‘Simply for security purposes,’ added the DG. He looked at his watch.
‘Of course, sir.’
‘Let me give you another drink.’ He took Stuart’s cut-glass tumbler from him and poured a careful measure of malt whisky, as a chemistry teacher might demonstrate how to handle some dangerous compound. It was nearly 5.40 p.m.: time for BBC 1’s early evening news bulletin. The DG went to the small TV set built into an antique bookcase. He switched on in time for an announcement about programme changes. Then came the news. The two men watched a short clip of film which showed the remains of the Wever cottage. Mrs Wever had been in the milking shed when the explosion occurred, and had escaped unharmed. She told the interviewer that her husband was not interested in politics, adding that the chicken farm was said to have been sited near an old US Army Air Force bomb dump. A spokesman for the local authority did not deny it, saying that an inquiry was being started. The next item concerned preparations for the Queen’s visit to Africa. The DG switched the news off. ‘I think it will be all right,’ he said. ‘Luckily we had one of our chaps in Thetford. He hurried along to have a word with Mrs Wever.’
‘Was there a wartime airfield near there?’ Stuart asked.
‘Bomb dumps do not necessarily have to be in close proximity to airfields,’ said the DG. ‘Anyway, it was the best story that Operations could cook up at an hour’s notice. If we can sustain the doubt for another twenty-four hours interest in the story will fade.’ He smiled and raised a hand to press a finger against the pink hearing aid concealed by his long hair. ‘What I still don’t know is why you got there early, Stuart.’
So that was it. ‘I was given no particular time to be there, sir. The written note my Los Angeles controller gave me just said that Franz Wever would be at his home from two p.m. onwards that day. In the event, it wasn’t correct; Wever was a devout churchgoer. Once a week he volunteered to clean the church.’
‘Is that so?’ said the DG, committing that departmental error to his memory. He smiled ‘Well, all I can say is that you are doing a grand job, Stuart. Keep at it, and try and give me something for the PM when she returns from the Heads of Government meeting. These politicians are a restless and impatient breed.’ The DG tipped the rest of his whisky and water down his throat and gave a grim smile. It was an unmistakable sign of dismissal. Boyd Stuart swallowed the rest of his malt and got up to leave.
‘Going?’ said the DG as if surprised. ‘Oh well, I imagine you have lots to do. Were you thinking of returning to Los Angeles immediately?’
Stuart opened the door. ‘Probably next week, sir.’
‘Well, you know best,’ said the DG, leaving Stuart wondering whether the DG thought his stay in London was too long or too short.
15
‘The DG gives me the creeps.’
‘Come back to bed, Boyd,’ Kitty said. ‘It’s two o’clock in the morning.’
‘I know he’s a nice family man who helps old ladies across the street and takes stray dogs home, and my ex-wife adores him, but he really gives me the creeps. Wever told me that our people had talked to him over and over again. The DG won’t admit it.’
‘Are you going to sit looking out of that window all night? What are you staring at?’
‘There are two men in a car outside the butcher’s on the corner. They’ve been sitting inside that green car ever since we came back from the restaurant.’
Kitty laughed. ‘Are you getting paranoid? Are you starting to imagine that little men are following you?’
He did not answer.
‘Boyd, I’m serious,’ she said. ‘It’s just not in character. Come to bed and forget it. In the morning the men will be gone, the car will be gone and you will have slept off the effect of that Spanish burgundy.’
‘The DG asked me why I was early going out to see that man Wever,’ said Stuart. ‘I didn’t tell him what time I got out there. I didn’t tell Operations. I didn’t tell my controller. I didn’t tell you. I didn’t tell anyone. How the hell would the DG know, unless he had someone following me from the airport?’
‘If it’s just hurt pride, I would forget it,’ said Kitty. ‘Internal Security run regular monitoring checks on everyone from time to time. There is no significance in your being followed from the airport. It’s nothing to get hysterical about, darling.’
‘Then let me tell you something that is worth getting hysterical about,’ said Stuart softly. ‘Suppose I hadn’t chanced across an old woman who happened to know that Wever was in church? Suppose I’d followed instructions to the letter: turned up a little later, gone straight to the Wever house, had a cup of tea with his wife and waited for him to come back. Then what?’
‘What are you trying to say, Boyd?’
‘Then it would have been me blown up with that bloody bomb! That’s what I’m trying to say, Kitty.’
‘Don’t get angry with me, Boyd.’
‘I’m all ready to get angry with someone. I narrowly missed being killed in a car in Los Angeles. And that was murder; I’m certain of it.’ He looked at Kitty ‘The commercial attaché’s assistant was killed. He was an outsider, Kitty. You know how much the department hates that.’
‘Yes, you told me.’
‘Someone phoned Wever. Someone phoned him and checked I was there before detonating that bomb.’
‘You don’t know what the caller told him; you said you couldn’t hear.’
‘He had a phone call,’ said Stuart slowly, carefully and with mounting anger. ‘There were a lot of yeses, and a few minutes after that the house was blown up by someone close enough to detonate a radio fuse.’
‘How can you possibly know it was a radio fuse detonated within sight of the house?’
‘Because I know the department, Kitty. I know how these things are done. And when I said Wever worked for us the DG didn’t bat an eyelid.’
‘MI5, you said.’
‘So the DG admits that “Five” is running Wever. We all know that the DG can make them leap through flaming hoops if he feels like it; and this job has all the clout of the PM behind him.’
Kitty King ran a hand through her hair. She was wide awake now, ‘But what for, Boyd. Tell me what for?’
‘Except for a minor miscalculation by the ordnance technicians, Wever would have disappeared, I would have disappeared and all that evidence you receipted tonight and put in the red safe would have disappeared too.’
‘Boyd!’
‘And just by some remote lucky chance, the department happens to have someone in Thetford this afternoon. Someone they can contact at a moment’s notice. Someone the DG can trust with the delicate task of putting a roll of pound notes into Mrs Wever’s mouth.’
‘Conjecture,’ said Kitty. ‘That’s largely conjecture.’ She sat up in bed.
‘Don’t switch on the light,’ said Stuart, speaking quietly and holding the curtain open so that he could see down into the street below.
Kitty forced a little nervous laugh. ‘Are you trying to tell me that your father-in-law arranged to have you killed? XPD, expedient demise; is that what you are saying?’
‘There’s no getting round the facts, Kitty.’
She leaned forward towards him but he didn’t turn to look at her. ‘The DG has no contact with any XPD orders, Boyd. You know the system; XPD orders come only on the personal authority of each individual Regional Ops. Chief, and are then countersigned by the DG’s deputy. It’s always been done that way. The DG has no say in it.’
Stuart let the curtain move slowly back into position, then he turned to look at her. ‘Yes, it’s always been done that way, Kitty, so that any DG can go before secret parliamentary committees and truthfully swear that he has no knowledge of expedient demise or any other authorized killings. I know how it’s all done, Kitty. Believe me I do.’