The Invisible Code Read Online Free PDF Page B

the flea in his ear, the pea under his mattress, the ground glass in his gin, but at least he had lately abandoned his attempts to have it closed down. So long as the unit’s strike rate remained high, there was little he could do to end its tenure. He was not against the idea of the place so much as its method of operation, which defied all attempts at rational explanation, beyond a vague sense of
modus vivendi
among its staff.
    ‘No, they went mostly to sweet little old ladies who love murder mysteries,’ said Sally.
    Bryant dug out his old Waterman’s fountain pen, uncapped it and shook it, splodging ink about. ‘How many do I have to sign?’ he asked.
    ‘Well, five if you don’t mind.’
    ‘Is that all you have left?’ Bryant beamed at the bookseller. ‘How many did you sell?’
    ‘Three.’
    ‘Oh. What’s your bestselling biography?’
    ‘
Topless
by Katia Shaw,’ said Sally. ‘She’s a glamour model.’
    Bryant turned to his partner in irritation. ‘You see? This is what’s wrong with the world. A young lady with bleached hair, an estuarine accent and unfeasible breasts can outsell a respected expert with decades of wisdom and experience.’
    ‘She’s human interest,’ replied May. ‘You’re not. People reading her story will feel that if she can make it without talent, maybe they can.’
    ‘Well, I find that phenomenally depressing.’ Bryant’s theremin call sign sounded once more. ’Well, speak of the Devil,’ he said, checking the number, ‘it’s Mr Kasavian himself. I bet I know what this is about. I’d better take it outside.’
    Ten minutes later, the detectives had hailed a taxi and were heading south towards Victoria. ‘My guess is he wants an explanation about the memoir,’ said Bryant.
    ‘Then why would he ask to see me as well?’
    ‘You’re mentioned in the title of the book, John. You’re as involved in this as I am. I think he might have found something unpalatable in one of the chapters and taken objection.’
    ‘I wonder if it’s the part where you refer to MI7 as a secure ward for the mentally disenfranchised, or the bit where you describe his department as a hotbed of paranoid conspiracy theorists with a looser grip on reality than a stroke victim’s hold on a bedpan handle?’
    ‘I’m impressed you remembered that,’ said Bryant, pleased. ‘There’s nothing in the book that breaches the Official Secrets Act, and that’s the only thing he can get me on. Anna triple-checked it.’
    ‘Yes, but Anna Marquand is dead.’ Bryant’s biographer had supposedly died of septicaemia in the South London home she shared with her mother, but she had passed awayshortly after being mugged by an unknown assailant. The case remained unsolved.
    ‘You know my feelings about that,’ said Bryant. ‘I’m sure Kasavian’s department is implicated somehow. He might not have been directly involved, but I bet he knows who was.’
    ‘I’m not so convinced any more,’ said May. ‘You honestly think the Home Office found something in your memoirs that was so damaging they would commit murder to cover it up? They’re part of the British government, not the Vatican.’
    ‘I think they might have gone as far as condoning an unlawful killing, if it involved the Porton Down case.’ Bryant sucked his boiled sweet ruefully.
    Porton Down was a military science park in Wiltshire, the home of the Ministry of Defence’s Science & Technology Laboratory, DSTL. The executive agency had been set up and financed by the MOD to house Britain’s most secretive military research institute. Three years ago there had been a rash of suicides at a biochemical company outsourced by the DSTL. The project leader at the laboratory had turned whistle-blower, and had been found drowned. At the time, Oskar Kasavian had been employed as the head of security in the same company. It might have been coincidence – government defence officials moved within a series of tightly overlapping circles – but