by Merle Nygate
Eli said, ‘Is it home or work or something else.’
‘I’m not going to bother you with all this; suffice to say, I need to stop. Now.’
Eli stroked his scalp, ‘You’re not bothering me, Derek. Just tell me why; maybe I can help in some way.’
Red Cap shrugged, ‘I’m not sleeping and when I do, I have nightmares. During the day I have palpitations and I feel sick all the time.’
‘So, let me get you in to see a doctor, a good doctor. Derek, all you need is a decent doctor.’
The agent grinned ruefully, ‘You mean a shrink. I could check into the same place as my wife.’
‘Whatever you want, whenever you want, I mean that. But don’t walk now, Derek, we’re right in the middle of the job; you’re a professional.’
‘Don’t try to manipulate me, Benny, and stop sounding like a used-car salesman. Let’s end this well.’
Eli poured himself a drink and sipped at it. The agent was right; this was the downside of working with someone who knew the process. ‘Point taken. I apologise if that’s what it looked like.’
Red Cap said, ‘To do right, we must respect other people – my father told me that. He was a vicar.’
Eli looked at Red Cap eye to eye. He spoke slowly, ‘I want to do right and I do respect you. Derek, I’ve got some questions I brought from back home, they’re about the RAT in the Qatar Embassy.’
‘I told you, it’s not my department. It would look suspicious if I was interested. Everybody just does their own job and then goes home.’
‘Look, if you can get the answers, even some of the answers, I promise we’ll call it a day.’
Red Cap was still and held eye contact, ‘And would that be doing right?’
‘In the long term, yes.’ Eli said.
Red Cap picked up his glass and without drinking, placed it on the table between them. He spoke slowly, ‘I never told you why I came to Palace Green and Kensington Palace Gardens when I volunteered.’
‘Our embassy was closer to the tube than the Russian Embassy?’ Eli said.
‘No, it was a deliberate choice. I’d thought about it for years before I did it. It was because of Mrs Stein.’
The agent’s smile lifted the lined skin over his cheek bones.
‘Mrs Stein?’
‘My music teacher. My dear father had aspirations for me, perhaps wanting me to fulfil his own thwarted ambitions. Who knows? Anyway, on a Wednesday night when he and my mother met parishioners for tea and cake, I went to Mrs Stein for dinner and a music lesson.’
Red Cap narrowed his eyes; he was looking beyond Benny at the wall as if he could see something there. ‘Our piano was in the front room and on top of it was a lamp with a coloured glass lampshade – faux Tiffany I believe. But it was the only colour in the house; everything else was dark wood, brown, beige, magnolia, but no colour. Funny the things that one remembers.’
‘Was Mrs Stein a member of your father’s congregation?’ Eli said.
The question brought Red Cap back to the room. ‘Hardly. She was one of your lot. They lived five doors away. She was quite beautiful. At least I thought so, and she was younger than my mother or she seemed to be; she was certainly merrier. I haven’t thought about her for such a long time; she had lots of red hair that was probably dyed and I was fascinated by how she secured it on top of her head – with a pencil, or a knitting needle, or a chop stick, or anything else she could find. When I got there, she was never ready so I’d sit at the table in the kitchen with the twins in their high chairs while she simultaneously fed them and prepared whatever had to go into the pot or oven before we had our lesson. I absolutely loved it, Benny. The radio would be on and she might sing or do a dance to get the twins to eat their pulped-up mush. And she used to get me to sing along. It was something I could never imagine happening in our house; the only songs my dear mother ever sang were hymns and never at home. Sometimes Mrs Stein’s mother was there, and the old lady knew music hall songs like “Abdul Abulbul Amir”. D’you know that song?’
Eli shook his head and Red Cap started to sway in his seat. His rasped voice began, ‘The sons of the prophet are brave men and bold, they’re quite unaccustomed to fear...’ The tune dissolved into a hacking cough that Red Cap soothed with a gulp of whisky. At last he cleared his throat, recovered even though his face was flushed when he looked up.
‘So, that was Mrs Stein,’ Red Cap said swallowing. ‘And why I came to you and not the Russians. But my terrible guilt, which I confess for the first time to you, my friend, is that I wanted Mrs Stein to be my mother. With all my heart I yearned for that woman, I fantasised about her taking me to school, tucking me up in bed when I was sick, singing me a song instead of the sad woman waiting for me in our colourless house. Was that a betrayal, Benny? Was that my first secret betrayal and the reason I’m here with you?’
‘Of course, it wasn’t,’ Eli lied because that’s what you did with agents. ‘I wanted my uncle to be my father.’ Another lie.
‘What happened to your uncle?’
‘Got himself killed in a commando raid in Syria. My father never got over it.’
But sometimes, like a snake, truth slithers out of the lie.
It must have been the whisky, Eli thought afterwards: he was ten – sitting by his father’s side on the bed in his parents’ room. Abba was holding a small box on his knee and ever curious, Eli watched his father open the blue box with the gold Star of David on it. Nestled on pale blue silk was Uncle Danny’s posthumous medal. It was the only time Eli saw his father weep, the only time the suave, witty, erudite man broke down. Holding the medal in his hand, Abba’s shoulders shook and he sobbed.
Eli shut his notebook and smoothed down the leather to indicate that the private part of his life was closed.
For a moment or two there was an awkward silence between the two men. At last Red Cap broke it. ‘A little while ago you said you’d try to give me anything I want if I kept going; if I tried to get the RAT. Is that still a firm offer?’
‘Within reason,’ Eli said.
‘Then drink with me now, Benny. Just for once, let’s forget about all this; the questions; the answers; the people behind you with the questions – and the people behind me. Let’s find somewhere where we can watch the cricket test together; like friends. And drink together – like friends.’
24
Birmingham, Three Days Later
Three days. Three whole days with Rafi and they were no closer to making contact with Wasim than they had been when they’d arrived in this miserable corner of Birmingham. It was frustrating; no matter how much time Eli spent studying the image they had of Wasim that had been lifted from the University of Kansas’s website, the reality remained elusive. And if Wasim continued to stay in the flat above the laundrette, there was little they could do, short of knocking on the door and inviting themselves in for a cup of tea.
To compound the misery of the stakeout the weather had turned bad. Squally, blustery wind and quite unseasonal according to the incessant and obsessive commentary in the shops and cafés where they passed the day trying to be as grey and unmemorable as the ubiquitous clouds.
Their favourite watch spot was a corner shop with a few tables for punters to have a coffee and a microwaved bap. Here they could sit on plastic chairs and watch the traffic rumble past the entrance to the flat. The view was partially obscured by a bus stop but at least inside the café/shop they were dry. They took turns being the eyeball which meant doing a circuit around the block, going into different shops and checking to see if there was any activity from the flat. It was stupefyingly boring work.
Rafi came into the café and sat down opposite Eli. He shrugged off his jacket and rain dripped on to the grimy floor. He seemed unfazed, even relaxed, even enjoying himself.
‘We know he’s in there,’ Rafi said. ‘Now it’s just a question of waiting for him to come out. Listen, he wants to see his sister, so he can’t stay in there forever. When he comes out we’ll ge
t a look at him, make a contact. You’ll do your spy runner magic and everything will be achla. So, relax, Eli. Enjoy the moment.’
The moment Eli was currently enjoying was a rebellion in his oesophagus; acid reflux from the fat in the bacon bap he’d just eaten. He didn’t answer, just pushed his chair back and got to his feet reaching for his jacket which was still damp; it was his turn to do a pass.
Rafi hadn’t finished, ‘You know what your problem is, Eli?’
‘I’m sure you’re about to tell me.’
‘Seriously, man, you don’t know how to pace yourself and as I’ve said to you before, you think too much. You should try meditation.’
‘That’s him.’
Over Rafi’s shoulder, Eli had just seen a gangly young man on the other side of the road. Even in a hoodie and baseball cap there was no doubt in Eli’s mind that it was Wasim; he’d spent long enough staring at the kid’s image to have memorised the wide brow and etched frown, the bushy hair and narrow chin. He was standing by the bus stop, knees slightly bent, taking the weight from one to the other as if there was elastic in them. Apparently nervous, his head was turning as the traffic hurtled past, he was eyeing the island in the middle of the road to see if he could get to it. Rafi had stood up.
‘Wait,’ Eli raised his hand. ‘Let’s just see which way he goes when he gets across.’
Standing in the rain, the boy hunched further inside his hoodie, he seemed impatient to cross. A gap appeared and he scuttled towards the island and then dashed across, like a foal, all legs and not quite co-ordinated. Safely on the same side of the pavement as the café, the boy paused again, shifting from foot to foot, a trait Eli was already starting to recognise as being particular to Wasim. It looked as if the boy was uncertain of where he was going but then he made a decision.
‘Oh shit – he’s coming this way,’ Eli said. ‘He’s coming in here.’
Rafi sat down, turned back to face Eli and picked up the laminated menu. They both concentrated on avoiding eye contact and merely glanced up as Wasim came into the shop and broached the aisles of food clearly looking for something in particular.
‘We’ve got to get to him before he goes back in the house,’ Rafi said. ‘Who knows when he’s going to come out again.’
‘No. If he’s come out once, he’ll come out again,’ Eli said.
By now the boy was at the till; he had a carton of milk, a carton of juice, some beans and tomatoes. He passed over some money and then waited for change. Closer, he looked younger than 18; thin, below average height, wiry dark hair and a shadow of beard on his chin. He looked like a kid you’d see on any campus, anywhere, even down to the thick-framed glasses that were now speckled with rain.
Just then, a man came into the shop; he abruptly turned away from the boy, avoiding his ten to two: the dangerous area in front of Wasim. Eli did a double-take; the man had positioned himself precisely at three – at right angles to the side of the boy, out of his range of vision; it was exactly like watching a playback of a training film, without the commentary. The man had cropped red hair, a beard; solid built, tough, arms hanging free, as if ready to respond and his eyes were alert.
‘Problem,’ Eli said.
‘What?’ Rafi said.
Then a blond woman came into the shop, middle-aged, straggly hair, a hollow-eyed expression from too many late nights working and too many parties making up for it. Wasim was still at the till packing his food into a plastic bag and the woman hung back, with casual skill, at the magazine rack, finding her position and, once again, precisely avoiding the boy’s ten to two. With her back to Wasim she leafed through Hello, frowned, and then picked up another magazine as if that might be better. The woman ignored the man with the red hair who was working the aisles but she just couldn’t help herself; she just had to snatch a look towards the till and Wasim.
‘Give me the menu,’ Eli said. ‘We have a big problem. Unless I’m very much mistaken, the house across the road is under surveillance by our friends at MI5.’
There was nothing they could do. For another thirty minutes the two men sat in the Birmingham café and drank another pot of tea even though Wasim had gone and so had his watchers.
‘We may as well see how many there are,’ Eli said.
Using the hire car they cruised past the house and competed to see how quickly they could spot the rest of the surveillance team who were spread in a classic pattern around the house. The red-headed man was at a bus stop fifty yards down the road; blondie was in the launderette under the flat with a bag of washing – a nice touch they thought – and there was a moon-faced kid selling The Big Issue next to the bus stop. In total there was an additional five other watchers and when Eli and Rafi saw the shift change at 8pm they knew that the notion of making an unseen contact with the boy was absurd.
‘What the hell are we going to do?’ Rafi said for once apparently pessimistic. ‘We know the boy’s here but we can’t get close to him.’
‘We can’t stick around here that’s for sure. I say we go back to London, discuss it with Yuval, and think of some other way to make contact with the boy. In the meantime we have to hope that he’s not arrested and that he doesn’t go visit his sister.’
25
M40 Motorway – The Same Day
Petra flicked her car into sports mode, put her foot down, and felt the car lurch forward as she reached ninety miles per hour. At five in the morning the M40 was an empty ribbon, curling up the hill between the chalky Chiltern escarpment before High Wycombe.
This weekend would be the first break she’d had away from the school since the language course had started. She needed the time away from the school for several reasons, both operational and emotional — although it pained her to admit it even if only to herself. Being in the field was far more tiring than she remembered; the constant concentration, playing the role, extracting information, trying to observe and memorise nuance that may or may not be important made her head ache. Making it worse was using her real name. This singularity made it impossible to detach. There was no barrier between who she really was and what she was doing.
Petra saw the sign for the M25 and relaxed her shoulders; she was nearly home. Besides this chance to wind down, it would also be the first time she’d seen Matt. It had been easy to tell him on a shaky Skype call that she’d got an interesting summer gig; it would be complicated if he saw her at the school with Deanna and the students. Matt was no fool; he’d instantly smell the sulphur of espionage.
Home. By 6.30am Petra was shoving her front door against the stack of post that had wedged it shut. Successfully inside she knelt to gather up the paper on the mat. Between front door and kitchen she glanced up and experienced the house with the fresh eyes of a stranger. She encountered her home as someone else might. Her first impression was smell. A bad smell. Above her some lilies in the vase on the hall table had shrivelled, one or two petals had dropped on to the floor and lay twisted into shapes of agony. Before doing anything else, Petra needed to get rid of the decomposing flowers and the stinking water. That done she rinsed her hands and powered up the Sonos to get some music flowing around the house.
‘That’s better,’ she said aloud. The intermezzo from Fedora drifted down the stairs and around the house. It slid and shimmied off the walls. The set of Petra’s shoulders softened and she wondered what time Matt would get back.
Matt was aware that she was Jewish and that her father was a refugee, but he knew none of the details. There was no need for him to know. No need to describe the bitter day in 2001 when she’d buried her father and met Alon; no need to relate how the stranger at the service had choked up with tears and introduced himself as the other little boy in the photograph.
It was the same for Matt. He hadn’t told her what he’d done in Iraq during Desert Fox; never said how he’d got the wound on his arm or, later, how he got the wound of his first marriage. When they’d met as inductees at the investigations firm he’d quoted: ‘The past is another co
untry.’ She’d readily agreed – she hadn’t told him about her work in the past and there was no reason for her to tell him about it now. Shortly after they’d joined the firm their work paths diverted; Matt had been seconded to the Risk department and used his army skills in some of the more inhospitable areas of the world keeping corporate clients safe. She sometimes wondered how long he’d be happy doing the same job but they didn’t have those sorts of conversations; their time together was to enjoy.
While the kettle boiled, Petra leafed through the envelopes, opening anything that wasn’t immediately obvious and putting the paper into piles. A flyer slipped between her hands and drifted down to the table. It was an A5 sheet with balloons, smileys and text in different colours. ‘Street Party’ it announced.
Petra looked at her watch and checked the date. Then she went to the window at the front of the cottage and spotted Bob, a neighbour from three houses down. The old guy was standing on the green in a blue cashmere sweater giving instructions to a gangly lad standing atop a pick-up truck. Bob was gesticulating, telling the kid to get the bollards off the back of the pick-up truck.
Grabbing her car keys, Petra dashed out of the front door to move her car before it got blocked in. And on cue, as if she’d been waiting, Sandie, from next door, came out on to the street.
‘You’re back! That’s wonderful. I’m so pleased you could make it. We’re going to have such a great time.’
26
Thames End Village, Surrey – Same Day
Four hours later there was still no sign of Matt but the street party was in full swing. A band had set up on the mini-roundabout at the far end of the close. There were keyboards, drums, stacked amps and Jeff, a building society manager, was at the heart of it. The band was belting out 70s and 80s covers. They were competing with a Punch and Judy show and the clatter and clamour of the local kids. If the scene had been in black and white it could have been old newsreel – apart from the proud parents taking photos on their phones.