My grudge against Red Heaven, other than their belief in terror as a legitimate political tactic, was that they didn’t seem to believe in anything else. Terrorism with an objective in mind was one thing, but the use of terror tactics for no reason other than political nihilism was the most dangerous because of its sheer randomness.
Today I was deskbound. I was about to finish reading an interminable report and go for lunch when I was contacted by Smitherman’s son-in-law, Richard Clements. Clements was a journalist on the fortnightly left-wing magazine New Focus, and his political outlook and philosophy were guaranteed to drive Smitherman’s diastolic blood pressure up several points when the family sat around the dinner table. The clashing of their polar opposite views on just about every subject from political philosophy to the weather almost registered on the Richter scale on the occasions they met up and I was forever glad they’d never asked me to come to dinner.
Clements and I had been students together at King’s and we’d been friends in the same way America and Al-Qaeda were. But I’d come across him whilst investigating a case a year or so back and a kind-of friendship had emerged, in that we picked each other’s brains for information occasionally, though we didn’t hang out together. Smitherman still believes my original story about our not being friends at King’s and would probably be apoplectic if he knew what the full story was now.
Clements suggested meeting up. I assumed it would be for a lunchtime drink, but he said he wanted to meet later in the day as he had something he wanted to put to me. We arranged to meet in the pub opposite St James’s Park tube station early evening.
He was already there when I arrived, drinking a lager and reading the current edition of The Economist, justifying this by claiming to want to know what his competitors were putting out. He was still the benchmark for sartorial inelegance, with his shoulder-length hair, leather jacket and thin-striped black and grey collarless cheesecloth shirt. In terms of appearance and style, he was the antithesis of Michael Mendoccini. Did he dress this way when he interviewed senior political figures?
I was now off duty so I graciously allowed him to buy me a beer and I took a seat. He was looking out the window but I assured him Smitherman didn’t drop by after work for a quick one, which seemed to comfort him.
I’d seen him around the Old Bailey a couple of times during Addley’s trial though, along with the rest of the assembled media, he’d had to leave during the closed sessions, which meant he’d only heard those few facts which it’d been agreed could be made public. I, of course, knew more but I was certain I didn’t know the full story, even though I’d been there throughout the investigation and had been the arresting officer.
After a few minutes of small talk, he explained why he’d wanted to see me.
“New Focus is planning to write an in-depth piece about political trials in the UK. We’re going to examine the political agenda behind trials like the Birmingham Six, Guildford Four and similar other trials. One in particular will be the Addleys’ trial, and we’re planning to include details that’ve just come into our possession. I just wanna run a few points past you.”
“Such as what?” I wasn’t sure if I was curious or worried.
“Simon Addley’s just gone down for a twelve stretch, hasn’t he?” he began.
I nodded my agreement.
“The press was told both brothers were charged, but they weren’t, were they? Why didn’t Colin Addley get charged? I’ve heard he’s not even in prison.” He sipped his beer carefully, looking hesitant, like a teenage boy summoning up the courage to ask out a particularly attractive girl. “I mean, he was part of the conspiracy as well, wasn’t he? I’ve heard the security service cut some kind of deal with him because he was someone’s informant, so he’s buried deep somewhere whilst his brother takes the fall.”
I was stunned hearing this. He was in possession of facts that were most secret, but I kept my astonishment to myself for the moment.
I shrugged. “Is he? I don’t know. The big decisions were taken by Government lawyers, who were probably guided by MI5. You’d need to ask them.”
He didn’t look convinced.
“It wasn’t just those two involved in the conspiracy to cause explosions outside the Albert Hall either, was it?” he eventually asked. He sounded like he didn’t believe the official view of what went down.
“What do you mean?” I was surprised at the question.
“I’m asking because the information we’ve received suggests others were involved, but only Simon Addley was charged because someone from MI5 was also in on the plan. The authorities didn’t want a repeat of last summer’s aborted trial, so Simon Addley was made the patsy and took the heat so the lid could be kept on this whole event. I’ve heard he copped to lesser charges with a guarantee of a lesser sentence so details of what really went down could remain secret.”
“Really?” I feigned surprise, I hoped convincingly.
“The fact of Colin Addley not being charged clearly suggests he was operating undercover, otherwise he’d have been on trial with his brother. Was he an informant?”
I was amazed he knew this. Someone with access to top-secret information was leaking like a broken faucet.
I carefully explained the background; how we’d been on to the Addleys ever since we’d become aware of the plot. They’d been watched and followed to the spot where, ultimately, we had arrested them. I reiterated about Simon Addley having been charged with conspiracy to cause explosions with persons unknown, and even if the names had been known, they wouldn’t be made public on grounds of national security. I sipped my beer. I certainly wasn’t going to tell him what I’d found in the garage when Sergeant Collington and I had gone in after hearing a shooting. I omitted reference to the dead MI5 man and to the role played by a woman from MI5 who’d been operating undercover. These facts had not been made known in the trial and weren’t going to be now. Not by me, anyway.
“I don’t suppose you want to tell me who your source is for this claim?” I was being overly optimistic. I had more chance of self-combustion than of Clements answering this question, but one perseveres.
He gave a non-committal shrug.
“I’ve also been told a couple of the Addleys’ accomplices were killed whilst attempting to put this plan together.” He stated this solemnly rather than asking if it was true. “One was IRA and the other something to do with MI5. We weren’t given names.”
I shook my head. “No, there was nothing like that.” I was firm in my reply.
My mind was racing. Clements seemed to be very well informed about this case and I was wondering how he knew all this. I remained calm.
“Where’d you get this? Someone just send it to you in the post?” I was being flippant.
“Actually, yeah, they did.” He grinned.
“You serious?” I must have looked stunned at the news.
He nodded. “A letter was delivered to the Focus Saturday outlining what supposedly really happened inside that garage the night the Addleys were arrested: something about a search for some missing top-secret chemical and someone from the IRA working with Red Heaven. Went into it in quite some detail. I thought it was a joke at first, someone winding me up. I’ve got a coupla mates who’re journos and that’s the sort of thing we do; we anonymously send each other some spurious piece of information and hope they take it seriously and go off half-cocked. It’s a kind of year-round April Fools’ gag, but I checked with them and they both swear they’ve sent me nothing lately. So I got in touch with a contact at the Guardian to tell him about it, and he’d also received a copy of the same letter, word for word.” He reverted to sounding serious. “Which is why I was asking if it was just the Addleys or was it something bigger. I mean, sending it to two publications? I thought I’d run this by you, as you were involved in the case, because, as I just said, the Focus is planning a story about the whole affair, about collusion between agencies of the state and groups like the IRA, and we’re planning t
o include the pre-trial stuff.”
“You’re seriously planning to use this?”
“Why not? Case isn’t sub judice any longer. It’s a major story and it’s definitely in the public interest. That’s why I’m talking to you. You were involved in the case right from the aborted trial up to Addley going down recently.”
“Is the Guardian also planning to use this?”
After the Guardian’s publication of the documents leaked to WikiLeaks, and also Edward Snowden’s revelations about how the NSA and other American security agencies spied on the whole world, I was thinking of the fallout from the security services, who’d go ballistic if what Clements knew was published.
“That I don’t know. My contact just said they’d received a copy of the same letter.” He stared directly at me. I’d never noticed before how bluey-green his eyes were.
I waited a few moments before replying, trying to give the impression I was thinking.
“I can truthfully say I don’t know anything about what you’ve just said.” I can be a good liar. “The Addleys were arrested as they were the only people involved at our end. They were the only people there when we caught them. We found them with the resources to make bombs and arrested them. It’s true Colin didn’t get charged along with his brother, but I’ve no idea why not. My guess is the spooks had something to do with that. But I can assure you he’s in prison. Colin Addley an informant: you’re kidding me, right?” I said, sceptically.
“As I said, my contact on the Guardian also received a copy of the same letter,” he said, looking serious, “which is why I’m talking to you about it. He wants to meet up later and discuss this after he’s talked to a couple of his sources in the security services, so that’s why I was wondering if there’s anything in it. I mean, why send copies to the Guardian as well as us if there’s nothing in the claims?”
If the Guardian also knew of this and were planning to publish it, I could just imagine the flak flying. As the only centre-left leaning daily national newspaper, it had a track record of disclosing information about cases the Government wanted to keep behind a veil, and a few of its scribes were known to have connections to the security services. Relations between the paper and the Government were still strained after it had published the leaked materials obtained by WikiLeaks, as well as the revelations about phone tapping made by Edward Snowden, both of which had considerably damaged working relations between the UK and US governments. That it was also the only major broadsheet to publish details of the UK’s involvement with ‘extraordinary rendition’ did little to enhance its relationship with the security chiefs, and I’d little doubt the editor of the paper was not on the security chiefs’ Christmas card list.
“Well, I was there, Richard, and I can state categorically only the Addleys were on the premises when we arrested them, so I’m not sure what your source is on about.” I tried to sound confident, but this information could only have come from one of the Government lawyers involved in the trial or from someone inside MI5. Either way it was worrying that he knew what he did.
“So you can’t shed any light on this?” he asked flatly.
I shook my head. “None whatever.”
He nodded but avoided looking at my eyes. He was thinking. Did he believe me? For his sake I hoped I’d been convincing.
“You said you got a letter telling you this?”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “Came Saturday morning.”
“Where’s this letter now? I’d like to see it.”
“It’s in a safe place. Don’t worry, Rob,” he said reassuringly, “only the editor and I know we received it. We’ve photocopied it and the original’s in a place it can’t be easily accessed. The information’s probably covered by OSA anyway so we might not be able to use it, even if we wanted to. But I’m told our lawyers are considering whether the Focus could get away with publishing, as it’s quite a story and it’s no longer sub judice.”
I was about to ask when I realised the initials stood for Official Secrets Act.
“A piece on political trials is one thing but, trust me, you try and publish any pre-trial details about the Addleys’ case, you’ll get an immediate DA-notice slapped on you by the security service and Special Branch’ll be all over you like bad perfume, and I’d not be able to help you out either.”
A DA-notice was a security request not to publish information deemed to be sensitive and contrary to the national interest. It didn’t have the force of law but was taken seriously by editors who didn’t want to risk the ire of MI5.
“Also, guess what your father-in-law would do. Do you really want to tell your wife you’ve been arrested by her father?” I raised my eyebrows and smiled. “Look, I’ll do you a favour here. I’ll talk to someone I trust inside MI5.” I was thinking of Christine Simmons. “Just promise me you’ll do nothing till I get back to you. Don’t tell your friend at the Guardian you’ve spoken to me. Got that?”
He nodded sagely for about twelve seconds. I wondered if I’d given him something to think about. He shuffled about in his seat, as though he was sitting on something uncomfortable. He’d nearly drained his second beer. I was only halfway through the first.
“Fair enough, thanks for doing that,” he said. “I’ll wait to hear from the Guardian before we decide on the next step. I owe you one for that. But, if they publish, we will as well. Anyway, there’s also something else I wanna talk to you about.”
He finished his beer and bought another. I didn’t want one.
“When we were at King’s, do you remember someone named Nigel Hemsley?”
I thought back to my undergraduate days at King’s and the people I’d either been in the same tutor groups with, like Richard Clements, or befriended from other activities. I drew a blank. He drank some beer whilst I considered his question.
“Can’t place the name,” I replied.
“He was a coupla years above us, an accounts and finance student doing a Master’s. He was active in the Tory Students group; think he might have been their chair or something.” Clements seemed certain about this, despite his vague phrasing. I thought for a moment.
“Yeah, now you mention it, I do remember him. Wasn’t he the first Tory president of King’s College student union for ages, if I remember right?”
“That’s the one. He was. Claimed he’d been told he’d get a place on the list of approved Tory candidates for a safe seat at a future election if he won, though that was probably bullshit, like everything else he ever said. I was considering running as the Labour candidate for student union president but decided not to. The thought of losing to that twat . . .” He shook his head as the sentence tailed off.
“So, what about him?”
“He got in touch with me recently.” He looked suddenly very serious. “Said he wanted to talk to me about something. I couldn’t believe it; I kept wondering why he’d want to talk to me about anything. I didn’t even agree with him about what day it was at King’s,” he said, with a laugh. “I think the last thing I ever said to him at King’s was in one of the bars when he was crowing about his election victory and I told him to fuck off.” He grinned inanely, reliving a pleasant memory. “Talk about a surprise right out of the blue. Not even a particularly pleasant one either.”
I remembered some of the arguments between them at student union meetings had bordered on the epic. At that time, Clements was certainly well to the left of most people but Hemsley was possibly the most right-wing person I’d ever encountered. Had he been born seventy years earlier he’d have been first in line for the Hitler Youth.
Hemsley came from money and wasn’t slow about letting people know it. I remembered him at student union meetings and his unenviable knack of antagonising the majority of people present, even those who’d usually be on his side, by, for example, arguing South Africans had been economically better off when apartheid was still in place, and questioning whether apartheid was really all that bad. He’d steadfastly maintained Nelson Mandela was a te
rrorist working for Russian interests and should have been hanged, citing it as a political catastrophe he’d ever been voted as President of South Africa; he’d claimed General Pinochet’s military coup in Chile in 1973 was justifiable as America shouldn’t have to tolerate some Marxist dictatorship in its back garden, and it was an irrelevance the Chilean voters had democratically elected Allende into power. Several times his forthright views had come close to causing fights between the different ethnic and political groups present and, even allowing for the excesses of youth, many of his views were about as palatable as drinking detergent. I’d regarded him as somewhat disagreeable and obnoxious and largely ignored him.
“But,” Clements continued, “I agreed to meet him, met him in some expensive restaurant in Covent Garden. I mean, he’s fucking loaded. He can afford it and he probably claimed me as a business expense anyway.”
“What did he want?” I asked. I was trying to imagine the small talk between Clements and Hemsley around the table of a smart restaurant.
“Said he knew I worked for some left-wing paper and he wanted my help. Can you believe that?” He smirked.
“He wanted your help,” I repeated slowly, almost disbelievingly. “To do what, pick out some surefire bets on the Footsie 100?”
“Not quite. He began by saying he works for Karris and Millers, some merchant bank in the City, and up till recently was helping to build up and operate their vulture funds.”
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