“Miss Queally, could you get maintenance to come up here with an oilcan?”
There was a sigh of impatience. “I’ll do what I can.”
“And can you bring in the file on the PCU?”
“Which one? There are so many.”
“Just dig out the latest. And brew some fresh tea, will you? I’m spitting feathers.” The portly Home Office liaison officer unsheathed himself from the chair and gave it an experimental wiggle. It squealed in protest. Sighing, he went to the window and looked down into the tiled Whitehall courtyard, at the palms and ferns, the pacing executives on their BlackBerrys. He saw the same view every day. It was like being in prison, only with more paperwork. It seemed he had spent his life peering out from cages: through the bars of his nursery pen at his family home in Norwich, through the mullioned windows of his prep school in Cambridge, through the stained glass of his college chapel in Bristol. He was happily institutionalized, and if someone was to open the door of his office and boot him unceremoniously into the outside world without his black umbrella and initialled briefcase, he suspected he would creep around the back of the building and return via the service bay, to remain in place until the day he died, after which he would be technically freed from his contract.
He knew, as soon as he heard the news, that Oskar Kasavian would be over to see him. He dreaded visits from the Home Office Internal Security Supervisor. Where Faraday bumbled and caused offence, Kasavian focused and targeted and made others fearful. He reminded his staffers of a Stalinist apparatchik preparing to erase malefactors from history. His laser glare made subordinates fidget, and his reports damned the innocent along with the guilty. Faraday stood at the window watching him crossing the courtyard on his way to the building, his coat flapping like a vampire’s cape. Was it pure coincidence that the pale sun chose this moment to cloak itself in cloud?
Faraday searched his desk for evidence of inefficiency, knowing that Kasavian would home in on his faults like an airport Alsatian sniffing out drugs. He tried to remember if the supervisor had a favourite biscuit (this trait alone providing an insight into the smallness of the civil servant’s mind) but came up empty, for he had never seen Kasavian nourished by anything other than night and misfortune.
In a fug of panic, Faraday searched his hard drive for anything untoward. Luckily, that embarrassing fracas after his off-colour remarks at the Down’s syndrome fundraising dinner, and his display of support during an NHS recruitment campaign for an organization funded by the tobacco lobby – those mistakes could be written off as mis-briefs. But the latest PCU mess was harder to dismiss. He was struggling with a way forward when the door whispered itself open and Kasavian glided in.
Oskar Kasavian had no time for pleasantries or platitudes, even as a wrong-footing device; he preferred to plunge in, shake things up and leave before the inevitable tsunami of blame and recrimination began. “I understand the Peculiar Crimes Unit is investigating Gail Strong. I assume you know who she is.”
“Yes, she’s the granddaughter of the Lord Commissioner of the Treasury and the daughter of the Minister for Public Buildings.”
“Well done. Before I come to ask how this happened, perhaps you could explain why you thought it was in the nation’s interest to allow this investigation to proceed without recourse to a higher authority.” He spoke slowly and clearly, like a judge pronouncing a death sentence.
Faraday had trouble following that train of thought. His palms were sweating and his jacket felt suddenly constricting. He wracked his atrophied brain for an answer but came up with nothing positive, because the truth was that it had happened before he was even aware of the circumstances. He had read about it in a free newspaper on the way to work, like everyone else. He knew that the most important thing to do now was appear confident and sure of his facts, so he stuttered and waffled.
“The thing is, none of us realized Miss Strong was directly involved. I mean, the PCU’s cases get flagged up whenever they come in, but the notes just cover the outline of the investigation, they don’t go into detail. Jack Renfield has refused to keep us apprised of the situation ever since we fell out with him. The first we heard about the extent of Miss Strong’s involvement was when the minister called.”
“I have to assume you understand the implications of this situation,” said Kasavian slowly. “Even you can’t be that stupid. There is a credit crisis. There are those who consider the minister’s daughter to be a reckless, dim, spendthrift little tart, photographed falling out of nightclubs while those who pay her father’s salary have their benefits cut.” Kasavian studied Faraday’s blinking face. “I’m making this too difficult for you, aren’t I? Let’s put it this way. Given the situation, do you think the general public will be for or against the minister when he tries to railroad through the latest round of spending cuts later this month?”
He watched Faraday’s mouth open and shut like a beached sea bass. “Still too complicated? Then let’s try this. What do you think will happen if you now try to divert the Peculiar Crimes Unit away from investigating the Right Honourable Gentleman’s daughter?”
A look of horror dawned on Faraday’s plump face.
“That’s right, we’ll be seen to be perverting the course of justice with the tacit approval of a government minister. An incredible insight into the workings of the public mind. And all because you didn’t act in time. So what happens next? Well, there are several possibilities, not including the one where we encourage you to fall on your sword.”
“It wasn’t my fault,” Faraday stammered.
“Of course not; your stupidity is largely genetic and a by-product of your education. I suppose I could let you flounder around looking for a solution, but I think it would be better for all of us if I tell you exactly what to do. First and most obviously, you’re going to remove Gail Strong from the investigation by shipping her off to some flyblown country where communications technology consists of two baked bean cans and a length of string. Then you’re going to discredit the Unit by getting them to pin the blame on the wrong person.”
“How will I do that?”
“By encouraging Arthur Bryant to run with his instincts. He’s as mad as a bat and will follow any lead you give him provided it makes no sense whatsoever. Come up with something that will appeal to his inner crackpot. Here’s a little starter for you. Robert Kramer is an opposition party donor. He pays them out of an offshore fund he set up with his accountant called Cruikshank Holdings. We’ve been looking to use that against him when the time was right. According to my sources, the PCU already thinks he’s the most likely suspect in the case because of his bad relations with his wife. Bryant has harboured suspicions about Kramer from the outset. Now you just need a way to confirm them.”
“You want to secure a conviction against a man who might be innocent?” asked Faraday, appalled.
“I didn’t say that. But it would suit everyone if he was arrested, whether it turns out that he’s innocent or guilty.”
“I’m not sure I understand – ”
“If he’s innocent, the Unit will be blamed for wrongful arrest, and I can act against them. If he’s guilty, we remove a source of party revenue, taint the system by association and find another way to blame the PCU for not acting sooner.”
“Why is it so important to you?” asked Faraday, undergoing a nanosecond of lucid thought. “Why are you so intent on closing them down?”
Kasavian looked as though he’d been struck in the face with a codfish. Could this insignificant little time- server actually have the temerity to be growing testicles? “Because,” he said, very slowly, as if explaining to a simple child, “there is no room in the government’s structure for a stalactite.”
“A stalactite?” Faraday repeated in confusion.
“A calcified accretion from years gone past. You can’t control these people. They stray off-message and destabilize the system.”
“Then why don’t we simply slash their budget?”
“What budget? Their salaries are minimal, their operational costs are negligible, they’re being studied by the IPCC as an economic test case and the Chief Inspector of Constabulary himself upholds them as a shining example of independent policing. With so much background attention on them, anything we do will be thoroughly examined, which is why you have to proceed with caution. There must be no trail back to us. Your safest bet is to employ an intermediary – and I think I have the very person you need.”
Kasavian wrote an email address on a slip of paper and handed it to Faraday. “Destroy that after you’ve entered it, and erase your file path after each electronic communication.”
