Agent of the State (39 page)

‘Except he was a guest at that weird party,’ said Kerr, shuffling the papers back into the briefcase. ‘A murder scene. I need to speak with Karl again. Can you fix it for me, Al? And tell him to bring Olga along.’

‘I already tried and he’s not picking up,’ said Fargo.

‘OK, let’s get hold of Olga. If Karl gets back in touch in the meantime, don’t tell him. Make it somewhere neutral – say, Starbucks in Kensington High Street.’

‘No problem.’

‘I’m on my way back. Look, this Rigov guy’s job is to build UK trade links, right? How long was he in London?’

‘Karl picked him up from Heathrow a week ago last Friday. He flew out from Farnborough by private jet on Tuesday. Back to Moscow.’

‘So, less than five days, with a weekend in between. Who did he see?’

‘No one, apparently. I checked with my contact in Foreign Office Protocol. Her office has no record of any meetings with ministers or officials. Rigov seems to have spent his time holed up in the Dorchester and the Russian Embassy.’

‘Except for that party when Karl tracked him down,’ said Kerr. ‘Which makes me think the trade thing is a cover. I think Mr Rigov is in a completely different line of business. There has to be much more to this guy than we’re seeing right now.’

‘If there is we don’t have access,’ said Fargo.

‘Which makes me doubly suspicious. So let’s open another channel. Who’s our friendliest European ally, these days?’

‘I’ll try the French.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘Dodge’s team pitched an agent for them on Eurostar last month.’

‘I won’t hold my breath.’

Fargo came back to Kerr while he was still on the road back to the Yard. ‘Olga can meet you tomorrow morning, ten o’clock in Starbucks. Turn left out of Kensington High Street station and it’s on the corner of Allen Street. And she asked me to give you a message. Yuri Goschenko is taking her to another of his special parties this Thursday evening.’

‘Where?’

‘She says he won’t tell her.’

Forty-seven

Tuesday, 25 September, 18.47, Chiswick

The fall-back house for the blackmail operation after the compromise of Marston Street was in Chiswick. Detached, on three storeys, it lay unobtrusively halfway down a quiet crescent lined with cherry trees, not far from the cricket ground and within a ten-minute walk of the Thames. Despite the wide black double doors topped with a semicircle of painted glass, it was less grand than the Knightsbridge address, with smaller rooms, lower ceilings and comparatively modest furnishings.

By the time Claire Grant arrived early on Tuesday evening Harold was already waiting in the sitting room with a tumbler of neat whisky. The room was cosy, about fifteen feet square and wood-panelled, with a landscape above the marble fireplace, dusty glass chandelier and threadbare rug over polished floorboards. There were two deep leather armchairs, each with its wine table, and a matching sofa. A decanter of malt whisky and two crystal glasses stood on an oak table in the far corner.

The minister had come straight from the Home Office and threw her coat on the sofa. Harold stood and kissed her on both cheeks. She let him ease her into the adjacent armchair facing the door. ‘You look ready for a drink,’ he said.

‘Harold, what the hell is this all about?’ She had to wait while he refilled his glass and poured one for her. ‘Not too much,’ she cautioned. ‘I have to vote tonight. Where is everyone?’

‘It’s just us.’ Harold laid a line of cocaine on her wine table and dropped into his armchair. ‘They want us to have a chat. They’re so pleased with the public display of support for Michael Danbury. Delighted. Really. And as for the TV appearance, very impressive. Top notch, actually.’

‘Bollocks. Danbury’s a complete dickhead.’ Grant leant over to snort her coke.

‘Believe me, Claire, they know how difficult this is for you.’

‘So what the hell have they done with her?’ demanded Grant. She stared at Harold, calmly sipping his malt. ‘Come on, what’s the deal? Get to the point, Harold. This is dangerous territory.’

‘It’s a little late to worry about that, my dear.’ Harold laughed and made a face. ‘We do what is required. And I’m afraid we have some more business to conduct.’

‘We?’

Harold was already reaching into his jacket pocket. He produced a folded sheet of paper and waved it in small circles as he spoke. She wished he had allowed time for the drug to kick in. He infuriated her when he was in this mood, making coercion sound like an enticement. ‘You, actually. Sorry,’ he said, sounding like a man put upon.

Seeing that Harold was waiting for her to take the note from him, she sat back in the armchair and crossed her legs. ‘No more, Harold. It’s too fucking risky.’

‘A most urgent requirement for the London end,’ he said, still waving the note in the air. ‘A final call upon your services, apparently.’

‘You promised that last time.’

She gave in, sliding forward for the paper. There were two names, with the precise details necessary for the visa applications. When she had read them she looked sharply across at Harold. ‘These are extremists like Ahmed Jibril, yes?’

‘Students like him. Travelling from Islamabad,’ said Harold, soothingly. ‘Their presence is required here imminently for special duties.’

‘For terrorism.’

‘For a purpose devised by our masters, my dear.’

‘They’re forcing me to connive in extremism.’

‘They have not said that, so how are we to make such a judgement? You authorise it as a special-category approval again, prepared and recommended by the appropriate civil servant, just as before.’

‘But it’s too soon after Jibril. If this gets out . . .’

‘Any review will show the background papers to have been recommended by your trusted official, just like his, and we both know how vague these intelligence assessments can be. A terrorist or agent out of control, who can tell, these days?’

‘Well, I can’t bloody well do it.’

‘As I remind you every time,’ said Harold, with another short laugh, ‘we respond to direct orders, not indirect consequences.’

‘Jesus Christ.’ The minister gulped at her drink, close to panic. ‘I can’t take any more dead bodies, Harold. It’s too much.’

‘And when did you discover your shiny new scruples, exactly?’ Harold was looking down at his hands, his voice low. ‘Our masters’ friends call the Danbury girl English Rose. God alone knows what they’ve planned for her, but she’s tied inextricably to you.’ When he looked up, she saw menace in his face. ‘So, come, my dear, no more hypocrisy. Of course you can. And will.’

‘No. They have to let me go, Harold.’ Grant was pleading now. ‘You have to make them.’

‘Try to relax.’ Harold took his empty glass to the drinks table. ‘Perform this one more duty and your precious skin is saved. I promise.’

‘Then they leave me alone, yes?’

‘Trust me.’ Harold turned with his whisky. ‘Look, I’m chained to them for life, but for you it’s different. The night after tomorrow they will release you from any further obligation. On Thursday you will drink champagne, part as friends, and watch your career soar to the heavens.’ He put the glass down and removed his jacket. Grant let him take her hand, lean over and kiss her on the lips. ‘Everything all right at home?’

‘Christ, Harold, you could fuck me to within an inch of my life before David noticed anything.’

Harold pressed a button on the wall and smiled. ‘Would you like me to?’

Before she could react the door opened and a woman stood before them. She was heavily built, in baggy black trousers and a short-sleeved white blouse stretched over her bloated stomach. The minister had seen her before and glared nastily. ‘What the hell do you want?’

The woman spoke directly to Harold. ‘Are you ready?’

‘Yes, please,’ said Harold, lightly clasping Grant’s hand. ‘I think now would be a good time.’

The woman looked down the hallway and reached out her plump arm in a beckoning gesture. They heard a faint voice, little more than a whimper, then Sara Danbury was standing in the doorway, red-eyed and weeping. They had dressed her in a plain cotton shift and her ballet shoes. She wore a woman’s bright red lipstick and rouge, but looked tiny against the woman’s bulk.

Grant recoiled in her chair against Harold’s arm, as if the child was about to attack her. ‘Oh, no, Harold. Don’t let them do this to me,’ she wailed, as the awful realisation struck her. ‘Please. I’m begging you.’

Harold was stroking her hand now and making shushing sounds as the woman led the child to the drinks table. ‘She is here to serve you, my dear,’ he whispered soothingly, ‘so you must sit still and enjoy.’

Grant froze as the woman awkwardly closed Sara’s fingers around the whisky decanter.

‘I have to work tonight,’ was all Grant could say. Then she managed another glare at the woman. ‘Don’t you listen? I said I don’t want any more, you fat bitch.’

Ignoring her again, the woman positioned Sara by Grant’s wine table. Her mind already blurred by whisky and cocaine, Grant tried to get up, but Harold’s restraining hand rested on her shoulder as Sara began to pour into the empty glass.

The terrified child splashed whisky onto the table, but neither Harold nor the woman checked her. Grant was aware of Harold taking a couple of steps backwards. Then a video camera appeared in the woman’s hands and she began filming her. ‘Say “cheese”,’ she mocked, as she trapped the government minister being served whisky by the kidnapped child.

The woman led Sara from the room as quickly as they had come, leaving Grant alone with Harold again. She lurched forward in the armchair, face in her hands, distraught.

Harold moved in close, stroking the nape of her neck. ‘It’s just their little piece of insurance,’ he murmured, ‘and you know how to make things right.’

Grant was quietly sobbing, her head rising and falling in her lap. ‘I’m finished.’

‘Nonsense.’ The piece of paper Harold had given her lay in the fold of the armchair where she had left it. He reached down and gently pressed it into her hand. ‘Two more students, my dear,’ he breathed, ‘then both of us can have her and everything will be normal again. I promise.’

Forty-eight

Tuesday, 25 September, 19.38, Bill Ritchie’s house

Kerr intended to drive straight home from the Fishbowl. Cruising down Finchley Road while Melanie trailed behind, watching his back for any new surveillance, he tried to relax with Magic FM, but the anxiety that had been washing over him since the
Blue Global
revelation would not let go.

He pulled in on a double red outside a kebab takeaway near Seven Sisters and switched off the radio. The road was broad, straight and well lit, so he waved Melanie past, confident of spooking any suspicious vehicles. Couples were already queuing outside the cinema farther up the road, tailing back almost level with his car. In his mirror a bus in the designated lane was flashing him as the stationary Alfa forced it into the main carriageway. The driver honked and gave him the finger but Kerr, deep in thought, kept his eyes straight ahead.

The interpretation of the message Justin had stolen from inside Jibril’s water heater changed everything. He and Alan Fargo now understood the code ‘13 + ED-TA - 4’. The key, buried in the
Blue Global
, had converted suspicion about another attack involving Ahmed Jibril into a conviction. Every hour counted.

Three youths were leaving the shop with kebabs, attracted by the noise from the bus and eyeing up Kerr’s illegally parked car. One picked out a soggy piece of tomato and tossed it at the Alfa. They laughed and jeered as it hit with a faint splat and drifted down the windscreen, but Kerr was so absorbed that this, too, scarcely registered.

He had to balance the protection of his team as they developed their secret investigation with his duty to protect the public from another bombing. If more
jihadis
attacked before they reached the truth, all his work would count for nothing. Knowing he could have prevented an atrocity, he would carry another burden of guilt for the rest of his life.

The discovery that morning in the peace and quiet of Dodge’s safe-house also left Kerr feeling even more isolated. He knew his team trusted his judgement; they depended on him, and he had never let them down. Now, sitting quietly in the Alfa, anxiety stirred deep in the pit of his stomach. With every danger sign his team uncovered, he had never been in greater need of someone in authority he could trust. But for him there was no back-up, no higher level of support.

Through the smeared windscreen Kerr saw that the youths had given up on him, distracted by some shivering jailbait outside the cinema. Suddenly, he knew what he had to do. His sense of duty left him no choice. The kids looked round again, startled, as he gunned the engine and squealed a U-turn.

Bill and Lyn Ritchie lived in Margaret Thatcher’s old constituency of Finchley, north London. Their spacious four-bedroom 1930s semi was in a quiet, tree-lined cul-de-sac opposite a well-maintained park. The last time Kerr had been there, Ritchie had organised a party for the Special Branch Irish Squad after another Real IRA defeat in London, and the same ancient Merc had been parked on the drive.