Red Station

TWENTY-FOUR

‘ You told me Jimmy Gulliver got back.’ Harry pushed into Mace’s office without knocking. Clare Jardine was in the outer office, typing up a report for London on what they had seen that morning.

Mace looked up from his desk, blinking like an owl. An empty glass stood by his elbow, a smear of colour across the bottom. Brandy or whisky, Harry guessed, and not the first. ‘What?’

‘You said Jimmy Gulliver returned to the UK. Where did he go?’

‘I can’t tell you that. Restricted information.’

‘Crap. Who’s going to know?’

Mace chewed on his lower lip. It was like watching a laborious series of checks and balances being considered before spewing out a response.

‘You’re pushing your luck, lad,’ he muttered finally.

‘Don’t call me lad. I’ve been around the block nearly as many times as you.’ Harry was ready for a fight. The idea of being here for months was already getting to him, but now something else was niggling away at him, disturbing his frame of mind.

‘Why hasn’t Gulliver been in touch?’

‘Christ, what is it with you about Gulliver? Maybe he doesn’t give a rat’s backside. We’re history to him — so what? He’s hardly going to look back on this as his finest hour, is he?’ Mace breathed deeply and shook his head. He sat back with a wave of his hand. ‘OK… y’right. What difference does it make? No big secret any more.’ He coughed and stared at the surface of his desk as if it might contain a script he could read from. ‘Jimmy Gulliver. Good lad, he was… for a Sixer. Crying shame.’

‘What did he do, to bring him here?’

‘Jimmy? Not sure. I think he had a change of heart; expressed doubts about what he was doing. What MI6 was doing. Shouldn’t have done that.’

‘You mean we’re not allowed doubts now?’

‘Not at his level. I reckon he was too open about it. Shout too loud and they mark you down.’ He blinked. ‘Nice lad… but naive.’ He shrugged. ‘That’s my theory, anyway. Might be all bollocks, of course.’

‘But you’re Head of Station. You get copied on all our files.’ He leaned over the desk, trying to keep the discussion on track.

Mace considered this seriously. ‘Normally, I do. But not with Jimmy. His file was red-tagged.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Means eyes-only, those at the top. Must have been into a lot of heavy stuff, know what I mean?’

‘No. Tell me.’

‘It means he was a high-level security risk. Someone they didn’t want wandering around the planet with a story to sell.’ He grinned lamely and waggled a finger. ‘You’re pushing it, askin’ these questions. You’ll get us both into trouble.’

‘You think we’re not already? Look around you.’ Harry walked over to the window and back. ‘Did Gulliver stay in the service?’

‘No idea. Have to ask them, won’t you? Wouldn’t bet on a reply, though.’

‘He’s never contacted you?’

‘Un-huh.’ Mace shook his head. The movement made him wince. ‘Why should he? Too bloody glad to be out of here, I should think. No sense looking back.’

‘Odd, though, isn’t it… for an ex-colleague?’

‘Odd business we work in, that’s why. Bloody odd world, in fact.’

‘Tell me about it.’ Harry turned to leave, then said, ‘Were there any others who went back, apart from him?’

‘Why do you want to know that?’ Mace’s voice took on a growl.

‘Just asking. It’s better than sitting here doing nothing. Does it matter?’

‘Asking the wrong questions always matters — you know that.’

‘Let’s assume I don’t give a rat’s arse.’

Mace chewed his lip, then gave in. ‘There was one before him. A Fiver named Gordon Brasher. Analyst by day, idiot plotter by night. He decided he didn’t like the Official Secrets Act he’d signed and passed some data to a bunch of left-leaning loonies who wanted to blow up the planet. He was the first one sent out here after the place was established.’

‘Why here? I’d have thought passing data was an automatic jail sentence.’

‘Me too. But our lords and masters thought otherwise.’ He stood up and picked up his glass. ‘Like I said, you’ll have to ask them.’

‘What happened to him?’

‘He went home, same as Gulliver. They did some psych tests on him and decided he was no longer a risk.’ He picked up the empty glass, dropped it in a drawer, slammed it shut and gave Harry a hard look. The discussion seemed to have sobered him up. ‘Now piss off and write up what you saw this morning. We got work to do.’

Harry waited for Mace to disappear on one of his regular ‘breaks’, then walked to the nearest basement internet bar. He signalled to the barman and got some time online along with a mug of coffee and a small jug of milk.

He checked out the news channels first. The usual items, from the twin conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, to the economic meltdown threatening the world. Nothing about the shooting. Had it finally run out of steam? He doubted it; maybe everyone was taking a breather.

He scrolled through the lists, discarding the stories as he went. He Googled ‘Essex shooting’. It returned over a million hits, most of them involving gun clubs and clay pigeon shooting. He added the word ‘police’. Fewer hits, mostly concerning firearms units and London-based criminals. And the death by stabbing of a reporter named Whelan. He clicked off the page, tired of following up leads that led nowhere. He was about to log off when he stopped.

Whelan.

He knew that name. But where from? He went back to the link. It brought up a report from a south London newspaper’s crime correspondent.

A man found knifed to death on South Clapham Common after a suspected mugging has been named as Shaun Whelan, a freelance journalist. Police reports suggest his body may have been concealed for at least twenty-four hours in a small copse, and was only noticed by a park worker early this morning. Local residents say the area is a frequent haunt of gay men, and arguments are not uncommon. Whelan, 58, who had a reputation as a fierce campaigning journalist, began his career with RTE, the Irish radio and television broadcast service, before moving to London. At the time of his death, he was investigating the controversial shooting of a police officer and two innocent civilians during a drugs operation in Essex, which is currently the subject of an official enquiry. He was unmarried and lived alone.

Harry sat back, feeling guilty. Whelan was the man he’d wished a broken neck on.

What were the odds on a freelance reporter digging into a busted MI5 operation and getting himself knifed in a mugging? He believed in the realm of coincidence — even random occurrences. But some events stretched those laws beyond the point of believability.

And this was one of them.

As he left the cafe, a shiny silver BMW drew up alongside him, the tyres crunching over some discarded plastic in the gutter. Harry glanced sideways, expecting to give a shake of the head to a driver looking for directions.

It was Kostova, with Nikolai at the wheel.

‘Get in,’ Kostova invited him cheerfully, waving at the back seat.

‘Why. Where are we going?’ Harry checked the street for signs of lurking heavies. If he was being lifted, this was a civilized way of doing it.

‘We go to my house for a drink.’

‘OK,’ he said. ‘But we must stop meeting like this.’ He climbed in the car and closed the door.