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In the event of the premature death of a high-flying politician, key civil servants considered it sadly inevitable that the public should devise conspiracy theories. The prevailing wisdom was that, left unchecked, these would hamper a police investigation and damage the government’s reputation. Small, rarely-convened working-parties in Whitehall were therefore on permanent standby, charged with devising and disseminating an official version of the victim’s last days and hours, and managing its ramifications. Probably none of those involved in this would have described it as ‘spin’ – it would have seemed tactless – yet that is what it was.
The known facts surrounding Frances Holland’s death were these. She had disappeared in the middle of April, and was last seen at King’s Cross Station looking ‘unhappy’. Fourteen days later, her body was discovered in an advanced state of decomposition in the single bedroom of a self-catering cottage on the Isle of Skye. There were no indications of a struggle. A forensic examination of the contents of her stomach revealed she had taken an overdose of sleeping tablets. Estimated time of death was eight to ten days before the discovery of her corpse.
That still left between four and six days unaccounted for, during which no one on the island could recall having seen her. Moreover, the cottage had not been booked in her name, but that of a ‘Mr T. Robinson’, who had paid over the phone in February with a company credit card. One thousand and ninety-eight pounds was charged to a financial services firm called Dobson-Fresenius whose head office was a plaque screwed to a disused office door in Zurich. The company had ‘branches’ in Jersey, Luxembourg and the British Virgin Islands.
The aim of the official version was to release the first set of facts post-haste and temporarily conceal the second from public view. That way, the investigators would have more time in which to work unencumbered by hysteria. The crucial point was that no one was suppressing anything. Quite the opposite. Without the efforts of the investigators, the truth would remain hidden at the bottom of a deep hole. In time, when the fuss died down, everyone expected all the facts – minor and major, irrelevant and central - to emerge. Just not now.
Because Frances Holland had died in the Inner Hebrides, the investigation was conducted under the auspices of the Scottish Procurator Fiscal rather than a Coroner. There was a Fatal Accident Inquiry rather than an Inquest, and unlike the English system, the process was to be conducted in private. In Westminster, this was generally considered providential. No one sought to override it, partly – so the official version went – because of the sensitivity of the ‘nationalist question’.
MI7 knew all the facts from the outset. Since Mordred had been left with Sarah Riceland, he had only the vaguest idea what action it was taking. He put the whole thing out of his mind.
One thing at a time.
His interviews with Sarah Riceland were scheduled to take place in an en suite room at the Majestic Hotel in Covent Garden. Only he, Ruby Parker and Phyllis knew she was here. It was considered unnecessary to post a watch to prevent her leaving. Her meals were brought by staff and left outside her door with a knock. The empty plates and cutlery were picked up in the same anonymous way. Her friend, Cara Fowler, had gone to stay with relatives. Cara’s house had been broken into by whoever had been staking it out, though nothing had been taken. It was expected that whoever was after Sarah Riceland would now leave Cara alone. As a parting gift, Mordred returned her phone along with some money for a new front door lock.
He visited Sarah Riceland at 10am the day after their narrow escape on the banks of the Thames Estuary. Her room had a deep pile beige carpet, a single bed, a TV on a wall bracket, a dressing table – containing her medication, courtesy of Red department - a wardrobe – containing four different outfits in her size, courtesy of ditto – a small dining table, and two chairs all in oak. The central light was a candle bulb in a frosted glass shade. When Mordred went in, she was dressed, the TV was on – Homes Under the Hammer – and she sat at the table with a cup of tea in front of her, eating cereal. She wore a black pullover and jeans.
“Bit different to my real home,” she said forlornly. “Mind you, I’m behind with the rent now. It’s probably not mine any more. Plus those bastards have likely trashed it.”
“We’ve taken care of the rent,” he told her. “There would no point in them wrecking anything. They’ll have searched it thoroughly long ago.”
“I’m prepared to tell you anything and everything now,” she said. “Just ask.”
Mordred sat down opposite her. “So who were ‘those bastards’?”
“I don’t know. I thought you might.” She looked at him and grinned slightly. “What are you looking at me like that for? I’m telling the truth!”
“I wasn’t looking at you like anything.”
“Yes you were. You were looking at me like this.” She opened her eyes wide and stuck her chin forward.
He laughed. “If that’s how I looked at you, I didn’t mean to. Anyone can look like that by accident.”
“Sure. Your second question, please.” She stopped eating and her smile dropped. “Look, I’m sorry if I’m acting like all the cards are in my hand. They aren’t. I haven’t got any cards any more, okay? Or I have, but I’m going to give them all to you and your pals at Spy Centre One. As for who the men were, I honestly don’t know. Oh yes, but you must have a theory you’ll say. Well, yes, I have. I think Planchart hired a private army to come after me. But I only think that because I want some sort of handle on everything. Soon as I start thinking about it, it’s a stupid idea.”
“Why would Planchart want to come after you?”
“Look, I’ve just said I’ve got a deck of cards and I’m going to give it to you. So instead of sitting there asking about what shade of red the hearts are, and whether the knave of clubs has a snub or a Roman nose, or whether it’s a standard fifty-two deck or a Tarot Nouveau, why don’t you just ask me to hand them over? Surely, then you can check for yourself?”
“When you said ‘pack of cards’, I assumed you meant information. What else have you got?”
“What about those photos you saw when we were having dinner in the Gherkin? Don’t you want to see those again?”
“We’ve got all morning. Just because they’re not at the top of my agenda ... There is such a thing as easing an interviewee in gently. You’re a journalist. You must know that.”
“I’m of the ‘go straight for the jugular’ school.”
He sat up and folded his hands on the table. “Okay, you’re in charge. What have you got?”
“Get me a laptop, and I’ll show you.”
Seventy photos in all, the sort of project you’d initiate if you didn’t like working as a team, or thought you had a potential scoop on your hands and wanted to guard exclusivity, or both. All were photos of the seven members of The Get Out Clause in various locations, taken with what looked like a telescopic lens. The kind of pictures a spy might take, which made him immediately suspicious – until he began to look at them. She went to manual slide show, and gave a running commentary.
“Now look,” she said, “the first thing you’ll want to do with these is download them, so you choose the ‘save as’ location when we’ve finished. I expect you’ll want to pass them on to your techno department to make sure they haven’t been mocked up. Not that there’s any need. You can simply put any one of these in front of Planchart. I don’t think he’ll deny it. Doesn’t have to. He’s not doing anything illegal.”
After the first twenty photos, it became obvious they had a running theme. As Ashbaugh had claimed, Planchart and his fellow TGOC members had been meeting with the leaders and emissaries of continental right-wing Eurosceptic parties. The Dansk Folkeparti, the Partij voor de Vrijheid, Alternative für Deutschland, the Kongres Nowej Prawicy were all represented, and Riceland knew the representatives by name. “It took me quite a long time researching them at first,” she said, “but once I established a pattern - anti-EU conservatives - it became easier. Sometimes, I had to try and get physically close to them, see if I could detect the language. Others, it was just a question of following the interpreter, asking him or her a few questions at the right moment. There was a lot of Googling, or Binging, as I call it. The only guy I wasn’t able to place was your Pierre Durand, and for some reason that made him the most interesting of all. Then one day, I saw you chasing him through town. I thought, ‘Oh boy, this is finally it’. I thought I’d found the key, the touchstone, you know?”
“Sadly, he’s as mysterious today as he was then.”
She went to the next picture. It showed Planchart staring straight at the lens. “This is one of the most recent. That’s when he spotted me. I guess it was inevitable sooner or later. Anyway, immediately afterwards is when my troubles began. Which is why I said a moment ago: those men yesterday: maybe his doing? Of course, it could be any one of them.”
“Any one of who?”
“The Get Out Clause. I don’t think they really care whether we’re in or out of Europe. They just see the whole referendum thing as a chance to grab power.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because they’re all doing it, all politicians. Whether or not you’re on the winning side on June the twenty-third is going to determine your political future. Not because of what it means in itself, but because it’s an ideological expression of where you stand in relation to the established faction in your party, and to your leader. That’s what it’s really about for most MPs. Not what’s best for Britain, but what’s in their own short-term job interests. It’s a game of roulette. And, like it or not, they all have to play.”
“From what I’ve heard, Frances Holland was a conviction politician. There must be some of those. They can’t all be time-servers and careerists.”
“I can’t believe she committed suicide. It doesn’t ring true. Why now?”
Mordred had to be careful here. She only knew the official version. Any mention of T. Robinson or shell companies could complicate matters to the point where they became unmanageable.
“They were her tablets,” he said, “and she doesn’t seem to have been involved in a fight. Maybe she needed to think things through, that’s why she booked the cottage. Then she decided not to come home. I love the Scottish Highlands, don’t get me wrong, but it’s rainy and dark and cold up there a lot of the time. For someone who’s already suffering from depression, that may not be a helpful cocktail.”
“I suffer from mental illness, and her committing suicide strikes me as odd.”
He smiled. “There’s more than one type of mental illness.”
She shrugged.
He looked around for some way of changing the subject, then found one.
“Who’s that guy in the background?” he asked, pointing to her thirty-fourth photo. She was flipping through them without much comment now. He got the impression she’d told him everything important. “I’ve seen him before.”
“Seen him where?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Go back. I think, in some of your other photos.”
“Damn, I thought you meant in real life. For a moment, I thought we might be on to something.” She went back to 25/70, then to 18/70. He was also in 15, 12, 9, 8, 7 and 1. “He’s probably in a lot of them,” she said.
“I take it you know who he is. I mean, given the quality of research you’ve done on just about everyone else in here.”
“I got close enough to listen in to a lot of their conversations. I say listen; I mean, ‘catch snatches’. He wasn’t a major player, by any means. He just hung about in the background most of the time. In fact, nearly all the time. And he’s English. I came to the conclusion that he’s irrelevant. Probably some sort of special adviser, or a junior civil servant, or possibly a constituency apparatchik. He always seemed quite friendly, not like the rest of them. Because of that, I concluded he was probably a complete nonentity. Such is the world.”
“Go forward to nine.”
She obliged. A picture of Frances Holland, Charles Planchart, a middle-aged woman from Alternative für Deutschland, and in the background, the mysterious man.
“You don’t know his name?” Mordred asked.
“Like I said,” she replied. “I assumed he was of no account. Are you now telling me I’m wrong?”
He wasn’t obliged to share his insights with her, but he still needed to download her photos, and he’d been incautious enough to pique her interest. He couldn’t go into reverse now. Too late.
“Go to the first photo.”
“ ... Right.”
“Now the fifth ... Go to nine again ... Now forward to twenty-five.”
She put her face closer to the screen. “What am I supposed to notice?”
“The way he’s looking at Frances Holland.”
She repeated the sequence. “Yes, I see now,” she replied. “Affection.”
“I’d say it’s more than that.”
“I’m pretty sure she was having a fling with Planchart. At least that’s the rumour. So you’re thinking maybe unrequited love? Where does that get us?”
He sighed. Time to put her out of her misery. “Look, Sarah, I’m not a detective. There can’t be an ‘us’ in the sense you want – an investigative duo. For your own safety, there are going to be lots of things I can’t share with you. You were almost killed yesterday, and if you keep pushing the envelope as regards Planchart, that may not be finished. We can’t be a team. That’s why you’ve got to give me everything you’ve got. Only once they’re sure you’ve done that will they leave you alone. They don’t do revenge attacks.”
“But they’ll know – or think they do – that I’ve got the capacity and determination to put a story in print. Killing a journalist, even after they’ve given away everything they know, is rarely about revenge. Unless said journalist has already put the incriminating evidence into the public domain, there’s still every reason to stop her. And in giving it to you, I’m not doing that, am I?”
“No, but you haven’t got a story either.”
“Which may change. I’ve got I.I.C., as they call it. Ideology, intent and capability.”
He almost betrayed himself with an overt double-take. For a moment, he thought he’d misheard her. Ruby Parker that first day back after Durand. You’ve been flagged up as vulnerable to radicalisation. The accusation is that you’ve got I.I.C. Ideology, intent and capability. Was Sarah Riceland making fun of him? Trying to send him a message? Who was she? What did she know? Suddenly, he was all at sea.
Test her micro-expressions, that had always worked in the past. Often, the sardonic semi-revelation preceded a physical assault, but she didn’t look inclined to that. Maybe she had someone outside. He went to the window and looked out. No one he could see. Not that that meant anything.
In any case, they needn’t be out on the street.
“What’s the matter?” she asked innocently. “Did I say something wrong?”
It could just be coincidence. Paranoia.
“Tell me your name,” he said.
She stood up slowly. “What do you mean? Why? What’s going on?”
“Your name. What is it?”
“You know who I am. I’m Sarah. Sarah Riceland!”
A lie. The leaning away, the subtle shake of the head, the movement of the eyebrows, a million other things.
“Are you from Grey department?” he persisted.
“No! No! I mean, I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
Another falsehood. He’d walked into a trap. Fast as an express train, he reviewed his association with her. Until recently Grey or Horvath, or whoever, had simply wanted to rough him up. That skirmish outside the Lord Mayor’s – if they’d wanted to murder him, they could have. But yesterday, something had changed. Timothy Manners: You’re dead, John Mordred. They’d decided to kill him. He had to get out of here.
He suddenly became aware of a movement down in the street. Someone coming towards the hotel at speed.
His phone rang. Ruby Parker. Bloody hell. He picked up. “John, listen carefully,” she said. “I need you to get out of the Majestic right away. Just get out and - ” He hung up.
Shafiq Effanga. Good God, that dislocated knee had healed quickly. Six weeks it normally took. He’d already entered the hotel now. Probably seconds till he got here.
Leave Sarah Riceland – yes or no?
Yes.
No. Play along with the idea that it was her they were after. Then find out who she was. If she knew now she’d been exposed, he’d never see her again. Or her photos – which, come to think of it, were probably all worthless too. Probably? Certainly.
“We need to hide you,” he said. “There’s someone here to get you. An old enemy of mine. A hit man. If I don’t make it, his name’s Shafiq Effanga.”
“Shafiq Effanga,” she repeated. She looked genuinely scared now, not like she was putting it on. Maybe she and Shafiq didn’t get on. Or maybe she was squeamish, didn’t like seeing someone like Mordred get murdered in broad daylight in a nice hotel in Covent Garden.
That had to be it. She’d had all morning to murder him, and she hadn’t. She wanted it done; she just didn’t want to be the one to do it. Or see it.
Well, if it got to that point, she’d have to. She was right behind him, so he grabbed her wrist. He needed to watch out now, on all fronts. She might be unhappy about killing him, but she clearly had no qualms about delivering him for that purpose. A sudden push down a flight of steps, or a deft trip while they were running – they’d serve her purpose. She could be off and away when the death-blow was dealt. With two people after him, both bent on his elimination, one of which he had to keep close, he rated his chances of survival at around twenty-five per cent. It was an odd realisation. 25: maybe the last number he’d ever think of.
She made no show of resisting. Obviously, she was as determined to play along with him as he was with her. They slipped out into the corridor and he closed the door behind them. She took out a key, locked it and put it into her bag. He hadn’t noticed a bag before. Could be ominous, but he’d lost the capacity to consider ominous any more.
He ran along the corridor looking for an escape-route. The stairway he’d come up was at the other end. But there had to be something at this end too, surely. You needed a variety of fire-exits nowadays. Health and safety, good ol’ -
“Here!” she yelled. She pushed a door he thought was the entrance to a room, and revealed a staircase.
“Stay behind me,” he said. “Or go in front.”
She looked at him as if she thought he was having a breakdown, then went in front. These weren’t steps for guests’ use: they were concrete and functional. At the bottom, double doors with panic bar latches. She pushed down and went outside. He followed, but he could hear someone hot on their tail.
Suddenly, he was outside in an alleyway. Four wheelie bins had been pushed up against each other at each end, blocking the exits. He’d stumbled into an ambush. Sarah Riceland was nowhere to be seen. The only other presence was a dark-haired, ex-army looking man of about Mordred’s age wearing a brown suit and carrying an umbrella. Probably Effanga’s accomplice, though he looked curiously reluctant to advance. A trainee Grey, perhaps, here solely to watch and learn. Probably he who’d arranged the wheelie bins.
Too late to worry about that now. He turned to meet Effanga as he emerged, and slammed the door hard on him when he was halfway through. He went down. Mordred fired a kick at his head, but, after his slip-up in the City and what had happened to Manners, Effanga clearly wasn’t in the business of underestimating opponents any more. He caught Mordred’s foot and turned it through ninety degrees. Mordred lurched on to his side in an attempt to stop his ankle breaking.
Effanga bounced to his feet like a gymnast and suddenly the positions were reversed, Mordred on the floor. He attempted a roll into the hit-man’s legs, but Effanga casually reversed and pulled a gun fitted with a silencer from his inside pocket. He raised his arm to shoot, and suddenly the fire-door flew back and Sarah Riceland was there. She smacked the gun out of his grasp as if it was made of putty. Before he had chance to register what had happened, an umbrella handle came out of nowhere and almost took Effanga’s head from his shoulders. He slumped unconscious – or possibly dead.
Mordred lay on the floor, gasping. Sarah Riceland put her hands on her knees and panted. Only the man with the umbrella looked unruffled. He extended a hand to help Mordred to his feet.
“Thanks,” Mordred said, accepting the favour. “You ... er, saved our lives.” He brushed himself down. Odd that his chief emotion was pleasure. The revelation that Sarah Riceland wasn’t a bad guy, after all.
But she certainly wasn’t who she’d claimed to be. Of that much, he remained certain.
“Are you two ... ?” He didn’t know how to finish the sentence. Together? Journalists? Secret agents? What?
The former Sarah Riceland and the man in the brown suit exchanged looks. She nodded solemnly, bowed her head again and went back to panting.
“I’m Nicholas Fleming,” the man said, offering a handshake. “And this is my wife, Marciella.”
