Michael Parker: A Covert War

‘It came to us in a diplomatic bag,’ he told her, and leaned back in his chair.

‘Where did the bag come from,’ Susan asked.

He arched his eyebrows and gave an almost imperceptible shrug. ‘Well, that’s the devil of it; I don’t know.’ He could see words beginning to form on Susan’s lips. He put up a manicured hand and splayed his fingers to stop her from asking the next question. ‘Apparently,’ he began, ‘the bag was opened by a junior at the office a few days before it crossed my desk. I’m afraid he didn’t attach much importance to it because it carried no official comment, no stamp and no signature.’ He shrugged. ‘Some of our new graduates can be like that; no brains, you see.’

Susan had taken a tissue from her handbag and was wiping her eyes carefully. She lowered the tissue. ‘So why did it come to you?’

Cavendish pushed out his bottom lip as though he was giving it some considerable thought. ‘I really don’t know. It was probably being handed on from one desk to another until someone claimed it. But I remembered the story. It was about a year ago, wasn’t it?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘There was a murderous attack at a mission in Afghanistan. It was close to the Pakistan border. Your brother was caught up in it. Most unfortunate,’ he concurred, shaking his head. ‘Most unfortunate.’

Susan wondered if Cavendish realised just how deeply distressing it was for her to be reminded of her brother’s untimely death. But then she wondered if the civil servants who worked for the government perhaps encountered too many tragedies to be able to empathise with the victims. Perhaps Cavendish was no exception.

‘But this means my brother must have survived the massacre,’ she insisted, holding the book up. ‘There’s no way it could have been written after if he hadn’t survived.’

‘Obviously,’ Cavendish agreed. ‘And I have looked into it, I can promise you. There were survivors of course, and they were taken to a nearby hospital and treated for their wounds. But there were no records kept of who were taken to hospital.’ He shrugged again and opened his hands out in an empty gesture. ‘And that is all I know. I’m sorry.’

Susan picked up her Styrofoam cup, sipped at the coffee and then put the cup down. She then opened her handbag and put the book into it.

‘If you find out anything else about my brother, would you let me know?’ she asked.

Cavendish nodded. ‘Of course.’

‘How can I contact you?’

He smiled and pushed himself back into his chair. ‘Just ask for me at the Foreign Office. The desk will patch you through.’

Susan stood up. Cavendish responded immediately and stood up as well. Susan reached over the table and shook his hand.

‘Thank you Mister Cavendish. You won’t forget your promise, will you?’

He shook Susan’s hand, taking care to do it gently. ‘Of course not; as soon as I hear anything, I will let you know.’

Susan walked out of Starbucks into the Strand. It was a fine day so she decided to walk to Waterloo Station where she would catch a train to Clapham in south London where she lived.

Cavendish came out of Starbucks a few minutes after Susan. He hailed a cab and climbed in as he told the driver where he wanted to go.

‘85 Embankment, please driver.’

The driver pulled out into traffic. Another James Bond, he said to himself. Cavendish had just given him the address of the building that housed Britain’s secret intelligence service, MI6.

Three days after her meeting with Cavendish, Susan stepped out of the underground at Old Street in the City of London. Since that meeting, she had trawled through the yellow pages and surfed the net looking for an agency that might be able to help her find her brother. Susan had even tried persuading various editors of the national press that there might be a story to follow up, but in each case her quest was doomed to failure because of cost. There were agencies who were prepared to help her, but at a price that was well beyond Susan’s limited means. As for the newspapers they wanted more than just a couple of pages from her dead brother’s diary. And none of them were prepared to finance a quest that was almost certain to end in failure and would elicit little support from the newspaper barons. She tried the television companies but there was no celebrity value in Susan and David Ellis. Not now.

And so it seemed that her search was doomed to fail. Until, that was, she came across a small advert in the classified section of the London Evening Standard.

Guard Right Security. Professional help at a price you can afford.

The advert gave a phone number and an address, but little more. Susan phoned and made an appointment. Guard Right Security was at an address in Oliver’s Yard, just off the City Road, south of Old Street Underground Station, and it was in that direction Susan turned to as she came up out of the underground.

There was no street number for her to look for, but an instruction that she would find a small doorway just a few yards inside Oliver’s Yard with the small logo ‘GRS’ on the wall.

It took Susan a while to locate the logo, but she did find it and wondered if she had come to the right place. The doorway was set back into the large, old building that graced the main frontage along the City Road. The door looked a trifle shabby, but at least it yielded. It creaked noisily as she turned the handle and pushed.

The door opened on to a short passageway which was unlit, but Susan could see a staircase leading up to a small landing. The floor was not carpeted. She walked in and closed the door behind her and very carefully climbed the stairs. If Susan had wanted to keep her presence quiet, she was out of luck. The bare steps creaked and groaned with each footfall.

Eventually she reached the landing and saw a door with an opaque window inset and the letters GRS etched on the glass. There was no doorbell to be seen anywhere. For some reason Susan found herself feeling quite nervous, and her hand shook as she rattled her knuckles on the glass.

She heard a sound coming from behind the door, rather like a chair falling over, followed by a shadowy silhouette of someone coming towards the door. Susan stepped back involuntarily as the door was thrown open. She put her hand to her mouth and made a sound as the young man smiled at her.

‘Susan Ellis?’ he said warmly. ‘Please, do come in.’ He made a sweeping gesture with his arm, inviting Susan to walk in.

She hesitated. ‘Marcus Blake?’

He held the smile and brought his arm down. ‘At your service, but please call me Marcus.’

Susan was immediately struck by his disarming manner, or at least what appeared to be a disarming manner. For all she knew it could have been affected. Nevertheless, she had made the appointment so she stepped willingly into his office.

Marcus closed the door and hurried over to a chair that was lying on its back. Obviously this was the chair that Susan had heard topple just after she had knocked. He straightened it and indicated that she should sit there.

Susan did as she was asked and began studying her surroundings. The office was quite plain, with little to indicate how busy Marcus Blake was. Behind his desk, hung crookedly on the wall was what appeared to be a certificate. It was framed and probably related to some qualification Marcus Blake had achieved. There was nothing decorating the walls except for a poster depicting a musician by the name of Isao Tomita. Susan had never heard of him.

There was also a calendar with each day crossed off up to that day. In one corner of the office was a small sink. Next to this was a kettle, a carton of milk and a coffee jar. There was a small cabinet above the sink. Susan had noticed as she walked into the office that there was a clothes peg screwed to the wall with what looked like a beanie hat hanging from it. A threadbare carpet covered part of the floor. There was precious little else in there to give Susan the feeling that she was in the realm of a true professional, and she was already making out her excuse to leave and put it all down to experience.