The Accident Man

15

Jack Grantham sipped bad coffee from a plastic cup and wondered just how much worse his weekend could possibly get. Still in his thirties, he was one of the highest flyers at the Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6 as it was known to the world outside. But stardom had its drawbacks. He’d been dragged into Whitehall for a crisis meeting at one in the morning, which was bad enough. But there was more, much more. The crisis involved a terrible accident, a beautiful princess, and the entire world’s media. And then, of course, there were his fellow civil servants.

Looking around the table, Grantham could see some typically unctuous undersecretary from the foreign office oozing oily Old Etonian smugness, and next to him the flinty, tight-mouthed, sharp-eyed presence of Dame Agatha Bewley from MI5. So now the infighting would begin. Each department would do its best to avoid the shit storm that would burst upon them just as soon as the great British public discovered what had happened to their beloved Queen of Hearts, while ensuring they dumped as much crap as possible on everyone else. Well, that would be fun. And just to make life really enjoyable, Ronald bloody Trodd had decided to stick his oar in.

Grantham had more faith in hard facts than in Freudian psychology. But he couldn’t help thinking of Ron Trodd as the foul-mouthed, unrestrained id that lurked beneath the prime minister’s bright and shiny ego. He was the ultimate henchman, always ready to do anything, no matter how distasteful, so that his master could keep his lily-white hands clean.

The foreign office man spoke first. “Well, as you know, our ambassador is already at the hospital. The French are terribly embarrassed, as you can imagine. Not the sort of thing one likes having in one’s backyard, as it were. Naturally, we’ve made it clear we don’t hold them responsible. Meanwhile, we’re making preparations to get His Royal Highness out to Paris as soon as possible. He’s at Balmoral. I gather the young princes have already been informed that their mother has been in an accident.”

“Thank you, Sir Claude,” said Trodd, with a contempt that made the knighthood sound more like an insult than an honor. “Jack, what has SIS got?”

“Total chaos,” said Grantham, trying to work out how much to reveal, and when. “Someone’s turning Paris into a war zone. There’ve been reports of muffled explosions coming from somewhere underground, just across the Seine from the scene of the crash. An apartment got blown to smithereens, south of the river. The police are telling the locals it was a gas leak, but a car was seen driving away at high speed. Fifteen minutes later, the same car exploded in the courtyard of a mansion in the Marais district. A team of armed police got inside the house a few minutes ago. They found bodies everywhere. And several of them seem to be British.”

“Bugger!” Trodd slammed the tabletop in fury. “Tell me this isn’t a bunch of your lads on some kind of private mission. Have you been pissing about, off the books?”

“No, we have not. We had people in Paris, of course, but it was purely a matter of surveillance. None of them were involved in any dirty work. I can assure you of that.”

“Of course, it’s possible that we’re acquainted with whoever did do it.” Agatha Bewley’s voice was as dry as her appearance.

Trodd frowned in her direction. “What do you mean by that?”

“Well, we all use outside assistance from time to time. People who do odd jobs. These people may have attacked the princess on their own account. They might have been hired to do it by some other client. The boyfriend might have been the main target. His father had plenty of enemies. Then again, it may indeed just be a terrible accident.”

“Surely that’s what one is assuming,” said Sir Claude. “Is anyone really suggesting that this was some kind of assassination attempt?”

“We don’t know, do we?” said Trodd. “For public consumption, this was an accident. That’s the story, and I bloody well hope it happens to be true, because if it isn’t, the fallout will screw us all. But if some bastard has taken out the mother of the future king of England, I don’t want to wake up one morning and read all about it in the Sun. I want to be the first to know.”

“And the prime minister?” asked Sir Claude.

“Let me worry about that. For now, I want the Foreign Office to stick to the party line: terrible accident, condolences all round. Stay cozy with the Frogs.”

The diplomat winced. “Of course, of course… but we really must wait until the foreign secretary decides how to proceed.”

“The foreign secretary will proceed exactly as I bloody well tell him. Now, where was I? Yeah, Jack, I want SIS to find out what really happened in Paris. And Agatha, I want a list of anyone in this country who might have had a motive for taking out the world’s most popular woman and who they’d have used to do it. And by the way…” Trodd leaned forward and looked around the table. “If you find the bastards who did this, deal with them. Permanently. And keep Number Ten well out of it.”

Trodd got up without another word and stalked out of the room. Sir Claude followed close behind.

Grantham tried to busy himself, putting his notepad and ballpoint pen away in his briefcase, but he could feel Agatha Bewley’s falcon gaze burning into him.

“You have an idea who’s behind this, don’t you?”

“Come on, Agatha, you know it’s not that simple. There are crews all over Europe, half of them right here in London, who could have carried out the operation. And, as you suggested, plenty of people could have commissioned them.”

She held his gaze for a moment, then spoke in a lower, almost confiding tone. “I think you have people in mind, and I don’t like the feeling that I’m being kept out of the loop. I’m sorry, Jack, but I’m not prepared to stay silent for very long. The reputation of my department is at stake.”

“This is no time for us to be fighting among ourselves,” said Grantham, trying to mollify her. “Besides, if I did, hypothetically, have an idea of who it might be, I don’t have anything that even approaches evidence, let alone proof.”

Dame Agatha looked at him silently, pursing her lips in a way that suggested both skepticism and disapproval.

“All right,” acknowledged Grantham, “I’ll admit there are one or two possibilities that come to mind. I’ll have a quiet word with Percy Wake. In the old days, before the Wall came down, he helped the service solve a few tricky problems. It was all above my pay-grade, I never sat in on anything, but the legend was, Wake had a genius for seeing ways to get things done. Knowing who to get, predicting how things would play out. He’ll deny it, of course, but if there’s been any conspiratorial hanky-panky, dear old Percy will have an idea who’s responsible.”

“Yes, I’m well aware of his reputation,” said Dame Agatha, coldly. “I had my own dealings with Wake. I never knew anyone with more influence in Whitehall, whatever the government of the day. And not just there: He had connections in Washington, Moscow, Beijing – the man had an amazing instinct for backing the right men at the right time. But don’t forget for a moment that for all the patriotism and principle he displays so proudly, Sir Percy’s greatest loyalty is to himself. And Trodd – what are we going to tell him?” she asked, softening her tone just a fraction.

For the first time since he had entered the room, Grantham felt a smile crossing his face. “Nothing. I think it’s time someone showed that saloon bully who really runs the country. Don’t you agree?”

Dame Agatha nodded. “Yes, I rather think I do.”