Fortress

38

Across the room, Stephen Mandler, director general of MI5, was working his way through a much-needed glass of claret. He observed the entourage swirling around the PM with a mixture of pity and contempt. From his perspective the man was out of his depth, splashing away frantically, trying to keep his head above the waves.

On the other hand he felt a bit sorry for him, having constantly to come up with sound-bites that spoke to an increasingly fractured electorate, while his cabinet briefed and schemed behind his back. Yet there he was, making exactly the wrong call: tanned and buoyant, fresh from his trip to the President’s retreat, aglow with the excitement of standing shoulder to shoulder with ‘POTUS’. And he’d accepted one of those ridiculous Camp David jackets they made everyone wear as if they’d joined some fraternity, all the more to talk up the revived Special Relationship, while in his own country the streets burned and the people were in uproar. His assessment was that both of them, the President and the PM, had buried their heads in the sands of Afghanistan, while all about them the danger signs much closer to home were flashing red. He’d seen it all before, heads of state shoring up their crumbling reputations with lofty promises about international partnerships. And there was more to come. A full-blown Anglo-US summit right here in the middle of London, sprung on them out of the blue when there was still glass all over the streets, to show that it was ‘business as usual’ in the capital. All Mandler could see was more overtime and cancelled leave — and, as always, no extra budget to cover it.

As he took another gulp of wine he reflected that never in all his time in the Service had the country seemed so unstable; he felt a mounting discomfort that bad things were happening, and at a pace he could neither understand nor control. It was one thing to know what the problem was, quite another to know how to fix it.

To complete his misery, Alec Clements sidled up, rosy-cheeked with wine. ‘Ghastly news, isn’t it?’

‘The summit?’

‘Good Lord, no. The bomber, of course. I thought you of all people would have that front of mind.’ The cabinet secretary eyed Mandler reproachfully. ‘Confirms everything I’ve been saying all along about the Syria problem, as no doubt you’re aware. At least it’s out in the open now. Time to face the facts.’

This was neither the time nor the place for an argument. Mandler decided no response was the best policy as Clements went on. He wondered if he was going to tell him how to do his job, one of his trademark characteristics and why so many people couldn’t stand him.

‘And I do happen to know that the PM would be jolly glad to hear that you’ve got your A Team covering the returnee threat. Woolf seems a bright chap.’

Was there nothing that escaped his attention? How he had any idea of what Woolf or any of his staff was doing was a complete mystery. Mandler gazed at him with barely suppressed contempt. A morsel of roast beef from a mini Yorkshire pudding had anchored itself to Clements’s lapel. He decided not to point it out. Instead he responded with one of his deathly smiles. ‘Jolly good idea.’

Mandler glared at the retreating back of the cabinet secretary as Sarah Garvey appeared at his elbow.

‘What a cunt,’ she muttered.

He and the home secretary did not have a lot in common but they shared a loathing for Clements. ‘Quite.’

She emptied the remains of her Chablis as if she was doing shots. ‘Never passes up an opportunity to do someone’s job for them.’ She leaned towards Mandler. ‘You should know he’s already told the PM you’ll be stepping up your watch on returnees. And since he’s mentioned Woolf, you’d probably better make sure you’ve got him aimed in the right direction.’

They exchanged a glance. He could see she was in a corner. Had Clements got at her as well?

‘Look, I know it’s all part of your job to think out of the box et cetera, but this is force majeure.’

He turned and bent his head closer to her ear. ‘Anything you say, Home Secretary, but entre nous, the pathologist’s report on said returnee, whose body parts were sprinkled over the hostel site, rather tends to suggest that the unfortunate fellow was almost certainly dead before he supposedly blew himself up.’

Her eyes widened as he nodded slowly. ‘I shit you not.’

She let out a long, mournful sigh. ‘Are you going to tell me what you think about that?’

‘Honestly?’

‘I know it means breaking the habit of a lifetime.’

He shrugged. ‘God’s truth, I haven’t got a bloody clue.’