by Tom Bradby
And then they were on the common, the grass firm and springy beneath their feet as they moved from sunshine to dappled pools of shade and back again, the sound of birdsong in their ears, rabbits on the path ahead scattering into the undergrowth at their approach.
He was wearing his brown leather ankle boots and an old pair of brown corduroy trousers, his woollen army shirt replaced by a thin T-shirt that had also once been military issue, the hairs of his chest poking out of the top.
‘Your school report came this morning, did Mum tell you that?’
‘Yes.’
‘It was very good – I’ll show you when we get back. I was in a rush and, selfishly, took it to work.’
He moved closer to her, a thick forearm around her shoulder as he hugged her. ‘You’re a very clever girl.’ He ruffled her hair, then smoothed it down with the flat of his palm. ‘Chemistry’s the only blind spot.’
‘I know, I’m sorry.’
‘I don’t want you to be sorry, or in any way influenced by the fact that I’m spending my retirement fund …’
‘You talk rubbish. Mrs Beak is really crabby and … you know everyone laughs so much teasing her and she sets up these experiments and then disappears into the back and somebody sabotages them … you know, putting in a tiny bit of sulphuric acid or something and she comes out and looks bemused and can’t understand what went wrong.’
Mitchell put his arm around her again.
‘I suppose I should try harder.’
‘Well, don’t beat yourself up about it. It’s only chemistry.’
Julia had not noticed the figures ahead, perhaps because Alice was small and Sarah was standing in the shadow of a tree, watching her daughter as she played with a long stick, pretending to fish in the river that ran alongside them.
‘It’s the neighbours,’ Mitchell said easily.
‘We’re fishing,’ Sarah said, with a tired look on her face. ‘And we’ve been fishing for quite some time …’
‘All right then,’ Mitchell said, clapping his hands together. ‘We’ll play hide and seek … Alice?’
Alice looked up. Her face was solemn and she did not catch Julia’s eye.
‘A week’s pocket money says we find you both inside ten minutes, with a minute’s head start.’
And then they were running, up the hill, along a narrower path, Julia holding Alice’s hand and occasionally looking into her eyes. Alice rarely smiled, but did so now, as a gesture of trust in the older girl.
They hid, close to the wizened tree stump, under a thick bush, looking out towards the centre of the clearing.
Julia could feel her heart beating fast, Alice’s small hand still in her own.
They waited, Julia’s eyes fixed on the centre of the clearing. Daddy and Sarah would break cover any minute. They must know that the two of them had run in this direction.
They waited and watched.
Julia’s heart thumped.
They waited.
The clearing was silent but for the sound of the birds, the grass ahead still.
Julia watched a rabbit jump out from the cover of the wizened tree stump, sniffing the air. Another followed, until a whole family had emerged from hiding.
She scanned the clearing again.
Where had they got to?
Thinking they might be coming from a different direction, Julia craned her neck, but behind her she could only see a low branch of the beech tree swaying in an isolated gust of wind.
Julia turned back, catching Alice’s eye and seeing the nervousness there. She tried to smile, reassuringly, before turning her eyes back to the clearing.
They waited. Her heart seemed to be thumping harder in her chest.
Julia sat bolt upright, then got out of bed, the light of the moon spilling through her bedroom curtains and across the wall opposite.
Her pyjamas were damp, her whole body covered in a thin film of sweat. She wiped her forehead and sat down, with her back to the window, head bent.
CHAPTER FOUR
MAC HAD BEEN standing outside the classroom for ten minutes when the door opened and the men came pouring out. He nodded to the last and slipped in behind them through the springloaded door. Lieutenant Colonel Callum Bland was shuffling papers together on the lectern at the front. Behind him, there was a blackboard with LOCATIONS written in white chalk at the top, then a list, which included ‘car-parks, city centre street (car pick-up), train stations, sports centre, remote location (but agent must have cover story to explain presence), wood, etc.’. As he followed Mac’s eyes to the words, Bland pulled the last sheet off the overhead projector and closed the file.
Bland was Julia’s commanding officer and Mac towered over him, but at six foot six, he towered over most people. ‘I’m sorry to bother you. I’m Captain Macintosh. I left a message …’
‘I got it.’
Mac tried to smile. ‘New arrivals?’
Bland nodded. ‘You want tea?’ he asked. ‘Or would you prefer to get on with it here?’
Mac sat in front of one of the tables. Bland took a chair and pulled it round so that he could sit opposite.
Mac looked briefly out of the window at the well-kept corner of lawn and the line of men crossing it. This had once been home to Julia the professional woman, but would she ever come back here? The potential consequences of the incident in Beijing were coming to seem very real.
He turned back. Callum Bland had thick, wavy blond hair and a lived-in face, like a drunk. He was in uniform, but wore black ankle boots. He was not as warm or attractive a man as Mac had expected from the brief he had written about Julia.
Bland looked at Mac reprovingly. ‘We could have done this on the phone.’
Mac forced another smile. ‘I’m sure it can be brief.’ He thought of the completed application for a transfer to the Intelligence Corps that still lay in the drawer of his desk at home and wondered if that was why he had bothered to come in person, but knew it was more than that.
‘Let’s make it so,’ Bland said.
Mac cleared his throat. ‘Your background report was comprehensive.’
Bland waited. ‘And?’
‘You said that you would prefer to have dealt with this in-regiment rather than getting into the business of having a charge laid.’
‘Yes, I would.’
‘I just wondered if you can think of anything that would mitigate the circumstances, so to speak.’
‘You’re seeking to mitigate? That’s an unusual position for a military policeman conducting an investigation.’
‘She’s a bright young officer of my generation. I’m reluctant to see her cast aside.’ Mac looked down at the table in front of him. ‘I think we both know she’s in a lot of trouble, but it’s a high-profile case.’ He looked up at Bland again. ‘You know, first woman to win the Sword of Honour. If I can put together a comprehensive enough argument that the circumstances were exceptional then I’m sure they would be interested in the possibility of letting her off with a warning.’
‘Who is they?’
‘The Ministry of Defence. There is a high level of concern because of the potential public interest, especially if she were to be discharged. The MoD, I’m sure, will want to avoid a scandal if they can.’ Mac leant back in his chair, feeling suddenly more hopeful. Perhaps the way forward was to skirt Rigby and appeal to the powers above him. ‘I suppose,’ he went on, ‘quite a lot depends on the attitude of the man she assaulted and I’ve yet to talk to him. I believe he’s on his way back from Beijing.’
Bland sighed and his face softened. ‘I admire your optimism and compassion, Captain. Perhaps if it hadn’t been in an embassy it would be easier, but I’m told that the ambassador in Beijing and the FO are absolutely livid and they want her head. They’re terrified the Chinese will find out that they had a gun in the embassy.’
‘No shot was fired.’
‘True, but there’s a guard on the gate. In the scuffle Havilland pushed Jarrow into one of the windows in t
he lobby, breaking it. It directly overlooks the courtyard at the front. If nothing else, it’s damned embarrassing.’
‘I suppose I have two questions,’ Mac said. ‘One, what actually happened? And two, can you think of any reason why someone you held in such high regard would behave in such a … surprising manner?’
‘The first is easy. Julia … Captain Havilland and her team went out to see if there was anything in an approach made to our attaché there, as I said in my note. The Chinese colonel’s name was Li Queng. With the help of an asset the Americans possess, Julia was able to ascertain to her and our satisfaction that he was genuine. All he was asking was that we bear the costs of educating his son at Cambridge – he was very specific about the university – when the time came. The boy was twelve. We agreed that the British Council would ensure he was offered one of their scholarships and that we would find additional funding, if required.’
‘So, what happened?’
‘Well, I can’t go into specifics, but you know the points of tension … Taiwan, new technology. It was helpful to us and to the Americans to have some accurate information on certain aspects of Chinese military deployment. The British embassy in Beijing is only a short walk from the American one and Captain Havilland was responsible for liaising with her equivalent officers there.’
Mac was taking notes and Bland waited for him to finish. ‘This must remain completely confidential.’
Mac nodded.
‘There are various points of tension with an agent – whether he is telling the truth, whether what he is telling you has value, and whether he’s going to get caught. The first our team knew of anything amiss was when the video-tape of the execution was dropped into the letterbox at the British embassy.’
‘What was the argument about?’
‘I don’t know exactly, but I believe Jarrow and Blackstone thought Captain Havilland had pushed Li Queng too hard. In the argument, they accused her of trying to impress her superiors and, in particular, the Americans.’
‘Could that be true?’
Bland sighed again, leaning back on his chair and resting one foot on his knee, the leg at a right angle. He stretched his arms above his head, clasping his hands together. ‘That’s a judgement I don’t yet intend to make. She was ambitious, of that there is no doubt, but she was also absolutely loyal. She ran an agent in Ireland and on several occasions went right to the wire to protect his position when she felt she was being pushed too hard for information.’
‘In what way?’
Bland tilted his head to one side, as if trying to find the best way to explain this. ‘The intelligence community always has major flaps on. Vague “int” on an assassination threat, perhaps. Then the word comes down the line – “See what your agent can find out about the target.” Suppose it’s a potential threat to the Prime Minister or the Queen. Big target, big flap, big pressure. Fuck the agent – he can, in theory, be replaced – this is the Prime Minister we’re talking about. But push too hard and the agent may push too hard and then he gets rumbled. That leads to a termination. A careerist is always inclined to do what his superiors want. Julia was nothing like that. She’d given her word to her man. If she didn’t feel it was safe, she wouldn’t even brief her agent on it. That’s why I sent her to Beijing.’
‘So what went wrong?’
‘I wish I knew.’
‘Ideas? Thoughts?’
Bland’s face was pensive. Mac thought he was trying to decide whether or not to confide in him.
‘I knew her father a bit. I worked with him in Ireland once in the seventies for a few months. He was a big man. Too … bullish for my taste, but – and don’t bloody quote me on this – I’d say there was a lot of pressure to excel when he was alive and I would imagine she felt that even more strongly once he had been killed, especially given the circumstances of his death, war hero and so on. I don’t know, in retrospect, if she is a … settled personality. If everyone is a mixture of sometimes contradictory forces, most have achieved a balance. That’s what allows them to know who they are and what they want. I don’t think she has achieved that balance. That is all I think I can say.’ Bland looked at his watch. ‘I really must go, I’ve so much to do. Do you need more?’
Mac looked down at his notebook and shook his head, but before he could thank him, Bland was marching away, the classroom door emitting a hiss as an electronic lever pushed it shut behind him.
An hour and twenty minutes later Mac’s old Ford Fiesta wheezed into the car-park at Woolwich.
Thoughts in the car had not led anywhere. Julia had never talked about her ambition in Norway but, then, she had never needed to. It was there. It was obvious. Everyone had known she would be the first woman to win the Sword of Honour yet he had never discerned any sign of resentment or heard accusations of political correctness from those around her.
The door of the Fiesta didn’t lock. The driving seat was bent and broken, which was why it was uncomfortable, but having paid his mother five thousand pounds for it – about five thousand times what it was worth – Mac was not going to be able to afford anything else for a while. It had been the only way he could persuade his mother to accept any money from him.
Inside, Rigby’s office was dark, but Corporal Wellar was there. Unlike Sanderson, Wellar had no family so was always hanging around. Rigby didn’t trust him with any responsibility.
‘How’s it going?’ Wellar asked.
‘Fine.’ Mac never meant to be terse with Wellar.
‘Did you finish with the Carpenter file?’
Mac frowned.
‘The tit-rubbing.’
‘That’s not very politically correct, Wellar.’
‘What did you do with the file, sir?’
‘It’s on Rigby’s desk.’
Mac sat down and took Julia’s file out of his satchel. He flicked open the front cover and once again Julia stared out at him. He picked up the phone and dialled her mother’s number, which he knew by heart. It was engaged. He pulled the keyboard off the top of the screen and logged on. Wellar offered to get him a coffee, but he said no.
Mac had not yet placed a check search in ‘Investigations and Charges’, which was a procedural oversight. He called up the search engine and typed in ‘Havilland, Captain, Julia’, before hitting the return button.
The screen went from white to blue, the word SEARCHING flashing in the middle of it.
The system was slow. He put the end of a pencil in his mouth.
The screen read: ‘Entry found (1).’ It turned white again as the listing came up. ‘No exact match. Havilland, Colonel Mitchell (1).’
Mac hit the return key again to pull up this entry: ‘File 66743/B,’ it read, ‘Havilland, Lieutenant Colonel, Mitchell. Investigation into death. No discrepancies found, save for informant. No further action due to informant’s psychiatric condition. Current battalion CO informed official complaint made and investigated. No action to be taken.’
This was a summary. The bottom line asked him whether he wished to call up the full file, so he moved the cursor to cover ‘Y’ for yes and hit the return key once more.
The screen turned back to blue while the computer searched for the full file. After a few seconds, the instruction bar in the middle said: ‘Enter access code E1A.’ Mac frowned. He’d never before needed an access code. He stared at the screen and the words ACCESS DENIED flashed at him. He sat back, putting his arms above his head, stretching again and thinking. Julia’s father’s death had been the result of one of the few genuine, undisputed acts of heroism that the modern army had produced.
He tried to think of a way to gain access to the file. Asking Rigby seemed the obvious step, but he wasn’t here, so he returned to the screen containing the brief summary and pressed the print key.
Rigby came in. Mac realized he was staring into space. ‘Time on your hands?’ Rigby asked, as he passed.
Mac didn’t bother to smile. He followed Rigby into his office, glancing at the page in hi
s hand and at the words ‘discrepancies’ and ‘informant’. He wondered what discrepancies and which informant.
Rigby sat down heavily. He had a picture of his wife and two sons on the desk beside him – a portly woman with curly blond hair and two equally rotund dark-haired children. Mac wondered if Rigby’s wife knew about the occasional games of ‘badminton’ with Sheila in the Stakis Hotel in Woolwich, or about his devotion to the bottle of whisky in the bottom of the desk.
Mac handed him the sheet. ‘I’ve never heard of access codes,’ he said.
‘You’ve never needed to.’
‘Can I have a look at that file? Can I get the access code?’
‘What’s the relevance?’ Rigby looked suddenly shifty.
‘You said it earlier. Sensitive case. Sword of Honour. Father died a hero, danger of negative press. Just want to look at anything that might be relevant.’
‘Give me ten.’
Mac turned to go. Rigby was stalling.
‘Oh, and, Macintosh,’ Mac stopped in the doorway, ‘it’s a simple case. She doesn’t dispute anything, so check with her that she hasn’t changed her tune, then talk to the CO to see if there’s anything else to take into account, then straight in here for a proper briefing. I’ll get Jones down from the MoD.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Anything to tell me so far?’
‘Not yet.’
Mac walked to the end, passing Sheila’s desk, before pushing through the swing doors. Sheila was a thirty-seven-year-old divorcee who dieted religiously and made herself available. Mac wondered if Rigby knew she occasionally made herself available to Sanderson as well.
He washed his hands, looking into the fractured mirror. He thought he was beginning to look older than his years, his face lined and leathery, as his father’s had been.
He walked slowly back into the office.
Rigby’s office door was flung open. He marched over. ‘Forget about that file,’ he said. ‘Not relevant.’
‘Not relevant, sir?’
Rigby nodded. ‘Yes, that’s right. The file on Havilland senior, not relevant. Forget about it.’