The Dying Light (46 page)
‘Let me just get this straight,’ interrupted Temple. ‘They have been using churches to meet. Isn’t there some sort of law against that?’
‘They are all part of a bell-ringing society. Bell ringers use churches when services aren’t being held - an ideal place. They use half a dozen churches in the area,’ he said. All those in the church were asked to retrieve packages they were keeping for David Eyam and bring them to London immediately. These are to be assembled and used at some sort of press conference at an as yet undisclosed location.’
‘A press conference,’ said Temple. ‘Have you heard anything about this, Philip?’
Cannon shook his head.
‘So twenty individuals or thereabouts,’ continued Ferris, ‘left in various vehicles from the church last evening and made their way to London, presumably after picking up the packages. One car, carrying Tony Swift, the coroner’s clerk and Eyam’s right-hand man, was involved in a collision last night. Mr Swift and his passenger were killed. The police will be asked to search the vehicle and the bodies for any papers, as a matter of urgency.’
‘What about this informant? Have you got her package?’
‘We have only recently acquired the services of this woman, but we have seen what was in her package and copied it.’
‘And?’
‘It’s relatively harmless material - embarrassing if it came to light but not a disaster.’
‘So where is Eyam?’
‘We must assume that he is in London, but if I may just go back to the church. An hour or so before the meeting, Kilmartin met Kate Lockhart for twenty-five minutes at the exact same place. This only emerged when the data from the tracker on his car was tallied with the information received about the church meeting. I thought you ought to know that, prime minister.’
‘So we are to believe Kilmartin is in league with Eyam?’
Alec Smith spoke. ‘He may have a reasonable explanation why he met Lockhart there, but it does seem as you suggest. After all, that is what we suspected when we acquired the analysis of the film from Colombia.’
‘Do we have an idea when Eyam is going to move?’ asked Temple.
‘No, but we can assume in the next day or two.’
‘We have all their details,’ said Temple. ‘We know their names, which means we know what they look like and that means they’re going to find it very hard to move about the capital. Your people are working on this I take it, Christine?’
‘Yes, now we have the names,’ she replied.
‘What are we going to do if Eyam does go public. Philip?’
‘He already has, or at least someone has,’ replied Cannon. He got up and distributed the print-outs of the web pages Lyme had found and a still from the CCTV footage of the two men.
‘We’ve seen this,’ said Shoemaker. ‘We believe the documents come from Mary MacCullum. We are looking at the site and taking steps to remove the information.’
‘But the CCTV film is the point, Christine,’ said Cannon sharply. ‘That man is the same one who came with Jamie to Chequers yesterday.’
‘The identification is not at all clear,’ said Ferris without concern.
‘But you’re not denying it. This man has been caught leaving the scene of a crime. If the police were doing their job he would be a suspect in a murder case. And then you bring him to Chequers.’ He turned to Temple. ‘This is very serious, prime minister.’
‘You may have a point, Philip, but the priority now is to get hold of Eyam and his material and prevent him and his associates disrupting the democratic process. That’s where we are now; that is what matters now.’
‘But you’re not going to be able to suppress this information, prime minister. The transcript from the Intelligence and Security Committee can’t be denied. It is out there now. And people will wonder what this surveillance system is about. Even if Eyam is arrested or silenced this will become an issue.’
‘Oh, I don’t think that is necessarily true. The public knows that the government has the means to fight crime and terrorism and sometimes these things must remain secret in order to be effective. Do you hear people complaining about them? Do you hear people saying they feel less free? No, because they understand that one of the primary duties of government is to protect the public.’ He rose from his desk and moved into the centre of the room, his eyes never leaving Cannon. ‘We have come through a lot, Philip. You above all appreciate that people want a strong state. They want to know that there’s someone at the top taking the tough decisions. And oftentimes they don’t want to hear about the agonies of government - what we go through.’ Shoemaker and Alec Smith nodded. ‘Look, for a day or two this may be ticklish but it is your job to make sure that it doesn’t last longer, Philip.’
‘Ticklish is not the word I’d use, prime minister. If these revelations continue people will begin to think that their constitutional rights are threatened. This system will be portrayed as a monster - a technological hydra. They weren’t consulted about it but it was their money that paid for it.’
‘Philip! Philip! Let me tell you something: they don’t want to be consulted about every complex piece of government apparatus. This system makes the country safer from all the problems that have plagued us.’
Cannon could feel himself about to lose it. He looked down to his feet and counted to three. Then he looked up. ‘Everyone in this room knows the power of this surveillance system, I’m sure. I’m merely giving you my reaction as someone who has only come to know about this today. This system breaches constitutional rights and destroys lives.’
‘I don’t agree, but the point is that these matters are of the utmost secrecy, Philip, and the government cannot discuss them. You will think of a way of dealing with it without going into detail.’ The parenthetic smile lines began to form and the eyes squeezed shut. ‘Now if you wouldn’t mind we have one or two more things to discuss. I just wanted you to understand where we were, and give you notice of this problem.’
Cannon got up feeling oddly relieved. As he left the Great Lord Protector with his favoured generals, he felt something clear in his mind.
At six twenty-five p.m. Kilmartin was handed a note by the porter at the entrance of the Travellers Club. He turned back into Pall Mall and took a cab to Madagascar, a lounge and dining club off Charlotte Street, where he found Philip Cannon in the corner of the bar with a broadcasting trade paper and pint of bitter.
‘They’ve got a tracker on your car,’ he said when Kilmartin had ordered from the waiter.
‘Really?’ said Kilmartin, looking around at the membership of the Madagascar - middle-aged advertising and TV people dressing too young.
‘And they know your phone number, so it’s reasonable to suppose that they’re monitoring your calls.’
‘You think so?’ said Kilmartin with puzzled innocence.
‘Oh come on, Peter, you don’t have to play the spook with me. They’re onto you. They know you met the Lockhart woman at a church where Eyam addressed his troops an hour later. They know about the Bell Ringers. They know the churches where they met. They have their names; they’ve got their photographs; they know how many people are involved. They’ve sprayed them with chemical dyes. And . . . they’ve got someone on the inside.’
Kilmartin did not let his expression change. ‘Who?’
‘A woman: I don’t know her name. They’ve only just got their hooks into her.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’
Cannon took a sip of his beer and thought. ‘I had lunch in the House of Commons today,’ he said eventually. ‘It was before the PM’s statement on the emergency powers. On the walls of that dining room are portraits of Charles James Fox, Edmund Burke and John Wilkes, three heroes of English democracy and as it happens three heroes of mine. They reminded me that they stood for the things I stand for - or did before I took this job.’ He drank some more. ‘I looked round the room and realised there wasn’t one politician there who had the slightest doubt about these emergency powers. And I was right - not one of them spoke in the chamber. Not one, and yet there is absolutely no need for these powers. They are being used to impress the public and give Temple a lift in the polls. And maybe they will be used against Eyam.’
‘I wondered about that.’
‘They call it function creep.’
‘Yes, I’ve heard the phrase.’
‘You saw the documents and CCTV on the web?’
‘Yes,’ said Kilmartin. Kate Lockhart had warned him earlier and he was worried about Mary MacCullum.
‘Well, here’s the news. The men coming out of that building where the lawyer was attacked and robbed were at Chequers over the weekend. I saw them there and I am pretty sure they work for Jamie Ferris at OIS. They may have had something to do with Russell’s murder.’
‘Almost certainly,’ Kilmartin said, keeping a check on his surprise. ‘It does seem extraordinary that they were at Chequers. You know another two people were killed last night in a car crash?’
‘An accident, yes. I heard about it, but Temple wouldn’t have had anything to do with that. I know the man.’
‘So do I, but we are talking about two men here, aren’t we? John Temple and Eden White. What was it that Webster said? “A politician is the devil’s quilted anvil; he fashions all sins on him and the blows are never heard.”
‘And Eden White is the devil.’
‘Let us say they help each other. There is an exchange from the coffers of corporate and political power that benefits both of them.’
‘Still, Temple couldn’t have known about this. He wouldn’t be that stupid.’
‘And he didn’t know about the death of Sir Christopher Holmes, the late head of the JIC, and his wife either, but it happened just the same.’
‘Are you sure about that?’
‘I haven’t seen the evidence but it is believed the inquest was fixed. A pathology report about injuries by the couple sustained before the fire wasn’t presented.’ He looked at Cannon. ‘When’s he going to call the election, Philip?’
Cannon was still shaking his head but he answered without hesitation. ‘Wednesday - sometime during the morning.’
Kilmartin placed his drink deliberately in the centre of the table and studied him for a moment. ‘Tell me something. Do you believe in what we are doing?’
‘In as much as I know about it, yes. But everything is against you. The emergency powers mean that they can arrest anyone and detain them; the fact that they know the names of everyone in Eyam’s group; the surveillance in London, which is now the most comprehensive in the world and includes facial recognition technology that will be primed by the ID card photographs of all the members of Eyam’s group. And I haven’t even begun on David Eyam - the man who faked his own death to escape paedophile charges; the millionaire who dodged paying death duties on his father’s fortune and has used it to finance an operation to destabilise an elected leader at a moment of grave national crisis. Do you need me to go on? To answer your question, no, you don’t stand a chance.’
‘But you believe Eyam is right?’
Cannon gave a reluctant shrug.
‘Then you have to delay Temple on Wednesday. We need the entire morning.’>
Cannon pressed his hands together in prayer and touched the tip of his nose. ‘If you really believe it’s necessary, I’ll try. But the best I can do is eleven thirty, maybe midday.’
‘Midday,’ said Kilmartin as though he was driving a bargain.
And then he felt one of two phones in his pocket vibrate with a message. He took it out and read the text from Kate Lockhart. ‘David collapsed. Call me.’
He returned the phone to his pocket. She hadn’t used his second name, which was good. By now every computer at GCHQ in Cheltenham would be sifting the calls and text messages and emails for the name Eyam.
‘We’re glad of your help, Philip,’ he said. ‘You do understand this is an endgame of sorts. People will get hurt. You are certainly risking your job.’
‘Perhaps, but there are fish to catch and I have a book to write, and I won’t miss the British press . . . or June Temple.’
Kilmartin nodded and began to rise. ‘You know to be circumspect if you call?’
‘Yes, there is one other thing. Bryant Maclean doesn’t want this election and he’ll be spitting tacks if Temple goes ahead without his blessing. That means he will take revenge because he can’t be seen to be letting people get away with defiance. Just a thought.’
‘A good one,’ said Kilmartin.
28
Night Moves
Eyam was found slumped, but conscious, on a park bench in Kensington Gardens by a Spanish student. He was holding his phone. With his remaining energy, he asked the woman not to call an ambulance but to contact his friend whom he was trying to phone. She did both. He was taken to Accident and Emergency at St Mary’s, Paddington. Half an hour later Kate joined him in a curtained cubicle, where she sat watching his tormented sleep and the ceaseless movement of his hands across his torso. He woke fifteen minutes later and turned to her.
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