Sabbathman (17 page)

‘Tell me something,’ Grant was saying, ‘Why are your lot so upset by Mr Angry? Why is he such a threat?’

‘He kills people,’ Annie said simply.

‘No, I meant our Mr Angry. The way we ran it this morning.’

‘That’s no threat.’

‘Yes it is. That’s why you’re here. That’s why they sent you. They’re trying to warn us off. Not that we’ll take any notice.’

He looked across at her, waiting for an answer. Annie, for once, refused to meet his eyes.

‘Listen,’ she said at last, ‘the point about your Mr Angry is simple. The theory’s wrong. That’s all I came to say.’

Grant thought about it for a while, eyeing his plate. Then he shook his head. ‘No,’ he said, ‘the point about Mr Angry is that he sells papers. It doesn’t matter whether we’re right or wrong. We’re not talking right or wrong. If you’re interested in all that then you go and buy some other paper.’ He paused. ‘Don’t you?’

‘I’ve no idea. I read the
Daily Telegraph
.’

‘There you are then. You want a laugh, you read our paper. You want to get mad, have a cry, you come to us. The rest of it …’ He shrugged. ‘It’s a free country.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning we carry on building the story. I’ve a feeling we might be hitting a nerve. Our Mr Sabbathman. Our Mr Angry.’ He smiled. ‘Have you seen the figures? The copies we’ve put on? Since Wednesday? How can we afford to drop a campaign with figures like that?’

‘Campaign?’

‘Yes.’ Grant began to laugh, summoning the waiter at last, ordering the champagne. ‘Believe me, you ain’t seen nothing yet.’

Annie was back in Gower Street by half-past three. ‘T’ Branch, the recently-formed counter-terrorist department, occupied a drab suite of offices on the fourth floor. Since her return from Belfast, Annie had been assigned a cubby hole across the corridor from the Controller’s office. The place was tiny – a single desk, a telephone, a battered grey filing cabinet, a newish safe – but to have an office of your own was a sure sign of status, and Annie was glad of the privacy.

She shut the door and dialled a four-digit number on the internal network. Her controller had told her to ring as soon as she returned, and he answered the phone at once. His name was Francis Wren, a 54-year-old, unmarried, cautious, one of the few of the MI5 old guard who’d managed to survive the Thatcher administration. Annie had worked for him now for nearly two years, and rather liked him. He was honest, and painstaking, and his office nickname – ‘Jenny’ – did him less than justice.

Now, he sounded irritable and out of breath. He was over at Thames House, the new MI5 headquarters on Millbank. The place was still being fitted out, and he was trying to secure some last-minute changes to the Branch office layout. Negotiations were obviously going badly.

Annie described her lunch with Willoughby Grant. She said he’d no intention of abandoning Mr Angry. On the contrary, he was evidently destined for greater things.

She paused. ‘But why is it so important?’ she queried. ‘Why does it matter?’

She heard Wren smothering one of his little coughs. It meant that the question was unwelcome, ill-advised, and Annie thought again about the conversation they’d had earlier on, prior to the lunch, when he’d briefed her on the line she should take. Even Wren himself had seemed uncomfortable with the Northern Ireland leak.

‘I tried,’ she said, ‘I really tried. But he just wasn’t interested. It’s all about sales figures. Money. Circulation. The facts don’t bother him either way.’

There was another silence and Annie wondered for a moment whether Wren was still there.

‘I went to the briefing this morning,’ he said at last, ‘at the Yard. As far as I can gather, Allder’s put himself in charge of more or less everything.’

‘Oh?’ Annie frowned. ‘What did he say?’

‘Not a great deal. The Devon and Cornwall people are doing what they can but there’s not much to get excited about. Not so far.’

‘What about the woman that came forward? The bird-watcher you mentioned?’

‘She’s made a statement and they’ve got a description of sorts. They’re circulating details but no one’s come forward yet. No other sightings that I’m aware of.’

‘And the marina? At Torquay? Where Lister kept the boat?’

‘More inquiries. Our friend obviously gained access at some point or other but no one seems to have seen anything.’

‘No evidence on the boat itself?’

‘Hardly.’

‘I meant the wreckage. The bits and pieces they’ve recovered.’

‘Oh, I see.’ Wren hesitated. ‘No, I don’t think so.’

His voice faded and in the silence that followed Annie could hear the sound of men hammering.

‘Anything on Lister?’ she said brightly. ‘Anything on the shelf?’

‘Nothing. Except a great deal of money.’

‘Accountable?’

‘All of it. He did well out of privatisation, as you might have
gathered.’ He paused. ‘Did Grant show you the latest? From our Sabbathman friend?’

‘Yes. What did Allder make of it?’

‘He said it was very interesting.’

‘Is that all?’

‘Yes.’

‘And what do you think?’

‘Me?’

There was a sigh and then he fell silent again. Annie tried hard to think of another question to ask, something that might ease whatever it was that deadened his voice. She’d never heard him so depressed.

‘You’re due at the Home Office at five,’ he said at last. ‘I gather it may go on a bit.’

Annie frowned. ‘Home Office?’

‘Yes.’ Wren was brisk now, deliberately matter-of-fact. ‘They’ve set up some kind of steering group. They’re taking the whole business pretty seriously. It’s standard procedure but I’m assured we have the inside track. Go through the master files. They’re in your safe. And for God’s sake don’t let us down.’

Annie was still staring at the phone. ‘But why me?’ she said. ‘Shouldn’t you be there?’

Wren didn’t answer for a moment. Then, for the second time, he changed the subject. ‘There’s a man called Cousins,’ he said. ‘He’ll be opening the batting for us. He’s young, and bright, and extremely forceful.’ He paused, half a beat. ‘I expect you’ll like him.’

Annie spent a little over an hour with the master files. Building them up, one for each of the Sabbathman murders, had been Wren’s responsibility and he’d guarded them with his usual manic dedication. On this and other operations, Wren always played the spider, crouched in the middle of the web, sensitive to the least vibration, analysing the raw data from the contact notes, weighing one piece of evidence against another, ruling out rogue factors, dismissing coincidence, looking all the time for that single chain of events that would enable him to make sense of everything else. It was a job he’d always done well but he favoured a particular style, an almost obsessive secrecy, that occasionally made him a difficult
man to work for. Like many in the Service, he regarded information as power and he handed the stuff out in such tiny parcels that Annie sometimes found herself operating in a state of almost complete ignorance. Since she’d joined the department, she’d done her best to come to terms with it. To be working for ‘T’ Branch, the one arm of the Service that was still expanding, carried a certain cachet. But lately, since her promotion, the frustrations had started to get the better of her. She was good at taking a brief and turning it into a series of actions. She excelled at writing the subsequent report, with its annexe of ‘bullet points’. But even now, when she was effectively Wren’s deputy, her reports simply disappeared into nowhere. The bigger picture, hidden in the intricate lattice that was Wren’s brain, remained a blur.

Annie shook her head, flicking through the master files, surprised at how thin they were. Wren, she’d begun to suspect, was on the skids, and the news that she was to represent him at the Home Office probably confirmed it. Quite what would happen to him she didn’t know and in some respects she was surprised he’d survived so long. The Service was changing fast. The shock troops of the new Tory right had finally kicked the doors in and a new MI5 was emerging for the government to play with, still unaccountable, still beyond public reach, but nicely tuned in to the Downing Street line.

Wren hated it. She knew he did. She’d seen it in his eyes that very morning, the way he’d briefed her before she’d talked to Willoughby Grant, the way he’d shaken his head when she’d asked why they were going to all this trouble, the way he’d sidestepped the question again, just minutes ago when she’d tried to ask him on the phone. But men like Wren were in a time warp. To them, MI5 was still independent, still its own creature, the servant of Queen and Country, not the puppet of a government hell-bent on absolute power.

Annie smiled, closing the last of the files, wondering again what would happen to Wren. He’d be replaced, of course. Of that, she had no doubt. But in a way it was a blessing. He was an old man. He didn’t belong in any of this. The world he’d known had gone. With luck, by Christmas, he’d be over the worst and planning
a decent leaving party. Then he could do what they all did. Retire to Wiltshire and brood.

Annie took a cab to Queen Anne’s Gate. The traffic, for once, was no problem and she found herself standing outside the Home Office with ten minutes in hand. She’d never liked the look of the building – its bulk, the big concrete overhangs, the tiny windows, the feeling that it was somehow impervious to daylight – and she crossed the pavement at once, showing her pass to the uniformed security man inside the door.

The reception area was dotted with padded benches and she was about to sit down when she noticed the man standing by the lifts. He was tall, and young, and she knew at first glance that she’d seen him before. He had a strong, square face and the kind of complexion that comes from prolonged exercise in the open air. He had short, blond, curly hair and over the check shirt and tweed jacket he wore a long, green Drizzabone raincoat, a cavalier touch amongst the neat grey suits and blank, carefully barbered faces.

He was reading a newspaper. He looked across at her and smiled. The lift arrived, and the doors opened, and he stood back, letting her in.

‘Northern Ireland,’ he said, as the lift purred upwards, ‘last year.’

‘Of course.’ Annie nodded, putting her finger on it at last, Thiepval Barracks, the Army’s headquarters in Lisburn. She’d seen him in the mess. Someone had pointed him out. They may have been introduced.

He was looking at her now, extending a hand. ‘Hugh Cousins,’ he said, ‘in case you’d forgotten the name.’

The meeting took place in a conference room on the sixth floor. The room was dominated by a big octagonal table, and there was a series of ill-matched prints hanging on the walls. The windows were screened with venetian blinds and it was incredibly hot.

Annie counted the seats round the table. There were ten. Two
of the seats were positioned just behind the rest and Annie sensed at once that one of them was hers. She eyed it speculatively. Cousins was talking to someone from the Ministry of Defence. The two men obviously knew each other well. A door opened at the other end of the room and a small posse of civil servants came in. An older woman in their midst went at once to the table and invited everyone to sit down. Annie felt a hand on her arm. Cousins shepherded her towards one of the spare chairs.

‘Give me a dig when I get it wrong,’ he murmured. ‘I’ll be asking you to talk about our friend.’

Annie glanced at him, thinking again about the master files. ‘Sabbathman?’

‘No.’ Cousins smiled. ‘Willoughby Grant.’

The meeting began. The woman from the Home Office introduced herself and established the ground rules. The Cabinet Office crisis committee, an organisation known as COBRA, had ordered the formation of a small sub-committee for the duration of what she termed ‘the emergency’. The sub-committee, code-named PYTHON, was to exchange information and advise on various options. Her own task was to report back to her minister, who in turn would brief COBRA. The Cabinet were aware, above all, of the dangers of making a tricky situation worse. Public order and the safety of key individuals was paramount. Both, it was clear, were currently under threat.

She ended her opening remarks and introduced the representative from New Scotland Yard, Commander Michael Allder, head of the Anti-Terrorist Squad. A tiny man in an immaculate three-piece suit stood up, one hand in his trouser pocket. The spare chair, just behind his own, was still empty. He spoke from a neat pile of notes, a faint scowl on his face, and Annie listened as he briskly outlined the progress of the investigations to date. She’d never seen Allder in the flesh before and she smiled at the accuracy of Kingdom’s descriptions. The way he stood, rocking back and forth on his feet. The way he used his hands, poking out one finger to emphasise a key point. The way he locked eyes with individual men and women around the table, staring them out with his slightly bulbous eyes until they finally gave in and looked away. He ended his report by acknowledging how little progress had, in fact,
been made. Four separate police forces. Thousands of trained personnel. Hundreds of thousands of man hours. And not, so far, a single worthwhile lead.

When he sat down there was an audible murmur around the table and Annie watched the little policeman’s face as he tried to mask a smile. He was just like Francis Wren, she thought. He’d left them exactly where he wanted. In a state of total ignorance.

The meeting came to order again and Hugh Cousins stood up. He talked easily, almost conversationally, the kind of voice you’d listen to in a crowded bar. He made a reasonably funny joke about marauding psychopaths, apologised to any ex-Paras in the room, and then took the committee smoothly through his own presentation. Unlike Allder, he invited their confidence. Unlike Allder, he asked them to share the challenge of penetrating what he called ‘this curious conspiracy’. Regretfully, he said, MI5 had little hard data. As his colleague from the Yard had already established, there were no firm leads, nothing for the huge Curzon House computer to bite on.

They were, however, looking under certain stones. Some kind of Republican connection was an obvious starting point, and inquiries were under way on both sides of the Irish Sea. These inquiries, he said, were highly sensitive and the committee would forgive his reluctance to go into details, but certain developments did look promising. There were indications that certain hard-line Provisionals were trying to abort a move towards a ceasefire. There was evidence that they’d put a so-called ‘lilywhite’ into play, someone from the Republic, someone with no record on any UK computer, someone who might conceivably be linked to the latest wave of killings.