‘I’m an elite athlete, Ros,’ he grinned. ‘Keep myself in prime condition.’
‘Lucky us,’ she replied. Kite trotted out of the door before the conversation could go any further.
It was hot, even at this hour. Kite stretched beneath the lime tree, casually looking up at Martha’s bedroom window. The shutters were open but her room was dark. He jogged down the drive, discovering the Audi Quattro parked in a lay-by on the far side of the gates. Abbas was already awake and seated in the driver’s seat. Kite proffered a friendly wave, but the bodyguard remained impassive as Kite ran past. He hoped that he would not get out of the car and watch where he was going. The map Kite had seen of the safe house put it six hundred metres down the long stretch of road beyond the Bonnard house. If Kite ducked in through the gates, Abbas might see him.
To Kite’s relief, the ground fell away more than he had anticipated. There were several houses jigsawed into the hillside and by the time he had arrived at the sign saying ‘Cassava’, Kite was well out of sight of the Audi. There was nobody else on the road, no engine noise to indicate an approaching vehicle. He stopped running, as if working out whether or not to continue downhill or to go back in the direction from which he had come, took one last glance behind him to make sure that he was not being followed, then hurried through the open gate.
The house was much smaller and more modern than the Bonnard villa. Olive trees and rosemary bushes lined a whitewashed wall separating the property from the road. A pale blue Peugeot was parked on the drive. Kite knocked on the door and stood in a shaded porch for no more than a few seconds before it was opened by Carl, who nodded him inside. He had a tea towel in his hand. The house smelled of fried bacon. Kite had no appetite.
‘How are you this morning?’ Carl asked. It didn’t sound as though he cared much about the answer.
‘Fine thanks,’ Kite replied. ‘I managed to move the lamp.’
‘We know.’ Carl did not congratulate him for this nor remark on the take quality from the attic. Perhaps Strawson or Peele wanted to get there first. Instead he showed Kite into a living room where both men were waiting for him in rattan chairs, mugs of coffee in front of them. There was something startling about seeing them together in this new environment. Peele was wearing dark blue trousers, espadrilles and a Lacoste shirt. He looked tanned and slightly unkempt, younger than he had seemed in Hampstead just a few days earlier. His hair was already turning blond in the summer sun. Strawson was more formally dressed in a pale linen suit, like a character in a Graham Greene novel behaving disreputedly in the tropics.
‘There he is!’ said Peele, standing up and greeting Kite with a beaming smile. ‘The prodigal son. How are we this morning?’
‘Fine, thanks.’ Kite felt suddenly ill-at-ease. ‘Good to be here.’
Strawson did not move. Kite had the impression he was in a sour mood. There had been moments during his training in London when the American had snapped at Kite and been impatient with his progress. At the time Peele had told him not to worry: Strawson was just overworked, concerned that the operation might not go ahead because of the death of the ayatollah. Kite mustn’t take it personally. It was just the way things were.
‘Late night?’ Strawson asked pointedly.
Kite cursed himself for not taking a shower or at least brushing his teeth before coming to the meeting.
‘Yeah. Unfortunately. Xavier kept me up and I couldn’t—’
‘Save it. You sure you’re up to this, Lachlan?’
Kite was stung by the question.
‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ Strawson must have seen him smoking the joints with Xavier. Stupidly he added: ‘Look, I’m not into drugs.’
‘Who said anything about drugs?’
‘I just assumed—’
‘Smell coming from your poolhouse last night, you could have been at Woodstock.’
‘Mike, he’s fine,’ Peele interjected.
‘What have I done wrong?’ Kite was tired and lost his cool. It was pathetic of Strawson to be so uptight over a late night and a bit of mild Moroccan black. ‘I’m here on time, aren’t I?’
‘You look like shit. You smell like shit.’
‘I’m not being paid. I’m doing this as a volunteer. For my country.’
‘Don’t pull that one. We offered you money, you turned it down.’
Peele stepped between them.
‘Gentlemen,’ he said, adopting a jovial, conciliatory tone. ‘Let’s try this again. We’re all off on the wrong foot. Mike, it was the first night of Lockie’s holiday. Our boy has to behave in character in front of Xavier. If that means smoking the odd joint and drinking a beer or six, so be it. He could hardly go to bed on the first night of his holiday with a mug of Horlicks.’
‘Fine,’ Strawson conceded. ‘But I’m telling you, kid. Stay off the hashish or whatever it was your friend was smoking last night. You need to keep your wits about you. That stuff fries your brain. This isn’t schoolboy fun we’re engaged on here. The stakes are very real for us, for thousands of people who might die because of this man’s activities. You need to stay sharp.’
‘Some interesting information emerged in the poolhouse last night,’ Kite replied. He didn’t need Strawson to emphasise the importance of the operation; it had been drummed into him a thousand times. ‘You want to hear it?’
The American looked surprised that Kite wasn’t backing down. ‘Sure. Tell us then,’ he said. ‘We’ll decide whether it’s interesting or not.’
Carl went into the kitchen to fetch a pot of coffee. Kite was thirsty. He reminded Strawson that he had done exactly what was expected of him and had moved the lamp almost as soon as he had reached the villa.
‘Is it working?’ he asked, when Strawson didn’t respond.
‘Oh, it’s working all right,’ Peele smirked. He leaned back on the sofa as Carl returned with a full cafetière. ‘Kept poor Hana up all night—’
‘Enough,’ said Strawson, who was nevertheless struggling to suppress a smile of his own. Kite was relieved by the change in atmosphere. Perhaps the whole thing had been a good-cop-bad-cop routine designed to keep him on his toes. ‘You don’t have a lot of time, kid. Give us your first impressions.’
‘Can I have a cup of coffee first?’ Kite asked.
Carl duly poured one.
‘My first impression is that Luc is doing some kind of business with Eskandarian that may be illegal. Xavier was hinting that sanctions were being breached. Do you know anything about that?’
Peele and Strawson looked at one another as if they did indeed know all about it, but weren’t going to share that knowledge with Kite or Carl.
‘Keep going,’ said Strawson.
‘That’s all I know. Just something Xav said down by the pool. Like he knew but didn’t approve of it. It might just be my imagination, but he’s been acting weirdly ever since we arrived. Drinking more than normal, stockpiling booze.’
‘OK,’ said Peele in a vague, non-committal way that suggested he was neither surprised by this nor particularly interested in Xavier’s behaviour.
‘What about the girlfriend?’ Strawson asked.
For a moment Kite thought Strawson was referring to Martha, then realised his mistake.
‘Hana? She’s his mistress. Told me they met last year in Paris.’
‘When she was – what? Twelve?’ Peele asked with a grin.
‘Her family are originally from Vietnam.’ Kite was suddenly hungry again and asked for bacon with the coffee. Strawson told him there wasn’t time. ‘She’s lived in France since the late seventies. I sat next to her at dinner, but she was mostly talking to Xavier.’
‘Who were you talking to?’
‘Martha and Jacqui.’
Kite was wary of questions about Martha. He didn’t want BOX picking up on the strength of his feelings for her.
‘Age?’
‘Who, Hana? No idea. Sorry.’
‘Surname?’
Kite shook his head.
<
br /> ‘Can you get it from her passport?’ Peele asked.
Kite looked at Strawson to assess the level of risk. Strawson looked back in such a way as to persuade Kite to make up his own mind whether or not he could pull it off.
‘I can try,’ he said, trying to sound confident. ‘If they’re out of the house, I can search their bedroom.’
‘Might be easier than that,’ said Peele. ‘There’s a safe where Luc and Rosamund keep the family jewels. Ask them. Maybe you can get the combination or the key, take a look when you’re putting your own passport inside.’
‘Too complicated,’ said Strawson. ‘Not important. What else?’
‘There’s a bodyguard. Abbas.’
‘We know.’
‘Not exactly friendly.’ Kite remembered the black look Abbas had given him as he jogged past moments earlier. ‘I’ve tried saying hello a couple of times, but he acts like I’m not there.’
‘Don’t engage with him,’ Peele replied. ‘It’s his job to protect his boss from Iranian exile groups, not to make pals with eighteen-year-old public schoolboys on their gap year.’
‘What about the ghetto blaster?’ Strawson asked. ‘Or what are we calling it? The stereo.’
‘Stuck by the pool,’ Kite told him. ‘I’ll try bringing it up tonight so that we can listen to music on the terrace. Hopefully it’ll get left there. But I know Xavier likes having it down by the sun loungers. He had it on last night.’
‘Yeah, we heard.’ Peele rolled his eyes. ‘How many times can two teenage boys listen to Appetite for Destruction without losing the will to live?’
‘It was G N’R Lies,’ said Kite. ‘Same band. Different album.’
All three men ignored him. Kite took a sip of the coffee. It was still boiling hot. Carl hadn’t offered him sugar or milk. He was wary of asking for either.
‘And the girl?’ Strawson asked.
Kite knew that he meant Martha but played dumb.
‘Which girl?’
‘Brigitte Bardot via Raquel Welch. The one with the curves. Martha, is it?’
‘Martha, yeah.’ Kite thought it was a bit of a stretch to compare her to Brigitte Bardot and Raquel Welch, but felt oddly reassured by the remark, as if Strawson were complimenting him on his good taste. ‘She’s great. Old school friend of Jacqui’s. Very relaxed, very clever. Seems fun.’
‘Yeah? You falling for her? Because we sure as shit don’t need you with your head up your ass the next two weeks. Leave her to Xavier.’
Kite, irritated, said: ‘I think that’s going to happen anyway’, even though at dinner he had detected what he was sure was Martha’s gathering interest in him. She had told him about her childhood in America, where she had lived until the age of ten, and seemed impressed by Kite’s knowledge of books and paintings. It made sense for them to be together. Martha was hardly likely to risk annoying Jacqui by hooking up with her errant older brother. Besides, Xavier had been astonishingly flirtatious with Hana, who had seemed to enjoy his company whenever Eskandarian’s back was turned. She was only seven or eight years older than both of them, which probably made her the same age as Alison from Mud Club. Kite understood Xavier well enough to know that he wouldn’t think twice about stealing Eskandarian’s girlfriend from under his nose. In fact, he would see it as a challenge.
‘She likes taking photos.’ Kite had stumbled on something harmless to say.
‘What kind of photos?’ Carl asked.
Peele looked up, as if Carl had been under orders not to say anything. ‘The ones you take with a camera?’
Kite rescued him, saying: ‘All sorts. She’s always snapping away. In Mougins, at dinner, down by the pool …’
‘Encourage that,’ said Peele with a firmness that slightly concerned Kite.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean encourage it! Make sure she keeps taking lots of photographs. Especially of anybody who comes to see our man. There haven’t been any visitors to the house so far. Am I correct?’
Kite could feel BOX 88 creeping into Martha’s privacy. He didn’t like it, yet there was nothing he could do to prevent it. He was hardly in a position to tell Peele and Strawson to ignore her.
‘Time?’ Strawson asked.
‘I should go soon,’ Kite replied, without looking at his watch. ‘What else do you need apart from Hana’s surname?’
‘You haven’t told us anything about the reason we’re all here,’ said Peele. ‘Eskandarian. What do you make of him? First impressions. The famous Kite intuition.’
Kite took another sip of the coffee, flattered by the description. He spotted a small jug of milk by the window. He walked over, picked it up, poured some into his coffee and sat back down.
‘He’s a lot more westernised than I was expecting. Smokes Winston Lights, drank a Kir before we all sat down for dinner, then lots of wine, cognac afterwards. Didn’t seem to affect him. I’ve seen guests at Killantringan put away what he drank last night and pass out in the residents’ lounge.’ Strawson was listening intently. ‘He seemed to be well versed in French culture. There was a conversation going on that I couldn’t really hear about Jean-Paul Sartre and Paris in the sixties. He’s very hands-off with Hana, no touching, no kissing. She said he only invited her to Mougins two weeks ago. Rosamund was keeping an eye on her at dinner, but it’s hard to work out if she approves or disapproves—’
‘Eskandarian,’ said Peele, pointedly looking at his watch. ‘Stay with your thoughts on him, not Lady Muck. What kind of things was he talking about at dinner?’
Kite was embarrassed to admit that he had barely spoken to the Iranian all night. He painted a picture of his friendship with Luc as something deep and lasting; the two men had obviously been very happy to see one another. Strawson and Peele seemed particularly interested by this, though the depth of the relationship came as no surprise to them.
‘There was no mention of Malta or New York or anything to do with Lockerbie. He’s very charismatic. Speaks fluent English and French.’ Kite began to feel that he was telling Strawson and Peele things they already knew.
‘It’s OK,’ said Peele, seeing that Kite was struggling. ‘Early days, isn’t it? You’ll have a chance to chat to him, listen in to what he’s saying. It’s the people who come to meet him we’re interested in. Also the chat on the mikes. We’ve got the phone line covered, but they’ll be cautious saying anything much on that.’
Kite noticed the use of ‘they’, not ‘he’. BOX were clearly more interested in Luc than they had let on.
‘There was one thing,’ he said. ‘Maybe you knew, maybe you didn’t. Luc told me Ali had a fiancée in Paris before he left for Iran.’
The three men looked at one another.
‘We did not know that,’ said Strawson.
Kite was elated. He was proving his worth. ‘They split up,’ he said. ‘She married a politician in Catalonia, Catalunya, some country I’d never heard of—’
‘Jesus Christ!’ Peele jumped to his feet. ‘Didn’t we teach you anything at Alford? Catalunya is a province in north-eastern Spain. You’ll find Barcelona there if you look hard enough. Did you get a name?’
‘No, sir,’ said Kite, unwittingly imitating their classroom relationship.
‘All these women with no surnames,’ Strawson declared. He stood up and walked over to the window. ‘What are we doing about the Gameboy?’
‘I’ve got it in my room,’ Kite replied.
‘Any chance of leaving it in Luc’s office? Wandering in for a chat when he’s not there, accidentally on purpose sliding it under the bookcase?’
‘Battery will only last two days,’ said Carl.
‘Then our boy gets it out and puts new ones in,’ Strawson replied, as if Kite wasn’t there.
‘You comfortable doing that?’ Peele asked.
‘Sure.’ Kite was determined to say yes to all but the most brazenly dangerous or illegal requests. ‘And there’s the Walkman too. Might as well use that if I have it.’
For you, thought Kite. Not ‘us’. He knew that BOX would pack up and go home, leave him to swing if he was exposed.
‘I understand,’ he said. ‘I won’t do anything reckless.’
Peele again looked at his watch.
‘You’d better go,’ he said. ‘Remember what I told you. Make sure you’re sweating and out of breath by the time you get back.’
‘Sure.’ Kite suddenly remembered the wall. ‘Christ,’ he said. ‘Something else that’s important.’
‘What?’ said Strawson.
Kite explained that Abbas had been parked close to the wall where BOX were intending to leave a chalk mark if they wanted to contact him. Strawson told him not to worry. Abbas wouldn’t be spending more than a few hours at a time with line of sight to the wall. The signalling procedure could still go ahead.
‘What about the windows?’ Kite asked.
‘What about them?’
‘Hélène had closed my shutters when I came back from Mougins last night. If I leave a T-shirt there during the day, she might move it. You may not see it.’
Kite could tell from their reaction that this was regarded as a slightly more taxing problem. Peele nevertheless solved it almost immediately.
‘Just use the cigarettes,’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘If you want to talk to us, just leave a packet of cigarettes on the wall at the bottom of the garden. If there’s a note, we’ll read and respond. We’ll check the site every hour or so. But leave the shirt as a signal anyway. Hélène may not always close the shutters.’
Strawson turned from the window. He had his hands behind his back, the left arm slightly crooked so that he was holding the wrist at an awkward angle. Kite was reminded of a painting he had seen of Napoleon surveying a battlefield. Strawson explained that another operation meant he had to leave France, but that he would be back within three days to check on progress. Kite was oddly relieved by the news, even as Carl and Peele offered him reassuring smiles. He venerated Strawson, but his presence in the safe house felt like an extra layer of pressure.
Box 88 : A Novel (2020) Page 29