‘And Hassett?’
‘He and Sewell are old Harrovians.’
‘Pardon?’ said Shannon.
‘They were both at Harrow School. Hassett is three years younger, but he had an older brother in Sewell’s year. They didn’t have any official contact, so we’re assuming that’s how they met.’
‘What do we know about the brother?’ asked Skinner.
‘He died of MS five years ago.’
‘Other family members of both men: what do we know of them?
‘Rudy is single: he has an older sister; she lives in Perth, Western Australia. His mother’s still alive, but she has Alzheimer’s.’ He glanced at Frame. ‘Piers?’
‘Hassett has no other siblings. He is homosexual, but currently unattached. His parents are both still alive. The mother’s a pharmacist, and the father. . there’s a slight awkwardness there. He’s a Conservative MP.’
‘First name?’
‘Ormond.’
‘I’ve heard of him. Isn’t he on the Tory front bench?’
‘Yes, he’s an agriculture spokesman: the family business is grain merchanting. Ormond is the chairman, his brother Harold is managing director.’
‘And does Ormond MP have any idea of his son’s profession?’
‘To the best of my knowledge he does not. He believes that he is a Foreign Office civil servant currently on secondment to the Commonwealth secretariat in Pall Mall.’
‘Is he currently wondering why he hasn’t heard from his son for a week?’
‘The two are not close.’
‘Ormond doesn’t like having a gay son?’
‘Correct.’
‘Doesn’t his sexuality make him a risk?’ asked Shannon.
‘On the contrary, Inspector. In certain operational situations it can make him an asset.’
‘So Hassett’s a field officer,’ said Skinner.
‘Oh, yes. That’s why the Commonwealth cover story is such a good one. It deals handily with extended absences.’
‘I’d like a list of his most recent assignments.’
Frame’s mouth seemed to tighten. ‘There are some things, Mr Skinner,’ he murmured, ‘that must be off limits to you.’
The Scot turned to the director general. ‘Evelyn,’ he said, ‘my wife is getting ready to leave me and go back to America. My daughter has a stalker. We can still make the four o’clock flight back to Edinburgh, and I’ll be happy to do that, unless the ground rules are spelled out again for your colleague.’
‘No, that can’t be,’ Frame protested.
‘It must be, Piers,’ said Grey. ‘Number Ten has decreed it. I appreciate your concern and so, I am sure, does Mr Skinner, so let’s look for a way of keeping you as happy as possible. Would it be acceptable to you if Bob alone had access to that information, and that you showed it to him in Vauxhall Cross, without copies being made or handed over?’
The spy frowned. ‘I suppose so,’ he conceded.
‘Bob?’
‘I’ll live with that.’
‘Very good. That’s settled.’
Skinner looked at Frame once more. ‘I guess that Hassett’s absence is being explained away as an operation.’
‘Yes.’
‘And Sewell’s?’ he asked Grey.
‘He’s in Brussels, officially.’
‘Okay.’ The big Scot reached out and took an apple from the fruit bowl. ‘There will be other things I need to ask, but that’s fine for now. We should go down to Surrey.’
The director general rose from the table. ‘Yes,’ he agreed, ‘but first, a word in private. Excuse us, please, ladies, Piers.’
He led Skinner from the room and along the corridor until they reached another panelled door, with a key-pad. He hit four buttons in quick succession and turned the handle, then led the way into his office.
‘I sensed that there are things that you didn’t want to talk about in there,’ he said.
‘Yes. There’s something I want Frame to do for me while we’re heading down to Surrey. It may have been covered already, but if not it needs to be.’ He explained his requirement.
‘No problem,’ Grey assured him. ‘Let’s get back. . unless there’s something else you want to discuss in private.’
‘Actually,’ said Skinner, ‘there is one thing. Sewell and Hassett: what does the future hold for them? They’re traitors, but you can’t put them on triaclass="underline" imagine the public reaction if the truth ever came out. Your service would be taken apart: God, the government could fall. For the same reason, you can hardly turn them loose either. It’s not like the old days, when you could quietly swap them for a couple of our people in Soviet hands. So what happens to them?’
‘You don’t really want a straight answer, do you?’ Grey replied.
‘Not if it’s too distasteful for you, Evelyn. What I was getting round to asking is what incentive these men have to co-operate with me? Why should they tell me a single bloody thing when they know that their futures are strictly limited?’
‘There’s no good reason I can see, I admit. Are you saying that there’s no point in your interviewing them?’
‘No, I’m saying I’d like to be able to incentivise them.’
‘In what way?’
‘I’d like to let them see a glimmer of hope: nothing glamorous, you understand, but an alternative, at least, to a faked kidnapping in the Middle East and footage on a website of them having their heads sliced off with a knife.’
Grey’s laugh was like a rattle in his throat. ‘A posting as a librarian to the consulate in Uzbekistan, for example?’
‘Something like that. A shitty existence but at least a continuing existence.’
‘Offer it by all means, but whether they’ll believe you, that’s another matter. You realise, too, that I can’t guarantee that anything you may promise will happen.’
‘Yes, but they will believe it. What else do they have to hold on to?’ Skinner headed for the door.
Twenty-eight
‘Mr Charnwood,’ Bandit Mackenzie asked, ‘how long had you worked for Gareth Starr?’
The wiry clerk looked at him across the café table. ‘Seven years,’ he said. ‘Seven years and six months.’
‘Were you friendly, or was it just a boss-employer relationship?’
‘We didn’t visit each other’s houses, if that’s what you mean, but we’d have a pint together after work now and again.’
‘Did anyone else ever join you? Did he have any other associates that you were aware of?’
‘No; as far as I know, after his wife left him his circle took in me, Big Ming, and occasionally Oliver Poole, the lawyer. In the pub, it was often just the two of us.’
‘So you got on.’
‘Sure. Gary valued me, and he let me know it. I’m good at what I do, better than most.’
‘What was your job?’
‘I took the bets, and I kept an eye on how things were going on each race, looking out for fluctuations.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Heavy betting on a particular horse or dog: outsiders usually. In the business you get a lot of rumours, alleged whispers out of stables and the like, about specific runners. Tips that they’ve been run down the park in their last couple of races. .’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘The jockey doesn’t try too hard. As a result, the horse doesn’t get a lot of weight lumped on it by the handicapper; when they reckon it’s peaked in training and it’s nicely off on the weights, they turn it loose.’
‘That’s illegal, isn’t it?’
‘It’s well against the rules, that’s for sure,’ Eddie Charnwood conceded.
‘Does it happen a lot?’
‘I doubt whether it actually does, but the whispers are enough. When they start in your shop and you see money being piled on an outsider, you can’t afford to ignore it, especially if you’re a small operator like Gary. It’s not just punters that get taken to the cleaners.’
‘If you see it happening, is there anything you can do about it?’
‘Sure. We can lay it off: spread the action out to bigger bookies to limit our risk.’
‘I see.’ Mackenzie smiled awkwardly. ‘I’m an innocent when it comes to gambling, I’m afraid. My grandfather, on my mother’s side, was a big punter, bigger than he could afford, and not very good at it. It caused a lot of problems: my mum never forgot it, and she made bloody sure I didn’t inherit the habit.’