CHAPTER FIVE
There was a crackling fire and a glass of whisky waiting for Ben when he arrived downstairs. He threw himself into a leather armchair, took an appreciative swallow, and murmured ironically, “I’d so much rather be slogging around in mud, chasing foxes.”
“I believe it is pheasant this afternoon, but I wholeheartedly agree.”
“I’d have thought you’d go for the hunting thing, sir. Another layer of cover.”
Nikolas regarded him thoughtfully. “You think my life is camouflage?”
Ben held the stare. “Sir, I think everything you do from the moment you wake up to the moment you let yourself sleep is nothing more than a shadow dance.”
“I am not sure whether to be horrified or flattered. And what am I apparently covering up?”
“The day you let us all see that is the day I reckon it all comes tumbling down, and I like this house. I like coming here.” He hesitated then added, “Occasionally, I almost like you.”
Nikolas smiled and took a long sip of his own drink. “And that must be my cue to tell you all about badgers. Are you sitting comfortably?”
Ben felt more asleep than comfortable. He’d left London before dawn, ridden to Devon, been horseback riding, eaten a huge lunch (with copious amounts of wine), had sex (twice), and was now sitting by a warm fire (with more alcohol). Nikolas kicked his ankle. “What is the biggest threat to your—our—national identity, Benjamin?”
“Britain’s Got Talent?”
“Don’t be facetious, child.”
“I don’t know, sir. Al-Queda, I guess.”
“Wrong. It may surprise you, but foreign-born terrorists are not a huge threat to us.”
“Well, they aren’t foreign born now, are they?”
“True, but the highest number of terrorist incidents this year was committed by those very much British, the so-called animal rights activists.”
“Oh, God, you have got to be bloody kidding. A bunch of nose-ringed, filthy haired eco warriors in anoraks. You cannot be serious.”
“Unfortunately, I am. We have had a change of administration recently, as you know. Our previous masters saw the horns of the devil growing out of organisations like the BNP. Now they are seen growing out of anything that threatens the countryside. I also have had pressure put on me from…other areas.”
Ben followed his neutral look out of the mullioned window to the hillside rising behind the house. Lady Philipa. “Ah.”
“Exactly. Now, a senior member of the cabinet has been threatened. He is a neighbouring landowner. The threat is being taken seriously enough to increase his Met protection, and his status has been raised from amber to critical.”
“Why? Is he putting windmills on his land? Letting them run a new bypass through? Hah, the new Heathrow runway in deepest, darkest Devon?”
“No, he is the first landowner in England to allow badger culling on his land. They are starting to trap and shoot them this month. A dead badger was sent to his offices in Westminster. I think the implication is clear.”
“I hope it died naturally in the paws of its loved ones.”
“It had been beheaded, and the head of a doll had been pushed into the body. The doll belonged to the minister’s seven-year-old daughter.”
“Oh.”
“Indeed.”
“So, where do I come in?”
“How do you feel about getting a nose ring, Benjamin?”
§§§
Fortunately for Ben, he didn’t have to endure any body piercing that evening. But he did have six in-depth profiles to study and learn. Special Branch had files on all the animal rights activists in the country. In the absence of a homeland security act, however, there was nothing they could actually do with this intelligence, until they had evidence a crime had been committed. Protest was still allowed in Britain. Free speech was almost still allowed. So, where Special Branch was hamstrung, the department and men like Ben came in. He spent the remainder of the afternoon and most of the evening studying the files. He barely noticed when one of the staff came in to stoke the fire. He took a plate of food in the same distracted manner; it was only when Nikolas returned to the study dressed in elegant black tie that he looked up.
Nikolas perched on the side of Ben’s chair and draped his arm across the back. Ben huffed. “You’re drunk.”
Nikolas said calmly, “I am never drunk, Benjamin, you know that.”
“Yeah. This’ll be fun…”
“Stop being insubordinate and tell me what you have found.” He began to run his fingers through the short hair at the base of Ben’s skull. Ben allowed himself to lean back into the touch then waved a hand at the files.
“The protesters aren’t the way in. They’re local and well known to each other. Sean Mafferty and his little brother Seamus, ties to the IRA a decade ago, came over to the UK when peace ruined their criminal lifestyles. They recruit more genuine activists, like, here…Julie Arthur—public school, daddy issues, wannabe model, had a problem with wearing fur and her comments on that brought her to the attention of the Maffertys. I thought she’d be a good way in…” Nikolas snatched the photograph from his hand and made some comment in his own language, which hardly needed to be translated. “But she’s got a girlfriend. Calls herself Peace. Apparently they’re quite an item, and they don’t swing both ways. So, no good there for me.”
“I would trust you to charm any lesbian to bed, Benjamin.” The fingers were now stroking Ben’s cheekbone.
“Yes, and I’ve already told you you’re drunk. So, that leaves this one, Professor Tim Watson—works at one of those new so-called universities, in something called the Department of Ethics and Contemporary Religion.”
Nikolas snorted. “That sounds like something we would use as a cover. This is Benjamin Rider, he is in charge of my ethical stance.”
Ben suppressed a chuckle and didn’t comment. A thumb had now started stroking delightfully along his collarbone. “He’s a Trotskyite, of course, kind of comes with the job. Helped organise the Countryside Alliance’s local marches.”
“My wife went on those, and I do not believe she could be described as a Trotskyite.”
“Watson was arrested as a teenager in 1996, protesting against the Newbury bypass. He organised Stop the Cull in 2012 by threatening the same tunnelling techniques he’d used at Newbury on some Crown estates where culling was due to start—that little stunt probably got him his tenure in the job. But, more to the point for us in terms of the direct threat to the minister, he organised the student union boycott of the Head of the Centre for Stem Cell Biology when she came to open a new biology research facility, and she was sent this.” He held up a photo for Nikolas to see of a teddy bear drawn with autopsy lines and cut open from neck to groin. “Her childhood bear. Not proof positive, but it’s interesting. He’s associated with the Maffertys and been photographed by Special Branch meeting with them—and Julie Arthur and Peace—at the pub. Although, to be fair, there were other people there and it appears to have just been a social occasion. But I believe he’s the most likely to have sent the threat to the minister.”
“Is he going to be your way in? Are you going to fuck him?” Nikolas’s hand moved up to Ben’s throat, and he gave it a disturbingly hard squeeze. Ben batted it away.
“He’s got a beard, so no. Anyway, look, I think this is my way in.” He pulled out the bottom file. “The cull is being organised by DEFRA. And they’re mainly employing—”
Nik laughed and interrupted, “Ex-forces marksmen.”
Ben nodded, smiling too. “Yeah, I go in as what I actually am for once. Mafferty sees me as the enemy to start with, but I go to the local pub, perhaps get into an argument, let them sway me. Then I join their cause. Nothing as rabid as a new convert to anything, is there? I confirm it’s Beardy doing in the dolls and bears and take him out of the equation.”
“You would have no issue with the killing?”
“Are you serious? Have you seen that beard?”
“I meant the badgers, Benjamin.”
“Oh. You know, you’re seriously weird for a pretend English aristocrat. You might want to work on that cover of yours a bit, sir.”
“Go to bed, evil child. I will read over the files and let you know what I think in the morning.”
“When would you want me in place? The first training course begins Monday.”
“Training course? To kill a badger? You are not being serious?”
Ben held up another file. “Use of a Rifle. Use of a Shotgun. Site Choice. Baiting Techniques. Something called Dispatch, which I reckon is a euphemism for killing the poor creatures. Use of Night Vision Equipment. Lamping, which might be hitting them with lamps? Badger Ecology and Be—”
“For God’s sake—stop. I apologise for asking. I should send you maybe back to Iraq for an easy life?”
“Oh, there’s a test at the end, too. Multiple choice.”
“Do you think you will pass?”
“Do you think I don’t know how to cheat?”
Nikolas ruffled his hair. “If we go ahead, you will be on the course Monday. The minister received another threat tonight.”
“The missing head?”
“No, a photo of his daughter taken at her desk at school.”
“Shit.”
“Yes.”
“Is he going to call off the cull?”
“What, and damage his political standing? Benjamin, we may be murderers, liars, and fornicators. These are British politicians. We cannot possibly compete.”