Sorry it's been so long to produce such a very short update. I'm hoping life will be a little less bonkers in a few days time. This is an amalgam of parts of the script that were never broadcast and my own thoughts.
15.10 Zoe Reynolds has been dispatched to Liverpool. She will met the Manchester operatives in the undercover office they use as their central Liverpool working base. Confirmation has been received that the preliminary cottage phonetap is working and that the premises will be unoccupied for part of the evening, allowing the bugging operation to go ahead with minimum delay.
16.00 Reports of explicit anti-abortion posters appearing in hospitals throughout the country. D notice issued to press with immediate effect.
We've managed to get all the posters removed and the press muzzled, for now, but this is an alarming development implying a nationwide network primed for action. For all we know the remaining nineteen bombs have been scattered around the country with a planned simultaneous detonation – possibly timed to coincide with Paul Kane's execution. While we continue to scrap for Intel I can only clutch at two possible straws. Firstly that Mary is a control freak and as such will insist on being personally present at the detonation of every individual bomb which means a total of nineteen separate explosions – how's that for a best case scenario! Secondly, since it is not exactly easy to obtain these explosives – against all the odds the customs and excise staff do have an occasional success in catching up with the smuggling undesirables - she might opt to spread out the agony, aiming to keep up the pressure/publicity for her glorious cause ! - while she attempts to source fresh supplies. Also of course there is a chance that since fly posting hospital notice boards with gory images is a much more vanilla tactic than actually killing people with a bit of luck most of her admiring cohorts will ultimately prove to be more mouth than murderous action. Mary may be a cold blooded killer – actually no may about it – hot or cold blooded she's a killer - but it doesn't follow that her acolytes are all cast in the same mould.
Even so I'm really desperately hoping that tonight's activities yield something, a something we can keep secret, as I've just been informally advised by the mole I placed in the Home Office that the Americans are kicking up and demanding the return of Mary Kane forthwith. Yes correct: I've adopted the first rule of spying, which is never trust anyone, a protocol that I apply with especial reference to our elected leaders. Men of high principles, as evidenced by their willingness to kiss the baby, then covertly, having distracted the cooing public, would unblinkingly flog off its granny to a foreign conglomerate. All in the national interest of course, which just happens to include a nice lucrative advisors fee. All above board in the same way that my left leg plays jingle bells.
So the Americans want a piece of our action! That's the Special relationship for you, we catch, they extradite, all the while boasting about winning the war against terror! Given the arrogant way they treat their allies - bend over, pants down while I roger you - they have the nerve to wonder why no one likes them!
I need to inform Tom about this development but as he apparently has something important on tonight with Ellie Simm I'll tell him tomorrow. What I really need to know, because my contact couldn't that find that one out, is who leaked this information to the Home Office. If it transpires that it was Keith Burns then I'll really have something to say to Tom, assuming he still retains the power of speech after I've used my un tuneful right leg to boot his backside up to where his brain allegedly resides.
Thanks for reading and if you have a moment a review would be appreciated.