Thursday 28th January 2016
London
Jeremy Seymour steps out of the meeting dragging his permanent secretary, Sir Giles Armstrong, with him. They have been listening to a presentation about UK border control procedures with a cast of many, sufficient in number to allow the meeting to continue uninterrupted during the minister’s absence. Thursday was usually the weekly Cabinet meeting. However, the PM had been in Paris overnight and was not due back until later in the day. Also, because it was so soon after the party off-site the previous weekend, it had been decided to cancel that week’s Cabinet session. It had given Seymour an unexpectedly free morning. The meeting with the UK Border Agency officials had been a last-minute addition. Seymour thus feels few qualms about letting his subordinates continue without him.
“Giles, what have I got on after this afternoon?”
“Nothing you couldn’t move, Minister. You are due in the House at two for a private member’s bill reading. You said you wanted to attend. Other than that, not a lot. Why?”
“I’ve just received a text. My brother is in town and wondered if he and I might meet for a quick lunch.”
Seymour quietly wonders how many other Ministers told fibs to their permanent secretaries. Quite a few, he supposes.
“Then I shall clear your diary. Do you want me to book somewhere? Will you need a car?”
Seymour shakes his head.
“No thank you, Giles. I’ll walk and then head straight from lunch to the House afterwards. Can you meet me there later, say at four o’clock, so that we can run through my diary and any urgent paperwork?”
“Certainly, Minister. Shall I give your apologies to the meeting you’ve just left?”
“Yes please, thank you, Giles. That would be most helpful.”
A light rain is falling as Seymour crosses Vauxhall Bridge. Despite all the running he’s been doing, he remains not as fit as he knows he ought to be, especially when, like now, he’s in a hurry. The time is just after twelve-thirty. The MI6 building looms large on the southern riverbank ahead of him, standing like a sentry on the south bank in the gloomy January light. Beyond is the railway bridge that marks the entrance to Vauxhall station. There, as agreed, is Malcolm Scott. He is wrapped up warmly in a winter raincoat with a dripping umbrella in hand.
“Good to see you, Malcolm,” Seymour puffs, struggling to catch his breath. The two men shake hands.
“I got your text message. What’s up?”
“Shall we walk?”
Scott has to raise his voice to make himself heard, the rumble of a passing train overhead making conversation difficult. He opens his umbrella and the two venture out into the drizzling rain. Once clear of the bridge they turn left down a quiet side street adjacent to the railway tracks and into Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, a large expanse of wintry-looking London parkland.
“You remember our last conversation?” Scott asks as they walk together under his umbrella.
“Of course. You had some kind of operation underway.”
“What if I were to tell you, in strictest confidence, that the subject we were pursuing was one Ricky Al-Shawabi?”
The statement causes Seymour to stop in his tracks.
“Bloody hell, Malcolm. That’s dynamite! Ricky’s an old university friend of the PM, I suppose you know that?”
Scott nods but says nothing.
“About to become a major party donor so we’re led to believe. He even came and spoke to us at the off-site last weekend. What have you got?”
Which is the cue for Scott to relay the same ten-thousand-foot summary that Margaret Milner had given earlier.
“Oh, what a tangled web we weave!” Seymour says excitedly, once he has heard it all.
“This could prove very sweaty for certain key people in government, especially if the allegations stick. For starters it has the potential to embarrass the PM acutely. Depending on where this all goes, it could even force him to resign.”
Seymour’s eyes gaze off into the middle distance, his mind churning through all the angles at high speed.
“I’m so glad you told me, Malcolm. This could be really, really important. Exactly the sort of operation I’d been hoping we might pull off. How long before we’re likely to know more details?”
“That depends on how quickly you want to push this.”
“You should be making your operation against Ricky a top priority. I never liked the man. Too big for his boots. Never trust a man who has made too much money without seeming to work for it, that’s always been the litmus test for me.”
“Ordinarily we would be quietly consulting with a few other government agencies. Since Ricky lives and mostly operates outside the UK, our first port of call would typically be MI6, just to check that he’s not on their radar. His file’s not flagged but you never know.”
“Do we have to?” Seymour answers, scrunching his nose and making an involuntary sneer. “Can’t we keep this a purely Home Office matter? Better still, just between the NCA top brass and myself? Certainly for the moment.”
“It is your call, Minister. We have information suggesting that another agency may indeed be interested in Ricky besides ourselves. We think it’s MI6 but we are not yet certain. Are you sure we shouldn’t be quietly sounding each other out?”
“Why not let’s just leave it for a few days and see what other evidence emerges? We can always go and talk to them a little later, don’t you think? Right now, I’d rather keep this in-house. This is going to provide a much-needed PR boost, I hope you realise? It might even change the political landscape. I don’t think we need Geraldine Macauley basking in our shared glory if you and I can get away with wallowing in the reflected glow of success all by ourselves, do you?”
“As I say, it’s your call, Minister.”
“Please keep me posted on how this develops, Malcolm. This is exciting. Very exciting! Well done. Anything else?”
“Not for now. I think we’re meant to be catching up in the morning, in any event. I thought this was important enough to warrant an early conversation.”
“Quite right. Good decision. By the way, let’s not mention this at the meeting tomorrow. Sir Giles Armstrong would only go and tell all the other permanent secretaries and then everyone in Whitehall would know. Very good, Malcolm, excellent work. Please congratulate the team from me personally. I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”
They shake hands and go their separate ways: Seymour heading towards Westminster Bridge and his parliamentary office and Scott back to his own office located a few minutes’ walk away. Scott is in a hurry to make a confidential file note of everything that has just been discussed and agreed, not least to cover his own backside. As Scott knows from experience, private meetings are all very well: however, in the absence of officials there are seldom minutes – and without any written record, recollections about what was either said or not said, agreed or not agreed, between a politician and their direct reports, were often subject to misinterpretation if not outright rebuttal.
Jeremy Seymour is crossing Westminster Bridge when his private mobile phone begins to ring.
“Seymour,” he says curtly, not recognising the number.
“Mister Jeremy, it’s Len Nesbitt.”
Nesbitt calls Murphy straight back after speaking with Seymour. They agree to meet at the same Chelmsford superstore, this time in two hours’ time which means that Nesbitt needs to set off in his car almost immediately he finishes his call. He has just enough time to raid a substantial cash reserve that he keeps for unforeseen emergencies such as this, the promise that Mister Jeremy has just made to repay him that coming weekend leaving Nesbitt in no doubt that his local Member of Parliament will indeed keep to his word.
Arriving in the nick of time, Nesbitt hands over another, slightly thicker, parcel to Murphy O’Connor and then, as instructed, passes on one other important piece of information.
“We’re happy for you now to leak this information to the tabloids.”
Murphy notes the plural ‘we’: not the singular ‘I’.
Thirty minutes later, the car idling in the same lay-by as before, Murphy finishes counting the money to make sure he’s been paid in full. Satisfied that it is all there, he searches for a particular number on his phone. It is time to call Michael Myers from the Daily Post, someone he has used on several occasions and with whom he has a good relationship. Seconds later and the two men are speaking. Within five minutes the deed is done. Michael asks Murphy to send through a copy of the birth certificate. Fortunately, Murphy took a photograph of it on his phone earlier that day in the office. With the picture finally emailed, Murphy leans back in the driver’s seat and closes his eyes.
Another very happy client.