Pawser pulled slowly into the car park, the gravel popping and crackling like hot coals under his tyres. Despite the heavy mist he could make out a solitary car parked at the far end, a large black saloon with a heavily built figure leaning against the driver's door smoking a cigarette. He reminded him of the MI5 squad up at the Interview Centre. Mr Bentley had had the decency to let Pawser go. Jocko and Skippy were still there. Pawser shuddered at the thought.

He reversed his car up next to the saloon and rolled out of the seat into the cold air, pulling his scarf close round his neck as he exited his vehicle.

The Close Protection Officer leaning on the Jaguar threw his cigarette butt on the ground and drew another one out of a crumpled packet. He nodded to Pawser then pointed into the mist.

Pawser walked off into the early morning gloom. After a short distance a shadowy figure emerged from the rolling cloud. As he drew closer it transformed itself into an over-coated figure poking at the grass with a shooting stick. 'Henglesbury Heights,' the man to called to Pawser.' He waved his stick around in an attempt to disperse the mist. 'Can you smell the salt of the sea, Bingham? The aroma of the wet grass, the sense of a Spring in the making? Despite it all, it's good to be alive sometimes, don't you think? On a clear day you can see thirty miles to France from here.'

'Can you, Deputy PM?' Pawser didn't care much for the smell of the sea or the wet grass which was slowly oozing cold water into his shoes.

'Not today though,' muttered Icabalde. 'Dam mucky today. A bit like this whole damn mole business. Walk with me.' Icabalde turned and strolled away into the rolling fog. Before Icabalde could be enveloped in the mist Pawser walked quickly after him and fell into step by him, the bottom of his trousers trawling through the sodden grass.

'It's all over then?' stated Pawser uncertainly.

'Not really, Pawser. A few lose ends still to deal with.' replied Icabalde somewhat wearily. 'Skippy has yet to confess.'

'But it is him?' Pawser was shaken to hear Skippy had not yet coughed up.

'Yes, we knew yesterday for sure. We had independent verification, from the French of all people. Quite by chance, as it happens.'

'So, Sir Berty?' Pawser prompted.

'I've dealt with Berty and Devon. Best to do it quickly I thought.'

'How did they take it?'

Icabalde stopped for a moment and stomped his feet. 'Berty took it quite well. Said he was relieved. Says he's off to join the Diplomatic Corps. The foods better and you don't have the Deputy PM on your back all the time.'

'And Devon?'

'Ah!' said Icabalde. Waving his stick forward he strode off again, 'Not so well, I'm afraid. Said Berty's job was his, and his Brother in Law, Alexander would see to it.'

'And will he?'

'No, Alexander was onto the PM whingeing away of course, but I told the PM that Berty and Devon were accountable and should be made to fall on their swords. Unless of course the PM was going to put his hand up and admit he backed Devon himself. You see Alexander always supported Devon's supposition that there was no mole at MI5 and because of that, so did the PM.'

'Who's going to run MI5 then?'

'Temporarily it's going to be Ferker-Rose. I've already spoken to her. She's up for it a bit of a shake down. There's a lot of change coming in the Service, Pawser, you should know that. It's an old institution, too old to recognise its own fallibilities –the affair with Skippy proves that. Ferker-Rose will be having a good clear out of some of those who should have been retired long ago. It just makes good sense.'

'And longer term?'

'I don't know. I'll try and keep Ferker-Rose in the role as long as possible. She'll have to deal with McBride though. I've left that call up to her. I suspect someone who can be blackmailed into nicking one hundred thousand pounds to ransom a cat really isn't MI5 material, is he? I take it that it was revenge for some petty slight from McBride, he wasn't the most sensitive of people was he? Did you ever get to the bottom of who kidnapped it?'

'No. I'm seeing Ferker-Rose this afternoon, maybe Skippy will have put his hands up to it by then.'

'Well McBride still hasn't got his cat back. It might have been consolation for losing his job. What do you think of Bentley by the way?'

'Solid. Bright. Likes things done right.'

'Yes, that what I thought. Maybe he might be a good replacement for Devon given all the changes. Strong hand at the helm and steady as she goes, that sort of thing. I'll talk to Ferker-Rose about him.'

'Good, that would be a popular choice.'

'The O'Reilly brother have been charged with fraud and countless other things, so expect a high level case in the Bailey in about six months,'

'Swift justice,' said Pawser

'What? Oh yes I see. And the Met Police Commissioner has had to resign. We're having a root review of the Metropolitan Police Service. Spring-heeled Jack has turned and he's squealing like a stuck pig. There is one thing though,' Icabalde pulled a face, 'after all this, I've still not managed to budge Barnacle, big bollocks Bill. He's stuck to my arse like a bloody limpet mine that man. '

'And what about ...' began Pawser tentatively

'Ah yes, Bingham. You and your team. That's what I've got you here to talk about.' Mayheme stopped for a moment and took a few imaginary golf putts with his cane. 'You see Pawser, you've done a fine job. A damn fine job. But the fallout is causing all sorts of problems, for the Services and the Government. These are tricky times for the Government, you know.'

'We're not after a reward or anything, sir, really. Just our jobs back.'

'Hear me out, hear me out.' said Mayheme raising his hand. 'Yesterday, who did you think I had a visit from?'

'Ferker-Rose, offering us our jobs back?'

'Good to see you've still got a sense of humour, Bingham. You're going to need it. No, in fact it was Anomalous Rex, our pop artist back from the dead.'

'I see,' said Pawser with that strange feeling in his stomach indicating things were not going to be as smooth as he might of imagined.

'Back from the dead and a new man. He seems to have some sort of God complex, sort of New Messiah and all that sort of guff. At first I thought it he was joking and someone had put him up to it.'

'What exactly?'

'He wanted a Peerage and a seat in the House of Lords. I told him he was mad and then do you know what he did?'

'Wave a forged Will in your face?' Said Pawser, crestfallen.

'Exactly Pawser, he waved that Will in my face. He said unless I made him a Lord then he would go to the Press with the whole thing about MI5 planting the Will. And that would take down the PM. l told him of course the PM knew nothing about it, but he was most insistent.'

'If this came out it could unseat the PM especially after the French Present's shooting?' Pawser said.

'Unfortunately the shooting of the President has increased the popularity of the PM. We did a poll last night. He's up twelve percent in the ratings and now wants to stand for the next Parliament.'

'So if the Press got hold of the planted Will it wouldn't bring him down?'

'Oh, it certainly would, Pawser but only if the Will had had not been planted by MI5. You see the public have a deep seated distrust of MI5. Despite the service it provides, the man in the street will never completely come to terms with an organisation that he sees as spying on him. If it comes out as an MI5 job, then deeper more sinister forces will be seen to be at work and the public might take sympathy with the PM. Christ he'd probably run for a third term.'

'Can't you make Rex a Lord?'

'No, I cannot. Can you put up with the PM for another five years? We need a better man to run our great country, not that ineffectual numpty.'

'You perhaps, Deputy PM? So you're going to hang the PM out to dry. But the Will was your idea?'

'Who's to say he wasn't in on it?'

'So, what are you saying?' Pawser looked at Mayhem.

'If Rex can identify you and the Press digs around to show you were MI5 operatives, then Rex's case is proven. The Public, unnerved, will probably suspect it was the evil machinations within MI5 that set it up and the PM will get some sympathy and get off the hook.'

'And then there'll be an inquiry and it all unravels.' reflected Pawser.

'Precisely.' Icabalde prodded his cane into the grass as if looking for an unexploded mine. 'However if Rex releases it and can't prove the MI5 connection then it will look like the PM had a hand in it –after all, who ultimately is the only beneficiary? His Trust. Whatever he claims, and believe me he'll claim many things, it will come back and bite him. He'll have lost the public's trust totally and the party will push him out.'

'Well, we are MI5 employees. We're on suspension but still employees.' Pawser said slowly. 'And we can't change that.'

'Can't we? Would you be surprised to hear that you are not, nor have ever been in the employment of MI5?'

'What! 'Pawser could hardly contain the shock in his voice.

'Don't appear surprised Pawser; it is the Secret Service after all. Despite the two buffoons that have been running it it's not that hard to make paperwork disappear in there. It appears you, Maine and Killerman cannot be MI5 employees, not in the past, now or ever again. Without me granting his peerage, Rex will go to the Press. You will be identified as freelancers and the PM will lose his job when it becomes clear he was trying to steal from a dead man.'

'You got Bentley to do it, to fix the paperwork?'

'Oddly enough he refused to do it, he said it was unprincipled. I quite like that don't you. Could be a useful man. In small doses, of course.'

'I might want to go to talk to Ferker-Rose.'

'I thought you may say that Pawser, but there is a little matter of the rest of the missing money from the Bonded store.'

'I don't know what you're talking about.' said Pawser blankly.

'It's funny with you guys, you get so used to telling each other tall tales that after a while you don't know what to believe and what not to. Your sensibilities get eroded and your truth meter gets pushed out of whack, after a while you assume were all as gullible as you are.'

'Nope, still nothing. I've no idea what you're implying.'

'We know the bags you showed up with at the warehouse were not taken from the Bonded stores, it was just a bluff to get the others to turn up. You guessed you might be followed from Thames House so you had to make it look good. A bit like you did with the box of test tubes, supposedly taken from Porton Down. Well, we checked in the Bonded stores and the bag you seized at Freddy's appears to be full of old newspapers and thousands of pounds in crummy forged vouchers. All the cash is gone. Now I wonder how that could be.'

'Jocko took the money. You are not pinning this on me, Mayheme.'

'Jocko took the one hundred thousand. We know that, as that is what we recovered in the warehouse. Olga remembers on the night you searched Ferker-Roses' office, you let Killerman and Maine in. She never saw them leave. The manifesto Ron kept shows there was two hundred thousand to start with, Jocko by his own admission took the one hundred leaving one hundred that has disappeared since. If we checked the bag for fingerprints, whose I wonder, would we find on them and what possible reason could they had for stealing Government property.'

'Barry or Ron could have lifted it?'

'I think not Bingham. I think not?'

'Disbursements?' Pawser muted weakly.

'Nooo!'

They walked a little further.

'How about a reference for each of us to help us get something else.'

'There, I knew you'd get to see it from my perspective. I'll happily use my influence for you, Pawser. I know the Employment Secretary; she'll be able to supply you with a list of Benefits Offices.'

'I want my job back and the guy's jobs as well.' Pawser stated fixedly.

'I want a villa in Venice, to sing like Pavarotti, be fêted at concerts by the great and the good and be able to bed any big buxomed opera singer I fancy. But it's not going to happen is it?'

As he stood facing Pawser off, deep down Icabalde knew this wasn't what he wanted but he couldn't admit it to anyone, perhaps not even face it himself after all he'd worked for.

What Icabalde really wanted was to disappear off to a mountain lodge in the foothills of Croatia with Lesley. There they could spend each Spring walking hand in hand through the blossom littered cherry orchards. In summer they would lie together in the fragrant, flower strewn meadows listening to the buzz of insects and splashing of elk in the crystal clear mountain streams. And in the winter they could snuggle together naked under the skins of locally trapped wolves soaking up the aromas of the sap soaked wood of the roaring fire and the smell of Lesley's almond skin. Lesley would slip on his green rubber gloves and would hold him and they would spend the nights watching the pale blue moon rising over the snow-clad mountains.

'Perhaps you're being a little over ambitious, with all your plans and trying to fix everything.' Pawser had had enough of Mayheme and his scheming.

'Give me some space Bingham, you're crowding me.'

'No no,' Pawser edged forward making Icabalde glance back toward the car park, 'don't look that way Mayheme, your bodyguard is too far away to hear you. It's just you and me. You must give us something, so now's the time to start thinking hard before I become really upset.' Pawser placed his hand heavily on Mayheme's shoulder.

'I must give you something, must I? Remember I'm the PM, you can't threaten me.'

'The PM? No, Mayheme you're the Deputy PM. Aren't you getting a little ahead of yourself?'

'It seems to me, you little upstart that you need to know your place.' Icabalde turned and tried to push Pawser away. Finding no way through he stepped back and suddenly tearing himself from Pawser's grasp, ducked to one side and disappeared.

Confused, Pawser looked down to see if Mayheme had slipped over. He took a step forward to where Mayheme had been standing and was hit by a sudden upward blast of sea air. He slithered backward on the wet grass, gasping in shock.

Mayheme had walked over the edge of the cliff!

Heart racing in his chest, he turned, scrambled over a shelf of crumbling shale and ran back toward the car park.

****

'About here you say?' asked the Close Protection Officer shuffling along the slick surface on the edge of the cliff.

'I don't know, it's hard to tell .This damn mist.' replied Pawser looking warily over the edge of the cliff into the swirling cloud below.

'I see.' said the officer. He rummaged in his pockets and pulled out his pack of Marlboro's. He put a cigarette in his mouth and lit it, sucking his cheeks in hard. The cigarette glowed a fiery red lighting up his craggy face.

'Aren't you going to call someone?'

'He's not going anywhere.' said the officer reflectively, 'I should think the drop here is about two hundred and fifty feet or so.' He blew out a thin stream of cigarette smoke. 'We used to come up here quite often, me and him. He liked to walk on the beach down there sometimes to look for fossils.'

They stood there for a few minutes listening to the crashing of the sea far below.

'He was a bit of a bastard you know?' observed the Officer as much to Pawser as to himself.

'Politics, I suppose. It does that to people.' Pawser found the sound of the sea oddly cathartic.

'He was porking his Secretary as well. Did you know that?'

'I didn't know that, Miss Tremble wasn't it?' Pawser struggled to recollect.

The officer smiled. 'Maybe it was when she was with him. No, it's Miss Timble. Leslie Timble is her name. She is a smart cookie you know. Her parents died not so long ago and Icabalde took advantage if you ask me.'

'Was he married?'

'With kids. Bloody hypocritical if you ask me. Deputy PM, Head of the Police and Security Services, you would have thought he'd demonstrate some moralist rectitude.'

'You would have thought,' echoed Pawser

'I used to take them out in the evening. Him and Leslie. Sitting there while they were condoling and giggling in the back of the car.'

'Mayheme didn't strike me as much of a giggler.'

'I meant Leslie.' said the Officer giving Pawser a sideway glance.

'Ah, for sure.' said Pawser.

They both looked over the edge for a few minutes longer.

'Hey, you didn't push him did you?' the Officer scrutinised Pawser.

'No, I didn't.' said Pawser indignantly.

'Wouldn't have blamed you if you did.' He shuffled forward and peered over the edge. 'I wonder if the tides in or out?'

'Does it make any difference?'

'Not really, I suppose. It's just he's got a place over there, in France. He could be half way there by lunch time.' He stepped back and looked at Pawser. 'You're a spook aren't you?'

'Yes. Or perhaps. Maybe I was never at MI5 at all.'

'You guys don't give much away do you? You don't look like one, you look a bit old for that type of work.'

'We'll to be honest its mostly sitting around, doing paperwork, waiting in cars. Pretty boring really.'

'I was wondering about joining your mob. I haven't been doing this for long; I used to be C4, all the action and all that. I was with one of your lot when she lost an eye in an accident. Bloody hell she was hard and hot with it. Know her?'

'Yes, I know her. She's taking it a bit easier now. '

'You know it was your Mr Bentley that got her back in. Old McBride tried to block it and Berty didn't have the balls for the fight. Then McBride put it about the he sorted it. Can you believe it?'

'Yes I can. You should apply, you'd do well there.'

'Maybe I will, my career prospects look a little limited now my Principle is down there parlaying with the crabs.'

Pawser thought he could hear the sound of a motor boat chugging in the distance. The wind picked up the corners of his coat and they flapped around his legs.

'Ah well,' said the Officer. 'I'd better call it in then.' He casually flicked the cigarette butt up in the air in front of them. They stood and watch the fiery butt twist and tumble in the air before falling into the milky gloom. 'You'll be wanting to disappear then I would imagine?'

'Yes,' said Pawser. 'I think its best I was not here when plod turns up. Too many questions, if you know what I mean.'

'For sure. Spooked you might say.' The officer chuckled to himself.

'Ex Spooked in fact.'

'Oh, I see, he let you down did he? He did that to a lot of people.' He pulled out his Marlboro's again. 'I'll give you five minutes if you'd like to make a move. You'll let Mr Bentley know I helped out won't you?' He lit another cigarette and stared impassively into the mist.

'I'll let him know.' Pawser nodded and stumbled back over the grass mound.

'Oh Spook!' the Officer called. 'That way if you don't want to join Mayheme collecting shells on the beach.' He waved his arm into the mist. 'If you see that lass, say hello from me. Tell her Hiawatha misses her.'