Illegal Action (12 page)

27

G
eoffrey Fane stretched out his long legs and leant back luxuriously against the well-padded banquette. For a brief moment he allowed himself to close his eyes. He had spent the last two hours in a particularly frustrating meeting in the Ministry of Defence, arguing over levels of MI6 representation in Afghanistan, and now he was waiting for Elizabeth Carlyle to join him. Liz, he said to himself, Liz. I must remember to call her Liz. She had seemed irrationally annoyed when they last met that he’d called her Elizabeth. I expect she thought I was patronising her, he mused. Though how it can be patronising
not
to use an abbreviation, I don’t understand. These young women in MI5 nowadays are very defensive. Thank goodness in our neck of the woods we’re still masculine. Well, nearly. It makes life so much easier.

He waved for another glass of Chablis. The service in the Savoy was still excellent and there was something sophisticated and faintly decadent about the American Bar, which suited him. That was why he went on using it, even though in the early evening it got excessively crowded. He rarely turned up there before eight.

His second drink had just arrived when Liz walked in. Fane stood up and waited until she was settled opposite him. As soon as she was supplied with a drink, he went straight to the business of the evening. He had grasped that she didn’t like irrelevant conversation and he knew she would be wondering why he had arranged to meet here and not at Vauxhall Cross.

“Thank you for coming, Liz,” he began. “I suggested here because I knew my meeting in the MoD would go on quite late. I wanted to find out how things were going in the Brunovsky household and to fill you in on a few things we’ve learnt from Moscow.”

Liz looked at him over the rim of her glass. My God, her eyes are wary, he thought to himself. She doesn’t trust me an inch.

“I told Brian I was meeting you,” she said. So that’s it, thought Fane. She thinks I’m trying to cut out her boss.

“That’s fine. I told him too,” he replied airily.

“Well, I quite like being an art expert,” Liz confessed. “But to tell you the truth, I don’t think I’m getting very far. I’ve seen nothing to make me suspicious. But whether that’s because there isn’t anything to discover or because I’m not well placed to discover it, I don’t know. Quite a lot goes on in Russian. What I do understand seems all pretty normal—if you can call the life of an oligarch normal. He’s just bought a painting for £13 million by someone called Pashko and now I’ve become an instant Pashko expert. Did you see it in the newspaper?”

“Was that Brunovsky? The reports I read said the buyer was anonymous,” said Fane.

“That’s how he wanted to play it,” Liz replied, warming to her subject. “He’s got some competitive thing going with another Russian called Morozov. He was bidding for the picture too. I can’t say I fully understand it, but it’s a sort of boy’s game of one-upmanship as far as I can tell.”

“Morozov. Never heard of him.”

“Apparently he made his money in industrial diamonds. I suppose you could call him a second-class oligarch,” she said with a smile. “Millions, not billions. I think Nicky just sees him as a nuisance. It’s Morozov who’s doing most of the competing.”

So, she’s thinking of him as Nicky, Fane noticed, with a slight feeling of alarm. “Eliz…Liz,” he interrupted. “There’s something we’ve picked up in Moscow that you should know. Stakhov has been arrested. If you remember, he was the origin of Victor’s story that there was a plot being prepared in Moscow against an oligarch in London. Of course, it may have nothing to do with it. Victor said Stakhov was disillusioned and critical of Putin, so he may just have said the wrong thing at the wrong time. But there may have been a leak. It’s possible the Russians have found out that he’s talked and suspect we know something about what they’re planning. In which case, you need to be careful. We are keeping our ears very close to the ground in Moscow and we can take decisions as and when we learn more.”

Liz said, “Oh, I don’t think I’m in any danger. The only one who knows who I am is Brunovsky and he’s got his own safety to think about. He won’t say anything. But I wonder, could your people do some research into Morozov? I’d dearly like to know what this feud is all about and how serious it is. What happened between him and Brunovsky and why did Morozov leave Russia? Did he have to, or was it simply because he wanted a life of luxury in London?”

“Probably a bit of both, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” Liz agreed, “but I’d like to know for sure. I don’t understand why Morozov doesn’t like Brunovsky. I know neither has any time for Putin.”

Fane looked at Liz in surprise and thought to himself how typical of a female. One minute she thinks she’s wasting her time, but as soon as I suggest that she might need to quit, she digs her heels in and gets all interested. She has the instincts of a bloodhound. Not for the first time he thought what a useful addition she would be to MI6.

Noticing Liz look surreptitiously at her watch, Fane changed the subject. He hadn’t asked her here just to talk about Brunovsky, though this next part he hadn’t shared with anyone. Recently he had been thinking more and more about his son, Michael. It was strange that when Michael was a boy at school, he had hardly given him a moment’s thought. But since the Fane marriage had broken up, and particularly since Michael had joined MI5, Geoffrey Fane had found his thoughts turning towards his son.

He wanted him to do well—not just to reflect lustre on him, he reassured himself. Geoffrey Fane knew that Michael was not mature or even particularly stable, and he knew too that it was partly his fault. He had not provided his son with the role model he had needed. Unsurprisingly the boy’s personality had not developed as his father would have liked. This woman sitting in front of him—Elizabeth, Liz, whatever she liked to call herself—she was all the things he would have liked Michael to be. She was calm, reliable, independent. She had inner reserves of strength, that was obvious. She was also extremely attractive, he acknowledged to himself. Michael was younger, inexperienced, and Geoffrey Fane knew that his upbringing had disturbed his development. The truth was that he had not played his part as a father and his son, Michael, had suffered accordingly.

“Before you go,” he said to Liz. Immediately he saw the wariness come back. He knew she was thinking, What now? Is this where he produces some unwelcome rabbit out of the hat?

“My son, Michael,” he said.

“Yes,” she said levelly.

Fane kept his eyes on his drink. He felt damnably awkward, but he had to ask. “I just wondered if he was getting on all right.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to speak to him yourself? I’m sure he’s got an accurate sense of how he’s doing.”

Fane flinched at her brusque reply and felt himself colouring, but having started, he was not going to stop now. “I shouldn’t have brought it up, I know, but…how can I put it?” He felt immensely embarrassed. “There’s a certain
froideur
between us. We’re not in any kind of communication.”

“I didn’t know that,” Liz replied, her voice warming slightly.

Fane shrugged. “It’s just one of those things,” he said. He added with a grim smile, “I know civilised divorce is all the rage these days, but Michael’s mother and I didn’t quite manage the trick. Not blood on the walls exactly, but not nice. I’m afraid Michael got caught in the middle. I never wanted him to feel he had to choose sides.”

That’s not quite true, he thought. I cut him out long before the divorce.

Liz looked at him thoughtfully. At last she said, “Michael’s doing fine.”

Fane picked up the momentary hesitation in her voice. She was letting him down gently. Michael wasn’t really doing fine, but she didn’t want to tell him. “Of course he’s got a lot to learn.” She paused. “But he is learning it.”

“Thank you,” he said, giving a small sigh. “You are very kind.”

They both understood what had really been said.

Liz stood up. “Thanks for the drink,” she said.

“A pleasure,” said Fane. He stood up too to shake her hand. “Thank you for coming.”

As he sat down and summoned the waiter again, he saw Liz casting a quick look back as she left the bar. Unusually for him, Geoffrey Fane felt foolish. He was also extremely annoyed with himself. He already knew the truth about Michael, and Liz, whatever she had actually said, had merely confirmed it. For no purpose at all he had exposed his vulnerability, his weakness. In the harsh world he moved in, a weakness was there to be exploited. He fully expected Liz to exploit his.

As Liz walked along the Strand to catch her bus, her mind was on Geoffrey Fane. She had not been entirely open with him about her emerging doubts about the Brunovsky household, but she preferred to wait until she had something more substantial than just a vague sense that all was not as it seemed. Perhaps something more tangible would come from Moscow.

Absorbed as she was, she had not noticed that as she walked through the foyer to leave the Savoy, a woman in a long dark coat, who had been packing away a laptop into her leather shoulder bag as Liz passed, got up and followed her out.

Liz was thinking how quickly one’s attitude to someone could change. Fane was known to those in Thames House who had worked with him as the Prince of Darkness, for his dark aquiline looks and the air of sinister menace he exuded. He was generally thought to be ruthless in pursuit of his objectives and not at all careful about whose toes he trod on in achieving them. In the last hour he had shown her a very different side—was it real concern about his son or was it just guilt? Whatever it was, Liz was intrigued to find his guard had slipped, and she wondered how this letting down of his guard would affect their future relationship.

As Liz sat down on the bus, the woman from the Savoy was several rows behind her. Liz was reflecting on how complicated her life was becoming, living and working undercover not a mile away from her office in Thames House. She didn’t think she could sustain it for much longer. She had decided to go back to Battersea tonight, though pure tradecraft would have dictated that, having just had a meeting with Geoffrey Fane as Liz Carlyle, she should go back to her own flat in Kentish Town. However, she had agreed to be at Brunovsky’s house in Belgravia early the following morning, and she did not want to have to leave Kentish Town at the crack of dawn so that she could dry-clean herself before arriving at Brunovsky’s house. Her mind moved on to the forthcoming weekend and further complications.

Dimitri had phoned that afternoon, suggesting dinner. He was coming down from Cambridge two days from now, on Saturday afternoon. It occurred to her that the only garment she had with her in Battersea suitable for an evening out was the dress she had worn to the post-auction dinner at the Windows on the World restaurant. It would probably be well over the top for whatever eating place Dimitri had in mind. When she’d last been at her own flat in Kentish Town, she had meant to bring more of her wardrobe over to Battersea, but she’d been distracted by—what was it? Oh yes, her mother had rung just as she was collecting more clothes. Hearing more about Edward had put Liz in such a foul mood that she had just scooped up a few things and left.

Now she was briefly tempted to change buses and go north instead of south, pick up something suitable from her flat and then go on to Battersea. But she didn’t have the energy or the patience for all the kerfuffle that would involve. It would take the rest of the evening just to collect a few clothes. I’ll make do with what I’ve got, she decided. She could dress up a work skirt with a silk blouse and wear her grandmother’s garnet earrings or the glass bead necklace her mother had given her on her birthday. That would surely do for whatever Dimitri came up with.

Traffic was light and as she was wrapped up in her own thoughts, the bus was moving quickly down towards the river, then along the Embankment and across Albert Bridge. She was one of just three people who got off at the stop in the quiet street one away from the mansion block. As the other two turned left and began walking off, Liz suddenly felt how eerie it was on this street at this time of night, when most people were already at home and dusk threatened to turn to dark. The tall branching plane trees cut off much of the remaining light in the sky and the widely spaced street lights created pools of darkness. She walked quickly to the street door of her block, checking behind her as she put her key in the lock. The only people in the street were a man, walking quickly away from her, and another woman in the distance. She couldn’t see her very well.

Once in the flat, she turned on Radio 3, then, unattracted by the atonal music it was playing, moved the dial to Classic FM. She had had nothing to eat since the morning and the Savoy’s delicious Chablis on an empty stomach was beginning to make her feel quite weak. Her inspection of the small food cupboard revealed tins of soup but not much else you could actually eat. The thought of one of the gastropubs in this gentrified neighbourhood didn’t appeal. They were noisy and she needed some peace to collect her thoughts and reposition herself mentally after her rather confusing day. Then she remembered the sedate old-fashioned pub a couple of streets away, where a single woman could sit alone, unmolested, and read a book over a simple plate of cold roast beef and salad. As she left the building, she wondered if Dimitri would fit in there.

28

A
4 was very stretched. An urgent counter-terrorism operation had absorbed all their free resources. Brian Ackers had been putting as much pressure as he could on the head of A4 to make at least one team available for the Rykov link with Jerry Simmons, but even he had had to concede that the possible kidnapping of a soldier home on leave by a gang of Al Qaeda–influenced militants took precedence. But at the last minute, one of the extremists had been arrested by the local uniformed police for shoplifting, and was in custody, so the team that had been allocated to him was free. Luckily, this was Wally Wood’s team and they knew Rykov well.

This evening had seemed easy enough, just like others on which they had watched Rykov. He had been in the embassy for most of the afternoon, then had drinks with an unidentified blonde in the penthouse bar of the Kensington Gardens Hotel. He’d left at six-thirty and taken a taxi into the West End, where he’d had early supper with another woman—identified as Mrs. Rykov—at Chez Gérard on Dover Street. When they’d come out at eight-thirty, Wally Woods, sitting in his car at the corner of Piccadilly, watched as the Russian walked past him and held his arm out to hail a cab. It was still light, and the lowering sun turned the clouds into pink puffballs over Green Park.

It seemed straightforward: the Russian couple would head north to Highgate and their flat at the Trade Delegation. But when a taxi pulled over, to Wally’s surprise Rykov bundled his wife into it, slammed the door, crossed the road and walked off west on Piccadilly towards Hyde Park Corner. By the time Wally had negotiated the small Mayfair streets and re-emerged on the correct side of Piccadilly, his colleague Maureen was calling in over the radio that Rykov was flagging down another taxi. Wally was in time to join his colleagues, now intently following this second taxi.

Fifteen minutes later the taxi turned off Cheyne Walk and crossed Albert Bridge. On the south bank it turned into Parkgate Road, then stopped in a smaller tree-shaded side street of brick mansion blocks. Wally pulled over just around the corner. Bernie Rudge had turned off Albert Bridge Road further south and was now circling back. “Target coming your way,” said Wally. He named the street Rykov’s cab had gone down, then pulled out and drove around in a slow circle to the other end of it.

“I have eyeball,” Bernie announced. “Chelsea 1 is getting out. Going into a building. I’ll take him.”

Wally wondered what the hell was going on. He knew there was an operational flat in a block on this road. He’d dry-cleaned a contact attending a meeting here for the Counter-Terrorist Branch a few months ago. Surely they’d have been briefed if Chelsea 1 was one of theirs and was going to a meeting. But it beggared belief that he had picked this obscure street in Battersea coincidentally.

“Target’s on the move,” said Bernie. “Walking fast. He’s seen something. Heading back to you, Maureen. Can you take him?”

“Affirmative,” came back from Maureen. “I have eyeball.”

“There’s a female coming from the opposite direction. She’s crossed the street. She’s gone into the same block of flats the target went up to. She must have been what spooked him.”

Odd, thought Wally. If Chelsea 1 was meeting someone in the safe flat, why had he turned tail and run away? What was going on?

“Confirming. A female has entered the same building. She’s one of ours. There’s an unknown female approaching. Passing the block now and coming your way.”

From A4 control in Thames House came the instruction for one car to stay on the street long enough to confirm the address Rykov had approached and for the others to keep with Rykov and ignore the unknown female. Control confirmed that there had been no briefing about any meeting with Rykov.

Wally sat in his car in the pool of darkness between two street lamps, watching the door of the mansion block. After a minute or two the door opened and Liz Carlyle emerged, crossed the road and walked off down a side street. Wally was dumbfounded. Possibilities spread like wildfire in his mind, some of them ones he didn’t want to contemplate. He could hear from the radio traffic of his colleagues that Chelsea 1 seemed to be making his way back to Highgate by cab. The second woman had disappeared, so having checked the address, he radioed in that he was standing down.

Battersea Mansions. Yes, that was certainly where he’d helped dry-clean that meeting three months before. Well, there’d be an interesting wash-up tomorrow about all this. Either they hadn’t been properly briefed or something very strange was going on. He just hoped Liz Carlyle knew what she was doing.