Tim Stevens - Jokerman

On the monitor, separate channels displayed Kasabian’s respiratory and pulse rates, blood pressure, and skin conductivity, the latter a measure of the amount of sweat she was exuding. Respiration was fourteen breaths per minute, pulse sixty-six beats over the same time period. Blood pressure was an unremarkable one hundred and twenty-two over seventy-eight. All told, they were the physiological measurements of a relaxed, fit adult. Only the skin conductivity was a little higher than normal. But the night was warm, the flat stuffy despite the air conditioning which Kasabian had switched on when they’d arrived.

Purkiss nodded to Vale, and they began.

‘Please state your name,’ said Vale, in his unhurried voice.

‘Maureen Agnes Kasabian.’

‘Your date of birth, please.’

‘Fourth of April, nineteen fifty-one.’

‘Are you at present the deputy director of the Security Service?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you own a dog?’

‘No.’

‘Have you ever been arrested?’

‘Yes.’

Vale continued in the same vein. These were the control questions, the ones they’d use to establish Kasabian’s normal physiological response when she answered truthfully. Purkiss watched the figures on the screen. A very slight increase in pulse and respiratory rate. Blood pressure held steady, as did skin conductance.

‘Were you born in Britain?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you ever been to Antarctica?’

‘No.’

‘Do you have any children?’

There was the faintest hesitation, enough to make Purkiss look up from the screen at Kasabian. Her face was impassive. She wasn’t looking at either of them, was just gazing straight ahead as she had been since the start of the test.

‘Yes,’ she said.

On the monitor, pulse and respiration were up, and blood pressure had risen to one twenty-eight over seventy-nine. Skin conductance was unchanged.

Interesting , thought Purkiss. She’s telling the truth. But the question threw her.

He wondered if Vale knew she had children. Purkiss hadn’t been aware.

After five minutes of further questioning, Vale glanced across at Purkiss, who nodded again. There was enough there for a baseline.

Vale said, ‘Ms Kasabian, I’m going to ask you a question now, and I want you to answer it with a lie.’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you the President of the United States of America?’

‘Yes.’

On the monitor, the respiratory rate reached eighteen. Within normal limits. The pulse crept up to seventy-six beats per minute. The blood pressure was one twenty-five over eighty. Skin conductance was up a little.

It wasn’t enough. Purkiss shook his head at Vale. They needed more.

Vale asked a few further questions to which a truthful response was required. On the monitor, Kasabian’s measures dropped back slightly.

Then Vale said, ‘Once again, I’m going to ask you a question and I want you to give a lie as an answer.’

‘Yes.’

‘While at university, did you have a sexual relationship with the former cabinet minister George Jenkins?’

Purkiss watched Kasabian’s face. Her eyes flicked, for a fraction of a second, towards Vale.

‘No,’ she said.

On the monitor, respiration was up to twenty-four, pulse to eighty-six. Blood pressure had risen to one thirty-three over eighty-two. And the fingertips were sweating.

The response was still less extreme than it would have been for many, if not most other people in similar circumstances. But there was a definite difference.

Kasabian’s lie, about being the President, hadn’t evoked much of a physiological change in her because it had no personal meaning for her. But this second question had cut her to the core.

Purkiss marvelled at Vale’s cunning. He assumed Kasabian’s affair with George Jenkins wasn’t widely known of — Purkiss had certainly never heard about it — and she was visibly shocked that Vale had somehow ferreted it out. Purkiss had heard of Jenkins: he was dead now, but he’d served in Harold Wilson’s cabinet in the late nineteen sixties. He must have been thirty years Kasabian’s senior, and had had a reputation as a devoutly pious family man.

With his eyes, Purkiss gave Vale the thumbs up.

Vale began the interview proper, throwing in the occasional mundane question as a control.

‘What’s my name?’

‘Quentin Vale.’

‘Do you know the man sitting across the table?’

‘Yes.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘John Purkiss.’

‘Do you know where he lives?’

‘Yes.’

Nothing remarkable about that , Purkiss thought.

‘Does he work for you?’

‘No.’

‘Do you want him to work for you?’

‘Yes.’

‘What colour is blood?’

‘Red.’

‘Did you arrange for John Purkiss to be killed at his home?’

‘No.’

Purkiss watched the monitor. Respiration eighteen, pulse seventy. Blood pressure one twenty-six over seventy-nine. Skin conductance back to baseline.

‘Who was the prime minister of this country during World War Two?’

‘Winston Churchill.’

‘Can snakes fly?’

‘No.’

‘Did you send a man to shoot at John Purkiss in order to convince him that his life was in danger?’

Purkiss watched the monitor.

‘No,’ said Kasabian.

Respiration eighteen. Pulse seventy-two. Blood pressure one twenty-five over seventy-seven. Conductivity low.

‘Did you send a man to John Purkiss’s home to harm or trick him in any way?’

‘No.’

On the monitor, the readings altered minimally, some up, some down.

Purkiss was aware of the countermeasures that could be taken against polygraph equipment. Biofeedback techniques, practised assiduously, gave a person some degree of control over his or her supposedly involuntary processes such as pulse and blood pressure. But Vale’s technique, his rapid-fire switching from drily factual to highly personal topics, would render such measures exceptionally difficult to implement.

Kasabian was telling the truth.

He stood up.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘The show’s over.’

Vale sat back in his chair. Kasabian pulled off the cuff and straps and sensors impatiently, dropping them on the table.

‘You believe me?’ she said.

‘Yes,’ said Purkiss.

‘Look. Purkiss.’ Her tone softened a fraction. ‘I don’t blame you. I know what it looks like. Yes, I was pissed off that you turned my request down. But that was all. To be honest, all I’ve been thinking about for the rest of the day is who I can get instead of you.’ She’d been rolling down her sleeves again, buttoning them, when she paused, and glanced at him. ‘Unless…’

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘Yes?’

‘Yes. I’ll do it. Jokerman . I’ll find your sniper.’

As always, afterwards, Emma longed for a cigarette.

She wasn’t a regular smoker, and hadn’t been one since her days as a medical student. And she’d never felt the urge to light up after sex with Brian. But with James… It was a horrible cliché, she knew, but he made her feel both sated and hungry at the same time, and a cigarette provided a diversion before the next bout.

She couldn’t smoke, of course. Couldn’t go home to Brian and the children with the ghost-odour of tobacco wafting around her. She was, after all, supposedly working tonight, attending to her one and only patient, Sir Guy Strang, who’d developed an acute cough which might turn out to be mild pneumonia.

At least, that was what Emma had told Brian when she’d phoned him at three o’ clock. She’d been out all day shopping, and was just on her way home when the office called. Her patient needed her attention. She’d decided to head straight for Thames House rather than come home first. She’d try to be home by mid-evening but couldn’t guarantee it. Could Brian please remember that the kids were staying over at the Finches’ that night, and take them there for six o’clock? It was Ulyana’s night off.