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Amber dispensed the suit she’d been holding and the information Ruby Parker rang over. The Lord Mayor was sending a car over. It would be outside the front of the building in ten minutes’ time. Mordred showered downstairs, changed and combed his hair, then went to stand in reception with Colin Bale. Colin said hello, then ignored him. Ten minutes later, a middle-aged man in a suit and a peaked cap came in and asked for ‘Mr J. Mordred’.
“Standing right there,” Colin said, as if any idiot could see that.
“You’re the man from City Hall?” Mordred said.
“If you’d like to follow me, sir, I’ll show you to the car.”
He seemed a lot nicer than Kevin, MI7’s resident driver. He had a voice for a start. And he actually smiled as if he liked you. All an act, of course, but then chauffeurs should be actors. Everyone should. Complete brutal honesty was seriously overrated.
They went outside. On the double red lines by the bollards, a black Jaguar XE awaited. The chauffeur opened the back door and Mordred found a new copy of the Telegraph on the back seat. They pulled out silently into the traffic.
His phone rang. Mum. Bloody hell. Pick up – yes or no?
He pressed answer. “Hi.”
“Our Hannah’s just been on the TV again. Is she pregnant?”
“I can’t really speak now. I’m at work.”
“I’ll take that as a ‘yes’. Why didn’t she tell us?”
“Maybe because she’s trying to lead a revolution and she hasn’t got her phone with her?”
“Then why didn’t Tim tell us?”
“He wanted it to be a surprise. Besides, it’s not his place, he’s just a man.”
“So you knew, but we didn’t?”
“Correct. I was told not to tell you. She wanted the news to be special. And I can’t do special, and neither can Tim. No one can, only Hannah. Look, I love you, but I’ve got to go now.”
“I’ll speak to you this evening. We’re not finished yet.”
She hung up. He liked the way she always referred to her children as our whatever-their-name-was, as if you might get confused about who she was talking about. Is that Hannah my sister you mean, or do you mean maybe Hannah Arendt, the mid-20th century German political theorist?
The driver didn’t seem in any hurry. He didn’t look for short cuts or change lanes or accelerate on amber. Mind you, the car was probably too expensive to take risks with.
He picked up the Telegraph. The headline: MPs’ latest 10% pay increase compared with the 1% cap on public sector workers. “We have made the necessary break with the past,” the chairman of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority said. Further down the page, two columns devoted to government attempts to repeal the Freedom of Information Act. On the other side, an article about how the woman with the fez and the golden armlet had been shortlisted for the Booker. Right at the bottom, and ‘continued on p4’: ‘One Week Until “Illegal Pop Festival” in Jersey: The Countdown Begins’. Mordred read it from start to finish. Hannah got two mentions, Soraya seven, ‘former Chief Minister’ Jeremy Pownall, one. An unnamed representative from the Jersey States said the authority had decided to work with the protesters to provide ‘a safe and peaceful experience for tourists’. Tourists. Well, at least they had a sense of humour.
The car drew to a gentle stop in from of Mansion House, a colossal, grey Palladian building, fronted by six Corinthian columns supporting a pediment, and accessible only by steps to either side. This part of London was mostly eighteenth century piles, but relieved in places by fashionable steel-and-glass or even postmodernist whimsy. Opposite, there was one entrance to Bank Tube station.
Mordred wasn’t expecting to stop on Walbrook. He knew Mansion House was the Lord Mayor’s official residence, but he didn’t think he actually lived here. More probably, the Mayor wanted to underline his institutional prestige. Within the pediment, a frieze showed the City of London crushing its enemies underfoot.
Well, if this was to be an exercise in low-level intimidation or overawing, they’d chosen the wrong man. Take away the pretentious classical front and it was very little different to Thames House.
An old man in a suit awaited them. He opened the rear door and Mordred stepped out onto the street. The rain had stopped now, and the sun peeped out from behind low-lying clouds. A double-decker bus roared past.
“Just follow me, sir,” the man said.
They mounted the steps, entered the building and walked through a long reception area with an ornate barrel vault ceiling, stained glass, and more columns. Then up a flight of stairs and along a carpeted landing.
They stopped in front of a broad white door. Mordred’s guide raised his hand, extended his middle knuckle theatrically and knocked. He opened the door for his charge, ushered him in, and withdrew, shutting him inside.
The room was small in comparison with what Mordred had expected. It contained a long table at which men and women in suits sat in silence looking angry, with the Lord Mayor at their head. Behind and around the room, others sat on chairs, mostly with their legs crossed. Framed portraits of three previous Mayors hung from the wall, all looking embittered by something just out of view. A chair had been left at the foot of the table directly facing Ashley Cavendish, presumably for the newcomer. When Mordred entered, everyone turned to look at him: he guessed around fifty glares of varying intensity.
“Hi, everyone,” he said.
No one replied.
“Sit down, Mr Mordred,” the Lord Mayor said.
Mordred took the seat apparently reserved for him, interlaced his fingers on the table, and looked the Mayor in the eye. He smiled.
“I’d like to read you a short extract from a paper called ‘Financial Services contribution to the UK economy’,” the Mayor began, “written by a lady called Gloria Tyler and published by the House of Commons Library. Are you ready?”
Mordred shrugged.
The Lord Mayor put a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles on. “‘In 2014, financial and insurance services contributed £126.9 billion in gross value added - GVA - to the UK economy, 8.0% of the UK’s total GVA. London accounted for 50.5% of the total financial and insurance sector GVA in the UK in 2012. The sector’s contribution to UK jobs is around 3.4%. Trade in financial services makes up a substantial proportion of the UK’s trade surplus in services. In 2013/14, the banking sector alone contributed £21.4 billion to UK tax receipts in corporation tax, income tax, national insurance and through the bank levy.’”
Everyone hummed approvingly, as if Mozart had just slipped in to play a few chords on his way to the Albert Hall.
“I’m looking for someone called Phyllis Robinson,” Mordred said. “She was abducted yesterday, and I’m really only here to find out what you know about that. If no one’s happy to speak up, fine, I’ll go. But I’ll be back on my own terms.”
They all looked at Mordred and at each other. Then most of them stood up and left, jostling him as and where they passed. The Lord Mayor was the last to exit. He closed the door behind him.
Mordred found himself seated at the table with just eight others – five men, and three women, all about a decade older than him - whom he recognised as Horvath employees.
A steel haired man with film-star features who’d been sitting next to the Lord Mayor smiled. “Let me introduce - ”
“I know who you are,” Mordred said. “I’m going to come and work for you, apparently. Now let’s stop messing around. Where’s Phyllis?”
“Are you wearing a wire?” the man asked.
“No. It’s too unsubtle. I haven’t actually joined Horvath yet.”
“Would you mind us checking?”
“If you must.”
He stood up with a sigh. A man and a woman came over. They patted him down. The man opened his shirt and looked inside. After about a minute they seemed satisfied and sat down. Mordred re-did his buttons.
“Of course, if MI7 was really good,” he said, “we’d have put a spy among the thirty-odd people who’ve just been in here. He or she would have planted a listening device on entry.”
They looked at each other. “You – MI7 - didn’t, though, did ... you?” their leader said, as if even he wasn’t sure whether it was a question.
“It was mooted. I’m not saying yes. I don’t know.”
They took this as an indication that he was at least partly on their side. During the next ten minutes, they turned the chairs on their sides, one by one, to examine beneath, and upended the table. Two women crawled onto it for a closer examination.
The door opened and the Lord Mayor came back in. For a moment, he and they looked equally shocked.
“What the hell’s going on here?” he said.
“I tried to stop them, but they wouldn’t pay any attention,” Mordred said.
“We’re looking for listening devices,” one of the women crouching on the upside-down table said.
“Why would there be listening devices?” the Mayor demanded
“We’ve received information that one of the people just in the room may have been a spy,” the man with the steel hair said.
The Mayor looked like he’d been doused with a bucket of water. “What?”
“We’ve received information - ”
“Those people are my friends! They’re on our side! Where did you get this information?”
“From me,” Mordred said.
Silence. Mordred expected an explosion of Mayoral fury, but the opposite happened. The Horvath employees sheepishly put the furniture back as it was and Cavendish looked as if his blood had stopped flowing and his eyes no longer saw. His arms hung by his sides. His chest became motionless.
Finally, everything was where it had been ten minutes ago. The Horvath employees sat down and the Lord Mayor came back to life. He went to sit at the head of the table. “I’ll take it from here,” he said. “Everyone out, except John Mordred.”
They looked at each other as if it wasn’t something they themselves would have advised, then did as commanded. They closed the door behind them. Mordred found himself alone with the Mayor at the opposite end of the table.
“I’m not going to get into a discussion with you about the value of the financial services industry,” Mordred said.
“We’re on the same side,” Cavendish said.
Mordred smiled. “I doubt that.”
“All right, put it another way. We want the same thing. We share a common interest. What we both want is to find Peter Decristoforo. You want to discover how he managed to blindside yourselves and GCHQ. I want to find him to put a stop to this blasted ‘World War O’.”
“You mean, by killing him.”
“By putting the fear of God into him. He’s very old anyway. Maybe frightening him will cause his death, I don’t know. The point is, he facilitated this. Without him, it couldn’t have happened. We’re close to closing it down now, but it’s not been easy. A lot of good men and women have suffered a lot of anxiety.”
“About whether they’ll get their bonuses this year.”
The Mayor smiled. “Come, come, Mr Mordred. You know as well as I do that those sorts of things are ring-fenced. I mean, profits, shareholders, bad press.”
“Let’s get to the point, shall we? Where’s Phyllis?”
“Phyllis ...?”
“Okay, then. A different question. What happened to the Remembrancer?”
“Have you ever read a book called, The Shock Doctrine? Sometimes, a little chaos is good for business. It allows you to clear out your dead wood, and it creates new markets. I won’t say World War O has been completely valueless, but it’s outstayed its welcome now.”
“It may not be over yet.”
“Oh, it is. Even my friend Jeremy will be back within six months. The Jersey States will wait a while before politely informing him that they can’t, in all conscience, accept his resignation. And he’ll ever so reluctantly, but oh so graciously, accept the recall to public service. And it’ll be December: freezing cold and windy; and the protesters will be but a distant memory.”
“So nothing at your end’s going to change.”
“Obviously not. There’s too much money at stake; too many players with too much power and no aversion whatsoever to being ruthless. You haven’t seen anything yet, John. In the ‘phoney war’ – which is all it’s been so far - things are always pretty restrained. People like your sister might well get an utterly mistaken impression of whom they’re dealing with.”
His phone rang. Hannah.
“Sorry, I’ve got to take this,” he told the Lord Mayor. Looking back, he merely wanted to cock a snook at him, however, the Mayor didn’t appear in the least affronted. His eyes glazed over and he went back into hibernation.
“How’s things?” Mordred asked.
“Not good,” Hannah replied. “A group of bloody newbies has taken over Mont Orgueil Castle on the east of the island.”
“Like a sit-in?”
“That’s the idea,” she said. “Apparently.”
“Shouldn’t you be pleased? I thought that’s what you went there for. To protest.”
“I’ve come to realise what ought to have been obvious from the start. That the finance industry and the tourist industry aren’t necessarily in cahoots. Driving holidaymakers away is just playing into the bankers’ hands. The hoteliers and the bed-and-breakfasters and the vine growers and farmers and lavender growers and zookeepers are what this place has going for it. I actually told Martin Baker we’d open the pop festival to tourists. That was my word: tourists.”
“Who’s Martin Baker?”
“Acting Chief Minister.”
“I don’t understand why you’re ringing me. I mean, it’s great to speak to you, but I’m in England.” Yes, something was up. She was about to drop a clanger.
“I’m just nervous, that’s all. I was quite impressed with you while you were out here, John. You kept a calm head. I just wanted to sorry.”
Yes, sure. And ... ? “What’s to be nervous about?”
“I’m going in to speak to the occupiers. Try and persuade them to come out.”
“Good luck. You’ve got a good argument and a spotless reputation. I can’t see them defying you. But be warned. These sorts of movements often work this way. They start off quite reasonable, then a bunch of ‘newbies’ comes in with borrowed anger and a more extreme approach, and before you know it, you’ve got bombs going off in shopping malls.”
He heard her scoff. “I can’t see that happening, John.”
“No one ever can. Not at the beginning.”
“Why are you telling me this? Do you actually believe you’re helping, or something?”
“You just said you were impressed with me. I’m cashing in on that while it’s still fresh from the oven. When you’ve completed this pop festival, you’ve got to come home. Quit while you’re ahead, and make it clear you disown anyone who doesn’t do the same. Get Soraya to back you up.”
“Coming home then was always the plan.”
“Don’t let anyone dissuade you. Listen, if you’re nervous about going in to speak to the protesters, I’ve got something that’ll put it in perspective.”
“Oh?”
“Mum saw your bump on the TV.”
A moment’s silence. “I know. I’ve got a phone now, remember?”
“How was she?”
“Angry at first, then less so. She said she’d spoken to you, and you helped.”
He laughed. “That’s not the impression she gave me. I’ve got to go. Best of luck in the occupied castle.”
“John? One More thing?”
He sighed. Here it came. The impossible request, just as he thought he’d got away with it. “Yes. Go on.”
“Sorry, I know you’re at work. It’s just, I want you to come to the pop festival. Edna’s going to be here.”
100% as expected. “I’ll have to see. It’s short notice. I don’t know whether work - ”
“You are still an item, aren’t you?”
“‘An item’. Like the 1940s.”
“Funny you reproaching me for being old fashioned.”
“She’s too good for me, I’m afraid. I realised that when I got back to England.”
“Oh, bloody rubbish!” she said contemptuously. “Listen, you’d better be here, work be damned. You’ve only got one life. You’ve got one shot at Edna, that’s all. If you love her, be here. Plus, I’m singing two songs on stage with Soraya, and I need your support. And mum and dad are coming over.”
“What?”
“It was the only way I could make it up to them. I told them you might meet them in Saint Helier.”
“What?”
“Might. And don’t say ‘what’ again in that high-pitched voice. I’ve got sensitive eardrums. I’ve got to go now. I’ve got a castle to storm.”
She hung up. He blew air and put the phone back in his pocket. He’d almost forgotten where he was.
“That was your sister, from what I could make of your conversation,” the Mayor said. “Well done. Wise words. Just what was needed.”
“Let’s cut to the chase. I was told you want me to come and work for you.”
“We’ve put together a very generous package with John Mordred specifically in mind. Two hundred and fifty thousand a year, plus bonuses.”
He whistled in an attempt to appear impressed. “What would I be doing?”
“Heading Horvath. It’s about time the City had its own intelligence service. On a more day-to-day level: industrial espionage, spying on our competitors beyond the City. Weakening them where necessary with a view to opening new horizons. Not necessarily in person, of course. The Shock Doctrine.”
“Turning, say, non-profit ventures into commercial opportunities.”
“Amongst other things. Creating a better world. The world of Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek. A single global market.”
“Right, well, I’ll have to think about it.”
The Mayor drew back slightly “What is there to think about?”
“Firstly, Phyllis is my friend. However much I may want your job, I’m not the kind of person who likes to leave a comrade in the lurch. I need to find her before I commit to anything.”
“What if finding her and committing to us were part and parcel of the same thing?”
Mordred smiled. “I rather thought they might be. Go on.”
“I’m not sure I trust you completely, Mr Mordred. Not yet. Therefore, I’m going to set you a little test. A little something I – we in the City – devised before you arrived back from Jersey. Something you would have had to do anyway, regardless of whether you agreed to come and work for us.”
Mordred’s phone rang. Mum. Bloody hell. Show respect for the Mayor – yes or no?
“Sorry, I’ve got to take this,” he said.
The Lord Mayor looked a little more like he’d been cocked a snook this time. However, his life-signs still went to zero.
Mordred picked up. “Welcome to John Mordred’s place of work,” he said. “Please hold the line to hear him get the sack, live.”
“Sorry!” She hung up.
He switched it off – what he should have done last time – and returned it to his pocket.
He turned to face the Mayor again. “I thrive on tests,” he said.
