Ben Cox had then joined Simon, the head of MI6, in a separate meeting of half a dozen people who were solely investigating who Brendan really was, whom he was working for, and why he had murdered – or been party to the murder of – Johnny Musselwhite and made the attempt on Walter Flushing. They were in a modern office with black leather chairs, dark-grey desks and nothing to relieve the starkness of the white walls.
Violet Anderson, who had been looking at Brendan’s personnel file, was giving the meeting an update: “Brendan Dowell grew up in Lancashire. His mother is English and his father’s Irish. He got a first in French at Durham. He was fast-tracked through Basingstoke into the FCO, where he has been for twelve years. During this time, besides London, he has done a year in Brussels, three years in Rabat and the last two years in Paris. His annual reviews are all excellent, and there are no major criticisms or suspicions mentioned. I’ve been in touch with someone who was at our embassy in Rabat while Brendan was there to ask whether he had worked with anyone specific on the Moroccan side or whether any approaches had been made to our staff in general. It was about the time that we were using the Makhzen heavily to combat Islamic terrorism after the 2015 Paris bombing.”
“Who are the Makhzen?” someone called Alice asked.
“They’re a part of the security services from Rabat, tied closely to the King of Morocco and his court. They’ve been very useful to us, being non-Christian and – how shall I put it? – sufficiently removed. They’ve infiltrated several organisations and provided us with good intelligence,” Violet confirmed.
“The Moroccan intelligence agency and secret service have been getting a little out of hand,” Simon, the head, said. “Look at what they did this year in Brussels: apparently bribing EU Commissioners on behalf of the Qataris. They’re growing like Topsy.”
“I’m not sure why they would want to turn a British FCO member of staff, though? And what with? Money? Blackmail?” Violet was not convinced.
“Was Brendan involved in anything off-piste?” Alice asked Violet.
“No, not that I’ve found so far.”
“May we concentrate on the events in the Alsace? What was he meant to be doing – for us, that is?” Simon asked.
“Johnny Musselwhite, through his department, had been very keen on those Green initiatives that the French have been trialling using the old potash mines as test sites. He has been in frequent contact with his French counterpart, Yves Dubuisson. Brendan was tasked with setting up this latest meeting near Colmar. He went down some weeks ago to make the arrangements from the British side: hotels, transport, timings – that sort of thing. Really nothing too complex and, certainly, not secret,” Alice explained. “Oddly, he seems to have made excuses not to actually escort the minister on the day, and instead, he sent Walter Flushing. It was assumed in the embassy that Brendan couldn’t be bothered to go down to Colmar for what would only be a couple of hours.”
“Then, two heavies – nationality unknown – kill Johnny using a rare poison and steal his laptop, etc.,” Violet suggested.
“Are these heavies Russian, as we might expect, or Moroccan? If the latter, why?” Simon questioned.
“Surely, it rather depends on what Johnny was up to? And he must have been up to something; countries don’t kill each other’s ministers for the fun of it,” a new voice offered.
“We haven’t found anything in Johnny’s calls, office or home to link him with anything serious, if you exclude his penchant for cocaine, which doesn’t look like it would be reason enough. If it were the Russians, there are many things to do with energy and minerals that they might not like … but the Moroccans? What could Johnny have been involved in that would have bothered them?” Alice put her hands together as if praying for an answer.
“He was enthusiastic about a new gas pipeline from Algeria to France, called PEGASUS, which might not be to the Moroccan’s liking. They want as much as possible of Algeria’s gas to go via a pipeline through their territory to Spain,” Violet commented.
“Is that enough to want him dead?” Simon asked her.
“I wouldn’t think so, but possibly.”
“Whether it was the Russians, Moroccans or anybody else, what went wrong? Clearly something did.” Simon wanted to get to the crux of the matter.
“This Walter had something in his possession or saw something that meant Brendan had to nip down there sharpish, look for it and silence him. Could it be this mysterious memory card?” Alice was following her own logic.
“And to blow his cover flying back to London on a Moroccan passport,” someone added, “Whatever it was, therefore, it was of the highest importance.”
“Have we located Brendan?” Commander Ben Cox entered the conversation. He was, after all, responsible for the criminal aspects of the case.
Violet updated everyone: “No. We’re going through CCTV footage from when he landed at Heathrow, but so far, we don’t have anything useful. Unsurprisingly, he hasn’t gone home, contacted friends or family, updated any social media, used his phone, or used his bank account and credit cards.”
“Neither has his alias, Habib Bennani, by the way,” Alice said.
“This is something big. Well, of course it’s big, given that people are being poisoned and shot, but just think if it were the other way around. If we had spent years getting someone of medium rank into a foreign embassy, we wouldn’t blow the whole asset on some minor commercial disagreement, would we?” Simon wasn’t looking for any reply, just stating the obvious. “We’re missing something big, and I mean big,” he emphasised. “Whatever it was, I’m sorry to say that it went wrong to such an extent or so quickly that he didn’t even try to hide his covert identity.”
Ben Cox was applying his policeman’s logic to all this. “I don’t think it was something Walter saw. He had already been interviewed several times by the prosecutor and the brigade criminelle; he would have already described everything that he had seen. I also don’t think that it was something Walter knew. Brendan didn’t have time to get it out of him. He appears to have shot him very quickly on entering his room. My money is on Walter having something – an object such as this card – that should have been in Johnny’s room, but for some reason, was in Walter’s instead.”
“The only thing that appears to be missing is Walter’s laptop … and the CCTV footage shows Brendon with only a small bag that’s just big enough to carry one. He didn’t even take Walter’s phone,” Violet confirmed.
“So, what wasn’t on Johnny’s laptop but was on Walter’s?” Simon asked.
“Or what did Johnny give to Walter for safekeeping? From this, we can infer that Johnny knew his life was in danger,” someone else added.
“Nobody has ever found the memory card that the night manager saw, have they?” Ben looked around the room, seeking an answer.
There was a pause in the proceedings as a connecting door opened and closed, although no one came in.
“May I go back to this PEGASUS pipeline proposal? Is it worth us checking out the British company involved and asking quietly what the international reaction has been?” Simon enquired.
“We should be careful; this PEGASUS proposal is also for power cables transporting – or is it transmitting? – electricity from a solar farm in Algeria. Actually, it’s the size of twenty farms,” Violet declared.
Simon changed tack: “The Moroccans must know that we know about Brendan. What are they saying, Alice? We have friends out there, don’t we?”
“They’re saying nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
“That does bother me.”
“Nobody’s mentioned the G20 meeting in Marrakech. The PM and POTUS will be there in three days’ time,” chimed in someone else.
“The timing just doesn’t stack up,” Simon said, patently not convinced. “Are we seriously thinking that the Moroccans, for whatever reason, would poison a British minister a week or so before they host in their country their first G20 meeting ever? I don’t buy it. Is this Moroccan passport just a smokescreen or an irrelevancy?”
“It could be either of those, but if it’s the Russians, they could have given him any passport. They may have seized the opportunity to muddy the waters. Giving Brendan a Moroccan identity would be credible given his past time in Rabat, and it might mess up the G20 meeting – that would be attractive to the Russians and, possibly, some others,” Alice replied.
“I wonder if this is about gas. The Russians don’t want more gas coming into Europe, so scuppering a new pipeline might be on their agenda. I wonder if Johnny was a bit more involved in this pipeline than we realise – in which case, they might want him taken out? Violet, will you speak to those involved in this PEGASUS pipeline and find out what’s happening?” And with that, Simon closed the meeting.
