‘But Baden said he was kept prisoner and used–’
‘–As I said, we usually leave this kind of thing to Interpol to sort out, it’s their bag. But back then young Solomon had come on board, and Interpol contacted us about King and Baden – and it was a bigger operation than just those two, let’s not forget – and asked if they could use Solomon to infiltrate them. We agreed… never saw him again.’
He shakes his head, takes another slurp at the mug. He must swallow every mug in about three goes.
‘How did Interpol know he was here?’
‘Oh, you know, we do occasionally speak to other departments. Down to chance to be honest. Happened through the FCO.’
‘We think Solomon’s dead,’ I say. ‘Sorry, the body that was identified as Baden twelve years ago…’
‘We know.’
‘Sorry?’
He drains the mug, tipping his head back as he does so, then settles it on the ledge after wiping the bottom on his trouser leg.
‘We worked it out at the time. He disappeared, a body turned up.’
‘Baden disappeared as well.’
‘Solomon knew they were onto him. Oh, he was good Solomon, he really was, but they were onto him. They knew their racket was coming to an end. So, they planned to kill Solomon, pass him off as Baden, Emily King would claim the life insurance, and then Baden would disappear. They would meet up at a prescribed time and place, and off they’d go and live happily ever after. So, we had one of our people in the area check out what was supposed to be Baden’s body. He knew it was young Solomon. But, you know how it is, it didn’t suit us straight away to say anything. We let them think it had worked. We thought we’d leave it a day or two. And then, we don’t know how, but Baden’s parents also identified the body, so suddenly everybody knew it was Baden. We decided to just let it run, see what happened.’
‘What did happen?’
‘Nothing!’ he says, and barks out another laugh. ‘Bloody nothing. We didn’t know where Baden had gone. We watched King to see what would happen, and nothing did. She collected the insurance money, that took some time, and then we presumed she’d fly. I don’t know, we kind of lost track after that. Iraq was in full swing, all kinds of shit started flying around, you had 7/7, and suddenly we weren’t so interested in Eastern Europe. Terrorists and extremists, that’s our game. That nice little period, when we had the time and resources to get up to all sorts, was suddenly over. Far as we knew, Emily King bought some abject little house in some depressing former ruddy fishing village in Fife and, I don’t know, waited for him. Absurd.’
He shakes his head.
‘All those years waiting, and then, when he finally turns up, someone kills her. Extraordinary.’
‘And you never said anything all those years. Solomon’s mother never knew.’
He nods.
‘I know. I felt bad about that.’
And that’s all he says, as though there was nothing that could have been done about it.
‘We need to tell her now.’
‘Of course. Just, you know, maybe don’t mention the Service. That’s all.’
He turns and gives me a vaguely remorseful look, as some sort of acknowledgement that this is the kind of thing that makes people despise and distrust us.
‘You know how it is, Ben, things get in the way, time moves on, etcetera, etcetera…’
I know exactly how things are around here, and depressingly, I know that I likely wouldn’t have done it any differently.
‘So, I don’t understand about Baden,’ I say, moving the conversation on, as the thought of Mrs Solomon, and the moment she receives the final, crushing blow, starts to eat its way into my head.
‘No, we didn’t either. At the time we wondered if perhaps King betrayed him as well, all part of the package, but she didn’t go off and live the life one would have expected if that had been the case. So, maybe someone else made the betrayal. Sold him down the river to the organisation they were working with, and Baden ended up in the middle of the forest in one of their basement cells. He can consider himself lucky, if that’s what it is, that they didn’t kill him. I presume that someone there, and I have no idea who that would be, knew him and made the decision to at least give him some sort of life, even if they weren’t prepared to let him go.’
‘Have we got enough to charge him now?’
‘I think we can hand over that kind of information.’
I nod, but of course, that won’t be my decision.
‘Interpol coming down?’ I ask.
‘You’ve got dibs,’ he says, like we’re in the playground. ‘We’re certainly not interested any more. Too much going on over here these days. This kind of business…’ and he dismisses it with a slight shake of the head. ‘I knew you were coming, so thought I’d give you another stab at him if you wanted.’
‘Does he know you’re onto him?’
‘He’s fairly impassive, from what I understand. But he can’t have been surprised, despite the fact that he would’ve given you a fair amount of misinformation when you saw him.’
‘Do we think he escaped or was let out?’
‘Definitely escaped, no one involved in this wants anyone knowing it’s happening.’
‘Why didn’t he just run in the opposite direction? Why come in at all?’
Alec takes a contemplative thumb and forefinger to his chin.
‘Speculation on my part, but I suspect he was scared and had had enough. Just wanted a soft pillow under his head, even if it was for one night at the expense of the British Embassy, or whoever. And now, possibly, he imagines he can buy some sort of amnesty by implicating all those who came before.’
‘Not knowing they’re all mostly dead.’
‘Or so we think,’ says Alec.
‘Do you know how many people we’re looking at in the UK.’
He waves another one of those desultory hands.
‘It’s kind of moved on from us, I have to say. Was never really our business in the first place, of course. I suspect it moved on from everyone. There were another couple of people up there that they had names for. I had a look at the file before you arrived, of course. Thomas Waverley, now dead. And an Andrew Gibson, works at Aberdeen. Was a kind of mentor to them all at the ruddy Conservative club or something.’
‘Gibson,’ I say nodding. That makes sense. He was either going to be a victim or he was going to have been the one doing the killing. ‘Talked to him a couple of days ago. He’s on my re-interview list.’
‘I think you might want to get someone to bring him in.’
‘I’ll speak to Baden first, but, yes, that seems likely. What d’you know about Rosco?’
He’s staring impassively out the window, then turns slowly, looking quizzically at me.
‘Rosco?’
‘Rosco.’
‘Name rings a bell.’
‘He was the policeman from Dingwall who went out to Estonia as liaison at the time. Seems more or less to have helped Emily King cover it all up, to make it look as though Baden had died. Went downhill afterwards. Ruined his career. Died this weekend.’
‘Interesting. I remember there being a policeman. Murdered?’
‘He was an alcoholic. Drowned in a pool of his own vomit.’
‘Oh dear.’
‘Nevertheless, impossible to say that someone wasn’t holding his face in the vomit when he died. No sign of a struggle, no sign of force, but he was likely unconscious from alcohol when it happened.’
He looks at me while I’m relating the demise of poor Rosco, and then he turns away, staring out the window. I follow his gaze.
The weather is reasonably bright, the day in the south-east unseasonably warm. Although, since that appears to be a phrase used more and more often, especially in the south-east, perhaps it’s time to adjust our expectations of the seasons.
A tour boat is going by, and we watch it, knowing that the eyes of the tourists will be looking up at us while the guide tell
s them that inside the building are the real-life James Bonds of the British Secret Service.
‘Don’t you feel,’ he says after a while, ‘that every day you wake up, the world seems a little sadder than it did the day before?’
41
Walking through the corridors of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, on my way to see Baden. Accompanied by a junior officer from EU section. I was expecting to be taken by a security officer to some basement room, tucked away somewhere in the bowels of the establishment. Instead, he’s taking me to one of the most decorated and written about rooms in the whole of British government.
‘You’re holding him in the Map Room?’
The kid, because he cannot be more than twenty-two, and possibly younger, doesn’t even look sheepish.
‘I don’t think we’re actually holding him, as such. We’re not the police, we don’t actually have the resources to hold anyone. We were told by Vauxhall Cross that the police would be coming to interview him, but that he’s not a threat as such.’
‘So, he’s been free to walk out the front gate if he wanted?’
‘Yes, of course. He stayed in a hotel last night.’
‘Which one?’
‘I think, I’m not sure, might have been the Dorchester.’
‘You’re kidding?’
‘I know, but orders from the top. They’re worried about it getting out, that, you know, a Brit was held prisoner for twelve years by some crazy gang of Russians, he finally gets home and we put him up in the Travelodge or an EasyJet hotel or some such. Would look terrible in the press. The Minister gets really pissy about those British-hero-treated-like-dirt-by-the-establishment stories.’
Hero? Who do these guys think they’ve got? Then again, it’s a fair point. There’s no doubt the press could make this guy out to be a hero if they wanted to. His survival, whatever the reasons he was there in the first place, has been pretty heroic.
Up a flight of stairs. A couple of people walk by, and I think I recognise the guy in the suit. A junior minister. I’ve seen him on the television explaining why we’re giving aid to such and such and doing nothing about somewhere else.
He’ll have a career for a while, and then he’ll be caught overseeing the supply of weapons to some group that are now using them against us, or he’ll be found in bed with someone he shouldn’t have been, or he’ll actually say something honest on social media, and his career will be over.
‘But why the Map Room?’ I ask.
I’ve been in the Map Room. It is as it suggests, where the FCO keeps all the old, extraordinary maps, from the days of Empire and before, many of them so old they can rarely actually be brought out.
‘It was free,’ he says.
‘This guy hardly deserves the Map Room,’ I say. ‘A small cubicle somewhere, with a chair and a desk and nothing on the walls.’
He shrugs. We’re walking along a corridor hung with pictures of old Foreign Secretaries, men of weight, Lords and Earls, in ermine robes. Designed to intimidate visitors. Look at us. Look how old we are. Look how long we’ve been doing this. You can’t possibly know as much about running things as we do.
‘No one said. Anyway, there was nothing else free. Hardly any space left now that most people are back in London.’
‘Why are most people back in London?’
‘Cost cutting. Most overseas jobs are locally engaged now.’
He stops at a large wooden door, opens it, steps inside, checks that Baden is still there, and is where he’s supposed to be, then ushers me in.
The Map Room. I’ve been here before. Large table, maps at one end, Georgian fireplace at the other, against which Napoleon and Wellington once leant. One of the great rooms refurbished when the Foreign Office was given a makeover and returned to its previous glory. Soon enough, in order to fund government, they’ll be charging tourists. They’d make a bomb. In fact, they could probably get about a billion from selling this room alone to an Arab prince or a Russian oligarch. Not that one billion would make too much difference to the national debt.
‘Please don’t touch the maps,’ says the kid, ‘and don’t leave the room until I come and get you. You can’t walk around unaccompanied.’
He hesitates a moment, as though expecting me to thank him for talking to me like I’m five, then he leaves, closing the door behind him.
* * *
‘Do you suppose I’m going to be able to believe anything you tell me?’ I ask.
I left Baden briefly to go and find a jug of water and two glasses. The twenty-two year old would probably consider that I went rogue. No one stopped me as I walked the corridors. Anyway, I couldn’t find any water, and in the end I stumbled across a Costa Coffee, which definitely wasn’t in the building the last time I was here. I bought two bottles of water, and returned to the Map Room.
We’re sitting across the table from each other. He has his hands clasped in front of him. Hasn’t touched the water.
‘Why would I lie?’
‘You weren’t entirely truthful when I saw you a few days ago.’
‘I didn’t tell you any lies, and I took you to where I’d been held in prison.’
There’s the word. It stands out right away. There’s his story, there’s the narrative his lawyer, when he gets one, is going to tell in court, should this ever come to court.
Yes, he did things he shouldn’t have. Yes, he was involved in some illegal trade. But he’s already been punished. He’s already served his time. He’s already done twelve years. There are murderers and paedophiles who get less than that. And ultimately, how many people in the UK benefited from what he was doing? How many people got a new kidney or a new liver? And the operation – of which he was but a minor cog – never once harmed any British citizen. (The lawyer, I suppose, would make some value judgement on the judge and jury before making that last argument.) He worked on the margins, he worked in the black market, he may have profited from it, but what he did was provide a service for people who were dying, and as a result he helped save lives. He knows that what he did was wrong, but look, he’s been in prison for twelve years. And not some cosy British prison, regulated to death by human rights lawyers. His was in a dungeon beneath a miserable and bleak farmhouse in a forest on the far edges of Eastern Europe. He helped people in the UK, and for his trouble he was treated barbarically.
Lawyers…
‘How do you see this playing out?’
‘I don’t understand why I was just left to wander the streets,’ he says. ‘I mean, I actually walked here this morning from the hotel. And I’m not in the papers. No one seems to know about me. Didn’t the Embassy report me turning up? Isn’t this a story?’
Some reasonable questions there, from the ex-prisoner, which I won’t be answering.
‘Someone appears to know about it.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Emily King is dead. She was murdered.’
Barely a flicker. Blinks a couple of times. Finally he breaks the stare and looks to the side. I don’t go in for all that, looking to the left means he must be lying nonsense. Like you can’t give it some aforethought. Look them in the eye and work it out for yourself. And then, if they’re good, it doesn’t mean anything anyway.
‘Thomas Waverley is dead. He was also murdered.’
Eyes stay steady off to the side. The fingers grip the bottle.
‘Who’s going to have been killing them off, John? And how did they know you were back on the scene? And, actually, why weren’t you on the scene in the first place? What’s the story, John?’
He looks rueful for a moment, or he plays the part of looking rueful, as those questions and the information are added to what he knows about the whole thing, which is, of course, far more extensive than what I know about it.
‘I didn’t know Emily was dead,’ he said.
Doesn’t look up. He’s either good at this, or he’s genuinely upset by it.
‘Don’t you think Emily betrayed you?’ I ask, a
lbeit I don’t actually think Emily betrayed him. ‘I presume it wasn’t part of the plan for you to spend twelve years being forced to have sex.’
That was cheap.
He looks at me now, the first sign of anger in his face, then he quickly lets it go.
‘Tell me how it played out,’ I say.
A slight head twitch, the one I’ve seen before. A shake of the head, lips move soundlessly for a moment, another twitch. He opens the bottle and drinks half of it without removing it from his lips. In the quiet of the room, the noise of him drinking is very loud.
He tightens the lid of the bottle, puts it back on a mat on the table. He adjusts it a millimetre or two.
‘I’m not talking to you,’ he says.
This will be the first mention of the lawyer.
‘People are dying, John,’ I say. ‘They’re dying because you appeared again from nowhere. They thought you were dead, and now you’re back, and people are dying. As soon as you get your lawyer, we’re screwed. Us, the police, are screwed. Now, look, look at me. I don’t have a notebook, I don’t have a microphone. I have nothing. Nothing you tell me now will be of any use to anyone in court. If I try, you will have one hundred per cent deniability. And anyway, I can promise you I won’t. I won’t be in court. You’re not my case. My case is the people getting murdered in Scotland. I need to stop that. We need to stop it. You can help. I need to know if there’s anyone else in the firing line, and I need to know who you think…’
‘OK.’
He fires it out, the two syllables bursting from his mouth, intended as brakes to stop me talking. I’d been quickening my pace, getting under his skin. Not lying either. I need him to talk, and will say anything to get him to do so, but I more or less don’t care what happens to him, and whether he can convince some judge that he’s done his time. I just don’t want any more murder. There’s been enough already.
I’m just about to mention his mother, who will obviously be able to positively identify him, and who therefore might be under threat as well. It’s a stretch, and I don’t actually believe she is, but I’m willing to throw anything at him. Mentioning her could backfire, of course, so it’s good that he cuts me off before I get that far.
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