‘Good. Just ring if you need me.’ And with that she was off, vanishing as briskly and as efficiently as Jimmy Dexter had when the bomb had gone off. It had been like a vacuum inside Harry Sizewell’s head, everything being sucked in toward the center, more implosion than explosion, and there had been a smattering of warm rain, light, dust, heat. A moment’s silence, and then the first scream, male, but piercing, and the recognition of carnage, a shattering of the whole scheme of things.
The Home Secretary was elsewhere, probably in a more private room than this private room, or a more private hospital even. But then his injuries were greater than Sizewell’s, if the media were to be believed. Burns, it was said. A team was being flown in from Belfast, best burn specialists in Europe. Well, one could see why. And Jimmy Dexter sprinkled over the turf like so much fertilizer, nourishing the very tree that they had gone there to plant. So there would be a vacant post for someone, and surely he would be the obvious choice from the media point of view.
‘And now today’s other news...’
He pressed the gadget and the television burned out to darkness. Yes, there had been a bout of immediate nausea, followed by a frightening darkness. Dear Lord God, I’m going to die, he had thought, though the notion had seemed quite absurd. In any event, he had wakened to searing white echoes, and then had been given gas, slipping away again, wanting to kick and to shout and, above all, to stay awake. I may never wake up again, you bastards.
MURDERING BASTARDS, the headline had screamed.
Well, of course they were. To pick such an open place, such a public spot. But such a sweet target: how could they have refused the opportunity? There had been security, of course, there always was, but how secure could one be? It was a fact of life that politicians were targets. It was part of the hard-won image. As soon as one gained one’s seat, there were policemen on one’s doorstep, opening car doors, one step ahead and one step behind during every trip. It gave one a sense of power, and Sizewell had always enjoyed it. It was a mark of attention, a badge of his importance in the state.
All the same, intelligence should have caught wind of this one. He knew that he would have to have a few words with his old friend Partridge. But first there was another statement to compose. I would like to be seen as a symbol perhaps of this country’s determination never to give in to...
He thought again of the phone calls and the threats, of the snooping newspaperman. This would settle his hash. Let him try and dig up dirt on me now, thought Sizewell, no one would dare publish it. He lay back contentedly, fingering his singed eyebrows delicately. Partridge would know what to do, he was sure of that.
Partridge was on the hunt, hunting out his superior who had gone underground. Partridge knew that when the old boy needed to think, or to escape, the railway stations were often not enough for him, and he would find a half-decent platform on the underground and sit there, watching the ebb and flow of the day’s travelers, until he had made peace with himself. On a day such as this, though, he might just be of a mind to push his way right to the front of the platform, waiting until the scream of lights from the tunnel gave him the momentary courage to leap onto the rushing tracks.
Bond Street, Oxford Circus, Tottenham Court Road, Holborn, Russell Square, King’s Cross, Euston, Warren Street, and Goodge Street took him the best part of the morning, and by the end of it he had only a sense of utter hopelessness and a raging headache to show for his odyssey. The old boy could be anywhere. What was the use? He came up into blinding light, the Ascension-clear light of early winter. The air was as brittle as glass, and the paving stones were like permafrost beneath his feet. He bought the noon edition of the Standard and read of Harry Sizewell’s continuing recovery. Well, that was something anyway. God, what a mess this whole thing had been. What an utter shambles.
He knew of a small sandwich bar near the museum where he might have lunch before heading back (in a taxi perhaps: he could not face the underground). There were reports to be drafted, questions to be avoided (not evaded: he knew the difference), files to be unfiled and refiled, and the Harvest team to be summoned from their individual locations. All except Miles Flint. Where on God’s earth was he? Partridge had read the cryptic note from the mobile support unit: the arrest had been going to plan, but then there had been a skirmish, shots had been fired, and one of the suspects had escaped, taking agent Scott with him. What the hell did it all mean? Had Flint been kidnapped? Partridge had spent a great deal of the taxpayers’ money on telephone calls while he tried to find out. He had been bounced like a rubber ball from one extension to another, from one barracks to another, and always the person to whom he most wanted to speak was not available, was ‘still in the field,’ could not be contacted. What did they mean, ‘still in the field’? The operation should have ended days ago. It looked as though Circe had blown up in his face. And, as ever, Miles Flint was the fuse.
The receiver burning in his hand, Partridge had finally given up. For some reason a poem by Yeats came to him. He had never been one for poetry, but a few lines, rote-learned for school examinations, stayed with him: ‘Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.’ Well, he was damned if he was going to fall apart, though everyone and everything around him might. No, he would be the center, he would hold, he must.
He found the old boy in the sandwich bar, examining his shoes and his reputation, perhaps thinking both to be in need of repair. Partridge sat down at the scarred Formica-topped table.
‘Sir?’
‘Partridge, what are you doing here?’ The voice was tired out, like froth in the bottom of a cup. ‘Harvest went all wrong, didn’t it? We pulled them out too early.’
‘That happens, sir.’
‘It shouldn’t. We should have hung on. London in the middle of a bombing campaign, and we pull out of a terrorist surveillance.’
‘We may have a larger problem than that, sir.’
‘No sign of Flint yet?’
‘None, sir.’
‘What do you think?’
‘It could be anything, but the probability is that he’s been taken by the IRA, maybe even turned by them.’
‘He knows too much, you know. We can’t let them get anything out of him.’
‘I’m aware of that, sir. There are men in the field just now. They’ll find him.’
‘Then give them the order. Nobody must come out alive.’
‘That’s a bit—’
‘Nobody!’ The director seemed close to tears, but they were tears of anger. Things were moving away from him too fast, and he felt a sudden impotence.
‘Yes, sir,’ said Partridge, realizing for the first time just how close he was to the top job. The old boy would be lucky to last another week. Seven days only, at most. He had been summoned to Downing Street three times in the last five days. He was running out of answers.
‘Bloody Miles Flint,’ he said now, ‘where is he? What’s his game, eh? Just what’s his game?’
Twenty-Four
There were splendor beetles everywhere, which made for a fairly depressing homecoming. Look at them all, besuited and betied, the suits French, the ties silky soft but unobtrusive. Obtrusively unobtrusive. City shoes of polished leather clacking the length of the expensive streets, the streets of gold. There was nothing splendid in this show. Latin, splendere, to shine. But the splendor beetles buffed up to the nines, Buprestidae, their larvae fed on decomposing matter. There was always this furtive decay beneath the casual and splendent display. What secrets did they hide from the world, these busy businessmen, their shoes sounding like the rubbing together of insect legs? Everyone had their secrets, their little cupboards of treasure, private diaries locked away in bureaus, the pile of salacious magazines in the bottom of the wardrobe, the unquenchable taste for the illicit.