The taxi snaked into Merton Street, bumping over the cobbles. He paid the driver and then dipped his head under the stone archway and walked into the porter’s lodge, two men in branded t-shirts chatting behind the desk.
‘Here to see Professor Turnbull,’ he said.
One of the porters nodded. ‘Just arrived. Should be outside on the bench, I think.’
Vine opened the door out into the main quad and saw Turnbull perched on the bench, peering intently at a copy of the Guardian.
‘Professor Turnbull?’
‘Ah! Mr Vine, what a delight,’ said Turnbull, rising from the bench and folding the paper under her arm. She looked just as Vine remembered her, often sighted passing through the halls of Vauxhall Cross locked in conversation with Newton. Her hair was still lavishly combed, the face grooved with lines.
She led on as they crossed over the quad and through to the Fellows’ Dining Room, a large, rectangular space with a long table dominating the middle, twenty or more chairs set out on either side. There were plenty of murmured greetings as Turnbull grabbed a plate and began inspecting the various dishes. Once they had piled their plates high, Turnbull beckoned to the two seats at the far end.
The conversation flowed easily to begin with. Turnbull talked at length about her new book, an encyclopedia of global terrorism (‘I haven’t told a soul yet, not even my editor, in case I give him a heart attack,’ she whispered), the privations of the lecture circuit and the difference between British and American universities.
It was as they moved on to coffee that she said: ‘So, tell me, Mr Vine … your email was deliberately mysterious, I presume to avoid the attentions of Cheltenham. Though, perhaps, I can imagine the cause of your invitation.’
Vine caught the curious glint in her eyes. He recognized it as an echo of Newton, the same narrowing of the lids, the theatrical pause before the coup de théâtre.
He was just about to speak when Turnbull got there before him: ‘Something about the Head of Station in Istanbul …’
‘So you know?’
‘Nothing more than rumours, of course. I still have my ear to the ground on some of these things. When the name popped up recently I thought it rang a bell. One of the best students I ever knew. Greats and then Arabic. Quite a feat.’
Vine looked down at the dwindling band of fellows at the far end of the table. ‘I’m right in thinking you recommended Gabriel Wilde for the Service?’
‘Yes. The Service was desperate for Arabists at the time. We’d spent so long funnelling new graduates from the Russian department that some of them had forgotten other disciplines existed. It was the start of the new war. From the first tutorial I had with him, I knew Wilde had what it took. Perhaps even become Chief in due course.’
‘Were there any issues during the vetting period?’
Turnbull tilted her gaze up at the ceiling, burrowing further back into her capacious memory. ‘Two things, if I recall. While his father’s side of the family were as blue-blooded as you get, his mother was different. Wilde’s father had met her when he was trying to flog expensive legal services to the Qataris. She was from a family of financiers with more than a few questionable links to Gulf financing of nuisance groups around the Middle East.’
‘Funding terrorism?’
‘Never quite put in those words back then, but amounted to the same thing. It was her brothers, mainly. They had fingers in a lot of pies. Financed some charities that were used as cover to channel funding to jihadi groups. I had to liaise with the City regulator of the day to iron it out. Eventually, it was cleared. Though they were his uncles. His mother had died when he was much younger, which put the problems at one remove. All in all, I think there was pressure from the high command.’
‘Pressure to do what?’
‘Clear him. Grade him Persil-white and allow him through.’
Vine felt a fizz of tension. ‘From who specifically?’
‘The fifth floor. Mostly Newton as Director of Training, though Cecil took a keen interest as well. The Service was woefully short of Arabic speakers. We had lots of product coming in from assets in the Middle East, but not enough people who could actually make sense of it. It was the golden age of multi-culturalism. The Service was meant to be opening up. To have rejected someone of Wilde’s obvious abilities because his maternal family actually happened to live in the Middle East, with all the incidental ties that entails, was not just misguided, but positively criminal.’
‘So he went through.’
‘Yes,’ said Turnbull. ‘He was given STRAP 3 clearance and allowed through to the Fort for training.’
‘And the second issue?’
Turnbull paused, longer this time. Vine felt he had touched something, a long-trapped nerve. Turnbull sighed, pushing her coffee cup away. ‘While here, Wilde made a potentially unfortunate connection with a radical don in the Faculty of Oriental Studies called Mohammed Ressam, long since dead. Ressam used to have several select students – the brightest of the bright – for extra tutorials, a discussion group of sorts nicknamed by staff the Prophets.’
Vine felt his throat tighten.
Turnbull continued. ‘In the late nineties, Ressam published a book called The Spirit of Revolution. Bar-room Islamism, inspiring those with a dream to take action against a corrupt West.’
‘What happened?’
‘Someone in the college called the police and had Ressam’s rooms searched. They found radical literature smuggled in from Pakistan. Audio recordings too, sermons from names associated with al-Qaeda.’
Vine inched forwards in his chair. ‘And Wilde was part of it?’
Turnbull didn’t look at him, staring away to her right. ‘Not quite. They were the usual bunch of suggestible undergraduates. Wanting to put the world to rights. But I saw an opportunity all the same. Part of my job has always been to keep an eye out in the university. I had fitted up Gabriel to be my star recruit. When Ressam moved to Christ Church and began holding these events, I wanted to try Gabriel out, let him earn his spurs. Common practice then, always had been. I would file any interesting observations, send them back to Whitehall. That was that.’
‘So Wilde began spying on Mohammed Ressam?’
Turnbull turned her eyes downwards. She sighed. ‘Yes. Did a damn good job too. One of the reasons we got the arrest. MI5 were very grateful, even tried to poach him.’
‘And the Prophets?’
‘There were a few associated with the group from numerous colleges. From Christ Church it was mainly just Gabriel and a PPE-er, frightfully bright as well. Cartier. Since entered Parliament for her sins.’
Vine glanced up. ‘Olivia Cartier was a confidant of Mohammed Ressam?’
I first got to know Wilde when I joined the Intelligence and Security Committee.
Turnbull looked at him. ‘Confidant may be too strong. But she knew him.’
‘I interviewed her a couple of days ago. She said she first met Wilde when joining the ISC.’
Turnbull smiled, chuckling to herself. ‘That sounds like Olivia. She was quite a politician even then. Speaking at the Union tomorrow, apparently. A performance I am quite content to miss.’
Vine couldn’t help himself. ‘You don’t think there might be something in it?’
Turnbull shook her head. ‘I doubt it. It was just student inquiry, nothing more. Not enough to stop her passing positive vetting, anyway. This was all pre-9/11, of course. Hardly anyone had heard the name al-Qaeda, let alone knew anything about it. Now she probably just doesn’t want the papers knowing and kicking up a fuss. Spoil her chances of becoming a minister in the next reshuffle.’
‘And what happened to the Prophets when they left?’
Turnbull twitched at her napkin, folding it neatly into a square. ‘The Twin Towers happened,’ she said. ‘Suddenly the world changed. And people had to find new ways to rebel. Just as they always have.’
14
Vine watched the stooped figure of Professor Turnbull shuff
le away towards Fellows’ Quad and then made his way out of the porter’s lodge and on to Merton Street.
He rubbed at his eyes and tried to get himself to think clearly. He thought again of the news about Wilde’s family background and the group at Christ Church, the Prophets. There was no way he could get an unbiased read on Gabriel Wilde now. The evidence was clouded with judgement. If you looked too deeply into anyone’s past, perhaps skeletons could be found and motives inferred.
He began walking in the direction of the High Street, wrapping his hands in his coat pockets, happy to lose himself in the cloistered feel of the street. He needed time to think. The three original hypotheses presented themselves again in his mind. The empirical data was emerging, but it was messy; as yet, it couldn’t be tamed into any sort of geometric elegance.
It was the distinct texture of the cobbles that jolted him out of his thoughts, the uneven surface making it harder to disguise the fall of the shoe leather. Vine listened again closely. There was a faint echo coinciding too neatly with his own walking pattern. He was alive to it instinctively. He listened for a third time. There was definitely another rap of sound, not in sync but clumsily trying to disguise itself, a beat off the pace. Vine didn’t slow down, careful to maintain the same steady tempo, body language looking relaxed. He needed the watcher to lapse into complacency.
Vine carried on, veering away from the direction of Christ Church. Instead, he angled his way up Magpie Lane. It was much narrower here, the anorexic paving dappled with greyish light. He could sense the watcher tailing him, hanging back just a fraction.
Just as he was about to turn left on to the High, Vine kept straight on, trying to work out who it could be. An embassy watcher, perhaps. Or worse, a freelancer, all rules redundant.
Now he risked a look behind, glimpsing a smudge of mussed hair, a black t-shirt and crumpled linen jacket worn over light denim jeans. He didn’t linger, the glance almost unnoticeable. But he had enough for an ID if he ever needed one.
Vine pressed forwards up Catte Street. As he reached Broad Street, he checked again for any splash of t-shirt or jeans. But he found nothing.
Only one thing was left. He saw the turning to Turl Street and moved across, seeking cover behind a slow group of Chinese tourists on the opposite side.
He risked one more look behind him. No one had yet followed him. He waited.
Ten seconds later, the watcher emerged on the left, scanning the street for any sign, leaving himself exposed from behind. Vine didn’t need long, just enough time to approach, lock the man’s hands together and press him against the wall. He leaned in close to the man’s ear.
‘Who the hell are you?’ he whispered, still twisting the wrists. He took a closer look at the figure in front of him. He had a scruffy crop of mud-brown hair, droopy eyes and a scatter of stubble under his chin; gym-fit, though trying to disguise it through a shabby dress sense. ‘Who are you working for?’
He waited for an answer. But none came. Vine twisted the wrists round until they were almost at breaking point.
‘Follow me again, and I’ll break both of them.’
There was one final twist and a high-pitched scream of agony. But Vine was already away.
15
Pret was rackety with customers. There was a constant push through the heavy glass double doors, excavating the remains of the snack collection.
Vine sat in the corner, nursing a medium filter. He looked down at the copy of the FT on the table and pulled it towards him again. He finished reading a feature piece on the seventieth anniversary of Presidential Proclamation 2714, signed by President Truman in 1946 as the formal end to all hostilities in the Second World War. A joint US–UK commemoration service was scheduled soon in the Palace of Westminster, and the piece had some juicily anonymous quotes from the Speaker’s Office grumbling about interference from the US embassy over security arrangements. He flicked through other stories – a junior energy minister resigning, another scandal in the City, more bitter rows over Brexit – and then turned to the comment section. He felt a hit of unease as he scanned the headline and quickly read the first few paragraphs of the lead op-ed, splashing the pages with drops of coffee:
WHY THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT MUST APOLOGIZE TO AHMED YOUSEF
Valentine Amory QC MP (Chair, Intelligence and Security Committee)
It is only in times of crisis that our true character emerges. And so it is with national character as well. When the going gets tough, do we retreat into scapegoating, or unite together to find collective solutions?
With the Middle East still in turmoil, it is no surprise that the ongoing case of Ahmed Yousef has caught the public imagination. Born in London, and educated at UCL and Yale, Yousef was building a successful career as an academic. Then his life changed for ever. During a routine research trip, Yousef was detained and questioned by British intelligence, accused of aiding and abetting Islamist groups participating in the Syrian civil war. He was denied basic rights and kept in custody. Only hours after being detained, he was found shot …
Vine folded the paper and pushed it away. He quickly drained the rest of his coffee. He looked at the other drinkers clustered around the tables, couples picking at croissants and sandwiches. Once, he had almost pitied them, stuck in the ruts of a humdrum existence. He had cherished secrecy, the notion of an elect using their talents in the service of their country. In some part of himself, he still did. But now, just occasionally, he felt the opposite. The last few years of his thirties were slipping from his grasp, hurtling him towards the no man’s land of middle age. Normal existence seemed like a promised land he was now never destined to enter.
He relished the last gulp of caffeine, then left and strolled along the King’s Road, lingering over phrases from the article he had just read. He could see it happening already. Ahmed Yousef was being integrated back into normal life. He had come to symbolize something more than himself, reincarnated as a cause.
Just before he reached his house, Vine’s mobile began ringing. He answered it instinctively.
‘Hello?’
There was a faint clearing of the throat followed by a slur of sound.
‘It’s Newton,’ said the familiar voice. The tone was shakier somehow, thinner and breathless. ‘I’ve been doing a spot more research after our conversation. I think I may have found something. I’m travelling back to Paddington on the last train. Best not to speak on an open line. Meet me there at 11.45.’ There was a pause. ‘If I’m right, this changes everything …’
16
Vine scanned the platform concourse again, mind fuzzing with irritation after the near three-hour wait since Newton’s call. He looked at the time on the departure board to his left: 11:55. It had been over ten minutes since the 11.44 from Cheltenham had arrived, and there was still no sign of him. None of this made any sense. His words had been quite clear.
This changes everything.
He tried to staunch a growing feeling of unease. The station was empty at this time of night. The scene was starting to be overtaken by mops and buckets, cleaners roaming freely around the platforms. The last barista headed for the exit. A paunchy middle-aged man sat behind the help desk, chest hair bristling up the gap where his top button should have been.
‘Can I help?’
‘The 11.44,’ Vine said. ‘That came from Cheltenham?’
The man gave a sluggish tap on the keyboard in front of him and nodded.
‘Are there any others due in on the same line tonight?’
‘No. That was the last.’
He should have been here. Vine checked his phone again and refreshed his emails. There was no message. Newton was punctual. He would have called ahead. Vine hovered for a moment before starting to follow the signs for the taxi rank outside. Was he just being paranoid? Newton could be a drama queen, injecting every hiccup with far-reaching conclusions. Perhaps it was nothing. He had been hauled in for official business and forgotten to call ahead. There were any number of plaus
ible explanations for his failure to appear.
But it would be good to be sure. Vine took out his mobile, found Newton’s number and rang it. After ten or so burrs, it went to voicemail. Vine hung up. Newton’s phone was on. He would be busy.
It was just as he reached the taxi rank that he decided to try a second time. After four burrs, there was a crackle of sound at the other end.
‘Hello?’ It was a different voice: terse, male and official sounding.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I was trying to get hold of a friend. Must have dialled the number incorrectly.’
‘Can I ask who’s calling, sir?’
It was the ‘sir’ that confirmed it, the knot of dread in the pit of his stomach. ‘I was due to meet my friend this evening,’ said Vine, sidestepping all questions about his identity. ‘He hasn’t showed up. I’m just trying to find out if he’s OK. Do you mind if I ask who I’m speaking to?’
There was a pause, a mental scramble for appropriate words. ‘PC Harding, Transport Police.’
Vine froze, the trickle of passengers becoming a blur around him. ‘What’s happened?’
‘The owner of this phone was found dead at Cheltenham train station earlier this evening, I’m afraid. Looks like a heart attack. Can I ask for your name again, sir … ?’
But the question came too late. Vine was already slipping off the plastic casing of the phone and inching the SIM free. He didn’t turn or check his tail. Instead, he ignored the taxis and walked on alone. The SIM was vanished in the first bin, the rest of the phone in stages.
Soon he was losing himself in the corners of the evening. All other thoughts receded in the face of the new reality. Vine walked on until his legs threatened to give way beneath him, content for the darkness to swallow him whole and never let him free.
My Name Is Nobody Page 6