Mirror Mirror: A shatteringly powerful page-turner

by Nick Louth

  ‘It’s not an uncommon name,’ Virgil observed.

  ‘Ah. But this fellow was a fine artist. Couple of sketches still on the embassy walls somewhere, he believes. Burbage recalls Pearson as a louche fellow, a womaniser, vain, lazy and rather supercilious. Indeed, that was the general opinion in Moscow, though someone back home must have thought highly of him to post him there to begin with. But then Burbage let on the main thing he recalled about Pearson, a phenomenal memory. Burbage once queried the guest list for a dinner which included a new official submitted by the Russian Trade Ministry whom none of them knew. Pearson interrupted, and quoted from memory the entire intelligence file on this former KGB officer, right down to the name of his children, mistresses and the address of his dacha.’

  ‘Amazing. But that doesn’t get us very far, I suppose.’

  ‘Well, it does and it doesn’t,’ Childswicke slurred. ‘Burbage reckons that Pearson may be the agent code-named Tarkus, who stole the Black Sea submarine codes in 1992.’

  ‘Now you’ve lost me,’ Virgil said.

  ‘Okay. Recall that after the break-up of the Soviet Union, the Russians were desperate to retain control of the full nuclear deterrent from the Ukrainians who, geographically at least, were entitled to control many nuclear missile silos and most of the Black Sea fleet with its nuclear missile subs. In 1994, Ukraine did actually give up that right, not before a lot of internal struggle within the naval hierarchy. Now, Tarkus tried to get the mechanised codebooks, which generated fresh launch codes every day, and smuggle them out. But actually what he got was different. It was the abort codes, available to the Kremlin, to override launches, obviously essential to make sure that an independent Ukraine could never target their former masters. These weren’t freshly generated, and Burbage believes it would have been quite possible for them to have been entirely memorised, potentially giving the UK an ability to abort any Russian missile launch. His belief is reinforced by the fact that Russian sources indicate a female Ukrainian officer was turned to gain access to the codes, and she worked in Moscow, not Odessa or Kiev. Pearson, the charming lothario, would have been an ideal candidate to turn the female officer, and significantly he was removed from Moscow by London by 1995.’

  ‘So if Pearson retired as, what, a twenty-five year old what would have happened to him?’

  ‘Most agents end up in the security industry as consultants. But those who are considered vulnerable to retribution are given a new identity and location. Something like a witness protection programme. Assuming that is they weren’t considered suitable material for the espionage hierarchy. If Pearson was Tarkus, his life would certainly be in danger.’

  ‘So it would be safe to say that Pearson wouldn’t be a name he would be identified with in civvy street.’

  ‘Indeed. We clearly don’t have all the aliases.’

  * * *

  FIVE DAYS

  Ram Dipani’s family home in Belgravia was a four-storey end of terrace townhouse, with nine bedrooms, five reception rooms, a library, basement gym, wine cellar and a glass-ceilinged swimming pool on the rooftop. It was also the perfect place to keep Mira safe. Ram was away on business, but his mother enjoyed showing Virgil all the features.

  ‘We bought this from a Russian oligarch in 2009, so it has a panic room with its own air-supply, infra-red cameras front and back and rooftop movement detectors. We don’t have a dog, but anyone tampering with door or window locks generates an authentic-sounding dog bark from speakers inside,’ said Mrs Dipani.

  ‘That’s very impressive,’ Virgil said.

  ‘We don’t normally have all this stuff set-up, but considering what has happened, we’ll get the man from the company to make it shipshape and show you how to operate everything. I think she’ll be completely safe. Although I won’t always be here myself, we have two members of staff here at all times.’

  ‘That’s very kind, Mrs Dipani,’ Virgil said.

  ‘So how long will she be staying, may I ask?’

  ‘Only three days. She’s got to attend a funeral on Friday for a little girl, and it would look awful to cancel that. Then she’s meeting Prince Harry on Saturday to talk to some wounded veterans.’

  ‘Ram is hoping to get her to Mumbai for a month soon after,’ Mrs Dipani said.

  ‘That’s a great idea,’ Virgil responded. ‘I wish she could go today.’

  * * *

  A quarter to midday. Virgil was at Christie’s in South Kensington, making a risk assessment ahead of the afternoon’s Art with Conviction auction. Mira’s involvement, as with PlanetThirst, was as an adornment. A brief introduction, then standing around being photographed, and a dinner with the ever-present oligarch Ulan Kulchuk, art collector and admirer. Security was going to be challenging. The ground-floor hall had seating for hundreds, and anyone could come along.

  Virgil was accompanied by a bespectacled young man called Tristram Clatterby, who looked about twenty-five but dressed like someone twice his age. Clatterby, a specialist in the Post-War & Contemporary Art department, pointed out that Mira, along with auctioneers and other art officials, had a separate side entrance to the bidding room which buyers could not use. ‘Security back here is pretty tight, for obvious reasons,’ he breezed. ‘Can’t have someone wandering off with a hundred-million-pound Modigliani, can we?’

  Virgil picked up the brochure and flipped through the list of artists whose work was being sold. ‘So you do have some stuff by Wōdan. I was wondering about that.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Clatterby. ‘He’s really hot right now. The thing about him and some of the others is that there is such a clear experiential spice to the oeuvre, and being so recent of course the provenance is rock-solid. Collectors love the idea of a narrative behind the work. But of all the prisoner art I have seen, Wōdan is easily the most collectible.’

  ‘I wonder what sort of man he is?’ Virgil said.

  Tristram took off his heavy-rimmed spectacles and gestured towards the auditorium. ‘Well, you may get the chance to find out. Mr Kulchuk yesterday requested that we find him a seat among the Künzler Trust party.’

  ‘You mean he’ll be here, this afternoon?’

  Tristram grinned broadly as he guided Virgil up towards the stage, at the back of which several large artworks were kept sheeted. ‘Yes indeed, with appropriate security of course. It’s all been rather kept under wraps, but Broadmoor has given its approval, we understand. Mr Wōdan is rather keen to see his work being auctioned.’

  ‘But he’s a convicted murderer, an evil psychopath!’ Virgil exclaimed.

  ‘No doubt, Mr Bliss, no doubt. But, sometimes from out of the darkest abyss a redemptive talent emerges that the world is entitled to see.’ With a flourish, Clatterby whipped off a sheet from the nearest artwork, revealing Wōdan’s crucifixion triptych.

  ‘Now tell me, Mr Bliss. Don’t you think that this is a genius which should be unshackled?’

  Virgil was speechless. His eyes were drawn to the female centurion, embracing but impaling the Christ figure. The woman’s face was absolutely obvious. It was Mira, definitely. And in just a few hours she was going to come face-to-face with the man who’d painted her.

  * * *

  Virgil’s impassioned call to Thad was met by a blank refusal. ‘Virgil, there is no way she is going to cry off from this auction. She’s contractually obliged to be there. It’s a big earner, cash upfront. If she doesn’t show, there are break clauses that would cost us thousands.’

  ‘What if we say she’s sick?’

  Thad took a couple of minutes to look up the small print. ‘Nope, as I thought. Feigning sickness doesn’t help. The clauses still apply, and the insurance company will only pick up the tab for the break clause if their panel of three independent doctors unanimously agree that she is ill. Virgil. Do not tell her. I don’t want her getting nervous.’

  ‘But what if she sees him?’

  ‘Virgil. She doesn’t know the guy, isn’t that what she told you? So she won’t e
ven recognise him. I really think you are worried about nothing.’

  But Virgil was ever more convinced. Mira did know Jonathan Pearson, or whatever his real name was.

  * * *

  Virgil Bliss was waiting with Tristram Clatterby when Ulan Kulchuk’s midnight blue Rolls-Royce drew up, twenty minutes before the auction was due to start. Kulchuk’s own bodyguard, a slender and saturnine Israeli called Nome, guided Mira out. She was dressed in figure-hugging black flared trousers with a bolero jacket over a white frilly blouse. Her hair, now back to its natural chestnut shade, was piled high to display five-inch long platinum earrings, encrusted with emeralds, matching a pendant around her neck. She and Kulchuk stopped for photographers on the steps, with him standing one step above in a vain attempt to cancel out the height difference.

  ‘Nice earrings,’ Virgil said, as he fell into step beside her.

  ‘A present from Ulan,’ she whispered.

  Virgil wondered what Mira’s new boyfriend Ram Dipani would make of this act of generosity. Kulchuk was supposedly going through a messy divorce but clearly had time and money enough for grand gestures in other directions. Tristram led them all to an anteroom, where Mira was offered coffee and cake while Kulchuk went off to make arrangements. Virgil left Mira there for a moment, and slipped past a curtain into the auction room. It was now quite full, not just of the well-dressed and well-to-do as Virgil had expected, but a much broader range of the public. There were plenty of press too. Those registered to bid could be identified by the numbered paddles on their laps. Along the front a bank of telephones were manned by suited young men and women, ready for bids from foreign buyers, and there was a screen above the auctioneer’s podium which gave bid values in six different currencies. Virgil had earlier seen the Künzler Trust seats, towards the back on the left-hand side. Though he could see the Bishop of Uxbridge, obvious from the maroon shirt and dog collar, and a rather elderly man next to him, there were still three unclaimed seats in the row behind.

  As he watched, three people walked in together from the back. A very big grey-haired man, bearded, in a shapeless suit, then a blond man in a sports jacket and white trousers, and finally a statuesque black woman in a trouser suit. As they crossed the aisle to sit, a good twenty rows from the front, Virgil glimpsed a circlet of black around the ankle of the man in the middle: perhaps an electronic tag. Yet he could easily have passed as a Christie’s official or a wealthy buyer. He was poised and dapper, the clothes well-tailored, the shoes polished. Wōdan. William Mordant. Jonathan Pearson. Acid murderer and artist. A man seemingly obsessed with Mira.

  The auction was due to start in five minutes. Virgil walked up the aisle towards the Künzler Trust group. The bishop was talking to the man to his left, and Virgil’s eyes instead made contact with Mordant. He smiled at Virgil as if they were already acquainted.

  ‘And how is Ms Roskova today?’ he asked.

  Mordant smiled at Virgil’s hesitation. ‘Oh, don’t worry, I’ve seen your face in some of the newspaper coverage. On the way to visit that poor footballer, I’ve forgotten his name, in hospital. Then at the Albert Hall. My name is Wōdan.’

  ‘So you are a keen follower of Mira?’

  Mordant laughed. ‘Metaphorically only. But tell me, do you enjoy protecting such an exquisite beauty? Do you not suffer…temptations?’

  ‘I’m a professional,’ Virgil said. ‘And everything that comes with it.’

  ‘So, it’s hands off for you, eh?’ Mordant chuckled.

  Virgil ignored the question, and caught the eye of the black woman. ‘Oh, this is my own security assistant, Hope Trenchtown’, Mordant said, with a twinkle in his eye. ‘And next to me is my head of security, Geoffrey Featherstone.’

  ‘Virgil Bliss,’ Virgil said, reaching out to shake the meaty arm Featherstone held out.

  ‘I wouldn’t listen to any of his nonsense,’ Featherstone said, tipping his head towards Mordant. ‘We’re here to keep him in order. He doesn’t get out much. But some of these are his paintings. We’re hoping to break the million-quid barrier.’ He gestured towards the front, where the auctioneer was now taking his place.

  Virgil headed back to his allocated seat at the side, where he could keep an eye on the audience. A Christie’s official made an introduction, then Mira emerged from behind the curtain and walked to the podium. After the strobe-storm of flash photography had finished, and the applause had died down, she read a speech. She welcomed the considerable interest generated in Art with Conviction among buyers, and stressed how important the money raised was to further the cause of rehabilitation and victim support. Throughout her delivery, Virgil saw no sign that she had spotted Wōdan, until near the end. ‘Particular thanks are due to the Künzler Trust, the Bishop of Uxbridge and Mr Ulan Kulchuk for having made the event possible…’ she said, gesturing towards the seats where they were sitting. She blinked, open-mouthed, and then froze. She jerked her head down to the papers in front of her, frowning. ‘So ladies and gentlemen, I would just like to…just like to…um.’

  For a moment, Mira seemed suspended in mid-air, her head adrift on that long neck, her eyes drifting up behind her eyelids. Even as the crowd gasped, Virgil was already off his seat, but not quickly enough to catch her. Mira banged her head on the wooden podium as she slid to the floor, knocking off microphone and papers. Virgil shouted for a doctor, then knelt by her side, slipped off his jacket and placed it underneath her head. A crowd gathered around him, and as the hubbub intensified Virgil felt he should move her somewhere safer. Her eyelids fluttered, and she murmured something.

  ‘Mira, Mira, wake up,’ Virgil said, kneeling by her side. Someone passed him a glass of water. He looked up and saw the faces of Tristram Clatterby and Ulan Kulchuk.

  ‘You need to get everyone back, give her space,’ Virgil said, scanning the faces above for the one he most feared to see. Mordant wasn’t there, but his minder, Hope Trenchtown, was. ‘I’m a nurse,’ she said. She knelt down by Virgil’s side and asked for his help getting Mira into the recovery position. Hope unbuckled the six-inch heeled Manolo Blahnik’s from Mira’s feet. ‘Ridiculous shoes,’ she muttered. They then shifted her gently, so she lay on her side, supported by one arm and one leg.

  Over the PA, Christie’s announced a half hour delay to proceedings, and many of the buyers began to drift away for refreshments.

  Finally, Mira stirred. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. Did I faint?’

  ‘Yes, honey, you did,’ Hope said. ‘Quite spectacular, a real Swan Lake job. But you’re going to be just fine now,’ she smiled.

  Mira sat wonkily on the steps of the stage, giving Virgil the chance to stand and look for Mordant. Just a few yards away stood the bearded guard Geoff Featherstone, clearly doing exactly the same. He hurried past Virgil. ‘Hope!’ he shouted. ‘Hope? Is he with you?’

  Hope looked up, puzzled. ‘I left him with you.’

  Virgil grabbed Featherstone by the arm. ‘You’ve not lost him, have you?’

  Featherstone shook his arm free. ‘Not yet I haven’t.’ He lurched off towards the entrance.

  Mira was still woozy, so Virgil bent down and picked her up. She seemed to weigh nothing. He whirled around to Kulchuk. ‘Can you get your car to the loading bay straightaway. We need to get her out of here.’

  ‘To hospital? Is she still sick?’ the Kazakh asked.

  ‘We just need her away from here, right now. I’ll explain later.’

  Kulchuk nodded, looked up and clicked his fingers. The bodyguard Nome appeared as if from nowhere, and Kulchuk gave him rapid instructions. Tristram Clatterby led Virgil through a back corridor and into his office, a high-ceilinged den of books and artefacts. Virgil set Mira down on a large green leather wing chair.

  ‘Mira, listen to me. William Mordant has escaped. He’s here in the building, and may well try to get to you. I need you to be honest for once, and tell me what you know about this guy. I can’t protect you if you don’t cooperate with me.’

  Mira buried
her head in her hands as if about to cry, but made no sound. She stood, chewing her carefully manicured nails, her dark brows freighted with worry. To Virgil she seemed like a churlish teenager contemplating an exam for which she had done not a minute’s revision. Nome walked in, and announced in a thick accent that the car was in the loading bay. Virgil thanked him, and hurried Mira out of the room, his arm supporting her. As Nome held the door open, Virgil noticed a bulge in his jacket under the armpit. A shoulder holster, it could be nothing else. Mira clearly wasn’t the only person with enemies.

  As they led her out to the loading bay, Clatterby took Virgil aside and asked him a question. ‘I overheard that Wōdan has disappeared. Is that true?’

  Virgil allowed himself a grim chuckle. ‘Yes, and it’s pretty serious. Wōdan is William Mordant, the acid vat murderer.’

  Clatterby’s face distended in horror.

  ‘Yep,’ Virgil said. ‘He dissolved three schoolgirls in a vat of acid back in 2005. And he’s desperate to get his hands on Mira. Perhaps some geniuses should never be unshackled.’

  Clatterby’s jaw hung open. No words emerged.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  William Mordant was amazed it had been so easy. He’d feasted his eyes on the real-life Mira Roskova, so grown up now from all those years ago, and every bit as perfect in the flesh as he had hoped. But he’d had no idea she would faint when she saw him again, what a bonus. Perhaps she finally realised that her destiny was catching up with her. Slipping away in the chaos hadn’t been hard. Hope, God bless her, had rushed to help. Featherstone had been distracted, standing up to get a better view, leaving his jacket hanging on the back of his chair. It had been the work of a moment to take the wallet from inside. Then to ease himself away, and out of the auction salon. But one could forgive them both their incompetence, their lack of preparedness. Who would expect the artist to abscond before the auction at which his life’s work was to be sold? Especially a man who had never given a moment’s trouble during his entire time in Broadmoor.