A Colder War

48

Kell slept until ten the next morning. He took a shower, walked to a branch of Carluccio’s on Westbourne Grove for eggs and bacon and orange juice, then showed his face at Redan Place shortly before midday.

‘Any news?’

Harold was reading the Daily Mail on the sofa. As Kell walked in, he looked up and produced an uncharacteristically forced smile. Danny Aldrich was in the surveillance room, looking at the feeds from the Rembrandt. There was no sign of Elsa.

‘ABACUS still asleep,’ Aldrich announced.

Kell walked into the cubicle and forced himself to look at the monitors. En route to the office he had stopped in a pub and sunk a double shot of Smirnoff to ease his nerves. He was going to see Rachel wrapped in Kleckner’s arms. He had prepared himself for this.

‘Still asleep,’ Kell repeated and stood over Aldrich’s shoulder.

To his surprise he saw that Kleckner was alone in bed. There was nobody else in the room, no movement on the bathroom monitor. No sign of Rachel anywhere.

‘Where’s the girl?’ he said.

‘Left ages ago.’

Walk of shame. Hours of bliss and fucking and then she caught an early Tube home to Bethnal Green.

‘What time did she go?’

‘Didn’t stay long actually.’

Aldrich’s voice was level, matter-of-fact. If he knew of the link between Kell and Rachel he was doing a masterful job of disguising it.

‘Why? They had a fight?’

Aldrich spun around in his seat and looked up at Kell. Kell moved away, leaning against the wall, putting distance between them.

‘I got no idea what happened. I went to bed. Harold was keeping an eye on things. How you feeling by the way? Elsa said you ate a bad kebab or something?’

‘I’m fine, completely fine.’ Kell smiled at Elsa’s cover story and looked again at the monitor. The American was waking up. He had pushed the sheets down and twisted on to his side. He was dressed in a T-shirt and a pair of underpants. It was a strange consolation to Kell that Kleckner was not naked. ‘Where’s the team?’ he asked.

‘Usual positions. Carol and Nina back on today. Jez as well. Theo’s got an old woman’ — Aldrich looked down at a printed list of names — ‘Penny, who’s going to role-play his wife. Geriatric couple. Always makes good cover.’

‘Yes,’ Kell muttered, hardly listening. He was watching Kleckner. Something was happening in the room. ‘Here we go.’

Aldrich turned and looked at the monitor. Kleckner had reached for the hotel landline beside his bed. In a swift, practised movement, Aldrich flicked three switches, grabbed two pairs of headphones, passed one of them to Kell and placed the other over his head.

‘We can listen. Probably housekeeping wondering when they can get into his room.’

But it was not housekeeping. As Kell put on the headphones and crouched in front of the monitor, he heard Rachel’s voice in his head, the agony of her tenderness, the same lilt and flow and mischief that he had foolishly thought she reserved solely for him.

‘Morning, sleepy head.’

‘Rachel?’

‘Yes of course, Rachel! Who were you expecting?’ Laughter in her voice. ‘Did you only just wake up? You said you’d call me.’

‘What time is it?’

‘Midday. Half-past. I’m so hungover.’

‘Me too. What happened?’

Kell could see Kleckner sitting up in bed, rubbing his eyes, like a bad actor trying to convey a sense of disorientation.

‘Well, you sort of fell asleep. At about two. Two-thirty, maybe? I had to get home and change and come to work so I thought I’d leave you to it.’

‘I don’t remember that. I don’t remember much actually.’

‘Oh thanks!’ More laughter, more mischief. Kell willed himself to keep listening, to keep watching Kleckner. ‘You remember nothing?’ Rachel said.

The American switched hands on the phone and reached for a bottle of water. ‘No, sure,’ he said, scrambling for tact. ‘Like I remember coming home. I remember how great it was being with you. I remember that stuff. I just feel like you can’t have had such a great time.’

Rachel paused, perhaps for effect, perhaps to tread carefully around what sounded like Kleckner’s vanity and self-doubt. ‘Maybe that’s because of the three vodka martinis, the two bottles of red and the mojitos we drank at Boujis. We were shitfaced!’

‘I pass out? That never happens to me.’

‘You passed out. We both passed out.’

‘Jesus.’

There was a lengthy silence. Kell caught Aldrich’s eye but there was nothing to read in his expression. He turned back to the monitor. Kleckner reached into his pants and scratched his balls.

‘So what are you doing today?’ Rachel asked. ‘What are you doing now?’ It sounded as though she wanted to get together. The second act.

‘Today?’ Kleckner looked across the hotel room, in the direction of the television. ‘I gotta bunch of stuff to do. Shit, I had no idea how late it was.’ There was a crackle of static on the audio feed, enough to make Aldrich flinch and make an adjustment to his headphones. ‘I need a Tylenol. I got this dinner tonight. The college reunion thing I told you about.’

‘Oh yeah, at Galvin.’

‘Yup. Baker Street, you said?’

‘There’s two of them.’ It was just like Rachel to know something like that. All the best restaurants. All the best places to go. ‘There’s a Galvin in Shoreditch, one in Baker Street. You should check.’

‘And what are you doing after?’

Kleckner had stood up. His brain was starting to kick into gear. There was a seductive edge to the question.

‘Tonight?’ Rachel said. ‘You mean after your dinner?’

‘Yeah, sure. You busy?’

Kell willed Rachel to turn him down.

‘I can’t, Ryan. Not tonight. Then I’ve got to go back to Istanbul.’

He was stunned. Rachel hadn’t mentioned anything about going to Turkey. The area around his neck and his chest was tight and hot.

‘So that trip’s going ahead?’ Kleckner asked.

‘Yeah. Some final stuff Mum needs me to do at the house. But you’ll be back by the weekend, yeah?’

‘Sure. That’s my plan. I’m busy tomorrow, then I could catch a late flight, I guess.’

‘OK. So let’s have dinner in Istanbul. Saturday night. I love saying that. It sounds so romantic and international!’

‘It sounds great is what it sounds. I wanna be with you, Rachel. I wanna see you.’

Kell closed his eyes.

‘Well, that’s good. Because you’re going to be with me. You’re going to see me. And I’m glad about last night.’

‘What do you mean?’

Kell wanted to tear off the headphones.

‘Just that we’re taking things slowly. I’m glad.’

‘Oh, OK.’ The American sounded resistant to the idea, as though he was not used to being finessed by a woman. ‘Me too,’ he added unconvincingly.

‘So I’ll see you in Istanbul. You can show me your favourite places. We should go back to Bar Bleu.’

‘Sure. You at work now?’

‘I am,’ Rachel replied. ‘And I should stop talking to you and get off the phone or I’ll get in trouble. Bye bye, gorgeous.’

‘You too. Bye. See you in a coupla days. Take it easy.’

Kell watched as Kleckner hung up the phone, walked into the bathroom, dug around in his washbag and retrieved a strip of pills. The American ran a tap and threw back what appeared to be two painkillers, then switched on the shower. He walked back into the bedroom and began to rummage in the waste-paper basket. Returning to the bathroom, he did the same thing.

‘What’s this about?’ Aldrich asked. ‘What’s he doing?’

‘No idea,’ Kell replied, and it was only as he removed the headphones and walked outside into the corridor that an answer presented itself: Kleckner had been looking for a used condom. Had he been so drunk, so disoriented, that he had forgotten whether or not he had fucked Rachel?

‘Everything all right, guv?’

Harold was still sitting on the sofa reading the Daily Mail. Kell had been on his way to the terrace for a cigarette but sat down, realizing that Rachel had inadvertently dragged a schedule out of Kleckner. I gotta bunch of stuff to do today. I’m busy tomorrow, then I could catch a late flight. She was helping him. The team could use that information. Rachel had isolated the times when ABACUS was planning to meet his handler, and cut short his trip by twenty-four hours.

‘Interesting piece?’ he asked Harold, spotting a headline about a link between cancer and dieting.

Harold turned down a corner of the paper and grinned.

‘Very,’ he said. ‘We’re all dying unless we start eating pizza. Your man Kleckner should give up on his planks and his press-ups and just start enjoying himself.’

Kell tried to smile. He had to get past what he had heard and seen. He had to move on with the job. There was still a mole to catch. It was of paramount importance to track ABACUS to his handler. Yet he could not stop himself from asking the question:

‘What happened last night? After I left?’

Kell felt a check in his breathing as he waited for Harold’s response. Wasn’t it obvious what had happened? Two young people had found one another attractive. They had gone to bed together. Even if Rachel had left before dawn, she would soon be back in Kleckner’s arms, fucking him at the yali on Saturday. The fact that she wanted to wait, to take things slowly, only confirmed that she was taking him seriously.

‘It was weird actually,’ Harold replied, laying the newspaper on the sofa beside him. ‘For once our boy couldn’t close the deal. Maybe he was knackered out by whatsername.’

‘Maybe,’ Kell replied blandly, unsure what to feel. He was about to stand up and leave when Harold frowned.

‘Who was she, guv? You recognize the girl?’

‘No.’ The lie was out of Kell’s mouth before he had a chance even to acknowledge the possibility of telling Harold the truth. He wanted his private life to remain private.

‘It’s just weird.’

‘Why?’

‘I got asked to wipe the tapes.’

‘You got asked what?’

‘To destroy them. This morning. Throw them away.’

‘Why?’

‘Search me.’

And as Kell asked the obvious question, he realized the obvious answer.

‘Who asked you to do that? Who asked you to destroy them?’

‘The boss, guv. Amelia.’