The Bell Ringers (3 page)

‘Released into the confined conditions of the alley?'

‘Yes.'

The British official spoke his last question.

‘From your knowledge of the investigation and your colleagues' work, is there any suspicion that the bomber was not primarily interested in the headquarters?'

The detective seemed surprised. ‘Are you saying this bomb was to kill Señor Eyam?'

‘No,' said the voice. ‘I am asking whether there are any foreign groups who may have perpetrated this crime. And if you are sure that the headquarters was the target.'

‘We know who made the attack, señor. This was the activities of a terrorist group here in Colombia.'

‘The
actions
of a terrorist group: can you be more specific?'

‘We know who these people are. They want to destroy the party headquarters. We know this, señor. We investigate these people.'

The interview ended. Detective Bautista nodded to the camera and struggled up from his chair. Then the screen went blank.

The coroner leaned forward to Eyam's lawyer. ‘Mr Richards, I regret that you will not have the chance to question the witness, as I am afraid that the court's budget did not extend to bringing Detective Bautista to England. Are there any observations that you wish to make for the record?'

‘Not at this stage, sir,' replied Richards.

‘Then we shall proceed with the evidence concerning identification. Is Sergeant Hallam in court?'

A short man in a grey suit and dark shirt nodded and walked to the stand where, after taking an oath, he turned to the coroner.

‘Sergeant Hallam, you were responsible for identifying the remains of Mr Eyam. Is that right?'

‘In so far as there were remains, sir.'

‘What can you tell the court about their condition?'

‘The blast created considerable destruction in the area and there was much difficulty in locating and removing the victims from the scene. This was compounded by the collapse of two buildings after the fire, and the heavy plant that was required to shift the rubble.'

‘You're saying the bodies were recovered after a lengthy time? How many were there?'

‘It is very difficult to know, sir – maybe three.'

‘All those killed were in or near that alley? The alley was an inferno. Is that right? There wasn't much left to go on?'

‘Yes, sir, a lot was lost in the fire and the operation to clear the area. Some remains were located but the Colombian authorities insisted that DNA tests were carried out locally so as to make certain the right set of remains was sent to Britain.'

‘Please tell the court what procedures were followed.'

‘Hair samples were collected from Mr Eyam's home in Dove Valley and sent with his dental records to Colombia, where a match was made with some of the remains found in the alley. We received confirmation of this on February fifteenth.'

‘Let me be clear on this. Was the readout of Mr Eyam's genetic profile sent to Colombia, or were the samples?'

‘Both, sir.'

‘And then Colombian authorities did their own test on the remains and found a match?'

The police officer nodded. ‘They have a fully operational lab for this kind of forensic work, sir. It is perhaps a . . . er . . . a more sophisticated operation than you would expect in that country.'

The coroner nodded and looked at his papers. ‘Thank you. That will be all, sergeant.'

After asking Lady Eyam's lawyer if he had any questions and receiving a shake of the head, the coroner turned to the court. ‘We have heard how David Lucas Eyam, formerly a government official who worked in Downing Street, left the United Kingdom for an extended holiday in December last year. Given Mr Eyam's exceptional qualities and outstanding service to this country and to the Prime Minister, it is only right for me to extend the court's sympathy to his family and friends and many colleagues in government at the manner of his untimely death.' Mr Richards bowed his head to accept the words on behalf of his client. ‘In the matter of David Lucas Eyam's death,' he said more loudly and formally, ‘I find that while holidaying in Central America he visited the Colombian port of Cartagena. On January twelfth this year at approximately five forty-five p.m. he was in the Colonial District of the city when an explosion took place that killed him outright. Accordingly, I record a verdict that Mr Eyam was killed unlawfully by persons unknown.'

The incontrovertible fact of Eyam's death was established. As Kate rose and worked her way along the bench, her resignation was replaced by anger at the waste of the last two years. God knows how things would have been if they had talked on that Saturday – if they had been talking through the two years of his exile in High Castle.

She came to the entrance, where there was a crush of reporters crowding round the clerk who was handing out DVDs of the film of the explosion. She turned to find the tall man – Kilmartin – looking down at her. When the way cleared he gestured for her to go ahead of him and gave a regretful, thin-lipped smile that seemed to solicit something at the same time as suggesting postponement. She recognised that look: the steadiness of the gaze and the tiny pulse of energy in the eyes – the freemason's handshake of the intelligence services – and she wondered about Mr Kilmartin with his smell of bonfires, his academic journals and well-thumbed pamphlets, which she now saw were seed catalogues. What was he doing there? Checking that nothing inconvenient was being alleged in open court? Making sure the government was not being accused of anything low or underhand? The former head of the Joint Intelligence Committee – even if only for a
reluctant and brief period – being blown up in a terrorist attack was after all something that must still concern the Secret Intelligence Service. She nodded to him and left the court, dodging the television cameras outside.

Just three people were working in the Downing Street communications centre when the prime minister, John Temple, slipped in and sat down to watch a TV permanently tuned to a news channel. The lights had been turned off at that end of the room as part of the energy-saving fervour that periodically swept the heart of government and Temple remained in the shadows. He was in evening dress, having recently left a private dinner at the embassy for the American secretary of state, but even after a long day he looked his usual dapper and contained self. One of the garden girls – the secretaries that run the prime minister's office – had pursued him into the communications department with a folder and now hovered about ten feet away wondering if she should disturb him. It was her presence that attracted Philip Cannon, the director of communications, who stirred from his screen, stood up and stretched, then moved slowly towards the prime minister and gave a cough by way of announcement.

Temple looked up. ‘Ah, Sarah, what have I forgotten to do?' That was the prime minister all over – blaming himself rather than the people who worked for him. He turned on a desk light and took the folder with a smile that involved squeezing his eyes shut and nodding. She pointed to a passage in the foreign secretary's statement on the Middle East. Temple read it with the warmth still lingering in his expression then handed it to her. She beamed back at him and almost bobbed a curtsy. Temple's manners, his inexhaustible consideration whatever the pressures of office, were such a contrast to his recent predecessors: one addicted to a dangerous informality where no one was sure what decisions had been taken until they read it in the next day's papers;
another given to sulks and rages and epic rudeness, in one famous instance turfing a young woman from her chair so he could use her screen.

Cannon nodded to her as she left and moved to the prime minister's side. ‘Is there anything that particularly interests you?' he asked, turning up the volume of the TV a little.

The prime minister shook his head. ‘Just thought I'd look in. How's it going, Philip?' Cannon didn't answer because Temple's attention had moved to the bulletin and a reporter who addressed the camera while trying to control her hair in the wind. ‘A coroner's court in the picturesque market town of High Castle on the English-Welsh border was this morning shown dramatic footage of the moment a former senior civil servant was killed in an explosion in Cartagena, Colombia.

‘David Eyam, once acting head of the Joint Intelligence Committee and confidante of the prime minister, was holidaying in the Colombian port where there has been a long-running campaign by the drug cartels against union power and the political establishment. Mr Eyam, who was forty-three years of age and single, was killed instantly by the blast. After it was discovered that Mr Eyam was a likely victim, the prime minister's spokesman issued a statement saying that all those who worked with Mr Eyam were shocked and saddened by his death. Although he left Downing Street two years ago, he was still remembered fondly by the prime minister's staff for his acuteness and originality of mind. He had made a great contribution to John Temple's administration, particularly, it is understood, at the prime minister's side during international negotiations. The coroner, Roy Clarke, paid tribute to Mr Eyam's exceptional qualities and recorded a verdict of unlawful killing by persons unknown.'

They watched in silence as the film of the explosion was run. When it was over Temple sucked air through his teeth and shook his head. ‘Can you get that back for me?'

‘What? You want the explosion again?' asked Cannon.

‘No, just the report, not the explosion.'

Cannon selected instant replay from a menu on the right of the screen. The woman began her report again. Halfway through Temple jerked forward. ‘Stop it now!' The frame froze with the woman's hand
reaching up again to her hair. ‘No, go back a little.' The prime minister peered at the screen. Cannon did likewise.

‘What is it?'

‘Peter Kilmartin is there on the court steps! What's he doing at the inquest?'

‘I've no idea,' said Cannon. ‘You want me to have it copied?'

‘No, that's fine,' he replied and leaned over to write on a pad that was on the desk. ‘What about the funeral?' He tore the page out and folded it in four.

‘It's next week. The home secretary will represent you. He knew Eyam well and I gather he may be asked to give an address – a stepmother is organising things.'

‘We should be there.' One of the famous prime ministerial pauses ensued. His index finger rubbed the unusually deep philtrum, the indentation above his lip. ‘Seen the early editions?' he said eventually. ‘Any adverse coverage on the web?'

‘They're taking it at face value. There's no hint of anything sinister, apart from the barbarous act. The film is sensational – it speaks for itself.'

‘Good . . . yes . . . that's good . . . we would not want it said that . . .'

‘That there was something untoward?' offered Cannon. ‘No. There's nothing like that.'

‘Yes, well, we're not Russia – the British government doesn't behave like that. We don't have people dispatched.'

‘No. Quite. Actually the papers are full of news about some toxic red algae that has appeared in the reservoirs. That looks the most worrying of all the stories.'

‘Still, I'm interested in what he was doing in Cartagena.'

‘A holiday it seems.'

‘In Colombia? It doesn't seem very likely. Eyam was a man for the opera houses of Europe, the great libraries and museums of the world. He failed us, but he did not lose his culture. I mean . . . Colombia?'

‘Yet he had a lot of obscure passions,' said Cannon.

‘The point, Philip, is that it wasn't
known
he was in Colombia and, given the difficulties surrounding his departure from government, it
should have been known. A failure in the system perhaps, or were his plans intentionally obscured? Colombia is after all not a place associated with legitimate activity, is it? And David Eyam was, as I understand it, still regarded as a problem.'

Cannon kept quiet: he had no interest in things that were unlikely to reach the headlines. David Eyam was old news and had long ceased to be of any concern to him. His ejection from government had occurred without publicity and barely any fuss at Number Ten and in the necessary focus of Cannon's professional life the film from Colombia was little more than a brief diversion from the algae problem. The next day a tide of fresh events would need to be finessed, burnished or buried to keep John Temple's government afloat and credible as it moved towards an election. He looked down at his boss – the Everyman of British politics and his best asset in this endeavour – and thought that never was anyone more misconstrued by the public. Seemingly average in all things, formal and infuriatingly prosaic, Temple was one of the most enigmatic personalities that Cannon had ever encountered, a character opaque and inscrutable even, he suspected, unto itself.

Temple rose. ‘Yes, I think we will find out what Kilmartin was doing down in High Castle.'

He left the communications centre holding the piece of paper and headed towards his room, where in the evenings he would sit with a whisky, mulling over the day in the worn leather armchair that had moved with him from one ministry to the next as he climbed, unnoticed but inexorably, to the top job. Now he sat at the desk, thought for a few moments while staring at the uncurtained window, then picked up the phone.

In her dream she was sitting at an outside table in the Bolivar Crêperie. They had made love that afternoon in a hotel overlooking the ocean, with the sound of sea pounding the cliffs below. But then they'd fallen out – she didn't know why – and she was sitting away from Eyam at another table while he spoke on the phone. The little white van stopped in front of the cafe and the bomber got out and waved to her and gestured to Eyam with a grin. She recognised the bomber and she knew what was going to happen. She leapt up from the table and started shouting at Eyam, but he didn't hear. He just kept on talking, talking, talking.