The Invisible Code (11 page)

May arrived in Victoria forty minutes later and found that Sabira Kasavian had been taken to a private room on the ground floor of the building opposite her husband’s department. The trapezoid of grey concrete in which he found himself was far less welcoming than the airy glass atrium it faced. The staff security passes had jumped a couple of grades.

‘You can’t see her at the moment,’ warned the scrubbed young man who came out to find him. ‘This is out of your jurisdiction.’

‘You’re Andy Shire, aren’t you?’ said May, squinting at the laminated ID pinned on the security official’s breast pocket. ‘We met with the Police Commissioner a few months back.’ May was owed a favour after he had helped Shire locate a suspected arsonist.

‘I remember,’ said Shire, ‘but I still can’t give you access.’

‘I can obtain written permission from Sabira’s husband if need be. Why wasn’t she taken to West End Central?’

‘I think you know the answer to that one, John. In matters of national security we override the police.’

‘The PCU isn’t part of the Met, it’s a Home Office unit, so we’re working on your side. I’m just trying to understand why she was brought here. I don’t want to have to ask Oskar. I know he’s got a lot on his plate right now.’

Shire knew that his boss would complain if his staff failed to shield him from unnecessary interruptions. ‘All
right,’ he said. ‘It appears a number of sensitive papers were found on her when she was removed from the restaurant. We don’t yet know if they were taken from this building.’

‘You mean she’s going to be held on a spying charge?’

‘We’re trying to ascertain the importance of the documents at the moment. If she took them without authorization, it looks as if this is going to fall under the Terrorism Investigation Act. You interviewed her, so I assume you know she’s still in contact with her Russian ex-boyfriend.’

‘No, I didn’t,’ he admitted. ‘How is she?’

‘She came in here kicking and screaming, having a real panic attack. It looked like a full-blown psychotic episode to me. Her doctor gave her a sedative and she’s feeling a little better now, but she keeps calling for her husband. He’s still in a meeting.’

May knew that Kasavian was preparing to present the UK’s case for the European border-security initiative in just over a week’s time. As it was likely that his future career relied upon driving the deal through, he wouldn’t take kindly to being disturbed, even to help his wife. May dreaded to think what his reaction would be when he heard the details of Sabira’s latest outburst.

‘Andy, I’m working with her husband to try and sort this out,’ he explained. ‘When do you think I can get to see her?’

‘Obviously we don’t want to hold her any longer than is necessary, but we need an explanation as to why she had a classified file in her handbag. This isn’t half an hour in the cop shop and a slapped wrist. We’re following protocol now, and you have to realize it could lead to a prosecution.’

‘It could be a set-up, Andy. Maybe Kasavian has an enemy who’s using his wife to get at him.’

Shire gave a cold laugh. ‘Are you kidding? Oskar has
nothing but enemies. They’re required to sustain the department. Just don’t ask us to narrow down the suspects.’

The South Bank Centre and the Royal Festival Hall were bedecked with fluttering blue and red flags, turning the promenade into an urban seaside town. Artificial sandbanks had been placed against the embankment walls and topped with beach huts as part of an arts festival.

‘What a mess,’ said May, leaning on the cool stone balustrade of Waterloo Bridge.

‘I don’t know, I quite like it,’ said Bryant, screwing the pieces of his pipe together and digging around for his tobacco pouch. ‘The juxtaposition of sand and grubby old buildings. It’s a bit like Margate.’

‘I mean the investigation. We didn’t ask any of the right questions. It’s my fault. I let her charm me. It was completely inappropriate behaviour.’

‘I’m glad you pointed that out. You’ve always been a sucker for a pretty face. She played you like a Stradivarius, matey. We should have run a thorough background check on her first. I didn’t know about the ex-boyfriend or her past mental-health issues. I’m losing my touch.’

‘I thought it was strange to find her in such an upbeat mood the morning after she’d made a spectacle of herself. I asked Janice to find out if she’s on prescription medication, but she says apparently not. She’s being assessed by her doctor later this afternoon.’

‘Have you ever read Henry Mayhew?’ asked Bryant, looking out over the olivine water as he drew flame into his pipe bowl. ‘
London Labour and the London Poor
, 1851. Fascinating stuff. Conversations with ordinary working-class Londoners. Of course we still have a tremendous class divide, but the disenfranchised weren’t always outsiders. If anything, they knew more about what was really going on. Mayhew met rat-catchers and fire-jugglers, pickpockets and sewer-hunters, and the thing
you notice most when you read their accounts is this: a poor man will tell you everything, and someone in society will tell you nothing.’

‘That’s true enough,’ May agreed. ‘It seems the further up you go, the less you find out.’

‘There are only a handful of major landowners in London, but we never fully discover the truth about them. It’s all part of the invisible code of English conduct that baffles foreigners.’

‘So you think we’re wasting our time even talking to Sabira?’

‘No, I believe she feels she’s been genuinely ill treated.’

‘Isn’t that just naivety on her part?’ asked May.

‘Maybe. When you reach a certain level it’s not about how much money you have, but your background. Knightsbridge and Notting Hill may be home to wealthy New York bankers and Dubai businessmen, but even they have trouble reaching the inner circles of power. It’s certainly not something that’s automatically conferred upon you by marriage. The Foreign Office and the Home Office have always been run by men like Kasavian. I’ll bet you his entire family moves in government circles. He may well worship the ground she walks on, but he’ll never let her in.’ Experience had encouraged Bryant to hold bleak views about the British class system.

‘So it’s his fault she’s behaving like this? You don’t think she just has anger-management issues?’

‘Don’t say “anger-management issues”. What’s wrong with the word “temper”? I’m not saying it’s a conscious act, John. A job at the most senior level of government is a Mephistophelean deal. In return for power you surrender your peace of mind.’

‘Are you sure you’re not just siding with her because of your own working-class background?’

‘Look, I remember standing at the end of Petticoat Lane with my father one freezing Sunday morning. All
around us were men selling chickens and canaries and skinned rabbits, and my old man – who was sober for once – lifted me up so I could look into the window of Arditti’s restaurant, and he said, “There’ll always be a pane of glass between you and these fine gentlemen. Even when you think it’s gone, it will still be there.”’ As if to illustrate the point, a cyclist passing behind them waved two fingers at the diplomatic vehicle that had just cut him up on the bridge.

‘Oh, you’ve always had a chip on your shoulder about your background. You enjoy being an outsider.’

‘I made the best of it because I never had a choice,’ Bryant pointed out. ‘Your father used to take you to the Wigmore Hall for classical concerts when you were a little boy.’

‘Because he was a musician and wanted me to appreciate the finer things in life. But he never had any money. Our family was always hard up.’

‘But your parents gave you ambition. Mine just wanted me to have a job. The fear of poverty is never far away from the working-class mind, and all the plasma TVs, PlayStations and iPhones are just talismans warding off that darkness. I think Sabira Borkowski married to free herself from the fear of poverty, and now she’s paying the price.’

‘Fine, but in her husband’s eyes the situation is worsening and we’re not helping. If you take her side, you’ll be setting us against the government.’

‘You know diplomacy has never been my strong point. I think everyone already assumes we’re against the government.’

‘Then what do you suggest we do next?’

‘We go to this address.’ Bryant held up the crumpled piece of paper he had used for wrapping up his sherbet lemons.

‘I can’t read your writing.’

‘Neither can I, but don’t worry, Janice put it in my phone. The Home Office is looking into the possibility of the spying charge. Let’s talk to a more rational enemy – the woman Sabira Kasavian assaulted in Fortnum and Mason.’

11

THE GLASS

EDGAR LANG AND
his wife lived in a redbrick Edwardian house with a wrought-iron veranda overlooking a wide, calm section of the Thames at Barnes, just past Hammersmith Bridge. Anastasia Lang was not at all pleased to find a pair of detectives standing in her porch, and reluctantly invited them in. She had covered the cut on her cheek with taped cotton wool, but her left eye was now turning a lurid shade of mauve.

‘I’m fully prepared to press charges; I won’t let anybody talk me out of that,’ she said with ice in her voice. ‘Not for the physical attack, but for stealing private documents.’ She waved them into an immense glass-roofed kitchen that had been added to the rear of the already substantial house. ‘I can’t offer you anything, I’ve sent the maid home.’

‘Nice gaff,’ said Bryant, walking to the wall-sized window with his hands in his pockets. ‘A very popular look, this. Classic at the front, modern at the back. Architectural hypocrisy. Should I call you Lady Anastasia?’

‘Mrs Lang will do.’

‘We’re not here to ask you about the argument. What
do you think Mrs Kasavian was doing with your husband’s property in her handbag?’

‘She must have taken it from the Pegasus offices in Great Portland Street. Edgar never keeps documents anywhere else.’

‘You have children?’

‘No, we have a dog.’

‘Do any of the directors have kids?’

‘Yes, Cathy and Emma do. I can’t see what that has to do with—’

‘Do you think Sabira was being paid to spy?’ It was Bryant’s technique to keep his witness wrong-footed.

‘She’s hardly short of money, the number of new outfits she wears. No, I don’t think she was being paid to spy. I think she did it because she’s jealous. She wishes she had my husband. Do you know how they met? My husband and Oskar were in a wine bar in the city. She started talking to Edgar first and, being a married man, he turned her down, so she went after Oskar. She was on a mission to find a successful man, operating with a fairly limited arsenal and a tight time limit on her sex appeal. Eastern European girls blow up like zeppelins when they hit thirty. Edgar said no, so she switched her attention to Oskar, who at that point had been divorced for over three years and was vulnerable to a pretty face.’

May could not imagine Kasavian ever being vulnerable. ‘You’re saying Mr Lang turned her down over four years ago, so she stole papers from his office? Doesn’t that seem a little pointless to you?’

‘I don’t understand the point of anything she does,’ said Ana Lang, touching her face lightly as if checking that nothing had shifted.

‘How well do you and Mrs Kasavian know each other?’

‘I meet her at social events, but we have nothing to say to one another. Her every utterance is a mystery to me. All I know is that she drinks too much and has an uncouth
personality. You’ll take her side, of course. You’re a policeman. But what you must understand is that women of our social standing remain by our men, no matter how wrong we think they might be. It’s part of the deal, it’s what we signed up for.’

A tinkle of metal made them both turn around. Bryant had pulled the head off a small but rather valuable sculpture. Mrs Lang ploughed on with determination. ‘When I want to know what a British politician really thinks, I ignore what he’s saying and talk to his wife, Mr May. Neil Hamilton and Jeffrey Archer both had strong women at their sides to support and further their careers.’

‘They both went to jail, Mrs Lang.’

‘I was merely illustrating the point. Sabira could have had it all, and now she’ll have nothing. No one will have anything to do with her after this. I suppose you know she was having an affair?’

‘I understand you accused her of having one, yes,’ said May. ‘We called your fellow lunch guests.’