DG sighed again, this time more loudly, usually a sign that his thoughts were about to find vocal expression. They were in Putney now, about to cross the river. DG said, ‘I think we’ve got a bit of a problem on our hands.’
Beth nodded; there was no need for him to say what the problem was. She waited patiently and at last he added, ‘It could be very difficult for them both.’ He threw up a hand to indicate his own ambivalence. ‘I mean, there’s nothing stopping them now, is there?’
‘I suppose not,’ said Beth.
‘Though my father used to say “forbidden fruit looks less attractive once it’s off the tree.”’
Beth gave a small snort. ‘With all respect to your father, I don’t think the mutual attraction’s going to diminish. It’s other things that will get in the way.’
DG fingered his tie soberly. ‘Like what?’
‘Like guilt, unjustified though it might be. And I suppose the fear that what you’ve wanted so long could finally be yours.’
‘Fear?’
‘Yes. Not that it won’t turn out to be what you wanted, but that somehow you don’t deserve it. They say long-term prisoners are often terrified when their release date approaches. It’s just too much – the prospect of having what you’ve desired for so long is too daunting.’
‘You think it could be that bad for those two?’
Beth shrugged. She was paid to understand people, but had long learned that such understanding was precarious, and never to be assumed. She said, ‘I’d like to think not.’
‘But you’re not sure,’ said DG, and it wasn’t posed as a question. ‘In which case their work will almost certainly be affected. So I think they might profit from a break.’
Beth must have looked horrified, as if he had suggested ordering the two to go off together for a week’s leave in Paris, for he added hastily, ‘I mean a break from each other.’
‘Oh,’ said Beth with relief.
‘Yes,’ said DG.
What now? she thought warily. Personnel and postings were her responsibility, and he rarely interfered directly. But now she could see he had made his mind up. She didn’t want an argument, so she hoped she’d be able to go along with whatever he’d decided.
He said emphatically, ‘I think Liz should be posted – at least temporarily, while Charles settles back in at work. There’s a lot for him to do, you know,’ he said, almost accusingly, as if he thought she might think he was being unnecessarily harsh.
‘Where do you want to put her?’ she asked. Counter terrorism, she imagined. That’s where Liz had been before. Working for Charles when he had been director there.
‘We’ll have to work that out,’ he said, rather to her surprise. If he’d already decided, as she suspected he had, he clearly wasn’t ready to say. ‘It’s got to be something challenging. I don’t want her to think it’s in any way a demotion. That wouldn’t be fair on Liz.’
‘No, though—’ and Beth hesitated. When DG looked at her questioningly, she sighed. ‘She’s going to see it that way, I fear.’
‘Probably.’ DG shrugged lightly. ‘But that can’t be helped. And so long as we make sure her new posting is tough enough, she’ll soon get stuck in. She’s too good an officer not to.’
4
The call came out of the blue and Dave didn’t recognise the name.
‘Phil Robinson,’ the man on the end of the phone repeated, with an English-sounding voice. ‘I’m a warden with the National Trust. I was in contact with the RUC Special Branch in the past. I was told to ring you.’
Dave Armstrong had been in Northern Ireland for a couple of months. He was part of the team that was gradually filling up the smart new MI5 offices in Palace Barracks, the army HQ a few miles north of Belfast city centre. With power-sharing in Northern Ireland taking its first staggering steps, the new Police Service of Northern Ireland that had replaced the Royal Ulster Constabulary had handed over intelligence work in the province to MI5.
With that transfer of power went all the records of the large stable of agents – the human sources that had fed the RUC with information from inside the Republican and the Loyalist armed groups during the Troubles. It was information far too sensitive to retain in a police service that might find itself answering to government ministers or members of a police board who were once themselves part of the armed groups. The last thing the new police service wanted was a spate of revenge killings or score settling.
So Dave and a couple of colleagues in the agent-running section of the MI5 team had the job of sorting through the list of sources they’d inherited, closing down the many who were of no future use and getting to know the few who might continue to be of value. For although the so-called ‘peace process’ was well established and the security threat in Northern Ireland had changed, it hadn’t gone away. The Provisional IRA might have disbanded its armed groups and decommissioned its weapons but there were still those among its former ranks – and Loyalists on the other side of the divide – who did not support the peace process. For them the war was not over, which meant Dave and his colleagues were monitoring several renegade groups determined to do all they could to keep the war very much alive.
Phil Robinson. The name now rang a bell. It had stuck out of the list of old sources because of the National Trust link. It had seemed an unlikely connection, but Dave knew that National Trust properties had been the target of IRA attacks in the past. In 1973 two young IRA volunteers had blown themselves up in the Castle Ward estate with a bomb they were trying to plant. After that, the security forces had paid more attention to the Trust’s properties in Northern Ireland, and Robinson had been one of the people who’d been recruited to advise them.
‘How can I help?’ asked Dave now.
‘Something’s come up. I wonder if we could meet.’
‘Of course,’ said Dave, thankful to have something active to do. He was finding the routine job of reviewing old files and standing down old cases tedious. Maybe this would turn out to be nothing, but Robinson sounded sensible. So Dave said, ‘How about this afternoon?’
They had arranged to meet in the middle of the city. Dave took one of the operational cars from the garage and drove, working his way through the traffic into the heart of Belfast, busy even in mid-afternoon. When he’d first arrived, it had been a pleasant surprise to find the middle of the city lively, vibrant, humming with activity. The images Dave had grown up with – soldiers with automatic weapons, barricades and barbed wire, the apprehensive looks on people’s faces – had been replaced by teeming shops, pedestrian areas (from which cars were now banned for reasons that had nothing to do with security), and a buoyant nightlife. It was hard to believe that not so long ago the city had been to all intents and purposes a war zone. And although Dave’s job gave him a healthy scepticism about the new-found peace, the citizens of Belfast seemed too intent on enjoying ‘normal life’ to let things be derailed by a few murderous malcontents.
He was living in one of the flats the service leased in the suburb of Holywood, just outside Palace Barracks. It was an area of the town that had been comfortably safe in the Troubles but now, for someone living on their own like Dave, it was rather dull and lonely. He had a girlfriend in London, Lucy. They’d been together for two years, which for him was a long time. But it was difficult keeping it going when they were so far apart. He was too busy to hop over to England every weekend and there wasn’t much point in Lucy coming to see him if he had to work. But he was serious about her and that meant he wasn’t looking to meet girls in the bars of Belfast’s lively nightlife – he didn’t join his younger colleagues when they went out partying.