The Third Attempt - a story of a coup d'état in Britain

[James G]

Chapter Forty–Five – Mid-Level Guys
Thames House, Central London – January 13th 2014


Patrick rolled himself on his wheelie-chair from his desk over to Harriet at hers: “Come out for lunch with me.”

“It’s not even twelve yet.” He had distracted her from what she was doing and Harriet wasn’t in the mood for an early lunch.

“You’re not understanding me.” He had lowered his voice. “Come out for lunch with me.”

Harriet looked at her colleague then the two others working away nearby before again returning her gaze to him. Patrick raised his eyebrows at her then quickly pointed with a finger towards the door.

Now she understood.

“Okay, give me a minute and I’ll come out with you.”

*

“What’s up, Patrick? Why couldn’t you talk back inside?”

Harriet had followed Patrick out of Thames House and the two of them were now walking up Millbank towards Lambeth Bridge. He was smoking and walking so briskly that Harriet was struggling to keep up with him. Clearly, something was troubling him.

“Slow down, will you?”

“Sorry, sorry.” Patrick came to a brief halt so that Harriet could catch up and when he started walking again, it was at a more reasonable pace.

“Why did you want to come outside to talk?” Harriet was a little bit miffed at his behaviour and the need for her to keep repeating herself; she hoped that she was getting that across by the tone of her voice.

“Do you know who Gerry O’Dell is, Harriet? Did you hear what happened to him… sorry, to his wife, at the weekend?”

“Yeah, it was on the news.” Harriet knew what he was talking about, but was a bit thrown by the subject that he chose to raise.

“I don’t suppose that you saw any of the video footage that came with that, did you, Harriet? They didn’t have much of it on the news, but I watched some on youtube.”

“No, I didn’t.” Harriet couldn’t imagine Patrick spending hours trawling through youtube watching videos from crime scenes in Oxford…

The two of them continued walking for a few minutes in silence. Patrick led them into Victoria Palace Gardens and Harriet wondered when they were actually going to get some lunch. She was about to raise this with Patrick, but he spoke first.

“There was a woman there that I know. On Saturday night, I was sure that I saw her on the camera footage that BBC News broadcast. I recognised a face, but couldn’t be entirely certain that it was her. So, I spent the weekend checking if I was correct the first time around. I was.

You won’t know this name, but the woman whose face two different phone-cameras record for the briefest of moments is Elizabeth Jackson.

I worked with her, back at Thames House and in Northern Ireland in the Nineties. She was a deputy desk head in Anti-Terrorism and at one point thought of a rising star. Jackson left in Twenty-O-Two to do God Knows what.

Last year, August I think, I heard that she’d passed away somewhere in Australia – she had apparently emigrated to there. I checked our own personnel records this morning to confirm that.

So…, I hear you asking, what is she doing in Oxford on Saturday where a man like Gerry O’Dell is being saved from what looks like a botched assassination?”

“That’s some story, Patrick.” Harriet couldn’t see why this was so important that he’d taken her outside to talk to her away from anyone overhearing them.

“What do you know about Gerry O’Dell?”

“He’s a fool.” The man was more than that, Harriet knew, but it was the most apt description for someone like Gerry O’Dell that she could think of to use.

“He’s more than that… and we both know it. He’s a somebody, Harriet, and – if you think about it – there’s a lot of people out there that have a grudge against him for all the things that he’s said and done over the years.”

Patrick sat down at a bench that he’d come to a halt next to; Harriet followed his lead as she sat to think on what he’d said.

*

Harriet remembered The Gerry Show. It had been a morning talk show on ITV from the mid-Nineties until the early Millennium. She couldn’t recall now the exact details of the controversy that had caused it to cease broadcast, but it was something to do with its host and comments that he’d made on religion.

Typical of daytime television, it had been a pile of stinking junk. Gerry O’Dell had an hour on weekday mornings to talk about what were billed as ‘topical’ issues. In reality, the perma-tanned and self-obsessed host had wanted to spotlight himself and had used the show for his own purposes. He might have been talking about ‘the threat that pedophile teachers pose to OUR children’ or ‘how the internet will destroy us all’, but he had wanted to put his own views to the watching world.

Gerry O’Dell had been a failed politician long before his television show and had returned to such after ITV had been forced to get rid of him and the millions of brain-dead viewers that his show had once drawn. Rather than stand for Parliament here in Britain, he’d joined a fringe anti-EU party and gone to the European Parliament after using his ‘fame’ to get himself elected. Once again, the details of what exactly happened next escaped her, but she remembered him leaving that political party and forming his own: another vanity project. That second one had a Latin name but even less success than the first one that Gerry O’Dell had been with.

A couple of years ago, Gerry O’Dell had returned from Europe and left politics. It had been expected that he could try to return to a new role in television, but instead, if she remembered correctly, he’d married some twenty-something after she’d gotten pregnant by him. He’d been sixty years-old at that point and had ‘retired’ after so unexpectedly finding himself a father – all this had been done in the glare of publicity.

Before he’d gone to Oxford to live a quiet life there, Gerry O’Dell had been a regular political commentator on television and radio shows when they’d failed to get anyone else of any more substance than him to talk about matters of the day. He’d still been attracting controversy with his off-colour and sometimes offensive remarks. Yet, as she’d remembered, he’d supposedly quit all that and gone off to lead a quiet life.

Oh, yes, she recalled as an afterthought, didn’t he still write a blog?

She’d heard passing mention of him writing something terrible offensive the other week about the mentally disabled that had disability rights groups up in arms. He’d stated that they needed to be ‘euthanized’ or something shocking like that. That was why – according to both the BBC News and The Independent when she’d watched and read coverage from both of them on the news from Oxford – there had been an attempt made on his life and his wife seriously injured.

*

“So, Patrick, you see this woman Elizabeth…?

“Liz Jackson.”

“This woman Liz Jackson in video footage there at this incident, but she is officially dead. Apart from that, I’m guessing that there’s something more…?”

Harriet didn’t think that if it was just a case of him seeing a former colleague of his on the television when she was meant to have died he would have come to her with it. He would probably have gone to Jamie Trent, maybe higher to their Directorate Head instead of their Desk Head, with something like that. No… seeing how troubled that he was, she knew that there had to be more.

“In the video clips that I saw, she’s tugging at a man atop of that crazy chap that the police in Oxford arrested and he gets up and leaves with her. If you saw the media coverage, Harriet, you know that that young kid that the media all spoke to is getting all the praise for tackling the knifeman after he stabbed Gerry O’Dell’s wife. They are calling him a hero and he was basking in it.

Yet, in some of the other video clips I saw, there was another man who first held down that knifeman and people on the scene were calling him a hero. Then the kid comes in and takes over holding the knifeman down. When the police turn up, he’s the hero.

But, it was the first guy, who Liz Jackson pulls away from the scene, and whose face you don’t see, who first intervened on-scene. That was gets my attention: what is she doing him pulling him away?

Why is she there when someone tries to kill Gerry O’Dell?”

“It’s certainly something to think about, Patrick.” Harriet knew that there was still something more coming – she knew Patrick long enough to know that he always took a while to get to his point – and waited for that as he lit up another smoke.

“When I was on holiday last week,” Patrick continued, “I didn’t have any plans. You know that Jamie forced me to take the week off because Personnel said I needed to take it, yes? So, there’s me with nothing to do.

I was thinking about the MATCH investigation and the varied people that it involved. I started to think that maybe there could be some other people who might have recently died in ‘mysterious circumstances’ like Mayfield, Quinn and Young.

I didn’t know where to look, where to start though. Then, I was reading Private Eye of all things. It was a copy from a couple of weeks ago that I didn’t get around to getting to because we’d been out there in Gloucester. Going through it, I came across a satirical piece – though it’s all satire to be honest – about the Chief Secretary to the Treasury having a new special adviser.

The article was saying something about him having more than he’d need and made a passing mention of him recently losing one when the chap was murdered. It wasn’t a nice way that they put it, and I looked up the whole thing.”

“Sorry, Patrick, can we walk-and-talk? I’m listening, you have my attention, but I’m also hungry. Can we go get something?”

“Okay, shall we walk down Horseferry – we can get something down there, yes?”

“Sure. Carry on with what you were saying…”

“This deceased Special Advisor,” Patrick continued as they started walking towards Horseferry Road, “was called Marcus Bland. I found out that on November Fifteenth, Bland was apparently stabbed to death down in South-east London. He was out jogging very early in the morning and killed while doing so by an unknown assailant. The Met. still have an open murder file on him, but is a high-crime area and they remain looking at local gangs because… that’s just their thinking on that.

There’s Clive Valance too.

Jamie was going to task us to that investigation – who tried to kill him down in Portsmouth – but we’d just come back from Gloucester after Mark Clarke turned up dead there. He put Danny and Rebecca on that, didn’t he? As far as I know, and while I have been unsuccessful in yet finding out, I doubt that they have, their investigation into who killed his young boyfriend so that he had to jump out of that window has turned up nothing.”

They stopped walking for a minute as they came out of the park; to get over to Horseferry Road, Harriet and Patrick had to cross over a busy road. “I’m seeing a pattern here. I can see how you linked those to MATCH, but we’ll need evidence, Patrick.”

“I haven’t finished yet.” They crossed the road and then Patrick went on: “Liz Jackson and I worked in Ulster, I told you that, didn’t I? Our focus was countering political support for both Republican and Unionist violence. Detractors call it ‘black propaganda’… and maybe that was what we did.

We worked for a Desk Head – I can’t tell you his name even now – who was a cunning old sod; he knew what he was doing. Yet, he had nothing on Liz Jackson. She was so young and ambitious and also pretty damn clever. She would dream up these amazing smears that we’d put into play; I could never figure out where she got the inspiration from! So, we smeared political figures on both sides – those who were pushing public support for terrorists. We had a lot of success with that too.

Ninety-Eight: do you remember the Omagh bomb that August? I guess you were still a kid then. Anyway, a week later, Liz Jackson comes to me and our field boss. She has had one of her amazing ideas, but this one was different from the rest. Instead of smearing the people behind that, she wants to destroy them. Her plan, which was rejected out of hand, there in Ulster, and also back here in London, was to have a few people killed. These would be mid-level guys with the Real I-R-A so that the top-level guys could be weakened enough for the Provisional I-R-A to re-establish control of the whole Republican movement; people that we could work with to stop anything like that happening again.

Her reasoning was that just having the S-A-S kill the top Real I-R-A guys, or having them arrested, would bring those mid-level guys into powerful positions. But if they got killed, and, this is where I’m reminded of her, if no one knew that they’d been purposely killed, the Real I-R-A would be weakened enough for the Provisionals to return to prominence. We knew who they were and there were enough of them willing to thrash out a deal with London.

As I said, Harriet, no one went for it. There were moral objections and it was also just too complicated. People would talk, even a few years down the line.

Four years later, Liz Jackson is based back at Thames House. She’s been serving as the deputy of the International Terrorism Desk when Nine-Eleven occurs in the States and presents an ‘up-dated’ version of her plan from Ulster in early Twenty-Oh-Two. This is international now, she proposes, and can be done using former soldiers turned mercenaries. Her targets are the same sort of mid-level people, worldwide now, within the more extreme international terrorist groups so that moderates can take over from the big boss guys and they can be dealt with better.

Of course, that doesn’t work. In principle it’s flawed, let alone in practice.

The D-G doesn’t like it, they have some sort of fall-out when she tries to go over the heads of her boss straight to the Americans with it, and she’s out of the Service. It’s all hushed up and everyone, I guess, has forgotten about it because its twelve years ago now.”

“I see what you mean about that idea – killing off mid-level people so that those at the top are weakened enough for others to walk in – being complicated and open to going wrong. I’m struggling to keep up with that!” Harriet was intrigued by it all despite the whole story that Patrick was telling her being a tad confusing.

“Yeah, I agree. Liz Jackson was maybe too clever for her own good. I often thought that she should have been… oh, I don’t know, something not ‘hands-on’. She could have been an academic with papers and theories, not a field officer.

Anyway, let’s get some lunch in here.”

*

There was a little coffee stop that did sandwiches that they now went into. Both got a hot drink and a snack; they sat there to eat on stools near the window. Because other people were around, they spoke of unimportant matters while eating and drinking.

Patrick gently probed at details of Harriet’s relationship with Martin Lavelle, the Special Branch detective. He tried to ask what he thought were innocent questions, but she saw through him: he was jealous that she was seeing someone who wasn’t him. In return, she asked what he’d done during his week off apart from read Private Eye. Harriet didn’t know much about Patrick from outside work and actually had a genuine interest.

He’d gone to see his brother for a few days, Patrick said. The man was ill and off-work, and so had been eager for company. In addition, he’d gone to the zoo one day too.

*

“What do you suggest that we so now, Patrick?” They were back walking in the direction of Thames House.

“To that, I’m clueless.”

“You’re sure that the woman in Oxford was this Liz woman?”

“Harriet, I’m certain.” He sounded it too.

“There’s nothing to link her to MATCH. There’s no connection between her and Clarke that you’ve mentioned. To be truthful, we still are only speculating that the whole thing with Clarke and that email is a conspiracy. We can’t find any political motive for those killings of the three people we looked at. That fellow in Bradford is still alive. Baxter is in Kenya, not here killing people.” Harriet felt that it was the best thing to lay out all that they didn’t have.

“If I go to Jamie, or higher with this, I don’t want to speculate on how that might go.”

“I don’t understand.” He lost her there.

“Never mind, I was just thinking out loud.” He seemed dismissive of what he said and Harriet decided not to press that for now.

“Shall we try and get a lead on your old colleague? We could bring up Oxford and Gerry O’Dell with Jamie: without mentioning her.”

“He’ll want a reason to link that to MATCH, Harriet.” Patrick had a point here; Jamie would want something from them before they could look into what happened in Oxford at the weekend.

“Let’s think on that, shall we? I’m interested enough and want to run with this. We’ll put out thinking caps on when we get back to work.”

“Okay, we’ll do that.”





Chapter Forty–Six – The Immediate Afterwards
Green Howards Regimental Museum, Richmond, N. Yorks. – January 14th 2014


Maybe it bothered Michael Snyder to be constantly summoned up to Yorkshire to brief his employer on the progress with – as well as problems too – his special project. Snyder was based in London and coming up to Driffield, York and Richmond would certainly be a bit of a pain for him. Still, Lord North was paying him enough.

Of greater importance were Lord North’s political requirements up here in Yorkshire.

As he waited for Snyder to turn up this afternoon to brief him, Lord North was busy. He was back in Richmond again, this time at a fun-raising event within the heart of the town. North Yorkshire – Richmond especially – had an historic connection with the disbanded Green Howards regiment of the British Army and their museum was located within eight hundred and fifty year-old Holy Trinity church.

Lord North was on the board of museum patrons and had worked hard over many years to maintain a good relationship with the veterans’ representatives of the Green Howards. He had taken a particular interest in the regiment just before 2006 when it was merged with other Yorkshire regiments to form a ‘large regiment’ (the Yorkshire Regiment) that had taken away its identity in that amalgamation. In addition, he had helped fund the (ultimately failed) campaign that begun eighteen odd months ago to stop the final disbandment of the Green Howards. However, despite the lobbying from Lord North and others, the Green Howards had finally disappeared from the Army Rolls at the end of last year.

Personally, Lord North had had no love for the regiment that this museum was dedicated to. Their history from the Seventeenth Century onwards didn’t really interest him. It did many others though and that was why he was here.

“Will they ever stop with their defence cuts?” The exasperated comment on the behaviour of the Government was asked of Lord North from the retired Army officer Major-General Francis Pullman – the last Colonel of the Green Howards.

“I remember reading a fiction piece once… it was about American military defence cuts if I recall correctly. As an ironic joke, the author wrote of a situation one day where the Americans would only have one lone aircraft because the cuts had gone that far back.”

“So, one day,” Pullman understood, “we’ll only have one soldier in the whole Army because they’ll cut things that far to the bone. Why don’t these people think ahead, Edward?”

“They don’t give a damn, Francis. All they care about is today and putting the money into projects to get themselves elected again. There’s no tradition there. They have no sense of history or patriotism. They don’t see any votes in a large defence budget.”

Though he spoke of this opinion held by others in the most negative of ways, Lord North actually shared it: there were no votes in defence.

“What can be done though? The glorious history of the Green Howards is now almost lost.”

“People like you and me will always attempt to keep it alive. I have tried, Francis, I have tried. I have put much personal effort into supporting politicians who share this feeling of ours.”

“I know you have, Edward, and so do many people whose views count.”

Lord North had several conversations like this as the afternoon went on and he waited for Snyder to turn up. The fund-raiser was for disabled veterans of the Green Howards not only wounded on active service for their country, but those who needed help for problems that they’d faced in Civvy Street too; then there were the donations that needed soliciting for the museum.

Again and again, and without making much fuss so that others could see that he was doing so, Lord North checked his watch to see the time ticking away. The afternoon went on and on and on…

*

“Who were those people?” The contempt that Snyder showed in his voice for the people that he’d spent a few minutes talking with before they could be alone was more than evident. “That General was talking to me about Sixteen-Eighty-Eight… the year! Don’t worry though, Edward, I was polite enough.”

“Michael, you of all people should know that people like that count. The influence that they have is immeasurable.”

“I know, I know.”

The two of them wandered out of the church itself and into the gardens. No one was within any distance were there was even the remotest chance that they could be overheard.

“Tell me about Oxford, will you, Michael?”

For the next few minutes, Lord North listened to his subordinate as the man told him about Oxford and what had happened with Gerry O’Dell there. It was explained to him that Baxter and his two associates had been in the process of getting ready to undertake their mission against O’Dell and had been on a reconnaissance mission in Oxford. In a remarkable coincidence, someone else had also been stalking O’Dell with a view to murder him too and had struck first. Caught up in the moment, Baxter had intervened because he had moved to protect O’Dell’s wife and daughter from a knife-wielding maniac.

Baxter had apologised for his action. He was aware that what he had done could have brought serious unwanted attention towards him and he acknowledged that he was lucky that it appeared not to have done so; the media were focusing on other people, not Baxter’s sudden intervention.

After relating this, Snyder had a question: “Why did we go after O’Dell in the first place with a view to getting rid of the man?”

“We’ve been over this, Michael.” They had previously discussed this and Lord North didn’t fancy going over the same ground again. He also had to go back inside to socialise with many of the attendees to the fund-raiser.

“There’s no need now. If he wasn’t out of the ‘game’ before, Edward, he is now.”

“I don’t agree at all. I want you to instruct Baxter to try again… say with another month.” Lord North felt that O’Dell remained a threat.

“He’s not going to be writing any more blogs. He won’t be talking to the media and sharing his stupid views on matters that don’t concern him. All O’Dell will be interested in is caring for his wife – he’s retired from politics.”

“Michael, Michael…” Like a child, Snyder sometimes didn’t understand the big wide world. “He can’t stop what we’re doing within the next few months. Everything there will go along just as planned and his presence makes no difference.

The reason why he has to go is for the potential damage that he could do in the immediate afterwards. That’s why he’s got to be eliminated. What we’re planning doesn’t stop once we put our people where we want them, at the top. No, as I’ve said before, we need to think about afterwards too.

Otherwise, it’s all for naught.”

Snyder could be so very short-sighted at times.

“Now,” Lord North finished up with the man, “I need to get back inside. Pass on my instruction to Baxter to put off O’Dell for a while and move on to the next few people that I want quietly gone.”

With that final remark, Lord North didn’t wait for a reply from his subordinate who wouldn’t see any further ahead that today and went back inside.





Chapter Forty–Seven – Email Exchange
The City, Central London – January 16th 2014


Nick Wilson hadn’t liked the story that Jane had brought to him this morning. Her editor was unimpressed; he called it ‘big on speculation, short on facts’. Jane had forced herself not to laugh at that one. This was The Daily Express after all, where the basis for stories was usually just that.

Only when she had ‘something stronger’, Nick had told her, and not ‘a load of guesswork and innuendo’, would she be allowed to run her story. Until she had what he wanted, Jane’s story on Roger Mayfield wasn’t going to end up neither in print nor online.

Jane sat in the staff canteen now with an empty coffee cup before her. It was lunchtime and the canteen was busy with fellow colleagues of hers from The Daily Express, yet she sat alone at her table. She was aware that she was staring off seemingly into space – at the bare far wall actually – and this wouldn’t be helpful in attracting anyone that she knew to come and sit with her, but that didn’t matter.

She needed to be alone to think.

Jane believed that she had enough to make the story about the death of Mayfield a front-page story that would be a credit to her profession. She had facts and she had only a little guesswork. Nick had it all the wrong way round there. Moreover, he didn’t understand why Jane wanted to publish her story.

He only thought about readers, and thus what the newspaper’s business staff could invoice for adverts, when it came to stories that he would sign off on. Jane wanted to run her story to not give answers to what had happened with Mayfield, but to gain some. If she put what she had so far – which was quite a bit of information – into print, then, her feeling was, people who knew the answers to everything with the matter would come forward to give that to her.

This was a perfectly legitimate journalistic strategy and one that she had done many times here at The Daily Express and before that at The Daily Telegraph. Everyone did it: it was standard practise for stories.

Nick couldn’t understand that though, which was why he was an editor and not a reporter.

She was trying to think now about what to do next. With Nick’s refusal had come a demand from him as to what she planned to do to make her story ‘fit to publish’… this had come after he’d first been angry at her for not telling him before today that she was still on an assignment that he’d given her back in December.

She had no answer for him then, and still didn’t have one for herself too.

The frustration was grinding.

*

Back at her desk, Jane went straight to her email on her computer. She sent a message to Lisa Williams that appeared to only concern when they were next meeting up for coffee. With the repair to their friendship still in its early stages, she was going over the top with this, but it was necessary. In addition, to the bottom of the email, she added a question: did Lisa have any information that she wished to ‘trade’ on Roger Mayfield?

Jane had no certain conviction that Lisa was working on the same thing, just a hunch. Journalism was all about hunches though and she knew that Lisa was a reporter always working on many stories just like she was.

Within minutes, an email came back to her. Lisa’s reply contained a confirmation that they were still on for tomorrow (she’d call Jane later tonight with regard to that) and also came with a response to Jane’s question.

She had been looking at what had happened with Mayfield too; the D-Notice about his body being dug up had perked her interest as well.

Jane quickly wrote out her own reply to that. She followed-up Lisa’s email with a request for Lisa to send her all that her friend from The Daily Telegraph had. She would in turn send what she had too. Neither of them would have an exclusive, she told her friend, but she reckoned that they both had something that the other didn’t and could make each other’s editors happy. With the email, Jane attached a word document that had the story copy she’d presented to Nick along with all of her typed notes.

Soon afterwards, Lisa sent Jane a similar reply to end their email exchange and the Jane got down to reading what her friend had.

*

Lisa had been busy. Jane could see that her fellow journalist had been probing into what had happened with Mayfield as hard as she had. To Norwich Lisa had been, as well as too see the pathologist involved in that second post-mortem examination. That doctor had refused to talk to Lisa like he had to Jane and the same silent approach had come from the initial coroner as well.

Jane had gotten some information from a Norfolk Constabulary plain-clothes detective as to the police investigation into the death of the MP from Norwich-South; Lisa had spoken to the supervising detective from the Met.’s Special Branch who had aided in that initial enquiry. Lisa had no contact with anyone from MI-5 like Jane had – Jane had only mentioned a ‘Mr C’ in her email – though her police contact had given her many details that tallied with what Cole had told her in London Zoo.

There was nothing in Lisa’s investigative notes that covered anything about Mayfield’s house alarm being tampered with or his daughter finding a light on when there really shouldn’t have been, or the traces of a wet-wipe on Mayfield’s face. Instead, Jane was interested to read things to do with the matter that Lisa had and she didn’t.

The reporter from The Daily Telegraph had spoken to the secretary at Mayfield’s Norwich constituency office, Heather Andrews. The new MP there had unceremoniously sacked her and replaced her with someone else. Heather Andrews was pissed off at this and Lisa had caught her when she was in a talkative mood. After listening to the woman’s complaining about the new MP in Norwich, Lisa had then solicited information about her deceased boss.

Mayfield had been concerned about a series of threatening letters and telephone calls that he’d received from a former soldier whose removal from the British Army Mayfield had been involved in as Armed Forces Minister. Heather Andrews had no details concerning what the letters said or the contents of the calls, but she knew when such contact had occurred between Mayfield and this soldier – plus the ex-soldiers name.

Lisa had dug up a little bit of information about this man (Neil Baxter) and included it in her email to Jane. She had tried to find and speak to Baxter, yet had achieved no success there.

*

Jane’s husband had given her the name of a senior man at MI-5 who she had contacted last week.

In turn, that first man had passed her name and mobile phone number onto a second man – the dragon-admiring Cole – who had then been in contact with Jane. Using a payphone, Jane had rung that number that Cole had used to contact her after their meeting and found that the number had been disconnected. She had done to so just to find out if he was as careful as she suspected that a spy would be and been correct in her judgement.

She decided now that she wanted to speak to Cole again and ask him about this Baxter character. She couldn’t contact him directly and so would have to go through Michael’s connection. As Jane decided that she would have to do that, she understood that Michael might be a little bit annoyed at her for doing so. He’d told her that the first contact with the man at MI-5 was to be a one-shot deal.

However, Jane put up with Michael going back on his word all the time with his repeated unfaithfulness and subsequent promises to stop. She always did what he wanted her to do.

Today, she’d do what she wanted and call this contact he had at MI-5. Cole, she reckoned, had more information that he might want to share and getting to talk to him was more important that Michael’s wishes on the issue.





Chapter Forty–Eight – The Sleeping Passenger
Near Sharnbrook, Bedfordshire – January 18th 2014


Just as he was about to go and check the toilets, Tristan Hope’s colleague came up to him: “Tris, that guy you were talking to earlier down in ‘D’ carriage is still there. I think he’s asleep. His ticket said Luton, didn’t it?”

Hope turned around to look at the young and over-eager Sophie Greenly. His fellow ticket inspector had only been in the job for three months and the trainee seemed too eager to follow the train company’s unofficial mantra of ‘check, check and check again’. Sophie spent too much time worrying about people trying to defraud their employers than she needed to.

It wasn’t hers or his money after all.

“Are you sure, Sophie?” Hope really didn’t fancy walking back down there.

“The politician, right? I remember him saying that he was going to Luton. Well, as you know, Tris, were past Luton and we’ve got to be coming up to Wellingborough now.”

“Oh, sorry, I thought that you meant someone else.” Hope would speak to many passengers on the train when he was working. “Yes, you’re right, Sophie. I guess he’s overslept. Let’s go wake him up, shall we, before we reach Nottingham?”

The two staff for East Midlands Trains wandered back down towards the train’s fourth carriage. Hope especially, but even Sophie too with only her little experience, didn’t stumble or fall as they moved down between rows and rows of seating as the train sped along the Midlands Main Line. He was always secretly amused when passengers did that; it was hard on those who didn’t spend their whole days on moving trains to keep their balance when it was in motion. There had been another man in the same carriage as where the sleeping passenger that Sophie was talking about earlier – a tall and well-built man who could have had ‘ARMY’ stamped on his forehead – had been and gotten off at Luton who had tripped over himself.

Sophie had no doubt brought attention to the man because she was angling for some sort of praise from the company for the fine that she anticipated that the sleeping passenger would be issued with when she and Hope reached him. In contrast, Hope was going back there just to help the man out. He had enjoyed his conversation with the man earlier and knew that the passenger would be disappointed to have slept through his stop.

The passenger was a kindred spirit to Hope. There were always all sorts of people that Hope had met on trains throughout his career that he recognised from the news, but he had never ran into someone like Fred Taylor before – let alone shared a few words with.

The man was a legend! Taylor was a champion of the working man who knew how to take on the bosses and fight for the downtrodden serfs! To other people, Hope meeting Taylor would be like them meeting their favourite celebrity or a superstar footballer. Taylor was a politician though, an old-fashioned fellow who knew how to get down and dirty when fighting for what he believed in.

When they’d briefly spoken earlier, Hope had spoken to his hero soon after this morning’s train had left London St. Pancras. He’d introduced himself to the passenger and politely asked what the man was up to: was he getting back into front-line politics? Yes, Taylor had told him, in fact he was doing something about that today. After Taylor’s year-long hiatus, following a long stint in London political office, he was going to Luton to speak with some local Labour people there about going for a seat in Parliament representing that city at the next general election. Hope had told the politician that it was a shame that he didn’t live in Luton because he’d vote for him – and make sure that all his friends would too.

They’d parted ways after that exchange and Hope had gone on with his work with a smile on his face.

“See, he’s bloody well asleep!”

Hope gave Sophie a look that he judged should have been enough for her to understand that it was one of admonishment. Their duty was to be professional at all times and not use language like that about paying customers.

“Are we going to wake him up then?” Eager and far too keen was the young Sophie.

“I’ll do it.”

Hope placed a hand on the sleeping passenger’s shoulder. He then gave Taylor a gentle shake; the man’s head dropped sideways.

“He’s right out of it!”

Hope was glad that this section of the carriage was empty apart from the two of them and the sleeping Taylor. He would later have to speak sternly to Sophie about her behaviour. If this had been a weekday rush-hour train or even one on a Saturday unlike today with football fans aboard, then what she’d just said could have got her in a lot of trouble. He was of the opinion that she was only talking so loudly and rudely because this carriage was near deserted.

“Sir, wake up, please?” Hope gave the man another shake. “Mister Taylor, can you wake up, please? You’ve missed your stop.”

“Jesus, Tris, look at him! He’s very pale.”

Hope noticed that now only after she’d said it. The passenger – Taylor – was a chalky white colour in the face.

Oh, no.

This had happened to him once before. He remembered that incident when he’d been as young as Sophie was very clearly. It was back in 1988 when he’d found a passenger who died on a train then too. That old lady had suffered a heart attack on the East Anglia line out of Liverpool Street. For a long time afterwards, he’d had nightmares concerning that horrible discovery. Now, it seemed to have happened to him once again!

“Sophie, I want you to radio the driver and get him to come to a stop.” Hope made a purposeful effort to speak calmly and reasonable to Sophie. She was too much of an excitable young lady to shock her with what was actually going on here.

“What should I say?”

“I want you to inform him that we have a deceased passenger and he should halt the train at the next available station.” Hope had confirmed his worst fears by at first placing his fingers over Taylor’s jugular vein and – after finding no pulse there – moving to see if the passenger was still breathing. The company had last year sent him on a first-aid course, to save on their insurance and not for the good of its staff or passengers, and so he’d known what to do.

There was no sign of life in the man.

“I’ll do it right away.” It hadn’t sunk in fully yet with her.

“That’s a good girl, Sophie.”

The passenger wasn’t sleeping after all. Fred Taylor, one of Hope’s heroes, had passed away right here on the Midlands Main Line. Hope was sure that just like he was, millions of people nationwide would be upset by the news as the country had just suffered a great loss today.





Chapter Forty–Nine – Political Games
Portcullis House, Central London – January 20th 2014


“Good afternoon, Tim.”

“And to you, John. Can I sit?” Upon entering Williams’ office, the reporter from The Times nodded towards a chair.

“Of course; sit down, please.”

Tim Allen did as Williams gave him permission to do and took out his electronic recorder as well as his notepad and pen. “It’s late; I’m not keeping you from getting dinner or going home to see the family, am I?”

“No, not at all. Work, Tim, is sometimes all that I do.”

“Well, seeing as it is late,” it was only Seven, “I’ll just keep this brief.

As I said on the phone, I’ll like to get your reaction to quotes I’ve got concerning this afternoon in Parliament. Other M.P.s, as well as some Government people, reacted quite strongly to what you spoke of today when the Secretary of State for Defence was answering departmental questions. You know me, John, I like to give everything I write a fair balance.”

“It’s what you’re known for.” Williams gave the man a good-natured smile and tried to give the impression of being very relaxed. He’d taken a seat himself and had fudged a comfortable posture. In fact, he was quite nervous. Williams didn’t want to mess up what he was about to say.

“Let me start with Defence Questions itself. I’ve been given both positive and negative responses to the questions that you put to Greg Stephenson as he was briefing the Commons on the latest Ministry of Defence plans to cut back on spending. The praise comes for your comments that showed the chronic waste taking place at the M.O.D. in administration at the same time as soldiers are being laid off. These remarks come from both sides of the Commons: other Conservative M.P.s as well as many Labour and Lib-Dem Members too.

These are all on-the-record quotes.

Then, in contrast, I have a few comments made that criticise you. These imply that you were – forgive me – ‘sticking your nose in’ and ‘seeking publicity’ for laying these accusations against Stephenson’s leadership over at the M.O.D. A couple of junior ministers and some Downing Street staff made these; I only have one on-the-record quote there.”

“To be honest, Tim, I expected such would be the case with the latter; I’ve been getting unpleasant calls all evening.

Let me go on-the-record: I fully stand by what I asked today of the Secretary of State and, in addition, my public criticisms of the department that he sits at the head of. The Secretary of State came into the Commons to be asked questions and those were delivered from myself as well as other Members. Clearly, Greg Stephenson wasn’t prepared properly to address the issues that were subsequently raised and so he lashed out in a petulant manner.

As Parliamentarians, Members have a responsibility to the voters of this country. The Secretary of State questioned what defence-related issues had to do with me and tried to dismiss my concerns. That was extremely undemocratic behaviour and unworthy of a man holding such a position within Her Majesty’s Government.”

As he came to a halt, Williams noticed that Allen was nodding away as he jotted down all that was said. He appeared to be in agreement with what Williams had to say.

Michael had said that it would be just like this. A few minutes before Allen had called to request that he come over to see him, Williams had taken a call from Snyder. His former colleague had rung to give him a ‘heads-up’ – as he’d put it – that Allen would be doing so. He’d also tried to give Williams advice on what to say to Allen; Snyder had offered some phrases to use.

However, this time Williams had refused. He’d been polite but firm with his friend on that. Snyder had been far too helpful with things recently and Williams was aware that he needed to be his own man. He also didn’t like the implications of the suspicions that he’d recently been having about some of the political games that Snyder was trying to play.

“Excellent, John, excellent. Can I go back to what I was saying before regarding the only on-the-record negative quote I received? I’ve got this written down; one moment.

Here it is,” Allen had gone back several pages in his notepad, “David Peterson, M.P. for Birmingham Sutton Coldfield, and Minister of State at the Department for Education. Peterson spoke to several of my colleagues, John, and said the same sort of thing in all of those interviews.

He likes to repeat himself.

Anyway… the Minister of State remarked that you were ‘sticking your nose in where it didn’t belong’ and he wished that ‘you would stay out of matters that were clearly beyond your expertise’.

Can you give me a reaction to that, please?”

“Off-the-record, Tim, Peterson was one of the M.P.s back in November who made such silly remarks regarding Sonia Patel’s murder, wasn’t he? He is a rather mean-spirited fellow.”

“I can only agree with you there, John.” Williams knew that about Peterson anyway, especially the criticism that Peterson had made in anonymous remarks concerning what Williams had to say about the shocking act of political violence undertaken in Birmingham two months ago, but it was nice to have it confirmed by Allen. Williams also wanted Allen to know that he knew too.

“Your quote: I am upset by my colleague’s comments, which I find unseemly. I can only reaffirm what I said in the House today when the Secretary of State made such a similar challenge. I am a Member of the House of Commons there representing the public. My only interest is the concerns of the public at what is being done in their name.

It is my duty to speak up and I will continue to do so as long as the people that I have been entrusted to represent continue to have me as their representative in Parliament. Moreover, I will not lower myself to personal comments against a fellow Member of the House and an Honourable Member of the Government.”

“I got all that, thank you, John.”

“Anytime, Tim.” Now he’d said it all, and not messed up, Williams started to relax a little. “How’s the wife? She’s gone to the Standard, hasn’t she?”

Just as he’d started to talk about her, the name of Allen’s wife annoyingly slid away from his memory.

“She’s fantastic, thank you for asking. I’d ask the same about your lovely other half, but I spoke to her later and she seemed good.

Being as busy as you have been, I bet you haven’t spoken to Lisa today, am I right? Thus, she wouldn’t have passed on the good news: Chloe and I are going to be parents.”

Chloe, he finally remembered, was Tim Allen’s wife; another reporter and working at The Evening Standard.

“That is great news!” Williams was genuinely pleased for the man; children were always a blessing. “I tell you what, Tim, let’s have dinner to celebrate… the four of us. What do you say? Later this week sometime?”

“What a good idea – we will do that.” Allen didn’t sound like he was brushing Williams off just to be polite.

“Lisa is good at setting these type of things up. I’ll get her to call you and we’ll do dinner this week.”

*

By Nine that evening, Williams was still in his office. The vast majority of MPs in the building had already left to go home for the night, but he was staying here. Lisa was still working at her office and when she finished, she’d come over in a taxi and they’d share the ride back to their Knightsbridge flat.

There was a television in his office and he turned it on just as the BBC Nine O’clock News begun.

The lead story concerned just what he’d been talking about earlier in the evening with Allen. He saw himself there on the screen in a brief clip of his launching his tirade against the Defence Secretary; Williams wished that he’d chosen a better tie today.

When the commentary came with that lead story, he listened to the words by the seasoned old political commentator that the BBC had. Williams wasn’t only listening for what was said about his own performance, but for the changes in what the man was saying about this in comparison to how he’d dealt with similar reports in the past. Snyder had emailed him concerning this matter last week. There was a new Chief of News at the BBC and Snyder had said that this man had come in to replace the woman who’d been temporarily holding the post since the last permanent holder of that position had killed himself in Manchester back in mid-December. The new man had instructed his people that Government-friendly coverage from BBC News outlets was to be a thing of the past.

He could see now how that was the case: the Government was getting a verbal thrashing from the commentator as the BBC played political games.

Just as the story ended, Williams’ phone beeped. He turned his attention from the television to it. There was a text message there. As he moved to read it, he prepared himself for further abuse. Daniel Lincoln from Downing Street, the Prime Minister’s chief-of-staff, had sent him a grand total of three unfriendly texts this evening. He hadn’t liked the content of any of them.

Alas, it was not a message from Downing Street. Instead, it was his wife.

The message contained only two words: ‘Good show’.

Williams moved from his chair and went to the window as he took his phone in-hand. He pondered over what Lisa could have meant as he took a look out over the dark city. He assumed that she must have just been watching the news like he had and been impressed with his performance.

He wrote back to her: ‘Thanks. When will you get here? Love.’

Within an instant, a message bounced back: ‘Too late for us to do anything. I’m here all night. Be home before sun-up (!), hopefully. Sorry.’

The reply wasn’t good news. Williams was feeling rather good about himself. Company and dinner with his wife would have topped the day off, so too if they got a little bit intimate too…

‘I thought you didn’t have much on?’

He wasn’t ready to give up just yet.

Another reply came quickly: ‘Do you know Brian Gibson – Govt. pollster? Fell down some stairs at his office block car park earlier. Cracked his head open and died right there. I’ve been put on background bio for the story we’re running on that tomorrow. Sorry again. Love you.’

Williams huffed and puffed for a few minutes. Of course, it wasn’t Lisa’s fault that she had to cancel tonight. She had such a job that required her to work unexpectedly long hours just like he had; he’d let her down at the last minute often enough too.

He couldn’t help but be annoyed though.

‘Bad news indeed. See you for breakfast. Love.’ His final reply was a bit too much to the point, he decided just after sending it, but he reckoned that Lisa would understand his disappointment.

He’d be now going home alone and have his wife probably crawl into bed at two, maybe three in the morning.

Williams went back to his desk and at first went to arrange for a tax to come and collect him. He changed his mind just after he picked up the phone though. Seeing as he wasn’t in a rush, he’d get the Underground. The station here in Westminster was just below the building and in Knightsbridge he lived within only a few minute’s walk.

For the next few minutes, Williams was busy getting ready to go. Ellen (his secretary) had gone at Six, so he shut down his own computer and turned the lights off in his office. He then went to get his coat and made sure that he had the important things that he needed: his keys, his phone and his wallet.

While doing going through the motions of this, a thought struck him. He realised that a whole load of people seemed to be dying at the minute. Yes, people passed away every day, but… damn, there had been quite a few that had directly and indirectly had an effect on his day-to-day life.

Earlier today in the House, there had been platitudes for the recently passed Fred Taylor – the former MP who’d died of a stroke on the train at the weekend. Next, he’d been thinking about the tone of coverage given to the Government at the BBC and the change that had come from one of their top-level people – James Something-or-other – passing away before Christmas. Then, of course, there was his wife’s failure to meet him tonight because of the death of a pollster friendly to Downing Street in some accident.

His only reaction to this was a sad shake of his head as he came out of his office and towards the building’s lifts.

[stevep]

Jul 7, 2020 17:30:37 GMT James G said:

Jul 7, 2020 11:06:17 GMT stevep said:

   James G ,

   Interesting with Baxter.  While he's very bitter and wants revenge and is also a trained killer he's not really a cold blooded assassin so I was wondering if there would be stress on the continued killing of people, most of whom he had nothing against.  However an automatic reaction to a crisis like that, where his training and basic morality came out I wasn't expecting, but does sound like its in character for him.  Its going to cause a lot of problems with his relationship with North, both because the latter will be angry - also as well about the Baroness's body being found - and because he might really start questioning his current path. 

  The fact the hero disappeared immediately after the attack is going to cause a lot of speculation and if that many people took pictures then their going to be in the press and the secret services are going to recognise him.  Which will sink the idea he's working as a mercenary in E Africa and also raise questions on how [and who] deceived them.

  I also suspect that Amy Perry can tell a lot more as I doubt her relationship with Clarke was mainly sexual, if at all.  She wouldn't have kept contact with him after he went on the run and continued keeping quiet after his death otherwise.  Wondering if she was his prime contact with North - directly or indirectly - and is now worried that if she talks she won't have long to live.

  So someone else, apparently from the security services, is shaking Jane Snyder 's cage with some information.  Not sure if they suspect her husband is involved or simply leaking some info via her to see what reaction is causes.  I suspect her husband and John Williams are going to have a somewhat stormy meeting after John was dumped into that meeting with the new Home Secretary.

  A very complex plot so well written and so many other threads in the air as well. 

  Steve

 

Baxter: yep, he did a natural reaction. There was some lunatic out there seeking O'Dell for recent horrible comments made and Baxter did what came naturally. As to him disappearing, that will be noticed by Harriet - well, her MI-5 co-worker - but maybe not by everyone else. I think I was thinking at the time about the 2007 Glasgow Airport attack. Remember all the attention given to one guy when he made himself available to the media? There were other people who intervened too. Okay, different situation here but that was what I went with. Yet, still, the two MI-5 agents and their X-File will go looking! That East Africa cover story is also poorly done and will be exposed.
Amy Perry: that is more of the dead Clarke storyline. Her connection was with him but she also has a brother - as said in that (one-way) interview and he is the connection coming up.
Jane: that meeting at the zoo was with Harriet's co-worker Patrick - using the Cole name - but was all a ploy. Snyder sent his wife on that mission, without her seeing the meaning, to get information on what he is aware that people in MI-5 are looking into. It isn't very clear and I had to check the why that happened but that is what it is all about. While Snyder will get his info, he cannot stop what happens afterwards with Jane following up... and getting deeper into seeing the conspiracy in another way too.
Williams: maybe I should have had him and Snyder fall out but they don't. Williams does push back though. Again, Snyder is playing games. The new Home Secretary, Parsons, is going to become more and more important as we go on.
As said, all a very complicated story.

  Ah I did wonder if that was Patrick casting a hook in the water and seeing if anyone bit.

[stevep]

   James G ,

  Ah well, so it wasn't Baxter who was identified by Patrick but his 'dead' former colleague. 

  Jane and Lisa are digging into things although only Jane seems to be catching on that something wider is happening.

  John Williams asked the key question without realising it.  Very ironic. 

  Steve

[James G]

Jul 8, 2020 10:10:08 GMT stevep said:

Jul 7, 2020 17:30:37 GMT James G said:

Baxter: yep, he did a natural reaction. There was some lunatic out there seeking O'Dell for recent horrible comments made and Baxter did what came naturally. As to him disappearing, that will be noticed by Harriet - well, her MI-5 co-worker - but maybe not by everyone else. I think I was thinking at the time about the 2007 Glasgow Airport attack. Remember all the attention given to one guy when he made himself available to the media? There were other people who intervened too. Okay, different situation here but that was what I went with. Yet, still, the two MI-5 agents and their X-File will go looking! That East Africa cover story is also poorly done and will be exposed.
Amy Perry: that is more of the dead Clarke storyline. Her connection was with him but she also has a brother - as said in that (one-way) interview and he is the connection coming up.
Jane: that meeting at the zoo was with Harriet's co-worker Patrick - using the Cole name - but was all a ploy. Snyder sent his wife on that mission, without her seeing the meaning, to get information on what he is aware that people in MI-5 are looking into. It isn't very clear and I had to check the why that happened but that is what it is all about. While Snyder will get his info, he cannot stop what happens afterwards with Jane following up... and getting deeper into seeing the conspiracy in another way too.
Williams: maybe I should have had him and Snyder fall out but they don't. Williams does push back though. Again, Snyder is playing games. The new Home Secretary, Parsons, is going to become more and more important as we go on.
As said, all a very complicated story.

  Ah I did wonder if that was Patrick casting a hook in the water and seeing if anyone bit.

Neither he nor Jane realised that her husband put them together to see what he can find out through her.

Jul 8, 2020 10:36:07 GMT stevep said:

   James G ,

  Ah well, so it wasn't Baxter who was identified by Patrick but his 'dead' former colleague. 

  Jane and Lisa are digging into things although only Jane seems to be catching on that something wider is happening.

  John Williams asked the key question without realising it.  Very ironic. 

  Steve

They can dig but - as we know - things are very complicated and hard to figure out.
Williams is clueless about all this. His world keeps on turning while there is chaos all around him.

[James G]

Chapter Fifty – Scandal
Bayswater, West London – January 21st 2014


It would have been much easier if the Chancellor had lived somewhere not so close to the centre of the city. Jeremy Jones had tried to be ‘hip’ and had recently taken out a lease on a house that sat not far from Hyde Park in a little bit of West London that was recently undergoing gentrification.

This was still Paddington though as far as Lauren was concerned.

The taxi brought her up into Bayswater straight from where she’d hailed it on Whitehall. The traffic was light this afternoon, but her journey was slowed right at the last minute. Here on the semi-suburban Craven Hill were at least a hundred people standing in the way – journalists and their escorting cameramen plus curious locals.

There wouldn’t have been nowhere near as many had Jones chose to live within London’s outer suburbs.

Lauren got out of the taxi and at once put her umbrella up. There was only a little bit of drizzle falling now that the heavy rain from earlier had stopped, but the umbrella was to be camouflage.

She walked through the crowd of people in the hope that there was a chance that maybe she wouldn’t be recognised. She knew that her name was well known among Westminster journalists, but not her face so much. The umbrella was to help keep her from not becoming part of the story.

The journalists paid attention to her walking up to the front door of the townhouse and knocking on it nonetheless. For what seemed like the longest of times (though less than a minute) she stood waiting for it to be opened. There were countless flashes of cameras and calls towards her; thankfully her name wasn’t used.

Finally, the door was opened by one of the Chancellor’s police security people.

*

Jones was sitting in his living room along with his wife. The curtains were closed because the room faced the road outside; the ceiling light gave the room some illumination. Mrs. Jones got up and left when Lauren came into the room and gave the visitor from Downing Street a polite, but quick smile.

“Have you come to visit the dead, Lauren?”

The Chancellor was known for his witticisms, but this little joke of his today was in bad form… considering the issue she was here to discuss with him.

Lauren didn’t respond and sat down in an armchair. Jones was over on the sofa lying down. He was dressed in his pyjamas and looked like he hadn’t been up long. If she hadn’t had known him as well as she did, Lauren would have thought that the Chancellor had been drinking. However he was well-known as a vocal tee-totaller.

Instead, the stress of his current situation that he was in had put him in his current despondent-looking state.

“I take it the P.M. sent you here to talk me into resigning. Don’t worry, Lauren, I’ll make it easier on you.

Tomorrow, tomorrow, I’ll quit. I’ll give you guys a heads-up first and make sure my statement praises the P.M. I’ll be suitably ashamed and plead for forgiveness for my transgressions.

Tomorrow though; don’t ask me to do it today.”

Jones had been raised a Catholic, Lauren knew. He had a strange personality for a politician that forced him often to refer to a morally religious code that he declared he had. If that was to be him, then she was happy for Jones to do so.

Yet, she was here because he hadn’t been practicing what he preached.

Moreover, he was wrong about what she was here to do.

“Jeremy, you’re wholly mistaken. I’m here to ask you to stay in your role. You can remain where you are, with the P.M.’s full support. That’s why he sent me, he wants you to continue.” Lauren spoke softly and with what she hoped denoted conviction.

“But the girl… she’s dead.”

*

The scandal had broke late overnight when The Guardian had run their late edition with a front page story that hadn’t been in their early editions nor previously on their continually updated website.

The newspaper’s story concerned a body being found last Friday morning in a flat above a shop on Edgware Road, located not very far away from here.

A twenty-three year-old girl named Adele Roberts was deceased after what appeared to be an overdose of illegal drugs. The Met. Police found no evidence of foul play and a medical examination had shown that she’d been dead for at least two days before her landlord had discovered her.

Initially, such a story had barely made the news. The Guardian had come across the story, and the wider implications that had made it into their front¬-page story today, over the weekend just gone though. The police detectives assigned to the inquiry had looked into Adele Roberts’ background as part of a cursory check. They hadn’t found what they had at first expected.

She was a middle-class girl from suburban Essex who had only in 2012 graduated from the prestigious Warwick University with a First (with Honours) in Politics, Philosophy and Economics. The PPE degree that she had attained, along with her father’s connections – he’d once been a Conservative Party big-shot –, had secured her a political internship at Westminster. Adele Roberts had gone to work at the Treasury and had seemingly had a bright and promising career ahead of her.

She’d been there for a year, before quitting late last year for what she’d stated were ‘personal reasons’. Gossip among her colleagues who the police spoke to was that an older, married man at work had got her pregnant and she’d had an abortion. The youngster had apparently been torn up at this and was left in a fragile emotional state. Her parents had been sending her money to allow her to stay on the Edgware Road, though her landlord had told the detectives that she hadn’t paid her rent at the end of December. He’d finally given up with his patience and gone into the flat last Friday to confront her.

The detectives could find no evidence of previous drug use with Adele Roberts though. There were no needle marks on her body nor drug paraphernalia in her flat. She seemed to have ingested a lethal dose of crack cocaine orally and this had been the cause of her death. They had been seeking the name of who had sold her the drugs that had taken her life when they had stumbled upon text messages in her phone as well as ramblings on a blog that she had written but not uploaded onto the internet.

They found that the man who had apparently gotten her pregnant and then ended the (very brief) affair with her was the most senior person at the Treasury – the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Jones.

This news had been tightly held among the detectives and then their bosses who were informed of this development. A check was made with the officers assigned to the Chancellor’s SO1 personal security team; the affair was confirmed by them. It had not been their business what Jones did with his personal life and they had kept their mouths shut.

From high-up within New Scotland Yard, word came back to the detectives in this little part of West London: what they had regarding Jones and Adele Roberts was to be forgotten about and notes made about it destroyed. It wasn’t in the public interest for that to be revealed, nor would it affect their inquiry into who had supplied the poor girl with the drugs that had killed her.

One of the detectives had then gone to The Guardian as an angry, anonymous whistle-blower.

*

“There’s nothing that can be done to change that, is there, Jeremy?” Lauren made an effort to sound as sympathetic as possible. “We can move on from this.”

“Natasha might leave me.” Natasha was his wife.

“She’s standing by you at the minute.” Neither the PM nor Lauren had considered that. If Jones’s wife left him… then he couldn’t hang on in office.

“You don’t know her, Lauren. That’s all an act: she’s an actress.

When I met her, she was in a church play. Damn, I forget what it was called now, but she had one of the female lead roles. She was good at it too and probably could have made a real career out of it if she hadn’t married me and become the little wife of a big shot politician who can’t keep his flies done up.”

“I see…” What could Lauren say to that?

“Or maybe she won’t. I don’t know what she’ll do. Natasha is…”

Lauren waited for Jones to finish what he was going to say there, but he didn’t. He still remained laid down on that sofa. As he’d been talking to Lauren, he hadn’t looked at her but rather kept his eyes pointed at the ceiling above him.

In the silence, Lauren was heard that she heard movement over near the door. She turned to look, but saw no one there. However, she reckoned that Natasha Jones might have been there. Her expectation had been that maybe the Chancellor’s wife had gone to make them all a cup of tea when she’d left the room, but Lauren now didn’t think that that was the case.

“Jeremy, as I said, the P.M. wants you to stay aboard. He doesn’t want to lose you.” Lauren had been sent here to do a job and wasn’t going ready to fail. “You can get past this.

C’mon, it’s not like you had anything to do with the girl’s death, is it? No one is suggesting that at all. It’s embarrassing and will damage you, but a man like you doesn’t fall behind something like this.

Just like you said, you say that you’re sorry and ask for forgiveness. That won’t be forthcoming from all quarters, I know, but that doesn’t matter. You’ll have Downing Street standing behind you. We’ll call in all the media favours that we have to keep you in-place. Give it two weeks, a month at the most, and I can assure you that it will almost all be forgotten about.”

“You have to be either a fool or the biggest optimist going, Miss Carter.” Natasha Jones came into the room as she spoke and wandered over to one of the windows. She parted it ever just so as Lauren watched. “Those leeches, those hyenas out there won’t give up like that. They smell blood and will want nothing less than Jeremy’s head on a plate.”

“With respect, Missus Jones,” Lauren didn’t want to be respectful but this wasn’t the time to be rude, “I think you may be mistaken there. We have good media people who will run stories that will drown this scandal out. Today, that’s impossible. Tomorrow, that’s impossible too. But by Friday and the weekend, this story is dead nearly everywhere.”

“What about the girl? She gets forgotten about in all this, I guess. She was someone’s daughter. We don’t have any children of our own, but if we did… I wouldn’t want someone like you dismissing their death as you are now.” Pure venom came from Natasha Jones and was directed towards Lauren rather than her cheating husband.

Lauren hadn’t expected this, but she had no choice but to deal with it. What was important was keeping Jeremy Jones at the Treasury. His wife’s feelings on the issue were only important as far as him remaining in his post and him not resigning. The PM needed his ally Jones there.

“I’m sorry that you feel that way, Missus Jones, but…”

“… that’s politics, yes?” The Chancellor’s wife finished off Lauren’s sentence for her and then promptly left the room.

As he had been throughout his wife’s quick visit to the room, Jeremy Jones remained staring at the ceiling in silence.

Lauren’s phone vibrated moments later. She would have liked to ignore it, but that wasn’t really an option for her. She removed it from her handbag on the floor and looked at the message she saw had been sent to her.

She let out a gasp.

“What’s up?”

Jones had finally turned to look at her.

“The Met. Commissioner has just resigned.” Lauren couldn’t believe it.

“You mean the Met. Police Commissioner? Why would he go and do that?” Jones was now sitting in an upright position.

“I’m not sure.” The text message was from Daniel and she was too busy to speculate aloud at the moment as she wrote him a message back asking him just that.

“Lauren, he’s quit because of the cover-up.” Jones was suddenly reinvigorated. “It’s always those involved in the cover-up that lose their heads in these sort of situations. In any so-called sex scandal, those who helped hush everything up before the story runs in the media are the ones who suffer the most with it.

It must have been him who told those coppers to keep quiet.

I’ll stay, Lauren; I am not going anywhere.” Now he was up on his feet and even smiling!

From out of nowhere, Natasha Jones walked briskly into the room and slapped her husband around the face so hard that he almost fell over. She said nothing as she did so nor afterwards as she marched back out of the room.

Lauren sat frozen in shock in at turn of events over at New Scotland Yard and here before her too.





Chapter Fifty–One – Mummy’s Boy
Oxford, Oxfordshire – January 22nd 2014


They had fudged it. They had lied to Jamie Trent as to why the two of them wanted to travel up to Oxford today. He’d believed them and hadn’t poked the holes in their deception that Harriet knew were there.

This had left her feeling bad; Jamie was a good boss who would have backed their judgement had they had a little more to give him that what little they did have. Still, the lies had needed to be told to get them here.

Patrick was driving them today and they were now entering the city centre. She looked out of the window to her left as they drove down one of the main shopping streets. He’d sad a few moments ago that they were just coming up now to the spot where the incident that they were here to investigate had taken place. Harriet knew that there would be nothing actually there to see so she looked at the people out and about instead as her mind ticked over what they were going to soon do. She saw people that looked like students from this university city as well as workers she reckoned came from the Mini factory too. Then there were the countless, anonymous other ordinary people that lived here too.

“You’re worried, aren’t you, Harriet? Don’t worry; Jamie won’t check the paperwork on this. I’ve known him for many years and he’ll be too busy to do anything like that.” Patrick made out like he’d been reading her mind with how he broke their silence.

“Let’s hope so.” Harriet replied with what she anticipated he wanted to hear.

“We’ll leave this out of the file – a paperwork snafu.” Patrick sounded like he was trying to convince himself, not her. “There’s no way that any of this case is ever going to court: I’m fairly sure of that. So we don’t have to worry about handing the file off to the C.P.S. and them passing it along to some scumbag criminal defence solicitor too.”

“That’s true.”

“I was thinking earlier… do you know who we could do with helping us here? A journalist would be helpful. I know what you’re thinking: what the heck? But, if we had someone like that asking questions and going places to snoop around, without having to worry about what they reported back to their bosses, then we could get more information.”

“Journalists can’t be trusted though, Patrick.” The last thing that this X-File needed was help from the media.

“Some can be; the gullible and greedy ones, but… I guess that you’re right there. It was just an idea, Harriet, just something that crossed my mind.”

As they came right out of the city centre, Patrick drove them into the western suburbs as they went to pretend that they actually were journalists and not spooks.

*

“Good afternoon. Missus Brennan, isn’t it?”

“Yes…” The woman who answered the door to Harriet and her colleague, and who Patrick spoke to, gave the two of them a very suspicious look.

“Thank God that we got the right address! We’ve only just been to the wrong one before here. It’s my fault; we went to a house two streets over. I’ve never been any good at finding my way around!”

“Erm… how can I help you?” As planned, what Patrick had said to the woman had completely thrown her.

Harriet, standing just behind him, supressed a smile: he was good at this.

“Sorry, sorry, how rude of me. My name is Peter Cole. This is my colleague, Helen Bishop. We’re with the Sunday People and would love to – with your permission, of course – talk with your son. I hope he’s home?”

The woman’s son was certainly home; they knew that already.

“There’s already been a lot of reporters here talking to my Stephen…” She sounded very hesitant about that idea.

“But I bet they weren’t here to do anything for him, were they? He’s a hero; your son is a real hero. I don’t know if you’ve ever read the Sunday People, Missus Brennan, but we often do a ‘national hero’ feature. Our readers especially like to see the mothers of heroes too!”

A laugh now had to be supressed too. Harriet knew that Patrick was making this up as he went along, but it still sounded very convincing to her.

“I guess you should come in then…” It had worked. “What did you say your names were again?”

*

Harriet (Helen today) was covered as Patrick’s (Peter) photographer. He’d given her a bulky camera earlier and briefly showed her how to use it. The plan was for him to ask the questions and her to play her part of taking pictures. She was also to distract the mother who had recently turned to ‘trying to protect’ her son so that Patrick could delve really deep here with the youngster in the house.

Stephen Brennan didn’t feel like he needed protecting. Harriet had read both his recent Facebook and Twitter updates and seen how much he had wanted to talk to anyone who’d listen to him. The mother was different, but Patrick was prepared for that.

Harriet took many pictures while Patrick talked. Stephen Brennan – ‘call me Steve, please’ – went upstairs to quickly change into a tank-top to show off his muscles for her. He smiled at her far too much for her liking and she could almost read his lustful thoughts. The attention that he paid to her, even when Harriet took a few tasteful pictures of her mother for the phantom ‘Mothers of Heroes’ piece in the newspaper that they didn’t work for, was a little unsettling at first. However, Harriet soon turned that her advantage. Stephen Brennan had been almost ignoring the questions that Patrick had for him, so she asked them of him instead.

The kid’s tale had been told almost so often that he genuinely appeared to believe it himself by this point. He told her just what he’d told everyone else: he had saved the life of Gerry O’Dell’s toddler daughter from the crazy, knifeman that the police were still holding in custody. It was he who had wrestled that man to the ground and kept him there until the police had turned up.

Casually, Harriet made mention of the ‘other man’ at the scene.

“Oh him, that guy. Yeah, I remember him now.” Stephen Brennan gave a dismissive wave of his hand.

“Who is that you’re on about, son?” Missus Brennan was a like a tigress in protecting her offspring.

“Just some guy who was there, Mum, don’t worry.”

“I bet he wasn’t as brave as your son though, am I right, Missus Brennan?”

“That is very true; thank you, Peter.”

“Had you ever seen him before, Steve?” Again, Harriet tried to sound as incidental as possible.

“I’ll be on the front page of your paper, won’t I?” Harriet gave the kid a nod. “No, never before. He sounded like he had a London accent, but not exactly one either, if you get what I mean. He said his name was Neil, but he didn’t do nothing to help.”

“My boy is a real hero!”

*

The moment they were back in the car, Patrick gave her a wide-eyed look. “The kid said that the man was called ‘Neil’!”

“Okay…” Harriet couldn’t understand why that was of any significance. All she got from the whole encounter was that Stephen Brennan had made no mention – even when probed – of a woman there too.

“Harriet! What ‘Neil’ did we look at before the New Year?”

His tone stated his seeming incredulity at her not knowing who he was on about. Harriet’s mind was blank on that though; the MATCH investigation had covered far too many people for her to remember everyone mentioned, especially by just their first name.

“Neil Baxter!”

“The soldier?” Now Harriet remembered.

“Yes, him. Big muscle-bound guy that makes that mummy’s boy back there look puny in comparison.”

“Jesus… if you’re right…”

“I know, Harriet, I know. The implications of this are stunning. We didn’t come here for that, but that’s enough for me.

Liz Jackson and Neil Baxter together in Oxford the other weekend. She’s meant to be deceased and buried out in Australia, while he is supposed to be on some ferry as a rent-a-cop in Kenya.”

“Someone’s gone a long way to tell some porkies, Patrick.” Harriet was just as shocked by this as her colleague was.

“Don’t I know it?”

“Are we still doing what we supposedly came here to Oxford to do?” He was driving them in what she thought was a direction that would take them out of Oxford.

“Yes, we’re still doing that too.” Patrick pushed the button to wind down his window as he spoke to her.

“This isn’t a post-colitis moment!”

“I believe ‘Coitus’ is the word you mean there, Harriet. ‘Colitis’ means to do with the Colon; this is the city of education after all.”

Harriet didn’t react to him correcting her there. She was thinking about where they were off to next after they had seen the mummy’s boy and listened to his lies. Patrick lit up a smoke while she thought about that.

*

The reason for them coming to Oxford, the official reason that they’d given their Desk Head, was to visit a company that had its operations centre here. ‘TN Communications’ was a contractor to the mobile phone industry and collected raw data for use in internal surveys that the various communications companies often ran.

Over the past week, Harriet and Patrick had come up with an excuse to come here and drew in that contractor. They had told Trent that they wished to see data on mobile phone usage in locations where the MATCH investigation was focused on during the dates they were looking at. The data from separate days in separate places could be fused together by computer and a pattern possibly found. Mobile phone masts dotted Norwich like they did Wandsworth, Gloucestershire and Southall. Even if a phone was not in use, it would send out regular signals to each mast – and there were tens of thousands of them up and down the country – to ‘inform’ that mast that it was active and ready to receive calls and texts.

There would have been thousands of mobile phones active in Norwich on the night of November 1st and thousands more in Wandsworth on the evening of the 8th too. A computer could see any match within seconds and further check for those other locations as well. With a matching phone identity to two or even more locations, they had a lead to use in their MATCH inquiry. Trent had agreed with this request of theirs to check such a thing, though had wondered over why they had wanted to use a company in Oxford instead of elsewhere.

Their Desk Head had been told that other, London-based companies had been too busy to service the MATCH request or had wanted to charge the Security Service (or more correctly the front company they were going to use) too much. He had acquiesced for them to thus take a short trip to Oxford.

They were still going to do this anyway and hope that they got a lead for such an action, it was just that that hadn’t been their only reason for coming here today.

Not by a long shot.





Chapter Fifty–Two – Coincidence
Wandsworth, South London – January 23rd 2014


There was nothing like a bit of progress with a story to cheer Jane up.

She had learnt a lot from what Lisa Williams had sent her and then there was some more information that she’d managed to get overnight from the dragon-admiring spook Cole too. There were facts now that she could present to her demanding editor… only when the time came for that though.

Emma Cartwright had facts. Jane had just left her house and was now walking up to the railway station at Wandsworth Town where she’d take the train back to Waterloo. Her mind was racing with all the information that she gained from the woman who she’d just been speaking with. It tallied with what she’d been told last night in a phone call from Cole. He had finally got back to her after she’d spent a week trying to get hold of him again and had told her about Cartwright.

Jane now knew the details surrounding the death of the Wandsworth woman’s boyfriend. She had recalled hearing about Christopher Young’s murder last year and that his girlfriend had been arrested in relation to that. The subsequent release of Cartwright from police custody had been something that she had later missed. Jane regretted that now because there were no doubt leads that would have now gone dead, but there was nothing that could be done about it.

The information that she had just gained from interviewing Cartwright was still going to take her many places.

Using her travelcard, Jane got on a Waterloo-bound train for the short trip back into the city. She was just about to sit down in one of the many empty seats in the carriage she had come into when someone called out to her: “Jane?”

Looking around, she saw someone that she knew. “Hello, Charlotte!” Jane wandered across to the other woman and sat down beside her.

“Having a good day?” Charlotte Swann was an American journalist based in London with the Associated Press (AP) and an acquaintance of Jane’s.

“Yes, thank you. What an earth are you doing on this train?” It was quite a shock to run into Charlotte of all people out here.

“I’ve just been down to Wimbledon of all places.” Charlotte let out a gentle laugh. “I know, I know: you’re thinking: why would I be doing down in Wimbledon during the winter, right? Well, M.G.M. are shooting a new film down there – a Hollywood rom-com based around tennis and there’s a couple of B-List movie stars involved. And, yes, before you say it, I’m aware that that has been done before and wasn’t a success the first time around!”

“I didn’t think you were on the entertainment side of things for A.P. here in London, Charlotte.” Jane was sure that her American colleague covered international affairs for the American-based media organisation.

“Usually, you’d be right… but, George Mackenzie wasn’t able to get back to the States over Christmas. You know George, right? Our entertainment reporter is now in Iowa or wherever he comes from with his family for a week. So, we’re all picking up the slack – goes in my résumé too.

I was in the Big Apple for the New Year and he took on some of my workload. We run a ‘tight shop’, as you Brits say, and cover for each other when someone’s out ill or on vacation.

So… that’s me. What have you been up too, Jane?”

Charlotte was always very talkative. Jane knew her from a few mutual interactions on stories that had an international connection. She knew Charlotte’s colleague George better; last summer the man had tried to sleep with her. He’d come on rather strong at a diplomatic function that both had been attending for the visiting American Vice-President. His method of closing the deal had been to inform Jane that her husband slept around so why shouldn’t she too – with him.

Jane had tossed the contents of the wine glass that she’d been then holding into his smug face.

“Just following up on some minor story I have been working on. Nothing much really.” Jane purposely made it sound not interesting. She wasn’t worried about Charlotte interfering in the Mayfield-Young-Cartwright story, but rather the talkative woman saying something about it should she be informed to someone else.

“You know what? I was going to give you a call the other day. My cell was playing up though and then it slipped my mind. Apologies for that. Anyway, as I was saying, I was going to call you because you popped into my mind.”

“Oh…?”

“I’m doing this story on the new Embassy… well, when they finally get round to building it anyway and through these tough planning laws you Brits have. I have my story but needed some background details. I go through our own archives and find that they’re garbage on that. So, I do a better search and come across your name attached to a story from the summer of Twenty-O-Two.

You weren’t with that supermarket tabloid that you’re with now, were you? It was the Telegraph for you back then, wasn’t it?

So there you are with a nice, well-written article about Kensington Palace and the Embassy wanting to relocate there back then. I know how you Brits get around your Royals – that would be a big no-go! I was wondering over the source of that, but then I saw the links attached and got what I needed.

Hey, my geography isn’t that great, Jane, but aren’t we going to go past that Nine Elms area – where they now want to put the Embassy – soon enough. It’s in Battersea, isn’t it, near that damn ugly power station there?”

“Behind you in a couple of minutes, Charlotte; over there near the river.”

Jane knew where Nine Elms was though not the exact location of the planned new American Embassy. She also (just about) recalled her 2002 story when at The Daily Telegraph about the initial idea of where the Americans wanted to relocate their diplomatic mission in London too. They wanted to come out of Mayfair and had looked at Kensington Palace then Chelsea Barracks before finally settling on Nine Elms – near the disused Battersea Power Station – subject to planning approval.

Watching Charlotte turn and stare out of the window to look at what they were coming up towards, Jane realised that she had an odd feeling about this chance encounter. It was a very peculiar turn of events for her to run into Charlotte on this quiet train this afternoon especially with the American already having something so detailed to talk about.

The coincidence was almost astounding.

“I can’t see anything, Jane!” Charlotte had turned back around and her long, wavy brown hair briefly covered her face before a hand pushed it away.

“I like how you have your hair.”

“Ah, thank you.” Charlotte beamed at her. “There’s a place right near the office that I always go to get it styled. I’ll email you later with a link if you like.”

“Where’s your office? I can’t remember.” The location of where the AP had its London headquarters had escaped her.

“Camden Town. We’re near London Zoo…”

“I was there the other week.” Jane accidently interrupted Charlotte.

“I see… Anyway, you get off the Subway at… sorry… the ‘tube’ at Camden Town and we’re near there. The hair stylist I use knows what he’s doing. Brazilian guy – I thought they were all about less hair before I met him!” A little snigger came with this remark and there was also a wink too.

Jane understood what Charlotte meant after the briefest of moments.

“I might do.” She probably wouldn’t.

They had both run out of things to say and silence arrived. This didn’t last long with Charlotte around though.

“How’s your husband? He’s a lobbyist, isn’t he? I didn’t think that they had lobbyists here – I thought that it was just a curse we were afflicted with back in the States – until I looked it up and realised it comes from here with you Brits.”

“Michael’s a ‘political consultant’.” Jane didn’t like the term ‘lobbyist’ to describe what Michael did, even if it was the best description. In all honesty, she didn’t like what he did anyway. She had much preferred it when she was the wife of an MP. “What about you, Charlotte? I’m sure that you were with someone, but I can’t remember now…”

“My partner went back to France in the Fall just gone. She had enough of London… and me I guess. When she was in a mood, she’d say ‘N’importe quoi’. I say that to her and all her issues.”

Only now did Jane recall how Charlotte had been in a long-term relationship with a French woman. She’d also heard the gossip that the French woman in question had gone home and left Charlotte high-and-dry.

Her memory was terrible recently and she’d just put her foot right in it!

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Jane was quick to add this short condolence.

“I’m over it.” She didn’t sound like she was. “Aren’t we in London soon? I know they call all of this London, but to me it’s on ‘the other side of the river’ – just how the Cockneys say it – and maybe that little bit up near Waterloo.”

“Not long now, Charlotte.” She was glad that her American acquaintance changed the subject for them. The train was going rather slow on its approach towards Waterloo and they’d only just passed the building at Vauxhall Cross where the spooks from MI-6 had their office. Seeing that building, and after talking with the spook from MI-5 last night, she remembered something that Michael – who seemed to know almost everyone that there was to know sometimes – had once said about Charlotte.

Her husband had speculated that Charlotte was an American spook, or at least what he’d called a ‘stringer’ for them… whatever that meant.

Jane had thought then, and was sure now, that such an idea was fanciful. She only had to compare the loud and a bit unconventional (in a good way) Charlotte to the quiet and secretive Cole, who she knew had to be a spook. They were polar opposites.

“We should go for drinks, Jane!”

“Drinks?”

“Yeah, get a couple of cocktails and maybe even have a little dance? Don’t say you’re always busy!”

“Maybe…” It could be fun.

“I’ll call you and we’ll set it up.” Charlotte sounded like there was no way Jane wasn’t going to be allowed to not meet up.

“Can I ask a favour? A work-related one?” Jane suddenly had an idea that had only come to her because of the coincidence of running into Charlotte.

“Shoot…?”

“My ‘paper is a bit short on international offices… and that’s putting it mildly. I know the A.P. has offices all over the world though.

There’s a guy I wanted to talk to. He’s an ex-soldier who now does some sort of mercenary work abroad: in Kenya to be exact. I’ve been told that he is there, but then told that he might not be too. Could you get someone, somehow to have a check on that for me? I have all the details of exactly where in Africa he is supposed to be and the job he’s meant to be doing there.

All I need is someone to say that he is there and not here.”

“I can do that for you, Jane; it’s no big deal. Email me with the details and when you confirm drinks too. You know you want to!”

Charlotte gave Jane another wink.





Chapter Fifty–Three – Bridges, Rivers & Worries
Chepstow, Monmouthshire – January 23rd 2014


Baxter had always like Wales. It was a nice enough place with friendly people to talk with. He would have liked to pop into a couple of the pubs in town and have a pint. There were soldiers based at the nearby Beachley Barracks who’d probably be off duty and he reckoned they might make for some good company. The locals around here in the Welsh town on the border with England would be used to Army people too.

Such a distraction wasn’t one that he could undertake: he was still working hard finishing up his latest mission.

Baxter took his mind off what it would be like to just pop in quickly to one of the pubs that he drove past and concentrated instead on finding a parking place for the car he was in. He needed to leave it somewhere that it would go unnoticed for a few days but finally attract some attention and be looked at. This wasn’t an easy requirement. The mission called for the car to be found at a later date and dealt with by the authorities in the right way.

The High Street was out and so too were the supermarket car parks. Baxter spotted a security guard wandering through one of the latter and reckoned that if he left the car there tonight and it was still there tomorrow night, the same man would pay attention to it.

He needed somewhere else.

Baxter checked his rear-view mirror every few minutes and saw that Nye was still trailing behind in the other car. The former policeman had been acting… funny for the past week. Neither Baxter nor Liz knew what was up with him, but something had put him in a mood, for lack of a better term. He was quiet too often and seemed troubled. Liz had speculated that maybe he was lonely because like all of them, Nye had cut himself off from the rest of the world to take part in all this. Baxter, who had only known him for a few months compared to Liz’s three year working relationship with him, had some suspicions but nothing concrete yet. All he knew was that Nye didn’t always have his eye on the ball, which wasn’t the best way to be when involved in the things that they were.

Nonetheless, Nye was following in that car and had done what was needed of him tonight.

Baxter saw that he was coming up to Chepstow Castle. It was the early evening here, but already dark so he wouldn’t see the castle itself. He read a sign for it and saw that there was a car park referenced for tourists to use.

Maybe there, he silently asked himself.

A few minutes later, Baxter pulled into that car park. He saw that it was empty, but circled around briefly with his headlights turned off to see if there was any sign of a security hut: he found that there wasn’t. Baxter stopped the car, turned the engine off, got out and then locked the vehicle with the remote-control device on the key. He now had to get rid of that key and also leave.

Chepstow Castle loomed above him. It was built so that it sat just above the banks of the River Wye facing the western reaches of Gloucestershire just across the flowing water. It looked like a nice place to visit… if it had been daylight and he’d had the time to spare too. He didn’t walk up the rise in the ground towards it, but rather to the northern end of the car park and then cut across the forty or so feet of grass so that was right on the river.

The car key went in the River Wye.

Turning around, he saw headlights flash twice at him. The car from which those flickers of light came moved slowly over towards him. Baxter could see that Nye was here to pick him up and so he walked over to that car.

“No sign of anyone paying attention to us?”

“None, Neil. There’s people out walking their dogs, on the way to meet friends or doing whatever they are, but neither you nor I seemed to have perked their interest.” Nye sounded very confident in his reply.

“Let’s get out of here then, shall we?”

Nye soon started to take them out of the town and Baxter was quick to see that he was following the plan. They’d come over into Wales via the Old Severn Brigade, but headed back into Gloucestershire – with a final destination being ‘home’ in St. Albans – via the A48 Road Bridge.

They’d briefly stopped when first over in Gloucestershire too…

*

Tonight’s mission had been an easy affair. Their target was a political figure based in the Welsh Marches who regularly commuted backwards and forwards to London. His car – which Baxter had just left in Chepstow – had been fitted with a tracking device that had allowed him and Nye to follow at their leisure. From past experience, they knew that their target would almost always stop at the Severn View motorway services just on the English side of the River Severn estuary.

The target did exactly so this evening.

A quick ambush was undertaken within the car park there and Baxter had bundled the man back into his own vehicle while unconscious. After gagging the man and tying his hands and feet together, Baxter had then driven the car across the Old Severn Bridge (just upstream from the bigger and more well-known Second Severn Bridge) with its owner unable to stop him.

Baxter had taken the Chepstow turn-off from the M48 motorway once they’d reached Wales, but soon driven into the countryside south of the town. He, his disabled target and the following Nye had gone into a little bit of woodland known as East Wood. When first planning this, they had intended to go straight back into Gloucestershire – where Nye had a lot of local knowledge – and to the Forest of Dean. However, that area was used far too much by ramblers, tourists and even locals looking for an intimate late night liaison in their cars.

Nye had stated that there was a good chance that someone might have stumbled upon them. East Wood was tiny in comparison to the Forest of Dean. It was quiet though and the ground suitable for their purposes.

Baxter had delivered the coup de grâce to their target with a bullet fired to the back of his head before Nye had joined him to help dig a shallow grave. Nye had previously stated that it would have been easier to keep the target alive up until the moment that they put him in the ground so that he could help in digging his own grave, yet Baxter had found such an idea distasteful – cruel even.

The same approach to get rid of a body had been done with the woman that they’d gone after just before Christmas in Derbyshire. Baxter and Nye had the tools with them to quickly dig a grave. The target had been rolled into the hole in the ground and the soil that had been removed shovelled back in on top. Baxter had brought with him some chemicals that he’d got off the internet. These were deposited in among the replaced soil and spread atop too as they were preparing to leave. Nye had questioned him on this: what had they been for?

Snyder had recently informed them that the body of Baroness Vaughn, their pre-Christmas target, had been found not long ago. Though the details of that were something that Snyder had to fully get hold of, the thinking on the part of Baxter had been that maybe animals had disturbed the ground. Therefore, the chemicals which he spread over the shallow grave they dug outside Chepstow were meant to deter dogs, badgers and such like.

Baxter had worn rubber gloves over the thin nylon ones he wore all mission when spreading the powered chemicals and that outerwear was later thrown away.

From East Wood, they’d driven up to Chepstow to get rid of the target’s car.

Other aspects of their pre-mission plan had first been to leave that car across over in England while still getting rid of its owner’s body in Wales. Nye had said that the bridges over the River Severn had an infamous history for suicides. Yet, upon examination, the bridges were found to have traffic cameras that could possibly record a staged suicide so that had been dismissed; the River Wye was chosen instead as a place to suggest to the police as to a place where the target might have opted to disappear into during a suicide.

*

“Are you okay driving all the way back, Kevin? I can spell you for a little bit if you like?” Baxter gave this offer to Nye not out of kindness or because he really felt it necessary to drive them, but instead get the man to talk a little.

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? It’s no issue. We can stop halfway back – maybe near Oxford or somewhere like that – and I can take over?”

“There’s no need.” Nye clearly didn’t want to talk.

“Sorry to be a pain,” he wasn’t sorry at all, “but is everything okay with you? I know I asked the same thing earlier, but things don’t seem right with you.”

“Nothing is wrong.” Nye almost growled back at Baxter.

“That’s not the case, is it?” Nye’s behaviour reminded him of something that he’d seen back when in uniform; Nye appeared to possibly emotionally wearing out under the pressure of constant ‘action’. “You can talk to me, Kevin…”

“It’s my sister; she’s got herself in some trouble.”

“Oh…”

Baxter’s reaction was not only due to him being wrong in his theory about what was wrong with Nye, but also because Nye was supposed to be as deceased as the man that they’d just left behind them back in Wales. With that being the case, he wasn’t supposed to have any contact with any family members.

“She can handle herself, but it’s worrying.”

“Perhaps you can talk to Snyder about it?”

“I can’t do that!” Nye almost shouted. “He’s the one that caused…”

Nye didn’t finish what he was saying there. Baxter patiently waited for him to do so, but Nye disappointed.

“You need to tell me more…” Baxter suddenly found himself worried. A threat to Nye was by extension a threat to him too.

“It doesn’t concern you, Neil!” Again, Nye raised his voice to Baxter.

“Well, yes it does actually.”

“I’m not having this argument here and now.” Nye was firm in this. “Anyway, you should get some sleep, shouldn’t you? You are meant to be playing with your little flying machines again tomorrow while me and Liz are back on the road doing reconnaissance. Catch some sleep now while you have the chance, because I’m not talking about the other matter anymore.”

Baxter wanted to argue with the man, but at the same time Nye had a point. He did need some sleep; Baxter had been getting very little of that recently with all the multiple missions that he’d been part of. There was also the course that Snyder had arranged for him to be sent to so he could learn how to fly remotely piloted vehicles that he had to attend early tomorrow.

As to what end those lessons were for, Baxter had yet to be told.

Moreover, he’d raise this issue about what Nye had said about his sister being in trouble both with Liz and Snyder when he next saw the two of them… and Nye wasn’t about to lose his temper again.

As the aggressive Nye kept driving them back to St. Albans, Baxter tried to get some sleep.





Chapter Fifty–Four – Turkeys Don’t Vote…
The Palace of Westminster, Central London – January 24th 2014


Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas. If they did – the turkeys being politicians in this case – then he wouldn’t have had to have others doing his bidding for him. He alone, Lord North told himself, could have got rid of all that was wrong and replaced it with what was right.

If the politicians were of the mind to vote themselves out of existence, then his special project would have not involved hardly any complications.

But complications were all that it ever seemed to have.

Lord North sat now in his seat within the House of Lords among the politicians all around him. Just like he was forced to by tradition, they wore ridiculous robes as attire. Most wore bored expressions too, but he didn’t because he was paying attention to what was going on.

This place and these people were a good expression of everything that needed getting rid of.

For example, down below and to the left of where he currently was, an aged man stood unsteadily on his feet as he addressed his and Lord North’s fellow Peers. Lord Carnegie was currently addressing the Upper Chamber and doing an effective job of boring many of his fellow members to sleep. Lord North could see countless other Peers either in the late stages of drifting off or already in dreamland. He was certain that Lord Carnegie could see this too, yet the man kept on with what he was saying.

Lord North wasn’t bored and neither had he come here today to listen to a racist, but it was a racist whose words he was being forced to hear. His fellow Peer had joined a debate concerning proposed legislation put forward by the Home Office concerning community relations between the police and Muslim pressure groups. This was always going to be a touchy subject with some strong feelings expressed, but Lord Carnegie had long gone past going too far. He had been a Conservative Party MP back in the Eighties and moved to the Upper Chamber in the mid-Nineties following a period abroad as a Government representative in one of the assorted Caribbean holdings that Britain had. Since then, as he got older, he had become a vocal racist.

As he spoke, Lord Carnegie was launched thinly-veined verbal assaults against all Muslims within the country under the guise of talking about extremists using entryism tactics to subvert community groups. Those who were listening carefully, like Lord North was, could hear that racism coming through.

There were many other clever people within the Upper Chamber today who could see what Lord Carnegie was doing. He was trying himself to subvert debate and that should have been apparent to many. Those who had risen to speak during his speech – and been given way to do so – had not struck his words down though. He hadn’t been challenged properly and his intention had not been exposed.

It was disgusting behaviour and shouldn’t be allowed here. Yet, no one was rising to stop him.

Lord North wasn’t prepared to allow that and was now waiting for the Lord Speaker to see that he wanted to rise to speak. He was going to destroy his fellow Peer and not even for the usual reason that he would speak here either. No today, for once, it wouldn’t be about political point-scoring, but rather decency.

A tap on his shoulder interrupted Lord North’s plan of action.

Following that move to gain his attention, a folded piece of paper was handed to him by another fellow Peer. Lord North gave the woman (they were all Lords here – male and female alike) a silent thank you and then unfolded the piece of paper to read it. He hoped that it wouldn’t be important enough to take him away from here…

LN, meet me in the Octagon. V. important matter. MS

Lord North recognised the writer of the hand-scribbled note the moment that he began reading; he didn’t need to see Snyder’s initials at the end to identify the sender. He folded the note back up into the four-squares that it had been when given to him and tucked it into the breast pocket of his shirt.

Michael can wait, he silently reassured himself, because anything he wants to say can’t be more ‘v. important’ than tearing into Lord Carnegie.

The Lords Speaker, a fussy and self-important woman, caught Lord North’s gesture requesting an opportunity to speak, but at once ignored him by looking in the other direction within an instant. Lord North glared at her to no effect. He told himself that she was being more than just rude: instead, she had ignored him on purpose. While supposedly an independent figure, Lord North knew that she was a stooge of Downing Street despite the fact that no person occupying such a position should ever be so.

She was yet another embodiment of a valid reason to get rid of all of this.

He fumed silently at her deliberate obstruction of democracy so she could curry favour with the PM and his undemocratic cabal.

*

Lord North came out of the Lords Chamber and into the Central Lobby of the Palace of Westminster. Snyder called this ‘the Octagon’ because of the mosaic pattern on the floor at this meeting point right in the heart of Parliament that was a crossroads between both Chambers and the building’s main public entrance. He spotted Snyder at once, standing over on the far side near the access to Commons Chamber. His employee and the man that had dragged him out of the Lords Chamber was chatting away to Susan Norton, an MP that Williams worked with a lot.

“We’ll talk again soon, Susan; it was nice to run into you.”

Lord North listened to Snyder’s parting works to the woman and then stepped away towards a corner of the Central Lobby; he indicated with a nod of his head in that direction that Snyder should come with him.

“Sorry to bother you, Edward, but it’s important.” Snyder sounded rather apprehensive in his tone.

Lord North reckoned that the younger man could see the rage probably evident in his face and taken that as anger towards him.

“What’s wrong?” Lord North spoke quickly and quietly.

“Kevin Nye has gone missing. He disappeared from St. Albans sometime overnight: Liz Jackson couldn’t locate him first thing this morning and she is rather concerned.”

“Could it be something innocent? Maybe he felt ill and went to doctors… maybe his car broke down… or he lost his phone?” Lord North could see that Liz Jackson’s apparent worry had been transferred to Snyder, but it didn’t seem like that much of a bad situation.

There could easily be an innocent explanation for it after all.

“It’s more than that, I’m afraid.” Snyder was talking quietly as well but there was real concern – maybe even a little bit of fear, something unusual for him – in his voice. “She said that Kevin has been distant within the past few weeks and keeping himself to himself. Then, to top that off, he apparently said something to our soldier friend,” not even here where they were alone would Snyder mention Baxter’s name, “about his sister being in a bit of bother. Both Liz and him had no idea what Kevin meant, of course, but we both do, don’t we, Edward?

Liz tells me that she went to the house that Kevin has been renting and all of his close personal possessions were gone. The rental car he’s been driving is still there, plus the couple of phones he’s been using, but he had definitely gone.”

Lord North muttered a string of obscenities under his breath in reaction to this: this wasn’t good at all.

“Kevin knows almost everything!” Snyder’s ever-present calm demeanour was nowhere in sight. “Oh, maybe not the majority of the political stuff in detail, but he has an inkling of the broad strokes. I haven’t discussed them with him, but he has made little comments with regard to that often.

As I was saying though, he’s intimately involved in everything else.”

“You told him that we could get his sister out of her trouble?”

“Yes, I certainly did. He gave the impression to me that he understood that that was a bit of bad luck and he was confident that nothing was going to come of it.”

“The police released her.” Lord North couldn’t understand why Nye had been as worried as he was now hearing that his long-term employee had reportedly been. “You told me that they had people watching her still, and a few junior spooks from Thames House had been snooping around too, but she was free. You told him that too, yes, Michael?”

“I did!” Snyder protested a little too strongly.

“Then what is going on with him? Why has he done this now?”

“Liz wants instructions.” Snyder ignored Lord North’s questions there, though he could understand that for he didn’t know what kind of answers the younger man could give him. “She wants to wait a day before doing anything drastic like packing up and leaving their little base of operations. Moreover, she also asked – which I then declined permission to at once, I must add – to go and track down this sister of Kevin’s. I know what you’re going to say, Edward: how could she find Kevin’s sister Amy Perry when Liz doesn’t even know the girls’ name?

So I shot her down on that, but also agreed for her to wait a day in case something innocent has gone on before doing a moonlight disappearance act from St. Albans.”

Lord North swore again: this was all just crazy! He then gave Snyder instructions: “Michael, yes, she should wait for him to return just in case there’s a panic over nothing. But, if he doesn’t return, then she and the other chap should relocate at once… and discreetly too.

I need you to get to the bottom of this at once. Use whatever resources you need, but just like I want Liz to, be quiet about it.”

Lord North walked away from the man and shook his head in amazement, disbelief and also anger at how yet again things had gone wrong.

[stevep]

   James G ,

   Well some interesting developments.  A few wheels are starting to look very detached from the vehicle.

 

  Good that Patrick and Harriet now suspect that Baxter is still about rather than in Kenya.  I would think they would have questioned that the character used his own 1st name although might have suspected he did so without thinking in the general chaos.  Also is "TN Communications" the company I'm thinking of, the front for North's wet squad?  That would be doubly ironic especially if they run into either Liz or Neil there as Patrick would recognise her and both of them would him.  However that would be too much of a set up but a report of their request is likely to add another cat among the pigeons. 

  I was suspicious of Charlotte as soon as she 'met' Jane and seemed so eager to renew their friendship, especially since she can remember an article Jane wrote a decade back.    Jane has given her a valuable link.  Its almost certain she's working for the cousins but possible she could be working for someone else.

  Hadn't linked Kevin Nye with Amy Perry but that leaves yet another loose canon.

  A little worried by Baxter training in using a model a/c as sounds like a potential terrorist attack of some sort.  Hopefully things are sorted out before too many innocents are killed off.  Assuming it was North's squad that arranged Adele Roberts death, rather than it being an accident. 

  Steve

[James G]

Jul 9, 2020 9:35:01 GMT stevep said:

   James G ,

   Well some interesting developments.  A few wheels are starting to look very detached from the vehicle.

 

  Good that Patrick and Harriet now suspect that Baxter is still about rather than in Kenya.  I would think they would have questioned that the character used his own 1st name although might have suspected he did so without thinking in the general chaos.  Also is "TN Communications" the company I'm thinking of, the front for North's wet squad?  That would be doubly ironic especially if they run into either Liz or Neil there as Patrick would recognise her and both of them would him.  However that would be too much of a set up but a report of their request is likely to add another cat among the pigeons. 

  I was suspicious of Charlotte as soon as she 'met' Jane and seemed so eager to renew their friendship, especially since she can remember an article Jane wrote a decade back.    Jane has given her a valuable link.  Its almost certain she's working for the cousins but possible she could be working for someone else.

  Hadn't linked Kevin Nye with Amy Perry but that leaves yet another loose canon.

  A little worried by Baxter training in using a model a/c as sounds like a potential terrorist attack of some sort.  Hopefully things are sorted out before too many innocents are killed off.  Assuming it was North's squad that arranged Adele Roberts death, rather than it being an accident. 

  Steve

Baxter spoke without thinking and thus f-ed up in Oxford. IIRC, TN Communications was meant to have a real link but it was one I forgot to follow up... there were a lot of them. We'll see their operational base once more in the next update but it is one they are leaving after the Nye mess.
Charlotte is a spook working for a well-known organisation at a lovely place in Virginia. She's gonna spring a honey trap.
The Nye-Perry-Clarke came upon me late, I think. It was all part of eth regret of killing off Clarke too early.
In one of the earlier updates, Lord North bought a company dealing with UAVs. Baxter will be doing much training on how to use them and the purpose isn't innocent at all.
Yes, Baxter did kill the girl Roberts. I have many off-screen deaths in the story and that is another one.

[James G]

Chapter Fifty–Five – A Growing Doubt
St. Albans, Hertfordshire – January 25th 2014


“Did you talk with Danielle?”

“She’s in the boot.”

“Sorry, ‘in the boot’?” Baxter couldn’t have heard Liz correctly.

“The car boot.” Liz looked briefly over her shoulder towards the rear of the car that they both sat within. “Before you get all bent out of shape, Neil, just listen to me for a minute, will you?

To start with, Danielle knew our faces and, despite her being a bubblehead, she could stand up in court and identify us. To add to this, she and Kevin were having a ‘thing’ and he made that worse by telling her far too much. Finally, I had to finish things once I got started – I hit her once… she fell and banged her head… it was too much to clean up… and so I shot her.

I reacted too strongly, I admit, but what had begun had to be finished.”

Liz started the car once she finished relating her tale and pulled away from outside the house that Baxter had just abandoned; he just continued to stare open-mouthed at her.

She was saying that she’d just killed their secretary, the twenty year-old Danielle Turner, and they were driving away with her body in the boot of the car.

“You’re joking?” She had to be pulling his leg. “Please tell me that you haven’t killed her of all people!”

There was silence for the briefest of moments before Liz turned to him and smiled: “Of course I am!”

She laughed at him as she started to drive away.

“So, Red, what happened with Danielle then?” The shock had quickly worn off Baxter and been replaced with a need to get past the silliness.

“I did what we discussed yesterday. I called her late last night and asked her to come see me. I told her that that Kevin had got himself and the two of us in a little bit of legal trouble, she might be mixed up in that too by association. As I said, she was worried, but didn’t ask serious questions that a person with any sense would. She was after an escape from this ‘trouble’ and I supplied with it.

Danielle took the cash and the plane tickets. She rang a friend when I was with her an offered her an immediate, next day holiday to Ibiza. Her friend sounded a bit apprehensive – it came out of the blue and is January after all – but decided to take the gift, thus making sure Danielle would go. I saw them off earlier and already managed to confirm that they got on the plane.”

“She’ll come back, of course.” Getting rid of Danielle for the time being in such a manner wasn’t the best course of action, but it was something that Baxter much preferred as opposed to leaving her hanging her in St. Albans… or worse doing what Liz had joked about.

“But that’s a month away and by then, things shall hopefully sorted out enough for anything she says not to matter. Also, Neil, we still have that option of forcibly getting rid of her as I pulled your leg about.

Why did you react so strongly to that? How many lives have you taken recently?”

Baxter didn’t reply to Liz’s question there. He didn’t like her tone nor the implication that he felt the question implied. She was saying that he shouldn’t have objected to her pretending to have done harm to someone like Danielle when he had done worse.

He wondered where all this was coming from as they kept on driving and headed out of St Albans. He also pondered on the circumstances surrounding their enforced decampment.

*

Kevin’s disappearance had come as a great shock to Liz as well as Baxter. They had both been very worried at first; Liz had confessed to him that she had spent yesterday with a handgun in her bag, while he hadn’t told her that he still kept one on his person. Baxter had worried that they’d messed up somewhere and the security services had nabbed Kevin.

The memory of Thursday night and the mention of his sister ‘being in trouble’ had slipped his mind after sleeping.

Liz had calmed him down. The flame-haired former spook had assured him that if her former colleagues had been on to them, all three would have been taken away at once in pre-dawn raids conducted by armed police officers. No, instead, she had told him, she had spoken urgently to Snyder and made mention of Kevin’s reference to his sister: he had said something similar to Liz before he’d argued with Baxter. She had then been clued-in to a plausible-sounding reason for him vanishing.

Apparently, Kevin’s younger sister – who lived in Manchester – had been involved with a corrupt policeman and had helped him funnel money out of the country. She had been arrested then released, but Kevin had gone to ‘rescue’ her. There was nothing for either of them to be realty concerned about. Yet, Snyder had been worried enough by Kevin’s actions to tell them to close-up shop in St. Albans and move on to somewhere else. Furthermore, they should also change their plans for the next series of missions that they were to go on; he wanted them to keep working.

Baxter had accepted that. It sounded like something that Kevin would do. He was a complicated man who could be rather dramatic at times. Playing the hero and rescuing a close relative in need may have been a bit too much for someone else, but not for Kevin.

Doubts had crept in though. He’d agreed that they should be careful because if Kevin was arrested by the police – his actions would be regarded as criminal if he interfered in a police inquiry – he might unknowingly (or even knowingly) give them away to get himself out of trouble.

Still, Baxter had a worry that it was all explained away so easily to him and Liz. Once the feeling had struck him that something was up, even if he couldn’t put his finger on exactly what it was, those doubts and that fear kept growing…





Chapter Fifty–Six – A Stupid, Stupid Thing
Islington, Central London – January 26th 2014


Jane hailed a black taxi out on Pentonville Road.

She asked the driver to take her down to King’s Cross and drop her where she could get the tube. The driver informed her that it was three o’clock on a Sunday morning; the station would be closed and the Underground wouldn’t be running until after dawn. He added that he’d drive her down there if she wanted him to, though at once questioned whether she would really want to be hanging around down there until morning.

Perhaps he could take her somewhere else?

After silently cursing her alcohol-induced stupidity, Jane requested that he drive her all the way home to Holland Park.

During the taxi ride, Jane kept drifting off to sleep and waking up with a start after she assumed was just a few minutes. She couldn’t stop herself from doing this despite trying not to. She shifted positions in her seat and tried to pay attention to her surroundings. None of that worked though for she kept opening her eyes as she was jolted back awake.

The driver asked her several times if she was okay and each time she would mumble an assurance him that she was…

… she very much wasn’t though.

Memories of the night that had just gone entered Jane’s mind before she would briefly drift off.

She remembered meeting the American Charlotte for drinks in Camden and having a lot of fun.

There was a recollection of taking a taxi back to Charlotte’s flat in Finsbury to carry on the night, though Jane couldn’t recall when she’d made the decision to go.

She recalled writing in her notepad the information on the missing ex-soldier that she’d wanted Charlotte to get her along with slipping that oversized pad into her tiny bag.

The memory of what had gone on next was a bit more faded, but Jane could picture some of it now: Charlotte coyly asking for something in return for what she’d supplied.

Finally, there was the remembrance of getting dressed and rushing out of Charlotte’s flat to find herself a taxi on the nearest main road.

Ordering this in a sequential manner helped her finally stop falling asleep and so too did Jane making a check to see that she had all that she needed within her little handbag. Her hands ran over and her eyes confirmed that her phone, her keys, her purse and her notepad were there. She took out her phone and then stared hard at it once it was activated to make sense of what was displayed on the screen before her.

The time shown in the top corner was 03:13. There was the symbol denoting a text message at the top of the display too and she tried to open that. Her fingers couldn’t find the right button and she connected to the internet instead. After briefly swearing under her breath, Jane was finally able to open the message that she expected to be from her husband.

It wasn’t Michael asking her where she was and when she was coming home, as she had anticipated the message saying, but rather from Charlotte. It had been sent a minute before Three – as Jane was either walking to find her taxi or had just got in it.

Charlotte informed Jane that she wasn’t angry at her leaving.

The phone went back into Jane’s handbag. She turned her attention away from the thought of Charlotte and looked out of the window beside her. She couldn’t see much because it was dark, but Jane reckoned that they were on Euston Road now coming up near Regents Park. There were people out and about heading home as she was, or even in the process of continuing their night. She was no longer at risk of falling back asleep and was more alert than she had previously been.

Jane recognised Madame Tussauds as the taxi sped past it; they were further west than she expected and she had to briefly think before realising that this was Marylebone Road now. She tried to work out how long before she would be able to get back home. The taxi would have to go past Paddington and through Notting Hill before reaching Holland Park and that was going to take some time even with the traffic on the roads – other taxis and the occasional night-bus – being very light. The driver might have a guess at how long that would be, but she didn’t want to talk to him again. She could recall now how much she’d slurred her words earlier and didn’t want to embarrass herself again. Jane had come to Camden earlier via the tube and never made a trip this far across London at this time of night.

The thought of how she’d travelled earlier brought Jane’s mind back to Charlotte once again: she couldn’t help it.

*

Jane was a thirty-seven year-old married woman and despite her husband’s bed-hopping behaviour, she had never strayed before. She had been tempted at times and had whimsically mused over the thought of doing so at various moments. There had been a handyman who had entered her fantasies early last year after the revelation about Michael and Lisa, but she had later put that desire she had had for that man down to a middle-aged crush.

When she’d seen Charlotte on the train on Wednesday, her comment to her American acquaintance about her hair looking as it had done had not been as innocent as she had first told herself that it had been. She had remarked upon Charlotte’s appearance because she had been attracted to her. Jane had been involved with another female student back in the mid-Nineties when the two of them were first-year students at UCL London. That had been a casual fling – something Jane regarded as a silly mistake – and one that Jane had undertaken, she had reasoned half a lifetime later, as part of rebellion against the world. No one had known about it apart from she and the girl in question (a Manchurian by the name of Alice Saunders) and Jane had entered a relationship with a boy not long after that had ended.

Charlotte must have taken notice of what Jane had said to her and decided to act upon it. The manner in which she had behaved all evening, Jane could see with reflection, proved that. The American had been very touchy-feely with her and been eager for Jane to drink a lot. When they’d got to Charlotte’s smart little flat in a recent Finsbury housing development, Charlotte had kept Jane drinking even when giving her that information about Kenya and the missing Baxter. She had further initiated everything that had taken place between them before Jane had fallen asleep in Charlotte’s bed.

Moreover, Jane could recall now Charlotte asking her questions all night that had seemed odd, one which that had nothing to do with what the two of them had ended up doing. The American had made several mentions of hearing about political dealings that Michael had undertaken. The details of that escaped Jane for now, but she understood that Charlotte knew more about her husband’s recent work than she did. Charlotte had been fishing, but Jane didn’t recall telling her anything about that because she didn’t know much.

She couldn’t understand why a World Affairs Correspondent with AP would want to know about her husband’s political lobbying here in Britain. That didn’t make any sense.

*

As the taxi turned onto Addison Road and approached her house, Jane again checked the time. It was coming up to twenty to Four by now. She reckoned that she could be in bed by four o’clock; Jane planned to get inside the rather expensive house that she and Michael had and have a shower before bed.

She pondered over whether why Michael had not messaged or called her. Before she had gone out, he had wished her a good night and playfully told his wife to behave: she had failed him in that request.

Perhaps he’d waited up for a bit then gone to sleep thinking I’d been home at a reasonable time?

Jane told herself that that was what he would have done while she had been out making a silly, silly mistake with Charlotte – one which she had no intention of repeating.





Chapter Fifty–Seven – Bull In A China Shop
Lincoln, Lincolnshire – January 27th 2014


Williams had come up to Lincoln today on the train, though he had met Nicola Griffin at the train station and the journalist from The Daily Telegraph (a colleague of his wife’s) was driving him around in her car today. He enjoyed her company because she was even more cynical about the world than his wife was, yet just not as witty.

They had just left a lunchtime gathering of local political figures here in the old city and were heading to hear a speech by someone else. This coming Thursday, a by-election was to be held here in Lincoln and in these last few days before that there was much going on.

“What did you think about him, John?”

“Flint do you mean?

“Yes, Scott Flint.” Nicola was asking about the Prospective Parliamentary Candidate that the Conservative Party had put forwards to replace Stuart Brooke.

“Off the record?” The whole day was meant to be ‘off the record’, but Williams checked and Nicola gave him a nod of her head. “He’s a lightweight. Brooke, for all of his corruption, had more going for him than this Flint chap. Brooke was a local while Flint has been parachuted in here and sees this as just an opportunity to get into Government within the next few years.”

“But Brooke was…”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, Nicola. I’m very glad that Brooke did the decent thing and finally stood down. It’s just that the party should have chosen someone else apart from our Mister Flint who we just witnessed giving a speech that I guess he was under the impression was going to get him elected as an American President.”

“How well did you know Stuart Brooke?”

Williams knew Nicola well enough to know that she wasn’t hostile towards him nor was she fishing for anything here with her questions. She had invited him up here to Lincoln today based on his harsh public statements against Brooke’s initial refusal to resign and so knew he wasn’t going to defend the man. Therefore, Williams could speak freely without it backfiring on him.

“Not socially, but well enough around Westminster. He always struck me as someone willing to fight for his constituents no matter what. When he left his junior minister role early last year, I wasn’t surprised. He couldn’t do what he had to as a Minister of State at the Department of Health while continuing to fight for his constituents.

When your Sunday title ran that story about him back in early December, I was genuinely shocked at his behaviour.”

Nicola was unable to take any notes while they drove and nor did Williams see a portable recording device. She would just be storing this information away for further, background use he knew.

As he had said, Williams had been rather surprised back in December that Sunday when he had read about Stuart Brooke in The Sunday Telegraph. The allegations against the now-former MP for Lincoln had come on the day when many MPs were exposed for corrupt practises. He was the MP accused of taking money from a wanted Russian Mafioso to stop that man being deported to his native country. For a month, Brooke had fought these allegations and said that he wasn’t going to stand down from his Parliamentary seat. However, here in Lincoln, there had been outrage among his constituents and also a strong movement to get him to resign.

His local Conservative Party office had voted to deselect him for the next general election and then ostracised him. Brooke might have survived that and stayed on until next year, but he had too faced a grass-roots campaign from the Lincoln branch of the Bill of Rights Movement.

Williams had been shocked at how well organised the BORM had become here. They were led by young woman by the name of Laura Ellis, a Lincoln political activist who had sought to bring Brooke down. She had organised a huge petition against him that had assisted in the decision by the Conservatives here to get rid of him. She had gone on to start a series of marches and sit-in protests. Brooke had faced protesters outside his home, his constituency office and even the school where he was on the board of governors. The call by Ellis and the people that she’d organised into the BORM chapter in Lincoln was for ‘Democracy’ – Brooke stood in the way of that in their opinion and they fought a relentless campaign to get rid of him.

When Brooke had finally given up after all of the harassment, Ellis had at once put her name forward for the upcoming by-election.

By-elections would always see many participants because they gained national attention. Whenever and wherever they were held, a wealth of independent and single-issue candidates would try to gain attention for themselves and their causes. However, this would almost always result though in the election of a candidate for one of the country’s main political parties. Sometimes though there were upsets… Laura Ellis and the BORM might just pull off an upset here in Lincoln.

“Here we are.” Nicola hadn’t responded to Williams’ last comment and only spoke now as they approached the leisure centre to the south of the city.

“That’s a lot of people!” Williams could see a big crowd, of at least a couple of hundred people, outside the leisure centre complex. They all seemed to be waiting to go inside like he and Nicola were to hear Laura Ellis speak. It was a Monday afternoon, when people should have been working, but they were all here to listen to this young lady who could possibly be soon on her way to Parliament.

*

Mason Gray met Williams and Nicola inside. They all exchanged greetings and Williams shared a few words with the reporter from The Lincolnshire Echo as they briefly caught up. Gray had previously been with The Sun based in London, though had been (unfairly in Williams’ opinion) fired from there last April due to a low-level false sourcing scandal. He had returned to Lincolnshire after starting his career here with the now-defunct Lincoln Chronicle.

Gray had been Nicola’s ‘man on the ground’ here since Brooke had first got in trouble and been feeding her information on Ellis’ campaign since it had begun.

The three of them were now inside the big sports hall where Ellis was soon to speak. Gray informed them that the owner of this complex had closed it for the day so that Ellis and her BORM people – to whom he’d personally donated a nice chunk of change – could use it for their event. Ellis was to give a big speech in the hall where people usually played badminton and hockey, while other parts of the complex had been set up for media briefings. It wasn’t just the local Lincoln chapter of the BORM here today, but other parts of the fast-growing movement from across the country were in attendance too.

When Ellis made her appearance, a cheer went up in the hall. Williams had been told by Nicola that the young activist was popular, but he hadn’t expected this. At Flint’s speech earlier, Williams had not been impressed by the Conservative’s posturing among a crowd, but Flint was a nobody compared to Ellis. He had nowhere near the local name recognition that Ellis had nor was there any genuine excitement around him.

The people who cheered at the sight of Ellis weren’t the usual sort he’d expected to see. The big political parties could stage-manage things like this, but Ellis’ supporters weren’t paid party workers encouraged to cheer. These looked like ordinary people here because they wanted to be.

“Isn’t that your buddy Michael over there?” Gray had been forced to shout so that Williams could hear him. He pointed to over on the far side of the hall where Williams recognised Michael Snyder.

“Yes, that’s him!” Williams had to shout back so that he would be heard too.

He had been informed that Snyder would be here today. His friend was organising media coverage for the BORM and at the minute Ellis in Lincoln was getting all the love. Snyder was standing with a crowd of London-based political journalists and no doubt praising Ellis to the high heavens over there.

Williams had asked Nicola last night when she’d called him to ask him to come along to Lincoln with her as to why she wasn’t going along with the ‘media outing’ that Snyder had arranged. She’d scoffed at the idea and told Williams that she hadn’t been in the mood ‘to be manipulated’.

Ellis began speaking to the crowd and the visiting media.

Listening as he did, Williams was impressed. Ellis gave a good speech as she called for ‘true democracy’. She would be privileged, she told the crowd, if the voters of Lincoln would elect her to Parliament so that she could go there and help bring it about. At all times, the interests of the people of Lincoln would be at the centre of all that she did; she certainly wasn’t going to be making underhand deals with international criminals or cosy-ing up to the big political parties who couldn’t give a damn about local issues.

He’d heard people say things like this before, but none had done it with the passion that Ellis was. She really sounded believable.

When the speech came to an end, Ellis came off the impromptu stage that had been set up and went down to talk to some of the people gathered.

*

Gray left them to stay inside, but Williams and Nicola came outside of the hall after Ellis’ speech. The journalist wanted to have a smoke before going to the media event that the BORM were having and Williams didn’t mind waiting for her.

“Didn’t you fancy going to meet your pal Snyder?”

“No, I spoke to him yesterday.” Williams was a little bit weary of being wholly truthful with Nicola on the issue of Snyder. He hadn’t related his suspicions of Michael’s recent behaviour to anyone and wasn’t about to do so now.

“He’s going to put Miss Ellis in Parliament. Unless something goes wrong in the next few days, which I don’t see happening, John, she’ll be the M.P for Lincoln come Friday morning.”

“You might be right on that.” Nicola had read the situation just like he had and she knew her business – politics – very well.

“I can’t wait to see her in the Commons.” Nicola gave a wicked smile. “She’ll be like a bull in a china shop.”

Williams smiled back in acknowledgement of her judgement on that.





Chapter Fifty–Eight – A Few Answers
Hackney, East London – January 28th 2014


Harriet had to avert her eyes to stare over at the far wall in the moment of silence that followed Patrick’s demand of an answer. He’d almost shouted at Martin to give him a reason as to why Special Branch had lifted their surveillance of Amy Perry and this made her uncomfortable – her colleague raising his voice to her boyfriend.

“We have a major anti-terrorism operation going on at the minute, Mister Cole, and our resources were temporarily detailed elsewhere.”

“You couldn’t leave at least one officer with a radio?” There was incredulity in Patrick’s voice.

“We had indications that…”

“Harriet,” Patrick interrupted Martin’s explanation, “did you hear of any bombs going off in the past few days? Maybe a mass shooting undertaken by extremists? Or even a series of terror-related arrests?” Patrick’s questions were, of course, rhetorical. “Because I don’t recall anything like that.”

“Is there any need for sarcasm, Mister Cole?”

Harriet’s heart went out to Martin. It wasn’t his fault that his superiors had pulled off the undercover officers watching Amy Perry, but Patrick was making it sound like it was all down to him. She wanted to say something in his defence, but she had too much personal involvement here and was worried that anything that she said could be interpreted as unprofessional. Patrick knew about her and Martin and so did Martin’s colleague Ellie Lang.

It was the senior police officer who spoke next: “I gave the order to lift the surveillance. If you plan to shout any more, Mister Cole, shout at me. Terrorism is our number one priority and the surveillance team from here were needed elsewhere.”

Patrick didn’t say anymore. Silence came among the four of them as they were here in the living room of Amy Perry’s flat in Hackney.

Harriet could understand what Lang was saying and was forced to (silently) agree with her. Patrick would probably too, if he hadn’t been so upset. Until 2006 – back before Harriet had been with the Security Service –, Special Branch (known as SO12) had been a semi-independent unit of the Metropolitan Police that worked almost exclusively on counter-espionage and counter-subversion tasks. However, the immense amount of terrorism threats that the country faced in the Twenty-First Century meant that its officers and talents were needed elsewhere and they had been merged in that year with SO13: the Anti-Terrorism Branch. S012 and S013 formed the ‘Counter Terrorism Command’ and its remit from the Government gave it a focus on terrorism matters – everything else was secondary.

The Security Service was in the same boat.

Therefore, that was why Lang had been forced to prioritise a terrorism inquiry over the surveillance of Amy Perry. Knowing this didn’t make it any better though because Amy Perry was gone from her flat.

“Can we move on, please?” Lang broke the silence. “Let’s look at what we now know, shall we?

The officers assigned to watch Miss Perry were reassigned early Friday morning. At that point, she was observed leaving her flat to go to work and they had been just about to follow her on her journey to her place of work in Fenchurch Street. She left alone at the usual time and nothing of any significance had been observed before that.

When they were sent back to observe her again late last night, to the flat that we have been using opposite,” Lang looked towards the window in a reference Harriet took as to somewhere on the other side of the road, “the lights were on in here. It was assumed that she was inside and watching television, maybe eating dinner. Only come two o’clock, with the lights still on, did my officers think something might be up with that: she had previously been observed going to bed on a weeknight between the hours of Eleven and Midnight.

Those lights stayed on all night and Miss Perry was not watched leaving her flat this morning. In consultation with Martin and myself, a decision was made for them to check that she was inside: she wasn’t.

My officers spoke to her neighbours and were told that they didn’t think that she had come home on Friday evening nor been at home all weekend. There’s a newsagent at the end of the street where she was known to pop into every morning on her way to work and most evenings on the way home too. Both the husband and wife who run that establishment – a friendly and nosy Bangladeshi couple – stated that they saw her that morning buying a newspaper. She came in that evening to buy some milk and the wife spoke to her as she always did.

At that moment, a man whom the shop’s owners had never seen before entered and spoke to Miss Perry. They recalled the two of them hugging and having a hurried, hushed conversation there within the shop.

We’ve seen the security camera footage and we all agree that this confirms this, but can’t give us any decent images to use in identifying the man whom Miss Perry seemed to know very well. Yet, the shop owner reckons that he heard Miss Perry call the man who she spoke to and hugged ‘Kevin’.

Martin here looked again into Miss Perry’s background and brought me something very surprising. There was a mention of a ‘Kevin’… Miss Perry’s older brother. He is an ex-colleague of mine and a man whose funeral I attended back in August.

That was Kevin Nye in the video; I’m certain of it.”

Harriet had listened to Lang’s narrative with interest. When Martin had called Thames House this morning, he had related to her everything that he knew. It was always better to hear it again in chorological order though after she and Patrick had discussed it all at length on the way up here to Hackney.

However, Lang had dropped a bombshell at the end there with an identity on the mysterious man. She was just starting to see the implications behind that final statement when Patrick spoke up: “I assume, Ellie, that Met. Police records have this ‘Kevin Nye’ listed as deceased.”

“Yes, they do. As I said, I went to his funeral, but nonetheless, I had Martin check to make it all official.”

“We have a line on someone else – connected to all of this too – who is also officially listed as deceased. She’s a former Security Service officer, a colleague of mine, who ‘died’ last year too, but who appears to be very much alive like your former policeman is too.”

Harriet noticed first that Patrick had lost the angry tone from his voice. In addition, she noticed that he didn’t use the name ‘Liz Jackson’; he wouldn’t have done that accidently.

“That’s interesting…” Harriet could see the wheels in motion in Lang’s eyes. “Nye never worked in Special Branch so I can’t see him having any contact with your people. Maybe…”

“I went through our records earlier looking for a connection between Nye and Clarke. They both grew up in Gloucestershire and ended up in the Met. Each spent some time in the Vice Squad and there was an overlap between them in time spent there; I guess they must have become friendly and that’s how Amy Perry came into contact with Clarke.” Martin had been busy this morning, Harriet realised.

He also had more information: “In June O-One, just before both transferred out of Vice, they were assigned to the inquiry around that Frenchman Boucher. Do you remember that? The French diplomat from their embassy had been arrested at a raid on a brothel in Soho where trafficked Eastern European girls were being held and prostituted against their will.

Our files make mention of a ‘Miss Johnson’ from Thames House being assigned to the inquiry for a temporary period. Boucher was let go because of his diplomatic status, but one of the brothel owners was a Middle Eastern fellow – an Iraqi – who was suspected terrorism ties. I know how you Security Service people like to use aliases, but was this your ‘deceased’ spook?”

Harriet caught Martin giving her a wink – their running joke was still that he called her Harriet Bishop rather than Byrne – though her own eyes swung across to Patrick. He was standing by the window that overlooked the garden at the rear of this building whereas everyone else was seated on Amy Perry’s pair of sofas.

‘Liz Johnson’ was the name that Liz Jackson had used when with the Security Service and she remembered from the files that Patrick had got his hands on that she was with the Anti-Terrorism people at Thames House during the time period Martin referred too. It all appeared to fit: there was a connection there between their ‘deceased’ spook, the ‘dead’ Nye and the actually passed Clarke.

“I can’t comment on that at the moment but… don’t give up your line of enquiry there.” Patrick said probably more than he should.

Harriet locked eyes with both Martin and Lang. She felt the pressure of their gazes and was sure that they wanted her to confirm this even with a tiny nod of the head. At the same time, she knew that Patrick was looking at her too.

The MATCH inquiry was now heading to places that were starting to give them some answers. Yet, there were difficulties involved here. She couldn’t confirm that because she was worried what the Met. Police would put down on paper for her superiors to see.

She froze and did nothing.

“Where do we go from here?” Martin spoke again.

“We need to locate Amy Perry again.” Lang had given up trying to browbeat Harriet into talking. “We can run a check on her phone and her bank account. We’ll talk to her friends and work colleagues. If we get nowhere, we can do what Martin did for you when you were tracking Clarke: put out a public appeal. Hopefully, we’ll get a line on her and snatch up her brother with her.”

“We want to talk to him, Chief Inspector.” Patrick was very firm on that.

“How does he connect to your inquiry?”

“At the minute, I cannot say. We’ve only just heard of him, but I suspect that he is key to things. You wouldn’t have a charge for him, will you? He wasn’t suspected of doing anything wrong before he ‘died’, was he?”

“No, he wasn’t – he wasn’t suspected of any wrongdoing. If we get hold of him, we’ll arrest him for ‘attempting to pervert the course of justice’ for running off with his sister. Oh, that won’t get past the C.P.S, I know, but it’ll be enough to get him in our custody so we can all talk to him.”

Harriet could see that Lang was a bit upset. She would be unhappy that Harriet and Patrick were not telling her everything. Yet, Harriet knew that they didn’t have much more than what Martin and Lang had already found out for themselves.

“Let’s try and find our missing brother and sister first before…” Harriet spoke softly to lighten the atmosphere.

“Yes, let’s do that.” Lang interrupted her. “I suggest that you two talk to your superiors and request permission to share things with us more than you are. All of this secrecy is holding us back and we should really cut it out before it causes a real spanner to be thrown in the works.”

“I can agree with that.” Patrick sounded genuine, though Harriet was aware that he was lying; it wasn’t their superiors stopping them from sharing things with the Met. Police, but rather them not telling Trent everything because Patrick was worried where that information would go after it went to their Desk Head.

They all started to leave the flat, but Martin tapped Harriet on the shoulder to stop her just after Patrick and Lang left the living room.

“See you tonight?” He gave her a lustful smile.

“Yes.” She answered on instinct before starting to think that he may want some pillow-talk from her.

*

On their way back to Thames House, Harriet had a question for Patrick: “Are you sure we shouldn’t ‘share’ everything as Ellie Lang wants?”

“If I know anything about how the Metropolitan Police works, then it’s their obsession with paperwork. We don’t know who Lang C.C.’s in her reports, and who they might pass it onto at Thames House.

We started this, I know, by not telling Jamie the real reason why we went to Oxford. However, we then find out that our request for our sisters at Six,” Patrick referred to the Secret Intelligence Service at Vauxhall Cross, “for them to look into the soldier Baxter has resulted in false information. The security guard in Kenya is Black for God’s sake! I showed you those pictures, right? Someone above us is covering something up.”

“Where did you get that information from, Patrick?” Harriet had been wondering this since yesterday and only been given silent answers.

“Don’t get me wrong, Harriet, I trust you a lot. I’d tell you if I could, but I have a source who doesn’t want his name mentioned.

The information is solid though.”

The conversation ended there. Harriet suspected that her colleague wasn’t telling her the truth on where he’s got that information on the man posing as Baxter in Kenya, but she didn’t have anything firm to go with that.

Nor did she want to upset Patrick.





Chapter Fifty–Nine – Three Arrivals
Glasgow Prestwick Airport, Ayrshire, Scotland – January 29th 2014


Three men came off the Gulfstream business jet when it landed at Prestwick Airport late this evening. They had only recently woken up after a long flight from New England. The plane had been comfortable and they had travelled in first-class style, yet they were still irritable at having been awoken. Jet-lag would hit them later, they knew, and neither of the trio were looking forward to that prospect.

The stewardess who had flown with them said goodbye to them only because she was paid to be polite. Her company, an international charter airline, demanded that she be pleasant even to people such as these. They hadn’t wanted any of her attention back on the ground in Maine and during the flight. No drinks had been requested, no films had been asked to be shown and no flirting had taken place.

Despite the flight being a charter one and coming from the United States – where their own customs checks were highly-regarded – British Customs still gave the trio of men and their luggage a going over. It was quickly confirmed that these men were carrying nothing on their person or in their luggage that was illegal. They had no guns, drugs or any other contraband with them. In addition, their passports were in perfect order… even if the men were gruff with their responses to the cursory questions asked of them. They were thus allowed through the terminal and shown towards their transport by a driver who had come to collect them.

Other flights, domestic and international, came into Prestwick tonight and the trio of men from America were forgotten about by almost everyone at the airport.

There was someone who did pay them attention though, especially as to who they met.

*

Ian Newton had raced up to Scotland today from London’s Mayfair. The American had come out of the Embassy building on Grosvenor Square and headed northwards to Prestwick in time to be here when the Gulfstream arrived. He carried with him his usual diplomatic credentials that identified him as a low-level official within his Embassy’s Consular Section. The car he used had diplomatic license plates so that if he had been bothered by the British police about breaking the speed limit, he wouldn’t have got into any trouble. Moreover, if he had been asked, he was on official business.

Newton had a desk in the Consular Section, though he did no work associated with issuing visas. Instead, he was an undercover CIA agent deployed here to Britain. There were other CIA personnel at the Embassy, yet they were ‘semi-declared’ agents who the British knew about. Their focus was to work with the intelligence services here in the UK on counter-terrorism and counter-espionage issues. With a nod and a wink, as Newton knew the Brits liked to say, everyone in the know was aware who they were. He was different though; Newton was meant to be consular official.

Relations between the United States and Britain were extremely close.

There were trade links, diplomatic ties, military cooperation and intense intelligence connections. The two countries worked together as partners and they were not meant to spy upon each other: they did though.

Newton and the small team of CIA people (there were only four of them in total) that he worked with were part of the Clandestine Service here in Britain. Their job was to gather intelligence of a nature that would interest their own country and which the British Government might wish to hide or push under the carpet for a wide variety of reasons. Working against Britain wasn’t part of Newton’s remit because this country was so closely allied to his own… it was just that his masters back in Langley recognised that there was a need for him and his people.

In the time that Newton had been in Britain, he had done nothing – as far as he knew – to harm this country. He liked the people and much of the country’s culture. He had many friends here too. Still, he was an American citizen and as patriotic as they came. When he had been instructed earlier today to ‘meet’ the flight coming across from New England he had done so. He had used a stealthily hidden camera to collect images of the three men that had come off that plane, the face of the man who met them and the vehicle that they had left in. He had no more instructions on that matter to either follow or approach any of them; he had to get back to London and transmit his information back to Langley.

That, he told himself as he went back to his car to have some more fun driving as fast as he could southwards, was what he would do.

[stevep]

   James G ,

  Well as you say Charlotte was up to something and I suspect there was probably more than alcohol in some of those drinks Jane had.  With that last section I was thinking the three men were coming over in response to that but it sounds like their not from the CIA who are however aware of them and interested in their activities.  I'm a bit surprised that Ian Newton used a car with diplomatic plates to make his trip to watch them as that might have attracted attention.  Initial guess is their some connection with North's plan but they could be a 3rd player in the 'game'. - I was going to joke in reply to your comments about an agency based in Virginia about Charlotte being a member of the Washington branch of Al Quada but she could be involved in darker activity that 'just' CIA activity.

  So it sounds like Amy was picked up by her brother, and the lack of surprise when she met her dead brother does suggest she knows more than she was letting on.  Also given the link with Liz Harriet and Patrick now know there are at least two 'deceased' people involved as well as that Baxter is not in Britain.  Plus as Patrick pointed out someone quite high up in the system is involved from the false information passed earlier about Baxter.  Which makes their position very difficult.

  Williams should be starting to think something orchestrated is going on, given how organised BORM is showing itself and the other odd occurrences.  In fact I wonder if the reason why Stuart Brooke denied the allegations against him was because they might well have been a fabrication?  As well of course the well organised campaign to remove his apparently strong local support.

  Wondering if Patrick's temper was in part because he's either protective of Harriet or jealous of Martin?

  Anyway another interesting set of events.

  Steve

[James G]

Jul 10, 2020 9:14:53 GMT stevep said:

   James G ,

  Well as you say Charlotte was up to something and I suspect there was probably more than alcohol in some of those drinks Jane had.  With that last section I was thinking the three men were coming over in response to that but it sounds like their not from the CIA who are however aware of them and interested in their activities.  I'm a bit surprised that Ian Newton used a car with diplomatic plates to make his trip to watch them as that might have attracted attention.  Initial guess is their some connection with North's plan but they could be a 3rd player in the 'game'. - I was going to joke in reply to your comments about an agency based in Virginia about Charlotte being a member of the Washington branch of Al Quada but she could be involved in darker activity that 'just' CIA activity.

  So it sounds like Amy was picked up by her brother, and the lack of surprise when she met her dead brother does suggest she knows more than she was letting on.  Also given the link with Liz Harriet and Patrick now know there are at least two 'deceased' people involved as well as that Baxter is not in Britain.  Plus as Patrick pointed out someone quite high up in the system is involved from the false information passed earlier about Baxter.  Which makes their position very difficult.

  Williams should be starting to think something orchestrated is going on, given how organised BORM is showing itself and the other odd occurrences.  In fact I wonder if the reason why Stuart Brooke denied the allegations against him was because they might well have been a fabrication?  As well of course the well organised campaign to remove his apparently strong local support.

  Wondering if Patrick's temper was in part because he's either protective of Harriet or jealous of Martin?

  Anyway another interesting set of events.

  Steve

That trio who flew in are going to commit two of three 'spectaculars' which will occur soon enough. The CIA will take a look at things going on in Britain, a hard look. I should have had that spook use a different car, yes: that would make more sense.
There is certainly some nobbling from on high but it doesn't mean that there is any official protection for Lord North's scheme. Certain people in organisations are helping out leading to things not being perfect.
The BORM will only get bigger and the media loves something new. That MP Brooke was just simply corrupt and denied it but the local circumstances were right for a move there.
With Patrick, that will be a bit of both, I guess.
More to come. Lord North is going to start getting rid of people who he doesn't like.

[James G]

Chapter Sixty – Double Bluff
Downing Street, Central London – January 30th 2014


The lights were on and people were working late tonight in Downing Street.

Lauren checked the time when she sneaked a look at her phone and saw that it was just coming up to Ten. The polls up in Lincoln would be closing in a few minutes time but she reckoned that the drama caused by what was going on up there would be going on all night here.

She wanted to go home to her flat in Notting Hill and get changed. Lauren had got into work this morning at Six and her clothes were all crumpled like she’d been in them for several days not nineteen hours. Her boss Daniel had managed to escape for an hour earlier this evening and get changed; he had wisely seen the way that the wind was blowing and that the PM’s key staff members would be here until the early hours. He looked fresh and Lauren wandered if the man seated on the sofa here in the PM’s office alongside her had even managed to snatch the opportunity for a shower too!

In addition to wanting to change her clothes into something more suitable, Lauren was also hungry; she hadn’t had lunch nor dinner. Her stomach had made a growling sound not long ago and she was glad that there were too many people here talking so that no one else apart from her had heard that embarrassing act.

Coffee had been all that she had had since a hurried breakfast at a quarter past Five this morning.

Her pressing personal needs (which she couldn’t fulfil) thus didn’t put her in a good enough mood to smile and pretend she agreed with some of the people here causing all the fuss. Things weren’t going great, but the dire apocalyptical warnings from Rachel Gallagher were too much.

“Prime Minister, I think that, with respect, we should not worry too much over all of this. It is just one by-election after all. Your Government has a twenty-six seat majority at the minute… twenty-five if Miss Gallagher is correct.”

Lauren spoke calmly and with a soft tone. She could have shouted for dramatic effect, but she didn’t have the energy in her to do so.

Opposite her and seated on another sofa around the low coffee table, the PM – flanked by the Conservative Party Chair and the Downing Street Director of Communications (DSDC) – gave Lauren a smile. He also arched his eyebrows too in a reaction that she couldn’t make sense of.

“Rubbish; that’s rubbish indeed.” The party Chair, a disagreeable peer by the name of Lord Evans, didn’t agree with her and let that show: “You people don’t understand the significant of this. You’re all looking it as a one-off and a local issue there in Lincoln.

These true democracy people have chapters up and running in multiple constituencies nationwide. They are preparing short-term to act if another M.P. decides to quit or dies, but they are also planning long-term for next year’s general election. If we could have nipped the trouble in the bud in Lincoln, then we’d be fine.

This is just what they needed though – a shot in the arm to keep going… and an awful lot of publicity too”

Lauren listened to the man and thought that Lord Evans had been spending far too much time with Gallagher at CCHQ listening to her mad theories. She was just about to start giving a response, a calm and measured one, but a reply that would make everyone else here see that the party Chair was overreacting when the phone of the DSDC Judy Hurst buzzed and she spoke up after looking at it: “The polls have closed in Lincoln.”

There were nods from almost everyone here; Lauren didn’t join them. Ten o’clock had come but that made no difference, they had all seen the unofficial exit polls undertaken in Lincoln throughout the day and that was why they were here.

“Judy, I suggest that you start talking to the vultures and doing what you do best.” As Chief-of-Staff, Daniel was Judy’s superior and so his ‘suggestion’ that the DSDC leave and starting spinning what was going to be bad news from Lincoln before it arrived was in fact an order.

As Judy stood up and started to leave, Lauren was struck with the irony of Daniel’s words: he had once been a journalist, one of those ‘vultures’ that he sent his departing employee off to deal with.

Before the conversation could continue onwards to what Lauren assumed would be the setting out of a plan of action to deal with the loss of the by-election up North, the Home Secretary arrived as Judy Hurst left.

Lauren wasn’t sure if Colin Parsons had been invited to attend…

He went straight into a conversation with the PM, with him standing and the country’s Head of Government remaining seated.

Parsons had his back to both her and Daniel as he did this. Lauren listened for a moment as Parsons used soothing tones in relation to the expected loss in Lincoln. He told the PM that he regretted his pushing for Scott Flint – a former Special Adviser of his – to be the candidate there and he had anticipated the young man doing better than it was looking like he had. Moreover, he hoped that this wouldn’t reflect badly on his judgement in future.

Lauren was glad that she didn’t have to look at the man.

She might have lost her composure and laughed in his face. The PM had been regretting every decision he had made with Parsons since the first day that he had installed the man as Home Secretary. The PM had long ago started to doubt his judgement and that was why Parsons had manoeuvred Flint into the running for the Parliamentary seat in Lincoln through Lord Evans and not through Downing Street.

Parsons soon took a seat next to the PM where Judy had just vacated and then engaged the PM in further conversation concerning how they were going to ‘manage’ the resulting story. Daniel moved to enter this conversation, but Lauren didn’t listen to what was said after that began. Instead, she started to think again about Parsons.

Since those dire exit poll results had started coming in from Lincoln in the early afternoon, Parsons had been on her mind. Gallagher had called Lauren several times throughout the day giving her updates on the situation on the ground in Lincoln and in one of those calls, she had spoken about Parsons and his former Special Adviser who was losing the Conservative Party their seat there.

The Chair of the CCHQ was convinced that Flint had been sent to Lincoln to lose.

In her opinion, Parsons had sent his ‘loyal and obedient proxy’ to contest that seat and ‘fight a bad fight’. Lauren had pressed her for evidence on this, but Gallagher had admitted (after an awkward interval) that she had nothing solid to back this up apart from suspicion and gossip. Just like Gallagher’s theories that Lord North was backing the growing BORM campaign so that he could destroy Gallagher’s beloved party from within, when Lauren had shared this with everyone else at Downing Street today it had been dismissed as nonsense. The PM had long ago cut Gallagher out of his circle and she was seen as ready to say anything to get back into his favour.

Lauren was starting to become uncertain of her own judgement on that now as she looked across at Parsons.

She and Daniel had been talking about him the other day, when the Home Office had made yet another embarrassing gaffe while under his leadership, and had had criticised her expressed opinion of him as a fool. The PM’s Chief-of-Staff had reversed his earlier views on the Home Secretary. No longer did Daniel see Parsons as a loyal but idiotic follower of the PM, but rather as someone slowly manoeuvring to replace their boss. He was seeing Parsons in a new light: as a canny political operator who was constantly thinking two or three steps ahead.

If Daniel was right, then Gallagher was right too.

Lauren asked herself whether Parsons really had the smarts about him to pull off the double bluff in Lincoln that Gallagher thought he had.

If he did… what did that mean for the future?

*

Lauren managed to get home for Three. She had a shower and then jumped into bed still with a grumbling stomach. She had to be up again in a few hours and desperately tried to clear her mind so that sleep would come to her.

It wouldn’t come though.

The Electoral Commission had worked hard to have extra people on-hand in Lincoln supporting the local people there. The by-election result had thus come earlier than it usually would have taken and the announcement that Laura Ellis was the duly elected MP for the constituency of Lincoln had been made just after Two. There gathering of the PM’s key people – by that point the Home Secretary had left – had actually broken up very soon afterwards.

It was recognised that once the result was in, the drama was over and nothing more could be done; everyone had been free to go home.

Lauren was one of them and while she had left Downing Street to sleep in Notting Hill, she lay here thinking instead. Her mind was on the ‘big picture’ and pondering over ‘what this all meant’.





Chapter Sixty–One – Passion And Fury
Canary Wharf, the London Docklands – January 31st 2014


Only at the last second did Lord North spot Kate Parker approaching his table. He muttered under his breath: “Oh fuck.”

Max Sullivan, Lord North’s lunch guest and the MP for Norwich-South, had his back to the door to the restaurant and gave Lord North a rather confused look. “What’s up?”

“Ah, Mister North, there you are! Good afternoon. Oh, and it’s… Max Sullivan as well, how good to see you too.” She had walked fast across the crowded restaurant and had started speaking before she’d even reached them. The journalist from The Daily Mail came to a halt beside their table and stood looking at them both.

“Miss Parker, surely this isn’t the right time?” Lord North forced a smile after making his comment to hide the rage inside him at this unwelcome intrusion.

“I was just passing, as you do, and I saw that you were in here. I was thinking to myself, ‘there is Lord North, who hasn’t been taking my calls’ and so I thought that I would come and say hello. In addition, I was hungry too and I wondered whether I could join you for something to eat.

Don’t you think that that would be a good idea?” Sarcasm oozed from Parker.

“Perhaps, Miss Parker, you could…”

“Oh, it’s okay, Max.” Lord North had a worrying prediction that Sullivan was going to tell Parker to get lost in a very unfriendly way. “Shall we talk again later? Miss Parker is correct; me and her do need to talk and now is a good time to do that. Don’t worry about the meal; I’ll pay for it as a treat.”

“Very well… I see…” Sullivan wasn’t the brightest of people and he was also incredibly open to ‘suggestions’. He stood up from the table, nodded his head at Lord North, glared briefly at Parker and then set off to leave.

With a smile on her face, Parker had a question: “Can I sit down?”

“Yes.” It was done now.

“You two have eaten already, haven’t you?” Lord North assumed that it was rhetorical question and thus saw no need to answer – she continued onwards anyway. “I’ve lost my appetite anyway – maybe your departing guest did that? He’s a very rude individual. Do you know how few friends that he’s making in Parliament? Okay, sorry, let me rephrase that: do you know that he has made no friends in Parliament since he got elected? I think that that is quite an achievement… in an ironic way.”

Parker sat there talking almost to herself. She spoke fast and looked straight at him as she did so. She was fishing for a reaction, just like she had got from Sullivan, but Lord North had been playing these games longer than this young woman had and wasn’t about to be beaten by her.

As pleasantly as possible, he spoke to her: “You wanted to talk to me, Kate?”

“Miss Parker will do, I think. I’m of the opinion that we should keep things on a professional basis.” She grinned at him and then looked around in a dramatic fashion. “Do you think I will be able to get a drink?”

Lord North hadn’t seen her do so, but he was sure that she had practically forced her way into the restaurant past the maître d’. Afterwards, the staff here at this Canary Wharf restaurant – who knew him – would have noticed Sullivan leaving and Parker taking his place. They’d be wondering whether he was about to follow Sullivan’s lead and depart. Thus, a waiter had yet to come over to see if Parker wanted any liquid refreshment.

Alerted by her loud question, one of the waiting staff came their way now.

“Can I have a glass of lemonade, please? Cold and with ice too.”

The waiter, a nice young chap by the name Alex, turned his attention to Lord North: “And for you, sir?”

“I’m good thank you, Alex.” He smiled at the man, but then added: “The young lady wants a ‘cold glass of lemonade’. She suspects that maybe you might provide her with one that is warm. She is mistaken in this assumption, yes?”

“Absolutely.” The waiter departed following that one word answer.

“You wanted to talk to me, Miss Parker?”

“Oh, yes.” He now had her full attention again. “I’ve tried calling you many times this week. I called both your House of Lords office and your business number here in the Docklands. I suppose that I could have tried to contact you through Michael Snyder, but he still remains someone that I don’t like very much.”

“I see…”

“So, here I am. I have your attention now and I can talk to you about what I’ve been dying to get off my chest.

I’ve been fool, Mister North. I’ve let Michael play me for a fool and I went along willingly. That’s my fault, and I know it.

You, however, ‘run’ Michael, isn’t that the truth? So, as well as getting mad at him, I’m going to get mad at you too. You fancy yourself as some sort of puppet-master, but this little puppet has cut off her strings and wants to throw them back in your face.

Ah, look: my cold glass of lemonade!”

The passion and the fury disappeared from Parker’s face as she took her drink from out of the waiter’s hand before he could put it down. It went straight to her lips and she took a large, unladylike gulp of it before putting the half-drained glass down onto the table between them.

“Did I tell you that I’m an idiot?” Another rhetorical question. “I have had past dealings with Michael, which left me hurt. But the other month, not long after the little meeting that you and I had not far from here, he gets in touch and sweet-talks me again. He puts the moves on me and I fall for it… again.

He’s a charmer, he is!

I do his bidding because he promises me a story – a good one too. I go along with what he wants me to do and shut out that little voice in the back of my head that tells me that he’s playing me like he’s played me before. When I give up the goods, what do I get?

I get shafted, Mister North.

Michael does what he always does with me and plays me for a sucker.

I was going to cry, but I decided to get mad instead. I’ve seen him today and now it’s your turn too because, from what I already suspected, and what I’ve recently been able to prove too, he dances to your tune like I dance to his.

So, I’m here to get some answers from you, Mister North.”

Seemingly finished with her tirade, Parker picked up her glass again. She copied her earlier move and took another big gulp of its contents. When she was finished, the glass was put back down onto the table a little too forcefully.

The noise, Lord North noted with his peripheral vision, momentarily attracted the attention of nearby diners.

“Don’t you have anything to say?” She hadn’t finished. “No excuses? No promises of something more to offer me if I just do ‘one more little thing’? Michael offered me a job at the Telegraph – which he failed to deliver because how can he do that? – and I guess you’ll have to make a bigger promise to shut me up? How do you beat something like that though? What bigger prize have you got up your sleeve?

You – personally, I might add – had me smear Andy James. I went and did that just as you wanted. It was all true too; he had been doing that for years and would have kept on doing it if I hadn’t outed him for the scumbag that he is. You played right on my emotions there and picked me well to do the job for you. I can forgive that though because it was the right thing to do.

Michael sends me after John Williams next. As I said, I’m stupid and ignored the warnings in my head. I was a bit confused too because I thought that him and Michael were friends. Yet, I couldn’t find any dirt on Williams. I looked hard too. I reported this back to Michael, like the good little puppet I was, and all I get is a pat on the head.

Richard Hamilton: I was the first on Fleet Street to dig up all that dirt on him and I had an exclusive ready and waiting to go. What does Michael do? He feeds his story to his little wife and she gets the story out in her ‘paper, the rival of my own and at my expense! Someone should talk to her one day about what kind of man her husband really is.

I move on. We come to the Chancellor. Who was it who tipped him off about Jeremy Jones’ little girlfriend having an abortion? Yes, me! I got that from my sources with the police, but it ends up in the ‘exclusive’ that the Guardian runs the other week. Their story had his fingerprints all over it!

I’ve got a picture of him on my wall at home.

I throw darts at it.

I know I have issues with Michael: serious issues that are maybe worthy of medical intervention, so don’t even say it.

You pull his strings though; I’ll get a picture of you too, though I may set fire to that once I have it. In the meantime, you can tell me just what game you are playing and why I shouldn’t put all of my skills to work, my cunning too, to destroy you too?”

She was, Lord North realised, finally finished with her rant.

Through none of it had she raised her voice. Her face hadn’t gone red nor had she looked as upset as what she said suggested. Parker was a very cool customer indeed. Nevertheless, Lord North believed her utterly when she said that she planned to get even with him and Snyder.

Parker had realised that she had been used and, after getting no compensation for it, wanted to get her revenge.

“I have no comment.”

“You have ‘no comment’, Mister North?” Her eyes narrowed.

“No, I do not.” He put this as firmly as he could.

“You weren’t expecting me to turn up today, were you? You also probably haven’t spoken to Michael yet to allow him to give you a warning. I think that you need a little time to consider matters. I want answers, but I’ve been waiting almost week for them.

I can wait another few days, Mister North.

By Monday morning, I want some answers. You can come and see me; don’t send Michael.”

She didn’t wait for a reply. Parker stood up and then picked her handbag off the floor. She started to walk off, but had one final remark before she did so: “I’m assuming that the drink was your treat.”

Lord North watched her march back out of the restaurant.

“You’ll get your answer by Monday, Miss Parker.” She couldn’t hear him, but he wasn’t trying to be heard. He was feeling the rage growing inside him and had decided to act on that just as she was standing up. In the few moments since, he had decided how he would give her an answer.

It wouldn’t be one that she would appreciate.





Chapter Sixty–Two – Burned
Bexleyheath, Kent – February 2nd 2014


Baxter rested on his hunches among the bushes of Danson Park. He was only inches away from the metal railings that separated the park from the road ahead that carried its name. Wet mud rested around his boots and rainwater fell upon the rest of him as he was covered in waterproofs. It was dark, but the nearby streetlights illuminated the road and the houses that sat on the other side.

He was watching one of those houses.

There were lights on in the particular house that had his attention. The living room at the front of the detached two-story house was lit behind the closed curtains and so too was the hallway behind the front door. He couldn’t see from here, but Baxter was certain that the target that he had been sent after tonight was in there watching television.

It was still early, not even Nine and Baxter had no idea when his target might go off to bed so he could strike. He knew little about the target in fact. He had her name, her home address and her place of work. In addition, he’d seen a picture of her. That was it though, he had been given nothing more on his target. There was no detail of her schedule, lists of her friends or access to her phone and email records. All Baxter had been given was the bare details about the woman and an urgent instruction from Snyder to kill her with immediate effect.

Back when he’d first started out, Baxter had been told that something like this would occur. Liz had said that targets would need to be eliminated with great haste and there would be an element of risk involved. He had accepted that because it was understandable to achieve Lord North’s ultimate goals.

Waiting in the rain now, he had changed his mind on that. This was not the best way to go about things. The woman inside that house could have a dog. She could have taken self-defence classes in the past. She might have a state-of-the-art alarm system that he didn’t know how to deal with. She might have been previously involved with a violent man and so slept with a knife in her bedroom.

Baxter knew so little about her and that meant that the mission could very easily go wrong. Yet, in a few hours, when she was fast asleep, he was to go in there and take her life.

Liz had given him almost no information on his target due to the nature of its timing. He hadn’t been suspicious of her for doing this because he felt that she was in the same situation as him: they were ‘burned’.

This was a term that spies used: it meant that their cover was blown.

Back in St. Albans, Liz had said that this wasn’t the case at all, but Baxter had thought then and since that she was wrong with that. Kevin disappearing as he had had put them both in danger. All of their other pre-planned missions against targets – which Kevin had worked with them on setting up – were now not going to take place. With Kevin’s whereabouts being unknown, they couldn’t do anything that he had any knowledge about without the danger that they could come unstuck and end up in a hell of a lot of trouble.

He’d been thinking about the explanation given for his behaviour too. It didn’t ring wholly true for Baxter. He couldn’t put his finger on what was wrong with the story about his running off with his sister after she’d been involved with a corrupt policeman. That was plausible, but just not right. Yet, he could do nothing about that; he was hardly in the position to investigate it.

The rain kept falling upon Baxter. He was physically protected from it under his waterproofs, but he didn’t like it all over his overalls and his boots. When mixed with the mud on the ground, he was going to walk muddy footprints all over that house when he finally got over there unless he managed to find somewhere to wipe his boots. He would also to have to later remove any traces of his footprints here in case someone was very clever and tracked him back waiting over in this cover from view. The manner in which he intended to kill his target would mean that there would be significant police attention.

Worries over the mud and the rain made Baxter think of Liz.

She was parked up not far from here in the car that they were using tonight. As far as he knew, she hadn’t gotten out of since they’d left Grays. Over there in that Essex suburban town, where they had their new base of operations within a near-abandoned industrial estate, it had been dry when they had set off for the drive to Bexleyheath. It had started raining only when they were crossing over above the Thames on the massive Queen Elizabeth Bridge. She would be nice and dry now as she sat in the car waiting for him to finish his mission so she could drive them away.

He wondered what she really thought about Kevin’s disappearance. From what he knew, the two of them had known each other for many years. They had a good working relationship, yet she had appeared to be as surprised as he had when Kevin had mentioned a sister being in trouble. Yesterday, when he tried to get her talking on the subject, Liz had told him that she had never before heard Kevin mention any family members. She hadn’t wanted to talk anymore after that and Baxter didn’t know what made him suspicious about that behaviour, just that it was worrying.

Everything was getting so complicated and potentially dangerous.

Baxter’s attention was snapped back away from his fears for the future when he noticed the light going off over there in the house. There was no traffic on the road and that sudden darkness where his eyes were focused grabbed his notice at once. It was the living room light that had been turned off.

He poured his attention towards the house where his target was.

Less than a minute later, another light inside was switched on. It was one of the lights up on the second floor; Baxter assumed that that was a bedroom again behind closed curtains. Then, the hallway light went off.

His target was going to bed.

Baxter checked the time again on his throwaway, digital watch. A raindrop landed upon the screen as he lifted his wrist into view and read the time as ten after Nine. It seemed early for bedtime and he pondered over whether his target was just going up to her bedroom instead of preparing to sleep. Maybe she had a television up there or even had a computer or a book to pay attention too. Again, he was faced with the issue of not knowing much about his target and her habits.

The light there went off and Baxter waited for maybe a hallway light to be turned back on… but no, the house was bathed in darkness.

He would wait for two hours and then leave this spot to go over there and take the life of a woman who he had never met before by the name of Catherine ‘Kate’ Parker.





Chapter Sixty–Three – An On-The-Ball & Concise Story
The City, Central London – February 3rd 2014


There was a gentle tap on her shoulder that distracted Jane from thinking about both her husband... and Charlotte too. She turned around to see Spencer O’Connor standing there. Her fellow journalist here at The Daily Express had come into the little kitchen off the newsroom and had an empty coffee-cup in his hand.

“Oh, sorry, Spencer. Go ahead…”

“It’s not just coffee that I want, Jane.” He gave her a sudden exasperated look. “Nick wants to see the two of us a-s-a-p.”

“Oh goody!” Jane didn’t like the idea of that, but what could see do: the Master was calling. She raised her own cup to her lips, but at once lowered it again – her tea was still far too hot.

“Whatever he wants, it won’t mean an easy day for the two of us.” O’Connor was making his own drink now. “Has he been shouting much today?”

“That’s all Nick ever does.” Nick Wilson was born to be an editor. “Spencer, what’s this all about?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. I guess we’ll find out soon enough and then that’ll be the rest of the day ruined for the two of us.”

*

Their editor kept Jane and Spencer waiting before he would see them. He was meeting with another reporter and had kept his office door closed. The two journalists sat on chairs outside – like naughty schoolchildren called to see their scary headmaster – sipping at their drinks before their colleague Paul Sharpe came out. When he did, he nodded at the two of them and then walked back into the newsroom at a brisk pace.

Jane could see that Paul was upset about something, but he walked away without explaining why.

Nick’s secretary then told them both two go in.

“Ah, look who it is… you two… O’Connor and Snyder, who between them turn in even less copy than our lowest of trainees!” Such was Nick’s greeting this afternoon.

“Good afternoon, Nick.”

Jane followed Spencer’s lead and went for the polite approach in comparison to Nick’s overt hostile attitude: “Good afternoon.”

“Sit down both of you.” Nick pointed to two chairs on the other side of his desk. When his two guests were on them, he had questions: “O’Connor, what little work are you doing today? What story are you supposedly working on at the minute?”

“Well…” Spencer lost some of his cool at that. “I’m writing up what you had me on late last week, Nick. I just have to type up what I have on those base closures that the M.O.D is forcing through and them I’m free for a new story.”

“That should have been finished already.” His reprimand to Spencer was followed by a question to Jane: “Are you still on your conspiracy story, Snyder? Let me guess – you’ve still got nothing solid with your story that goes everywhere but nowhere too? Put that aside for now.”

“Yes, Nick.” She wanted to argue with him, because he was talking out of his behind, but she (wisely) opted not to bother. Jane knew that when she finally finished her story, it would blow his mind.

“I want the two of you to work together on a Westminster story. I’ve just pulled Paul off it because he doesn’t have the contacts down in Westminster like you both have.

Five Tory M.P.s held a press conference this lunchtime. I don’t know if either of you saw the announcement, but they all quit their party and have decided to become so-called ‘Independents’ while supporting this Bill of Rights Movement baloney. Actually, to be honest, Kathleen Harrison was already technically an Independent despite being a Tory in all but name, but that’s not my point. They’re going link up with that pretty young lass from Lincoln who got herself elected last week on that protest ticket.

I want you two on this story straight away because I want to know just what Harrison and the others think they are going to get out of this.

Cordell, Mann and Richardson are all long-term backbenchers while this Max Sullivan character is rather a newbie. Are they throwing away their shitty little careers for something that’s going to fade away within days, or are they leading some sort of vanguard?

Snyder, I want to know about your husband’s friend John Williams too. Where does he stand on this? Is he going to jump ship too and link up with these people?

I want background info. on all five. The story will need pictures of them – is this Harrison good-looking like that Ellis girl? – and reactions from across Westminster. I need it all today too: no excuses for lateness.”

Jane had wanted to scribble away in her notepad as Nick had been delivering his orders, but she knew that her editor had a pathological hatred for such actions. He was a strange man who didn’t want journalists to act like journalists within his company. Spencer would have been taking mental notes as she was, but she still wished she’d written down what he said – she could barely remember those names of the MPs that Nick had spoken of despite that just being moments ago.

They were nameless people before they’d done what they just had.

There was a knock at the door.

Nick bellowed another order: “Come in!”

“Sorry, Nick,” Paul Sharpe came back in, “but can I just go over this Parker story with you again? You said that you wanted me to…”

“The words that I wanted you to use, Sharpe, should have burned themselves into your brain!” Nick sometimes liked to practically dictate words for the stories the newspaper he edited. “That girl from the Mail was ‘butchered’ by a ‘sexual deviant’. What you get from the coppers there should confirm that.

Do you understand me?”

“Yes, I do.” Paul sounded upset, but obedient.

“Good. Now get back to it; I’m busy here.”

Paul left the office without another word. Jane silently fumed at not only her editor’s behaviour, but Paul’s willingness to go along with that. She’d heard on the office grapevine this morning the bare details about what they had just discussed.

Kate Parker from The Daily Mail had apparently been found murdered in her suburban Kent home this morning. She had been hit over the head in a burglary at home last night. There was no hint of her being ‘butchered’ as Nick was telling Paul to put in his story nor any apparent sexual angle. She didn’t know the full facts of that, but neither did Nick by the sounds of it. He was just making it up as he was going along to get an attention-grabbing headline on a story.

She had thought that Paul was too good of a reporter to play along, but she had been wrong in that.

“Where was I?” Nick was looking back at her and Spencer again.

“Nick,” Spencer begun to offer helpful advice, “you wanted Jane and me to cover this Westminster story and make a good show of it. The story needs to be on-the-ball and concise too.”

“Yes, yes, that was what I wanted.” That wasn’t exactly what he’d said. “Get to it, will you both; I’m busy here.”

With that, they were both dismissed.

*

Spencer came to Jane’s desk with her and the two of them at once started to gather up all the necessary information that they needed before they could get to work on their story. Jane was hoping for a front-page story tomorrow, though she had doubts on that with what Paul was now working on… it sounded like something more ‘dramatic’ would lead The Daily Express tomorrow. The murder of a young reporter from a rival ‘paper would probably go out ahead of a story about politics.

Most of the afternoon and evening would probably be spent in Westminster. Jane had planned to go down there and have a lunch meeting with Lisa Williams to talk about the separate, but linked stories that they were both working on with those murders: she would have to cancel that now.

Before they would set off, she and Spencer got some background information to use. Jane used her computer to search for any information on these MPs that had apparently quit the Conservative Party today while Spencer watched a video of their press conference on his own computer. She couldn’t find very much on James Cordell, Philip Mann and Carl Richardson. Those three had all been low-level politicians with not exceptional careers before today.

Kathleen Harrison was a little bit different being an Independent MP, yet Jane still couldn’t dig up much about her.

Then there was Max Sullivan, the MP who had been elected in Norwich last year after Roger Mayfield had been killed there…

Jane had already done a little bit of digging into his background and the type of man that he was when working on her own story that Cole had put her on to. There wasn’t much, but she knew that he wasn’t a candidate for membership of Mensa. He’d done nothing while in Parliament and anyone that she had spoken to about him had said that he wasn’t going to be the Conservative candidate for Norwich-South at next year’s general election.

That had seemingly come true.

Then there was John Williams. Jane looked through the computer files on him even though she knew him and his wife personally. She had no idea as to whether he was planning to follow some of his colleagues. She had little idea in fact about his politics apart from he was a backbench MP who ran a select committee. Her husband would know much more about John, but…

“Jane, are you ready to go? We’ll get a taxi from outside the building, yes?”

“Give me a minute or two, will you?” Jane had to rush off to the loo first. She would be out and about all day and Spencer wouldn’t want to stop for anything when they were working: interviews would come above personal needs.

As she did that, she put her thoughts about her husband aside. There wasn’t the time today to think about him and how she was felling about him at the minute; she and Spencer had a story to run with.





Chapter Sixty–Four – Mentor
Seaview Nursing Home, Scarborough, North Yorkshire – February 4th 2014


Lord North often saw himself as a mentor to those who were young and trying to find their way in the world. He didn’t mind offering helpful advice to those who would need it, though he did many times see his assistance as unheeded and was left disappointed in that. He tried to mentor a select few people who he had come across in his life in business first and then politics because he had greatly benefited from such an influence himself when he was younger. When he had first started out on his career as a young entrepreneur, long before a keen interest in politics had overcome him, he had his own mentor.

Eric Zellerman was an old man who was slowly wasting away. He was ninety-three years old and it pained Lord North to admit that it would be best if Zellerman passed away soon. He had fallen into a decrepit old state and couldn’t physically take care of himself except in the most basic of ways. The retired nonagenarian was a sad sight for Lord North’s eyes as the elderly man lay down in his bed. Lord North sat beside him in the nursing home though he kept looking out of the window towards the distant sea beyond so as to not look directly at Zellerman. The skin stretched over Zellerman’s hallow face was painful to observe and so was the immensely thin body that was wrapped up tight in the blankets.

The mind there inside Zellerman was still as sharp as ever, despite his advanced years, and that too was uncomfortable. If Zellerman had gone senile, Lord North reckoned that he could deal with this situation easier. Zellerman knew that he was fast decaying though and could do nothing with that knowledge. The tragedy of the situation was horrible.

“How are your plans going, my boy?” The voice from the old man was croaky and Lord North could sense in his tone that Zellerman had struggled to get those words out.

An instinct came over him to hush Zellerman into silence. His mentor and his oldest friend would be saved from the pain while he himself couldn’t have to hear that voice again.

He couldn’t do that though: “There are moving along well, Eric; a few bumps in the road, but nothing to worry over.”

Even that more than he had with Snyder, Lord North had told Zellerman all of what he was doing. He had needed to tell someone and his old mentor had been the only person that he had ever trusted. Lord North had only ever been able to confide in Zellerman. Zellerman had his trust though because he had been there almost forever and also taught Lord North everything that he knew.


*

Lord North’s father had died when his son Edward was only ten. North Senior was a miner in North Yorkshire and had died from complications associated with pneumoconiosis (better known as Black Lung disease). His widowed mother had raised him at first though she had soon met and married a local shop-owner who had big ambitions – Zellerman.

The relationship that developed between step-father and step-son had never been that of a parent to a child. As a boy, Lord North had never been allowed to forget who his father was and Zellerman was there as his mother’s new husband, not a replacement father. There had been no love shown, only occasional kindness and a constant push for Lord North to succeed in life as his step-father was doing so.

Lord North had to arrange for finance himself to start out in his own business despite Zellerman becoming wealthy during the Seventies. He had never held that against his mentor though because Zellerman had given him moral support to succeed.

Between the two of them, it had always been that way.

*

“Tell me more… what has been slowing matters down?” The croaky voice was back and the bed-ridden Zellerman sucked in immense quantities of air as he spoke.

“Nothing more than minor personnel problems. Some people at the operations end of things have not been doing as I wished them too, then I had another problem with a political figure who was supposed to go away but hasn’t yet.” Lord North didn’t go into full details now because he didn’t want to strain the elderly man before him into giving a long reply.

“I cannot read the newspapers anymore and, as you know, Edward, the television nor the wireless has never been for me. I have one of the nurses read the newspaper aloud for me almost every morning.” There came a horrible cough from Zellerman before he continued onwards with what he had to say. “You are talking about that Jones fellow, are you not, Edward?”

“I am.” Lord North had momentarily doubted that Zellerman’s mind still worked; he should have known better.

“Such people are a disgrace. Do you remember all those evenings when we talked about how we would ‘put the world to rights’ – isn’t that what they saw now? – and we agreed that there were some who were a personification of all that is wrong? Jeremy Jones needs to be gone from this world.”

“I remember…” And he did.

“Don’t let me die without the sure knowledge that you are going to fix things, Edward. I beg you – don’t fail to live up to my expectations. I failed to live up to my own and look where it has got me. You, on the other hand, are ten times that man that I ever was and you can…”

Zellerman never finished what he was saying here. He started coughing again and appeared to be fighting for breath. Lord North cringed at the sound of this and almost lent forwards to do something, anything…

A nurse briskly walked over and at once reached for the oxygen mask, one which hung down from above Zellerman’s bed. As Lord North forced himself to watch, she gently placed that over his face and the oxygen started running: Zellerman had tracheitis, an inflammation of the lower respiratory tract. At his advanced age, this could easily kill him.

Lord North didn’t say anything more after that. He stayed at Zellerman’s bed-side and watched over him like a parent would a child. He wanted to talk to the man and ask him for some of that aged wisdom that Zellerman possessed, even now when he was like this and would be regarded as out of touch by anyone else, yet he kept his mouth shut. To do so might bring on another coughing attack and that had been too painful to watch even though it had been so brief.

He had come here to talk to Zellerman about his special project too. That was the real reason behind his visit, not the lie he had tried to tell himself that it was the right thing to do to visit the old man who was his step-father and who had inspired him to become all that he had. There was advice that he had been seeking and guidance to be sought too. That had dissipated when he had first seen Zellerman lying in his bed, in a much worse state that he’d been when Lord North had come here a month ago. Moreover, it had utterly evaporated when the coughing attack had come and Lord North had seen how weak and near death Zellerman was.

Michael Snyder should have been the only other person with enough trust enshrined in him that Lord North could talk to about how he wanted things to progress with his special project next. Snyder was far too questioning recently though and so Lord North hadn’t sought his opinion on this. He kept asking ‘why’.

Snyder would want to know the reason why Lord North had decided that he shouldn’t wait until the Queen’s Speech that would open the new session of Parliament in May to give the order for the final, bloody act of this drama to play out. The younger man would hesitate and call for restraint and try to urge Lord North to act in other ways first rather than bringing forward what was planned for then to a closer date. That was the way of Snyder; question, hesitate and delay.

What Zellerman had said before he’d been forced to stop talking so he could breathe again now came back to Lord North. He wanted to see everything that Lord North had told him of, whose lofty ideas of his own he had inserted into the special project, occur before he passed on. Zellerman clearly didn’t have long and with things going wrong as they were, Lord North didn’t see that he had too long to act too.

Time was running out for the man here in this nursing home and Lord North’s opportunity to act as well.

[stevep]

Jul 11, 2020 10:32:37 GMT James G said:

Jul 10, 2020 9:14:53 GMT stevep said:

   James G ,

  Well as you say Charlotte was up to something and I suspect there was probably more than alcohol in some of those drinks Jane had.  With that last section I was thinking the three men were coming over in response to that but it sounds like their not from the CIA who are however aware of them and interested in their activities.  I'm a bit surprised that Ian Newton used a car with diplomatic plates to make his trip to watch them as that might have attracted attention.  Initial guess is their some connection with North's plan but they could be a 3rd player in the 'game'. - I was going to joke in reply to your comments about an agency based in Virginia about Charlotte being a member of the Washington branch of Al Quada but she could be involved in darker activity that 'just' CIA activity.

  So it sounds like Amy was picked up by her brother, and the lack of surprise when she met her dead brother does suggest she knows more than she was letting on.  Also given the link with Liz Harriet and Patrick now know there are at least two 'deceased' people involved as well as that Baxter is not in Britain.  Plus as Patrick pointed out someone quite high up in the system is involved from the false information passed earlier about Baxter.  Which makes their position very difficult.

  Williams should be starting to think something orchestrated is going on, given how organised BORM is showing itself and the other odd occurrences.  In fact I wonder if the reason why Stuart Brooke denied the allegations against him was because they might well have been a fabrication?  As well of course the well organised campaign to remove his apparently strong local support.

  Wondering if Patrick's temper was in part because he's either protective of Harriet or jealous of Martin?

  Anyway another interesting set of events.

  Steve

That trio who flew in are going to commit two of three 'spectaculars' which will occur soon enough. The CIA will take a look at things going on in Britain, a hard look. I should have had that spook use a different car, yes: that would make more sense.
There is certainly some nobbling from on high but it doesn't mean that there is any official protection for Lord North's scheme. Certain people in organisations are helping out leading to things not being perfect.
The BORM will only get bigger and the media loves something new. That MP Brooke was just simply corrupt and denied it but the local circumstances were right for a move there.
With Patrick, that will be a bit of both, I guess.
More to come. Lord North is going to start getting rid of people who he doesn't like.

  Unless you mean in his organisation I would say he's being doing a hell of a lot of that already.   But can quite well see things getting worse.

 

[stevep]

   James G ,

   So some more mystery about Kevin's activities.

  North is losing the plot, going for a murder on impulse like that simply because someone dared to oppose him.  It would be ironic if this backfires because Kate left some sort of evidence that points to him.  Something on her computer say that sets off alarms in some areas. 

  I'm assuming those 5 MPs were part of the wider plan and it sounds like the new Home Secretary is involved, although how many details he knows is unclear.  Probably not the multiple murders.

  A bit worrying about this "final, bloody act" as given North's behaviour so far something particularly unpleasant is planned, although who the targets are I'm not sure.  Something against a leading political figure is likely to only lead public sympathy to them so I can't see it targeting any of the established parties.  Possibly that independent group is going to have a very short existence but that doesn't seem a very logical move.

  Steve

[James G]

Jul 11, 2020 12:26:56 GMT stevep said:

   James G ,

   So some more mystery about Kevin's activities.

  North is losing the plot, going for a murder on impulse like that simply because someone dared to oppose him.  It would be ironic if this backfires because Kate left some sort of evidence that points to him.  Something on her computer say that sets off alarms in some areas. 

  I'm assuming those 5 MPs were part of the wider plan and it sounds like the new Home Secretary is involved, although how many details he knows is unclear.  Probably not the multiple murders.

  A bit worrying about this "final, bloody act" as given North's behaviour so far something particularly unpleasant is planned, although who the targets are I'm not sure.  Something against a leading political figure is likely to only lead public sympathy to them so I can't see it targeting any of the established parties.  Possibly that independent group is going to have a very short existence but that doesn't seem a very logical move.

  Steve

Kevin is going to be run to ground soon enough. What to do with him then though?
Lord North is acting irrationally indeed.
The 5 MPs and the BORM are a long-term thing but, Parsons... well... he has a final, unexpected role in things indeed.
The finale will be unpleasant, yes. There will be some big 'BOOM's.

[James G]

Chapter Sixty–Five – No More Talk Of Politics
South Kensington, Central London – February 6th 2014


The planned dinner had been delayed by two weeks. All four of them had busy work schedules and it had been difficult for them all to find time to get together. Twice now Lisa had rearranged things at the last minute before having to call dinner off because one of the four of them couldn’t make it. However, tonight they had all finally managed to get together.

Williams squeezed his wife’s hand and gave her a smile as a thank you to her; she’d managed to get them all together at the dinner engagement that he’d been wanting to do for a while now.

Tim and Chloe Allen had caused all the problems with making arrangements. The two journalists had (individually) caused the two previously cancellations and Williams had asked his wife if there was something up there: had they changed their mind and not wanted to do a dinner? Lisa had told him not to be silly and that they would all go out together for an evening soon. As usual, Lisa was correct in her judgement of others because the two of them now sat at a table back in Williams’ favourite restaurant in South Kensington and looking happy with being here with him and his wife.

“I like it here, Lisa; this is a nice place! Thank you for inviting us.” Chloe was a little drunk on wine already and was gushing in her thanks to Lisa.

“I was thinking that you were going to have to cancel again on us, Chloe.” Williams couldn’t help himself but say this.

“Oh, no, not again! I’m so sorry, John, Lisa. I’ve been so busy recently and kept getting caught up in things that I couldn’t get out of!” She gave a little laugh. “But, no, tonight, I’m all yours!”

“It was partially my fault too, if I’m honest.” Tim, who had been rather quiet since they had all arrived, spoke up as he jumped to his wife’s defence.

“Shall we all turn our phones off?” Lisa asked this in what Williams assumed was an attempt at humour. None of the three of them would do so though with them all either being either journalists for major newspapers or an MP in his own case.

The waiter came over to the table and asked after them all. Did anyone else wish to have another drink? Perhaps they were ready to order yet? He could recommend the specials if they wanted?

After the waiter was sent away to get them all drinks – Chloe was switching to water after her two glasses of wine being that she was pregnant and that was what they were here to celebrate – and Lisa continued playing the hostess.

“I am really glad that you both could come. I’ve thought for a while that the four of us should get to know each other better and what better opportunity is there than this? I’m happy for you both and your good news.

Chloe, when I rang you earlier, you said you were at City Hall, yes? No luck there then with what you were working on?”

“No luck at all. Our Mayor is not going to quit his party and join up with those others in the B.O.R.M – not today anyway.”

“I thought you had a ‘sure thing’ tip on that?”

“So did I!”

Williams listened to his wife and Chloe talking. Lisa was asking Tim’s young wife about a rumour that he himself had heard, one which not turned out to be either false or not something that was going to happen yet. He had believed it when he had heard that the Mayor of London (a fellow Conservative) had been ready to leave their political party and become an ‘Independent with a BORM affiliation’: such was the current term. The man was a maverick politician and always would be. He liked to boast how a million people had voted him into office whereas MPs, even Cabinet members and the PM himself, could only say that twenty odd thousand people had put them into their seats in Parliament. Many ideas of the democracy that the BORM stood for were similar to his too.

Yet the man didn’t seem ready to jump ship… not yet anyway.

“Where did you get your tip from, Chloe?” The two of them were still talking over the issue.

“Oh… I really shouldn’t say, Lisa.” Chloe spoke very coyly and then Williams noticed that she was looking right at him. He couldn’t understand why. He barely knew her and she had gotten nothing from him.

“I bet it was Michael Snyder who told you that.” Tim joined the conversation and joined his wife in looking directly at Williams: now he understood Chloe’s stare.

“Let’s forget that, shall we?” As he expected, the mention of Snyder brought a negative reaction from Williams’ wife. Lisa was not a fan of the man despite her re-established friendship with Jane Snyder. “Tell me, have you thought of names yet? I know it’s far too early for you to do so seriously – you don’t even know if you’re having a boy or girl – but I’m thinking that you must have some ideas, yes?”

Lisa and Chloe moved onto that conversation while Williams joined Tim in keeping out. The two of them copied each other in taking a sip of their drinks. Tim brought his phone out of his pocket and started looking at that and Williams fought the urge to do the same; Lisa would be upset if he did that and would say that he was rude by acting as if he was bored.

Instead, he thought about how the last conversation had just ended.

Everyone seemed to be of the opinion that he and Snyder had some sort of connection beyond a friendship and a shared interest in politics. For months now, when people spoke to him, they sought a way to bring Snyder into the conversation too. Williams’ friend was involved in a lot of political manoeuvrings that brought together people from all different political outlooks for all sort of causes and campaigns. It annoyed Williams that he was thus linked to Snyder in the minds of others with everything that his friend got up to. He didn’t like it, but it was a continuing issue no matter how hard he tried to dissuade people that this wasn’t the case at all.

Earlier today had seen such an example of that.

A trio of Crossbencher Lords had done the same as those MPs had on Monday and announced that they were going to represent the issues of the BORM in the House of Lords. They had made a big show of announcing this: Snyder had arranged a press conference for them to do this. Within minutes of that, as Williams was in his Portcullis House watching on BBC Parliament, his secretary informed him that a call had come for him from the chief political commentator at Sky News. That journalist wasn’t someone who Williams liked much on a personal level and so he had asked Ellen to take a message. When he saw that message, he read how Sky News was asking if he was to be joining the BORM too due to Snyder’s links with the campaign and his friendship with Snyder.

Though he hadn’t said this to anyone else, Williams was of the mind to do such a thing. He liked the ideas that the BORM had and wanted to stand with them in their push for democracy. He thought that he could bring a lot to such a movement. Williams knew that he would have to give up his committee chairmanship over that, and while that would hurt a little bit, he thought that such a thing would be worth it in the end. However, he wasn’t about to join the BORM just because other people were expecting him to based upon a personal friendship with someone else.

It was infuriating that others thought he had no political convictions of his own!

“John?”

“Sorry?” He snapped his attention back from his silent fury after being certain that his wife had spoken to him.

“You were lost there in your own little world. What were you thinking about?”

“Politics.” His answer was as truthful as he wanted to be in front of other people.

“We were saying that we were all ready to order. Are you?”

“Give me a minute.” Williams reached for the menu Tim handed him.

He ran his eyes over the menu in the hope that something would jump out at him. He always tried to have something different whenever they came here and this was doable because the restaurant proprietors liked to change things up quite a bit in an effort he knew to keep this place ‘hip and trendy’. There was nothing new that he wanted though and so he told himself that he’d have to settle for something that he hadn’t had before.

*

Williams went to the toilet after he’d eaten and splashed some cold water on his face while looking in the mirror. He was feeling tired after eating because this had been a long day already with no end to it yet in sight. Lisa wasn’t one to go to a restaurant just to eat. No, she would want to drink and talk until extremely late whether those with her would like to or not. She wouldn’t want him bugging her to go home – they’d both be in their Knightsbridge flat tonight – so that he could sleep or for him to be yawning either.

Tim came in just as he was about to leave.

“You look tired, John. It’s been a long day for you, yes?”

“Aren’t they all?” His response to Tim’s remark came from tiredness and wasn’t meant to be as contrite as it sounded. “Every day for me is a long one at the moment.”

“Yes, I would have to agree with you there. I was up before Six and it’ll probably be after midnight before I get to bed.”

Tim didn’t seem to be upset with what Williams had said to him. As Williams watched, the journalist splashed water into his own face just like he had done. Afterwards, he wandered over to use the other facilities. Williams was just about to leave when Tim spoke up again: “John, are you okay? You look like you have a lot on your mind.”

“Oh, I’m okay.” Williams wasn’t sure if Tim was being genuine or nosy and didn’t want to run with such a thing either way.

“I’ve got to ask: are you going with the Bill of Rights Movement?”

The question was expected even if it came uneasily from Tim who was probably uncomfortable talking to Williams about such an issue as this in such a setting.

“I’m thinking on it.” Williams had decided to be honest with Tim on this.

“Let me know when you make a decision on that, will you, John?”

Williams didn’t verbally reply to Tim and his enquiry. Instead, he just nodded and left the toilets to wander back to the table and his wife. He would make sure that there was no more talk of politics there because he’d had enough of that for the day now.





Chapter Sixty–Six – Cloak–And–Dagger
Covent Garden, Central London – February 7th 2014


As instructed, Jane sat down beside Cole at a table inside a busy Covent Garden café.

She didn’t say a word to him as she placed her coffee cup on the table and then brought her handbag into her lap. From out of that she took her newspaper, her phone and a tiny memory stick. As she opened that newspaper, she quickly caught a glance of his hand snatching away that last item and then it disappearing via his hand somewhere into his jacket. Nervousness hit her as she opened up her ‘paper and pretended to read. He’d insisted on this behaviour in case they were being watched and she was worried over just who might be watching.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that Cole was playing it cool. He let out a yawn and then took a sip of his own drink before opening up his own folded newspaper that was on the table… as he did this she watched him drop another memory stick into her still open handbag.

The contents of her newspaper were not something that she could anyway read. Everything was a blur to her there because she was expecting that any second now someone would interrupt them and they would be in trouble. As to who these people were, what they would say and what would happen when they arrived, she had no idea. She knew that she hadn’t done anything wrong, but Cole’s firm instructions for them to act in this clandestine manner had got her mind worrying.

“Use the memory stick only once; it won’t work again.” Cole whispered across at her and Jane took in a sharp intake of breath rather than reply.

Jesus, she wondered, is it going to self-destruct afterwards?

Within a minute, Cole folded his newspaper back up again and tucked it under his arm. He stood up and took his paper cup off the table as he walked away. Jane wanted to follow him with her eyes, but she worried over someone might notice her doing so. Any one of the people in here who were supposedly having a lunchtime coffee of snack might be instead watching them both and ready to pounce on them.

Jane stayed frozen as she was with her newspaper open before her unread and her coffee there too untouched.

Her mind turned to what was on the memory stick that she had just given Cole. It certainly wasn’t going to explode in a puff of smoke and a shower of sparks as she expected the one that he had given her to use should she use it more than once. On the memory stick that she had just let him snatch away, Jane had filled it with information that she had been gathering over the past two weeks. In between her editor ordering her to work on the politics story that she had co-written for Tuesday, she had been arranging all of that information for Cole so that she could hand it over to him. There were her notes of her travels, her interviews and her conclusions from what she’d found out from Emma Cartwright in Wandsworth about the murder of her boyfriend, the police investigation into the death of Marcus Bland in Woolwich and what both Liz Jackson and Kevin Nye had been doing before they had each supposedly died too.

To Cole, she had just handed over a lot of information. In exchange, he had promised her a lot in return too. She couldn’t yet see what he had given her; Jane was going to wait until she got home tonight to plug his memory stick into her laptop there. If she put it into her computer at the office, it would all go onto the internal shared network there that she knew existed even if Nick Wilson said that such a thing didn’t. No, she reasoned, with it being on her home computer only she could see what Cole had passed to her. Moreover, if the memory stick self-destructed after use (or just wouldn’t work again as she suspected it would) plugging it into her work computer would mean that she wouldn’t be able to remove it from there and come back to the information at a later date should her editor send her out on another assignment again.

She also wondered as to what Cole had given her. Jane was doing this to write a story and needed clues, facts and leads that he could give her. He might be getting some excitement from the cloak-and-dagger stuff (she now suspected that he had said that about the memory stick in such a conspirator manner to worry her), but she still had copy to turn in eventually.

What had he transferred across to her?

Jane couldn’t guess at its contents because, as was the way with this story that went everywhere, it could have almost anything on it.

No one had yet approached her to arrest her or anything like that yet. Jane was calming down now because any danger that there had been had passed. She swung her gaze across the café and away from her newspaper and could see that no one was looking at her. Everyone here, office workers and what looked like tourists, were busy in their own little worlds.

She was not in any trouble and there was no need for her to keep worrying as she was.

The newspaper was closed and she finally reached for her coffee…

… as someone tapped her on her shoulder.

“Jesus! You nearly gave me a heart attack!” Jane had jumped at the placement of a hand on her shoulder.

“It’s ‘Charlotte’, not ‘Jesus’.”

Into the empty seat that Cole had not very long ago vacated, Charlotte Swann sat. The American had her own coffee cup and newspaper too, but she ignored them while turning sideways so as to almost directly face Jane. Her body language gave much away too; Jane reckoned that the positioning of Charlotte’s legs so that one was in front of Jane and one behind denoted a not-so-hidden desire.

“Hello.” That was all that she could think of saying.

“You’ve been avoiding me, Jane.

You won’t take my calls or answer my messages. I could lie and say that I don’t care and I want to more on, but I won’t: in fact you’ve hurt me by the rejection that you’ve shown.”

The words from Charlotte that told Jane how the other woman was feeling without any hesitation to hide how she felt came with a sweet smile and open palms. Partially-hidden behind wisps of hair that had fallen down from her fringe, Charlotte’s eyes were open and wide too displaying what Jane interpreted as more honesty.

“How did you find me?”

“Ah!” Charlotte let out a quick laugh and smiled ear-to-ear. “I put a track on your phone and followed you here.”

“You followed me?” Jane was aghast.

“Yes, I did.” Now Charlotte had a beaming smile of self-congratulations.

“How?”

“I send an app to your cell. It’s developed for cheating partners – more those who suspect theirs of cheating, to be honest – to allow one to see where the other one is via their phone: satellite surveillance and all that jazz, Jane.”

“Charlotte,” Jane tried to sound as deadpan as possible as responded to this, “that kind of behaviour is creepy.”

Charlotte picked up her coffee and raised it in mock salute: “I consider myself the winner of such a prize.”

“I’m going; don’t follow me again.” Jane finally closed her handbag and moved her chair backwards to give herself room to stand up. She didn’t like what Charlotte was admitting to doing and telling the American that it wasn’t cool didn’t seemed to have worked. She would have to give the woman a physical sign rather than a verbal one.

“Don’t go!”

Jane looked straight at Charlotte after this demand was hissed at her and then a hand was placed on her forearm. She saw a pained look on Charlotte’s face.

“Sit back down, please.” The grip tightened as she said this and Jane gave way to the demand.

“What the hell, Charlotte?”

“We need to talk.”

“Look,” again Jane tried to use her tone as well as her words to show Charlotte that she was not interested, “it was a one-off thing: a drunken one-nighter. Get over it, will you? I’m a married woman and I’m not interested in another one-night – or one afternoon – encounter again and neither do I want to even consider a love affair of any sorts. Give up because I don’t want to play along with whatever feelings you think you might have for me.”

“Wasn’t the sex any good?” All the previous anguish in Charlotte’s face was replaced with what Jane could only interpret as a lustful stare.

“Stop this, please.”

Just how firm do I have to be?

“Let’s hook-up again – you’ll enjoy it, you know you will. No one will have to know, Jane; we can keep it a secret. We can make arrangements that no one else will have to know about.”

First Cole wanted to act all cloak-and-dagger with her and now Charlotte did too; Jane was getting annoyed with this now.

“No, Charlotte. Take your hand of my arm please or I’m going to make a scene.” Charlotte had lessened that grip so it was ever-so loose, but she still had hold of Jane.

“Just one more thing, please, Jane?”

The hand finally came off Jane’s arm and then went into Charlotte’s handbag. She took out her phone and brought up a picture on the screen which she showed to Jane.

“Tell me about your husband and why he is meeting with people like this, please?”

Charlotte had that naughty, wicked smile back on her face as the colour drained from Jane’s.





Chapter Sixty–Seven – Multiple Deceptions
Hereford, Herefordshire – February 8th 2014


“Do you see her? There in the blue coat with the blonde hair – see her now?”

“Oh, yes, I see her, Martin.” Harriet had her eyes firmly fixed upon the rear view mirror positioned above her and Martin. They were using it to look out through the back window of the unmarked West Mercia Police car that they were using this afternoon here in Hereford.

And they had their eyes on Amy Perry née Nye.

“So… where’s her brother, then?”

Harriet didn’t think that Martin’s question was meant for her even though they were alone in this car on their surveillance. He was thinking aloud and asking himself where Kevin Nye was.

Harriet, Patrick and Martin were all convinced that Nye was here in Hereford with his sister. West Mercia Police Special Branch detectives – working alongside the spooks and Martin Lavelle’s two colleagues from London – had been running surveillance on the deceased policeman’s sister since late last night. It was their photographs of her, which had been emailed to both New Scotland Yard and Thames House, that had brought the MATCH investigation team here to Hereford. Yet they had no idea about Nye and that the people here from London were interested in him not Amy Perry.

*

Just as the Tewkesbury lead on Clarke last year, Amy Perry’s whereabouts had been confirmed via an appeal for information on BBC Crimewatch. From what Harriet had been told, an independent letting agent here in this West Midlands cathedral town had called in to report that she had rented a furnished two bedroom flat the other week to a woman named Alicia Plant. The young woman’s brother Lee (which, coincidentally, was the middle name of Kevin Nye) was supposed to move in at a later date, but the letting agent had yet to meet him. The rent on the flat had been paid one month’s in advance and so too had a deposit for the same sum – the money had been handed over in person and not by a bank-to-bank transfer.

The letting agent had seen the televised appeal on Thursday night and was sure that she recognised her new tenant despite her having blonde not brown hair now; the new tenant also had a London accent and had mentioned in an offhand manner that she had previously worked in a solicitors office as a secretary.

Such information had matched what West Mercia Police had been alerted to look for when police forces up and down the country were asked to make enquiries should seemingly good information be given following the BBC Crimewatch broadcast. They had sent a pair of officers to the Hereford flat the very next day and taken a picture of Alicia Plant AKA Amy Perry just as she had been coming back from her new local newsagent with a loaf of bread and a pint of milk. That picture had then been sent onwards to London.

Harriet and Patrick had only recently stopped informing their Desk Head of everything with regard to the MATCH inquiry and the issue of Amy Perry’s initial arrest and questioning in London was something that he knew about. Trent had been informed that she was the former girlfriend of the deceased Mark Clarke and that she had been in contact with him when he was in Gloucestershire before he’d been murdered. When they had gone to him late yesterday with their information from West Mercia Police, he had had no problem in sending them to Hereford. He had only cautioned them that this time he didn’t expect them to lose Amy Perry once they had their eyes on her as they had unfortunately done with Mark Clarke.

There was no chance of all those involved with this observation of Amy Perry failing to keep watch over her today. West Mercia Police had a total of eleven officers assigned in direct and indirect support of Martin and his colleagues, plus there was Harriet and Patrick too. There was even a police helicopter on standby at its Wolverhampton base ready to provide coverage should Amy Perry get in a vehicle and try to flee.

Along with the Harriet and her colleague from ‘a Government office in London’, as they were described to the curious, there were seven police officers from West Mercia Police and the Metropolitan Police currently watching Amy Perry as she again made that walk from the newsagents five to six minutes from the flat that she was renting. They were all positioned at a distance from her so as to not spook her on the orders of Martin. Harriet had listened to her policeman boyfriend as he had given these instructions and batted away questions as to why this was the case. His colleagues from Hereford wanted to know why if Amy Perry was wanted as a criminal suspect and wasn’t considered dangerous, they couldn’t arrest her either on the street or when she was in her flat. He had told them that she was suspected to be hiding someone in the flat, but that couldn’t be confirmed. Only when that was, in either a positive or negative manner, he had further explained, could an arrest be made.

Harriet had felt bad for Martin as he took the verbal flack that he had and also worried over how he was going to explain himself to his own bosses back at New Scotland Yard when West Mercia Police would later make the inevitable complaint over his behaviour here. They wouldn’t like him using up so many of their resources and were sure to tell their London colleagues that confirmation of whether someone else was in the flat with Amy Perry would come from a raid on the address rather than waiting for that elusive someone else to appear at the door or the window.

She looked at him now out of the corner of her eye as he sat studying Amy Perry at a distance. Since she had talked Patrick into allowing her to inform Martin of their own fears at the behaviour of an anonymous person high up in their Thames House chain of command who might be trying to derail their investigation, he had agreed to do as his girlfriend and her colleague wanted. He’d had questions, of course, but had played along.

Martin had also promised to find a solution to what to do with the issue when it arrived of them getting their hands on Amy Perry’s sister. The three of them, co-conspirators as they now were, had talked about finding a solution, but had yet to have one. Kevin Nye was technically deceased and even if he wasn’t, arresting him on charges of faking his own death would be difficult to say the least. Such a thing wasn’t a crime if there had been no monetary gain involved that would constitute a fraud against a public or private body. They wouldn’t be able to legally hold him in custody should he be with his sister here in Hereford and keeping him prisoner illegally was beyond the capabilities (or morals) of the three of them. To admit to their respective bosses their suspicions over what he was involved in would open up a whole new can of worms.

The multiple deceptions only got worse as they dug themselves further holes. These also gave Harriet the occasional headache as she tried to think of a way out of such lies and get back to doing her job the right way and without the risk of getting fired if someone started unravelling them all.

She figured that Martin was playing along due to two primary reasons. To begin with, he had been a big part of the MATCH investigation since it had first begun as the YOUNG inquiry. He had agreed with both Harriet and Patrick that someone had been pulling their strings for a while and he didn’t like that. He wanted to get to the truth; such was the reason why he made such a good police detective. Then, in addition, there was his relationship with Harriet; he was acting as he was for her benefit.

*

She wondered whether he was thinking over these things as she was while he sat there in silence next to her just as Amy Perry finally went out of their direct view.

The radio in Martin’s lap crackled to life and Harriet listened to one of the West Mercia Police officers report that they still had Amy Perry in sight and she was walking back to her flat just the way that she had come only ten minutes beforehand.

Martin didn’t respond to that by either making a reply or starting the engine; Harriet had been sure that he had been about to either or both. Instead, he said something unexpected: “I’m sorry about going off on one earlier, Harriet. That guy on the radio annoyed me.”

For a second, Harriet had to think what he meant. When Martin spoke of ‘the radio’ she instantly thought of the police radio before realising that he had meant what had been on the car radio much earlier today as they drove here from London.

“Oh, it’s okay. Politics is one of those subjects that couples should stay away from especially in the first few months… I read that somewhere once.”

“It’s just that I couldn’t stand listening to that racist traitor without saying something. Then I got carried away. I shouldn’t have said what I did to you, and I’m sorry.”

“Honestly,” she was being honest too, “don’t worry over it anymore. I’m sorry too, Martin.”

They had had an argument earlier when driving along the M-4 westwards; Patrick had been with two of Martin’s colleagues in a trailing car. The radio had been on in their car (a Met. Police unmarked model that was currently parked up at West Mercia Police HQ outside Worcester) and Martin had tuned into the Saturday morning talk show that Josh Davis presented on LBC Radio. Davis was a former policeman who’d made it big in the media industry and somewhat of a personal hero to Martin – whenever she’d been with him early on a Saturday morning, her boyfriend would listen to Davis. Davis’ programme discussed topical news items and a staple of this was phone-in interviews with public figures. The law and order issues that Davis often focused on attracted Martin and so too did the presenter’s straight-talking personality.

This morning, Davis had been talking about politics though and Martin had at first seemed less interested than usual in what was said. Harriet had been texting Patrick as her boyfriend drove and discussing what half-truths they had planned to tell in Hereford as part of their on-going deception when a voice that Harriet had once recognised had come on the radio. It had belonged to Rodney Underwood, a well-known former politician with even more outspoken views than Davis. Underwood was a veteran of the UK socialist movement from the Seventies and Eighties who still could attract media attention. He could turn any current issue back to the ‘injustices of the Thatcher clique’ and blame most things on ‘American capitalist Imperialism’. Moreover, from what Harriet had remembered, Underwood was a vocal critic of the ‘criminal police state’ and ‘unrestrained police brutality’.

Underwood had surprised Harriet (and probably all those listening) by talking today of something different: the Bill of Rights Movement. That political campaign wasn’t something that Harriet knew much about or cared either way about. However, Underwood had talked over Davis – which was quite an achievement – and led their conversation on that issue. The old self-described class warrior had called those involved with that ‘fascists’. He told those listening that in his considered opinion, they stood ‘not for democracy’, but rather for a planned ‘authoritarian government to crush the worker’. She’d only been partially listening and Martin had seemed to be doing the same until she’d heard Underwood describe someone called Lord Edward North as ‘the son of an old money-grabbing Jew’.

On the radio, Davis had informed his listeners that Lord North was the Peer who was known to be financing much of the BORM campaign, but that this man had a step-father who was of Jewish heritage, not a biological one. He had further moved to criticise Underwood for what he had deemed ‘anti-Semitic’ comments, before Underwood had apparently cut off the interview by hanging up his phone live on air. Harriet had been unimpressed by what she had heard and hadn’t liked it, but Martin had gone livid. He had slammed his palm down against the radio with a crash and had violently swore repeatedly. Afterwards, his voice had been croaky from such a terrible outburst.

Harriet had politely but firmly told him that she hadn’t liked such language nor his physical outburst. He’d turned on her briefly and told her that it was his car and he could say what he liked when within it.

Such had been their argument: one which Harriet had elected not to continue onwards with afterwards.

*

Martin soon drove away from their observation spot and took a circular route that would eventually lead them to another point hear where Amy Perry was renting that flat. West Mercia Police officers were on foot surveillance and the two of them trailing in a slow-moving war would be far too conspicuous. Harriet knew that coming out into the West of England again had reminded Martin of Mark Clarke slipping from their grasp and he didn’t want that to happen again.

They were on the northern outskirts of the town, in a suburban area near the famous Hereford Racecourse, and the afternoon traffic was light. While it was the weekend and people would be out and about in their cars, doing whatever they did to relax on a Saturday rather than working as she and her boyfriend were, hardly any vehicles were on the roads that they were. Martin drove at a respectable speed, but he still quickly reached the street on which Amy Perry was hiding out on.

Harriet caught a glimpse of the young woman walking the last few paces to the flat and then she disappeared from view again.

“What do we do now?” Harriet was hoping that Martin had had his thinking cap on.

“We wait.” He hadn’t.

“Surely someone can go in there, Martin? The police here could knock on the door saying there’s been a… erm… a suspected burglar spotted in a garden or something like that?” It was all that Harriet could think of as a reason for someone to snoop inside the flat.

“All Nye has to do is hide under a bed or somewhere like that for the briefest of moments. No, what we do is wait for…”

Martin didn’t finish what he was saying because his radio again cracked to life. One of his Metropolitan Police colleagues came on and in urgent tones informed everyone listening that the tap that had been placed on the flat’s telephone line was being listened to as a call was made. A male voice was calling 999 and requesting an ambulance; his ‘girlfriend Amy… sorry… Alicia’ had ‘fallen down some stairs’ and she was ‘bleeding while unconscious’.

Harriet’s heart skipped a beat and then she spoke up as urgently as that interception report: “He’s pushed her down the bloody stairs! Why would he do that to her!?”

“That’s what we’ll go with, Harriet, you little genius!” Martin reached across and gave her an unexpected and sloppy kiss on the side of her face. “Whether she fell or he pushed her, no matter what, we get West Mercia Police to arrest him for doing so.”

“He won’t have any valid identification for him nor her too.” She was thinking along the same lines as Martin was now; they were good together. “Did you hear what he said when he messed up her name?”

“Let’s let this play out and step in when the time is right. Mister Nye will have countless questions to answer!”

The 999 operator was now – according to the commentary provided – directing a police response along with an ambulance. Harriet smiled as Nye’s multiple deceptions (it appeared that he had as many as she did) were going to come back right on him and bite him hard in the backside.





Chapter Sixty–Eight – A Distraught Friend
Eltham, South London – February 10th 2014


Lisa had told him that he had to come to this funeral. Williams hadn’t wanted to attend, but his wife had insisted and wouldn’t take no for an answer. It wasn’t that Williams felt nothing for the grief that the family and friends of Kate Parker, it was just that he barely knew the deceased young woman and felt that he shouldn’t be at her funeral. He had only met her once and hadn’t liked her either.

Such a feeling wasn’t one that he was going to express this afternoon though.

The funeral service had taken place in a nearby church. As expected, it had been a quiet and sombre affair and well attended. The journalist from The Daily Mail had a wide circle of friends and acquaintances who attended her funeral; Williams knew many of the people within the church.

He sat and listening to what people had to say about Parker. A former schoolteacher of Parker spoke of how she was a star pupil at her all girl’s comprehensive school and he had known how the young Parker was going to make it big in the world. She had worked for the school newspaper there as she launched her first foray into journalism. Moreover, Parker had been involved in local charitable activities to help the homeless and the disadvantaged too. A friend from Parker’s university day, a remarkably pretty Scottish girl, spoke of their ties at university between tears, reemissions which Williams thought were overdone.

The editor of Parker’s newspaper, a man that Williams knew didn’t like to make public appearances and thus was famously misunderstood, spoke too. He stated that Parker was one of his best and brightest investigative reporters. She would be missed, the editor assured everyone.

No one from Parker’s gathered family spoke; Williams was surprised at that. He whispered to Lisa an enquiry whether his wife knew why this was the case, but she could only speculate that they were maybe far too upset to do so.

When the vicar came back to speak to those gathered as he closed the service, Williams momentarily moved his attention away from him to look over at someone who had caught his eye. There was a lone man seated to his left and two rows behind who appeared to be right out of place. Williams at once thought he was a policeman; his posture gave him away. The investigation into Parker’s murder was still on-going, Williams knew. They were apparently without a suspect and looking for clues.

Liam Kenyon, Williams’ friend and Parker’s one-time boyfriend, was seated on the other side next to Lisa. The policeman had earlier seemed intent on staring at Liam, Williams recalled, and that gave Williams confirmation of his status. He was here on a ‘stake-out’ that involved him watching Liam. If Williams knew anything in this world, it was that Liam hadn’t killed Parker… someone else had.

*

The drive up to the nearby cemetery didn’t take that long. Lisa wanted to drive and so Williams sat in the passenger seat beside her with Liam in the back. Williams had been concerned about his friend all morning and was even more so when in the car. Liam wasn’t in a great state at all, he was stricken by grief.

Lisa had assured her husband that Liam had broken off the relationship that he had with Parker after a short period of time because he had been convinced that she had no real interest in him. Liam was his friend, not his wife’s, though she had gotten more information out of him than he could. Now, as he sat behind the two of them, Liam looked on the verge of crying. The thought occurred to Williams that maybe it wouldn’t be the best of ideas for Liam to go to the funeral in case he made a scene there.

Yet… at the same time, Williams knew that that wasn’t the best of ideas either. People would expect to see Liam there – even that policeman – and it wouldn’t look good for him not to go.

Williams wished that he had a solution to all of this, but none would come to him as they drove through Eltham.

*

The cemetery sat in this densely-suburban part of South-East London next to a main A-Road that linked London with the Kent coast. When they arrived, Williams remembered coming up that road (the A2) last summer after he and his wife had taken an overnight trip to France via the Channel Tunnel. They’d gone by car and had flashed past here he was sure because they had returned to their London flat afterwards rather than their Cambridgeshire home.

He could hear cars on that road now.

Here within the cemetery, there was instead near silence. Parker was soon to be lowered into her final resting place in the ground and those who had been at her funeral service were now beside what was to become her grave. He looked around and reckoned that at least fifty people – give or take – were here, which was quite a turn-out.

There were more tributes to be said about Parker following the reflective silence along with the recital of what everyone was told was her favourite prayer. As he always did when confronted with organised religion, Williams inwardly groaned. He looked around again at this point and caught the eye of someone else present: Michael Snyder.

Michael was here because he was supposedly one of those acquaintances of Parker’s; Williams knew different. For at least a year, maybe longer, Michael had been jumping into bed with Parker as they had undertaken an on-off affair. From what he’d been able to gather, there had been no romance or anything like that between them, just bedroom antics. Parker certainly hadn’t been the only woman who Michael had been involved with behind his wife’s back either; Michael had a whole string of women that he went to bed with on a regular basis. He’d always been that way and Williams had long ago got over such a fact because that was just who Michael was.

There came a movement of Michael’s hands as Williams looked at him, which he took to be an animated gesture that the two of them shall walk away and talk. Williams shook his head briefly to give a negative response to that before paying attention again.

Finally, the process began of Parker being lowered into the ground. There were tears streaming down the face of a middle-aged woman who Williams reckoned was Parker’s mother as this happened, while a father (maybe a step-father) put his arms around here. Another family member, who Williams thought might have been a brother, wore a thunderous look of stifled rage. Williams reckoned that that young man was eager to take out his vengeance on whoever had killed his sister, if such a person was to be found.

Other people attending the funeral, many of which Williams knew to be journalists with various newspapers, saw that look and turned away from it fearfully. Williams didn’t because he could understand such a reaction. There was also something that Lisa had told him this morning about the Parker family. They had hired a solicitor to sue The Daily Express. Michael’s wife had told Lisa that Parker’s relatives were furious about her ‘paper running a story early last week that went past speculation in suggesting that Parker had been killed by a sex attacker. Such a thing hadn’t been true at all, and the Metropolitan Police had put out a statement to that effect too – something that they wouldn’t normally do unless a story was wholly false and detrimental to their investigation.

Maybe, Williams considered as an afterthought, that young man that he presumed to be Parker’s brother was looking at those present and wondering whether any of them worked for The Daily Express…

When it was the right time to do so, Williams led his wife and Liam away from the graveside. People were heading back to their cars and there was a wake planned somewhere else nearby for Parker too. Williams had no intention of going there and so he was going to drive the three of them back in London. Liam had a flat in fashionable Chelsea, not that far from their own in Knightsbridge, and he would drop off his distraught friend first.

As he was walking, he saw Michael coming towards him. Williams was just about to break away from Lisa and Liam for a moment to talk him, but then someone else stopped Michael mid-stride first. Williams was glad because his friend needed him, but he still paid attention to the woman who had stopped Michael.

He’d noticed Jody Hurst here earlier and asked Lisa about her too because Williams hadn’t known why the PM’s communications director was at Parker’s funeral. Lisa had said that she’d been told that Hurst had gone to university with Parker and would have spoken at her funeral service instead of that Scottish girl, but had backed out of such a thing at the last minute in case something was made of that in the media. The family of Parker were already upset over all the media attention their daughter’s murder had brought and hadn’t wanted anymore of that to come from Hurst giving a speech.

He wondered now as he continued to walk away what Hurst wanted to talk to Michael about and why she had looked so urgent about that. He was sure that Michael would be calling him later and he’d ask them, but he was curious now.

Williams’ phone was on silent, but he felt it vibrating in his pocket. He took it out of there and prepared to take what he presumed would be a call – such a thing would only now be appropriate – but instead found that it was vibrating because of a text message. It was from Tim Allen and when he opened the message, the journalist was asking for a comment concerning what he said was a statement made by Susan Norton. Williams fellow committee member, the message further said, had just announced she was leaving the Conservative Party and joining the BORM presence in Parliament.

Williams chose not to reply yet as he thought about that.

Was that six or seven MPs now, he asked himself, who were Independent (BORM)? If such a number kept growing, then Jody Hurst’s boss was going to lose his thin Parliamentary majority soon enough!

He was just about to think further on that as they neared the car when his phone again vibrated. Williams took it back out of his jacket pocket and opened the new message. He wondered over whether he was going to be asked again for comment on the same story by another journalist who might have his number.

But, no, the message concerned something entirely different. His eyes widened as he read it and then he spoke to his wife: “There’s been a terrorist bombing up in London, Lisa.”





Chapter Sixty–Nine – A Day From Hell
Whitehall, Central London – February 11th 2014


Lauren stood like a tourist, gawking with her mouth open as she looked across the road at the hole in the Cabinet Office building. Whitehall was still closed to traffic and ordinary pedestrians – something which was going to cause problems later in the morning rush-hour – but those who worked in the Government offices along the road were allowed to walk along it to get to their offices. Many of those people joined her in staring awkwardly at the damage done to the building that rested next to Downing Street after yesterday afternoon’s bomb-blast.

It had gone off a few minutes after Two during a cold and wet afternoon in Central London, with the epicentre being on the building’s first floor almost at that corner where the entrance to Downing Street was. Above the blast centre, portions of the two floors atop had collapsed in a heap and the image that Lauren couldn’t shake off as she finally saw the damage first-hand was that a giant had snatched away part of the white building in a fit of petulant rage.

I should be dead.

The thought of how she narrowly avoided the fate of nine other people there, including her friend and boss Daniel Lincoln, came back to her again. She’d barely got any sleep because she had been kept awake thinking such thoughts. Lauren even had a nightmare where she was trapped among the ruins of a far bigger bomb, but still inside the Cabinet Office fighting to save Daniel’s life with her own bloodied hands. He was dead though, along with two other Downing Street staff and half a dozen civil servants from the Cabinet Office.

If Lauren had been on time for the meeting that they had been at, she would have joined them in death. Only a last minute phone call had saved her life… as well as the life of the PM too. Shaken as he also was, the PM had made the effort last night to assure Lauren that he considered her to have saved his life. She had held him up for a few minutes so that he was late for that fateful meeting and thus the bomb that was aimed for him had missed its primary target.

I should be dead.

The fires that Lauren had been told had broken out after the bomb had detonated, were now out and the whole side of the building, collapsed as it was, was now black. There was soot spread all across the white frontage of the building that faced out onto Whitehall.

What she couldn’t see was the entrance to Downing Street. The steel gates there, usually manned by policemen, were all now hidden behind what appeared to be ten-foot high steel plate fencing. She guessed that they had been erected overnight to hide what would be regarded as a crime scene. In one of the many briefings that she had been too last night with the PM, she had heard that falling portions from the Derry Wing of the Cabinet Office building had come down onto those gates and the policemen. In addition to the nine people killed inside the Cabinet Office, three of the officers posted there were known to have lost their lives. Another one had been reported as ‘missing’: she had wondered then how someone could be, but Lauren understood now seeing the sight before her. That much of the building had fallen down that that policeman would have been underneath. She silently prayed now that he’d survived somehow, unlike the fate of those in her nightmare.

If those policemen, like Daniel and the other civil servants killed, had been just a few minutes late for their duties, then they might not have lost their lives. Lauren had been lucky, very lucky indeed.

I should be dead.

She couldn’t help but keep silently repeating this to herself. The shakes and the tears that she kept from forcing themselves out yesterday were gone now and all that was left was that feeling of being so damn lucky.

So many people yesterday had appeared to be feeling the same when she met with and seen them. Lauren had witnessed sadness and relief; sadness at the deaths incurred in the blast and relief that more people hadn’t been killed than already had been. She’d seen anger too; anger directed against whoever had planted that bomb and tried to kill the PM. In a few people, the worst in them had been brought out by the bombing. Lauren was sure that a select few people saw such a thing as an opportunity to enhance their own careers. People had tried to speak with the PM or his top advisers (her included) about information – re. stupid speculation – about who might have tried to kill him; their hope was that they would be correct and he would later recall their insight.

The whole of yesterday had been awful.

*

Lauren had been inside the Cabinet Office when the blast had occurred. She and the PM had been walking through an internal corridor that linked 10 Downing Street with 70 Whitehall when the building around them noticeably shook and then there was a gust of warm air that came towards them and their small party. Only afterwards did they hear the blast and the falling masonry; the first like someone slamming a heavy door very hard off in the distance and then a sound similar to a multitude of egg shells being crushed underfoot.

Alarms and sirens had begun to wail afterwards. The lone SO1 policeman assigned as a bodyguard to the PM had whipped a pistol – a shiny but fierce-looking weapon – from out of a pocket in the following commotion and started moving both the PM and Lauren back to where they had come from. Lauren had witnessed that weapon being pointed at several people who they came across and the terrified reactions from them. She herself had been too confused at what was going on to feel anything at that time. Her heart had been beating fast, she’d been left covered in sweat as they raced down corridors and flights of stairs, but she hadn’t been really scared because she hadn’t known what was going on.

They’d gone below ground into a ‘safe room’. Lauren had heard of such places, but hadn’t seen one beforehand. These were little rooms off corridors within Government buildings across Whitehall that were disguised as storage cupboards or such like. Yet they were actually blast-reinforced strong-rooms. Several people could fit into these spaces in safety for a short period of time. Post 9/11 security measures had made sure that these rooms littered both the Cabinet Office and Downing Street buildings to allow VIPs to be given somewhere to shelter on a temporary basis in an emergency.

Neither Lauren nor the PM had wanted to remain in the small confined space despite the SO1 officer protesting over its safety. The PM had said that it was best for them all to find out what was going on and Lauren had to agree with him. The safe room was hot, stuffy and cramped. More importantly, the bodyguard’s radio was inexplicitly not working. She had known, just like the PM had, that they needed to find out what was going on. Staying where they were had seemed more dangerous.

Once joined by another pair of armed policemen who’d been outside, they had returned to 10 Downing Street by following more below-ground corridors. The civilian electricians who’d been in there conducting maintenance on the old building’s wiring (the reason behind the plan for many of this week’s usual meetings to be taking place across in the Cabinet Office) had been made to leave and the PM had returned. At that point it had been ten, maybe fifteen minutes since the bomb blast and a lot of information had still to be gathered. A civil service security official, one of the briefing staff that Lauren had recognised as usually working down below the Cabinet Office in the secure facility there, had spoken with haste to them when they were in the 10 Downing Street. He’d said that it appeared that a bomb had gone off in the Cabinet Office in the exact location where the PM was meant to be. ‘Civil Contingencies Measures’ were being enacted as he spoke and it was his opinion that the PM and the Chancellor – who had joined the impromptu meeting – needed to move from where they were.

Usually, in times of crisis, meetings would be held down in Cabinet Office Briefing Room A – the secure briefing facility below the bombed building. Such a thing wasn’t recommended and they had moved across to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) on the other side of Downing Street. Lauren had walked with the others directly across the closed road that was filling with police officers as smoke filled it too and through an access into the FCO. Another meeting had taken place there, but information had still been scarce as to what exactly had gone on.

So much had gone on afterwards. The Foreign Secretary had joined the PM and the Chancellor, with Lauren in tow, in going below the FCO into yet another underground facility. Lauren hadn’t liked to be in such confines places because she was sure that it effected people emotionally and made them feel even more afraid. Briefings kept going on as what little was known was repeated again and again as speculation ran wild.

The head of MI-5 contacted the PM and requested that he leave Whitehall and go to ‘a secure facility’ that was ‘outside London’.

The Acting Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police had wanted to enact special powers to close off much of Westminster to the public.

The Chancellor had ordered the London Stock Market to close, while the Defence Secretary had called in from across in the MOD with a notice that select British military forces based in the UK – ‘air defence forces’ apparently – were going on alert.

The Home Secretary was aboard a train coming south from his Cumbria constituency, but was having his train stopped at some remote station in Staffordshire so he could be met by a helicopter to fly him back to London faster than his train.

On top of all of this was what was going on in the few media reports that Lauren had seen. The news of the bombing in the heart of Whitehall had hit the afternoon news and speculation had been running wild there. The media had been starved of real information apart from distant images taking of smoke rising from near Downing Street. There was a report from a journalist in East Anglia talking of fighters flying towards London to ‘protect the city’ from attack and announcements that calls to Downing Street had been going unanswered. Jody Hurst had been away from Whitehall and there was no Daniel to take the calls from the media too.

A little later, the Education Secretary had spoken on the BBC News. He had been at Broadcasting House in Marylebone preparing for an interview about school financing and had gone on the air. Speaking over the radio, the Education Secretary had made a short statement off his own back – without checking with the PM. He told everyone listening, in a statement that was soon widely repeated, that there was no need to panic. A bomb had gone off in Downing Street, but the PM was uninjured. Furthermore, he went on to say that just like John Major in 1990 after the IRA mortar attack against him and his Cabinet, the PM was continuing to have meetings. The Education Secretary had got two important facts wrong (the bomb was in the Cabinet Office and the IRA had tried to assassinate John Major in 1991) and had been talking off-script. A commentator who was known as unfriendly toward the Government had butted into the live on-air statement afterwards and asked if the Education Secretary was comparing the current PM to that former one who spent his time ‘hiding in bunkers’.

The whole thing had been a disaster.

Alongside this, Greg Stephenson at the MOD had gone over the top with his actions. He had acted on his own authority and ordered military forces based in the heart of London to move. There was a security detachment of infantry at Horse Guards just along Whitehall and the few British Army troops based there had been sent across to the MOD to set up a guard force there as well as joining the police in closing off Whitehall at both ends. The media soon had pictures of these soldiers, thankfully few in number, walking around Whitehall in full camouflage and carrying their rifles. Two other barracks were alerted too and many troops from these locations started moving.

From out of Hyde Park Barracks came men of the Household Guards Regiment as a reaction force of about a hundred soldiers loaded into trucks and they started heading towards Whitehall and the Houses of Parliament too. They unfortunately came unstuck when their convoy ran into dense traffic around Hyde Park Corner as the whole of Central London ground to a halt when the Metropolitan Police started closing roads all across Westminster and the wider area. Moreover, other troops, men from the Scots Guards, moved quickly out of Wellington Barracks and started to deploy around Buckingham Palace first and then St. James’ Palace. These soldiers moved on foot and started setting up security perimeters around the royal residences. They were polite to the tourists they encountered as the Scots Guards were trained in ‘public duties’, but they still moved people away from both locations and had their guns pointed outwards… again in the full view of anyone with a camera-phone who wanted to send their footage onto the media.

Such things were a terrible public relations disaster and Lauren had to fight hard against other, security-minded people who wanted to keep the PM out of view to get him to make himself seen. There was speculation flowing in that the PM might have been injured, even killed in what the media were quickly calling the ‘Downing Street Bomb’. Accusations were being made that Islamic terrorists had tried to kill him (and might have succeeded too) and it did no good for him to remain in a bunker beneath the FCO or follow the wishes of MI-5 and fly away in a helicopter into Surrey or somewhere ‘safe’ like that.

Lauren wrote the statement that the PM made to the media fifty minutes after he’d narrowly escaped the attempt on his life. Her words were delivered by him because his chief speechwriter was trapped inside the Cabinet Office as the security people there decided to ‘lock the building down’ in some absurd measure. It wasn’t the best thing she had ever written and it had done no good at all. The PM had looked uneasy on the television screens when she’d watched him, flanked by the Chancellor and the Foreign Secretary, talking to the media from inside the FCO. His suit was ruffled and his hair had needed a comb. All of his usual calm demeanour had been shot away and his voice had nearby broken several times. The message hadn’t been clear or concise too.

He’d told the British public that there had been a terrorist attack in Whitehall but the business of government was on-going. People were urged to stay calm and follow the instructions of the police and security services.

And that was that; there had been nothing more to say.

Throughout the evening, as the PM remained in the FCO, even when Sky News went and revealed that he was there (a fact not picked up until hours later), Lauren attended meetings. The Home Secretary joined them and so too did Bill Hunt from MI-5. No serious information came as to who had planted the bomb; all there had been had been the casualties and speculation over who had done it. Blame had at once been apportioned towards Islamic terrorists, even when Bill Hunt had said his people had no indications of such a thing and to conduct an attack like that wasn’t within their capabilities.

Calls had come into the FCO from all around the world too. The Presidents of the United States and France had both wanted to speak to the PM and so too had national leaders from across Western Europe and the Commonwealth. Everyone seemed to want to know whether the PM was unharmed (those erroneous media reports that he might have been killed or injured had travelled fast around the globe) and who had tried to assassinate the British PM.

A joint police, military and MI-5 task force had at once been set up to look into the bomb itself and Lauren had heard of how it had been an unusual device. It wasn’t the type of conventional weapon that terrorists used, but rather a high-grade military model apparently called a ‘thermobaric bomb’. This was the type of weapon used against irregular fighters in caves and such places, she learned, as it sucked in oxygen to feed itself: in confined spaces those who weren’t killed by the blast were suffocated to death. The bomb had an extremely high temperature upon detonation and an extraordinary long-lasting blast wave. When set off, a small thermobaric device had the power of a much larger conventional bomb and burned like fires unleashed from hell. It had thoroughly wrecked a significant portion of the Cabinet Office and even burnt people to death there.

Conversations, arguments even, had gone on afterwards as to whether a terrorist group could have acquired such a weapon and smuggled it into such a secure place – where the PM was meant to be too. Those who questioned this media-led terrorist theory were immediately asked as to whom else then would have done such a thing. Answers to those questions were not forthcoming.

Lauren had left the FCO before midnight – earlier than expected – because the PM had wanted her back in the morning. He had gone somewhere else apart from Downing Street for the night, but such a location had been very closely held (Lauren suspected that MI-5 had finally gotten him to leave London, even for just the night). She had gone home to watch the media reports on the day instead of sleeping. The terrestrial television channels had joined BBC News 24 and Sky News in providing rolling and uninterrupted coverage of the Downing Street Bomb. Short on facts and sources of information, they had kept talking rubbish and making guesses while continuing to show those images of soldiers on Britain’s streets too.

It had been one hell of a day.

*

Lauren looked at the time on her phone when her mind snapped back from recollections of yesterday’s chaos. She realised that for fifteen minutes she’d been standing staring aimlessly ahead at the place where she had nearly died.

I should be dead.

She was due into work and the PM would be waiting there for her, or maybe soon to arrive.

Before she’d gone home to Notting Hill last night, he’d told her that he wanted to take over Daniel’s role on an acting basis. As she crossed the road to enter the Cabinet Office (the way into Downing Street) through the entrance on the other side of the building away from the bomb damage, she told herself that she was going to do better in that role than she had yesterday.