The Widow's Son

by Daniel Kemp

  The 'wall' along the passageway to this office had appeared to be solid as we walked along the corridor but from where I was now seated I could make out the shadowy silhouettes of those I had seen in the Hub moving about their business; however, I could discern no sound. There was no obvious means to deaden the noise, no acoustics tiles lining the ceiling, walls or floor, nevertheless Harwood's usual gravel voice was softened and slightly faint. Normally, after this amount of time spent listening to him, I would have the start of a headache. I wasn't fearful of one just yet.

  “We see him walk out of the Consulate and then in at the Delegation at Highgate, with not much in between. We know where he goes, but he caught us flat-footed on that first day. We had British Transport cameras in Notting Hill Station and Charing Cross to review, but neither were of any use. Crap stuff really. There was nobody on watch or notified at the Savoy in the Strand and no eyes inside the Silver Vaults at Chancery Lane. Apparently, he had the full English at the Savoy including that disgusting black pudding thing they serve. He washed it down with a pot of English breakfast tea. Not a drop of vodka to be seen. I have assigned cover to each of the locations now, but …” His voice died away and was replaced by a languid sigh. I said nothing, waiting whilst he gathered himself until at last he could continue.

  “Even though this Raynor file dates back almost twenty years there's not a lot in it. Our first sighting is logged as being in Istanbul in 1983. Incidentally, before I get too far ahead of myself I have arranged for the Home Secretary to telephone us here to officially appoint you as Director General of Group.” He checked his ostentatious gold watch. “Any time in the next thirty minutes Oliver Nathan will declare you in charge of this place and the offices at Craig Court, Westminster, but not the offices at Greenwich. I have set something up there that I'm taking as the outside source to my new role. I'm unsure of its practicality to me and I may offload it in your direction at some point in the future. That's of course if it doesn't go with the new me, old chap.”

  Another groan, followed by the removal of his spectacles, holding them up to the light this time to check the clarity. He waited until satisfied before going on.

  “After you have accepted Oliver's gracious offer I will require you to move into the rooms on the two newly furnished floors above the entrance to this building.” He stopped speaking and glared me, daring me to argue. I didn't, thinking that my overused sofa at home might recover from the indentation in my absence.

  “Your current apartment at Canary Wharf cannot be sufficiently secured for what your new status will require. Unless that is, the government buys the whole block,” he laughed. I didn't. “That's not going to happen, Patrick, no matter how long a face you pull.” At first I thought that remark was aimed at my lack of appreciation of his 'buying the whole block' comment, but I was wrong.

  “No, in fact you may come out this considerably richer. I can recommend a man in the Acquisitions and Disposals sections of the Audit Office who knows absolutely everyone when it comes to buying and selling property.” Why am I not surprised at that, Geoffrey? I thought.

  “That's for the future of course, for now upstairs is secure and the available rooms are perfectly habitable for a short period of time. A long way from the shabby mess they were in your day, I can positively assure you of that.” I swear those thick grey eyebrows rose a full inch as he emphasised his importance and his renowned faultless memory.

  “Did you ever stay in those upstairs rooms, Geoffrey?” I asked scornfully.

  “I did not, no. There has been no need for me to stay, but you do have a need, Ezra, so we will dispense with any implied disadvantages of the working-class boy that may be developing in that contemptuous mind of yours. From this day on you are one of us, old man; a giver of orders as you were in Ireland, only now on a far grander scale. You now have a size twelve shoe-print on the upper floors of HM management, got it?” He didn't wait for an answer, he was not used to people disagreeing. Onwards he ploughed.

  “I will give you a cursory introduction to the facilities and staff on duty today. However, we are on the starting line so to speak, so you will have to familiarise yourself at a later date. As you've no doubt noticed, this is a state-of-the-art establishment. I instigated and designed it all and had it overhauled and updated in the spring. Your personal assistant will be the one to fully brief you on the toys and gadgets I've installed, but for now let me show you one. In here,” he was leaning over towards the lower drawer of the desk, “there is a push button. Dig around a bit and you'll find it. If I were to press it, like so, up pops a high-security safe from the floor. How's that!” Abracadabra, up popped a tall, grey polished safe beside his chair.

  “It is unlocked by fingerprint identification and a key.” He threw it across the desk. “Your prints have been uploaded to system. Don't lose the key. It's the only one in the building. Copies are kept somewhere, but it would take a decade to find them. In the security operations room, the SOR, you passed it when you entered the building, there is another safe, a combination one. All documents, both into Group and away from Group, will be held in that safe, not the one here. This one is for the in-house, top security, Director General eyes only. Once a day, at varying times chosen by you, a courier will attend and papers being forwarded on will be handed over to him or her, and incoming mail distributed from that operations room safe by your duty officer. Your PA, along with the station and duty officers are cleared to A Grade classified level of documentation. All communication above classified and addressed directly to you as Director General Group will be in cipher and can only be read in the Pink Room.” My eyes lit up in surprise, expecting some flamingo-dressed girls as waitresses in there. I asked the question.

  “Are the drinks served by scantily dressed maidens waiting to see to my every need in that room, Geoffrey?”

  “Don't be silly and try not to think about sex every second of the day, dear boy. The room is not pink and in fact it's not a room. It's a secured cubicle behind a door off your dayroom beyond this office. Where was I?”

  “Talking about paperwork, Geoffrey; as always—old boy.” A narrow-eyed stare was my punishment for that remark.

  “All paperwork will be locked away when finished with in either your safe here, your PA's safe or the combination one in the security operations room. No casual behaviour with my precious files will be permitted.” He paused for breath. As his chest expanded he clasped his hands together behind his neck, rolling his eyes towards the ceiling as his head was pressed firmly backwards into his grip. It was from that position he next spoke.

  “If you remember nothing else remember this, Patrick; I remain your boss. As permanent secretary to the Minister for Home Affairs it's my role to keep the wheels turning without disturbing the minister from his political duties. You report to me and only me. I will not tolerate the peddling of trivia. I am not one of the pettifogging civil servants that no doubt you will come across. Got it?”

  A light was flashing on a multi-coloured console sunk into the surface of the desk. As I hadn't a clue as to the meaning of the word pettifogging, I was pleased for the interruption.

  “Press it, dear boy. It will be Oliver. We are on speaker but nobody outside this office can hear.” I followed his instructions and as I listened to the Home Secretary I was subjected to the hostile Harwood stare. He was waiting to pounce as my final, “Thank you, sir,” left my lips.

  “Both inside this address and controlled from this address, you have a variety of expensive equipment at your disposal, Patrick.” He looked concerned, as the furrows on his forehead grew deeper.

  “Perhaps I should call you Joseph now, dear boy. Let's see how we go, shall we. Solomon, your station officer, can fill you in on the subtleties and capabilities of that equipment along with the open loop to GCHQ. Please, use it all prudently and whilst you're finding your feet ask either Solomon, or the duty officer Abraham if you're unsure about anything. Do not antagonise the Americans.” I interrupted him at
this point.

  “Was all the expensive gear made in America and leased from them, Geoffrey?” I tried to appear disdainful in dismissing my own country as the place of manufacture. It worked.

  “Most certainly it was not. Made within the shores of GB and stamped with the Queen's monogram. English technology mixed with a bit of Scottish innovation, as I understand.”

  “Fraser Ughert must be pleased then.” All I got was a wearisome hmm as a reply to my introduction of Fraser's name.

  “Look after the personnel here and do not encourage them into your questionable habits. Your old name of Ezra has been returned to the database awaiting reassignment sometime in the future. That incidentally is now one of your duties.” Did I detect a slight tone of regret there and if so what for? I tried to prise him open.

  “Strange day to pick for an appointment of this kind, Geoffrey; a Friday. I would have thought Monday would have been far more suitable. Perhaps an introduction to the place today with some walk-throughs by the station officer or his deputy over the weekend, and then I'd have more time to absorb all of it. Is there an urgency that you're not willing to divulge?”

  “No, no urgency at all, dear boy. The truth is today's perfect for me. I'm not in town over the weekend and those plans of my appointment are set in concrete. There is no possibility of anything of mine being rearranged.” I had always found that if there was a need to repeat something then something else was being covered up.

  “I am to sit at my new desk on Monday, so it was today or put it off until I had my feet well and truly under the table in the realms of Whitehall. It would be impossible for me to run both departments in tandem for the time it would take to be settled into my ministerial work.”

  “Jolly hockey sticks for you then, and sod me, is that about the strength of it? You have certainly dropped me into the mire with this one. The whole of this place to assimilate with staff to get to know and a top-ranking Russian spy on the prowl. That's a lot to deal with first up. Anything else to unload on me, like the Russian fleet about to drop anchor in Portsmouth?” He smiled broadly and simply shook his head.

  I had not had enough face-to-face meetings with Harwood to appreciate any change to his nature, but I did know that he hadn't always occupied a desk inside the security services of this country, in fact, my closing route into Group had not been dissimilar to his own.

  * * *

  In November 1989 Geoffrey Harwood, then aged forty-nine, was outside of a small town named Belcoo, near a crossing between the north and south of Ireland waiting for a car carrying the two members of the provisional IRA responsible for killing eleven Marine musicians at the Deal Army Barracks, in Kent on the mainland of Britain the previous month. He'd had a tip-off. They had been in hiding in the south, but unfortunately for them their brigade commander wanted them back to inflict more bloodshed upon the Protestants of the north. They were warily taking the circuitous route favoured by Irish terrorists returning from atrocities to the relative safety of Belfast. In those days, Geoffrey was in the same role as I had been; blending in with all around, on the spy and operating on his own.

  The grey coloured Ford car was on time crossing the unguarded border and was carefully approaching Harwood's parked, battered Land Rover on the Sligo Road at a little after three o'clock on the autumn morning. As nobody could be seen inside the suspect vehicle, the driver of the Ford increased his speed with renewed confidence. Nevertheless, time spent in murdering others had taught them to keep their Uzi machine pistols close at hand.

  Geoffrey was three hundred yards further on from his Land Rover, well hidden in a shallow trench he had prepared behind the stone pillar of a gateway leading into a field used by grazing cattle. When the car was almost on top of him he powerfully threw a newly designed tyre shredder across the carriageway, causing all four tyres of the Ford to burst and the car to slam heavily into a ditch twenty yards on. On reaching the vehicle Harwood withdrew the two syringes of the toxic Botulinum poison from the small bag he carried. It was the standard service issue toxin in that day and age. Both syringes were emptied into the IRA murderers whose heads were embedded into the broken windscreen. Next, he carefully unscrewed the caps of two metallic tubes that remained in his holdall until they made an audible click. These he laid side by side inside his bag on the rear seat of Ford. He sprinted back to his Land Rover before the pale greenish-yellow liquid slowly emerged from one. As he drove hastily away from the scene towards Belcoo, another car approached on the same side of the road as the crashed Ford. The colourless gas from his second phial mixed with the coloured liquid at the precise time that extra car stopped beside the crashed Ford. There was nothing left of either vehicle and nothing recognisable left of the bodies inside the Ford, but parts of the two bodies from the other car were identifiable. One was a woman of twenty-four years and the other, a child of five.

  The number of times Harwood visited the surgeons' clinic was not recorded in his personal file nor was there any medical prognosis, but Adam, in one of his 'need to gossip moments', had declared that the incident had led Geoffrey to be obsessed with detail.

  'Before all that happened he was never interested in the specifics of how an operation was to be undertaken. He just wanted the who and the where and leave the rest up to him, but not now he's been shunted home to Group and placed in charge. When he was out on the streets he was good. But now it's all numbers to him. Even the number of paperclips needed before Branch has finished with a folder is itemised. He's a pain in the arse, Ezra. They have a name for it. Obsessive compulsory personality disorder, OCPD. His is the obsession with perfection.'

  If Adam had my security clearance, and read of the circumstances of Harwood's experience in Ireland, he might have looked at Geoffrey's subsequent behaviour less critically, but, then again, I never came across a side of Adam's nature anything but confrontational and at the end of the day does any assassin give a toss about what a psychiatrist called a surgeon thinks of them, because I certainly didn't.

  * * *

  My attempt to extract more from Geoffrey on the timing of this appointment had not worked; his renowned reputation for stubbornness was well earned.

  “As you are Group's official Biblical Joseph, Patrick, I think it's time to change seats.” With that royal pronouncement he rose from behind the multi-functional desk and with another melodramatic sweeping gesture offered the chair to me. I remained where I was.

  “Why so much interest in this Russian going between two points that are well known to us, Geoffrey? Surely if there was anything of interest he would be going somewhere we do not know of? Can't a detail out of Faction, at MI5 do their job and simply follow and report on him?” He stared at me as would a father at his dull-witted child.

  “No, I think not and I wonder about your powers of assimilation, dear boy. This one is a big fish swimming in our pool, Joseph. Note the word—our. He would spot a follower and what's more, expect one. He's fresh out of Syria with a hands-off sign plastered on him by the Yanks. Oliver doesn't like that, nor do I. Oliver wants it treated by Group before other departments become too deeply involved, i.e. we do not want 5 and their guns looking at our Raynor. Okay?”

  His fingers started tapping the top of the desk where he stood with his eyes flashing towards that watch of his. He seemed to be in a hurry, but as I only had old rugby games to watch I didn't move.

  “If you're not feeling in a symbolic take-over mode, Joseph, let's involve your man Solomon and have a quick breakdown on what's going on around the world.” Another theatrical wave directed towards the door. I still wasn't budging.

  “At this stage, Geoffrey, I have no wish to know who Solomon may be, and I'm not moving anywhere until I know why this Razin, or Raynor, is so special that he warrants me giving up my sofa and my televised sport.”

  “It is simple, dear boy, look upon it as one more job for Queen and country that requires your deft hand of experience. Nothing more than that, I can assure you. You are the exact man
for the work. After it's finished you can triumphantly pat yourself on the back for your outstanding efforts in Ireland and if you wish go home.” He had moved towards the office door and opened it ajar, letting in the sounds from the Hub. His voice became more distinct and louder as his fidgeting increased.

  “Originally, I was instructed by those above to invite you to a slap-up meal to celebrate the highly complimentary remarks coming their way from the Home Office after the Sinn Féin member Donald Donaldson opened up fully to the Northern Ireland enquiry. Using him in the way you did was a pure work of genius. He will be suitably taken care of when he's finished delivering all that's been siphoned away. The talks in Belfast are going well, with the concessions coming along just fine. I'll tell you the truth, Joseph.” He held on to the long chrome door handle, still keeping it ajar.

  “When your name was first put forward I was against promoting you to Controlling Officer, Ireland, but I must give credit where it is due. I had you marked down as nothing more than a meat and potato street plod. A good plod I grant you, but only as good as the next Irish bullet. Despite my misgivings I have to bow to your commendable action in the CO Ireland seat.” Another pause. His silence coincided with some sort of isometric exercise pushing clenched fists into alternating hands, thereby leaving the door to softly close, accompanied by an electronic clicking of the lock to the safe before it retracted into the floor. He passed no comment on his toys.