The Bell Ringers (53 page)

‘Officer,' she said, ‘I walk this route every morning. I greatly object to you making it more difficult for me than it already is. You have a duty under the Metropolitan Police Act 1839 to keep the passage to Parliament clear for members of both Houses, not obstruct it.'

After that he stepped aside and they passed easily through the next two lines, which included plainclothes officers checking people's faces against a ring file of photographs, but when they reached the peers' entrance they had to submit to a search, which in Kilmartin's case was particularly thorough.

In Baroness Somers' room, he helped with her coat and hung it up. The old lady moved to the window and stood in a lilac suit and grey
blouse, looking down at two police rigid inflatables patrolling the Thames. ‘I'm sorry, Peter, this isn't going to work. The chairman won't torpedo his own party by allowing Eyam's evidence to be heard. He's a decent man but not a heroic one, or a foolish one.' She turned. ‘Have you read the papers this morning?'

‘Glanced at them.'

‘Well, then you know that David Eyam's credibility is destroyed. The committee will not contemplate hearing a man on the run who is facing those sorts of charges. It's a matter of political reality.' She moved lamely to her desk, her dewlaps trembling as she shook her head.

Kilmartin made his next move. ‘I do see what you're saying, but this was always going to be difficult. Eyam knew they'd throw everything at him because he's got such a very, very important story to tell. He's not a child molester; he's a man suffering from cancer who has been persecuted after serving the country as well as any of us.'

‘Cancer,' she said. ‘That wasn't mentioned in the papers.'

‘Yes, he's got Hodgkin's. I'm just guessing, but he may have come back for the last throw of the dice. I repeat – he's no paedophile.'

‘But you didn't tell me about it, did you? You didn't give me the full facts, Peter.' The hooded eyes waited for a response.

‘No, I didn't because it isn't true.'

‘That's not the point. What if I had moved heaven and earth to get him into the committee room, only for the police to announce he faced investigation for child pornography?'

‘I apologise, but at the time I did not think it was important.'

‘That was an error of judgement. What else are you hiding from me?'

‘Nothing, I assure you.'

‘Well, it makes no difference. We are dealing here with what is possible. Even if David Eyam was able to present himself at the Palace of Westminster without being arrested, our beloved prime minister is about to announce an election. And at that point we all shut up shop. Committees rise; the MPs disperse to their constituencies; the Lords take a holiday.'

‘Yes,' said Kilmartin, glancing at his watch and wondering why he hadn't been able get hold of Cannon. ‘I spent the night reading through it. He has put together a very strong case with incontestable
documentary evidence. It is clear that Temple and Eden White have corroded public life, destroyed the polity. Temple is seven points ahead in the polls and if he gets back into power, such liberty as remains in this country will be lost. In terms of privacy and justice, this system is a real shocker. They buried it in the accounts and all the money is going to Eden White's companies. Parliament and the public have been deceived. Temple has sold the country's constitution for personal profit.'

Her eyes drifted from him. ‘I do understand that you feel strongly about it, but—' She stopped. ‘Is there any other way of publishing it?'

‘Yes, of course it can be published but the point is that Eyam's got the original documents and he wants to place them before the committee because that's the proper place for them. This will be a coup for your committee, something people will never forget.'

‘Really, Peter, I may be old but I'm not quite as daft as you take me for.' Her eyes met his again and he thought of the deep passions that had once stirred in this astonishingly brave woman. ‘Is there anyone else who can speak to the committee? Can you?'

‘As a matter of fact there is someone else, a woman named Kate Lockhart – she worked in Indonesia for the office until her husband died.'

‘Oh?'

‘She's now a lawyer in America and I gather a very good one. But she is here in Britain and is fully acquainted with this material.'

‘Is she the sort of person the committee would respect?'

‘Yes, she's really quite impressive,' said Kilmartin. ‘A loss to the office.'

Baroness Somers of Crompton put her hands together and thought for what seemed a very long time. ‘All right,' she said, rolling a pearl on her necklace between her thumb and finger. ‘But no more surprises.' He nodded. ‘You say she's worked as a top lawyer in the United States. I'll put her down to speak about the American handling of illegal immigrants. We're inquiring into the effects of new immigration legislation. What's her name again?'

‘Kate Koh: it might be best to use that name.'

She picked up the phone and spoke first to the committee's secretary,
who seemed to have no objections, then to the chairman. As she talked, Kilmartin gesticulated to say he was going to leave the room to make his own phone call. In the corridor he dialled Cannon's cell phone but got no answer. He went through the Number Ten switchboard and was told that Cannon wasn't available, and that his message box was full. A call to David Eyam's number brought no joy either, but he did reach Kate Lockhart and told her that she should be there by ten thirty, and to change her appearance as far as she was able.

‘Have you heard from our friend?' he asked.

‘No, I've been trying.'

‘That means you're going to have to hold the fort if we get some time at the committee.'

She coughed. ‘Has anything arrived?'

‘Not yet.'

‘I'll see you later.'

He returned to Beatrice Somers. ‘The chairman will do it,' she said. ‘But he will never forgive me when he discovers what she's going to talk about. She's got fifteen minutes at the start as long as the prime minister hasn't landed at the palace by that time.' Her eyes twinkled. ‘And Black Rod rang back. He's been talking to the sergeant at arms – his counterpart over in the House of Commons,' she said, reminding Kilmartin of the medieval officers that ran the British Parliament. ‘They are going to take up the obstruction we experienced with the police immediately and issue a statement to the BBC. These emergency powers have got up everyone's noses here, and quite right too. If you are in contact with your friend, tell her to go to Black Rod's entrance at the western end of the palace.'

‘Thank you,' he said.

‘At my age,' she said, ‘I am mindful that each day which passes represents a greater proportion of the time that is left to me. I like to make each one count. I hope this one will count, Peter.'

Kate reached Victoria Street and walked south, pursued by threatening skies. The wind whipped down the street creating eddies of dead leaves and when Kilmartin phoned to tell her to disguise her appearance she had to take shelter in a shop door in order to hear him. As he spoke
she looked down Victoria Street. At the far end of the street, police and army vehicles blocked the road, forcing the traffic left towards Buckingham Palace or the grid of streets behind Westminster Abbey.

In the last half hour she had been prey to the not irrational convictions that Eyam had been arrested, or was so ill that he could not ring her; and also to the likelihood of being recognised from her photograph in the newspapers. She reached a department store, which had just opened, entered and passed through the make-up counters and a gauntlet of saleswomen half-heartedly pushing brands of perfume. In the women's department she bought a white shirt, a grey overcoat that was much bulkier and less flattering than she would normally choose and a half-length smock. She moved about the store quickly, selecting a tortoiseshell hairgrip and aubergine-coloured woolly hat in the accessories department, and a few minutes later a soft, round cushion sold as a back support. Returning to the make-up department, she perched on a stool at one of the counters. A woman in a clinician's overall appeared at her side. Kate gave her very specific instructions while sliding a folded twenty-pound note along the counter. She wanted to be transformed and in a very short time.

Half an hour later she made for the women's lavatory in the basement. Working quickly, she tucked the cushion into the waistband of her trousers and moved the belt to hold it in place just below her breasts. Having straightened and plumped it, she put on her jacket, then the smock. Her hair had been powdered to make it lighter and less luxuriantly glossy. She pulled it back and fastened it with the grip, leaving a fringe, then stood back to study the effect. The make-up had come into its own – her cheeks looked rounder and the shading under her eyes made them seem smaller and more recessed. Finally, she shrugged on the overcoat and placed the woolly hat over the back of her head, covering her ears.

She left and crossed a side street that flanked the store and entered a pharmacy, where she made for a stand of reading glasses and settled upon a pair with a thin gold frame and minimum-strength lenses. As she entered the street again, she placed them halfway down her nose and began to peer hesitantly over the frame.

In truth, this was unnecessary. Like an actor who takes the essence of
a character from a piece of clothing, with her bump Kate already occupied the role of the mousey, academic woman seven months into what might very well have been a late and unplanned pregnancy. She moved carefully along the line of stalled traffic, shortening her stride and swaying slightly. Occasionally she paused and held her prosthetic belly, which as well as giving the impression of fatigue, allowed her to make tiny adjustments to the cushion. In Great Peter Street two constables stopped her, asked her where she was going and searched her bag. She explained that she was heading for Parliament where she was due to give evidence; she was late because of the traffic and the lack of taxis, and was nervous of missing the start. All this was said in a voice that caused one of the officers to bend down to catch her words.

By ten fifteen she had reached Millbank, the road that runs along the Thames and leads into Parliament Square. Charles Barry's neo-Gothic masterpiece came into view. She had known since childhood that a Union Jack flying from the flagpole of the Victoria Tower indicated that Parliament was sitting. She peered into the sky as the first rain fell and saw the flag was still there.

Cannon often found that a crisis was best met with inactivity, or at least with something that had absolutely no relevance to the crisis, for which reason he had at nine forty a.m. taken out Aubrey's
Brief Lives
and begun to read one of his favourite lives, that of the poet and dramatist Sir William Davenant, who ‘gott a terrible clap off a handsome Black Wench that lay in Axel-yard, Westminster'.

At nine fifty-five a.m. Lyme came into the room and beckoned him out to the washroom.

‘When's he leaving for the palace?' asked Cannon.

‘In the next hour: they're in a meeting.'

‘Who?'

Lyme ignored him. ‘Did you know they're able to go back over any phone call made in the last two years and listen to a recording?'

Cannon shook his head.

‘Well, they can. Legislation from a few years back gives them access to all communications data and apparently those records act as an index.
If they know when and where a call was made they can retrieve the actual conversation.'

‘Jesus! No, I didn't know that. But it doesn't surprise me.'

Lyme's eyes were lit with technophiliac awe. ‘That means—'

‘I know what that means,' interrupted Cannon. ‘They've got Eyam and all Eyam's associates and they are listening to their conversations over the last day or two.'

‘Yes, they're hard on the trail. But not the encrypted emails: they haven't got those yet. Naturally there's a huge amount of material to go through, but GCHQ is working very hard on it, making reports every half hour or so. Also, the conference centre is filling up at that hotel. Out of nowhere about six hundred and fifty Bell Ringers have turned up and are waiting patiently in the hall.'

‘So the rest are being held in Hotel Papa?'

‘I don't know – they reckon that three or four thousand people are involved. The police are waiting for Eyam and the core group, then they'll make their move.'

‘Have you thought about that, George? Does it occur to you that these powers are being used to protect Temple from Eyam's charges?' He looked at him but got no response. ‘You'll be required to answer for the government's actions by the end of the week, if not the end of the day. I guarantee you that. So you better think through what you're going to say. You better know what you think, too; where you stand as a person on that. Just because they can listen to people's conversations and arrest them without good reason doesn't mean they should.'

‘I hear you, Philip,' he said without looking in the slightest bit admonished. ‘But—'

‘But nothing! Where's Temple now?'

‘In his study.'

Cannon went straight there and found June Temple waiting outside. ‘You can't go in,' she said brightly. ‘He won't even let me in.'

Cannon moved past her and opened the door. Temple stared at him. Ferris, Shoemaker, Alec Smith and his head of policy unit Thomas Sartin turned their heads.

‘Hello, Philip,' said Temple. ‘What can I do for you?'

‘I gather you're dispensing with my services.'

‘You will appreciate that I am rather busy at the moment.' The voice was clipped, the eyes void of feeling.

‘How long have I worked for you?'

‘This is not the time,' said Temple. ‘I'm leaving for the palace in the next five minutes.'