Nothing but Memories (DCI Wilson Book 1) (40 page)

EPILOGUE

Sir Jeffrey Huntly OBE, MP sat between two plain clothes police officers in the back of a black BMW sedan as they passed through the gates of New Scotland Yard. He was sweating profusely and had been since he had been approached by the two officers at his office at the Houses of Parliament. Huntly was frogmarched between the two officers to an unmarked office on the third floor of the building which housed the Metropolitan Police. One of the police officers knocked on the door, opened it and ushered Huntly inside before withdrawing.

Huntly, his heart pounding like a drum, looked around the room. Three men stared back at him. An older man sat at the only desk in the room while a second much younger man stood at the edge of the desk. The both had hard craggy faces and carried themselves like military officers. The third man sat at the back of the room away from the two others. He was the only one that Huntly recognised and he was surprised to see the Prime Minister’s Principle Private Secretary looking at him.

“Sit down,” the man behind the desk ordered.

“I am a Member of Parliament not a dog that you can order around,” Huntly fought to get a grip on his racing mind. He didn’t like this situation and he particularly didn’t like the fact that these people felt they could piss on him. He glanced at the Principle Private Secretary. “I shall complain to the PM about your insolence.”

The man behind the desk smiled. “Please do so. The PM told me that if I wished to drop you off the top of this building I could do so. I suggest that you sit down and speak when you are spoken to.”

Huntly was aware that neither of the two men facing him had introduced themselves and that fact bothered him greatly.

“You’ve been a rather naughty boy,” the man behind the desk began when Huntly sat down. “We’ve been aware of your little scheme in Belfast for some time but we had difficulty tracking your man Case down. Oh, by the way, there was a shoot out in Belfast today and
Case ended up being shot dead.“

Huntly’s face collapsed. His mouth was flapping open and shut but no sound was coming from it. He appeared to age by ten years in the past minute.

“I see the penny has dropped,” the man at the desk said. “You now realise that you are here because you are responsible for launching a scheme which has led to the death of at least five people. If you were to go to court, you would spend the rest of your miserable life in jail.” He stopped speaking and stared at Huntly. “ We have had a certain amount of difficulty with your motivation but we think we’ve got there finally. You can interrupt me if I’ve got something wrong.  We’ve interviewed some of your former colleagues who also enjoyed what was available in Dungrey and they have been delighted to put everything down on tape. It appears that the MP was considering you for the post of Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.” Huntly was nodding his head. “As a back bencher you were pretty anonymous but as Secretary of State your face would be all over the newspapers and the television. Somebody might remember. So you decided to eradicate those you had already abused as children. A sort of double whammy for the poor unfortunates. You must have been out of your mind to send someone like Case to do your dirty work. The man was a psychopath. If it was up to me alone I would have you before the courts and you would never see the light of day again.”

Huntly buried his head in his hands. “I couldn’t risk accusations for something I did more than twenty years ago. I didn’t want to end up like Savile and those aging TV people being paraded in front of the press and dragged before the courts. I can see now that I was unhinged but it looked like the only way out at the time.”

“Case is dead and will never be seen again,” the man behind the desk said. “Now all we have to do is deal with you.” He turned and looked at the PM’s Principle Private Secretary who rose and stepped forward. Without speaking he removed a sheet of A4 paper from his document case, placed in from of the man at the desk and retook his seat. “The PM’s office has been kind enough to draft your resignation from Parliament,” the man at the desk said. He tossed a pen on top of the sheet of paper. “Sign it.”

“And if I don’t,” Huntly said.

“You really don’t want to go there.”

Huntly picked up the pen and started to read the letter.

“I didn’t say read it, I said sign it.”

There was so much menace in the tone that Huntly immediately complied and tossed both the resignation letter and the pen back on the desk.

The young man standing at the edge of the desk picked up the resignation letter and handed it to the PM’s Principle Private Secretary who placed it in his document case. Then he stood up and left the room without speaking.

“Good,” the man behind the desk said. “I assume that you have some patch of land somewhere out of the way in Cornwall or Skye or some other Godforsaken place that you can disappear to. We should be very mad indeed were we ever to hear from you again.  The two gentlemen who accompanied you here are waiting outside. They will escort you from the building where you will obtain a taxi. Your office at the House has already been cleared and the boxes sent to your residence. And I think that concludes out business.” He nodded at the young man who moved behind Huntly and raised him from the chair.

Huntly’s body had taken on a whole new shape since he had entered the room. The confidence and the stature were gone and replaced with a bent back and a hangdog demeanour.  The man had been broken in fifteen minutes. Huntly shuffled to the door and the young man ushered him out.

The man behind the desk opened a drawer and removed a bottle of Laphroaigh and two glasses. He poured a generous measure into each glass. “Your people did well, Peter,” he said.

The younger man took the glass, toasted and took a large swallow. “We used a lot of resources on that idiot. I would have preferred to have followed the PM’s advice and drop him off the roof.”

“The PM never said that,” the older man said. “I was interpreting.” He smiled.  “As a professional I think that copper in Belfast did a pretty reasonable job. Pity we’re going to have to keep an eye on him.”

“And Huntly?” the younger man asked.

“Now it’s your turn to interpret, Peter,” the older man said draining his glass.