression changed: Eyam’s name was still radioactive. ‘Really. Yes, well, that was all a very sad business. I mean his death, of course.’
‘Just looking into the other matter - keeping an eye on it, you know. But I would like you to keep that ultra-quiet. Not a word, Andrew.’
Fortune’s eyes narrowed while the smile remained. ‘What are you up to, Peter?’
‘As I said, looking into it.’ He stopped. ‘For the prime minister, Andrew.’
‘But surely that’s all over with - long gone?’
‘Er . . . yes. But there are concerns. As you know, after things die down people are apt to talk because they think the toxicity of a particular situation somehow diminishes.’
Fortune placed his palm on his chest. ‘Not me, Peter.’
‘Of course not.’
‘I don’t quite understand what you’re saying then.’
Kilmartin touched the back of the chair. ‘May I?’
‘Please do,’ said Fortune, sitting down on the sofa. ‘There’s surely no danger. She’s an ordinary citizen with none of the necessary knowledge. I mean, this stuff was very restricted. Very, very restricted. I didn’t - don’t - even know about SPINDRIFT.’
‘Quite,’ said Kilmartin. Now he had got the name of the project that had put Mary MacCullum in jail and caused Eyam’s fall from grace. ‘It’s like this: I’m just standing in the outfield, Andrew. Should any ball be lobbed my way, I hope to catch it.’ He paused. ‘So, nothing comes to mind about Kate Lockhart?’
‘Well, I gather she is of interest. I imagine that’s who they are referring to, though I have not heard her name mentioned. There was some concern about his heir. Has she inherited his estate?’
‘The heir could be a worry, I agree. It is - how shall I say - a possibility that his estate includes damaging material.’
‘Well, exactly, and the situation politically is not good. Not good at all.’
Fortune was, unsurprisingly, on the other team, not an important player perhaps, but someone who saw the present government as the only solution to the nation’s problems and either consciously or unconsciously had jettisoned the neutrality of a civil servant to become a party member. At some stage he would have to ask him about Eyam’s time at the JIC and the events leading up to his fall, but now was not the moment. He looked around the room. ‘This job must be tough. The sheer volume of material coming over your desk makes me feel faint. You don’t need another headache. None of us does.’
‘Well, it’s not that we can’t cope,’ Fortune said hastily. ‘It’s just that this stuff is very sensitive and it has now become essential for the country’s future.’ The little bastard did know what SPINDRIFT was and he was a supporter. The country’s future, my arse, thought Kilmartin and rose with a grave nod.
‘You’re looking very trim, Peter. Very fit indeed.’
‘The result of almost ceaseless food poisoning in the East,’ he said. ‘But thanks. You’re scrubbing up well yourself. There’s nothing else you can remember about Kate Lockhart, is there?’
‘It will all be in the personnel files at the office.’
‘Yes, but they’re dry as dust, as you know well. Never tell you anything really interesting, do they?’ Fortune knew that he was referring to Ali Mustafa Bey and it would be enough to sharpen his memory. He thought for a moment.
‘Drugs . . . maybe she used cocaine after her husband died. There was some suspicion of that when we interviewed her to see if she wanted to stay on.’
Kilmartin doubted that. It was typical of the office to mistake grief for chemical dependence. ‘Really, how interesting. That may be of great help. Thank you. I’m glad I dropped in. I do hope I haven’t messed up your afternoon.’
‘Not at all.’
‘And all this is very much
entre nous
. Let’s keep a watch on this thing. Lunch next week?’
entre nous
. Let’s keep a watch on this thing. Lunch next week?’
‘Yes, I think I can.’
‘I’ll ring your secretary.’
Fortune gave him a boy-scout grin. Kilmartin smiled also and patted the untrustworthy little shit on the back. He had found what he came for: the name of the project and maybe the beginning of an angle.
An hour later he was crouched down marvelling at the bas-relief of a herd of gazelle in the Assyrian rooms of the British Museum when Murray Link joined him. He rose and handed him a paperback copy of
Assyrian Sculpture.
Assyrian Sculpture.
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