Gordon Stevens - Provo

Put a team into London and the Brits automatically looked for them in traditional Irish areas such as Kilburn and Camden Town. Put in an active service unit, an ASU, and the Brits automatically assumed they would be working-class, with manners and covers to match and a safe house in the East End. Put in a shooter and the Brits would automatically look for an Irish accent.

Put in a sleeper, however, English university degree, impeccable qualifications and matching accent, and the cover of an expensive apartment and a job in the City ...

He savoured the last of the drink, then thanked the barman and left.

After ten minutes the priest lit a cigarette – the last in the packet – then leaned across and took the ashtray from the table at which Conlan had been sitting. There had been no ashtray on his table – apparently by chance – and the cigarette he now smoked was the same type as the packet in the ashtray. As he drank he played with the packet; when he stood to leave the packet in the ashtray was his, and Conlan’s – with its instructions to the priest and the coded message to Sleeper, to be placed in the personal column of the Irish Times — was in his pocket.

Two mornings later Liam Conlan packed the fishing rods and gear into the estate car, taking his time in case he was under surveillance, waved goodbye to his family, and drove the four and a half hours to the cabin set fifty yards back from the shore of Lough Corrib, in the west of Ireland. He had been a fisherman since boyhood, and the trips to Kilmore were as established a part of his routine as the strolls along O’Connell Street and the drinks round Custom House or the Quays. By one o’clock he was sitting, seemingly contented, the rod in his hand, the peak of his cap pulled down and the collar of his windcheater turned up, so that his face could barely be seen. At seven he returned to the cabin; thirty minutes later the smell of cooking and the sound of singing drifted from its door and across the lough. At ten, the dusk gone and the half-moon shining, the priest who had taken his place walked to the lough, the peak of Conlan’s cap pulled down over his face, the collar of Conlan’s windcheater turned up, and his hands stuffed into the pockets of Conlan’s trousers. By the time he returned to the cabin Conlan was half-way to the location eighty miles away, the priest’s car running smoothly and his own still parked by the side of the cabin at Kilmore. In the old days, he supposed, it would have been a fishing boat, snuggled against a quay, the lights dimmed and the men hurrying in the dark. Tomorrow morning it would be a private airstrip and a Cessna 208A, Pratt and Whitney single turboprop engine and 1100-mile range.

Gerard Gray woke at five, ran his circuit of Docklands, showered, had a light breakfast, and was at work by seven as usual. The first newspaper he read was the FT and the fourth was the Irish Times. At 9.30 he rang the internal extension used by the Price Waterhouse team and asked for Philipa Walker.

‘I’m sorry. Something’s come up and I can’t make the weekend party we talked about.’

‘It’s all right, I couldn’t have come anyway.’

‘Another time, perhaps.’

‘Perhaps.’

The following morning – Saturday – Gray slept late, rising at seven, and running two Docklands circuits. By nine he was back at the flat. The day was hot and the sky a brilliant blue. He showered, skimmed the newspapers, including the personal columns, and left the flat.

Roddy Fairfax left Onslow Square at nine, taking the M4 west towards Bristol, the route already busy with holiday traffic. At junction 17 he left the motorway at the Cirencester exit, bypassed Malmesbury, then swung on to the Tetbury road. At 11.30 precisely he stopped the 944 at the gates which marked the beginning of the driveway to Highgrove. A police Land-Rover and two men, neither apparently armed though he assumed both were, were at the gates.

‘Yes, sir.’ The policeman bent over the car, the second standing back.

‘Fairfax, I’m expected.’ He showed his army ID card and knew they had already checked the registration number of the Porsche.

‘Thank you, sir.’ The policeman stood back and waved him through.

The driveway was short, curving right to the house, a number of other cars already parked. He just had time to pull the bag from the boot when his host appeared, the two boys beside him.

Initially at least, the Prince had always considered Fairfax one of his wife’s circle, and her friends were not necessarily those he would choose for himself, just as his friends were not those she would choose. Fairfax was different, however. He was good company, talked not just about the London scene, or whatever the word was nowadays, but about other matters, politics and pollution. In the long and difficult months before the couple had separated Fairfax had refused to take sides, arguing forcefully and honestly with both of them. Even now, perhaps especially now, he remained friendly and loyal to both. And Fairfax was a soldier. Three tours in Northern Ireland, two of them at times when things weren’t too pretty.

‘Good to see you, Roddy.’ Charles came down the steps and shook his hand. ‘Glad you could make it for the weekend.’

An hour earlier, Gerard Gray had stopped outside the flats in Maida Vale. It was correct that there were single beds at the river party at Hamble, but there were also double ones, plus king size, and a water bed if you organized yourself properly. And if Philipa Walker was not sure about it, then he was better with someone who was.

Philipa Walker had woken on the first ring of the alarm at five. By 7.30 she was at Dover’s Western Docks. She bought a return ticket to Ostend, paying cash, and caught the 0810 jetfoil, arriving at 1050 local time, taking the 1101 train to Antwerp, changing at Ghent. For the next hour she surveyed the restaurant tucked inconspicuously in the corner of the Handschoenmarkt, below the western façade of the cathedral. Only when she was satisfied that no surveillance was in place did she go in.

The restaurant was still full and the waiters busy. As she entered Liam Conlan rose to greet her.

The first and last cover, he thought, the single item he had driven deep into his subconscious as the foundation for the rest of his subterfuge. The one discipline above all others which he had fought to impose upon himself: in his discussions with Doherty, in his briefings with the Army Council, even in his sleep.

That he should always refer to Sleeper as him.

The target codenamed PinMan, Conlan had said, a member of the British royal family. The operation within the next twelve months. She should aim to wrap up her preliminary research as soon as possible, and communicate her decisions through the system of codes and dead letter drops already in use. The Army Council knew of the operation, but had not yet given its final approval. He had been forced to inform the Council of the existence of Sleeper, Conlan had also told her, but had given no details.

Walker’s flat, on the third floor of a Victorian terrace close to Primrose Hill in north London, was that of a successful and independent professional woman. It consisted of two bedrooms, a large split-level lounge with a marble fireplace and bay windows opening on to a balcony, a smaller room off it which she used as an office, plus a kitchen and bathroom. She had bought it when the property market was still rising and redesigned it herself. Except for the study the flat bordered on the luxurious without being ostentatious: the furniture, decorations and lighting were modern; yet the hard edges were softened by the small personal touches she had added – a wall-hanging from Turkey, an icon from Russia, an Impressionist-style painting she had commissioned from an art student after seeing his work on the boarded-up window of a shop unit standing empty in a new shopping precinct. The study, by contrast, was cold and clinical – a world of computers and computer logic, shelves of manuals and software, the black ash desk facing the window but the sunlight from outside cut off by a blind, and the lighting efficient and functional.