Chapter 11

Friday May 13th 2022.

The conference was taking place in one of the golf club’s big meeting rooms. There are high windows looking out over the eighteenth green and the gentle slopes of the course beyond. French windows open out on to a patio with tables and multi-coloured umbrellas. It was sunny. On the far side of the patio, half a dozen golf carts were lined up, waiting to be taken out.

Everybody at the club was on edge – it was obviously a big thing for them hosting this and I guess that nobody wanted to be responsible for cocking things up. It wasn’t made any easier by the fact that there were thickset women in dark suits, white shirts, black ties and dark glasses busying themselves about the place and spending a lot of time talking into their sleeves.

Sally had brought in four of us to wait in attendance during the meeting. The idea was so we could fetch tea or coffee or anything else the participants needed. At least, I thought, Sally hadn’t put us in stupid maid’s outfits or anything like that, we were just wearing black shirts and trousers. We spent about an hour getting the room set up. Most people at the Club knew we were on Sally’s call so they let us get on with it. Then a group of the security team came in and went through the room, checking everything. They all seemed happy. Most of them went outside to sit on the patio.

I’d brought the book in with the others from the library in a bag that and left them in the cloakroom near the bar. Once it looked like things were pretty well complete, I went back to the cloakroom, got the book that Cara had given me and put it on a pile on a shelf near the head of the table. At one end of the table places were laid with name cards for the Prime Minister, Claire Dobell-Bull her “fixer” (I think the proper term is “Principal Political Advisor”), Sally Guest as party representative, Florence Daniels the Home Secretary, Nina Henning and Angie and a couple of other junior home office ministers and their aides. I was pretty sure the book was in a good position. Cara would be getting as good a feed as possible. I just hoped that the microphone in the book was going to be good enough, that the transmitter would work and that nobody would notice it.

Mostly they turned up in various cars. The PM and Dobell-Bull flew in by helicopter. It made a hell of a row. Some of the golf club’s member waiting to begin their rounds on the first tee didn’t look too pleased until they realised who it was. One group of them even applauded as she walked across from the ‘copter to the club house.

The meeting started on time, as planned.

Sally welcomed everyone. Johannsen spelled out what she hoped to achieve with the meeting and explained how important she felt the work of the Home Office had been, how successful DOSA and the MCF were and her hopes for the future. “Now,” she said. “We need to turn our thoughts to how we will more forward in our second year ... I’m sure you will agree that we’ve achieved a lot but there are still areas of difficulty and new legislation is bound to be needed. Let’s get to work.”

“Do we need these boys here?” Nina Henning asked nodding across to where the four of us were standing. Dobell-Bull shrugged and then shook her head.

Sally Guest looked across at the four of us and said, “Not unless there’s anything you need for the moment.” Johannsen shook her head and the rest of the women around the table followed suit. Sally waved us out. As she did so, I looked across to where I had put the book. I could imagine that Cara, listening in, was going to find what ever came up next fascinating.

To my horror, I realised that the book I’d put down had a green binding. The one Cara had given me had been blue. I must have got them mixed up when I was in the cloakroom. The most Cara would be hearing would be people asking for their coats. I was feeling really sick. I couldn’t imagine how I’d made such a stupid mistake. I started trying to think how I could retrieve the right book from the cloakroom and what sort of excuse I could use to bring it back into the meeting.

Then there was the explosion.

All hell broke loose in the meeting room. The Prime Minister’s close protection officers cleared her out of the place through the French windows that opened out onto the golf course. I reckon there couldn’t have been more than five minutes between the explosion and the Prime Minister’s helicopter with all the politico’s aboard lifting off from the pad outside. The rest of us were still standing there, the noise of the detonation ringing in our ears, wondering what on earth had just happened.

Those of us that weren’t being helped by the PM’s team finally ran out of the room in the opposite direction. As we did, we went past where the cloakroom had been. Nothing remained of it. There was just a jagged hole blown out through the wall to the car park and up through the roof as well. The acrid smell of explosive and burnt wood and plastic filled the air. There was dust everywhere. I didn’t see any bodies. If anyone had been in the room they’d have been blown to bits but I think most people had been well away from the explosion. I know most people will think I’ve been unbelievably stupid but it was only then that I realised that what Cara had given me hadn’t been a radio transmitter.

Then the wails of sirens started up as police cars and ambulances began to arrive. Medical staff were helping those shocked or injured by the explosion. The police herded the rest of us off into another part of the club house to take details of who we were, whether we had seen anything suspicious and where they could find us. They all seemed pretty jumpy. It was surprising nobody got shot, the number of weapons that were being brandished around.

It must have three or four hours before we were allowed to go home. The police didn’t seem to know what to do. There wasn’t anything like an interrogation. They just checked our ident cards and asked for stuff like our addresses and our sponsor’s contact details and kept us moving around from one room to another. They all seemed pretty nervous, as though they were expecting something else to happen.

I still feel shocked. I’m trying to process what had happened.

I didn’t say anything about the book or anything. I mean, I can’t imagine that anyone is going to believe I didn’t know what was going to happen - assuming that it was something hidden in the book that caused the explosion. I don’t think putting myself in the frame for being involved in some sort of plot to assassinate the Prime Minister is a smart move.