by Ian Rankin
Vitalis seemed satisfied. ‘Please give him a message from me. Tell him to remember Warszawa in ’87. Goodbye, Mr Hepton.’
He stepped nimbly from the cab, gave some money to the driver and was gone, walking up High Holborn with the brisk step of a man on his way to work. Hepton thought about following, but the driver was awaiting his orders. Still, he was damned if he’d let him know where he was staying.
‘Green Park,’ he said. He would walk from there.
31
It took Parfit a couple of minutes to come fully awake, and while he washed in the bathroom, he made Hepton relate his story twice more. He seemed unmoved by Devereux’s murder and the near-assassination of Hepton himself, but was interested in Vitalis. He was also interested in the acronym.
‘I wonder if our code-crackers can come up with anything for COFFIN?’ he mused, then shook his head. ‘Tell me about Vitalis again.’
‘Do you know him?’ Hepton asked, admitting to himself that he wasn’t going to get any sympathy for his own traumas.
‘I should say so. We’re old adversaries. He’s not so active these days, of course. His cover is a bookshop somewhere near Holborn.’
‘He’s a Russian spy, though,’ Hepton protested.
‘Yes?’ Parfit didn’t seem to see his point.
‘And you know where he is. Why hasn’t he been arrested? Deported?’
Parfit laughed. ‘Because then they’d just send home some of ours. Besides, it’s nice having him here. It means we can slip him the odd piece. Let him decide whether or not it’s true.’
Hepton shook his head. ‘The more I know, the less sense it makes. What did he mean about Warsaw in ’87?’
‘Oh, we were having a bit of trouble out there. The Polish secret police were cracking down a bit too heavily on our diplomats, being a bit obvious in their operations, that sort of stuff. We could have done something about it ourselves, but we passed on a message to Moscow and let the Kremlin deal with it. They slapped a few wrists, and things calmed down again.’
‘So what does it mean?’
‘It means we’re being allowed to deal with this mess ourselves, without outside interference.’
‘You think he knows what this is all about?’
‘Oh, he’ll have more than an inkling.’ Parfit had dried his face and was now combing his hair. He looked at himself in the mirror and swept a stray strand back behind his ear. ‘More than an inkling,’ he repeated. ‘After all, as you said yourself, Devereux was his man.’ He turned to Hepton. ‘Let’s get Major Dreyfuss and head for my office. If they wanted rid of Devereux, you can bet a shilling they want rid of Dreyfuss too.’
‘But why did they want rid of him?’
‘You mean Devereux? Probably because they realised what his game was, that’s all.’
Hepton stood for a moment, wondering how Parfit could take it all so rationally, so calmly. Then, aware that he was alone now, he made a dash for the door and followed the cool secret serviceman to Dreyfuss’ room.
Dreyfuss was quiet during the short drive towards Westminster Bridge. Hepton sat with him in the back, while Parfit sat with the driver in the front. Parfit had a briefcase on his lap; in it was a cellnet-style telephone, with which he made a steady stream of calls. The driver paid no attention to these, busying himself with the heavy, slow-moving traffic instead. His style of driving was the antithesis of Sanders’: careful, methodical, courteous. All the same, the traffic being what it was – and London drivers being what they were – he had to fall into the shunting rhythm of the cars around him, slamming the brakes on, pulling away fast, then slamming them on again. Each jolt seemed to make Dreyfuss wince. Hepton saw that he was holding his right arm with his good left hand, trying to steady it against unwanted motion.
‘You should have that in a sling,’ he observed. But Dreyfuss did not reply. Parfit, hearing Hepton and glancing in the rear-view mirror, saw the sheen of sweat on Dreyfuss’ forehead, indicative of continuing pain.
‘Take some more tablets,’ he ordered.
‘I’m fed up with being doped,’ Dreyfuss said through bared teeth. ‘I’d rather have pain and all my faculties intact than being in that bloody stupor all the time.’
‘Suit yourself.’ Parfit made another call.
Dreyfuss turned to Hepton.
‘First Jilly. Now Cam. We’re letting these people get away with murder.’ He nodded his head towards the passenger seat. ‘He’s not going to do anything about it. Not if it involves scandal. He’s paid to cover things up, not let them get into the open.’ Dreyfuss’ voice was becoming conspicuously loud, but Parfit made a show of not listening. ‘If we’re going to do anything, Martin, it’s got to be you and me.’ His eyes, the pupils tiny pinpoints, were boring into Hepton’s. ‘You and me.’
‘Yes,’ Parfit commented, ‘you’ve done so well on your own, haven’t you?’
Dreyfuss made a face at him behind his back, then winked at Hepton. ‘You and me,’ he mouthed noiselessly, before sitting back and watching from his window.
Hepton watched from his window too, but he wasn’t really seeing anything. He was thinking over what Dreyfuss had said; that, and a lot more besides …
32
Blake Farquharson was waiting for them in Parfit’s office. Hepton had expected that their destination would be Whitehall and the Foreign Office. But in fact they had travelled south, past the Houses of Parliament, over Westminster Bridge and into Westminster Bridge Road. Their destination was a large office block, where passes once more had to be issued before they headed up in the lift towards Parfit’s floor.
Parfit’s office, too, was modern, belying his old-world appearance. The desk was cream-coloured and constructed of metal and plastic and chipboard. The chairs were made from tubular steel, their fabric a gaudy lime-green design. There was a large cabinet against one wall, protected by a steel rod and a tumbler lock. Beside it stood a smaller filing cabinet, again protected from prying eyes. The windows were covered by prodigious quantities of net curtain – to stop glass from a potential bomb blast spraying the room, as Parfit later explained. There were calendars and year-planners on two walls, and a coffee table upon which sat a teapot and three mugs, whose interiors were growing cultures not dissimilar in colour to that of the chair fabric.
And in one chair sat Blake Farquharson, though he stood when they entered.
‘Hello, Parfit.’
‘Good morning, Blake.’ The two men shook hands warmly, like old friends after a separation. ‘You’ve already met Martin Hepton. This …’ Parfit gestured towards Dreyfuss, but Farquharson interrupted.
‘… Must be Major Dreyfuss,’ he said, holding out his hand. Dreyfuss stared at it, but kept his own by his side. Then Farquharson noticed the bandage and brought his outstretched hand up to his mouth, using it to shield an embarrassed cough.
‘We had a spot of bother,’ Parfit explained. He had gone to his desk and was sifting through the mass of paperwork awaiting him. He read the top sheets thoroughly, while the rest of the room kept an awkward silence. Dreyfuss had grabbed one of the chairs and was trying to make himself comfortable. Hepton preferred to stand, and went to the window. Parfit put down the sheets. ‘Sanders’ report,’ he stated.
‘Yes,’ said Farquharson, ‘I read it while I was waiting. I’m not sure about Sanders. He’s keen, but …’
‘That’s his problem,’ Hepton muttered.
‘What’s that?’ Farquharson barked.
Hepton turned to him. ‘Your Sanders,’ he said. ‘He’s all enthusiasm, no brains. I’ll give you an example.’
‘Please do,’ Farquharson said slyly.
‘Okay, when we went to talk to Cam Devereux – who died this morning, by the way, not that you’ll lose much sleep over that small fact – the doorman at the Achilles told us we couldn’t park where we’d parked. Sanders flashed some kind of ID, which the doorman studied.’
‘Yes? Is that all?’
‘No,’ said Hepton. ‘I we
nt back to the hotel this morning. I tried to catch a killer, and a Soviet agent helped me.’
Farquharson’s eyes opened wide, and he looked to Parfit for confirmation.
‘Vitalis,’ Parfit said in a neutral voice. Farquharson nodded.
‘And this Vitalis,’ Hepton continued, getting to his point, ‘stopped on the way out of the hotel to have a few words with the doorman; a few words in Russian.’
‘Is that so?’ Farquharson looked to Parfit again. ‘That’s a useful piece of information.’
But Parfit shook his head. ‘We’ve known about the doorman for a while.’
‘Well, Sanders obviously didn’t know about him,’ Hepton said, his voice increasing by a decibel or two. ‘Besides which, I’ve been thinking over what Mike was saying in the car.’ At the sound of his name, Dreyfuss became attentive. ‘He was saying,’ Hepton continued, ‘that you seem to know a lot but aren’t prepared to do anything about it. It strikes me that he hit the nail firmly on the head. You know about Vitalis but don’t do anything about him; you know about the doorman at the Achilles but don’t do anything about him. And now you know almost everything there is to know about this COFFIN business: it’s to do with satellites, and Buchan airbase, and Major Villiers, and Harry, and General Esterhazy, and most probably my boss Fagin. But’ – he began to space his words for effect – ‘you’re not doing one damned thing about it.’ He paused, and noticed how loud his voice had become. Dreyfuss was smiling encouragement at him and applauded silently as he finished.
Farquharson didn’t like being shouted at. His cheekbones were veined with blood, his voice tremulous. ‘Well then, let me tell you a few things, Mr Hepton,’ he said. ‘We need proof, solid hard factual proof. Because RAF stations and tracking stations and their like are out of our jurisdiction. In fact, there’s precious little that isn’t out of our jurisdiction. The intelligence services have no formal powers. We have to work with Special Branch, and they’re not convinced so far by what we’ve told them. We can’t get Number Ten to listen to us, because frankly the PM has been got at by military advisors and MoD officials. Our agents in the field have found nothing, so there’s precious little we can do at this moment. Except wait.’
‘What?’ Hepton was yelling now. Yelling out all his fear and frustration, all the last few days of madness and murder. ‘Wait for them to pick us off? Look, whatever this COFFIN is, it’s been buried. How do we find something once it’s buried? We don’t. The longer we sit here, the more chance they’ve got of getting away with whatever it is they’re getting away with while we sit here!’
‘Bravo!’ Dreyfuss called. He was smiling grimly.
‘Who told you the coffin was buried?’ Parfit asked in a purposely quiet voice.
‘What?’ Hepton asked.
‘Who told you?’
‘Harry did. Well, sort of. She certainly didn’t deny it.’
‘And you believed her?’
‘Why would she lie? She was going to kill me.’
‘But she didn’t.’ Hepton began to see Parfit’s point. ‘Now answer me another question: why is the Zephyr ground station being temporarily decommissioned?’
Hepton pondered this. He gave up and shrugged his shoulders.
‘I’ll tell you,’ said Parfit. ‘Or rather, I’ll tell you my interpretation. The coffin isn’t buried yet – not quite. But they know we’re getting close. They’ll put a ring of steel around Buchan, but they can’t stop Zephyr spying on them from space. That’s why they went to an extraordinary amount of effort to nobble it. But because we’re closing in, they want to make doubly sure, so they’re sending the sky-watchers home until the burial’s complete. That means there’s still time for an exhumation.’
‘Fine,’ said Dreyfuss coolly. ‘So what do we do?’
Parfit turned to Farquharson, his eyes asking the same question.
‘We wait.’ Farquharson saw that Hepton was about to protest and hurried on. ‘We wait until we see what information comes back from Buchan. If there’s enough to present to the PM, then I’ll arrange a meeting.’
‘And if there isn’t?’ There seemed no ready answer to Hepton’s question. He repeated it.
Farquharson looked to Parfit, but Parfit’s face was a blank.
‘We’ve got video tapes,’ Hepton continued. ‘Don’t they count as evidence?’
‘They indicate that something’s going on,’ said Parfit quietly, ‘not what that something is.’
‘You mean they’re not enough?’
‘What do you think?’
Hepton considered. The tapes suddenly seemed very small in comparison to the scale of the conspiracy.
Dreyfuss was shaking his head. ‘You’re going to let them get away with it,’ he said bluntly.
Farquharson slapped the desk. ‘Get away with what exactly? We don’t know what’s happening, do we?’
But Dreyfuss only smiled, as if to say: I’ve got a damn good idea.
33
The first report arrived just after they’d eaten a lunch of sandwiches and tea. The tea came in disposable beakers, which was a relief to Hepton, who had feared the offer of one of the mouldy mugs. He was finishing his last cheese sandwich when the telephone rang. Parfit, himself still chewing, picked up the receiver.
‘Yes?’ he said. He listened, his eyes fixed to the wall in front of him. ‘Is that everything?’ he said finally. ‘Thank you.’ He replaced the receiver in its cradle and swallowed some tea.
‘Well?’ asked Farquharson.
‘That was our man in Buchan. He’s been past the base. Heavily guarded, and not very subtly. He stopped to ask why, and was told that there had been anonymous threats concerning the pull-out. He says there is a pull-out taking place, but there’s also a lot of work going on. He thought perhaps they were busy dismantling something.’
‘Dismantling something?’ Farquharson repeated. ‘What sort of thing?’
Parfit shrugged his shoulders. ‘He couldn’t be sure that it was dismantling.’
‘So it could be building work then?’ said Hepton.
‘Building work?’ Farquharson sounded sceptical. ‘But that would be noticeable, wouldn’t it?’
‘Not if it was underground,’ said Hepton. ‘As in “burial”.’
‘That’s the impression I get,’ Parfit agreed. ‘They’ve got to be building something underground.’
‘Such as?’
He shrugged again. ‘If we knew what COFFIN stood for, we might get an answer.’
‘So,’ Dreyfuss said, pointing at Farquharson, ‘are you going to go see the PM?’
Farquharson was flustered. ‘What with?’ he exclaimed.
Dreyfuss got to his feet. ‘With everything you’ve got. It all adds up to quite something, after all, doesn’t it? Drag the PM up to Buchan if you have to, but do something!’
Farquharson looked to Parfit, but saw in him no ally ready to leap to his defence. He examined his trouser legs thoughtfully and picked a thread from one. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I’ll do what I can. May I use your phone?’
‘Be my guest,’ said Parfit.
Farquharson picked up the receiver and punched out a few numbers. ‘Hello,’ he said, ‘it’s Blake Farquharson here. Any chance of a word with the chief? Yes, I’m afraid it is urgent. Urgent as in very.’
Hepton and Dreyfuss were given leave to visit the canteen, situated in the building’s basement.
‘I’ll get someone to show you where it is,’ said Parfit.
‘We’ll find it,’ Dreyfuss snarled. But he calmed almost immediately and apologised. ‘I’d just like Martin and me to have a little time to ourselves, to talk about, well, Jilly. Is that okay?’
Parfit looked cowed. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘if it seems we’re not doing enough to locate and free her. I admit it’s needle-in-a-haystack stuff, but we are trying. Try to relax a little. I’ll join you shortly.’
‘No rush.’
Whether irony was intended or not, Parfit caught some in
Dreyfuss’ words. No rush indeed. Farquharson had gone off to Downing Street. The prime minister had agreed to give him a ten-minute interview, starting at quarter past four, which barely gave him time to gather together the relevant details and assimilate them. Still, actually gathering the details was a job for Farquharson’s PA, Tony Poulson. Poulson would be panicking right about now, and the thought pleased Parfit greatly. What Farquharson saw in the man was quite beyond him. He had even instigated his own highly furtive investigation of Poulson’s past and private life, but with precious little success: the man was as clean as a nun’s conscience. But then how clean was that?
He sat behind his desk, wondering if he should have insisted on accompanying Farquharson to Number Ten. He stared at his door, thinking of Dreyfuss and Hepton. Pity the canteen wasn’t bugged, but no member of staff would have stood for it …
Parfit was a patient man, but also a man who enjoyed the occasional slice of action. He had, for instance, thoroughly enjoyed breaking the man’s neck at the airport in DC. He hoped one day to enjoy killing Harry. But it had to be sanctioned. Given that sanction, he was ready to fall on Villiers, Harry and the rest with the most extreme prejudice he could muster. A nod from the PM, that was all he craved right now. His men were ready to act. He’d arranged for Special Branch to turn a temporary blind eye. And he had the necessary tools of his profession to hand. A nod was all he needed. But he doubted he’d get it. All the same …
He went to the door and locked it, then crossed to the large cabinet, worked the combination and drew the steel rod out from its resting place. Pulling the cabinet open, he revealed his small but lethal arsenal. Pride of place went to his two preferred handguns, a Walther PPK and a Browning nine-millimetre pistol, the latter’s magazine already engaged, thirteen rounds ready for the firing: unlucky for some. He tested its weight. Both guns had been stripped, oiled, checked and rechecked since last use. He put them back and examined the other firearm, a Heckler & Koch MP5 sub-machine gun. Several years before, Parfit had accepted a challenge from an SAS captain to spend some time with the regiment’s Counter Revolutionary Warfare Unit as they played out a close-quarters scenario in what had become known as the Killing House. This was a closed environment in which they had to imagine three terrorists were holding a hostage. The captain’s summary of Parfit’s performance had been frank: ‘That was fucking awful. You killed each and every one of them, the hostage included.’ But then that had been Parfit’s intention, since his job usually entailed tidiness of the most rigorous kind.