The hidden man am-2

by Charles Cumming

  ‘There they are,’ one of them said, pointing at a pair of shoes. ‘Nice, aren’t they?’

  ‘Bit tarty,’ her friend replied.

  Denby glanced down the street. Macklin and the Russian were moving again, heading south into Wellington Street in the direction of the Strand.

  ‘So you’ve made up your mind then?’ Macklin was saying into the phone, his voice a rumble of disappointment.

  ‘’Fraid so, mate.’ Mark felt guilty that he was letting his friend down. But the argument with Ben had forced his hand: he just wanted to go home and get a decent night’s sleep. ‘There’s a lot of things I’ve got to clear up at the flat,’ he lied. ‘Then the police want a final inventory. I just don’t have time to come down.’

  ‘Fine. Whatever,’ Macklin said, and snapped the casing shut without adding goodbye. ‘Bad news, Yerm,’ he turned to Tamarov. ‘It’s just gonna be you and me, mate. Keeno’s had to cancel.’

  ‘This does not matter,’ Tamarov told him, after a moment of contemplation. ‘It does not matter at all. In fact it is better this way. I have important business that we need to discuss and then I would like to go home.’

  23

  Stephen Taploe was at a dead end. For the best part of six months he had assumed that the investigation into Libra’s activities would make his name within the Service. Secret dreams of promotion had raised him out of bed every morning; they had walked with him to the station and comforted him on the tube. He longed for the unfiltered approbation of his colleagues, their admiring smiles and whispered congratulations. But he could sense his entire career stalling on the fruitless search for conspiracy between Libra and Kukushkin. Six months of surveillance had produced — what? A thousand hours of phone taps and eavesdropped conversations revealing little more than Libra’s predictable determination to make a success of the Moscow operation. GCHQ had fax and email intercepts — letters to real-estate agents, tax lawyers, employment agencies — which were consistently mundane, simply the logistical pile-up of documents and contracts that would rain down on any company setting up a business in post-Soviet Russia. As well as occasional police reports from Moscow on the activities of known Kukushkin personnel, they had Watchers tracking Libra’s meetings in London — the last of them between Macklin and Tamarov filed by Michael Denby two days before, complete with a ninety-five pound attachment for ‘expenses’ accrued at a lap-dancing club in Finchley — none of which had revealed anything that could be termed abnormal or suspicious. Taploe had always held with the basic, optimistic belief that massive surveillance would, in the end, bear fruit. But what had Paul Quinn uncovered? The odd attempt by Macklin to exploit a loophole in British tax law and three Russians working on the bar at the club’s London site without adequate employment papers. Meagre tricks played by companies the world over, little ways of wriggling around the law. Taploe and Quinn needed something concrete, something with which to penetrate the cell structure of Russian organized crime in the United Kingdom. That was the purpose of pursuing the Libra connection, as a staging post into a much larger problem. And yet, increasingly, Taploe felt that he had missed his chance.

  From his desk- tidy and well organized, it betrayed none of the accumulating chaos of the operation — he retrieved the initial police report into Christopher Keen’s murder. No clues, no leads, no theories. Another dead end. Just blind panic at Thames House that an agent had been murdered and threats to shut the entire operation down. Taploe, in his defence, had pointed out that Keen had not been tortured for information; nor was it a signature mob killing, the motorcycle assassin favoured by Viktor Kukushkin in Moscow. No, in a desperate bid to preserve control of the operation he had argued that Keen’s death was a fluke, a random accident in a season of bad luck. There was no need to over-react, no need to take his team off the case. Just give it time and they would unravel the mystery. Just give it time and they would bring Kukushkin down.

  His pleas had at least bought some time. Taploe, in effect, was now on final warning; without results in a matter of weeks, he would be back on Real IRA. He was convinced that a link existed between the shooting and Keen’s work for Divisar, but it was impossible to prove it. Investigations had shown that in the weeks before he died, Keen had been assisting a private bank in Lausanne with clients in the St Petersburg underworld. Perhaps there was a link there. But how to establish that? Where to start?

  There was a knock at the door of his office, three floors up at the north-western corner of Thames House.

  ‘Tea, boss,’ Ian Boyle said, setting a mug down on the desk. His tie hung at half-mast and the collar on his shirt was frayed.

  ‘Just leave it there.’

  ‘You all right, boss? Look a bit knackered.’

  Taploe ignored the question and conveyed with a twitch of his moustache that he felt it impertinent.

  ‘Get the file on Mark Keen, will you?’

  ‘Sure,’ Ian replied, and retreated towards the door.

  There was now a siege mentality about the operation, an imminent sense that a plug was about to be pulled. Something close to panic had begun to spread through the team, fanned by Taploe’s failure to redirect the investigation. It was like Ireland all over again: the boss looking downtrodden and frustrated, his ambition coming up against a wall of compromise and bad luck.

  Ian returned with the file five minutes later, set it down and left without speaking. Taploe exhaled heavily as the door clunked shut and immediately began flicking through the material: photographs, email printouts, credit-card receipts, phone logs, surveillance reports. In all probability, a file on an innocent man, just as Mark’s father had insisted.

  The idea, planted admittedly by Quinn, had been in his mind for three or four days. A last chance. The one person close to the centre with access to unambiguous information who could reveal the truth about Macklin and Roth.

  He picked up the phone and dialled Mark’s office direct. A secretary answered at Libra Soho, first ring, with a voice like an advertising jingle. In a single breath she said: ‘Good morning Libra International how may I help you?’

  ‘Mark Keen, please.’

  It felt like the final throw of the dice. To establish a source on the inside. Not the father, who could only ever have been peripheral, but the son.

  ‘Who shall I say is calling?’

  ‘My name is Bob Randall.’

  ‘Just putting you through now.’

  There was a two-second delay, then, ‘Hello. Mark Keen.’

  He recognized the voice like an old friend, the street consonants, the slackened vowels.

  ‘Mr Keen. Hello. My name is Bob Randall. I work for BT. Advanced telecommunications.’

  ‘Someone forget to pay our bill?’

  Taploe felt that he should laugh, and did so.

  ‘On the contrary, Mr Keen, on the contrary. Not at all. Actually I have a business proposition for you. A little venture that I think Libra might be interested in. I understand you’re the company’s executive director. How are you set for lunch next week?’

  24

  Sebastian Roth lived alone, in the palace of a self-made man. His Pimlico house, valued at?2.4 million, was actually two properties knocked together, with staircases at opposite ends of the building, like reflections of one another. He had bought both houses as ruined shells, and their conversion, including the construction of a 40 ft swimming pool in the basement, had taken eighteen months, a period in which Roth had lived in a suite at the Lanesborough Hotel whenever he was not travelling abroad.

  He had no wish to share his life with a woman, and yet he longed for the diversionary pleasure of an affair, something to distract him from the relentless tide and pressure of work. Since adolescence, Roth had designed his life as a series of obstacles to be overcome: win that award; make that first million; buy that rival’s company. The moral or social implications of his behaviour rarely troubled him. He simply did not calculate into any decision the possible repercussions for those around him. His w
as an almost sociopathic indifference. He would do as he pleased, and deny himself nothing. A man in such a position, anointed with the twin blessings of private wealth and perpetual cunning, can begin to feel untouchable, as if no harm can befall him. If Roth was vain, he did not recognize it; if he was cruel or mendacious, he did not care. The arc of his life was aimed solely at the pursuit of his own pleasure.

  As he was shaking her hand at the funeral, he had resolved to sleep with Alice Keen. It was as simple as that. This was just a challenge, something to lighten his days, the thrill of which would be derived as much in the planning as in the final seduction itself. The long, pale drawing room on the first floor of Roth’s house was scattered with deep suede sofas and expensive works of art. In the corner nestled a Bang & Olufsen hi-fi, in the wall a widescreen digital TV. Yet he no longer derived pleasure from them. Studying a prospectus for investments in St Petersburg, looking at spreadsheets for the Moscow operation, he cast his work to one side and busied himself with the first components of a plan. He would lure Alice with the promise of contacts and scoops, gradually allowing their relationship to assume a more personal character as her career thrived. At the funeral, he had witnessed the sheer opportunism in her eyes, a throttling ambition concealed by the trick of beauty. She was too good for Ben, Roth decided, and gave no further thought to their marriage. His only concern was that it would all prove too easy. His only dread was that his boredom might last.

  25

  Bob Randall arranged to meet Mark not at BT’s head office in Newgate Street, but at the Whiteley’s shopping centre in Queensway, a vast Americanized mall heaving with coffee bars and marble.

  ‘Will that be all right?’ he had asked on the phone.

  ‘It’s just that there are one or two individuals at my company — how can I put this? — that I’d prefer were left in the darkabout our meeting. Sorry to be so mysterious. I can explain everything when we’re introduced.’

  Taploe enjoyed the Randall alias: the role allowed him to loosen the tie of his self-restraint. When, for example, he shook Mark’s hand at the top of the Whiteley’s second floor escalators, he felt almost hearty, and there was an uncharacteristic swagger in his walkas the pair made their way to a half-empty Mexican restaurant near by. Taploe felt that he had made mistakes in his recruitment of Keen, mistakes that he was determined to avoid a second time round. Too often he had surrendered control, allowed his contempt for SIS to cloud his better judgment. This time things would be different: Mark would respect him from the word go, and differences of class or status would not become an issue. With an understanding of who was boss, Taploe was sure they could get things done. Indeed, he ordered two lagers from the waitress and felt very optimistic about it.

  ‘So who at your company knows that we are meeting here this afternoon?’ he asked.

  Mark was still settling down in his seat and said, ‘Nobody. Just Sam, my office manager.’

  ‘It’s in your desk diary?’

  ‘Palmtop, probably. Why?’

  They were facing each other across a tile-topped table, laughter echoing in the mall. Taploe preferred to make a target ‘conscious’ of his identity at an early juncture in any conversation of this kind.

  ‘Let me come clean right away,’ he said. ‘It was necessary to employ a little subterfuge to lure you here today. I don’t workfor British Telecom. I’m actually an officer with the Security Service.’

  Taploe waited for an appropriate reaction, but Mark’s response unnerved him. He simply said, ‘OK,’ and removed his corduroy jacket.

  ‘I work for MI5,’ Taploe explained, as if he had failed to understand.

  ‘I’d gathered that,’ Mark said. ‘And you’re investigating my father’s murder?’

  ‘Among other things, yes.’

  Their waitress, a tired-looking eastern European woman wearing thick black eyeliner, set two bottles of lager on the table and walked off. Mark’s eyes followed her and then came back to the table.

  ‘Other things?’ he said.

  Taploe poured the lager carefully into his glass and made an effort to compose himself. He felt that he had already lost ground.

  ‘What do you know about my organization?’ he asked.

  ‘Back of a stamp,’ Mark replied, rubbing two days of stubble on his jaw. Taploe was worried that he looked bored.

  ‘Right.’ He pushed up his sleeves. His arms were creamy and hairless and dotted with pale red freckles. He pushed them backdown again. ‘Our taskis to root out criminal organizations working in the United Kingdom. Excise fraud, human trafficking, prostitution. We go after drugs smugglers, money launderers, football hooligans, any individual or group of individuals who may pose a threat to national security.’

  ‘You must be busy then,’ Mark joked and, like a ghost, Taploe caught a family resemblance in the grin that flashed across his eyes.

  ‘Very,’ he replied.

  ‘So how does my father fit in?’

  ‘Well, why don’t we order first?’ By delaying his response, Taploe hoped to generate a little suspense. This, after all, was the part of the job he most enjoyed: the power afforded by privileged information. Let him feel that he is about to become involved in something beyond the commonplace. Let him sense that he is at the edge of his father’s secret trade. Over time, Paul Quinn had been able to build up a comprehensive profile of Mark Keen, a psychology that suggested he would comply with today’s pitch. Where Keen had been stubborn, Mark was biddable and kind; where the father had been haughty, the son was more modest and conscientious. Taploe also knew, from recent phone and email intercepts, of the ongoing argument with Ben. The two brothers had not spoken for days. Mark would be anxious to prove, if only to himself, that he had been affected by their father’s murder. What better way to prove that than to work towards tracking down his killer? A song began playing out of a speaker above his head and Taploe felt rejuvenated, more able to control his adrenalin. Beckoning the waitress over he ordered extensively from the menu, while Mark opted for the set lunch. When she was out of earshot, he continued.

  ‘You want to know how your father fits in.’ Mark bobbed his head. ‘Well, before I answer that question directly, it would be useful if I could make some enquiries of my own.’

  ‘Go right ahead.’

  ‘First of all, at what point did your father tell you about his workfor SIS?’

  Mark again rubbed his jaw — it was becoming a reflex — and picked a fork up from the table.

  ‘After about two or three months.’

  ‘And he asked you to keep that information a secret?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘And did you tell anybody?’

  ‘I did, yeah.’

  ‘How many people?’

  ‘Just one.’

  ‘Your brother?’

  ‘My brother.’

  Taploe was about to say ‘Benjamin’ but he thought better of it.

  ‘Nobody else?’

  ‘Nobody.’

  ‘Not even a friend, Mark?’

  ‘Not even a friend.’ Mark looked annoyed. ‘What are you getting at?’

  Steeling himself, Taploe bounced his moustache into a smile.

  ‘Nothing unsavoury, I assure you. But you must have found it difficult keeping that sort of information to yourself. A father who was a spy. A member of your own family involved in an organization — ’

  ‘Mr Randall…’

  ‘Call me Bob, please…’

  ‘I don’t know how much you know about my family, but that thought never crossed my mind. I didn’t have anybody I would have wanted to tell. It wasn’t difficult keeping Dad’s past a secret. It was just between me and him and Ben.’

  ‘Now that’s exactly what I wanted you to say.’

  Again Taploe smiled, and mistook the look of irritation on Mark’s face for nerves.

  ‘What you wanted me to say? I’m sorry, I’m confused. You’re not from British Telecom, you’re not here to do business with the club and
you’re not from the police. You ask me a lot of questions about my father…’

  Taploe leaned back and brought his hands together in a badly stage-managed gesture of conciliation. Stick to the plan, he told himself. Stick to the plan.

  ‘I apologize,’ he said. ‘I was merely trying to conduct what I call a test.’

  ‘What you call a test,’ Mark echoed flatly.

  ‘It’s just that I would need you to be similarly circumspect with what I am about to tell you.’

  Circumspect. It was a word Taploe had not thought of in years. Appropriate to the requirements of secrecy. Exactly right for the purposes of their conversation. He must remember to use it again.

  ‘The information I am about to share with you would have to remain confidential. In spite of the fact that it concerns your father, you would not even be able to discuss it with Ben.’

  Mark appeared to hesitate, as if reluctant to be drawn in, then nodded, saying, ‘I understand.’ Taploe proceeded to assess the immediate vicinity. There were six other customers in the restaurant, none of them within earshot: two teenage girls ten feet away having a giggly lunch; a young Middle Eastern man by the far wall dropping globs of mince and lettuce from a crunchy taco whenever he brought it to his mouth; three American students at the door making enough noise for a table of eight. No listening threat, in other words, from neighbouring tables.