Madrigal for Charlie Muffin (14 page)

‘A robbery some time during the night,’ said Harkness. ‘There’s extensive security precautions but all appear to have been bypassed. The safe is hidden in some peculiar way beneath a bureau or a desk or something. It was found easily enough, opened and cleaned out.’

‘Of what?’

‘Only jewellery: it’s a private safe.’

‘Carelessness isn’t unusual: it’s a leaky embassy,’ said Wilson.

‘Just jewellery,’ assured Harkness.

‘Our people involved?’

‘Not directly,’ said Harkness. ‘I thought it best to keep the surveillance as it was. Walsingham has gone to the villa.’

Wilson got up and walked stiff-legged over to his river view, but did not bother to look out. ‘What does it mean?’

‘
Could
be coincidence.’

‘Not a chance,’ said Wilson positively. He stood still for a moment. ‘What about the ambassador?’

‘Sir Hector John Billington,’ Harkness read from his file. ‘Father – Sir John Billington, who was ambassador to Washington and Paris before returning to the Foreign Office as Permanent Under Secretary in the late forties. The son was brilliant. Got a Triple First in Greats at Oxford and a law degree, which isn’t the usual combination. Entered the diplomatic service a year earlier than his father, passed every internal examination with honours, usually a year and sometimes two ahead of the normally expected period. Junior posting to Washington, with distinction, first ambassadorship to Saudi Arabia. Big impact there. Credited on an internal memorandum with greatly influencing the Saudi court in maintaining a moderate stance and keeping oil prices down through OPEC. From Saudi Arabia he went to Brussels. Difficult time in Belgium explaining our reduced defence support for NATO, particularly as the Common Market is headquartered there. After Brussels posted to Rome. He’s been there two years.’

Wilson picked up the inconsistency immediately. ‘Why Rome?’ he said. ‘Billington’s obviously a Foreign Office star. Rome is a backwater.’

Harkness smiled. ‘I had the same thought,’ he said ‘He’s rising
too
fast. There’s a log jam of seniority above him. When the retirements come, in a year or two, he’ll get the prime postings, either Paris or Washington.’

‘What about the wife?’

‘Lady Billington’s family name is Hethenton,’ said Harkness. ‘Father was Lord Mendale. The fortune is put at ten million but that’s only a guess: tax lawyers and accountants have got it so well spread it could be that much again.’

Wilson began his aimless stumping around the office again. ‘We know they’ve got Hotovy.’ He was thinking aloud. ‘They’ve obviously broken him.’

‘But he didn’t know the reason for the inquiry,’ reminded Harkness. ‘So what can he tell them? Just that he found the origin of a message was Cape Town. By itself that’s meaningless.’

‘I still can’t go along with coincidence,’ said Wilson.

The internal telephone sounded. Because he was nearer, Harkness answered. ‘The car’s waiting for you downstairs,’ he said.

‘Thanks.’

‘They’re going to want some answers.’

‘I haven’t got any,’ said Wilson.

The Prime Minister’s residence in Downing Street has several entrances. There is the obvious and public front door or the less conspicuous corridor from the official house of the Chancellor of the Exchequer next door. The most discreet is at the back, from Horseguards Parade and across the gardens and this was the route that Sir Alistair used. The patterned hand of the Ministry of Works was obvious from the scrupulous flower arrangements. Wilson looked for roses and was disappointed.

Naire-Hamilton was already waiting in the downstairs ante-room. He hurried up at the director’s entry. He was flushed more than Wilson could remember seeing him, the redness suffusing even his balding head.

‘What on earth’s happening?’ demanded the Permanent Under Secretary.

‘You’ve read the early account of the robbery?’

‘Of course.’

‘Then you know as much as I do.’

The door opened suddenly and a secretary beckoned them forward. Wilson deferred politely to Naire-Hamilton, following him to the Prime Minister’s first-floor study. It overlooked St James’s Park and the rose beds; perhaps that’s why they didn’t bother with them in the immediate garden, thought the director idly.

The Secret Intelligence Service comes under the direct control of the Foreign Secretary, with ultimate responsibility held by the Premier. Both men were waiting for them. George Ramsay was a thick-set, bespectacled man who had won the previous election largely through personal appeal as the blunt-talking man of the people who would neither mislead the electorate with monetary gymnastics to achieve economic miracles nor allow unions to abuse their powers. Even Ramsay, a consummately professional politician, had been surprised by the reaction to the straight-from-the-shoulder approach recommended by the advertising agency who masterminded the campaign. Ramsay cultivated the image of the Prime Minister who had come to power after a divisive period of British politics to introduce stability. He worked hard to sustain the role, because basically he enjoyed it. He sported chain-store suits and smoked a reassuring pipe. Occasionally the plain speaking was overwhelmed with Welsh rhetoric and a fondness for cliché. A favourite metaphor had him as the captain guiding a troubled ship from storms into calmer water: another was the need to avoid rocking the boat. He was at his desk when Naire-Hamilton and Wilson entered. The pipe was alight and he wore cardigan and slippers. The intelligence director didn’t think he looked much like a captain: more like a clever MP on his way to a fancy-dress party.

‘Don’t like this,’ announced Ramsay at once.

Obviously plain-speaking time, decided the director.

‘It’s going to cause a lot of publicity. Can’t have that, with the other business,’ supported Ian Beldon. The Foreign Secretary entered politics from Cambridge, where he’d had the Chair of Philosophy. It was difficult to imagine him as an academic. He was a burly, red-faced man of heavy, ponderous movement. Rumour was that he was the cabinet bully and Wilson found the accusation easy to believe.

Wilson had expected the Permanent Under Secretary to lead but Naire-Hamilton turned, inviting the response from him. ‘There’s got to be a connection,’ said the director.

‘What?’ demanded Ramsay.

‘At this stage I don’t know.’

‘We don’t seem to know much about anything do we?’ said Beldon.

‘We only confirmed the origin of the leak a week ago,’ said the director, annoyed at the attack. I was instructed to conduct a cautious, discreet inquiry.’

Ramsay got up from his desk and went to an adjoining table, to knock the dottle from his pipe. The slippers were the type without heels, so he shuffled across the carpet. Ramsay worked with a pipe cleaner. It was several minutes before he appeared satisfied. He turned back to the two men and said, ‘The risk now is that everything is going to come out.’

‘We’re fully aware of the situation,’ said Naire-Hamilton, entering the discussion at last.

‘I’m not going to be made to look stupid,’ insisted the Premier. ‘Unless this is settled – and settled as I want it to be – I can’t lead the delegation to Rome in a fortnight’s time … no one can go.…’

‘No,’ said Naire-Hamilton.

‘And we can’t cancel either,’ said Beldon.

‘So what are you going to do?’ demanded Ramsay.

Again the Permanent Under Secretary gave Wilson his cue. ‘There are two possible lines of inquiry,’ said the director, uncomfortable with the words as he uttered them.

‘Possible? Or positive?’ seized Ramsay, with a politician’s ability to discern an empty sentence.

‘Only possible,’ admitted Wilson.

‘That’s not very encouraging,’ said the Foreign Secretary.

‘There’s a filter on anything sensitive going into the embassy, and I’ve got six men inside, under cover of Summit preparations, and a separate surveillance team of a further twelve,’ said Wilson.

‘What exactly have they come up with?’ said Beldon.

‘The inquiry has only just started.’

‘You’ve already said that.’ Beldon wasn’t going to make this easy.

‘We accept the difficulties,’ interceded Ramsay. ‘But it’s got to be settled.’ He paused. ‘That’s why I want you to go personally.’

‘Me!’ said Wilson.

‘I know it’s not usual, but the circumstances aren’t usual. Before I can set foot in that embassy, I’ve got to know it’s scoured clean.’

‘I see the point,’ said Naire-Hamilton.

‘Glad you do,’ said Ramsay. ‘I want you to go too.’

Naire-Hamilton’s hands rose and fell, like frightened birds seeking a spot to land. ‘But that’s not.…’

‘… usual, I know,’ the Premier interrupted. ‘We’ve already discussed that. I want Wilson here solving the security problems and I want you cementing over the cracks. I want to go to Italy in a fortnight’s time with only the Summit to worry about.…’ He smiled, a politician imparting a confidence. ‘Believe me, that’s going to be enough.’

Naire-Hamilton looked like he was standing to attention on a parade ground. It was anger, Wilson decided; this temporary inspector had altered the bus route more drastically than was permitted and Naire-Hamilton was offended. ‘If that’s your wish,’ he said, brittle-voiced.

‘No,’ said Ramsay, relighting his pipe, ‘it’s not my wish: it’s my instruction. You’ve got a week, at most. I’m laying on RAF transport at Northolt for whatever needs you have. I’m entrusting you with full authority; all I want to know is that it’s been cleared up.’

Naire-Hamilton’s car was waiting in Horseguards Road, by the park. He strode angrily towards it around the edge of the parade ground, head forward. Wilson had to step out to keep pace, which was difficult with his lame leg.

‘Who the hell does he think he is!’ exclaimed Naire-Hamilton.

‘The Prime Minister,’ said Wilson simply.

‘Damned upstart.’

15

The ambassador directed them to the reception room in which Charlie had been abandoned by Jane Williams on his first visit. There was a palatial embarrassment of space. The two men regarded each other warily, Charlie trying to conceal his apprehension. Inspector Moro was a pear-shaped shambles of a man. His clothes were a contradiction of effort; the shirt bubbled apart from the strain of each fastening and the crumpled silk suit that enveloped him looked like a cast-off from someone even larger. The heat troubled him, despite the air conditioning, so he frequently dabbed a once-white handkerchief around his face and inside the neckband of his shirt. Charlie’s impression was of a bloated python sweating to shed a skin.

‘You didn’t take long getting here.’

‘I was already in Rome,’ said Charlie.

‘I know.’

‘So why the surprise?’

‘No surprise: just curious.’

Charlie recognized that there was nothing scruffy about the questioning. Moro was conducting the interrogation exactly as he would have done in the circumstances, hard and sharp. The policeman’s English was immediate, without any pause for the right word.

‘Why curious?’ said Charlie.

‘You spend two days here, looking at the security and the collection. And then there’s a robbery,’ said Moro. ‘If you were a policeman, wouldn’t you be curious?’

‘I suppose so,’ conceded Charlie. ‘Except that I’m here at the villa and not on some plane going in the opposite direction.’

‘You wouldn’t have made it.’

‘What?’

‘The plane. I closed every airport against you four hours ago.’

Thank Christ he hadn’t tried to run, thought Charlie; but the numbing, cotton-wool-in-the-head feeling was making an uncomfortable return. ‘Satisfied?’ he said. He hoped his nervousness didn’t show.

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘It would be cleverer to come back, wouldn’t it?’

‘I’m not involved,’ insisted Charlie. Would the policeman already have made an identity check through the Interpol communications link? Charlie felt the sweat prick out on his back.

‘Convince me,’ said Moro.

‘How?’

‘Tell me how a security system as impregnable as this was so easily breached.’

‘I would have thought that was obvious.’

‘Perhaps it isn’t to me.’

‘It can’t possibly be an outside job,’ said Charlie. ‘There has to be inside knowledge of the alarms and the position of the safe.’

‘Which you knew.’

‘So did at least six other people, apart from the staff.’

‘Hardly impregnable, was it?’ said Moro.

‘No.’

‘Which could be expensive for you, either way.’

‘Either way?’

‘If you’ve got to pay out as a genuine insurer. Or if you’re involved. Because there’s no way you’re going to get out of Italy.’

The nausea swept through Charlie, so that he actually belched. He hadn’t expected the confrontation to be easy, but he hadn’t expected this sort of hostility either.

Moro made a sweeping gesture with his hand. ‘I haven’t investigated a crime for a long time,’ he said. ‘Not even a crime of this size.’

‘So what are you doing here?’

‘My job!’

‘What’s that?’

‘Diplomatic protection.’

Which accounted for the perfect English, thought Charlie. ‘What’s diplomatic about this?’

‘By tomorrow the newspapers here and abroad will be saying we can’t protect foreign politicians and diplomats, any more than the government can do anything effective to stamp out terrorism. Our subversive groups are quick to see a trend. We can’t take the risk, with the Summit.’

‘What Summit?’ said Charlie. Uncertainty was piling upon uncertainty.

‘In two weeks’ time Italy is hosting a Common Market and NATO Summit,’ said Moro.

The department wouldn’t be directly involved, calculated Charlie. But there would be a watching brief, with all the protection intelligence channelled for routine information. And that would extend to photographs. Charlie thrust his hands deeply into his pockets, clenching his fists until his fingers hurt, to stop the nervous shaking.

‘I understand your problem,’ he said.

‘I’m not sure that you do.’

Supercilious bastard, thought Charlie. ‘I’m sure you’ll explain it,’ he said.

The mockery got through to the Italian, his lip tightening against his teeth. ‘My orders from the Prime Minister’s office are to stop the trend, before it begins,’ he said. ‘And that means an arrest. So I’m going to get one.’