The Geneva Trap

Chapter 24

The MOD HR Department had lent Peggy a room to use for the interview with Belinda Duggan. To call it a room flattered it; it wasn’t much more than a cubicle, windowless, lit by a strip light and furnished with two chairs and a small table. ‘But this interview is sensitive,’ Peggy had said on seeing the thin partition walls. ‘We’ll be overheard in here.’

‘We’re quite used to secrets in this department, Miss Kingly,’ the severe middle-aged lady who presided over the HR Department said. ‘There will be no one within eavesdropping range. I’ll send Miss Duggan in when she arrives.’ And with that she’d shut the door firmly on Peggy, leaving her feeling as small as the cubicle.

Peggy sat down in the chair facing the door. She was going to be almost nose to nose with Belinda Duggan when she sat in the other chair, and that made Peggy even more nervous than she was already. How was she going to get this woman to tell her anything? She had nothing to go on but the trace of the email that Charlie Fielding had found. ‘The secret is to get them to start talking,’ had been Liz’s advice. ‘Then you’ve got something to build on, and there’s a good chance that what you want to know will emerge.’

So Peggy pushed her glasses higher on her nose, sat up straight in her char and waited.

‘Jane Falconer?’

A tall, striking blonde stood in the doorway. Peggy rose, but stayed on her side of the table, waving the visitor to the other chair.

‘I’m not Jane Falconer. She’s had to go away on urgent business. I’m Patricia Kingly.’

Duggan sat down at the table ‘Oh,’ she said, without interest, and crossed her leg casually. ‘They said this was something about my pension.’

‘Ah, I’m afraid that was not entirely accurate. In fact it’s a security interview. We don’t like people to be unnecessarily alarmed, which is why you were told it was about pensions. I’m from the Security Service. As I’m sure you know, from time to time we interview people with access to particularly sensitive material.’

‘What, you mean this is a vetting review?’ asked Duggan. There was a hint of caution in her voice.

‘Not exactly. Your vetting doesn’t come up for review until next year. But it is connected. I wanted to ask you a few questions about your current security.’

‘My security? I see,’ she said in a bored voice. ‘At least it’s not Health and Safety.’ Her face took on an expression of amusement, mixed with a trace of contempt.

What an arrogant, patronising woman, thought Peggy. She doesn’t give a damn what I think.

Duggan was wearing a short black wrapover skirt, which had opened as she sat down to show a good stretch of thigh. She was forty-five and the skirt would have been daring on a woman half her age. Peggy herself was twenty years younger and would have hesitated before buying such a garment. If she had bought it, she would never have dreamed of wearing it to the office – perhaps to a party, and not just any party. But Belinda Duggan looked as though she did exactly as she pleased, with no hesitation or doubts.

‘I’d like to start with the job you’re doing now,’ said Peggy, with a new note of authority in her voice. ‘Just tell me what you are currently working on. Don’t worry. I am cleared for codeword material.’

Belinda Duggan plunged into an elaborate description of her current job, which involved overseeing half a dozen teams of programmers, working on software projects. Most of the applications they were developing had to do with logistics – moving men and equipment and arms as efficiently as possible – and as far as Peggy could tell none involved any kind of encryption. When Duggan came to a natural pause, Peggy broke in.

‘Thank you. You know, I was interested to see on looking at your CV – it’s very impressive, by the way – that your work now doesn’t seem related to your earlier interests. Your D. Phil. thesis, for example, was about decryption.’

‘Interests change, Ms Kingly,’ said Duggan. ‘At least, mine did.’

‘So you don’t miss encryption, decryption, that sort of thing?’

‘Not one bit. And it’s moved on. Everything mathematical does, you know. Just as fast as all sciences. I couldn’t go back into it if I wanted to.’

Peggy enquired about the management side of her job. Duggan explained that as a Project Director, she managed a team of project leaders.

‘Do you keep in contact with the other Project Directors in the Department?’ asked Peggy.

‘Oh. There are a lot of firewalls,’ she said. ‘Codeword work, you know.’

Peggy was beginning to get fed up with Ms Duggan. She was just too breezy and pleased with herself. It was time to stop beating about the bush.

‘Do you meet Charlie Fielding and his team?’

Duggan looked at her and paused for thought. This had gone home but Peggy didn’t know why. ‘Charlie’s away at the moment – he’s been seconded to a project outside London. It’s very sensitive.’

‘Do you know much about that project?’

Duggan shook her head. The trace of an amused smile was back on her lips. ‘Very hush-hush. That’s all I know. Is that a test question, Ms Kingly?’

‘Yes, it is,’ said Peggy firmly. This woman had a veneer as hard as varnish – there was only one chance to get through it, and she was going to take it. She’d go straight in and shock her. So she picked up a file from the table, made a show of flicking through it, tossed it down and asked, ‘When was the last time you saw Hugo Cowdray?’

Duggan started, but quickly reasserted control. You had to hand it to her, thought Peggy. ‘Hugo Cowdray?’ Duggan asked, with bewilderment in her tone of voice. ‘What about him? What’s he got to do with security?’

‘I asked, when was the last time you saw him?’

Duggan shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Weeks ago – he hasn’t been in the office lately. Why?’

‘Do you know where he’s been?’

‘I assume he’s with Charlie. There’s a whole team gone with him. Somewhere in Norfolk, I think they are. It’s an open secret – there’s a safe house up there. I don’t know where it is. You’ll have to use your own access to find that out.’

‘Have you seen Hugo since he went there?’

‘I’ve seen Charlie – he’s often down for meetings with the finance chaps. But not Hugo.’

‘And you haven’t heard from him?’

Duggan began to look incredulous. ‘What are you implying? Why this obsession with Hugo? He’s a colleague but a distant one – we’ve never worked together. I know his name; presumably he knows mine. But that’s the end of it.’

‘Why did he send you an email then?’

‘What email? When is he supposed to have sent that?’

‘Recently.’ Peggy said nothing more.

‘I haven’t had an email from him. Though the filters here are so ferocious that half the time you’d never know who has sent what.’ She gave a little laugh.

‘You’re quite sure about that?’

‘Yes. If you are suggesting otherwise, then I’d like to see this email.’

She knows quite well I can’t show it to her, thought Peggy. But the way Duggan had moved so quickly on to the defensive made Peggy feel certain that she had been the recipient of Hugo Cowdray’s message.

Duggan was shifting in her seat as she said, ‘Is there anything else you want to discuss, Miss Kingly? I’ll have to leave in a second as I have a briefing for Directors. Three-line whip for me, I’m afraid – even the Security Service has to make way.’

Peggy resisted the urge to say, ‘No, we don’t. So just stay where you are, Ms Duggan.’ Instead she replied, ‘That’s all, Ms Duggan. For now.’