‘But I’ll not forget you felt the need to ask. A little trust wouldn’t go amiss.’ She led the way down the next flight and into the lift lobby, and while they waited said, ‘What if it’s connected?’
Whelan was still processing the new information. ‘To …?’
‘To all the rest of it. Abbotsfield. The zoo bombing.’
‘What connection could there be? They were random attacks, this is a targeted assassination.’
‘Maybe so. But there’s a guerrilla cadre operating within the UK, so they’re automatically top of the suspect list when it comes to the death of a serving politician. Regardless of whether or not you had a meeting with that politician hours before he died. You’re the head of the Security Service, for God’s sake. For all anyone knows, you were there to warn him of impending danger.’
‘Well, yes, but …’
‘Ah.’ The lift arrived. Diana Taverner stepped into it, then said, ‘So someone else was present.’
‘His wife. Dodie.’
‘The journalist,’ she said flatly.
‘That’s right. The journalist.’
‘You do have a way of complicating matters, Claude. Couldn’t you have done it over the phone?’
‘Well, I didn’t think GCHQ needed to know.’
They stepped out onto the hub, and made their way to Lady Di’s office. Behind her closed door, she said, ‘Flyte didn’t have precise details of the dirt Gimball has on Jaffrey. Have you run that down yet?’
‘She’s been running smear stories on him for months. The details barely matter, it’s the timing that’s the problem.’
‘Well it might be an idea to find out,’ said Taverner. ‘If it’s real, it could be just what we need to keep the public occupied while we track down the Abbotsfield crew.’
‘I don’t think the PM’s going to be in favour of Jaffrey being exposed to bad publicity. That’s precisely what we were trying to avoid.’
‘Yes, but the PM’s going to have to lump it. If it comes to a choice between feeding the media our own head or lobbing it Zafar Jaffrey’s, I’m not going to think long and hard, are you? Especially not when Gimball’s own wife can do the job for us. We need to steer her in the right direction. Whatever she thinks about you, us, she’s got to hate Jaffrey more.’
Whelan stared out at the hub. All the boys and girls – they were always boys and girls; it didn’t matter that some were fathers and mothers themselves – were intent on work, mostly centred on the weapons used at Abbotsfield. The pipe bomb lobbed into the penguin compound had been home-made; the device on the train was based on an internet recipe. Any reasonably competent psychopath could have devised either, given a Wi-Fi connection and a full set of digits. But automatic weapons implied serious backing.
Taverner said, ‘Claude?’
‘I’m listening.’
‘You’re going to have to decide which flag you’re flying. The Service doesn’t exist to further the interests of the party in power. In fact, the party in power is arguably our natural enemy. Given that it’s holding the purse strings.’
‘We serve the nation, Diana,’ Whelan said. ‘And the party in power is democratically elected to lead that nation.’ He turned back to the glass wall, and the worker ants beyond, but continued talking. ‘I tried to get hold of Flyte earlier, but she’s not around. I was told you had her on something.’
‘She’s at Slough House. It’s in lockdown. And can stay that way until we’ve determined what connects Jackson Lamb’s pet nerd with Abbotsfield. Has he talked yet?’
Whelan said, ‘I was leaving him to soften up. A crew was sent to his house, they’ve collected his IT. Quite a lot of it, apparently. Have we got anyone in Slough?’
‘We’ll wait on the police reports. It’s not like our forensics’ll be better than theirs. We’re using the same contractors half the time.’
‘Keep me posted. I’ll talk to Dodie Gimball.’
‘No, let me,’ said Taverner.
‘Diana—’
‘If she thinks you had her husband killed, how happy is she going to be to see you?’
He paused. ‘Maybe so. All right, then.’ He turned to go, then turned back. ‘Are we really calling them “terror bots” now?’
‘They always turn out devoid of personality. It seems to fit.’
‘If we end up throwing Jaffrey to the wolves,’ he said, ‘I’ll need to be sure he deserves it.’
Taverner waited until Whelan had gone before she replied. ‘He’s not one of us, Claude. That usually suffices,’ she said. Then she turned the dial on her desk which frosted the glass wall, hiding her from view.
An old gag, which he’d have to make sure didn’t slip out at an inappropriate moment. Which, for a budding pol, was any moment, ever.
Zafar Jaffrey ran a hand through his already enjoyably tousled hair and shook his head, though there was nobody with him.
