The Inquiry Read online

  The main office phone rang, startling her. ‘For you, Sara,’ said Clovis.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Didn’t say.’

  ‘Didn’t you ask?’

  ‘She sounded trembly.’

  ‘Oh for—’ Sara stopped herself and walked over. ‘Hello, who is this?’ She cupped her hand over the mouthpiece and frowned at Patrick. ‘Yes, I’m sure that will be fine. I can’t see why not… Yes, right away.’

  She put the phone down, Patrick now at her side with raised eyes. ‘Lady Morahan. She asked me if I could possibly pop over.’

  ‘Interesting,’ he said. ‘I’ll drive you if you like.’

  ‘No. I’ll walk out and hail a cab. No footprint. If I’m careful.’

  ‘I’ll see you out.’ She frowned. ‘It’s oppressive in there,’ he finally said as they walked down the stairs.

  ‘Sure.’

  He noticed her distance. ‘It’s OK, I won’t linger.’ She cast him a half-smile as he swung open the main door.

  A second police car was drawing up to the entrance. Forensics, Sara assumed. Suddenly she was half-blinded by three quick flashes coming from a single direction. She turned to Patrick, a question in her eyes.

  ‘Shit,’ he said. ‘First of the paparazzi. Never thought it would be this quick.’

  ‘Must have been a leak,’ she said.

  ‘More likely a sharp-eyed security guard. All the comings and goings. Easy way to make a few quid.’

  ‘Can you distract the photographer while I get away?’

  ‘I’ll try.’ He paused. ‘But just in case, don’t get caught smiling.’

  She swivelled and marched off, detecting the heat of more flashes behind her.

  Sara hadn’t seen the house in daylight before; the double-fronted, lead-windowed, dark brick houses set in their calm, tree-lined backwater spoke of a traditional English bourgeois affluence when the very idea of living the other side of the river would have appalled its well-heeled residents. She wondered what Lady Morahan might have made of her husband trekking to the far reaches of south London to meet a young Pakistani woman wearing a hijab.

  She rang the front doorbell and looked around. Thirty or so yards up the road, a police car was parked on a double yellow line, inside it a uniformed man and woman.

  The door opened, revealing a Lady Morahan whose composure seemed to Sara remarkable. Her night must have been agonising, yet she was smartly dressed in black trousers and a red shirt, make-up concealing any sign of distress, offering a quick smile.

  ‘Miss Shah, how kind of you to come.’

  ‘It’s no trouble at all, Lady Morahan.’ Sara cast a glance up the street.

  ‘Yes, they’ve called in,’ said Iona, following her eyes. ‘Pleasant young man and woman. Said they’re here to keep an eye on things just in case.’

  ‘In case of what?’ Sara asked, instantly realising what a stupid question it was.

  Iona shot her a beady look. ‘Come on, in you come,’ she said briskly. ‘Shall we dispense with “Miss” and “Lady”? I’m Iona, you’re Sara. All right with you?’

  ‘Of course,’ smiled Sara.

  ‘Coffee?’

  ‘Thank you. Only if it’s no trouble.’

  ‘Not at all. Why don’t you go into the drawing room? Make yourself comfortable.’

  The large square room smelt of polished walnut side tables and the residue of dying embers in the fireplace. Above the mantelpiece hung a large portrait of a seated woman swathed in shawls drawing a landscape in a sketch book.

  Sara surveyed the room, unable to stop herself imagining hiding places. She walked over to a baby grand piano in the corner; a book of Bach preludes was open on the music stand. The closed top was a display of framed family photographs: Francis and Iona ducking confetti as they emerged through a church porch on their wedding day, he in a grey frock coat, she in a white dress, the apogee of English traditionalism; two daughters, the older raven-haired, the younger auburn, at different ages from toddlers’ dresses to child bridesmaids to school uniform and adulthood; the wedding of the younger to a smiling young man with neatly cut fair hair and a sheen of money and breeding; what she thought might be a fortieth wedding anniversary formal portrait of the Morahans. All far removed from a skinny old man with his trousers halfway down his legs.

  She heard a rustle in the passage and swiftly moved from the photographs to the portrait.

  ‘Searching for something?’ asked Iona with that same beadiness.

  Sara smiled ruefully. ‘Examining your family, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Well, that one’s my great-great-aunt Dorothea,’ said Iona, wheeling in a trolley. ‘She went down the Nile in 1895.’

  ‘How amazing!’ said Sara.

  ‘I have her sketch books. She never married so they’ve ended up with me.’ She carefully lifted a cafétière and poured coffee into two china cups on saucers. ‘Milk and sugar?’

  ‘Just milk, please.’ Sara took the cup and they sat down on the sofa. Its proportions and her distance from Iona felt identical to her conversation with Morahan the previous evening.

  ‘You’ve come from the office,’ said Iona.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Of course you have. That’s where I phoned you.’ Iona slumped a notch, for the first time creases dusting her face. ‘How was it there?’

  ‘Quiet.’

  ‘Waiting for the dam to burst, I suppose.’ Sara allowed her a moment. ‘I don’t know how to say it to the girls.’

  ‘Have you spoken to them?’

  ‘I waited till this morning. I couldn’t really bear to. I said it seemed to be a heart attack. They’re on the way up.’

  ‘I’m sure that will be a comfort.’

  ‘Will it?’

  Sara had a powerful sense of her striving to say something. She tried to radiate empathy, hoping whatever it was would emerge without prompting.

  ‘You see…’ continued Iona. She stopped again.

  ‘Nothing you say will go beyond this room,’ said Sara.

  ‘You and I share certain knowledge. Of some recent events.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Though he knew you only briefly, Francis’s trust in you was clearly unreserved.’

  ‘It seemed so. I appreciated it.’

  Iona straightened herself, summoning energy. ‘To fully understand him, I have decided to share knowledge with you of certain past events. Just possibly they may have relevance.’

  ‘I see,’ said, Sara, waiting, trying not to betray the breathlessness of her anticipation.

  ‘Francis had a predilection.’ Iona took a tissue from a slit in a bronze box on the side table and patted her face. ‘It was the real reason he resigned as Attorney General. It turned out he had formed a friendship with a young man. A relationship. But it turned sour and Francis felt threatened. And wounded. Of course, I was shocked when he confessed to me. I hadn’t suspected at all.’ She had been looking down at her hands and now raised her head. ‘Though there was always a feminine side to him. It made him a kind person. But that doesn’t have to mean homosexual.’

  ‘No, of course not,’ said Sara.

  ‘Or gay. Or whatever you like to call it. But it didn’t make me feel for one minute that I wanted to part from him. Our lives together were never dominated by that side of things. We had too much in common, too much to gain from each other at home and professionally. I said it shouldn’t change us and if he wanted to have such relationships, I was happy to be deaf and blind.’

  ‘That was generous of you.’

  ‘Some might say cowardly. But it worked. Over the years, Thursday nights, like last night, became his work late night. To this day, to this hour, I honestly don’t know whether it really was work that he stayed for or the physical needs he may have had.’

  ‘I take it you don’t want the police to know of this,’ said Sara.

  ‘That’s something I need to think about. And whether the girls should know too.’

  Sara studied the
woman just an arm’s length from her, hair scraped back into a simple bun. Agony was now etched in the creases of her skin. If it helped to explain the circumstances of her husband’s death, Sara should try to persuade her to tell the police. But her own powerful instinct was that it did not; if so, there was nothing to be gained by making a public confession of it. Whether or not she told their children could only be a matter for her.

  ‘Thank you for telling me,’ said Sara. ‘I understand how difficult it must be.’

  ‘Yes.’ It was no more than a murmur. There was something further this woman wanted to share, Sara was sure of it. Another long-buried secret. Iona raised herself, walked over to a window, peered out as if she was checking for some observer, and turned. ‘There was an added element to his resignation.’ She paused, still hesitant. ‘Francis was visited by two gentlemen, from what it soon became clear were the intelligence services. They had detailed knowledge of his proclivities and relationships. They said that, if he wished to stay in office, they could protect him from any form of public exposure. But…’

  ‘There was a but…’

  ‘Yes, they would like to have occasional meetings and briefings with him about the political world he inhabited. About individuals. About their private discussions, their private habits.’

  ‘Bastards,’ said Sara with quiet fury.

  ‘Yes,’ said Iona, resuming her seat. ‘Bastards.’

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘He declined their offer, to put it that way. He told me it was a slippery slope; he’d prefer to resign and return to the law. Which he did. They never contacted him again. Even though he rose high in that world, I suppose you could say they had the decency to leave him alone.’

  Sara perceived more sharply than ever that what she’d become embroiled in was far more than an investigation of the past; it was a collision of past and present that had turned toxic. ‘I don’t think decency applies,’ she said. ‘Then or now. I was with your husband just an hour or two before he died. He was excited, yes, but not about some sexual encounter he had in store. I’m sure of it. The excitement was in what he was reading.’

  ‘The files?’

  ‘Yes. And no doubt other material he was matching it with. Understanding where the trail might lead.’

  ‘You do realise, Sara, that excitement of one form can lead to excitement of another. I imagine it would only take him a phone call to summon it.’

  ‘It’s possible but I don’t believe that’s what happened.’

  ‘Just suppose it was that, bad as it is,’ said Iona. ‘Might it not be better than the alternatives?’

  The doorbell rang, making Iona jump. Sara felt a surge of relief at not having to address the question the widow had left hanging in the air. She returned with the dark-haired daughter, the one with no evidence of marriage from the photographs on the piano.

  ‘Jennifer, my eldest,’ said Iona. Sara noticed all too easily the split second during which Jennifer was wondering what an Asian woman wearing a scarf was doing in her parental home.

  ‘I should be leaving,’ said Sara.

  ‘Yes,’ said Iona, ‘there must be much to do.’ She turned to her daughter. ‘Give me a moment, darling, I’ll see Miss Shah out.’

  She led Sara into the hall. ‘Hold on a minute, could you?’

  Before Sara had time to answer, Iona was skipping up the stairs. Within a minute she was back, carrying a slim rectangular package wrapped in birthday paper. ‘I’m sure he’d think you must have it,’ said Iona, handing it over. ‘In any case, there’s no one else.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Sara. She crammed the package into her bag, shook Iona’s hand and turned towards the front door. As she closed it behind her she saw the widow retreating, relieved of at least one of her burdens.

  It had to be.

  ‘… a final folder of material…’

  How had it arrived? Where had she been keeping it? Irrelevant questions. All that mattered was what was in it. Peering up the street at the waiting police car, this was not the time or place to open it and find out.

  She felt more exposed and alone than ever. As if to fight it, she walked fast, willing herself to take sharp, deep breaths – to build a flow of oxygen to dispel the smog of doubts and suspicions. She realised the dangers of frenzy and paranoia fuelling conspiracy theories against what had become known as the ‘deep state’. The case of the MI6 man stuffed in a holdall endured so long that it even formed the plot of a television drama where the city lived only by night and an assassin might be waiting around any corner. It was the currency of the age; nothing was allowed to be simple. The problem in the case of Sir Francis Morahan was that nothing was simple. What was it he had said to her when they first met? ‘I’m not a conspiracy theorist. I don’t believe our intelligence services shoot people in the head or drop them out of helicopters.’ Was that because they didn’t need to?

  Crossing the Kings Road, she saw a news stand and picked up the Standard. Morahan’s face dominated the front page. ‘MYSTERY DEATH OF JUDGE,’ screeched the headline. The vultures had moved rapaciously. She turned the first page. Inside was a double spread – night pictures of the Inquiry offices and ambulance outside. Sensing the worst, she turned the next page. Daylight, more photographs. There it was – herself and Patrick leaving the building, police car alongside. There was even a byline: ‘Morahan Inquiry solicitor, Patrick Duke, and junior counsel, Sara Shah.’

  Information in the accompanying article was scarce, speculation fevered. A brief torrent of words thrown together in minutes. The wildness of some of the guesswork suggested that, at least, nothing concrete had emerged from anyone at the heart of the Inquiry or its staff. Journalistic phrase-making was now reframing the Morahan Inquiry as ‘highly controversial’ and ‘at the heart of the Prime Minister’s drive to open up Britain’s security services’. The judge himself had become a ‘fiercely independent and committed delver into truth’. The writer who invented that last line might, thought Sara, have unwittingly created his own truth.

  Her phone rang. The number showed private, triggering a quiver of agitation. ‘Hello, who’s this?’

  ‘Sorry to bother you, Miss Shah, it’s DS Buttler from Kennington CID.’

  Relief merged into dread. ‘I thought you’d done with me.’

  ‘Yes, just about. One or two loose ends. Could you pop down to the station to help me sort them out? Informally, of course. The Inquiry office is under siege so not a place for a quiet chat right now.’

  ‘I can see that. When?’

  ‘Might now suit?’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘The quicker we can put it to bed, the better. The media are crawling all over it.’

  Sara looked at her watch. 1.15 p.m. ‘An hour or two be all right?’

  ‘Whatever time suits you, Ms Shah, I’ll be here all afternoon.’ She cut the call, distrusting the detective’s friendliness and claim of informality.

  She hailed a taxi, unsure where she wanted it to take her. The words ‘Webster Road, Tooting, please,’ came out of her mouth. The cabbie sighed as she opened the door and stepped inside.

  She opened her bag, felt the package and rummaged beyond it for her phone. She hit on Patrick’s number and relayed Buttler’s call.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ he said instantly.

  ‘I’ll be fine.’

  ‘He’s devious. I’m coming. Where are you?’

  ‘I’m going home, have lunch with my dad. Find some sanity.’

  ‘You’re a good daughter, Sara, see you there 2.30.’

  She told the driver to drop her at the turn into Webster Road. She walked warily up the pavement, eyes constantly swivelling through 360 degrees. No thing, no person seemed out of place. No car resembled the one with the two men during the night. The house was empty – it was her father’s lunch day with the group from the depot.

  She went up to her bedroom, drew the blinds, sat down at her desk and pulled the package from her bag. Angrily she unfold
ed it and removed the wrapping paper to reveal an envelope. She slit it open. Inside was a photograph – no note or message accompanying it. She felt further inside and retrieved two small objects – an audio cassette and dictaphone.

  Yes – the final delivery.

  The photograph was grainy, the expressions unreadable – a photograph that had been taken without the knowledge – or consent – of those in it. Despite its murkiness, she recognised it and the restaurant setting instantly. She inserted the cassette into the player and began to listen. Not that she needed to – the memory of that evening was clear as forked lightning. An icy foreboding was beginning to give way to the dawning of a terrible comprehension.

  She checked her watch – time to leave for Kennington. She was in no state to answer questions – whether from Patrick or the detective. Should she phone to cancel? No. It would only raise alarms. She must tough it out. She went into her bathroom, roughly splashed and rubbed her face, reapplied make-up. She brushed her hair, glared at the mirror and forced her face to enact the shape of a cynical lawyer’s smile.

  She returned the photograph, tape and player to the envelope, folded it back into four and selected a location for it during her absence.

  At Kennington Buttler led them into a scruffy office within CID; the detective was taking pains to avoid any suggestion of a formal police interview. When Sara had arrived with Patrick without any forewarning, Buttler had even greeted him as an old friend – perhaps he was canny enough to anticipate it.

  There hadn’t been time for Sara to brief Patrick on her conversation with Iona Morahan. She had no intention yet – and until she’d worked out the possible consequences – of telling him about Sayyid’s second and third offerings.

  Buttler sat them down around a scratched wooden table. ‘Apologies, I should have offered. Tea? Coffee? Biscuits have probably run out.’ His twinkling eyes were in full dance.

  ‘We’re fine,’ said Sara. Patrick cast her a quick look for her reply on his behalf. She lowered her eyes back at him.

  ‘Right,’ said Buttler. ‘I’ve got a note of the timings you gave me. Just one question. You said it was 8.30 p.m. that you received the text message from Sir Francis asking you to come back.’