Dirty Little Secret (22 page)

He stood up and went over to the small window, from where he could see the Hindu Kush to the north and the Salang Pass. Beyond the perimeter wire, the grassy plains were dotted with solitary locust trees. A gathering ball of dust was rolling in towards the base, where it would coat everyone and everything in another layer of sand. It drove some servicemen crazy, particularly those who were billeted in the rows of canvas tents down by the hospital. Spiro had more of a problem with the permanent smell of aviation fuel that seemed to hang over the base like an accusing miasma.

Spiro had driven up to the Salang Pass once, where a treacherous road cut through the snow-tipped mountains at ten thousand feet. It was after a particularly gruelling interrogation. The detainee, a local taxi driver, had died in custody, five days after being captured. It had become clear later that he was innocent. Mistakes happen in war.

At least he knew Dhar was guilty. But he had got under Spiro’s skin in a way he had never thought possible. In all the interrogations he had carried out in the frenzied aftermath of 9/11, at Guantánamo’s Camp X-Ray and other detention facilities around the world, no one had had such an effect on him. He had been prepared for Dhar to spit at him, insult his religion and his parents, pour scorn on Western decadence and American imperialism – but it was the calculated nature of his attack that had taken Spiro by surprise. Each had known the other’s weakness: Dhar’s mother and Spiro’s wife. Unfortunately, his had proved the greater.

Spiro had consulted earlier with a colleague in Joint Special Operations Command, and it had been decided to leave Dhar in separation for now. JSOC hadn’t asked why Spiro would not be proceeding with his interrogation, and he hadn’t volunteered an explanation. Instead, he had sarcastically reminded the duty officer that after thirty days, permission would be needed to extend Dhar’s isolation to ninety days. Both parties knew it would be a formality.

He picked up his phone from the bedside table and tried to ring his wife’s mobile again. It went straight to voicemail, but he didn’t leave a message. He had left too many already. Things had not been great between them recently, but he would make amends, try to understand her changing needs. He might even work up an interest in cameras, if that’s what it took. Glamour photography didn’t sound so bad. It was only now she was gone that he realised how much he missed her. He needed to talk to someone, a friend who had been married for thirty years, but there was no one. Everyone he knew had messed up on the domestic front.

All he could do was focus on practicalities. If she was in Ramallah, his options were limited. He needed to get her away from there without anyone at Langley knowing who she was or what she had been doing. His relationship with Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence service, had always been complicated, just like the Agency’s. Otherwise he would ask them to bring her in.

His preferred option was to return to London. The UK was still reeling from the series of terrorist attacks on its infrastructure, and Washington was keen for him to be at the heart of the US response. His man, Ian Denton, was where he wanted him, running MI6, although the British PM had yet to make his appointment permanent. It was an annoying hitch, but only temporary. Denton owed his promotion to Spiro, and he would be happy to help. He had already told him his wife was missing. MI6 had a number of field officers in the West Bank who could spirit her back to London without too many questions being asked. He tried not to think of it as renditioning his own wife.

A few minutes later, he was on the phone to Denton in London.

‘Has the smoke cleared yet?’ he asked.

‘We’re surviving.’

‘I can hear traffic. Bad moment?’

‘I’m doing my weekly shop.’

‘Christ, Ian, Chiefs don’t buy their own groceries.’

‘Northern ones do. Besides, I like the walk.’

‘I’m coming back to London overnight. Are you free for a coffee first thing tomorrow? I need a favour.’

‘I’ll buy some blueberry muffins.’

‘Looks like he’s celebrating,’ Jean-Baptiste said. ‘He’s heading straight for the fine wines. Bordeaux. I like this guy. For a moment I thought he was buying fruit juice from California.’

Marchant smiled at his old friend’s prejudices as he listened to him on the computer. ‘Burgundy would have been better.’

‘I thought you British were obsessed with Bordeaux.’

‘Not all of us.’ It was Marchant’s father who had introduced him to Burgundies, the
grands crus
of Musigny and Montrachet that still lay in the cellar at Tarlton. He was glad he hadn’t moved on to any of them with Dhar.

‘Now he’s at the bakery. Muffins. Blueberry, I think. The all-American boy.’

It used to be a sausage sandwich from the canteen, Marchant thought. How people change. ‘What’s he doing now?’

‘Looking for the barcode. Scans them.’

Earlier, Jean-Baptiste had described how Denton had gone up to a bank of ‘Quick Check’ handheld scanners when he had arrived at Waitrose, and Marchant had explained the joys of shopping with a barcode self-scanner, which wasn’t yet widespread in France.

‘Keep talking,’ Marchant said. He wanted to know Denton’s every move, however mundane or insignificant it might seem to Jean-Baptiste.

‘White bread, sliced. Scans it. What’s wrong with a baguette from the local
boulangerie
?’

‘Doesn’t keep.’

‘I hate supermarkets. Now he’s looking at – mustards? I don’t recognise this. A small white pot? Taking one of them from the back of the shelf.’

‘What is it?’

‘Black writing on the lid. “Something Relish”?’

‘Gentleman’s Relish.’

‘If you say so.’

‘Anchovy paste. Patum Peperium. Very English. You put it on toast.’ It was one of those foods, like Marmite, that was hard to explain to a Frenchman.

‘He’s scanning it – trying to. Looks at his scanner, then around the shop. Another look at the screen. Reading something. He didn’t do that with anything else. Puts the pot in his trolley, picks up another and scans that one. Twice. Maybe the first one didn’t work.’

It was then that Marchant began to wonder if they were onto something.

‘Listen to me carefully, Jean-Baptiste. I think the scanner might be significant.’

‘It’s a weird-looking thing, isn’t it? Like a Geiger counter. Maybe he’s searching for weapons of mass destruction. An MI6 obsession, no?’

‘Very funny.’

After more banter, Jean-Baptiste became serious again.

‘Wait. He did something strange with his hands there.
Legerdemain.
While he was looking at a small packet.’

The internet voice connection began to buffer, distorting Jean-Baptiste’s words.

‘Say that again,’ Marchant said.

‘He picked something up – maybe blinis, I’m not sure. I think he stuck something on the packet, then put it back on the shelf. A sticker?’

‘Are you certain?’

‘No.’

Marchant shifted in the wicker chair, checking instinctively that the door behind him was closed.

‘That’s not normal.’

‘Even for a supermarket?’

‘You don’t go around putting stickers on food. Not unless you work there.’

After picking up a treacle tart, Denton headed for the checkout, tracked at a distance by Jean-Baptiste, still talking on his hands-free mobile phone to Marchant.

‘He scans a barcode on the till … hands back the scanner.’

‘Normal.’

‘Now he pays. With a card.’

‘What’s happened to the scanner?’

‘The girl’s put it in a basket, with lots of others.’

‘Do you know which one he used?’

‘I think so, yes.’

‘Keep an eye on it.’

‘What about Denton? He’s leaving.’

‘Let him go.’

Ten minutes later, Jean-Baptiste was loitering by the books and magazines, reading about Carla Bruni in a copy of
Hello!
, when an announcement was made that the store was closing. He rang Marchant.

‘They’re shutting,’ he said.

‘The scanners?’

‘Still in the basket.’

‘Can you see them from the street?’

Jean-Baptiste glanced over at the front of the store. The angle was not great, but it was possible. ‘I think so.’

‘Leave the store and hang around, see if they put the scanners back after they close.’

Jean-Baptiste didn’t have to wait long before the stackers began restocking the shelves. They were young and from a range of ethnic backgrounds, some chatting, others yawning. It reminded him of a holiday job he had once taken with Carrefour. It had put him off supermarkets for life. After a few minutes, a woman picked up the basket of scanners and took them back to a wall panel near the entrance, where she placed each one in a slot. He watched carefully, and made a note of where Denton’s ended up: top row, far left. Then he rang Marchant and told him.

‘What time does the store open?’ Marchant asked.

Jean-Baptiste glanced at the front door, where the opening hours were printed on the window.

‘8 a.m.’

‘You need to be there.’

Denton knew it had been a risk going out to the supermarket, but he had enjoyed the
frisson
. It was a foretaste of what lay ahead. There had been no sign of the DGSE agent who had followed him in his car the day before, but it was good to put others on alert. The French had always spied on the British in London, but it wasn’t usually so obvious. It was something he would have to get used to as Chief.

After pouring himself a glass of Fleur de Boüard, he thought of what he was about to do. It wasn’t without risk, but tonight was a celebration, a chance to mark his promotion. Besides, the damage had already been done. This time he was sure he was alone. His house had been swept for bugs the day before, partly in response to the French tail, but also as a routine precaution for an incoming Chief.

He had planned to eat first, but he realised he could wait no longer. Hunger would sharpen his senses. He closed the curtains in the sitting room, checked that the reinforced front door was double locked, and walked into the kitchen. The freezer was well stocked with bags of ice cubes, and he took out a packet, weighing it in his hand. How far was he prepared to push it? He fetched a bowl from under the sink and a pair of scissors from a drawer.

Upstairs in his bedroom, various thoughts flooded through him as he closed the curtains and began to undress. They always did at this point. The lingering guilt, his attempts to expurgate himself through rational argument. It was a subconscious response to his role in the war on terror, nothing more. Disturbing, but beyond his control. The blame lay with others.

The visit to Morocco eight years earlier that had triggered it had been deniable, a small group of MI6 officers shown a level of human degradation that should never have been allowed. He hadn’t volunteered to go, he had been sent. It took a while for the scenes to resurface, for him to acknowledge a dark desire to re-enact what he had witnessed. After the first time, he swore he would seek help, but it was futile. He couldn’t stop himself. His only mistake was thinking he had been alone.

He went over to the bedside table and pulled out a pair of his ex-wife’s old tights. Then he cut off a corner of the bag with the scissors and poured a dozen ice cubes into them, shaking the cubes down to the toe. After glancing at the clock on his radio alarm, he slid a few more ice cubes into the tights. Moving quickly now, he went back to the bedside table and took a solid metal ring from the drawer. It was part of a dog choker chain he had bought from a local pet shop. Attached to it was a smaller ring with a key and a long length of nylon string.

He slid the tights through the bigger ring until it was resting on top of the ice, then tied them high up on the curtain rail, so the ice-filled leg was hanging down. He placed the bowl on the floor beneath it to catch the drips. Finally, he relayed the string over to the ceiling light, and tied it to the lampshade. He had measured everything up before, but he glanced once more at the hanging ice, and followed the string back to the light above the bed. When the ice melted, the tights would slide through the ring and the keys would swing down on the string to where he was lying.

Five minutes later he was on his front, legs bent double and hog-tied at the knees and ankles so his heels were clamped against the back of his thighs. He had already inserted a nickel-plated ring into his mouth, locking open his jaws in a way that gave him a look of permanent shock (it was safer than a ball gag). All he had to do now was clamp his wrists into the handcuffs. He knew it was a risk binding his arms behind his back – it would make the key harder to pick up when it swung down onto the bed – but tonight was different. Fifteen ice cubes would keep him busy for at least four hours, longer than he had ever gone before.

He clicked the handcuffs shut, closed his eyes and imagined he was back at the al-Tamara interrogation centre outside Rabat, bound and gagged and pleading for his life.

After an early breakfast of a croissant and coffee with Florianne, who was less welcoming than the day before, Marchant looked in on Lakshmi. She was awake, and smiled faintly when she saw him. It was clear she was still heavily sedated. Marchant knew the French liked their pharmaceuticals, and he would have trusted Clémence with his life, but it was still upsetting to see Lakshmi so drugged up. He reminded himself of the phone call, her act of betrayal. But it was hard to imbue the limp figure lying before him with treachery.

‘How are you feeling?’ he asked.

‘OK. A little sleepy,’ she said, her voice slurred.

‘We’re going to stay here for a few days, then head back to Britain.’ He wanted to see how she reacted, establish if her mind was still sharp. Returning to the UK was the last thing someone in his situation would do.

‘That’s nice,’ she said.

Back in the barn, Marchant sat down in front of the computer, trying not to think about Lakshmi. If her body was free of drugs, they could talk properly, and he could find out what Spiro had done to buy her loyalty. Maybe then there would be a way back for her, for both of them. But he couldn’t take the risk of letting her recover.