Jokerman

by Tim Stevens

  Purkiss glanced at Vale. His expression revealed nothing.

  ‘So why am I here?’ asked Purkiss.

  Kasabian fixed him with a lawyerly stare, which must have turned more than one person in the witness box into a quivering wreck.

  ‘Because I need an outsider,’ she said. ‘Someone clean. Untainted by any connection with Five. Morrow was killed by one of our own. I want you to find whomever it is.’

  Three

  ‘Jokerman,’ said Purkiss.

  Kasabian shrugged. ‘Every operation needs a name. Even an operation that’s off the books, like this one.’

  ‘Why that name?’

  ‘It’s a song title by Bob Dylan,’ she said. ‘You know my background. Lefty counterculture type.’

  Again Purkiss looked at Vale. His look said, how much of this did you know about when you called me? Vale gazed back mildly, said nothing.

  To Kasabian, Purkiss said, ‘But why have an unofficial investigation at all? Why not just run a parallel one using an outsider?’

  ‘To answer your second question first,’ Kasabian said, ‘you are an outsider. You’re about as outside as you can be. You’re from the other team. SIS. The dreaded Six. Our main rivals for manpower and funds. You’re also, Mr Purkiss, a highly experienced investigator with a considerable reputation. I know about Tallinn last October, and that New York business in the spring. Yet to most people even within SIS, you don’t exist. You’re a rumour. You’re able to pull off major successes while remaining discreet. And I’m not saying this to massage your ego, by the way. I don’t work that way.

  ‘As to your first question: why conduct an unofficial investigation?’ Kasabian glanced away, then back. ‘Because I don’t know how high the rot goes. I don’t know who within the Service is implicated in all this. I don’t know how many people are involved. I don’t know what this supposed coverup is all about. And so I don’t trust anyone.’

  ‘Hold on a moment,’ said Purkiss. ‘Do you mean Strang isn’t aware that you’re approaching me?’

  ‘Correct. He isn’t.’

  Purkiss took a moment to process it. Kasabian nodded.

  ‘Yes. I’ll say it openly, so we’re quite clear. I can’t be convinced that this conspiracy doesn’t involve the director of the Security Service himself.’

  Over his lifetime Purkiss had mastered the art of keeping his feelings and emotional reactions concealed, where necessary. Done too often, too routinely, it froze up the muscles, made spontaneity difficult, which was in itself counterproductive.

  This he judged to be an appropriate time to use the technique.

  Kasabian studied him for a full ten seconds. Then she laid her palms flat on the tabletop. No wedding band, Purkiss noticed. No jewellery of any kind.

  ‘I know what it looks like, so I’ll preempt any comments you might make on the subject,’ she said. ‘I’m the deputy. The up-and-comer, angling for the top job. I learn about corruption within the service and I immediately start looking for ways to implicate the boss, so I can get him removed and grab his post for myself. All I can say is… no. I can’t tell you how relieved I’ll be if Guy Strang is shown to have nothing to do with this.

  ‘And I have no evidence that he is involved. Note that I said I can’t be certain he isn’t. That’s not the same thing.’

  ‘But you wouldn’t even have mentioned it if you didn’t have a suspicion,’ Purkiss said.

  Kasabian dipped her head in acknowledgement. ‘Fair enough. The thing that makes me wonder is this. The hotline, the whistleblower’s access to the Home Secretary, is supposedly confidential. A means whereby any Service employee of even the lowliest level can expose corruption or criminality within the organisation without fear of reprisal. And, by and large, that’s how it works. But I do know that the Home Secretary – not just this one, but her predecessors too – tends to mention any such contacts to the Director as a matter of routine. After all, the likelihood that the problem being reported involves the Director is so remote it’s almost not worth considering. So it’s possible – likely, even – that Mr Strang knew Morrow was going to meet the Home Secretary.’

  ‘And arranged for Morrow to be killed?’ asked Purkiss.

  ‘I know. It’s outrageous. And highly unlikely. But it’s not beyond the realm of possibility.’ Kasabian waved a hand. ‘Neither of them, Strang or the Home Secretary, would ever admit they’d discussed it beforehand. It would do violence to the whole sacred notion of the hotline.’

  For the first time, Kasabian stood up. She was shorter than Purkiss had been expecting, most of her length in her torso. She went over to the window and gazed out.

  With her back to the two men, she said: ‘Mr Purkiss, I’ve studied your background exhaustively, as you might have expected. Not just since yesterday, when Morrow was killed and I first considered approaching you, but over the years. I’ve followed your career, step by step. Though this is the first time we’ve met, I already know you. And as I’ve come to know you, I’ve began to understand fundamentally, in the marrow of my bones, that you and I are the same.

  ‘I’m a quarter of a century older than you. I’m a woman. My professional training was in the law. But those are details. Ephemera.’ Kasabian turned, began ticking off items on her fingers. ‘We’re both from privileged backgrounds. Both Oxbridge products. Both committed to justice, in our own ways. You could have risen within SIS, could be a senior officer by now, maybe a contender for the top job one day. But you chose instead to work outside the fold. You recognised that the most evil, the most contemptible of enemies is the one within. The worm in the apple. The betrayer of his own people. So you’ve dedicated yourself to rooting out the corruption within SIS itself, instead of focusing on the external threats and neutralising them at source.

  ‘And for my part, I could have had a stellar career in the legal world. Taken silk, eventually become a judge. But I too chose to confront the internal enemy. The one at the heart of the nation. The one poised to strike from inside the body politic. Which is why I joined the Security Service. Why the majority of the operations I personally conduct and co-ordinate are those against home-grown threats. British Islamist fundamentalists, neo-fascist groups. Eco-terrorists.’

  It was an impressive performance, Purkiss thought. The cadences of her speech, the ebb and flow of a rising tide, were masterfully handled. She was becoming impassioned without the need for theatrics.

  Kasabian stepped back to the table and rested her flat palms on it once more, leaning forward on straight arms. When she spoke again, it was in a quieter voice, but one no less commanding.

  ‘So do you see, Mr Purkiss, how much it means to me to find out who killed Morrow? To expose this coverup, whatever it is? We’re the guardians of public safety. If we can’t uphold the very highest moral standards, then there is no more morality.’

  She held his gaze for a few seconds, then pulled back the chair and sat down.

  ‘Will you help me, Mr Purkiss?’

  ‘No,’ he said.

  Four

  He wasn’t, Emma reflected for at least the tenth time, at all how she’d expected the head of MI5 to look.

  His status, even his name, suggested somebody patrician, with long, swooping grey hair, an aquiline nose, chiselled lips. Perhaps a slightly raffish air. Instead, Sir Guy Strang was a bull. Round-shouldered, hulking and neckless, with a smooth pink pate from which the last die-hard strands of hair had been brutally shaved, he stood six feet two and towered over most people in any room he was in, not just because of his height but by virtue of his massive, imposing persona.

  He certainly stood higher than Emma’s five feet six, when he was on his feet. At the moment, however, she was looking down at him.

  Sir Guy’s exposed chest was, like his head, pale pink and hairless. Emma fitted the leads into position, holding them in place with discs sticky with gel, and ran the ECG machine.

  ‘Can I –?’ he rumbled, but she held a finger to her lips.

&nb
sp; When the printout had run its course, Emma detached the leads and handed Sir Guy a fistful of paper towels with which to wipe off the gel. She examined the ECG printout, feeding the flimsy paper through her hands. Very slight ST depression, and the occasional ectopic beat. But not much different from the last one, a month ago.

  She nodded and he sat up, began buttoning his shirt. He was peering at Emma’s face, trying to read her expression, and she kept her features neutral for as long as she could before letting a smile break through.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘Fine.’

  ‘Comedian, eh?’ he muttered, fitting his cuff links.

  Emma turned her back on him while he dressed, and went over to the counter to write up her notes. The room was a purpose-built medical examination facility deep in the bowels of Thames House. Whatever Emma said she needed, equipment-wise, she got, without question or fuss. It was startling, and a complete contrast to her experience in the NHS.

  Dr Emma Goddard had been personal physician to Sir Guy Strang, the Director of MI5, for a little over a year now, and she still couldn’t quite get used to the notion. At the time of her recruitment she’d been a junior partner in a general practice in Wimbledon, a pleasant enough job which was starting to take on the comfortable, undemandingly dangerous feel of a rut. At a cocktail party she’d been introduced to a friend of a friend of a friend, someone who evasively mentioned he was employed in the Civil Service and who took a great interest in hearing about Emma’s own career. A week later she received a letter from the Home Office, asking if she’d be interested in considering a job offer and inviting her to come in to discuss it.

  There followed an extraordinary series of meetings and interviews, initially in Whitehall and eventually at Thames House as well. Emma and her husband, Brian, spent long evening discussing the decision she’d have to make. Brian was gently sceptical. Did she really want to give up the relative security of a GP post in the NHS for something as outside the normal range of a doctor’s experience as this? More importantly, did Emma think she’d be happy, attending to just one patient, who in all likelihood would stay fit and healthy anyway? Wouldn’t she miss the hurly burly of GP life, of caring for a host of ills, medical and social, while feeling that she was genuinely making a difference? And it wasn’t as though she could bask in the status afforded to her by being personal doctor to the country’s top counterintelligence officer. She wouldn’t be able to tell a soul.

  But Brian let her convince him. The money was good. Better than what she’d been earning in full-time practice, in fact. Much better. It meant she and Brian could now afford a live-in nanny to look after the children. Her duties were, frankly, not all that arduous. Monthly examinations of her patient, including routine blood and other standard tests. Updates on the state of his health to an array of other, handpicked specialists – surgeons, cardiologists, urologists – who would be called upon if he ever needed them. And Emma was aware that she’d be on twenty-four hour call in case of an emergency.

  The sudden freeing up of her time would allow Emma the breathing space she’d never had since graduating. To spend time with her and Brian’s children, seven-year-old Jack and his sister Niamh, two years younger. To do some research work. To garden.

  So Emma underwent the final, formal interview. She signed the Official Secrets Act. She perfected the cover story she’d been advised to concoct: that she was starting up a private practice and travelling to the homes of assorted Civil Service mandarins and Saudi Arabian dignitaries. And she began the monthly trips from their Wimbledon semidetached home to Thames House, always in a chauffeured car with tinted windows and a rota of politely aloof escorts.

  She poked and prodded Sir Guy’s flesh, listened to the thump of his heart and the rasp of his on-off smoker’s lungs, lobbed back his grumbles and sarcastic remarks in the form of jibes of her own. Over the following year, she became genuinely fond of this gruff, sometimes alarming, yet kind man. And she knew he liked her, too, even though it wasn’t in his nature ever to admit it.

  Now, writing her notes with Sir Guy dressing behind her, Emma said, ‘How’s the smoking?’

  ‘Haven’t touched one for three months.’

  She turned and gave him a look.

  Sir Guy held up his hands in resignation. ‘All right, all right. Two cigars a week. Maximum.’

  ‘That’s two too many.’

  ‘Ah, shut up.’

  They went back to his office and made small talk for a while. Eventually Sir Guy said, ‘Well. Till next month.’

  She smiled.

  He pressed a button on his desk. A few seconds later the door opened and a man came in. Of medium height, broad shouldered. Light on the balls of his feet, like a cat. Hair buzzed short in a military style.

  ‘James,’ said Sir Guy, ‘be a good chap and escort Dr Goddard to the car.’

  The man inclined his head. He held the door for Emma and followed her through.

  They walked in silence through the murmuring corridors. Halfway along, Emma said, ‘Okay if I pop to the loo?’

  ‘Of course,’ said James. He indicated down a short passage.

  Emma strode towards the restrooms, not looking back. In the women’s room she glanced around, found it empty. She went back to the door and gave a sharp rap on it.

  The door opened and James came in.

  Quickly she dragged him towards one of the cubicles, pulling him in after her and slamming and locking the door.

  His arms were already around her, his hands splaying across her back, roving. She twined her own arms round his neck, her mouth seeking his, hard. Hoisting her thighs up around him, she pressed her pelvis against his.

  Somehow she tore her face away and pressed her lips against his ear. ‘Now. Here. I want you.’

  ‘No,’ he murmured.

  ‘I want it. You want it.’

  ‘But we can’t.’

  Gently but firmly he gripped her hair and lifted her head back so he could look into her eyes. She saw his pupils, dilated with desire, crowding out the dark blue irises.

  ‘It’s too risky. This is already too risky.’

  ‘You’re a soldier,’ she mocked. ‘Risks are what you take.’

  ‘None of them were ever as big as this.’

  She felt him tense, his eyes flicking away. A moment later she heard the door to the restroom open and two chattering women’s voices enter.

  Emma was relieved the doors to the cubicles didn’t have large gaps beneath them, so that James’s feet wouldn’t be visible.

  They kept very still, while the women’s conversation continued even as they positioned themselves in adjoining cubicles. The toilet sounds, shockingly near, made Emma glance sharply into James’s eyes. He was biting his lip, trying not to laugh, and Emma felt her own face contort. Desperately she forced it under control.

  At last the women finished their business, washed their hands and left. Emma released a soft laugh that was more like a sob. James shook his head.

  ‘Jesus,’ he muttered. ‘One of these days...’

  He released her. She clung to his neck but he was already pushing her away.

  ‘Monday,’ he said. ‘I’m off in the evening.’

  ‘It’s too long to wait,’ she said.

  ‘We’ll have to.’ He tipped his head to the door of the cubicle. ‘Go on. You first.’

  She gave him a last, lingering kiss, searing his lips with hers, and slipped out. When she’d checked the coast was clear, she rapped on the cubicle door and strode away.

  He emerged into the corridor a few seconds later and they continued their journey towards the underground garage where her car was waiting, the chauffeur already behind the wheel. Apart from a brief nod of thanks, she didn’t interact with James again. Didn’t look back as the car pulled away.

  In the back of the car she took out a small compact and checked herself in the mirror. Lipstick a little smeared. She’d have to be more careful in future.

  She studied her face
. Not bad for thirty-seven. Not bad at all. Her skin tone was still fresh, and the lines were minimal, apart from the tiniest wisps radiating from the corners of her eyes when she smiled.

  No, she didn’t mind looking at her face at all. Except her eyes. Emma had difficulty gazing into her eyes for any length of time, because of what she saw there.

  A woman who was cheating on her husband. With one of the most trusted bodyguards of the Director of MI5.

  She forced herself to study her reflection for a few seconds more, then put the mirror away.

  Through the window, the great sweep of the Thames drew Emma’s eye northwards. The magnificence of the view crowded out the stab of guilt she’d felt when… well, when she’d remembered what she was, and what she was doing.

  Four days. Then she and James would be together, for a few stolen hours.

  Until then, it was business as usual. Taking the kids to karate and ballet classes, joshing with Ulyana, their live-in nanny, and maintaining the fiction that she had much in common with the woman, joining the other members of the Residents’ Association to plan their strategy when they confronted the council about the proposed new supermarket in the area.

  Living in harmony with Brian. Dependable, affable Brian, who’d never done a single thing to hurt her. And whom she was now deceiving in the most clichéd way.

  Emma closed her eyes, leant back in the seat, and gave herself over to thoughts of her next meeting with James.

  Five

  By the time Purkiss unlocked the door to his house it was a little after seven in the evening. The oppressive, beating heat of the late afternoon had simmered down to a sticky drowse; there was even a hint of coolness in the infrequent breezes that wafted about.

  Purkiss lived in Hampstead, a former village long ago incorporated into the hungry expanding beast that was London. High up in the north of the city, it afforded spectacular views from the heath nearby. Often in the evenings, when the weather was cooler, Purkiss would go running through the rambling grassland, but he knew it would be infested now with tourists, dogwalkers and picnickers.