‘Not really. It’s been a couple of months since we started seeing each other. How about you? Have you known him long?’
‘I suppose so,’ Sam said vaguely.
‘Do you work at the bank?’
Sam looked startled. ‘The bank – me? Lord, no.’ She gave a little artificial-sounding laugh and went on, ‘I know these boys socially. I help arrange their little get-togethers, and make sure they have a good time.’
Jasminder nodded. It sounded as if Sam was some sort of hostess, and a well-paid one from the looks of her. She wondered where the other women were. Surely Jasminder wasn’t the only partner there.
As they approached the clubhouse, she saw a group of men having drinks on the veranda. Laurenz was there, standing among them, and when he looked up she waved cheerily. He gave a little salute back, but he didn’t come over to her, just kept on talking to the other men. Jasminder told herself to be more restrained. She didn’t know many bankers in London – perhaps they were a stuffy bunch.
With Sam, Jasminder walked up the steps of the veranda. The men turned as one and examined them both, with an assessing stare that was plain rude. The two women joined the group and a few introductions were made, but Jasminder found it hard to catch anybody’s name. Though they were all speaking in English, the men all looked more East European than British or American, except for one African who said he was from Zimbabwe.
The men were drinking cocktails, big measures of spirits served in oversized whisky glasses, but when the waiter came to her Jasminder asked for a spritzer. She had never been a big drinker and this looked as if it would be a heavy evening. From time to time, Laurenz looked over at her, but he didn’t join her, and Jasminder felt both awkward and a little upset that he hadn’t come over to welcome her. None of the other men seemed particularly anxious to talk to her and so she stayed standing next to Sam, who was prattling on about the comparative merits of shopping on Bond Street and the Rue de Rivoli. It looked as though the two of them were going to be the only women at the dinner.
Eventually they all went inside to a small private dining room. There didn’t seem to be anyone else at all in the clubhouse apart from a couple of waiters. Jasminder found herself seated next to Sam, despite there being no other women present. On her other side was a giant bear of a man, with rough black hair and sideburns that came halfway down the sides of his face.
‘I am Kozlov,’ he said in a thick Russian accent. He held a bottle of red wine in one hand and, without asking her, filled her large goblet and then his own to the brim. He took a big gulp then said, ‘And you are Laurenz’s special friend. The one he often speaks of.’
‘That’s nice to hear,’ said Jasminder, as a waiter put a plate of dressed crab down in front of her.
‘And with a very special job,’ said Kozlov, with a grin.
‘I don’t know about that.’ Had Laurenz really talked about her job with this man? She hoped not.
‘You are being modest,’ said Kozlov, digging into his crab. He chewed nosily while looking at her. ‘You are what Westerners call “deep waters”, no?’
‘Deep waters?’ asked Jasminder, puzzled.
‘You know what I mean. There is much information in that head of yours, but you do not act the part. You sit like a modest schoolgirl, when you know more than everyone in this room combined. I congratulate you on your cleverness.’
Jasminder felt embarrassed and alarmed. What on earth had Laurenz told this man about her? It sounded as though he’d described her as being a mixture of C and James Bond. It was absurd.
Fortunately Kozlov changed the subject, and began to regale her with stories of his own business prowess and his travels around the world. Las Vegas was his favourite city, he explained, partly for the gaming tables and partly for its culture.
‘Culture?’ asked Jasminder, unable to hide her amazement.
‘Yes. You see, in Las Vegas they have many hotels now that are replicas of the world’s most beautiful places. There is one with a canal as beautiful as the Grand Canal in Venice; another is based on the Parthenon. Et cetera, et cetera. You no longer have to go to all these places to see the sights. Now you can see the beauties of the world just by visiting Las Vegas.’
A waiter came and took their plates and then put new ones down, each with a large steak on it. Jasminder sighed inwardly. She didn’t like beef and wished there had been an alternative available. She took some salad and moved the meat around on her plate to make a show of eating it, while hiding bits under the salad. Kozlov cut away at his, chomping away with gusto.
He was on his third goblet of wine when dessert came, and by then Jasminder had heard even more about Las Vegas, and far more than she wanted to know about the racy nightlife of Hamburg and Cologne. She had tried once or twice to catch Laurenz’s eye, but he never looked over. It was almost as if he were intentionally ignoring her, and that just added to Jasminder’s growing discomfort. This event was nothing like she had imagined, and these people were very far from the sophisticated group of international bankers and their elegant wives and partners that she had expected to meet. In fact, she reluctantly admitted to herself, the gathering was vulgar and tawdry, and Laurenz must know it and that was why he wasn’t talking to her.
After dinner they all went back in a group to the bungalow. Sam walked with Jasminder. She was clearly slightly tipsy now, and seemed friendlier. She said in a loud whisper, ‘I’m sorry you got stuck with Kozlov at dinner. He can be a bore.’
‘He did seem a bit of a rough diamond.’
Sam laughed. ‘That’s putting it mildly. But these are good guys, even if they lack a certain polish. The only thing is, Jacintha…’ And she paused, coming to a halt until the others were out of earshot. ‘These men mean well but they can be a bit rough. If for some reason they wanted a person to do something, they would expect the person to do it.’
‘What do you mean?’ Jasminder suddenly felt cold. ‘Do what?’
‘Whatever it was they wanted. And my advice would always be to do whatever they ask. The alternative can be very unpleasant, in my experience.’
Sam walked on, and Jasminder, now thoroughly scared, followed her. In a moment they had caught up with the men – before Jasminder could press Sam on what she’d been saying. Was this a warning? It certainly sounded like it. Why was she here – apparently the only woman invited to join this group? What did these men expect from her? She thought back to her last conversation with Laurenz when he’d pressed her for information. She’d told him she couldn’t provide it but why did Koslov know about her job? What had Laurenz been telling them? Surely someone as subtle and kind and intelligent as he was didn’t really count these people as his closest friends.
With a growing sense of panic she joined the men in the sitting room, where Kozlov was standing by a tray full of liquor bottles, dispensing large measures into brandy balloons. Jasminder judged it best not to show her alarm, so she smiled and asked for a Crème de Menthe. She managed to drink some of it but found it difficult to swallow the sweet, cloying stuff and eventually abandoned her glass on an empty bookshelf.
She would have liked to quiz Sam further, but the woman was in full flow with one of the men about where he could buy some underwear for his girlfriend, so Jasminder decided to go back to her bedroom and try to work out what was going on. She would have liked to talk to Laurenz but he was in a huddle with his cronies, though he did look over and smile at her for the first time that evening, and when she motioned that she was going, he lifted his index finger to indicate he would join her in a minute or two.
When she got back to her bedroom she felt suddenly very tired. She could hardly keep her eyes open and her fear seemed to have floated away on waves of fatigue. These men seem awfully crass, she thought hazily, more like overgrown boys than mature citizens. Was this really what the world of finance was like? Jasminder had thought bankers were all educated at public schools, wore handmade suits and belonged to gentlemen’s clubs on Pall Mall.
These men tonight could have been supplied by central casting for a film about spivs.
She sighed and got into bed, thinking what she would wear the next day. She vaguely heard Laurenz come into his room and was aware that he looked in through the connecting door, but before she could say anything, she’d fallen asleep.
40
It was raining by the time Liz arrived at Peggy Kinsolving’s flat. She had decided to risk going there without giving Tim advance warning, but when no one answered the bell it looked as if her gamble hadn’t paid off. She was standing on the doorstep, more to shelter from the rain than in any hope that he was in, when a thin voice came through the intercom.
‘Hello?’ It was Tim’s voice, sounding uncertain.
‘Hi, Tim, it’s Liz Carlyle, Peggy’s colleague.’ They had only met in the flesh a handful of times.
‘Oh, hi. Peggy’s not here. There’re not letting her come home till tomorrow.’
‘Actually, it’s you I’ve come to see.’
‘Me?’ He sounded alarmed. ‘What about? They said Peggy was fine when I rang a few minutes ago.’
‘I’ll explain if you buzz me in.’
There was a pause. ‘The thing is, I was about to go out. I’m running late, in fact.’
‘It won’t take long. But do let me in, please. I’m getting soaked standing out here.’
After a moment, the buzzer sounded and Liz opened the door. She went up two flights and found Tim standing in the doorway to the flat. He was barefoot, in jeans and a tee-shirt, and looked as if he hadn’t shaved for a couple of days. It certainly didn’t look as though he was going out but he didn’t seem eager to let her into the flat either. ‘What’s this about?’ he asked, his voice both anxious and defensive.
‘I had a couple of questions I wanted to ask you,’ said Liz.
‘About the attack? I only got there after they had driven off.’
‘No, it’s not about the attack. May I come in?’
Tim hesitated. ‘Is this official?’
‘It can be if you want it to be,’ said Liz firmly. ‘I’d rather keep it an informal chat, but it’s up to you.’
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘You’d better come in.’
The living room was surprisingly tidy, but then Liz remembered Peggy saying that nowadays Tim spent most of his time online in his study. Liz could see through the open door of the little kitchen that there were dirty dishes and a frying pan stacked in the sink, and there was a faint aroma of fried onions.
‘Why don’t we sit down?’ she said, and before he could object sat herself in the armchair. Tim slowly took a place at the far end of the sofa.
‘Would you like some tea?’ he asked. ‘Or coffee maybe?’
‘No, thanks.’ She didn’t want to delay things any further. The more time Tim had to think, the more likely he would be to obfuscate or even tell outright lies. ‘Peggy said you’re spending a lot of time online these days. I gather you’ve got very interested in civil rights issues, especially as they affect the online world. Is that right?’
‘Yes. There’s nothing wrong with that. Or are you suggesting there is?’
Liz sensed he was stoking himself up for a fight that wasn’t going to happen – she’d debate the pros and cons of it on another occasion. She said, ‘I’m not suggesting anything; I’m here to ask questions.’
‘I don’t have to answer them,’ he replied aggressively.
‘No. Though if you don’t cooperate now, I’ll be forced to call in Special Branch and we’ll reconvene in an interview room at a police station. As I said before, it’s up to you.’
‘You’re not charging me with anything, are you?’ Concern now outweighed defiance, which Liz took as a good sign.
‘I’m not, at present, but I don’t know what the police will do if you refuse to answer questions.’ This was pure bluff, since she had nothing against him at all and was merely trying to gather some information. But it worked – Tim’s eyes widened in surprise. ‘I’m not refusing,’ he protested. ‘You haven’t asked me anything yet.’
‘Well,’ said Liz. ‘I believe you’ve recently been given an iPhone by someone you met online.’
‘No, I met her in the real world. She was at a talk I went to – Peggy was there too.’
‘Jasminder Kapoor’s talk at King’s College?’ When he nodded again, Liz said, ‘Tell me more about this woman. What’s she called?’
‘Marina.’
‘Marina what?’
‘Just Marina. She’s never told me her last name.’ He seemed worried that Liz would doubt this, for he said again, ‘It’s true, I swear: I don’t know her last name.’
‘I believe you,’ said Liz calmly. ‘But tell me about your exchanges with her. Were they by email?’
‘At first. She asked me to set up a new email account; she said my existing one wouldn’t be safe.’
‘Safe from whom?’
He looked at Liz and for the first time smiled a little. ‘You lot, of course.’
‘You mean, the intelligence services.’
‘Yes. Marina said they would probably be checking my normal email account, because of my membership of some online groups.’
‘Really?’ This sounded paranoid even by Snowdenista standards. Unless Marina was asking Tim to do something illegal for her. ‘So you opened a new account.’
‘Yes.’
‘What did she want to talk to you about?’
‘At first it was just about the issues we were discussing in the group. Frankly, I couldn’t see why she was being so furtive. People have a right to think about these things.’ A hint of defiance had resurfaced, but just as quickly subsided again. ‘I thought she was a bit paranoid if that was the whole purpose of the new account. I’ve never tried to hide my views, and none of them have been illegal. I’m not a terrorist and I don’t support what terrorists do.’
‘All right, but you said “at first” you thought that’s all she wanted. What else was there?’
He stared at Liz for a moment as if she’d just sprung a trap, which in a sense she had. Finally he said, ‘She started asking me questions – about Peggy.’
‘What kind of questions?’
‘About her job.’
‘Had you told her where Peggy worked?’
He was looking more and more like a rabbit caught in a pair of very bright headlights. He said jerkily, ‘Not in… not in so many words. I might have told her that my girlfriend… well, hinted at it. But that’s all.’ He paused, then said quietly, ‘I’m sorry.’
You ought to be, thought Liz, picturing the exchanges. Tim probably wanted to impress his mysterious new friend; he would have suggested an inside knowledge of intelligence, supplied courtesy of his partner. She said, ‘What exactly did Marina want to know about Peggy?’
‘What her job was. Did she work in a special section? Was she out and about, or was she a desk person? That sort of thing.’
‘And?’
‘And what?’ he asked, sounding mystified.
‘What did you tell her?’ Liz asked, readying herself for the worst. She just hoped Peggy hadn’t trusted him with anything important.
But Tim looked surprised again. ‘I didn’t tell her anything. I didn’t have anything to tell.’ He seemed to take Liz’s expression for scepticism, for he started talking very fast, as if desperate to persuade her. ‘Look, I know where Peggy works – the building, its name, and what goes on there. I know you work there too. But I don’t know anything about what she actually does there. Peggy never talks about the details of her work. Never. Oh, once in a while she might say she’s had a bad day, and sometimes she might say it’s been a good day. But she never tells me why.’ He looked agitated. ‘You have to believe me. Even if I’d wanted to pass on important information to Marina, I couldn’t have, because I didn’t know any.’
And Liz could tell that what he was saying was true. Forget about Tim and his crackpot views; the fact was, the only information he could have that would be
of any value to an enemy would have to come from Peggy. And Peggy was a real professional, which meant Tim didn’t know anything of substance at all. Liz felt a deep sense of relief. But she still needed to know who this Marina was, and what she was really up to.
‘I’ve got that,’ she said. ‘And thanks for explaining. But there’s one thing I still want to ask you about. This phone the woman gave you – if you couldn’t tell her what she wanted to know, why did she give it to you?’
‘I suppose she was hoping I might change my mind. When I’d told her I didn’t know anything about Peggy’s work, she was very disappointed. I didn’t hear from her for a while. But I also had the feeling she didn’t entirely believe me. Anyway, she turned up one day, in the street outside. She was waiting when I came out of the house, in a car. She called me over and I got in to talk to her. She told me even my second email account wasn’t safe any longer, and that she wanted to keep in touch about internet snooping and civil liberties – all the stuff we’d talked about before. But in future, she said, we’d have to do it by phone. She said a friend of hers did contract work for Apple and had a spare iPhone going. Would I like it? I wanted to say, “Do I like Christmas?” I mean, who would turn down a free iPhone?’
Yes, thought Liz, and who would think it rained silver dollars in Peru? There was something so naïve about Tim that she’d have laughed had it not been so serious. This Marina woman would have realised early on that he was so gormless she could persuade him of anything. But why give him a phone? It seemed peculiar – unless there was something rum about the device itself.
‘Did she give you an email address? How are you supposed to contact her?’
‘She’s put a special app on the phone. She said it was super-secure – the snoopers couldn’t get in. I have to use that. She tested it and it worked. It wipes off messages when you’ve read them.’
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