‘She’s a long way from home,’ he said.
Kite had neither the will nor the presence of mind to find an adequate reply. He merely showed the man his ticket, went back to his bag, and sat down.
An hour later he was in a taxi passing through the outskirts of Stranraer, heading out towards the ocean on dark, empty Wigtownshire roads. Kite had phoned the hotel from the station to let his mother know that he had arrived, but nobody had answered.
‘You look bloody awful,’ she said when he walked through the staff entrance just after eight o’clock. ‘Have you had any sleep at all?’
Cheryl gave her son a perfunctory hug but work was on her mind and she quickly returned to the restaurant. Kite was past the age at which he consciously longed for his mother’s embrace, yet would have welcomed even the slightest display of tenderness or excitement at his arrival. Instead she said: ‘As soon as you’ve got changed you can turn down the beds in Adam, Bay and Churchill, then take over from Paolo in the bar.’ There was no opportunity to tell her what had happened on the train, no questions about his journey or an offer of something to eat. It was left to the other members of staff to greet him more warmly. The chef, John, and his number two, Kenny, looked up from their work and grinned, Kenny saying: ‘There he is, the man from Atlantis. Welcome home, Lockie,’ as Moira, a roly-poly waitress who had worked at the hotel since the mid-seventies, came into the kitchen and nearly dropped a tray of dirty plates in surprise.
‘Lockie! We didnae know you was coming tonight. How’s my favourite boy?’
Kite briefly disappeared into Moira’s vast bosom and felt the scrape of facial hair against his cheek as she kissed him. There was little time to loiter and chat. John called out ‘Service!’ and Moira was soon ferrying two bowls of seafood stew back to the restaurant. Kite withdrew to the staff area, found a clean white shirt and a pair of black trousers, shaved with a Bic razor and applied some deodorant to his armpits. The remains of staff dinner were congealing at room temperature on a Formica table: a foil tray of lasagne, a few dehydrated kernels of sweetcorn and a Tupperware box of salad, comprised mostly of red onions and damp chunks of iceberg lettuce. Kite was famished and wolfed the remains of the lasagne, washed down with a hair-of-the-dog can of Heineken discovered at the back of the fridge. By eight-thirty he was on the back stairs, heading up towards Adam, the smallest of the hotel’s twelve rooms, located directly above the vast walk-in fridge used by the chefs to store fresh fish, cuts of meat, dairy products and puddings.
Turning down the beds during dinner had been Kite’s first job at the hotel as a child. When his father was still alive, he had dutifully gone from room to room, straightening out bedspreads and plumping up pillows, tipping out ashtrays and wiping them clean with a tissue. For each bed he was paid a flat fee of twenty pence, which he normally spent on sweets in Portpatrick. When Kite was thirteen, his mother had told him: ‘Always watch out for the way people talk to waiters in restaurants. If they’re rude or surly, don’t have anything to do with them.’ This observation had resonated with him and, as he grew older, Kite realised that he could learn a lot about people simply by studying how they behaved. Each bedroom on his nightly errands, for example, told Kite a different story about its occupants: sheets crumpled and discoloured by sex; letters and business papers left out on desks for prying eyes; money and jewellery scattered on the tops of dressing tables and spilling out of suitcases. An individual’s interests could be gauged by the books they were reading, their standard of living by the quality of their clothes and the value of their belongings. American guests were the easiest to spot: they came in droves during the summer months, armed with golfing magazines and books about their Scottish ancestors, and always tipped fabulous amounts of money if Kite found them in their room during his nightly rounds. In time, however, without ever hearing them open their mouths, the young Kite reckoned he could tell if a guest at Killantringan was French or British, American or Italian, married or single, happy or depressed. Even now, as an experienced old hand armed with a duster and a hangover, he secretly looked forward to snooping in the various rooms to which his mother had sent him. He cleaned Adam in under five minutes, concluding that its occupant was a single, possibly lonely woman from Dusseldorf with interests in fishing and Communist Eastern Europe: there was a spinning rod propped up against the wall and her West German passport bore stamps from Poland, Yugoslavia and Romania. She was reading a romance novel (in English) and was midway through a bottle of medium sweet sherry which she had left on the windowsill to chill.
Having locked up, Kite walked the short distance to Churchill. The room was so named because it was alleged that the British prime minister had stayed at Killantringan during the Second World War, meeting General Eisenhower for secret talks about the D-Day landings. When Kite knocked on the door, he heard a deep, full-throated American calling out ‘just a moment please’ and was preparing to say: ‘I’ll come back later’ when a huge bear of a man, Churchillian in girth and stature, opened the door. The man was at least fifty and held a tumbler of whisky in his left hand. He looked surprised to see Kite standing in front of him and was momentarily lost for words.
‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ said Kite. ‘I just wondered if you needed your bed turning down?’
‘Ah!’ the American replied instantly. ‘You must be young Lachlan.’ With his steady blue eyes and the flicker of a smile, he appeared to be sizing him up. There was a list of residents on a clipboard downstairs with the names of the guests staying at Killantringan. Kite hadn’t had time to check it and consequently had no idea who he was speaking to. He assumed the American was a WASP golfer from New England or Florida with plans to play rounds at Troon and Turnberry: there was a set of clubs in the hall behind him. ‘Your mother has told me so much about you,’ he said. ‘You were expected last night, is that right?’
‘Er, that’s right, sir. I was held up in London.’
‘Party?’ the man asked with a grin.
Kite wondered why he was being so familiar. Was he one of his mother’s lovers?
‘A party, yes. A friend of mine’s eighteenth.’
‘Not to be missed, then, huh?’
The American set his tumbler of whisky down on a low table and, to Kite’s surprise, reached out to shake his hand.
‘My first time staying at Killantringan,’ he said. ‘Love what your mother has created here.’ His grip was dry and enveloping, the lines on his face partially hidden beneath a scattering of salt-and-pepper stubble. ‘Very good to meet the son and heir to all this. My name’s Strawson. Michael Strawson. You can call me Mike.’
17
‘You just stay on his tail, son. You don’t let that bastard out of your sight.’
Vosse’s words rang in Matt Tomkins’s AirPods as he followed Zoltan Pavkov through the back streets of Bethnal Green. He was convinced Vosse would never have spoken to Cara or Tess like that; he wouldn’t want to risk accusations of misogyny or – worse – a ticking off from Personnel for using aggressive language around female colleagues. Yet apparently it was OK to patronise Matt Tomkins and call him ‘son’, just as it was fine to stick him on the night watch while everyone else on the team got a prized night’s sleep. The rules were different for white men. Tomkins was in the minority now.
He had been driving without lights for more than half a mile, keeping at least fifty metres back from the Punto to reduce the risk of Pavkov spotting him in his mirrors. At last, turning east onto Whitechapel Road, Tomkins switched on the headlights as he joined a group of four vehicles bunched behind the target.
‘How are you doing?’ Vosse asked. His voice was like a kettledrum in Tomkins’s ears. He wished he could cut him off and just get on with the follow. It was hard enough trying to anticipate where Pavkov was going without the boss bugging him every thirty seconds.
‘Heading east on Whitechapel Road, sir. I’m concealed behind a black cab. I don’t think he’s spotted me yet. I think I’m cool.’
; ‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ said Vosse. It didn’t sound like one of his jokes. ‘I can see your position. The Iranians have obviously given him a meeting point. Hence the satnav. You’ve got to stay on his tail, Cagney. Don’t do anything stupid.’
At that precise moment, Tomkins stalled. He couldn’t believe it. His foot came off the clutch too quickly and the Mondeo’s engine just seemed to give out from beneath him. There was nobody on the street to witness his humiliation, yet Tomkins felt that all of London was looking in and laughing at him. As he turned the key in the ignition, Vosse said: ‘What was that?’ and Tomkins lied, saying that the car alongside had stalled in traffic. He pulled away moments later, thankfully with no distance lost, still three cars back from Pavkov.
‘He could be heading for Limehouse,’ Vosse suggested. Tomkins remembered that ‘Kidson Electrical Services’ had last been sighted on East India Dock Road, which was a mile to the south-east.
‘It’s a maze down there,’ he replied, trying to build in an excuse if he lost Pavkov in the high-rise labyrinth of Canary Wharf. ‘Nowhere to hide if he’s going into one of the car parks.’
‘Just concentrate and do your job. The whole city is a fucking maze, Cagney.’
Again Tomkins told himself that Vosse wouldn’t have spoken to Cara that way: wouldn’t have sworn, wouldn’t have lost his temper. That was because Cara was special. Cara was a woman. Vosse tiptoed around her, just like he tiptoed around Tess.
‘Shit.’
‘What’s happened?’ Vosse asked.
The Serb had made a right-hand turn up ahead, through a set of lights which had moved swiftly from green to amber. Tomkins accelerated to the junction and ran the red light, keeping Pavkov in his line of sight as he explained what had happened.
‘OK, good,’ said Vosse. ‘You’re passing Stepney Green. That means Limehouse is still on. That means Canary Wharf could be his ultimate destination.’ There was a gasp of pleasure in Tomkins’s AirPods. ‘He’s taking us to the nerve centre, Cagney. He’s leading us all the way to BIRD. These people are fucking idiots. Don’t lose sight of him and we’ll have all of them in custody by the time the sun comes up.’
The Punto suddenly lurched into a lay-by fifty metres ahead, hazard lights morsing. Pavkov had not indicated. There had been no warning at all that he was going to pull over.
‘Fuck!’ said Tomkins.
‘What’s happened?’
‘Target stopped. I had to drive past him. If I’d braked, he’d have seen me.’
‘OK, OK,’ Vosse replied. Tomkins was simultaneously trying to negotiate the traffic in front of him and looking back in his mirrors at Zoltan’s position. ‘I’m searching routes for you. Don’t do anything stupid.’
Being told that for what must have been the fourth time riled Tomkins so much that he decided to take matters into his own hands. Rather than wait at the next set of lights, in the hope that Pavkov would follow, he turned left onto a quiet residential street perpendicular to Stepney Green. He intended to circle back in an anti-clockwise loop which would surely bring him up behind the Punto in less than ninety seconds.
‘Where are you going?’ Vosse asked. There was a distinct note of worry in his voice.
Tomkins looked at the map on the dashboard of the Ford Mondeo and realised that he had done something very foolish. There was no way of getting onto Stepney Green without going all the way back up to Whitechapel Road. He would have to stop and do a three-point turn. Meanwhile Pavkov was out of his line of sight, at least two hundred metres behind him and ready to drive off at any moment.
Vosse was going apoplectic in his ear.
‘You can’t get back round! Fucking hell, Cagney. I told you I was looking at routes. I told you not to do anything stupid. You’re going to lose him.’
Tomkins felt as though a small bird had flown in through the back window and been let loose inside the car. He could not seem to clear his head to make a decision of any kind. He wanted to ask Vosse to stop shouting at him, to stop telling him not to do anything stupid. Should he execute a U-turn? Should he drive all the way back up to Whitechapel Road and just hope that Pavkov was still parked in the lay-by? The whole thing was so shameful and embarrassing. Tomkins momentarily went into a blank white panic, a kind of system shut-down from which there was no escape. He could not function. He had been trained to deal with pressure, but his training had let him down. Why the hell had he turned off the road? I’m good at exams, he told himself, slipping into self-pity. I sailed through all the tests and interviews to get into MI5. The moment he had been put under any sort of operational pressure, he had cracked. Tomkins wished he could be out of the car and back at home, sitting on the edge of his bed or on a stool, lifting dumbbells in the mirror. That was his happiest, purest state. He always felt good about himself when he could see his body reflected back at him, the firmness of his abs, remembering the voices of the women who had complimented him on the way he kept himself in shape. But he wasn’t back at home. He was messing up a surveillance operation in a shitty Ford Mondeo with Robert Vosse raging in his ear.
‘What do you think I should do?’ he asked.
‘Wait,’ Vosse replied in a firm, optimistic tone of voice. Something in his manner had changed. Tomkins was given sudden renewed hope that the operation had not been entirely ruined. ‘Listen,’ Vosse added.
Tomkins heard a tertiary noise in his AirPods, the sound of movement inside the Fiat Punto picked up by the MI5 mikes. Pavkov was scrabbling around, the same banging and clattering and rustle of plastic as before.
‘Did you hear that?’ Vosse asked.
‘Yes, sir,’ Tomkins replied but, to his horror, heard the note change of the Serb switching on the engine. Pavkov was preparing to drive off. Tomkins finally came to his senses and executed a rapid U-turn, but as he reached the set of lights at the junction with Stepney Green, there was no sign of the Punto either to the left or the right. Pavkov had disappeared.
‘I can’t see him, sir.’
‘Fuck!’ said Vosse. ‘Fucking fuck. You’ve lost him.’
Where had he gone? How had Zoltan vanished into thin air?
It was like the bird had been set loose inside the car again. Tomkins had visions of the Iranians laughing at him as Pavkov pulled up at his secret destination, mocking the incompetence of MI5 and gloating over the imminent death of the hostage, Lachlan Kite.
Then – a miracle.
A voice on the microphone inside the Fiat. Not the Serb’s, not a passenger he had picked up. Another sort of third party altogether.
Directions for number 19 Spindrift Avenue, London E14 9US
It was the voice of the satnav. Pavkov, the stone-cold idiot, had typed in the address given to him by the Iranians. The Tom-Tom had dictated that address to the Punto microphones.
‘Bingo,’ said Vosse. ‘High noon on Spindrift Avenue. That’s where they’re holding BIRD. Get as close as you can, Cagney. I’ll meet you there ASAP.’
18
Cheryl Kite may have believed that you could tell a lot about a person by the way they treated staff in restaurants, but Michael Strawson had a rather more developed and exhaustive philosophy of human nature. He reckoned everything you needed to know about an individual’s character and temperament would be revealed by round-the-clock surveillance.
For this reason he had put the eighteen-year-old Lachlan Kite under light, Grade III observation for a forty-eight-hour period prior to his arrival at Killantringan. Rita Ayinde, one of the surveillance Falcons at BOX 88 in London, had telephoned Strawson from Maybole station with the second of her two reports into the target’s movements and behaviour. The first had given Strawson little to chew on. Rita told her boss that Kite had spent the better part of Wednesday inside Xavier Bonnard’s house, venturing out only for lunch with friends at the Stockpot restaurant and to watch Dangerous Liaisons at a cinema on Fulham Road. The following morning, having apparently stayed up most of the night playing computer games, Kite and Xavier had
slept past midday, gone for a smoke and a walk in Hyde Park, then attended an eighteenth birthday party at Borscht & Tears, a Russian restaurant on Beauchamp Place. From there Kite’s friends had moved on to Mud Club on Charing Cross Road. Drugs were available on the premises but the surveillance officer on duty had not observed Kite in the act of buying or consuming narcotics. The target had gone home with a woman identified as Alison Hackford, a twenty-seven-year-old estate agent with Knight, Frank & Rutley, leaving her apartment on Lamb’s Conduit Street shortly before dawn and proceeding on foot to the Bonnard residence. It was not known why Kite had not taken a taxi or public transport. Strawson, who had lost a son to heroin, hated drugs and wondered if Kite might have been high; Rita suggested that he may simply have run out of money to pay for a bus fare.
‘Then he should have been smart enough to talk his way into a free ride,’ Strawson replied.
From day one, he had been sceptical about Lachlan Kite. It wasn’t just the risk of using an untested teenager on an operation of such importance; it was making a private citizen conscious of BOX 88’s interest in Ali Eskandarian. What if Kite said no? What if he refused to betray Xavier’s trust and consequently put the operation in danger? Yet Billy Peele’s recommendation had been so effusive, and the opportunity to observe Eskandarian at close quarters so tempting, that Strawson had decided to take the chance. He would look at Kite over the Easter weekend, test him in his home environment, assess his suitability for the job and let Peele know of his decision.
It was the second telephone call from Maybole which persuaded Strawson that Kite was possessed of huge potential. With Rita role-playing a lone Nigerian woman on the Stranraer train, and three local assets hired to scare her, Kite had displayed calmness and courage in defusing a possibly dangerous and violent situation.
Box 88 : A Novel (2020) Page 15