Thunder in the Blood by Graham Hurley

extra jobs.’
    ‘So what do I write about? MI5?’
    ‘Fuck off, Wes. You know what I’m saying.’
    ‘I do?’
    ‘Yeah. Listen, mate. I’m looking at an open cheque book. They want it sharper, more focused, more investigative. They want more aggression. They think there’s an appetite for it. They’ve identified new markets. It’s the big push, their word, not mine.’
    Another pause. Wesley grunts. The old game. Hard to please.
    ‘So what do I write about?’ he says again.
    ‘Up to you, mate. It’s a straight offer. Yes or no.’
    ‘You haven’t answered my question.’
    ‘And I’m not going to because you know the bloody answer already. If I didn’t think you were the best fucking weasel in the business, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. So do me a favour. Yes or no.’
    ‘When do you go? Start? Whatever?’
    ‘In the New Year.’
    ‘Do they know upstairs?’
    ‘It’s irrelevant. Just tell me. Yes or no. No, and you’re on your own. New boss. New policy. New everything. Yes, and we’ll do something amazing.’
    ‘We just did. And you binned it.’
    ‘You really think that?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘Then bollocks to you.’
    There’s a long pause here. I see them glaring at each other. Then Aldridge again. ‘OK, get your coat on and let’s go and have a bevvie.’ Final pause. ‘And turn that fucking thing off.’
    Wesley resigned from the paper the day after Aldridge himself announced his latest career move. A month later, early in 1988, he accepted a staff job on
Defence Week.
The magazine, then and now, is headquartered in Guildford, occupying two floors of a big new block between the High Street and the railway station. For nearly a year, Wesley commuted three or four times a week from his flat in Stoke Newington, waiting for the virus to make another move. When nothing happened, he moved south to Guildford, pleasantly surprised to be alive, putting down a deposit on the top half of a thirties semi on the Dorking Road. It wasthere, nearly four years later, that I first met him. By then, though, a great deal else had happened.
    First, I began to get somewhere with my private enquiries about the background to the Alloway story. I say that, not because I made any obviously spectacular advance (I didn’t), but because my superiors became extremely tetchy about my out-of-hours activities. In Whitehall, as any insider will tell you, you gauge your real progress by changes in the way that other people relate to you. With your immediate colleagues, it might be jealousy or (if your ship is sinking) a week or two of sympathetic amusement. With your superiors, it’s simple attention. The moment they take any notice of you, it’s time to ask yourself why.
    It was January 1988. I’d now been with MI5 for two whole years. The call, once again, was from Stollmann and this time he didn’t bother with the compliments.
    ‘You’ve been seeing Lawrence Priddy.’
    I remember looking at him, startled. I’d been at work barely five minutes. Stollmann had obviously been fretting a lot longer than that, his head down, his eyes on the pad on the desk.
    ‘Yes,’ I said.
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Because …’ I shrugged. ‘Is it any business of yours?’
    ‘Quite probably.’ He nodded. ‘Yes.’
    I looked at him for a moment or two. On these occasions, I find myself concentrating on the silliest detail. In this case, it was a particularly angry boil, half an inch above the collar of Stollmann’s shirt. Poor diet, I thought. Or stress.
    ‘He invited me out a couple of times,’ I said at last, ‘and I accepted.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Because that’s what you do if you’re in my position.’ I shrugged again. ‘Single girl, time to spare, glad of the odd change of scenery.’
    ‘You fancy him?’
    ‘
Fancy
him?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘No. Not remotely. Not at all.’ I stared at Stollmann. ‘Why?’
    Stollmann said nothing, just carried on playing with his pen.Irritated at sounding so defensive, I refused to