Dead Spy Running

22

Leila had met Jago, a tousle-haired six-year-old, once before, but this was her first time on the London Eye. Fielding had emailed her earlier in the day with the unusual time and place, explaining that he would have a godson in tow. Everyone in the Service knew the Vicar had an inordinate number of godchildren (fourteen at the last count). Less well known was how he found time to see them all. They were a lucky bunch, she thought, as Fielding led them through the shadows to an empty capsule, bypassing the long queue. He ushered Leila and Jago before him, nodding at an attendant as the doors closed. It evidently wasn’t Fielding’s first visit.

As Jago swung on the metal handrail, looking fearlessly at the Thames below him, Leila took in London from a new perspective. All around her, as they rose almost imperceptibly into the night sky, buildings coyly revealed parts that had seldom been seen by the public before: pointed skylights, roof gullies, curved domes.

‘We always try to get a sunset flight,’ Fielding said, looking west, where the high clouds were tinged with red. ‘Don’t we Jago?’

But Jago was too preoccupied by a passenger boat making its way up the river, its wake spreading like spilt salt behind it.

‘He’s grown up a lot since I last saw him,’ Leila offered, doubting whether Fielding’s effort to include his godson in their conversation was genuine.

‘They do, you know,’ he said, still looking out west. ‘Sorry to bring you up here.’

‘It’s great. I’ve never been.’

‘We just can’t be sure about Legoland at the moment.’

‘No?’

She presumed he meant MI5, but Fielding didn’t elaborate. ‘Stay away from the doors and these pods are almost impenetrable,’ he continued. ‘At least at the top. Curved glass, you see. Sometimes I reckon there are more of the world’s intelligence services flying the London Eye than tourists. Word’s got out.’

‘Uncle Marcus?’ Jago asked, not waiting for an answer. ‘Are we moving faster than a clock?’

‘A clock? Well, faster than the long hand, slower than the second hand.’

‘What’s the time now, then?’

‘The time?’ Marcus repeated, barely missing a beat. It was why he always accepted invitations to be a godfather: children’s random thought patterns kept his brain nimble. ‘Almost 12 o’clock,’ he said, winking at Leila. ‘When we reach the top it will be exactly midnight.’

‘And then we’ll all turn into pumpkins on the way down?’

‘Every one of us.’

‘Hassan was a disappointment, in many ways,’ Leila said, checking that Jago was distracted again. The boy seemed to be deep in thought, contemplating his imminent transformation.

‘Really?’

‘I think he was just lonely.’

‘Did you…?’

‘Squeeze the pips? Yes.’

‘And?’

‘When pushed…squeezed…he mentioned the Russians, said how they had liked the instability of last year, of seeing the Service wobble.’

‘I’m sure they did. It wasn’t the Russians.’

‘No.’ She paused, squatting down next to Jago. She had forgotten how brusque Fielding could be in his dismissals.

‘What’s that?’ the boy asked, pointing almost directly beneath them.

‘That’s called a carousel,’ she said, looking at a circular disc of colours far below them. They were almost at the top of the wheel now. Midnight was approaching. ‘Horses and music and…’

‘Oh yes, we saw it down there,’ he said, already looking elsewhere, across the river towards Big Ben.

‘There’s something else I need to talk to you about,’ Leila said. She stood up and walked over to Fielding, who was still looking upriver.

‘Of course.’

‘I need a break. From Britain, from everything that’s happened.’

‘As far as I’m concerned, you can have as long off as you want. Travel, see the world as a tourist for a bit. I thought HR had talked to you about this?’

‘I don’t want a holiday. I need to keep myself busy while he’s away. But not here.’

‘Your next foreign tour is, when, next year?’

‘July.’

‘I’m sure we could bring it forward.’

‘I had something else in mind. The CIA’s exchange programme. They’ve just advertised another position.’

He looked at her for a moment, studying her face. She was strikingly beautiful, he thought, particularly in the soft light of the setting sun. ‘Is that what you really want? I’m surprised. Genuinely. Langley’s no fun at all, you know that.’

‘It’s not in America. A three-month tour on the subcontinent. India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka. I’d start in the Delhi station.’

A thought crossed Fielding’s mind with the fleeting transience of one of Jago’s random musings; but it left a trace that was to linger much longer than he would have liked.