“I’m heading into town, where I plan to enjoy a nice hot meal. We’ll regroup here at twenty-two hundred, where you will tell me there were no problems. Becker, you’ve got the command. Gentlemen.”
Frank Harkness left the barn, and a moment later they heard his car start, then rumble off through steadily falling snow.
“Becker, you’ve got the command,” Anton said.
Lars’s salute turned into a finger, stoutly raised.
“Three hours from now, we’ll be lucky to get anywhere without a plough,” Cyril grumbled. “It’s fucking Narnia out there.”
“We’re getting paid, aren’t we?” Lars said.
Anton scratched his damn ankles again, and decided to heat up some soup.
Heading out into weather like this, they’d need something hot inside them.
The other diners had left, after a protracted session of backslapping. More than once, the shop-soiled boy wonder who’d pressed his card on Peter Judd glanced their way, hoping for a farewell wave, or a job offer, but to Judd, as to the public at large, he’d ceased to exist.
Diana’s risotto was a congealing mess, though she’d nibbled an asparagus tip or two. Judd’s shepherd’s pie, on the other hand, was now mostly a gravy-traced outline.
This hadn’t stopped his flow of words.
“One of my clients runs a factory in the northwest. It specialises in, let’s say, machine parts.”
“Let’s.”
“Very technical, sophisticated—”
“I know which factory you’re referring to, Peter. I know precisely what you mean by machine parts. And I even know the name of the man who, behind a positive thesaurus of false-flag identities, actually owns said factory. So you might as well cut to the chase.”
“You’re well informed.”
“I’m head of the Secret Service. I thought we’d established that.”
He bowed, ever so slightly. “Said man, then, in the cause of public relations, occasionally arranges discreet get-togethers, in remote-ish locations. Those involved shun the limelight. But at the same time they expect a certain amount of . . . razzmatazz. An indication that their custom is not unappreciated. That, whatever the public perception of such arrangements, their business is not only legal but a necessary fillip to the economy of our own and other nations.”
“Spare me the editorial. They’re arms dealers, not gentlemen warriors.”
Judd gave the slightest of smiles, refilled their glasses, then inserted the empty bottle upside down in its bucket. “And to make sure such gatherings go smoothly, our friend likes to make sure they’re also attended by personages of quality. The kind whose presence impresses both domestic and foreign parties, and ensures that negotiations are conducted in an atmosphere free from unseemly rancour.”
“Which is where you come in.”
“I’ve sat at table with government leaders the world over, you know that. My address book positively oozes quality. The proper one, I mean. Not the little red one.”
Which positively oozed available company, no doubt.
“Go on.”
“There was a particular occasion,” he said, “just before the new year. Which, as you might imagine, required a certain celebratory atmosphere.”
“Are we talking hookers and cocaine, by any chance?”
“It’s not impossible.”
“Funny, isn’t it,” she said. “No matter how sophisticated and technical the machine parts on offer, it’s always girls and drugs that oil the wheels. So what went wrong?”
“Nothing drastic.”
“Then why are we discussing this? I’m already aware that nasty deals are the market’s lifeblood, and I don’t need you to tell me how, once we’re sundered from Europe, we’re going to be bedding down with some unpleasant customers. Be that as it may, I don’t pick fights outside these borders. If the deal you’re talking about broke no laws, and no one ended up dead in a bathroom, then I don’t need to hear the details.”
“And yet here we are. May I continue?”
She didn’t bother hiding her sigh. “If you must.”
“On the occasion we’re discussing, which took place in Pembrokeshire, at a place called Caerwyss Hall, the personage of note in attendance was, let’s say, exceptionally high born.”
“Does he have a name?”
“On such occasions, he prefers to go by a number. Number Seven, in fact.”
“How tiresomely like a Bond villain.”
“Well, in his case, the number has significance. It being how close in line to the seat of power he was at the time.”
He waited while tumblers rolled in her eyes.
“. . . Oh, Christ.”
“Yes.”
“Are you telling me that the Duke of bloody—”
“Hush.” He put a hand on her wrist; squeezed it. “No names. Here or anywhere else.”
She said, “Remove that. Now.”
Judd did so.
“Number Seven has been an invaluable asset for decades, an ambassador for growth and wealth generation. But it’s in nobody’s interests that his work on behalf of certain sectors of British industry becomes a topic of public chatter. Regardless of the huge amount of wealth generated, and the resulting benefit to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.”
“Or, in his case, Mummy’s Revenue and—”
“Yes, yes, very funny.”
