‘And you’re pursuing Gaiman?’
‘He’s one of only two survivors from the Goat and Compasses that we can definitely find. He’s still in London, and in the face of a call from the Met, his agent was fulsomely cooperative, so our oomph is still respected in some quarters. Ross and Sefton, who insisted on getting right back on the horse, are interviewing him this afternoon.’
‘The other survivor would be…?’
‘The surviving Keel brother, Terry, who we’ve left where he is. Sefton’s been keeping a watch on the shop, and the individuals who were regular clientele seem to be lying low. For the moment.’
A door ahead of them opened, and a pleasant-faced, neat young man stepped out of it. ‘Superintendent Lofthouse?’
* * *
They were taken to a rather more impressive door and shown in to see the permanent secretary to the Treasury, Sir Anthony Clough. He rose to greet them. A very guarded man, Quill thought: big smile on his face, but nothing in the eyes. He was large, had once been muscular, a big head with white hair around the temples. He’d served under both flavours of administration, was known to have an Olympian disregard for party politics and was, according to a senior Met colleague, ‘cruel, but fair’. Having exchanged pleasantries, he addressed himself to Lofthouse and asked what reason her people had for searching Spatley’s departmental and parliamentary offices, when they’d already been checked out once by the main inquiry. Lofthouse looked to Quill, who again trotted out that they were a special team with a special remit, and Lofthouse made the right noises to indicate that further questions, even from this level of seniority, wouldn’t be advisable.
Clough paused for a significant time when Quill asked him whether or not Spatley had any issues in his personal life. Lofthouse and Quill exchanged glances.
‘Michael Spatley was highly ethical. To a fault. But he’d recently been … distracted. He’d been delegating some of his parliamentary responsibilities to ministerial colleagues, often the sign of trouble at home.’
‘What sort of trouble?’
‘Oh, no, in this case, I don’t think it was.’
‘Sir,’ began Quill, ‘if you know of any dirty linen in, erm, the Cabinet…’ He mentally winced at his turn of phrase. ‘What I’m trying to say is, you can be sure of our tact, as far as it can go, and it’d actually be a service to the deceased if-’
‘We don’t, as a rule, let ministers with things going on in their lives get near the Cabinet. Though there have been exceptions. In Michael Spatley’s case, the only thing I can think of that might possibly be relevant is that, at parties, he would chat a little too long to charming young ladies.’
‘Are you saying he was having an affair?’
‘Absolutely not. I’m sure, in fact, that he wasn’t. But, and I hope you understand the subtlety and strength of our sensitivities in this area, I believe he might have liked to have been.’
Quill sighed. This man was sure he had powers in his own domain that equalled those of the Sight. Maybe he did. But it wasn’t the sort of thing likely to produce evidence. ‘Is there anything else about him you managed to … divine?’
Clough took a moment to find the right words. ‘I think he had something on his mind. This is a particularly exciting government. The Cabinet don’t share with each other as much as we’ve been used to. I have seen whips who were just one altercation shy of assault charges, whips confronting whips. That never happens. To be blunt with you, Detective Inspector, Superintendent, I’m privileged to serve within a government that at any moment might start fighting itself. If this is the brain of the country, that would be Britain having a stroke. So Mr Spatley was probably wise to keep his own counsel about whatever he was planning. Perhaps defection to the opposition, perhaps some uncovering of Tory misdeeds that might increase his own party’s currently minuscule leverage within Cabinet — who knows? Actually, I do remember something. Just before he died, I asked him when he was going to pick a fight, meaning when was he going to start taking his own bills into committee again. He said he had a big one planned.’
Quill smiled in sudden appreciation. ‘Interesting. Did you see any sign of this fight materializing?’
‘Now you put it that way…’ Clough seemed to be reassessing some of what he’d regarded as certainties before Quill had started asking him his simple list of questions. ‘He displayed a certain paranoia. These days, that isn’t unusual. He called in security on a couple of occasions. He felt the integrity of his office might have been breached, that it might have been searched. He said he’d put hairs across his desk drawers or something. I said, while sharing his concerns, that it was very unlikely that the place could have been turned over. He was also anxious that he might have a virus or bug on his mobile. Nothing was ever found. He was always changing phones.’
‘Did you tell all this to our colleagues on the main inquiry?’ asked Quill.
‘Of course. They wrote down everything. But at that point we were all convinced it was an open-and-shut case of a protestor forcing his way into the car.’
Now here, thought Quill, is a diplomat. If Lofthouse went back to Jason Forrest and created trouble about that, she’d have something to work with, but if it made too many waves, Clough would have absolute deniability. ‘So you don’t think the driver, Tunstall, did it?’
‘Well, who knows? But he and Michael were certainly friendly. Tunstall would come in to see him before they went home almost every day. They’d have a cup of tea.’
‘Do you mean they were … too friendly?’
Clough sighed. ‘I don’t think their relationship was anything that out of the ordinary.’
* * *
‘Bloody hell,’ said Quill, as he walked into Spatley’s office and took his first slow look around. ‘We actually have a few tiny new possibilities to follow up.’
‘A vague indication of possible motive,’ confirmed Lofthouse. ‘That Spatley was worried about being listened in on, that he might have been about to do … something.’ The room they were in was clean and plush, all leather on the desk, panelling on the walls, wooden floors. Outside was a more modern cubicle space, where Treasury civil servants worked. Lofthouse, Quill noted, did what she always did when she entered a crime scene: went to touch the walls, as if measuring something. He found himself wondering if that had anything to do with her mysterious links to the Continuing Projects Team from the Docklands ruins. They were meant to be architects, weren’t they?
She saw him watching her, and dropped her hand from the wall. ‘What?’
Quill shook his head. ‘Things I am not allowed to ask you about.’
‘You know I wouldn’t conceal anything that could harm your team.’
‘Then-’
‘But I’m really not going to go into it. I can’t. Okay?’
Quill could only force a dissatisfied smile.
Lofthouse pulled on a pair of evidence gloves and threw another pair to Quill. ‘All right,’ she said, ‘let’s get started.’
They started by turning out the desk drawers, looking under them, tapping them for false bottoms. ‘You know, when you said I didn’t need to bring one of my officers-’ began Quill.
‘You thought you’d be doing this on your own?’
‘Kind of.’
Lofthouse gave him a look of mock annoyance.
A young suit stepped into the room, saw they were there and reacted in shock for a moment, then obviously remembered who they were, made his apologies and left.
‘That,’ said Quill. ‘That.’
‘What?’
‘Spatley felt this place had been searched. But even with him deceased, civil servants have to keep popping in here. No search that went unnoticed could have been very thorough. And it can’t have been done by anything invisible and occult, because that couldn’t have got in here.’