Secret Asset

22

Miss Prideaux’s remark that she was “awfully sorry to hear about Ravi” had been nagging at Liz ever since that day in Oxford. She counted Judith Spratt as her friend, but Judith had said nothing to her about any problem with her husband. Liz had always got on well with Ravi Singh, a handsome Westernised Sikh who was doing very well and earning a lot of money in a City investment bank. Their marriage always seemed so happy that Liz wondered if perhaps Ravi was ill.

Normally, Liz wouldn’t have thought of prying into a colleague’s matrimonial affairs, but Judith was on the list of suspects. When she had asked B Branch if Judith had recently mentioned anything about Ravi—any change of circumstances in her private life, as she was required to do—the answer came back that she had not. Liz’s heart sank. She would have to say something herself.

She was already feeling low. The previous evening she’d phoned her mother, who had seen Dr. Barlow about her test results that afternoon.

The phone in Bowerbridge seemed to ring forever, and Liz was about to give up when her mother answered at last. “Hello, darling,” she said, “I was in the garden picking some delphiniums. They’re wonderful this year. You should come down before they’re over.”

How typical of her mother’s priorities, thought Liz, with a daughter’s mixed affection and annoyance. “What did Barlow say?”

Her mother paused, her normal reaction to her daughter’s directness. “It’s nothing too terrible, Liz.”

“Good,” she said, trying to sound cheerful rather than impatient. “Tell me what he said.”

“Well, it seems there might be a problem. He wants me to go into hospital for a surgical procedure.”

“What kind of surgical procedure, Mother?”

“They’ve found something growing and I guess they want to see what it is. A biopsy?” She said it hesitantly, as if pronouncing the Latin name for a species of rose.

Only my mother, thought Liz, can make a tumour sound like a horticultural phenomenon. “When is this?”

“Saturday week. It shouldn’t take long.”

She’ll be in overnight, thought Liz, and immediately said she would come down that Friday. Her mother’s protestations did not last for long, and Liz could tell from her mother’s voice that she was relieved, and also that she was scared.

Now, as she sat at her desk, suddenly she felt tears in her eyes. She had woken in the night thinking about Marzipan, the mole hunt which didn’t seem to be getting anywhere, and the terrorists on the loose, and finally her mother’s tests. Now, to top it all off, Liz knew she would have to talk to Judith, since Judith was on her list. And as luck would have it, she ran into her in the corridor later that morning, as Liz was on her way to check on Peggy’s progress. Elegantly dressed as usual, in a fawn skirt and cream cashmere sweater, Judith seemed to be in a hurry. She didn’t stop at first when Liz said hello.

“Have you got a second, Judith?” Liz called after her.

Her friend slowed down, though her body language spoke nothing but tension. “Sorry, Liz, I’m in a bit of a rush.”

“Okay,” said Liz, and was about to ask her when she would have time to talk when Dave Armstrong appeared from nowhere. He gave Liz a playful tap on the shoulder. “Did Peggy find you? She’s seems all keyed up about something.”

“I’m just on my way to see her. Hang on a sec,” she added and turned back to Judith. But she’d moved away, striding down the corridor at speed. Damn, thought Liz, thinking of her own reluctance to beard her friend. She clearly doesn’t want to talk to me, either. Damn!

She found Peggy in the conference room. “Dave said you wanted me?”

“We’ve cracked it,” Peggy announced excitedly.

“Sorry?” said Liz.

“Technical Ted. He’s come through at last. Look.” She pushed over a small stack of laser printouts.

Liz sat down and leafed through the first pages, mystified by what seemed an unvariegated mass of listings and announcements from some bulletin. “What am I looking at?”

“Sorry,” said Peggy. “Turn the next page. I’ve circled the relevant bit.”

As Liz did so, Peggy explained. “It’s the talk Liam O’Phelan was giving in Oxford.”

“From Boston to Belfast: Britain’s Dirty War in Northern Ireland and Abroad.” Dr. L. O’Phelan, St. Antony’s College, 7:30 p.m.

Liz’s pulse was racing, but not because Peggy Kinsolving’s excitement was contagious. Her younger colleague, Liz sensed, was keyed up because Technical Ted had managed to decipher the disk—which had assumed such significance just because its contents had remained a mystery. That was so often the problem with the investigative process, thought Liz: the more difficult a secret was to uncover, the greater its importance became.

But she sensed that there was something here worth following up. O’Phelan’s topic suggested an interest in contemporary Irish political affairs which his high-flown historical chatter about Charles Stewart Parnell did not. It also indicated a strongly Republican and anti-British position. He might have changed his views or at least moderated them in the years between his talk at Oxford and the present day, but Liz doubted that he had mellowed very much.

“Well done,” Liz said to Peggy, and she meant it, for now, she decided, she would need to speak to O’Phelan again and probe this interest in the “dirty war.” But it would have to wait. First she’d see what Jimmy Fergus unearthed about the sly, intelligent don at Queen’s. And there were some other bigger fish to fry before that. With the exception of Tom Dartmouth, she realised, she had yet to speak directly with any of the suspects on the list.