State Secrets

by Quintin Jardine

  ‘But she isn’t,’ Neil murmured as we stepped away from the counter.

  ‘Trust me,’ I said. ‘Her brain will be so scrambled she’ll assume she’s forgotten.’

  It didn’t take long to prove me right. ‘Gentlemen, Dr Satchell is in Portcullis House,’ the helpful receptionist called out. ‘She apologises and asks if you could meet her there, in the courtyard. You’ll have to go back outside, and cross the road, I’m afraid. Members of the public can’t access it directly from here.’

  McIlhenney stepped back towards him and spoke quietly to him. I saw a warrant card being flashed, and the usual change of expression.

  Portcullis House connects to the Commons by the same colonnade that we had used earlier. We found our way back quite easily; we stepped off an escalator into the vast central atrium of the newest building in the parliamentary complex, just in time to see Mickey Satchell trotting down the stairway that faced us.

  She turned towards the street level entrance, expecting her visitors to arrive from that direction.

  I tried not to startle her but she jumped nonetheless as we walked up to her and I called out, ‘Good afternoon, Dr Satchell.’

  She spun round to face us. Stylistically, she had known better days. Her hair wasn’t quite dishevelled but it looked as if it had been patted back in place, and all the eye make-up in the bag she carried couldn’t disguise their puffiness.

  ‘Mr Skinner,’ she murmured, frowning, as if she was trying to work something out. ‘I’m sorry,’ she continued, ‘I can’t stop; there are people coming to see me, constituents . . . today of all days. I’d forgotten all about them.’

  ‘No you hadn’t,’ I told her. ‘I’m sorry about the deception, but we need to speak to you again and I couldn’t allow you the option of avoiding us.’

  I’d expected a protest, but there was none; not the faintest sign of annoyance, only confusion. ‘This is about Emily?’ she replied. ‘But surely, now that she really is dead, this is a matter for the police.’

  ‘I am the police,’ Neil pointed out.

  ‘As for me,’ I added, ‘I’m still wearing my Security Service hat, even if it doesn’t fit me too well. Yes, this has become a murder investigation, but it’s still a very discreet one and it’s still in our hands.’

  ‘You surprise me,’ she admitted. ‘I thought that our new Prime Minister . . .’

  I smiled. ‘Would have got me out of here sharpish?’ I suggested. ‘Left to his own devices he probably would have, but the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police saw it differently. Where can we talk?’

  ‘Do you want to come up to my office?’

  I looked around; the space seemed to have been designed for casual meetings, with coffee tables gathered around a cafeteria at the far end. Very few of them were occupied. ‘Nah,’ I murmured. ‘Let’s go along there, Dr Satchell. As far as the world knows, we really are constituents.’

  She nodded agreement and led the way, bustling through the courtyard with an air of ownership. She chose a table that was as far removed as possible from any other in use. ‘Would you like coffee, gentlemen?’ she offered, in a voice loud enough to carry to the closest groups, acting out the part of a welcoming MP.

  I glanced at Neil; he shook his head. ‘No, we’re fine, thanks,’ I said, then waited until she was seated before taking one myself; Skinner, always the gentleman.

  ‘How can I help you?’ she began, the volume much lower, leaning forward, almost hunched over the table. ‘I don’t know what more I can tell you. I found Emily, I made a tragically wrong diagnosis, and I yelled for help. Roland Kramer took over from there, he called in the Security Service and you got involved.’

  ‘For my past sins,’ I agreed. ‘Okay, Dr Satchell, you’ve told us that you saw Ms Repton in her office yesterday morning at around ten o’clock and never thereafter, until you found her, not dead as you thought, but dying as we know now.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘You are absolutely certain of that?’ I asked.

  ‘One hundred per cent,’ she insisted.

  ’How are you physically, doctor?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Are you in good health?’

  ‘Yes. Why shouldn’t I be?’

  I frowned. ‘I’ve been told that you have a history of problems related to drug abuse.’

  Her face twisted into a look of fury. ‘And who the fuck told you that?’ she hissed.

  ‘You know I’m not going to say. But you’re not going to deny it, are you? You can’t imagine that you’d get to be the Prime Minister’s PPS without being rigorously vetted.’

  ‘No, I’m not going to deny it; it happened, but I was young and, like many junior doctors, under tremendous workload pressure.’

  ‘It was severe, though,’ I continued. ‘You were hospitalised?’

  ‘Hospitalised, treated and discharged. Like I said, it’s ancient history, and if one word of it gets into the public domain, I will sue your arse off.’

  ‘It won’t get there through me,’ I assured her, ‘but if it did through any other source, suing would be pretty pointless, because it’s true. Anyway, I ask you again, did it leave any residual problems? Memory loss, for example.’

  Satchell shook her head, vigorously. ‘Absolutely not. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Because I have a witness who saw someone remarkably like you coming out of the Prime Minister’s room at ten fifty-ish yesterday morning.’

  As the last vestige of anger left her face and as it paled, I knew the gamble had paid off. I waited patiently, watching her trying to frame her reply, looking for a way to extricate herself from the fairly deep metaphorical shit in which she stood.

  It took an age, but I gave her all the leeway she needed. ‘I didn’t go in,’ she murmured when she was ready. ‘I took someone there, but I didn’t go in. It might have looked like I was coming out of there but I didn’t go in.’

  McIlhenney threw her his most sceptical glance, and he’s an international-class sceptic. ‘You’re going to have to talk us through that one,’ he drawled.

  ‘I know it sounds odd,’ she conceded, obviously agitated, ‘but it’s true. Emily called me, and said that a man would ask for me by name, in the Central Lobby. I was to meet him there and take him to her room.’

  ‘A man? Help us here; what was his name?’

  ‘She didn’t tell me,’ she insisted. ‘All she said was that a man would ask for me by name at the desk.’

  Neil’s look was full of scorn. ‘Tall man? Short man? Black man? White man? Thin man? Fat man?’

  ‘None of that. All she said was that a man would ask for me.’

  ‘And we can confirm this by going back to see the people at the reception point in the lobby?’

  ‘Well, no,’ she admitted. ‘As it happened he didn’t ask for me. I went straight there; being Monday morning the lobby area was quiet. I was the only person there, and he came straight up to me.’

  ‘This is all so implausible, Dr Satchell,’ I murmured, ‘that it’s probably true. How did Ms Repton call you?’

  ‘On the internal line.’

  ‘Which of course is untraceable. You’d never seen him before, is that what you’re telling us?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Then describe him please,’ I said, my sarcasm level rising to match McIlhenney’s.

  She looked me in the eye, as if she was trying to summon up some defiance. ‘You know Chewbacca in Star Wars? The Wookie?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, he looked fuck all like him,’ she retorted, drawing an involuntary smile from McIlhenney that vanished as quickly as it appeared. ‘He was nondescript; a couple of inches shorter than you, Mr Skinner, but much less shop worn and twenty years younger; early thirties, maybe a lit
tle older, dark hair, clean shaven, clear eyed. The type I never saw at all when I was in medical practice because he was exuding good health. Do you want me to do an Identikit picture for you?’

  ‘No thanks,’ I replied. ‘I’ll just dig out my passport photo from the nineties. You’ve just described me.’

  I wasn’t kidding; I was sure that’s what she had done, but she didn’t bite, holding her ground instead. ‘Well, that’s the best I can do,’ she snapped.

  ‘Then let’s move on. You led this man whom you’d never met, whose name you didn’t know, into a private part of this building, right up to the PM’s door . . . but you didn’t go in?’

  ‘No, I just knocked on the door, then opened it. He stepped inside and I closed it behind him.’

  ‘How did you even know that the Prime Minister was in there?’ I challenged her.

  ‘As I opened it, I heard the sound of the toilet flushing. The plumbing in here is still Victorian; it isn’t discreet.’

  ‘Did Ms Repton ever leave the seat up?’ Neil asked casually.

  She looked at him, down the full length of her nose. ‘What woman does?’ she murmured.

  Twenty-Eight

  Whether Mickey Satchell had been in the Prime Minister’s office didn’t concern me. Not that I believed it; I couldn’t see any conscientious PPS just opening the door and shoving a person she didn’t know inside without checking that her boss was still okay with it. I reckoned she’d been caught in a lie, denying that she’d seen Emily after ten o’clock, and that her account was the only way she could see to wriggle out of it.

  Truth or not it was academic; whether she’d been in there or not, Brady had spotted her at ten fifty; if he had got the time right, her boss’s phone records indicated that she had been active after that.

  What was relevant was that there had been no sign of her, or the mystery visitor, on the CCTV footage that we’d been given to review.

  Once Satchell had left us and headed back to her office, Neil suggested that we go to his to consider our next step. But I already knew what it would be. We stayed at our table and I called Amanda Dennis’s private number.

  ‘You know we’re still on the case?’ I asked, as she picked up the call.

  ‘Yes, Feargal told me; in fact he asked my permission.’

  ‘That was damn proper of him,’ I grunted. ‘You never asked mine.’

  ‘I know you too well,’ she laughed. ‘Short of your wife going into labour, nothing would drag you away from this now. And even then . . .’ she pondered.

  ‘My wife isn’t going into labour,’ I retorted. ‘In fact she’s getting on a train in a short time from now and heading down here. Feargal’s agreed that she should do the post-mortem.’

  ‘Is she indeed?’ Amanda murmured. ‘Now that I didn’t know. People won’t be happy about that.’

  ‘I don’t imagine they will be,’ I agreed, ‘but it’s the right thing to do. Those people are interested parties at the very least; the alternative would have given them ministerial oversight of the process, and that is certainly not appropriate.’

  ‘Agreed. They won’t be happy, as I said, but they can’t doubt your wife’s suitability for the task. Will she be assisted?’

  ‘This is England,’ I pointed out, unnecessarily. ‘There’s no legal need for a second pathologist to be present. But if Sarah wants one, I’m sure she’ll be able to call on one of her academic colleagues . . . as long as he isn’t on the Home Office panel.’ I paused. ‘But that’s tomorrow’s business. I have other pressing matters. The CCTV you sent me; where did it come from? Who oversees the coverage?’

  ‘The man I mentioned earlier, Rudy Muttiah, the Parliamentary Security Director; I believe the cameras are operated by contractors, but he’ll be able to tell you.’

  ‘Did you see that footage?’

  ‘I still haven’t seen it; I had it sent straight to you. Why?’

  ‘Maybe nothing; most likely a technical hitch, or,’ I added, as the possibility struck me, ‘carelessness on our part. I’ll need to look at it again. Where do I find the Muttiah man?’

  ‘His office is in Portcullis House,’ she volunteered.

  ‘Happy coincidence: that’s where we are now.’

  She gave me a direct dial number; I called it straightaway.

  ‘PSD’s office,’ a male voice announced. If treacle had a sound, that’s what it would have been.

  ‘Hello,’ I said. ‘I’d like to speak with Mr Muttiah, the Parliamentary Security Director. My name is Skinner; I believe that Sir Feargal Aherne may have mentioned me to him.’

  ‘Yeah, he did,’ molasses man replied. ‘This is Rudy; I have a small team and today it’s off sick, hence I’m answering my own phone. What can I do for you, Mr Skinner?’

  ‘Commander McIlhenney and I need to ask you about the CCTV footage we reviewed yesterday, but not over the phone.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘In the same building as you, or so I’m told. In the courtyard.’

  ‘Come up to the second floor; I’ll meet you at the lifts.’

  We had to look around to spot the elevators, which were tucked away in the opposite corner of the atrium area, then had to wait for one to arrive. I am not the most patient man in the world, as everyone but my younger daughter Seonaid will admit . . . Seonaid being the apple of my eye, and the only person in the world who can make me do exactly as she wants when she wants . . . and so I was fidgeting impatiently when it did open its doors, even more so when it went down instead of up.

  When finally we reached the second floor and stepped out, Rudy Muttiah’s smile raised my irritability level by a couple of notches. Why are you fucking smiling, mate? I thought. The Prime Minister got killed on your watch.

  He defused me pretty quickly, though. ‘Am I glad to see you guys,’ the grey-suited man said, and he meant it.

  Undistorted by the digital machinations of a mobile phone, the richness of his voice possessed a soothing quality.

  And something else; the sigh that it carried made me realise that while Neil and I had been hung out to dry, potentially, by being handed an assignment that, if it wasn’t unprecedented in its sensitivity and importance, was at least in the same ballpark as JFK and his brother, we were not alone. Rudy Muttiah might not have been an investigator, but his arse was on the line as well.

  He was a big guy, an inch or so taller than me, and I’m no midget. His skin was a deep bronze hue that was a perfect match for his voice. His thick black hair showed not a trace of grey, and yet the lines around his eyes suggested that he was in his forties. I tried to guess his racial make-up but his Yorkshire accent kept getting in the way.

  He read my mind. ‘Dad Sri Lankan,’ he volunteered, ‘Mum from Sheffield. Come on, my office is just along here.’

  We followed him, turning left, then going halfway down a passage that was open on one side, overlooking the courtyard, and with opaque glass walls on the other. He stopped at a door with no adornment other than a number, two hundred and twenty-two.

  ‘This is me,’ he said, as he led us into a wide open area, with two desks, neither occupied, and a meeting table. The wall beyond had two doors. They weren’t glass; they might have been real rosewood. The parsimony of my Scottish soul made me hope that they were a cheaper alternative, but the opulence of the rest of the Westminster complex made me doubt that.

  ‘Your absent team?’ I asked, nodding at the vacant desks.

  He nodded. ‘Bloody flu,’ he growled. ‘Come on through.’

  He opened the door on the right and showed us into his private office. His desk was set at right angles to the door, allowing him a view of the House of Commons . . . that is to say the parts that weren’t covered in scaffolding. I glanced around. There was a framed photo on the desk, a woman and two young children, and on
the walls two framed artworks that I realised were old vinyl album covers, London Calling by The Clash and Too Much Too Young by The Specials. I know a bit about music; it didn’t take me long to make the connection.

  He saw me looking. ‘You know The Clash song “Rudie Can’t Fail”? It’s been lodged in my head for the last twenty-four hours: this Rudy has failed and he’s been shut out. That’s what I’m feeling. Whatever happened over there, if it’s down to a failure in security, then I should be dealing with it.’

  ‘How much have you been told?’ Neil asked him.

  ‘The Home Secretary called me yesterday morning; he told me there had been an incident in the Prime Minister’s Commons office, but that it was being contained. The detail I got later, from the news, after she’d been taken to hospital. Then I had a call from the head of MI5, asking me for security footage of the area in the House that leads to the senior ministers’ office corridor.’

  ‘Do you control the cameras over there?’

  ‘Control? On a day-to-day basis, no. Am I responsible for them? Yes. The CCTV monitoring service is contracted out to a private firm but they report to me. When Mrs Dennis called me . . . she called me herself, how bloody usual is that? . . . she asked me to supply her with the footage within a specific timeframe. I called the service manager and had it set up; told him to copy personally that period of the recording and make it accessible through a link. I assume that all happened because I’ve heard nothing since.’

  ‘It happened,’ I confirmed. ‘We’ve seen it. Now we’d like to speak to the person who put the clip together.’

  ‘Do you have a problem with it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘Let’s call it a potential anomaly for now. Is there any way someone could have been in that area of the House without being picked up by the camera?’

  ‘None,’ the Security Director replied, firmly. ‘Are you suggesting that happened?’

  ‘That’s how it looks,’ I told him.

  ‘Come see this,’ he said. There was a second doorway, between the two framed album covers. He opened it and led us into a room that was slightly bigger than his own. The wall that faced us was covered completely by monitor screens.