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2

Two days later at 12.55 p.m., Sara Shah arrived at the Afghan restaurant on Farnwood Road, between Tooting High Street and the Common. She’d quickly replied to the letter after discussing it with her father; he’d driven to Chelsea Place Upper that night to put it through No. 45’s front door. She’d ended the note by reminding Morahan, if he cycled, to wear a helmet; after her father set off, she wondered what on earth had possessed her to do so.

She’d proposed to Morahan a lunchtime meeting – somehow evening felt inappropriate. She was not in court that day and Ludo, as always, had happily agreed to her studying the next case files from home.

In one corner of the small restaurant, a young Asian family with two toddlers were faces down in a huge plate of sizzling mixed grill and chips. The mother and father showed traces of middle-aged bulge; she imagined the sweet slim little figures with their smooth cheeks and searching eyes going the same way. A jeans-clad boy and high-cheeked girl in a flowing red linen dress and cardigan, laced with a string of glass beads, were ordering; they must have sat down just before her. Pashtuns, she assumed. In the corner a Pakistani man sat alone munching, reading the Mirror.

Morahan had not replied to her letter; she understood that he must be nervous about communications. Her instincts told her that he would show up, even if it meant cancelling the Palace. They were correct; one minute after the designated time of 1 p.m., a tall figure strode past the window, turned through the door, and cast a wary eye over the restaurant. She rose, saying simply, ‘Hello.’

‘Hello,’ he replied. He seemed unsure whether to offer a hand to shake, finally keeping it to himself. Culturally conflicted, she noted. He sat down across the Formica table and buried himself in the menu. He cast a further eye around and behind; none of the other diners caught it.

She hesitated, wondering whether to test his humour. ‘It’s hardly the Garrick or the Temple.’

‘No.’ Expressionless, he peered back down; she couldn’t help noticing the thin prominence of the aquiline nose, with its near-perfect shallow curve. His skin was surprisingly smooth and unblemished for a man of his age; there was no sign of stray hairs emerging from nostrils or ears. His uniformly grey hair flopped elegantly over his collar edge. A good-looking man who had looked after himself. ‘What will you eat?’ he murmured.

‘Just a salad, I think.’

‘Yes, good.’ He shot another glance at their fellow customers and out of the window. ‘And then perhaps a walk. It seems too good a day to waste.’

As they made small talk, she tried to remember him as Attorney General but she had then been only in her early teens – try as she might, she couldn’t place his face among the Cabinet of that time. He had a presence, but not that of a showman; she couldn’t imagine him shouting and waving paper about in the Commons.

He rushed through his salad, a man on edge, itching for open spaces.

‘Let me get the bill,’ said Sara.

‘No, please…’

‘I insist. You have come to me. It’s the least I can do.’

They stepped outside. ‘I have my bicycle,’ he said.

‘Don’t worry, it’ll be here when you return. We’re not the badlands.’

A few yards down the pavement, he spun abruptly. She followed his eye; the Pakistani man from the restaurant was scurrying into the street. As they turned, he halted and made to study the menu in the window.

He bent towards her ear, his voice a hiss of panic. ‘It’s not my imagination,’ he said softly. ‘That man is watching us.’

She grinned. ‘That man is my father.’

He frowned, then smiled. ‘Oh dear. I feel a fool.’ For the first time, she felt him relax.

‘It’s all right, he’s just a little over-protective.’

‘I hope my presence is not too alarming.’

‘I’ll give him a wave to go home.’ She looked back at her father, shooing him away. ‘He’d make a terrible spy, wouldn’t he?’

‘I think perhaps if he wanted to achieve success in that profession, it might only be via the double-bluff.’

She looked at him; there was a twinkle in his eye. She tested him further. ‘Shall we walk to the Common and find a park bench? Isn’t that what spies do?’

They sat down, not at a park bench but an outdoor café. Morahan twisted around and, apparently satisfied they were out of ear-shot, leaned towards her.

‘Before you begin,’ said Sara, ‘I must ask you a question. This is a public Inquiry. You said in your letter that normally it would be for the Government Legal Department to hire counsel, after discussing it with the Chair of course.’ She lowered her eyes at him. ‘Why the secrecy? Why you alone?’ She paused. ‘And why me?’

‘If you allow me to tell you my story, Ms Shah, you will begin to understand.’

2018 – nine months earlier

Hooded brown eyes beneath heavy brown brows, familiar to him from television, bore in. ‘I’m going to do this,’ said the Prime Minister. ‘I’m going to find out what went wrong.’

Francis Morahan had been mystified by both the summons and the secretiveness of the private secretary’s phone call. ‘All I can say, Sir Francis, is that it is to discuss a project close to the PM’s heart, and one which he considers of great importance in advancing the government’s agenda.’ He could hardly refuse the summons but it was more than a decade since he had crossed the threshold of 10 Downing Street – an address he would happily have never returned to.

At 4 p.m. precisely the policeman stationed outside No. 10 opened the black door and Morahan was faced by a young man with floppy fair hair who seemed just out of school.

‘Good afternoon, Sir Francis, I’m Andrew Lamb, assistant private secretary.’ The schoolboy stretched out a hand. ‘The PM is in the study if you’d like to follow me. Though of course you must know…’

‘No, it’s been many years.’

Robin Sandford, in charcoal grey suit trousers and a white shirt symmetrically divided by a crimson tie, rose from a stiff-backed armchair along with two other men. The sight of one sank Morahan’s heart. ‘Sir Francis, I don’t think you and I have actually met…’ the Prime Minister began.

‘I think not, Prime Minister,’ said Morahan, accepting the handshake.

Sandford turned to the fleshy figure to his right. ‘But… er…’

The figure, grinning, stretched out bulbous fingers. ‘Hello, Francis, long time.’

Morahan forced a smile. ‘Hello, Geoff.’ Feeling the same old revulsion, Morahan took in the drooping jowls, multiple chins, the roll of girth pushing into trousers held by braces, gold cuff-links glinting from a striped pink and white shirt and a purple tie. Steely hair in puffed-up waves and broad spectacles failed to mask the piggy eyes and calculating mind of Geoffrey Atkinson, Home Secretary – the enduring survivor from that distant era when the party had last been in government.

Sandford turned to the second man. ‘I imagine you two have crossed paths?’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t quite put it like that,’ said Sir Kevin Long, the Cabinet Secretary and most powerful civil servant in the land, upbeat in voice, rotund in shape, razor-edged in mind.

‘Good,’ said Sandford, waving them to seats. ‘Francis – if I may…’

‘Of course,’ agreed Morahan lightly, distrusting the mutual courtesies.

‘Some context first,’ continued Sandford. ‘On winning the election, I said this government would be different. We would be open and unafraid to confront ourselves as a nation, both the good and the bad. In my view – forget Europe, forget Russia, forget the economy – there’s one bad that continues a year on to outstrip all others. And, in my time, will go on doing so. Extreme fanatical Islamism.’

For the second time, Morahan felt a sinking of the heart, a sense that he was being suborned into a morass of political game-playing.

‘And yet,’ said Sandford, ‘for nearly twelve years, between 7/7 in July 2005 to Westminster Bridge in March 2017 and all that has followed since, we kept the lid on Islamist terror. I want to know what went right for so long. And what then went wrong.’ He paused, locking eyes with Morahan. ‘And may still be wrong.’ He withdrew his gaze, eyes shifting to address a window. ‘Secondly – and related to this – I want an independent examination of our security policy with regard to the hundreds of young Britons who went abroad to fight for Islamist terror and have now returned – many of whom seem to have disappeared or gone off our radar.’

‘Are these not matters purely for the police and intelligence services?’ said Morahan, calculating how to remain at one remove.

‘You may think so, Francis,’ replied Sandford. ‘And, in different ways, over the year since we were elected, I’ve tried to ask them. I am not satisfied with their answers. There is no pattern, they say. We can’t watch every sort of “lone wolf”. At times, I have even sensed evasion. As if there’s something they don’t want to talk about. It’s not enough. Therefore, I intend that the Home Secretary,’ he nodded to Atkinson, ‘should establish a public inquiry, deploying a range of expertise, to answer these questions.’ He was edging ever closer to Morahan. ‘I – and he – would like you to chair it.’

‘Aren’t you reaching for the unknowable?’ asked Morahan softly. ‘Indeed the impossible.’

Sandford grimaced. ‘Nothing is ever unknowable. And in politics nothing should be impossible or undoable.’

‘Have you consulted the chiefs?’

‘You may recall – it was leaked to a newspaper – that the previous government attempted to have a judge inquire into the security services but they lobbied successfully against it. So no, I have not consulted the chiefs. And in anticipation of your next question, neither has this time attempted to stand in the way.’

‘I think you’ll find, Francis,’ interjected Atkinson, ‘that the Security Service – Dame Isobel in particular – understands this Prime Minister has a stiffer backbone than his predecessor.’

‘And Six?’ asked Morahan, repressing a rush of revulsion.

‘Sir Malcolm,’ replied Sandford, ‘assures me of the Secret Intelligence Service’s full co-operation. He is always keen to point out that SIS’s involvement is restricted to its activities with regard to these people while they were, or are, out of the country.’

‘You mean Five and Six are still…’ Morahan hesitated, ‘defecating on each other?’

‘Not at all,’ said Sir Kevin Long. ‘Communications, I am delighted to report, are better than ever.’ It was the Cabinet Secretary’s first contribution; his beam spread broader than ever as he made it. ‘The Cs meet once a week in my presence to iron out any turf issues. All most amicable.’

Morahan imagined the politely expressed arguments and precedents the Cabinet Secretary must have used to dissuade his headlong Prime Minister from unnecessarily opening potential cans of worms – and the gracefulness with which the civil servant would have accepted his defeat. Surrounded by these powerful figures and, despite himself, moved by Sandford’s plea, he sensed the noose tightening.

‘I can understand why you’ve come to me. I’m a senior judge. We sometimes have our uses, even for politicians. And, however briefly, I was once an MP and Cabinet member, so have an element of political understanding.’

‘Precisely,’ said Sandford. ‘You are uniquely well-qualified.’

‘There is the issue of my resignation.’

‘I see no issue,’ said Long.

‘Nor me,’ added Atkinson.

‘Really, Geoff?’ Morahan sighed.

‘As I recall,’ said Atkinson, ‘Frank Morahan, as you were then generally known, resigned as Attorney General in the summer of 2002 to resume a highly successful career at the Bar and spend more time with his family.’

‘Yes, that’s what I said,’ agreed Morahan. ‘You may recall the timing. Six weeks after President George W Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair agreed in Crawford, Texas to go to war with Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein. Come what may. As the government’s senior law officer, I would be the one who would have to approve its legality. My view was that any such war would be illegal.’

‘That’s not what you said at the time,’ said Atkinson. ‘Not even in Cabinet.’

‘It was less than a year after 9/11. I had no wish to be disruptive. I also believed the then Prime Minister to be an honourable man.’

‘As we all did,’ said Atkinson. ‘As we all did.’

‘I’ve never sought to justify myself publicly,’ continued Morahan, ignoring the lie, ‘but, as has been speculated, this was the real reason for my resignation. I also view that war as a prime cause of the very tragedy unfolding in our country which you are now asking me to investigate. I am therefore parti-pris.’ Morahan stopped abruptly, stared down at his crossed hands. No one spoke. He raised his head in anguish at the three men around him.

‘Hey,’ said Sandford with youthful vigour, ‘slow down. We’re sixteen years on. That’s hardly a partisan view, we all recognise it. All it means is that you got there first. We as a nation reaped the whirlwind you saw gathering.’

‘Prime Minister,’ said Morahan, ‘sixteen years ago I left the world of politics to return to the law. I would prefer to stay there.’

‘If you accept this role,’ said Sandford, ‘so you will. It may be enabled by government but it is a judicial inquiry. I’m asking you to both help me and perform a duty for your country.’ With that, Sandford rose to his feet. The meeting was over.

Heavy-legged, Morahan pulled himself up, shook the three proffered hands and, exchanging parting courtesies, headed for the door. The cherubic assistant private secretary magically appeared and escorted him out.

As the door clicked shut, Sandford turned to Atkinson. ‘You knew him then. Will he do it?’

‘He’ll fall in line,’ replied Atkinson roughly. ‘Always a supine streak to him in my view.’ Sir Kevin Long raised a discreet eyebrow.

‘He had the guts to resign,’ said Sandford.

‘You’re wrong. He didn’t have the guts to see it through.’

‘Will he see this through? I want it done properly.’ He paused. ‘Let’s be clear, our secret friends need a bloody good kicking.’

‘Your message was clear. We’ll make sure he doesn’t forget it.’

Sandford gave a conspiratorial smile. ‘There’s the politics of it too, isn’t there?’

‘What do you mean?’ Atkinson’s voice betrayed anxiety at missing a trick.

‘We have four more years in power. During that time, there’s bound to be a big one. Maybe several.’

‘Yes, bound to be.’

‘So when it happens, people’ll never be able to say we didn’t do everything to anticipate it – to think the unthinkable. That we didn’t just leave it to the police and MI5. We shone a public light on them, we pulled together the wisest heads in the land to scrutinise them. No stone was left unturned.’

‘That’s good, Robbie.’ Atkinson’s admiration was genuine. ‘Very good.’

‘Thanks, Geoff. I’m surprised you hadn’t seen it yourself.’ Simultaneously they turned to the Cabinet Secretary but Sir Kevin Long was saying nothing.

‘Well, let’s hope that’s all settled,’ said Sandford, rubbing his hands. ‘Kevin, perhaps I might have a minute with the Home Secretary.’

‘Of course, Prime Minister.’ The Cabinet Secretary eased gracefully from the room.

‘What are you going to surprise me with now?’ asked Atkinson.

‘Think about it, Geoff. On whose watch did the terror return?’

‘The last Prime Minister, of course.’

‘And who was Home Secretary during the years the terror was being planned?’

Atkinson chuckled. ‘The last Prime Minister.’

‘Precisely,’ said Sandford, triumph in his eye. ‘Chilcot did for Blair. Morahan can do for her.’

‘So…’ concluded Morahan that evening, after explaining the Prime Minister’s invitation to his wife, Lady Iona, at their Chelsea home. Like him, she was a public figure; née Chesterfield – which she’d kept as her professional name – she had risen to be Head Mistress of a prestigious London girls’ school and one of the country’s most formidable educationalists.

‘So indeed,’ she replied, looking beyond him.

He inspected the fine bone structure of her high-cheeked face, the still creamy glaze of her skin, the dark brown hair expensively laced with auburn tints – and, as so often, found it hard to interpret what was going on within. Was she even thinking about what he had told her? She might just as easily be hatching some new scheme in the compartmentalised lives they had become accustomed to living.

‘Do you have a view?’ he asked.

Her eyes shifted to engage his. ‘The obvious one. If you scrutinise the security services, it may – probably will – bring their scrutiny onto you.’

‘Yes.’ He paused. ‘That has been the main focus of my thoughts.’ He stood and walked over to the drawing room triple window, resting against its ledge. ‘Perhaps I’ve reached that stage of life when one can no longer be cowed.’

‘In that case…’

‘Put it this way,’ he interrupted. ‘I agree with the Prime Minister. It should be done. The intelligence services failed us in 2003—’

‘Isn’t that harsh?’

‘They should have stood up to Blair instead of kowtowing. The blame was theirs too.’

‘Some might say we’ve moved on from then,’ she said softly.

Was she offering him, if at heart he needed it, a way out, an escape from the trap door? It steeled him. ‘Sandford’s right. We need to see inside them.’

‘If they let you.’ The softness had gone.

The next morning, Sir Francis Morahan wrote to the Prime Minister that it would be an honour to chair the Inquiry. A few weeks later he agreed its terms of reference with the Home Secretary:

1. To inquire, after twelve years countering of the terrorist threat, into the reasons for security failures and the lessons to be learnt in preventing future terror attacks in the UK.

2. To inquire into present security policy and strategy towards British Islamist extremists returned and returning from conflict zones.

Over the coming months premises were leased, a Secretary to the Inquiry appointed and supporting secretariat hired, a Government Legal Department solicitor seconded, a panel of independent experts assembled. Morahan gave a media conference at which he asked for submissions from interested parties. His secretariat found itself deluged by a torrent of paper, particularly from government departments apparently able to locate an unending supply of data and research with only limited relevance to his terms of reference, all of which had to be logged in, read and summarised for the panel of experts. Once this work was completed a senior QC and junior counsel would join the Inquiry to initiate its interrogative phase.

Occasionally, Morahan smelt the whiff of an unholy alliance between the likes of the Cabinet Secretary and the civil and intelligence services, to appear to be doing a naïve Prime Minister’s will but all the while finding ways to thwart him.

‘And then,’ Morahan said, ‘something happened.’

The Common had burst into tea-time life with the noise of mothers, toddlers just out of school, and bawling babies in prams. The café was filling up with ice-cream and sweet-hunters, the background noise forcing Morahan and Sara ever closer together.

Glancing around, he narrowed his gaze. ‘You see, just as my envelope has dropped into your Chambers, a few weeks ago a similar envelope dropped through the front door of my house.’ He peered from the café towards the green open spaces of the Common. ‘It’s become rather noisy here. Shall we take a walk?’