Мик Херрон - Real Tigers

But Tearney had other strengths. She was smart—desk smart— committee smart—and what she lacked in sex appeal, she made up for in a nanny-knows-best briskness which cowed the public schoolboy still cloistered inside those other Second Desks, not to mention the weak-kneed politicos of all stripes Down the Corridor. And she had, too, a bred-in-the-bone instinct for knowing how to needle, humiliate and frustrate her underlings. Like now: Diana hovering in the doorway, waiting for her Dameship to finish gathering herself together, which she’d only do once satisfied that Diana was starting to twitch.

Dame Ingrid said, “There. Sorry about that. Walk with me?”

They headed off down the corridor.

“Terribly dull these meetings can be,” Tearney said. “I do appreciate your taking the time to attend.”

Attendance was compulsory. The Service was a corporation like any other.

“I should be on the hub,” Diana said. “Will this take long?”

“I just wanted your confirmation that the records transfer has been completed satisfactorily.”

“As of last month, yes.”

“And we’re talking about records up to Virgil level, yes?”

“As per the brief.”

The grading system changed on a biannual basis, but Virgil was currently the second-highest classification. The service being what it was, this meant that a lot of sensitive data was logged Virgil, on the ground that those most likely to wangle access to intelligence—oversight committees, Cabinet Ministers, TV producers—tended to focus their attentions on the highest grade, Scott-level, on the assumption that this was where the hardcore secrets were. Virgil-level, being more accessible, was generally overlooked. Which didn’t mean Ingrid Tearney wanted those records stored off-site.

“Ingrid, I thought you already knew all this.”

“Merely dotting i’s, my dear. You’ll be warmly acknowledged in HR’s weekly catch-up this morning, I can assure you.”

“I’m so grateful. Was that all?”

“You know, one of the burdens of leadership,” Tearney continued, as if Diana hadn’t spoken, “is not being privy to the gossip below stairs. It can be difficult to take the temperature, if you know what I mean.”

Assuming she was not genuinely being asked if she understood a common idiom, Diana said nothing.

“And it would be good to know precisely how things stand.”

“Well, we’re over-worked, under-resourced and under-appreciated. The general mood more or less reflects this.”

Dame Ingrid laughed, a rather more tinkling sound than you’d expect the warthog to make, Diana thought grudgingly. She said, “I can always rely on you to deliver uncomfortable truths, Diana. That’s one of the reasons you’re such a valuable Second Desk.”

“Is there a problem, Ingrid?”

“Our new overlord is rattling his sabres. He’s spoken of the need for fresh starts, for—I think he said a reboot . Always keen to appear savvy.”

“All new ministers say that.”

“This one means it. Too many skeletons falling out of closets, apparently. As if it were possible to maintain an effective security service without an occasional blurring of the boundaries.”

Which was a polite way of describing, among other faux pas , the wholesale illegal surveillance of the nation’s online footfall, not to mention the toothless surrender of same to a foreign power.

Diana made a non-committal noise.

“We’re not natural allies, are we? You and I.”

“I’m fully committed to the Service,” Diana said. “Always have been. You know that.”

“And you’re currently wondering how best to make that commitment known in the event that Peter Judd succeeds in removing me as head.”

Issuing a denial would have been tantamount to confession. Instead, Diana said, “What makes you think he wants to do that?”

“Because it’s the most obvious way of flexing his muscle, which he’s going to want to practise doing before taking on the PM. Or did you think Home Secretary was the pinnacle of his ambition?”

Nobody over the age of three thought Home Secretary the pinnacle of Peter Judd’s ambition.

“So I thought it best to advise you that any assault PJ makes on the Service won’t stop with lopping off the head. I have it on good authority he’s not keen on the Second Desk role. That he wants an intermediate level built into the command structure, to allow for greater political oversight. This would be by ministerial appointment, you understand. And almost certainly filled from outwith the Service.” She glanced sideways. “As I said, we’re hardly natural allies. But there’s an adage that fits.”

My enemy’s enemy is my friend, Diana supplied mentally. She said, “And I remain fully committed to the Service. As I said. We’ve weathered ministerial interference in the past, Ingrid. Judd might be one of the big beasts when he’s on home ground, but he’s going to have his work cut out for him if he’s taking on Regent’s Park.”

At that moment, her pager buzzed.

Dame Ingrid said, “Thank you, Diana. I’m glad we had this little chat.”

She thinks we’ve made an alliance, Diana thought, as the Service chief nodded in farewell, and moved on down the corridor.

Then she reached for her pager, recognised Security’s number, and called the front desk on her mobile.

“Ma’am? We have a walk-in, an off-site agent. He says you’re expecting him. But there’s nothing on the time sheet.”

“I’m not expecting anyone. Who is it?”

“One River Cartwright.” Security reeled off Cartwright’s Service number.

“Sign him in,” Diana said. “I’ll be on the stairs.”

T hirty-nine minutes . . .

Being in Regent’s Park always gave River a hollow feeling; the same you might get on stepping inside the marital home once the divorce had come through. Well, he said “always.” There’d been a time when that might have been the right word, early in his career, when it was still a “career”; before he’d become persona non grata , which was Latin for slow horse. Since then, he’d been inside its precincts, what, twice? On one of those occasions, summoned by Spider Webb. That had been Spider rubbing it in; letting River know he might as well be in Siberia. Well, Siberia might as well be where Spider was now: all those endless white spaces, bare of life. Was that what being in a coma was like? River hoped never to find out.

At the desk he showed his Service card, and said he was there to see Diana Taverner. An all-or-nothing play; one she’d go for, he hoped, if only to find out what he thought he was doing, turning up at head office—she might let him in just to have him beaten up.

While the security woman paged Taverner, he looked around.

Thirty-eight minutes.

What struck River, as ever, was the dual nature of the building; the Oxbridge kerb-flash a nod to the best traditions of the Service—its history of civilised thuggery—while the modern aspects were sunk below pavement level, safe from dirty bomb and prying eyes alike. On one of its upper corridors hung a portrait of his grandfather. He’d never been that high. You had to be some sort of mandarin.

His attention was being sought.

“. . . Yes?”

“Ms. Taverner will meet you on the staircase.”

This being handy in case she wanted him thrown down it, he surmised.

The woman handed him a laminate on a lanyard, visitor, and pointed him in the right direction.

They’d settledon an Italian place near Smithfield, and were upstairs eating ice cream out of tin bowls: Marcus strawberry and pistachio, Shirley peach and stracciatella. Cutlery scraping against tin was as much conversation as they made until both were about finished, then Shirley nodded towards Marcus’s bowl and plucked her spoon from her mouth with an audible pop.