Lambs to the Slaughter (32 page)

‘That's when things will really start hotting up,' Paniatowski continued. ‘I'll pull in all his family – and all their friends – for questioning. They'll say they don't know where he is . . .'

‘They
won't
know where he is.'

‘. . . but I'll pretend I don't believe them. I'll turn their homes – and their lives – inside out. By the time I've finished, they'll be nervous wrecks, and none of their friends will want to have anything to do with them ever again.'

‘Why should I care what happens to Gary's family?' Forsyth asked, uneasily.

‘Because it's
your
family,' Paniatowski said.

‘Rubbish! Pure fantasy!' Forsyth told her.

But there was the faintest flickering of an eyelid which told her that what had been a strong suspicion was now a stone-cold fact.

‘I thought he reminded me of someone – someone unsettling – when I first saw the sketch, but it wasn't until I was sitting down here that I was sure it was you. He's your grandson, isn't he?'

‘No, of course not,' Forsyth said weakly.

‘Then why have you kept referring to him as “the boy”?'

‘It's a figure of speech.'

‘The fact that he's your grandson explains a great deal,' Paniatowski continued. ‘I'm guessing that, much as you wanted him to, your son flatly refused to follow in your footsteps. What is he now? A stockbroker? A merchant banker?'

Forsyth's eyelid flickered again.

‘No comment,' he said.

‘No comment!' Paniatowski repeated. ‘That's the last refuge of the trapped and harried. You must have been so sorely disappointed in your son, but then your grandson came along, and he wanted to be a spy – just like you. You were over the moon about it, and
because
you were over the moon, you made the mistake of handling him yourself, instead of letting some other controller do it. Not only that, but you were so keen that he should succeed that you gave him far too much responsibility, far too soon. And he screwed up. He mishandled his attempt to bribe Len Hopkins, and he came up with the crazy idea – which you would never have sanctioned in a million years – of turning Len into a martyr. He also – and you probably don't know this – got Becky pregnant.'

‘The stupid little shit,' Forsyth scowled. ‘The stupid,
stupid
little shit.'

‘From the moment you learned that Len was dead, you've been doing little more than cleaning up your grandson's mess,' Paniatowski continued. ‘But he'd never have got in the mess if it hadn't been for your ambitions for him. In some ways, he was as much a lamb being led to the slaughter as Louisa and Becky were. This whole thing only happened because you
allowed
it to happen, so it's at least as much your responsibility as it is his.'

Forsyth sighed. ‘We all make mistakes when we're dealing with the ones we love,' he said.

‘Even if that someone is a stupid little shit,' Paniatowski replied.

‘I can stop you doing what you've just threatened, you know,' Forsyth said. ‘I can nip it in the bud.'

‘You're wrong,' Paniatowski told him. ‘I'll have the support of my chief constable – who hates your guts – and he'll have the support of all the other chief constables around the country, who are sick of people like you getting in the way of honest decent policing.'

‘They can be dealt with,' Forsyth said grimly. ‘They can all be dealt with.'

‘Yes, they can – in time,' Paniatowski agreed. ‘But not before I've had the opportunity to make your family aware of just what a monster you've turned Gary into – not before they've started to
hate
you for it.'

Forsyth fell silent, but Paniatowski knew what was going on in his mind.

He was picturing himself walking through rose gardens, hand-in-hand with his granddaughters, and playing happy, noisy games of cricket with his grandsons. He was remembering happy family parties, at which he sat at the head of the table. And he was realizing that she was right – and that he could lose it all.

‘If I give you all that you ask for, Monika, you must promise that you'll never mention it to me again,' he said finally.

He was looking into her eyes, and she read the hatred in his. She knew the feeling wouldn't last, and that by morning his mind would have written a different version of this encounter – a version he could live with. But for moment he
did
hate her – hated her for outmanoeuvring him, hated her for refusing to be intimidated by him. She experienced a sense of triumph which was almost joyous. She knew
that
wouldn't last either, but while she had it, she was determined to savour it.

‘Well?' Forsyth demanded.

‘The best way to ensure I never mention it again is to make certain that we never
meet
again,' she said.

Forsyth shook his head, impatient at what he saw as her stupidity.

‘Make certain that we never meet again,' he repeated. ‘Oh, please, Monika, don't be so naïve.'

In March 1984, the British government, headed by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, announced that the agreement reached with the miners at the end of the 1974 industrial action was no longer relevant, and would therefore be revoked. It added that twenty mines would be closed down, with the loss of 20,000 jobs.

The strike which inevitably followed was a bitter and divisive one. It tore the union apart, and engendered a distrust of the police which still exists in many ex-mining communities.

The role played by the security forces in the strike is – as it was bound to be – far from clear. It is certain that the F2 branch of MI5 (under Stella Rimington, who would later become the organization's director) used the government communications centre in Cheltenham to tap the phones and bug the offices of miners' union officials. It has never been really denied that MI5 had moles in the NUM, who kept it appraised of both the miners' tactics and the private lives of some of their leaders. And there is a clear link between Rimington and David Hart, a millionaire friend of the prime minister's who pumped a considerable amount of money into the dissident back-to-work movement.

Beyond that, there is only speculation.

Did MI5 use covert and dubious strike-breaking tactics, while keeping the police, who were nominally in charge, completely in the dark? There is at least one senior police officer, Donald McKinnon, who is down on record as claiming this was most certainly the case.

Did the security services deliberately set out to smear the miners' leader, Arthur Scargill? A number of well-informed people – including members of parliament – think that they did.

But though we may never know the full extent of the activities, we now have a clear picture of the consequences. In 1983, there were 174 mines operating in the UK – by 2009, there were six.

It is likely that despite whatever else had happened, the development of alternative sources of energy and globalization had already sent the coal mining industry into terminal decline, but it is doubtful that the decline would have been quite so rapid without the political will of Margaret Thatcher and the support given to her by MI5.