Liz had begun that week, spending half her working day in Belgravia, the rest at Thames House running her section. The division of labour was making her life complicated. She had to dry-clean herself each time she moved from one location to the other, to ensure she was not being followed. Though she did not think anyone in the Brunovsky household suspected her, she did not know enough about what was going on around her to be sure.
At the house she spent her time researching Sergei Pashko, with special attention to the Irish years of exile when he had painted Blue Field. Like a method actor, Liz had decided the best way to play her role—Jane Falconer, art-history student and Pashko enthusiast—was to embrace it. After the discomfiting interrogation by Greta Darnshof at the restaurant in the Hilton Hotel, Liz wanted to make sure she could perform credibly if the Danish woman put her though her art-history paces again.
But her real objective was to unearth as much information as she discreetly could, and pass it back to Peggy Kinsolving in Thames House. She was looking for anything that did not check out. The cook, Mrs. Grimby, was friendly enough, but busy and she didn’t like to chat. On the other hand, Mrs. Warburton was a real gossip, almost a caricature of the traditional housekeeper who knows precisely what’s going on upstairs and downstairs. Only Tamara, the secretary, was unwelcoming, offering the curtest of nods when she emerged occasionally from her office. But there was nothing in that to cause Liz to suspect that she—or Mrs. Warburton or Mrs. Grimby—was anything other than what she seemed. Though as Liz reminded herself, the same might once have been thought of the chauffeur, Jerry Simmons.
Liz had chosen her position next to the front hall, to give her a good vantage point for seeing who came and went, particularly visitors to Brunovsky’s office, which opened off Tamara’s at the back. But the previous day she had realised that she controlled only one of the entrances to Brunovsky’s lair and that people came and went whom she never saw. In mid-afternoon, just after Mrs. Grimby had brought her a tray of tea and biscuits, she heard raised voices speaking in Russian coming from the office. One was Brunovsky and the other was female but not Tamara, whose voice Liz by now could easily recognise. The voices calmed to a dull hum only to be raised again and finally she heard the slam of a door and the sound of footsteps on the garden path. She realised that someone had come in through the French windows that led from Brunovsky’s office into the garden and had then left, presumably through the gate into the mews at the back of the house. Why use that route she wondered, if it was not to avoid being seen by Liz? And if that was the reason, it must be someone who knew exactly where she would be.
She saw a lot of Brunovsky. The oligarch seemed to have the attention span of a gnat, and welcomed any excuse to distract himself from work. Though exactly what work do you do, thought Liz, when you are worth £6 billion? Try and make it seven? It wasn’t clear, and the Russian was constantly emerging from his small office, popping into the dining room, apologising for interrupting Liz’s “work,” then starting a conversation about whatever had caught his perpetually wandering attention. Whenever he spoke to her, Brunovsky appeared relaxed, charming, like a little boy in his enthusiasms about everything from his pictures and his gardens to the spring weather. Increasingly, Liz was finding it difficult to equate this man with the ruthless exploiter of others that he must have been to acquire his present wealth. Billions don’t just fall into your lap, she reflected. When empires fall it’s the most ruthless who survive and prosper. Why are you putting on a performance? she wanted to ask the oligarch. Why do I feel like a character in a play you are directing? And who is the audience?
Now he was watching the gardener tie back a rose bush by the front step of the house, while Tutti dramatically extolled the merits of a Rodin statuette he’d found on a recent jaunt to Paris. You’re on to a good thing, thought Liz as the Italian went on, so I wouldn’t overdo it. It seemed that Tutti was not only in charge of decorating the interiors of Brunovsky’s residences, but was involved in his art buying as well.
Brunovsky and Tutti strolled out of the room, now debating the merits of a painting Tutti had spied in a Lyons gallery. Liz turned her attention back to Google. It had as usual provided too much information—16,000 hits on “Sergei Pashko + Ireland + Blue Field,” though most prominent were the press reports of the purchase of Blue Field by an anonymous telephone bidder.
Not that Brunovsky seemed to be trying to keep his acquisition a secret—if even his housekeeper knew he had spent millions on “some picture,” it didn’t seem possible that an inquisitive rival like Morozov would not sooner or later find out the identity of the buyer. Probably sooner, Liz thought, remembering the banker Harry Forbes’s account of the other Russian’s envy of Brunovsky. Even though both men were vocal critics of the Putin regime, Morozov and Brunovsky evidently disliked each other wholeheartedly.
She kept her eyes on her screen, while her mind mulled over this weird world with its strange alliances and hatreds, until a movement caught her eye and she looked up to find Monica Hetherington standing across the table from her. Just back from her trip, she was dressed in a sleeveless lilac dress that showed off both her athletic figure and deep tan; her ash-blonde hair was carefully tousled, and streaked as if by the sun.
“What the hell do you think you’re playing at?” Monica demanded angrily, leaning across the table with both hands gripping its edge. There was no sign of her usual mild affability.
“Sorry?” said Liz, taken aback.
Monica pointed at the tall front windows. “Nicky says you think he should keep those bloody curtains.”
“Steady on,” said Liz. “I’m not here to decorate the house. He asked me if I liked the curtains. I said yes. That was the extent of it. Okay?”
Monica stared at Liz, her face hard. Liz hoped there wasn’t going to be a second outburst—she had no wish to make an enemy of Brunovsky’s girlfriend, especially over something as inconsequential as the oligarch’s choice of curtains. And gradually Monica’s expression softened. “Sorry,” she said, “it’s just that it’s taken me three months to persuade Nicky, and now I come back and find he’s changed his mind again. It’s hard work trying to do anything round here, you know. Nicky is a great guy and I love him to bits, but he can get quite nasty if you go against him. He’s Russian and I suppose they’ve got a different attitude to women,” she said with a touch of wistfulness. “So I try to get my way by working on him slowly.”
“Men,” said Liz, sounding sympathetic.
“You’re telling me,” said Monica, and she laughed.
Liz motioned towards the curtains. “What do you want to put in their place?”
“Would you like to see?” asked Monica, and when Liz nodded, she went into the hall and came back with a small pile of sample swatches. She rifled through them until she suddenly stopped at a swatch with a lime green background. On this were stamped enormous pink and white cabbage roses. It was hideous.
Liz managed to say, “How lovely.”
Monica nodded. “I’ve always loved roses,” she said. “Even as a little girl.”
“Where did you grow up?”
“Oh, here and there. My father was in shipping.” She smiled vaguely. “We were always moving around. Portugal, Italy, the Caribbean, Singapore. Name a port, I’ve lived there. How about you?”
Liz gave a wry shrug. “The West Country. London’s as far as I’ve got. But where did you meet Nikita?”
“Nicky? Oh, here in London. At a party.” She detached the sample from its holder and went and stood by the window, holding it up against the cream-coloured curtains. “What do you think?” she asked.
“It’s good. Really great,” said Liz, trying not to grit her teeth. I should get some of Tutti’s commission for this, she thought.
“Tell Nicky that, would you? He’s bound to ask.”
“Of course.”
She put the samples down on the table, then pointed at Liz’s computer on the table. “How’s it going then?”
>
Liz shrugged. “Okay,” she said.
“Is everyone being nice to you?” The tone was big-sisterly. Liz sensed that for all her sudden aggression, Monica was a girl’s girl.
“Absolutely.”
“I bet Tamara’s not.” Monica laughed again. “Don’t let that witch put you off. When she’s rude to me once too often, I just tell her where to get off. It works a treat—for a while, that is. You try it if she gives you any gyp.”
Liz’s position in the household was hardly comparable to that of the oligarch’s paramour, so she just nodded equably as Monica went on. “The rest are all right. Mrs. W. acts like she knows everybody’s business, and she probably does. But she’s a harmless old thing. Cook’s a sweetie. One of the gardeners was a bit of a perv, but he’s been sacked.”
Liz noticed that as she grew more confiding, Monica’s accent was slipping a social rung or two. Was it South London lurking behind South Africa, or pure Essex? Hard to tell, though if her father was a bigwig in shipping, thought Liz, mine was Lord Mayor of London.
27
Geoffrey Fane stretched out his long legs and leant back luxuriously against the well-padded banquette. For a brief moment he allowed himself to close his eyes. He had spent the last two hours in a particularly frustrating meeting in the Ministry of Defence, arguing over levels of MI6 representation in Afghanistan, and now he was waiting for Elizabeth Carlyle to join him. Liz, he said to himself, Liz. I must remember to call her Liz. She had seemed irrationally annoyed when they last met that he’d called her Elizabeth. I expect she thought I was patronising her, he mused. Though how it can be patronising not to use an abbreviation, I don’t understand. These young women in MI5 nowadays are very defensive. Thank goodness in our neck of the woods we’re still masculine. Well, nearly. It makes life so much easier.
He waved for another glass of Chablis. The service in the Savoy was still excellent and there was something sophisticated and faintly decadent about the American Bar, which suited him. That was why he went on using it, even though in the early evening it got excessively crowded. He rarely turned up there before eight.
His second drink had just arrived when Liz walked in. Fane stood up and waited until she was settled opposite him. As soon as she was supplied with a drink, he went straight to the business of the evening. He had grasped that she didn’t like irrelevant conversation and he knew she would be wondering why he had arranged to meet here and not at Vauxhall Cross.
“Thank you for coming, Liz,” he began. “I suggested here because I knew my meeting in the MoD would go on quite late. I wanted to find out how things were going in the Brunovsky household and to fill you in on a few things we’ve learnt from Moscow.”
Liz looked at him over the rim of her glass. My God, her eyes are wary, he thought to himself. She doesn’t trust me an inch.
“I told Brian I was meeting you,” she said. So that’s it, thought Fane. She thinks I’m trying to cut out her boss.
“That’s fine. I told him too,” he replied airily.
“Well, I quite like being an art expert,” Liz confessed. “But to tell you the truth, I don’t think I’m getting very far. I’ve seen nothing to make me suspicious. But whether that’s because there isn’t anything to discover or because I’m not well placed to discover it, I don’t know. Quite a lot goes on in Russian. What I do understand seems all pretty normal—if you can call the life of an oligarch normal. He’s just bought a painting for £13 million by someone called Pashko and now I’ve become an instant Pashko expert. Did you see it in the newspaper?”
“Was that Brunovsky? The reports I read said the buyer was anonymous,” said Fane.
“That’s how he wanted to play it,” Liz replied, warming to her subject. “He’s got some competitive thing going with another Russian called Morozov. He was bidding for the picture too. I can’t say I fully understand it, but it’s a sort of boy’s game of one-upmanship as far as I can tell.”
“Morozov. Never heard of him.”
“Apparently he made his money in industrial diamonds. I suppose you could call him a second-class oligarch,” she said with a smile. “Millions, not billions. I think Nicky just sees him as a nuisance. It’s Morozov who’s doing most of the competing.”
So, she’s thinking of him as Nicky, Fane noticed, with a slight feeling of alarm. “Eliz…Liz,” he interrupted. “There’s something we’ve picked up in Moscow that you should know. Stakhov has been arrested. If you remember, he was the origin of Victor’s story that there was a plot being prepared in Moscow against an oligarch in London. Of course, it may have nothing to do with it. Victor said Stakhov was disillusioned and critical of Putin, so he may just have said the wrong thing at the wrong time. But there may have been a leak. It’s possible the Russians have found out that he’s talked and suspect we know something about what they’re planning. In which case, you need to be careful. We are keeping our ears very close to the ground in Moscow and we can take decisions as and when we learn more.”
Liz said, “Oh, I don’t think I’m in any danger. The only one who knows who I am is Brunovsky and he’s got his own safety to think about. He won’t say anything. But I wonder, could your people do some research into Morozov? I’d dearly like to know what this feud is all about and how serious it is. What happened between him and Brunovsky and why did Morozov leave Russia? Did he have to, or was it simply because he wanted a life of luxury in London?”
“Probably a bit of both, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” Liz agreed, “but I’d like to know for sure. I don’t understand why Morozov doesn’t like Brunovsky. I know neither has any time for Putin.”
Fane looked at Liz in surprise and thought to himself how typical of a female. One minute she thinks she’s wasting her time, but as soon as I suggest that she might need to quit, she digs her heels in and gets all interested. She has the instincts of a bloodhound. Not for the first time he thought what a useful addition she would be to MI6.
Noticing Liz look surreptitiously at her watch, Fane changed the subject. He hadn’t asked her here just to talk about Brunovsky, though this next part he hadn’t shared with anyone. Recently he had been thinking more and more about his son, Michael. It was strange that when Michael was a boy at school, he had hardly given him a moment’s thought. But since the Fane marriage had broken up, and particularly since Michael had joined MI5, Geoffrey Fane had found his thoughts turning towards his son.
He wanted him to do well—not just to reflect lustre on him, he reassured himself. Geoffrey Fane knew that Michael was not mature or even particularly stable, and he knew too that it was partly his fault. He had not provided his son with the role model he had needed. Unsurprisingly the boy’s personality had not developed as his father would have liked. This woman sitting in front of him—Elizabeth, Liz, whatever she liked to call herself—she was all the things he would have liked Michael to be. She was calm, reliable, independent. She had inner reserves of strength, that was obvious. She was also extremely attractive, he acknowledged to himself. Michael was younger, inexperienced, and Geoffrey Fane knew that his upbringing had disturbed his development. The truth was that he had not played his part as a father and his son, Michael, had suffered accordingly.
“Before you go,” he said to Liz. Immediately he saw the wariness come back. He knew she was thinking, What now? Is this where he produces some unwelcome rabbit out of the hat?
“My son, Michael,” he said.
“Yes,” she said levelly.
Fane kept his eyes on his drink. He felt damnably awkward, but he had to ask. “I just wondered if he was getting on all right.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to speak to him yourself? I’m sure he’s got an accurate sense of how he’s doing.”
Fane flinched at her brusque reply and felt himself colouring, but having started, he was not going to stop now. “I shouldn’t have brought it up, I know, but…how can I put it?” He felt immensely embarrassed. “There’s a certain froideur betwee
n us. We’re not in any kind of communication.”
“I didn’t know that,” Liz replied, her voice warming slightly.
Fane shrugged. “It’s just one of those things,” he said. He added with a grim smile, “I know civilised divorce is all the rage these days, but Michael’s mother and I didn’t quite manage the trick. Not blood on the walls exactly, but not nice. I’m afraid Michael got caught in the middle. I never wanted him to feel he had to choose sides.”
That’s not quite true, he thought. I cut him out long before the divorce.
Liz looked at him thoughtfully. At last she said, “Michael’s doing fine.”
Fane picked up the momentary hesitation in her voice. She was letting him down gently. Michael wasn’t really doing fine, but she didn’t want to tell him. “Of course he’s got a lot to learn.” She paused. “But he is learning it.”
“Thank you,” he said, giving a small sigh. “You are very kind.”
They both understood what had really been said.
Liz stood up. “Thanks for the drink,” she said.
“A pleasure,” said Fane. He stood up too to shake her hand. “Thank you for coming.”
As he sat down and summoned the waiter again, he saw Liz casting a quick look back as she left the bar. Unusually for him, Geoffrey Fane felt foolish. He was also extremely annoyed with himself. He already knew the truth about Michael, and Liz, whatever she had actually said, had merely confirmed it. For no purpose at all he had exposed his vulnerability, his weakness. In the harsh world he moved in, a weakness was there to be exploited. He fully expected Liz to exploit his.
As Liz walked along the Strand to catch her bus, her mind was on Geoffrey Fane. She had not been entirely open with him about her emerging doubts about the Brunovsky household, but she preferred to wait until she had something more substantial than just a vague sense that all was not as it seemed. Perhaps something more tangible would come from Moscow.
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