INCARNATION (25 page)

The frightened policeman was in his car frantically radioing for reinforcements. A red sports car moved away from the kerb opposite.

He walked to his motorbike, pulled it straight, and sped off in the opposite direction. What an absolute shambles, he thought. The traffic and the night swallowed him up.

T
hey lay naked on the grass. He picked small flowers idly and strewed them across her breasts and belly.

‘I love your body,’ he said.

‘Men are supposed to love women for their minds or their souls.’

He shook his head.

‘That isn’t true,’ he said. ‘It’s just what women want to be true. When a woman has a body like yours, it’s impossible to do anything but love it.’

‘Were you loving my body just now, or loving me?’

‘Oh, that? I was certainly enjoying your body. And I was loving you as well.’

She rolled closer to him and ran her fingers gently from his chest to his groin and up again.

‘Just a moment,’ he said. He reached for his jacket and fumbled in the pocket, then brought out a tiny object that caught the sun.

‘Here,’ he said. It was his wedding ring. ‘Will you take this now? It meant nothing when I gave it to you before. Now it means everything.’

She held out her hand and he dropped it on to her palm.

‘I can’t wear it,’ she said. ‘Not on my finger.’

‘That isn’t important. I just want you to have it. And perhaps one day ...'

She slipped the ring on her right hand, then moved across and straddled him, and put her fingers on his mouth.

‘Just today,’ she said. ‘Not tomorrow or the day after tomorrow or the day after that. Just today.’

The East China Club, London

‘W
hat do you mean, she got away? How the hell could she get away? She was in London. She was in her flat. There was nowhere to get away to.’

Laurence Royle still looked the shining picture of urbanity he’d been at Sam’s funeral, but his mood was a lot less detached. The Hyde business had him severely rattled.

Anthony Farrar shrugged.

‘Nevertheless, she escaped. I don’t know exactly how. I don’t altogether care. All I got was some garbled excuse from the agency I paid to do the job. A total imbecile. Do you know, he actually succeeded in killing Potter’s neighbours and a policeman? God knows how we’re ever going to hush it all up. It’s a bloody nuisance.’

‘It could be more than a nuisance if the police make a thing of it.’

‘Laurence, will you please trust me on this? I’ve been doing this sort of thing for years. A clear-up operation involves cut-out mechanisms. None of the people we used has the remotest connection to Six or special services.’

Royle scratched one side of his nose gently. A lot hinged on keeping this business under wraps.

In exchange for the weapons technology and parts that his company had been able to smuggle to the Chinese, they’d been offered near-exclusivity for oil rights in the Tarim Basin. By 2010 it would make Aladdin the number one oil firm in the world. And he was nearly certain the Iraqis would play ball as well. If Saddam got his weapon and it did what he wanted it to, there was nothing he wouldn’t do for those responsible.

The beauty of it was, of course, that no one would ever be able to link  Aladdin Oil to Royle International, or Royle International to Pacific Arms, or Pacific Arms to Anthony Farrar. Yes, he thought, that really was the beauty of it. On the other hand, that triple-dyed bastard Matthew Hyde had managed to get wind of the scheme, and had succeeded in getting word out in the most bizarre manner possible.

‘Who got into Carstairs, Anthony? It wasn’t some local lad chancing his arm. I’ve run a few ops in my time. Not just army ops, Anthony. The real world. Carstairs was impregnable. If somebody got in there, they were insiders. That’s too close for comfort.’

‘That’s not quite how it’s being interpreted by Security. You may not know it, but Carstairs had another guest that night. A man called Abd al-Reza Khodadust. Iranian. Head of a terrorist ring with branches throughout Europe. The French were particularly keen to get their hands on him. Something about those Metro bombings. Anyway, that’s unlikely now. Mr Khodadust is a free man. I believe he’s already back in Tehran celebrating his release.’

‘Are you telling me the towel-heads had the expertise to break into a place like Carstairs?’

Farrar shook his head like a teacher resignedly working his way through a lesson with a dull child.

‘I doubt it. Mr Khodadust owes his freedom to an ex-SAS team known as System 11. They went in and out like a dose of salts, and the only thing they brought in and left behind was half a page torn from a Koran.’

‘I hope you’re right. You guarantee the boy is dead? Your little gang took care of everything?’

Farrar coughed. He had long, well-groomed fingernails that he drummed lightly on the arms of his chair. He knew the sound irritated Laurence.

‘I guarantee it. His parents. And Mr and Mrs “Have you ever been to Wales?” Hughes. Every trace has been wiped out.’

‘Except this woman.’

‘She won’t last long. She was never a field agent. After all, where can she go? She’ll try to return to the fold, cosy up to our security people. Once she does that, she’ll be history.’

‘You sound like a banal Yank film, Anthony.’ 

‘Do I?’ He was tempted to call Royle a pompous twat, but thought better of it, as he’d thought better of it ten thousand times in the past.

Royle reached for the enormous globe of brandy he’d insisted on having brought up. Farrar considered it vulgar and pretentious, like most things associated with Royle. Royle was a showman, and the last person in the world Farrar would normally want to be seen associating with. Even after four generations, the Royles were still trade. Wealthy trade, sophisticated trade, but they hadn’t managed to throw off that grubby taint of the self-made man.

But he put up with it because he had to put up with Royle. Without Royle, his reward for smoothing things with the Chinese would amount to very little. One or two million at the most. But their agreement - signed by them both and locked in a very solid safe at the back of a very big vault in a Swiss bank - guaranteed him more money than he’d ever wished for. Once that was in his hands, he could take a fresh look at his relations with Royle’s little sister.

‘I was upset by what happened to young Sam.’ Royle put his nose into the glass and made a show of relishing its contents.

‘Yes, I regretted that too.’

‘Don’t those Chinese know what they’re doing? It wasn’t your SAS lads again was it? What did you call them? System 11?’

‘Most of the time they’re very good. How on earth they got their wires crossed on this one, I honestly couldn’t tell you.’

‘He was my favourite nephew, in a way. I could have done without that.’

They were in a private room at the club they shared. It was a room Royle used frequently. Oak walls, oak furniture, any number of culinary delights preserved in oak. His brandy had spent most of its life in a barrel. Sometimes Royle felt like a culinary delight himself, well preserved and smelling of old wood. He would be fifty-five next week, almost the same age as Farrar. His entire life had been spent building up the family business, then finding a niche for himself in politics.

He knew he had not been terribly well liked at the House, but it hadn’t bothered him. The party’s defeat in ‘97 had left him without a seat or much hope of finding another one, but by then he’d been thinking of turning it all in anyway. Politics, he’d decided, was a game for wankers. The new anti-corruption climate made it even more so. He was a businessman at heart, and he’d got about as far as he’d ever get with his political connections. If the Chinese thing came off, he’d have all the connections he could ever need and all the money he could ever spend.

‘How’s Lizzie?’ he asked. Just being friendly. All part of the game. In reality, he couldn’t have cared less how his tight-sphinctered little sister was.

‘Well enough. I’ve been talking to her about her drinking. With David gone and Sam dead, I want to keep her occupied. She says she wants to take a more active part in the firm ...’

‘We’ve been through this already, Anthony. Lizzie’s a bit of a loose cannon. I mean, we keep her on the board because she has a right to be there, but honestly, it’s only on condition she keeps away from everything but the AGM.’ 

‘I know that. But things have changed. The reason she drinks is because she has nothing else to do. She’s an intelligent woman, Laurence, probably more intelligent than any of you give her credit for. Let her sit in on a few board meetings. Give her responsibility for some project or other. She can’t do any harm, believe me.’

‘What’s this about? I hope to God you haven’t let her in on the Karakhoto Project, Farrar.' 

‘Do you really think I’d do that?’ 

‘Sometimes I’m not sure.’

‘I keep my mouth shut, Laurence. It’s my business, remember. I was trained in how to keep a secret. I’ve spent my life keeping them. And Karakhoto represents all I’ve ever worked for.’

‘And you think Lizzie’s capable of doing more than just sitting on her beautiful backside looking regal?’

‘I think you have a lot to learn about your sister, Laurence. Give her a go, if only for my sake. I actually think it’ll help the drink problem.’

‘Very well. I’ll sound out the other directors. But the first hint of going off the rails ...’ He downed a mouthful of brandy in a single, practised motion. It seemed to mellow him as it coursed through the tubes and channels of his inner self.

‘There won’t be any hints. I promise you.’

‘What about David?’ Royle started the brandy process again. Farrar sipped meditatively on a very old Scotch in a very fine crystal glass. No soda, no water, just the simple amber liquid.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘You know perfectly well. My brother-in-law. I believe he packed himself off to Chinky-land.’

‘The Chinese call it Zhongguo, the Middle Land.’

‘Didn’t know that. Clever buggers, the Chinkies. I sometimes think ...'

‘Yes?’

‘If there is a God, he’d be Chinese. Slitty eyes, yellow skin, the lot.’

‘Odd thing for you to say.’

‘Yes. But I do sometimes think that. The Royles owe a lot to the Chinkies. We’ve been dealing with them for four generations now, us and the Morrises.’

The Morrises were a family related to the Royles who’d been brought into the business forty or fifty years earlier. A marriage of convenience had brought some very useful Pacific markets within the sphere of Royle International.

‘You didn’t know that, did you, Anthony?’

‘Four generations? I’d guessed it must be about that.’

‘My great-grandfather, Thomas Royle. Got his portrait in the library. Dull bit of work. He was a Shanghai trader from soon after the place got opened up. Didn’t have two pennies to his name when he started. Well, who has? He got it all going, then my grandfather took over. He was the one who knocked it all into shape. Phased out the opium, started a proper import-export routine. Very jolly. He went into Hong Kong at the first chance, which helped when Mr Mao and his chums came on the scene.’

‘I’m sure it did.’

‘Did, absolutely, that and getting the main show back to London. But, then, you’d know all about it, wouldn’t you? An old China hand like yourself.’

‘A little. Nothing to what you’ve got locked up in your little black boxes back in head office.’

‘Like to get your hands on those, would you?’ 

‘Naturally. My guess is you’ve got more in there about the Chinese Communist Party than we’ve got in London and Washington combined.’

‘Forget it, old boy. They’re just boring trading records. You’d find them frightfully dull.’ 

‘I’d take the risk.’ 

Royle shook his head. ‘Not on, old son. I don’t have the authority. Trade secrets - there’d be hell to pay if the board heard of it.’ 

‘Laurence, I take it your black boxes don’t contain any information about Karakhoto? I mean, I wouldn’t like to think that some clerk or other might just stumble across your notes.’

Royle looked suitably horrified. ‘Good Lord, you don’t think I’d be such a fool as to leave something like that lying around where any Tom, Dick or Harry could lay his mitts on it? I keep my notes and things where I can find them, and nobody else.’ He looked round. ‘It’s a touch chilly, don’t you think?’

Farrar shrugged. ‘Hard to say.'

‘Anthony, I rather got sidetracked there. I was asking about our mutual friend David Laing. He is in Chinky-land, isn’t he?’ 

‘If you insist.’

‘Well, as a matter of fact, I do insist. You would, in my position.’

‘The answer is, Yes, he is. I’m very well aware of the fact.’

‘And do you intend doing anything about it?’

‘I’ve lost track of him. He was in Urumchi, now he could be almost anywhere.’

‘Didn’t he have a contact, for God’s sake?’

Farrar nodded.

‘He did. But the file with all the details has been removed.’

Royle’s hand thumped the table, almost knocking his brandy glass over.

‘Who the hell would do that?’

‘There’s only one person who could. Pimpernel Potter.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake. This is a shambles. You’re supposed to be a professional. Can’t you do anything?’

‘Perhaps. My worry is that Potter may have made contact with him, alerted him to certain ... irregularities back here. I’m planning to send a very discreet message to our old friend Colonel Chang Zhangyi. He’ll get a description of David and details of any names he may be using.’

‘What are you going to tell him David’s out there for?’

‘To bring financial and military aid to the Sinkiang rebels. It’s something very close to Chang Zhangyi’s heart. He’ll be only too delighted to provide help.’

‘And the boy? Are you planning to mention him?’

‘No, I rather thought that might be indiscreet. I want this whole Hyde business buried. The last thing I want is for Chang Zhangyi to get wind of the fact that London has a lead on the Karakhoto Project.’ 

‘Can he find Laing?’

‘Chang Zhangyi? Good God, yes. He’s never let me down yet. Chang Zhangyi could find a single brick in the Great Wall if you asked him to. David Laing is as good as dead.’