‘Not at all,’ said Peggy. ‘Let’s have some coffee – or would you rather have a glass of wine, or some herb tea? We always have a huge assortment of weird teas. Tim doesn’t approve of caffeine in any form. Thinks it destroys the brain cells.’
‘He may be right, but I can’t do without it – so coffee for me, please,’ said Jasminder. ‘Though when you’ve seen this form, you may think we also need some alcoholic support.’
Peggy grinned. She knew the form. She’d filled in one herself not very many years ago when she joined MI6, before transferring to MI5 to work with Liz.
‘Don’t worry. I’m sure we can crack it, between us. And there’s a bottle of wine waiting over there in case we need help.’
They sat in the kitchen until the coffee was ready, then Jasminder took a large brown envelope from her bag and spread the contents on the dining-room table.
‘I feel a bit pathetic asking for your help,’ she admitted. ‘It’s not as if I’m seventeen and applying to university. I have filled out plenty of forms before. But it’s just these seem so different – and they want to know so much. One of the problems is that I don’t really know if I actually want the job, and whether I want to tell them all this stuff about myself.’
‘Well, let’s have a look at it. I’m sure when we break it down it won’t seem so bad. Let’s start with this part,’ Peggy said briskly, pulling out the personal particulars page. ‘Were you born in the UK?’ Jasminder nodded. ‘Parents born here? No? Well, you’ll need to explain when and why they came here.’
After Jasminder had told her all about Uganda and Idi Amin, Peggy began to realise that this wasn’t going to be as straightforward as she’d thought. ‘Let’s just explain it in a few words in that box there, and if they want any more they can ask you about it when they come to interview you for the vetting.’
‘They want to know all about my relatives next,’ said Jasminder. ‘My brothers will slaughter me if some man in a pinstripe suit comes to the shop to quiz them about their political views.’
‘I don’t suppose they will.’ Peggy wasn’t at all sure if they would or not. ‘I expect they’ll just look them up in some database somewhere. And provided they’re not terrorists or organised criminals, I don’t suppose they’ll take it any further. What’s next?’
It was a question about close personal relationships. Was she married? No. Was she in a relationship? Jasminder hesitated. ‘I’m not sure what to put here,’ she said, flushing slightly. ‘I would have said no, but you remember I told you that I was mugged and how a man drove the muggers off?’ Peggy nodded. ‘Well, I’ve seen him occasionally since then and the other night, well, he stayed over.’
‘Is he going to go on staying?’ asked Peggy. ‘Because it seems to be asking about cohabitation and if you’ve only seen him two or three times, and he’s only stayed once, I don’t think it counts. Not unless he’s moving in.’
‘Oh, no. I don’t see that happening. He’s married and waiting for his divorce to be finalised and he has to be pretty careful. Apparently she’s after his money.’
‘Well, I don’t think he qualifies for the form then. If they ask, when they come to interview you, you could explain it but I don’t think he’s relevant. Not as things are.’
‘That’s good. I don’t know all his details anyway and I’d be very embarrassed to ask him. It’s enough to put any man off if he thinks he’s going to be written down on a form.’
‘That’s true,’ said Peggy. ‘I had to notify the MOD about Tim when we took this flat together and he wasn’t thrilled about it.’
The next few questions caused Jasminder no problem until they came to bank details. ‘What do they want to know about my bank account for and whether I have a mortgage and loans and all this stuff? I don’t want to tell them. It’s not their business.’
‘I think they are trying to protect you,’ said Peggy. ‘They want to make sure you are not liable to be blackmailed. I suppose they also want to make sure you’re not receiving funds from a mysterious foreign source.’
‘You mean they want to be sure I’m not a spy?’
‘Well, yes. I suppose so,’ said Peggy, looking wide-eyed. ‘That may well be it.’
Jasminder shook her head. ‘How ridiculous,’ she said, as she filled in the details. ‘As if I’d tell them if I were.’
By the time the forms were finished it was past eleven o’clock and a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon was almost empty. The final problem had been who Jasminder should choose for her three referees. There was no problem about work and university but who to put for her personal life?
‘Could I put you?’ she asked Peggy.
‘No, I don’t think so. I’d have to say that I had only known you a few weeks and I’m sure they wouldn’t think that was long enough. Don’t you have any friends from school or university?’
‘Well, there’s Emma whom I still see quite often. We were at Durham together. She’s a lawyer but she’s quite anti-establishment and if she knew I was applying for a job with the secret state she’d think I’d gone off my head. She might refuse to answer any questions.’
‘Why don’t you ask her? Tell her you’re infiltrating the secret state to make it change its ways and become more accountable.’
‘Maybe that’s what I think I am doing. Otherwise why on earth am I applying for this job?’ asked Jasminder, almost to herself, as she tucked the now closely written pages back into the envelope and put it into her bag.
‘Look, it’s far too late for you to go back on the tube. Why don’t you stay? We’ve got a spare room – it’s only a box room but the bed’s OK. I don’t know where Tim’s gone. I would have expected him back by now.’
‘I won’t stay, thanks. I’ve got an early start tomorrow. Do you have a local minicab firm we could call?’
And ten minutes later, with a hug and a kiss and many thanks, Jasminder left the flat. As the front door closed downstairs, Peggy yawned. It had been a long day. She put the kettle on and made herself a mug of camomile tea, leaving a mug and the packet of tea bags out for when Tim came home.
But as she discovered several hours later when she woke up briefly and reached out in bed, he did not come back that night.
14
Spring was now more than just a hint. The tour boats were out on the Thames as Liz walked along the Embankment. Outside the Houses of Parliament a gardener was giving the grass its first cut of the year. A crispness still lingered in the air, but it was clear that winter had lost the battle.
Liz crossed Parliament Square, then walked along the edge of St James’s Park until she came to the Duke of York’s Steps leading up to Carlton House Terrace. After climbing them, she turned left on Pall Mall, past the row of mausoleum-like edifices that housed some of London’s oldest clubs – the Traveller’s, the Reform, the RAC, the Oxford and Cambridge. This was not Liz’s territory; she felt out of place in an area that seemed to be filled with men who looked like Geoffrey Fane. Though most of these clubs admitted women now, they were not Liz’s kind of women and to her the place still seemed overwhelmingly male.
She turned up St James’s Street, another masculine bastion of clubs, bespoke shoe-and hat-makers, and old-fashioned wine merchants. But the restaurant for which she was heading, where she had arranged to meet Chief Constable Pearson, was refreshingly unstuffy, with an enormous front window through which passers-by could see bright modern furniture and walls decorated with abstract murals. As she walked in, it occurred to her that she really knew very little of the man with whom she was about to lunch.
They’d worked together on a terrorism case in Manchester in the immediate aftermath of Martin Seurat’s murder, but looking back she realised that the shock of his sudden death had put her on autopilot and her memories of the whole affair were vague. Pearson had been in charge during the operation, and had shown Liz a mix of compassion and tact she had only properly been aware of in retrospect.
He was already sitting at the table. A
s Liz approached he stood up to greet her with a warm handshake. He was tall – a couple of inches over six foot – and lean, with fair hair worn a little longer than Liz remembered. She had also forgotten how good-looking he was, with regular features and startling green eyes. He was wearing a lightweight grey check suit with a blue silk tie decorated with small hippos. He looked, thought Liz, extremely un-policeman-like.
Pearson said, ‘I’m glad you could make time for lunch.’
‘It’s good to see you. What brings you down to London?’
‘It was the Police Chiefs Council meeting yesterday,’ he said, ‘and I’ve stayed on for the counter-terrorism sub-committee this morning.’
Liz nodded. ‘There’s plenty to talk about on that front at the moment,’ she said. Chief Constables from all over the UK convened regularly to exchange information and receive briefings from external agencies about new laws, new methods, new threats. In the past, Liz had attended a couple of them.
‘So,’ said Pearson, ‘is work keeping you very busy these days?’
She was grateful for the question. In recent months, so many people thought it appropriate to open a conversation by asking how she was feeling, as if they alone had thought to ask; worst of all was being asked how she was in her ‘inner self’. Implicit in these questions was the unspoken query: Are you any better yet? As if grief were a disease to recover from.
‘Yes, fairly busy,’ she acknowledged. ‘I’ve moved back into counter-espionage. It’s busier than I expected. I’m sure you’ve got plenty on yourself.’
He smiled. ‘You can say that again. Every time I start to think I’ve mastered the job, something rears up and bites me hard.’
The waiter came up and they ordered, then chatted casually for a while, leaving work to one side. Pearson was a lot more relaxed than the robust figure she remembered from the operation outside Manchester, and she found she was able to ask him about himself, which was a relief; she was fed up with having to fend off questions about herself. It turned out he liked football and supported Manchester United, all very predictable (Liz tried not to yawn), but also chamber music and the later albums of Pink Floyd, which was not. He spent most weekends when he wasn’t on duty walking in the Lake District or helping his brother-in-law, a fisherman who owned a boat in Southport.
‘That doesn’t sound like much of a break.’
‘Oh, it is,’ he said. ‘I can’t get a mobile signal when we’re more than a mile offshore. It’s the one place no one can get at me.’
Liz laughed. ‘I understand completely. Sometimes I wish the mobile phone had never been invented. Yours seems the perfect solution.’
‘There’s only one problem with it.’
‘Oh?’
‘I get seasick.’ He made a face and Liz laughed. ‘I’ve tried everything – from Dramamine to brandy – but nothing works. Anyway, what do you do when you’re not working?’
Liz paused for a minute. In the past few years the answer would have been simple enough – she’d see Martin, sometimes in Paris, sometimes here. She supposed they had done the usual things couples do – go to a gallery, walk through the park, have dinner together at their favourite places. But what they did didn’t seem to matter much; it was being together that counted.
She realised Pearson was waiting for an answer and racked her brains, trying to remember what she had done in the years when she’d been on her own. It seemed a millennium ago. She shrugged. ‘My mother lives in the country down in Wiltshire; sometimes I go there at the weekend. It’s where I grew up.’
Pearson said, ‘I sense a “but” coming up.’
‘You’re right. My father died a long time ago, but now my mother has a nice boyfriend –’ she gave a small laugh ‘– if a seventy-five-year-old man can be called a boyfriend. It’s just that…’
Again she hesitated. ‘Three’s a crowd?’ Pearson suggested.
Liz nodded. ‘Exactly. They’re very good to me; when they come up to town we often have dinner or see a play, and I know I’m always welcome down there.’ She felt almost apologetic for not appreciating this more, but found herself saying exactly what she felt. ‘It’s just that before, when my mother was on her own, I used to feel I was looking after her. Dutiful daughter et cetera, though since I’m close to her it wasn’t a chore. But now I feel sometimes that she and Edward – that’s her boyfriend – are looking after me.’
‘And you don’t like that?’
‘Not much,’ she confessed.
He nodded sympathetically. ‘The problem is that the alternative – not seeing them – can get pretty lonely. At least it was for me.’
‘Why’s that?’ Liz asked. There had been no mention of a wife or children in his account of his weekends, which had surprised her – she knew he was in his late forties.
‘I was married,’ he said, and Liz instinctively guessed: bad divorce, no children, lots of girlfriends. But he said instead, ‘My wife died just a few years after we’d got married.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
He looked at her with a smile. ‘So am I. It was almost twenty years ago – I was just a copper on the beat then, which tells you how young I was. When people learn that my wife died but also when she died, they seem to expect me to say, “That’s okay – it was a long time ago.” It was a long time ago, but that doesn’t really help. I imagine you’re finding that out yourself.’
‘Yes. I can almost hear people thinking, Get over it. I would if I could, believe me.’
‘It does get better,’ said Pearson, his voice brightening a little. ‘It’s not that you start to forget the person, or don’t think about them every day. It’s just that other things happen to you, you meet other people, your life gets full of things that have nothing to do with the person you’ve lost. And that does help.’
They had ordered coffee and now, when the waiter brought their cups, Pearson shifted a little uneasily in his seat. Liz could sense he didn’t often talk about himself; but then neither did she. She changed the subject. ‘So how did your meetings go?’
He gave a small half-smile to acknowledge her diplomatic shift. ‘They were good,’ he declared. ‘Funnily enough, something came up in one of them that made me think of you. We had a summary that must have come from your people – they weren’t precise about the source, but I assume it’s your end of things. It was about increased Russian activity here in the UK, just as you said earlier.’
‘Yes, that would be right. It’s definitely something we’re concerned about. The Russians always had a large espionage component here, and it never exactly went away, but after the end of the Cold War we had a decade of decreased activity. Frankly I think we all became slightly complacent; we were so focused on terrorism. Anyway the Russians are back with a vengeance now, and we’re having to catch up fast.’
Pearson was listening carefully. He put his coffee cup down when Liz had finished speaking, and looked thoughtful. ‘The thing is, ordinarily this wouldn’t have much to do with my patch. You know far more about it than I do, but as far as I understand it, most of the Russian espionage going on in this country is focused on London.’
‘It depends where their targets are. But it’s true that the key centres of British power – in politics and finance in particular – are inevitably in London, along with the Russian Embassy.’
Pearson said, ‘The reason I ask is that about nine months ago we learned of a Russian who had purchased an estate in Altrincham. That’s the Millionaires’ Row for footballers in the north – David Beckham and Co. Not perhaps the most tasteful set of mansions, but very large and very expensive.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘Patricov. Sergei Patricov.’
‘I’ve heard of him. I thought he lived in Switzerland.’
Pearson seemed impressed. ‘He did. And much as I like my neck of the woods, I can understand that people would wonder why he’d want to switch Geneva for Manchester.’
‘Do you know why he did?’
&n
bsp; ‘Two reasons – one obvious, one less so. The first is that he’d like to buy Man United. The Glazers own it now, and they’ve never given any sign they want to sell. But I suppose everybody’s got a price, and I think Patricov is hoping they’ll like his. He’s moved nearby to stir up the fans – it would be crucial to have their support. It’s not exactly police business, but we happen to know that he’s funding every dissenting fan club that emerges.’
‘And the second reason?’
‘This is pure speculation.’Pearson looked a little abashed. ‘My speculation, to be honest. We believe that Patricov is actively involved in the anti-Putin movement, and that he’s trying to organise dissidents living outside Russia. That makes him an obvious target for the Russian secret service. I think he believes that the North of England is a safer place to be than Switzerland, or the South of England, even if he hadn’t got his football club ambitions. London is full of émigrés from Russia; in Altrincham he sticks out like a sore thumb. In some ways, that makes it easier for him to protect himself.’
Liz said, ‘Well…yes. That may be true. You could argue that any other Russians showing up would be noticed. Alternatively, you might think as the only Russian living there, that makes him an easy target. If security is his reason for moving North, he must really feel threatened. Have you met him?’
‘No, I haven’t, but I know his head of security. He’s British – ex-SAS. I gather Patricov has all the oligarch’s usual accoutrements – a helipad in the garden, private jet on call at the airport, bullet-proof windows in his Jaguar XK-E, and of course a blonde wife twenty years his junior.’
Liz laughed. ‘What about security?’
‘He has security guards galore. But they aren’t armed – we’ve made it clear they can’t carry weapons and I don’t think they’d dare risk it. What a way to live,’ he added, shaking his head.
‘If Patricov’s careful about who he sees, that will help keep him alive. Litvinenko might still be breathing if he hadn’t taken tea with his killers.’
Breaking Cover Page 7