The Hand of God

by James Craig

  ‘Yes.’ Palmer stared at the envelope but made no effort to pick it up.

  ‘So, how much do you know about a gentleman called Maurice Peters?’

  10

  ‘Oi, Carlyle!’

  ‘Yes, Sarge?’ Having just reported for duty, the young constable eyed the desk sergeant warily, wondering what rubbish job he was going to be awarded today. Alec Jeffreys’ complexion was getting redder by the day. It looked like the half-bottle of Metaxa brandy that he routinely kept under the desk had already taken quite a hammering this morning. Not for the first time, Carlyle thought wistfully of Jeffreys’ predecessor, the voluptuous Sandra Wollard, a forty-something divorcee who had set tongues wagging at the station by ravishing a willing Carlyle at a crime scene. Soon afterwards, she had decamped to the delights of Theydon Bois. Since then, her young paramour had hooked up with Helen, but Sandra still held an unshakeable place in his affections.

  Jeffreys gestured towards an older guy standing a couple of feet from the desk. He was slender, maybe a shade over six feet tall; Carlyle pegged him at mid to late fifties. His suspiciously black hair was slicked back across his scalp with Brylcreem, and despite the relatively early hour, there was a dark five o’clock shadow on his jaw. Dressed in a tweed suit with a checked shirt and a red tie, he looked like a character out of a 1950s B movie.

  It’s a bit hot for that get-up, was all Carlyle could think.

  The ensemble was completed by a pair of heavy-looking tan brogues. A small canvas holdall sat on the floor next to the desk.

  ‘This is Inspector Callender,’ Jeffreys explained. ‘He needs to go to the Castle.’

  ‘And you want me to take him?’ Carlyle’s voice held all the enthusiasm of a ten-year-old facing a plate of Brussels sprouts.

  ‘No,’ Jeffreys replied sarkily, ‘I want you to give him directions.’

  Callender offered Carlyle an apologetic shrug. ‘To be honest, Sergeant, I don’t need a minder.’

  ‘Protocol,’ Jeffreys replied, moderating his tone only slightly for the benefit of his superior. ‘No one goes into the Castle on their own until further notice. It’s not safe.’

  ‘I’ve been in far worse places.’ The inspector smiled, trying to keep things light.

  Jeffreys, however, was not going to be moved on the issue. ‘If I let you go in there and you get your head kicked in by a bunch of yobbos, I’ll be the one who gets it in the neck.’ He licked his lips; Carlyle sensed he was gagging for a drink.

  In the face of the thirsty jobsworth, Callender conceded gracefully. ‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘I’m not here to cause you grief, Sergeant.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’ Jeffreys shot Carlyle a look and pointed towards the station entrance with his biro. ‘There’s a car waiting downstairs. Just make sure you get in and out without any mishaps. And watch out for the dog shit.’

  Ha, bloody, ha. Carlyle involuntarily lifted a hand to his face. The bruises had faded but the mental scars remained.

  ‘Dog shit?’ Callender enquired.

  ‘The silly sod went arse over tit while chasing a suspect,’ the sergeant explained gleefully.

  ‘We caught the bugger, though, didn’t we?’ Carlyle felt compelled to pipe up in his own defence. Roger and Gareth Lovelock had been picked up in a New Cross drinking den the previous night. Their mother was still in hospital; it had been confirmed that she would never walk again.

  ‘Yes,’ Jeffreys reflected, ‘we did. And after you let him slip through your grasp, it only took us an extra thirty officers and another seven grand of overtime.’

  ‘Shit happens,’ Carlyle mumbled.

  Tiring of the banter, Callender picked up his bag and gestured towards the door. ‘Shall we get going?’

  The traffic was so bad that it made the Elephant and Castle seem like rush hour in Lagos. Sitting in the front of the police Escort, Carlyle lifted his gaze from the registration plate of the lorry in front and eyed the inspector in the rear-view mirror. ‘What are we doing in the Castle, then?’

  ‘We’re going to see a woman called Claire Marshall,’ Callender said evenly, not making eye contact. ‘Whitelaw Walkway, number 47b. Do you know it?’

  ‘We’ll find it. Why do you want to talk to her?’

  ‘Her parents have been murdered.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ Carlyle went back to staring out of the window while Callender gave him a quick overview of what had happened. A middle-aged woman pushing a shopping trolley made an ambitious attempt to use a zebra crossing and almost lost her groceries as a taxi lurched across her path. The woman jumped back on to the pavement, cursing the driver, who studiously ignored her as his cab came to a complete standstill, half on the crossing. The traffic just keeps getting worse and worse, reflected Carlyle. One day the whole place is going to seize up altogether. He tuned back in to what the man behind him was saying. ‘I don’t remember reading about that in the papers.’

  ‘You didn’t,’ Callender harrumphed. ‘They slapped a D-notice on it.’

  Carlyle frowned. A D-notice was a government ‘request’ to news editors not to report a story for reasons of national security. ‘Why?’

  ‘That,’ Callender smiled, ‘is a very good question.’

  By the time they reached their destination, the residents of the Castle were only just beginning to stir, and they made their way to Whitelaw Walkway, deep in the heart of the estate, without incident. Claire Marshall was a tall blonde of indeterminate age, who looked like she was still trying to perfect the appearance of a surly teenager. With a cigarette hanging from her bottom lip, she ushered them into the flat without comment. At first glance, the only thing of note in the living room was the half-empty bottle of Cossack vodka sitting on the coffee table, next to a pair of empty glasses. Marshall indicated for them to take a seat on the faux leather and grabbed the bottle, unscrewing the cap with a smooth, practised movement and dumping a large measure of the spirit into one of the glasses.

  Not so much a triple measure, Carlyle thought, impressed and horrified in equal measure. More like a quadruple.

  Taking a slug of her drink, Marshall stepped over to the fireplace, which was empty apart from a small three-bar electric fire, and leant against the mantelpiece. ‘You’ve got a bloody nerve coming here,’ she hissed.

  ‘You’re the daughter of Hugh Scanlon?’ Callender enquired, ignoring her opening gambit.

  The woman nodded from behind her glass.

  ‘In that case,’ the inspector continued, ‘I’m sorry to have to inform you that your parents have been killed.’ Carlyle was surprised at the flat, emotionless tone of his delivery; presumably it came from decades of giving people bad news. He realised that this would be his job one day, and shuddered.

  Marshall took a long drag on her fag and blew a stream of smoke past a framed print of a naked couple in a passionate embrace. It was a cheap reproduction and there were what appeared to be dart holes in various places. ‘Good,’ she said finally, not looking at either of the guests sitting on her sofa.

  The two policemen exchanged a quizzical glance.

  Marshall watched her cigarette burn down to the filter and let it drop into the fireplace. ‘My mother died fifteen years ago,’ she continued. ‘She walked in front of a Piccadilly Line train near Osterley.’ She glared at Carlyle. ‘Have you ever been to Osterley?’

  Staring into his lap, Carlyle was forced to admit that he had not.

  ‘Bit of a boring place to die,’ Marshall said drily. ‘Anyway, it was a while ago. Presumably you’re referring, technically, to my stepmother?’

  ‘Our apologies,’ Callender conceded, in a tone that suggested he took such bureaucratic cock-ups in his stride. ‘I was referring to Mrs Marjorie Scanlon.’

  ‘Marjorie was his third wife,’ Marshall explained, keeping the matter-of-fact tone going. ‘My mother was number two.’

  ‘I see.’ Callender nodded. ‘Still, we’re sorry for your loss.’

  Carlyle raised an eyebrow. Sorry for your loss?
What are we these days, the bloody Samaritans? You’d never get anything as poncey as that from Jack Regan.

  Marshall muttered something under her breath that sounded to Carlyle very much like no great loss, before sticking a rictus grin on her face. ‘Thank you for letting me know, Inspector.’

  ‘You are taking it very calmly,’ Callender observed.

  ‘He’d had a good innings and she . . . well, she wasn’t my mother. Both of them drank too much and he lived in that fantasy world of his, full of traitors and spies and so on. He was like a little kid who’d made a living out of playing cops and robbers.’ She shot them an unapologetic look. ‘Sorry, but you know what I mean.’

  Callender nodded. Carlyle just stared at the painting, unable to work out what the inspector was hoping to get out of the visit.

  ‘I don’t know how my mother put up with it for so long,’ Marshall continued. ‘And then he ditched her, after almost twenty years. She never got over it, the silly cow.’ Draining her glass, she contemplated the bottle on the table for a long moment before deciding to resist the temptation for now. Carlyle watched as Callender pulled a small business card from his jacket pocket and, leaning forward, placed it next to the bottle.

  ‘That’s the details for the local funeral director. Apparently your father had already made all the necessary arrangements.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ was her only reply.

  Pushing himself up from the sofa, Callender got to his feet and gestured for Carlyle to do the same. ‘Well then,’ he said solemnly, ‘we need to be going. Once again, let me express our condolences.’ When Marshall, gazing aimlessly out of the window, did not respond, he added: ‘We’ll see ourselves out.’

  Carlyle was relieved to find Whitelaw Walkway clear of any hostiles. Ushering the inspector towards the stairs, a thought suddenly struck him. ‘She didn’t ask anything about what happened. You would have thought she would have wanted to know how they died, her dad at least.’

  ‘You get all sorts of reactions, lad,’ Callender replied sagely, ‘when you give people news like that.’ He patted the constable on the shoulder.

  Carlyle stopped and looked up at his colleague. ‘Do you think she’s in shock?’

  ‘I think she’s pissed,’ said Callender, moving round him and skipping down the stairs. ‘And after everything that’s happened in that family, she probably couldn’t care less.’

  Back at the entrance to the estate, Carlyle was even more relieved to find the police Escort waiting for them still in one piece, its driver unmolested. Clearly the locals were off their game today. As they reached the car, he turned to Callender and smiled. ‘Sorry it was a wasted trip.’

  The inspector scratched his head, careful not to leave a single slicked-back hair out of place. ‘I wouldn’t say that,’ he smiled.

  ‘But what did you get out of Claire Marshall? Nothing, as far as I could see.’ Now that he thought about it, he couldn’t even remember the inspector asking the woman any substantive questions.

  ‘I didn’t come here to see her,’ Callender explained, reaching for the door handle.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘No, not really.’ Callender stood on the kerb, carefully looking Carlyle up and down as if unable to make his mind up about something. ‘Can you keep your mouth shut?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Carlyle a tad too eagerly. ‘Of course I can.’ It was one of the few things he knew he could do.

  Callender pondered it for a moment longer. ‘Okay,’ he said finally. ‘Let’s go and see someone who will be a lot more useful than Claire bloody Marshall.’

  11

  Martin Palmer reached the bottom of the page and blinked. Unable to focus on the text in front of him, he blinked again. With some dismay, he realised that he couldn’t remember a single word he’d just read. Maybe it was an imbalance in his brain, a lack of a particular protein or something, another consequence, no doubt, of his mother’s attempt to place him on a starvation diet. Clearly it was having a terrible effect on his short-term memory. Then again, words had never been one of his strong points. They brought back memories of school. Unhappy memories.

  Pushing thoughts of 4B from his mind, he closed the file and pushed it across his desk. Leaning back in his chair, he laced his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling. It needed a coat of paint. Just like the rest of the place. As far as anyone knew, the last time the department had enjoyed a decoration budget it was managed by Kim Philby. Explains the drab, Soviet-style decor, Palmer reflected drily.

  Philby, one of the most infamous traitors of all time, had been the subject of not one but three books by Hugh Scanlon. There had been another two about the Cambridge Five, the spy ring of which he was a leading member. Compared to them, who was Maurice Peters? Little more than a complete nobody. It was arguable whether the man was even a traitor at all. But a senior ex-service operative writing his memoirs was a clear breach of the Official Secrets Act. The Daily Mail had described it as a ‘truly shocking threat to national security that could put the lives of untold agents in the field at risk’.

  That’s the problem with people these days, Palmer mused, they simply have no respect for anything, whether it be signed contracts or national security. Always bleating about the so-called ‘public interest’ in order to justify their shallow and venal behaviour. It was all just too much.

  Peters, feeling cheated over his pension, had pocketed a six-figure advance from an American publisher and signed Hugh Scanlon as his ghostwriter. With the book due to be published abroad, beyond the reach of the British courts, the powers-that-be had decided that more drastic action was required. That was where Palmer came in.

  He had no idea whether Peters’ memoirs contained anything of any interest to anyone. Of course, the newspapers speculated about the ‘explosive revelations’ contained therein, but then they would, wouldn’t they? The draft manuscript that Brewster had retrieved from Scanlon’s study was safely behind lock and key in her office. Palmer wouldn’t be reading it even if he wanted to, which he didn’t. All he was concerned about was finishing the job.

  After a rather rushed lunch in the Brideshead Café, close to the office, he took a short cab ride to the Pitchfork Club, down by the river in Millbank, in search of his quarry. When he arrived, the press conference called by Peters’ agent had just broken up. Waiting for the throng in the Cromwell Room to disperse, Palmer manoeuvred his way behind Peters, who was holding court in front of a gaggle of journalists. They were waiting, pens poised over ring-bound notebooks, for a final juicy quote.

  ‘I have no doubt,’ Peters opined, unaware of the new arrival, ‘that Hugh Scanlon was murdered by the security services. They’re trying to shut me up.’ It was the first time that Palmer had seen the man in person. His initial impression was of an eccentric-looking bloke with wild blue eyes and a shock of unruly white hair, who still retained an imposing physical presence despite being in his late sixties. His shabby suit looked like it had been slept in, and Palmer was reminded of nothing so much as a tramp from one of the Just William books he vaguely remembered from his childhood.

  The journalists finally dribbled away. Palmer waited until they had the room to themselves, then stepped in front of the old man, hand extended. ‘Mr Peters . . .’

  Taking a half-step backwards, the retired spook shoved his hands in his pockets, his busy eyebrows knitting together in disgust. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘The name’s Palmer,’ came the cheery reply. ‘I’m from—’

  ‘I know where you’re from, sonny,’ Peters said sharply, edging further away. ‘I can spot one of you from a mile away.’

  Palmer stepped forward, conscious that they appeared to be practising dance steps together. Keep smiling, he told himself, wishing that he could finish off the old bugger on the spot. ‘Don’t you mean one of us?’

  Flaring his nostrils, Peters looked like he was about to spit on the carpet. He thought better of it and jabbed an angry index finger towards his latest foe. ‘We’ve got nothin
g in common,’ he hissed, ‘so why don’t you just run along?’ He tried to push past the younger man, but Palmer moved into his path.

  ‘I think you need to come with me,’ he said quietly, trying to inject a little menace into his voice, opening his jacket to give the old-timer a clear sight of his side arm.

  Peters’ reaction to the glimpse of the gun, however, was only to smile. Palmer felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to face a giant of a man, easily six foot three and built like the proverbial brick outhouse. He glowered at Palmer. ‘Everything all right, Maurice?’

  ‘This is Kelvin McKillick,’ Peters explained with relish. ‘He’s a producer at ITN. Ex-SAS. He’s very interested in me as a story. So unless you want him to break your neck, or worse, stick a camera in your face, I suggest that you bugger off.’

  Palmer hesitated.

  ‘Of course,’ Peters continued, his eyes twinkling with mischief, ‘if you were to suffer a broken neck, it would be a terrible accident, just like Hugh Scanlon.’

  Feeling the hand on his shoulder tighten, Palmer reluctantly turned towards the door.

  ‘You know what was completely unprofessional?’ Peters said behind him.

  Sod off, you old bastard, Palmer seethed.

  ‘The wife,’ the old man continued. ‘That was totally unnecessary and deeply suspicious. If you had been working for me, I would have had you sacked on the spot.’

  Feeling his face going red with embarrassment, Palmer restricted his response to a grunt as he kept walking.

  ‘Mark my words,’ Peters cooed cheerily as he disappeared through the door, ‘that will bring you down, sooner or later.’

  After more than ten minutes stalking through the Wolfson Building, they finally found Laboratory 6. On the door of Room 415 was taped a printed sign that said PROFESSOR PAUL LAMB. Below that had been added in red biro: Please knock and wait to be invited to enter. Ignoring the instruction, Callender pushed open the door and disappeared inside without breaking his stride. By the time Carlyle followed him through, he was engaging in a hearty handshake with a middle-aged man in a white lab coat. The professor was a rather unprepossessing fellow; about five foot eight, with a small paunch, tired blue eyes and a most unfortunate comb-over that did nothing to hide his bald pate.