Part 13 (2/2)

'Anyway, you won't be in the shop that much. You'll be out and about, trawling Whitehall, making a b.l.o.o.d.y nuisance of yourself with the fat-cat ministries. Check in a couple of times a week, report to me on progress, fiddle your expenses, that'll be your lot. You still buying it?'

'Not really.'

'Why not?'

'Well, why here here, for a start? Why not email me on the ground floor, or call me up on the internal line?'

Hector had never taken easily to criticism, Luke remembered, and he didn't now. 'All right, dammit. Suppose I did did email you first. Or called you, what the f.u.c.k? Would you buy it email you first. Or called you, what the f.u.c.k? Would you buy it then then? The Human Queen's offer as it stands, for Christ's sake?'

Too late in the day, a different and more heartening scenario was forming in Luke's mind.

'If you're asking me whether I would accept the Human Queen's offer as it has been presented to me in the letter asking me notionally my answer is yes. If you're asking me notionally, again whether I'd smell a rat if I found the letter lying on my desk in the office, or on my screen, my answer is no, I wouldn't.'

'Scout's honour?'

'Scout's honour.'

They were interrupted by a ferocious rattle of the door handle, followed by a burst of angry knocks. With a weary 'oh f.u.c.k f.u.c.k 'em', Hector gestured to Luke to get himself out of sight among the bookshelves, unlocked the door, and shoved his head round it. 'em', Hector gestured to Luke to get himself out of sight among the bookshelves, unlocked the door, and shoved his head round it.

'Sorry, old boy, not today, I'm afraid,' Luke heard him say. 'Unofficial stock-taking in progress. Usual f.u.c.k-up. Members taking out books and not signing for 'em. Hope you're not one of them. Try Friday. About the first time in my life I've been grateful to be Honorary f.u.c.king Librarian,' he continued, not much bothering to lower his voice as he closed the door and relocked it. 'You can come out now. And in case you think I'm the ringleader of a Septembrist plot, you'd better read this letter as well, then shove it back at me and I'll swallow it.'

This envelope was pale blue, and conspicuously opaque. A blue lion and unicorn rampant were finely embossed on the flap. And inside, one matching blue sheet of writing paper, the smallest size, with the portentous printed heading: From the Office of the Secretariat.

Dear Luke,This is to a.s.sure you that the very private conversation you are conducting with our mutual colleague over lunch at his club today takes place with my unofficial approval.Ever, then a very small signature which looked as if it had been extracted at gunpoint: William J. Matlock (Head of Secretariat), better known as Billy Boy Matlock or plain Bully Boy if that was your preference, as it was for those who had fallen foul of him the Service's longest-standing and most implacable troubleshooter and left-hand man to the Chief himself.

'Load of horses.h.i.+t, as a matter of fact, but what else can the poor b.u.g.g.e.r do?' Hector was remarking, as he returned the letter to its envelope and stuffed the envelope into an inside pocket of his mangy sports coat. 'They know I'm right, don't want me to be, don't know what to do if I am. Don't want me p.i.s.sing into the tent, don't want me p.i.s.sing out of it. Lock me up and gag me's the only answer, but I don't take kindly to that, never did. Nor did you, by all accounts why weren't you eaten by tigers or whatever they have out there?'

'It was insects mainly.'

'Leeches?'

'Those too.'

'Don't hover. Take a pew.'

Luke obediently sat down. But Hector remained standing, hands thrust deep in his pockets, shoulders stooped, glowering into the unlit fireplace with its ancient bra.s.s tongs and pokers and cracked leather surrounds. And it occurred to Luke that the atmosphere inside the library had become oppressive, if not threatening. And perhaps Hector felt it too, because his flippancy deserted him, and his hollowed, sickly face turned as grim as an undertaker's.

'Want to ask you something,' he announced abruptly, more to the fireplace than to Luke.

'Ask away.'

'What's the most dire, f.u.c.king awful thing you've ever seen in your life? Anywhere? Apart from the business-end of a drug lord's Uzi staring you in the face. Pot-bellied starving kids in the Congo with their hands chopped off, barking mad with hunger, too tired to cry? Fathers castrated, c.o.c.ks stuffed in their mouths, eyeholes full of flies? Women with bayonets stuck up their fannies?'

Luke had never served in the Congo, so he had to a.s.sume Hector was describing an experience of his own.

'We did have our equivalents,' he said.

'Such as what? Name a couple.'

'Colombian government having a field day. With American a.s.sistance, naturally. Villages torched. Inhabitants gang-raped, tortured, hacked to bits. Everybody dead except the one survivor left to tell the tale.'

'Yes. Well. We've both seen a bit of the world then,' Hector conceded. 'Not w.a.n.king around.'

'No.'

'And the dirty money slos.h.i.+ng about, the profits of pain, we've seen that too. In Colombia alone, billions. You've billions. You've seen that. Christ knows what seen that. Christ knows what your your man was worth.' He didn't wait for the answer. 'In the Congo, man was worth.' He didn't wait for the answer. 'In the Congo, billions billions. In Afghanistan, billions billions. An eighth of the world's f.u.c.king economy: black as your hat. We know about it.'

'Yes. We do.'

'Blood money. That's all it is.'

'Yes.'

'Doesn't matter where. It can be in a box under a warlord's bed in Somalia or in a City of London bank next to the vintage port. It doesn't change colour. It's still blood money.'

'I suppose it is.'

'No glamour, no pretty excuses. The profits of extortion, drug dealing, murder, intimidation, ma.s.s rape, slavery. Blood money. Tell me if I'm overstating my case.'

'I'm sure you're not.'

'Only four ways to stop it. One One: you go for the chaps who are doing it. Capture 'em, kill 'em or bang 'em up. If you can. Two Two: you go for the product. Intercept it before it reaches the street or the marketplace. If you can. Three Three: collar the profits, put the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds out of business.'

A worrying pause while Hector seemed to reflect on matters far above Luke's pay grade. Was he thinking of the heroin dealers who had turned his son into a gaolbird and addict? Or the vulture capitalists vulture capitalists who had tried to put his family firm out of business, and sixty-five of the best men and women in England on the rubbish heap? who had tried to put his family firm out of business, and sixty-five of the best men and women in England on the rubbish heap?

'Then there's the fourth fourth way,' Hector was saying. 'The really bad way. The best tried, easiest, the most convenient, the most common, and the least fuss. b.u.g.g.e.r the people who've been starved, raped, tortured, died of addiction. To h.e.l.l with the human cost. Money's got no smell as long as there's enough of it and it's ours. Above all, think big. Catch the minnows, but leave the sharks in the water. A chap's laundering a couple of million? He's a b.l.o.o.d.y crook. Call in the regulators, put him in irons. But a few way,' Hector was saying. 'The really bad way. The best tried, easiest, the most convenient, the most common, and the least fuss. b.u.g.g.e.r the people who've been starved, raped, tortured, died of addiction. To h.e.l.l with the human cost. Money's got no smell as long as there's enough of it and it's ours. Above all, think big. Catch the minnows, but leave the sharks in the water. A chap's laundering a couple of million? He's a b.l.o.o.d.y crook. Call in the regulators, put him in irons. But a few billion billion? Now you're talking. Billions are a statistic statistic.' Closing his eyes while he lapsed into his own thoughts, Hector resembled for a moment his own death mask: or so it seemed to Luke. 'You don't have to agree with any of this, Lukie,' he said kindly, waking from his reverie. 'Door's wide open. Given my reputation, a lot of chaps would be through it by now.'

It occurred to Luke that this was a fairly ironic choice of metaphor, since Hector had the key in his pocket, but he kept the thought to himself.

'You can go back to the office after lunch, tell the Human Queen, thanks awfully but you're happier serving out your time on the ground floor. Draw your pension, keep away from drug lords and colleagues' wives, lie on your back and spit at the ceiling for the rest of your life. No bones broken.'

Luke managed a smile. 'My problem is, I'm not very good at spitting at the ceiling,' he said.

But nothing was going to stop Hector's hard sell: 'I'm offering you a one-way street to nowhere,' he insisted. 'If you sign up to this thing, you're f.u.c.ked all ways up. If we lose, we were two failed whistleblowers who tried to foul the nest. If we win, we'll be the lepers of the WhitehallWestminster jungle and all stations between. Not to mention the Service we do our best to love, honour and obey.'

'This is all the information I get?'

'For your own preservation and mine, yes. No nookie unless you come to the altar first.'

They were at the door. Hector had produced the key and was about to turn the lock.

'And about Billy Boy,' he said.

'What about him?'

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