The Bell Ringers

by Henry Porter

  Mermagen was fiddling with his cap. ‘Call him. Otherwise this is all going to get very messy.’

  ‘OK,’ she said in a less chilly tone. ‘I’ll talk to him. No harm in that.’

  ‘That’s good news – very good news indeed. You have my number?’

  She nodded.

  ‘When should I expect to hear from you?’

  ‘I will be able to speak to him at eleven this morning. Shortly after that.’

  Mermagen drained his coffee and got up. ‘I will tell Mr White. You do realise that an awful lot depends on you making Eyam see sense. It’s vitally important for you as well as him.’ He looked at her, his scheming eyes affecting warmth and a regard for her well being. ‘So what are you going to do now?’

  ‘Go back to bed.’

  ‘Yes, I quite understand. I’m sorry for coming so early, but I did want to see you as soon as possible. If you’d had your phone on, I could have called you instead.’

  She led him to the door. As soon as he was gone, she snatched up a small shoulder bag, unplugged her three telephones and computer and put them in a side pocket. She then chose a dark trouser suit, which she also placed in the bag together with underwear, a shirt and black shoes. She rummaged in the desk and found a padded envelope left by a previous tenant, addressed it and shoved it into the pocket of the jacket she had taken from the bedroom. Then she went round the apartment turning off the lights. A minute or two later she followed Eyam to the fire exit. She hoped to find him there but he had gone so she too slipped into the dank London morning, knowing that she could reach him later.

  After walking the half-mile to the Earls Court Road she stopped, turned on her American phone and placed it in the envelope. Then she hailed a cab and, proffering two twenty-pound notes, asked the cab driver to deliver the package to Calverts’ offices in the City.

  29

  Hotel Papa

  As was his custom, Cannon left the Underground at Embankment and walked along the Thames towards Whitehall with a cup of coffee, his laptop bag over his shoulder. By the time he passed through the Downing Street gates, now absurdly defended against the menace of toxic red algae by soldiers, he had been stopped four times and searched once. He got to the Communications Centre half an hour late to find Dawn Gruppo reading something on his desk. ‘Can I help you?’ he demanded from the far side of the room.

  Gruppo turned without apology or the slightest trace of guilt. ‘Did you get the message about the seven thirty meeting?’ she asked. ‘Your phone isn’t on. I have been trying to call you.’

  ‘No – what meeting?’

  ‘The situational summary: they’ve been in for over half an hour.’

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘It’s an update: election, TRA contingency planning, disruptive elements plus lines to take.’

  ‘Surely it’s my job to decide the LTT?’

  ‘Yes, but we need the prime minister’s views – even you will concede that.’

  ‘Lyme can do it.’

  ‘He wants you there for the last part of the meeting with Christine and Mr Ferris.’ She left and collided with Lyme at the door. Cannon didn’t miss the look she gave Lyme, nor the idiotic expression on Lyme’s face, but he pretended to be engrossed with the newspaper front pages and the overnight summary of political websites.

  ‘So,’ he said without looking up. ‘What did you learn?’

  ‘The things I do for you, Philip – it was like going to bed with a colony of fruit-eating bats.’

  ‘You didn’t have to sleep with her. Just take her for a drink was all I said.’

  ‘I had no option,’ said Lyme rather helplessly. ‘And I must say she is by a long stretch the most filthy-minded woman I have ever met. I mean interestingly so.’

  ‘Spare me the details,’ said Cannon.

  ‘But she did tell me something. JT is going to call the election tonight or early tomorrow morning. He’s in a lather about the Eyam business.’

  ‘She said that?’

  ‘Why’s that such a big deal?’

  Cannon didn’t answer but left for the prime minister’s sitting room with the newspapers and summaries under his arm.

  If asked about the meetings he had attended in Downing Street and Chequers over the past five or six days, Cannon would have confessed that they all merged into one in his mind. On every occasion he seemed to walk into the room when Jamie Ferris was speaking, and this time was no exception. But the atmosphere had become tense. Temple had dropped all pretence of civility and snapped at Cannon to sit down.

  ‘We have a line into the woman,’ said Ferris after looking up at Cannon, ‘and an offer was put to her through Oliver Mermagen. We have also got a trace on her phone. It appears that soon after seeing Mermagen she went to the London offices of her law firm in the City. She has agreed to make a call to Eyam at eleven. We can’t guarantee that she will use her mobile, but if she does we will very soon afterwards have a location for Eyam. We will also be tapping into the law firm’s telecommunications and applying voice recognition so that her call, even if made on a landline, will very likely be traced.’

  ‘And if this does not work as you envisage,’ asked Temple, ‘what do you plan?’

  ‘Clearly she can be arrested and that will be put into effect soon after eleven. The building is now being watched.’

  ‘But it still leaves Eyam free.’

  ‘Yes, but we believe him to be very ill. Some drugs packaging was found at the apartment where Kate Lockhart was staying, and we have since contacted St Mary’s Paddington where the drugs were dispensed. Apparently he collapsed in the street and was taken there by ambulance and was treated under the name of Daniel H. Duval, the alias he used to flee France. CCTV footage from the A&E reception shows him looking very frail. He was joined by Kate Lockhart and they saw the doctor together. And this is the important thing: Eyam’s got cancer. We’ve interviewed the doctor who says he was in a bad way. He wanted to admit him immediately but Eyam said he needed drugs to get through the next few days. Eyam left St Mary’s later that afternoon with Lockhart and they hailed a cab.’

  ‘And you still have a source on the inside, is that right?’

  ‘We’ve heard from her twice – we’ve got the documents she was carrying and their plans – so we are in good shape. We know that the Bell Ringers intend to hold a press conference of some sort in the near future. We’ve established that this will probably take place tomorrow at the Hertford Hotel in central London. The hotel conference centre has been booked for a twenty-four-hour period from nine o’clock tomorrow morning. A five-thousand-pound deposit was paid from one of the bank accounts that we have been monitoring. It goes without saying that that press conference will not go ahead.’

  ‘Good. Have you heard anything about this, Philip?’ asked Temple.

  ‘No, prime minister. Clearly I can’t ask journalists whether Eyam or anyone that might be representing him has been in touch.’

  ‘Quite so,’ said Temple. ‘What about these other people – the Bell Ringers?’

  Christine Shoemaker looked at some papers. ‘I believe about forty have been detained under the emergency regulations.’ She went on to say that nothing had been found on any of the people and none was a member of the core group from the High Castle area. They were being processed but so far none of them had confessed their plans.

  Cannon looked down at the newspapers in his lap and concentrated very hard: now was not the time to complain about the government using emergency regulations to arrest people who were not suspected of doing anything more than exercising their legitimate right to protest.

  ‘How long will they be in the holding area?’ asked Temple.

  ‘Initially for a period of thirty-six hours, which may be extended.’

  Cannon coughed. ‘When I get questions about what these people are suspected of doing,’ he asked, ‘what line do I take?’

  Temple looked annoyed. ‘You tell the media these are temporary measures; that the g
overnment is empowered by Parliament to act to protect the public in an emergency; and that any inconvenience to those held is regretted. We are simply guarding against all eventualities.’

  ‘But journalists may point out that the nearest outbreak of TRA is a hundred and fifty miles from London.’

  ‘As I said, all eventualities.’

  ‘What about the conditions of these holding areas? Where are they?’

  ‘We are not announcing their locations,’ said Shoemaker. ‘Obviously this is a first step and these people will be processed as quickly as possible. Facilities have been laid on – food, toilets, counselling et cetera.’

  ‘Counselling for what?’ murmured Cannon.

  Temple looked down and pinched his septum. ‘If we don’t apprehend Eyam, when do we tell the public he is alive and being hunted for paedophile offences and faking his own death? And how do we then play his illness?’

  Ferris glanced at Christine Shoemaker. ‘We will be guided by you, prime minister,’ she said. ‘As you know, we all felt that it was best to handle this as discreetly as possible, but clearly if he isn’t located and arrested after the call from Lockhart, we may need the public’s help to find him.’

  Temple thought again. The room was silent. ‘Very well, let it be at one o’clock today. Ask the police to issue photographs and draw up a statement outlining the main offences Eyam is suspected of.’

  ‘This is going to cause a hell of a fuss,’ said Cannon.

  ‘If he is charged immediately, the press won’t be able to say anything under the sub judice rules.’

  ‘But the gap between issuing the release and Eyam being caught may lead to some very wild speculation.’ He held up two of the newspapers. ‘The coverage this morning is far from favourable – Bryant Maclean’s papers are openly challenging the decision to invoke the Civil Contingencies Act.’

  ‘Once the election is called, Maclean will come on side, which is why we need to do that as soon as possible.’

  ‘If I may, prime minister,’ said Cannon with his usual note of respectful disagreement. ‘We don’t want the accusation levelled at us that this is a shotgun wedding, particularly as you are going to the country on a record of calm, ordered government. I merely suggest that you separate the announcement about Eyam and calling the election.’

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ said Temple automatically.

  Cannon was used to these apparent concessions. Temple had no intention of changing his mind. He liked high drama, and despite his reputation for stability, actually fed on the adrenalin of these situations. It was Eyam who’d once pointed out that Temple was like one of those respectable, unassuming middle-aged men who go into a casino and bet their house and business on a game of blackjack. ‘We will be watching the media very closely today,’ he said to Temple. ‘But if the location of these holding areas is discovered, it will be tricky for us. Maclean has run part of the email that was circulating yesterday about Eden White, and there is one article that speculates about the source behind it. And the pictures of the two individuals emerging from those offices in High Castle got some play too. If it is discovered that this solicitor acted for David Eyam, it will give greater impetus to the story. Journalists may begin to join up the dots.’

  ‘Not if Eyam is charged,’ said Ferris, who had been looking uncomfortable.

  ‘I’ll have a word with Maclean,’ said Temple, ‘and explain what we are doing and why we’re doing it. He won’t want his papers backing a paedophile.’

  Nobody in the room except Cannon noticed the way the threat posed by Eyam to the government and that of red algae to the nation had been merged. State and government were for them one. Nor did they question that Number Ten’s responses to both were in effect the same. They had all gone too far down the road with John Temple for that kind of discrimination.

  Everyone except Temple rose. ‘Philip, could you stay for a moment?’ he said from his papers. The door closed. ‘We have been trying to get hold of Peter Kilmartin. You don’t have any idea where he is, do you?’

  Cannon shook his head.

  ‘If he’s in touch, tell him I want to see him. There are suggestions that he was involved in the publication of those emails about Eyam’s appearance at the Joint Intelligence Committee.’

  ‘I seriously doubt it,’ said Cannon.

  ‘Still, I want to see him. There’s too much being published irresponsibly, randomly. It’s very destructive. We will have to look at this after the election. I’d like your thoughts on it all.’

  ‘That’s the disadvantage of a free press, prime minister.’

  ‘I sense the public is tired of it all. They don’t know who or what to believe. They want a single reliable account of these important issues. We’re going to have to put a lot of thought into this after the election.’

  During the night a further elaboration of the plan to smuggle Eyam’s material into the Houses of Parliament had come to Kilmartin and on waking he put it to Carrie Middleton, who had appeared beside his bed with a cup of tea. The bedroom belonged to her son, who was away at university in Leeds, and all round the room were posters of rock stars and actresses. Kilmartin blinked at them, then put his glasses on.

  ‘Come into my room,’ she said. ‘You can sit down and talk to me while I put my face on.’ Kilmartin could not see that Carrie needed to add anything to what was already a miraculous complexion. She left while he took a quick shower and shaved, after which he put on his trousers and a shirt and followed the murmur of her voice barefoot.

  He repeated his idea, while looking round the room – the best in the flat and decorated with Carrie’s eye for practicality and unfussy comfort. On one wall there was a collection of Victorian amateur watercolours, which she said, while thinking about his proposition, she inherited from her father who bought them at bric-a-brac stores and in markets during the fifties and sixties.

  Returning to her right eye with a fine mascara brush, she smiled at her reflection in the mirror: ‘Yes, Peter, it may be possible if it looks the real thing. If you can guarantee that, I will do it for you, but you do realise I will be taking a risk?’

  ‘Yes, I do, Carrie, and I am sorry for asking, but it does seem quite a good idea.’

  ‘And you will make sure that young woman Mary MacCullum is all right?’

  ‘I will do my utmost. If we succeed, she should never have any trouble again. Now I really must make some telephone calls.’

  She turned to him and composed her hands in the lap of her dressing gown. ‘People won’t thank you for ringing them at this hour. Besides, Peter, my help comes with a condition.’ She gave a coquettish little smile. For a moment he stared at her uncomprehendingly. ‘A condition that will not be unpleasant,’ she added, then stood in the grey morning light, to his eyes glorious and effulgent and all that he had ever dreamed of while trying to concentrate on the kings of Assyria in the St James’s Library. She let her hand drop and the dressing gown fell open a little to reveal the librarian’s full white bust. ‘I was going to ask last night but then you looked so tired I thought it better that you had some rest.’ Without moving from the stool by her dressing table he drew her to him and said yes, indeed, the world could wait and so could his call to Kate Lockhart.

  Kate entered the Italian sandwich and breakfast bar at eight thirty and ordered coffee while she read the papers. The radio was on in the background: through three new bulletins she heard reports of the emergency powers affecting London’s streets: commuters arriving in London by train were greeted by the sight of army patrols; there was an abnormally large police presence on streets. People were being stop-searched and asked to account for their movements. There were rumours of arrests but a spokesman for the Metropolitan Police would not confirm or deny them: he refused to be drawn on the subjects of holding areas or why the government felt it was necessary to detain people in London well away from the contaminated reservoirs or what intelligence the government was acting on. He did say, however, that the presence
of the army on the street would be short-lived, and that the police would scale down their operation over the course of the week.

  From the table at the back of the cafe from where she could watch the door, she called Eyam. Four previous attempts had failed and she was beginning to worry. But now Aristotle Miff answered and told her that Eyam was resting up at a place Freddie had found for him. Miff told her that he didn’t look too great – he was shaking when they picked him up in the street after his call early that morning, but he seemed better after taking the drugs and had eaten.

  ‘You’re the main man now,’ said Miff. ‘You gotta make it happen, he says. The whole thing rests on your shoulders. He told me to tell you.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she said unenthusiastically. ‘What about the package in the car wreck?’

  ‘Nothing – the police say they don’t know anything about it. It turns out that there was a fire and the bodies were burned pretty badly.’

  ‘Then how did they know who was travelling in the car? I was told an ID card was found.’

  ‘I guess they knew before the accident,’ said Miff simply.

  ‘What about the phones they were carrying?’

  ‘There was nothing . . .’

  ‘How important was the package?’

  ‘Important, but he says you can get by without it.’

  ‘Tell him that Promises – he’ll know who I mean – offered us a deal. They’re worried and they are about to get extremely nasty.’ She hung up and investigated the phone Eyam had given her. There were twenty-four numbers and the same number of email addresses. She wrote a list on a notepad, which excluded Chris Mooney and Alice Scudamore and then sent each address an email. The email would be encrypted, but she kept the message short: ‘Contact by return & let me know you’re OK. Wait for instructions on delivery at the end of afternoon. Keep away from CCTV and stay off the streets.’

  The first replies came back. Some returned blank emails with just the word ‘bell ringer’ written in the subject bar. Others expressed various degrees of concern about surveillance and the emergency powers. She answered none of these but ticked off the names on her list. After half an hour, two had failed to reply – Penny Whitehead and Diana Kidd. Figuring that Whitehead was the calmer of the two, she called her.