‘Special Branch. McManus speaking.’
The voice was familiar, even after all these years, but it was more subdued, as if its owner had lost some vitality. Liz said brightly, ‘Hello there, it’s Liz Carlyle from MI5. I’m assuming I don’t have to say “remember me?”’
There was a long pause, followed by the quick sharp laugh she remembered well. ‘You can say that again. Hello, Liz. I take it this is a business call.’
You bet it is, she thought firmly. ‘I sent round a photograph recently asking for information. I’m surprised I didn’t hear from you. It’s been identified as one Lester Jackson. Apparently you know the man.’
There was another, shorter pause.
‘Yes, I do. I didn’t see your photograph. What’s he gone and done now?’
‘I was hoping you’d tell me. Has he got form?’
‘Strictly speaking no. But this isn’t Little Lord Fauntleroy you’re asking about. Why are you looking at him?’
‘He’s cropped up possibly in contact with someone we’re investigating on the Continent,’ she said cautiously. ‘We’re trying to work out what role he might be playing.’
There was another pause, then McManus said, ‘I would have thought the Continent was a step too far for our friend Jackson.’
‘Oh really. Why’s that?’
‘Frankly, this guy is not the sharpest knife in the box. He’s home-grown and strictly a small-time villain. On his own patch he does OK, and most of his business is legit – his club has its dodgy angles but the restaurant’s not bad. To tell you the truth, there’re a few shenanigans that go on upstairs, but nothing to get excited about. I’m surprised to find him showing up on your radar.’
‘Your colleagues over in Cheshire seem to take a different view.’
‘You must mean Halliday.’ McManus gave a derisory snort. ‘He’s a young man who gets a bit over-excited. Not much goes on in Cheshire and he’s got a bee in his bonnet about the club. He’s cross that he’s never managed to get anything on Jackson.’
‘He said Jackson was a source of yours.’
‘Is that what he called him?’ McManus laughed, but there was nothing amused about its tone. ‘Listen, the guy’s helped me out on a few occasions, pointed me the right way when I was bringing down the coke traffickers in this town. He’s done enough for us that we leave him alone.’
I get it, thought Liz angrily. Let Jackson traffic in women in return for helping out once in a while with drugs. Drugs got the headlines, while prostitution was just seen as a necessary evil – however many lives it ruined, however many women it kept in a kind of slavery. ‘So why was he in Berlin then?’ she asked. Immediately the words were out of her mouth she wished she hadn’t been so specific.
‘I haven’t a clue. But believe me, if he’s got himself tangled up in something big-time, Jackson is not playing a large role in it. He’s small beer, Liz. Honestly.’
‘OK. Thanks for letting me know.’
She paused for a second, feeling awkward. Then McManus said, his voice softening, ‘It’s been a long time. So how goes life for you?’
‘Good, thanks. Same employer, as you can see.’
McManus laughed. ‘I always had you down as a lifer. You had the talent, and the commitment. I wouldn’t be surprised if you end up running the whole shebang one day.’
‘Don’t count on it.’ McManus had always been a charmer when he wanted to be. ‘But what about you? You must like Manchester if you’re still there.’
‘Like? I don’t know about that.’ His voice was flatter now. ‘It’s a living. I can’t complain.’
‘Oh.’ It wasn’t the answer she’d expected. ‘Well, I’d better get moving; we’ve got our weekly brief in a minute. Thanks for the info.’
‘Any time.’
She didn’t like leaving it like this. She said, wanting to give the conversation a better ending, ‘I may have to come up to your part of the world. If I do, I’ll drop in and say hello.’
‘You do that. It would be good to see you again.’ Then he added, ‘Just don’t make a special trip on account of Lester Jackson. Take my word for it, the guy’s nothing for you to worry about.’
Putting the phone down, Liz felt troubled by the conversation. She stood up and went over to the window, looking down as a small tug chugged along the river. The Thames was lifeless-looking and grey under the overcast sky of late autumn. His account of Lester Jackson just hadn’t rung true. ‘Small beer; not the sharpest knife in the box’ did not describe the elegantly dressed man who, according to the Germans, had strolled into the Schweiber Museum, had conducted quite clever counter-surveillance, had been whisked off the street by a Mercedes, picked up by a private plane and collected by yet another limousine from a private airfield.
Why had McManus tried to downplay Jackson’s importance? Come to that, why had he not responded to the photograph Peggy had circulated to all Special Branches? He must have received it and known very well who it was.
She thought back to the McManus she had known years ago and the reason she had split up with him. Then he had been prepared to bend the rules in his pursuit of criminals who he was convinced were guilty, even when he couldn’t prove it. Was he now bending the rules in pursuit of something else? His own interests perhaps?
And McManus had exhibited all the verbal tics of the practised liar – ‘honestly’, ‘believe me’, ‘to tell you the truth’, and ‘frankly’. She realised that she didn’t believe a word he’d said about Lester Jackson, and now she was worried that in talking to him she had given too much away.