43
From time to time, Stephen Taploe would lie to his agents, present a more optimistic view of an operation than was realistically the case. He did it to maintain their trust. He did it to keep them onside. Running a joe was a delicate art and he had been taught long ago that it was acceptable to manipulate the truth if an officer had one eye on the long-term gain.
So Taploe had lied to Mark about Timothy Lander. He hadn’t asked SIS to track him down because MI5 had done so themselves two weeks before, using phone records obtained from Divisar. In fact he had never wanted SIS to play any role in the Kukushkin investigation, for fear that he would lose control of the case, and out of a more personally motivated concern that they would discover that Christopher Keen had been an agent for MI5. Keen’s dealings with the Swiss bank had also provided a convenient smokescreen which Taploe had used to lure Mark into co-operation; there was no evidence at all that Kukushkin or any other syndicate had funds lodged in Lausanne. Furthermore, in the cab Taploe had failed to disclose his intention to recruit Juris Duchev; Mark’s suggestion that he try to do so had been merely a coincidence. For seven weeks, Service analysts had been weighing up the risks of running the Latvian. On Sunday, Taploe had made his pitch.
The team had Duchev’s routine down pat. He was up at six every morning, usually switched on the television in the sitting room of his flat, cursed in his native tongue as he tooka shower, then rang his daughter in Jelgava to catch her before she went off to work. Between five past and ten past seven he would walkfifty metres to a greasy spoon down the road and find a seat in the window. It turned out that Duchev had a fondness for British breakfasts. Thelma, who had run the cafe for fifteen years, knew him on sight and knew his order: plenty of black pudding, a heap of baked beans, two sunny-side fried eggs, at least three pork sausages, several rashers of bacon and a pair of pip-oozing fried tomatoes. Duchev ate it all up, wiping his plate clean day after day with margarine-smeared pieces of toast. ‘You better get to him quick, boss,’ Ian had joked. ‘We’re not careful, he’ll be dead from a heart attack before he’s any use to us.’
Taploe had waited in the cafe from six forty-five on Sunday morning, flicking through the dreck and betrayals of the News of the World. Duchev appeared half an hour later, washing his breakfast down with three cups of Thelma’s indifferent and scalding coffee. Ian had the van outside — just for observation — but it had proved surprisingly easy to strike up conversation and to take Duchev for a walk around Shepherd’s Bush and to let him know that he was being watched around the clock and that he would find himself doing time unless he gave Her Majesty’s Government his full co-operation. Taploe knew all about the land in Andalucia, you see — a last-minute bonus from Mark- and all about the Bosnian prostitute in ParkWest Place that Duchev was banging and beating up behind Tamarov’s back. Taploe didn’t let on about Macklin, of course, nor profess any knowledge of the Libra conspiracy. It was enough to imply that his days as a criminal underling were numbered. He was offered a generous cash sum in return for his co-operation — and advised to keep his mouth shut.
Forty-eight hours later, the timing of Taploe’s pitch would form the subject of intense discussions at both Thames House and Vauxhall Cross. Why, for instance, had Taploe risked alerting a senior figure in the Kukushkin organization to a law enforcement presence without a cast-iron guarantee that Duchev would turn? Why, furthermore, had he attempted to recruit the Latvian just as Mark was cementing his relationship with Tamarov on Monday night? Hauled before a grey-faced committee of his superiors, Taploe would later be asked to account for every minute of the weekend, beginning with the journey by cab he had taken with Mark and Ian on Saturday morning, and ending with the events of Monday night. Time and again he insisted that every precaution had been taken. Tamarov had confirmed the venue for the dinner as the St Martin’s Lane Hotel on no fewer than three separate occasions. The position of his reserved table had been established and steps taken to secure that specific area of the restaurant for sound. A separate table, occupied by Service personnel, had also been reserved for observation. Mark had agreed to travel to the meeting by car and to have his own vehicle wired on the understanding that he would offer the Russian a lift at the end of the evening and attempt to start a conversation about Macklin. Ian Boyle had been assigned to tail the vehicle from Mark’s flat in Torriano Avenue.
Little of this made any impression on the members of the panel, who sensed blood and seemed determined to bring Taploe down. Something of an i-dotting, t-crossing bureaucrat himself, it nevertheless occurred to Taploe that something reductive in human nature emerged within the context of institutions. Normally sympathetic, sound-minded colleagues appeared suddenly to revel in his misfortune.
It was as if his peers derived as much satisfaction from the suffering and collapse of one of their own as they would from the successful arrest and conviction of a hardened criminal. Either development, after all, could be termed progress, of one kind or another.
44
Ben worked it out inside ten minutes.
Robert Bone had been dead for three weeks. The CIA, alerted to the murder, had obtained access to Bone’s house in New Hampshire and found a copy of his letter to Ben on a PC or word processor. SIS had been alerted immediately and the linkto Keen’s death established. Teams — perhaps from Special Branch — were then dispatched to obtain the original version of the letter from Elgin Crescent and the second copy posted to Mark’s flat in Torriano Avenue. That was why Mark had never received the letter; that was why the original had gone missing from the shoebox in the studio. SIS had then instructed McCreery to convince Ben that Bone’s theory about Kostov was a deception spun by the Americans. The meeting at the British Museum had been engineered: McCreery had waited until Ben was alone and then coolly plied him with Guinness and lies. SIS were covering up, trying to disguise the fact that a renegade KGB officer was killing its former associates and employees. McCreery had known all along who was responsible for his friend’s murder, yet he had concealed the truth to protect the public reputation of British Intelligence.
What Ben could not work out, however, was any link between Kostov and Kukushkin. Nor was it clear what Bone had done to trigger such an act of vengeance. Ben assumed that the CIA had also been involved in Mischa’s recruitment, but it was a question to which he felt he would never know the answer. It was possible that Bone’s death was simply a coincidence, a random act of American violence visited upon the wrong man. Not for the first time Ben felt weighed down by ignorance, embarrassed both by his slender grasp of the facts and by the ease with which McCreery had duped him.
Towards nine o’clock, out of simple expedience, he decided to tell Alice about his brother’s workfor MI5. At first her reaction to the news was measured and sanguine. Sitting by an open window in the kitchen, a draught of winter air goosepimpling her skin, Alice listened very quietly as Ben documented the extent of Macklin’s involvement with Russian organized crime and seemed pleased that Roth would almost certainly suffer as a consequence of it.
‘He knows nothing about this,’ she said, with a conviction that annoyed Ben. ‘When he finds out, he’s going to go crazy.’
Ben asked her how she could be so sure, and she barely skipped a beat.
‘Just from talking to him. I get the impression Macklin pretty much runs Libra nowadays. Seb’s too busy with other projects.’
‘What kind of other projects?’
‘Well, the restaurant I was writing about, for a start.’
‘But Macklin’s involved in that too.’
‘Only in a legal capacity. Tom’s just a partner.’
They sat in the kitchen over a supper of takeaway pizza and flat bottled Coke. Ben enjoyed the process of knitting things together, of finding their structure and shape. At one point he put his elbows on the table and seemed to draw an idea out of the air.
‘You should write about this,’ he said, ‘about all the shit that Libra are up to. You should writ
e about Kostov, about the whole fucking thing. That’s what they fear. That’s what SIS will stop at nothing to prevent. It might really help your career.’
Alice only shrugged in response and moved uncomfortably in her chair, as if something were digging into her back.
‘Something just occurred to me,’ she said. ‘SIS can’t know anything about this. They can’t know about Kukushkin’s involvement with Libra. And Randall probably has no idea that Kostov is going around killing MI6 agents.’
‘Explain.’
Alice started kneading the flesh in the palm of her hand, as if it would somehow help her to think.
‘It’s simple. If McCreery knew what Macklin was up to, if he was aware that Kukushkin was laundering money through Libra, he could have blamed your father’s murder on the Russian mafia. That’s the obvious line MI6 would have taken.’
‘But what about Bone’s letter?’
‘That’s just what I’m saying. When you were talking to McCreery in the pub, why didn’t he tell you about Macklin’s links to the mob? That would have been the perfect response to the Kostov story. It would have taken you right off the scent. But instead he blames a diving instructor in the Cayman Islands and some random private bank in Lausanne.’
Ben was nodding, searching for a flaw in the theory. ‘And Randall?’
‘Same thing.’ Alice stood up. ‘Randall doesn’t know about Kostov. And he’s never even heard of Mischa. McCreery’s people are keeping this to themselves. The last thing SIS want is MI5 laughing at them. They must be going crazy trying to track Kostov down.’
Ben was amazed by the simplicity of it. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘And Mark wasn’t going to say anything to Randall because he didn’t believe Bone’s letter, especially when he heard what McCreery thought about it. He thought the whole Kostov thing was bullshit.’
‘Precisely.’ Alice walked into the sitting room, looking for cigarettes. ‘We have to tell your brother,’ she said.
‘He’s not returning my calls. I already tried three times.’
‘Then leave him another message. The sooner he finds out about this, the better.’
45
But Mark was already on his way to the St Martin’s Lane Hotel and steadfast in his refusal to speakto Ben. It had been a mistake to involve him in his work for MI5. Drawn at last into something more complicated than the application of paint to a canvas, little brother had waded way out of his depth.
Mark’s attitude seemed justified when he listened to the tone of Ben’s first telephone message just after six o’clock. He was walking in the door from Libra and ignored the call when he noticed its origin as Elgin Crescent. The subsequent message, played aloud into the sitting room, was a rushed and word-swallowing garble about ‘fucking Jock’ and ‘Sudoplatov’ and it angered Mark that Ben had carelessly mentioned their names on a land line. Two hours later, after sending no fewer than three text messages urging Mark to ‘CALL ME’, Ben telephoned again, but Mark was shaving in the bathroom with the radio on and the news of Bone’s death passed him by.
He regretted his confession in the garden; everything had been simpler before Ben’s inexpert participation. Prior to Wednesday, Mark had thought of his work for Randall as a private, dignified tribute to his father’s memory, and he was annoyed with himself for having lacked the courage to continue that task in secret. At least tonight he had the opportunity to meet Tamarov alone and to develop their relationship free of Ben’s interference.
Taploe had made his final contact at seven thirty to ensure that Mark was set. As had been the case on Sunday, he again avoided mentioning that Ian would be tailing Mark’s car to the meeting, and had said nothing about the Watchers who would be positioned across from Tamarov’s table in the St Martin’s Lane Hotel. This was standard operational procedure: he didn’t want Mark second-guessing the position of MI5 staff while the meeting was in progress.
‘Rest assured we’ll be keeping a close eye on you all the way in,’ he said. ‘Just go where Tamarov takes you, don’t try to rush anything along. It’s important that you appear amenable without seeming eager or greedy. Remember, he sees you as essential to Kukushkin’s long-term success. Accept his offer of a job, but askthe right questions about control and hierarchy. Tell him you need a break after what has happened to your father and that Roth will understand your situation.’
At ten past eight, Mark picked out his favourite Hayward suit and then, as a conscious expression of his duty to Keen, a pale blue Brooks Brothers shirt which had belonged to his father. It fitted perfectly, tailored as if for the same two bodies. In a further moment of conscious sentiment, Mark then selected a pair of silver cufflinks that his mother had given him as a twenty-first birthday present. He had fifty minutes to reach the hotel for the nine o’clock appointment, and time for a beer in the sitting room before walking to the car. There was no sense in being rushed.
He was turning on the television when Tamarov contacted his mobile. Glancing at the display, Mark felt a thud of worry that he was calling to cancel the dinner. Muting the TV, he put his drink on the floor and said, ‘Vladimir?’
‘Yes, Mark, hello.’
‘Is everything all right?’
‘A change of plan, my friend. A change of plan.’ His voice was jovial and easygoing; it was hard to picture the expression on his face. ‘I meant to call before but I have been very busy with work. I am sorry.’ It sounded as though the Russian was calling from a deserted building; there was an echo of open space. ‘Perhaps we can meet for dinner an hour later. I have altered our reservation. This is appropriate?’
Mark smiled at the mistaken idiom and said, ‘Yeah, no problem.’
‘But I am thinking I should introduce you to Christina at the restaurant before we meet for dinner. I am standing with her now.’
‘Christina?’
‘She would be your assistant in Hackney. It’s not possible for her to come to the West End because she is working here. Do you remember where to come?’
‘Sure.’ It did not cross Mark’s mind that he should tell Randall about the change in circumstance. Just go where Tamarov takes you. Don’t try to rush anything along. Besides, Christina might be pretty.
‘You will come by cab?’ Tamarov asked. It didn’t sound as though he cared about the answer. ‘By car?’
‘Car, probably,’ Mark replied, and used the excuse that Randall had given him. ‘Stops me drinking too much.’
Tamarov laughed enormously.
‘Then this is easy for you. The traffic is not so bad. Avoid King’s Cross with the roadworks and breakdowns. I came through Highbury Islington and got here in ten minutes. Just avoid the one-way system near the restaurant.’
‘You were speeding, Vladimir?’ Mark joked, trying to match his breezy mood.
‘Not me,’ Tamarov replied. ‘Juris. The Latvian, he drives like a maniac.’
46
Torriano Avenue curves steeply uphill, left to right, but Ian Boyle had a good view of the street from his position in the Southern Electric van. He saw Mark emerge from the house at 20.25 wearing a black coat and carrying a mobile phone. It was like catching sight of an old friend in the distance: the easy, sloping walk, the way Mark’s head bobbed from side to side as if swayed by thought or music. On a typical London evening in late winter, indistinct of colour and temperature, locals drifted into the corner shop at the foot of the hill and emerged with flimsy green plastic bags filled with cans and milk and videos. A very faint mist was visible in the glow of the streetlights as Ian dialled Taploe’s number.
‘Yes?’
‘Boss. He’s leaving now. Getting into the car.’
‘Good. Contact me again if anything changes. I’m just sitting here waiting at my desk.’
Ian started the engine as Mark started his. Sounds inaudible to one another, just two vehicles leaving the street. He let Mark reach the top of the avenue before pulling out and followed the black Saab as it slipped into a stream of cars heading south a
long Brecknock Road.
Ian had been listening to Jazz FM while he waited and he turned up the volume on a Billie Holiday cover of ‘Summertime’, humming the tune in the shunting traffic. The job was so routine he drove almost on autopilot, keeping the van a hundred metres back from the target, separated by three, sometimes four other cars. He knew Mark to be a decent driver, quick and liable to switch lanes smoothly in the quest for space. One time, ages ago now, back when Taploe had his suspicions, he had been tailing Mark from Heathrow and lost him at the Hogarth roundabout, just disappeared into the Chiswick streets never to be seen again. Ian thought the same thing was about to happen when he saw the Saab make an unexpected turn off York Way, the two-lane north-south artery feeding traffic into King’s Cross. He was sitting high up in the van and had a decent view of Mark’s car as it steered left towards Islington.
‘Where you going, mate?’ he muttered to himself, and had to accelerate through a changing amber to stay on Mark’s tail.
They were on Market Road now, not the route Ian would have taken to the West End but maybe Blindside knew a short-cut, a trick. After all, there were roadworks in King’s Cross until April 2047, so maybe he was doing them both a favour. Still they kept heading east, crossing Caledonian Road, then directly into the heart of Islington.
‘What’s he up to?’ Ian said again, shutting off the radio to concentrate. That was when Taploe put the call through to his mobile.
‘Boss?’
‘Ian?’
‘What’s going on? I’m tailing Blindside to the hotel but it’s arse about face. He’s on his way east, taking me into Highbury.’
‘There’s some confusion,’ Taploe said.
Ian was speaking hands-free, a microphone clipped to the sun-visor above the wheel.
‘What kind of confusion?’
Taploe took a while to respond.
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