Box 88 : A Novel (2020)

by Cumming, Charles

  It sounded straightforward. Kite shrugged and said: ‘Sure.’

  ‘Good man.’ Peele set the pad on the table and stood up. ‘Come and have a quick look at something.’

  He showed Kite upstairs. The largest of four bedrooms had been turned into a listening post. Carl was seated at a desk with a pair of headphones clamped to his ears. There was a two-reel tape recorder in front of him, a word processor and a car phone resting on a charging block. A cigarette was burning in a Michelin ashtray next to a half-eaten bowl of cereal. The milk had already started to separate in the heat. Carl took off the headphones, looped them round his neck and said: ‘Hey, Lockie. Good work. Getting lots out of the lamp.’

  ‘Do you think if Hana rubs it, she’ll be granted three wishes?’ Peele asked.

  ‘Master Aladdin,’ said Carl, putting on a Vietnamese accent. ‘Stop my boyfriend snoring. Send me Chanel handbag and diamond necklace so I go back home to Nice.’

  ‘Is she a prostitute?’ Kite asked. The question sounded more prurient than he had intended.

  ‘That’s what we’re keen to find out,’ Peele replied. ‘We still don’t know where she came from or how he found her. Hasn’t made a phone call since she arrived. Doesn’t seem to know Ali very well and is astonishingly incurious about his life and times. We wondered if she was DGSI, but the behaviour doesn’t fit.’

  It hadn’t even occurred to Kite that Hana might have been planted by French intelligence. This was the moment to tell them about the pool hut; surely no French spy would do what she had done. Yet Kite couldn’t bring himself to betray Xavier’s trust.

  ‘Let me see if I can get her passport details,’ he said, scrabbling around for an answer. ‘I’ve kept trying but no dice. She doesn’t act weirdly. There’s nothing suspicious about her except for the fact that she’s sleeping with a man twice her age.’

  ‘We should all be so lucky,’ Carl muttered. A bird started singing in the garden. ‘What is that fucking noise?’ he said. ‘Never stops, day and night, on and on and on.’ He did an impression of the sound. ‘Is it a cuckoo? Some sort of French tit?’

  ‘Wood pigeon,’ Peele replied decisively.

  Kite was looking behind the door of the bedroom. Several black-and-white surveillance photos had been laid out on a small table.

  ‘Who took these?’ he said, picking them up.

  The first showed Eskandarian getting out of the Audi in Cannes. The second was a shot of Abbas sitting in his suit on the beach. Others were random long lens shots of Luc, Rosamund, Eskandarian and Abbas in various locations, including Mougins and the gardens of the villa. There were two blurred images of Martha, several of Xavier talking to Eskandarian by the pool. Kite realised that it was possible to see almost every corner of the swimming area, including the hut, from at least two vantage points in the hills.

  ‘Just for background,’ Carl explained.

  ‘Big Brother is watching you,’ Peele added, giving Kite a nudge.

  Kite didn’t know how to respond. Naively, he hadn’t realised that the house would be under such tight surveillance.

  ‘Talking of pictures,’ Peele continued. ‘Is Martha still snapping away?’

  ‘All the time,’ Kite replied. ‘Why?’

  ‘Just good to have a third eye.’

  Before Kite had a chance to ask Peele what he meant by that, Carl looked up at a clock on the wall and said: ‘Guys, keep an eye on the time. If Lockie’s on a run, he should be going by now.’

  ‘Good point.’ Peele put his hand on Kite’s back. ‘The fragrant Abbas will be waiting.’

  ‘I counted them all out and I counted them all back,’ Carl declared, typing something into the computer keyboard. Kite didn’t know what he was talking about. It was as if the two men had developed their own rhythms, their own secret language during the long days and nights running the operation. Kite suddenly felt like an outsider. Perhaps that was their purpose.

  ‘Chop-chop,’ said Peele. ‘Or “wheels turning”, as Lady Rosamund would say. Carl, get out on the road and give Lockie the all-clear, will you?’

  They all went downstairs. Carl did as he had been asked. Peele surprised Kite by enveloping him in a bear hug on the porch, saying: ‘Well done, keep going, well done.’ As Kite walked off, he said: ‘Don’t forget now. Talk to Ali. Call Bijan. Use the Walkman,’ and waved him onto the road.

  ‘Cheers,’ said Carl as Kite passed him at the gate. ‘Houston, you are cleared for take-off.’

  Within ten minutes, Kite was back at the house. Martha was talking to Rosamund in the kitchen. Luc came down the stairs with slicked-back hair and an attitude of isolated indifference. He smelled of eau de cologne. All the way home Kite had felt that he was carrying Peele’s suspicions about Xavier’s father like a set of rocks on his back. There and then he decided to do nothing about changing the Gameboy batteries. To revive the microphone in the study was to drive another nail into whatever coffin BOX 88 were preparing for him. Kite had agreed to operate as an agent targeted against Ali Eskandarian, not against Luc Bonnard. He would never have agreed to betray Xavier’s father, no matter how much he disliked and distrusted him. He took a shower, changed into shorts and a T-shirt, ate breakfast downstairs and asked Luc if he could take the Vespa into Mougins.

  ‘Of course,’ Luc replied. ‘What do you need?’

  ‘Just a few postcards to send home.’ He caught Martha’s eye. She smiled as she bit into a croissant. ‘Need anything for the house?’

  Rosamund immediately thanked Kite for his kind offer and asked if he could pick up some toothpaste from the supermarket.

  ‘Can I come with you?’ Martha asked.

  ‘Sure,’ Kite replied, acting surprised. ‘You need postcards too?’

  ‘Promised my mum I’d send one,’ she said. ‘Shall we go in the next five minutes?’

  44

  Kite took Martha into Mougins on the Vespa. The young woman behind the counter informed her that she had to wait to speak to the pharmacist. Martha told Kite that she would prefer to be on her own, so he offered to pick her up half an hour later.

  It was the perfect window of time. He walked outside, climbed back onto the Vespa and rode up to the supermarket. He bought a card for the public telephone and dialled Bijan’s number. It rang out for almost a minute before a man picked up and said ‘Oui?’

  ‘Hello,’ said Kite. He was speaking in French. ‘Is that Bijan?’

  ‘Bijan isn’t here,’ the man replied. From his accent it sounded as though he was also Iranian.

  ‘Do you speak English?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When will Bijan be back?’

  ‘I am not certain.’

  ‘Can you give him a message?’ Kite asked.

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Tell him La … tell him Adam called.’ He had almost blown the call, forgetting until the very last moment that he had given Bijan a cover name. ‘I met him yesterday in Cannes. He will know who I am.’

  ‘Adam?’

  ‘Yes. The British guy.’

  ‘British guy,’ the man repeated. Kite couldn’t tell if he was distracted by something or conscientiously writing things down. ‘You have a number?’

  ‘No. I’m calling from a phone box in Mougins. I’ll try again tomorrow.’

  ‘Wait, please.’

  Kite had been about to hang up. Two very tanned, very blonde young girls with pigtails raced past the phone booth and disappeared into the supermarket. A woman was running to catch up with them, shouting something in what Kite presumed was a Scandinavian language. She was frantically pushing a shopping cart with a baby strapped across the handlebars. She looked exhausted. Kite wondered if the Turings had picked up the call. Presumably somebody at the safe house had seen him going into Mougins and was listening on the line.

  ‘Hello? Adam?’

  It was Bijan.

  ‘Bijan, hi. I didn’t think you were there.’

  ‘I was sleeping.’

  ‘I’m sorry to have
woken you.’

  ‘Not at all. It’s good to hear your voice. I’m glad that you’ve telephoned. How are you?’

  ‘I’m well, thank you.’

  ‘You are in Mougins?’

  ‘Yes,’ Kite replied. Had it been a mistake to reveal his location?

  ‘That’s where you’re staying?’

  He avoided answering the question.

  ‘I’m just at the supermarket. There may not be much credit left on my card.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘It was just that I’ve been thinking a lot about our conversation.’ Make him feel like you’re on his side, that you can’t stop thinking about what he told you. ‘To be honest, I was really shocked by some of the things you said.’

  ‘Yes. It’s a very difficult situation, Adam.’

  ‘And I’m sorry that it’s so dangerous for you.’

  ‘It’s considerate of you to say that. I knew as soon as we started talking that you were a good person, Adam.’

  Kite waited, took a breath.

  ‘I’d like to help if I can. You said you wanted to meet Ali. Mr Eskandarian. What would you like me to do? How can I be helpful?’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. I think this might be dangerous for you. We have other tactics, other ideas we can explore.’

  Kite was confused. He had assumed that Bijan would leap at the chance of a meeting.

  ‘I see. OK. What’s changed?’

  There was a delay. It sounded as though Bijan had covered the handset and was speaking in Farsi to someone in the room. After about five seconds he returned to the call.

  ‘The situation is complicated. You say you are in Mougins? It is very beautiful up there. Not spoiled, like so much of the coast.’

  ‘Yes, very beautiful.’ Kite had the dismaying sense that he had played the wrong hand. The Scandinavian woman emerged from the supermarket, looking around the busy car park for her daughters. She was evidently distressed.

  ‘Thank you for ringing, Adam. I enjoyed our talk the other day.’

  ‘Me too,’ Kite replied, only to hear the line go dead. He stepped out of the booth and shouted at the woman: ‘I saw them go inside. Your daughters are inside the supermarket!’ and she thanked him with a grateful wave. Why had Bijan hung up so abruptly? If the whole encounter had been set up by Abbas or Eskandarian to test his loyalty, had he now fallen into a bear trap?

  Kite retrieved his phone card and walked back to the Vespa. Peele had been completely wrong in his assessment of the situation. There had been no address to write down, no possibility of a second meeting in Cannes. The Iranian had not even asked Kite for his number. Why had he been so uninterested? We have other tactics, other ideas we can explore. Were the exiles planning a hit on Eskandarian? Kite rode back down to the pharmacy trying to work out what was happening but unable to untangle fact from speculation.

  Martha was waiting for him on the road. She had already swallowed the pill. When she saw him, her expression changed from one of distracted anxiety to pleasure at his arrival. She swung onto the back of the Vespa, kissed Kite’s neck and wrapped her arms around his waist. The joy of being with her and the complexity of his work for BOX 88 were like two pistons in some vast machine moving perfectly in time, pulling him one way and then the other. As they rode home, Martha told him that the pharmacist had been a ‘judgemental Catholic with bad breath’. That made Kite laugh, though he was worried that she was going to feel unwell for the rest of the day.

  ‘As soon as I’m better we must do it again,’ she said, and Kite almost drove off the road. ‘I loved what happened last night.’

  ‘Me too,’ he shouted over the noise of the engine.

  He was grinning from ear to ear as he drove through the gates, tooting the horn as he sped past Abbas in the Audi. Martha kissed him and retired to her room with a copy of Paul Auster’s The New York Trilogy which she had borrowed from Rosamund. She told Kite not to worry about her and put word out to the rest of the house that she was just feeling under the weather and would be fine by the evening.

  Kite spent the rest of the morning chatting to Jacqui and Hana by the pool. He decided that he should stick to the plan to talk to Ali. If Bijan had been a trap, it was better to confront Eskandarian with his concerns about Iran, rather than to keep them to himself. That way he would look like less of a traitor. If Bijan was a genuine Iranian exile who regarded Eskandarian as his sworn enemy, then Kite had nothing to worry about. He could speak to Eskandarian as Peele had instructed, earning his trust in the process.

  Xavier emerged just in time for lunch. Under orders from his father, he spent much of the afternoon marking and digging out an area in the south-eastern corner of the garden which Luc wanted to transform into a pétanque court. Kite helped them, but when Rosamund offered to drive father and son into Antibes at four o’clock to buy a set of boules, Kite seized his opportunity. He left them to it and went into the house to search for Eskandarian.

  He was in the kitchen, making coffee.

  ‘Lockie!’ He had the charmer’s habit of making everyone with whom he came into contact feel sought after and cherished. Even Kite, who knew that Eskandarian was potentially an agent of mass murder, could not help being seduced. ‘How are you? Having a lazy afternoon? Is Martha OK? I think Hana is down by the pool.’

  ‘She’s fine. Just not feeling a hundred per cent.’

  ‘OK, good.’

  Eskandarian poured a small percolator of coffee into a yellow espresso cup. He offered to make more for Kite – ‘It’s easy, will take five minutes!’ – but Kite declined. Instead he said:

  ‘Ali, this is a bit awkward, but could I possibly talk to you?’

  The Iranian looked taken aback.

  ‘Talk to me? Of course!’

  His reaction suggested that he was flattered by the approach, rather than frustrated that Kite was going to be taking up his precious time. Kite was standing over a bowl of La Perruche sugar and passed it to Eskandarian. He dropped a cube into the coffee.

  ‘It’s about something that happened in Cannes after you and Hana had gone home yesterday. Something about Iran.’

  There was no microphone in the kitchen. Kite wanted Carl to hear. He tried to convey both with his body language and by his tone of voice that it would be better to hold the conversation elsewhere.

  ‘Something about Iran?’ Eskandarian looked confused. ‘OK, so what happened?’ He stirred the coffee with a matching yellow spoon. ‘Shall we talk in the living room? In the garden?’

  Kite had been hoping that he would suggest going up to the attic. As luck would have it, a lawnmower started up in a neighbouring garden.

  ‘Might be a bit noisy outside.’

  ‘The living room then?’ Eskandarian suggested.

  Kite glanced over his shoulder and grimaced slightly, as if to say: ‘These walls have ears.’ To his delight, Eskandarian took the hint. ‘Or we can talk in my room if you’re worried about something?’

  ‘That’s probably a good idea,’ Kite replied. ‘It’s better that we don’t get disturbed.’

  With an expression of intrigue rather than concern, Eskandarian picked up his coffee and indicated that Kite should follow him upstairs.

  ‘I wonder what it is,’ he whispered as they passed Abbas’s bedroom. The door was closed. Eskandarian pressed a finger to his lips, indicating with a mischievous smile that his bodyguard was enjoying a siesta.

  ‘I’m sure it’s nothing,’ Kite replied, adopting the same stage whisper. They reached the bottom of the stairs. ‘It’s just something I thought you should know.’

  He had not been back to the attic since the first frantic evening when he had switched the lamps. Eskandarian’s study was now a meleé of books and files, of French, American and British newspapers as well as letters and faxes strewn on the tables and the floor. Kite had not known that Eskandarian had received so much post and could only assume that he had brought much of it with him from Iran.

  ‘Wow,’ he said,
registering the chaos. ‘You’ve been busy up here.’

  ‘Please forgive the mess.’ Eskandarian set about clearing a space on the sofa so that Kite could sit down. It was like visiting a beak in his rooms at Alford. ‘It is an exceptionally busy time for me. I am part of a team advising our new president, Mr Rafsanjani. There are a number of things I am doing for the new government over here in France. They never stop sending me faxes. Luc will soon start charging me for ink and paper! I wanted to use my holiday to catch up on correspondence. As you can see, I have not been able to make very much progress.’

  It occurred to Kite that if Hana was an undercover DGSI officer, she was sleeping next to a goldmine of information. He thought about the Olympus Trip, wondering if he would get the chance to come back upstairs and photograph some of the more important-looking documents in the study. Time and again Peele had impressed on him the importance of not taking unnecessary risks, but to fail to take at least a roll of film in this Aladdin’s cave of intelligence would be a dereliction of duty.

  ‘So tell me.’ Eskandarian sat at the desk and looked benevolently at his slightly nervous young guest. ‘What is it you want to tell me, Lockie? What on earth happened in Cannes?’

  Kite was sitting beside the lamp. Out of habit he committed Eskandarian’s remarks to memory – I am part of a team advising our new president, Mr Rafsanjani. There are a number of things I am doing for the new government over here in France – just in case there was a problem with the technology.

  He asked if he could smoke. Eskandarian offered him a cigarette from a silver case on his desk and lit it with a gold lighter. It was a brand Kite did not recognise, far stronger than the red Marlboros he was used to. Settling back in the chair, Kite felt no need to embellish his story, to exaggerate what Bijan had said nor to imply that he was frightened or in any way feeling morally compromised by sharing a house with a man accused of such profound injustices. Instead he merely repeated, more or less verbatim, exactly what he had told Peele at their morning meeting. Throughout, Kite had the sense of talking to an exceptionally intelligent, emotionally sensitive man who was determined that Kite should know the truth about life in Iran. Kite quickly became convinced that Bijan was a genuine exile and that neither Eskandarian nor Abbas had used him to test Kite’s loyalty. Eskandarian encouraged him to speak freely and at no point expressed any degree of anger or frustration with the things Bijan had said. Indeed, to Kite’s astonishment, he admitted that many of them were true.