CHAPTER TWENTYTWO: THE HOME SECRETARY
Hunter woke with a head that ached very nearly as much as his ribs. He opened his eyes reluctantly to look at his watch. It was half past seven, and he was in a neat little cell at Jim's club again, with vague memories of drinking hard with Jim and the Russians, and very possibly trying to perform some exotic Russian dance into the bargain.
He yawned, and suddenly comes awake with a bang. It was Friday, and he was due to interview Home Secretary Sam Goodman at eleven. He sat up painfully, stiff as a rusty bolt locked into an ancient nut, and tried to stretch, but his muscles all shrieked a chorus of refusal, and he flopped back against the bedside wall, attempting to muster his thoughts and mobilise himself for action. He had much to do: first he must shave and shower, then snatch some black coffee to rinse his hangover away, grab the Russians, hurtle back to Notting Hill Gate to change into a suitably severe dark suit, race down to Financeday to print off a fistful of photocopies capable of scaring Goodman out of his wits, round up a photographer, make sure his CD recorder held fresh batteries, and spend ten minutes rehearsing his swordplay before setting out for the Home Office. He would have one chance to hit Goodman, and must thrust for a kill, for Cradock was dead, and his blood was crying to heaven for vengeance. He must avenge Cradock, blood for blood, and blaze as a scorching arm of vengeance, striking all Cradock’s assailants down into cinders and ashes. He had a wrong to right, and he must right it wholly.
It was a fierce thought, and Hunter smiled bleakly to himself. He faced a big day ahead. He tried stretching again, and managed to lever his arms up level with his chest, suppressing pain in a major moment of courage, succeeeded in hauling himself shakily to his feet, clenching his teeth, and lurched into the room’s tiny bathroom to scowl hard-eyed at the wan figure watching him from the mirror. This was no time for self pity: he must sharpen up at speed. His muscles screamed again as he began to scrub himself in the shower, but pain was an irrelevance. He was a hunter, about to set out on a chase, and blood must slake his expectation.
Ten minutes later he was dressed, and ready to face Nash and the Russians. Time was starting to count down, and he must be moving.
Nash's VIP suite was already populated: Nash and the four Russians were busily eating breakfast at a table next to the picture window overlooking the empty dancefloor below, and they had two girls with them, sitting with their backs to the door. Both girls turned as Hunter limped into the suite, and he stopped short. The blonde nurse was next to Gorbodey, looking as pretty as a picture, and very pleased with herself. The other girl was Chloe.
Hunter paused for a split-second, but Chloe's eyes were neutral, giving nothing away. He began to limp towards the table, and suddenly she smiled. It was a cool, balanced Chloe kind of smile, and his spirits soared, for he senses something bordering on admiration. It was a smile shaped for a winner, and a bright omen for the day.
Nash was solicitous. ‘Sleep well?’ He leered: he had his eye on the blonde nurse, but was making no progress at all, for Gorbodey had enflamed her with Russian love, and promised her a trip to St. Petersburg and Moscow.
Hunter helped himself to toast and nodded absentmindedly. He was already far, far away, deep into rehearsal, and blue-eyed blonde nurses were pure distractions. He finished his slice and got to his feet. It was time to be on his way. Five minutes later he was in the Mercedes, purring back to his flat to arm himself for combat.
The flat was undisturbed. Hunter parked the Russians and the blue eyed nurse in his kitchen, and dressed quickly. He heard glasses chink, and toasts, but he had much more serious questions on his mind. His chose his best suit: a very dark blue silk, almost black, a pale blue shirt and a toning dark blue tie, matching socks, and highly polished plain black shoes. He must be a rapier, fashioned from razor-edged blue steel, with a blade capable of slicing deftly through Goodman's bluster and bragadoccio to the very heart and soul of the truth.
The Russians had already finished his whisky as he limped back into the kitchen, and were now eyeing a bottle of marc. Gorbodey and the blue eyed nurse got to their feet - they were holding hands, and both had a dreamy look about them that signposted their expectations. The two bulletheaded young Russians were guard dogs, fierce and attentive.
Gorbodey fired a burst of Russian at them and they both nodded. He eyed Hunter. ‘Sergei and Yuri will be with you all day: they will wait in the Mercedes whilst you see the Minister, then outside your newspaper.’ He paused. ‘You have a car?’
Hunter hesitated fractionally. He loved his Clio Williams: the car was his pride and joy, and a toy he had never yet shared with anyone. Yet it was a test, and he must match Gorbodey, heart for heart. He took a deep breath.
‘Down in the basement carpark. Dark blue Clio Williams.’
All three Russians sucked their breath in sharply.
‘Clio Williams?’ Gorbodey purred the words. ‘Very quick car.’ He preened a little. He would show his nurse some crazy Russian driving.
Hunter looked a little alarmed. ‘Be kind to it.’
Gorbodey beamed. ‘I will treat it with great love.’ He was already mentally heading out of London, cracking speed limits on a motorway - he held a diplomatic passport, and he was untouchable. ‘I will take Susan, my hospital rose, and we will pick blue flowers together in the country, and she will make them into a crown to match her eyes.’
The blue eyed nurse dimpled, and wondered whether she would be back in time for her shift, and then decided to cast discretion to the winds. She would lie close to this Russian on some sunlit hill, and time would stand still.
One of the bulletheaded young Russians spoke quickly. Gorbodey frowned, and replies with a brief question. The young Russian nodded, and he looked at Hunter again.
‘But first we have toy for you: new Elektron recorder. It is in Mercedes.’
Hunter shrugged. He had a very good little Sony recorder of his own.
Gorbodey shook his head. ‘This one much better: transmitter as well as recorder. You switch on for interview, burn CD, quite normal. But transmitter also sends interview to base station in Mercedes or wherever. Whole of Financeday can hear.’
Hunter listened, and smiled slowly, and his smile was the smile of a hunter viewing a new kind of trap. ‘Witnesses?’
‘As many as you want.’
They clasped hands, and technology added a keen poniard to Hunter's weaponry. He was girded, and armed, and now his arms would be the arms of justice.
The young Russians waited in the Mercedes at the back of the Financeday building as Hunter limped to collect photocopies and a photographer. Martin Scott waved cheerily as he crossed the newsroom, but Hunter did not see him: he had already stepped deep into a chess game world of moves and countermoves, gambits and gambles, and begun flying on automatic pilot. He bit his lip a little nervously as he sat down at his desk, powering up his terminal, and started to edge carefully into the complex series of passwords he had created to fence Cradock about, and then breathed a long sigh of relief as his directory of Cradock files flashed up, unsullied and intact. A couple of quick key strokes summoned up damning letters carrying Goodman's signature, another couple triggered copier printouts, and Hunter smiled grimly. Now he only had to unsheath his blade for blood to flow.
Scott waved again as he limped back towards his desk, rising to greet him. ‘Today's the big day?’ It was as much confirmation as question.
Hunter held up his right hand, crossing his first and index fingers.
‘Good luck.’ Scott hesitated. He was a very professional newsman, and something in his bones told him that Hunter might find it hard to bring his story to print - he had just been discussing outline plans for Saturday's paper with Terry Mainwaring, and Financeday's editor had been evasive. ‘Brief me as soon as you get back.’
Hunter limped back to his desk to return with a small black machine. Scott looked at it uncertainly.
‘What's that?’
‘A present from some Russians.’ Hunter looked smug as he slid out a short metal aerial. A bulletheaded young Russian had just spent an hour en route from Notting Hill Gate showing him how to work the machine, and now he was an expert. ‘It's a combined receiver and recorder. I'll leave it with you - just switch it on and listen in, and then you can play it back again.’
Scott weighed the machine in his hand. ‘You mean we can sit in?’
‘Word for word.’
‘Well, well, well.’ Scott held the Elektron recorder carefully. ‘I’ll give it to Terry – he’s up with Charlie at the moment.’ He hesitated. ‘D’you really mean we’ll be able to hear the lot?’
‘You’ll all be in the room with me.’
‘Good grief.’ It was all Scott could say. But he knew that the interview would make history.
Half an hour later Hunter purred up to the security check at the Home Office carpark. The guard was plainly very impressed by the Mercedes, not to mention Hunter's chauffeur - both the bulletheaded young Russians had now donned aviator shades - and waved the car straight through. Hunter stretched as the Russians helped his photographer manhandle camera equipment out of the boot. His bones still ached, but he was climbing into an adrenalin high and the pain was manageable.
A second security man in a booth at the Home Office entrance checked his name on a list and summoned up a smooth press officer. It was four minutes to eleven and counting.
‘The Home Secretary rather hopes you're going to ask him about his new tagging scheme.’ The smooth press officer paused as he led the way along a cavernous corridor, with Financeday's photographer bringing up the rear. Hunter smiled benignly. Tagging would start him off nicely.
‘We're also rather proud of our new short sharp punishment ideas.’ The press officer glanced at Hunter out of the corner of his eye, trying to get a feel for Financeday's approach. He had heard some strange rumours, and was a little anxious: Goodman was an excitable man, with a knack of rushing off the deep end at times of stress.
Hunter was tempted, and could not resist. ‘Juvenile concentration camps?’
The press officer blenched. ‘Don't wind him up.’
‘I'll be careful.’ Hunter thought of the photocopies in his briefcase, nestling alongside Elektron's recorder. One of them outlined a plan for rounding up political malcontents and locking them away in the Outer Hebrides some thirty years earlier.
They arrived at a door, and the press officer vanished beyond it for a moment, to return with a second man, well fed and arrogant. He held out his hand.
‘I'm the Home Secretary's political adviser.’ His smile was the smile of a shark. ‘I take it you have all the briefing you need?’
Hunter smiled again. He had sparred with too many politicians to be lured into showing his hand. ‘I think I've got some provoking questions.’
Shark teeth gnashed a little. Journalists were always a pain, conceited bastards arrogating quasi-divine rights of judgement, best drowned in an ideal world. ‘Good, good.’ Another toothy smile. ‘You've got an hour.’
The Home Secretary's office was a long, high room with windows on two sides, and walls lined with stern portraits of Goodman's predecessors, furnished with all the gravitas of an Edinburgh advocate: a long highly polished table with chairs along either side, and a big desk at the far end. Goodman was small, and dark, and foxy looking, legal in a pinstriped suit. He was standing by a window studying some document as they enter, carefully posed, and barely glanced up, he was plainly a man with much on his hands, and pressing cares of state.
Political adviser, press officer, Hunter, and Financeday photographer trooped towards him and he looked up reluctantly, and then smiled, and it was another shark smile.
‘Mr. Hunter, you're most welcome.’
They shook hands, and Goodman gestured towards the long table. The press officer waited for Hunter to set up Elektron's recorder, and then produced a recorder of his own with an apologetic smile.
Goodman eyes both machines with distaste. ‘We'll be on the record.’
Hunter hit the Elektron start button, said a silent prayer that Gorbodey's technology was functioning properly, and consulted his briefing printout. He had already planned his attack, but it was a moment to take stock of his target.
The Home Secretary smiled urbanely. Financeday would make a good platform for his vision of law and order, and should serve him well when Jim Small next reshuffled the Cabinet. He watched the Financeday photographer circling for a good picture, and set his jaw to look magisterial and decisive.
Hunter took a deep breath. ‘Well, Home Secretary, I've seen a great deal about your plans for curbing juvenile crime and drug-related crime. Perhaps you'd like to report on progress to date and set out your ongoing plans.’
Goodman beamed. He had been champing for a chance to spell out his plans to a sympathetic audience, and now he could let go. He quickly sketched a broad canvas: a need for greater communal interest in law and order, closer public involvement with the police and parallel agencies, and increased pressure for parental responsibility, and rattled on into a perfect barrage of measures in hand, measures on the way, and plans still in the pipeline. He was in his element, and had a feeling he was presenting a concise, well thought out, and appealing agenda. He listened to the sound of his own voice, and filled with the pleasure that only vanity and high office of state could confer. He had power in his hands, and he was climbing a ladder of preferment.
Hunter made occasional notes. He was biding his moment, but it would come. The photographer circled, taking action pictures, and the press officer relaxed. Goodman's political adviser seemed to be half asleep.
Goodman pause. He had run through his programme, and was ready to take a sympathetic question or two. Hunter rummaged in his briefcase for his photocopies.
‘You set out an impressive picture, Home Secretary. But perhaps we could focus a little more closely on some of your crime prevention programmes.’ He smiled deferentially. ‘Aren't you sometimes tempted to be rather tougher on hardened criminals? I mean, tagging and all that. wasn't it better to lock them up?’
Goodman frowned. Journalists were always trying to tempt him into waving a big law and order truncheon. ‘Tagging is beginning to kick in very well.’ He waved a sheet of paper. ‘We had some teething problems at the start, but the figures are beginning to look very promising.’
Hunter readied his own sheet. He held a steel-tipped dart, and planned to strike home hard. ‘But the real hard men, minister. Shouldn't we lock them up and throw away the key, so as to speak?’
The press officer twitched uneasily. He had been a reporter himself, in his time, and he could sense a trap opening.
Goodman was urbane. ‘I can't say I take such a hard line myself. We have to contain and manage criminality, and try and bring those hard men to their senses.’ He waved dismissively. ‘I can't say I'm much for fortress prisons.’
Hunter smiled slightly. He was a matador, balancing his sword. ‘But thirty years ago you wanted to round up all your political opponents and pack them off to the Outer Hebrides.’
The room was silent. Goodman's urbane smile hardened, and turned into a black, black scowl. He was now sitting bolt upright in his chair, and all urbanity had quite melted away. ‘I'm not sure I'm with you, Mr. Hunter.’
His political adviser was now on his feet, and his press officer had turned deathly pale.
Hunter held out his photocopy, and took two more copies from his briefcase.
Goodman glanced at them quickly, and got to his feet. He glowered at Hunter, plainly very angry indeed, his mouth working silently, as if he was searching for words. Then he spoke, and his cut glass Whitehall vowels had given way to a thick Edinburgh brogue.
‘Where did you get these? Are you trying to set me up?’ He turned to his press officer and made snatching signs. ‘Turn both those bloody machines off.’
Hunter was still seated. He raised a coolly quizzical eyebrow. ‘I see you recognise your signature, Home Secretary. I have more documents on file.’ He held up two more sheets. ‘Can I ask you about those as well?’
The Financeday photographer was now busy shooting film for all he was worth. He had a volcanically angry Government minister on film, spitting death and fury, and he would capture every fleck of spittle.
Goodman quivered, and for a moment it looked as though he was about to jump on Hunter. He waved his arms furiously, and he was shouting.
‘Get this man out of here.’ He began to back away, gesturing to his press officer and political adviser. ‘Stop that bloody photographer. Impound their equipment.’ He was now hiding behind his desk, and the press officer and political adviser moved to stand in front of the photographer, blocking his view.
Hunter got slowly to his feet, and held out his hand. The press officer was now holding both recorders, and plainly meant to keep them. Financeday's photographer had stopped taking pictures, and was clasping his camera to his chest.
The press officer looked embarrassed. ‘I'm sorry. You heard what the Minister said.’
Hunter smiled. ‘Mine records, and transmits as well.’ He gestured at the machine. ‘You might have stopped it recording, but you have to hit another button as well to stop it sending a signal back to base.’
The press officer takes a deep breath. He now had a headache, and he was sure it would soon develop into a migraine. ‘Which is where?’
‘Back at Financeday.’ Hunter's smile was angelic. ‘They must be enjoying all this.’
Goodman's political adviser stepped between them. He had been listening impatiently to this exchange, and felt it was time for some firm management. He gestured towards the door. ‘Go and wait outside with your companion.’
Hunter ignored him. ‘Shall I turn it off?’
The press officer held the recorder out reluctantly, and watched Hunter press a button. He had a certain knowledge that he was going to be crucified on a cross of modern technology, and he could do nothing to ease his fate, barring taking a very sharp knife to his own throat. But he had a wife, and two small daughters, and pony club bills to pay, and suicide was not an option.
He shepherded Hunter and his photographer into an empty office along the corridor. Goodman's political adviser was now muttering angrily about calling in security officers, and the press officer had a feeling he had spooks in mind, and it was no help at all that Hunter's smart new recorder was labelled all over in Russian. He stood in the corridor wringing his hands.
‘We can't keep them here.’ He had visions of Financeday splashing the detention of its star man all over its front page, and syndicating transcripts of Goodman's rage to every other paper in town, not to mention every other leading financial daily around the world, triggering a political storm of truly cataclysmic proportions.
‘They're bloody spies.’ The political adviser had also inspected Hunter's recorder, and knew that political death stood at his shoulder.
‘We'll have to grovel, and let them go.’
The political adviser was silent for a moment, and then looked death straight in the face. ‘I'll go and talk to him.’
He disappeared into Goodman's office, and for a long moment the small office was frozen in time, in an agony of waiting and expectation. But then he returned, and now he looks marginally less anguished. ‘They can both go. He's on the phone to Jim Small, asking him to talk to Archell. I heard him mention an IT franchise.’ He managed to smile, and it was a cruel grimace. ‘I imagine he thinks he can sort something out. After all, politics is always the art of milking the best out of the possible.’
Then he sighed, and it was a tragic little sound. He had said something clever, and unwound a tricky situation, but he knew that Goodman would blame him personally for whatever came out of this fiasco, and the stain of catastrophe would mark his card indelibly. Politics, for political advisers, is the art of staying ahead of the game - and this time he had lagged sadly behind.