Meanwhile, other hunts were afoot as the afternoon light continued to poke and pry into disused crannies. Files were opened – some of them actual cardboard folders, containing actual paper, the idea being that to steal these you’d have to be in the building, whereas digital theft required no presence – and perused for hot content, this being highlighted for First Desk’s attention. Members of Parliament aren’t spied on as a matter of course, though many believe themselves to be. But the awkward customers among them, and the notoriously indiscreet, the suspiciously innocent and the flamboyantly wayward, all pass across the Service’s radar, often at the behest of their own leaders, for while the Service exists to preserve the security of the nation, the insecurities of the political elite need tending too. The current prime minister, like many of his predecessors, had an overtuned ear for possible treachery – he had, as a wag once noted, predicted seven of the last two backbench rebellions – and throughout his inexplicably prolonged residence at Number 10 had demanded in-depth reports on pretty much every MP in his party who had achieved more than two column inches or seven minutes’ airtime on consecutive days. This had resulted in a lot of paperwork, and much of what it revealed was never in fact disclosed to the PM, it being determined that the information in question was politically irrelevant, or personally embarrassing, or too potentially useful to be squandered so lightly. And as a result, in Molly Doran’s collection there existed a file on Dennis Gimball; a file tagged not with a black label, nor with a red or a green – any one of which would have pegged him as requiring close attention, up to and including discreet retirement from public service, as several former home and foreign secretaries might attest – but with a white label to which a small cross had been added by hand, probably Molly’s own, to indicate that between its covers might be found a quirk or a dropped stitch, an unexpected weave in the fabric of a life; a chink into which a makeshift key could be slotted, and made to turn.
Claude Whelan didn’t get out much. He travelled from home to Regent’s Park; from Regent’s Park back home again; he shuttled between the Park and Whitehall; he mostly lunched at his desk. Occasionally, true, he would be called upon to attend gatherings further afield, but unlike his lamented/lamentable – according to choice – predecessor Ingrid Tearney, he spent as little time as possible on the Washington circuit, holding that if improved communications didn’t result in fewer air miles, they weren’t worth the fibre optics that produced them. And when the invitation was impossible to refuse, he spent the odd early evening nursing a G&T at one members-only watering hole or another, between whose antique furniture former big beasts like Peter Judd could be glimpsed, plotting their comebacks. But for the most part Claude was an office bod: papers arrived on his desk and were signed and spirited away again; messages pinged into his inbox, and were swallowed by electrical circuitry. There was no shame in being tethered to the furniture. No especial dignity either, or heroism: everything a joe might endure could happen to a drone, treachery not excepted. Whelan well remembered his first traitor, a man he’d shared projects with, sat in meetings with, discussed geopolitics with over a sandwich, back, as they said, in the day. The man had, it turned out, been prey to demons, the kind which had left him in need of money, and open to temptation. A shopping list of secrets had been found in his flat, and a roster of potential buyers. It had been Claude himself who had suggested that the opportunity for spreading misinformation was too good to miss; that his erstwhile friend, if no longer reliable, was at least a valuable conduit. It had been Claude who devised Operation Shopping List, a plan that misfired when the embryonic traitor committed suicide before its full implementation. All very messy, and none of it involving travel. No, Claude had never felt his horizons limited by his disinclination to abandon his safe places; he’d seen enough, good and bad, without having to pack. Not getting out much wasn’t a weakness. It was Claude, playing to his strengths.
Today, though, was a day for leaving the office. The file on Dennis Gimball had landed on his desk, and a swift read-through was enough to have Whelan rearranging his afternoon. Apart from anything else, Gimball had lately taken delight in stamping on Claude’s reputation. Claude wasn’t a vindictive man, but this was largely because the opportunity to be one had rarely presented itself. In this he resembled most other people, with the added advantage that he was head of the Secret Service, with access to files like the one in front of him now.
But before leaving he had another matter to deal with.
‘This man Ho,’ he said.
‘He’s downstairs, sir.’
