Page 54 of The Final Vow (Washington Poe #7)

‘Mischief makers?’ Poe said. ‘What the hell does that mean?’

‘Have you heard of the term “gaslighting”, Poe?’ Locke replied.

‘Tilly sometimes uses it,’ Poe admitted.

‘Usually after Edgar has tricked her into giving him a second dinner. It means psychological manipulation. The gaslighter attempts to sow self-doubt and confusion in their victim by distorting reality. It’s commonly used to obtain power and control in abusive or dysfunctional relationships. ’

Locke nodded. ‘It’s a ghastly turn of phrase, I know,’ he said. ‘But, without giving you the entire megillah, Ezekiel Puck was a professional gaslighter.’

‘Well, you did say it was something bad,’ Poe said.

‘We call it psyops,’ Locke continued. ‘Psychological operations. Or black propaganda. Psyops isn’t new, of course.

The Persians waged psychological warfare against the Egyptians as far back as the Battle of Pelusium in 525 bc.

Churchill had whole departments dedicated to it during the war.

’ Locke sighed. Removed his glasses and polished them with a monogrammed handkerchief.

He was always doing that. Poe wondered if he had greasy eyeballs. ‘May I ask you something, Poe?’

‘You can.’

‘When it comes to black propaganda, whose name springs to mind?’

Poe didn’t hesitate. ‘Joseph Goebbels,’ he said. ‘His Ministry of Enlightenment and Propaganda deceived the Germans into believing that if it wasn’t for the Jews they’d all be living in a utopia.’

Locke nodded. ‘Goebbels was a gifted narrator, and when it comes to scale, there is no doubt he’s the most infamous propagandist in the history of the world.

But, in my small, and no doubt insular, world, it’s not Goebbels that springs to mind when we think about psychological warfare; it’s Ezekiel Puck.

He had an extraordinary talent for winkling out his target’s hopes and dreams, their fears and their deepest darkest secrets, and then exploiting them.

He would push their buttons and pull their levers until there was nothing left but despair. ’

‘And which group of people did you designate as targets, Alastor? Trade union leaders? Guardian readers? The French?’

Locke flicked through the documents in the file. He picked out one but shielded it from Poe. He said, ‘What do you know about Iran?’

‘Just what your Ministry of Enlightenment and Propaganda . . . sorry, I meant to say what your Foreign Office tells me.’

‘Very droll, Poe,’ Locke said. He tapped the document he was holding. ‘This British company found a loophole in the law when it came to exporting resource planning software. They were selling it as a way of coordinating humanitarian aid.’

‘But?’

‘But the company knew it could also be used to integrate industrial processes relating to Iran’s nuclear programme.’

‘Why not call them out on it? Or shut them down completely?’ Poe paused then answered his own question. ‘Because it would embarrass the government.’

‘It would. But there was more than that to consider. The company is a major employer. Shutting them down would mean job losses. The Treasury would lose tax revenue. Far better the problem went away. Quietly.’

‘Step in, Ezekiel Puck?’

Locke nodded. ‘A rogue senior executive was behind the sale of the software, but he was protected by the law and if it came down to it, his board would have had no choice but to stand behind him and denounce the crackdown as government overreach. Puck was given the task of bringing this man to order. The method was left to him.’

‘He murdered him?’

‘Good Lord, no,’ Locke said. ‘Despite what you might think, democide has never been in this country’s wheelhouse.’

‘Democide?’

‘State-sponsored killing.’

‘Well say that then,’ Poe snapped. ‘We didn’t all go to Cheltenham Ladies’ College.’

‘Yes, very good, Poe,’ Locke said. ‘We leave democide to the Russians and the Saudis. No, Puck’s methods were far more subtle. And by the time he withdrew, no one even knew that what had happened had happened by his design.’

‘What did he do?’

‘Nothing for three months. Nothing but study the senior executive. His current life, his previous life. Eventually he decided a failed romance from his university days was his Achilles heel. It was a short-lived love affair, but Puck’s research led him to believe the impact on the senior executive’s life had been profound.

That everything since – his wife, his children, even his career – had been a compromise. ’

Poe thought it through. Saw where Locke was going. ‘He rekindled it?’

‘He did. He arranged a dinner reservation with his target. He had the paperwork to prove – paperwork that would stand up to rigorous scrutiny, I may add – that Puck was able to put a significant amount of business his way. He met him in a restaurant he already knew the woman in question would be dining at with her husband. Made sure their tables were close enough for them to see each other, but not so close they could speak to each other. And a week later, he gets the first email . . .’

Poe read to the end of the page. ‘He thought that on seeing him, his ex-lover wanted to rekindle their relationship?’

‘Puck managed her end of their digital relationship. She professed her never-ending love for him. Her dissatisfaction with her husband. That seeing him had reminded her of everything she had lost. In short, she told him everything he wanted to hear. Everything he’d been dreaming of. They agreed to meet.’

‘And this woman had no idea?’

‘She did when he gatecrashed a lunch with her mother in a Covent Garden patisserie. Later, she, or rather Puck, apologised for pretending she wasn’t expecting him.

Put it down to her mother unexpectedly showing up.

That she had to maintain the facade until she was ready to leave her husband for him. ’

‘How long did this last?’

‘Two weeks after the restraining order was made against him. By then Puck didn’t need to do anything.

The senior executive was turning up at her place of work, screaming declarations of love at her until the police removed him.

He left his wife, his children, even his house in Hampstead.

He moved into a hotel, convinced that one night there’d be a knock on the door. ’

‘And eventually he was sacked?’

‘Removed by the board. They had no choice really; he was rarely at work, and when he did turn up he was drunk. He was replaced by someone with views on Iran that were much more in line with current government thinking.’

‘What happened to him?’ Poe said quietly. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the answer.

‘I fear that gets us neatly to the crux of the problem,’ Locke replied. ‘A month after being removed by the board, our disgraced senior executive threw himself under the 15:26 out of Finchley Road & Frognal.’

‘He killed himself?’

‘We couldn’t prove it, but we think that despite the task being complete, Puck kept going. That he’d been having too much fun to stop.’

‘He drove the senior executive to suicide?’

‘We think so.’

‘Why?’

‘If you’re looking for anything more nuanced than because he could, I don’t have it.’

‘How many?’

‘How many what, dear boy?’

‘You know.’

Locke did. ‘In total, fourteen of his targets committed suicide. It was always a possibility, given who the mischief makers targeted and how they went about achieving their goals, but even so, by their standards, fourteen is an extraordinarily high number.’ He removed another document from his file.

‘The wife of an awkward ambassador of a country I won’t identify took her husband’s nickel-plated revolver and blew her brains out when her past as a high-end call girl was made public.

He resigned his post and returned home. His replacement was much more amenable to what’s happening in the South Atlantic.

One of these so-called “hacktivists” was found hanged after it emerged he’d been using his credit card to download indecent images of children. ’

‘Jesus,’ Poe said. ‘And you allowed this?’

‘I have a country to protect, Poe. I can’t be sentimental as to how I go about it. And while these deaths are individually tragic, the missions that Puck and the other mischief makers conducted were authorised at the highest level.’

Poe was about to protest, but Locke raised his hand.

‘But I will say this,’ he said. ‘The pattern of his . . . shall we say extracurricular activities didn’t show itself until later.

Ezekiel Puck did have a flair for the work but the moment I saw he was relishing his role as the architect of someone’s life falling apart, I cut him loose.

Early retirement. A firm handshake and a moderate pension.

In my world, ruthless is good. Sadistic is not. ’

Poe took a moment. ‘Then your world sucks, Alastor.’

‘And fine words butter no parsnips, Poe. The facts are that Ezekiel Puck is out there, conducting an operation, the goal of which is known only to him. When I put him out to pasture, I took away his livelihood, but I couldn’t take away what he’d learned.

It wasn’t a bell I could un-ring. I couldn’t take away his proclivities for causing pain.

It’s a mess and I’ll do my damnedest to help clear it up, but if we can leave the public inquiry until after you’ve clapped him in irons, I think we’d all be very grateful. ’

Clap him in irons . . . The second time someone had said that recently.

‘Alastor,’ Poe said. ‘Where’s Uncle Bertie?’