Kate O’Donnell woke up in pitch darkness with a splitting headache that felt as if it had taken over her whole consciousness. She could hardly think coherently but knew she was not anywhere she recognized: the air felt cold and damp and had a musty smell, like in a long-closed cellar. She lay for what felt like a long time with her eyes shut, then reached out tentative hands to see what she could feel around her. She seemed to be half-covered with a rough and scratchy blanket and to be lying on a hard surface, with a wall to her left and a drop on the other side. She could be on a bed or even a table, but with no indication of how high she was above the floor she didn’t dare risk moving far; and when she rolled over slightly the blanket slithered away and, although she reached over the edge as far as she dared, she found no way of retrieving it. She carefully inched into a foetal position and wrapped her arms around herself in a not very effective attempt to keep warm, but soon began to shiver.
After keeping her eyes closed for a while, the headache slowly began to recede and she began to focus on other discomforts. Her mouth was very dry and in a moment of blind panic she wondered if she had been left to die of thirst. She took deep breaths and told herself that she would soon be missed, and Harry Barnard would move mountains to find her. But in the inky darkness she even had trouble persuading herself of that.
She tried to think back to what she could remember before the darkness descended. It had seemed a normal enough day, even a good day. She recalled Ken Fellows taking her to meet the staff at Topic magazine, where the work she had done for them was welcomed enthusiastically and she watched the page proofs for the feature being put together. She remembered filling them in on what Liam Minogue had told her about Terry Jordan’s latest success in the building trade, and she remembered having lunch with some of the staff in a little Italian restaurant, close to their offices off Kingsway, and the talk turning to the possibility of other commissions in the future. In an expansive mood, Ken had hailed a taxi to take them back to Soho and she remembered following him up the stairs to the office, feeling slightly muzzy after an unaccustomed three glasses of wine over lunch.
But after that her memory was hazy. She would normally have waited for Harry to pick her up around five, but she had no idea whether or not that had happened. Sometime towards the end of the afternoon this blackness had descended, but she had no idea when or how she had come to this place of terrifying cold and silence and pitch dark.
As usual, Barnard drove back to Frith Street at about five thirty and parked half on the pavement opposite the Fellows agency to wait for Kate, leaving just enough space for black cabs to slide through the gap and earning a few curses from their drivers as he sat there smoking patiently.
By about a quarter to six, when Kate had not come flying down the stairs at the end of the day as she usually did, he got impatient and, leaving the car badly parked, made his way for the second time that day up the stairs to her office, where he met Ken Fellows coming out.
‘Is Kate still busy?’ he asked her boss, not disguising the impatience in his voice.
‘Didn’t she let you know she was going home?’ Fellows said. ‘We had a slightly boozy lunch and she didn’t look too good, so I told her to get a cab about four o’clock. She was lucky, she picked one up right outside. I happened to be looking out of the window just after she left and actually saw her get into it.’
A worm of anxiety infiltrated Barnard’s brain as he turned on his heel with a curt thanks to Fellows and headed down the stairs and into his car. There was no need to worry, he told himself, Kate had felt unwell so it was not really surprising that she hadn’t called him. No doubt he would find her in bed at the flat, sleeping off the overindulgent celebration she’d shared with her boss. Or maybe not, he thought as he accelerated into Oxford Street and headed north through the rush-hour traffic, attracting hoots and fist-waving from other drivers as he took chances at every junction and set of lights he came to.
He parked carelessly outside his block of flats and hurried indoors with his anxiety now at fever pitch. As soon as he opened his front door he could tell, from the silence, that the flat was empty. Clinging to the hope that perhaps she had gone back to her own flat in Shepherd’s Bush for some reason, he rang that number and the phone was quickly answered by Tess.
‘Has Kate come back to your place?’ he asked peremptorily.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Were you expecting her to?’ He could hear the surprise in Tess’s voice and it confirmed his worst fears.
‘Not really,’ Barnard said, his voice strained. ‘I’ll track her down. But if she does turn up, ask her to give me a ring, would you?’
‘Harry …’ He heard Tess speak but had hung up too quickly to hear what she had begun to say. He poured himself a generous Scotch, downed it in one, and called the nick to report Kate missing. Panic stricken, he wondered if he would ever see her alive again. And if a hair of her head was hurt, how he would ever forgive himself.
The scalding white light came on without warning, illuminating what turned out to be a windowless room with stone walls and a stone floor, the only furniture the narrow bed on which Kate discovered she had been lying. She turned her head away from the dazzle, which was making her thumping headache worse, and put a hand over her eyes, barely able to see the two men standing over her. When one of them spoke, she instantly recognized the voice of the man in the grey suit who had bullied her into a promise to spy on Harry Barnard, a promise she had not strictly kept.
‘You’re awake, my dear,’ the man said almost solicitously, although she recognized the touch of steel behind the concern. ‘I’m sorry we could not issue a more conventional invitation to our chat, but the situation had become urgent. We needed you here quickly and there was not time for any objections on your part.’
‘Who are you?’ Kate asked angrily, turning away from the wall and putting her feet tentatively on the floor, though lacking the confidence to actually stand yet. The man was still wearing the same crumpled suit and glasses; if she had passed him casually in the street she would barely have noticed him, so insignificant did he appear. His companion looked more threatening: broad-shouldered and long-armed, with a bull-like neck and the same stone-cold eyes. He was obviously his inferior in some way – just muscle, she thought, although why his boss needed it she didn’t dare imagine. With her thumping headache and still disoriented senses, she would scarcely have presented a threat to a reasonably healthy five-year-old.
‘You don’t really need to know our identity,’ the man said. ‘I told you when we met in London that we faced a potentially embarrassing crisis and needed your help for a short time. You agreed …’
‘I was blackmailed,’ Kate hissed. ‘I was put under pressure by DCI Strachan, as I’m sure you know. He threatened my brother.’
‘You agreed,’ the man continued, as if she had not spoken. ‘But you decided not to stick to our agreement and, as I understand it, not only did you not tell me what Barnard was doing, you actually decided to help him on your own account. That was very, very foolish. Why on earth did you decide to interfere? What on earth made you think you could get away with it?’
Kate looked at the two men and felt the fury she had tried to control ever since she and Harry discovered what was going on in the flat in Dolphin Square well up again. Suddenly her brain became quite clear and she could think of no reason why she should curb her feelings.
‘Two women are dead,’ she said. ‘And somewhere in London there is a little boy who has been abused, probably raped. These are crimes, serious, horrible crimes, and they are all connected to that flat in Dolphin Square. Harry Barnard’s job is to investigate crime, and he has apparently been hindered at every turn. I don’t care how important the men are who were using that flat. If they are murderers, rapists and abusers of children, they should get what’s coming to them.’
‘Your sentiments do you credit, Miss O’Donnell, but unfortunately there are other considerations. I think for the moment we will have to detain you here while we finalize the situation.’
‘You can’t do that,’ Kate objected. ‘You can’t go round London kidnapping people and locking them up. Does Harry Barnard know where I am? He’ll be going frantic.’
‘You’ll come to no harm, Miss O’Donnell,’ the man said. ‘Sergeant Barnard will be reassured on that point if we think it is helpful but your absence will keep him in line, as I’m sure you will appreciate. We’ll go over what you saw, or think you saw, later but there is one point I’d like cleared up now. Barnard has told his DCI that you saw three men arriving at the flat. Did you recognize any of them?’
Kate hesitated for a second and decided that there was not much point in lying, as Harry had already passed on the information they’d gathered to DCI Jackson, who would undoubtedly pass the information on to Scotland Yard and anyone else they felt needed to know.
‘I’d met Father Dominic in Liverpool when I was working there recently, and I recognized him although he wasn’t wearing his collar. Apparently he’s an important fund-raiser for the new cathedral. And we guessed the smaller man was Terry Jordan. That’s why Harry decided the dead woman in Soho must be his girlfriend.’
‘And you were able to confirm that through photographs?’
‘Yes,’ Kate said defiantly. ‘She didn’t deserve what happened to her, did she? Is she what this is all about? Are you actually trying to cover up a murder?’ The man in grey didn’t answer but simply turned to the other man, who had made no contribution at all to the conversation, and nodded.
‘Put her in with her father,’ he said. ‘I’m sure they’ll find a lot to talk about.’ Kate looked at him in astonishment.
‘My father?’ she said. ‘He’s here? What’s he got to do with all this?’
‘As you’ve worked out that Terry Jordan is involved in this affair, you’ll know your father has known him for a long time. He has become a very useful source of information for us, my dear. You can compare notes, if you like, and try to work out how to extricate your family from the difficulties your ill-advised crusade has caused it.’
Kate took a sharp breath but decided that it was safer not to respond and let the silent man escort her up the stairs, with a firm grip on her arm, into fading daylight and what appeared to be the ground floor of a modest house. He unlocked a door and, still saying absolutely nothing, pushed her inside and locked the door behind her. The windows of the room were shuttered, so she had no idea how late it was. Her watch, she noticed, had been taken away. The room was dimly lit by a single bulb hanging from the ceiling and at first she could not see anyone else. But eventually she saw her father slumped in an armchair close to the fireplace, his eyes tightly shut, evidently asleep or perhaps drugged, as she guessed she had been. She shook his shoulder and he slowly opened his eyes, which were red-rimmed and rheumy.
‘Holy Mother of God!’ he croaked. ‘How did you get involved in this, Kathleen?’
‘I wish I knew exactly what it is I’m involved in, da,’ she said. ‘All I thought I was doing was helping my boyfriend by taking some pictures, but it’s turned out to be a lot more complicated than that.’ He sat up in his armchair and began to cough.
‘I’m in desperate need of a drink, pet,’ he said. Kate glanced around the room and saw a water jug on a table with two glasses. He followed her eyes.
‘Something a bit stronger than that,’ he said, with a whine in his voice that told her he had been seeking what he craved without success for some time.
‘You’ll be lucky,’ she said, with no sympathy at all. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea who these people are. Or where I am or why I’m here. Perhaps you can tell me?’
Frank groaned dramatically.
‘It all goes back a long way, to the war,’ he muttered, not looking her in the eye.
‘And to Terry Jordan?’ Kate asked sharply.
‘To him too, maybe,’ he said.
‘Come on, da,’ Kate said. ‘The whole family’s involved in this now. Do you want to see Tom in jail for years because of something that happened years ago which had nothing to do with him – or, for that matter, with me?’
‘Father Reilly says he’s in a state of mortal sin,’ Frank said. Kate clenched her fists to stop herself saying something she knew she would regret.
‘And all you could find to do to help was to vanish into thin air when Tom was arrested,’ she said. ‘Where the hell did you run to? And how did you end up here?’
‘I went to Dublin,’ Frank admitted. ‘I stowed away on a ferry. I know those boats like the back of my hand, don’t I?’
‘And then you came back?’
‘That was a mistake,’ he glanced away again, not meeting her eye, which was a sure sign that he was lying. He shuffled in his chair for a moment, as if making a desperately difficult decision, and then sighed.
‘All right, all right, I talked to some old friends of Terry’s in Ireland and they said that I’d get him into bother if I didn’t turn up to talk to the bizzies about the accident that happened last week. They didn’t want any more fuss or any inconvenient questions just now.’
‘Because he’s been negotiating a big contract in London? Was that what they were worried about? According to the Echo, they’re supposed to be making an announcement about it this week. But why would his friends in Dublin be worried about that?’
‘They go back a long way,’ Frank whispered.
‘How long?’ Kate asked, feeling a sudden shiver of apprehension.
‘Before the war, maybe, before you were born,’ Frank said. ‘There was an IRA bombing campaign before the war …’
‘What are you telling me, da? Was Terry Jordan involved in that? Was he an IRA man? I thought he was a big hero during the war, pulling people out of the bomb sites, risking his life.’
‘He was, he did, I was with him some of the time,’ Frank said quickly. ‘All that was real and he built his business on the strength of it afterwards.’
‘But?’ Kate said. ‘There’s obviously a “but”? What else was he doing?’
‘You don’t understand what was going on in Ireland back then, when war was declared,’ Frank said with a flash of anger. ‘I think the Brits hoped Ireland would support them. But De Valera declared a state of emergency so he could stay neutral, and the Irish people were divided. Thousands went off to fight with the British, and some got punished for it when they came back. And there were others who still hated England with a passion and saw the war as a chance to get back at the old enemy. Some thought that if Germany won, there might be a chance of getting a united Ireland at last. Some in the IRA especially. One of the leaders even went off to Berlin to try to get arms, but he died on the way back. And after that, De Valera cracked down and a lot of Republicans were interned and some were hanged for treason.’
‘And Terry Jordan was part of all that?’
‘On the fringes, at least,’ Frank said. ‘We were very young, hot-headed. There was a lot of talk in the Catholic docks in Liverpool. But that’s all it was for most people, just talk.’
‘And you?’ Kate asked. ‘Was it more than just talk for you, as well as your friend Terry?’
‘No, not me,’ Frank said. ‘You were on the way by then, Kathleen, and me and your mam had other things on our minds. But I knew what was going on.’
‘And now?’ Kate persisted.
‘The IRA’s dead now, everyone says so,’ Frank said. ‘Dead and buried.’
‘Is that what they told you in Dublin? You see what I can’t get my head round is why we are here. If Terry Jordan killed his girlfriend, why don’t they just arrest him and put him on trial? But it can’t be as simple as that or they’d have done it by now. They are either covering something else up or trying to find out what else he’s been up to. Otherwise you wouldn’t have been dragged into this, and nor would Tom and now me. Something more complicated has to be going on.’
‘Terry Jordan’s always been dodgy,’ Frank said. ‘He played around with the IRA before the war, and he was up to his eyes in the black market during it. And he built his business by greasing palms wherever he could. So if he’s ended up killing his girlfriend I wouldn’t be at all surprised. He’s got a mad streak. The only thing I don’t understand is why you and Tom have been dragged into it.’
‘Terry Jordan sounds like a monster,’ Kate said, not hiding her bitterness. ‘I don’t understand why you stuck with him all these years.’ Her father shrugged.
‘When you crawl about for hours underneath tons of rubble you don’t forget the man who helped you get out safely,’ Frank said. ‘Not once or twice, but over and over again. Terry Jordan was the bravest man I’ve ever met as well as the most reckless. Maybe the two things go together. And now they want me to help them put him in gaol. Well, I’ve told them I won’t do it. They can put me in gaol before I’ll give evidence against him, and they probably will. That’s just the way it is, Kathleen. There’s no changing it.’
After finding his flat deserted, Harry Barnard had driven back into London at a more sober pace. He knocked on DCI Jackson’s door without much expectation that he would still be in his office, but a voice called him in and he found his boss sitting at his desk with a glass of Scotch in his hand – something which, in spite of Jackson’s Scottish heritage, Barnard had never seen him do before. He took it as a sign that something exceptionally serious was going on.
‘Ah, Sergeant Barnard,’ he said. ‘I had a feeling you might turn up.’
‘Were you told that my girlfriend has gone missing, guv?’
‘I was,’ Jackson said. ‘And I was also told that you should not be concerned for her safety.’
‘What?’ For a moment Barnard felt the ground was shifting beneath his feet.
‘I am not at liberty to tell you any more than that until an important ongoing operation is complete.’ Jackson drained his glass and waved an irritated hand in Barnard’s direction.‘Sit down, Sergeant, before you fall down. You must have realized that you and Miss O’Donnell had blundered into matters that were no concern of yours – or mine, for that matter. Miss O’Donnell will be returned safely when she has helped some of our more esoteric colleagues with their inquiries.’
‘You mean Special Branch?’
‘You know I can’t confirm that,’ Jackson said, refilling his glass. ‘And you know as well as I do that the security services come in many shapes and sizes and are pretty much a law unto themselves. Didn’t a member of one of the security services recently boast of burgling his way round London?’
‘But what’s so special? If Jordan killed his girlfriend, which looks highly probable, why aren’t we charging him and sending him down?’
‘There seem to be reasons for that, though I can’t guess what they are. My task, it seems, is to tell you that as far as we are concerned the case is closed and you are to go home and stay there until further notice. Miss O’Donnell will return when the case is concluded. She is, I suppose, a hostage for your good behaviour. But make no mistake, Sergeant, if you were foolish enough to intervene again they will throw the book at you. Do you understand?’
‘Sir,’ Barnard said bitterly, and turned towards the door, knowing when he was beaten.
It was, Harry Barnard thought as he watched the grey light of an early midsummer dawn creep through the curtains, the worst night of his life. He had neither undressed nor found any way of sleeping, though after an initial glass of whisky he had put the bottle firmly back into his cocktail cabinet and found sufficient self-control to leave it there. As a result when, just before five, a powerful car with darkened windows pulled into one of the parking spaces beneath his window he was stone-cold sober and clear-headed enough to get to his front door and open it before the occupants of the car made it through the main door of the block. He saw Kate immediately, and immediately took on board how pale and tired she looked and how the taller of the two men with her seemed to be propping her up.
‘What the hell happened?’ he asked, his own voice sounding as if it was coming from the bottom of a deep well. Kate looked at him briefly, but her eyes were blank and her expression impassive.
‘Please go inside, Sergeant Barnard,’ the shorter of the two men instructed, more sharply than Barnard expected. Balding and unimpressive, in a crumpled grey suit, it was obvious he was in charge. ‘Miss O’Donnell is fine, but we need to talk before we can leave her with you. And there are some papers that you need to sign.’ Trying to conceal his fury, Barnard took Kate’s arm and steered her towards the sofa, where she sank down against the cushions and gave him a wan smile.
‘Sorry,’ she whispered. ‘It all went a bit pear-shaped, la.’
‘So are you going to tell me what the hell is going on?’ he asked the man who had taken control of the situation.
‘Sit down, Sergeant,’ the man responded icily. ‘My name is Marchmain and I work for the government. That is all you need to know about me. What seems to have happened, although we did our best to avoid it, is that you and Miss O’Donnell have ventured into a situation which you were clearly and repeatedly warned to avoid.’
‘I was under the impression that I was just doing my job,’ Barnard said.
‘And I am now doing mine,’ Marchmain said. ‘And that takes precedence. Before we go any further, I have to ask you both to sign the Official Secrets Act. What you and Miss O’Donnell have stumbled into – although I am sure it was much more deliberate on your part, Barnard, than stumbling implies – concerns the security of this country and you are required not to discuss it with anyone on pain of prosecution and probable imprisonment. Do you both understand what I am saying?’ Kate looked aghast and although Barnard’s mind was full of questions he simply nodded, feeling almost as stunned as he had been by DCI Strachan’s physical assault in Liverpool. He glanced at Kate briefly and could see that she was as aware as he was that Marchmain was allowing them no space for argument. He opened the briefcase that he was carrying and placed papers on the table, then unscrewed a fountain pen.
‘You first, Sergeant,’ he said and Barnard took the pen, read quickly through the legalese and signed his name. He helped Kate to her feet and she did the same. When they had finished they both sat down again, watching in disbelief as Marchmain picked up his documents and shuffled them back into order.
‘Thank you,’ Marchmain said. ‘And make no mistake that we will hold you to the letter of the law. There may possibly be developments you learn about which you may think are concerned with the cases you have been aware of, or should I say interfered with, recently. Such events will also be covered by this ban. It is as if the events of the last week or so never happened. Do you fully understand?’
‘I think we understand perfectly,’ Barnard said, his voice little more than a whisper.
‘Miss O’Donnell?’
‘Yes,’ Kate said, her voice dull with fatigue and shock, although there was still a touch of anger there too. Marchmain put the signed papers away in his briefcase and nodded to his silent companion, who moved towards the front door.
‘We will leave you then,’ he said. ‘And thank you for your earlier cooperation, Miss O’Donnell, although it wasn’t as whole-hearted as I might have wished or you promised. Good day.’ They heard the main door shut sharply, and Barnard brushed Kate’s cheek with a kiss and got to his feet.
‘I’ll make some coffee,’ he said. ‘And something to eat?’ Kate shook her head.
‘Just coffee,’ she said. ‘Then a shower and I’ll try to tell you all about it.’
Barnard listened in silence when Kate eventually curled into a corner of the sofa, her hair wet and her eyes full of pain, and described what had happened to her the previous evening and overnight when she had found herself so unexpectedly closeted with her father. When she had finished, he kissed her again.
‘So what happens to your father now?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Kate said. ‘He was still there when they brought me away. But he was determined not to give evidence against Terry Jordan. Can they force him?’
‘They can try,’ Barnard said. ‘And if he refuses, they can lock him up for contempt of court. But it sounds to me as if they could charge Jordan with any number of things corruption, involvement in the IRA, and the murder of Doreen Darcy. That must be the easiest to prove, so I don’t understand why they’re not going for it. They could do that without evidence from your father.
Kate shrugged.
‘Maybe Jordan didn’t do it,’ she suggested. ‘Maybe it was one of the other men who were at the flat.’
‘A minister maybe? At least he must have been a witness.’ Barnard said. ‘A minister they’ve been asked to protect from another sex scandal before we get to another general election? The government must be terrified of another scandal erupting. That could be why the security services are involved. From what I hear, they specialize in covering things up.
‘Including the abuse of children?’ Kate said bitterly. ‘Nothing’s changed, then, since Father Jerome was conveniently spirited away when Tom and me were kids.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Barnard said. Kate sat silently for a moment, running through everything they had uncovered which would now be buried again.
‘If Jordan was working for the IRA before the war that could explain why DCI Strachan was so incensed,’ she said. ‘He would have hated to think he might get away with what he did. And according to my friend at the Echo, the paper had been digging up evidence of his dodgy business practices. One way or another, Terry Jordan was in deep trouble. But these people seem to be prepared to let him get away with it all.’
Barnard drained his coffee cup and looked at Kate speculatively.
‘Why did your man thank you for your cooperation?’ he asked quietly. ‘Was he joking?’ Kate looked away from the inevitable question she had been dreading, knowing that the poison had been deliberately planted and no less deliberately used against her by a man whose prejudices were icy cold and very deliberate.
‘He locked me up with my da for a while, and he explained a lot of the background to what has been going on. But what they told the two of us afterwards was that they had recorded everything we said. I suppose they might count that as cooperation. It never entered my head that they would have a microphone somewhere in the room, and it wouldn’t have crossed my father’s mind either.’ She pushed her damp hair out of her eyes, knowing that if she and Barnard were to have any sort of a future together she had to tell him everything.
‘But that wasn’t the whole of it,’ she whispered. ‘First of all they contacted me at work and tried to make me tell them what you were investigating at Dolphin Square. They threatened to make sure Tom got a long sentence if I didn’t help them keep tabs on you. I’m sorry, Harry. I didn’t have any choice.’ Tears streamed down Kate’s face as Barnard took a deep breath.
‘I’m sorry too,’ he said and took her in his arms. ‘They used you, blackmailed you, and now they’ve very effectively shut us both down. We’ll have to live with that.’
He cooked them both breakfast and after they had eaten he turned on the radio for the early news. A short item towards the end warned of traffic disruption on the M1 motorway out of London following a fatal overnight accident on the northbound carriageway involving a Jaguar. One of the two casualties was believed to be a senior cleric from Liverpool’s Roman Catholic Cathedral, the other a businessman who had been in London discussing the building of a new town in the north-west of England with government ministers. Both men in the car had died instantly. Police and fire officers were investigating the cause of the incident, in which no other vehicles were involved. The church authorities in Liverpool regretted the untimely loss of a valued colleague. There was no mention of who might be grieving for Terry Jordan.
‘How very convenient,’ Barnard said quietly.
‘You think it wasn’t an accident?’ Kate asked.
‘I think it was a problem solved,’ he said. ‘The bastards!’