State Of Emergency: (Tom Buckingham Thriller 3) (7 page)

‘You know, Sarah, that I’ve always held you in the highest regard,’ he had told her, to which she couldn’t resist answering, ‘And you know, Geoff, that I’ve always found you much too slippery to hold at all.’

He had laughed politely, as he always did at her jibes, no matter how accurate they were. Laughter was his ‘iron dome’, the protective shield with which he deflected many an incoming barb. She knew that underneath the glibness he respected her honesty, even if he couldn’t begin to match it.

‘Compromise is the lubricant of government,’ he liked to remind everyone around him, as if this was justification for weakness and vacillation.

Garvey eyed the whisky decanter, then the clock, then the decanter again. Nine forty-five: too early? She took a deep breath and turned back to the papers on her desk, but they were a blur. She considered her legacy. In the four years she had been in this chair, the country had nearly torn itself apart, polarized by Islamist terror and extreme-right-wing reprisals. And now the man who some believed had fanned the flames of the conflagration was about to take her place. She laughed to herself. The hardest part of the job? Realizing how little real power came with it.

Her gaze swerved back to the decanter. Maybe … But then came a familiar soft knock on the door. She sighed. ‘All right, Henry, if you must.’

He entered, glided across the room, slid into the chair on her left and flipped open his iPad. He seemed especially animated that morning and she knew why. ‘You’re looking very smart today. Is that a new suit?’

He flushed. She always found something to needle him about.

‘So what’s the big occasion?’ She gazed at him questioningly. They had never bonded. She had sensed quite early on that he didn’t like women much, and she wasn’t too keen on spoiled rich boys, gay or straight. He had made no secret of the fact that he was looking forward to having a man about the office.

‘You’ve seen the footage?’

‘What footage?’

He pursed his lips. ‘I emailed you the link.’

She hadn’t seen any footage. She had a habit of deleting Henry’s numerous emails unopened. His lack of a social life meant he was horribly well up on the minutiae of events.

He prodded and swiped the iPad, waiting for it to boot up. ‘I must warn you, it’s pretty hardcore.’

She snorted. Patronizing little shit.

Being home secretary had given her brass balls. Nothing fazed her now. He should have known better but he was a recent arrival, foisted on her by Number Ten as a favour to his father, a party donor. His sense of entitlement infuriated her, but not as much as his apparently inexhaustible appetite for hard work, which made it harder for her to persecute him.

‘I have to say, I’ve never seen anything like this in all my—’

She cut him off. ‘In all your nine months in Whitehall.’ It was probably longer but not by much. ‘Well, let’s get on with it. Where are we, exactly?’

‘Chapeltown. It’s in Leeds.’

‘Ah, the Ripper’s old stamping ground.’

Henry frowned. ‘I thought that was Whitechapel.’

‘The
Yorkshire
Ripper.’

The footage was shot from several storeys up. A shaven-headed white man, heavily tattooed and wearing only a T-shirt and underpants, was being manhandled by a group of men with dark hair and long robes, chanting.

‘What are they saying?’

‘There’s a lot of “
Allahu Akhbar
” and “Death to the
kuffar
”, and the occasional “Kill the cunt” for a little local colour.’

‘And do they?’

‘What?’

‘Kill him?’

Henry twisted his mouth slightly, as if chewing something unpleasant. ‘He’s in ICU at Leeds Infirmary. He’s not expected to live. Practically the whole of Yorkshire’s in lockdown in anticipation.’

‘And why am I looking at this?’

‘I thought you’d like to issue a condemnation. As part of your valedictory message …’

There was something loathsome about his righteous disapproval that irritated her profoundly, even when they weren’t in disagreement. If the last months of public disorder had taught her anything, it was that the moral high ground became harder to defend as it shrank under them. He waited for the video to boot up, then passed it across.

‘What provoked it?’

‘He was accused of firebombing a
madrasah
, but there’s no hard evidence.’

Fuck it. She snapped the iPad shut and pushed it back at him. ‘Give it to your new boss as a welcome gift. I’m sure it’s much more up his street. In fact, tell him it’s my leaving present to him, thanking him for all he’s done to make this country such a shit place to be anything but a white male … Never mind.’ She felt her pulse throbbing again in her temple. The consultant had given her repeated warnings about her blood pressure and she had forgotten to pick up her beta-blockers. She breathed out heavily and leaned back in her chair. ‘Anything else?’

‘Another letter from your friend Adila.’ He held it in the air between thumb and forefinger as if it was a soiled nappy. His weary tone made her want to reach across and poke his eyes out. She snatched it from him. It had been opened – no doubt he had already digested its contents.

Dear Right Honourable Member Ms Garvey.

It was probably the eighth or ninth communication she had received from her. There was something poignantly charming about an actual letter, on paper, written by a teenager in the twenty-first century. In the sea of misery that was currently her working life, Adila’s thoughtful letters were a small but welcome ray of light.

Please may I say that this is a sad day for me knowing that you are no longer to be our home secretary but I will hope that you may continue to show us the same wonderful attention that you have as our MP.

Garvey clamped her lips together hard and told herself at all costs not to let so much as one millilitre of a tear appear in her eyes in front of Henry.

I know you will have many important things to concern yourself with today and I want to thank you again for all the interest you have taken in the plight of Jamal.

They hadn’t even met. All Garvey had done was reply to her by text – as Adila had requested, terrified that her parents might discover their communications about her brother.

I bring some good news of Jamal, in that he has sent an anonymous text saying that he is expecting to find a way to return home very soon. I do so hope, Ms Garvey, that you are able in some way to assist his passage should he encounter difficulties.

Henry had been quick to point out that Adila’s choice of language suggested the guiding hand of an adult, and had dismissed the letters early on as a con. Garvey wasn’t so sure. As a very bright teenager herself, she remembered suspicious teachers accusing her of getting too much help from her parents. And Adila’s father had already gone on record, denouncing his son to their local paper and vowing that if he ever came home he would turn him straight over to the authorities. The current strife had split families, workplaces, schools, even hospitals down the middle, opening up hideous divisions where there had been tolerance and unity. God, if only she knew – no, better she didn’t know – what forces were ranged against her brother getting any humane treatment if he ever made it out of Syria alive and back to Britain.

I am very sorry that I don’t have more details and apologize again for taking up your time, but remain truly thankful for all the consideration you have shown so far. In closing, may I also say that I have just heard that I have a place at medical school and look forward very much to one day serving the country that has done so much for my family. Yours respectfully.

She read it through a second time, then carefully returned it to its envelope. Henry was looking at her knowingly. He had made no secret of his views about those who had gone to fight in Syria.

‘Something else I should pass on …?’

The implication that a jihadi’s sister must be his accomplice hung in the air. Garvey knew it pained him that she had not passed on Adila’s details to the Security Service. She glared at him and held on to it.

‘The girl’s my constituent. I’ll have more time to look after her now.’ She gave him a chilly smile. She didn’t know what if anything she could do to help. For all she knew, Jamal might be just another deranged zealot bent on self-destruction. She had already locked horns with Halford, the Met commissioner, over the treatment of returnees. No doubt he, too, was toasting her departure this morning.

‘Would you draft a letter to the chief of Border Security asking him to notify me if the boy shows up?’

‘I really rather think—’

‘I don’t need you to “really rather think”, Henry.’ A week ago he wouldn’t have questioned it. Already she could feel the power slipping out of her grip. She leaned across the desk. ‘Listen very carefully. You will go out there now and draft a letter, bring it in for me to sign and have it dispatched by bike. That’s an order, even if it is the last one you’ll get from me. And if it’s not done in five minutes I shall have you up in front of HR for insubordination.’

She glared at him to press the point home. He stiffened, then got to his feet, but still looked perturbed. Another thing she wouldn’t miss about the job: dealing with a generation that wasn’t used to being told what to do. How would they ever manage to defend the country in future, these brats who thought the world owed them a living? Maybe bringing back national service wasn’t such an extreme solution after all. She checked herself.
Jesus. I wasn’t entirely joking.

She gave him another ball-shrivelling look. He made for the door, and turned just as he reached it. ‘There’s, ah, a briefing over at Millbank I need to attend, if that’s okay?’

Rolt had already scheduled a press conference after his anointing at Number Ten. She knew that because he had asked for all key staff to be present. ‘After you’ve done the letter, you can skip right along and see your new idol in action.’

He blushed and looked down. He had been stupid enough to let slip his support for Rolt on Facebook and even more stupid to imagine that it wouldn’t get back to her.

There was a loud guffaw from the outer office. Henry held the door as Stephen Mandler, the director general of the Security Service and one of the very few who might regret her departure, swept in. He bowed with an ironic flourish. ‘Home Secretary.’

‘For about another forty minutes. To what do I owe this unalloyed pleasure?’

He closed the doors carefully behind him, came up to the desk and took the seat Henry had just vacated. ‘Something’s come up which I think you may want to deal with – personally.’ He sounded uncharacteristically weary, even troubled.

‘Can’t it wait for my esteemed successor? I’m sure he’s keen to get his feet under the desk.’

‘I don’t think so. It concerns our friend Buckingham. It seems he shot someone.’

10

09.30

Garvey poured a generous measure into two tumblers.

‘Really, Sarah, it is rather early.’

Mandler tried to keep his hands by his sides, to no avail. She thrust the tumbler at him so he had no choice but to take it. ‘Shut up and drink. You can have one of those after.’ She nodded at the tube of Trebor Extra Strong Mints she relied on for these occasions, then clinked her glass clumsily with his.

‘So what shall we drink to?’

Garvey snorted. ‘My imminent demise.’

Mandler sighed mournfully and took a surprisingly large gulp.

They had been a good team, if an unlikely one. His cerebral airs should have got right up her nose, but his appetite for mischief was a great redeeming feature. And he had been a quiet but staunch ally in the psychological warfare she had conducted with her adversaries in the Met, frequently slipping her titbits of intelligence to wrongfoot them. Best of all, they had conspired together to spy on Vernon Rolt, putting their man Buckingham in place right at his side – a surveillance triumph, though where it had ultimately got her, or the country, was hard to say. Rolt was in and she was out.

‘I bet they’re breaking open the champagne at Scotland Yard.’

‘They do rather think Christmas is coming.’

‘Water cannon, rubber bullets …’

‘An HK36 on board every blue light.’

It was a mirthless exchange that rapidly petered out.

‘So what about Buckingham?’

Mandler shifted in his seat. ‘It seems he dispatched an armed intruder who found his way into Rolt’s suite at the Ice Palace.’

She glared at him. ‘Dispatched him with what, exactly?’ Mandler’s people weren’t supposed to be armed.

‘I’ve not been informed yet as to the specifics. Presumably he was carrying with Rolt’s blessing as his
de facto
minder. Interestingly, Rolt himself wasn’t there. Two of his election team had managed to get into his suite, evidently for … romantic purposes. The shooter had them cornered in the bathroom when Buckingham dropped him. It was pretty chaotic. The intruder had killed three others on his way in and fired off CS. Buckingham probably prevented what could have turned into a bloodbath.’

They allowed a few seconds’ respectful silence for the innocent dead. Then Garvey shook her head. ‘Shame.’

She knew Mandler would read her thoughts. ‘Yes. If only Rolt had been tucked up in bed, as he should have been, it could all have been so different.’

There was another silence as Garvey reflected bitterly on how close she might have come to keeping her position.

‘So if any of it gets out, Buckingham was just doing his job as Rolt’s muscle. If anything, it reinforces his cover.’

Garvey took another sip of Scotch. ‘So why are we even talking about this?’

‘Well, here’s the thing.’

Garvey noted the gleam in Mandler’s eye that often appeared when he was about to impart something secret.

‘You haven’t asked me who the assailant was.’

‘I assume one of our aggrieved Islamist zealots. No?’