Page 21 of An Eye for an Eye
‘Walls may not have ears,’ said the Hawk, ‘but passing strangers certainly do.’
Although they arrived at the Foreign Office long before the appointed hour, a young man was already waiting for them in reception.
‘Please follow me, gentlemen,’ he said, before accompanying his visitors up a wide, thick, red-carpeted staircase. William glanced from side to side at the colourful ceramic tiles that graced the walls.
When they reached the first-floor landing, they were greeted by a bust of Charles James Fox along with portraits of former foreign secretaries – Palmerston, Pitt the Elder, Castlereagh, Bevin, Alec Douglas-Home and James Callaghan – beforecoming to a halt outside the door of the present holder of that high office.
The young man paused at a set of floor-to-ceiling oak doors with the royal coat of arms displayed above them. He knocked and waited for a moment before opening one of the doors and standing aside. The two visitors entered a room the size of a tennis court and made their way towards a diminutive figure with an unmistakable shock of red hair, who was seated behind a large oak desk at the far end of the room. A portrait of the monarch hung on the wall behind him with a bust of Churchill to his right, alongside an Enigma machine displayed in a glass cabinet. Two smartly dressed mandarins were perched like vultures on either side of their master, looking as if they were ready to swoop given the slightest opportunity.
The Foreign Secretary had risen from behind his desk long before his two guests had reached him. Robin Cook shook hands with them both before introducing a Mr Trevelyan, his private secretary, and Sir Geoffrey Cruickshank, the Permanent Secretary. It seemed to William that everyone in the Foreign Office was a secretary.
‘It was good of you both to come at such short notice,’ Cook said, without any suggestion of irony.
William could only wonder how the Foreign Secretary would have reacted had the Commander told him, ‘My diary is a little crowded at the moment, but I feel sure I could fit you in towards the end of next week’.
‘There are two reasons I needed to see you so urgently,’ said Cook, not wasting any time. ‘As you will know, the British government are currently involved in advanced negotiations with Saudi Arabia for an arms deal worth several billions, and to that end we are hosting a delegation from the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Defence next month. Until quite recently, we wereconsidered the front runners for the contract. However, this has received a setback, to say the least, following the arrest of our chief negotiator, Mr Simon Hartley.’
‘Who’s been charged with the murder of one of his rivals,’ said the Hawk, one step ahead of him. ‘But it doesn’t look to me like a case that would stand up in court.’
‘Depends which court you’re standing up in,’ countered the Foreign Secretary. ‘However, Sir Bernard Anscombe, our man in Riyadh, agrees with you. He finally managed to meet with Hartley in prison yesterday. He is certain not only that Hartley’s innocent, but also who the guilty party is, which has only added to our problems.’
William wanted to ask who and why, but before he could speak, both questions were answered.
‘The guilty party is Prince Ahmed bin Majid,’ said the Foreign Secretary. ‘He’s the second son of Prince Majid, the Minister of Defence, who will be responsible for signing the arms agreement on behalf of his government.’
‘The King’s cousin, no less,’ said William.
‘No less,’ repeated Cook. ‘And it’s necessary, Chief Superintendent, to remember that – with the Saudis – “face” is all-important when they are dealing with a foreign country, particularly the British.
‘Sir Geoffrey,’ he continued, looking to his right, ‘has already been in touch with the Saudi Ambassador in London – not an easy man – who is well aware of how much time and money the government has invested in the arms deal to ensure we remain ahead of the French, and so feels he has the whip hand. We suspect he knows only too well that Hartley is innocent and, more importantly, who the guilty party is. So, I’m faced with the double dilemma of trying to hold on to the contract, while remaining on good terms with the Saudigovernment, and at the same time getting Hartley out of jail without the press finding out what I’m up to. The fact that Hartley has been arrested and charged with murdering his Italian rival has already been well covered by the media, and rumours are already circulating in the press about who the real culprit might be.’
William recalled reading a recent article by Cook written inThe Guardian, where he didn’t leave the reader in any doubt about his strong views on presiding over an ‘ethical’ foreign policy.
‘The French aren’t helping,’ said Sir Geoffrey, speaking for the first time, ‘but I can’t pretend we would have behaved any differently had our roles been reversed.’
‘However,’ continued the Foreign Secretary, ‘to our surprise, the Saudi Defence Minister has not cancelled his planned trip to the Farnborough Air Show next month to check on the state-of-the-art equipment we have on offer. However, we should anticipate more protests once the public find out the truth, and the situation isn’t being helped by the fact that the Minister’s son, Prince Ahmed, despite the Foreign Office’s advice to the contrary, intends to accompany him on the trip. So, this is, in political terms, a somewhat’ – he paused – ‘delicate situation.’
Only the Foreign Office could describe it thus, thought William.
‘Hartley told our man that the key witness in the Hartley defence is a Ms Jenny Prescott,’ said Sir Geoffrey, ‘or at least that’s the name on her passport, which the Saudis confiscated when she recently tried to leave the country.’
‘Ms Prescott’s working name,’ said Trevelyan, ‘and I use the word advisedly, is Avril Dubois, and she was at the nightclub on the evening Paolo Conti was murdered.’
‘And more important,’ came back Sir Geoffrey, ‘she is inconveniently refusing to confirm the Saudi police’s version of events, which rather suggests not only that Hartley is innocent, but also that everyone knows he is.’
‘If she’s the only witness who might be willing to testify to the fact it was Prince Ahmed and not Hartley who committed the murder,’ said William, ‘her life must be in danger.’
‘Our Ambassador and Hartley have already made that point,’ said Cook.
‘So what role do you expect us to play?’ asked the Hawk, cutting to the chase.
‘We need someone to go to Saudi,’ said Sir Geoffrey, ‘track down Ms Prescott, check if she can prove Hartley is innocent, and see if she still wants to leave the country and come home, because if she does we can use her as a pawn in our negotiations with the Saudis.’
‘I used to think politics was a dubious profession,’ said Cook, ‘but that was before I joined the Foreign Office, and I can assure you, Commander, they make the Mafia look like a bunch of Sunday school teachers.’
Both the Hawk and William laughed, while the two mandarins didn’t even blink.
‘If such a person exists,’ said Sir Geoffrey, as if he hadn’t heard the Foreign Secretary, ‘we might still be in with a chance of defeating the French, or at least of finding out if we’re just wasting our time,’ he paused. ‘And money.’