‘I thought there’d been no actual contact with these
One or two murmurs of assent met this.
Diana Taverner said, ‘There’s been no contact, no. That’s to say, they’ve not made any demands or identified themselves in relation to this particular, ah, episode.’
‘But you’ve been keeping tabs on them.’
‘That’s well within our remit, I think you’d agree.’
‘Absolutely. Absolutely. Couldn’t agree more.’
Down the table, Roger Barrowby made a clucking noise with his tongue.
Barrowby was usually called the Barrowboy, a nickname he detested and pretended to revel in. He had thinning sandy hair, a prominent chin, and a habit of pressing the tip of a finger to its central dimple, as if trying to encourage it back into his jaw. But he appeared to have done something about his dandruff.
‘Roger!’ Leonard Bradley’s tone couldn’t have sounded heartier at a barbecue. ‘You have an interjection? An objection?’ You could have cut the bonhomie with a knife. Taverner wondered why they hated each other.
‘An observation, Len. Merely an observation.’
‘Care to share?’
Barrowby said, ‘Bloody lucky, that’s all. We have a watching brief on a bunch of original thinkers, just as they’re attempting a coup? I mean, how often does that happen?’
Despite herself, Taverner smiled at ‘original thinkers’.
Bradley said, ‘We could argue about gift horses and dental plans. But perhaps Diana has a view?’
‘Watching brief is pitching it high,’ Diana said. ‘They’re one of seventeen groups on the radar right now, which is also a bit high, but there’ve been murmurs something like this was on the horizon. And—’
‘Excuse me?’
Barrowby again.
‘
She’d have answered, but knew there was no way this was getting past the assembled ex-handlers, who provided a chorus:
‘Not our remit, Roger.’
‘Not even close.’
‘Intelligence gathering’s outside the sphere of this committee.’
‘Of course,’ Barrowby agreed. ‘But if we’re paying for supper, we get to glance at the menu, surely?’
‘We’ll check the books when the financial year closes,’ somebody else said. ‘But how Operations shells out the booty is their game.’
Bradley was nodding. ‘We get to taste the sausages, Roger,’ he said, ‘if you’ll allow me to pursue your metaphor. But we don’t get to watch them being made.’
Barrowby raised his hands in mock surrender. ‘Diana. Forgive me. You heard
Leaving unaddressed the degree to which Ingrid Tearney had been involved, Diana went on: ‘Like I say, not a watching brief. That is, we weren’t actually keeping them under surveillance, otherwise this caper wouldn’t have got off the ground. And that, I’d agree, would have been
‘Before they chop young Hassan’s head off,’ Leonard Bradley said.
‘Precisely.’
‘Well, there’s no need to spell out the public relations aspect, is there? The half of the country that’s not watching this yet will be glued to it by suppertime.’ He glanced at the papers in front of him. ‘Voice of Albion, eh? I’d be more impressed if there was any chance these halfwits had actually read Blake.’
Silence greeted this.
He said, ‘Our friends in blue?’
‘We haven’t released the details, the Voice of Albion connection,’ Taverner said. ‘We will if necessary, but I’m confident that by this time tomorrow, we’ll be able to present them with the whole package.’
‘The boy was snatched in Leeds city centre?’ someone piped up.
‘Not quite the centre. Headingley.’
‘Don’t they have CCTV? I was rather under the impression one couldn’t cross the road without being a reality TV star.’
‘It appears that the traffic monitoring system was off air for six hours last night, from a little before midnight until a short while ago. Routine maintenance, we’re told.’
‘Bit of a coincidence.’
‘We’re looking into it. Or the police are. But I don’t think Albion have that sort of reach. You’ll find a printout of their homepage in the folder, if you want an idea of the clout they wield.’
There was a general rustling of pages.
Bradley glanced up. ‘“Natoinal purity”,’ he noted with distaste. It wasn’t clear whether it was the concept or the spelling which pained him.
‘We’re not dealing with the sharpest pencils in the box,’ Taverner agreed.
‘Can’t you trace them through the site?’ Barrowby asked.
She said, ‘Now, there they have shown nous. The proxy’s in Sweden, where they treat client privilege very seriously. Getting their details will take a while. More than the deadline allows. But let me repeat, I have every confidence that this crew will be under wraps before the deadline becomes an issue.’
