"Good morning." "Morning." "What's this all about?" "Don't ask me." "Strickland said eight o'clock." "It's eight o'clock." "Yeah, but why here?" "Dodgy cappuccino and a hot dog." "That's not his style." "Here he is, Guv." "Morning, Sir" "Morning." "Where's your car?" "It's a long story." "Thanks for coming." "Why here?" "Someone burnt down the office?" "I didn't want to do it in the office." "Why not?" "There was an explosion in Central London last night." "Yeah, a gas explosion." "It was on the radio this morning." "It was in Stephen Fisher's flat." "And I don't think it was a gas explosion." "Was he killed?" "No, no." "There's no trace of a body." "Oh, well." "Was it a bomb?" "I have good reason to believe it was deliberate." "Fisher's disappeared, which suggests he's running from someone." "Who is this Fisher?" "Stephen Fisher." "Intelligence." "Or thereabouts." "A bit shady." "Machiavellian." "The Guv'nor and he are old friends." "So what's this got to do with UCOS?" "I believe it may be tangentially connected to an unsolved murder from 30 years ago." "When Stephen Fisher was an officer candidate at Sandhurst, he was involved in a "black bag" operation on behalf of the security service." "You mean a burglary." "The target was a freelance journalist called Simon Bisley." "It was believed that Bisley had important information on some recent IRA arms deals." "So Fisher was approached to put a team together, break into Bisley's house, photograph the relevant documents and get out again without leaving a trace." "The operation went according to plan." "Fisher handed over the pictures to his contact, who promptly disappeared into thin air as these people have a habit of doing, and no-one thought any more about it until two weeks later when Simon Bisley was killed in a hit and run accident." "The driver was never traced." "Maybe the IRA found out that Bisley had dirt on them?" "A hit and run wasn't their style." "They'd want everyone to know it was them." "When Bisley died, Fisher and his team realised something was going wrong." "Fisher came up with a code-word "Maelstrom", a warning that was to be circulated to everyone in the team if anyone suspected they might be in danger." "Three days ago, someone from the team fell overboard and was drowned whilst sailing alone off the Isle of Wight." "The death isn't being treated as suspicious but a few minutes before he died, the man sent out a text consisting of one word..." ""Maelstrom"." "Yes." "But if the phone was recovered and he'd sent a text like that why isn't the death being treated as suspicious?" "The phone wasn't recovered." "Then how do we know he sent the text?" "Because I received it." "You were part of Fisher's team." "Sandhurst was where we first met." "But if someone is targeting members of that team..." "Someone broke into my garage last night." "I think my car's been tampered with." "What can we do to help?" "This is off the books." "I want to make that very clear." "There is a distinct possibility that being a police officer or being part of UCOS would afford no protection..." "What do you need us to do, Sir?" "Right." "The murder of the journalist, Simon Bisley." "It's an unsolved case." "Any progress that can be made into who might have been responsible, or why this has come to light 30 years later, would be very helpful." "We'll get onto it." "Now, look..." "Whoever's behind this, assuming it's someone from the intelligence community, they don't have access to a pool of assassins." "There's no license to kill at MI5, so whoever is actually doing the dirty work has been brought in from outside and is being paid by someone." "We'll take that." "What are you going to do now, Sir?" "I need to find the surviving members of the team from 30 years ago to see if we can work out quite why this is happening." "Is there a chance that a member of the team could be behind all this?" "Given that no-one outside our immediate circle knew about the break-in or who the other participants were, yeah, I'd say there's a very real chance indeed." "Simon Bisley's case file was updated about three weeks ago." "Really?" "By who?" "His daughter, Ruth." "She can only have been eight or nine at the time he died." "Anyway, she approached police claiming to have new evidence on her father's death and nothing was done about it." "Do you think it was deliberately suppressed?" "I don't know." "Right, Ruth Bisley's our first port of call." "Who was the original investigating officer?" "Duncan Griffin." "Is he still around?" "No, he died about five or six years ago." "He had a good reputation." "Don't they all?" "!" "Ruth Bisley?" "Yes." "Detective Superintendent Pullman, this is my colleague Brian Lane." "We're from the Unsolved Crimes and Open Cases Squad." "About my father?" "Yes." "Come in." "Thank you." "I'm afraid there's nowhere to really sit," "I'd offer you a cup of tea but the kitchen's in pieces." "You contacted the police regarding your father's death." "That's right." "I was told someone would get back to me." "I guess you must have a backlog." "I understand you have some new information?" "Yes." "Well, I think so." "My mother died at the end of last year." "I'm sorry to hear that." "She was ill for a long time, but thank you." "I'd moved home for the last few months, to look after Mum." "When she died, I put the house on the market." "There was a lot of stuff to clear out of there." "A lot of stuff of my dad's that my Mum hadn't wanted to disturb." "His office was always covered in scraps of paper and post-it notes." "I went through everything, trying to piece together the story he was working on when he died." "And I found something..." "These were on the wall of his study, right above his desk, pinned up exactly like this..." "There..." "There's a sheet missing." "Could that simply have been misplaced?" "I don't think so." "Dad was pretty well organised." "Everything was catalogued and cross-referenced..." "This is something to do with finance." "Payments in and out of various accounts." "Quite big amounts." "I can't make head nor tail of it." "Numbers just fog my brain." "But I think it's important and I think whatever was on that sheet must be missing for a reason." "Carl Dillon." "You know who he is?" "You could certainly say that he's someone who's known to the police." "Did you tell anyone else about this?" "I spoke to Nigel Baxter." "He's a journalist." "He was a friend of my dad's." "He said he didn't know anything about what my father had been working on at the time but he'd make some calls." "I haven't heard back from him, so I don't suppose he got anywhere." "What makes you so sure that this missing page has something to do with your father's death?" "It's the timing." "I was nine when my father died, and I didn't really know what he did for a living." "But as I got older I started to read his stuff and read what other people had written about him." "He was a good journalist." "He broke big stories and he pissed a lot of people off." "Whatever was on that sheet pertains to the story he was working on at the time." "His death meant that story could never be published and I think it's safe to say that someone benefited from that." "Unless it really was an accident, and the timing was just a coincidence." "I was there, Mr Lane." "Nine years old." "We'd just been to a gallery." "The car came out of nowhere." "It was going so fast." "And it swerved towards us just as Dad stepped off the kerb." "A woman grabbed me and pulled me back, otherwise I wouldn't be talking to you now." "It wasn't an accident." "Yes?" "OK, and you've talked to her?" "What document?" "What's it about?" "OK, you do that." "Let me know when you've spoken to him." "That was Sandra Pullman." "There was a document missing from Simon Bisley's house." "What document, Stephen?" "We didn't take anything." "No, we didn't." "I'm not sure it was a good idea to bring the UCOS team into this, Robert." "It's all rather dangerous." "Says the man who just held a gun to my head." "Pullman thinks the document might relate to a man named Carl Dillon." "I don't know him." "He's what we call a "key figure in organised crime"." "Interesting." "Is it?" "I don't know." "I'm just playing along." "Stephen..." "His name was on Bisley's documents?" "Yes." "Interesting." "What do you make of poor Clive?" "It looks like a heart attack, doesn't it?" "Although that would be a coincidence too far, I feel." "There's no sign of forced entry." "And yet I'm in here." "He would have let you in." "Yes, he would." "Do you think I killed him?" "No." "Well, then you're more trusting than I am, Robert." "What's going on here, Stephen?" "I have absolutely no idea." "Oh, for God's sake." "Upon my word." "I am, as I believe you're more than aware, rather senior in this country's intelligence community." "And yet someone just blew up my flat." "I'm not sure I'd consider myself to be "in the loop" right now." "Hello, Tinker." "Gerry Standing." "We need to know who the new faces in town are." "So, why are you asking me?" "The kind of person who can make a bomb in a flat in Pimlico look like a gas explosion." "Ah, that kind of person." "Well?" "You're out of your depth." "Is that a fact?" "This is all rumour and hearsay, you understand." "Go on." "Two new faces." "In from abroad." "Scarier than usual and proper..." "Where are they from?" "Don't know." "Where are they now?" "Don't know." "Who hired them?" "Good question." "Well?" "Don't know." "You don't know me." "I know him." "I'm not him." "I think I'll have a fag." "Now..." "Look, if you're trying to..." "Aah!" "Get up and sit back down." "Now..." "Who hired these two killers you've been telling us about?" "I don't know." "You know what this reminds me of?" "The good old days." "Remember the good old days?" "Nobody's watching, say what you like after the fact, nobody believes you." "I don't know who hired them." "I just don't believe you." "You're a tough nut, aren't you?" "Been around a bit." "Not like these kids nowadays - one finger and they spill their guts." "I bet you - you could take a finger and still stick to your story." "Two maybe, even." "OK, so I'll tell you what we'll do." "Let's say... ..three fingers." "Three fingers, and if you still stick to your story, hey, I'm on my way." "Ahhh..." "Ah!" "Carl Dillon!" "He hired them, he paid for it!" "Carl Dillon!" "I can't see how an old school gangster like Carl Dillon can be connected to anything that Fisher's involved with." "No idea." "But we're pretty sure my snout's telling the truth." "'Steve put the wind right up him.'" "I don't want to know, Gerry." "I'll call you when we get back to UCOS." "Bye." "I was told you wanted to see me." "Nigel Baxter?" "Yeah." "Detective Superintendent Pullman." "This is my colleague, Brian Lane." "We've been talking to Ruth Bisley about the death of her father." "Ah, yes." "We understand that you and Bisley were friends, is that right?" "We were." "A long time ago, obviously." "She also said that she talked to you about a missing document from some research she was doing at the time of his death." "That's right, yes." "I'm sorry, I'm on a deadline." "I have twenty minutes to file." "Is there a question you need to ask me?" "Ruth said that you were looking into this missing document." "Look, whether it was missing or not, I don't think it was important." "Ruth seems to think it was." "I know." "It's some clue into her father's death." "I wish it was, and I can understand why she'd want to make some sense of what happened, to apportion some blame, but..." "You think she's wrong?" "I think there's blame." "I think someone hit him with a car and fled the scene." "But I don't think that's the same thing as premeditated murder." "Do you?" "Well, that's what we're here to find out." "I'm afraid I can't help you out." "Sorry, I really need..." "Does the name Carl Dillon mean..." "No." "..mean anything to you?" "No, I've never heard of him." "15 minutes left to file this." "May I?" "I'll get it, then, shall I?" "Thanks." "Hello, Sarah." "Robert?" "Hello, Sarah." "Stephen Fisher." "Yes, I remember." "You had more hair then." "Sorry we couldn't call ahead." "May we?" "Is that a Stanhope?" "It is." "I used to play fives with his brother." "Rugby fives, of course, not Eton." "What are you doing here?" "Yes, I'm sorry," "I realise it must be awkward for you two after all these years." "We need to speak to Christopher." "He's in his study." "Stephen Fisher?" "And Robert Strickland." "As I live and breathe!" "Mmm..." "Let's not take that for granted today." "Is there somewhere we can talk?" "Yes, of course." "Come upstairs." "I didn't get a text message." "I gave up my work phone when I left the bank, and got a new one with a different number." "Is this serious?" "Marsden died a few minutes after sending out the message." "Someone blew up my flat and tampered with Robert's car." "And then there was Clive." "Poor old queen." "So yes, Christopher, I think it's serious." "And this is about back then?" "What do you remember?" "Oh..." "I was on the bits and pieces in the filing cabinet." "It wasn't like we were old hands at this sort of thing, was it?" "The adrenaline was pumping." "I was concentrating on keeping my hands steady so I could take the photographs." "Anything at all that you can remember about those files?" "Well, it was Irish stuff." "There were news clippings about the IRA, there were sheets of transcripts, there were some interviews." "There was a document in that room that subsequently went missing." "Well, I didn't take anything." "Why would I take something?" "Someone believes that the six of us know something as a result of that night." "Something worth killing us to keep quiet." "Well, I don't know anything." "We may not know what we know." "Well, even if we did know something, why let us carry it around for 30 years and do nothing until now?" "Something has obviously changed in the landscape." "We just don't know what it is yet." "We're trying to track down the others." "I haven't been in touch with any of the old gang for a while." "I've no idea where Hitch would be nowadays." "Except I guess it would be somewhere absurdly dangerous..." "Your loo, Chris?" "Er, yeah, sure, down the hall, second on the left." "Jane Ross." "I did hear an interesting rumour about Jane." "What did you do?" "You were listening at the door." "What do you expect me to do?" "After nearly 30 years, you two turning up was hardly likely to be a social call." "Is Chris in danger?" "Yes." "But I hope we'll be able to get to the bottom of this very soon." "And in the meantime?" "Is there somewhere you can go?" "It's that bad?" "Yes." "Do you remember when I used to come down to Sandhurst to visit?" "To visit Christopher." "There was a period of a few weeks when you were all skulking around, being all secretive." "And that was this." "Whatever this is." "Yes." "Stupid boys." "We'll check into a hotel." "That's a good idea." "You used to think so." "What did Maitland say about Jane Ross?" "This rumour that he heard." "Ah, the rumour, I suspect, is true." "Jane Ross graduated from Sandhurst, joined the army for a couple of years, then bought her way out and went to work for an oil company." "Oil?" "Doesn't quite fit with the Jane we knew, does it?" "Hence the rumour." "The oil was a front." "Jane was working for TSAR." "What's TSAR?" "Stands for Those Shits Across The River." "MI6 to you." "Hunter." "4219 alpha 7." "Go secure." "I need to know from housekeeping whether any guests have checked into the executive suites in the last 48 hours." "Really?" "OK." "Which room is she in?" "Yes, on this number." "Thank you." "Apparently, Jane Ross is in a safehouse." "Somebody's sending me the address now." "Whatever Strickland, Fisher and their mates were really up to 30 years ago, it's lain dormant for all this time." "So why is the shit hitting the fan now?" "It must be because Ruth Bisley came forward with new evidence." "What new evidence, though?" "How is a missing page going to be a problem for anyone?" "I don't know." "But this story that Bisley was working on definitely involved Carl Dillon, cos his name's plastered all over these notes." "There's lots of Irish names too." "Strickland said that they broke in to gather information that Bisley had on the IRA." "So maybe Dillon was dealing with the IRA, and maybe that's the story that Bisley was going to write." "It would certainly be enough to get him killed." "But even if that is it, why are Strickland and Fisher's team being targeted now?" "Well, maybe there's more to it." "Maybe it has to do with the missing page." "If one of Fisher's team photographed that page, then there's a good chance they clocked what was on it." "The Bisley file is very thin." "Simon Bisley was killed in a hit and run on a London street." "There should be witness statements, there should be more info on Bisley himself." "Here's an interesting thing." "I've been looking into the records of the station that the original investigation was based out of." "A week after Bisley died, somebody went into the station, and Duncan Griffin interviewed them on his own for two hours." "There's no record of that interview anywhere in the file." "Who was it?" "Is that thing on?" "No." "No-one else is listening in?" "No, just us." "That conversation I had with Griffin... isn't in the case file, is it?" "How do you know that?" "Because I saw a copy of the file three weeks ago." "I'm a journalist." "There are ways and means." "There's a lot that isn't in that file." "Witness statements?" "I know of four that were taken on the day, of people who saw the car hit Simon." "Did anyone identify the car?" "No, don't think so." "So there's no reason to have misplaced the statements." "Depends what they did see, doesn't it?" "When I heard that Simon had been killed, I went to the house, to see his wife and daughter, see if there was anything I could do for them." "I went into Simon's office." "He was midway through researching a story - notes everywhere." "It was chaos." "That was always how he liked to work... just paper the walls with information and see what patterns emerged." "I sat at his desk for a while, looked around the room, trying to work out what the story was going to be." "And it started to come together." "And I understood why someone might want to make sure that story never saw the light of day." "Why?" "What was the story about?" "Carl Dillon." "Did you know there's ties with the IRA?" "Carl Dillon was selling drugs for the IRA, and the money was going to fund weapons." "And this is the theory that you shared with Inspector Griffin?" "There aren't many better motives for murder, are there?" "Dillon was an up-and-coming gangster, and somebody was about to write about his dealings with the IRA." "Not only did that put him firmly in the police's cross-hairs, that story would have gone down very badly with his Irish friends." "Dillon's facing jail or worse unless he can stop Simon's story being published." "That's Dillon." "The guy with him is Fisk." "His right-hand man." "Dillon has a poker game downstairs in the basement, and Fisk waits upstairs acting as gatekeeper." "We've got eyeball on Dillon. 'Brian and I are still trying to work stuff out, ' but until we can really connect Dillon to any of this," "I don't want to tip our hand." "OK, it looks like they're settling in for a while, we'll stay put till we hear from you." "There's no mention in Dillon's file of any suspected IRA connections." "I don't suppose there would be." "You know, for a major organised crime figure, his file's light too." "There's arrests, a few minor convictions when he was a kid, but for the past 30 years, he's barely seen the inside of a courtroom." "Is he just careful?" "Well, no, cos I remember him being arrested a lot, often in connection with major crimes." "But never a conviction." "Which does suggest he's being protected by somebody." "Now, would Griffin have destroyed everything he didn't put in that file, I wonder?" "No." "I'm sure he'd be as wily as anybody else in that situation." "He'd realise he had something of value, and he would have squirreled it away for a rainy day." "Course, if evidence was hidden, we'd need to know where to look for it." "Did you follow up on any of this with Griffin?" "I called him a couple of times, left messages, but he never got back to me." "Next thing I know, they've shelved the case." "If you thought Simon Bisley was on to something, something which may have got him killed, why didn't you push it?" "Because I was scared." "Like you say, Simon was killed for this." "I'd gone to the police with what I knew, or thought I knew, and they buried it." "I left it alone." "Until Ruth Bisley called you three weeks ago." "She said she thought there was a document missing." "One of the notes referring to this mystery document contained the phrase, "D.Ops"." ""D.Ops"?" "Director of Operations." "It's a post within the intelligence community." "And you think that they're involved with this somehow?" "It would certainly go a long way towards explaining why your Duncan Griffin would want to bury half the evidence in his investigation." "I have a contact in Whitehall." "I called him, laid out the whole story, and asked him if he knew anything." "He said he'd get back to me." "I'm still waiting for his call." "What's his name?" "I've no idea." "He's just a voice on the end of a phone." "Posh, very dry, sarcastic." "I doubt that narrows it down." "Oh, I don't know so much." "I may have made a few discreet enquiries." "This is your fault, Stephen." "You drew attention to..." "I hardly think it's the time to start pointing fingers, do you, Robert?" "People are dead!" "A fact which had not escaped my attention." "Perhaps we could deal with the matter in hand, and then I'll take care of the internal politics of the intelligence community." "Which one's the safehouse?" "Oh, for God's sake!" "There on the corner." "I'm coming with you." "No." "Stephen..." "This is a security service safehouse." "They don't just let anyone in." "What makes you think it's safe?" "What makes you think you're not walking straight into a trap?" "Well, there being two of us would hardly make the trap more difficult to spring, would it?" "If I'm wrong..." "Well, I suppose I'd like to say sorry for getting you involved in all this in the first place." "Yeah, well, we all thought we were serving our country, Stephen." "Yes, well..." "Naive to think our country would repay the favour." "Oh, bloody hell." "Delightful to see you, Jane." "Is it?" "I didn't realise you were in the Service." "Something slipped by the all-seeing eye?" "That must bug the shit out of you." "This is bad." "I debriefed an EIJ informant here three years ago." "Sat right over there." "Never thought I'd be checking myself into the bloody place." "You came in last night?" "Yeah." "I heard your flat blew up." "So after I got over the initial jubilation," "I thought I'd better take the Maelstrom warning seriously." "Should have known you had some lives left." "You've lost weight." "You were a tubby thing back then." "Yes, I always envied your eating disorder." "I'm pleased to see you've put it behind you now." "So go on." "What's all this about, then?" "That's what we're trying to get to the bottom of." "We?" "Robert Strickland and I." "Ah, Robert's all right." "That's good." "Someone thinks we know something." "Yeah, I'd got that far." "And there's a document missing." "One of Simon Bisley's documents was taken around the time he was killed." "Which means it was there when we broke in." "Which means one of us photographed it." "Which means one of us saw it." "Yes." "Nice mess you've got everyone into, Stephen." "Thank you." "I think I've got it." "Duncan Griffin opened a case file for a murder that never happened." "When?" "A month after Bisley's murder." "He gave it a crime number and everything." "That's the one." "Pull it." "Thank you." "'Keep listening.'" "Ohh!" "Sorry about that!" "Really sorry." "No, it's OK." "Let me help you there." "He gave that biker an address." "It's Sunderland Avenue." "This thing lies dormant for 30 years." "The Bisley girl discovers a document went missing, she calls a journalist friend of hers who contacts you, alleging a connection with the security service." "Yes." "But you already knew that the security service was involved." "In the break-in, yes." "But I didn't know that Bisley was working on a story that involved them." "Bless your naivete, Stephen." "So you asked a few questions..." "And all hell breaks loose." "And the original contact who set up the break-in?" "Long gone." "Are our names on file somewhere?" "It's possible." "If they are, I don't know where." "So the chances are..." "That one of us is involved in what's happening." "Have you spoken to everyone?" "We were too late for Marsden and Clive Bateson." "We spoke to Chris Maitland." "He made a pile, I heard." "He and Sarah seem very comfortable." "Ah, Sarah." "Did Robert go with you?" "Yes." "Awkward?" "Whatever they had, it was a long time ago." "It was a little awkward, yes." "What's your take on Maitland?" "He did the minimum term with the Welsh Guards, and went off to make money." "Or that's his cover." "Yes." "It could be me." "No." "Why not?" "Because you'd have made extra sure I was dead." "That's true." "Hitch?" "He's proving a little harder to track down." "You seen his service record?" "I've seen the unredacted version." "It's very impressive." "Hitch doesn't want to be found." "Yes." "My concern is whether he's hiding from them, or from us." "OK, next left, then second right." "'We've got to assume these guys are armed, we're going to need back-up.'" "I can't do that without explaining what we're doing." "Guv'nor, they're on the way to a job!" "'Yes I understand that.'" "If this missing evidence connects Dillon to this," "I can make that official and get you back-up." "But until then, 'keep well out of sight, do you understand me?" "'" "Sandra..." "Where do they think this bike is heading?" "OK, so we take a left here." "Should be right in front of us." "Oh, shit. 'Sir?" "'" "Sir..?" "Hello..?" "Hey!" "Hey!" "Hey!" "Hold on to something." "Bollocks!" "Come on." "Fisher!" "Fisher!" "Get an ambulance." "You ladies are a bit out of your depth, aren't you?" "The paramedics think Fisher's going to be OK." "He took two bullets, but there's no damage to his vital organs." "The number of lives that man..." "I should be out there." "No." "The minders will deal with this." "The police need to be put back in their box and encouraged..." "What about the two guys that work for me?" "Guv'nor, we're here." "And we are not happy about walking away from a murder scene on the say-so of laughing boy here, who claims to be a friend of yours." "Hello, Robert." "Hitch!" "Jane!" "How nice to see you!" "What happened?" "One of the gunmen got away, and the other one's brown bread, thanks to your mate here." "You're welcome, by the way." "Whose house is this?" "Box." "But I rather think it's blown now." "Yes, the question is, how?" "Oh, you'd better get a cleaner to the underground car park round the corner." "Hey, hang on, we need to tape that scene off, get some fingerprints done and get an ID on that..." "It's not going to happen, dearie." "Any search you put on that bloke, DNA, fingerprints, is going to get you a big fat zero." "They were pros." "They're not on anyone's database, trust me." "We've been looking for you, Hitch." "Yes, I gather I'm quite popular." "I don't know who the hell you are." "It's Brian Hitch." "Gerry Standing, Steve McAndrew." "They both work for me..." "Yes, I've been keeping tabs on you, Robert." "Nice to meet you, gents." "Hitch is with..." "We don't say." "There's been a lot of that going on today." "Yes, I can imagine there would be." "So you received Marsden's text?" "No." "The explosion at Fisher's place got red flagged at our unit." "I put a search on the others, found out that Marsden had gone down." "Doesn't take a genius to start seeing a pattern." "The cleaner's on his way." "We think it's to do with this Bisley thing." "Again, it doesn't take a genius." "There was a document missing from the wall of Bisley's study." "If it was there when we broke in, then one of us took a photograph of it." "And someone is worried we might remember what was on it." "Aah..." "They'd be right to worry." "I took the photo." "And I did see the document." "And?" "Box, again." "Oh, shit." "Are you sure?" "I'm positive." "Guv'nor..." "What does "Box" mean?" "It's a slang term for the security service." "MI5." "It was financial records." "That page was a statement of money going in and out of an offshore account held by a company called Ellis Finch." "Ellis Finch?" "You know them?" "Stephen Fisher brought us a case a few months ago that ended up concerning them." "They were brokering a deal with the Chinese government over pension funds." "Well, they're also an expediting company for the security service, channelling undeclared funds, providing cover identities and fake employment histories for operatives." "How do you know this?" "How do any of us know anything?" "I've been loaned out to Box on occasions." "And one of those times, my cover ID was as a sales representative for Ellis Finch." "Well, the name rang a bell after the Bisley break-in, so I did a little bit of digging." "But you didn't tell anyone?" "Look what happens when you rock the boat, Robert." "So Simon Bisley was investigating a financial link between Carl Dillon, the IRA and the security service." "Well I can see why somebody doesn't want this story to see the light of day." "This is the Greg Rucka file." "Supposedly an old case of Duncan Griffin." "Except that Greg Rucka never existed." "Within this file are all the missing elements of the Simon Bisley investigation." "And it gives us nothing." "What?" "It's just statements from eyewitnesses who saw Bisley hit by the car." "None of them got the registration number, and they don't agree on the make, the model or even the colour." "Well, there must be something." "Otherwise, why hide it for all this time?" "Be my guest." "We know this is Dillon, right?" "Yes." "And I watched Fisk, Dillon's right-hand man, meet up with those two hitmen directly before they headed off to an MI5 safehouse." "Circumstantial without a recording of that meeting, which we don't have." "The phone call." "What phone call?" "Right before Fisk met them, Fisk had a phone call." "Yeah, but in fairness, that could have been from anyone." "Fisk gave those guys the address, he must have got it from somewhere." "And he must have got it pretty recently, otherwise why would be risk being seen meeting them in a public place?" "So if it wasn't that call..." "It was still a call, and it came through on his phone." "Those guys all use pay as you go." "There's no way of tracking calls in or out." "Not without the phone, there isn't, no." "So what are you thinking?" "I'm thinking what he's thinking." "I'm thinking it's time we paid Mr Carl Dillon a wee visit." "You can't be serious?" "!" "Yeah, well I'd say it's worth a go." "What was the point of hiding this bloody thing for three decades if there's nothing in it?" "!" "Unless that is the point." "This file's been hidden for 30 years, so we were expecting it to provide the evidence to get Dillon." "That evidence isn't here." "But maybe what isn't here is the point." "These witness statements are useless on the car that hit Bisley." "But they all tally on something else." "It's that something else that's missing here." "I don't understand." "There's no useful consensus amongst the witnesses as to the make or model of the car that killed your tad." "What they did all see, though, is the woman who pulled you out of the way of that car." "More than that, several of the witnesses reported having seen the woman at various points leading up to the event." "You said your dad had taken you to see an art exhibition." "Canaletto." "This man was at that exhibition." "He remembered seeing you and your father." "But he also claimed to have seen this woman at the same gallery at the same time." "That could just be a coincidence, though, right?" "Of course, it could." "Do you remember where you went after the exhibition?" "There was a cafe across the road." "I was hungry." "Dad took me in there to get some chips." "See, this man was at that cafe having his lunch." "He describes seeing the same woman hanging around outside the whole time you and your dad were in there." "You think she was following us?" "There's no statement here from this woman." "And she's not named anywhere in the investigation." "We think that she had something to do with your father's death." "We're going to see your boss." "Hey, good to see you again." "I don't remember very much." "He was saying something as we crossed the road." "I was a little bit behind him, and I couldn't really hear what he was saying." "I called to him to wait." "He stopped and turned as I ran to catch up." "That's why he didn't see it coming, because he was facing the wrong way." "Someone grabbed me, and pulled me back." "I think I screamed." "And then there was this... ..thud." "And he wasn't there anymore." "And the person who grabbed you?" "I wasn't looking." "I couldn't understand why he wasn't standing in the road anymore." "And then suddenly there were people all over the place, and someone was standing in front of me, a passer-by, I think." "I couldn't see past him." "I think that was the idea, to stop me from seeing what..." "This woman, the one who grabbed me, she sat me down." "There was a bench a little way away from the road, and she sat me down on that." "Told me to wait there, and she'd be right back." "But I never saw her again." "She left you on the bench, and she walked away?" "Yes." "No." "She spoke to someone." "She stepped away from the bench, and she spoke to someone." "A man." "I don't remember what he looked like." "Maybe the same sort of age as her." "He was wearing a suit, I think." "Grey." "Dark grey." "They spoke really briefly, and then went in opposite directions." "Do you think that you would recognise them if you saw them now?" "After 30 years?" "I think I'd recognise her eyes." "The look she gave me." "If I saw that again, I think I'd recognise it." "You're looking for me, I believe." "I am?" "Robert Strickland." "You had two friends of mine killed and put another in the hospital." "Deputy Assistant Commissioner Robert Strickland." "Anyone?" "I'm sorry, Deputy Assistant Commissioner," "I think you've got the wrong number." "Is that Gerry Standing?" "You remember Gerry, fellas." "We all go back, don't we?" "Why don't you pull up a pew?" "You think you're protected." "Is that it?" "I'm just playing cards." "Do the other people round this table know who you really work for?" "I'm self-employed." "I wonder who else would be interested to know about your financial dealings with Ellis Finch?" "And just what they were paying you for." "I'm sure a lot of water has passed under the bridge by now, but there must be a few people in Belfast who'd still care." "People who don't take too kindly to being betrayed." "What are you looking at him for?" "You think he's going to sort this out for you?" "I saw you, pal." "I saw you meet the guys off the motorbike." "You are in this up to your neck." "Hey, hey, hey!" "Don't look at him, look at me." "You think he's going to help you?" "He's going to be too busy sorting out his own problems." "Steve..." "Oh!" "What is that look for?" "Am I supposed to be scared or something?" "Steve!" "Eh?" "Am I supposed to be..." "Steve!" "Get off!" "Leave it!" "Leave it, leave it!" "Is this how you hoped it would play out," "Deputy Assistant Commissioner?" "Come on, out." "Both of you." "Mugs." "Did you get it?" "Yeah, got it." "Carl Dillon is an MI5 asset." "I don't understand what this means." "Simon Bisley was working on a story about IRA financing." "He discovered that Carl Dillon was selling drugs for the IRA, and the money was going to finance arms deals." "As he dug deeper into those finances, though, he found out that Dillon was also being bankrolled by a company called Ellis Finch, who have very strong connections to the security service." "So we were sent into Bisley's home to find out just how much he knew." "Yeah." "One of the documents we photographed was a financial statement proving the link between Ellis Finch and Carl Dillon." "And Dillon was informing on the IRA." "And in return, MI5 were protecting him from prosecution." "We provided the confirmation that Bisley had evidence of this, and was going to go public with it." "So Bisley was killed, and the document was stolen." "This was all a long time ago." "Yeah, but Bisley's daughter discovered that a document had gone missing, and she talked to another journalist, a friend of her father's, about it, and he in turn contacted one of his Whitehall contacts." "Stephen Fisher." "Fisher started asking some uncomfortable questions." "So MI5 gave Dillon the go-ahead to clean up their mess once and for all." "Gosh, what a nasty business." "Yes, it was." "And it also suggests that the arrangement MI5 had with Carl Dillon was ongoing, lasting well beyond the Good Friday Agreement, and into MI5 re-tasking to organised crime." "So if Carl Dillon had continued to be an informant through that period, he would have been invaluable." "But it would also mean that MI5 were protecting a man involved in drug-running, prostitution, robbery, sex trafficking, and murder." "But now that you've got Dillon..." "Oh, no, no, we don't have Dillon." "No, MI5 are still protecting him." "And we don't have a shred of evidence on him." "So how can I help?" "Dillon's right-hand man was a chap called Fisk." "He was getting instructions from someone as to where to direct his hitmen." "This someone knew the address of an MI5 safehouse, which suggests that whoever it is was intrinsic to this plot." "We, er... we managed to lift Fisk's phone." "So now you can trace the calls?" "Yeah, yeah... we tried that." "The number listed on his phone isn't on any service provider." "What a shame." "So I thought I'd just call it..." "Evening, Sarah." "Good evening, Robert." "They recruited you at Cambridge?" "Yes." "So you were already in when we first met." "Ooh, I think "in" is a bit strong." "They had their eye on me." "They made an approach." "And in the meantime, you'd already started seeing Christopher, and you met Fisher and the rest of us through him, so when MI5 needed someone to break into Simon Bisley's house, you knew just the people to suggest." "No comment." "Really?" "Who do you think you're talking to, Robert?" "You're just an assistant commissioner in the Met." "No, no, I'm not even that." "I'm a deputy." "Well, then." "I want Carl Dillon for the murder of Simon Bisley." "You can't have him." "Yes, I can." "How's that?" "Because there are some things you can't crawl out from under, Christopher." "I'm a retired banker, Robert." "A respected member of the financial community." "My wife sits on the board of various charitable trusts." "We have friends in some very high places." "We are not the kind of people that a deputy assistant commissioner should make accusations about, unless he has some extremely persuasive evidence." "I have a witness that can place you both at the scene of an unsolved murder 30 years ago." "Bisley's daughter." "You saved her life." "She remembers you." "So I saved a girl." "That's a good thing, isn't it?" "Witness statements have you shadowing Bisley and his daughter in the run-up to his murder." "We had nothing to do with his murder." "Oh, I believe you." "You're both far too clever to have been there if you knew what was going to happen." "Now, I think you were shadowing Bisley while someone further up the food chain decided what to do about his story." "And I think Carl Dillon took matters into his own hands." "I also have a witness who can testify to the break-in of Bisley's house, the photographing of his research, and your involvement in that, and the more recent plot to cover it all up." "What witness?" "Me." "That would be the end of your career." "Oh, you just try me." "And if we let you have Dillon?" "You cut Dillon loose, you remove all his protection, and you do whatever you need to do to ensure any allegation he makes against the security service can't stick." "That's very considerate of you." "I want all this to stop." "Now." "If that means your superiors, whoever they may be, get to crawl back underneath their ghastly little rocks, then so be it." "I'm a policeman." "I want to prosecute Carl Dillon for the murder of Simon Bisley." "We would still have Fisher to contend with." "I can't protect you from Fisher, and I have no desire to." "But I'd think about taking early retirement somewhere very far away, if I were you." "He's yours." "No..." "Oh, shut up, Christopher." "Dillon's all yours." "You did what?" "!" "The Maitlands are untouchable, Sandra." "We get Dillon for the murder of Simon Bisley 30 years ago, and that's the best possible outcome given the circumstances." "It stinks." "Thanks for what you did." "You and the team." "It was a long way above and beyond the call of duty." "So are you quite sure that you're all in the clear now?" "You, Fisher and the others?" "Well, now that Dillon's been arrested," "I imagine a lot of people will be covering their tracks." "And if the Maitlands have any sense, they'll be heading for the hills." "It's over." "And it's back to business as usual for Fisher." "Well..." "I'm sure he's been suitably humbled by the experience." "Well, that's excellent." "Thank you so much." "No, one does hate to leave loose ends." "Yes, well, let everyone know I'll be back in the office in a few days." "And that there's going to be something of a reshuffle."