‘I’ve only got what Tristram tells me,’ she said. ‘But there’s something about it that has the ring of truth.’
He shrugged and said nothing, waiting for her to make out a case for what she was suggesting. He needed to be convinced.
‘Okay, so it’s thin,’ she admitted. ‘But we’ve both worked with less than this before. I know you often go by gut feeling. This is my turn.’
‘Maybe. But this isn’t just anybody.’
‘That’s my point. Even if this Tristram is making this up, why pick Myburghe — unless he’s got something against him? He’s your protectee or whatever you call them. What if Tristram’s driven to do more than send a few cranky emails?’ She paused to let that sink in, then asked, ‘When did Myburghe first go to Colombia?’
Frank pursed his lips. ‘Years ago. He pretty much made it a career posting. Why?’
‘As far back as the eighties?’
‘Eighty-one was his first tour.’ Then he sat up, his antennae twitching. ‘You’ve had more emails, haven’t you? What did they say?’
Riley took out the latest communication from Tristram and slid it across the table. Palmer read it once, then again, before looking at her and shaking his head. ‘This could mean anything.’
‘Come on, Palmer,’ she protested. ‘This is getting too close to the core, isn’t it? Nineteen eighty-two was the Falklands. Where was Myburghe at that time?’
He sighed deeply and stared at the ceiling, then leaned across the table, one eye on the nearest customers. They were too engrossed in their drinks to be paying any attention.
‘Okay. I’ll tell you what I know. But this isn’t for publication, got it? I’ve only just been briefed about it. In any case, it might not have anything to do with what this Tristram is alleging.’ He took a sip of his juice. ‘Sir Kenneth Myburghe has two daughters, the elder of which, Victoria, is getting married. He also has an eighteen-year-old son named Christian. Sir Kenneth recently returned to the UK after spending most of his life overseas — almost all of it in Latin America. He did it the hard way, working his way up the ladder from consular assistant to vice consul and then up to the plum post of ambassador in the embassy in Bogotá. Four months ago, they pulled him back. The implication was that it was prior to another posting. That hasn’t happened.’
‘Why?’
‘No idea. He should have got one by now. But that’s by the by. A few weeks ago, he began receiving threats.’
‘What sort of threats?’
‘Phone calls to begin with. Silent calls, nobody there — that kind of thing. He thought it was computerised call centre dialling, but they became too insistent. Occasionally there were a few words whispered down the line before the caller hung up. Nothing specific, just vague threats. Then there were messages on his answer phone saying he was going to die. Three weeks ago he got a stream of letters. Some contained a single black feather, others a crushed spider.’
‘Yuck. It could be this Tristram.’
‘It’s nasty, whoever it is. Most of the threats arrived by post at his home. Sir Kenneth dismissed them; said he couldn’t concern himself with every crank call or letter he received.’
‘Big of him. What else?’
‘Else?’
‘You said most of the threats. That means there’s an else. The elses are what make your eyes light up.’
‘Ah. You mean the fake parcel-bomb.’
‘See? I told you. How fake?’
‘Clock, wires, batteries and something called Silly-Putty, which was once big among ten-year-olds, apparently. It arrived before I came on the scene. Myburghe called the bomb squad for that one. They weren’t impressed; they only like going out to poke things that really do go bang. Childish pranks annoy them.’
‘I take it Sir Kenneth doesn’t have grandchildren with fertile imaginations?’
‘No. The latest threat was last week, just before his son Christian was due back from a trip to the States.’
Riley sensed Palmer was about to tell her something nasty.
‘Christian didn’t come back, did he?’
‘No.’
‘He’s probably working his way through all the girls on Venice Beach. He’ll turn up when he runs out of money. Or stamina.’
Palmer shook his head. ‘I doubt it. The boy didn’t come back, but one of his fingers did.’
********
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘What the hell could Myburghe have done to deserve that?’ Riley asked, her voice low. They had moved in one giant leap from a diplomat receiving threats, to fake parcel bombs and now body parts in the post. How much worse could this get? She was beginning to view the shadowy Tristram in a whole new light.
‘Maybe being our man in Colombia was enough.’
Riley wasn’t sure. In journalistic terms, mentioning Colombia rarely brought thoughts of their coffee or other edible crops. It was more the powdered export that sprang to mind — the kind which doesn’t come decaffeinated but has the power to send people to sleep. For good.
‘By ‘our man’, do you mean there was more to his position than Ambassador?’ As she knew, the term could mean all manner of things, from the senior embassy position to someone with an altogether more secretive role.
‘No, he was just the Ambassador.’
‘Oh.’ As brief as her research had been so far, she already had a fund of information about the reality of power and influence in Colombian life. The families running drug production in the hills of Colombia were notoriously brutal in their methods and indiscriminate in their targets, especially when someone threatened their lucrative operations. The British and Americans had been trying for years, with little real success in spite of destroying acres of poppy-producing fields, laboratories and supply-lines. The country was rugged enough and the rewards vast enough to mean that whenever one operation closed down, another sprang up overnight in a new location. That required more teams of soldiers in helicopters to scour more miles of hills and valleys and the use of fires to halt production wherever it was discovered. It made the people running the operations very unpopular among the poverty-stricken locals.
‘He’d have still found it easy to make enemies,’ Palmer said, guessing what she was thinking. ‘It’s one of the reasons why the embassy in Bogotá has a round-the-clock close protection team of Royal Military policemen and some thick armour-plated glass on cars and buildings.’
‘But we don’t know if that’s the reason for the threats.’
‘No.’
‘Maybe somebody should ask him.’
‘Somebody could try,’ he agreed. ‘Especially after this.’ He nodded towards the email. Then he looked carefully at her with a serious expression.
‘What?’ she asked. Palmer was considering something — she could read the signs.
‘There’s a briefing tomorrow. The wedding is on Friday.’
‘I know. And?’
‘You’re included.’
‘What?’ Riley was amazed. After his initial stand against letting her anywhere near Myburghe, here was Palmer saying she was in. ‘Why the change of heart?’
‘Because if it is Tristram behind the threats, we need to find out who he is before he bumps it up a level. So far you’re his only contact. It could be useful.’
‘If he ever opens up to me. He hasn’t done so far.’
Palmer shrugged. ‘It’s a lead. We could always ask Weller to get his IT boys onto it.’
Riley instinctively recoiled from allowing any official snoops near her work or her sources. ‘Over my dead body,’ she said firmly.
‘Suit yourself. But if anything major happens, you might not have a choice.’
Riley subsided a little. He was right. The idea of Tristram progressing from spreading nasty rumours over the Internet to something more violent was something she didn’t want to contemplate. ‘All right. But what’s my role in this?’
‘Well, you’re not from the press, for a start. You’re working for me. And you give me your word not to publish anything you learn.’