Tim Stevens - Jokerman

Purkiss didn’t ask the obvious question, but Kasabian answered it anyway.

‘This wasn’t a failed assassination attempt on the Home Secretary. She was a sitting duck, and the sniper was a professional. Morrow was the intended victim. There’s no question about it.’

‘Did the Home Secretary say what Morrow wanted to speak to her about?’ said Vale.

‘Yes,’ said Kasabian. ‘I was in a meeting with her and the Director last night. Morrow had told her he needed to fill her in about a coverup within the Service. A criminal conspiracy. He gave no more details.’

Purkiss said, ‘But isn’t it unusual that somebody of the Home Secretary’s standing would grant a private audience to someone like Morrow? I’m assuming he wasn’t one of the top echelon. Surely the Home Secretary would want to talk to someone more senior instead. Like yourself.’

Kasabian regarded him. Not with hostility, Purkiss thought; there was fascination in her gaze, as if human beings and their endlessly varied ways of behaving and communicating afforded her a scholar’s delight. ‘Within the Service we have a special number, Mr Purkiss. A hotline, if you like. I imagine there’s something similar within your own organisation. Sorry, your former organisation. It’s for whistleblowers. People who for whatever reason can’t trust their superiors, and need confidential access to the highest level. The penalties for abuse of this number are severe. So anyone using it knows from the outset that he or she needs a very good reason to do so. Morrow used it.’

The silence was longer this time. It gave Purkiss a chance to assimilate and sift through the information, which was no doubt what Kasabian intended.

‘You’ve kept this out of the media,’ he said.

‘Of course.’ Kasabian poured more water for all of them. ‘There are all sorts of reasons why it’s not in the public interest for this to come out at the moment.’

‘You said you met the Home Secretary. And Mr Strang.’ Sir Guy Strang was the director of the Service. Kasabian’s superior.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Plus the Prime Minister, and of course the head of Special Branch and the Chief Constable of Surrey Police. A full police investigation’s been ordered, as well as an internal one within Five.’ She gave the word an ironic twist, as if she was succumbing to the popular terminology while mocking it at the same time.

Purkiss glanced at Vale. His expression revealed nothing.

‘So why am I here?’ asked Purkiss.

Kasabian fixed him with a lawyerly stare, which must have turned more than one person in the witness box into a quivering wreck.

‘Because I need an outsider,’ she said. ‘Someone clean. Untainted by any connection with Five. Morrow was killed by one of our own. I want you to find whomever it is.’

‘ Jokerman ,’ said Purkiss.

Kasabian shrugged. ‘Every operation needs a name. Even an operation that’s off the books, like this one.’

‘Why that name?’

‘It’s a song title by Bob Dylan,’ she said. ‘You know my background. Lefty counterculture type.’

Again Purkiss looked at Vale. His look said, how much of this did you know about when you called me ? Vale gazed back mildly, said nothing.

To Kasabian, Purkiss said, ‘But why have an unofficial investigation at all? Why not just run a parallel one using an outsider?’

‘To answer your second question first,’ Kasabian said, ‘you are an outsider. You’re about as outside as you can be. You’re from the other team. SIS. The dreaded Six. Our main rivals for manpower and funds. You’re also, Mr Purkiss, a highly experienced investigator with a considerable reputation. I know about Tallinn last October, and that New York business in the spring. Yet to most people even within SIS, you don’t exist. You’re a rumour. You’re able to pull off major successes while remaining discreet. And I’m not saying this to massage your ego, by the way. I don’t work that way.

‘As to your first question: why conduct an unofficial investigation?’ Kasabian glanced away, then back. ‘Because I don’t know how high the rot goes. I don’t know who within the Service is implicated in all this. I don’t know how many people are involved. I don’t know what this supposed coverup is all about. And so I don’t trust anyone.’

‘Hold on a moment,’ said Purkiss. ‘Do you mean Strang isn’t aware that you’re approaching me?’

‘Correct. He isn’t.’

Purkiss took a moment to process it. Kasabian nodded.

‘Yes. I’ll say it openly, so we’re quite clear. I can’t be convinced that this conspiracy doesn’t involve the director of the Security Service himself.’

Over his lifetime Purkiss had mastered the art of keeping his feelings and emotional reactions concealed, where necessary. Done too often, too routinely, it froze up the muscles, made spontaneity difficult, which was in itself counterproductive.

This he judged to be an appropriate time to use the technique.

Kasabian studied him for a full ten seconds. Then she laid her palms flat on the tabletop. No wedding band, Purkiss noticed. No jewellery of any kind.

‘I know what it looks like, so I’ll preempt any comments you might make on the subject,’ she said. ‘I’m the deputy. The up-and-comer, angling for the top job. I learn about corruption within the service and I immediately start looking for ways to implicate the boss, so I can get him removed and grab his post for myself. All I can say is… no. I can’t tell you how relieved I’ll be if Guy Strang is shown to have nothing to do with this.

‘And I have no evidence that he is involved. Note that I said I can’t be certain he isn’t. That’s not the same thing.’

‘But you wouldn’t even have mentioned it if you didn’t have a suspicion,’ Purkiss said.

Kasabian dipped her head in acknowledgement. ‘Fair enough. The thing that makes me wonder is this. The hotline, the whistleblower’s access to the Home Secretary, is supposedly confidential. A means whereby any Service employee of even the lowliest level can expose corruption or criminality within the organisation without fear of reprisal. And, by and large, that’s how it works. But I do know that the Home Secretary — not just this one, but her predecessors too — tends to mention any such contacts to the Director as a matter of routine. After all, the likelihood that the problem being reported involves the Director is so remote it’s almost not worth considering. So it’s possible — likely, even — that Mr Strang knew Morrow was going to meet the Home Secretary.’

‘And arranged for Morrow to be killed?’ asked Purkiss.

‘I know. It’s outrageous. And highly unlikely. But it’s not beyond the realm of possibility.’ Kasabian waved a hand. ‘Neither of them, Strang or the Home Secretary, would ever admit they’d discussed it beforehand. It would do violence to the whole sacred notion of the hotline.’

For the first time, Kasabian stood up. She was shorter than Purkiss had been expecting, most of her length in her torso. She went over to the window and gazed out.

With her back to the two men, she said: ‘Mr Purkiss, I’ve studied your background exhaustively, as you might have expected. Not just since yesterday, when Morrow was killed and I first considered approaching you, but over the years. I’ve followed your career, step by step. Though this is the first time we’ve met, I already know you. And as I’ve come to know you, I’ve began to understand fundamentally, in the marrow of my bones, that you and I are the same.

‘I’m a quarter of a century older than you. I’m a woman. My professional training was in the law. But those are details. Ephemera.’ Kasabian turned, began ticking off items on her fingers. ‘We’re both from privileged backgrounds. Both Oxbridge products. Both committed to justice, in our own ways. You could have risen within SIS, could be a senior officer by now, maybe a contender for the top job one day. But you chose instead to work outside the fold. You recognised that the most evil, the most contemptible of enemies is the one within. The worm in the apple. The betrayer of his own people. So you’ve dedicated yourself to rooting out the corruption within SIS itself, instead of focusing on the external threats and neutralising them at source.