‘Precisely. If they’d all turned up, Naomi, you’d have had a collection of the so called great and good and the politically influential, that even the local press would have started to wonder.’
‘But why would Clay want him dead? And he wasn’t exactly a young man; couldn’t he have arranged one of those phoney heart attacks you were talking about?’
‘I think … no, I’m guessing that Clay wants certain people to sit up and take notice. That he wants it to be obvious that he can get to anyone, any time. What puzzles me is the timing. What has changed that makes it so important to him to be making statements now? I think if I knew that, I could do something about it. About Clay, too.’
‘I’m not sure I follow. What’s stopping you?’
Gregory started the engine and reversed carefully. He was a very conscientious driver, Naomi thought. It seemed at odds with all she knew about him; then again, he was meticulous about everything else, too.
‘So, what’s stopping you?’ she asked again.
‘What’s stopping me is that I don’t know what booby traps Clay will have set, ready to explode in the event of his death. Think about it simply, in an ordinary way. You take one person out, Naomi, have someone die, even an ordinary, ordinarily blameless individual, it still causes ripples. You just think about it. A friend or relative dies, they leave a void, into that void other things will move, other people will shift. Friendships and associations that happened only because that person occupied a central position, they will fall apart and disappear. As the man said, the centre cannot hold.’
‘Yeats.’
‘Yes. I like his poems.’
Naomi laughed. ‘You like poetry? I never would have figured—’
‘I like his poems,’ Gregory contradicted. ‘I never said I liked poetry in general.’
‘OK, so things fall apart. You’re telling me that if Clay is taken out of the picture then there’ll be some kind of power struggle or power vacuum?’
‘That, too,’ he said. ‘What I’m saying is, when you take one of the gatekeepers out of the equation—’
‘Someone like Edward. You said Edward was a gatekeeper.’
‘I did, yes. When you take someone like Edward out of the equation, the secrets have a tendency to leak out and someone has to clean them up before any damage is done. Mostly, the secrets just die with the person, but there are always loose ends.’
‘Like the file Molly kept. The one she dumped at Gilligan and Hayes.’
‘Like that one. Yes.’
‘And you don’t know what else she might have.’
‘No, but I suspect Clay does. Or at least Clay thinks he does. But that aside, if you take someone like Clay out of the equation, well it’s a bit like taking the keystone out of an arch. Clay will have made sure that if he’s assassinated, then a great deal of shit will hit a great many fans. It’s in the interest of a lot of people that individuals like Clay live out their natural lives as peacefully as possible. Clay helped a lot of people to a lot of power over the years.’
‘But you want him dead, now,’ Naomi said flatly.
‘And I’m not the only one,’ Gregory confirmed. ‘It’s just going to be interesting to see who gets him in the end.’
‘And who takes over from him?’
Gregory laughed. ‘That too,’ he said. ‘Like I told your friend, Liz, I’m set to retire. But I could be persuaded otherwise, with the right incentive.’
Suddenly shocked by the implication, Naomi turned her head to face him.
Gregory chuckled. ‘You’re looking at me again, our Naomi,’ he said. ‘You’ve got your shocked face on. Well don’t be. Better me than many of the others it could be.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, I’m a pussy cat compared to the likes of Clay. I do at least have a moral compass, though I’m not going to pretend I know which way it points most of the time.’
‘And that’s supposed to be a comfort?’
‘Naomi, once this is over, or sooner if you and Alec decide to clear out in the morning, I’ll be gone from your lives. Molly will, hopefully, have survived to be belligerent for another decade and the rest of the world will notice nothing different. It will be all change; all stay the same, just as it is on any given morning, any given year. No one will notice a damned thing.
‘If we play this right, Clay will be buried with full honours and that will be that. Get it wrong—’
‘Full honours?’ Something in his tone suggested Gregory wasn’t speaking metaphorically.
‘Ah, didn’t get to that bit, did I? Well just as Arthur Fields had a legitimate job, so does Clay. Moved from MI6 to MI5 back in the late nineties. He did a lot of work for the Thatcher government, I believe; was even posted at Menwith Hill for a while.’
‘Menwith what?’
‘Another place that doesn’t exists. Or rather, that exists as an RAF base. The CIA are not permitted to spy on their own people from their own land, so they use a bit of ours. I understand its more NSA these days. Clay was there in the early days to smooth the path of communications, shall we say. I understand he’s now an adviser for GCHQ. You’ve got to understand, he’s older than me, so officially retired. Only people like Clay never retire.’
‘I’m not sure I believe you, now,’ Naomi told him, frankly.
‘Oh? At what point did I cross your acceptance threshold? You can believe in all the unofficial cloak and dagger stuff, even believe that Molly might be mixed up in some dodgy dealings, but can’t accept that one such dodgy dealer might also be employed by Her Maj’s government.’ Gregory chuckled to himself.
‘I don’t know what to believe,’ Naomi said. ‘I really don’t.’
‘Leave it at that, then. Just be careful, keep your distance as much as you can and if I think things are going to get rough, I’ll do my best to warn you. My advice is the same. Go home, live quietly. Have lunch with your sister and take dog to paddle in the sea. Be conspicuously inconspicuous and, chances are, everyone will leave you alone.’
‘Chances are? What kind of guarantee is that?’
‘None,’ Gregory told her. ‘But it’s the best I can do.’
THIRTY-ONE
‘How is he? Did you see him?’ Bill and the dog came to greet Barnes at the front door. ‘Will he be able to have a visitor or two soon?’
‘For goodness sake, love, let the man in. Come on through.’
Barnes followed the wife through to the living room and took the offered seat. ‘You’ll want tea? Of course you will. Sit down and I’ll get some.’
Bill sat down and leaned eagerly across to Barnes. ‘I heard on the news that those two men died,’ he said. ‘If we could only have got to them sooner. We all tried so hard to get into the back of that van. Who on earth would want to do something like that?’
‘We still don’t know,’ Barnes admitted. ‘But you and the officers did your best. You mustn’t blame yourself in any way.’
‘Hard not to, though, isn’t it? And if he’d just come out to help us, then the office would have been empty and no one would have been hurt.’
Bill slumped back into his chair. ‘What did they say at the hospital?’
‘That he’s woken up and talked a bit and they think he’s going to be all right. I think it might be a few days before visitors are allowed, but you should be able to see him soon. Are you back at work yet? Has the scene been released?’
‘The scene? Oh you mean the crime scene at the warehouse. Funny thinking about it like that. I’ve been signed off sick for a week. They’ve got an agency in for a while. Four men, where there were just the two of us. Goes to show, doesn’t it?’
Barnes nodded, though he wasn’t sure what exactly it showed. ‘Will you be going back?’
Bill looked meaningfully towards the kitchen door. ‘She doesn’t want me to,’ he said. ‘But like I said to her, I’m not far off retirement. Who’s going to want me now? There’s talk about the agency taking over completely. Boss says
he’ll see if they’ll take me on, like, but—’ Bill spread his hands wide. ‘Who knows? If not, well we’ve talked about it and figure we might sell up and move closer to our daughter. Property is cheaper up there and we’ve no mortgage now, that’s one big blessing, so we may do that.’
Bill’s wife came through with tea and biscuits and the questions were repeated, the same answers given. ‘His wife, Steph, she’s been in a terrible state as you can imagine. She says this man came round to see her, wanting to talk about compensation or something. I’ll bet the company are just covering their backs. They wanted to know if he’d seen anything, but Steph just told them poor bugger was still unconscious.’
‘I’ll bet it was just one of those no win no fee lot,’ Bill said. ‘They could do with the money, though. We don’t get paid sick pay, you know. Just statutory and what use is that to anyone? She said I should apply for compensation too. On account of the stress, like. You think I’d get anything do you? Only it would help, wouldn’t it love? Otherwise, I’m going to have to go back to work as soon as.’
Barnes felt he was being called upon to mediate here; that he’d walked into the middle of an ongoing debate. He really didn’t feel qualified to make any kind of judgement. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It might be worth a go, but I imagine it would be a long process, anyway. I don’t think these things happen over night.’
Bill nodded. ‘That’s what I thought,’ he said. ‘That’s what I reckoned.’
Barnes left not long after. Bill could tell him nothing more and Barnes could offer very little in the way of reassurance.
As he left, Bill’s wife suggested he take the dog out for his afternoon walk and, while Bill went to get himself organized for that, she followed Barnes out to the car.
‘I didn’t want to talk about this, not in front of him. He’s been upset enough. But we had a visitor. Someone came round and suggested that the press might offer us money for our story or something. He said not to do it. That they’d make it worth our while to say no. But I had to sign these papers and agree to say nothing to anyone. Anyone not official, I mean.’
‘When was this?’
‘Two days ago. Bill had gone out with the dog.’
‘And did you sign anything?’
She glanced anxiously towards the house. ‘The man said he’d make it look like a compensation claim. Say it was covered by the company’s insurance. Same as Steph. He said he’d make it look right for Bill, so he didn’t feel awkward about it. They said it was some government scheme to help victims of violence?’
She turned this last into a question, as if hoping for confirmation from Barnes.
‘There are a lot of schemes around,’ Barnes said cautiously.
‘They said this was a new one. Anyway, I signed the papers and filled in all the forms and showed them a copy of his sick note, he’d not sent it off at that point. They reckoned it would all be quick. That we’d get payment in about a week, ten days.’
He could see in her eyes that she didn’t really believe in the legitimacy of any of this, but that she was hoping; the kind of hope that comes from a situation edging on the desperate, Barnes thought.
‘We’ve got bills, expenses. If he’s off for any length of time—’
‘Do you have a name or anything? A contact number?’
‘He left a card. With a number. Told me if I had any problem, to call and ask for Nathan.’
Barnes nodded. ‘Let me know if you hear back,’ he said. ‘You didn’t give him any bank details or anything?’
‘No, he said it would be a cheque.’ She relaxed. ‘So that’s all right, isn’t it?’
Bill came out and the conversation ceased. Barnes left wondering who the hell this Nathan was and what kind of game he was playing. He called the local police and asked the CIO if he knew anything and obtained a promise that someone would go round and ask some discreet questions. That, Barnes considered, was about all he could do. If Sheila wasn’t even confiding in Bill, then it was unlikely she would tell anyone else what was going on and Barnes could sort of see her point. If the money turned up, that would be the time to confide full details to her husband. If not, then she wouldn’t have to look a fool in front of him, on top of everything else.
Barnes drove away, feeling oddly depressed and no more enlightened than when he’d come.
‘What have you got there?’ Tom Flanders looked over Tariq’s shoulder. ‘A watch file? You don’t see those too often. I’ve just made tea. Want some?’
‘You make dreadful tea.’
‘I know. I’ll pour you one anyway. So what’s in it? Is that the one that mysteriously appeared in that lawyers’ office?’
‘The very same,’ Tariq said. He continued to turn the pages slowly as Tom disappeared and then returned, two red mugs in hand. He deposited one on the edge of Tariq’s desk and then pulled up a chair. As Tariq finished with each page, he drew it across the desk and began to read.
‘Where the hell did this come from?’
Tariq shook his head. ‘I’m really not sure. It was acquired when the Chambers were in Leopoldville.’
‘But that was never part of a British Colony.’
‘True, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t have interests there, but it’s not what you could term a Legacy File, I don’t think.’
Tom nodded. He had made something of a study of the so called Migrated Archives; files documenting official deeds carried out under colonial rule and which had been repatriated – migrated when the civil servants who held them had returned to the UK. So called Legacy Files, documenting the colonial years, were supposed to remain in the archive of the country to which they belonged after it gained independence. Most had, but some had been brought back and placed in storage. Many were only coming to light now.
‘And material that “might embarrass Her Majesty’s Government, that might embarrass the police, military forces or public servants”,’ Tom intoned, ‘“shall be reduced to ash and that ash broken up”.’
Tariq laughed at the impression. The words were those of the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Iain Macleod, as outlined in various memoranda from 1961, though the truth was neither man knew what Macleod had actually sounded like; the impression based on the Whitehall types that appeared in the old films they both enjoyed.
‘This isn’t a Legacy File,’ Tariq said. ‘It’s hard to say what it is.’ He flipped the cover closed again and studied the red ‘W’ stamped on the front. ‘W’ for watch, hence watch file. A file that should have been, as Tom suggested, burnt to ash and the ash ground to nothing. An alternative had been to put the unwanted folders into weighted crates and sink them in deep water, Tariq remembered, and if the file was likely to be missed, then a ‘twin’ could be created to put in its place.
‘It could be a twin, of course,’ he said, allowing his thoughts to surface. ‘It could even be mischief-making. Look, a list of names and payments, by the look of it on this page. We’d have to cross reference with records for the time, always supposing we can figure out what colony it was created for, but it could represent payoffs. It could have been intended to replace something in the Legacy Files and at the same time implicate officials, or police or … well suggest someone was taking bribes.’
‘In which case, why stamp it?’ Tom indicated the red ‘W’. ‘That suggests it was destined for destruction.’
‘A double bluff?’
‘Maybe. We’d need to know the context to be able to cross reference the names. Then it would be an archive job. That could take weeks.’
‘True. My question is, why did Mrs Chambers want to get rid of it now?’
‘Why keep it in the first place?’
‘I don’t know,’ Tariq admitted.
‘You could ask her?’
‘I could, but I’ve been told I can’t.’
Tom laughed, disbelieving. ‘And who told you that?’
‘Who do you think?’
‘Then go over his head. He’s just a cons
ultant these days.’
‘Officially, he’s just a consultant. Unofficially I can’t go over his head because there is no one over his head. At least no one that would talk to the likes of me and thee.’
‘So?’
‘So we put the damn thing away and pack up for the night,’ Tariq said. ‘I like to think I have a life outside of work. Illusory as that idea might be.’
Tom was already on his feet and glancing at his watch. ‘You mean we get to finish at the proper time?’ he said. ‘I’ll go for that.’
Tariq laughed. ‘Tom,’ he said. ‘Call me paranoid, but I think we should just keep quiet about this one for now. Until I know what to do with it.’
His assistant and friend raised an eyebrow. ‘Who would I tell?’ he asked. ‘What would I tell? We don’t know anything worth a damn.’
True, Tariq thought. But he had a feeling, one he’d had before and learnt not to ignore. One thing Clay had taught him was to take notice of his intuition. To trust it and just now it was telling him that this was not something he was going to like; that it meant trouble with a capital T.’
‘You going to talk to him about it?’
Tariq shrugged. ‘And tell him what?’ he said. ‘Nothing he doesn’t already know.’
‘How come?’
‘Because, Tom, he will have seen it already, examined it before it ever got to me. You didn’t read to the end of it. There’s another list and I’ll let you guess who’s on it, not under his proper name, of course, but I’m familiar with several of his aliases.’
‘Clay,’ Tom said and suddenly, Tariq thought, he looked very pale.
THIRTY-TWO
Alec had called Naomi to let her know they were leaving just after four. It was a journey of about an hour and then Molly to drop off. ‘Should be with you a little after six,’ he said. ‘It’s been an interesting day.’
‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘Mine too. We’ll swap stories, later.’
Intrigued, Alec signed off and started the car. ‘All set?’
‘I am, yes.’
‘What book did you choose in the end?’
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