Gerald Seymour - The Untouchable

Atkins, the armourer, had provided him in the past with Uzis and Glocks, Skorpions, Hecklers and a Kalashnikov, and with two-ounce measures of Semtex explosive to blow a reinforced warehouse door for a protege. He liked Atkins, nine years in the Royal Green Jackets with a final rank of captain; the man's leaving his regiment in the wake of a scandal – impregnating a brigadier's daughter and running from the consequences – then setting up as a freelance military consultant had slotted in well with Mister's plans.

Atkins had a mannered drawl, offhand, but he took no liberties, and he delivered. Atkins had also done time in Bosnia. Mister had no complaints. Atkins had suggested the way to acquire four MR Trigat launchers, and twenty missiles, as well as seven hand-sets and the control unit for an ITT-built Advanced Tactical Communications System, combining data and voice-network capability, and security. When Mister travelled, he would be well laden with gifts. He did not understand how the anti-tank weapon or the communications system worked, but that didn't leave him with any feeling of inferiority. The gifts guaranteed that he would win a hearing and respect

… Cruncher had been laying the ground.

'What about lunch, Mister? You've seen about everything other than the open-air displays, but there's no call for you to get soaked. I expect it'll be a salmon steak in the VIP restaurant.'

'Why not?'

He could beat the legal system, and he could buy into supplies of the latest, most restricted military equipment, and they could not touch him.

'Tell me, all this stuff here, who are the customers?'

'Other than you, Mister, they're governments.

That's the level this place is at.'

The pathologist had few illusions as to the technical knowledge of those who would read his reports, so he doubled up: one report for men and women with a medical and forensic background, and a second for policemen, Security Service officers, civil servants from the Home Office and Customs amp; Excise. The second report, for laypersons, explained the finding of a narrow bruised contusion at an upper position at the back of the cadaver's – Dubbs's – neck. The blow causing the contusion would have been sufficient, in the pathologist's opinion, to cause 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.

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.