Operation Certain Death

by Kim Hughes

  She eyed the menu with a little dismay. Quite a lot of pork was on there in one form or another, which Jamal wouldn’t like. She hadn’t thought this through. Ah well, he was a nice enough guy not to kick up a fuss.

  She looked at her phone. Nothing from Riley. It was beginning to piss her off. She sent a text to him, stressing it was urgent.

  ‘Aren’t you overdoing the Polish schtick, coming here?’ said Jamal as he sat down opposite. He had filled out since university days, with cherubic cheeks poking out over a rather magnificent black beard. His eyes twinkled as he added: ‘You’ve only visited the country once.’

  ‘Twice,’ she said. ‘And this place has several things going for it, apart from the food, which is delicious. One, they put the tables a decent distance apart. Two, there’s fabric in the room, so it doesn’t echo like St Paul’s bloody Cathedral and you can hear yourself speak, and three, there are no hipsters this far west. Nobody tries to give you small sharing plates.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘Drink?’

  ‘Coke.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I’m sorry, but I won’t be able to stay long. I’m on till ten tonight.’

  ‘This was your idea.’

  ‘That was before there was a car bomb in the Cotswolds. More bags of shit arriving for analysis as we speak.’

  ‘What kind of bomb?’ she asked.

  ‘Not sure yet.’

  ‘Any link to Nottingham?’

  Jamal shook his head. ‘Early days. I’ll know more tonight, maybe.’

  ‘And you’ll call me?’

  ‘I wouldn’t dare not.’

  ‘I’m not an ogre, Jamal.’

  ‘Not yet.’

  Before she could answer, her smoked salmon blinis and vodka turned up and, after she had ordered the Coke, she necked the clear liquid in one and pushed the plate of buckwheat pancakes towards Jamal. ‘Just a starter snack. This is on me. And try the goose leg or the chicken livers. Best in the city.’

  ‘Isn’t that a line from The Godfather?’

  ‘Never seen it,’ she said. Before he could translate the surprise on his face to words, she moved on to the meat of the meeting. She outlined her recent call with Barbara Clifford-Brown and the subsequent dressing-down from Oakham. She kept her big revelation back, however, for the time being.

  ‘Oh dear,’ he said. ‘That’ll be brought up at your assessment.’

  ‘Bollocks to assessments. They play favourites no matter what your assessment says. You know when I handed my stuff over to Deepika, she had a Russian-language page open on her computer. She doesn’t even speak Russian.’

  ‘Maybe she’s learning.’

  ‘My thoughts exactly. I’ll fuckin’ kill her if she goes over before me.’

  Jamal put the menu down. ‘Can I give you a word of advice?’

  ‘As long as you don’t quote the Koran at me.’

  ‘Have another vodka. It suits you.’

  She flinched at the rebuke. ‘Sorry.’ She ran a hand through her hair. It didn’t feel any cleaner than the last time she did it. She needed a shower. ‘Just a little stressed.’

  ‘I think you’re trying too hard. Rather than enjoying the job in hand, you’re always looking one step ahead. You also arrived at the office with a sense of entitlement.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  Jamal put on a spoilt, whiny voice. ‘My mummy was a spy, I speak Russian, why can’t I be Head of Station?’

  Muraski was taken aback. ‘How do you know my mother was a spy?’ she hissed.

  ‘You told me at that conference on data handling. At the bar.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she said, less than convincingly.

  ‘You did. I’m saying that gives you a sense of entitlement, as if it’s a family right that you’ll move up the ranks.’

  ‘Like I sit back and wait for the fast-track promotion train to stop outside the office because of my mum?’

  ‘I’m not saying you don’t put the effort in. Look, working for your lot is like a cross between Spooks and Marks & Spencer.’ Before she could ask how, he went on: ‘You have all the Defence of the Realm stuff, even if most of it is dull, dull, dull, but you also have management bollocks all over the place. Assessments, targets, strategic staircases, blue-sky thinking. Personal Development Plans. You have those?’ She nodded. ‘Yes, us too. Utter crap. But you have to play the game. Or give them a good reason why you shouldn’t conform and just wait your turn.’

  Sensing an opening, she jumped in. ‘Which brings me to—’

  ‘Can I order first?’ Jamal said quickly. ‘Like I said, I haven’t got much time.’

  Muraski chose the chicken livers, Jamal the beef, and she resisted the urge to drink more alcohol, opting for sparkling water.

  ‘You know on the way here, someone shouted, “Go home, Paki.” Haven’t had that for a while.’ It was said with an undertone of sadness rather than the anger she expected.

  Muraski felt a surge of fury on his behalf. ‘Fuck’s sake. What did you do?’

  ‘I said I don’t get off till ten, then I’ve got to get the District Line, so it’d be a while before I’m home.’

  She gave a small laugh. Then, ‘I hear there’s been some defacing of mosques in Bristol and Luton.’

  ‘And Newham and Whitechapel. Par for the course in the aftermath of any terrorist incident.’

  She saw her opening and jumped in feet first.

  ‘Right. And in the aftermath of a terrorist atrocity, your lot can order up a TAP, can’t you?’ A Threat Assessment Protocol meant that the harsh glare of full surveillance was turned on an individual or group of individuals who may or may not have been involved in an attack.

  ‘And you could go through the proper channels at Thames House.’

  ‘But if you do that, everything just gets swallowed by the machine. If it is a solid lead it gets kicked upstairs. Nobody ever remembers where it came from originally. They take it off you, every time, with a little pat on the head.’

  Jamal gave his head a little shake. ‘Tell me, what’s more important, catching the bombers or Kate Muraski’s career?’

  ‘… I’ll get back to you on that.’

  ‘Oh, for crying out loud. When? Before or after I’ve lost my job?’

  ‘You aren’t going to lose your job. You’re using your initiative.’

  Jamal was quiet for a moment, then said, ‘What do you want?’

  She held up her phone. ‘This guy Riley is avoiding me.’

  ‘He might be busy. Bombs’n’shit. Maybe they’ve sent him to the Cotswolds incident.’

  ‘I’m Five. Nobody’s supposed to be too busy to talk to us.’

  ‘Yeah, right. Entitlement, remember?’

  She laughed at that. ‘Anyway, I want you to put a TAP on our man Staff Sergeant Dom Riley.’

  ‘Just because he won’t return your calls?’

  She pushed a piece of paper over to him. It was a print-out of the details he had sent her about Riley. ‘Look at that.’

  ‘What am I looking at?’

  ‘Next of kin.’

  ‘Wow.’ Jamal puffed out his substantial cheeks even further. ‘You know, I really could do with a drink right now.’

  TWENTY-THREE

  Strictly speaking, Riley hadn’t gone AWOL. He hadn’t disobeyed an order from a superior officer, as Blair had no authority over him. And it hadn’t been an order, but a prediction. True, he had left the scene of a crime, but then, he felt like it was his crime scene to leave.

  He was driving north in a Citroen Nemo van that actually belonged to the school. Andy the Tank had turned over the keys without hesitation. Riley promised he would say he helped himself and also said he would let Andy know where to pick it up. He had then driven out through the deliveries entrance, just in time to avoid the EOD truck. He would waste hours entangled in red tape if he stayed. Meanwhile, those fucking bastards who had wired his VW to blow would be plotting some other little wheeze.

  No, he ha
d a lead, thanks to the strangely coloured wire he had retrieved from Nottingham, and he was going to follow it.

  His first call was to Ruby. He knew the enormity of what had happened – or nearly happened – at the school would hit her hard, once it had time to sink in. The number was busy. He considered phoning Izzy, but thought he would wait on that one. He wasn’t sure how she would react once she realised that he had put their daughter in danger. He wasn’t in the mood for a shouting match. He phoned Scooby instead.

  ‘Christ, Dom, don’t you feel like the Typhoid Mary of explosions?’ he asked when Riley had given him edited highlights of the day so far.

  ‘How is Ruby?’

  ‘Not sure. She’s my next call.’

  ‘She’ll have nightmares, you know.’

  Riley was aware that Scooby had suffered from night terrors for months after the explosion that took his eye. He wanted to get him off the subject of Ruby for the moment. Riley didn’t want to dwell on the mental fallout of the bomb just yet. ‘So will I. And I’m fine, thanks for asking, Scoob.’

  ‘Yeah. That was my next question. How can I help?’

  ‘I think I’ve been dicked.’

  ‘Been or being?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He glanced in the rear-view mirror. ‘Nothing untoward that I can see. I didn’t notice anything when I drove to Ruby’s school. But they located me somehow.’ A sudden chill of anxiety about the near-miss made him shudder once more. ‘I was lucky, Scoob. We were lucky.’

  ‘Well, you always were a lucky cunt,’ interrupted Scooby. ‘I repeat: what can I do to help?’

  ‘I want to hire you.’

  He put on another of his voices. ‘You can’t afford me.’

  Jack Nicholson, A Few Good Men, at a guess. ‘Don’t you do interest-free?’

  Scooby laughed. ‘I do easy terms. Tell me what you need. You can have the F&F discount. Friends and fuck-ups.’

  ‘Which am I?’

  ‘Both. One thing I’m wondering. Are you being targeted because you’re you or just because you’re an ATO?’

  ‘Scooby, you read my fuckin’ mind, pal. I’ve been wondering that myself.’ Although ‘wondering’ was an understatement. The idea that this might be a vendetta against him – and possibly his family – had been barging other thoughts aside for some time now.

  ‘And what have you decided?’

  ‘I think some fucker is after me.’

  * * *

  Even as she made the tea, Barbara Clifford-Brown was thinking of the martinis she would create within the hour. It started as something of a ritual, beginning on Saturday nights, but it slowly spread across the calendar, elbowing out the weekday gin and tonics like some invasive species. It began when she stumbled across the classic martini glasses that their daughter Rachel had given them for Christmas, back when she still did such things as gifts. And Christmas.

  She had discovered the glasses six months previously and had found the martini recipe that came with them. At first, she wasn’t impressed, but their old friend Ben Beaumont had recommended the ‘duke’s method’ as he called it. This entailed keeping a bottle of vodka and a bottle of gin, along with the glasses, in the freezer, for a sustained icy kick. She hadn’t asked which particular duke had introduced this innovation but, like the Earl of Sandwich, they owed him a vote of thanks.

  She carried the tray of Earl Grey plus some shortbread biscuits through to the drawing room, where Henry sat in one of the high-backed padded damask chairs that she had inherited from her parents. In fact, every item in the room, from the fussy carriage clock on the marble fireplace to the enormous Georgian bow-fronted sideboard and the silverware inside it, had come down through one side of the family or the other. Everything except the 4K TV, although even that sat on an Epstein art deco coffee table from the 1930s. It saddened her to think the whole lot would probably go to auction to pay for Rachel’s care when they were both gone.

  She set the tray on the table next to him and he looked up over his glasses. ‘Thank you, sweetie. Can you fetch me a new nicotine patch?’

  ‘Fancying a pipe again?’

  ‘I always do when I’m concentrating.’ He had on his lap a large yellow pad, the page covered with his still-neat, tiny writing. He was revising and censoring his memoirs. They had originally been intended for publication, but the very mention had brought a civil servant from the Foreign Office out of the woodwork. As oily as Sir Humphrey off that old television comedy about politics, he had taken Henry out to lunch and, without saying as much, left Henry with the distinct impression that their pensions would be under threat if he went ahead. A highly bowdlerised version would be allowed, subject to the usual vetting, for family and close friends only. And it must stop at 1989, the year the Wall came down.

  Henry agreed to these terms, carried on for Rachel’s sake, and continued even when her Korsakoff’s dementia set in. Barbara’s theory was that the psychosis was a violent reaction to the knowledge that she was slowly losing her mind. Why the symptoms should have begun in her mid-fifties, when they, her parents, both still had their marbles, the doctors had no idea. Henry thought it was the drugs she had taken well into her forties. Barbara wasn’t so sure. She just hoped Rachel’s son wouldn’t inherit the trait.

  ‘I’ll fetch a patch in a moment,’ Barbara said as she poured the tea. She hadn’t yet told Henry that the private clinic-cum-home had announced that its fees would be going up by 10 per cent. There were very few institutions that dealt with Korsakoff’s patients, so they had them over a financial barrel. She had to admit to herself that she had been eyeing up the provenance of the furniture out of more than mere nostalgia. Sadly, daytime and early-evening television shows suggested the market for their kind of antiques was rather depressed.

  ‘What was the name of the girl in Berlin?’ Henry suddenly asked.

  She passed him his tea in a cup and saucer from the second-best china. Alfred Meakin. Was fine bone china worth anything in these days of mugs with funny slogans on the side? Possibly not.

  ‘Which girl?’

  ‘The one who ran the brothels. Delius.’ This was an operation to entrap Russian officers through pillow talk.

  ‘Christina?’

  ‘Christina! Yes, thank you, darling.’

  The mention of Delius prompted her to put on some music. Something low and soft so as not to disturb Henry. Debussy, perhaps. They had a gramophone – a stereogram as her father had called it – with a Thorens deck hidden in a mock-antique cabinet that he had bought from Heal’s sometime in the 1960s. It still worked fine, although when she cared about such things Rachel would mock them for not adapting to the CD age. Now she had heard on Radio 4 that long-playing records were fashionable again. What goes around, as they used to say.

  She had just laid aside her cup and saucer and risen from her chair when she heard the weighty thud of the door knocker. The two old spies looked at each other and then at the mantelpiece clock. Barbara sighed.

  ‘If it is that young woman from Thames House again, I swear I’ll shoot her in the face.’

  * * *

  ‘You at the hotel yet?’ Riley asked Ruby when he finally got through to her.

  ‘Yes. Mum’s just checking in. There’s a spa.’

  ‘I know. Try and get her out of there every now and then.’

  ‘Can I get a pedicure?’

  ‘Of course. You feeling all right? After this afternoon?’

  The brightness in her voice faded a little and a more sombre tone crept in. ‘I think so. I was a bit shaky on the way over. That’s gone. What about you?’

  ‘Nothing a pedicure won’t sort.’

  ‘Oh, Dad. I’ve seen your feet. You need major surgery, not a pedicure.’

  It was good to hear the brilliance return.

  ‘Where are you?’ she asked.

  ‘Almost at my barracks. About half an hour to run.’ And still driving with one wary eye on the rear-view mirror, he neglected to add. ‘I’ve been calling you for
the best part of an hour.’

  ‘I had to check everyone was okay. My friends from school, I mean.’

  And no doubt tell her story of the near-miss. He couldn’t blame her. He had told enough war stories in his time. ‘I think they should be calling you.’

  ‘Some of them did. To check up on me.’

  ‘Good. And are you okay?’

  ‘I think you’ve asked me that.’

  ‘You know I love you.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I’m so sorry you got caught up in it.’

  ‘Do you know who put it there yet?’ Ruby asked. ‘The bomb?’

  ‘Stop it.’

  ‘Stop what?’

  ‘Being so bloody calm,’ he said. ‘You’re allowed to shout and scream and call me names.’

  ‘Would it help?’

  Riley laughed at that. ‘Probably not. But this is my job, Ruby. I’m used to it. If you have any trouble, any strange feelings or worries, bad dreams, whatever, you tell Mum. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. And no, we don’t know who did it yet. But we’ll find out.’

  ‘And then?’

  Good question, he thought. A very good question.

  * * *

  It wasn’t that nuisance woman from Thames House at the door, but Hector the Handler as they called him. Hector DeMontfort Clarke was their liaison for the data gleaned from the monitoring equipment in the cellar and also their de facto case officer. Like every CO, part of his job was keeping his assets happy.

  Hector was a most unlikely spy. He was short, about five-five she estimated, had a cherubic face topped with a mop of curls that he never left alone, seemed unable to sit still for more than five minutes and dressed in a lot of corduroy.

  ‘Henry, it’s Hector. A delightful surprise visit.’ The stress on the third word of the last sentence was almost subliminal. But not quite.