by G D Harper
The group’s leader stepped up and said that they were growing more and more concerned by the authoritarian and repressive behaviour of their party leaders, that this was the very opposite of why they had come into politics during the first wave of euphoria of Act Now!’s ascendancy. The rebels’ demands were straightforward: they would resign the whip and force a vote of no confidence in the government unless the Dissemination of Terrorism Act was amended to have pre-existing laws decide what could and could not be said, and have judges decide who went to jail. And unless anyone imprisoned by those parts of the Act being considered for repeal were released immediately. That meant me.
The irony of the situation made me smile for the first time in weeks. My first glimpse of freedom had come about because of the good intentions of the man I feared and hated more than anyone else in the world, Michael Mitchell. Now I was getting a second lifeline from renegade members of Act Now! itself. The group was big enough to overcome the government’s majority if it came to a vote of no confidence and they voted with the opposition. I waited to see how the political calculations of the leadership would play out this time.
The rebel group surprised everyone by refusing to be cowed by the Act Now! leadership’s attempt to get them to toe the party line. The Chronicle gleefully reported that the party only had itself to blame. It had been founded on the philosophy that no one should have to accept what the political elite tell them they have to do. Now that they were the political elite, some of their own MPs were giving the leadership a taste of their own medicine.
I tried not to get my hopes up; then I heard the breaking news that the Attorney General would be making a statement in the House of Commons that afternoon. I watched it live on the TV in the communal day room, winning the battle to have the channel changed to news instead of the usual diet of daytime soaps.
It was everything that I could have hoped for. A review of the Dissemination of Terrorism Act was announced, recognising that the legislation had been drafted at speed in response to a series of terrorist outrages.
And then came the words that I couldn’t believe I was hearing.
‘The measure of a government’s tolerance and forgiveness is how it treats those out to undermine the values that got them elected,’ said the Attorney General. He described me as a harmless but stubborn fantasist, and if I’d agreed with the terms of my supression order to stop libelling the government, I would have never have been put in jail.
‘Mr Jones seems to genuinely believe that the workings of his imagination are real. A psychiatric report, however, has confirmed that his delusions don’t present a danger to himself or society at large. He will be released without delay. Nevertheless, I should warn him that a court case against him is still outstanding, and no matter what his mental state, if he repeats the accusations upon his release that got him incarcerated in the first place, he will be taken into custody again.’
The words were greeted with a cheer by the few inmates who were watching with me. I shook everyone’s hand, feeling like the celebrity of the hour.
In the end, it took two days for me to be released – the wheels of bureaucracy turned slowly, especially when bureaucracy wanted them to turn that way. The discharge was surprisingly underwhelming. My name was called and a van took me to the nearest train station, carrying my possessions in an anonymous canvas bag I’d had packed ever since I was told I’d be released. I was given eighty pounds and a train ticket home.
I bought myself a Pret sandwich when I got to London; the best-tasting sandwich of my life. I savoured the crunch of sourdough bread and fresh salad after weeks of bland prison food. Once at my flat, I took a long, long shower and then started getting in touch with the outside world again.
I phoned Sam and Alex to thank them. Alex told me she would be quietly returning to an editor’s job in a few weeks once the kerfuffle died down, the station’s bosses having been secretly delighted by her stance but forced to put on a show of reprimanding her for the benefit of the authorities. She described with relish the attempt by Barbara, the station’s legal counsel, to halt the interview as it was going out live. Irate phone calls to the control room to get Mitchell to change the subject, then to silence him, then to take the programme off air: all ignored. Sam told me he had worked on the News Today story himself, insisting it stay off the paper’s website until the first print editions were on the street to make sure the story couldn’t be stopped. But they both told me they couldn’t take a risk like that again, unless and until the Act was changed substantially.
The next call was to Bobbie. After we had toasted my release, I brought up the role that Michael Mitchell had played. Even after all these years, his name still conjured up horrors.
‘I don’t think it was anything sinister,’ I said to her. ‘I think he genuinely wanted to help me.’
Bobbie gave a disgusted snort. ‘Michael doesn’t help anyone but himself. No one knows that better than me. I’m over the moon you’ve been released, Duncan, of course I am. But I can’t bring myself to be grateful to Michael for helping you.’
‘You’re being unfair, Bobbie.’ I had to be careful not to stoke her resentment. ‘He may have had ulterior motives, but the bottom line is I’ve been released, and he started the ball rolling. Don’t get me wrong, I totally get that mentioning his name is distressing for you. But let’s concentrate on celebrating that I’m a free man again.’
‘And I hope you’re not going to do anything to jeopardise that. I mean it, Duncan. You’ve done your bit to try to bring down Act Now!. Leave it to others from now on.’
‘I don’t have any choice,’ I reassured her. ‘Act Now! has made it very clear that one more peep out of me without any new evidence and I’ll be heading straight back to jail, with a conviction for good old-fashioned contempt of court – not under the Dissemination of Terrorism Act. I will not be saying another word until this Act gets sorted out.’
‘It’s good to see you’re thinking straight. Look, I know there’s going to be lots of people wanting to talk to you tonight. I’ll let you get on with that. We can talk later.’
I thought about mentioning Mitchell again, but decided against it. We had finished on a positive note.
I called Nigel next. He said it was a Good Thing that I got out of jail, and I shouldn’t go to jail again as that would be a Bad Thing.
Midday, the story broke that I had been released, and a few paparazzi turned up at my front door. I let them take some pictures, but replied to every question with the same words: ‘I’m glad to be released, and won’t be saying any more.’
They eventually got bored and went away. I looked at the traffic on my Richard Foxe website: over two hundred thousand hits that morning alone, and many hundreds of supportive comments. It looked like I didn’t have to say anything new. What was out there was proving enough to draw attention to what I’d already said.
I then set about devouring all the news stories that had been written about me that I hadn’t been able to see or read before. We didn’t have catch-up in prison, and it was the Michael Mitchell interview that had me gasping for breath. There he was: older, grey hair, but still with the controlled menace that had struck terror into my heart all those years ago. Fear, guilt, gratitude … a cocktail of emotions ran through me as I listened to him talk. He was eloquent, charismatic and intense as he reminded the interviewer that I had been responsible for his wrongful incarceration for twelve years; that I was someone he should hate and never want anything to do with again. But that there was a higher principle at stake than his personal feelings towards me. He had spent years campaigning against wrongful imprisonment, and so he couldn’t bring himself to ignore a case that wasn’t due to a miscarriage of justice, but was a deliberate attempt to incarcerate and silence a member of the press who wouldn’t be cowed by the government’s demands to stay silent. It was powerful stuff.
I spent the rest of the evening
acknowledging the well-wishers on my Richard Foxe blog, and reassuring family and friends that I was perfectly okay after my ordeal and had learned my lesson. I must have interacted with fifty people, maybe more, but there was one name that kept coming back into my mind; one person to whom I knew I should reach out and offer thanks. Michael Mitchell.
I went to his website and opened the Contact tab. I stared at the comments box, wondering what on earth to write. In the end, I kept it simple.
Dear Mr Mitchell, I was deeply touched by your intervention. It was a kind and courageous thing for you to do, all the more so because of our shared past. If there is anything I can ever do to repay your help, please let me know.
Regards
Duncan Jones
I gave him my personal email address.
I agonised long and hard about that last part. Did I really want to open the door, even a little, to possible interaction with him again? In the end, I left it in. He wasn’t a monster, no matter what Bobbie thought. That was her trauma speaking. For a second, I wondered if I should do even more, offer to meet him to thank him in person. I decided that was a step too far, and was probably something neither of us wanted. I pressed Send and watched my words head off to someone I had hoped and prayed I would never have to deal with again.
It’s a funny old world.
chapter eighteen
I was woken by my second phone ringing in the middle of the night. I picked it up, groggily cursing while I peered to make out who was calling. Nigel. He never makes social calls. I pressed the green button and groaned a hello.
‘Duncan, it’s Nigel. I’ve found Tanya.’
I sat upright, shaking the sleep from my addled brain.
‘That’s great, Nigel. What time is it? Oh, 3:15.’
I switched on the light and went over to the desk in the corner of my bedroom and sat down at my computer.
‘Tell me what you found.’
‘I was looking at all the people who had left nice comments on your Richard Foxe Facebook page. And some nasty ones too.’ I could hear the disapproval in Nigel’s voice. ‘I was going to tell them to eff off, but then I remember you said it was best to ignore the nasty comments. So, I did. But some of them were very rude. I don’t like it when people are rude.’
Nigel had sounded excited from the moment he called and I could imagine him swinging away in his chair. I waited patiently for him to continue, but there was only silence.
‘Yes, people can be rude,’ I said eventually. ‘But how did they help you find Tanya?’
‘I wanted to see how many rude people there were, compared to how many nice people. I read all the comments for the last year, and you had 7,847 nice comments and 712 rude ones. I went to your Mark Jackson author page, and there you had 312 nice comments and 178 rude ones. A higher percentage of people are rude to you as Mark Jackson than they are to Richard Foxe. He-he-he-he. There’s an 87.93% chance that this is statistically significant; I worked it out. Interesting, isn’t it?’
‘Very.’ I gave an inward sigh. This was going to take a while. ‘But I still don’t see how this helps us find Tanya.’
‘Seventy-two people were on both the Richard Foxe page and the Mark Jackson one, even though you keep them completely separate. They were all after 22nd November, when Damian Zane told everyone about your two identities. All of them except one.’
‘And who was that?’ Suddenly I could see where this was going.
‘Victoria Kovalenko. From Kiev. She visited both your sites on the same day, 17th September, and liked a post on each of them. The probability of someone doing that by chance is a zillion zillion to one. She knew Richard Foxe and Mark Jackson were the same person before Damian Zane told everyone.’
I pulled up my computer diary. 17th September was ten days after I’d admitted to Tanya I’d used her as the source for the Anton Shub stories and told her my two identities.
‘Tanya mentioned a few times she had a friend from her schooldays living in Ukraine,’ I told Nigel, ‘but she never mentioned her name. All part of being careful, I suppose.’
The reminder of her duplicity seared through me again, rekindling the pain of betrayal. I pushed the thoughts away, to stay focused on what Nigel was telling me.
‘And what do we know about Victoria Kovalenko?’
‘Everything. He-he-he-he. She has all her Facebook settings to public. That’s a Bad Thing. You know that, don’t you, Duncan?’
‘Yes,’ I said, a little too abruptly. ‘So, Tanya’s on her Facebook profile? Is that what you found out?’
‘No, she’s not. It would have been a Good Thing if she was though, wouldn’t it?’
I was crushed after the moment’s hope. Even if this person was Tanya’s friend, and knew where Tanya was now, she’d almost certainly check before passing on any details. Then Tanya would know I was looking for her, making her even more difficult to trace. The best I could hope was to get a message to her, asking her to get in touch. But as she’d made no effort to contact me while I was in prison, chances were that would be a fruitless exercise.
In my despair, I’d treated Nigel’s last remark as a rhetorical question. But he doesn’t do rhetorical questions, doesn’t understand the concept.
‘Are you still there, Duncan?’ I heard him say. ‘I said it would have been a Good Thing if Tanya was on Victoria Kovalenko’s Facebook profile. It would have been, wouldn’t it?’
‘Yes, it would, Nigel. But she isn’t. Can you send me a link to this woman’s page so I can have a look for myself?’
‘But I said I’d found Tanya. You told me if I did, it would be a Good Thing. Even if you keep your promise not to write another word about the Russians, because then you’ll go to jail again. Don’t you want to know how I found her?’
I gasped. ‘Of course, Nigel. I thought you’d said there was no sign of her.’
‘There’s not – on Victoria Kovalenko’s Facebook page. But Victoria visited the town of Chernihiv just after Tanya disappeared. Historic town, 143 kilometres north of Kiev. There are photos of Victoria outside monasteries and a cathedral, laughing at who was taking the pictures. Then there’s a photo of her last week, having a coffee in Krasna Square, but again no mention of who she was meeting. I checked the teachers’ database, and a Tanya Petrenko is working in a primary school in Chernihiv. Given the town’s population, the chances of one of the seventy-one Tanyas being there randomly is 794 to 1. That means there is a 90.2% probability that the Tanya in Chernihiv is the real Tanya. I worked it out.’
‘That sounds good enough for me.’ I punched the air. ‘I don’t suppose you know how many primary schools there are in the town, do you?’
‘Eight. Do you want their addresses and phone numbers?’ I could tell Nigel was pleased with himself.
‘This is fantastic news, Nigel. It really is a Good Thing. You should be proud of yourself.’
I tossed and turned for most of the night, unable to sleep. What Nigel had discovered was only the first step. I had to find out what school Tanya was working in, without raising her suspicions. Then I had to get to Chernihiv, without alerting Act Now!. And finally, I had to make my case to Tanya why she should come back to England to help me, tell her story about working for MI5. Risk her freedom as a result. And after all the horrible things I had said to her. It was going to be tough to pull off.
By the time morning came, I had made a decision. This was too important for me to go it alone; I needed help. I texted Alex to tell her I’d had a breakthrough on the Act Now! story and we needed to talk later that morning.
When I arrived, the news department was in chaos.
‘We’ll need to keep this brief,’ Alex told me. ‘Act Now! has called a snap general election. Two years early. The first opinion polls since your release have come out, and they’ve more than survived the rebellion within the party. If anything, their scores fo
r “caring” and “compassionate” have gone up because it looks to most people that they’ve behaved magnanimously in letting you out of jail.’
‘I don’t know if that’s good or bad news,’ I replied. ‘I would have had to go to trial eventually. I was hoping my trial and acquittal would help destroy their chances of re-election. If the polls say they’re still ahead, I can see why they’ve done this now.’
‘And the party hierarchy have deselected all the rebels and chosen new candidates to stand in their seats. Some of the rebels say they are going to contest the election as independents, but without a party machine behind them? No chance. The new candidates all toe the party line. Even if they don’t increase their majority, the Act Now! leadership will be in an even stronger position now they’re grabbing the opportunity to purge any dissidents.’
I took Alex through what Nigel had found out.
‘I’m nervous I could screw this up,’ I confessed. ‘I need a Russian speaker to contact the schools in a way that doesn’t arouse suspicion. And I’m pretty sure there will be a flag on my passport. If I get on a plane to Kiev, there will be somebody waiting for me at the other end, ready to follow me to wherever I go.’
Alex insisted I speak to Simon Green, the programme’s top investigative reporter, and called him in. I eyed him warily. I’d refused to work with him before in case he stole the story, but he was charm personified, pretending that our inauspicious beginning had never happened.
‘After your spell in prison, they probably think you’ve been put off investigating anything ever again, and you should keep giving that impression as long as possible,’ he said. ‘It’s going to be no problem tracking down the school your friend is teaching at. How we get you to Ukraine might be trickier.’