death or, at least, total disablement. It followed that the cadaver could not, in the pathologist's opinion, have then mounted a railing or a wall and pitched himself into the river. An intervening paragraph stated that the injury had not been sustained during the cadaver's journey down the river. The half-page report concluded: 'The blow was probably effected with the heel of a hand by a man of considerable strength and with a knowledge of where to strike. Assume he is trained or has familiarized himself with the techniques of unarmed combat, as taught to Special Forces. Conclusion: Murder.'
After anxiously telephoning the chief investigation officer, a civil servant agreed to follow the unusual and possibly illegal road of withholding the post-mortem's findings sine die. Rank was pulled. The civil servant was left in no doubt as to the importance of the connections of the CIO, and his Whitehall influence, and took a sensible course. The pathologist's conclusion would not enter the public domain.
Hardly a month went by without the CIO telling colleagues: 'There's no point having authority if you're not prepared to exercise it.' The final twisting of the civil servant's arm, close to verbal breaking-point, was the CIO's clear message that the findings represented a matter of national security.
Both reports, technical and layperson's, were locked away.
'You come with a backpack of recommendations.'
'I didn't put them there.'
The chief investigation officer, Dennis Cork, poured tea from a silver pot into a bone-china cup. He held up the milk jug, an invitation, but across the desk there was a shake of the head. He pointed to the lemon slices, but there was a hand-gestured refusal. He passed the black tea to his guest. It was passed back.
' I'll take three sugars, please.'
Three sugar cubes went into the cup. It was returned, then stirred vigorously. 'Thank you – it's the way my father always took it.'
'The recommendations wrap round, and protect, a considerable reputation.'
'That's for others to say… and I don't believe compliments, sincere or otherwise, ever contributed much.'
The CIO liked him. His office was temperature-controlled: a new system he'd had put in when the suite was refurbished – at expense – enabled him to be shirt-sleeved and comfortable. He thought it displayed eccentricity and character that the guest still wore the heavy tweed jacket and the buttoned waistcoat with its watch-chain. They were bright eyes facing him, a little rheumy with age, but they were hard, and when they were fastened on him he found them difficult to meet.
'You've read yourself in?'
'I've read as much as I can in two and a half days of a three-year investigation.'
'It's wounded us.'
'When a man like that walks it's always hurtful, particularly if you have to account for the expenditure.'
If the CIO had been looking to be rewarded with sympathy he would have been disappointed. He doubted this man was big on commiseration. It was hardness he wanted, and chilling coldness – and leadership. He pressed on. 'You are fifty-nine years old, facing retirement. You have done us the kindness of travelling south at short notice, personal inconvenience, and now I am asking you – it is a request to spend a few weeks, maybe a month, of your last year with us, to squat down here. A last tilt at Packer while the iron's still moderately warm, if you know what I mean. If it all goes cold then it might be years before I can justify the same level of resources to target him – a final throw. Will you?'
It was a plea for help. He was offering the best and most responsible job in the Service, and the most difficult. Short of getting down on bended bloody knee he could hardly have gilded that particular lily further. The guest pondered, took his time. It seemed an age. The CIO drummed carelessly at his desk top with a pencil. A frown had cut the man's forehead; his fingers were locked together and creaked as he opened and closed the palms of his hands. Then he sipped the tea, and made up his mind.
'My way, without let or hindrance.'
'Any way you want, within the law. I don't know how often you'll get back-up there… '
'They'll still be there when I've finished.'
The CIO imagined mountains and sea cliffs that were as remote and inhospitable as the eyes that were again locked on him. The file told him this dour man spent his weekends away on a peninsula up the north-west coast from Glasgow. He supposed, a flight of fancy, that the terrain and the seascape, harsh and without charity, had moulded the character of the man. The response was a challenge.
'It'll be a new team.'
'Agreed.'
'Chosen by me, from outside London, from outside the Custom House.'
'Agreed.' He started to beam his charm. 'But with one exception.'
'I'm not hearing you.'
He hadn't wanted to recruit an easy man to take over Sierra Quebec Golf. He wanted a man who was contrary, awkward and dogmatic, a man who bullied.
'A new team from outside London, chosen by you, is what you'll get – with one exception.'
'I'm not a negotiator.' The response, rasped back, was immediate.
'The record says, which is why you're here, that you don't compromise. The one exception – I think you should consider it – was described to me as 'an arrogant shite'. At least meet him.'
Joey Cann sat alone in the room, with the empty lockers, clean walls and blank computer screens, and waited. He did not know what to expect.
Chapter Four
His head rested on his hands in front of the screen. He heard the door open and the beat of heavy shoes on the floor. He felt the presence of the man behind him.
'Are you Joey Cann?'
'That's right.'
'The name's Douglas Gough – Dougie to friends, but slow to make them.'
He had used a cold, pebble-rattling voice. It took Joey a few sharp seconds to realize why there was no warmth. They were not friends, pals, chums, mates.
He had been told during the phone call bringing him in, from the CIO's personal assistant, that a new team would reactivate Sierra Quebec Golf, and that he was to meet, and brief, the team-leader replacing Finch. He thought that the banter, wit and crack of the old team was dead. He turned to face Gough and saw no welcome offered him.
'I'm lumbered with you.'
'Don't expect me to apologize.'
'I was told I needed you because you're the archivist.'
'I know more about it than anyone else.'
'And that you're an arrogant shite.'
' I do my job as best I can.'
'The 'best' is only adequate. Go short of the best and you're out on your neck.'
'Thank you.' He meant it. Joey felt a surge of gratitude and relief. In his room, over the weekend, he had lain on his bed, toyed with a takeaway, sipped and not enjoyed his beers, and imagined a life divorced from Albert William Packer. Anything, he'd thought, other than the work around Packer would be second-rate.
He noticed the scrubbed clean, babylike, out-of-doors complexion of Gough; the skin on his cheeks, veined, was the same as his father's down on the estate in Somerset. The shoes, polished and cracked, were the same as his father wore, and the suit when his father went up to the house to meet with the owners. There was the scrape of a match then the face was diffused behind pipesmoke.
A gravelled question. 'How did you come in, Joey?'
'I walked to the Underground, took a tube from Tooting Bee to Bank, then walked.'
'Did you see any soldiers?'
