by Henry Porter
‘For France!’
‘Well, he couldn’t buy a ticket here or leave this country without being picked up. I believe he crossed to France hidden on a private sailing yacht, with a friend. Then he flew to Martinique. I know because he sent me a postcard.’
‘What was he doing there?’
‘Kate, his father’s business fortune was based in the Caribbean.’
She slapped her forehead. ‘Of course, he went because of the money. That’s why there was no mention of him in his father’s will. He and his father must have arranged things so Eyam had funds waiting for him in the Caribbean.’ She paused. ‘Do you know someone named Peter Kilmartin, a friend of Eyam’s? Attached to St Antony’s College. Foreign Office before. He said he’d met you.’
‘I saw him once with David. He wrote a paper on Assyrian mathematics and astronomy. I looked over the mathematics in the paper.’ He shook his head with dismay, either at the crudeness of Assyrian mathematics or of Kilmartin’s, she wasn’t sure which.
‘He comes recommended. Do you agree?’
‘What I saw was a big, vigorous Englishman with higher than average intelligence, some culture and the unconscious brutality of the breed. I can’t tell you whom to trust. Eyam has set you up to complete the job for him and you have to make these decisions for yourself. But of course you still have a choice. You don’t have to do what David wanted. You can forget the whole thing and go on with your life.’ He eyed her without moving. ‘But if you do fight this thing I will help you, because I owe you. Darsh does not forget.’
He told her how to contact him through the Mathematics Institute, instructing her to use the name Koh when leaving messages. Then his attention moved to a butterfly struggling in a cobweb at the top of the window. Like a cat he sprang suddenly from his stool to stand on the table beside her and trapped the butterfly with one ungloved hand. With the other hand he peeled filaments of old spider web from the wings.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Open the window. Quickly!’
She wrenched down the handle and banged on the old frame with the heel of her hand.
‘A red admiral,’ he said, having released it. ‘They emerge from hibernation at this time of the year and are joined by butterflies that migrate from France. People assume they are dead, but with the first warmth of spring they wake.’ He gazed down at her with an inquiring look.
‘Thanks, I’m glad to know that, Darsh,’ she said, closing the window.
He stepped nimbly onto the stool and jumped to the floor in one movement. ‘So, we will be in touch.’ And then he did something rather odd. He kissed her and held her hand for a moment. ‘If you fight this thing there is much that will surprise and shock you, Kate Lockhart. Are you prepared for that? Are you prepared for the fight of your life?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t know if I can do anything.’
‘Well, I expect the answer will come to you soon enough. Let me know when it does. Let me know what you are going to do.’
‘Is there something you’re not telling me?’
‘Just say the word. That’s all you have to do.’ He got up, arranged his scarf and slipped through the door.
She waited for five minutes after he left, then returned to the ruminative quiet of the Front Quad and went to the porter’s lodge where she found Cecil with his head in a big notebook. ‘They were here,’ he said before allowing his gaze to surface over his reading glasses. ‘The people looking for you: they didn’t say as much but then they didn’t have to because I can tell, see. There were three of them – two women and a man came in separately and looked around the public areas. One of the women said she thought her friend was in the college and she described what you were wearing – most insistent she was. I said I hadn’t seen you.
‘And this arrived for you,’ he said reaching below a shelf, ‘just a few minutes ago by taxi from St Antony’s.’ He handed her a small parcel. Inside was a cell phone with a note from Kilmartin, which instructed her to use the phone only to call the number already in its memory. He also had a clean phone, with no record of purchase or ownership. Conversation should be kept to a minimum without names, and the phone should not be used in a car or at a place that could be readily associated with her.
13
The Spreading Stain
Philip Cannon’s gaze followed the government’s chief scientific adviser’s hand as it left the keyboard in front of him and drifted to one of four big screens on the wall of the new underground facility of Britain’s Security Council.
‘These satellite images were taken this morning, so they are the very latest information we have,’ said Professor Adam Hopcraft, a tall, spare man in his sixties. ‘The two left-hand screens show reservoirs in mid-Wales; and here we have photographs from Cumbria. In each you will see that the open water is stained with a reddish pink dye that spreads outwards in these frozen wisps. And this,’ he said moving to another screen, ‘is a time-lapse study of the North Bowland reservoir in Lancashire, which with others supplies Manchester with drinking water. The stain spreads over three days to colour about one third of the water, which shows these blooms of algae that we are seeing have a great deal of energy.’
He tapped some more on his laptop. Cannon looked round the room. Since moving from BBC News to take the job of director of communications at Downing Street, he occasionally marvelled at the government’s ability to focus talent and brains on a problem. David Eyam had personified the system and, although Cannon always found him a mite arrogant, it was he who had showed him that at the very top of government you sometimes saw brilliant individuals working together and producing absolutely the right policy.
A permanent staff of fifty now worked for the council, which was intended to complement rather than replace the ad hoc COBRA committee. The new council was chaired by a retired admiral named Cavendish Piper, who certainly looked the part with his close-cropped steel-grey hair and weathered features, but who was in Cannon’s estimation among the dimmest government servants he had ever met.
Cannon wondered now if there were rather too many people in the room. Over and above the twelve members of the council present, there were three ministers and twenty or so co-opted specialists, counter-terrorist experts from the police and MI5, scientists from the government service and from the Ministry of Defence, public health officials, local government chief executives, epidemiologists and a group of marine biologists, environmentalists, microbiologists, phycologists – experts in algae – who had been brought in from the universities. It looked like overkill by the prime minister, but he trusted Temple’s instincts: toxic red algae was about to knock everything else out of the news and become a popular obsession that might dominate the first half of a four-week general election campaign that he was certain Temple was planning. The prime minister had to get this one right.
‘These harmful algal blooms – HABS,’ continued Hopcraft, ‘are not limited to marine environments. They are also found in fresh water lakes in Australia and New Zealand. The cyanobacterial blooms are by definition blue-green. This toxic red algae – TRA – is interesting because red blooms are mostly confined to oceans, not fresh water, so that may be some clue as to what we are dealing with. The important point is that the cell walls of this TRA contain a substance that causes gastro-intestinal, eye, skin and respiratory irritation. Consumed in large quantities, the algae will damage the liver and neurological systems of humans as well as animals.’
‘How is it spreading?’ snapped Temple, who was chairing the meeting while Admiral Piper sat doing his best to look decisive at the other end of the table. ‘Should we investigate possible sabotage? Have we any idea where it comes from?’
Cannon recognised not panic in his master, but a raw political energy.
‘We don’t know how it’s spreading, prime minister,’ replied Hopcraft with a note that signalled he wasn’t prepared to be bullied. ‘The likely candidates are birds and humans – people travelling from reservoir to reservoir
for recreational purposes perhaps: fishing, sailing, birdwatching. It could be anything. As yet we have nothing definite on this. However, we have established that the algae’s genetic code most closely resembles types found in New Zealand’s South Island. It seems to be intolerant of water with a high pH value. That much we do know.’
‘But how did this get into our water supply? It doesn’t just appear out of the blue.’ Temple turned to Christine Shoemaker of MI5. ‘Is there a possibility this has been deliberately introduced as an act of sabotage?’
‘If I may, prime minister,’ said Hopcraft, trying to head her off, ‘I think that conjecture would be premature at this stage. These things do spread around the world and such organisms are capable of relatively swift adaptation in new conditions. It may have been here for some time; we have no way of telling. And we should remember that the new filtration systems with ultrafine membranes do stop this particular algae.’
Temple batted the last sentence away with his hand. ‘Christine, are you aware of any groups that have the necessary capability or that are planning this sort of biological attack?’
‘It’s a possibility, but we have no specific intelligence that says the people we’re watching have contemplated this kind of action, though of course it would appeal in as much as drinking water is a very basic resource. The idea of introducing naturally occurring toxins into the supply and causing widespread panic would be an attractive option to some of the groups.’
‘Precisely,’ said Temple. ‘It must be understood that I’m taking this very seriously indeed.’ He looked around the room. ‘I want twice daily reports on all aspects of the situation – scientific, crisis management and security. The public is rightly very concerned about these occurrences and it is our duty to answer those concerns with explanation, reassurance and action. Philip will work on the media strategy this afternoon. We should aim for a full briefing of the press and broadcast media at five p.m. Adam, I’d like you there, but at this stage I do not wish for any speculation as to the source of this problem.’
He stood up and asked Cannon to remain behind, also Christine Shoemaker and Jamie Ferris, who advised Temple on security matters and came from MI6 via OSI, Eden White’s business intelligence company – Ortelius Security and Intelligence. It took a few minutes for the room to clear, during which Temple walked up to the screens and examined the images. Piper attempted to ingratiate himself but was pretty soon sent on his way.
‘Jamie has some interesting things to say about money transfers in the Caribbean, Christine,’ Temple said without turning from the screens.
Cannon didn’t need one of Temple’s excursions into the intelligence world now. He had three hours to organise the briefing and coordinate the line from all government press officers, vital on a story that could easily get out of hand if one of the departmental spokesmen or a minister went off-piste. ‘Do you need me for this, prime minister?’
‘Please stay. I’ll only be a few minutes. Jamie?’
Ferris coughed. ‘Our information is that very sizeable sums were left in a number of accounts in the Cayman Islands and Dutch Antilles by Sir Colin Eyam, which as far as we know have not been included in his estate. Estimates put it in the region of ten million US dollars, but that is only the money we have traced. We believe there is much more. Sir Colin was a very rich man and a very organised one. After his death, several large transfers took place in the week before Christmas to the Inter-American Development Bank, Cartagena, into an account held in the name of Daniel H. Duval, the name of a passenger who left Paris for Fort-de-France in Martinique on December fourteenth. This was about the time that Eyam vanished. We have also traced debit cards held in a variety of names that were used in Colombia to draw on funds in the accounts in Cayman and Curacao. On January second the money began to leave the account in Cartagena in small packages of ten thousand dollars to many different destinations. We are talking about a sum of at least two million dollars, but again we cannot be sure of the exact amount. I should stress that the procedures followed were extremely sophisticated and on a par with the money laundering operations of international crime syndicates.’
‘And when did this activity cease?’ asked Shoemaker.
‘There was a blizzard of transfers between Colombia, Curacao and Cayman leading up to January twelfth, the day Eyam was killed. The money went back and forth and every which way. But on the twelfth all activity stopped, except in the case of one debit card, on which regular amounts of five thousand dollars have been drawn every week since that date at the same bank in Cartagena.’ He looked at some typed notes. ‘This card, held in the name of Jan Tiermann, is being funded by an account at the Netherlands-Caribbean EuroBank of Curacao. We now have surveillance at the bank in Cartagena to see who is using the card. Most of the money is withdrawn over the counter so it won’t be long before we identify the individual.’
‘Is this any help, Christine?’ asked Temple.
‘Most certainly, prime minister. Clearly Lady Eyam has no knowledge of these funds, or at least if she does, did not control them, and anyway the abrupt cessation in the movements of money after the explosion would suggest this was solely David Eyam’s responsibility.’
‘Except for the debit card.’
‘We think that is a local man, prime minister.’
Temple threw Cannon a mysterious look, both cunning and regretful. ‘Find out all you can on this, Jamie. There is a feeling of purpose in Eyam’s actions that is not at all clear to me. I want to know who is using that card and what connection they had to David Eyam.’ He stopped and picked up the briefing papers from the Government Scientific Service. ‘Right, Philip, let’s go back to the office and sort out what we’re going to say about TRA.’
When Kate pressed ‘Play’ at the same time as ‘Forward’ she realised that the action tripped a switch in the car’s adapted tape deck, and caused the pick-up head to shift fractionally so that it read the unused strip of magnetic tape running between the two tracks of music. It was a technique developed in the Cold War for passing messages from the Communist bloc in adapted music cassettes. She had been told about it, more as a matter of historical interest than practical trade-craft, in the first weeks of the intelligence officers’ training course. Presumably this was where Eyam had learned about it also.
The first snatch of Eyam’s voice came as she crawled through the traffic on the outskirts of Oxford. She wound the tape back to the start and decided to take the long route through the Cotswold Hills back to High Castle. It would probably add an hour to the journey but she was in no hurry. As she cleared the city she played the recording from the beginning.
‘I hope you’re alone,’ he began. ‘If not, I suggest you wait until you are.’ There was a pause, presumably to give her time to turn the tape off or to collect herself. She heard the sounds of rooks in the distance and the rattle of bare branches. He must have recorded the message in the garden of Dove Cottage during the winter. ‘OK, Sis? Good. You found the tape – well done – and you’re almost certainly in my dear old car, which is good. I checked it for listening devices myself.’ Another pause – coughing.
‘By the time you hear this, I will be gone and you will be the proud owner of Dove Cottage and the flat in London. I realise that this must all have come as a surprise to you and I cannot predict how you feel about my legacy. Despite the money I’ve left you I anticipate a certain irritation. Well, I apologise, Sis. You see – I can say sorry. I wish there was another way. But I had to keep my cards close to my chest. Practically every part of my life is now monitored. The house is bugged and all communication by phone and computer is impossible. I agonised for a long time about coming to see you in New York and telling you everything that you now know about, but I decided that it would be fairer to allow you to think about this once I was gone. I believe you may still be unhappily engaged in that process.’
‘You’re damned right,’ she said aloud.
‘The documents passed to you by Hugh Ru
ssell with my letter will give you a good idea of why I had to leave, and if you inspect my computer you will know why the matter became urgent. They played very rough with me – a measure of their desperation but also of the corresponding strength of the case against them – and there seemed a very good chance that I would be jailed as a child molestor. I could not endure that.
‘You’re a lawyer, Sis, and the first thing you will want to know is did I do anything illegal? The answer is no. But by opposing them I was certainly made to feel like a criminal and in the end I had to behave like one. There’s nothing in the dossier that harms national security – in the true sense – and nothing that is illegal or morally wrong. But you must know that possession of the dossier, and indeed of this tape, may get you into a lot of trouble.
‘You have a choice: if for whatever reason you have no interest in helping destroy the thing that destroyed me, that’s fine, Sis. Really, I do understand. You’ve got a life in New York and you deserve peace and happiness. If, however, you’re willing to help, you must be prepared to use all your cunning and resilience. You are equal to the job, but let me warn you that this will consume your life.
‘OK, so that’s the sales pitch over.’ He gave an ironic laugh. ‘As you’ve seen in my outline, I’ve assembled the case against the prime minister, Eden White and senior members of the government and Civil Service. When I use the word assemble, that’s not quite right. Actually it is you who will have to assemble the evidence. I marshalled it over the course of the last two and a half years then saw to its dispersal in order to protect it. This evidence consists of original documents and copies of ones that cannot be contested. Even though I say it myself, there is no one better able to describe what has happened. Clearly, if I had left this all in one place – say with my lawyer, or at the Dove – it would have been vulnerable. So I’ve arranged for it to come together at an appropriate moment. But I will not say when or how because there are some things that it is better for you not to know now. There are other people in this thing – good people whose lives I do not wish to ruin. Only one has the whole picture and that person will make themselves known to you when it is safe and they are certain that you are committed.’