‘Look, let’s try and calm this down,’ Asim said, smoothly insinuating himself between Beckett and his man. ‘Paul, I understand you’re upset.’
‘Upset? People have died. Charlie was a damn fine person.’
‘Hey,’ Saul cut in, colour spotting his cheeks. ‘So was Chris.’
‘One of the best,’ Beckett said, inclining his head so that his eyes were level with Tallis’s.
‘This was supposed to be an off-the-books job, highly sensitive, highly secret,’ Tallis said. ‘Because of your crass interference, you’ve blown the entire operation.’
‘Don’t be so dramatic,’ Beckett sneered.
‘Oh I get it,’ Tallis said, white with fury. ‘You don’t think we’re good enough. You want to upstage us with your own people, cast a smear. What is this? Departmental payback?’
‘I suggest we take five,’ Asim said hurriedly.
‘No,’ Tallis said, smashing his fist down on the nearest table, cracking the veneer. ‘I want answers to questions and I want them now.’
‘You’ll do as…’ Beckett began.
‘It’s fine,’ Asim said, both palms up. He looked at Tallis. In all the time Tallis had dealt with Asim, his handler looked in control, always ahead of the game. Now he looked plain uncomfortable. Something was going on, but Tallis couldn’t work it out. The realisation that there were other plans at play had a sobering effect. It was as if someone had chucked a bucket of ice-cold water over him. ‘What questions, Paul?’
‘Who are you working for?’
Asim frowned. ‘I don’t quite understand…’
‘This is a UN operation, right?’
Asim exchanged a glance with Beckett that Tallis again failed to read. ‘Isolde Chatelle came to us in confidence.’
‘Bit irregular, isn’t it?’
‘We deal in the irregular,’ Saul butted in, fixing Tallis with a stony expression.
Tallis ignored him. ‘What’s in it for British interests?’
‘We belong to the United Nations,’ Asim said with a dry laugh. ‘Their problem is our problem.’
‘Frankly, I’m astonished by your naivety.’ Beckett tutted.
‘Coming from the man who sanctioned an operation where nobody knew what the hell was going on, I find that mildly amusing,’ Tallis said.
Beckett drew himself up to his full six feet four inches. ‘Your insubordination has not gone unnoticed.’
Tallis’s voice dropped to a menacing level. ‘I’ll let you into a secret. I don’t work for you.’ In that instant he knew exactly what he was going to do next. It was dangerous, reckless and quite possibly professionally suicidal, but with nothing left to lose it put the control back with him, and control was vital. He felt suddenly serene and calm and, most important, free.
‘Saul, you may leave now,’ Beckett said. ‘Asim,’ he added, twitching his head towards the door to an adjoining room, ‘a word.’
All three trooped out. Tallis, crushed by exhaustion, dropped down on to the nearest chair. Every muscle, sinew and bone of his body ached. His mind stubbornly remained numb with shock. He wanted to close his eyes and sleep for a week. They remained closed as Asim and Beckett returned to the room. After a few seconds Beckett cleared his throat, a signal, Tallis supposed, that an announcement deserving of his attention was about to be made. He complied by opening his eyes and met his handler’s steady gaze. Tallis wondered if they’d tossed a coin to decide who was to be spokesperson. He’d always trusted Asim. You had to trust someone. Now he wasn’t so sure. Now he felt the only person he could trust was himself.
‘We want you to stay with the operation,’ Asim said, a determined light in his eyes.
‘There is no operation. It’s screwed.’
‘We’re still in play. We haven’t yet fully debriefed the general…’
‘Have we a name for the woman who got away?’ Tallis cut in.
‘Bina,’ Asim said.
Tallis looked off.
Asim continued. ‘We’ve put out an alert on ports and airports.’
‘She’s probably gone to ground.’
‘We need you to find her.’
‘Is this a request?’
The hesitation was minor but it was there. ‘If you like.’
‘I don’t like. In fact, I’m minded to whistle-blow the whole damn fiasco and what I consider to be gross mismanagement.’
Beckett, hawk-eyed, spoke next. From the expression on his face, what should have been the clearing up of a minor operational detail had assumed a different and complicated dimension. He spoke as if he was armed to the teeth, every word carrying the weight of a jail sentence behind it. ‘Two of our people have paid the price with their lives. With your off-the-books status, it would be easy enough to pin the blame on you. It’s what we, in the official security services, call plausible denial.’ Beckett’s lips parted, but there was no smile. Tallis looked at Asim, who stood expressionless. He felt as if the ground had opened up beneath his feet and swallowed him whole. ‘There is no escape,’ Beckett continued, his voice perfectly modulated to better conceal the threat. ‘We will come after you and have you removed, if necessary.’
‘You bastard.’
‘True. The department is full of them.’
Silence penetrated the room. Tallis could feel his breath coming out of his nostrils in spurts.
Then he straightened and stood up. His look was directed solely at Asim.
‘I quit.’
Beckett shook his head. ‘I thought I’d made your position perfectly clear.’
‘Paul,’ Asim intervened, ‘don’t be hasty. We need you for this.’
Tallis’s laugh was cold. ‘What you need is a fall guy.’
‘Take some time, twenty-four hours…’
‘Do your worst,’ Tallis growled, striding towards the door.
‘You’re a rogue agent now,’ he heard Beckett say as he tore out into the empty corridor.
Yes, he supposed he was. And he knew exactly what happened to people like that.
PART TWO
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Russian ghosts accompanied Tallis on the arduous journey back to Birmingham, their familiarity a comfort, a means of detaching his mind from more current apparitions. He hadn’t yet fully grasped the significance of Charlie’s death. One of the peculiar things about him, on the delivery of bad news, was that it took him roughly two to three days for the shock to wear off and pain to register. When it did all hell broke loose.
He drove without stopping to Birmingham. He thought he might be followed, but there was no sign of a surveillance team – not to start with. On the home straight, turning into his road and final destination, he clocked an Audi parked several doors down from the bungalow. Clearly visible inside, two men, one in the driver’s seat, the other in the rear. Tallis was puzzled. Normally the guy behind would remain concealed, but this man didn’t seem too bothered about showing out. Apart from that, there was no sign that other points of exit and entry were covered. Their presence was designed purely to send a message, he realised. Tallis didn’t think it was: come back, all is forgiven.
He drove up the short drive and parked in the carport, then got out and walked lazily back down the road to the Audi. Tapping on the window, he crouched so that he was level with the driver’s eyeline. The window slid down. The driver turned towards him, stone-faced.
‘Just so we’re clear,’ Tallis said, smiling coldly, ‘I’m housed.’ Jargon for when a target goes to his final address of the day. ‘So job done and you can sod off for the evening. One other thing,’ he said, straightening up. ‘Tell those bastards who pay you I’m not changing my mind.’
Inside, he checked the place for electronic listening devices and came up empty. From a cursory glance, it didn’t look as if anyone had been inside. Then again, a security search, unlike a police probe, would be carried out with as little disruption as possible.
Next, he turned his attention to the phone. No doubt it was tapped. T
he light on the answering machine was flashing like crazy, denoting that there were several messages. He pushed the ‘play’ button and winced at the sound of his mother’s desperate voice. Jana was beside herself, apparently. Not the only one, he thought, turning down the volume control.
In the kitchen, he advanced on the cupboard where he kept a bottle of whisky. Twisting off the cap, he poured a straight three-finger measure into a glass, tossed it back to offset a sudden wave of nausea and poured himself another. Taking it through to the lounge, he sat down on the sofa, feet up on the coffee table, and took another more ruminative sip. He’d always been a loner. It had been his choice. Now he had no option.
He gulped more whisky in an attempt to wipe out the sharp tang of betrayal that tasted so strong on his tongue. Why had Asim thrown him to the dogs? Because he could? Because he had no choice? Because Beckett had dirt on him? Tallis spooled back through the reams of conversation and briefings. Right from the off, Beckett had assumed the role of senior player. Tallis didn’t think this a simple matter of experience and age over youth. There was something more fundamental at play. An old score, a different agenda that went back to the last mission. What if the rumours that Asim had personally ordered the removal of Christian Fazan, a Secret Intelligence Service officer, were true? Had Beckett known Fazan? Had he been a close friend? Surely, friendship offered no protection from treachery? Tallis smiled sadly. He should know. In the service of his country he had killed Graham Darke, his oldest friend, a man who’d lost his moral bearings and turned rogue. A good man who, corrupted by life, became a bad man. Did the same fate await him? Beckett’s final warning became a raucous noise in his ears. Tallis considered whether he, too, was destined for a lonely death on a mountainside. Or would they come for him in the night, in an anonymous hotel room, perhaps? Maybe even in the cold light of day?
Troubled, he got up, flexed and rolled his shoulders, went over to the window and noted that the Audi had disappeared. The street looked as it always did. A little bit scruffy. Hedges in need of a trim. Litter blowing about on the pavement. People trotting down the road to the pub after a day’s work. This could be my world, he mused. Nine to five, TV in the evenings, visiting mother for lunch on Sundays. If he disappeared and lived a quiet life, without jerking on any chains, he stood a slim chance of survival. But that wasn’t him. And his former paymasters knew it. They understood that he would not rest until he found the architect, the person orchestrating the abductions and the murders and the destruction of Charlie Lavender’s brilliant life. The grey men in the security services recognised that he was a loose cannon who’d jeopardise any official or not-so-official investigation. And if he took that path, he realised a little of him dying slowly inside, he would have to leave all he’d ever known behind: the bungalow and his sanctuary and the place he called home; his beloved mother; his sister and his nephews and niece, his friends. Everything.
Unable to process such a grave decision, he set it aside. More lucidly, he sensed, deep in the core of him, that all along Bosnia was key. It explained why he’d been originally selected for the mission, in spite of Clay getting first dibs on it. Clay, he suddenly sparked, wondering how his spy buddy was doing, whether he’d shaken down any leads, whether he was aware of his partner’s radical change in status. Tallis remained in no doubt that he needed to get out there, make every attempt to hook up with Clay. That way, he might find an ally as well as information. The idea appealed to him. Not because he needed a mate - he didn’t - but because he was never any good at sitting around doing nothing, and why the desk side of the spy business had nearly killed him.
Taking another drink, he went back over what he had, which wasn’t very much. With the conclusion of the hostage situation in London, all three scenarios were in every respect dead ends. He had only one live link to the action: Bina, the young woman with the sad, expressive eyes, the rip-and-run merchant. If he could track her, she might lead him to others. Tallis remembered her body pressed hard against his, the smell of her, her voice and her compliance. Who was she? What was her real name? In his experience it was always the personal that created the big picture. Behind every successful business there lurked a tale of individual endeavour. Behind a tyrant, a narrative of dysfunction and, often, cruelty. So what was Bina’s story? She was a Bosniak, he was certain. Somehow she had made the trip to London. Without a traceable identity she would either have travelled on a false passport or been smuggled. He thought about that. His only image of her was fleeting, and yet he’d sensed a vulnerability that didn’t chime with the image of a ruthless killer, unlike the Serb, Martinovic. Was it possible that Bina was herself a victim?
He took another snatch of whisky. He estimated her age as early to mid thirties, same as Charlie. She would have been a teenager during the conflict. What had happened to her? Was she one of the displaced? Had she wound up being trafficked? Many Bosnians were trafficked through Germany. Was that how she hooked up with Senka Martinovic? Serb by birth, Martinovic, he remembered, had spent enough time in Germany to kill a man. Was it a joint endeavour? At each attempt to answer a question, another took its place. His head ached with strain.
Unbidden, as if an invisible rope around his neck had been yanked, a vivid image of Charlie dead smashed through his consciousness. In that moment he realised that his two-day limit for bad news had telescoped into a matter of hours. The sheer weight of grief threatened to crush him. It didn’t take a shrink to tell him that this wasn’t simply about Charlie. This was about death upon death, the unrelenting roll-call, all those before, the innocent, those caught up in conflicts not of their making, the dispossessed.
Fear feasted on him. And something more potent: despair.
He took a long swallow of booze, tried to push the raw sensation away, to rationalise, to think of anything other than what Charlie and the others had meant to him. He needed facts, God help him, not feelings. Fact: Saul had killed Charlie. Indisputable. But the bigger story behind Charlie’s death, the kidnappings and the person who controlled the kidnappers, remained unanswered.
He ran through the events of that morning, frame by frame: entering the building; descending to the cellar; Mrs Everett’s brutal murder; the general crawling across the floor.
‘ Find Anna. She’s the goddamn bitch you want.’
Tallis rose unsteadily to his feet, zigzagged across the floor to the kitchen, poured the remaining whisky down the sink and prepared to ride out the storm. Care of the old American soldier, at least he had something to which he could cling.
Something terrible happened.
It all began when Thomas took to drink. An abstemious man by nature, this was a new development. He was not a happy drunk. His moods swung between self-pity and wrath. He was especially vile to Sabina. (I knew this was because I had squashed his idea about her possible repatriation.) He was sick often and made many excuses not to go to work. Instead, he would lie in bed, get up at noon and drink until midnight. He became sloppy about his appearance and turned our lovely apartment into a trashcan. I confess his behaviour crystallised my feelings of hatred towards him; Thomas became the butt for my fear and anger. I wished he were dead. I dreamt about it. I even began to plot it. The Spree is a wonderful river in which to get rid of a body.
But there was no need for such machinations.
It was a lovely summer afternoon, a Friday. I had been out buying food for the weekend. Sabina was working at the garment warehouse. They had a big order to get out, and she wasn’t due to return until later. I went back home at around six to find the door to the apartment open. I thought nothing of it. Thomas, in his inebriated state, was often forgetful. Then I saw a footprint in blood. I froze. Memories of the night I killed Valmir flooded back with the utmost vigour. In seconds, it was as if my day turned to night. I rested my two bags of shopping on the floor and, with a hand pressed tight against my chest, followed a trail of overlapping impressions that ran from the doorway to the sitting room. What greeted me was a picture of
devastation. Everything that could be smashed was smashed. Lamps upended. Furniture ripped. Light fittings torn from the walls. And blood. Spray on the ceiling. Blood on the chairs. Little drops and big drops. As if someone had taken pleasure and time over it. There was no sign of Thomas. In my heart, I thought he was probably dying or dead already. But he would have talked first. Anybody would. Bilal had taken his revenge.
And he would be back.
I realised that Sabina was in the gravest danger. Under torture, Thomas would give her up - wanted to, perhaps. My strongest desire was to flee, to collect Sabina and run away. I probably had only minutes to act before Bilal and his henchmen returned. But acting in heat is dangerous. The cool thinking part of my nature kicked in. I opened Thomas’s safe and collected a small piece of gold I knew he kept there. I also took the necessary documents, money and clothing for our survival, then took a cab to Kreuzberg, praying to Allah all the way that Sabina would still be there, that the Albanians had not yet found her.
Imagine my joy at seeing her face. Sabina needed no explanation. She read the urgency and danger in my eyes. Only later did I tell her the whole story and that I very much feared Thomas was dead. I no longer felt animosity towards him. In fact, I felt sad, for him and for me, and for how things had failed to work out between us.
Muhlis, Sabina’s boss, a devout man, was understanding of our plight, more understanding still when I pressed Thomas’s gold into his hands. He found us a hidden attic room in the warehouse. He said we could stay until we found somewhere else.
With nowhere to go, we had no choice. Now that Bilal had the scent of blood in his nostrils, it was only a matter of time before he hunted us down. Strangely, I had Thomas to thank for what happened next.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Bright sunshine, the colour of Naples yellow, poured through the bedroom blinds. For a few seconds, Tallis felt a surge of simple pleasure until the events of the previous day extinguished the light and smothered him.
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