‘Harvey Gillot …
Harvey Gillot …
Harvey Gillot …’
‘Does she have anything interesting or marginally relevant on Harvey Gillot?’ Her line manager put the question without looking up from his laptop.
Penny Laing thought it blatant rudeness not to make eye contact. She feigned indifference. ‘I sent it over to you. Do you want it sent again?’
His head was still lowered. She wondered what he was reading that so captivated him – maybe the new guidelines on safeguards required by human-rights legislation for intrusive surveillance, maybe the runners tomorrow at Doncaster, maybe the revised pension estimates for HMRC. She stood, waited, made silent complaint.
He said, ‘I didn’t learn whether you thought she was worth going to, following, sticking with. That’s what I’m asking.’ She ground a fingernail into her palm and let the pain remindher that sourness was the fast track back to VAT work or worse. ‘Yes, she was. But – am I allowed to say it? The whole scenario got right up my nose. I did time in the Democratic Republic of Congo and—’
Now the line manager interrupted with a sweet smile to match his voice: ‘And I’ve worked in Halifax, Glasgow and Plymouth. Why is Megs Behan worth sticking with?’
‘Can I be blunt?’
‘Blunt will do.’
‘Because she has better assets than I do. Because she’s better informed than I can ever be. She knows where Gillot is, what deals he’s doing, when he’s in Ostend and what charters are then flying out and – are you getting me? It’s humiliating to be traipsing to an organisation like that when we don’t have the resources to do a proper job. Stick with her, yes.’
‘Remember the downturn, the crisis, the crunch.’
‘I do, with my corn flakes each morning.’
‘Also remember we’re somewhat of a luxury. A good conscience appeaser for legislators, the Church and the pink brigade. We’re a natural target for budget-slicing. To survive we need collars felt, court cases convened and sentences passed. Sorry and all that. Please, regular reports on Harvey Gillot – who is likely to be a right little shite.’
He was back at his laptop.
Penny Laing headed for her desk and wondered whether he was indeed an enemy. She swigged water and thought a thunderstorm was brewing – wondered if the target was touchable. The photograph in the file showed what she would have called a chancer’s face.
‘Harvey Gillot, oh, yes. Bloody hell, I’d nearly lost him.’
‘Who, Benjie?’
‘Harvey Gillot’s the name, Deirdre. Little man I used to know – and know no longer. One place for him.’
He had been known as Benjie since he was sent as a boarder to preparatory school sixty-one years before. By christening, hewas Benjamin Cumberland Arbuthnot. He and his wife, Deirdre, lived in a small, damp-ridden corner of her family seat, handed down on a line of inheritance for some two and a half centuries. He was now on the move. It was his seventieth year, so their son and daughter-in-law were giving them the push from the west wing, two floors of it, and consigning them to a cottage beyond the chapel adjacent to the pets’ cemetery. Clear-out time.
He might have been arrested, banged up in a cell without his tie, belt and shoelaces, if Special Branch had done a search and found the caches of classified papers – tea chests of them – he had accumulated during his time as an officer of the Secret Intelligence Service.
There was a brochure for a hotel in a Croatian coastal town, fastened with a paperclip to a three-page typewritten report – SECRET stamped in red on each page. He tossed it into the scorched oil drum that acted as an incinerator. More on that trip, and more stamped pages, than all the files from Peshawar – he was a magpie, unable to help himself, had always needed to take copies home. Always forgot to send them to Archive or an official shredder.
‘I don’t remember that name.’
‘You never met him, Deirdre.’
‘Did
Harvey Gillot …
Harvey Gillot …’
‘Does she have anything interesting or marginally relevant on Harvey Gillot?’ Her line manager put the question without looking up from his laptop.
Penny Laing thought it blatant rudeness not to make eye contact. She feigned indifference. ‘I sent it over to you. Do you want it sent again?’
His head was still lowered. She wondered what he was reading that so captivated him – maybe the new guidelines on safeguards required by human-rights legislation for intrusive surveillance, maybe the runners tomorrow at Doncaster, maybe the revised pension estimates for HMRC. She stood, waited, made silent complaint.
He said, ‘I didn’t learn whether you thought she was worth going to, following, sticking with. That’s what I’m asking.’ She ground a fingernail into her palm and let the pain remindher that sourness was the fast track back to VAT work or worse. ‘Yes, she was. But – am I allowed to say it? The whole scenario got right up my nose. I did time in the Democratic Republic of Congo and—’
Now the line manager interrupted with a sweet smile to match his voice: ‘And I’ve worked in Halifax, Glasgow and Plymouth. Why is Megs Behan worth sticking with?’
‘Can I be blunt?’
‘Blunt will do.’
‘Because she has better assets than I do. Because she’s better informed than I can ever be. She knows where Gillot is, what deals he’s doing, when he’s in Ostend and what charters are then flying out and – are you getting me? It’s humiliating to be traipsing to an organisation like that when we don’t have the resources to do a proper job. Stick with her, yes.’
‘Remember the downturn, the crisis, the crunch.’
‘I do, with my corn flakes each morning.’
‘Also remember we’re somewhat of a luxury. A good conscience appeaser for legislators, the Church and the pink brigade. We’re a natural target for budget-slicing. To survive we need collars felt, court cases convened and sentences passed. Sorry and all that. Please, regular reports on Harvey Gillot – who is likely to be a right little shite.’
He was back at his laptop.
Penny Laing headed for her desk and wondered whether he was indeed an enemy. She swigged water and thought a thunderstorm was brewing – wondered if the target was touchable. The photograph in the file showed what she would have called a chancer’s face.
‘Harvey Gillot, oh, yes. Bloody hell, I’d nearly lost him.’
‘Who, Benjie?’
‘Harvey Gillot’s the name, Deirdre. Little man I used to know – and know no longer. One place for him.’
He had been known as Benjie since he was sent as a boarder to preparatory school sixty-one years before. By christening, hewas Benjamin Cumberland Arbuthnot. He and his wife, Deirdre, lived in a small, damp-ridden corner of her family seat, handed down on a line of inheritance for some two and a half centuries. He was now on the move. It was his seventieth year, so their son and daughter-in-law were giving them the push from the west wing, two floors of it, and consigning them to a cottage beyond the chapel adjacent to the pets’ cemetery. Clear-out time.
He might have been arrested, banged up in a cell without his tie, belt and shoelaces, if Special Branch had done a search and found the caches of classified papers – tea chests of them – he had accumulated during his time as an officer of the Secret Intelligence Service.
There was a brochure for a hotel in a Croatian coastal town, fastened with a paperclip to a three-page typewritten report – SECRET stamped in red on each page. He tossed it into the scorched oil drum that acted as an incinerator. More on that trip, and more stamped pages, than all the files from Peshawar – he was a magpie, unable to help himself, had always needed to take copies home. Always forgot to send them to Archive or an official shredder.
‘I don’t remember that name.’
‘You never met him, Deirdre.’
‘Did
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