There was a knock at the door. “Are you all right in there?”
“Oh, we most surely are,” Judd called. “Vacating now.” He looked at Diana. “Unless you need to . . . ?”
She shook her head, not trusting herself to speak.
“Righty-ho then. Back to the fray.”
As if he’d choreographed it in advance, Tina Turner’s “The Best” was powering the dance floor as they walked back up the stairs.
Pitchfork was what they were talking about, because Pitchfork was what they were, or had been. No: were. A hard lesson Avril had learned, that you didn’t stop being part of something just because it was over. However much you’d changed in the years between.
And the years had made their mark on this quartet. Al Hawke least of them, outwardly; there remained something of his near-namesake in his bearing, in his nose too. He was tall, and age hadn’t bent him yet; there was still strength in those arms, power in those legs, and his eyes were as clear and cold as a frozen lake. In his grey chinos, white shirt and dark jacket—tonsured like a monk—he looked, and still moved, like a man with purpose, someone in whose way you’d not want to be standing. But an element of doubt had moved in with the passing years. If Al was still the man she’d want watching her back, should such a need return, he was no longer capable of the feats of stamina that had once been his trademark. And while this was hardly a surprise, or shouldn’t have been, the fact that he too had grown aware of this pained her. The Als of this world should remain convinced of their strength. It was one of the things that made them Als.
As for Daisy, even her lost years hadn’t stolen her beauty, though it lay below the surface now, hidden from casual glances. Hair that had been long and dark was short and grey, framing a pinched face that once had been softly rounded; her eyes, too, no longer glittered. The Irish lilt was gone. It had never been pure affectation—Daisy’s grandmother had been from Cork, and the accent was hers for the taking—but had been discarded now, as if she had shed anything that might anchor her to the past. Indeed, she might easily have shed her whole life, leaving an empty skin on the pavement. As ever, that memory provoked anger: that here was someone who had given the best part of herself to her country, and in the giving had ensured that lives were saved and buildings stayed standing; that there were bombs that had never gone off. And in return, here she was; a damaged person allowed to become lost. If they hadn’t reached her in time, she’d have ended her life in that dismal no man’s land below the overpass, as much a discard as the broken cars surrounding her. If not for us, Avril thought, and then thought: But who put her there to begin with?
Avril herself had grown old in her own way; not so much a diminishment, more a concentration. Or so she hoped. Certainly there had been no dilution of feeling. Emotions coursed through her the way they always had done, and there were days she opened her eyes in the morning and thought herself sixteen again. But this never lasted more than a second or two. And those days were growing rarer.
Whether CC still found within himself the remnants of his younger being, it was hard to say. Right now, he had the air of a tutor addressing a seminar group. They might have been young adults, wary of disappointing him.
“Pitchfork was the beginning of the end for us. All talk of Avvy being a Second Desk, of Al moving into security—”
“I never wanted that—”
“But it would have been a promotion, Al, and it went away. As for me, it was the last op I was given. Nobody said anything, but everyone knew, and the sooner I accepted it gracefully, the less embarrassment there was all round. And Daisy, well, I’m sorry, my love. It was a bad time, and none of us want to rehash it. But we were made pariahs, and why? Because we had a nasty job to do, and we did it well. Dougie Malone was a psychopath, but the gods in their glory decreed that we use him, and use him we did. And for that, we paid with our careers.”
“CC,” Avril said softly. “We know all this.”
“You’ll allow me my tendencies, love. One of them being a fondness for clarity.”
Al said, “Much more of this, and I’ll be opening that bottle before we’ve warmed the microwave up.”
“We’ll be drinking soon enough. But fine, let’s hurry along. Like all operations good and bad, Pitchfork came to an end of its useful life, we all know why.”
“Good Friday.”
“Yes, thank you, Good Friday came and went, and in its aftermath the powers that be heaved a sigh of relief and put Pitchfork out of our misery. With full honours. Charles Partner was First Desk, and signed off on it himself. David Cartwright was there, as were the minister, the Cabinet Secretary, a lawyer or two. The meeting was Mozart level, the highest classification at the time, which meant no minutes were kept. The recordings were wiped, no transcript made. Not even a record of who was present. This nasty slice of history was buried deep as it would go, and curses muttered over its remains. In a better-arranged world, Pitchfork would never have been mentioned again. The very word would have dropped from the dictionaries. But that’s not what happened, was it?”
He gazed round: the expectant tutor. His students refused to cooperate.
“I’m to do all the work, eh? All right. What happened was, the rumour factory got into business. Mutterings on Fleet Street. The Sunday Times investigation. Panorama. All of it accompanied by absolute rebuttals in the House and complete stonewalling outside of it. As for the Park, well, the Park did what the Park does and denied Pitchfork absolutely, dismissing the rumours that the Service had aided and abetted a psychotic murderer as sectarian venom designed to undermine the Agreement. While we were cast out into the cold, because nobody, and especially not the Park, likes having reminders of its guilt hung round its neck like a four-headed albatross.” He paused. The other three heads of the burdensome bird remained fixed as they were: Daisy’s staring into space, Al’s looking straight at him and Avril’s concentrating on the floor, though likely seeing something that wasn’t carpet. “Then time’s winged whirligig brung in its changes, and one sacred day Dougie Malone was killed, thanks be to God, and in the ten years since the whole topic’s dropped off the agenda, which hasn’t improved our situation any. And what I’m wondering now is—what I’m wondering now is, have the three of you been listening to a word I’ve said?”
It was Al who answered. “That we have.”
“And?”
There was more mutinous silence.
“I said—”
“We heard you,” said Al. He glanced at Avril.
Avril said, “‘Not even a record of who was present.’”
“I’m glad you were paying attention.”
“And yet you told us who was there.”
From outside came the noise of a wailing child, carried past their window at the speed of a trundling pram.
Al said, “How, exactly?”
CC, no longer the rambling tutor but the professional fact deliverer, said, “The late David Cartwright, presumably unknown to anyone but himself, recorded the proceedings. He kept the tape hidden in a box-safe among the books in his library. It turned up at college a few weeks ago when his library was delivered there.”
“And you’re the only one who knows about it?” Avril said.
“About the contents, yes.”
“But not the box?”
CC said, “His grandson knows. There’s a smart girl working in the library, she put him on to it. But as far as they’re concerned, the box has been destroyed, and all it held was dirty pictures.”
“That’s weak,” said Avril.
“It only has to hold a little while.”