Breaking Cover

by Stella Rimington

  The Underground was packed, and she just managed to squeeze herself and her briefcase into a carriage. As the train moved on out of the centre towards North London, the crowd gradually thinned and she was able to get a seat. She wondered if she would find Tim at home. They were partners in name only nowadays, she realised sadly. They still shared a bed, though there might as well have been a wall of steel dividing the mattress for all the intimacy there was between them.

  She had not looked at Tim’s computer again, or even gone into the room he used as his study. But the memory of ‘Marina’ rankled, and Peggy couldn’t help imagining – or fantasising, since she had nothing to go on – about what this Marina did and who she was. A femme fatale no doubt, mature, exotic, good-looking – all the things Peggy worried she wasn’t. Marina would have been attracted by Tim’s intelligence, his intensity, and – not that Peggy saw much of it these days – his gentle kindness. They probably shared the same political views; she could hear Marina’s withering take on Peggy’s choice of career.

  That is, if Tim had told her what his partner did for a living. He had promised never to do that – even his parents thought she worked at the MOD in HR. Yet Tim had always been so open by nature that Peggy couldn’t help but believe that the man who had once shared everything with her was now sharing it with someone else.

  When she left the Underground it was dusk and the streetlights were coming on as she turned on to her street. The road on both sides was lined with cars – parking was at a premium out here, since so many of the houses had been divided into flats, with multiple cars per building. She watched as a hundred yards ahead of her a maroon Vauxhall saloon was trying to back into a rare but rather small space.

  Parking aside, Peggy liked her neighbourhood; it was quiet, unpretentious, and the only celebrity living within a mile of it was a second-division footballer. She reckoned it was only a matter of time before Tim moved out. She liked the flat, but wasn’t sure she could afford to stay there on her own. She supposed she’d either have to find a flatmate, which she didn’t really want to do, or move to a smaller place. She tried to cheer herself up by deciding it would be good to find somewhere closer to work. It would feel odd to live on her own, but at least there would be no tension each evening when she turned the key in the door.

  She noticed that the Vauxhall had given up trying to squeeze into the space and was driving slowly along the road towards her, its driver looking for somewhere else to park. It was then she heard footsteps behind her. She glanced back and saw a slim male figure in a hoodie walking fast towards her. She couldn’t see his face properly but there was something alarming about him, especially when she remembered how Jasminder had been attacked.

  Peggy decided to cross the street, where a man in a dark suit and tie, wearing a hat with a brim that shadowed his face, was standing doing something with his phone. As she crossed, the Vauxhall saloon was about fifty feet in front of her, moving very slowly. Peggy could see the driver, a woman in her forties, still searching for a parking space.

  When Peggy reached the far pavement, the man was standing there staring at his phone, his free hand in his jacket pocket. She had started to walk round him when he said, ‘Excuse me.’

  She looked up just in time to see him raise his arm. He was holding a short truncheon, and as his arm came down Peggy flinched and turned away. The truncheon missed her head but hit her hard on the shoulder, and the pain was excruciating. The man looked ready to hit her again so she ran into the road just as the Vauxhall drew level with them. The car braked sharply and Peggy staggered into the side of it then fell hands first onto the bonnet. She rolled instinctively, just in time to avoid the truncheon, which missed her head and slammed down with such force that it dented the steel of the bonnet.

  Peggy was now standing in front of the car. To her surprise, the female driver was staring at her – as if nothing were wrong. Peggy opened her mouth and screamed. The man in the suit, still holding the truncheon, seemed to be deciding whether to come at her again, then suddenly he flung open the passenger door and jumped in. The woman at the wheel seemed entirely unsurprised, and Peggy realised she was working with the man.

  Peggy managed to take two steps towards the pavement as the car accelerated sharply, narrowly missing her, and sped away. Looking around, stunned and rubbing her shoulder with one hand, Peggy could see no sign of the hooded figure anywhere.

  She felt dizzy and knew she was going into shock. A door slammed nearby and she heard a man shouting as he ran towards her. ‘Are you all right? What’s happened?’

  Peggy’s dizziness was worse now. ‘I need to sit down,’ she said, and the man led her to the low wall separating his front garden from the pavement. Someone else appeared as she tried to catch her breath; it took a moment for her to realise that it was Tim.

  ‘Peggy, are you all right?’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ she said. She looked up and was relieved to see that his face was filled with concern. ‘Someone hit me,’ she said, close to tears. ‘They hit me with a stick.’

  ‘Who was it?’ asked Tim, bewildered.

  Peggy’s head was starting to spin, and she grabbed the edge of the brick wall to steady herself. ‘It was a set-up. There was a car… A woman… She drove him away.’

  ‘Who? What do you mean? Did he take anything?’

  But Peggy didn’t answer. She was starting to feel very sick indeed. She heard Tim say, ‘Don’t worry, I’ve called the police, and they’re sending an ambulance as well.’ She looked up and saw him holding his phone in the air. It must be new, she thought dimly. But she’d seen it before… Then she realised it was the same kind of phone as Jasminder’s. When did he get that? Peggy wondered vaguely. She closed her eyes, and could hear Tim talking to their neighbour. She was straining to hear what he was saying when gradually his voice faded clean away. Peggy had passed out.

  36

  ‘I’m so sorry. Is the funeral in London?’ said C’s Private Secretary, Mrs Dwyer.

  Jasminder was startled. She was prepared to answer all sorts of questions about her non-existent aunt, but it had not occurred to her that anyone would want to know where the poor lady was being buried. She hesitated, then said, ‘Leicester.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Mrs Dwyer, who had worked for five Controllers before taking on the new C; it was said she knew more about the Service than its official historian. C himself was not in his office – he was at meetings in Whitehall all morning, so Jasminder didn’t have to offer him her bogus excuse for the planned absence on Friday.

  ‘I grew up in Leicester,’ she explained, regaining her composure. ‘Most of my family still lives there.’

  ‘Well, I’m very sorry,’ said Mrs Dwyer. Her voice was sympathetic, and Jasminder felt bad for lying to her. She wished she’d simply decided to call in sick on Friday instead, or even take a day’s leave. But Laurenz had pointed out that one of the MI6 technical boffins who’d spent so much time rewiring her house might show up to check on some aspect of her new security system. Since she’d be halfway to Bermuda by then, it didn’t seem a good idea to pretend she was at home.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Jasminder. ‘Please tell C I’ll be back in on Monday.’

  She went away feeling slightly troubled, but cheered by the prospect of her trip to Bermuda at the end of the week. And tonight Laurenz would be back, after spending the weekend with a client in Spain. In his absence she’d tried to see Emma, but she had been busy – there’d been a certain coolness in her voice on the phone, and Jasminder realised it had been several weeks since she’d been in touch with her closest friend. That would have to change, she decided, taking heart from Laurenz’s recent declaration that his divorce was finally coming through and soon he would be happy to meet all her friends, including Emma.

  That evening when Jasminder went to his flat, she found Laurenz already back from Madrid. He was leaving before her for Bermuda, since he had the two conference days to sit through, and seemed preoccupied, almost harri
ed, as if on some deadline she didn’t know about. For once Jasminder felt that she was more relaxed than he was. At dinner he ate quickly, and was unusually quiet. Finally, she asked him if something was wrong.

  ‘Wrong?’ He stared at her blankly, as though looking through her. ‘No, not at all. But these are important meetings in Bermuda, and I feel a bit exposed.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘I told you,’ he said impatiently, ‘I’m not having the best of years.’ He sighed. ‘One of the less fun things about these annual conferences is that we’re all expected to bring something special to the table.’

  Jasminder wasn’t sure she understood. But Laurenz was staring at her intently now, and she felt uncomfortable. She was obviously missing something, and the easy connection she had always felt with him was for some reason absent tonight. She said, ‘What sort of special thing do they want?’

  ‘Information of course,’ he snapped.

  ‘What are you going to bring them then?’

  ‘That’s the problem. I haven’t got anything special at all. Thanks to this wretched divorce, I haven’t kept my eye on the ball. At least, that’s what some of my clients seem to think. That’s why I asked you for help, if you remember. Now my own colleagues may reach the same conclusion.’ He leaned back, eyes fixed on the wall behind Jasminder’s head. ‘To tell you the truth, I’m seriously worried.’

  ‘I’m sure it will be all right,’ she said soothingly. ‘It’s been a hard year for you; surely they can all understand that.’

  He made a small scoffing noise that left Jasminder feeling foolish. ‘Sympathy is not much in evidence in the banking world. It’s strictly dog eat dog.’

  He said this so cynically that Jasminder was taken aback. This wasn’t the easy-going, confident man she’d come to know. She wanted to do something for him but could only say feebly, ‘I wish I could help.’

  ‘Do you?’ said Laurenz, lowering his eyes until they were level with hers. She felt as if he were looking at her for the first time.

  ‘Of course,’ she said, wishing he would smile, or at the very least not sound quite so bitter and low. ‘You know I want to support you, Laurenz.’

  He ignored this and said, ‘You could help me, you know. Help me quite a lot.’

  ‘Really?’ She said this innocently, but part of her sensed what was coming – and dreaded it.

  ‘You have access to all sorts of information. Even a few snippets would let me make a mark at the meetings.’ He seemed to notice she was stiffening. ‘There you go,’ he said. ‘You act as if I’m committing a capital offence when I haven’t even asked you for anything.’

  ‘You know I’m not allowed to share information with people outside the Service.’

  ‘But you already have.’ He was staring at her, without any of the sympathy he usually showed. She wanted to explain that her help that time had been a one-off, and he shouldn’t be asking her again. But she knew he would just get angry if she said that. Jasminder felt cornered by his unblinking gaze, and found herself growing upset. She wished it were the weekend already, with the bankers’ meetings over and Laurenz back to his usual self. She tried to buy time while she thought of the best way to steer him off this topic. ‘What were you wanting in particular?’

  He leaned forward across the kitchen counter, resting on his elbows with both hands under his chin. ‘I’ll tell you what would really knock their socks off… Russian strategy.’

  ‘What do you mean – Russian strategy?’

  ‘Everyone wants to know whether Russia is planning on moving into another border country – say Latvia or Azerbaijan. Think about it: nobody pays much attention to those countries normally, but if the Russians were to go into either of them, it would have a global impact. People would run for safety – buy dollars, buy gold, get out of the stock market.’

  ‘You seem to know a lot about it already. Can’t you just talk about that?’

  ‘Bah!’ he said, and his voice was even more scathing. ‘What I think about what Putin might do doesn’t matter. What my “sources” think about it, and what they think NATO would do in response, would grip everyone’s attention.’

  ‘What sources?’ asked Jasminder, and as soon as she’d said it, realised that she was the source.

  He waited for the penny to drop, then said, ‘You’ve got access to JIC reports, I bet. They have to have assessed Putin’s strategy and considered NATO’s possible responses – if there’s a Russian move into the Baltic States, for example. If I could get up and say: “Here is the Western governmental view of what might happen, and how the West would respond,” then I bet even the Chairman would forget about his golf game for a minute.’ Laurenz laughed, but he didn’t sound amused.

  Jasminder was rocked back by this speech and stared at him in shock. How did he know about the JIC? The average man in the street was highly unlikely to have the abbreviation for the Joint Intelligence Committee on the tip of his tongue, but then she supposed no one would ever confuse Laurenz with the man in the street.

  After a moment she said, ‘I don’t see JIC reports.’

  ‘Maybe you don’t, normally, but I’m sure you could if you wanted to.’

  ‘No, honestly, I couldn’t,’ she said, frustrated by the sceptical expression that spread across Laurenz’s face. ‘It’s all done on a need-to-know basis. And I don’t have any need to know.’ She realised she was sounding plaintive now, but couldn’t help it. She had been completely knocked off balance by his demand. ‘I can’t exactly say, “Hello, I need to see the JIC assessments on Putin’s strategy, to help my boyfriend.”’

  ‘You’re high-profile, Jasminder. You can ask for anything you want. They wouldn’t dare say no. If you were to leave now, MI6 would look very foolish. Your boss C in particular.’

  He spoke with such assurance that she wondered momentarily if he was right. Did she really have that kind of power? Could she simply crook a finger and have all the innermost secrets of the British intelligence services laid out for her scrutiny? For a moment she found the prospect exciting, then she realised its fundamental absurdity. What she’d told Laurenz was correct: information in MI6 was handled on the strict basis of need to know – even the closest of colleagues didn’t discuss their cases with each other unless they were actually working together. If she started asking for highly classified material – like the minutes of JIC meetings, or copies of the papers sent to the Cabinet – alarm bells would go off and she would be questioned right away about why she had made the request. She couldn’t think of any plausible reason at all.

  She said now, ‘I’m sorry. There just isn’t any way I can get that kind of information. Not for you, not even for myself. No way at all.’

  She wanted to look away from Laurenz’s relentless gaze; she knew that what she was saying was true and wanted him to understand it too. But she forced herself to lock eyes with him until finally he shrugged. ‘I thought you wanted to help,’ he said.

  ‘I do,’ she protested earnestly. ‘Just not that way – I can’t do it. You must understand that.’ When he didn’t reply, she added, ‘I would if I could.’

  ‘So you say, but the thing is, I’m sure you could. It just takes a little imagination.’ He saw her mouth tighten, and he sighed again. ‘Let’s leave it for now. We can talk some more about it when we’re in Bermuda.’

  Jasminder wondered how that would help, since she thought he wanted the information in time for his meetings. But she said nothing, just hoping the tension between them would pass. Laurenz said, ‘You’ll meet my colleagues then. They can explain the kind of pressure we’re under.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Jasminder, a little disappointed. The last thing she wanted to talk about in Bermuda was the pressure of work. She had thought she was going there to be with Laurenz and to relax.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, nodding at her, ‘my friends are very keen to meet you. You’ll find you have lots to talk about with them.’

  37

  Tim came to see P
eggy the day after she was admitted to the Royal Free. She had a private room – not because she was being given special treatment, but because she’d hit her head when she’d fainted, and the doctors at the hospital were concerned about concussion and didn’t want her in a noisy ward.

  Her collarbone had been fractured by the blow she’d received, and her left arm was in a sling, which the doctors said she was going to have to wear for six weeks. They’d been concerned too about nerve damage to her shoulder, and had put her through the claustrophobia of an MRI scan. She’d been terrified but had closed her eyes and gritted her teeth for the twenty minutes she’d lain enclosed in the doughnut-shaped machine.

  The pain was constant but not acute – and the morphine helped, though the drawback was the dreams it seemed to spawn. She woke sweating and in a panic after one particularly horrible one – this time the man with the phone hadn’t jumped into the car but was chasing her around it. She was trying to run away from him but her legs moved in jelly-like slow motion – only to find Tim standing at the foot of her bed.

  ‘Hi there,’ he said, a little awkwardly, ‘they don’t let you bring flowers so I bought you some grapes.’ And he plonked a plastic box of green grapes on the bed. They looked rather dry, as if they had seen better days. Tim had always been hopeless at giving her presents and she’d once seen it as a rather charming aspect of his unworldliness, but now she wondered if it simply meant he didn’t care.

  A nurse came in behind him and, seeing the grapes, offered to find a dish for them. When she’d left the room Tim sat down. ‘So how are you feeling?’ he asked, perching uneasily on the edge of the high-backed vinyl chair, his hands dangling loosely between his knees.

  ‘Not too bad,’ she said. ‘They’re giving me something for the pain. The doctor says I probably won’t need an operation.’