‘Calm down, Poe,’ Locke said evenly. ‘Wedidn’tknow it was Ezekiel Puck. Of course, we didn’t.’
Poe sat back down. Gathered his thoughts. Locke was making sense. He might even be telling the truth. If the security services had known who the sniper was, it would have been dealt with internally. MI5 would have located Puck, then when executive action was needed, one of the police Special Branches would have taken over. Still, something wasn’t adding up. He didn’t think Locke was lying, but he wasn’t telling him the truth about everything. That wasn’t unusual for him. Poe reckoned the sin of omission was part of Locke’s daily routine. He’d probably been withholding information since Nanny had been stirring salt into his porridge.
‘When did you find out?’
‘When Miss Bradshaw put her list of role-playing game enthusiasts through one of our databases, a database she had no authorisation to access, I may add.’ He shook his head in admiration. ‘That woman costs this country a small fortune. Every time our IT departments beef up their security, she just waltzes right in again.’
‘Alastor.’
‘Ah yes, where was I?’ Locke said. ‘Anyway, the name Ezekiel Puck isn’t on any of our databases, but itdidraise an alert. And I’ve got to tell you, Poe, it’s a name I hoped never to hear again.’
‘Who is he?’
‘Ezekiel Puck doesn’t exist. It’s a codename.’
‘A codename for who?’
‘For one of the most dangerous men this country has ever produced.’
Chapter 53
‘Ezekiel Puck is one of our dirty secrets, Poe,’ Locke said. ‘He was someone we sent out into the world to do . . . things on Her Majesty’s behalf.’
‘HerMajesty?’
‘He’s long retired.’
‘What things?’
‘Bad things, Poe.’
He stopped. Let Poe draw his own conclusions. Poe did, and quickly.
‘Howbad, Alastor?’ Poe asked. ‘Because, forgive me for being blunt, your entire life is secrets and lies. It’s what you buy, steal and sell. And because you have the unattainable goal of keeping us safe in our beds, you can’t hold your nose at the methods you choose to achieve this. If I did a sniff test, everything would smell bad.’
‘I’m—’
‘And that’s fine,’ Poe cut in. ‘It’s as it should be. We need a security service and we need their methods to remain secret. And if rules have to be bent, the occasional Chinese burn administered, then I’m not going to lose too much sleep. You have a country to protect. But whenyousay Ezekiel Puck did bad things, I sit up and pay attention. Because forgive me, Alastor, ifyouthink this guy was bad, the rest of us are probably going to think he’s dia-fucking-bolical.’
Locke took his time responding. Eventually he said, ‘And the rest of you would be right.’ He reached into his briefcase and retrieved a thin file. He opened it but didn’t glance at the top page.
‘Ezekiel Puck, because if he’s permanently going by that name now, we should probably use it as well – and I suppose the fact he took the name of Shakespeare’s trickster as his codename tells you everything you need to know about him – was born Raymond Addy. He’s forty-nine years old and he grew up in Edinburgh. He joined the service directly from Cambridge, and after extensive training he was assigned to a very small, very secret department under my purview.’
‘Would I be right in thinking this department didn’t find its way on to any paperwork that the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament could check?’
‘Good Lord, no. My budget came out of the discretionary fund of the discretionary fund of the discretionary fund, and so on.’
‘There was no oversight then?’
‘We aren’t a lawless service, Poe. There was nostatutoryoversight, but there was oversight. Every operation was authorised. All methods were approved. No one went rogue.’
‘Did this department have a name, Alastor?’
‘Of course. They had to be paid. They had toexist. Officially they were Department 17, a small unit attached to the much larger counter-proliferation division.’
‘Andunofficially?’
‘Unofficially, they were known as “the mischief makers”.’
