A Morbid Habit

by Annie Hauxwell

  Mrs Muir couldn’t say how, or when, Berlin might find out why the SVR was interested in her. She suggested that they often approached matters in what she described as a ‘tangential fashion’, but someone might, probably, eventually, approach Berlin.

  None of which sounded promising.

  Berlin could see the river as she made her way down the narrow lane at the rear of the embassy. She turned right, away from where she knew Charlie was waiting. She needed some time to think through what was going on.

  The embassy was cordoned off with concrete barriers designed to deter suicide bombers, and Charlie had parked at the other end of the block. She wouldn’t be able to see Berlin leave.

  The icy footpath was treacherous. The leaden clouds were low, threatening more snow. Berlin slithered up an incline towards a bridge, past a giant billboard advertising Heinz tomato sauce. The Cyrillic characters rendered the banal surreal.

  Darting across the wide road, she was assailed by a cacophony of horns and abuse. The traffic roared and whined in her ears as it shot past. She raised a weak fist in defiance and sought a familiar landmark.

  But she was lost; reality had gone soft at the edges. She was marooned in a shifting landscape of threat.

  Bewildered, she made it onto the bridge and walked to the middle, where she stood gazing over the parapet at the shifting, groaning ice fifty feet below. She gulped for air.

  A gentle hand tugged at her sleeve.

  Berlin looked up into the concerned eyes of a woman shrouded in a fur hood. She glanced at the river, then back at Berlin, speaking very quietly in Russian.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ stuttered Berlin.

  The woman patted her arm. Her cheeks, flushed pink in the chill air, wrinkled into a broad smile.

  ‘Our visitor,’ she said brightly. It was a warm word of welcome.

  ‘Yes,’ said Berlin. ‘A visitor.’

  She took the woman’s proffered arm and together they crossed to the other side.

  40

  Fagan switched off his mobile, removed the SIM card and disabled the car’s GPS. He had avoided cameras too, staying on the B-roads. He didn’t want anyone tracking him.

  The house he was looking for was somewhere down a lane, beyond a farm-style gate. He drove another half mile before he realised he’d gone too far; the lane was overshadowed on both sides by a thick briar hedge. He reversed back at speed. There would be tyre tracks all over the bloody place.

  This time the gate was easy to spot because it was open. Fagan swore.

  Magnus had spent what was left of the night in the sitting room hunched over Carmichael’s laptop. He had tried to log in to his email, but the bastards had changed his password. Finally he created a new address using Carmichael’s account.

  Magnus had only a hazy idea of the Byzantine world of Russian domestic politics. But he had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the machinations of Whitehall, which helped.

  His research took him to arcane blogs documenting the connections between organised crime and the state in Eastern Europe. It opened up a vast web of relationships encompassing bankers, politicians, bureaucrats and senior figures from law enforcement agencies and the military.

  Magnus threw his leads out there: a white Ford Transit van unloading something into a warehouse; a security company employee offering a bribe to someone to turn a blind eye; the fact that his source was now incommunicado in Moscow. Incommunicado was a bit over the top; she just hadn’t returned his calls. But a bit of drama never hurt.

  He had posted the information in forums and blogs frequented by sober academics, hacks and conspiracy theorists alike. The speed and volume of the responses he was soon receiving were astonishing, and most of them seemed to come from inside Russia itself.

  Detailed profiles of the current personnel installed at the Russian embassy in London popped into his inbox and he was treated to more than one lengthy analysis of the siloviki, the former KGB officers who now ran the Kremlin. If his correspondents were to be believed, they also controlled nearly everything else in Russia.

  There were a number of emails that described disturbing events in Istanbul, Dubai and Qatar.

  Magnus now had a file of well-sourced commentary.

  When a drawn, tousled Carmichael appeared at the door, Magnus was drinking the last dregs of the Scotch.

  ‘Good morning, old darling,’ he said. ‘How are you?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking, Magnus,’ said Carmichael. ‘We should be careful . . .’

  A soft knock at the front door startled them both.

  A visitor at this hour was unusual, not to say alarming. In fact, Magnus thought he might shit himself. Christ. Surely it couldn’t be the bloody constabulary? Or Peter Green? He scuttled to the downstairs loo and left Carmichael to it.

  He heard a few words exchanged through the front door, which he couldn’t make out, then he heard it open. All he could think about was the short trip across the hall to that door. A strategic retreat was in order.

  The sound of the front door closing was followed by footsteps passing the loo and heading down the hall. Magnus waited a moment, then crept out. He tiptoed to the front door and opened it with great care.

  Peter Green was striding up the garden path.

  Magnus backed up.

  Green stepped inside and drew his gun.

  Magnus thought he might pass out.

  Green indicated the loo. Magnus had left the door open, for fear of making a noise. He did as he was told and went back into the toilet and Green gently shut the door after him. Magnus’s heart was pounding, fit to burst.

  A moment later he heard a couple of pops.

  He held his breath.

  The loo door opened. Green beckoned.

  ‘Give me a minute, old darling,’ Magnus croaked.

  Marjorie Carmichael had made the mistake of marrying the other promising journalist on the quality newspaper where she hoped to make her name. It soon became clear that there was only room for one star cub reporter on The Sentinel, and in their household.

  Marjorie had retired from the fray with good grace. She devoted herself to her twin boys, and to making her husband pay for her sacrifice every day of his life.

  This morning she came downstairs with a spring in her step, hoping to find an exhausted, redundant spouse whom she could console, in a patronising way, and at least one son with a filthy hangover who would assist her.

  She glanced into the kitchen, then made her way to the study. The warm glow of light beneath the door betrayed Carmichael’s presence in his so-called sanctuary. Not today. Marjorie would pursue him with relentless, low-key concern and kill him with kindness.

  She tapped at the study door and then opened it.

  There was a man slumped across the desk. It wasn’t Jolyon, but she couldn’t say who it was, because he didn’t have a face. She tried to shout for her husband, but it came out as a squeak.

  She ran back to the kitchen and that’s where she found him.

  On the floor with a neat hole in his forehead.

  41

  Berlin walked, staying close to the river, until her feet burnt and her cheekbones ached with the cold. Mansion blocks lined the embankment; solid, discreet and well maintained, they were set in gardens that reminded Berlin of London’s elegant squares.

  A woman in a fur was walking two borzoi hounds among the leafless trees. The silky, russet coats of the dogs perfectly complemented the woman’s long, blonde tresses and the golden sheen of her own coat. The three stalked the swept path, heads held high.

  Evidence of the sweeper – a twig brush, reminiscent of a witch’s broom, and a long-handled spade – were propped up against a wall. Berlin saw her resting in a nearby doorway, swathed in municipal waterproofs, eyes closed, praying, no doubt, for the thaw.

  Charlie’s deception and the disappearance of the Gerasimovs paled into insignificance compared with the question of why she had attracted the scrutiny of Russian intelligence. With Major Utkin added to the mi
x the result was positively baffling.

  If an agency was watching her, it was using someone with access and knowledge of two languages and cultures. Someone for whom duplicity was second nature.

  In the present scenario, one candidate stood out.

  Charlie flung open the door and greeted Berlin with a tirade worthy of an anxious mother waiting for an errant teenager.

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’ she demanded. ‘I waited for hours at the embassy.’

  The pot-belly stove glowed with warmth, drawing Berlin towards it.

  Charlie barred her way. ‘What happened? Did you get a passport?’ she said. ‘I want some answers.’

  Berlin pushed past her. ‘You’re not alone there,’ she said. She huddled on one side of the stove. Charlie sat down on the other with Yorkie curled up on her feet. But it was not going to be a fireside chat.

  Berlin needed to get a handle on Charlie if she was going to make any sense at all of the situation. She had to exploit the thin wedge of empathy that existed between them.

  Charlie was a desperate, isolated woman. It shouldn’t be too hard.

  Berlin would take her back to the beginning. ‘Tell me why you left England,’ she said.

  Charlie gave her a look that said she knew exactly what Berlin was up to and she was going to humour her.

  ‘Have you ever heard of Operation Able Archer?’ said Charlie.

  Berlin shook her head.

  ‘Nineteen eighty-three,’ said Charlie. ‘The last gasp of the Cold War. It was a NATO exercise simulating the escalation of conflict with the USSR, who took umbrage when the so-called exercise involved the deployment of Pershing II missiles on their doorstep. Moscow put their nuclear forces on alert.’

  Berlin reflected that in 1983 she was probably too stoned to notice, or care.

  ‘What difference did it make to you?’ said Berlin.

  ‘I’ll tell you what bloody difference it made,’ said Charlie. ‘I had a double first in Slavic languages but for years I’d languished in filing in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Tainted by my parents’ politics.’

  ‘The FCO thought you had divided loyalties?’ said Berlin.

  ‘My parents were left-wing,’ said Charlie. ‘And so was I. But so what? I was sick of greed. And Thatcher. So were a lot of other people.’ She lit another cigarette. ‘I never even knew my father,’ she said bitterly. ‘And my mother dumped me in a minor boarding school at the earliest opportunity and fled back to Russia.’

  ‘The government didn’t trust you,’ said Berlin.

  ‘What a joke,’ said Charlie. ‘In the civil service even a filing clerk is aware of people feathering their own nests, and bugger the public interest.’

  ‘So you defected,’ said Berlin.

  ‘I’d already been effectively banished, anyway,’ said Charlie. ‘In fact, I don’t think they even noticed I was gone at first. Probably thought I was on sick leave or something.’

  ‘And how did Moscow react when you arrived?’

  ‘Oh, they always made a big fuss of anyone who turned up from the West. Big propaganda coup. Made out I was some high-level Foreign Office wallah with lots of secret stuff. The daughter of valued comrades, et cetera, et cetera.’

  ‘It must have been nice to have been wanted for a change,’ said Berlin.

  ‘They gave me an apartment, a car, a job translating signals, and a decent salary.’

  ‘So what happened?’ said Berlin.

  ‘Nineteen ninety-one,’ said Charlie. ‘Suddenly communists were on the nose, particularly anyone who had fled the West saying it was decadent and corrupt.’

  ‘So that was it?’

  ‘More or less,’ said Charlie. ‘Drink?’

  The evasion was obvious. Charlie’s fall from grace owed its genesis to something more than the collapse of the Soviet Union.

  ‘How have you lived since?’ said Berlin.

  ‘On my wits,’ said Charlie.

  From somewhere in the decaying apartment came the sound of a rhythmic thudding.

  Berlin glanced down at Charlie’s feet.

  Yorkie snored on.

  Charlie gripped Berlin’s arm, trying to restrain her, as she kicked open the series of doors that lay between her and the source of the noise.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, get off me,’ said Berlin. Charlie wouldn’t let go. She hung on for dear life, forcing Berlin to drag her down the long, dark corridor.

  When they reached the source of the noise, the pounding on the other side of the door stopped.

  The key was in the lock.

  Berlin reached for it.

  ‘Please,’ said Charlie. ‘Let me.’

  Berlin stood back. Charlie unlocked the door and opened it.

  A stocky young man in black trousers, a hand-knitted jumper and felt slippers was standing on the other side.

  ‘This is Nikki,’ said Charlie. ‘Say hello.’

  ‘Hello,’ said Berlin.

  Nikki walked straight past her and headed down the corridor.

  ‘He’s not very sociable when he’s hungry, I’m afraid,’ said Charlie.

  Berlin felt further explanation might be in order.

  42

  Magnus couldn’t stop blubbering like a baby. Green was driving. ‘That will teach you to go sneaking out at night,’ he said. ‘Sir.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, have some pity,’ said Magnus. ‘A man I’ve known for thirty years has just been gunned down in cold blood.’

  ‘You’ll be next if you don’t start behaving,’ said Green.

  Magnus couldn’t shake the sight that had greeted him when he’d finally got himself together to creep out of Carmichael’s loo. He’d made for the front door, but couldn’t resist looking back. Carmichael’s study door was ajar.

  A man was slumped across the desk. Blood was pooling and dripping onto the carpet. It wasn’t Carmichael. But there had been something familiar about the chap; his few strands of hair hung pathetically straight down from his bald, pink scalp. Magnus couldn’t think straight. It was all too much.

  ‘Oh God, oh Jesus, oh Christ,’ moaned Magnus. He blew his nose. ‘How did this happen?’

  ‘You used Carmichael’s internet account and his email, right?’

  Magnus nodded.

  ‘The traffic is monitored,’ said Green. ‘How do you think I found you? We weren’t the only people looking. You asked a lot of questions about certain people and events and you woke up a lot of bears. With sore heads.’

  ‘The Russians killed Carmichael,’ said Magnus.

  ‘Who did you think it was?’ said Green.

  Magnus looked at him. ‘Of course,’ he whispered. ‘It was the Russians. And it was all my fault.’

  Marjorie Carmichael huddled in the back seat of the police car, flanked by her twin boys. They watched as ghostly figures, shrouded in white, drifted in and out of the house. Mist hung in the garden in ethereal patches, reflecting the rhythmic flicker of a rotating blue light.

  Marjorie wondered why they didn’t turn it off. The car door opened and an officer handed over three mugs of tea, mugs from her second-best set. She tutted and drew her cardigan tighter around herself. A sergeant approached.

  Marjorie heard him ask the constable if everything was all right. He didn’t wait for a reply. ‘Back to the station,’ he said. ‘They’re sending the heavy mob up from London to deal with this one.’

  ‘Homicide?’ said the constable.

  ‘SO15,’ said the sergeant. ‘This is a burglary gone wrong, got it?’

  The constable nodded. ‘Got it, Sarge.’

  ‘What’s SO15?’ asked Marjorie. One of the twins would know.

  ‘Counter-terrorism,’ replied the one studying political science.

  She was so proud of her boys.

  43

  Charlie smoothed a cowlick of brown hair back from Nikki’s forehead. ‘My good boy,’ she murmured.

  The good boy appeared to be in his late twenties. It was difficult to tell.
His moon face was pale and unlined. He had a sharp nose, which appeared to have been broken at some stage, and his eyes were of the same watery blue as his mother’s. His dark eyebrows formed neat arcs, which gave him a wide-eyed expression.

  Berlin and Charlie sat at the table watching him eat dumplings. He ate very quietly and with deliberate movements.

  ‘Why do you keep him locked up?’ said Berlin. She felt a bit uncomfortable, talking about him as if he wasn’t there. But her attempts to engage Nikki in conversation had signally failed.

  ‘I don’t,’ said Charlie. ‘I was locking you out. He doesn’t like to leave the apartment on his own, anyway.’

  She had produced a packet of something that looked like ravioli, little pasta pillows stuffed with grey meat, and heated them up on the gas ring. ‘Pelmeni,’ she said.

  Berlin watched, amazed by the transformation that had come over Charlie. Her stout torso had metamorphosed into a nurturing bosom. The gravel voice had softened. She had even stopped smoking, leaning close to murmur endearments in Russian and English, urging Nikki to eat.

  ‘He understands everything,’ said Charlie, ‘but he rarely speaks.’

  Berlin wished more people would show such restraint.

  Nikki’s alabaster complexion was marred by a livid bruise along one jaw.

  ‘What happened there?’ said Berlin.

  ‘Sometimes he becomes a bit rambunctious,’ said Charlie. ‘And hurts himself.’

  Berlin found herself waiting patiently for further explanation, as if she too had been infected by this tender atmosphere.

  But it never came.

  Nikki stood up.

  ‘Finished, Nikki?’ said Charlie.

  He nodded and trotted off, back to his wing, which Berlin had discovered contained the facilities she had believed were missing from the apartment. Now, at least, she might get a hot bath.

  When he’d gone, Charlie turned to Berlin. There was no sign of her gentle demeanour. ‘You must never tell anyone about this,’ she said. ‘There’s absolutely no need for you to involve yourself in my and Nikki’s affairs. Understand?’