The Bell Ringers (55 page)

She went through some swing doors and reached a desk where an usher directed her to the first door in the corridor on her right. A little beyond the committee room was a lavatory, which Kate entered. She tore off the coat and maternity smock, stuffed the back support into a flip-top bin, then removed the make-up with some moistened wipes and splashed her face with cold water. Having run a comb through her hair and straightened her jacket and shirt, she checked herself in the mirror and returned to the procedural calm of the corridor. A murmur of voices came from inside Committee Room Five. She cracked open the door and felt a tug from inside. An usher's face appeared with a finger to his lips. He pointed to a place in the public benches. She sat down, closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, willing her heart to stop pounding and her head to clear.

She looked up. The panelled room was large, with a high ceiling and several chandeliers that were switched on because the storm meant that little daylight came through the windows on her left. The fourteen members of the committee sat on three sides of a square with the
chairman, a thin-faced man in his mid-forties called Nick Redpath, and the committee staff occupying most of the middle. In front of them were a table and three chairs from which witnesses gave evidence. At the moment there was just one – a woman in a vivid orange top was answering a question on something that she had just read out.

All Kate's misgivings came to the fore. She had abandoned any idea of seeing Eyam in Committee Room Five, and without the documents it would be impossible to claim the committee's ear before the election was called. The committee itself seemed hardly the liveliest of bodies: the atmosphere in the room was inert, and it was clear that things were slowly grinding to a halt. The MPs wanted to be away to the constituencies and the peers were resigned to their enforced holiday. But for the bird-like energy of the chairman, who pecked at the evidence, invited observations and generally tried to keep everyone on their toes, the hearing might simply have expired. From the remarks offered from different sides Kate tried to gauge those who might be her opponents when she came to speak. She noticed an elderly woman studying her hard with animated, shrewd eyes. Kate craned her head to see
Baroness Somers
printed on a nameplate. The woman wagged a finger at a clerk, spoke to him and handed him a note, while gesturing in Kate's direction. ‘Lady Somers wants to know if you are Miss Koh,' he said when he arrived at her side.

She read the note.
‘Indicate when you want to be called if we are still going ahead. Where's PK?
' Kate looked up and opened her hands in answer to the question about Kilmartin, but gave Somers an encouraging nod nevertheless.

The chairman saw all this and put a crooked finger in the parting of his hair where it remained for a few seconds while he considered his notes. He looked up at the witness. ‘Well, I think we have learned a great deal this morning from you, Ms Spicer, and I thank you for giving us the benefit of your knowledge.' As the witness rose, his gaze moved to his right. ‘Lady Somers, I understand you are anxious for the committee to hear evidence on this subject from a Miss Koh, which you say is compelling. Is that correct?' The committee members began to mutter amongst themselves and look with puzzlement at their papers.

‘Indeed,' she said slowly. ‘I want to make a few remarks before we
hear Ms Koh. Firstly, Mr Chairman, I thank you for your kindness and your trust. Over the course of the next hour or so you may have cause to regret both.' She paused and looked at the faces round her, then she began to speak, by turns warning, beseeching, craving indulgence and playing to every conceivable vanity in the room until the point was reached when, seemingly at the end of her personal supply of oxygen, with her head sinking to her chest and her voice dwindling to a whisper, she reminded the committee that in these last moments as it was presently constituted it possessed a solemn obligation to the name, Joint Committee on Human Rights. ‘The JCHR is where the two Houses of this Parliament meet: we are joined in the defence of democracy. I would ask members to stay your hand, reserve judgement and listen as never before.' Then she looked straight at Kate and gave a nod. Kate rose and walked to the witness table, leaving behind the dread and panic that she'd felt in the last few minutes. She sat down, folded her hands on the table and leapt into the void.

Ten minutes before, another speech had come to an end in Downing Street. The prime minister had talked without drawing breath about his vision and the merits of his government – the project, as he called it, to inaugurate an age of firm and fair government, where rights are a privilege accorded only in return for manifestations of responsibility. Cannon had heard it all before; indeed many of the phrases came from his own pen, though now it all seemed rather sinister. From the corner of his eye, he watched the hands of the clock moving gradually from ten thirty-five to ten forty. It was like holding his breath underwater. Then, exactly tweny minutes after Temple had launched into his homily, he allowed his eyes to drift from Cannon to the door, which opened without a knock. Dawn Gruppo came in and said that Buckingham Palace were postponing for half an hour. ‘They're telling you who's boss,' she remarked.

‘Quite right,' said Temple, slapping his knees lightly, ‘a little more time is just what we need, Philip.'

But the operation to delay Cannon and keep the document about TRA in the room was over. Smith came through the open door with two men. One said to Cannon, ‘We'd like you to come with us, sir.'

Cannon snorted a laugh and turned to Temple, shaking his head. ‘Special Branch? You surely can't be serious, prime minister.'

But Temple had done his usual trick of removing himself from what was happening and was now skimming a paper just handed to him by Gruppo.

‘The computer has been secured, prime minister,' said Smith. ‘Nothing has been sent from it or Mr Cannon's telephone in the last forty-five minutes. We presume that he only has the hard copy because there is no trace of it on his home computer, which has been accessed remotely. There have been no outgoing calls from his home in that time either, or from his wife's mobile.'

Temple nodded, then the Special Branch officer who had spoken moved to where Cannon was sitting. ‘We believe that you have in your possession certain classified documents that you plan to make public. This would be a breach of the Official Secrets Act. We also have reason to suspect that you were instrumental in the unlawful release of a woman held under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004.'

Cannon drew the document from his inside pocket and flourished it. ‘By all means have it – the more people who read it the better.' He clambered to his feet and handed it to the officer, then looked at his watch. ‘A copy left the building by messenger an hour and a quarter ago, after I discovered that you'd blocked my phone. I imagine George Lyme is already answering questions on it.'

Temple's eyes flashed at Gruppo. ‘Get Bryant Maclean on the phone: I want to speak to him personally.' His gaze levelled at Cannon and he was about to say something when Jamie Ferris stormed into the room. ‘We've just started tracing two phones that we are now certain are being used by Peter Kilmartin and Kate Lockhart. Both are now switched off, but it is clear from the conversations over the last week that these two are at the centre of this conspiracy. We know they spent last night in the British Museum and understand that a number of packages were delivered to them during the night.'

‘In the British Museum?' said Temple stupidly.

‘Kilmartin has contacts there.'

‘Where's Eyam?'

‘We don't know. Possibly with them. The phone we were monitoring
is turned off also. Still, we now have a complete picture of all the people involved in the core group.'

‘What about the hotel conference centre?'

Ferris look perplexed. ‘The meeting began at nine thirty but the strange thing is that they're actually talking about bell ringing. They're listening to recordings and attending workshops. We can't arrest hundreds of campanologists.'

Cannon smiled. Why didn't they get it? Why didn't they realise that Parliament had been Eyam's target all along? He still didn't give Kilmartin and Eyam much chance: Parliament would be all but useless to them once Temple had made his short journey up the Mall. Everything depended on what Temple decided to do in the next five minutes – leave for Buckingham Palace immediately or remain in Number Ten and try to sweet-talk Bryant Maclean into suppressing, or at any rate delaying, the two facts that TRA had come from a government laboratory and that the Civil Contingencies Act had been invoked unnecessarily. In the envelope sent to Maclean's man, Cannon had included a few lines about those detained at Hotel Papa under the act.

There was only one logical choice for Temple. A few days ago Cannon would have unhesitatingly guided him to the right decision, but he was disinclined to help just now because he was being steered from the room by one of Alec Smith's heavies. This time Temple would have to work it out for himself.

The skies had become even blacker outside Parliament and more light was required for the two automatic cameras that filmed the proceedings from above the chairman's head and from the back of Committee Room Five. A technician switched on lamps either side of the cameras. A small red light on the camera in front told her that she was being filmed and that anyone who was looking for her needed only to glance at one of the many screens in the building.

As she gathered her thoughts a few people left from the public benches behind her, and the lone journalist at the press table by the window closed a notepad and slid from his chair.

‘I thank the committee for allowing me to give evidence,' she said. ‘I want to start with a story. In every case I've ever handled as a lawyer in
New York, there was always a story at its heart. However complicated or technical the issues appeared to be, the story was always about human nature, whether ambition, envy, lust for power, love of money or straightforward frailty. My story today contains many of these traits. It is about a civil servant who occupied some of the highest posts in government and was the trusted confidante of the prime minister.' She stopped and looked around. ‘All those who knew or worked with this man prized his advice and penetrating intelligence. His career was brilliant; he was young and personable and had everything to look forward to. Then he learned about a secret programme known only to a few, which his conscience told him was an offence against the country's traditions of liberty. Risking everything, he answered questions on this programme in a parliamentary committee very much like this one.'

She spoke clearly and simply. Her gaze swept the room, trying to engage the members of the committee, but was met mostly with blank stares. One or two were beginning to get restless. An MP named Jeff Turnbull leaned back in his chair with a liverish expression and asked, ‘Mr Chairman, why are we wasting valuable time listening to a story?'

‘Well, I am happy to listen to Ms Koh's story,' said a man with raffish sideburns and a bow tie who sat behind the nameplate for the Earl of Martingale. ‘But I
would
like to know what this secret is.'

She smiled at him but did not lose the seriousness in her voice. ‘This civil servant gave evidence about a system known as SPINDRIFT or DEEP TRUTH, which secretly monitors everyone in the country and is responsible for untold errors, persecution, punishment and political control. That was his secret.' Now it was out she had to put as much on record as possible and she sped through Eyam's case – the origins of the system, its covert installation and ever-extending reach, the use of census records and social networking sites, its reliance on phone, ID card and travel databases and finally the hidden payments to Eden White's company. Each point moved effortlessly to the next, each stage in the summary that had just magically crystallised in her mind was now emphasised by precise brush strokes made by her forefinger and thumb.

It took no more than a few minutes to transform the proceedings of Committee Room Five. The room was electrified. Some members of the
committee were almost levitating with indignation. Others looked aghast. And behind her she heard the room filling with those who had caught what she said on the monitors around Parliament.

‘Can we have some quiet, please,' said the chairman. ‘Ms Koh, I think I am conveying the views of this committee if I say that the allegations you are making have nothing to do with the matter in hand, and are an abuse of parliamentary privilege.'

‘Where's your evidence?' demanded Turnbull.

‘Who sent you?' shouted another member.

Kate looked at Lady Somers as someone called for her to be dismissed. The old lady winked at her and made a little sweeping gesture with her hand, as if discreetly encouraging a child on sports day.

‘No,' Kate said.

‘What do you mean – no?' asked the chairman.

‘No, I will not be dismissed.'

‘That is not up to you,' replied the chairman. ‘You have one last chance to substantiate and make relevant your testimony.'

‘This is not my last chance; it is yours. A general election is about to be called to stop this evidence being heard. We have every reason to believe that the emergency powers brought in on Monday were an attempt to stifle what I and others have to say.'

‘Now I know I'm in a madhouse,' expostulated Turnbull. ‘These are just paranoid fantasies about a police state. What next?'

‘You may well ask what is next,' she said calmly. ‘We don't live in a police state but it is coming and you, sir, are one of the very few people who can stop it.'

At this Turnbull got up and said he was leaving. Two others also left their chairs, a woman who had said nothing and a young government apparatchik who wore a badge in his buttonhole. Kate sat back and waited for the tumult to die down. She heard a voice behind her and turned to find Kilmartin bending down. ‘Here's your evidence,' he said, putting the book in her hands. ‘And Carrie's got the library to make photocopies of the main documents. Should be enough to go round. There's more coming.' He put the stack of paper on the chair beside her.