Box 88 : A Novel (2020)

by Cumming, Charles

  ‘He was scared,’ she told Strawson, ‘but he didn’t back down. He could have stayed in the next carriage and ignored what was happening. He didn’t do that. I like him. He’s a brave boy.’

  Bravery only gets you so far in this business, Strawson reflected, sitting in his room at Killantringan. If politeness or sentimentality had provoked Kite’s reaction, then he likely wasn’t the right fit for BOX 88. Nor was Strawson interested in a gung-ho, crusading macho man. If France was going to work, he needed Kite to be calm and level-headed; to be possessed of a sense of right and wrong, yes, but also to be able to stand down without losing face whenever the odds were stacked against him. He was impressed that Kite had come to the aid of a seemingly defenceless black woman sitting alone on a train, but wondered what might have happened had three genuine Scottish racists, armed with acid or knives, responded differently to Kite’s approach.

  There was a knock at the door. Strawson called out ‘Just a moment, please’ and went to open it. To his great surprise, Lachlan Kite was standing in front of him.

  ‘I beg your pardon, sir. I just wondered if you needed your bed turning down?’

  Strawson could read a lot into a face and quickly assessed the young man about whom he had heard and read so much.

  ‘Ah! You must be young Lachlan,’ he said, struck by the fact that Kite looked older than the photographs Strawson had seen. He looked tired, but alert and physically fit. Perhaps that partly explained why he had been able to seduce a woman almost ten years his senior the night before.

  ‘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.’

  You sure were, thought Strawson, and wondered if the lines around Kite’s eyes, the erratically shaved five o’clock shadow, were a consequence of taking drugs at Mud Club or an indication that Kite was developing his father’s fondness for the bottle. If either was the case, BOX 88 would have nothing to do with him.

  ‘Party?’ he asked, wondering what sort of answer Kite would give.

  ‘Yes. A friend of mine’s eighteenth.’

  Kite’s manner was efficient and polite, to the point of obsequiousness, which Strawson assumed was either a by-product of his education – Alford College prided itself on churning out charming, Establishment-ready smooth-talkers – or merely a role Kite played whenever he found himself addressing guests at the hotel. There was something hidden in his expression, a sadness at the back of the eyes.

  ‘Not to be missed, then, huh?’

  Kite didn’t appear to feel ashamed or remorseful about whatever it was he had done the night before. A different sort of adolescent might have lied or tried to boast about it. Strawson shook his hand. Eye contact, a friendly smile, a decent grip: all the things that Alford taught its fee-paying boys, but welcome nonetheless. Strawson had the sense of a young man of strong character possessed of what people liked to call ‘an old soul’. He instinctively liked him.

  ‘My first time staying at Killantringan,’ he said. ‘Love what your mother has created here. Very good to meet the son and heir to all this. My name’s Strawson. Michael Strawson. You can call me Mike.’

  ‘Lachlan,’ said Kite. ‘Or Lockie. Whatever you prefer.’

  Kite was not to know it, but with the Stranraer train behind him, and no slip-ups under surveillance, he had passed the first phase of the BOX 88 assessment. Now Strawson needed to test his basic observational skills and, more importantly, his honesty. Was Lachlan Kite tuned in to his surroundings or – in common with most teens of his age – zoned out in an off-world adolescent orbit, daydreaming of girls and drink and parties? Was he the kind of young man who would lie and steal if he thought he could get away with it; or was there an internal code of honour, a basic sense of right and wrong?

  Preparing the room was simple enough. He told Kite that he did not need his bed to be turned down and sent him on his way. Strawson then closed the door, scrambled the tuning on his television, pulled the aerial cable out of the wall and left a £20 note visible under the bed.

  Next, he put his glasses behind a vase of flowers on the windowsill, dragged a side table into the bathroom and set a lamp on top of it, making sure to plug in the extension lead at the wall. He left a half-finished cup of black coffee balanced precariously on the sink and a money clip containing exactly two hundred pounds in low denomination notes on a nearby shelf. If Kite later came back to the room when Strawson wasn’t there to pocket a couple of twenties, he would know that Billy Peele’s boy was nothing but a common thief, abandon any possibility of recruiting Kite for France, play a round of golf at Turnberry and treat the rest of the Easter weekend as a well-deserved vacation.

  19

  Kite had finished tidying the last of the three rooms and was walking back towards the rear staircase when the American in Churchill popped his head out of the door and said:

  ‘Hey. Seeing as you’re here, could you help me with something? I got a problem with my TV, Lachlan.’

  ‘Of course,’ Kite replied.

  The American held the door open so that Kite could enter the room then closed it behind him with a gentle click. Kite had a flash memory of ‘Jumpy’ Jones-Lewis entering his bedroom at Alford without knocking, hoping for a snatched glimpse of thigh or stomach, but didn’t get a creepy vibe from Strawson, who seemed harmless and hearty. Besides, there was a framed photograph of a woman Kite assumed to be his wife balanced on the bedside table next to a Good News Bible and a hardback copy of The Satanic Verses. Kite had never seen one before and wanted to pick it up.

  ‘Have you just arrived, sir?’ he asked, because his mother had long ago taught him that it was important to make small talk with guests.

  ‘Just got in yesterday,’ Strawson replied. ‘Flew into Prestwick.’

  ‘And you’re on your own?’

  The bed had only been disturbed on one side. Kite had also clocked the absence of women’s clothing in the room. Sometimes his love of detection, his fascination with the minutiae of strangers’ lives, got the better of him.

  ‘That’s right. My wife is back in London. We live over here actually.’

  Kite had work to do in the bar and didn’t want to get caught in a lengthy conversation, so he said, ‘Ah, right’, and asked what was wrong with the television.

  ‘Can’t seem to find any channels,’ Strawson replied. ‘Doesn’t help that I can’t find my glasses anyplace.’

  Within three minutes Kite had worked out the problem: not only had somebody scrambled the tuning on the television, they had also removed the aerial from its socket in the wall. He fixed both, spotted Strawson’s glasses behind a vase of flowers on the windowsill, and asked if the American needed help with anything else.

  ‘Just something in the bathroom,’ he replied, indicating that there was a problem with one of the taps.

  Kite followed Strawson into the bathroom, noticing a stray £20 note under the bed. He bent down to pick it up.

  ‘Don’t lose this,’ he said, setting it on the bed.

  There was more money in the bathroom, a roll of notes in a clip on the shelf beside the window. Kite could have used the cash to pay back Xavier but would never have countenanced stealing from a guest. He didn’t trust some of the other staff in the hotel to be so honourable and told Strawson about the hotel safe.

  ‘So is it true?’ the American asked, having pocketed the money.

  ‘Is what true, sir?’

  ‘That the great man stayed here?’

  They were standing in front of the large, free-standing bath in which Sir Winston had allegedly immersed himself in 1943.

  ‘As far as I know,’ Kite replied. He had never been sure if Churchill’s visit to Killantringan was bona fide, or if it had been invented by his father as a PR stunt to drum up custom. ‘Further up the coast there’s Culzean Castle,’ he said, ‘where your President Eisenhower stayed several times.’

  ‘Is
that right?’ Strawson replied.

  Yanks always loved hearing that.

  Strawson indicated that the hot tap on the bath was stuck. Kite released it easily and also moved a coffee cup which was at risk of falling into the sink and smashing. To his consternation he saw that a side table had been dragged into the bathroom with a free-standing lamp balanced on top of it. If the lamp fell into the water while Strawson was taking a bath, he would find himself travelling back to Prestwick airport in a coffin.

  ‘Sir, can I suggest that you don’t leave that lamp there?’ He explained the danger of electrocution if the socket came into contact with the bathwater, trying not to sound too condescending. The American cursed his stupidity, thanked Kite for his ‘presence of mind’ and showed him to the door.

  ‘Will there be anything else, sir?’ Kite asked. He could feel his mother growing impatient downstairs.

  ‘Not for the moment, thank you,’ Strawson replied. ‘This has been very instructive.’

  20

  All the way to Spindrift Avenue, Matt Tomkins had felt a serene sense of achievement and inner peace. Zoltan’s satnav had saved the day, every road, every turn and instruction dictated to his AirPods courtesy of the microphones in the Fiat Punto.

  Turn left onto Upper Bank Street

  As a pleasing coincidence, Tomkins’s route had taken him past a bar in Mile End where, almost a year earlier, he had attended a birthday party with some old school friends. The men had been competing about what car they drove, where they went on holiday, how much money they were making in start-ups or the City. They’d asked Tomkins what he was doing, and he’d given them his usual civil service cover, working at the Ministry of Defence, downsizing regiments, the usual lies and bullshit. There had been sneers from the men about his salary, a woman he liked asking how he could work for ‘Tory scum’ that started wars and armed the Saudis. He had wanted to tell her he was MI5, but had to stick to his cover, arguing that Saudi Arabia was a vital regional ally and that the situation in Yemen wasn’t just a simple case of right and wrong. She had laughed at him contemptuously and walked off, high on coke and moral rectitude, leaving Tomkins to wonder if life in the Security Service was all it was cracked up to be. He had only applied to MI5 for the challenge, to see if he could make it past the selection board. He had never intended to make intelligence work his career. But MI5 had seen something in him – he’d never known precisely what – which had made Tomkins feel valued and admired. For a long time after that party he felt he’d made the wrong choice: he would have had a lot more peace of mind, not to mention money, if he’d followed his brother’s advice and gone into sales or the City. But now look at him! Whistling past that same bar in the small hours of the morning, participating in work of immeasurable importance to the secret state, work which might save a man’s life, might even lead to the arrest and incarceration of enemy intelligence officers bent on bringing Britain to her knees. You couldn’t buy that sort of power and excitement. If the woman who had rejected him could see him now, she’d know what a mistake she’d made. She’d understand why Matt Tomkins wasn’t just a run-of-the-mill banker or corporate lawyer, why he had chosen a life dedicated to public service, lived in secret, making a difference from the shadows.

  Tomkins had driven past Limehouse while Robert Vosse was doing eighty-five on the Westway in an unmarked BMW. Pavkov had taken a wrong turn in Canary Wharf, the satnav sending him east, then north, then south, a delay which bought Tomkins and Vosse precious time. Tomkins arrived ahead of both of them, parking in a residential street adjacent to Spindrift Avenue.

  ‘I’m here,’ he told Vosse. ‘Have you called for backup?’

  ‘Now why would I want to do a thing like that?’ the boss replied, the roar of the traffic lending his voice a dreamlike quality. There was a conspiratorial tone to Vosse’s response which made Tomkins feel as though they were uniquely bound together, like cops in a buddy film closing in on the bad guys. ‘The whole point of the operation is that it’s sealed off. I can’t have colleagues knowing about BIRD and BOX. We call for backup, everyone’s going to want to know why you and me are running around Canary Wharf at two in the morning chasing Iranians. No. We have to do this thing together, Cagney.’

  You and me, thought Tomkins. We have to do this thing together. Meanwhile Cara is fast asleep and Tessa Swinburn is miles away. You snooze, you lose. The operation is reaching a climax and I’m at the centre of things, where I deserve to be. Making decisions, doing my job, impressing the man who needs to be impressed.

  ‘What do we do when the meeting takes place?’ he asked.

  ‘We follow whoever comes to talk to our friend from Belgrade,’ Vosse replied. Tomkins heard a sudden burst of acceleration from the BMW. ‘With any luck they’ll talk in the Fiat and we’ll get everything down on tape. Then either a foot-follow or it’s back in the vehicles. If the Iranians show up in a car, I’ve brought some kit and can tag them. That should lead us to BIRD.’

  It sounded easy enough, though Tomkins began to wonder if Vosse was being over-confident. As he sat in the Mondeo, the tablet on the seat beside him, he tried to work out the variables. What if Zoltan was going to a private address? What if he met the Iranians on the street or one of them got nervous about surveillance? They were a team of at least four, which meant three of them could be staking out the meeting point in advance, looking for signs of trouble. Surely Vosse had thought of all this? An officer with his experience wouldn’t want to get too close to the prize for fear of scaring them off.

  ‘Where are you?’ Vosse asked.

  ‘Parked adjacent to number nineteen, sir. Out of sight down a side street.’

  ‘I can see that,’ he said. ‘Barnfield Place? OK. Anybody taps on the window, you’re a cab driver waiting for a fare. Keep your engine running and your hazard lights on so it looks like you’re not trying to hide.’

  That was smart. Vosse was aware that the Iranians could be running counter-surveillance, looking out for cars that shouldn’t be there, sudden arrivals or movements on the street. Tomkins put the hazard lights on and listened as the satnav gave the last of its instructions to Pavkov, telling him to make a left turn onto Spindrift Avenue. He had finally arrived. Tomkins tried to imagine where the Serb would park, what the section of street looked like, who might emerge from the shadows to greet him. He could only sit and wait in the cramped Mondeo, listening out for approaching cars, approaching men, waiting for the boss to arrive, waiting for the Iranians.

  ‘Target is in position,’ he told Vosse. ‘Just pulled into Spindrift. Sounds like he’s parked and switched off the engine.’

  ‘Copy that, Cagney. I’m coming into Limehouse. Ten minutes away.’

  Tomkins pressed the AirPods deeper into his ears, focusing on the sounds picked up by the microphones. He heard a cough, the click of a lighter, then a sudden nervous inhalation on a cigarette.

  ‘What have you got?’ Vosse asked.

  ‘Stay off comms,’ Tomkins whispered.

  He shouldn’t have spoken to the boss like that, but he could tell that something was happening inside the Punto. There was the sound of a window going down then another cough as Pavkov cleared his throat.

  ‘You are Zoltan?’ said a voice. The accent was unmistakably foreign. It had to be one of the Iranians.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘They sent me. Tell me to ask you questions. I get in.’

  Tomkins tried to control his breathing, listening as closely as possible to the take from the Punto. He looked down at the tablet and saw that Vosse was already in Canary Wharf, the BMW perhaps three or four minutes away.

  ‘Wait.’

  This from Pavkov. Tomkins heard the noise of a door being opened, then a rustle on the microphones as somebody climbed into the Fiat.

  ‘I never saw you before,’ said Pavkov.

  ‘Good,’ the man replied. ‘That’s the way I like it.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Who came to the car
park?’ he asked.

  Tomkins wondered if he should be writing things down, short-noting the conversation in case something went wrong with the tech.

  ‘A man and a woman,’ Pavkov replied.

  ‘They were police?’

  ‘Police, yes.’

  ‘You are certain of this?’

  ‘They showed me identification,’ said Pavkov. ‘Yes, I am certain.’

  ‘How did they know what happened?’

  ‘How should I know the answer to this?’

  ‘What did you tell them?’

  ‘I told them I didn’t know what they were talking about.’

  ‘You are sure of this?’

  ‘Of course I am sure.’

  Pavkov was lying. Cara had debriefed him on her encounter with the Serb. He was trying to pretend to the Iranians that there wasn’t a problem.

  ‘Try again,’ said the man. ‘What did you tell them?’

  ‘I’m telling you the truth,’ Pavkov replied. ‘The lady come, she ask if anything happened in the car park maybe half hour earlier, I tell her I don’t know what she’s talking about. She say someone complained because of the noise …’

  ‘Noise?’

  ‘Yes, maybe a neighbour or something? Then her boss shows up, another police, asks the same questions.’

  ‘Was he in uniform?’

  ‘What please?’

  ‘The boss. Was he dressed like cop? Like police officer?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And you say he asks you same thing?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why are you lying, Zoltan?’

  Tomkins thought it was obvious: if he told the Iranians the truth, he was a dead man.

  ‘I am not lying,’ the Serb replied. ‘I am not a liar, my friend.’

  Tomkins heard a long, nervous exhalation of cigarette smoke, then the growl of a motorbike in the distance. Taking out one of the AirPods he realised he could hear the bike both in real time and on the Punto microphones. That meant it was close, moving east to west past Barnfield Place, doing no more than fifteen or twenty miles per hour.