Vauxhall Cross, London
ANGELA SCOTT PAUSED outside the door to Human Resources and thought once more about whether to go in. As Luke’s line manager at MI6, she had a duty of care for him. But she also felt indirectly responsible for Hannah Slade, the woman they had sent unwittingly into the lion’s jaws in Hong Kong to collect the stolen data from Blue Sky. It had been just under forty-eight hours now since she had vanished off the face of the earth and no one in the building that Angela had spoken to seemed to have any idea how the situation should be managed externally.
‘Shouldn’t we inform her next-of-kin? You know, a welfare visit?’ she had suggested to Felix Schauer.
‘Hmm. Tricky one, Angela,’ had been the response. ‘She’s off the books, remember.’
‘Well, couldn’t we at least get word to her employers?’ she had replied. ‘They don’t have to know it’s come from us, do they?’
But wherever she turned, her suggestions had met with a blank wall. Having a collector disappear like this was unprecedented: it had simply never happened to the Service before and there seemed not to be any protocol in place to deal with it. Hannah Slade might have gone missing in Hong Kong but Angela still didn’t want to see this blow up into a media circus.
In despair, she had decided she would have to take it to HR. She knew that the moment she knocked on that glass door and walked into the Service’s ever-expanding HR division it could set in motion a whole bureaucratic chain of events but she was willing to take that risk. Hannah Slade must have friends and relatives and they would be worried sick about her. They had a right, she reasoned with herself, to know that someone was at least making efforts on her behalf to locate her.
But what if it jeopardized the whole operation?
Angela turned on her heel and started to walk back towards her office, then stopped. No. She had to report this. Anything less would be nothing short of a dereliction of duty, even grounds for a disciplinary hearing. As her tightly clenched fist rapped softly on the door of HR she already felt a pang of guilt, a sense of betrayal. She was doing this without letting Luke and Jenny know what she was up to.
‘Yes, Angela. What can we do for you?’
She took a seat opposite an eager young man sitting behind his desk with his cutaway collar and ostentatious white-rimmed spectacles. A plastic notice facing her announced his name as Nigel Kittle. Not a career intelligence officer like her, but a civil servant drafted in from another government department with a bumped-up security clearance and probably a fondness for corporate jargon. All part of the big push by a recent MI6 Chief to bring the Secret Intelligence Service more into line with the rest of Whitehall. Angela got that. The Service needed to move with the times, and yet … she couldn’t help thinking that hers was one of the few branches of government where you literally had people’s lives – those of your agents – in your hands, every single day. Make a mistake and someone who trusted you was going to end up quite possibly dying a hideous death in a far-off place. She wondered if someone brought in from, say, Business Development, always grasped that. Right now, she had hoped to find herself sitting opposite someone with a little more empathy, but it was too late for that now.
‘Thank you for sparing the time, Nigel. I—’
‘Not at all,’ he said brightly. ‘We’re here to help.’
‘Yes. It’s about someone on our team. There’s something—’
‘Hold that thought!’ he interrupted, holding up an admonishing finger. Angela couldn’t help disliking this man more with each minute. Nigel from HR pressed a button on his phone: ‘John, could you come in, please? I’ll need you to go and fetch somebody in here in a moment.’
Angela stared at him, unsure of where this was going.
‘Sorry, new rules,’ Nigel explained. ‘We can’t have a conversation about a member of staff without them being present. I’m sure you can appreciate that.’
‘Well, that’s admirable,’ Angela replied, trying hard to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. ‘But the person I’ve come to talk about is actually missing. That’s why I’m here.’
‘Oh? You’ve logged this, I take it?’ Nigel looked at her from behind his white-rimmed glasses. ‘Filed a Sentinel form?’ he continued. ‘When did you first report it?’
‘I’m reporting it now,’ she said. ‘To you.’
‘I see,’ Nigel replied, his brow furrowing. ‘Well, in that case I’d best convene a CADISC. I expect you’re familiar with those. It’s becoming standard policy across government for anything like this. There’ll be four staff members present, including myself, and the minutes will be added to your confidential records. Oh, don’t worry,’ he added. ‘No one else outside this office will see them. You’ll be able to speak quite freely. Now, let’s see …’ He peered at a digital calendar on his desk. ‘How’s tomorrow at five sharp?’
Angela was already regretting this. She got up slowly and forced a smile.
‘Five o’clock is perfect,’ she said, and walked out of his office. Damn my conscience, she thought. Why didn’t I just keep my big mouth shut?