It was a semicircular room, almost a gallery, for on one side glass panels gave a view down into the Lookout below. There were several chairs and a desk with a communications console manned by a young auxiliary coastguard woman. A group of men stood talking by a window that faced west with a view of the harbour and the solid mass of Dover Castle. One of them was the man who had addressed that meeting in Penzance the night Karen had destroyed the Petros Jupiter. ‘Good, you’re just in time,’ he said, as Captain Evans introduced me. He seemed to have no inkling that he was in any way connected with her death. ‘I want the whole story, everything that happened, everything you saw in those islands. But make it short. My Minister will be here any minute now.’
He wanted to be sure they really were the missing tankers, listening intently and not interrupting until I told him about the pictures Saltley had taken and how the old name was still just visible on the stern of the Shah Mohammed. ‘Yes, yes, it was in the report we had from Admiral Blaize. Unfortunately we don’t have the pictures yet. But Captain Evans here has flown off his Coastguard patrol plane with instructions to go in close—‘ He turned to the Regional Controller. ‘That’s right, isn’t it, David? He has taken off?’
Evans nodded. ‘Yes, sir. Took off—‘ He glanced at his watch. ‘Three minutes ago.’
There was a sudden flurry of movement as a voice announced the arrival of the Secretary of State for Trade. In an instant I was almost alone and when I looked down through the glass panels I saw a tall, dark man with thinning hair and prominent ears being introduced to the watch officers and the auxiliaries. He said a few words to each, moving and smiling like an actor playing a part, then he was climbing the stairs to the upper deck and I heard him say in a clear, silvery voice, ‘The French have been alerted, of course?’ And Captain Evans replied, ‘We’re co-operating very closely with them, sir. In fact, it was PREMAR UN who originally alerted us — that was when they passed Ushant and failed to report in.’ He introduced us, but the Minister’s mind was on the problem he now faced. ‘What about other countries — the Belgians, the Dutch?’ Evans said he couldn’t answer that and a
Navy officer present asked if he should check with Flag Officer, Plymouth. ‘I’m sure it’s been done, sir. As C-in-C Channel he’s bound to have given his opposite number in all NATO countries the information Admiral Blaize passed to us from Funchal.’
‘Check, would you,’ the Minister said.
A woman’s voice announced over the PA system that the tankers had now been picked up on the Dun-geness scanner. Course 042°. Speed 18.3 knots. ‘And the Germans,’ the Minister said. ‘Make certain the Germans have been notified. They have at least two Kurdish groups in custody.’ He turned to Basildon-Smith. ‘What do you think, Gordon — leave it as it is or inform the PM?’
Basildon-Smith hesitated. ‘If we bring the PM into it, then we need to be clear as to what advice we’re going to offer.’ And, in the pause that followed, Evans’s Welsh voice said quietly, ‘What about the journalists, sir? They’ve been pressing me all morning for a statement.’
‘Yes, Gordon told me.’ The Minister’s voice was sharper and he passed a hand over his eyes. ‘How many?’
‘There must be twenty or more now.’
He turned to me, his dark eyes hostile. ‘You should have kept your mouth shut. What was the idea?’ He stared at me, and I suddenly remembered he had been a barrister before going into politics. ‘Trying to pressure us, is that it? Or trying to divert attention from your own problems. You’re accused of killing a Frenchman. That right?’ And when I didn’t answer, he smiled and nodded, turning to Evans. ‘Where are they?’
‘In the Conference Room, sir.’
‘Ah, that nice, circular, very expensive room of yours with the pretty view of the Straits.’ He moved to the desk and sat down, his eyes fastening on me again as he took a slip of paper from his pocket. ‘We’ll assume for the moment that your statement is correct in so far as those tankers are concerned. To that extent your story is confirmed by this marine solicitor—‘ He glanced down at his aide-memoire. ‘Saltley. Any news of him?’ There was silence and he nodded. ‘We must take it then that he’s still stuck in Lisbon. Pity! A trained, logical, and unemotional—‘ He was looking at me again — ‘witness would have been very helpful to me. However…’ He shrugged. And then, working from his single-sheet brief, he began to cross-examine me. Was I sure about the identity of the second tanker? What were conditions like when we had sighted it? ‘You must have been tired then. Are you sure it was the Aurora B?’ And then he was asking me about the night when the two of them had tried to run us down. ‘That’s what makes your story less than entirely convincing.’ And he added, ‘My difficulty, you see, is that there are three witnesses at sea and unobtainable, and this man Saltley still lost apparently somewhere between here and Lisbon.’
I pointed out, of course, that Saltley had been present when Admiral Blaize had come on board the Prospero in Funchal, but all he said was, ‘Yes, but again it’s secondhand. Still…’ He fired a few more questions at me, chiefly about the men who had visited us in the inflatable off Selvagem Pequena, then got up and stood for a moment at the window staring out to the harbour at an odd-looking craft with a slab-fronted superstructure and a pile of giant fenders balanced on the stern. ‘All right.’ He turned, smiling, his manner suddenly changed. ‘Let’s deal with the media. And you,’ he said to me, ‘you’ll come too and back up what I say.’
‘And the PM, sir?’ Basildon-Smith asked.
‘We’ll leave that till we’ve seen these buggers through the Straits.’
The Conference Room was big and circular, with combined desks and seats custom-built on a curve to fit its shape. Venetian blinds covered the windows. The place was full of people and there were television cameras. In the sudden silence of our entry the lash of a rainstorm was a reminder of the room’s exposed position high up over the Dover Straits.
The Minister was smiling now, looking very assured as he addressed them briefly, giving a quick resume of the situation and concluding with the words, ‘I would ask you all to bear in mind that these vessels are registered in Iraq, flying the Iraqi flag. We do not know they are planning mischief. All we know, as fact, is that they failed to report in to the French at Ushant and that they are now steaming east in the westbound traffic lane to the great danger of other vessels.’
‘And avoiding arrest by keeping well away from the French coast,’ a voice said.
‘Yes, that is a perfectly valid point. As you know, we still do not have powers of arrest, not even in our own waters. Much as we should like these powers—‘
‘Why don’t you bring in a bill then?’ somebody asked him.
‘Because we’ve not had an experience like the French. There’s been no equivalent of the Amoco Cadiz disaster on the English coast.’ Inevitably he was asked whether the Prime Minister had been informed, but instead of answering the question, he turned to me and I heard him say, ‘Most of you will recall the name Trevor Rodin in connection with a missing tanker, the Aurora B, and some of you may have seen a Reuters report issued this morning containing statements made by him yesterday evening after he had flown in from Madeira. Because those statements will have to be borne in mind when we come to the point of deciding what action we take, if any, I thought it right that you should hear what he has to say from his own lips.’
He nodded towards me, smiling as those near me moved aside so that I stood isolated and exposed. ‘May I suggest, Mr Rodin, that you start by giving the gist of the information you gave the Second Sea Lord last night, then if there are any questions…” He stepped back and I was left with the whole room staring at me. Go on. Tell us what you said. Do what the Minister says. Urged by their voices I cleared my throat, cursing the man for his cleverness in switching their attention to me and getting himself off the hook. Then, as I began speaking, I suddenly found confidence, the words pouring out of me. I could feel their attention becoming riveted, their notebooks out, scribbling furiously, and the faint whirr of cameras turning.