“I rather thought that I might move in with you. You’ll need help to pay the mortgage now that you have so recklessly frittered away a quarter of a million pounds.”

***

We decided not to make any immediate plans, and to wait until Dee was out of hospital and back with me.

The next hour was spent explaining the events of the day and Lord Hickstead’s spectacular fall from grace. Dee seemed to understand the peer’s motivations, and whilst she couldn’t condone anything he had done, she expressed her opinion that the case would never reach a jury.

“What are you suggesting?” I asked.

“Josh, I love your innocence, but just think this through and then judge the likelihood of a trial being held. It seems to me that there are a number of options here, the least likely being incarceration and trial. First option, release his Lordship on his own recognisance, let him consider his future and give him the opportunity to take the easy way out.”

“Suicide, you mean?” I asked, surprised.

Dee nodded before continuing. “It’s a real possibility, Josh. He will be expelled from the Lords, he will lose the proceeds of his crime, he will be in prison for the rest of his life, and it certainly won’t be a cosy open prison, given the nature of his crimes. The second option is that he doesn’t have the nerve to end his own life and so he is, shall we say, helped along a little.”

I was aghast at the suggestion.

“That would be the equivalent of a state execution!” I stated. “Surely you’re not suggesting that sort of thing actually goes on these days?”

“Think back, Josh, and not too many years ago you will recall individuals who had, or would have, embarrassed the establishment. Scientists, spies and specialists in Weapons of Mass Destruction have died rather conveniently, or have apparently taken their own lives. Some of these people are placed under such enormous pressure that suicide seems to be the only way out, and if they still don’t act then there a thousand ways they can be assisted. Hickstead proved that, with Sir Max and Andrew. Josh, if Lord Hickstead goes to trial it will be broadcast around the world. The Press would have a field day. The ex-Prime Minister will be made to look incompetent for nominating him as a Peer. The new PM will be embarrassed that he allowed the nomination. They will both blame the security services who carry out the checks before anyone gets a peerage, and the House of Lords itself will be damaged. The hereditary and the life Peers will all be pilloried and discredited in the same way that the expenses scandal tarred all MPs, guilty or not. There will be outrage from the public when they hear of the deaths and the distress he caused; I wouldn’t be surprised if there were calls for the House of Lords to be disbanded. That part of the establishment is deeply unpopular, and Hickstead has handed its opponents a potentially lethal weapon.

The unions will disown him, his party already have, and he will have made dangerous enemies that he could not have foreseen when he started all of this. Our Secret Intelligence Services will be deeply humiliated and angry that they’re being blamed for a political blunder, and will already be preparing their defence.

What I’m saying is this, Josh. If he goes to trial there will be parliamentary commissions, committee hearings and so on, and none of them will show the system in a good light.”

I still couldn’t believe that a country like ours would stoop to those depths to save face. It seemed to me that such mistrust was at the heart of all conspiracy theories.

Dee could see the doubt in my face. She squeezed my hand and asked a question that sent a chill through my body. “Josh, earlier today, against all the odds and against all common sense, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police was instructed to release Hickstead on police bail. Into whose hands was he released?”

She had a point. Number two Parliament Street was guarded by MI5.

Chapter 8 5

No.2 Parliament St. Westminster, London. Monday, 6pm.

Lord Hickstead had concluded that the life he had carefully built for himself had gone forever. With his credit cards cancelled and his bank account frozen he had to rethink his strategy.

He had around four thousand pounds in his current account that he was free to use. His other accounts had almost seventy thousand pounds deposited in them, but he would never see that money again. They would claim it as the proceeds of crime, even though it wasn’t true. He did have a very good pension with the union, but it would not pay out until next year. He did, however, have two aces up his sleeve.

Lord Hickstead made a call to his Swiss Bank and checked the balance for the numbered account in the name of Euro Union Financial Enterprises. The balance had been reduced as a result of paying Van Aart a hundred thousand Euros in compensation when the diamonds went missing. Still, the figure quoted to him was the euro equivalent of almost half a million pounds.

Several years of milking the EU coffers had served him well. When he had worked for the Trades Union they had wanted to see receipts for all his expenses. They didn’t particularly care how much was spent, but they wanted receipts. He could hardly believe his luck when he took up his new post and found he was allowed the cost of flying home on a Friday, first class, and back again after the weekend, whether he travelled or not. He could also travel widely in his role as European Commissioner for Labour Relations and rack up all kinds of alleged expenses along the way. But not until the last year or so of his posting did anyone ask for receipts. There was simply a presumption that he had travelled home each weekend at a cost of over five hundred pounds a week, and that he had indeed expended what he had claimed. He wasn’t alone in recognising that loophole.

The only other source of cash he could access was waiting for him across London, and to collect that he would need to find a way to bypass his MI5 minder at the front desk. Lord Hickstead’s problem was that, whilst there were many exits leading to external fire escapes, they were all alarmed. He couldn’t use any of those exits as he hadn’t the first idea how to disable an alarm. That left him only the front door.

***

Quite why this building was so secure Hickstead didn’t know, but then he had never researched its history. Since 1895, number 2 Parliament Street had been used solely as civil service office accommodation until apartments had been created from the offices on the top two floors during the 1970s. At that time the doorman would traditionally have been an ex-serviceman. However, following the assassination of Airey Neave on 30th March 1979, within the confines of the Houses of Parliament, there had been a sea change in security arrangements. The recently converted apartments were seen as potential targets for the IRA, as they housed senior government officials. To offer better protection, Special Branch’s SO12, ‘S’ squad, took an office suite at the back of the building and equipped it with firearms, and staffed the lobby with armed officers.

After the 11th September 2001 attacks on New York, SO12 had their hands full with other commitments and so they had been more than happy to let MI5 use the offices and also handle the doorman duties. It was also a coup for MI5. Because all of the bills for this satellite office were covered by the building owners, Crown Estates, very few people at MI5’s HQ at Thames House knew it existed. This made ‘the cubby hole’, as it was known to operatives, an ideal place to carry out operations without the continuous oversight of the bean counters at HQ.

***

Arthur Hickstead had left the apartment carrying nothing but his cash card. He knew that he could not risk taking anything with him. He had no way of knowing what bugs or transmitters they might have hidden in his personal belongings. Having come to the ground floor via the service stairs, he was now in the photocopier room close to reception. With one quick look through the small window in the door leading to the lobby, he satisfied himself that Malcolm was at his desk.