Page 3 of The Final Vow (Washington Poe #7)

Cabinet Office Briefing Room C, Whitehall, London

The reality of CObrA was that the prime minister was rarely present at the meetings.

He might occasionally dip in and out, but that was more of a cosmetic thing.

In case he was asked by the press or by the leader of the opposition at PMQs.

CObrA meetings are mostly attended by the people who need to be there.

Cabinet Office Briefing Room C was typical. It was functional. Utilitarian. Nothing in it that didn’t need to be there. It looked like any briefing room anywhere in the world. A table, some cheap chairs, and tough, hardwearing carpet tiles.

The seven previous meetings convened to discuss the sniper murders had been attended by representatives of the police, the Home Office, the Office of the Prime Minister and a bunch of civil contingency experts. The usual suspects.

And they were there now. Still making notes, still out of ideas.

But this time someone new was in attendance.

He’d been in the wings, ready for the call.

Patiently waiting for the sniper to be redesignated as a threat to national security.

He was called Alastor Locke, and although he looked and dressed like Snidely Whiplash without the top hat, he was one of the UK’s most senior spies.

Locke had listened to what was being discussed in the meeting without commenting.

The sniper was a police matter. He wasn’t sure there was a role for the security services yet.

He’d made some notes but that was more out of habit. Locke didn’t attend meetings unbriefed.

The chair was called Timothy Spiggens and he was a junior minister in the Home Office. Not the best politician Locke had ever met, not the worst. He had just reached the last agenda item – AOB. Any Other Business.

‘Alastor,’ he said. ‘Can you bring everyone up to speed on what the security services have been up to?’

Fat chance , Locke thought but didn’t say.

‘The usual,’ he said. ‘Monitoring chatter, speaking to our friends, gross invasions of privacy, that kind of thing.’

‘And?’

Locke shrugged. ‘If he’s a bad actor, he’s working alone. No one is claiming responsibility. One of our more excitable far- right groups thought it might have been one of their fringe players, someone who disappeared a year ago, but I know for a fact they’re wrong.’

‘How?’

‘Because he’s dead. Drug overdose. His body went unclaimed and he was given a pauper’s funeral three months ago.’

‘But if you knew . . .’

‘If we knew who he was, why did his body go unclaimed?’

‘Yes.’

‘We’re the security service,’ Locke said. ‘Keeping secrets is what we do. And it suits our purposes if certain groups believe we still do black sites and extraordinary renditions. It keeps them in check.’

‘It’s not terrorism then?’ Spiggens said.

‘It isn’t.’

Spiggens put his head in his hands for a moment.

Terrorism would give the government a target.

Someone to fight. A lone wolf gave them nothing.

And Mason Dowbakin, the Right Honourable Member for Preston East, was already making waves.

Goading the centrist PM, forcing him to move to his right.

His latest column in the Telegraph said he was only helping the PM – who he admired greatly blah blah blah – return to his core values, but everyone knew he was setting himself up as the next cab off the rank should there be a leadership challenge.

‘This is a disaster,’ Spiggens said. He opened a slim file and removed a single sheet of paper.

‘These are the most recent figures. Working-from-home requests are up by six hundred per cent in the last two weeks alone, commuting is down by almost the same. When people do come into work, they don’t leave the building until they go home as soon as they finish, so the lunch and early evening economy is tanking.

The public are cancelling hospital appointments so the pandemic backlog, instead of shrinking, is getting bigger.

’ He put the sheet back in his file then picked up a copy of the Daily Mail .

‘A woman collapsed in Brighton yesterday. She lay on the pavement for over an hour before someone found the courage to go to her assistance. Eighty-seven years old and she died of heatstroke in one of the most advanced countries in the world.’ He slammed the newspaper on the table. ‘This is absolutely unacceptable!’

‘This isn’t a newspaper Mrs Locke has delivered,’ Locke said. ‘May I see it?’

Spiggens slid it across the table. Locke picked it up and spent a few seconds scanning the front page.

It was a detailed account of Naomi Etherington’s murder in Gretna Green.

He tilted his head. ‘I know a man who lives near Gretna Green. He doesn’t always play well with others, but he may be able to help. ’

‘What? Who is he?’ Spiggens said. ‘Get him on the next train, man!’

‘The approach will have to come from someone else, I’m afraid. The last time we had contact there was considerable . . . unpleasantness.’

‘How unpleasant?’

Locke cleared his throat. ‘He said if he ever saw me again, he’d, and this is verbatim, “Take those stupid glasses off your head and stick them up your bony arse.”’

‘My word,’ Spiggens said. ‘That is unpleasant.’

‘And truthfully, it was not undeserved,’ Locke said. ‘We did treat him rather badly.’

‘Perhaps he was exaggerating.’

Locke smiled at the thought. ‘This is not a man given to hyperbole, Timothy.’

‘What will he want?’

‘Knowing him, a crate of beer and some good-quality butcher’s sausages.’

‘Alastor,’ Spiggens warned. ‘The PM wants positive news – what will he want?’

‘I really have no idea,’ Locke said. ‘He’s whimsical.’

‘Who is he?’

‘Detective Sergeant Washington Poe.’

Cabinet Office Briefing Room C went from quiet murmurs to stunned silence so quickly it was like there’d been a power cut.

‘Good grief,’ Spiggens said eventually. ‘Is he still a police officer? I thought he’d married the Marquess of Northumberland’s daughter.’

‘Not yet.’

‘But they are engaged?’

‘I really have no idea, Timothy,’ Locke said. ‘I certainly haven’t received a wedding invitation.’

‘Washington Poe,’ Spiggens said, wondering if the PM would consider this good or bad news. ‘I’m not sure, Alastor. We got into a lot of bother the last time he worked with us. All that stuff on the golf course.’

‘True,’ Locke replied. ‘But he was right.’

‘Yes, I know he was right. He also caused a major diplomatic incident. My counterpart in the US didn’t return my calls for almost a year.’

Locke hid a smile. Unsuccessfully.

‘It’s not funny, Alastor!’ Spiggens snapped. ‘We called you in to get your take on this horrible situation and the only thing you’ve come up with is an unmanageable misanthrope from the far north of England.’

Locke said nothing.

‘I’m not sure he’s the type of person we want, Alastor.’

‘Maybe not, but he is the person we need . He has a knack for this kind of thing.’

Spiggens sighed. ‘ If I take this to the PM, can you control him?’

‘Good Lord, no,’ Locke said. He thought about it for a moment. ‘But I know someone who can.’

‘Who?’

Locke told him.

‘Get her on the phone then.’

Locke removed an ornate notebook from his pocket and found a number. He pressed the speakerphone icon and dialled. His call was answered immediately.

‘Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Unit, please,’ he said.

There were a couple of clicks while his call was redirected.

‘MSHTU, Detective Chief Inspector Stephanie Flynn speaking.’

‘Good morning, Chief Inspector, this is Alastor Locke. Have I caught you at a bad time? And before you answer, I’m in Whitehall and you’re on speakerphone.’

‘What do you want, dickhead?’

Locke chuckled. ‘I’m thinking of putting the band back together.’

Flynn paused. Then she said, ‘It’s about fucking time.’