They were in a cellar, a damp empty room with exposed brick walls and a rough concrete floor. It was dark, almost dungeonlike, and Aidan began to feel apprehensive again. Fastened to one wall was a metal cabinet, which Malone opened with a key. He pulled down a switch and immediately with a high-pitched whirring noise the far wall of the cellar slowly moved to one side, revealing a room behind it.
This room was furnished comfortably, almost lavishly. The floor was carpeted in sisal, topped by a few small oriental rugs, and at the far end sat a mahogany partner’s desk, with a greenshaded desk lamp on one corner. Ceiling-to-floor bookcases held old leather-bound volumes and on the other walls hung landscape paintings.
The room could be the study of a wealthy, bookish man, but if that’s what it was, thought Aidan, why go to such effort to hide its existence?
‘Sit down,’ said Malone, pointing to a wooden chair that faced the partner’s desk. He sounded tense.
As Aidan sat down he heard steps on the stairs from the kitchen, then on the hard floor of the cellar behind him. Someone came into the room, and Aidan watched as the tall, thin figure of Seamus Piggott walked around the desk and sat down in the leather chair behind it.
‘Hello, Mr Piggott,’ said Aidan, managing a weak smile. He had spoken to the man only once, when he had first been taken on by The Fraternity, but he’d seen him several times when he’d been in the Belfast office on errands – to collect what he’d been told to call ‘materials’, or to return the padded envelopes of cash.
Piggott, with his rimless glasses and short cropped hair, looked like a professor and Aidan knew he was meant to be a brain box, a brilliant scientist, an aerospace engineer who when he was young back in the States had designed hand-held rockets, which the IRA had used to try to bring down British Army helicopters. But they said he was weird, too clever to be normal, and the way he was staring now – coldly, almost analytically, with an air of complete detachment – made Aidan understand why.
‘Are you happy in your work, Aidan?’ he said, his voice soft and almost toneless.
What was this about? Aidan didn’t believe that Piggott was interested in his job satisfaction. But he nodded vigorously nonetheless. ‘Yes. I am, Mr Piggott.’
Piggott continued to stare at him, and for a moment Aidan wondered if his answer had been heard. Then Piggott said, ‘Because as CEO of this organisation I need to feel my staff is fully on board.’
‘I am on board, Mr Piggott. I’m treated very well.’ Aidan was scared now and his mouth was dry.
Piggott nodded. ‘That’s what I’d have thought. Yet you’ve been heard complaining.’
‘Me?’ asked Aidan. Oh Christ, he thought, thinking of his indiscretions in Paddy O’Brien’s. Who on earth could have shopped him?
‘I won’t waste a lot of time on you, Aidan. You are a very small part of my operation, but even from you I require complete unquestioning loyalty and I haven’t had it. You’ve been complaining,’ he repeated. Piggott leaned forward in his chair, flipping a pencil onto the desk. ‘Why?’
Why what? Aidan almost asked, though he knew full well. And rather than trying to explain or deny it, he found himself saying, ‘I’m sorry, Mr Piggott.’
‘Sorry,’ said Piggott, his lips pursed as he nodded his head. There was something in this display of understanding Aidan didn’t trust. ‘Sorry’s a good place to start,’ Piggott added mildly, then his voice grew cold. ‘But it’s not where things end.’ And for the first time he took his eyes off Aidan and nodded sharply at the two other men.
As Aidan turned his head towards the Spaniard next to him, he felt Malone’s hand suddenly grip his arm. ‘Don’t—’ he started to protest, but now his other arm was gripped as well. The dark man grunted, looming over him.
‘What?’ Aidan asked, unable to keep the fear from his voice.
‘Give him your hand,’ said Malone.
And as Aidan raised his left hand from the arm of the chair, he found it gripped by the Spaniard’s hand. It felt as if his fingers were in a vice that was starting to turn. As the pressure grew Aidan gasped. ‘Stop—’
But the grip kept tightening. Aidan tried to pull his hand away but he couldn’t. As the pressure on his fingers increased, Aidan gave a cry, and then he felt and heard his third finger crunch as one of the bones broke.
Agonising pain filled his hand. The Spaniard let go at last, and the hand flopped like a rag onto the chair arm.
Tears welled up in Aidan’s eyes and he could barely breathe. He looked down at his fingers, red and compressed from the strength of the Spaniard’s grip. He tried to move them one by one. His third finger wouldn’t move.
Aidan leaned back in his chair, trying not to be sick. For a moment, the room was completely silent, then he heard the noise of a child, sniffling and sobbing. He realised he was making the sounds. Lifting his head up, he blinked to clear his eyes of tears, and found Piggott staring at him from across the desk. The man nodded, as if in a lab, satisfied that his experiment had proved successful.
Piggott stood up, brushing the sleeve of his jacket, as if to rid it of an unwanted piece of fluff. Without looking again at Aidan he came out from behind the desk and walked towards the open wall into the cellar. As his footsteps rang out on the concrete floor, he called back to Malone and the Spaniard, ‘Before you take him back to Belfast, break another one. We don’t want him to think that was just an accident.’
2
Liz Carlyle was surprised to find the church full. It sat in what had once been a proper village, but now formed one link in the chain of affluent suburbs that stretched south and west from London along the river Thames.
She guessed the church must be Norman in origin, judging by its fine square tower, though the prodigious size of the nave suggested a later expansion – the sheer number of pews reminded Liz of the wool churches of East Anglia, massive edifices created when there wasn’t much else to spend the sheep money on. Now it would normally be three-quarters empty, reduced to a tiny congregation of old faithfuls on most Sundays.
There was nothing reduced about this congregation, though. She reckoned from a quick count of the rows that there must be three or four hundred people present. She’d known there would be many colleagues from Thames House at this memorial service, for Joanne Wetherby had been with MI5 over ten years, and had never lost touch with the friends she’d made then (and of course her husband had continued with the service). The director general was here, along with director B, Beth Davis, responsible for all personnel and security matters. Virtually every other senior member of MI5 was present and a number from MI6. She noticed Geoffrey Fane, his tall, heron-like figure towering over his row. But what Liz hadn’t realised was how many friends, neighbours and family would also be here today.
Ahead of her she could just see Charles Wetherby in the front row, flanked by his two sons and others, presumably relations. There was a woman in the row behind them, smartly dressed in a dark-blue suit with an elegant black hat, who was leaning forward whispering to Charles’s younger son, Sam. She must be another relation, thought Liz.
She hadn’t seen Charles since Joanne’s death and she felt a sudden pang seeing him now, so obviously bereft. She had of course written to him, but she wished she could have done more than just send a few lines.
He’d written back, thanking her. The boys, he’d said, had been pillars of strength, though naturally he worried about them, and he’d be keeping a particularly keen eye on Sam, the younger of the two, still more boy than man. Charles ended by saying how much he was looking forward to returning to work.