The Cut-Out

by Jon King

“Okay, let’s go to the phone lines,” our host said after a brief introduction and a few cursory questions. “Ahmed from Birmingham, what would you like to say?”

  “I’d just like to say well done to the two authors. They’re saying what we all think anyway.”

  “I agree,” said Linda, the next caller. “I had a gut feeling the minute I heard on the news that Diana was dead. I just knew it wasn’t an accident.”

  “Yes but you can’t just go on a gut instinct, Linda,” the host argued. “You need evidence.”

  “What’s the point? It’ll only be covered up.”

  “Oh, right.” The host pulled a face that said he thought the caller was batty. “Let’s go to our next caller, then. Robert in Edinburgh, do you buy into these conspiracy theories?”

  “Aye,” Robert affirmed. “JFK was shot by a lone gunman and the Roswell UFO crash was a weather balloon.”

  This time the host’s face distorted in confusion. “Sorry, Robert, not sure what you’re saying there…?”

  “I’m saying she was murdered.”

  “Oh, right. Okay, you made your point.” He cut Robert off. Hit a different button. Then: “Anne from London, you’re on the radio. What would you like to say to the authors?”

  “I’d just like to say that I feel for William and Harry. It must be awful for them, all this talk of murder.”

  “So you think the authors should back off?”

  “I do, yes.”

  “But what if they happen to be right? What if the French Inquiry was wrong and Diana was murdered?”

  “I still think they should let her rest in peace, for the sake of the boys.”

  “What do you say to that?” we were asked.

  “Why don’t you ask the next caller,” JB said.

  “All right, I will.” He hit another button. “Nick from Cardiff, did you hear that?”

  “I did yes, and I think the last caller was talking rubbish. How can Diana rest in peace if she was murdered? As for upsetting the boys, if my mother had died like that I’d want to know the truth.”

  “You don’t think the French Inquiry delivered the truth?”

  “No. I don’t think a British Inquiry would, either. But like the rest of the country I support the authors’ efforts to try and force one through.”

  And so the theme continued. It seemed in general the public were onside. Our push for a public inquiry was gaining support, and momentum. All was looking good. Until we left the building.

  CHAPTER 42

  “A car has been called for you, Mr King,” the doorman said as we stepped from the elevator and made our way across the foyer towards the exit. “It’s waiting outside.”

  “Thank you,” I said, not thinking anything of it.

  We’d made our own way to Broadcasting House earlier purely because we were in town on business and it had seemed easier for us to jump in a cab than arrange a pickup point and hang around for a BBC limo to come and collect us. But it was now 9.45 pm. We had a train to catch, and a free ride back to the train station seemed a very agreeable idea. It was customary for the bigger media outlets to provide transport anyway—one of the perks of being in demand. What we didn’t know at this point, though, as we exited the building and made our way over to the waiting limo, was that this perk was about to turn sinister.

  “Mr King? Mr Beveridge?” Dressed in full chauffeur’s livery and sporting a clipped, ginger-grey beard, the driver emerged from the front of the vehicle and opened the rear door.

  “Waterloo station, please,” I said, as I climbed in the back with JB. The chauffeur closed the door behind us.

  A few minutes later we were heading east on New Oxford Street, the lights of the West End dancing burlesque-like in the distance behind us. Even though it was closing on 10 pm, it seemed, London was still wide awake, though it became progressively sleepier the further south and east we travelled. Indeed, by the time we’d reached the far end of High Holborn, past the junction with Chancery Lane, and had turned right on Holborn Circus into New Fetter Lane down towards the river, London’s light show had all but ebbed completely. The only illumination now was the glare of oncoming car headlamps and the light spilling out from still-open offices and convenience stores. That, and the radiance from a three-quarter full moon doing its best to dodge the clouds.

  As we reached the end of New Fetter Lane and turned left on Fleet Street towards Ludgate Hill, the moon finally disappeared for good.

  That’s when it first struck me. That’s when my gut suddenly fisted as my mind all at once awoke to the route the chauffeur was taking. Fleet Street? Ludgate Hill? Surely we’d come the wrong way, hadn’t we? If we turned right up ahead on New Bridge Street it would take us down to the river, true. But that route would take us down to Blackfriars Bridge when we should have been aiming for Waterloo Bridge, a mile back up-river. Of course, for all I knew it could have been a route the chauffeur took on a regular basis, perhaps to avoid the traffic on Aldwych and the Strand. Perhaps he would take an unexpected turning off Fleet Street and cut back along Victoria Embankment, perhaps even take a route I was unfamiliar with. Perhaps. But for some reason this sharp stabbing pain in my gut was telling me that wasn’t about to happen, even more so when we turned left on Queen Victoria Street and Upper Thames Street and starting heading down towards the docks.

  I threw an uneasy glance at JB, then at the chauffeur, his deadpan profile reflected in the glass partition separating us from the front of the car. Then back at JB.

  “Where’s he taking us?” I said.

  “Down to the docks, by the looks of things.” JB was peering anxiously ahead out the front windscreen. “Why the hell is he taking us down there?”

  “Only one way to find out,” I said, and rapped on the glass partition in an attempt to get the chauffeur’s attention. “Hello? I think you’ve taken a wrong turning. I think we’re going the wrong way…” No response “…Hey! Where are you taking us…?”

  But the chauffeur didn’t respond. Didn’t even flinch. He just kept driving, as though he couldn’t hear me: as though the increasingly distressed madman pounding away on the glass partition in the back of his vehicle didn’t exist.

  “Hey! You’re going the wrong way! Waterloo’s in the opposite direction—back there!” I jabbed a thumb at the mile or so of murky River Thames disappearing behind us. “You need to turn round!”

  But it was useless. The guy obviously had no mind to turn round and take us back to Waterloo: no mind to let us in on where he was taking us, either. Seriously panicked now, I scanned the glass partition for a handle or a latch so I could slide it open and make my protests better heard. But there was no handle, I immediately realized, no latch. It must have been operated electronically from the front dashboard, like the doors. Realizing there was no way out I turned to JB, saw that he was as panicked as I was. Following which, not knowing quite what else to do, I collapsed back in my seat and let my heart beat me. Which it did, like a sledgehammer.

  “We’re turning off,” JB suddenly said, the alarm in him constricting his voice to a tight whisper. “He’s indicating now.”

  And sure enough, less than fifty yards further along the road the chauffeur slowed and turned right into a small, narrow impasse that led down to a quayside overhanging the river. It was dark, very dark, the only source of illumination being the vehicle’s full-beam headlamps reflecting off the buildings to left and right. And then that was gone, too, as we pulled over and the chauffeur cut the engine and dimmed the lights. Suddenly all was quiet, deadly so, the only sound to be heard the electronic click of the door locks being freed as the chauffeur hit the release button on the dashboard in the front. And then silence again, eerie, foreboding.

  What the hell was going on? Why had he brought us here? Were we about to be beaten up? Worse?

  The answers to my questions were only moments away, I suddenly realized, because just then the chauffeur turned and motioned that we should get out.

  “What, here?�
�� I said. “But…”

  “Let’s not argue with him,” JB said. “At least he’s letting us go. Come on.”

  Reluctantly we did as the chauffeur said. As we opened the doors and started to climb out I fully expected something very unpleasant to happen, someone to jump us, or mug us, maybe start roughing us up. But nothing like that happened. Instead, as we closed the doors behind us the chauffeur simply fired up the engine again and started to reverse back along the narrow street, switching the headlamps back on full beam as he did so. They were blinding, forcing us to crease up our eyes and shield them with our raised hands … a beat, two … and then the lights disappeared, casting us back into pitch darkness. By the time our eyes had overcome the glare and accustomed themselves to the surrounding gloom the chauffeur and his vehicle were out of sight. We were alone.

  For what seemed a small eternity JB and I just stood there, not knowing what on earth was going on, or why we’d been driven to a dark, neglected alley in southeast London and unceremoniously dumped by the river. Not that we could see where we were; by now the night’s cloud cover had obscured the moon entirely and the pervading darkness prevented us from making out detail. But we knew we were by the river. We could smell it. We could hear it, too, lapping up against the quayside wall barely five yards from where we stood. And shivered. If we’d had our wits about us, of course, we would have taken to our heels the minute we were released from the car: slammed the doors behind us and followed the river back up towards Waterloo Bridge as fast as our legs – and our lungs – could manage. But we didn’t. For some reason we just stood there, rooted by shock, and fear, and utter confusion: wondering what to do next and where to go: thinking about getting the hell out of there but for reasons we couldn’t explain unable to actually do it. By the time we came to our senses and finally decided to try and find our way back to Waterloo a full half-minute had passed. Maybe more. By which time it was too late. Because by this time we were no longer alone.

  “Princess Diana,” this voice suddenly said from somewhere in the shadows. “She was murdered. I can tell you why, and who did it.”

  There was scarcely a person in the country who didn’t have an opinion on Diana’s death—on why she might have been killed and who might have done it. Even those who said they believed she’d died in an accident secretly held opinions on the possible motives for her murder, and MI6 man Richard Mason knew this.

  Mason also knew that public opinion on the matter, both pro and con, had to remain divided, not only between the ‘accident theorists’ and the ‘conspiracy theorists’. But more importantly, between the different schools of conspiracy theorists themselves. That way the truth, whatever it was, would become fogged, confused, and of course diluted, sufficiently so that it could never stand up as evidence—not hard evidence. And that’s what he was after. This was the game’s objective. This was why he’d called in the I/Ops team (I/Ops – Information Operations) MI6’s in-house ‘black propaganda’ unit, who’d been planting stories in the mainstream press and influencing the public mood for decades. As his MI6 training had long since taught him, far better to obfuscate the truth with smoke and mirrors than try to conceal it with lies. Deny, debunk, discredit. Allow the truth – or at least a version of it – to be filtered out to the masses, and then ridicule it to the extent that it no longer appeared credible. On its own, that Diana might have been the victim of political assassination seemed worthy of consideration, he was well aware of that. Her involvement with landmines, or with Dodi Fayed, or that she’d pissed off the establishment to the point of no return, all served to bolster this probability in the eyes of the grieving public. He knew that, too. Mixed with a little disinformation, however, stories planted in the press and on the internet by I/Ops – Henri Paul was drunk; he was driving way too fast; the paparazzi forced him to crash: and then the vividly fantastic: Diana had been abducted by aliens; she’d been murdered by the lizards who rule the world; she was still alive, having faked her own death and was living happily with Dodi (and Elvis) on an idyllic island somewhere, away from the media glare – mixed with these confabulations even the most credible arguments lost their muscle, making the case for murder almost impossible to believe. Indeed, the effort to steer public opinion away from ‘assassination’ and towards ‘accident’ was actually now beginning to work. Due largely to I/Ops’ strategically managed media campaign, people were gradually coming round to the idea that a drunken chauffeur and a pack of rabid paparazzi could have been, all by themselves, responsible for Diana’s death.

  But despite this, the problem of motive remained. And this was causing Mason something of a headache.

  While the majority seemed ready to accept, even though reluctantly, that the princess could have died in a drink-drive accident, still they seemed unable to sidestep the undeniably glaring motives that continued to suggest foul play. They had, after all, seen for themselves how Diana had waged a very public war on the establishment, how she’d made enemies of some of Whitehall’s most powerful czars—not to mention her relentless, media-fuelled campaign against the Royal Family and, indeed, her unprecedented public attack on the Queen. They’d seen, too, how her hugely publicized landmines campaign had threatened to expose the grimy underbelly of Britain’s illicit arms trade, and how her romantic involvement with Dodi Fayed had brought the Church to the brink of collapse. She was a rebel, a nuisance, a problem, an enemy of the state in all but name. Multiple motives for her murder existed, plausible motives, viable motives, a fact the public were well enough aware of. No matter how many times the media told them the chauffeur was drunk, no matter how willing they were to accept that ‘drink-drive accidents happen every day’, the fact that credible motives existed for her murder seemed sufficient to keep the public baying for answers. And this was Mason’s problem. This was the source of his headache. This was the stumbling block in his otherwise textbook operation.

  And this is why he’d turned the screws on the prince.

  “The prince?” I said, still not knowing who I was talking to, although a vague outline of the person to whom the voice belonged was beginning to emerge, several feet in front of me, as my eyes grew gradually more accustomed to the darkness. The person’s features, though, remained concealed. “What prince?”

  “The Doctor gave you a number.”

  “He did, yes.”

  “You didn’t call.”

  “How … how do you know that?”

  “Because it was my number.”

  “Ah.” I was thinking on my feet now, not knowing whether to stay and chat or make a dash for it while I still could. My mind was whirring, computing possible escape routes as my mouth, thankfully, kept the conversation turning. “But that still doesn’t answer my question,” I said, scanning the shadows for gaps in the dark. “What prince?”

  “If you’d called me you’d know the answer to that.”

  “Yes, but I didn’t call.”

  “No.”

  “So what prince are you referring to?”

  The voice paused for a moment, as though for thought. Then: “Prince Michael of Albany,” it announced. “The legitimate heir to the Throne.”

  “The Throne? You mean … the Throne of England?”

  “Of Scotland.”

  “But Scotland doesn’t have a Throne. It doesn’t have a monarchy, not anymore.”

  “No, but that’s all part of the conspiracy, isn’t it. That’s what you’re supposed to think. Remember what the Doctor told you?”

  “Yes, but…”

  “We think you should meet the prince and decide for yourselves. If nothing else it will open your eyes to who was really behind Diana’s death, and why.”

  Jesus.

  I flicked a sideways glance at JB, who responded with a slight shrug of his shoulders and the tiniest shake of his head, as though to express his disbelief, both at the situation we found ourselves in and the conversation we found ourselves having. He too, it seemed, was wondering whether to stay and listen
to what this voice from the shadows had to say, or simply make a run for it. In the event neither of us seemed able to decide, either way. So by default, we stayed.

  But I continued to scour the darkness for escape routes, just the same.

  We were still down by the river, in an unlit, derelict alleyway, not far from the docks, where we’d been dumped by our fake BBC chauffeur just minutes earlier. It was difficult to see much at all, but from silhouette and sound I was able to form a vague picture of our immediate surroundings, and the prognosis for escape wasn’t good. Scanning briefly left and right I could just make out what appeared to be a palisade steel fence blocking off the end of the alleyway, separating alleyway from quayside and the sound of the river beyond. Escape route number one: blocked. The only other route out of here that I could see was a tidy two-hundred yards or more back up the alleyway towards the main drag, the way we’d been driven in, but the voice – its owner, and possibly its accomplices, too – stood between us and that particular exit route. We were trapped. And worse still, we now found ourselves in dialogue with a disembodied voice that professed to know who killed Diana, and why.

  Was this real? Was it really happening? Had we really just been abducted outside BBC Broadcasting House and taken against our will to a derelict alleyway in London’s dockland?

  We had, there was no avoiding the fact. And it felt like some kind of mad dream, one of those dreams where your heart pumps faster than your mind’s able to think. What was most disturbing of all about this particular mad dream, though, was that the owner of this voice – a man’s voice, cultured, if a little plummy – clearly knew who we were and what we were up to. He knew, at any rate, that we’d recently spoken to the Doctor, the former Foreign Office historian whom we’d interviewed on the London Eye several weeks earlier; he knew the Doctor had given us a telephone number to call and that we hadn’t yet made that call. He obviously knew, too, that we’d been scheduled to give an interview at the BBC earlier that evening because he’d sent his chauffeur to pick us up.