CHAPTER
FOUR: CRADOCK'S DANCE
Waterloo Station at
seven in the evening swirled and scurried in a maelstrom of commuters spilling up from below ground and
across the station concourse towards rows of departure platforms. Hunter took
his time as he strolled towards the departure board: he was a little early, and
felt well pleased with himself after writing a good speculative piece probing
potential for a cross-party Europhobe pact, hinting darkly at the possibility
of a senior cross-party politician taking the lead to make way for an even more
eminent figure, and topping it with an outburst of bitter recrimination from
Downing Street in a 'Angry PM scolds rebels' vein. But he kept strictly mum
about naming names, and Butcher's plot might consequently shape into a story
that could very well run and run, particularly with Manning’s backing. He had
also neatly tied up an interview with Morrissey, Wonders' chairman, to slot in
ahead of his lunch with Croesus, thereby promising even more goodies, not to
mention a nice sock in the eye for Madison, who had been curt to the point of
rudeness on repeated Hunter requests for background.
He stopped in front of the train departures display board and scanned the people around him, searching for a face that might match his telephone voice, but the knot kept forming and reforming in a whirlpool of grey-complexioned office workers and women in dark business wear, broken occasionally by a splash of bright summer colours, and none showed any sign of seeking recognition.
He glanced at his watch. It was exactly seven. Hunter positioned his Financeday carefully between his left forearm and jacket, newspaper title well in view, and strolled on towards platform ten. He felt strangely conspicuous, like some kind of walking noticeboard, and wondered whether he was being watched, and trailed, and possibly judged.
The gate to Platform Ten was a wasteland of bare tarmac, a small oasis of peace in all the station commotion, with a small sign indicating that a train had just left. Hunter paused, and looked around uncertainly. A thin, rather gaunt woman in a greyish-green cotton blouse and matching long cotton skirt stopped to look at the sign, and seemed distressed, as though she had been counting on catching the train. She had a mass of lank hair gathered untidily on the nape of her neck, and moved jerkily, like some kind of human marionette, burdened with a large case that seemed much too heavy for her. She stood looking about her irresolutely, made a weary attempt to pick her case up, and dropped it again with a sigh, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand.
Hunter remembered his mystery voice and its promised lesson in decorum. He stretched a tentative hand towards the case. ‘Can I give you a hand?’
‘No.’ The woman’s dark eyes widened, assessing him, and then she shook her head. Her movement dislodged some of her hair, and she pushed it jerkily back into place. ‘It is not really heavy.’
‘Do you have to carry it very far?’ Hunter spoke with formal politeness, because he thought he might be making contact, but judged that might also be making a mistake.
‘No, I will wait here for the next train.’ She smiled slightly. ‘But it is kind of you to offer.’ Her eyes drifted away, and she appeared to be looking at something, or someone, a little behind Hunter. Then she looked back at him, her eyes appraising in their dark shadows. ‘However my father will want to thank you.’
Hunter stared at her.
‘He'll meet you in a minute, but he'd like you to walk round, so he can watch you.’ The woman fired her words off nervously, in a series of short bursts. ‘Perhaps you can go to the taxi rank first, then come back into the station, then go to the booking hall. People sometimes follow him - someone might be following you - and he is very good at picking up surveillance.’
She turned away towards the platform entrance, averting her face, and it was plainly a dismissal. Hunter hovered indecisively for a moment, and then turned and began to make his way across the concourse, feeling vulnerable and exposed, like a marked man. It was not a pleasant sensation - every commuter rushing past now suddenly seemed a threat, and the sheer overwhelming anonymity of the station, the knowledge that he was an unknown in a crowd of thousands of unknowns, with no friends at hand, and no shelter for protection, felt like a shield of menace bearing down on him.
He drifted out to the taxi rank, and then back onto the concourse. The booking hall was busy, with queues of people snaking away from ticket windows, and a flurry of activity around a rank of automatic ticket machines set into a wall. He hovered uncertainly, and realised that he still had his Financeday cupped neatly in his left hand.
A man in a hurry cannoned into him, and hurried on his way, and Hunter backed up defensively against the booking hall wall.
‘Mr. Hunter?’ The voice was elderly, and a little querulous.
Hunter jumped.
‘I saw you offer to help my daughter - it was very courteous of you.’
Hunter found himself looking at a tall, angular bespectacled man, with the same dark eyes as his daughter, possibly in his late sixties or early seventies, bald but for a tonsure of white hair, dressed in a dark suit that had plainly worn well.
They inspected each other for a moment, like a pair of dogs circling and sniffing, and then the tall angular man seemed satisfied.
‘Well, now I must send you back to Joanna, my daughter.’ He smiled thinly. ‘I was a little afraid that you might have been followed, but I think not. She had a suitcase with a good deal of paperwork in it, photocopies of documents I have squirrelled safely away. They cover a period that runs from the beginning of October 1973 to the second week of February 1974, and I think you will find them largely self-explanatory if you collate and read them sequentially. I will allow you a couple of weeks, that should be sufficient, and we can then meet again.’
He stopped speaking, and plainly considered that he had said enough.
Hunter frowned. ‘What if I work through it faster?’
‘You will have to wait.’ The man's reply was polite, but firm.
‘No contact number?’
‘I'm afraid not.’
‘Not even a name?’
Another thin smile. ‘Cradock. My name is Cradock.’ He shifted from one foot to the other, as though keen to be on his way. ‘Now go back to my daughter. I think you will find her suitcase very rewarding.’
A moment later he was gone.
Hunter edged out of the crowded booking hall and began retracing his steps across the station concourse. The swirl and flow of homebound commuters had begun to ebb a little, but the spaces and clear areas opening up in the press of hurrying bodies seemed painfully exposed, and he realised with a start of irritation that he had begun every now and then to look back over his shoulder, for all the world like a fleeing villain in a third rate thriller.
He paused, to get a grip on himself, fighting a temptation to look round just once again, and walked on briskly. Paranoia might be highly contagious, but he was a senior journalist on a national newspaper, researching a story, with nothing to fear from anyone.
The thin gaunt woman still stood in the same place, at the gateway to platform ten. Her face was impassive, but her dark eyes were sharp.
‘I can see that you've mastered the Cradock dance.’ Her voice held an almost mocking edge as she stepped back from her suitcase.
Hunter frowned.
‘It was the way you moved.’ She lifted her chin to look quickly over her shoulder, mimicking him. ‘My father says suspect characters always flag their guilt through their body language.’ For a moment her eyes gleamed mockingly.
Hunter felt challenged. ‘Bloodhounds make bad rabbits.’
Now it was the woman's turn to look questioning.
‘I'm a journalist. Rabbits run. People like me chase.’
Her eyes flashed. ‘And suffer from hubris, perhaps.’
Hunter stiffened, but did not reply. It was time for him to take the case and go.
Cradock's daughter hesitated, and then put her hand on his arm. ‘Will you help my father?’ Her voice softened, and now she was anxious.
Hunter shrugged, still smarting. ‘I'll try.’
‘Will you be careful?’
He lifted the case. It was heavy, but not beyond his strength. ‘I'm not going to libel anybody.’ He bit off his reply: he did not come to Waterloo to fence, and he was keen to be away.
‘But you will be careful?’ Something in her voice made him pause, and rest the case on the ground again. Her dark eyes in their beds of shadow were suddenly intense, almost beseeching. ‘My father is sick, and he wants to tell his story while he can. He doesn't want people to laugh at him and push him to one side.’
‘I won't do that.’
‘He doesn't want to deal with cowards.’ Her stare was unblinking.
Hunter held her eyes, measure for measure, and she looked down.
‘Other people promised to help, and backed away.’
‘I think it's got the makings of a good story.’
‘Even if it turns...’ She paused, as though searching for a word. ‘Difficult?’
Hunter felt himself being penned into a corner. ‘Even if it's dangerous.’
The dark eyes were suddenly piercing. ‘It might be.’
Hunter bridled. The woman's challenge was calling him into question, before he had even started. He was not used to being doubted, and her doubt made him cross and irritated. He was also hungry, and it was time to break free. He would be careful, because he was always careful, and harvest what he could. But ghosts would not scare him.
‘I'll be careful, and thorough, and write everything that I can.’ He reached into his breast pocket, and tugged out a business card, and scribbled his home number on the back. ‘Keep this, and call me when it's all in print, and the three of us will have a meal together, to celebrate.’
He profited from her looking at the card to pick up the case again, and a moment later he was on his way towards the escalators leading down to the Underground, wondering what Elaine would be cooking him for dinner.
Later, as he arrived at his flat, a man seated in a car parked some fifty metres further up the street spoke into a mobile. ‘He's come home, carrying a suitcase. Looks like it's quite heavy.’
The mobile grunted in acknowledgement.
‘D'you want me to go on sitting here?’
‘Is he on his own?’ The mobile voice was clipped, with a military briskness.
‘His girlfriend is waiting for him.’
‘Girlfriend?’
‘Blonde, thirty something, not bad looking - she's an antique dealer in the Portobello Road.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Had a chat with the porter, slipped him a couple of pink ones. Hunter’s flat was empty when I got here, the porter seemed to think I worked for a finance company, and let me have a shufti. I tagged his shirts, and left just before she arrived.’
‘Good man.’ The clipped voice chuckled. ‘Don't forget to put in a petty cash chit.’
‘I won't.’ The man in the car stirred impatiently. ‘What do I do now?’
‘Oh, call it a day.’ The clipped voice was a little distant, as though the speaker had moved on to consider other matters. ‘You can stand down over the weekend, I'll let you know if I need you again.’
Half an hour later a group of six men gathered together in the library at the Reform Club in Pall Mall. They had not yet dined, and were hungry, and formed an expectant and slightly impatient circle of leather armchairs around a low table bearing a bottle of armagnac, another of port, several glasses, a large silver coffeepot and a plate heaped with small chocolate biscuits. But they lacked the warm glow that normally accompanies good cheer. One armchair was empty, and they appeared to be waiting.
The library door opened, and they all turned their heads. A man entered briskly - he was dressed in a pinstriped suit, and wore a regimental tie, holding himself very straight, like a military man.
A chorus of voices greet him, and he nodded in acknowledgement, pulling the vacant chair back to seat himself comfortably, whilst two of his companions hurried to pour him coffee and a good measure of armagnac. He sniffed at the glass, and smiled, and rolled the golden liquid round and round, and sipped, and sipped again, and a hand proffered chocolate biscuits.
‘Thank you.’ His voice was as neat and clipped as his bearing, and he chewed appreciatively. But his face set hard as he looked at each of his companions in turn. ‘Well, I think we must all dip into our pockets.’
His companions looked glum, as though they had been expecting him to say as much. A florid man in a check suit straight from a racecourse on his right stared gloomily at a drop of port still nestling at the bottom of his glass.
‘Bloody drink-drive laws. I supose I'll be over the top if I go on.’
The circle of men sighed. It was plain that several, possibly all, would have been glad to drown their thoughts.
The florid man drained his glass, inspecting it for a moment, and poured in just a little more port. ‘How much do you have in mind?’
‘I don't know. I've got a man tailing Cradock, and another keeping an eye on this journalist johnny. Good men, both of them, former Special Branch, they've now got their own security set-up. But it's a question of what we do.’
A couple of heads nodded in assent.
The florid man sipped at his port. ‘I thought your people destroyed all the evidence?’
The military man shrugged. ‘Cradock worked in the Department. He was supposed to shred everything. He must have saved all the papers for his old age.’
‘Couldn’t we slap a gagging writ on him?’
A man with hooded eyes and a mop of white hair on the far side of the low table shook his head sadly. ‘Pointless. Charlie Archell and that man Manning would fight it, and we'd be asking for trouble.’
The small circle was silent. Lord Archell owned Financeday and championed press freedom.
‘Cradock must be getting old.’ A plump man, half concealed in a deep leather chair, spoke softly, covering his chin with his hand, as though to hide his words. ‘How's his health?’
A ring of faces turned towards him, as though he had voiced a question that none of the others dared ask.
The man with the regimental tie shrugged. ‘He's a bit lame, had a minor stroke. He might go on for years.’
‘Or have another stroke?’
‘Possibly.’
‘Or an accident? Crossing the road, or something like that? Lameness must be a handicap in traffic.’
‘I think that's a bit far-fetched.’ The man with hooded eyes frowned disapprovingly. ‘I wouldn't want that sort of thing hanging around my neck.’
‘Or a headline that a leading High Court judge helped plan a putsch when he was a bright young barrister?’ The plump man's voice was cutting.
The hooded eyes closed, as though in pain.
‘Guy's right.’ The man with the regimental tie stepped in quickly. ‘We need to move fast, stop the rot before Hunter works his way through Cradock's files and began talking to people. We could be in real trouble if he finds a weak link.’
‘You're thinking of Dux?’
‘I'm thinking of Dux. He'd wet his bed, and sing like a canary.’
The small circle was silent again. They all looked at the man with the regimental tie.
He mused for a moment. ‘I know some people, they're not very nice, but it could be probably be done for five to ten thousand. Say a thousand apiece from all of us, counting in surveillance costs.’
The hooded eyes opened again, and they were sharp with the anxiety of a man who had just been promised high rank in a new cross-party coalition, and had much to lose. ‘What about Hunter?’
The man with the regimental tie did not answer for a moment, and then sucked in his breath. ‘He'd be more expensive. Possibly twice as much - we'd have to wipe him off the face of the earth - no tracks, no clues. We'd also increase our risk exposure. I'd say just Cradock on his own.’
The circle of men was
quiet, digesting his words. Then the florid man drained his glass, and got to
his feet. ‘Well, I don't suppose we've got much choice.’ He paused, thoughtful
for a moment. ‘But leave Hunter to me. I'll have a word with Croesus, we might
be able to buy him off.’
The man with the regimental tie looked doubtful. ‘Could be damned expensive, and he might shop you.’
‘We could sound him out through Delilah. Ned says she's got a good line in pillow talk.’
The plump man guffawed, but the rest of the circle looked glum.
‘It's up to you.’ The man with the regimental tie was plainly not convinced, but shuffling Hunter's future onto other shoulders made his own burden very much lighter. ‘But do it quickly.’
‘I still don't like it.’ The man with hooded eyes clasped his hands together in his lap, his fingers lacing and unlacing. ‘I don't like it at all.’
The florid man stopped behind his chair. ‘You don't have any choice, Noel. We'll give Dick what he needs in cash, so there are no comebacks, and he'll clean the mess up for us.’
‘It could break us all.’
‘We could break ourselves, if we dither.’
Now the circle were all on their feet, and it was plain that they were impatient to be away, and distance themselves as much as possible from complicity and guilt.
The man with the regimental tie spoke decisively. ‘We have a chance - we must take it. We fluffed things before, thirty odd years ago. We don't want to do it again.’
A circle of heads nodded, and it was a consensus, and the man with hooded eyes gave way. Cradock's days were now numbered, and there must be no weakness, and no turning back.