The Tattooed Man by Alex Palmer

negotiation proves necessary, I’m sure you can work it out.’
    The commissioner at work, Harrigan thought. Divide the minions while protecting your backside at the same time. The golden rules for corporate success.
    ‘Shall we start?’ Marvin said.
    ‘Before we do, where’s Inspector Gabriel? I asked for him to be here,’ Edwards said.
    ‘He’s busy at the moment, Minister,’ Marvin replied. ‘I’m not convinced he should continue as the operational officer in charge of this job. That’ssomething I wanted us to discuss. I have a very well-qualified officer I can recommend.’
    ‘As far as I could tell, he did a good job yesterday. Why are you replacing him?’
    ‘We’re not.’ Harrigan shut down the possibility ruthlessly. ‘Personnel is my responsibility, Marvin. You don’t need to concern yourself with it. For your information, I have complete confidence in Trevor.’
    ‘Then get him. I want him here,’ Edwards said.
    They sat in awkward silence while Chloe located Trevor Gabriel. Harrigan contemplated Marvin’s attempted removal of both himself and Trevor, all before the morning tea break. Why waste time? Shortly afterwards, Trevor arrived.
    ‘Sorry about this. No one told me I was supposed to be up here.’
    ‘You’re here now,’ the commissioner replied with an acidic glance in Marvin’s direction.
    ‘Let’s get on with the reason why I was visiting Nattie yesterday,’ Edwards said impatiently. ‘I understand you received your own copy of this document this morning but there’s no point in wasting these. You can thank my staff for working most of the night to get them ready for you.’
    Edwards’ adviser handed to each of those present a high-quality copy of a thick dossier. The top of each page was marked with a series of file references, then the name Beck, Jerome. Harrigan leafed through detailed notes, surveillance photographs, maps tracking the subject’s movements, emails, lists of associates, known aliases. Each page was stamped Top Secret.
    ‘This was hand-delivered to my electorate office sometime on the night my son and ex-wife were shot.’ Edwards’ voice shook. Barely, he recovered himself. ‘My office has a mailbox for thoseconstituents who prefer to deliver documents in person. This was left there.’
    ‘Do you have any surveillance cameras, Minister?’ Harrigan asked.
    ‘No, unfortunately we don’t. This is the envelope it came in but there’s no information on it. There was this note too.’
    The envelope and a note identical to the one received by the commissioner were sheathed in a plastic sleeve. As Edwards had said, there was nothing to identify where either had come from.
    ‘It’s my belief,’ Edwards continued, ‘—and this is based on experience, I have been a cabinet minister for the last five years—that this is a surveillance dossier from a British intelligence agency. You’ll note that all the pages have the British government seal in the lower right-hand corner. Before you say it could still be a fake, the nature of the information contained in that document tells me it’s almost certainly genuine. Whatever this agency is, it’s been on this man’s trail for years. My adviser will sum up the contents for you. He had the pleasure of reading it last night. It runs to several hundred pages.’
    The adviser blinked exhausted eyes. ‘It’s a very detailed document. I’ve only been able to skim it so far. It tells us that Jerome Beck was born in 1946 in Dresden, in what became East Germany. Father unknown. His mother died in 1997 in Berlin. There’s no record of any other close family. He fled from East Berlin when he was eighteen. He applied for political asylum in Britain and was granted it. He’s a British citizen but he’s not based in any single country. Until he came here, his address could have been any number of different locations in Europe and Africa. He was identified as an illegal arms dealer from the 1960s onwards, working