Sabbathman (22 page)

‘They’ve intercepted ten kilos of Semtex. Plus some other goodies.’ He paused. ‘In a consignment of office furniture.’

Annie was down at Fishguard by quarter to seven the following morning, stepping off the overnight train from Paddington. She’d dozed most of the way, huddled in the corner of an under-heated carriage, and when dawn came up she found herself in west Wales, a landscape of high stone walls, sheep-cropped upland fields, and the distant brown smudge of the Prescelly Mountains.

Fishguard itself was a pretty town, terracing the hills around a bay. A long stone jetty protected the harbour from the rolling swells of the Irish Sea, and at the landward end of the jetty there were berths for the big blue and white ferries that made the four-hour crossing to Rosslare. The railway station formed part of the ferryport, and the platform was dotted with passengers waiting for the connecting train to London.

Annie stood on the platform a moment, getting her bearings. It was windy by the sea and there was rain in the air. She stared out across the bay, watching gulls swooping over the stern of an incoming trawler, then she tried to shake the chill from her body and went to find the customs hall. The officer in charge occupied a tiny office beside the Nothing to Declare channel. A one-way mirror gave him a perfect view of the last of the exhausted foot-passengers, still plodding off the Rosslare ferry. Annie showed her MI5 pass and inquired about Cousins. Apparently he’d spent all night with a rummage crew in one of the freight sheds and had just retired to a hotel across the bay. The hotel was called St Athan’s and it was evidently run by the customs official’s sister.

‘Good breakfast, mind,’ he said, ‘as long as you like mushrooms.’

A taxi took Annie to the hotel, a tall, grey building with a new slate roof and a full set of UPVC windows. She asked for Cousins at reception and a pretty girl in a pair of denim dungarees checked her name and then directed her to Room 214. Cousins, it seemed, had already ordered breakfast and Annie said yes when the girl asked whether she, too, would be eating.

Room 214 was on the second floor at the end of a long corridor. The big cast iron radiators were on full blast and for the first time in eight hours, Annie began to feel warm. At Cousins’ door she paused and knocked. She could hear the hiss of a shower inside and the sound of someone singing. Eventually the door opened and Cousins appeared. He was still fastening a towel around his waist. His face and upper body were soaking wet and when he stepped back to let her in he left two perfect footprints on the nylon carpet.

‘Welcome,’ he said, ‘You made it.’

Annie shut the door behind her and let Cousins take her overnight bag. The bed hadn’t been slept in but the television was on and there were two used tea bags squashed flat in a saucer beside the electric kettle. Cousins put her bag on a chair by the window, told her to make herself at home, and disappeared into the shower. He didn’t act like a man who’d been up all night. On the contrary, he seemed – if anything – refreshed.

Annie kicked off her shoes and lay full-length on the bed, her head against the pillow, half-watching the television. A reporter on the lake shore in Geneva was explaining something complicated about the latest push for peace in Bosnia. Annie did her best to follow the drift, thinking again how nice it was to be warm. Next thing she knew, Cousins was bent over the bed, a piece of toast in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. He nodded at a tray on the table. He was fully dressed.

‘Scrambled eggs,’ he said cheerfully, ‘and rather a lot of mushrooms.’

They ate steadily through the weather forecast before the eight o’clock news. When Annie asked Cousins about the customs seizure – what had happened – he shook his head, putting a finger to his lips, not taking his eyes off the TV screen. The news bulletin began. Second item, after a piece on a riot in South Africa, was a
report about a big arms and explosives find at a ferry port in west Wales. Customs men had examined a container lorry from the Republic. Amongst other items, they’d discovered ten kilos of Semtex explosives, several automatic pistols, and a quantity of ammunition. The Garda in Dublin had been notified and investigations were under way on both sides of the Irish Sea. Annie glanced across at Cousins. He was sitting at the table by the window. When the next item started, he reached forward and turned the television off. He looked extremely pleased with himself.

‘Excellent,’ he said.

‘What’s excellent?’

‘The coverage.’ Cousins pushed his plate away and glanced at his watch. He was smartly dressed: beautifully cut suit, lightly striped shirt, plain blue tie.

‘At ten o’clock,’ he said, ‘we get down to the serious work.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Press conference.’ He nodded out of the window, across the bay, towards the ferry port. ‘Freight Shed “B”. Our policeman friend’s due down any time now from London. His show, of course. As far as Joe Soap’s concerned.’

‘Which policeman friend’s that?’

‘Allder, of course.’ Cousins smiled. ‘Who else?’

Cousins topped up his cup with coffee and reached for the sugar bowl. He said he’d taken a call from the customs investigation people late yesterday afternoon. They’d had a tip about an incoming consignment of office furniture due at Fishguard on the evening ferry. Cousins had left London at once, driving down to Wales, arriving in time to meet the boat. The target lorry had been one of the last vehicles off. They’d opened the container in Freight Shed ‘B’. The container load had included a ton and a half of knockdown ready-to-assemble office furniture. In one of the packs, he and the customs rummagers had found explosives, hand-guns, ammunition and – most significant of all – a sniper scope and a map.

Annie was still finishing her breakfast. ‘Map?’

Cousins nodded. ‘Deal,’ he said, sipping his coffee, ‘in Kent.’

‘Is that significant?’

‘Yes. I think it probably is. Though God knows why.’ He glanced across at her. ‘I thought I’d let you handle that.’

‘Thanks.’ Annie finished the last of her scrambled egg and put the tray to one side. ‘So tell me about this furniture. Where did it come from?’

Cousins was looking out of the window again. The ferry Annie had seen earlier was backing slowly away from the jetty.

‘Where do you think?’ Cousins said.

‘Longford?’

‘Right.’

‘O’Keefe?’

‘Of course.’ He nodded at the television. ‘Which is why our media friends will be so interested.’

Annie leaned back against the quilted bedhead. In six years with MI5, she’d never met anyone so publicity-conscious as Cousins. Normally, at Gower Street, the press and TV people were regarded as a necessary pain, an affliction, one of the curses that came with democracy. Controllers went to endless lengths to shield operations, to keep on-going inquiries under the tightest of wraps. Yet here was the new man, the coming force in ‘T’ Branch, positively eager to share the spoils with a wider public. Indeed, watching his face as he monitored the news broadcasts, he might easily have been a journalist himself, anticipating fresh twists to the story, bending it this way and that, examining it from every angle.

Annie looked across at Cousins, trying to sort through what he’d told her, the little basket of goodies he’d unwrapped overnight.

‘This tip,’ she began, ‘to the customs guys.’

‘Yes?’

‘How come?’

Cousins glanced across at her, shrugging. ‘Pass,’ he said.

‘But shouldn’t we develop that? Ask the odd question?’

‘Sure,’ he smiled, ‘I imagine they’ll give you chapter and verse.’

‘Me?’

‘Yes.’ He yawned. ‘That’s your baby. I’m giving it to you. Another one for your shopping list.’

A couple of minutes later, the last of the coffee gone, Annie asked to use the bathroom. Cousins was still sitting at the table, scribbling notes for a report.

‘Sure,’ he said, ‘go ahead.’

Annie went into the bathroom and began to douse her face with cold water. Almost as an afterthought she called out, pulling open the door with her foot, telling Cousins about the conversation with Fat Eddie. The man had found nothing, she said. He’d looked, and he’d talked, and he’d asked around but there was nothing there. Cousins grunted from time to time, half-listening, and when she’d finished he put down his pen, got up, and crossed the room towards her. She eyed him in the mirror over the basin. He was leaning against the door jamb, watching her.

‘Well?’ he said. ‘You believe him?’

Annie shrugged, wringing the water from the flannel and emptying the basin. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘but on balance … yes.’

‘You don’t think he was covering his arse? You don’t think the tip might have come from him?’

‘But why? Why should he bother with all that?’

‘I’ve no idea. Unless he wanted to keep a clean sheet with his Provo friends.’

‘He has no Provo friends. He’s past all that. That’s why he wanted out. That’s why he moved to Birmingham in the first place.’

‘No Provo friends? Come, come. You know these guys. You’ve worked with them. It’s a blood tie. Once you’re in, you’re in for good. Once a Provo, always a Provo.’

‘Why do we bother with touts, then? Why spend all that money?’

‘Eddie wasn’t a tout. He hasn’t taken a penny off us. Not one.’

‘No, you’re right.’

‘So …’ Cousins smiled. ‘I suggest we take what he says with a pinch of salt. No?’

Annie turned round at last. A single blond hair had caught on Cousins’ lapel. She reached out and brushed it off. Cousins didn’t move. If anything, he looked amused.

‘You know the trick in this game?’ he said at last.

‘No. Tell me.’

‘It’s two little words. Opportunity and timing. Knowing where to look and when.’

Annie nodded, searching for the ambiguities again, wondering what Cousins was really trying to say.

‘Clever of you to remember the suit,’ she said quietly, ‘under the circumstances.’

Freight Shed ‘B’ formed part of the ferry port. It was a long, low windowless building with big sliding doors at either end to let the freight trucks through from the inbound ferries. When Annie and Cousins arrived, the shed was empty except for a single Scania truck parked in one corner. The rear doors of the big freight container were open and there were portable lights on collapsible stands shining directly into the back.

Carefully arranged on the oil-stained concrete beside the truck were several flat-packs of ready-to-assemble furniture. One of them had been opened along the line of heavy staples, the cardboard packaging folded back, exposing the lettered sections inside. Nestling amongst the lengths of conti-board and the plastic packs of handles and hinges were five packages wrapped in black polythene and then secured with brown adhesive tape. Four of the packages were about the size of a one-pound box of chocolates, and a fifth lay beside them, the black polythene scissored open, a block of something that looked like putty visible inside.

Cousins nodded to the customs official standing guard. ‘Where’s the rest of it?’

‘Coming, sir.’

‘Soon?’

‘Any minute.’

Annie knelt beside the display, inspecting the unopened furniture packs. They all carried the same label, O’Keefe Discount Office Supplies, Longford, Eire. She glanced up, hearing the squeak of wheels. Two men had appeared with a trolley. On the trolley were a dozen or so collapsible chairs. The men began to arrange the chairs in a wide semi-circle around the cartons. Cousins was still talking to the customs official. When he’d finished, she stood up.

‘Where were they hidden?’ she said.

Cousins led her to the back of the truck. About a third of the
contents had been offloaded and stacked against the wall of the freight shed.

Cousins peered inside the ribbed container. ‘There,’ he said, ‘on the left-hand side.’

‘Did you know what to look for?’ Annie nodded at the display. ‘Did you have box numbers? Some particular marking?’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘we had the product number. G26 something. The Space Saver Conference Desk.’

‘But a particular box?’

‘No, just the product number.’

‘So how many of these desks were there? On board?’

‘According to the manifest,’ Cousins frowned, ‘about twenty.’

‘And you got lucky first time?’

‘Christ, no.’ He led Annie through a door into an adjoining office. Most of the office floor was knee-deep in scissored cardboard and bits of desk. ‘We spent half the night with that lot. We must have gone through ten packs. At least.’

There were footsteps outside, then a movement in the open doorway behind them. Cousins looked round and for a fleeting moment, Annie saw the triumph in his eyes. She glanced over her shoulder, recognising the tiny figure she’d last seen on his feet in the Home Office meeting. Allder, she thought. Kingdom’s boss.

Cousins stepped across the office, flattening rolls of corrogated cardboard and Allder accepted his handshake without visible enthusiasm. He hadn’t bothered putting a coat over his three-piece suit and he was plainly freezing. Annie followed the two men back into the freight hall. They paused in front of the display while Cousins briefed Allder on developments overnight. The little policeman was making notes on a small leatherbound pad. The customs official had returned with an armful of automatic pistols, each one sealed in a polythene bag. He knelt by the display and began to arrange them round the blocks of plastic explosive. When he’d finished, he glanced up at Cousins for his approval. Cousins broke off a moment, viewing the effect from a number of angles, his eyes narrowed, and Annie watched Allder’s face, sensing the rage behind the tight little smile.