Cannon pulled the pile of newspapers towards him with little appetite and shuffled the titles, glancing at each front page. All captured Eyam’s descent from the highest councils in the land to criminality and paedophilia by juxtaposing an image of him emerging with the prime minister from the British Mission to the United Nations in New York with a still from the faked tourists’ film from Colombia, in which he looked particularly seedy. PM’s Spy Chief in Child Porn Scandal was typical of the headlines. But this gleeful certainty was not maintained on the inside pages. All the newspapers asked why Eyam would return to Britain to face jail when he had fooled the authorities so comprehensively. There was no mention of his illness, but one of Maclean’s papers had published a diagram that linked the murder of Hugh Russell, the death of the coroner’s clerk in a car accident and the unexplained CCTV footage of the men running from Hugh Russell’s offices in High Castle. In the middle of the layout was a shot of Eyam’s friend Kate Lockhart, taken as she was driven into High Castle Police Station. The press was asking simple, logical questions that had no obvious answers.
Cannon pushed the newspapers away. It occurred to him that an odd silence had descended in Downing Street, which now he came to think about it only affected him. There were no emails in his inbox and none of his phones had rung since he had got in at six forty-five a.m. Not one call. It was unprecedented. Even George Lyme had only mumbled a good morning before leaving the room – rather guiltily, Cannon thought – to be on hand for the breakfast meeting between Temple and the president of the European council. He phoned Gruppo but was told she was away from her desk. If he had been placed in some kind of quarantine, which now seemed certain, Kilmartin could forget any hope of his being able to delay the prime minister’s departure to Buckingham Palace to announce the election.
When Lyme returned he called out, ‘What’s up, George?’
‘The usual,’ Lyme replied without looking at him.
‘Oh, come on, George, I’m not an idiot: it’s like I’ve got bubonic plague. My government cell phone has gone dead. No calls are being put through to me.’
Lyme came over to him. ‘You’re out of bounds; that’s all I know. They think you were responsible for telling the police to release that woman from Hotel Papa yesterday. Temple’s hopping mad: he’s put me in charge. Someone was meant to tell you . . . I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be,’ said Cannon, straightening in his chair and reaching for his cup of coffee.
‘Did you tell the police to release her?’
‘Yes, George.’
‘Are you crazy?’
‘No. There are hundreds of people being detained under the emergency powers in Hotel Papa. The Civil Contingencies Act was used as a publicity gimmick and as a means of stopping Eyam, and those are not good reasons for tearing up people’s constitutional rights.’
He looked up at Lyme. Ambition had overwhelmed any embarrassment Lyme might have felt. ‘I am staying out of this, Philip. I don’t want to know about any of your dealings with Kilmartin. Temple is on to him, you know. They think he’s been part of this from the start. They know you’ve been speaking to each other.’
‘Gruppo said that?’
He nodded.
‘So, she’s looking after you. Don’t worry, I won’t say anything about you delivering a note to Kilmartin for me.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Or anything about the document you gave me yesterday. But in return I want to know where Temple is in the next hour or so. I want you to tell me what’s going on.’
‘Dawn says he’s going to leave for the palace in about two and a half hours – at ten thirty.’
‘Where’s he going to be until then? Tell me what he’s doing after the European president.’
Lyme shrugged. ‘I can find out.’
Cannon looked fondly at his deputy. ‘Be careful, George: this job is shit. You may think you’ve hit the big time but you won’t be able to trust any of them – not even your new lover. They’ll make you do all their lying for them, then dump on you. By the way, has she told you what their plans are for me?’
Lyme was silent.
‘Spit it out.’
‘She was saying something about a formal interview to see whether you’ve broken the law or abused your position, that sort of thing. A full security interview.’
‘Is that what they think?’ he said, stretching into the air above. ‘Now go off and find out where Temple is for me.’
Kilmartin met Beatrice Somers at the entrance to her flat in Great College Street and together they moved at an arthritic pace through the successive lines of police and army surrounding the Houses of Parliament. The evident lack of threat had resulted in a wary officiousness in the security forces and they were stopped several times. On the fourth or fifth occasion, Beatrice Somers tore a strip off a police sergeant who, with his thumbs hooked into a stab vest, addressed her as ‘dear’.
‘Officer,’ she said, ‘I walk this route every morning. I greatly object to you making it more difficult for me than it already is. You have a duty under the Metropolitan Police Act 1839 to keep the passage to Parliament clear for members of both Houses, not obstruct it.’
After that he stepped aside and they passed easily through the next two lines, which included plainclothes officers checking people’s faces against a ring file of photographs, but when they reached the peers’ entrance they had to submit to a search, which in Kilmartin’s case was particularly thorough.
In Baroness Somers’ room, he helped with her coat and hung it up. The old lady moved to the window and stood in a lilac suit and grey blouse, looking down at two police rigid inflatables patrolling the Thames. ‘I’m sorry, Peter, this isn’t going to work. The chairman won’t torpedo his own party by allowing Eyam’s evidence to be heard. He’s a decent man but not a heroic one, or a foolish one.’ She turned. ‘Have you read the papers this morning?’
‘Glanced at them.’
‘Well, then you know that David Eyam’s credibility is destroyed. The committee will not contemplate hearing a man on the run who is facing those sorts of charges. It’s a matter of political reality.’ She moved lamely to her desk, her dewlaps trembling as she shook her head.
Kilmartin made his next move. ‘I do see what you’re saying, but this was always going to be difficult. Eyam knew they’d throw everything at him because he’s got such a very, very important story to tell. He’s not a child molester; he’s a man suffering from cancer who has been persecuted after serving the country as well as any of us.’
‘Cancer,’ she said. ‘That wasn’t mentioned in the papers.’
‘Yes, he’s got Hodgkin’s. I’m just guessing, but he may have come back for the last throw of the dice. I repeat – he’s no paedophile.’
‘But you didn’t tell me about it, did you? You didn’t give me the full facts, Peter.’ The hooded eyes waited for a response.
‘No, I didn’t because it isn’t true.’
‘That’s not the point. What if I had moved heaven and earth to get him into the committee room, only for the police to announce he faced investigation for child pornography?’
‘I apologise, but at the time I did not think it was important.’
‘That was an error of judgement. What else are you hiding from me?’
‘Nothing, I assure you.’
‘Well, it makes no difference. We are dealing here with what is possible. Even if David Eyam was able to present himself at the Palace of Westminster without being arrested, our beloved prime minister is about to announce an election. And at that point we all shut up shop. Committees rise; the MPs disperse to their constituencies; the Lords take a holiday.’
‘Yes,’ said Kilmartin, glancing at his watch and wondering why he hadn’t been able get hold of Cannon. ‘I spent the night reading through it. He has put together a very strong case with incontestable documentary evidence. It is clear that Temple and Eden White have corroded public life, destroyed the polity. Temple is seven points ahead in the polls and if he gets back into power, such liberty as remains in this country will be lost. In terms of privacy and justice, this system is a real shocker. They buried it in the accounts and all the money is going to Eden White’s companies. Parliament and the public have been deceived. Temple has sold the country’s constitution for personal profit.’
Her eyes drifted from him. ‘I do understand that you feel strongly about it, but—’ She stopped. ‘Is there any other way of publishing it?’
‘Yes, of course it can be published but the point is that Eyam’s got the original documents and he wants to place them before the committee because that’s the proper place for them. This will be a coup for your committee, something people will never forget.’
‘Really, Peter, I may be old but I’m not quite as daft as you take me for.’ Her eyes met his again and he thought of the deep passions that had once stirred in this astonishingly brave woman. ‘Is there anyone else who can speak to the committee? Can you?’
‘As a matter of fact there is someone else, a woman named Kate Lockhart – she worked in Indonesia for the office until her husband died.’
‘Oh?’
‘She’s now a lawyer in America and I gather a very good one. But she is here in Britain and is fully acquainted with this material.’
‘Is she the sort of person the committee would respect?’
‘Yes, she’s really quite impressive,’ said Kilmartin. ‘A loss to the office.’
Baroness Somers of Crompton put her hands together and thought for what seemed a very long time. ‘All right,’ she said, rolling a pearl on her necklace between her thumb and finger. ‘But no more surprises.’ He nodded. ‘You say she’s worked as a top lawyer in the United States. I’ll put her down to speak about the American handling of illegal immigrants. We’re inquiring into the effects of new immigration legislation. What’s her name again?’
‘Kate Koh: it might be best to use that name.’
She picked up the phone and spoke first to the committee’s secretary, who seemed to have no objections, then to the chairman. As she talked, Kilmartin gesticulated to say he was going to leave the room to make his own phone call. In the corridor he dialled Cannon’s cell phone but got no answer. He went through the Number Ten switchboard and was told that Cannon wasn’t available, and that his message box was full. A call to David Eyam’s number brought no joy either, but he did reach Kate Lockhart and told her that she should be there by ten thirty, and to change her appearance as far as she was able.
‘Have you heard from our friend?’ he asked.
‘No, I’ve been trying.’
‘That means you’re going to have to hold the fort if we get some time at the committee.’
She coughed. ‘Has anything arrived?’
‘Not yet.’
‘I’ll see you later.’
He returned to Beatrice Somers. ‘The chairman will do it,’ she said. ‘But he will never forgive me when he discovers what she’s going to talk about. She’s got fifteen minutes at the start as long as the prime minister hasn’t landed at the palace by that time.’ Her eyes twinkled. ‘And Black Rod rang back. He’s been talking to the sergeant at arms – his counterpart over in the House of Commons,’ she said, reminding Kilmartin of the medieval officers that ran the British Parliament. ‘They are going to take up the obstruction we experienced with the police immediately and issue a statement to the BBC. These emergency powers have got up everyone’s noses here, and quite right too. If you are in contact with your friend, tell her to go to Black Rod’s entrance at the western end of the palace.’
‘Thank you,’ he said.
‘At my age,’ she said, ‘I am mindful that each day which passes represents a greater proportion of the time that is left to me. I like to make each one count. I hope this one will count, Peter.’
Kate reached Victoria Street and walked south, pursued by threatening skies. The wind whipped down the street creating eddies of dead leaves and when Kilmartin phoned to tell her to disguise her appearance she had to take shelter in a shop door in order to hear him. As he spoke she looked down Victoria Street. At the far end of the street, police and army vehicles blocked the road, forcing the traffic left towards Buckingham Palace or the grid of streets behind Westminster Abbey.
In the last half hour she had been prey to the not irrational convictions that Eyam had been arrested, or was so ill that he could not ring her; and also to the likelihood of being recognised from her photograph in the newspapers. She reached a department store, which had just opened, entered and passed through the make-up counters and a gauntlet of saleswomen half-heartedly pushing brands of perfume. In the women’s department she bought a white shirt, a grey overcoat that was much bulkier and less flattering than she would normally choose and a half-length smock. She moved about the store quickly, selecting a tortoiseshell hairgrip and aubergine-coloured woolly hat in the accessories department, and a few minutes later a soft, round cushion sold as a back support. Returning to the make-up department, she perched on a stool at one of the counters. A woman in a clinician’s overall appeared at her side. Kate gave her very specific instructions while sliding a folded twenty-pound note along the counter. She wanted to be transformed and in a very short time.
Half an hour later she made for the women’s lavatory in the basement. Working quickly, she tucked the cushion into the waistband of her trousers and moved the belt to hold it in place just below her breasts. Having straightened and plumped it, she put on her jacket, then the smock. Her hair had been powdered to make it lighter and less luxuriantly glossy. She pulled it back and fastened it with the grip, leaving a fringe, then stood back to study the effect. The make-up had come into its own – her cheeks looked rounder and the shading under her eyes made them seem smaller and more recessed. Finally, she shrugged on the overcoat and placed the woolly hat over the back of her head, covering her ears.
She left and crossed a side street that flanked the store and entered a pharmacy, where she made for a stand of reading glasses and settled upon a pair with a thin gold frame and minimum-strength lenses. As she entered the street again, she placed them halfway down her nose and began to peer hesitantly over the frame.
In truth, this was unnecessary. Like an actor who takes the essence of a character from a piece of clothing, with her bump Kate already occupied the role of the mousey, academic woman seven months into what might very well have been a late and unplanned pregnancy. She moved carefully along the line of stalled traffic, shortening her stride and swaying slightly. Occasionally she paused and held her prosthetic belly, which as well as giving the impression of fatigue, allowed her to make tiny adjustments to the cushion. In Great Peter Street two constables stopped her, asked her where she was going and searched her bag. She explained that she was heading for Parliament where she was due to give evidence; she was late because of the traffic and the lack of taxis, and was nervous of missing the start. All this was said in a voice that caused one of the officers to bend down to catch her words.
By ten fifteen she had reached Millbank, the road that runs along the Thames and leads into Parliament Square. Charles Barry’s neo-Gothic masterpiece came into view. She had known since childhood that a Union Jack flying from the flagpole of the Victoria Tower indicated that Parliament was sitting. She peered into the sky as the first rain fell and saw the flag was still there.
Cannon often found that a crisis was best met with inactivity, or at least with something that had absolutely no relevance to the crisis, for which reason he had at nine forty a.m. taken out Aubrey’s Brief Lives and begun to read one of his favourite lives, that of the poet and dramatist Sir William Davenant, who ‘gott a terrible clap off a handsome Black Wench that lay in Axel-yard, Westminster’.
At nine fifty-five a.m. Lyme came into the room and beckoned him out to the washroom.
‘When’s he leaving for the palace?’ asked Cannon.
‘In the next hour: they’re in a meeting.’
‘Who?’
Lyme ignored him. ‘Did you know they’re able to go back over any phone call made in the last two years and listen to a recording?’
Cannon shook his head.
‘Well, they can. Legislation from a few years back gives them access to all communications data and apparently those records act as an index. If they know when and where a call was made they can retrieve the actual conversation.’
‘Jesus! No, I didn’t know that. But it doesn’t surprise me.’
Lyme’s eyes were lit with technophiliac awe. ‘That means—’
‘I know what that means,’ interrupted Cannon. ‘They’ve got Eyam and all Eyam’s associates and they are listening to their conversations over the last day or two.’
‘Yes, they’re hard on the trail. But not the encrypted emails: they haven’t got those yet. Naturally there’s a huge amount of material to go through, but GCHQ is working very hard on it, making reports every half hour or so. Also, the conference centre is filling up at that hotel. Out of nowhere about six hundred and fifty Bell Ringers have turned up and are waiting patiently in the hall.’
‘So the rest are being held in Hotel Papa?’
‘I don’t know – they reckon that three or four thousand people are involved. The police are waiting for Eyam and the core group, then they’ll make their move.’
‘Have you thought about that, George? Does it occur to you that these powers are being used to protect Temple from Eyam’s charges?’ He looked at him but got no response. ‘You’ll be required to answer for the government’s actions by the end of the week, if not the end of the day. I guarantee you that. So you better think through what you’re going to say. You better know what you think, too; where you stand as a person on that. Just because they can listen to people’s conversations and arrest them without good reason doesn’t mean they should.’
‘I hear you, Philip,’ he said without looking in the slightest bit admonished. ‘But—’
‘But nothing! Where’s Temple now?’
‘In his study.’
Cannon went straight there and found June Temple waiting outside. ‘You can’t go in,’ she said brightly. ‘He won’t even let me in.’
Cannon moved past her and opened the door. Temple stared at him. Ferris, Shoemaker, Alec Smith and his head of policy unit Thomas Sartin turned their heads.
‘Hello, Philip,’ said Temple. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘I gather you’re dispensing with my services.’
‘You will appreciate that I am rather busy at the moment.’ The voice was clipped, the eyes void of feeling.
‘How long have I worked for you?’
‘This is not the time,’ said Temple. ‘I’m leaving for the palace in the next five minutes.’
‘Once you’ve rounded up Eyam and his people?’
Ferris got up. ‘I think the prime minister is telling you that he’s busy. You should leave, Cannon.’
‘That’s all right, Jamie,’ said Temple smoothly.
‘Just say and I’ll have him removed, prime minister.’
‘Like that solicitor in High Castle,’ snapped Cannon, now finding that he was really quite enjoying himself. ‘The one who read Eyam’s dossier and was shot, presumably by the same man who broke into the lawyer’s office and then – what do you know? – turns up at Chequers with you. An employee of Eden White, no doubt, like most of the people in this room.’
Ferris looked at his watch, unperturbed. ‘I think we should be expecting a report any moment. Would you mind if I stepped away for a second?’
Temple nodded, but before Ferris reached the door, Cannon said: ‘I wouldn’t go just yet. You might want to hear this.’ From inside his pocket he drew the four-page report and unfolded it. ‘I don’t need to read this to you because you have already got a copy, prime minister. It is from the government’s chief scientific adviser, informing you that the red algae came from the government’s research station at Ashmere Holt and that this was confirmed after tests over the weekend. TRA is in fact a hybrid developed in the laboratory of the station. A genetically modified organism created for God knows what by a secret programme, then released into the environment accidentally. That’s the story.’
‘A full inquiry has already been promised,’ said Temple. ‘Clearly we must take all measures to protect the public whatever the cause.’
‘Prime minister, I’m the one who issues statements like that. I know the lies behind them.’
Ferris put up his hand. ‘If you wouldn’t mind, prime minister, I’ll just find out what’s happening on the other thing.’
Temple nodded and got up as though to leave.
‘I would rather you hear me out, prime minister.’ He stopped in his tracks and gave Cannon a deadly look. ‘This report was given to you on Monday morning,’ continued Cannon. ‘Verbal confirmation of the findings was received by your office during the morning, and yet you went ahead and invoked the Civil Contingencies Act at noon the same day. You suspended the Constitution to stop Eyam.’
‘Don’t use that tone with me, Philip.’
‘People are being held illegally in a car park like some South American junta. From what I gather, nobody knows what the hell they’re meant to do – the conditions are insanitary, inhuman.’
‘A temporary measure; the public is concerned about the water supply.’
‘Water supply that the government polluted,’ snapped Cannon.
By now the three others in the room were looking agitated. Alec Smith rose and placed himself between Cannon and Temple. ‘This man was due to be given a security interview, prime minister. There is no reason why he shouldn’t be arrested under the Official Secrets Act.’
‘Don’t be an idiot,’ said Cannon, looking up at Alec. ‘This document will be released to the press at midday unless I stop it personally. Bryant Maclean will love the story because it not only fucks you, prime minister, after you were so stupid as to threaten him, it exposes your friend Eden White.’
‘Philip! Philip,’ said Temple with a sudden conciliatory appeal. ‘I am about to call an election in which I will be fighting for the things that you and I know are right – order, security, stability, steady progress on our numerous social problems. Now, if you want to talk about your future in government I’m happy to do that later today. But I am expected at the palace.’
Cannon let out a bitter laugh. ‘My bridges are burned – we both know that. I have no role in government. By this afternoon Alec and Christine here will be sweating a confession out of me.’ He paused. ‘I’m not looking for a deal.’
Temple nodded to the other three, and allowed a smile to break surface. ‘Give us a minute or two, would you?’
They left without looking at Cannon.
‘Sit down for a moment, Philip.’
Cannon remained on his feet and from the corner of his vision noted the time. It was ten twenty-three a.m.
‘Let’s make this brief. You can resign in your own time, go to the House of Lords and head any bloody organisation you like, if that’s what you want, Philip: a respectable retirement with as much or as little work as you want.’
Cannon shook his head. ‘I’m not interested.’
‘Then what do you want?’
‘Abandon DEEP TRUTH. Close it down. Give people their privacy back.’
Temple sat on the arm of his favourite chair and leaned forward with his hands together. ‘But it’s an essential tool of modern government, Philip. Your request is the equivalent of demanding I drive to Buckingham Palace in a coach and four. This is twenty-first century government: we need such systems to run the country, to help people help themselves. Surveillance is part of all our lives. The gathering, processing and sharing of personal data are now an essential element in the armoury of social policy. You don’t hear people complaining about it because they know it’s necessary and want us to look after them, without having to bother with all the details. They want a strong and smart state, Philip, a state that is capable of taking action on the issues that really affect them – energy and food prices, disorder . . .’
‘I’ve heard the list before, prime minister. If you were so confident about the system, why is it secret? Why have you hidden it from Parliament and the public? Why destroy those who have threatened to speak about it?’
‘Eyam destroyed himself. Are you going to take the word of a paedophile over mine, Philip? Be reasonable, man. I am fighting for what is right here. You and I – we believe in this government. Let’s see a way out of this.’ Cannon had become aware of the faint noise around them – the murmur of political expectation, the rumination of all those who held the power together in the cockpit of the British state. Indistinct sounds reached them from outside the door and twice someone knocked and looked in, but Temple just shook his head with irritation. ‘We need to resolve this now. I want to go to the country with you by my side, or at least knowing that we are not at war.’
‘You just relieved me of my duties.’
‘But there are ways round that. Tell me what you want.’
‘I just have.’
‘Within reason.’
Cannon glanced at the little silver clock on the table. It was ten thirty-five. He would keep the prime minister there for a little while yet. ‘You can start by suspending the emergency powers and letting all those people go free; clearing the army and police from the streets. You can’t go on using the Civil Contingencies Act to beat David Eyam.’
‘Eyam is a traitor. I will use any powers any way I like to destroy a foul, dirty-minded traitor. And as for his friend Peter Kilmartin . . . well, you trust people and they take advantage. It’s always the same. I’ll see them suffer a little – eh? I’ll make these bastards pay for their lies and treachery.’ Then he did something that Cannon had only seen once before, when Temple thought he was going to lose a vote in the House of Commons. It was a spasm that he remembered started with a black look in his eyes, and quickly affected his vocal cords, which involuntarily emitted a sound of strangulation and made his mouth open and shut rapidly.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes,’ said Temple, working his jaw and massaging his throat. He reached for a water bottle and drank from it with short, greedy sips, looking away. ‘You know, Philip,’ he said conversationally, just as Cannon was beginning to wonder if Temple was losing his mind. ‘We should sort this out now.’ He picked up the phone and said, ‘Change the appointment to eleven. Make my apologies; say there’s a lot on.’ He replaced the receiver. ‘We’ve got ten minutes.’
Now Temple was also playing for time, and that suited Cannon.
The downpour came as Kate reached the Sovereign’s Entrance and was redirected to a temporary security cabin at the other end of Old Palace Yard, which had been erected because of flooding in the usual checkpoint. Police and soldiers stood about aimlessly hoping for something to happen. What did they expect? Attacks from people carrying phials of water containing toxic red algae? She pleaded that she had no umbrella and added that her name was on the door, but the guard shook his head and said it was more than his job was worth to let her in without checks and a search of her belongings; even in normal times it was out of the question. Then he fetched an umbrella from inside the peers’ entrance and escorted her to the cabin. She kept her head bent down but her eyes moved restlessly ahead, absorbing the fact that Parliament Square had not been completely closed to traffic, and that pedestrians were still being allowed through, although most were being stopped.
By the time she reached the queue of a dozen people it was evident to her escort that she needed to sit down and when he had pushed to the head of the queue he found her a plastic chair. She gave her name as Koh and smiled shyly at the policeman as he flipped through an extensive file of photographs, glancing up at her face. Someone else checked her name against the list of those expected and she was handed a pass. She stood up and was asked to place her two index fingers on a fingerprint reader and stare into an iris scanner, which she did with equanimity, knowing that none of her biometric details were on record. She explained that she did not have an ID card because she had recently moved from America and no one seemed to care. There was a good deal of haste and tempers were frayed in the hot, humid conditions of the security hut.
Her bag was fed through the scanner, and she moved unsteadily towards the horseshoe metal detector. On the other side there was a camera fixed at eye-level and two security guards wearing latex gloves were running their hands over visitors. Both had patches of damp under their arms. Kate stepped through the metal detector and held her arms out for the female guard but did not undo her coat. The guard said she must go back and put it through the machine. At that moment Kilmartin’s phone went off in her bag. ‘Sorry, they’re expecting me in Committee Room Five,’ she said and she explained about the lack of taxis; that her pregnancy had not been an easy one; she’d left home without the papers she needed; and Lord, what was she going to do about her hair? All this was delivered in a breathless, academic clip while she removed her coat. She went back through the metal detector and laid it in one of the large plastic trays. As the conveyor belt took it through the scanner, she looked around and with a start noticed Kilmartin’s courier move to the second scanner and carefully place the shopping bag containing the bound volume in a tray.
Kate passed through the metal detector for the third time and raised her arms. With some irritation the security guard glanced at her then looked over her shoulder to the press of people escaping the rain, which was now beating down on the roof. She began to feel along her sleeves but suddenly seemed to lose patience and simply waved her through. Kate picked up her coat and bag and moved to the door. The courier had been frisked and now stood immaculately composed in front of the guard by the scanner, who was examining the book. ‘You may check the book, but you may not read it,’ she said firmly and proffered a letter on House of Commons notepaper, but the guard ignored it and handed it to a plainclothes policeman, who looked through its pages then skimmed the letter. That was all Kate saw because someone opened the door and gestured her out. Struggling into her coat she went down the wheelchair ramp and headed for St Stephen’s entrance thirty feet away.
Two policemen with automatic weapons stood on the steps of the entrance, sheltering from the rain. She passed between them, then turned to follow their gaze across the street to a small group of people who, despite the security, had managed to assemble on the other side of the road beneath the Henry VII Chapel of Westminster Abbey. Slightly detached from the group was a tall figure in a dark-green anorak. His hood was up but she was almost certain that this was Sean Nock and beside him was her mother and a very large figure whose face was obscured by an umbrella. At least that had gone to plan.
At that moment an ambulance, with lights flashing but no siren on, drifted to a halt on the westbound lane of St Margaret’s Street and blocked her view. A policeman approached the driver’s window and the ambulance lingered. She had to be sure it was Nock so she made some show of arranging her coat, at the same time aware of the churning in her stomach and the unusual dryness in her mouth. Telling Nock to come had admittedly been a risk, which was why she hadn’t consulted Eyam or Kilmartin, yet she was sure not just of his attraction to her but also of Nock’s troubled decency. The ambulance was waved on and moved towards an opening on the black metal barrier that separated Old Palace Yard from the traffic, and she looked once more at the group, but didn’t see him again. She turned and climbed the remainder of the steps to the gothic doorway, where another policeman gave her directions to Central Lobby.
There were no cameras; no one was watching. She walked the length of St Stephen’s Hall, quickly removing the reading glasses and the woolly hat, then unfastening the grip and shaking out her hair. Passing through the Central Lobby – the intersection of the two main axes of Barry’s masterly hybrid of religious and secular architecture – she turned once to see if the woman with Eyam’s book was following, but saw no one. The screens in the lobby told her that a debate on Britain’s fish stocks was in progress in the Chamber of the House of Commons and that the Joint Committee on Human Rights was already in session.
But there was little sign of activity in the wide, tiled Victorian thoroughfares. A feeling of evacuation, or maybe obsolescence, pervaded and for a second she was struck by the hopelessness of bringing Eyam’s bits of paper to the site of the near-extinct cult of democracy. They might as well be lighting candles in a Tibetan monastery for all that the world outside cared. But outside there were real threats that seemed all the closer now she approached her destination.
She went through some swing doors and reached a desk where an usher directed her to the first door in the corridor on her right. A little beyond the committee room was a lavatory, which Kate entered. She tore off the coat and maternity smock, stuffed the back support into a flip-top bin, then removed the make-up with some moistened wipes and splashed her face with cold water. Having run a comb through her hair and straightened her jacket and shirt, she checked herself in the mirror and returned to the procedural calm of the corridor. A murmur of voices came from inside Committee Room Five. She cracked open the door and felt a tug from inside. An usher’s face appeared with a finger to his lips. He pointed to a place in the public benches. She sat down, closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, willing her heart to stop pounding and her head to clear.
She looked up. The panelled room was large, with a high ceiling and several chandeliers that were switched on because the storm meant that little daylight came through the windows on her left. The fourteen members of the committee sat on three sides of a square with the chairman, a thin-faced man in his mid-forties called Nick Redpath, and the committee staff occupying most of the middle. In front of them were a table and three chairs from which witnesses gave evidence. At the moment there was just one – a woman in a vivid orange top was answering a question on something that she had just read out.
All Kate’s misgivings came to the fore. She had abandoned any idea of seeing Eyam in Committee Room Five, and without the documents it would be impossible to claim the committee’s ear before the election was called. The committee itself seemed hardly the liveliest of bodies: the atmosphere in the room was inert, and it was clear that things were slowly grinding to a halt. The MPs wanted to be away to the constituencies and the peers were resigned to their enforced holiday. But for the bird-like energy of the chairman, who pecked at the evidence, invited observations and generally tried to keep everyone on their toes, the hearing might simply have expired. From the remarks offered from different sides Kate tried to gauge those who might be her opponents when she came to speak. She noticed an elderly woman studying her hard with animated, shrewd eyes. Kate craned her head to see Baroness Somers printed on a nameplate. The woman wagged a finger at a clerk, spoke to him and handed him a note, while gesturing in Kate’s direction. ‘Lady Somers wants to know if you are Miss Koh,’ he said when he arrived at her side.
She read the note. ‘Indicate when you want to be called if we are still going ahead. Where’s PK?’ Kate looked up and opened her hands in answer to the question about Kilmartin, but gave Somers an encouraging nod nevertheless.
The chairman saw all this and put a crooked finger in the parting of his hair where it remained for a few seconds while he considered his notes. He looked up at the witness. ‘Well, I think we have learned a great deal this morning from you, Ms Spicer, and I thank you for giving us the benefit of your knowledge.’ As the witness rose, his gaze moved to his right. ‘Lady Somers, I understand you are anxious for the committee to hear evidence on this subject from a Miss Koh, which you say is compelling. Is that correct?’ The committee members began to mutter amongst themselves and look with puzzlement at their papers.
‘Indeed,’ she said slowly. ‘I want to make a few remarks before we hear Ms Koh. Firstly, Mr Chairman, I thank you for your kindness and your trust. Over the course of the next hour or so you may have cause to regret both.’ She paused and looked at the faces round her, then she began to speak, by turns warning, beseeching, craving indulgence and playing to every conceivable vanity in the room until the point was reached when, seemingly at the end of her personal supply of oxygen, with her head sinking to her chest and her voice dwindling to a whisper, she reminded the committee that in these last moments as it was presently constituted it possessed a solemn obligation to the name, Joint Committee on Human Rights. ‘The JCHR is where the two Houses of this Parliament meet: we are joined in the defence of democracy. I would ask members to stay your hand, reserve judgement and listen as never before.’ Then she looked straight at Kate and gave a nod. Kate rose and walked to the witness table, leaving behind the dread and panic that she’d felt in the last few minutes. She sat down, folded her hands on the table and leapt into the void.
Ten minutes before, another speech had come to an end in Downing Street. The prime minister had talked without drawing breath about his vision and the merits of his government – the project, as he called it, to inaugurate an age of firm and fair government, where rights are a privilege accorded only in return for manifestations of responsibility. Cannon had heard it all before; indeed many of the phrases came from his own pen, though now it all seemed rather sinister. From the corner of his eye, he watched the hands of the clock moving gradually from ten thirty-five to ten forty. It was like holding his breath underwater. Then, exactly tweny minutes after Temple had launched into his homily, he allowed his eyes to drift from Cannon to the door, which opened without a knock. Dawn Gruppo came in and said that Buckingham Palace were postponing for half an hour. ‘They’re telling you who’s boss,’ she remarked.
‘Quite right,’ said Temple, slapping his knees lightly, ‘a little more time is just what we need, Philip.’
But the operation to delay Cannon and keep the document about TRA in the room was over. Smith came through the open door with two men. One said to Cannon, ‘We’d like you to come with us, sir.’
Cannon snorted a laugh and turned to Temple, shaking his head. ‘Special Branch? You surely can’t be serious, prime minister.’
But Temple had done his usual trick of removing himself from what was happening and was now skimming a paper just handed to him by Gruppo.
‘The computer has been secured, prime minister,’ said Smith. ‘Nothing has been sent from it or Mr Cannon’s telephone in the last forty-five minutes. We presume that he only has the hard copy because there is no trace of it on his home computer, which has been accessed remotely. There have been no outgoing calls from his home in that time either, or from his wife’s mobile.’
Temple nodded, then the Special Branch officer who had spoken moved to where Cannon was sitting. ‘We believe that you have in your possession certain classified documents that you plan to make public. This would be a breach of the Official Secrets Act. We also have reason to suspect that you were instrumental in the unlawful release of a woman held under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004.’
Cannon drew the document from his inside pocket and flourished it. ‘By all means have it – the more people who read it the better.’ He clambered to his feet and handed it to the officer, then looked at his watch. ‘A copy left the building by messenger an hour and a quarter ago, after I discovered that you’d blocked my phone. I imagine George Lyme is already answering questions on it.’
Temple’s eyes flashed at Gruppo. ‘Get Bryant Maclean on the phone: I want to speak to him personally.’ His gaze levelled at Cannon and he was about to say something when Jamie Ferris stormed into the room. ‘We’ve just started tracing two phones that we are now certain are being used by Peter Kilmartin and Kate Lockhart. Both are now switched off, but it is clear from the conversations over the last week that these two are at the centre of this conspiracy. We know they spent last night in the British Museum and understand that a number of packages were delivered to them during the night.’
‘In the British Museum?’ said Temple stupidly.
‘Kilmartin has contacts there.’
‘Where’s Eyam?’
‘We don’t know. Possibly with them. The phone we were monitoring is turned off also. Still, we now have a complete picture of all the people involved in the core group.’
‘What about the hotel conference centre?’
Ferris look perplexed. ‘The meeting began at nine thirty but the strange thing is that they’re actually talking about bell ringing. They’re listening to recordings and attending workshops. We can’t arrest hundreds of campanologists.’
Cannon smiled. Why didn’t they get it? Why didn’t they realise that Parliament had been Eyam’s target all along? He still didn’t give Kilmartin and Eyam much chance: Parliament would be all but useless to them once Temple had made his short journey up the Mall. Everything depended on what Temple decided to do in the next five minutes – leave for Buckingham Palace immediately or remain in Number Ten and try to sweet-talk Bryant Maclean into suppressing, or at any rate delaying, the two facts that TRA had come from a government laboratory and that the Civil Contingencies Act had been invoked unnecessarily. In the envelope sent to Maclean’s man, Cannon had included a few lines about those detained at Hotel Papa under the act.
There was only one logical choice for Temple. A few days ago Cannon would have unhesitatingly guided him to the right decision, but he was disinclined to help just now because he was being steered from the room by one of Alec Smith’s heavies. This time Temple would have to work it out for himself.
The skies had become even blacker outside Parliament and more light was required for the two automatic cameras that filmed the proceedings from above the chairman’s head and from the back of Committee Room Five. A technician switched on lamps either side of the cameras. A small red light on the camera in front told her that she was being filmed and that anyone who was looking for her needed only to glance at one of the many screens in the building.
As she gathered her thoughts a few people left from the public benches behind her, and the lone journalist at the press table by the window closed a notepad and slid from his chair.
‘I thank the committee for allowing me to give evidence,’ she said. ‘I want to start with a story. In every case I’ve ever handled as a lawyer in New York, there was always a story at its heart. However complicated or technical the issues appeared to be, the story was always about human nature, whether ambition, envy, lust for power, love of money or straightforward frailty. My story today contains many of these traits. It is about a civil servant who occupied some of the highest posts in government and was the trusted confidante of the prime minister.’ She stopped and looked around. ‘All those who knew or worked with this man prized his advice and penetrating intelligence. His career was brilliant; he was young and personable and had everything to look forward to. Then he learned about a secret programme known only to a few, which his conscience told him was an offence against the country’s traditions of liberty. Risking everything, he answered questions on this programme in a parliamentary committee very much like this one.’
She spoke clearly and simply. Her gaze swept the room, trying to engage the members of the committee, but was met mostly with blank stares. One or two were beginning to get restless. An MP named Jeff Turnbull leaned back in his chair with a liverish expression and asked, ‘Mr Chairman, why are we wasting valuable time listening to a story?’
‘Well, I am happy to listen to Ms Koh’s story,’ said a man with raffish sideburns and a bow tie who sat behind the nameplate for the Earl of Martingale. ‘But I would like to know what this secret is.’
She smiled at him but did not lose the seriousness in her voice. ‘This civil servant gave evidence about a system known as SPINDRIFT or DEEP TRUTH, which secretly monitors everyone in the country and is responsible for untold errors, persecution, punishment and political control. That was his secret.’ Now it was out she had to put as much on record as possible and she sped through Eyam’s case – the origins of the system, its covert installation and ever-extending reach, the use of census records and social networking sites, its reliance on phone, ID card and travel databases and finally the hidden payments to Eden White’s company. Each point moved effortlessly to the next, each stage in the summary that had just magically crystallised in her mind was now emphasised by precise brush strokes made by her forefinger and thumb.
It took no more than a few minutes to transform the proceedings of Committee Room Five. The room was electrified. Some members of the committee were almost levitating with indignation. Others looked aghast. And behind her she heard the room filling with those who had caught what she said on the monitors around Parliament.
‘Can we have some quiet, please,’ said the chairman. ‘Ms Koh, I think I am conveying the views of this committee if I say that the allegations you are making have nothing to do with the matter in hand, and are an abuse of parliamentary privilege.’
‘Where’s your evidence?’ demanded Turnbull.
‘Who sent you?’ shouted another member.
Kate looked at Lady Somers as someone called for her to be dismissed. The old lady winked at her and made a little sweeping gesture with her hand, as if discreetly encouraging a child on sports day.
‘No,’ Kate said.
‘What do you mean – no?’ asked the chairman.
‘No, I will not be dismissed.’
‘That is not up to you,’ replied the chairman. ‘You have one last chance to substantiate and make relevant your testimony.’
‘This is not my last chance; it is yours. A general election is about to be called to stop this evidence being heard. We have every reason to believe that the emergency powers brought in on Monday were an attempt to stifle what I and others have to say.’
‘Now I know I’m in a madhouse,’ expostulated Turnbull. ‘These are just paranoid fantasies about a police state. What next?’
‘You may well ask what is next,’ she said calmly. ‘We don’t live in a police state but it is coming and you, sir, are one of the very few people who can stop it.’
At this Turnbull got up and said he was leaving. Two others also left their chairs, a woman who had said nothing and a young government apparatchik who wore a badge in his buttonhole. Kate sat back and waited for the tumult to die down. She heard a voice behind her and turned to find Kilmartin bending down. ‘Here’s your evidence,’ he said, putting the book in her hands. ‘And Carrie’s got the library to make photocopies of the main documents. Should be enough to go round. There’s more coming.’ He put the stack of paper on the chair beside her.
‘Where’s Eyam?’ she hissed. ‘Is he coming?’
‘I don’t know. Keep going – you’re doing brilliantly. If you get this accepted by the committee, we’re halfway there.’
At that moment she saw Darsh Darshan come through the door with a black shoulder bag and gradually work his way forward, but there was no time to wonder what he was doing there or whether he had come with Eyam. She placed the book squarely in front of her. ‘I want to present this to the committee. It contains all the evidence to support what I have been saying.’
‘We can’t accept that,’ said Turnbull, who had had second thoughts and was now returning to his place.
‘Why doesn’t the Honourable Member hear the lady out,’ said Lord Martingale with sudden steel in his voice. ‘I want to know the identity of the individual you have spoken of.’
‘His name is David Eyam,’ she said.
A murmur of shock ran round the room.
‘The David Eyam who faked his own death and is being sought by police on numerous criminal matters?’ said Redpath incredulously. ‘Do you realise the gravity of your insult to Parliament, to this committee?’ He shot a look at Beatrice Somers.
‘I understand your reaction,’ said Kate, ‘because I experienced much the same incredulity.’ She picked up the book and the photocopies. ‘People have risked their lives to bring these to you. Two were killed on Sunday night. David Eyam lost his career and his health to put the documents bound in this book in your hands. Look at them before you turn me away. Read it before you dismiss us as fantasists.’ She got up, walked over to Redpath and laid the book in front of him.
Redpath turned to Lady Somers. ‘Did you know about this?’
‘I confess that I had some inkling of the allegations,’ she replied. ‘The matters seemed so serious to me that I felt it was imperative Miss Koh was given a hearing.’
‘But Eyam’s a bloody paedophile,’ said Turnbull, causing the stenographer to look up.
‘How do you know that?’ asked Kate, placing the five piles of photocopies, each separated by an orange marker, at strategic points along the tables. ‘Because you were told by the government?’
‘No, by the police,’ said Turnbull. ‘Why else would he have faked his death?’
‘You may care to wonder why he returned,’ she said sharply.
‘To cause trouble, as you are doing now.’
‘No,’ she said with utter command. ‘He came back to expose a corrupt cabal at the top of government.’
‘That seems a little presumptuous,’ said a neat man with silver hair to her right.
‘Will you please go through the chair before making comments,’ Redpath snapped. ‘And will the people who have just come in find a place or leave.’ There were now eight or nine journalists squashed into the press bench trying to work out what was going on. ‘Silence,’ said Redpath, looking in their direction and then turned to two men who had arrived behind his chair. One bent down, placed his hand on the table and whispered urgently.
Kilmartin’s voice was in Kate’s ear. ‘They’re trying to pull the plug on you. I think they’re government whips.’
Redpath nodded and the two men moved back. ‘I am given to understand that the prime minister is on his way to Buckingham Palace to request a dissolution of Parliament. A general election is to be called, which means that this sitting of JCHR is effectively at an end. It must be obvious to you that we cannot accept this evidence, Miss Koh.’ He began gathering his papers together, flashing angry looks at Beatrice Somers, which evidently cut no ice.
But it was the Earl of Martingale who spoke. ‘May I suggest, Chairman, that we’ve already accepted this material as evidence and that it is therefore privileged and has the protection of Parliament.’
‘Privilege is always qualified by the need for responsibility,’ said Redpath without looking up.
‘We have all been looking at these papers.’ Martingale waved a hand. It was true. The book was being handed around the committee and members were feeling the paper and examining signatures, then reading copies of the documents in front of them. ‘That means evidence has been accepted by the committee. This may be reported in the press like any other proceeding in the Houses of Parliament.’
There was silence. Redpath didn’t know what to do. The two men that had just approached him were plainly desperate that he gave no ruling and were now all but dragging him from the room. But then his patience suddenly gave out. ‘Take your hands off me and show respect to this committee.’ He turned to the room. ‘Does anyone know if the election has been called?’
To a man and woman the journalists consulted their smart phones, then shook their heads. ‘Not yet,’ said one. ‘But there’s a story running that the red algae leaked from a government laboratory.’
‘That does not concern us,’ said Redpath. ‘I’m interested only in bringing these proceedings to an orderly close without interference from anyone – even the government.’ He could have ended everything by formally wrapping things up then and leaving the room, but something kept him there and he sat for a few seconds oblivious of the cameras, his committee and Kate, a finger perched in the parting of his hair.
Cannon shook himself free of the man who gripped his arm, turned on Alec Smith with a ferocity that he hardly knew was in him and informed Smith that he would submit to any kind of interview they chose to give him, but if there was an attempt to charge him or harm his reputation he would be forced to release information that would destroy the prime minister. This threat was delivered immediately outside the prime minister’s sitting room. Gruppo and Ferris heard him. She came out, leaving Temple talking to Bryant Maclean. Cannon turned to her. ‘This is how it’s going to be, Dawn. I will clear my desk over the next hour and say goodbye to the staff in the Communications Department. Then I will go home, where I will remain unmolested by you or anyone else. At some stage I will take myself to the Scottish Borders for a fishing holiday. Until that time you will be able to reach me on my landline.’ Then he leaned into her face and said, ‘Screw with me, Dawn, and I will take you down too.’
He went back to his desk and slowly got his things together. There were a few members of his staff around, waiting for the election to be called. They were embarrassed but he reassured them that this was entirely what he wanted. With George Lyme they would be in good hands.
It was some time after eleven that Lyme burst in and switched the TV to a feed from Westminster. ‘The Whips Office has been on. Eyam’s woman is in the bloody House giving evidence to the bastard Human Rights Committee. She’s just presented a whole lot of documents to them. God knows what’s in them. They’re going to have them arrested.’
‘They can’t,’ said Cannon, admiring the composure of Kate Lockhart on the screen and noticing Peter Kilmartin’s head bobbing behind her. ‘You ought to know that, George. Parliament polices its own affairs and unless she is held to be in contempt or offends some arcane tradition, the police will have to wait until she leaves the premises. It all depends on the chairman. He can ask the sergeant at arms to eject her, but otherwise they are going to have to wait.’
‘That’s not what Temple thinks. Armed police are on their way now. They’ll put an end to it.’
‘Maybe,’ he said softly. ‘Where’s Temple?’
‘About to leave. He’s talking to the Whips Office now.’
Cannon took the remote from Lyme, wheeled his chair in front of the screen, turned up the volume and flipped through the news channels. Two were already running the live feed from the committee room. ‘This should be interesting,’ he said to himself.
In those brief agonised seconds, Redpath had created a vacuum and into this came a voice from the back of the room. ‘Before you go you might want to hear how I tampered with David Eyam’s computer, and was made to do this by the Security Service.’ Kate had almost forgotten about Sean Nock. She turned to see first John Turvey, who had been persuaded by her mother to act for Nock, next to him her mother looking erect and immaculate, and finally in the far corner of the room by the window Sean Nock. He stood and held up an envelope. ‘I am David Eyam’s neighbour,’ continued Nock, ‘and I used to help him out. Then they got to me. Threatened me with jail on a charge of growing and supplying cannabis. That’s how they made me put child pornography on his computer.’
‘This is not a public meeting,’ said Redpath. ‘Sit down.’
‘I’m not sitting down until I have given you this sworn statement. Sworn in front of Mr Turvey yesterday.’
‘The celebrated John Turvey is your lawyer?’ said Redpath with some astonishment. ‘One wonders how you afford him.’
‘Mr Nock is indeed my client,’ thundered Turvey from the benches. ‘And I believe what he has to say is important – important enough for me as his legal representative to advise him that he may be in a position to bring an action against the authorities.’
‘That is of no concern to us,’ snapped Redpath.
Meanwhile Nock had pushed past the journalists who had peeled off from their bench to find out his name and moved to a spot in front of Redpath. He stood tall and rustic and despite his admission he somehow seemed unimpeachable. ‘This is my confession,’ he said, dropping the envelope on the table. ‘It has been witnessed and is an exact account of how I was instructed to incriminate David Eyam.’ He turned round, looking flushed and awkward. ‘You should listen to this woman. I know she speaks the truth. David Eyam is a good man and I want to apologise to him now, wherever he is.’
‘Accepted,’ came a voice from near the door before Redpath had time to react to Nock.
Kate whipped round. Eyam was standing with Aristotle Miff. He wore heavy horn-rimmed spectacles and was dressed in a lightweight navy-blue suit, white shirt and knitted black tie. He removed the glasses. ‘I wonder if I can join Miss Lockhart at the table. There are a few things I have to say. I am afraid I have to rely on my friend Aristotle here to get me there.’ Miff, also dressed immaculately, held out his arm and they set off.
‘You are David Eyam,’ said Redpath, clutching his brow. ‘The police are looking for you. How did you get in here?’
‘In a private ambulance, sir,’ he replied. ‘The same way I will leave, because I am technically on my way to hospital.’
He sat down with difficulty. Turning his attention to the stunned members of the committee, he whispered to Kate from the corner of his mouth: ‘You were wonderful.’
Several things were happening. Half the press bench emptied and the journalists pushed their way to the door. Behind Kate and Eyam people stood to get a better view and were being told by the doorkeepers to sit down. Two technicians arrived to operate the cameras manually.
‘This man should be in the custody of the police,’ said Turnbull, ‘not addressing a parliamentary committee. He and his doxy must be handed over to the police.’
Redpath turned to him. ‘If there is one person likely to be expelled for contempt it is you. I am running this committee and will not tolerate that sort of intervention. And please watch your language.’ He paused. ‘Mr Eyam, are the police currently searching for you?’
‘Yes, but I have done nothing wrong.’
‘Have you engaged in paedophile activities?’
Eyam shook his head. ‘No.’
‘You have evidently made some considerable effort to be here,’ said Redpath. ‘I will consult the committee to see if they’re willing to listen to what you have to say.’ After his moment of doubt Redpath had now got a grip. Kate couldn’t tell whether he was influenced by principle or the straightforward realisation that this was a sensational news event and the public were unlikely to thank him if he stopped the proceedings. ‘I will ask for a show of hands. I don’t want you to speak to any kind of motion. Just tell me whether you want to hear what Mr Eyam has to say. Those against hearing Mr Eyam?’
There was a moment of hesitation, then six hands went up.
‘Those for?’
Another six hands were raised, including those of Martingale and Somers.
‘We have a tie with one abstention,’ he said. ‘Mr Eyam’s appearance here is certainly unusual and inconvenient but I’m persuaded that an issue has been raised that should be aired, even though little time remains in the life of this committee. I cast my vote to hear him . . . Mr Eyam, please continue.’
The two whips looked aghast. Eyam cleared his throat. ‘Thank you; I am grateful to you.’ There was a silence. He glanced down with a strange internalised look then raised his eyes. ‘You have seen what’s happened over the last two days – the army and police deployed by emergency powers against a threat that was apparently caused by lax procedures in government laboratories. Now we all know what a military coup looks like. Over the last few years, there has been another sort of coup – a coup by stealth, which very few people realised was underway. It began several years ago when the public was persuaded to give up its privacy in exchange for benefits promised by the state. I was part of the process and I saw it happening from the inside, though I have to confess that I didn’t foresee that it would end with a system that saps the life and independence of every adult in the country. I did not see that when they talked about knowing a ‘deep truth’ about every citizen they meant exercising total control. That was stupid. So the first part of what I have to say is to take some responsibility, and to that end I offer another piece of paper to the committee.’ He turned to Miff who handed him a file, and removed a single sheet. ‘I won’t go into detail now, but you will see this is a memorandum from me to the prime minister, which contains remarks by him and Eden White, both of which are signed.’ He gave it back to Miff, who took it to the chairman. ‘I believe this memo was the start of it all, though I have to confess that I completely forgot about the exchange.’
‘Chairman, he is simply describing a data-sharing operation,’ said Turnbull. ‘There’s nothing new in that.’
‘I hope to show you otherwise, Mr Turnbull,’ said Eyam calmly.
‘Can you tell us how you discovered that the system had been introduced?’ asked Beatrice Somers, with a nod to Redpath.
‘When I took over the Joint Intelligence Committee after Sir Christopher Holmes’ death in a fire – about which you have certain documents – I learned of a Secret Intelligence Service report that suggested a super surveillance system in Britain was being accessed by a foreign power – Russia. This piece of raw intelligence was suppressed at the time, but Christopher Holmes pursued it and realised that it had implications not just for everyone’s privacy but the country’s security. He died in suspicious circumstances before he could make it public. I believe that the current head of the JIC, Andrew Fortune, was responsible for taking steps to cover up both the security lapse and the existence of DEEP TRUTH.’ He paused. Kate saw him swallow hard. It was as if something was caught in his throat. She reached for the water jug and poured him a glass.
‘These are very serious allegations,’ said Redpath.
‘All of them are confirmed by these documents. You will find a memorandum signed by Sir Christopher which explains the security lapse,’ he said between sips. ‘Naturally the government could not admit to the breach without admitting to an invasive system that had been introduced without Parliament’s permission.’
‘What evidence do you have of the breach?’ asked Beatrice Somers.
‘I will come onto that in a little while, if I may.’
‘Well, you better get on with it,’ she said testily.
‘Yes. First some facts and figures: SPINDRIFT was Christopher Holmes’ name for the system. Informally it was known by the name given to the product of the system – DEEP TRUTH. The last figure puts the cost to the taxpayer at twelve point five billion pounds, but that is probably out of date. The system, which sits silently in every national and local government database collecting data and prompting action, assesses its own performance by recording the number of actions it has initiated against members of the public. Two years ago there were nine hundred and eighty-nine actions. That is nearly a million people who were subject to automatic persecution. Apart from being vindictive, DEEP TRUTH, or 455729328, the rather simple code used by John Temple and Eden White, is also incompetent. It frequently makes blunders with misidentifications and draws wildly erroneous conclusions about innocent people’s behaviour. Each one of you on this committee has a file. Every phone call you make, every car journey, every holiday you take, most of your expenditure, every time you visit hospital, show your ID card, draw some money from your bank account, change job, check into a hotel, the system notes the transaction and decides whether your behaviour is somehow a threat to the state.’
‘This is nonsense,’ said the young apparatchik. ‘You can’t say these things without proof.’
‘You want proof – certainly, sir.’ He turned round to the public benches. ‘This is Darsh Darshan. He is the Simms Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford. With your permission, he will now show the system to the committee and in doing so demonstrate that its defences can be breached quite easily.’
Darsh got up, took five laptops from the bag and laid them on the witness table. Each one was already switched on and connected to the internet. With Miff’s help he distributed four of the laptops around the committee, leaving one in front of Eyam. Then he stood aside, gloved hands pressed together.
‘These computers are linked to a powerful mainframe through the web for the next couple of hours,’ said Eyam. ‘I will not give out the web address because clearly we don’t want members of the general public looking each other up. Now, if you care to type your own names, post code, car registration number, insurance number or mobile phone number into the field at the top you will be able to see the extent to which DEEP TRUTH monitors you.’
‘I have nothing to hide,’ said Turnbull.
‘Fine,’ said Eyam almost gleefully. Kate leaned over and saw him type Jeff Turnbull MP. Then after a few seconds scanning the file he said, ‘Mr Turnbull, it seems that two weeks ago you checked into a hotel in Scarborough. The system notes that you made five calls from your room, two to another room occupied by Tracy Mann. DEEP TRUTH suggests that you probably travelled to Scarborough together because there is no record of Ms Mann’s car on the road leading to the town and she did not buy a rail ticket. I could go on about your tax and expenditure, which the system has flagged up, your divorced daughter and her children’s records in school, also marked for some kind of action which it seems was automatically overruled because of your position but—’
‘You’ve got no right,’ cut in Turnbull. ‘This is my private life.’
‘Exactly – I have no right and nor does anyone else. It’s your life,’ said Eyam.
The other committee members seemed similarly appalled, but one looked up and said, ‘What you are doing here is illegal.’
‘How can that be?’ Eyam shot back. ‘The government has repeatedly denied its existence and Parliament has never been allowed to debate the cost, let alone the principle of DEEP TRUTH. If it does not exist, as they tell us, it follows that it cannot be protected by law.’
During this exchange a woman had come in through the second door and was speaking to Redpath. He nodded, then made an announcement. ‘Parliament is dissolved and the general election is called. It brings to an end this sitting of the Joint Committee of Human Rights. Mr Eyam, I think you have made your point.’
Eyam accepted that it was over and thanked Redpath and his committee. Yet no one seemed anxious to leave and then Martingale asked Eyam a question. ‘We’ve risen,’ boomed Redpath, as though Martingale was senile. ‘This Parliament is at an end. The television cameras are being switched off. You cannot continue to examine this witness. It is illegal.’
‘It may be irregular but it is not illegal,’ retorted Martingale.
On the word illegal the door near Redpath opened and two plainclothes police officers followed by three armed uniformed police came into the committee room and seemingly moved to secure the room. One of the plainclothes officers made his way along the side of the committee table towards the witness table, but before he could reach Eyam he was confronted by a man who seemed to have been projected into the compressed tumult of Committee Room Five from at least two centuries before, a formal courtly figure wearing a chain, some kind of order on his breast, breeches, black silk stockings and patent pumps. He carried a short ebony stick topped by a gold knob.
It was this that fell forward and poked the policeman in the chest.
‘Stand aside, sir,’ said the officer.
The man’s response was as archaic as his uniform. ‘I am the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod and I supervise the administration of the House of Lords. I am the law in this place. You shall not pass.’
‘Please move, sir. This individual is wanted on serious criminal charges.’
Kate was suddenly aware of John Turvey, rising from the benches behind her like Rodin’s statue of Balzac. ‘You cannot do this,’ he growled with such sonorous authority that one or two committee members seemed to jump.
‘And what business is it of yours?’ said the policeman, now looking slightly less confident. ‘What authority do you have?’
‘This man is my client,’ he said. Hearing what was evidently news to him, Eyam permitted himself a brief smile.
‘He has no authority here,’ said Redpath. ‘The only person who has now is Black Rod and he has asked you to leave Parliament. The TV cameras are still on. Millions are watching what will happen now, officer. Please go.’ At this a little cheer went up from a dozen MPs who had gathered at the back of the room and in the corridor running alongside the committee room.
‘That is the voice of our democracy,’ said Redpath. ‘You disrespect this place at your peril. Now take your officers and leave these precincts.’ The police seemed confounded. Then the officer nodded and they began to withdraw. Redpath waited until the door had closed after them. ‘Now, Mr Eyam, you were saying . . .’
They were there for another two hours, during which Kate was beckoned outside by Kilmartin: he was standing a little way off with his hand clamped over his mobile. ‘It’s Mary MacCullum,’ he said. ‘She’s with her sister, Alice. They are in hiding and talking to a newspaper. Alice wants to speak to you.’
Kate looked at him doubtfully and took the phone. ‘Yes, Alice.’
‘I know you think I told them which car Chris Mooney and Tony Swift were travelling in,’ she said. ‘But it wasn’t me.’
‘Who did?’
‘Chris Mooney: I’ve just spoken to his wife. He admitted to her on Saturday evening that he had agreed to tell the Security Service where he was. He said that he had to go along with everything because they had threatened him with ruin. He as good as told us about it the other night in the pub, remember? In the church he was making every excuse not to go. That’s because he wanted Tony to let him off the hook by dropping him.’
‘So why did he go?’
‘God knows. His wife, Maureen, says that he thought he could get the file to London as well as tell them which car Tony Swift was driving. He was trying to play both sides. She said he wasn’t thinking straight. He was mad with worry.’
‘So you weren’t an informer?’
‘I’m not saying that,’ said Alice quietly. ‘I gave them everything I needed to in order to keep Mary from being arrested again. I cut a few corners and made up a few stories. Tell David that. Tell him I had to hold them off until I reached Mary and we could go into hiding together. We had a plan, see.’
‘And now you’re talking to a newspaper?’
‘Yes.’
‘Tell them everything, Alice. I mean everything. Tell them how this happened in England. Tell them that even after making a deal with Chris they killed him because they had to eliminate Tony Swift.’
‘I will,’ she said and rang off.
Kate went back with Kilmartin into the committee room. More space had been made for journalists who had long ceased to care about the niceties of parliamentary privilege. Two of the committee had left but ten remained, and were taking turns to question Eyam on the documents in front of them. As the minutes wore on, it became clear that there was something compelling and historic about the events in Committee Room Five. Eventually it was Eyam who decided that enough had been said.
Several times Kate had seen him catch himself and stop speaking. She knew from watching Charlie that it was the pain surging through him. She whispered, ‘You’ve done what you had to do. You can stop now.’
He squeezed her hand and continued to talk but with a low, strained urgency and in short sentences, as though each word was costing him dearly. Half an hour later he suddenly stood up, looked around the room, attempted to thank everyone and collapsed into her arms. Miff and Kilmartin jumped up. But Kate took his weight, which now seemed so slight, and helped him from the room and down the corridor in the direction of the House of Lords Entrance. ‘Carry me over floods, Sister,’ he said as they went.
On their way they passed a TV set. Silent footage was being played of John Temple returning from Buckingham Palace and giving a press conference in Downing Street. Eyam asked her to turn the sound up. Her mother, who had followed them, reached up to the volume control, and squeezed her daughter’s arm. ‘Well done, darling: that was truly splendid.’
‘The general election goes ahead,’ Temple was saying with some defiance. ‘The British public will not tolerate these sordid attempts to interfere with the democratic process, for that is clearly what we have witnessed in Parliament today. They will not stand for it and nor will I.’
‘Prime minister,’ shouted a voice from behind the cameras. ‘Has Eden White fled the country?’
‘Mr White is a valued friend of Britain. No, he has not fled the country. He has, I gather, been called abroad on a routine matter of business.’
‘Do you regret invoking the emergency powers?’ another reporter called out. ‘What do you say, prime minister, to those who were held without charge and were not allowed legal representation?’
‘I say to the country that I will do anything in my power to safeguard people’s lives. The British public knows that sometimes in government you have to make very tough decisions to protect life. That is what I am here for.’
‘Will there be an inquiry into the release of toxic red algae from a government laboratory?’ asked a woman holding a microphone out to Temple.
‘That is already underway,’ he replied, forcing a smile. ‘We always promised that every aspect of this affair would be investigated. Now, if you wouldn’t mind, I have an election to fight. No doubt we will be seeing a lot of each over the coming weeks, and you will all be able to put your questions to me during that period.’ He turned towards the door. ‘Thank you.’
Questions were shouted at his back, but one voice was raised above them all. ‘Will you assure the public that government surveillance of the people’s private lives by the DEEP TRUTH system will be suspended? What do you say to allegations that a foreign power has hacked into the system?’
Temple stopped, then took a couple of paces back to the microphones. ‘Let me make it quite clear that my government holds dear the rights of the individual.’ This was too much for the reporters, who began to barrack him. ‘I will stop at nothing to defend the people,’ he shouted. ‘Nothing! And it is nonsense to suggest that any foreign power has access to government databases.’
Kate looked at Eyam’s impassive features.
‘Did you see that?’ he asked. ‘The mask slipped.’ It was true that on the word ‘nothing’ John Temple’s expression was suddenly contorted with loathing which seemed to transform his whole appearance. ‘People won’t forget that quickly.’
‘A primal scream,’ said Kate. ‘Let’s hope they don’t.’
Outside it had stopped raining and the sun flooded Parliament Square. There was no sign of the police who had entered the committee room. Most of the army had gone and the rest of the police were scaling back their operation with the knowledge that the source of toxic red algae lay in a government laboratory over two hundred miles away. A crowd of several thousand waited. Many of them were Bell Ringers who had left the hotel conference centre and hastened to Parliament, each one of them the accidental or intended victim of DEEP TRUTH; and each one with a name that was no longer part of the government database because Darsh Darshan had used a trapdoor in the system to expunge all reference to them.
A cheer went up when they appeared in Old Palace Yard. Eyam stopped and smiled, but he did not wave because he had no strength.
‘It’s like a revolution,’ said Miff excitedly.
‘No, Mr Miff,’ said Eyam. ‘Simply a restoration: that’s what we must hope for. The restoration of our rights and privacy: nothing more.’
The driver who had brought Eyam in the ambulance with Miff came back to help him into the vehicle. Just as he opened the doors, all ten bells of Westminster Abbey sounded at once. Again the people turned their heads, eyes freshening, as though spring was being announced, or someone had decided that life itself should be celebrated.
‘The Bell Ringers,’ said Eyam with a smile.
‘Bloody England,’ said Kate.