Game Ten: A gripping conspiracy thriller, page 30
‘I have no idea, but there’s no doubt these Freedom’s Friends people were in there. Who knows, maybe they didn’t like Labour’s policies.’
‘Like what?’
‘NATO? US bases? The Balkans? GATT? Europe? God knows.’
‘It doesn’t help us get out of this.’
‘Oh, yes it does. You’re going on TV on Friday night and you’re going to tell the whole story.’
She looked at him in total disbelief. ‘How? From where?’
He told her, and saw a sudden light of purpose in her eyes.
*
Thursday August 22nd
The southern tip of the Mull of Kintyre was their considered choice in the morning, a morning which saw yet another change in Claire. She was introverted and angry now, and Harry felt the indirect heat of that anger though he knew it was aimed at a different target, a target that had suddenly taken on a name and a purpose if not yet much of a face. They’d kicked the shit out of her, now it was time to start kicking back.
They made their plan carefully. They wrote a short and enigmatic introduction for Russell Mackay to read in studio which simply said, in effect, ‘get ready for something special, over to our outside broadcast team’. Harry could imagine the joint fury Jane Bernstein and Mackay himself would be expressing in London at being kept in the dark. They went over and over the script. It was to be a simple read to camera, delivered slightly awkwardly off a clipboard without an autocue, but Harry knew that didn’t matter a damn. Its content would rivet the audience to the screen.
Then they’d gone looking for a location.
*
Thursday night was a curious experience. Harry had the feeling that if there had been an altar in the apartment, Claire would have spent the night praying before it like Joan of Arc. She drew more and more into herself during the evening, looking cold and pale, and they went to bed like an old married couple, getting in their separate sides. She held his hand in bed, lying on her back and staring at the ceiling, and although he put his arm round her, the stiffness in her body kept him from any further contact.
*
Friday August 23rd
Harry met the outside broadcast vehicle and the generator truck at three o’clock on Friday on the outskirts of Campbeltown. They were hired from a Manchester facilities operation and they were out to please. It was clearly their first job for National. He led them down the winding road through the village of Southend, then suddenly, beyond the empty concrete towers of the ruined technical school, the land ended and the waves crashed on to the beach below the low cliffs at the very tip of the Mull.
Johnny, the crew boss, was smiling when they stopped on a wide grass patch above the beach, the narrow road at their back winding away from the sea. ‘No problem with a link from here,’ he said. ‘I was worried when I saw Arran and Goat Fell. If that had been in the way we’d have had a problem. Now, tell me what we’re doing exactly.’
‘OK. The show’s on the air at seven-thirty. We’re inserting twelve minutes live starting at seven-thirty-two. Then there might be a two-way with the studio, so we’ll need reverse sound and an earpiece.’
Johnny looked around bewildered while behind him men cranked up antennae and ran out cable. ‘What exactly is it, though? There’s sod all here.’
‘Doesn’t matter. It’s a one-camera job. The reporter’s just going to talk to the camera.’
‘You’re kidding. Twelve minutes straight to camera? No pictures?’
‘Johnny, just believe me. You’ll understand it all later.’
‘So where’s the reporter?’
‘I’ll be bringing . . . er, the reporter along at about quarter past.’
‘No rehearsal?’
Harry thought about their mobile phones and the possibility one of them might call the police. ‘No rehearsal.’
Johnny looked increasingly worried, and let out his breath noisily. ‘Be it upon your own head, that’s all I can say.’
‘It is.’
He left them to get on with it, drove back to Campbeltown and called Gilligan. ‘OK, we’re ready.’
‘How’s it going to work?’
‘The studio does the intro. I come on and do a very quick link from the OB, then we see Claire walk down the hillside and she comes straight up to the camera and starts talking.’
‘Good. I’m going to call just a few of the top journos, say five newspapers, three or four minutes beforehand to tell them to watch.’
‘Don’t say why.’
‘I won’t.’
‘I’ll want to get her away safely afterwards. We’ll have to take our chances with the police. I want you to lay on a good lawyer. I think you should come up and meet us somewhere.’
‘Campbeltown?’
‘How did you know that’s where we are?’
‘The whole damned office knows. Your crew called in just now for some technical talk, line-up and all that. Bernstein came and told me.’
‘Shit.’
‘Harry, it doesn’t matter. She knows where you are, but I’m the only one that knows why.’
‘She’ll guess.’
‘I’ll lead her astray.’
When Harry put the phone down, he rang Putney, just to reassure himself that Steffie was still there. He got the ward sister.
‘Oh, Mr Chaplin. Doctor Freeman left a message. He wanted a word. Shall I put you through?’
Freeman, the man who thought Steffie should be switched off like some sort of light. ‘No, I’m in a call-box in Scotland. I’m very busy. Tell him I’ll call him on Monday.’
*
He put Claire in the car just after six-thirty. She was made-up, dressed as smartly as the choice of worn yachting clothes allowed, and she was constantly going through the script on the clipboard, off in a world of her own, preparing for the showdown. He dropped her where they’d planned: beside the road where she could cut up the slope of the hill to look down on the OB van.
‘Why don’t you just sit in the car and wait?’ he asked.
‘Because if this screws up, I want you at arm’s length, Harry. You get too close to it in front of witnesses and you’re an accessory. Anyway, I want a walk.’
The crew were jumpy, glad to see him, and full of worries.
‘Good signal,’ said Johnny. ‘Are you really sure it’s just one camera, one reporter?’
‘Well, two,’ said Harry. ‘I’ll do a quick link. Stay wide so you’ll pick up the other person walking down that path over my shoulder while I’m talking. Then she’ll take over.’
‘She?’
‘Yes. From this moment on, no one uses your phone except to call National, right?’
‘Right. Why?’
‘Because “she” is Claire Merrick.’
He would have liked the luxury of savouring the moment, the look of complete astonishment on Johnny’s face.
‘But how? You mean she’s going to turn herself in?’
‘She’s going to explain what really happened.’
They had a dish on the roof and a monitor rigged up to feed them the show. Harry rehearsed what he was going to say, checking his watch every two minutes. At seven-twenty he saw her waiting on the slope of the hill at the spot they’d chosen. They’d timed the walk that afternoon. At seven-twenty-eight he waved his arm and she started walking down.
At seven-thirty after the advertisement break, the show’s titles rolled. Johnny, acting as floor manager, called, ‘Show’s on the air, silence. Coming to you in two minutes, Harry.’
In the studio, Russell Mackay, looking less than confident in a mid-shot, ran through a quick menu for the show to camera one, then turned to camera two in close-up. Harry glanced over his shoulder, Claire was thirty yards away, perfect.
His adrenaline level rose with that familiar feeling of a bubble expanding in his chest. Here we go, he thought. Russell Mackay, on the monitor, said, ‘But we start today’s show with a very unusual item indeed; something quite remarkable in the history of Crookbusters. We’re going over now, live, to our reporter on the spot.’
Harry started. ‘Thank you, Russell. This is Harry Chaplin in the Highlands of Scotland and I have a sensational revelation for you. Walking down the hillside towards me is the most wanted woman in Britain, Claire Merrick.’ He turned and looked. She was only seconds away. ‘She is here to tell for the first time . . .’ He became aware something odd was happening. Johnny was talking, saying things, another of his crew was rushing for the phone. He tried to plough on, ‘. . . the real story of what . . .’
But Johnny was waving his arms, stopping him, and then he looked down at the monitor and saw not himself, not the Highlands of Scotland, not Claire coming into shot behind him, but some clunker of a story with Gary the researcher masquerading as a reporter in the cells of some police station.
‘Christ almighty, what’s going on?’ he said. Did we lose the signal?’
Claire reached him, worried, questioning.
‘No,’ said Johnny. ‘I mean, I don’t know. It went to black for a second or two, then that came on. It’s not us. The signal was fine leaving here. Right up to the end of the intro they were seeing our picture. It must have gone down somewhere at the last moment, just as they switched to us.’
‘No, no,’ said Claire, backing away from the monitor screen with her hands outstretched as if to fend it off. ‘There’s something very wrong with all this.’
‘Hold on,’ Harry said to her urgently, casting around in his mind for a reason. ‘Links screw up. You know that. They must have had the other package ready to run as a stand-by.’
‘Harry,’ she said, swinging on him, ‘how long have you been in TV? How long does it take to get another input up and on the screen when your big story falls flat? Have you ever seen it done in two seconds before? Fifteen seconds if you’re lucky; thirty if you’re not. Someone had that planned. We’ve been screwed. I’m getting out of here.’
‘Wait,’ he said. ‘Give me a minute to call Gilligan.’
He used the phone in the back of the OB truck, and the National switchboard put him through in seconds.
‘Harry. What the hell happened?’
‘I don’t know. I’m asking you.’
‘I’m not in the gallery. I was watching it in my office.’
‘Claire’s climbing the wall. What do I tell her?’
‘Tell her, I’ll . . .’
But then an engine roared to life, men started shouting and Harry was out of the door, leaving the phone dangling for Gilligan to deliver his sentence into thin air. He took in two moving vehicles, a brown Land-Rover coming fast down the road from the right, and the generator truck, Claire at the wheel, moving off with half the crew after it. He was much nearer. The driver’s window was open and he leapt for it, hanging on to the door frame with one foot on the step.
There were tears pouring down her cheeks and a mad, set expression on her face. ‘Get off,’ she shouted.
‘Stop. I’ll drive you in the Ford.’
‘Get OFF!’ she cried again, beating him with her right hand through the window, ‘I’m sorting them out, Harry. By myself. Get off, damn you.’
‘NO! Just stop a minute.’ The blows were hurting him. He couldn’t protect his face against them and he struggled to hold on as the truck bounced over the rough ground. Claire and Steffie, Steffie and Claire, pulling him in opposite directions.
‘There’s no chance,’ she said, and struck him hard on the nose with such force that he let go and fell, tumbling over and over into the heather as the truck, towing broken lengths of electrical cable behind it, charged off.
It bounced on to the road fifty yards ahead of the oncoming Land-Rover and roared away gears crunching. Harry sprinted for the Mondeo. It was parked over a hundred yards away, and the run seemed to take for ever, his chest thrust out, head back, arms flailing in the kind of focused agony he’d not experienced since school sports. By the time he’d found the key and got it started both the other vehicles were out of sight round the bend.
He chased them to the narrow turning that led to the lighthouse and up over the edge of the headland. The lane was narrow and rutted, startled sheep leaping away over the wall. As they climbed he could see down to a sea full of white horses, down over a diving curve of grass. Round a right hander, ahead, in a long slide that had the car bucketing and crashing through the ruts, he straightened up just in time to miss the Land-Rover which had pulled over and stopped beside the road.
A huge feeling of relief came over him. It was nothing, a mere coincidence, bird watchers, fishermen, who cared? Innocent, harmless people who’d happened by and been hugely misunderstood. When Claire saw it was only him behind her she’d stop and all this could still be sorted out. They’d go straight to Gilligan, show him the script, swear an affi . . .
He hit the brakes hard and gazed, aghast, down the hill in front: a curving hill, the track running round a ledge in it, and the grass sloping on down below it, another thirty feet to the cliffs and sea far below. Parked across the track was a second Land-Rover, and standing behind it was a group of men. He saw the truck slow down, a hundred yards short of them. Come back, he thought, reverse. We’ll throw them off.
The truck growled louder and accelerated again and he thought he knew what she’d seen. The Land-Rover had been swung across the track facing the sea. There was a two-foot gap between its tail and the uphill bank and the tail would be lighter than the nose with its heavy engine. If she just hit that right she could knock it out of her way. He roared encouragement; he was still roaring when, looking through the plain glass of the truck’s windscreen, without any attempt to steer for the gap, Claire bored straight into the middle of the Land-Rover at fifty miles an hour, hurling it like a battering ram at the men who turned too late to run, hurling it and them off the edge of the road, and plunging after them so that the twisting, turning Land-Rover and the heavy generator truck, still trailing its lengths of cable behind, soared off the cliff and hit the just submerged rocks below with the close-spaced double thud of a sonic boom.
Harry ran down to the top of the cliff and stared dully down at the wreckage with the water swirling over it, hearing her voice. Four of them. She’d taken her revenge on four of them. Four what? Foot soldiers? There’s no chance, she’d said. What about Harry Chaplin? They’d never let him be, would they? He remembered the Land-Rover behind him, but when he’d turned and gone back the way he came there was no sign of it.
*
Sunday September 29th
One month later there was a little initiation ceremony at the ranch. Hacker, also known as Gregory Peck, was being granted access to the Holy of Holies, Freedom’s Friends Hall of Honour. They lined the stairs and the landing for him, clapping as Hacker, the Producer and Martin Blunden on either side, was taken to the door and given his own key to unlock it. Down one side of the room were thirty-five ornate marble plaques, memorials on Mammon’s church wall. The tenth one was veiled by a square of red silk from which a tassel hung. He glanced at the ones next to it; ‘Game 9. Genscher resignation. Game 11. Danish Referendum on Maastricht Treaty, 1992. Game 12. Robert Maxwell. Game 13. Israeli General Election.’ There was a lot of bare wall still to fill.
Martin Blunden read from a citation, ‘Gregory Peck. In skilfully completing this game you have earned full and permanent membership of Freedom’s Friends. You have earned the right to select a benefit game for a purpose of your choice. Now, in recognition of your personal contribution, please unveil the plaque.’
He stepped forward and tugged at the tassel. The silk fell from a tablet which said simply: ‘Game 10. British General Election, 1992.’
The Producer gave him a sideways look. ‘I suppose we can say it’s truly finished with Chaplin still around.’
‘Chaplin never knew. He was just the tool. Merrick was the one with the story, and she didn’t get to tell him. Anyway, he always hated her.’
‘Is that enough?’
‘I’ve told him she was crazy, and he trusts me,’ said Desmond ‘Hacker’ Gilligan, turning back to look again at his plaque and dreaming of the rich TV franchises still to come.
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Author’s Note
Readers may wish to know what facts lie behind this book. I first became interested in the vulnerability of the British electoral system when I read an account by the Intelligence specialist, James Rusbridger, of the way MIS have been able to take the secrecy out of the supposedly secret ballot, and record the names of voters who voted for particular candidates whom they perceived as far Left. From that, it began to seem at least thinkable that someone might have decided to go further.
I then began an analysis of the results of the 1992 General Election, looking for any statistical oddities. Adding substantial extra votes in a marginal seat would show up as described, by affecting the swing and turnout figures. Setting the same criteria described in the book, I came up with a list of nine anomalous seats. Seven of those seats began with the initial letters A, B or C. The other two began with S and T.
A statistician has estimated the probability of that happening by chance at nearly one in four thousand. I can tell you no more.
It is absurdly easy, however, to buy ballot boxes and obtain security seals for them identical to those used in the election.
James Rusbridger later told me he believed there had in the past been interference in the results of specific marginal seats where candidates seen as ‘extreme’ by the security services had stood a chance of victory. Sadly he was found hanged in odd circumstances shortly before this book was first published.
Since publication there has been a little more attention paid to the security of British election arrangements, particularly in the light of allegations that there has been fraudulent use of postal and proxy votes in some marginal constituencies.
The origins of the Lockerbie bomb come from a convincing account I was given by a source who would not wish to be named.
