The Severed Streets

THIRTEEN

The next morning, Rebecca Lofthouse opened her front door to find, standing there in a business suit, an extraordinarily beautiful young woman. ‘Good morning, Superintendent,’ she said. ‘I’m here to drive you to Lord’s.’

Lofthouse stared at her. ‘I didn’t order a driver, and I’m not going to Lord’s.’

‘Forgive me, but you are.’

The accent was very RP. One of the better schools, without the mockney they tended to produce these days. There had been no threat in her tone. ‘I’ve got a meeting-’

‘We’ve postponed that for you.’

‘And you are…?’

‘I’m afraid you’ll never learn my name.’

‘Oh,’ said Lofthouse, feeling both relieved and a whole different sort of worried at the same time. ‘You’re one of the funny people.’

* * *

Lofthouse kept looking out of the window as the woman drove her, making sure the car was heading for north-west London. The young driver had neither confirmed nor denied that she was an officer in what the older generation of the Met called ‘the funny people’, and what the younger generation, influenced as they were by the movies, called ‘five’, when actually it should be MI5, or, more properly, the Security Service. When she was sure the car was going where she’d been told it was, she checked out what else had happened overnight: Quill was reporting that his team had encountered the man from the Soviet bar once more, and that, by using the right words in a message to Russell Vincent via his PA, his team had finally got an appointment to interview him. They were also preparing to raid the brothel. The results of the postal ballot on strike action were due to be released today. Lofthouse felt something give inside her. It went against everything she believed in for police to strike, but she understood why they would. She looked back with fondness now to the couple of weeks of the Olympics. There had been soldiers on the streets then doing happy crowd control. They might be returning soon, and bloody private security firms too, and things would not be so happy.

She wished she could share with James Quill the burden she was bearing, the reason she couldn’t tell him anything about why she believed him when he talked about the occult powers of London.

The car pulled up at Lord’s, in a parking space in what seemed to be a private members’ car park. It was the first day of a Test Match, Lofthouse gathered, and there was a mass of people in sun hats, carrying cool boxes, some in the distinctive striped blazers and ties of Marylebone Cricket Club, heading for the many entrances of the ground. No amount of riots would change that. She recalled the distraught emails of American friends during the London terrorist attacks of 2005. They been shocked by the everyday responses they’d got, how she’d ridden the tube the very next day with only a slight second thought, how she’d been polite but a little sighing with her replies. To Londoners, bombs and riots were just an extreme form of weather.

She was led through a door opened by a waiter at the rear of a bar, and then swiftly closed behind them, along a concrete corridor behind the stands, and then up a flight of steps into the light, revealing a view of the ground, the green of the pitch looking perfect and clean, and somehow too close and too small to be an area where people really played international sport. A sign said this was the Tavern Stand, reserved for members and their guests. The beautiful woman whose name she would never know led her upwards still, into a balcony with a sidelong view of the wicket, where, far below, the bell had rung, and, to rising applause, the teams were coming onto the field. To the right was Old Father Time, the weathervane in the shape of an old man with a scythe, taking the bails off the wicket for the end of a game. Lofthouse had never understood why the home of cricket had put death in charge. She allowed herself to be led along the balcony to where, sitting back in the shade, were two middle-aged ladies in summer dresses. One of them looked to be of Indian heritage, a walking stick propped on the chair beside her, very long black hair tied back. The other was white, with a fringe of blonde hair, laughter lines around her eyes. They were both smiling at her, pleased by this civilized abduction.

‘We’re just getting tea,’ said the dark-haired lady. ‘Would you like some?’

‘Or hang on for an hour and we’re planning on a bottle of rosé,’ added the blonde. ‘Bit early as yet for the lady petrol.’

‘Tea, please.’ Lofthouse sat and waited as the woman who’d driven her here took the order and departed.

‘Now,’ said the blonde woman, ‘our apologies for the secrecy.’

‘I’m Rita,’ said the dark-haired lady, ‘and this is Sue.’

‘Not our real names, of course.’

‘Because those I will never hear.’

‘Exactly!’ Sue smiled as if Lofthouse was a quick learner.

‘We,’ continued Rita, ‘are, as you put it to your driver, Bob, the “funny people”, which I’ve always thought is a really flattering bit of Met argot for such tremendously ordinary civil servants as ourselves.’

‘It’s really not,’ said Lofthouse, not minded to be as gracious as her abductors.

‘Well,’ said Sue, ‘let’s pretend it is. Women were only allowed to become members here in 1998, you know.’

‘Not that we are members,’ added Rita.

‘I know who I’m talking to,’ said Lofthouse. ‘I know you tend to get access to whatever you want. Why did you bring me here?’

‘Well, your operation, Fog, isn’t progressing as fast as it could be, is it? Oh, good shot.’

Lofthouse looked across to the pitch to see a ball rushing across the boundary, a cheer rising in the crowd below. She wondered how they knew anything about Operation Fog, but was certain she wouldn’t get any answers, just a bit more ‘charming’ hand waving. Why was the Security Service interested in Quill’s team? ‘Did you bring me here just to criticize the activities of my unit?’

‘We weren’t criticizing,’ said Rita. ‘We’re here to help. I always think the game of cricket sums up what we do.’ Lofthouse grudgingly turned to see an Indian fast bowler she couldn’t name start his run-up towards Alastair Cook. ‘We try to anticipate what’s coming — ’ Cook ducked as the ball sped over his head — ‘in terms of the illicit activities of foreign governments and terrorists on British soil, and to react in the most appropriate way. Either defence, or, when it’s safe to do so, attack.’ On the big screen across the ground, she watched as Cook prepared himself for the next ball, the sponsor’s logo on his bat front and centre. ‘Every year, both this sport and what we do gets more influenced by money. Be it the Indian Premier League attracting those who’d otherwise choose to play for their country, or the non-localized nature of many modern threats to the stability of this nation.’

Lofthouse was sure she was being told something, but she had no idea what. The bowler completed his run-up, let go of another ball too fast to follow, and the crowd reacted before she saw what had happened. The wicket had been uprooted, and now Cook, furious with himself, was walking away from the strip in the middle, and the crowd were applauding. Oddly, it felt as if a lot of the applause was directed at the bowler. Strange that the English should have built here something so seemingly unpartisan.

‘Every now and then something like that happens,’ said Sue. ‘And when the game is cricket we say, “Well played,” to the other side. But in the game we play, there are other options.’

‘You’re saying you take direct action?’

‘Of course not!’ Sue pretended to be shocked.

‘We don’t blow things up,’ said Rita. ‘We let them explode of their own accord.’

‘Because alongside the laws of cricket,’ said Sue, ‘there is also the spirit of the game, just like the unwritten constitution of Britain.’

Lofthouse didn’t like the implication that anything in the UK happened beyond the reach of law. She was aware, though, that because of the allusive nature of the way she was being told this, it could all be very easily denied. ‘Why are you telling me this?’

‘You might at some point be searching for a solution to a specific problem and think of us.’

‘I’m never going to reach out in that direction.’

‘Of course not.’

‘Why do you think I might need you now?’

The beautiful woman returned, with a tray upon which were three cups, sugar, milk and a teapot, all with Marylebone Cricket Club logos. She put it on a small table she erected for the purpose and left. The pause gave Rita and Sue the opportunity not to answer the question. ‘The trouble,’ ventured Sue, stirring her tea, ‘is that sometimes we chance across some indicative piece of information that should rightly be dealt with by another service, but don’t quite have complete faith in the service in question.’

‘Especially when it’s something … enormous,’ added Rita.

Lofthouse looked between them. ‘You don’t trust the Met in general, because of the possibility of a strike.’

‘The certainty of one, about three to one in favour of illegal action,’ said Sue. ‘That’s how the vote will go today. But also because we have reason to believe that certain parts of it have started … not quite playing the game.’

‘But you do trust me?’

‘Because we know you’re honest, and you’re in charge of Quill’s team, and they did so well on the Losley case. Remarkably well. We remarked on it, didn’t we?’

‘We did,’ said Sue. ‘We noted it.’

‘What exactly do they do, by the way?’ Rita said it quickly, looking back to the pitch, as if it was the most trivial question in the world and she had an absolute right to know.

Well, that was one of Lofthouse’s questions answered. These two knew nothing about the Sight. She tried to keep the enjoyment out of her voice. ‘That’s an operational matter. Are you saying you know who our Ripper is?’

Sue laughed prettily. ‘In the same breath, you won’t give but you want to take! Tell me, what is it that you’re getting up to that your superiors, your husband and your office know nothing about? Where do you go when you leave home and take such care not to be followed? We’re sure there are no financial irregularities or you wouldn’t be here, but please tell me it isn’t just some dull affair.’ She took another sip from her cup. ‘Do you want to tell us about Quill’s team, or about that?’

Lofthouse stood up. She hoped she wasn’t shaking visibly. ‘I’ll be going now.’

There was a cheer from the crowd. A ball went whizzing up onto the roof of the stand above them and rolled down with an audible noise. Lofthouse looked back to Rita and Sue to see that they were at least bothering to feign being impressed. ‘Sit down, Superintendent,’ said Rita gently. ‘We’re only playing.’

Lofthouse, reluctantly, sat. She couldn’t afford not to take anything they had to offer. How did they know about her excursions? She had been so careful.

‘None of the above is as important as us getting this information to you,’ said Sue. ‘You ask if we know certain things. Not for sure, no. But we aim to clear our consciences-’

‘Such as they are,’ said Rita.

‘-and send you in the right direction. Having stumbled across some information, the nature of which we’re not going to divulge to you, we decided to use the unique capabilities of our organization to investigate the financial dealings of several people who are doubtless of interest to you.’

‘Michael Spatley MP,’ said Rita. ‘Squeaky clean.’

Lofthouse felt able to risk a follow-up. ‘Not even sexually dodgy? No payments to brothels, and so on?’

‘Interesting,’ said Sue. ‘But no.’

‘Rupert Rudlin,’ said Rita, ‘had his misdemeanours — actually paid for cocaine on his credit card a couple of times — but nothing to concern you. But as to the others-’

Lofthouse was amazed. ‘You have something on the other victims?’

Rita handed her an envelope. ‘This is our gift to you. Because of what we think is going to happen soon.’

‘We’re not going to tell you what that is,’ said Sue in a stage whisper.

‘Your Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Geoffrey Staunce, and the driver, Brian Tunstall,’ continued Rita, ‘both have a history of unusual payments being made to them, Staunce until a couple of years back, Tunstall only recently. But Staunce got another one … the day after Spatley was murdered.’

Lofthouse looked through the papers with growing interest. ‘Thank you. This could be extremely helpful.’

‘Not as much as it could be,’ said Sue. ‘The trails all lead back to cut-outs in the realm of offshore banking. Not even our reach extends that far.’ She looked up suddenly at the sound of leather on willow. ‘Oh, lovely shot.’