The Moroccan Girl

by Charles Cumming

  Their conversation had taken place in full view of the RA members, many of whom had visited the Summer Exhibition and were sheltering from an afternoon storm. Carradine was surprised that Somerville had not insisted that they go to a Service safe house or take a room in a hotel; in his novels he had always staged sensitive conversations of this kind in secure environments. He had told them everything he could remember about his initial contacts with “Robert Mantis,” his encounter with Ramón on the plane, the meeting with Oubakir at Blaine’s, even his chat with the mysterious “Karel” on the train to Marrakech. At the mention of Karel’s name, both men had looked at each other knowingly and decided, by silent agreement, to tell Carradine that “Karel M. Trapp” was in fact a Czech émigré and Agency asset in Casablanca whom Hulse had instructed to follow Carradine onto the train and to provoke him into a discussion about Resurrection.

  “I needed to know more about you,” he said. “Didn’t make sense you were meeting with Oubakir at Blaine’s. Basora was shooting his mouth off, we knew he was one of the Mantis agents. When I called London, Julian here had never heard of you, so I figured either you were researching a book, like you said you were, or maybe you were working for Moscow.”

  “So who killed Ramón?” Carradine was back in the wilderness of mirrors, dizzied by names, stunned by the Karel revelation, and all the time wondering what the hell had happened to Lara.

  “Who knows?” said Hulse. “Took a girl up to his hotel room, fucked her, cardiac arrest. Maid found him a day later. Told the cops Basora had offered her money for sex. Kind of a charming guy, wouldn’t you say?”

  Carradine remembered the girls in Blaine’s, the glint of Hulse’s wedding ring as his hand caressed Salma’s thigh. Had the girls been on the Agency payroll as well?

  “So—what?—you looked around town for Lara, you eventually see her at the festival and just follow her back to your riad?” Hulse seemed keen to move the conversation along.

  “That’s right,” said Carradine.

  The American smiled, lowering a dollop of clotted cream onto a scone. By Carradine’s reckoning, he had already consumed three scones and four chocolate chip cookies. He dropped a scoop of strawberry jam onto the cream and brought it up to his lips.

  “And the Irish guy, the writer…” He put at least half the scone into his mouth and attempted to say: “What was his name?” without dropping any crumbs.

  “Michael McKenna,” Somerville replied. “I read his most recent book. Bloody good.”

  “You think he’d met her before?” Hulse asked.

  Carradine shook his head. They spoke at length about what had taken place in the riad. He told them about the fight in Bartok’s apartment, the meeting with Oubakir on the street, even his doubts and concerns about Hulse when the American had shown up out of the blue.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Sorry about that. I knew you were hiding something. Just didn’t know what it was.”

  It was a revealing admission of incompetence. Over a third cup of tea Carradine told the men about the drive to Rabat, the flat on the Corniche, the slice of luck with Patrick and Eleanor. He felt bad giving up their names but hoped that any interest the Service or the Agency had to take in them would be confined to a quick look at their emails and a light vetting. Somerville had been asking most of the questions.

  “So you reached Barbate marina,” he said, “you went ashore for breakfast, Lara said she was going into town to buy a newspaper, then the lady vanishes?”

  “Precisely,” Carradine replied.

  “She leave a note?” Hulse asked.

  “She did.”

  He could remember every word of it, every full stop and comma, even the slant of Lara’s handwriting. He kept the letter in his wallet, folded up next to a photograph of his mother. He wasn’t going to tell them any of that.

  “What did it say?” Somerville asked.

  “Just that she was grateful to me for helping her out. That she was sorry to run away, but didn’t want to involve me any further in what she was doing.”

  “And what was she doing, do you think?”

  Carradine shrugged. The answer to Hulse’s question was surely obvious.

  “Running away from guys like you,” he said.

  Somerville smiled. Hulse did not.

  “Did you sleep with her?” Somerville asked.

  “Is that relevant?” Carradine replied.

  “Man’s got a point,” said Hulse, licking his lips clean of clotted cream. “Irrelevant.”

  “I’m not so sure.” Somerville moved his head to one side in a rather studied, eccentric manner, as though he was still trying to work out if Carradine was saint or sinner. “What are your feelings toward her? What did you conclude about her work for Resurrection?”

  Hulse indicated that he should answer. Carradine wanted to do so without giving the appearance that he was infatuated with Bartok and dismayed to have lost contact with her.

  “I thought she was great,” he said. “Funny, bright, strong.”

  “Hot,” said Hulse and received a look from Somerville.

  “Yes,” Carradine continued. “Lara is very beautiful.” His interlocutors glanced at each other, as though Carradine had already provided them with cast-iron evidence of the depths of his love. “I found her easy to talk to. She was very straight with me, sensitive around what had happened with Stephen Graham.…”

  “Sensitive,” said Hulse. “You mean finding out you weren’t working for the Service, you were actually working for Moscow?”

  “Of course that’s what I mean.” Carradine wondered why Hulse had seen fit to remind him of his humiliation. “She said that she’d known Graham, implied that he’d been in love with her, but that he hadn’t known that she knew he was a Russian agent.”

  “That’s about right.” Somerville was absentmindedly brushing crumbs from the table.

  “How would you know that?” Carradine asked.

  “Know what?” Somerville replied.

  “That Lara knew Mantis was a false flag.”

  Somerville reared back in his seat. He looked simultaneously impressed by Carradine’s question and extremely cautious about answering it.

  “You don’t miss much, do you, Kit?”

  “Not anymore.” Hulse was also staring at him. He smiled automatically when Carradine caught his eye. “Seriously,” he said. “Answer the question. How do you know about Lara’s dealings with Mantis?”

  The two men again looked at each other. It was hard to discern who was in overall command: the Brit or the Yank? Carradine had not yet been able to pin down Somerville’s personality or objectives. His mood seemed to depend on what was being discussed and who was discussing it. He could seem distant and formal; he could be jokey and relaxed. These contradictions extended to his appearance: in a certain light Somerville’s features were indistinct, even bland; at other times his face came alive with ideas and questions. Even his responses about Bartok had been confusing to Carradine. He knew that Somerville was holding something back.

  A mobile phone rang on the far side of the Members’ Room. It was a long time before it was answered.

  “You’ve never signed the Official Secrets Act, have you?” Somerville reached into the pocket of his jacket.

  “No,” Carradine replied. “Not a real one, anyway.”

  Somerville took out a small piece of paper and placed it on the table. It was identical to the document Carradine had signed in Lisson Grove, down to the texture of the paper. Hulse produced a pen with the flourish of a magician’s assistant.

  “I suggest that you do so now,” said Somerville. “Then we can really start to get to know one another.”

  43

  Fifteen minutes later the driver picked them up on Piccadilly and drove the short distance to a mock French brasserie in Soho. There were reproduction Toulouse-Lautrec prints on the wall, black-and-white photographs of Jeanne Moreau and Yves Montand in the bathroom. The waiters wore black waistcoats and white apr
ons and spoke with Eastern European accents. Edith Piaf was playing on the sound system. Sitting at a small wooden table close to a zinc-topped bar, Hulse ordered a Diet Coke, Somerville a pint of lager and Carradine a large gin and tonic. He had wanted a vodka martini but thought it would be absurd to ask for one in front of two bona fide spies. No explanation was given for the change of venue. Somerville was very specific about picking the table; Carradine wondered if it was wired. He had now signed the Secrets Act and was effectively under oath. Yet if that was the case, why not take him to a safe house?

  “Here’s the basic situation.” Somerville was picking at a bowl of peanuts and trying to be heard over “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien.” “Ramón was a paid agent of Stephen Graham. Let’s call him Mantis for the sake of clarity. One of many on his books. Drug problem, alcohol problem, hooker problem.”

  “So he wasn’t murdered?”

  “Oh, he was murdered all right,” said Hulse. “Moroccan police tried to make out it was accidental. An overdose. But the Russians got to them. Covered it up.”

  Carradine wasn’t particularly convinced by that answer. It could just as easily have been the case that the Agency had killed Ramón and paid the Moroccan authorities to keep it quiet. In fact, Carradine hadn’t been particularly convinced by anything Hulse had told him. Throughout the debriefing he had developed a sense that neither man knew as much about him as he had expected them to know. He was being assessed and appraised; it was almost as if they were trying to work out whether or not to keep using him in whatever operation they were cooking up.

  “Mantis asked Ramón to keep an eye on you and to help in the search for the girl.” Somerville spoke with seeming authority. “Needed to know that you weren’t going to blab your mouth off about LASZLO. The irony being that it was Ramón who was indiscreet. Searched for information about her online. Dropped hints that he was engaged in secret work.”

  “He said that to you in the club in Casablanca?” Carradine asked, turning to Hulse.

  Hulse nodded. “Guy was a mess, but I guess Mantis was desperate and using anybody he could find. Bottom line, Moscow wanted to find Bartok and bring her in. Mantis wanted to protect her. Used all kinds of means and methods to achieve that. Moscow found out, pushed him under the train.”

  “And you?” Carradine asked. “Why do you want to find her so badly?”

  “I’m afraid at this stage that’s above your pay grade, Kit.” Somerville pushed the peanuts away, perhaps remembering that his doctor had warned him not to consume too much salt. “We just want to talk to her. She knows a lot. She could put some pieces of the puzzle together.”

  Carradine could feel his temper beginning to fray.

  “Listen,” he said. “If you want me to help you, I need to know what’s going on.”

  “What makes you think we need your help?” said Hulse.

  Carradine was stuck for an answer. He found himself saying: “I care about Lara. You’re not the only ones who want to keep her alive.”

  Somerville sipped his pint. Hulse did the same with his Diet Coke. It was as though they were both thinking the same thing.

  “You’re in love with her,” said Somerville.

  “Is that a statement or a question?”

  “Statement,” said Hulse, pulling the peanuts toward him and throwing a handful down his throat.

  “I am not in love with her.” Carradine was annoyed to be talking about his personal life with two men he wouldn’t have trusted to help an old lady across the road. “I’m just fond of her. I like her. I’d like to see her again.”

  “Fond of her?” said Hulse, as if nobody had used the term since the latter half of the nineteenth century. “What does that mean?”

  “It means he went native.” Somerville showed a sudden flash of spite. “It means Lara persuaded him that Ivan Simakov was Gandhi with a side order of Mandela. It means he thinks she’s a paragon of revolutionary virtue, a woman of conviction, a misunderstood heroine fighting for a righteous cause.”

  “You have no idea what I think about her, or Ivan Simakov for that matter.” Carradine was shocked by how quickly Somerville’s mood had turned. It occurred to him that both men were trying to provoke him, perhaps as a test of his temperament. “I read somewhere that Simakov was a Russian intelligence officer before he founded Resurrection. Is that true?”

  Tellingly, Somerville and Hulse both looked down at their drinks.

  “I’ll take the Fifth on that,” said Hulse.

  “Me, too,” said Somerville then, jokingly: “Come to think of it, we need a Fifth in this country.” He succumbed to the temptation to eat a lone peanut and said: “You were going to tell us how you feel about Resurrection.”

  “Yeah,” said Hulse, glad to be switching subjects. “How do you feel about them, Kit?”

  Carradine looked around the deserted brasserie. The floor was a chessboard of polished black-and-white tiles. It occurred to him that he was most likely a sacrificial pawn in whatever game Hulse and Somerville were playing.

  “First of all, I don’t think of Resurrection as ‘them,’” he said. “It’s not a group. Resurrection began as an international movement of individuals, all of whom were seeking the same outcome.”

  “What, like Manchester United fans?” said Somerville. Hulse smothered a grin.

  “If you like.” Carradine did not want to be deflected from his answer. “To be honest, when I first became aware of Resurrection a few years ago, the purity of Simakov’s intentions, the plain language of the manifesto, I warmed to it. I supported it. The people they were targeting were disgusting. They were liars, narcissists. Many of them were criminals who should have been in jail. I was glad when Otis Euclidis was exposed as a charlatan. I was glad that Piet Boutmy was attacked in Amsterdam. I liked it that the center Left was finally getting off its arse and fighting back instead of wasting time moaning about the animal fat content in the new five-pound note or protesting about the absence of gender-neutral toilets at the LSE.” Hulse looked confused. “The world was going to shit and the people who were taking it there were getting a free pass. There had been right-wing coups d’état in my country, in Russia, in Turkey, the United States. Resurrection chimed with me, just as it chimed with many of my friends, my father, with hundreds of thousands of people around the world.”

  “You didn’t think for a moment it was a bit naïve?”

  The supercilious tone of Somerville’s question suggested that he would tolerate only one kind of answer. Carradine took a long slug of his drink and said: “In what way?”

  “Oh, in the way that a bunch of semi-radicalized, ludicrously idealistic liberal intellectuals trying to make the world a better place is always a bit naïve. What did they do in those first halcyon months? Throw a pot of paint here. Chuck a shoe there. Kidnap a couple of here-today-gone-tomorrow journalists? ‘Give me a break,’ as our friend from across the Pond might say. You didn’t think human nature might get in the way?” Carradine opened his mouth to reply but Somerville was up and running. “Never underestimate the vanity of self-styled revolutionaries. ‘Man the barricades, guys. Let’s revive the spirit of ’68. We’re the new Black Panthers. This is our Prague Spring.’ It’s all a pose, all nostalgia, like everything nowadays. Revolutionaries? Don’t make me laugh. Take away their iPhones for five minutes and they’d have a seizure.” It looked as though he was finished, but Somerville added a coda. “What was the phrase Simakov used in the manifesto? ‘Those who know that they have done wrong.’ Have you ever heard anything so ridiculous? It’s a miracle anybody took him seriously.”

  “What do you mean?” Carradine was wondering why Somerville had become so agitated. It was as though he had a personal stake in some aspect of Resurrection’s activities.

  “I mean how are we, as human beings, supposed to identify such people? ‘Those who know that they have done wrong.’ They can’t even identify themselves. What Simakov and his merry band of followers failed to realize is that most people ar
en’t particularly interested in playing nice. They want to join the groups that have their hands on the levers of power. They want to gorge themselves at the same troughs that have enriched the so-called ‘elites.’ They don’t want to smash the state; they want to assist it so that they can join in the fun. People are greedy, Kit. Human beings are selfish, competitive. You’re a novelist, for Christ’s sake. Surely you’ve realized that by now?”

  “The only thing I’ve realized is that you’ve been working too long for an organization that sees only the worst in people.” Carradine was waiting for Hulse to add his two cents, but the American seemed content to listen. “I have much greater faith in the essential decency of humankind.”

  Somerville repeated the phrase with scornful condescension—“the essential decency of humankind”—and drained the last of his pint. Hulse looked on with an expression of benign amusement. “Isn’t that touching? You should have known, just as Lara and Simakov should have known, that ideological movements of the Resurrection sort, particularly those that take on a paramilitary quality, are always hijacked by thugs and bigots, by the intolerant, holier-than-thou ‘no platform’ crowd, by the self-righteous and the misguided.”

  “Maybe so,” Carradine replied, aware that Somerville had referred to Bartok by her first name twice in the space of five minutes. “Maybe so. But there was nobility at the outset. The possibility of real change. There was hope.”