“I am trying to help, Miss Attenborough, but your evidence is the word of a septuagenarian who tells us the tapes and papers were burned. Remind me again why the only hard evidence was destroyed?”
“This was just the first sample. Milford intended to continue gathering data, but he was killed.”
There was a silence at the other end of the line and Susie realised she had just undermined her already weak case.
“Just a first sample, from which conclusions were extrapolated, and on that basis you would like Her Majesty’s government to halt a billion dollar export deal?”
She should have had this conversation a week ago.
“Miss Attenborough, you have worked hard and with diligence, but not for the first time in the career that lays ahead of you, I am sure, you have come up against the rather cruel realities of our service. We can act only when the evidence is overwhelmingly criminal, or there is evidence the national security is in immediate danger. I’m afraid, that contrary to your expectations, neither of those tests have been met. We have no direct evidence of cover-up, no reliable evidence of project mismanagement. In fact, the only evidence we actually have of wrongdoing are the actions of Flight Lieutenant May and Squadron Leader Milford, both of whom are already under investigation, one posthumously—”
“Of course they are, sir. Kilton has an iron grip on the unit. Milford and May risked everything.”
“I wonder, would May have risked all without your prompting?”
She saw an image of Rob stuck inside some dank police station, his career over.
“You see, Miss Attenborough, if we attempt to intervene on such feeble evidence, we open ourselves up to the type of criticism the Service very much wishes to avoid.”
He continued to speak with a gentle manner, but the message was clear.
You’ve screwed up, Susie.
“I think it’s time to come home. We’ll find something better suited to your particular talents.”
She shuddered as she imagined Roger asking her to make his tea.
“But what about Rob May? His wife left him, he’s at the mercy of Kilton—”
“And you believe it’s all your fault?”
“I believe it’s the result of us doing what needed to be done, sir. And I believe we have a duty toward him.”
“We do not, Miss Attenborough. You may feel that, but I would advise you to disengage your emotions. They let you down and cloud your judgement. The Service has a duty to the country, not an individual junior officer in the RAF. If it’s any consolation, we believe, due to the nature of the project, any kind of public hearing such as a court martial is out of the question. Of course that won’t spare May from the wrath of his superior. A man who can effectively end his career, no doubt.
“Try to see this as an opportunity for personal and professional growth, Miss Attenborough. Don’t get too close to your marks in the future. I’m sure we briefed you on that point in training. Now, we’ve come to the end of the line and that’s that. I expect to see you back here on Monday morning. You can take tomorrow off.”
Susie stood upright in the phone box and took a deep breath.
Rob had shown so much courage to take that Anson back to West Porton, knowing he would be arrested.
Now it was her turn to be brave.
“I’m sorry, sir, but this is not the end of the line. We would be derelict in our duty to allow this project to proceed and leave a good man hanging out to dry. You may find yourself content to write off lives, but I am not.”
“Miss Attenborough…”
She raised her voice. “Christopher Milford died for this cause. And I’m buggered if I’m going to abandon him. I’m sorry I didn’t work out to be the agent you wanted. Let’s face it, I’m the wrong sex for that. No, I won’t take tomorrow off. And no, I won’t be in the office on Monday. I have work to do.”
She slammed the phone down, her hand shaking.
She turned to the doors at the front of the terminal building and walked out into the warm evening light.
For a moment she stood and stared at the sinking sun. Thin clouds drifted across its surface.
Susie wondered what the hell she was going to do next.
STRIPPED OF HIS WATCH, belt and shoelaces, Rob sat by himself in a makeshift cell, with a camp bed and a blanket.
They had ignored him since his arrest.
The entire police station set-up appeared to be inside RAF West Porton, in an adapted office block on the far side of the camp.
It felt more like Soviet Russia than the United Kingdom.
Eventually they led him into a smaller room, with a single desk. Squadron Leader Hoskins arrived, clipboard in hand, and took a seat opposite.
Hoskins took Rob through a torturous recap of the entire day, making extensive notes. Rob hid nothing. They’d already made it clear they had identified Professor Belkin from the address given to them by Abingdon.
As the interview went on, the experience became more and more frustrating. The senior officer was only interested in where he went with the Anson, what time they had landed, what time they had taken off.
Every time he explained what they had discovered, the investigator went back to the logistics of the unauthorised flights.
Rob’s mood passed from impatient to desperate in a matter of minutes.
“Please. Sir. You must understand that a computer has extrapolated a terrible accident rate from the data.”
“So you keep saying.”
“Maybe I should talk directly to Wing Commander Kilton?”
The squadron leader raised an eyebrow.
“Impossible. You’re accusing him of either negligence, or something much worse.”
The room smelled of fresh paint.
Rob had a horrible thought: had this police station been prepared exclusively for him?
And the uniform Hoskins wore; it looked like a branch of the RAF police, but was subtly different.
Everything at West Porton was subtly different.
The reinforced fence didn’t just keep CND out; it kept everyone out.
“We’ll check your assertions against the official trial records,” Hoskins said. “If you can give me some specific occasions to look at?”
Rob huffed. “It’s not like that. I don’t have those specifics. But I do have the conclusions. We’d need to conduct a lot more safe height trials to prove the issue properly.”
“So, it’s not proven? It’s just… speculation?”
“No. No, it’s real.” Everything was slipping through his fingers. “You have to believe me, the computer calculated this. Millie gathered the data and the computer found the problem.”
“And where is this data now?”
Rob hesitated, remembering Susie’s advice not to dwell on the fate of the data.
“It’s been through the computer at Oxford. But we need more to identify the problem fully.”
The squadron leader’s pen hovered over his notepad. “So, do you have the evidence or not?”
“We don’t have that specific evidence anymore, no. Millie was gathering more. He thought he had more time.”
His voice caught on the words.
The squadron leader put down his pen and stopped making notes. “So, you have the conclusions to a study, but no evidence. You accuse a decorated commanding officer of conspiracy on the basis of a scrawl of notes written in fountain pen. You can’t even tell me where to look, because you say that only a computer can see the truth. You can understand the difficulty I’m having with this, Flight Lieutenant? The only actual crimes I have evidence for are those committed by you. And Mr Milford, of course. Now that you confirm to me he was secretly gathering data and taking it off West Porton.”
“Our plummet to the ground, on the 7th June, about 2.30PM, in a Vulcan, mid-Wales. Check the data.”