The Dark Chronicles (35 page)

He hadn’t flinched in the face of
this
enemy – I hadn’t given him the time.

I gazed out at the line of stern faces in the front pew, bathed in the white glow from the windows high above. John Farraday was seated in the centre, dapper and bored. He was acting Chief now, but had already announced that in a couple of weeks he would return to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, whence he had come. He was flanked by William Osborne, owlish in spectacles and
tweeds. Once Farraday had gone he would take over, at which point I would be appointed Deputy Chief.

I’d got away with it: I was in the clear. A couple of months ago, this might have filled me with a sense of achievement, even triumph. But in the last few weeks I had been stripped of everything I’d ever held dear, left a trail of blood in my wake, and was now being blackmailed into continuing to serve a cause I no longer believed in. The triumph tasted of ashes, and all that was left was the realization that I had made a monumental error, and that it could never be reversed.

I glanced along the rest of the front row, which was filled out with Section heads and politicians, including the Foreign and Home Secretaries. Behind them, the congregation stretched into the distance, two solid blocks of Service officers, former army colleagues and family members, parted by the checked marble aisle. Several Redcaps hovered discreetly by the entrance, turning tourists away.

It was an unorthodox memorial service. The reading from Ecclesiastes, ‘Jerusalem’ and ‘Dear Lord and Father of Mankind’ were all standard fare, but the eulogy was being given by the murderer of the deceased, while the men who had plotted the fall of the government a short while ago were brazenly sitting next to Cabinet ministers. And around us all spun Wren’s conception, as it had for centuries, cloaking us in false majesty.

I had washed down a Benzedrine tablet before leaving the flat in the hope it would stave off the remnants of my fever, but while it had succeeded in dulling the pain and heightening my senses – I could make out the grain of Osborne’s tortoiseshell spectacle frames – it also seemed to have filled me with a feeling of recklessness. As I read from my hastily prepared address, I fought a rising urge to blurt out the truth to the congregation. I remembered hearing about Maclean’s drinking in Cairo, and how he had eventually cracked and started telling colleagues he was working for Uncle Joe. Nobody had believed him, of course, and on hearing the story I’d blithely asked myself what could have brought him to such a state.
But now, with the enormity of my sins bearing down on me, I wondered if this was where my crack-up was going to begin. It was an oddly tempting idea, like the thought of jumping in front of a train as it came into the platform. It would be a story to fill the Service’s basement bar for years to come: the man who had confessed to murdering Chief in his eulogy at St Paul’s. Perhaps they could get Bateman to make it into a cartoon.

I reminded myself that I was feeling the effects of the Benzedrine. I took in the Corinthian columns, the Whispering Gallery, and higher still the frescoes stretching across the interior of the dome, then forced myself back to my address.

‘But for some,’ I said, raising my voice to counter my loss of nerve, ‘Sir Colin was much more than the man charged with securing this country against foreign threats. He was a friend, a husband and a father.’

Christ, what had I been thinking when I wrote this? Other memories sprang into my mind: his delight at catching a large trout that summer in Ireland, after he had insisted on using his ancient ‘lucky’ bait; the way Joan had looked at him when we’d returned to the cottage with the tail of the fish poking out of the basket, knowing he’d want it for supper that night. And Vanessa, of course…

I stopped myself going any further down that track. I realized that my hands were gripping the sides of the lectern, and that they were coated in sweat. My voice had frozen in my throat. I couldn’t do this – it was monstrous. My only sop was that it hadn’t been my idea. ‘You knew him best,’ Dawes had said when the arrangements had been discussed. ‘Nobody else was as close.’

I looked down at the rest of the address. It ran through Templeton’s career, from military service to Cambridge to intelligence in Germany and beyond: his friendship with my father in Cairo, then Istanbul, Prague, London. His body in the Thames, thrown there by Sasha and me in the dead of night… Not the last bit.

I looked up again and was surprised to see Farraday standing by
the lectern. He was fiddling frantically with his tie, whispering urgently.

‘What is it?’ I asked. He mounted the steps.

‘You’re making a scene,’ he hissed, pushing past me. ‘Return to your seat, or I’ll—’

But I never found out what he’d do, because at that moment he fell to the ground, and blood started gushing from the centre of his shirt. The cathedral was filled with screaming, but my mind was now totally lucid. I looked up. The shot had come from somewhere in the Whispering Gallery – and it had been meant for me.

I started running down the aisle.

I reached the spiral staircase and began climbing it several steps at a time, the soles of my shoes clanging against the steps. From somewhere far above me, there was a further clatter of noise – was the shooter coming down? I plunged my hand into my trouser pocket and wrapped my fist around my car keys, the only weapon I had with me. How the hell had he brought a rifle into St Paul’s? I kept climbing. The noises were fading, and my dizziness was increasing. Some long-buried memory told me there were 259 of the things, but I resisted the urge to count them and pushed upwards, upwards, trying not to think about what had just happened, regulating my breathing and concentrating on the task at hand: get to the top; find the sniper.

I reached the Whispering Gallery, but there was nobody there, not even a Redcap. I glanced down and saw that several of them were heading for the staircase, against the flow of the crowd. I looked around frantically. Had the sniper gone back down another way? Would he shoot again? And then I registered movement in my peripheral vision. It had come from the far end of the gallery: a slim figure, bearded and dressed in black. He had a case strapped to his back, no doubt containing the dismantled rifle. He was heading towards a doorway that led to the next flight of stairs.

I resisted the temptation to stop for breath and ran after him, willing my feet to move faster, using my arms to hoist myself along the narrow iron banister and ignoring the rising heat in my chest,
until finally I came out of the staircase and felt the freshness of the morning air on my face. I was at the base of the dome now, the Stone Gallery. My trousers fluttered in and out as the wind whipped against them, and I could feel my cheeks beginning to do the same. Voices echoed in my ears, and they were getting louder: the Redcaps would be here soon. I realized I had to get to him before they did – who knew what he might say if he was taken into custody? If he told anyone I had been his target it wouldn’t take long for them to start speculating why, and having just cleared my name that was the last thing I wanted.

I reached out for a moulding on the wall, and began edging my way around the gallery as quickly as I could. Without meaning to, I caught a glimpse of the Thames far below, a glittering snake swaying in the mid-morning sunshine. I forced my eyes away and continued my journey around the platform.

The dome of the cathedral had been covered in scaffolding for years – structural damage from the war – but all of it had been taken down a few months ago. Or most of it had: as I turned the corner, I saw that there was a ladder lying on the ground, and what looked like a small pile of workmen’s tools. Was this what the sniper had come up here for, something hidden in this mess?

Finally, I saw him. He had climbed onto the balustrade, seemingly oblivious to the wind and the height. He was sitting astride a climbing rope, which he had tied around the balustrade, and was now busy looping it around one of his thighs. He glanced up at me, then went back to his task, bringing the rope across his midriff and over one shoulder. I was just a few yards away, and pushed myself to get closer. If he was going to do what I thought… He brought the rope around one of his wrists, and took hold of it with both hands, one above and one below. He pushed himself back and started to fall.

It was now or never.

I surged forward and jumped blindly. He’d gone further than I’d thought, so that for a few moments I thought I’d mistimed it,
but then came the crump of contact as I smacked into his back. I immediately clasped my arms around his torso, gripping as hard as I could and hoping to Christ that the rope was tethered tightly enough and could take the load of two men. The sniper started shaking his shoulders in an attempt to dislodge me, and as the ground approached two conflicting urges were passing through my brain – the physical one, saying ‘let go, you madman’ and the other one, saying ‘if you let go you will die, if you let go you will die…’

I managed to hold on and we landed with a crash, the two of us a heap of limbs and bones. My whole body felt numb from the jolt of the impact, but I seemed to be uninjured. I was still trying to regain my bearings when I saw that the sniper had already let go of the rope and was off and running. It took me a few seconds to get to my feet and begin pursuit.

And he was fast, bloody fast, spurting down the narrow road, weaving his way around dustbins and lamp-posts. There was no traffic about, and he rushed across the pavement and darted down a grass-patched alley. I hurtled into it after him, my breathing coming heavily, half my brain still catching up from the fall. There was a thickening burr of noise, but it wasn’t until I made it to the corner of Cannon Street that I saw the crush of people. Two massive placards bobbed above the crowd, reading ‘PEACE AND SOCIALISM’ and ‘ALL OUT MAY DAY – SMASH THE WHITE PAPER’. The latter slogan was also being chanted by members of the column, the words echoing off the buildings.

Of course. The May Day march. It had turned violent last year, when it had been about Powell and immigration. This time Wilson and Castle seemed to be the villains, their crime being to propose trade union legislation. I caught the tinny strain of a loudhailer from somewhere in the direction of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and then there was the wail of a police siren seemingly very close by, and a clump of the column began moving off at a faster pace. The group behind were momentarily caught off guard, and I squeezed past a
man in a checked shirt and jeans and squinted up Ludgate Hill, searching for a glimpse of the sniper. A sea of heads stretched into the distance. I looked for any unusual movement within it, for anyone running. Nothing. I turned and saw police and security staff massing around the entrance of the cathedral. Some of the Redcaps had seen me and were heading in my direction. I ducked back into the crowd and checked down Cannon Street again. Still nothing. Where the hell had he gone?

Then I saw him: a dark figure running up Ludgate Hill to Farringdon Street. Was he heading for the station? I pushed forward and began chasing him, calling out as I did in the hope that someone might stop him, but my throat wasn’t working properly, and neither were my legs, and by the time I’d reached the end of the street he had already vanished. If he got on the Tube and I wasn’t there with him, that would be it.

The drumming in my head and throbbing in my chest were telling me to stop to take some rest, but I forced myself to keep going and even made up enough ground to see him heading into the station entrance. I reached it less than thirty seconds later, and raced into the booking hall. He’d vanished again. And now I had to make a decision: under- or over-ground? The Underground seemed the better bet, as trains left much more frequently. There was a queue at the ticket office, but a quick glance told me my man wasn’t in it. I couldn’t see any inspectors and I guessed he had jumped over the barrier, so I did the same, pushing past people to try to catch sight of him.

As if by telepathy, he looked back at me the moment I spotted him. He was already on the footbridge, and I made my way towards him, keeping my eyes fixed on the rifle casing on his back. Behind him, a field of grey sky spread across the glass roof.

I reached the bridge and saw that he had ducked to the right, heading for the eastbound platform. I followed, shouting: ‘Police! Stop that man!’ This time the tactic worked. People stopped and turned to see who I meant, and the sniper slowed to avoid the
attention. But he was confused, and an old lady with a bag of shopping bumped into him. There was a group of people coming across the bridge, and I noticed that they were carrying banners: reinforcements for the march, I guessed, or perhaps they’d had enough and were going home, but there was a crush and we were both finding it hard to get through. If only I could get a few steps closer to him…

A train started rumbling into one of the platforms below, and I looked down. It was the eastbound. I called out ‘Police!’ louder, pushing my way through until I reached the staircase, but it was like swimming in mud. The train grated to a halt and as I reached the foot of the stairs the doors juddered open and a crowd of people moved forward and into it. I couldn’t see the sniper, but I had to gamble that he would get on board. My feet hammered down the platform and made it through the doors as they were closing.

I took a second to recover my breath again, my chest heaving, and then looked around. I saw him at once. He was in the next compartment, just a few yards away from me. He was standing there quite casually, partly obscured by a woman reading a paperback. I pushed the doors apart and stepped into the compartment. He looked up, and a smile broke out across his face, almost a leer. His right hand was thrust into his jacket pocket, and I could make out the outline of what looked like the barrel of a pistol. Just inches away, a man wearing a fisherman’s sweater, canvas trousers and boots was seated next to a young boy, perhaps eleven or twelve years old, who was dressed almost identically in miniature. The boy’s head was directly in the line of fire. The sniper raised his eyebrows at me and I nodded to show that I understood: not a step nearer.