Illegal Action (18 page)

42

I
’ll have to take this,” said Brian Ackers, picking up his purring phone. Liz had just finished relating the news of Marco Tutti’s background and his “discovery” that a second Pashko painting was available. Brian had seemed preoccupied, and listening to his end of the conversation now Liz realised there was an operation going on that she didn’t know anything about. The time she was spending at the Brunovsky house was putting her out of touch with developments in Counter-Espionage.

And for what? For all the anxiety about Victor Adler’s so-called plot, Brian didn’t seem particularly interested in what she had to tell him. She seemed to have been sent off down a sidetrack. Maybe it was a sidetrack leading to something important, but so far she’d seen no sign of it. Rykov’s recruitment of Jerry Simmons didn’t seem to disguise anything more than a clumsy attempt to keep tabs on an oligarch—if there’d been more to it, surely Simmons would have had more to tell Michael Fane. There was no indication that Rykov’s lunch with Ivanov, or indeed Ivanov’s visit to London, had anything to do with Brunovsky. It was true that Rykov’s sudden recall to Moscow, apparently under a cloud, was an unusual overreaction to Michael Fane’s clumsy surveillance operation. But maybe there was something else behind it.

Certainly the people surrounding Brunovsky were what her father would have called a “rum bunch,” but they were probably no rummer than any other billionaire’s entourage. There seemed nothing particularly threatening about them. All kings had their courts; all magnates had their sycophants and freeloaders. The only remarkable thing about the Belgravia household and its hangers-on was that Brunovsky himself couldn’t see that he was being exploited. Or maybe he could and didn’t care, thought Liz. After all, he had to have a life.

“Sorry about that,” said Brian, putting down the phone. “There’s been another approach to a government scientist by the Russians.”

“Someone from the embassy?”

He shook his head, and she noticed his eyes were bloodshot from a lack of sleep. “No. This time it’s a Russian scientist over here on an exchange. Always something new from our Moscow friends. Anyway, is there anything else you wanted to tell me? I need to get on to the Home Office.”

“Well,” she said, “what Tutti’s up to, as far as I can tell, is just a good old-fashioned scam. Why Brunovsky’s falling for it is beyond me—I’d have thought he’d spot it a mile away.”

“Yes, yes,” said Brian impatiently. “We all have our weaknesses. But your point is?”

“My point is, this is one for the police—don’t they have an Art and Antiquities Squad? It’s certainly not for us. Frankly, the only danger I can detect for Brunovsky is losing his shirt buying this fake picture.”

“Right then, let’s contact the Met and have them investigate this Tutti chap. Can I leave that to you?” He looked down with obvious impatience at some notes he’d made during his call.

“Of course,” she said, suppressing growing irritation. “I also think we should seriously consider pulling me out of there now. My job’s done. The only plot I’ve discovered is to bilk Brunovsky of his money, not that he can’t afford it. But there’s nothing I can see along the lines of Victor Adler’s story.”

“Yes, well let’s talk about this when I have a bit more time. I know Geoffrey Fane is keen for you to stay on there for the time being. If we do pull you out, I’ll need to discuss it with him and Pennington first.”

Really? Liz was aching to ask why. Since when did the FCO or Geoffrey Fane’s views determine what an MI5 officer should do? Yet from Brian’s peremptory manner it was clear he wasn’t going to spare the time for questions—in fact, he stood up, to show he didn’t want to talk about anything with Liz right now. She got the message.

43

T
he bells of Westminster Cathedral were ringing for evensong as the woman packed away her laptop and its small black companion in their bags. Moscow had agreed that Jane Falconer, or whatever her real name was, now presented a serious threat to the operation. She had made it obvious that she disbelieved the Italian’s discovery of a second painting. So far her scepticism did not seem to have affected anyone else. But it well might. The operation was on a knife-edge. Curse Brunovsky for inviting her into his household.

The woman knew she would be blamed for letting Falconer escape that night in Battersea. Those who had sent her here did not take failure lightly. They had no understanding of the difficulty of direct action against such a target in a London street, while being certain to escape unseen. But they had agreed that another attempt of that kind might well jeopardise the whole operation. Her task now was to remove the risk from Falconer and it had been left to her to do it in whatever way she thought best.

She was trained to work alone but now, aware of their criticism, she was feeling isolated. It was not her fault that Rykov had drawn attention to himself by unauthorised interference in areas he did not understand. As a result the messenger Ivanov had failed to make the meeting.

Her phone rang as she mused. The voice was fraught. “I need to see you right away. It’s urgent.”

“Keep calm,” she said coolly. “Tell me what’s happened.”

“Not on the phone.”

She sighed. Another stupid man. Italians were completely unreliable. If it rained when it was meant to be fair, if a train was twenty minutes late, if the sandwich bar ran out of prosciutto—hysteria ensued. Orderly people, the Germans or the Swiss, stayed calm over small mishaps. Citizens of chaotic nations (how many post-war Italian governments had there been?) were outraged that anyone else should replicate their own complete lack of organisation. “When can you meet?” she asked.

“Tonight. Come to my flat.”

She thought for a moment, assessing the risk. “Give me the address,” she said, and as he told her she memorised it instantly.

“Come at eight,” he ordered, seeming to forget in his near-hysteria that she held the whip hand.

“No,” she said bluntly. “I will be there at ten.” It would be best to arrive under cover of darkness.

He lived in a converted loft a few streets north of Oxford Street, in what was still known as the home of London’s rag trade, though many of the buildings now housed the offices of solicitors and estate agents. A few were being converted into flats, but on a weekday night at this hour, the neighbourhood was quiet, half-deserted.

She had taken a taxi to Tottenham Court Road, then walked the rest of the way, half a mile or so, knowing that she was far more likely to be remembered at the address by a cab driver who dropped her there than by anyone who simply passed her in the street. She was dressed in trainers, dark waterproof trousers with deep pockets and a jacket with the hood up, covering her hair and obscuring her face.

The entrance to his building was off a main thoroughfare, in a cobblestone alley empty of cars. She pressed the bell and looked around her. There was no one. The door buzzed; in the small bare hall there was nothing but a metal lift. Pressing the button for the top floor, she rose smoothly and silently up through the building. The door opened and he was standing there, holding a large, well-filled brandy balloon.

“Come in, come in,” he said and walked ahead of her into the vast converted loft. Large, colourful squares of stencilled fabric hung on the walls; the floorboards were waxed and buffed to a burnt-orange shine. In the middle of the floor square brick pillars, spaced at intervals, harked back to the days when the floor had been divided into small offices. Now the space was uncluttered—a large, sleek television screen hung flat against the wall. Two black leather chairs and a long sofa were grouped like modernist icons around a glass coffee table. Further back sat a dining area, with a grey slate table and steel chairs, and behind it a restaurant-sized cooking range, shining black wall-to-ceiling cupboards, and a fridge-freezer built deeply into the wall.

She took all this in, while mentally assessing the flat for vantage points, visibility, means of access and egress. One side of the room overlooked the alley from which she’d entered, the other fronted a building undergoing restoration, pitch-black inside. Facing her, she could see a short corridor, which must lead to a bedroom and bathroom. She doubted there was a second entrance to the flat.

He didn’t offer her a drink but sat down immediately in one of the chairs, motioning her to take the sofa, where at one end a skinny black-and-white cat was curled up asleep. Ugh, she thought, sitting at the other end. She disliked all animals, especially house pets.

“Have you come from the gym?” he asked, gesturing irritably towards her clothes. His agitation was obvious.

“Yes. I’ve not been home. Now tell me, what is the matter?”

“Everything,” he said brusquely. Beside her the cat stood up and stretched. “I had a telephone call this morning from the police. A detective at the Art Squad. He said he wanted to talk to me as soon as possible. I tried to delay him, but he wasn’t having it. I am due to see him tomorrow.”

“Is he coming here?” she asked quietly. The answer would be crucial.

“No. I said I’d go to him.”

“Do you know what he wants to see you about?”

“He wouldn’t tell me, but it’s obvious, isn’t it? He must know about
Blue Mountain
.”

“I don’t see why.”

“What else could it be?” When she looked at him with raised eyebrows, he shouted, “That was in the past. No one here knows about it except you. Besides, I served my sentence—what more could they want from me? No, it must be
Blue Mountain.
”

“All right,” she said quietly. “Let’s suppose they have heard something—possibly from Morozov’s people. Why should that alarm you? You can say that Forbes got in touch with you about the find and you simply relayed the news to Brunovsky. That’s not hard to remember, is it? And it has the merit of being perfectly true.”

“That’s easy for you to say.” He groaned and put his head in his hands. “I should never have listened to you. You said it was foolproof, if I did what you said I would have no worries.
Che incubo.
” He raised his head and stared at her, his eyes red and strained.

“I’ll put the kettle on,” she said soothingly, and got up and went to the large range at the back of the room. He was getting hysterical, she realised. She would have to calm him down. And this time there was no one to disturb her.

44

A
s Peggy dialled the sixth cruise company on her list the rain was streaming down the glass of her office window. Caribbean Leisure Works (“Your Leisure, Our Pleasure”) had its headquarters in Bridgetown, Barbados. Their website showed the city’s sun-soaked harbour, a flotilla of berthed cruisers and sailboats forming a white armada on an azure sea. If only, thought Peggy.

The friendly Barbadian voice at the other end stopped in its tracks when she explained what she wanted, and went off to consult, leaving her on hold, listening to the thump, thump of reggae. Eventually a cut-glass English voice came on the line. “This is Marjorie Allingworth. I’m the personnel director. You wanted to know about Monica Hetherington?”

“That’s right. I’m ringing from the North Middlesex Hospital in London. I’m trying to find her because her mother’s not well,” said Peggy smoothly. “The last information I have, she was with your company—I believe she worked on one of the cruise boats.”

“That was a long time ago.” From the curtness of her voice it was clear that Marjorie remembered Monica, and not fondly. Peggy could hear the tap of computer keys. “Let me see—1996. She was only here for two seasons.”

“Would you have any record of where she went next?”

There was an audible sniff. “No idea. She didn’t keep in touch.”

“Would anyone there be able to help? It’s really important,” Peggy pleaded.

There was a long pause. “Let me see.”

Peggy waited, listening as she heard the cut-glass voice making brisk enquiries in the background. Eventually she returned to the phone. “One of the girls here says Monica was great friends with Sally Dubbing. She still works for us during the season. The rest of the time she lives in London. Hold on and I’ll give you her address.”

Wow, thought Peggy. I don’t think much of her security. I could be anybody.

Tulse Hill was alien territory to Peggy. She had walked from the bus stop, past a betting shop that belched cigarette smoke through its open door, a newsagent with steel protective bars on the windows, and a unisex hair salon that specialised in straightening hair. Some boys wolf-whistled at her from a hoopless basketball court, and a pregnant woman wheeling a buggy had sent her the wrong way. Now she was sitting in a living room four storeys up a decaying sixties block, while Sally Dubbing made coffee in the kitchen.

Peggy looked around at the shabby furniture and stained walls hung with photographs of faraway exotic places—Tahiti, an aerial photograph of a string of small Caribbean islands, the harbour of Key West. They were meant to bring some sunshine into the flat but to Peggy’s eye they just brought home the cramped grimness of the place. It seemed a long way from Belgravia.

“Here you go. No sugar, right?” Sally set the mug down on the stained table next to Peggy’s chair, where it sloshed gently as it cooled. Peggy looked closely at Sally sitting opposite her on the small sofa. She was a sweetly pretty baby-faced blonde—except for the inch-wide band of blotchy pink that stretched like watery jam from one ear to her nose. No one could call it a beauty mark; it was far too big even to say it had “character.”

“So you want to talk to me about Monica?” The accent was South London mixed with aspiration.

“Yes,” said Peggy, getting her notebook out of her bag, “it’s for an article about the wives and girlfriends of these Russian oligarchs.”

Sally nodded. “I saw her in
Hello!
magazine a few weeks ago. Is that who you work for?”

“No. It’s a new magazine, not out yet.” She smiled and pushed her spectacles up her nose. “Tell me, do you ever hear from Monica these days?”

“Are you taking the piss?” she said curtly, reaching for a pack of cigarettes. She lit up and, blowing out some smoke, said, “I haven’t heard from Monica for over two years.”

“But you used to know her, didn’t you?”

“Oh yes,” she said easily. “I knew her. She was my best friend. She was a different Monica then.” She stared at Peggy for a moment, with a glazed look that suggested her thoughts were elsewhere. She seemed to make up her mind about something, for she got up and went into the kitchen, returning with a half-bottle of Bell’s whisky. Peggy shook her head when she proffered the bottle, then watched as Sally poured a neat two inches into her own coffee. Sitting back, she sipped the mixture carefully, and then she started to talk.

That winter when they met they were just two teenage girls fresh out of school without a GCSE between them. Monica was selling kitchenware in Debenhams’ basement and Sally was learning more about Hoover bags than anyone should ever know. They’d become friends at once, joined by a simple detestation of their jobs, and a common passion for clubbing.

“Monica was always the leader,” said Sally reflectively, pausing to sip her coffee. It was Monica who had come up with the idea. A friend of a friend of a friend worked on a cruise ship in the Caribbean—and was having the time of her life. Monica made it sound like one big party in the sun. Six weeks later both she and Monica were crew members of SS
Prince Albert
, sailing from Tobago to Miami.

Sally always knew there was no such thing as a free lunch, and she’d had to work hard as a waitress in the on-deck bar and in the industrial-sized dining room. But they let her sing sometimes at night, between the professionals. And the weather was wonderful, food was free and drinks were cheap.

“How about Monica?” asked Peggy lightly, wanting to get back to the subject.

“Oh, she was a waitress too. At least at the beginning. Then they made her hostess for the restaurant,” she said, with a hint of pride.

The first season had passed without a hitch, and the girls had got back to London with money in their pockets. The second year was almost as good—for Sally at any rate. Monica had got in trouble just before Christmas, for fraternising with one of the paying guests, a retired policeman from Miami.

Sally looked at Peggy knowingly. “Of course we were paid to be friendly, but the company had strict limits and Monica was a bit
too
friendly.”

They gave her a formal warning, but it didn’t seem to worry her much. “Who cares?” she’d said to Sally, showing her a gold choker that the former cop had bought her in St. Lucia.

Then at Easter it happened again, and this time the company gave Monica her cards. Sally had expected her to be very upset, but she just said, “Good riddance.”

It turned out that the offending passenger was offering her five grand to go with him on a cruise through the Greek islands.

After that, Sally had watched with a mixture of admiration and concern as her friend started a new, altogether different career. She was still working on cruise ships, but not for any company—Monica had gone into business on her own.

“Didn’t the cruise companies object?” asked Peggy, doubting they’d be eager to have a reputation as a floating brothel.

“She was very careful. She’d buy a ticket like anybody else, then mix with the other passengers during the cruise. She’d single out one bloke—usually a widower, they seem to have a thing about cruises once the wife’s dead. And what could the company say about that?” She raised an eyebrow. “You can’t forbid ‘love’ can you? The cruises are meant to be romantic.”

A tabby cat came out of the kitchen, slinking towards the window. Ignoring him, Sally went on, “After that, I didn’t see Monica so much.” Occasionally they would coincide in a harbour; and back in England during the summer they always got together. Interestingly Monica never plied her new trade in her home country: “I think she was still hoping she might meet Mr. Right, and she didn’t want a reputation—not here anyway.” By then, of course, Monica was in a different league financially from Sally, but she was always generous with her old mate. Once she even paid for Sally to join her on a cruise as a passenger.

“Did she expect you to join her”—Peggy hesitated, unsure of how to phrase this—“professionally?”

“No,” said Sally, and gave a sad smile. Then she put her fingers against the ragged ribbon of pink on her face. “This kind of disqualifies me, don’t you think?” She didn’t seem to expect an answer. “Actually, Monica didn’t work on that trip. It was just two girlfriends on a treat together. We had a lovely time.”

But then why aren’t they still friends? wondered Peggy, watching as the cat hopped up on to a pine table, littered with toast crumbs and a folded copy of the
Mirror
. “When did Monica stop working the cruises?” she asked.

“Three years ago. I came home in the summer and rang her up, like I always did. She was nice, but she said she was very busy—she was living in Beirut or somewhere like that. She’d got some Middle Eastern guy in tow, very well heeled, she said, only she didn’t think he’d be crazy about what she used to do for a living. Then I saw her picture a couple of months ago in
Hello!
with a Russian guy. It said he had more money than the queen.”

“And you haven’t heard from her since?”

“No. I gave up trying. I know when I’m not wanted,” she said fiercely. Behind this show of pride, Peggy sensed, was a festering hurt. About the disloyalty of her old friend; perhaps about the way things had turned out for her; possibly about the shocking blazoned stripe nature had deposited across her face like paint. “You know,” she said, “Monica was wonderful to be with when things were going her way. I worshipped her, I did really—but underneath she was as hard as nails. I thought—yes—I thought she’d kill you to get what she wanted.”

Suddenly a tear formed in the corner of her eye. She dabbed at it with a tissue. It was time to go. “Thank you very much for talking to me,” said Peggy as she rose from her chair.

“Don’t you want to take my picture then?” Sally was almost defiant.

Peggy looked at the dismal room: the cat was cleaning himself on the floor now, beside a grease stain that ran up to the kitchen door. “I’ll ask my editor,” she said.

“Whoever he is, he can’t be very nice,” said Sally, making no effort to get up. She sloshed another inch of whisky into her empty mug.

“Who?” asked Peggy, puzzled.

“This Russian bloke.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Before she started picking them for their money, Monica never liked nice men. She always went for the rough ones—you know, the kind who’d rather belt you than talk things over. I know she’s very grand now, but I bet that hasn’t changed.”

“Do you still work on the cruise ships?” asked Peggy, turning at the door, wanting to be polite.

Sally nodded, but there was nothing happy in her face. “I’ll be back there in autumn.” She paused, and a summary bleakness settled in her eyes. “But they don’t let me sing any more.”