A Colder War

66

She knew how to work the cover. She had texted Kleckner, called his mobile, written him an irate email. Even after Amelia had managed to get a message to her saying that ABACUS had fled to Odessa, she had kept up the façade, calling a friend in London and complaining that Ryan — ‘that American guy I told you about’ — had stood her up, failed to keep to a promise of taking her out to dinner in Istanbul.

‘You poor thing,’ the friend had said, oblivious to the masquerade, oblivious to the fact that the SVR were listening in to Rachel Wallinger’s calls. ‘I know you really liked him. Maybe he’s just had to go and work or something. Maybe he lost his phone.’

‘That old chestnut,’ Rachel replied. ‘Fuck him. Makes me miss Tom.’

She knew that it was important to behave naturally, that Minasian’s people were most likely watching her. That there was a potential SVR threat against her, but only if it could be proven that she had been working against ABACUS on behalf of SIS.

So she had tried to enjoy herself. Or, at the very least, to live her life as she would ordinarily have lived it, given a few days of leisure in Istanbul. She had been to the Topkapi, she had breezed around the Blue Mosque, she had taken a boat along the Bosporus. And she had thought about Tom Kell, wondering if he would ever forgive her for the sin of consorting with Ryan Kleckner.

Rachel made the mistake of drinking alone on Sunday night, returning home from a restaurant in Yeniköy after dark. Too much alcohol on an empty stomach, her loneliness buttressed by grief and nerves and by Laura Marling on her iPhone. Approaching the house, she turned the music up loud, louder still when her favourite song came on, the mournful lament of ‘Goodbye England’.

Rachel climbed the steps to the front door of the yali, reaching for her keys. The music and the headphones were shrouding every sound in the city. She turned the key in the lock.

She did not look back. She could not hear what was going on around her. She closed the door behind her and walked into the house.