Chapter Six
"Governor Phelps is expecting you," Mark Stewart said. "Please follow me."
Ros smiled politely and dropped back to keep pace with Lucas. At her enquiring look, he gave her a thumbs-up whose implicit message he knew Ros, who had watched him like a hawk through the security gates and the physical search, wasn't going to believe. He was grateful that her scrutiny couldn't actually penetrate the hidden recesses of his mind. In Russia, he had learned the hard way how to conceal his fear from others, and the skill was coming in useful now. He compelled himself into impassive stillness as three successive security gates were opened and slammed with a nauseatingly familiar echoing clang behind them, admitting them to the top gallery running around one of the original wings of the prison. It was clean, brightly-lit, and looked as if it had been recently painted, but nothing could disguise the smell that instantly caught at the back of Lucas's throat.
"What is it?" Ros asked, as he gave a cough that came dangerously close to retching.
"Nothing," he said firmly, although he knew from the way she unconsciously wrinkled her nose that she had caught it too – the stale, sour scent common to every place of detention in the world, of confined space tainted by an overload of human sweat and a shortage of fresh, clean air. He peered down through the metal railings and saw knots of men looking up and pointing at them. After a minute, a ragged chorus of shouts, whistles and cat-calling began to drift upwards. Lucas cringed, and Mark Stewart looked back awkwardly at Ros as the ribald nature of the shouts became audible.
"Sorry. Not every day they see a beautiful woman."
Ros nodded slightly in acknowledgement; only one swift downward glance betrayed any reaction. But the men below, caged like animals behind steel bars and wire netting, and now making explicitly obscene gestures in her direction, were her father's daily companions, and Lucas was relieved for her when they had crossed the wing and the raucous cackles faded from earshot. A prison officer unlocked yet another barred gate, and after a few yards, the governor's aide rapped on a door, then opened it.
"MI-5, sir." As they entered, Lucas recognised Jeremy Phelps striding across the office towards them.
"Thank you, Mark. If you could bring some coffee?" His sharp eyes rested for a second on Lucas as he almost – but not quite – stifled a sigh of relief at the sight of the open office window. "Do please sit, Miss Myers, Mr - "
"North." Lucas shook hands. Phelps, without comment, pushed the window wider and then re-settled himself behind his desk.
"Miss Myers, is it your intention that both of you should conduct the interview with Sir Jocelyn?"
"Yes – unless he's unwilling to speak to me." Ros spoke so evenly that if Lucas hadn't known a great deal better he would have believed that she was genuinely indifferent to the possibility. "In which case Mr North will do it alone." She waited until Mark Stewart had delivered the coffee and withdrawn. "He's well enough to talk to us?"
"He is." The governor offered each a cup of coffee. Lucas accepted; Ros shook her head. "But he's still quite weak, and in some discomfort. He tires easily, so I think you should speak to him as soon as possible." Phelps sipped his own coffee. "As per our agreement on the phone, he's been informed that it's you he'll be seeing."
What bloody agreement - first I've heard of it? Lucas looked angrily at Ros, whose face was pale but whose tone didn't change as she asked: "And? What did he say?"
"He's agreed to speak to you." Phelps regarded her sympathetically. "Albeit with the utmost reluctance – and only after it was made clear to him that insisting on Harry would mean several days of delay - at least."
Ros merely nodded, her face expressionless. Lucas, still infuriated at the way he had been kept in the dark, jumped into her silence.
"Have you made any progress with your investigation?" he asked.
Phelps nodded. "Yes, we have. I'm afraid it points to Sir Jocelyn's heart attack having been artificially induced. We can go into the details afterwards." He switched his gaze back to Ros. "Is that acceptable, Miss Myers?"
"I - yes." Her response was a fraction slow; for a split second the intense, alert concentration that was a hallmark of Ros's work in the field had slipped, Lucas thought. "Yes, of course. As I explained, we'll need to speak to him alone, Governor – security, I'm afraid."
Phelps clearly wasn't happy at the prospect, but he nodded. "He's under guard in the hospital wing; I wasn't prepared to take any further risks. I've given instructions that the officer on duty will absent himself during your interview. You'll have complete privacy. If you're ready?" he paused until Ros nodded, then pressed a button on his desk, and rose. "It's in the new part of the complex; I'll ask Mark to use the outside route. Passes through the prison garden, quite pleasant." He glanced at Lucas. "Little less stressful for you to cope with." Lucas stiffened at the inference as the Governor added: "No details needed. A man always carries his time in prison with him, Mr North, even in freedom. It leaves a mark. On everyone." He glanced at Ros. "Good luck, Miss Myers."
As they emerged into the prison yard, Lucas felt Ros slip a minute transceiver into his hand. Without breaking stride, she fitted one herself. Lucas followed suit, and hastily pretended to be scratching his ear as Mark Stewart glanced back.
"Sir Jocelyn is on our new enhanced wing." He gestured towards a building to their right, the spare lines and PVC window-frames of which contrasted sharply with the more elaborate original Victorian structures.
"Model prisoner then?" Lucas enquired, when Ros didn't respond.
The aide smiled wryly. "That's a category that only exists in TV crime drama, sir. But yes … a trusted prisoner. He's a regular helper with our literacy and numeracy classes." He swung left. "This way, please."
The garden, with its flowerbeds, wooden benches and hanging baskets of petunias, was a surprise. It could have been the centre of almost any small town in the country – until you saw the men weeding, digging and watering under the watchful eyes of several CCTV cameras and a lone prison officer. Several inmates looked up from their work, their eyes undressing Ros with a brazenness that made Lucas's blood boil. He caught the eye of the prison officer who, instead of rebuking the ogling men, gave a contemptuous smirk.
"S'all this returning to nature, mate. Sap rising an' all that."
"Leave it," Ros hissed, as Lucas was about to make a heated response. He took a second to glare pointedly back at the man anyway, and caught up with the other two as they were climbing the stairs. Ros was speaking, but her voice was too low for him to hear what about. Something else she doesn't think I need to know. As the thought formed, he thrust down the resentment that had given birth to it. He had taken issue with Ros before over the professional arrogance to which her supreme self-confidence sometimes gave rise, but he knew that today was different. Today, if Ros was keeping him at arms length, it was out of a sense of shame rather than one of superiority.
"Here you are." Mark Stewart came to a halt outside a pair of locked doors with glass panels in the upper half. He tapped a code into a keypad, and after a moment a prison guard appeared and released the lock. "All yours. Mr Fairclough will contact us when you're through." He nodded briskly at them both, turned, and walked off.
"Right. You ready for your audience with 'is Majesty Myers, then?" the warder asked sourly.
Lucas noted the absence of the deferential 'Sir Jocelyn'. No love lost there. Ros's jaw hardened, but she just indicated the nearby toilet door with her head and said tersely to Lucas: "Check in with Callum," before she vanished through it.
"Gawd," Fairclough observed, once Lucas has ascertained that his transceiver was working to the techie's satisfaction. "Your boss, is she? Almost as much of a bloody little Hitler as 'e is."
The apple never falls far from the tree. The Russian proverb instantly popped into Lucas's mind, but he held his tongue as Ros came back. She looked composed save for a muscle twitching slightly near her left eye.
"Unlock it, please." She flicked one quick, unreadable look at Lucas, then strode into the room.
Lucas had researched both Sir Jocelyn Myers and his abortive coup, but he still wouldn't have recognised the man in the bed. He had lost weight, and his white hair looked to have thinned. Dressed in plain flannel pyjamas, he was dozing, with an oxygen mask fitted loosely over his nose and mouth. At the approaching tap of Ros's heels, he stirred, pulled the mask off, and his blue eyes fixed on his eldest daughter. Ros stopped.
"Daddy." It was barely above a murmur, but the evocative word dropped like a stone into the silence.
"Rosalind." Myers's voice was weak and hoarse, but Lucas, who had never heard anyone but Harry address Ros by her full name, and only then when he was angry with her, felt every ounce of the contempt in it. Remembering that this interview and Ros's humiliation were being transmitted to, and meticulously recorded on the Grid, he winced inwardly.
"How are you?"
She might as well not have spoken. Jocelyn Myers jerked his thumb towards Lucas. "Who's that?"
"A colleague. My senior officer."
"Your officer?" His mockery was edged with derision. " I take it you've maintained your grip on the greasy pole, then?"
Lucas gulped. On the Grid, Ros would have flayed anyone who addressed her with even a fraction of that insolence. To his amazement, she ignored the insult and calmly sat down. "Do you feel well enough to answer our questions?"
"Do you care?" The sudden venom from an ailing, elderly man, was startling. "You're not here to patronise me, Rosalind. Were it not for the convenient unavailability of Harry Pearce, you wouldn't be here at all." The outburst ended in a bout of coughing. Lucas poured him some water, spotting as he did so the anguish that rippled across Ros's face, although it was gone in a flash. When the spasm passed, she said flatly:
"If you'd prefer that I weren't, you can talk to my colleague."
Sir Jocelyn Myers gave a snort of derision barely muffled by the oxygen mask.
"I said I'd speak to the organ-grinder, not the damned monkey!"
Ros's lips tightened. "If you have information you may provide it to him or me. Or you may, of course, wait for someone you deem more worthy of your … status." Lucas winced at the lacerating scorn. Ros was her father's daughter. "Given what appears to have happened to you and the risk of its happening again I would suggest that isn't the wisest of options, but the choice is yours."
Myers glared. Ros returned his stare with equanimity. In the silence of the standoff, Lucas could hear the anxious whispering and muttering of their colleagues on the Grid through his earpiece. He could also see Sir Jocelyn's business brain and diplomatic experience calculating his next move. He might be frail, but he was no fool. He knew he was trapped, but he would wring every last drop of advantage from the situation.
"My status, Rosalind, is that of an 'enhanced' prisoner. I assume even you people know what that means."
"Enlighten us," Ros invited. Both listened as he did – less rigid supervision, more time out of the cell, work in the prison garden and library, and the opportunity, which he had taken, to assist with educational classes.
"One of my fellow-scholars recently earned a move to an open prison en route back to that creaking shambles that your democracy warriors at Thames House are pleased to call law-abiding society. " A grimace of pain crossed his face and he pressed his hands to his abdomen.
"Do you need time?" Ros asked. Lucas thought he heard the tiniest quiver in her voice.
"Time. You gave me twenty years of it, Rosalind; I don't need any more of your largesse." He used the oxygen mask again. "Thomas Laverne. You'll remember him."
Lucas did. Laverne had been an investment banker, convicted on charges of embezzlement. He had always maintained that he had been framed by his employers to prevent him from blowing the whistle on the financial machinations that almost brought the bank to its knees.
"And?" he prompted.
A sardonic expression that was only too familiar to him came over Jocelyn Myers's face. Physically, Ros took after her mother, but there was no mistaking the character traits she shared with her father.
"It speaks!" Lucas took a leaf out of his daughter's book and merely stared back. "And? He lost his job and his reputation as well as his freedom. His family lost its breadwinner, its home and its future. Like so many others since, he wants revenge, Mr No Name Spook - on the government that propped up that bank. On the great and the good, who stitched him up because the truth was inconvenient. On the legal system that denied him justice, and the authorities that let his family sink into a sea of debt, poverty and indifference."
His voice was becoming croakier by the minute, and his colour, Lucas noticed, wasn't good. He glanced at Ros. The man was tiring visibly; their time was running out.
"You didn't call us here to warn us about just one man with a grudge against the authorities," he said.
"Just one?" Myers coughed again. "No, just one of many. Crisis Crusade. What did that moron Millington call them? The Crap Crusaders?" His face contorted into a sneer. "He knows nothing."
"I assume you do," Ros said. Silence. "We can just talk to Laverne."
Her father smiled smugly, despite his weakness. "Dear me, so sorry, Rosalind. He'll be out by now. And I can assure you he won't be popping round to Milbank offering to help Harry Pearce and his band of merry men defend the realm."
He's toying with her. Lucas gritted his teeth. Ros was an experienced interrogator, and he had seen suspects unsuccessfully trying to bait her before. Inevitably, their attempts foundered on the rock of that steely self-control, which was being subjected to unprecedented pressure now.
"Is that all you have to tell us? Because if it is, let me tell you something." Ros's voice had dropped so low that it was barely audible, and Lucas, who along with every other officer on the Grid, knew what that presaged, tensed. "There's a twenty-four hour guard on you, because whatever Thomas Laverne told you, someone else knows you're aware of it and wants to shut your mouth. You aren't safe in here … father. Your 'heart attack' looks about as natural as Bruce Forsyth's wig, and whoever was responsible for it is still out there - " she waved towards the barred window, "waiting. Now, unless you're prepared to tell me more about Crisis Crusade than we already know, I shall report to Governor Phelps that you're wasting everyone's time. Which, in the unlikely event it doesn't get you killed, will still go down like a lead balloon with the parole board." She got to her feet, and her voice turned to granite. "You just remember this. I'm not your scared little girl any longer. Lindy's gone. Long gone. You can humiliate me, you can take whatever petty revenge you think you're due, but don't you dare make the mistake of not taking me seriously."
Without looking at either of them, she stalked towards the door. Lucas knew she was calling her father's bluff. His features were taut with a combination of fury and loathing, and for a moment Lucas thought they would win out over his sense of his own vulnerability.
"Kallima." It came out as a croak rather than a shout, but Ros halted. "The leader… what they call him."
Ros kept her fingers wrapped around the door handle. "Go on."
"Laverne said he has plans - a campaign to destabilise the country. Force a change. Widespread civil disobedience; stirring up the nationwide discontent. Already started … you've seen it."
Exactly what Ros herself had claimed. Shit, almost the same words. Ashamed of the suspicion that crept into his mind, Lucas slammed the lid on it.
"Credit me with the intelligence to have worked that out for myself, father - and to be able to stop this ... 'Kallima'. Sorry." Ros rapped on the door. "Not enough."
Myers tried to pull himself more upright and cried out in pain. Lucas sprang to his feet, and Ros whirled round. As Lucas eased a vehemently cursing Jocelyn Myers into a more comfortable position, she succeeded – just – in preventing herself from running to his bedside.
"No you won't." Myers was breathing heavily and the words came out in gasps, but there was a malicious gleam in his eyes despite the pain. "That – discontent … rot's spread. Long way. Even into the last redoubt."
Lucas saw understanding flood Ros's face at the same moment as it came to him.
"How?" he grated.
"Kallima." There was a bluish tinge to the old man's cheeks now, and he slumped back, his eyelids fluttering closed. "That's … what he said. Kallima … he's one of yours."
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"I think you should," Jeremy Phelps urged, when Ros would again have refused the coffee he pressed on her. "I'm sure it was distressing to see your father so unwell."
"I'm fine," Ros said stiffly, but to Lucas's relief she reluctantly accepted the cup. After her father's stunning revelation, she had pressed him relentlessly for further details, paying scant heed to Lucas's whispered 'go easy' and stopping only when it became clear that Myers was too exhausted for them to continue the discussion. Her ruthlessness had made Lucas, even with his experience of the brutality of Russian interrogators, thoroughly uncomfortable. Only on the way back to Phelps's office did he realise what that apparent callousness had really cost her; she was trembling, and gnawed continuously on her bottom lip in order to try and maintain her composure. A tentative hand on her shoulder had elicited a shaky 'don't!' as she shied away from him, but outwardly at least, she was now back in control; only her extreme pallor hinted at the distress to which Phelps referred.
"What did your investigation find, Governor?"
She spoke so abruptly that Lucas half-expected the man, who had, after all, been a military officer and was used to deference, to tell her to mind her manners. Instead, he responded with the same directness.
"Well, the night shift takes over duty at between ten-fifteen and ten-thirty, immediately after lockdown. An officer making his rounds saw Sir Jocelyn unconscious on the floor of his cell at approximately eleven forty-five and raised the alarm. He was taken straight to the hospital wing and his cell sealed. We're well equipped here, and the night doctor kept him stable and monitored him until the paramedics arrived - ten minutes after I myself got there. They took the decision to keep him here transfer him to hospital at his age and in his condition." He hesitated. "And to be perfectly honest with you, we didn't have the officers to accompany him. We have had to cope with deep staff cuts here over the last year, and the numbers on duty at night have been severely reduced."
"I understand," Ros said quietly. "Please go on."
"The following morning blood and urine samples were taken, and sent for analysis. Meanwhile I had Sir Jocelyn's cell thoroughly searched and every inmate on his wing was questioned, as were the officers on duty there on both the evening and night shifts." He cleared his throat. "The search and the questioning didn't turn up anything, but the toxicology analyses did." Here it comes, Lucas thought. "There were unusually high levels of potassium chloride in your father's bloodstream."
Neither Lucas nor Ros were of a particularly scientific turn of mind. Lucas frowned. "What does that mean?"
Jeremy Phelps was watching Ros carefully, as if he expected her to collapse at any moment. "Did you know your father was on regular diuretic medicine for high blood pressure?"
"No." Ros swallowed. "He didn't have a problem when – when I last saw him."
"It was under control," Phelps said, "but one of the side-effects of diuretics is a tendency to lower potassium levels. According to the doctor, Sir Jocelyn takes tablets each evening to counteract the problem, but the levels in his blood were way beyond what they should have been on the dosage he took. Effectively, he had hyperkalaemia. The doctor says that it was that which caused first an arrhythmia, and then a heart attack." He cleared his throat. "I'm sorry, Miss Myers, I have to ask you this. Do you think it likely that your father could have attempted to take his own life?"
Ros made a strangled sound that could have been either laugh or sob, but she answered without hesitation. "Never. Not in any circumstances."
Phelps nodded slowly. "Then the only conclusion left is the one we initially came to - that someone else made that attempt."
"By doctoring the tablets?" Lucas asked. Phelps shrugged in affirmation. "But surely – that couldn't have been done without connivance? At least, not by another prisoner?"
"I'm afraid not," Phelps said quietly. "Which suggests - "
"That a warder helped whoever it was," Ros finished.
"Or that a warder was responsible." As Ros and Lucas exchanged incredulous glances, he sighed. "The mere idea horrifies me, but there's no point in playing the ostrich. As I told you, the Prison Service has been badly affected by cuts to public services. We are overstretched, and there is widespread anger over changes to conditions of service – especially pensions. We have had several work-to-rule protests and two wildcat strikes in the last six months."
"I thought prison officers couldn't strike?" Lucas asked.
"They usually don't – or haven't - but the convention that they can't is not enshrined in law," the Governor answered. "In a nutshell, my staff is dissatisfied and resentful inside the building; outside it their families are battling the problems of low wages, high prices and unemployment like everyone else's. If someone were offered an inducement …" he left the sentence unfinished.
In the silence, Lucas replayed in his memory the disgruntled, sullen insolence of Fairclough and the officer supervising the prisoners in the garden, and recalled Sir Jocelyn's words – 'Rot's spread … even into the last redoubt.' Bloody hell. Ros's voice startled him.
"Governor, we'll need the medical report, and copies of every staff interview. Plus the roster for that night, the relevant personnel records, and personal details of every prisoner on the wing."
Phelps nodded. "You shall have them." As Ros looked at her watch, he said, "There are two more things, Miss Myers, one personal, one professional." Lucas saw Ros go rigid at the word 'personal', but she nodded. "First, Lady Annabel has arrived to visit Sir Jocelyn, but she categorically refuses to see you. She doesn't seem open to persuasion. She is extremely determined ... and very angry."
Ros's eyes met Lucas's; there was a slight flush edging her cheekbones. "It isn't essential – yet - to see her, Governor. But she can't know the details of what's happened. The Act now applies to everything we've discussed here today."
"That's understood. Secondly – given the situation, and until we – you - are absolutely certain who was responsible for this attack and why, I'm afraid that we can no longer guarantee Sir Jocelyn's safety. For now - " as Lucas was about to protest, "yes, because I have four of my best and most trustworthy officers guarding him around the clock. But I can ill spare those officers, and clearly the threat to Sir Jocelyn's life has not gone. I can, if you agree, apply to have him moved?" he looked enquiringly at Ros.
"Give me forty-eight hours," she said. "I'll get clearance to make arrangements." As Phelps nodded his thanks, she rose, and hastily both men did the same. It was Lucas who caught her as she stumbled and almost fell.
"It's all right." She would have brushed him aside, but Lucas held on. Every woman he had known who had turned the colour she was now had fainted seconds later. "I just – just need air, that's all."
That makes two of us, Lucas thought, as they headed back to the staff exit. They were delayed by two wardens struggling to subdue a recalcitrant prisoner, and had to take refuge in an empty cell. By the time the corridor was cleared, his shirt was clammy with sweat and he relinquished his grip on Ros's arm for fear she would see his hands shaking. He didn't know who was more relieved when the goodbyes, thanks and handshakes with Stewart were over. Ros kept snatching glances back at the building, but Lucas was too focused on steadying himself to notice that she was also crying silently, until they were in the car. The shock jolted him more than anything else he had seen or heard in the last three hours. He had seen Ros upset before, but he had never seen her, or expected to see her actually break down – certainly not while on duty.
"Ros - " he began, but she shook her head fiercely and whipped the transceiver from her ear. Lucas, who had completely forgotten that they were still transmitting, did likewise. Ros threw them into the glove compartment and impatiently wiped her face. Lucas remembered what she'd snapped to Sir Jocelyn. Lindy's gone. No she hadn't, he thought compassionately. No-one else on the Grid would believe it, but that little girl was still huddled somewhere in the depths of Ros Myers's psyche, longing for the family she'd lost. He gave her a tissue and kissed the salty dampness of her cheek.
"It's nothing." Ros blew her nose aggressively, and switched on the engine. "That's it, the honeymoon's over."
For an instant Lucas was bewildered; his relationship with Ros had never had a honeymoon period, unless you were counting in units of ten minutes. She gave him a look of sheer exasperation only slightly diluted by her wet eyes and pink nose.
"Theirs, Lucas. This is too sensitive. 'The course of true love never did run smooth'. Tell Callum to get ready to call Paris. We need help." Lucas felt relief sweep over him as the car cleared the security barrier and the penny finally dropped. "We need Harry."
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