A Time to Lie

by Simon Berthon

  Vaughn was waiting, front door of the flat open. ‘Mr Quine.’

  ‘Yes, Sir David.’

  ‘Come in,’ said Vaughn, his accent mildly Lancastrian. ‘We’ll have coffee in the kitchen. My wife is away rehearsing this morning.’ He paused. ‘A Prokofiev quartet. If you like that sort of thing.’

  Quine inspected him, trying to measure the reality against the photographs and occasional televised appearances in front of parliamentary committees. He was thick-set if slightly stooped, dark hair only beginning to grey at the edges, a sturdy man, at heart still the Manchester Grammar schoolboy who had got into Balliol and been talent-spotted by an MI5-connected don. A man a million miles away from the public schoolboys who had once disgraced British intelligence.

  ‘I don’t,’ said Quine.

  ‘Me neither.’ The Lancastrian accent strengthened. Quine felt he had passed a test. With careful deliberation Vaughn put on the kettle, measured two tablespoons of coffee and dropped them into a cafetière. Quine suspected he was never a man to appear in a rush.

  ‘I tend to stop at the end of the nineteenth century.’

  ‘Yes, when the tunes ran out,’ said Vaughn.

  Vaughn seemed uninterested in further small talk. He finished making coffee with the same even deliberation; all in marked contrast to Quine’s impatience.

  ‘We’ll go into the sitting room. If you spill a drop on her carpet, you’re a dead man.’ A bushy eyebrow twitched.

  The drawing room displayed a softness in contrast to the man facing Quine. Pale pink fabrics, the perfume of fresh flowers, a Persian cat on the window sill.

  ‘Right, Mr Quine, why are you here?’

  ‘Firstly, I appreciate you seeing me.’

  ‘We’ll see about that. But I’ll say this for you. Your newspaper never posted scouts to watch me come and go. And you personally understood the word “No”. Unlike others.’ A quick glare caused Quine to ponder if any other journalists had been thrown down the stairs. ‘You say you’re now a historian.’

  ‘I’m researching a book on the decade from the mid-1980s to mid-1990s. I’m thinking of calling it “Unholy Alliances”.’

  ‘Not a bad title.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘There’s something I’d like to say to you on my own behalf, Mr Quine.’ He paused. Quine waited. He had not expected anything but answers to his questions. ‘I was sorry for what happened in your case against Deschevaux. In retrospect, I wish I’d been able to agree to your request for a meeting while you were researching him.’

  ‘I didn’t expect it.’

  ‘No, you’re not on the list.’

  ‘List?’

  ‘Yes. The approved list. Don’t ask me to tell you who’s on it.’

  ‘Of course. Yes, I’d like to have discussed it with you.’

  ‘I couldn’t have proved your case for you or given you documented evidence, but I might have warned you never to trust Greeks bearing gifts from that man.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Quine ruefully. ‘But I know my source was genuine. Until they got at him.’

  ‘That was your failure of the imagination, Mr Quine. So many things are. 9/11. What followed the Iraq War. History is full of them.’ Vaughn stopped, turned his head and stared out of the window, apparently captivated by the brick walls of Westminster Cathedral. A picture, Quine reflected, that he must see every day.

  ‘In my history,’ said Quine, ‘I’d like one chapter to revisit the origins of International Personnel and Resource Management.’

  ‘Would you?’ Vaughn chuckled. ‘Unholy alliances indeed.’

  ‘Can you tell me more?’

  ‘Tell me what you know first,’ he said firmly.

  ‘It began with three men. Dieter Schmidt, an East German who came to the German embassy in London in late 1987 and stayed on in the UK. Lyle Grainger, an American who worked in the US embassy in Grosvenor Square in the late eighties and early nineties and also stayed in the UK. And Quentin Deschevaux who joined very soon after the company was set up. What I don’t know is who those three men were. Their origins, their histories. It didn’t seem to matter for my newspaper pieces because I had enough for the specific allegation of the massacre. Until my source reneged.’

  Vaughn sighed. ‘I’m afraid once that happened, Mr Quine, you could never win. However “unholy” these three men might have been.’

  Quine hid his excitement. He had hit a nerve. ‘Can you expand on that? Who they really were.’

  ‘You mean “Who they are?” They’re still there. As I understand it. In the shadows of course.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Vaughn sipped his coffee. Quine held back. ‘Why don’t you first try to expand on it yourself?’ Vaughn said. ‘You have clues.’

  Quine frowned. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘let me try with Schmidt. Unholy. German intelligence?’

  ‘Good,’ said Vaughn. ‘Which side of the Wall?’

  ‘Unholiest is east. Stasi.’

  ‘Correct. You’ve done enough for me to fill in some gaps. Dieter Schmidt rose to be a Stasi colonel, initially in East Berlin, then posted to Leipzig. He was stationed at the London embassy – East and West Germany were both represented there. He arrived in late 1987. From London he watched the Berlin Wall fall in 1989. He negotiated his way through the new Germany and left the embassy in 1990. Schmidt was a character of interest to us.

  ‘I’ll give you something else. A younger woman, Anneliese Bluthner, joined him in London in early 1989. We were unsure of her rank, her post was described as secretarial. Given her apparent closeness to Schmidt, we were sure she was Stasi too.’

  ‘Do you know what happened to her?’

  ‘No. After Germany was reunified, Stasi boys and girls went off here, there and everywhere. Their day was over. We had no need to waste resources monitoring them.’

  ‘What about Schmidt?’

  ‘With the help of his new colleagues from the BND—’

  ‘West German intelligence—’

  ‘Yes. They supported his application for British residency. Apparently he was helpful to them. Maybe they just liked him. Didn’t want to send him home to face the music. We had no problem.’

  ‘Fascinating,’ said Quine. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Back to you now.’

  ‘Lyle Grainger,’ said Quine. ‘An unholy bedfellow of Schmidt. Once based in the American embassy in London. So CIA.’

  ‘Correct again. It’s surprising sometimes what you can work out when you put your brain and memory to work. Lyle Grainger was CIA with London station. To some extent like Schmidt, he was part of a changing world. From ’88 to ’92 his nation’s President was a former head of the CIA.’

  ‘George Bush,’ said Quine.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then Clinton takes over.’

  ‘Precisely,’ said Vaughn. ‘Old hands like Grainger, perhaps with old methods, were no longer flavour of the month. He left the Agency after Clinton’s election and stayed in the UK. I suspect he was already making plans with Schmidt. It was a small world in turbulent times. Ripe for those “unholy alliances” you’re writing about.’

  ‘And then Deschevaux,’ said Quine. ‘I’ve nothing to go on.’

  ‘I’ll give you a clue. I’m not playing games, Mr Quine. It’s cleaner if you get to base one without me holding your hand. The Berlin Wall fell in November 1989. Give me another world-changing series of events around then and the months after.’

  It did not take Quine long. ‘South Africa. De Klerk negotiating with the ANC. Mandela released early 1990. End of apartheid.’

  ‘Getting there. Put it together again.’

  ‘Unholy.’ He thought. ‘God I’m slow sometimes,’ he said suddenly, ‘Deschevaux was BOSS.’

  ‘Third time correct. Not bad. The man we know as Quentin Deschevaux was born 1956 in South Africa. Birth name Quintin – spelt with two “i”s – de Chavonnes. In 1978, he joined BOSS, Bureau of State Security. When BOSS was renamed NIS – National Intel
ligence Service – after an internal scandal in 1980 de Chavonnes stayed on. Stationed South African embassy in London 1989. February 1990, Nelson Mandela is released. The ban is lifted on the ANC, the new South Africa is born. Chavonnes doesn’t like it. He leaves the embassy. Goes to ground and resurfaces with the amended name Quentin Deschevaux in 1992.’

  ‘And together they start International Personnel and Resource Management,’ said Quine.

  ‘Yes. The unholiest of all your alliances.’ Vaughn drained his coffee. ‘But, as you say, now a matter of historical interest.’

  ‘Not entirely.’

  ‘You mean you have more?’ said Vaughn raising his eyebrows and displaying surprise. Quine assumed it was feigned.

  ‘Evidence has come my way that a senior Treasury adviser called Jed Fowkes may have a present relationship with Schmidt and Grainger – perhaps Deschevaux too.’

  Vaughn, with the faintest of smiles, slowly shook his head. ‘You’re trespassing onto contemporary ground. I can be of no assistance.’

  ‘Perhaps I could ask you a purely historical question?’

  ‘You may try.’

  ‘Does this relationship have its origins during the period of global change that we’ve been discussing?’

  Vaughn rose from his chair. ‘Mr Quine, if you are to be a historian, you must study history. What a subject writes himself is a source. Often an entirely open one. And sometimes, after the decades pass, you can find new meanings in the subject’s words. The young Fowkes once wrote – for publication – the story of a visit he made to East Germany in the summer vacation of 1987. I suggest you visit the Student Union library in Oxford and comb through back copies of Cherwell magazine for that year. If you have any specific further questions arising from this research, I may consider answering them.’

  ‘I’m very grateful to you, Sir David.’

  ‘As I said, I was sorry you failed. It was a good try.’

  ‘I don’t consider it over yet,’ said Quine.

  Vaughn led him out of the sitting room, collected his coat from a hook and handed it to him. ‘We’ve never talked.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Quine stretched out his hand. Slowly, Vaughn shook it. ‘Good luck.’

  ‘Thank you, Sir David.’ As he spoke the words, Vaughn was already shuffling back to the sitting room. ‘Thank you very much,’ repeated Quine, now to thin air, as he closed the front door of the flat behind him.

  Its click triggered a flashback to the fears Isla had felt. Honeypot. Tap on the shoulder. And the burglary at The Waves. Suddenly distrusting the lift, Quine raced down the stairs with Vaughn’s words ringing in his ears, needing to note them all down immediately. For the benefit of others, if not himself. The unholy alliance of Schmidt, Grainger and Deschevaux had emerged from a previous world and its lethal spy games played out between nations and ideologies. Thirty years on, it had adapted itself to a new world of private armies, oligarchs and kleptocrats, where hiring a killer was as easy as renting a car. Stepping out into Ashley Gardens, there was the perfect refuge in sight. Quine headed towards Westminster Cathedral, trusting in the Virgin Mary to keep watch over him.

  47

  ‘Jed Fowkes has gone quiet,’ said Isla. ‘No reappearance by Thomasina so he’s on his own in the office. And after that first conversation with his new boss, there’s been no contact.’

  ‘From what you can hear, what’s he actually doing?’

  ‘God knows. Writing Treasury input into the Royal Speech presumably.’

  ‘That shouldn’t take long. A thousand words max.’ Quine grimaced. ‘Jed’s small page of history.’

  He and Isla had fallen into a regular evening debrief. He knew he couldn’t stay in her and Sophie’s flat for ever and felt a mounting regret that he had never spent enough time with his daughter. At least events had created a fondness for the person she had vowed to spend her life with. He now saw that he had become too consumed by work and his pursuit of Deschevaux to appreciate the life that lay beyond his obsessions.

  ‘However…’ Isla continued.

  ‘Yes…’

  ‘It was around eleven-ish. I saw his door edging open and thought, why not. I jumped up and headed towards the stairs in the direction of the canteen. It was a sixth sense.’

  ‘And he followed…’

  ‘He joined me in the queue. “Oh, hi,” I smiled. “Hi,” he said. It was like finding himself beside me was a total surprise.’

  ‘Which was good?’ mused Quine.

  ‘Of course. If he was sure it had been me in the car with you, what would be the point? He offered to buy me a coffee, said we should have it in the canteen. I made it sound like I was worried about taking time out, and he said, “It’s not Amazon here, you know.” I quite liked him for that.’

  ‘What did you talk about?’

  ‘He asked me about the DTI. I gave him some flim-flam about what I did and how it all seemed a bit humdrum compared with the Treasury. “The last few days here haven’t exactly been typical,” he said. “Oh, I didn’t mean it like that,” I said. I tried to sound embarrassed. “It’s OK,” he said. For the first time, I felt a twinge of sympathy from him.’ She paused. ‘I began to hope he was seeing me as just another second-rater from an inferior department.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘That was pretty much it. He obviously wanted to get away. I’d succeeded in boring him. And he knew I wasn’t available. It’s possible I’m off his radar.’

  ‘But not certain?’

  ‘No.’ She rose to look out of the window, following the lengthening shadows thrown by the evening sun. ‘Certainty. The privilege of the deluded.’ She swung round. ‘And you?’

  ‘I met an interesting man today.’ Quine briefed her on his conversation with Vaughn. ‘I wrote it up straightaway in Westminster Cathedral. Reckoned the only surveillance there would be the angels.’ He stooped to fetch a pad of A4 from his case, stripped off a few pages and handed them to Isla. ‘Put them somewhere safe.’

  He outlined the different career paths that ended with Grainger, Schmidt and the reinvented Deschevaux converging at International Personnel and Resource Management.

  ‘And now they’ve added two front men for today’s new markets,’ said Isla. ‘A Russian who once worked at the Federal Treasury in Moscow. And a Chinese man who has links to the Beijing government. Exact nature yet to be confirmed.’

  ‘What we still don’t know,’ said Quine, ‘is the origin of Fowkes’s relationship with them all.’

  ‘Which must be a pretty tight one,’ said Isla, ‘given he was in one of their cars chasing you and me through Central London.’

  ‘It’s good, Jed,’ said Sandford. ‘Really good.’

  Fowkes’s twitch of the mouth almost looked like a smile. Sandford had asked him to finish his redrafts by the end of the weekend. Now, at 8.30 a.m. on Monday morning in the Prime Minister’s study in 10 Downing Street, with the principal private secretary, Mark Burden, in attendance, they were putting the Royal Speech to bed.

  ‘Thanks, Robbie, I appreciate it.’

  ‘You said it. This is the moment.’

  ‘I thought you might reject the ambitions for health.’

  ‘No. We have to look at the long term. The past year may show how wonderful our doctors and nurses are, it says the exact opposite about the organisation above them. You’re right, Jed. Free health care at the point of delivery in a centralised bureaucracy is not sustainable. We have to move towards a private insurance system.’

  ‘And the tax measures?’ asked Fowkes.

  ‘Income and corporation tax cuts are spot-on. Abolishing inheritance tax will be controversial—’

  ‘But essential to the message we have to convey,’ interrupted Fowkes.

  ‘Yes, I can see that,’ acknowledged Sandford.

  ‘I know it will be tough on some. But we simply can’t keep social security and pensions rising in line with inflation. There’s no alternative to pegging them at the present
rate for the next four years. Arguably we should be cutting them.’

  ‘Is that what you really think we should do, Jed?’

  Fowkes hesitated. ‘Let’s be honest with ourselves. If we’re going to finance the big infrastructure projects and keep the tax cuts, someone’s got to pay for it. And economic common sense says that should fall on the unproductive sector.’

  Sandford allowed himself time to reflect. ‘I guess they’re not our voters.’

  Fowkes’s eyes flickered. ‘No. They’re not.’

  ‘In that case, we’ll do it. You draft the final adjustments. An hour enough time?’

  ‘Plenty.’

  ‘That leaves just one matter,’ said Sandford. ‘If we do this, wouldn’t my arms and mercenary idea send a message that, despite these necessary measures, we remain a government with a soul?’

  The eyes opposite opened wide in alarm. ‘It sends a message that we’re idiots. We truly can’t.’

  ‘There’s nothing I can do or say to persuade you,’ said Sandford unhappily.

  ‘I just can’t go there.’

  Sandford sighed. ‘It will embarrass me.’

  ‘It needn’t. Just brief that industry-wide consultations are to take place. Hint at a voluntary code.’

  ‘All right. We’ll take it out,’ said Sandford, with a defeated smile. ‘All done then. It’ll be printed on Monday. Thursday, the brave new world begins.’

  ‘Exciting new world,’ said Fowkes.

  They stood. Fowkes hurried out of the room, as if ensuring his prize could not be taken from him. As the door closed behind him, the Prime Minister and his principal private secretary exchanged a look.

  Quine arrived at the Oxford Union library just after noon. He had imagined himself browsing through dusty back copies in an ill-lit basement. A phone call to the helpful librarian had revealed a more convenient, if more mundane, search. The tall green bound volumes of Cherwell, the university’s student newspaper, were the most prominent display on entering the library’s reception area.