Stella Rimington - Breaking Cover

Then, the following day, out of the blue, her luck changed.

She had gone, as she did most days now, to the canteen for lunch, but she was rather later than usual and found no one to eat with. In a way this was a relief, and she was actually enjoying her solitary salad when a man’s voice, speaking from behind her shoulder, announced, ‘Lady Thatcher said a man my age sitting alone on a bus represented failure, but I reckon having lunch on one’s own is just as bad. Would you mind if I joined you?’

By now he had come into sight. Tallish, lean, with sandy-coloured hair and blue eyes surrounded by a network of fine lines, he looked as if he had seen more than his share of trouble. He didn’t wait for Jasminder’s reply but sat down across the table from her, offering his hand. ‘I’m Bruno.’

She shook it and said, ‘Jasminder.’

‘Yes, I know. I went to one of your talks,’ he said, reaching for the jug of water on the table between them. ‘Will you have a little more?’ he asked. ‘It’s an excellent vintage.’

Jasminder laughed, something she hadn’t done for days.

‘I enjoyed your talk very much,’ Bruno went on. ‘I don’t know if you realise it but you’re something of a sensation around here. First we publish our history and now we have a PR person – and a very charming one at that, if I may say so without being accused of sexism. Tell me your story. Were you a Fane find?’ he asked, his eyes smiling.

‘Hardly,’ said Jasminder.

‘Ah, I get it. He tried to blackball you? The bastard,’ added Bruno, but he was grinning and his tone was light-hearted.

‘Well, he didn’t actually blackball me. I got the impression that he didn’t approve of the job at all. It was C who was pushing it. Geoffrey Fane didn’t want anyone to be appointed – it wasn’t just me.’

‘Take heart. Fane’s reaction to anything new is invariably hostile, but it never lasts. You should view his opposition to your appointment as a merit badge.’ Bruno added in a stage whisper, ‘Between you and me, the last C before this one was opposed by Geoffrey Fane when he first applied to join the Service years ago. But when he became C, Geoffrey thought he was fantastic.’

‘Really?’ asked Jasminder, not sure which surprised her more – Fane’s negative reaction to a future C, or Bruno himself. She wasn’t at all sure how to take him. He seemed a bit of a clown, and rather indiscreet, which was definitely not a type she’d encountered in the Service before.

‘Absolutely. But as I say, Geoffrey always comes round in the end – if the person’s any good. And from what I hear, you’ve made a splendid start.’

‘Really? Do people think so?’

‘Yes, they do. Even Fane says so. And word of your arrival has reached all the Stations. I was in Moscow last week, and then went to some of those ghastly ex-Soviet republics. You were mentioned several times – and very approvingly. You ought to do a tour out there. They’d love to see you.’

Bruno glanced at his watch and gave an exaggerated look of horror. ‘Golly, I know time flies when you’re having fun, but this is ridiculous. Jasminder, it’s been a pleasure meeting you in the flesh but I must dash or I’ll have my head chopped off by You Know Who.’

‘Who is You Know Who?’

‘Geoffrey Fane, of course. But let’s meet up some time. Perhaps some evening after work – and we could find somewhere even nicer than this luxurious canteen.’

Jasminder laughed. ‘That would be great,’ she said.

Bruno stood and picked up his tray. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Speak to you soon.’

Jasminder suddenly realised she didn’t know his surname, but he was halfway across the room before she could ask. Damn. It would be the first thing Laurenz would want to know. Still, at least she had met someone who seemed senior and well placed; he had even been in Moscow recently. Best of all, it was someone who seemed wildly indiscreet.

Nothing surprised Staff Sergeant Wilkinson. He’d served in Iraq and Afghanistan and he’d seen it all – the bad and the good and everything in between. Now he had a comfortable job as resident porter at Georgian Apartments on the borders of Islington and Hackney. It was a smart new building, not Georgian in any sense in spite of its name. Most of the flats had been bought off plan with cash by people who intended to let them, not live in them. He’d settled down in the pleasant porter’s flat on the ground floor with his cat and didn’t hope for or expect any more excitement in his life. So when a young woman from the Ministry of Defence turned up one morning and told him that as a matter of national security she wanted to ask him most confidentially about Mr Hansen, the occupant of flat three on the second floor, he was neither surprised, alarmed nor even more than casually interested. He rather took it for granted that in a building like this someone might turn out to be of interest to MI5, because he assumed that was where she came from.

He told the young lady, Pamela she called herself, that he saw very little of Mr Hansen. He was often away from town and when he was in residence he was out a good deal, sometimes all night. Sergeant Wilkinson presumed he had a lady friend whom he visited but he had never seen her or any other visitor to flat 2/3. Mr Hansen kept a BMW320 in the basement car park and when he drove it out it was usually a signal that he was going to be away for several days. In fact he had taken the car out yesterday morning and was still away. He got very little mail at the flat and did not use the services of Mrs Hollins, the cleaning lady who did for most of the occupants. Yes, as porter Wilkinson had a pass key to all the flats in case of fire or other emergencies but if he used it, a record would show on the keypad in the flat, so the resident would know and Wilkinson would need a good explanation.

Sergeant Wilkinson readily agreed to phone Pamela’s office when Mr Hansen returned. He tucked her card away safely in the inside pocket of his uniform jacket and ‘Pamela’, alias Peggy Kinsolving, walked off with Mr Wilkinson’s mobile number and the registration number of the BMW320 written in her notebook.

Twenty-four hours later an A4 surveillance team had set up a temporary observation post in a half-built block of flats across the road from Georgian Apartments. The camera was attached to a scaffolding pole and hidden by the tarpaulins that stretched across the construction site. A discreet gap gave the lens a clear view of the front entrance of Hansen’s apartment block and the ramp to the underground garage.

At ten o’clock the morning after the camera was installed, the monitors in the A4 Control Room picked up the BMW going down into the car park exactly eight minutes before Staff Sergeant Wilkinson telephoned to report its arrival. At about the same time, a few people lounging in parks and cafés and dawdling in shops near Georgian Apartments suddenly began to move purposefully towards various parked cars.

In the A4 control room in Thames House, Wally Woods phoned Peggy. ‘Your man’s back. We’ve seen his car but we didn’t get a clear picture of him. We’ve got your description but you’re the only one who’s actually seen him in the flesh. Would you come up and help us identify him in case he leaves on foot?’

So Peggy spent the next five hours up in the control room, sitting at one of the desks ranged in a line along one wall, gazing at a large TV screen suspended from the ceiling in front of her. The room was busy; several different operations were going on and all the other desks and screens were manned. Peggy found it quite difficult to concentrate on her task, her attention wandering between watching the entrance to the Georgian Apartments and trying to identify the assortment of residents and van drivers coming and going, in and out of the building. Occasionally Sergeant Wilkinson came out, chatting to a van driver or directing someone, but she saw no one who looked anything like Laurenz Hansen. Cups of coffee appeared at her elbow and, at lunchtime, a ham sandwich in its wrapper. Wally Woods liked to make sure guests to the control room were properly looked after – at least those he approved of, and that included Peggy, as a close colleague of Liz’s.