“What you on about?” He opens his desk drawer with his socked foot—just barely socked; his sock is a holy nightmare—then shuts it again. Opens it, shuts it. He’s not looking for anything, Catherine decides; he is merely keeping time to whatever beat occupies his mind.
She says, “And whatever it is, it’ll be causing ructions now.”
Lamb considers this. “Probably spoilt a few evenings round Westminster way,” he concedes.
Among them that of the Prime Minister, who has been called from his dining table, swiftly briefed, and is now cloistered with his Security Minister, Dominic Belwether, who already knows as much or more than the PM, but nevertheless has to listen to him rehearse the following: “So. We have a former Home Secretary shot dead by a gun belonging to First Desk, in First Desk’s home. The gun was found in her safe, which is electronically sealed—not like a burglar could have put his hands on it, even if a burglar could have got into the house, which has a state-of-the-art security system. And we don’t even want to mention motive. I presume you’ve received the same email I did?”
The email which Peter Judd had timed to transmit at 10 p.m., containing details of his dealings with Diana Taverner.
Belwether nods.
“Any truth in it?”
“It’s not public knowledge, but insider chat says Judd received backing from Chinese sources,” says Belwether. “Start-up capital for his public relations firm, and other funds since.”
“State sources?”
“Officially, no. For what that’s worth. And whether any of it ever went Taverner’s way, we don’t know, but it’s possible. As for the suggestion that she used such funding to finance an assassination on Russian soil, well. That will require . . . investigation.”
“But your thoughts?”
“There have been rumours.”
“Christ.”
“And then there’s last night’s events, which we’ve kept out of the papers, but clearly Taverner knew about. If she didn’t in fact orchestrate them.”
The PM says, “Christ,” again. Then: “How many people know about that?”
“One fewer now.”
“Yes, thank you, Dominic, levity is what I need. Are we seriously looking at charging First Desk with murder? It would be a bloodbath.”
“We’re a long way off a murder charge. But she’ll be the focal part of the investigation.”
“And there’s no chance we’re looking at suicide?”
After all, there have, in recent years, been bodies found in fastened luggage, in shallow graves, in securely knotted bondage, all of which have been determined to be inventively pursued suicides; proof, if proof were needed, that even at the outer reaches of despair, the mind can be curiously resourceful as to how it might find peace.
Belwether, reading his boss’s mind, pauses. “Nothing is off the table yet. I mean, the gun in the safe is a nifty trick for a corpse to pull off. But until it’s been established that that was the weapon that killed him . . .”
“The thing is,” the PM says, after a further interval of reflection, “it would be highly undesirable should an investigation of First Desk’s . . . activities reveal anything that might damage our government.”
“This government?” Belwether pauses. “We haven’t done anything yet. Have we?”
Anything wrong, he presumably means.
Instead of answering directly, the PM asks, “Where is she now?”
“Paddington Green.”
“Do we know if she was carrying . . . anything of interest?”
“Such as?”
The PM says, “A microcassette tape.”
“Not,” says Belwether, “as far as I’m aware.”
The PM says nothing.
“Of course,” Belwether continues, “we’ve not reached the stage where she’ll have been asked to surrender articles in her possession.”
“Quite.”
There is a topic being left unaddressed, and Belwether is starting to feel his way around its edges, like a man sizing up a hedge, clippers in hand. To such a man, the existence of an article like a microcassette tape, contents unknown, might represent a challenge: Is this to be incorporated into the topiary, or clipped away, bagged and despatched? Soon enough, he feels, the answer will make itself known.
The PM says, “More immediately, we need someone reliable behind First Desk tomorrow morning. Someone who can pick up the reins without frightening the horses. Any obvious candidates?”
“There’s Oliver Nash, he’d do as a locum. Currently chair of Limitations. He knows what’s what, but . . .”
“Not one of us?”
“Oh, he’s one of us, as far as that goes. He’s just not particularly impressive, unless there’s an inter-Service pie-eating competition scheduled. Other than that, well. There’s always Claude Whelan.”
“Isn’t he soiled goods?”
“He was an FUR, yes,”—and here, at the PM’s raised eyebrow, Belwether elaborates: “fuck-up resignation—but that was kept off-book. So he’s clean hands as far as the records show.”
“And he’ll step up?”
“I’ll call him now.” And Belwether stands, apparently about to leave the room and do just that, but once on his feet he hesitates. “Sir?”
Which is an indication of serious intent: They are on first-name terms, these two.
The PM nods.
