Noose (22 page)

Ian went to the bar and bought another glass of wine and two more pints. Did these tales from twenty years ago, and from deeper history, colour and distort Emily's and Ray's views of the present? Were they slaves to their secret archive, searching for parallels and echoes, half-crazily predisposed to find them, because finding things was their forte? After all, what was the use of an archive if you couldn't tickle it into life now and then? Too much theory, too much guess, too many imagined echoes and reruns – the way generals might think in terms of a previous conflict, instead of the one they had to fight now? All kinds of huge changes had taken place in Britain between 1936 and 1956: the impacts of a six-year world war, two Labour governments, a new Queen. Was it anything like the same place?

When he returned with the drinks, Emily said: ‘You think it's all waffle, don't you, Ian? Theory. Speculation. And, yes, there's some of both, possibly. That's unavoidable. It's not the whole picture, though. Let's get to particulars then. Consider my daughter. She's having a relationship with the stage producer, playwright and occasional impresario Milton Skeeth. He's a member of the building and property development family. But he wanted a theatrical career, so isn't active in the company. He's got a lot of Skeeth Construction loot and shares behind him. Big capital.'

‘I think I might have seen something about your daughter's career in a couple of the gossip columns,' Ian said, ‘but, obviously, I didn't know who she was then.'

‘“The fascinating and pert Daphne West” as one of them called her,' Emily said.

‘What do
you
call her?' Ian said.

‘Just Daphne,' Emily said. ‘That's her real first name.'

‘But not West?' Ian said.

‘Skeeth and his brother Leonard – MD of Skeeth Construction – are two of the people we think could be interested in a coup, the sort we're talking about,' Bain replied. Their motives might not be entirely bad. They want stability; they need guaranteed order for the Skeeth interests to thrive in. They seemingly don't believe the government, or even an alternative government in present circumstances, can produce that stability, that guaranteed orderliness.'

‘Ah, I get it,' Ian said.

‘Milton and Leonard are under what we hope is covert watch,' Bain said.

‘You see, Ian, I get reports from some of our operatives about my own daughter,' Emily said sadly, ‘as one of several women Milton Skeeth is seeing. It's not sweet. And she talks about him to me. I don't mean she deliberately informs, but she discusses their relationship and, of course, she's occasionally telling me more than she realizes.'

‘It's all very delicate,' Bain said.

‘Sounds agonizing,' Ian said.

‘Yes, it is,' Emily said.

‘What we have to take into account is that some people – some business people, for instance, some moneybags people – agree absolutely that Eden must go, not at all because he committed Britain to an unlawful war in Suez,' Bain said. ‘The reverse. They gun for him because he turned pathetically indecisive once the fight began,' Emily said. ‘They consider the invasion entirely justified. As obligatory, in fact. The Suez Canal they regard as vital to Britain's, and therefore their own, wealth. As they see it, Nasser will interfere with the canal's free flow of shipping. So, attack and get rid of him. To them, the logic looks simple. If you've got a lot of boodle and assets and someone seems to be threatening them, the reaction does tend to be simple: you try to protect yourself by any means you can. One of those means ought to be the Prime Minister of Britain, in their view. This Prime Minister has failed, though – also in their view. He was, apparently, a gallant soldier in the Great War, but has either lost his touch, or isn't suited to taking the great policy decisions and following them through.'

Emily said: ‘They believe Eden has buckled pathetically. Even treasonably.' She seemed to have switched back to the large political picture as a relief from discussing Daphne. ‘They think he's turned yellow because the United States hints it might refuse support for sterling unless Britain pulls back her troops. I've heard talk of impeachment. Not a real option. But, in any case, they want him out and someone tougher – someone who understands business and trade better – they want a replacement like that to take power temporarily, until the crisis is settled in our – GB's – favour. And above all,
their
personal favour.

‘It wouldn't necessarily be a substitute produced by conventional democratic methods – almost certainly would not be – but a grand
vizier
used to leadership, perhaps with royal connections, a figurehead capable of decisive thought and action in defence of traditional British interests, the traditional British interests being mainly, though not totally, commercial. There's also a pride aspect. “Can a country like GB get messed about by Egypt, for God's sake?” they ask. “By Egypt! No, sir, never!”'

‘Lord Mountbatten, for instance,' Bain said. ‘Or Lord Mivale, the Oxford Economics don.'

‘It seems preposterous,' Ian said. But, repeat question, was he naive, outdated?

‘My daughter doesn't know the kind of work I do,' Emily said. ‘Obviously, she does know I've a government consultancy job and that my line is Personnel, but not the
kind
of Personnel. I can't tell her what we have on Milton Skeeth, or think we have, and that we'll be trying for more. Even if I did, it probably wouldn't make her drop him. She's strong-minded and independent, not disposed to take that kind of advice from her mother. Few girls would. They'd see it as meddling by a
croulante
, an ancient old wreck. I'm not sure whether Daphne knows about the other women. In any case, Skeeth's love life is not our concern, even if my daughter's involved. We are interested in him for other reasons.'

Ian thought she might like to believe this, but it was obviously not true. Although she and Bain
were
interested in Skeeth for other reasons than his love life, the fact that Daphne West figured as part of that love life troubled Emily, perhaps even affected how she would run the department's investigation of Skeeth, maybe tied her hands.

And this might be why she and Bain needed Ian. He thought he could see how they would want to use him. He thought, too, that Emily might guess he'd pick up on Daphne's age, apply some simple maths and start wondering – feel compelled to help. Family. Noose.

S
aturday morning, dawn start, Ian went on a badger hunt, most likely illegal under animal-cruelty laws. Badgers shouldn't be persecuted with dogs. They were amiable, handsome animals loved by everyone who'd read Kenneth Grahame's
The Wind in the Willows
, where
Mr Badger came over as a wise, gruff, solid, kindly character. Didn't he welcome Rat and Mole into his home when they were lost and desperate in the Wild Wood?
There was even a move to make badgers a protected species. To dig for one, let alone kill or injure it, would be a crime. Not yet.

The badger setts – their elaborate, wide-mouthed and obvious burrows – were strung out on a long grassy bank near a small wood on the edge of a cooperative farmer's land. He blind-eyed these hunts. To him and his neighbours, badgers rated as pests, bringing TB to their herds. The four hunters carried a couple of spades, a locater instrument like a Geiger counter, and two long steel probes to push into the tunnel network and listen.

Ian didn't reread
The Wind in the Willows
as preparation for the hunt, but
a pamphlet on the kind of dogs used. He had to get familiarized. He had to blend with the badgerers. On the face of it, he'd be the hunters' guest, keen to learn. He'd discovered how much the dogs were revered, and once he'd watched what some had to do, he understood why. They starred. They carried the risk: the pair of Jack Russells, Belle and Daisy; a Border terrier, Kate; and two Patterdales, Napoleon and Bert, kept on the leash. Kate wore a special collar that signalled from underground so the huntsmen could guess the dogs' position: vital once they cornered the prey, because in any prolonged scrap below the badger would win and the dogs get bitten or clawed to death; or shoved under soil and suffocated. It was bred into badgers how to deal with invading dogs deep down and in the dark, and sometimes the quarry would triumph.

At first they put the Jack Russells in – undreamy, short-legged rough-house dogs who'd obviously seen it all before. They'd take on anything, and pushed down hard and quick into the sett. The badger might turn and clobber them, finale blows. The prey was bigger than them, hefty in the paw with jaws that didn't mess around, a wily subterranean, used to the lack of light.

Immediately the men on the surface knew the target animal and dogs had met and where, the hunters rushed to dig a vertical shaft down to it. When the badger was exposed like this at the bottom of the hole, the Patterdale surface dogs, bigger animals, could pitch in and help. It might take ten minutes or more to reach the underground battle, all four men working hard in relays with the spades.

So, the two Jack Russells – short-legged, bandy, fearless, frantically energetic – had raced into one of the sett's openings as soon as they arrived. Kate went down soon after. For a couple of minutes, there was no noise as the underground search started, then barking followed by a heavy thumping sound. It must mean one or more of the dogs and the badger had joined and were sparring. Len and Malcolm listened on the probes at two of the sett entrances trying to pinpoint. The locator, held by Jeff, started a loud, continuous buzz. He moved about like a diviner until the din got to what he regarded as maximum. Ian guessed the badger was cornered in a cul-de-sac tunnel and had turned to fight off the terriers.

Len and Malcolm forgot their probes and very urgent, almost feverish, excavating started. Norman Vernon Towler helped. If the shaft wasn't absolutely accurate they'd have wasted that much time and that much energy and would have to try another dig at once. By then, the dogs would be near exhaustion and at big risk. The badger was on its natural ground, in its private domain, and could smash intruders as of right. A badger's home was its castle. Jeff had told Ian how they'd lost a Jack Russell in a sett not long ago because the locator failed and they were forced to operate by instinct; wrong instinct, as it turned out. They'd found the dog smothered.

Jeff was Jeffrey David Dill, thirty-one, burly, fresh-faced, fair-haired, no criminal record, unmarried, school leaver at sixteen, trade-union shop steward, two younger brothers, no criminal records, father and mother living on a council estate in Bristol, no criminal records, Baptists, lapsed.

When Ray Bain had ultimately unlocked his chained briefcase and opened it in Mooney's bar, he brought out a file of the Skeeth operation to date. Jeffrey David Dill was one of the names recorded and backgrounded there. ‘We believe the revolution/coup planners have people in various parts of the country who'll run anti-government, anti-Eden, protests when the time's considered right to signal general unrest. The aim is to make a takeover appear justified and necessary, even inevitable,' Emily had said. ‘The coup chiefs will look like saviours. It's a traditional ploy by insurgents: Robespierre, Musso, Adolf. Dill's one of these potential stirrers. We've watched him for a while. He works in an automotive parts factory and is used to organizing the workforce. Probably best to get to him when he's relaxed, off-duty. Some weekends he goes badger hunting with pals.'

‘Len Gale, Malcolm Ivins, Norman Vernon Towler,' Bain said.

‘If you could talk your way into joining them you might be able to get on matey terms with Dill,' Emily said. ‘I don't pretend it's simple or easy. But they're very proud of their dogs. Ray has the names and breeds. Throw the pooch praise around. They'll accept you, maybe. Then you can sneak on to wider topics with Dill.'

Ian had sensed from near the start what Bain and Emily hoped to get from him. It was devious and clever. Ian might have expected something like that from Ray. Emily could manage it, too, apparently. They wanted Ian, as a freelance reporter who necessarily knew all the Press markets, to follow up leads from their investigation. They'd like him to publish in one or more newspapers an article, or articles, about the organization of a projected putsch. This sudden, unforeseen and basically hostile exposure would ruin its timetable, identify and target its leaders, probably kill it off. And if Emily's daughter didn't already know of Milton Skeeth's involvement she'd find out about it now, without Emily herself having to breach security rules of the trade to tell her. It was personal, but it was professional, too.

‘This would make a splash newspaper piece, wouldn't it, Ian?' Bain said.

‘Or more than one,' Emily said. ‘You could bring about immense political and even military change. It's what a responsible Press in a democracy is for, isn't it?'

Possibly. But it wasn't the role of a responsible Press to do fetch-and-carry dirty work for the security services. He felt as though Emily and Ray Bain had wanted to recruit him in straightforward, ‘unconditional' style to their outfit, and, having got nowhere, were now trying a more devious, compromise method.

‘Law and order, Ian,' Bain said. ‘Democracy can function properly only when those essentials are in place. You and your newspaper of choice will be helping to preserve these. It would be a vital contribution.'

Yes, this was probably true – if, and triple if, their reading of the political crisis made sense. They did present a good case. And then, also, and very weighty, there was the matter of the mighty debt he owed them both. The noose again – gratitude.
He
could follow a badger hunt over no matter what kind of ground. He had both his legs in full.

But he hadn't felt like committing himself, just the same.