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‘You’re wrong. He didn’t have the guts to see it through.’
‘Will he see this through? I want it done properly.’ He paused. ‘Let’s be clear, our secret friends need a bloody good kicking.’
‘Your message was clear. We’ll make sure he doesn’t forget it.’
Sandford gave a conspiratorial smile. ‘There’s the politics of it too, isn’t there?’
‘What do you mean?’ Atkinson’s voice betrayed anxiety at missing a trick.
‘We have four more years in power. During that time, there’s bound to be a big one. Maybe several.’
‘Yes, bound to be.’
‘So when it happens, people’ll never be able to say we didn’t do everything to anticipate it – to think the unthinkable. That we didn’t just leave it to the police and MI5. We shone a public light on them, we pulled together the wisest heads in the land to scrutinise them. No stone was left unturned.’
‘That’s good, Robbie.’ Atkinson’s admiration was genuine. ‘Very good.’
‘Thanks, Geoff. I’m surprised you hadn’t seen it yourself.’ Simultaneously they turned to the Cabinet Secretary but Sir Kevin Long was saying nothing.
‘Well, let’s hope that’s all settled,’ said Sandford, rubbing his hands. ‘Kevin, perhaps I might have a minute with the Home Secretary.’
‘Of course, Prime Minister.’ The Cabinet Secretary eased gracefully from the room.
‘What are you going to surprise me with now?’ asked Atkinson.
‘Think about it, Geoff. On whose watch did the terror return?’
‘The last Prime Minister, of course.’
‘And who was Home Secretary during the years the terror was being planned?’
Atkinson chuckled. ‘The last Prime Minister.’
‘Precisely,’ said Sandford, triumph in his eye. ‘Chilcot did for Blair. Morahan can do for her.’
‘So…’ concluded Morahan that evening, after explaining the Prime Minister’s invitation to his wife, Lady Iona, at their Chelsea home. Like him, she was a public figure; née Chesterfield – which she’d kept as her professional name – she had risen to be Head Mistress of a prestigious London girls’ school and one of the country’s most formidable educationalists.
‘So indeed,’ she replied, looking beyond him.
He inspected the fine bone structure of her high-cheeked face, the still creamy glaze of her skin, the dark brown hair expensively laced with auburn tints – and, as so often, found it hard to interpret what was going on within. Was she even thinking about what he had told her? She might just as easily be hatching some new scheme in the compartmentalised lives they had become accustomed to living.
‘Do you have a view?’ he asked.
Her eyes shifted to engage his. ‘The obvious one. If you scrutinise the security services, it may – probably will – bring their scrutiny onto you.’
‘Yes.’ He paused. ‘That has been the main focus of my thoughts.’ He stood and walked over to the drawing room triple window, resting against its ledge. ‘Perhaps I’ve reached that stage of life when one can no longer be cowed.’
‘In that case…’
‘Put it this way,’ he interrupted. ‘I agree with the Prime Minister. It should be done. The intelligence services failed us in 2003—’
‘Isn’t that harsh?’
‘They should have stood up to Blair instead of kowtowing. The blame was theirs too.’
‘Some might say we’ve moved on from then,’ she said softly.
Was she offering him, if at heart he needed it, a way out, an escape from the trap door? It steeled him. ‘Sandford’s right. We need to see inside them.’
‘If they let you.’ The softness had gone.
The next morning, Sir Francis Morahan wrote to the Prime Minister that it would be an honour to chair the Inquiry. A few weeks later he agreed its terms of reference with the Home Secretary:
1. To inquire, after twelve years countering of the terrorist threat, into the reasons for security failures and the lessons to be learnt in preventing future terror attacks in the UK.
2. To inquire into present security policy and strategy towards British Islamist extremists returned and returning from conflict zones.
Over the coming months premises were leased, a Secretary to the Inquiry appointed and supporting secretariat hired, a Government Legal Department solicitor seconded, a panel of independent experts assembled. Morahan gave a media conference at which he asked for submissions from interested parties. His secretariat found itself deluged by a torrent of paper, particularly from government departments apparently able to locate an unending supply of data and research with only limited relevance to his terms of reference, all of which had to be logged in, read and summarised for the panel of experts. Once this work was completed a senior QC and junior counsel would join the Inquiry to initiate its interrogative phase.
Occasionally, Morahan smelt the whiff of an unholy alliance between the likes of the Cabinet Secretary and the civil and intelligence services, to appear to be doing a naïve Prime Minister’s will but all the while finding ways to thwart him.
‘And then,’ Morahan said, ‘something happened.’
The Common had burst into tea-time life with the noise of mothers, toddlers just out of school, and bawling babies in prams. The café was filling up with ice-cream and sweet-hunters, the background noise forcing Morahan and Sara ever closer together.
Glancing around, he narrowed his gaze. ‘You see, just as my envelope has dropped into your Chambers, a few weeks ago a similar envelope dropped through the front door of my house.’ He peered from the café towards the green open spaces of the Common. ‘It’s become rather noisy here. Shall we take a walk?’
3 (#ulink_f5370323-b190-5b35-b6d7-2acb19f5e825)
Three weeks earlier
As usual on weekdays except Thursdays, Sir Francis Morahan drew into Chelsea Park Upper promptly at 6 p.m. to allow time to change for whatever engagement his wife or his bar obligations had committed him to. He stowed his bicycle in the side passage hut and entered through the front door. An A4-size brown envelope lay on the mat – on it was stuck an address slip, typed only with his name.
A reading light was on in Iona’s study ahead; if she was at home and had not picked the envelope up to leave it on the hall shelf – she disliked clutter – it must have been recently delivered. He wondered if the deliverer’s timing was deliberate to ensure that it would go straight into his hands rather than hers.
He nudged open her study door. She raised her head and peered through light-blue titanium varifocals. ‘Good, you’re back.’
He hesitated. ‘You didn’t hear anyone at the front door just now, did you?’
‘No.’ She frowned. ‘Should I have?’
‘Nothing. Just wondering.’
‘How strange you are sometimes.’ She raised herself. ‘Grosvenor House Hotel, 7 p.m., car booked for 6.30. Minnie Townsend’s refugee charity do.’
She brushed past him and went upstairs. A dinner jacket was so much part of evening life that he could do the change in ten minutes. He retreated to his own study; he couldn’t leave the letter until they returned – the label begged too many questions. He sat down, switched on his desk lamp, opened it with a paper knife and read. There was no letter heading and no date.
Dear Sir Francis
I write to you as a result of my involvement with a secret arm of government relevant to your Inquiry. Therefore I must remain anonymous.
It is within your remit to investigate certain activities by the state whose exposure will have devastating consequences. I can supply you with information, so far withheld from you, which will enable you to launch such an investigation.
I will deal only with you personally. Please understand that any communication by you via phone, email or any other electronic means may be being noted.
Neither my contact with you, nor my communications with you, nor any material I give you is to be logged into the Inquiry’s database. They are for your eyes only. If you do log the material, I will know and contact will cease.
If you wish to proceed, please leave me a message saying simply Yes or No using the methodology in the accompanying note.
Please know me simply as ‘Sayyid’.
It felt like a punch in the ribs; Francis Morahan had never received a communication that so startled him. He sat, eyes fixed, rereading it for a second and third time. He checked his watch; at the same time a cry came from above. ‘Francis! It’s twenty past six.’
He opened the middle right drawer of his desk, restored the letter to the envelope, placed it beneath a pile of other papers, stood to find a key concealed behind a particular book in a shelf above and locked the drawer with it. Beads of sweat formed on his cheeks – locking drawers was an unfamiliar act since he had left politics.
Upstairs in his dressing room, his cufflinks seemed to slide into their eyes less smoothly than usual; his hands tying the black bow were jittery. He sensed his wife watching through the door.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes, fine.’ He completed the struggle with the tie. ‘Don’t know what’s the matter with the bloody thing tonight.’
‘I’ll go down and tell the driver to wait.’
Their car turned onto the Embankment from Beaufort Street, the reddening sun casting shadows from the pillars of Battersea, then Albert Bridge. Morahan watched joggers evenly, rhythmically striding beside the river and fought for air against the seatbelt entrapping him. The accompanying note insisted that the ‘simple yes or no’ should be given by midnight. He tried to work out why ‘Sayyid’ was granting so little time. Did he know that Morahan would be occupied this evening in chit-chat with whatever members of the do-gooding plutocracy his wife had lined up at their table? That he would have no time to consult or discuss – even if he could have found anyone with whom to share? He flicked a look at Iona. They survived – and, in their ways, prospered – because they had decided at the crossroads in their lives that there would be no secrets in the alliance they would forge. But not tonight. Too soon. Too – how could he put it? – too baffling; too improbable that he, of all people, was entering into a secret world of ‘dead letter boxes’ and heaven knows what else.
‘Sayyid’ was asking him to act alone, to operate outside the system. The request flew in the face of the orderly due process by which, rightly in his view, he conducted his business. Yet, there was something about the letter which made him believe it was important. It felt not just cowardly but wrong to reject it – whether by logging it (he was sure Sayyid meant what he said and somehow had the means to know) or by failing to follow its instructions.
He considered the name ‘Sayyid’. He’d had no time to check its meaning – perhaps it was just to indicate inside knowledge of the world he was entering. He would look it up later.
They were home by 11 p.m. He escorted his wife from car to front door and unlocked it to usher her in. Instead of following her upstairs, he headed towards the kitchen.
‘Just remembered I’ve a letter to post,’ he shouted up.
‘Can’t it wait till morning?’
‘I rather need some air.’
‘Well, try not to squeak that floorboard.’
He tore a strip off a cellophane roll, retreated along the passage to his study, found a sheet of paper and wrote ‘Yes’ on it. He folded it into an envelope and wrapped the cellophane around it. Back in the hall, he removed the bow tie and black jacket and put on an overcoat and his homburg, tucking the covered envelope in the inside coat pocket. The church was a brisk eight-minute walk away. He’d be there, leave the envelope and be back home within twenty minutes.
The roads seemed darker than usual, the traffic lighter. He found himself checking parked cars – for what? Men in sharp suits and trilbies smoking Camel cigarettes? He told himself to sharpen up. The gate to the churchyard was, as promised, unlocked – he hadn’t been sure as he’d never had reason to enter it at this hour. As instructed, he took the path that led around the south transept, rows of graves standing grey in the half-moon light. He made for the right angle where the exterior of the transept joined the chancel. Counting out ten yard-long paces at forty-five degrees from that corner, he found the headstone.
GEORGE MANN
BORN 12 DECEMBER 1859
DIED 21 MARCH 1895
‘PROUD OF HIS NATION, A NATION PROUD OF HIM’
He allowed himself a short smile and felt an unexpected surge of bravado. Seeing the gap between the head of the grave lid and bottom of the headstone, he slid the envelope between them.
Before heading upstairs, he googled ‘Sayyid’. A leader, a master. A man who demands respect. Although, he reflected, it could just as easily be a cover – there was no reason to suppose it was either a man or a Muslim. The one thing he did know was that, for the moment, he must play by Sayyid’s rules.
Forty-eight hours later, Morahan retraced his steps to the same gravestone. In place of the white envelope he’d left was a plastic sleeve containing a smaller brown one. He hurried home, shaking with anticipation, and slit it open. Inside was a curt message saying no more than ‘Agreed’, followed by an instruction to return to a different grave in a further forty-eight hours. He felt both wound-up and deflated.
Two nights later, as the hall clock chimed the three-quarter hour of 10.45 p.m., he called up that he was popping out again for a stroll. This time Iona emerged to glare down from the landing railings. ‘It’s becoming rather a habit.’
‘Yes, I will explain soon enough. Nothing to worry about.’
The lid on the second gravestone was, as promised, unattached. It was also heavy – much heavier than he had anticipated. With his fingertips he could loosen but not lift it or ease it sideways. He had wondered whether Sayyid was a man or woman; now, a strong man seemed more likely. He himself was in his late sixties; while his legs adequately propelled his bicycle, his arms were used to no more than lifting legal submissions.
He looked at his watch. 11.05 p.m. Iona would be agitating. He needed a crow bar or something similar; he couldn’t afford to delay and risk the morning light.
He stalked home, went upstairs and looked into her bedroom.
‘I have to go out again.’
‘It’s all right, Francis.’
‘No, truly.’ His dry voice was urgent. ‘There’s a task I need to complete. I’ll explain everything tomorrow morning.’ He paused. ‘Unless you have other plans.’
She eyed him quizzically and resumed her reading.
Out in the garden he scrambled among the clutter in the shed, opening his old wooden tool box for the first time, it seemed, in years; his days of DIY were long over. Perhaps the claw of the rubber-handled hammer might do it; he shoved it into a pocket. He had a better idea, but it meant re-entering the house yet again to fetch the car key. He had to tell her tomorrow. Edging open the front door and stepping on tiptoes he took the key from the hall shelf. The light was still on upstairs; he heard the pulling of a lavatory chain and padding of feet. He exited, opened the car boot, pulled away the bottom flap and saw that he’d remembered correctly; the wheel nut spanner had a lever on the end of the handle.
Weighed down, he set out again for the churchyard. He wondered how he would explain himself to a policeman. Caught in the act with an ‘offensive weapon’ – he imagined the headline, ’69-year-old Government Inquiry Chair is Secret Grave Robber.’ There seemed something fantastical about what he was doing. Yet he knew from the law courts just how easily chance, coincidence, or sheer misadventure could at a stroke change lives – and, sometimes, arbitrarily cut them short.
He managed to insert the hammer claw into the gap below one side of the lid and the lever on the car spanner beneath its head. Kneeling, he pressed down on both with the palms of his hand. He felt upward movement and with his knee eased the lid an inch to the right. One more shove and he should be able to slip his fingers beneath. He was sweating; he stood up and breathed deeply. How could this be necessary? Was his resolve being tested? He bent down again and repeated the process. The gap was now sufficient to show the edge of a slim brown plastic package, again A4 size. He forced his hand through, scraping the knuckles against the stone’s sharp edge, far enough to grab the package between his second and third fingers. He stood up with it, back aching, heart thumping from the exertion, and concealed it in his coat.
On the walk home, he saw a dark-coloured Mercedes saloon parked ahead. Someone was in the driver’s seat. He paused. Who? Why? Should he turn round, try to bypass it? No, stop being paranoid – too old for that. As he passed, he could make out the shape of a capped man, face burrowed down into a thick collar, sitting in the front, listening to the radio – Magic or Kiss or one of those other all-night stations churning out trans-generational beats. He glanced back at the rear window. It showed the round green disc of a licensed taxi. He relaxed.
At home, Iona’s bedroom light was off. He sat down at his desk and gazed blankly for a few seconds at the package, lifted it and turned it through 360 degrees. No words, no markings on the brown beneath the plastic. He slid the envelope out and opened it with the paper knife. He extracted the small pile of contents. They were headed by a note in the same font.
Dear Sir Francis,
Thank you for your response.
This initial package contains personal files on five young British Muslims.
I have made two redactions.
The first is the KV2 serial number. This is information you do not need and would present an extra danger both to you and me.
The second is the name of the operation this was part of. Later I may give you this name, though not in writing. Knowledge of it is the most highly classified secret of British intelligence both now and since its inception. It is confined to very few.
Nothing else is blacked out (unlike the intelligence files your Inquiry has so far received where redactions render them effectively useless).
