If you want your enemy to fail, give him something important to do. This stratagem—known for obscure historical reasons as ‘The Boris’—was one Di Taverner set store by, and if Oliver Nash wasn’t exactly an enemy, he was the kind of ally you wanted ground into submission whenever possible. Technically, the Chair of the Limitations Committee argued First Desk’s case before Treasury and the Cabinet in general; in practice, as one of Diana’s predecessors had pointed out, Chairs can wobble. Sometimes you had to saw a length off a leg. And Di Taverner had no qualms about cutting Nash off at the knees, but there were ways and means. It made sense to balance the cruel with the kind.
Nash made his entrance with his usual lack of aplomb; dexterity he might have in spades when it came to diplomatic wrangling, but in actual physical terms, he had the grace of a boat going sideways. Lady Di had visions of him crashing through her glass wall, gifting the boys and girls on the Hub a legend they’d never forget, but apart from a brief tussle with the visitor’s chair, and a nudge to her desk which rattled its drawers, he made harbour without incident. Despite the weather, he looked warm. It occurred to her that he always did, but then, he carried enough padding to make an Arctic outing plausible.
Seated, comfortable, he spoke. “This morning.”
“I thought the vicar spoke well,” she said. “Nice balance between service for his country and tactful lack of detail. You know Cartwright’s neighbours thought he was in Transport?”
“Wonder what they made of the acrobatics. A disgruntled commuter paying his disrespects?”
“Families,” said Diana. “I put it about that the grandson’s a little . . . emotional.”
“A little emotional? What would having a breakdown look like? Digging the corpse up and doing a waltz?”
She allowed him a small nod.
“So who was he, Diana? And what was he doing at Cartwright’s funeral?”
“His name’s Frank Harkness, and I have no idea.”
“One of us?”
“An American.”
“Oh, Christ. CIA?”
“Former.”
“Former? They use formers for wet work. Jesus, they didn’t have Cartwright killed, did they?”
“Unlikely. The head of CIA’s a voice of sanity in the US at the moment. Then again, it’s all relative. Would you like coffee, by the way? I should have asked.”
“Thank you. And maybe a biscuit? I skipped lunch.”
Nash’s battle with his waistline was approaching mythical status at Regent’s Park, though ‘battle’ might be overstating it, given Nash’s half-hearted approach to hostilities. His strategy mostly consisted of carrying on as normal and hoping the situation would improve. Besides, his definition of ‘skipping’ didn’t differ wildly from ‘postponing’; lunch might have been omitted from his diary, but an afternoon biscuit frenzy would soon have things back on track.
While waiting for the promised refreshments to arrive, he said, “Several people warned me about taking on this role, you know. They seemed to think there were easier ways of securing a seat in the Lords.”
“Oh, we’re on the side of the angels, Oliver. You just have to remember that angels do God’s dirty work.”
Nash nodded. “So if I wanted to know what was going on without knowing anything I’d have cause to wish I didn’t, how much would you tell me?”
Not much more than a paragraph, was Taverner’s considered opinion. The details of Harkness’s last UK appearance, shortly after the Westacres bombing, were still under wraps—not so much buried in the files for thirty years as left blowing in the wind, to be scattered for all time—and while Nash was entitled to be fully briefed, he was wise not to press the point. Deniability was next to Godliness in Westminster’s corridors, and Godliness itself second only to Unassailable Majority. And the last time anyone had seen one of those, the resulting messiah complex was still being grumbled about in The Hague.
But Nash was an ally, so here was something he could do: sit on a piece of information and make sure it never hatched.
“He worked liaison, between Langley and the Park. Only a little, and a long time ago. But afterwards, once he went freelance, he made use of certain . . . assets.”
A tray was brought in, and Nash’s mood improved.
“It turned out he’d helped himself from our dressing-up box before putting certain events in train,” Taverner continued when they had the room again. “Which made bringing charges a tricky business. It could so easily have looked like we’d been incompetent.”
Than which, as both knew, there were few looks more damning. It was a rare historical car crash that forensic reconstruction couldn’t make seem a successful emergency stop. And as in any line of business, a succeeding CEO who couldn’t make a bygone cock-up look like an opportunity missed wasn’t fit for management, and should take her retirement package, her annual bonus, her golden handshake and her non-disclosure kickback and tiptoe from the boardroom in disgrace. So no, Taverner wasn’t worried that she might seem incompetent; Claude Whelan had been in charge during the Westacres atrocity, and the associated buck had been branded with his initials long before it came to a halt. What Taverner would prefer not to become public was the nature of the deals she’d made to ensure that that particular deceleration didn’t inflict whiplash on her too.
Nash reached for a second Hobnob, making quite a good fist of looking like he was doing this unconsciously, his mind on other things. “And is that coming back to bite us? Because I don’t want to wake up tomorrow and find nasty headlines on my iPad. I didn’t much like it when they came neatly folded on good old-fashioned broadsheets.”
“No editor’s going to print that St. Len’s is the Spooks’ Chapel,” she said. “Not unless they want to find out what it’s like having their own mobiles monitored. So no, a minor brouhaha at a family event is all that happened. It’ll stay that way.”
“And Harkness?”
“Wheels are in motion.”
“Just so long as they don’t come off.” Nash leaned back in his chair. Were it not for the smudge of chocolate on his upper lip, he’d have looked the model of an executive decision-maker. “Because the Service isn’t in good odour at present. Too many missteps, too few triumphs. While acknowledging that your own tenure’s still in its infancy, the PM isn’t convinced that a corner’s yet been turned.”
“She’s rejected my working paper,” Taverner said flatly.
“It’s not a good time, Diana. The cupboard is bare. Now is not the moment for a root-and-branch overhaul of operational practices, however crucial you feel that might be.” He glanced at the plate of biscuits, but successfully glanced away again. “Between ourselves, playing wait-and-see might be no bad thing. The PM’s stamp of approval hardly comes with a lifetime guarantee. It’s no secret she wasn’t so much made leader as handed a janitor’s uniform. Once Brexit’s been finalised, and her job looks less like an excrement baguette, someone more competent will step into her breeches. Then, perhaps, the ball will be back in your court.”
“Our court, don’t you mean?”
“I’m on your side, Diana. You know that.”
“Good to hear. But we don’t just need new balls, we need our racquet restrung. I’m trying to safeguard the nation, Oliver. That’s not a good area to penny-pinch on. And it’s not as if we’re currently standing shoulder to shoulder with our sister services.”
“Our European allies aren’t going to throw us to the wolves just because we’re looking for trading partners elsewhere.”
“Maybe not. But nor are they going to let us sit at their tables if they think we’re best buddies with China, or Kazakhstan, or whoever we end up swapping glass beads with. The borders have shifted. We need good, old-fashioned, on-the-ground intelligence, backed up with the appropriate hardware. We can’t be keeping our fingers crossed that the neighbours’ll lend us theirs when the chips are down.”