The Corporal's Wife (2013) (13 page)

They’d done the tour on the way in from the village on the Danube. Sidney had seemed disappointed that Petroc – Mr Hector’s nephew – had shown little interest in the sights of the city. One stone fountain was much like another, as were statuettes of eighteenth-century generals on prancing chargers. A statue of Mozart and another of a woman draped in a sheet and holding a spear seemed sufficient. He’d perked up at the Russian war memorial, with a double-lifesize Red Army soldier perched on a high plinth, a gold-leaf helmet and an AK assault rifle. Polly would have liked the city, would have wanted an opera evening.

He came out into the fading light, with more rain about to fall. The car door was opened for and closed after him. Sidney started the engine, eased out through the embassy’s gates onto the road, then stopped.

‘Is the kibosh on it, Petroc?’

He did not enjoy the familiarity, but Sidney had been Hector’s sidekick.

‘It’ll get “careful thought”.’

‘Not knocked down?’

‘Not yet. Are we staying here or going?’

Sidney ignored his question. ‘Have you seen her picture? It was in his wallet.’

‘I have.’

‘Great-looking woman. He can’t walk away from her. Can I tell you what I think, Petroc?’

‘Do you need permission, Sidney?’ He’d tried irony, but knew it would go unrecognised.

‘We all think, Petroc, that we understand women, but we’re pissing in the wind. Closed book and all that. He loves her but I don’t think she gives a toss about him and it’s driving him mad. Given the opportunity, he sloped off to Cock Alley because he’s not getting it at home. Are we going to fetch her?’

Were they? Tadeuz Fenton was already in a hole and was likely to dig deeper. He’d let the word drop to Friends and Cousins that an interesting fish had been reeled in so the pressure on him was building and would inevitably get heavier. Would he take the chance, call the corporal’s bluff and leave the door open for him? Or would he go the extra mile? And the rest.

‘This would have been perfect for Mr Hector, right up his street.’

‘And times have changed, Sidney.’ He paused. ‘It would be a hell of a show, though, what legends are made of.’

‘Right now you’re covered in crap, Petroc. Pull this off, bring her out – the Yanks’ll be wetting themselves – and you could walk on water. You’d be right up there with your uncle – a star.’

The car moved off but didn’t turn back towards the Rennweg. Instead of heading for the ring road it went on down Jauresgasse, did a couple of blocks and Petroc saw enough of the flag to recognise the lateral stripes of green, white and red. Sidney braked, flicked open his door and stepped out. Petroc watched. Sidney’s business was at the side of the building that housed the mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran and involved the quick use of a sharp penknife. There was a little garden, with a wrought-iron fence and shrubs poking through it. A rose in full bloom was weighed down by rain water. One slash, and Sidney had the flower. There might have been a camera on him, or not. He walked back, eased into his seat, wrapped the stem in a tissue and passed it to Petroc.

‘I’m sure you know your Robbie Burns – Hector did.’

The question rang in Petroc’s ears: ‘Are we going to fetch her?’

They drove fast back to the safe house. He knew Tadeuz Fenton well enough to picture him and his postures. ‘Are we up for it? Why not?’ Petroc thought it was the stuff that reputations were made of, a career tipping point. His uncle Hector was a colossus. Failure to answer that question, ‘Are we going to fetch her?’ made officers into journeymen. Why not fetch her?

‘Don’t even think about counting us in.’ He had a pleasant voice and rarely raised it. Barrie was the liaison officer at Vauxhall Cross for the Special Boat Service, and was covering that afternoon for Angus, Special Air Service, who was at a veteran’s funeral in Hereford. ‘It’s a categoric “no”. I don’t want to hear any more. I’m sorry, Mr Fenton, but you’ll have to look elsewhere. Frankly, my advice is to bin it because whoever you get will have a bad experience. The proposition isn’t viable. It’ll end in tears. It’s not for us.’

‘Thank you for your frankness, Tadeuz, and for explaining your thoughts, but I’m going to decline the invitation.’ Since he had become CEO of an internationally recognised supplier of private military contractors who had experience in guarding British diplomats and agents of the Service, Marcus had never before turned down an offer without seeing a full brief. Offices down the corridor and on lower floors of the Mayfair headquarters were stuffed with former Special Forces men and those who had taken early leave of the intelligence family across the Thames. He spoke softly into the phone and realised he had damaged his link with a valued source of income. ‘Forgive me, but the only men you’ll get for a job like that are the sort of cowboys we try very hard to keep off our books. Cowboys are the kiss of death. They foul up and spread collateral. The proposition reeks of desperation and I doubt it’s been thought through. You face a setback so you bite the bullet. It’s mad. You won’t find anyone worthwhile prepared to contemplate it.’

The sign on the waiting-room door stated that smoking was prohibited. It was ignored.

Ralph Cotton, the youngest, arrived last – he’d had furthest to come. ‘I’m a bit late, but it’s been a bugger of a journey. Do you know what it’s all about?’

The eldest, Michael Wilson, had only had to cross Central London to get to Contego Security offices in Ealing’s high street. ‘Only that the brown stuff’s in the fan, and it’s panic stations, spook business.’

Walter Davies lit the cigarettes. ‘Are we likely to be first choice, or have we come off the bench?’

There was quiet, mirthless laughter in the waiting room. The main companies used smart West End addresses that had ‘class’ written all over them. Not too much of that in the far west of the capital. They waited, which private military contractors did well. Anyway, all three of them would be glad of some work – any work, within reason. They heard phones going in the inner offices and stressed-out voices, but no one had told them what to expect, only that
it
was being put together. They weren’t men who did war stories or talked themselves up, and within fifteen minutes of Ralph Cotton’s arrival they were slumped and asleep.

‘What am I looking for? The best – what else? The best linguist with the biggest balls.’

Persian Studies were taught at the School. Sara Rogers had walked over the bridge, taken a tube ride across London and slipped into the building behind the Senate House of London University. She knew the lecturer, tentacles spread wide from Vauxhall Cross into the world of academics. Behind her was a developing madhouse. Whether or not she approved of the route taken by her superior, her mid-week lover, was immaterial. Loyalty ran deep in her. She knew the lecturer and trusted him. Sara Rogers had come from the ranks in the Secret Intelligence Service, had been a copy-typist when she joined and now was gatekeeper to one of the powers in the monstrous building. The lecturer she had cultivated assiduously over the years was a director of the School’s Persian language (Farsi) and literature course. Her trust had its foundations in the death of the lecturer’s grandfather – an army officer put before a firing squad on the roof of a building in central Tehran during the second week after the return of the Imam. It had been strengthened by the death of his father, from kidney failure, after a security police beating following arrest on his return to Iran to visit elderly female relatives. His hatred of the regime was nurtured quietly, so he was unlikely to be compromised, in Sara Rogers’s judgement: a vociferous critic might have been turned, phone calls reaching the activist and telling him, or her, of what
might
happen to members of an extended family still resident in the Islamic Republic.

She was at the back of the building in a small office on the fourth floor and the majority of the kids were in the union near the main entrance. The corridor was quiet.

She was brusque: ‘I’m hitting brick walls. I don’t want an Iranian boy – no offence, and I’d trust you with my life – because I don’t have time for background checks or for getting into his head. My office can’t throw anyone up. Neither can the flower people in the big place. I need help so I’ve come to you.’

The ‘big place’ was Whitehall and the ‘flower people’ were the diplomats of the Foreign and Commonwealth office. A woman on one of the Gulf desks had done an insertion job a few years back and been commended, had laughed when she’d heard what was proposed, then pleaded inadequate Farsi. Anyway, her hair was almost golden. Tadeuz had authorised Sara to go outside. And there were enough potential SIS, FCO and MoD young people coming through the School to ensure its good co-operation.

She could be specific. ‘I want a good kid, one who can play native if the examination isn’t too rigorous. Language has to be excellent – and they have to have balls.’

The lecturer paused, considered, then reached down to a drawer in his desk, unlocked it and produced a bottle of dry sherry and paper cups. He poured two good measures and talked. The school had the best reputation in the country, was superior to Cambridge, in immersing students in Iranian culture. The aims of the three-year course were to enable the student to read, write, speak and listen, and to understand the beauty of the poetry of the last several centuries. Serious students boosted their language skills with audio tapes, satellite TV, Iranian films, and stayed close to the BBC Persian Service and its broadcasts to Iran. They went through stages of being confident in the language, then functional and, if bright, would be operational. If a student was ‘outstanding’ his language skill would be extensive –
fluency
, as good as it gets. The drawback: there were no longer exchange visits to Iran, too much political baggage, and any who did get there were on a two-week tourist visa and might backpack a bit but wouldn’t have enrolled in an Iranian university. He sipped his sherry.

‘How many do I get to choose between?’

A wry, smile. There was just one. In a world of box-ticking, one
might
be considered suitable for approach. There had been a boy who had proved an exceptional and unlikely linguist, the best in a decade, and he had missed all the stereotypical profiles. He came from the south Midlands. His fingers flew over the keyboard and the screen jerked to life. The first of his family to win a university place, he had chosen the school and Persian. He had been way ahead of his peers, but had fallen out of love with the course.

‘Maybe we’re getting there. How far out of love?’

Most students, the lecturer said, were tolerant of the excesses of the regime. They countered stories of stonings, beatings, political arrests and public executions with references to ‘rendition’, Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib. They did not like the proliferation of nuclear weapons, but did not condemn Iran for wanting them and pointed to threats from Israel, America, Britain and France to justify the Iranian programme. And there had been the election four years back. It was clear that the regime had stolen the votes, but as the kids had seen it, the true blame lay with those at the heart of the conspiracy to destroy Iran. Goldman Sachs, the CIA, J. P. Morgan. One had not bought into the generality. They had started their final exams. The lecturer had believed this student would sweep the board bare of awards, but he’d walked out, gone home. He’d bought a postcard at Euston station, had addressed it to him and written: ‘I accept you cannot parachute in democracy but I have no further interest in studying a nation and its leaders and peoples where fraud and corruption are so dense. I apologise for wasting your time and thank you sincerely for many kindnesses. Best, Zach.’ He put the card in the letterbox at the station, no stamp, and had left the School’s radar. The lecturer had never heard of him again, but had lobbied hard enough at the School for him to be awarded his first-class degree, then had phoned, written and texted with employment suggestions. He had received no reply. The student was ‘outstanding’, ‘the best’, and to have quit in the middle of his exams on a point of principle – his revulsion at the larceny of the regime and its violence – showed he had balls.

They laughed. The screen was tilted towards Sara Rogers.

He said, ‘He’s highly intelligent, determined and has character. Why else would I have worked so hard to try to bring him back to the fold? He’s one of those kids that sort of lose their way in education and miss out on fulfilling their promise. That doesn’t mean he’s a waste of space. Anyway, He’s all I have for you. Good luck.’

She saw the address, a home phone number and the names of the parents. She put the details of Zachariah Joshua Becket in her phone. ‘And he’s a good guy? Can you recommend him? Is he capable and . . . ?’

Capable? The lecturer shrugged. It might depend on what he was asked to do. They shook hands.

Walking from the building, threading through the students who milled in the hallway outside their union, Sara Rogers thought this might be as good as it would get. Life was about the art of the possible or some such. Outside, on the steps, with a cold wind whipping her, she rang in.

He watched Mehrak, the little corporal. One of them was always with him.

They used the interview room with the view over the vines, and women swung big plastic buckets of grapes onto the trailers. The rose was in a small glass vase in the centre of the table. Auntie had been told, but Mehrak had not. Auntie understood the significance, also that decisions with seismic consequences had been made behind the door of the secure room and in London. He’d said it to himself:
For real
. . . He had asked himself:
Does he justify the hassle?
Sidney – too full of himself, shouldn’t have been on the inside of the team – had explained the significance of the rose and where it had been taken from. Auntie, too, knew his Burns, could have recited several of the Scot’s better known verses and had seen the picture.