Dead Spy Running

5

Paul Myers drew heavily on his third pint of London Pride. ‘Another thirty seconds and the planes would have collided,’ he said. ‘The CAA’s lost the plot, wants to know how many other UK near-misses have been caused by Colorado tinkering with its atomic clocks.’

‘And?’ Leila asked, glancing around the pub. The Morpeth Arms, just across the river from Legoland, was a regular haunt for officers from MI5 and MI6. She recognised one or two colleagues at the bar, waiting to be served by the pub’s Czech and Russian barmaids.

‘Just don’t rely on your Tom-Tom if there’s a war on.’

Leila smiled, sipping at her glass of Sauvignon. She was tired. MI5 had let her go late in the afternoon, after a second day of interviews. The Americans had been present today: James Spiro, the CIA’s London chief, had asked lots of questions about Daniel Marchant, but no one would answer hers. She wanted to be with him, talk through the events of the marathon, hear it from his side, but nobody would admit that they knew where he was. Myers was a consolation prize. He had played his part that day, was proof that it had all actually happened. But it was the chatter that interested her.

‘It was good of you to call me yesterday,’ she said, touching his freckled forearm. Myers was wearing a fleece too big for him, pulled up at the sleeves.

‘We go back a bit, eh? I remember the first day you arrived at the Fort…’

‘Do you remember exactly what you heard? The chatter?’

Myers sat back awkwardly. ‘It was probably nothing. A South Indian we’d been monitoring. Talked about “35,000 runners”. Did you pass it on to anybody?’

‘Only Daniel. Briefly, just before the marathon started.’

Myers smiled, not sure where to look. Like most of the intelligence analysts Leila knew at GCHQ, he was socially dysfunctional, his head hanging too far forward over his pint, which he grasped with big nail-bitten hands. He was a good listener, though, not just to jihadi chatter, but to old friends like Leila. She knew that he still fancied her, partly because of his unsubtle glances at her breasts, but also because of the speed with which he had agreed to come up to London when she needed to talk. She knew, too, that it was wrong of her to exploit his enthusiasm; but she had no choice. The marathon had left her in desperate need of company.

‘I’m still trying to work out how it all happened, why he was the one who spotted the belt,’ Leila said, realising she shouldn’t have another glass of wine.

‘Come on, Leila, he’s always been a jammy little shit. Some people land the best postings, win on penalties, get the girl.’

Myers lifted his head briefly, his thick glasses glinting in the light. He was always at his most lyrical when he’d been on the ale, he thought, stealing another look at Leila’s heavy breasts.

‘I’m worried about him,’ she said. ‘After what happened to his father.’

‘He’ll get his job back. He saved the day, didn’t he?’

‘I hope the Americans see it that way. They never liked Stephen Marchant, and they don’t trust Daniel. I think it’s best neither of us mentions the chatter. It might not look too good for him.’

‘OK by me. I shouldn’t have told you anyway. The guys in Colorado Springs thought he was a bloody hero,’ Myers continued, draining his glass. ‘Any chance of kipping at your place for the night? Missed the last train back to Cheltenham.’

‘You can sleep on the sofa,’ Leila said, surprised by his confidence.

As they walked out onto the empty Embankment, looking for a cab, Leila turned to Myers. ‘You never thought it was true, what they said about his father?’

‘No. We would have known. We hear about everything at Cheltenham, sooner or later. It was political, expedient. They didn’t trust him. The PM. Armstrong. The whole bloody lot of them. Not because he was a traitor. They just didn’t understand him. He was old school, not their type.’

‘I sometimes wonder if there really was ever a mole,’ Leila said, looking out across the water towards Legoland, lit up in the night sky like some sort of rough-hewn pyramid.

‘It wasn’t Stephen Marchant, that’s all I know,’ Myers said, momentarily unsteady as he took in her legs. ‘Or his son. I can’t understand why they suspended him. No, Daniel’s one of the good guys. Good taste in women, too.’

Half an hour later, Leila lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling in her Canary Wharf flat, regretting that she had let Myers stay on her sofabed. He was already fast asleep, his body lying as if he had been dropped from a great height, and snoring loudly.

Leila thought again about her mother, how she had sounded on the phone the night before. The doctor who had first suggested a nursing home had told her not to worry, that she must expect her mother to sound increasingly confused, but it was still alarming. Sunday was not a day she usually called her, but the marathon that morning had left her frightened and tired. Alone in her flat, after four hours of questioning at Thames House, she had felt like a child again. When she was younger and needing to talk, she had never turned to her father, who had made little effort to know her. She had always confided in her mother, but now her voice had scared Leila even more.

‘They came tonight, three of them,’ her mother had begun in slow Farsi. ‘They took the boy — you know him, the one who cooks for me. Beat him in front of my eyes.’

‘Did they hurt you, Mama?’ Leila asked, dreading the answer. The confused stories of mistreatment grew worse each time she rang. ‘Did they touch you?’

‘He was like a grandson to me,’ she continued. ‘Dragged him away by his feet.’

‘Mama, what did they do to you?’ Leila asked.

‘You told me they wouldn’t come,’ her mother said. ‘Others here have suffered, too.’

‘Never again, Mama. They won’t come any more. I promise.’

‘Why did they say my family are to blame? What have we ever done to them?’

‘Nothing. You know how it is. Are you safe now?’

But the line was dead.

Leila wanted to be with Marchant now, to hold him close, talk about her mother. If only they had met in different circumstances, other lives. Marchant had often said the same. But their paths had tangled and could never be undone, even though both had learnt to keep a part of themselves back that no one — agents, colleagues, lovers — could ever touch. Marchant, though, was unlike anyone she had come across before. He was driven, pushing himself to the limits of success and failure. Nothing in his life ever happened in half measures. If Marchant drank, he would keep drinking until dawn. When he needed to sleep deeply, he could lie in until midday. And when he needed to study, he would work all night.

She remembered the day, two weeks into their new entrants’ course at the Fort, when she woke early after a fitful sleep. The wind had been blowing in off the Channel all night, and the old windows of the bleak training centre, a former Napoleonic fort on the end of the Gosport peninsula, were rattling like milk bottles on a float. The three female recruits were in a large, shared room on the north side of the central courtyard, while the seven men were in a block of separate bedsits on the east side, overlooking the sea. She went to the window and saw a light. She couldn’t be sure it was Marchant’s, but she pulled on a jumper, wrapped herself in a dressing gown and made her way quietly across the cold stone courtyard.

When she reached the row of men’s rooms, she knew immediately that it was Marchant’s weak light seeping out from under the old wooden door. She hesitated, shivering. The day before had been dedicated to the theory of recruiting agents. People could generally be persuaded to betray their country for reasons of Money, Ideology, Coercion or Ego: MICE. It had been a long day in the classroom, with only a brief drink in the bar afterwards. Marchant had studiously ignored her then, even though they had been in the same group all day, exchanging what she thought were meaningful glances.

She knocked once and waited. There was no sound, and for a moment Leila thought he must be sleeping; or perhaps he was partying down in Portsmouth and had left the light on as a crude decoy. But then the door opened and Marchant was standing there, in a faded surfer’s T-shirt and boxer shorts.

‘I couldn’t sleep,’ she said. ‘Can I come in?’ Marchant said nothing, but stood to one side, letting her step into the small room. ‘Aren’t you cold? This dump is freezing.’

‘It stops me falling asleep.’ Marchant picked up a pair of trousers that were slung across the unmade bed, dropped them in the corner and sat back down at his desk. ‘Make yourself at home. I’m afraid there’s only one chair.’

Leila perched herself on the edge of the bed. A pile of papers was stacked up on Marchant’s small desk, bathed in a pool of light from a dented Anglepoise. A half-empty bottle of whisky stood next to the papers. For a few moments they were silent, listening to the plangent wind outside.

‘What are you reading?’ she asked. He turned half away from her, flicking through the printed sheets.

‘Famous traitors. You know Ames is still owed $2.1 million by the Russians? They’re keeping it for him in an offshore account, should he ever escape from his Pennsylvania penitentiary. There was no higher calling, just the need for cash. His wife’s shopping bills were more than his CIA salary. So simple.’

‘It’s four o’clock in the morning.’

‘I know.’

‘Why now?’

Marchant turned back to look at her. ‘It’s not enough for me just to pass out of here. I need to fly out of this bloody place with wings.’

‘Because of who your father is?’

‘You heard the instructor yesterday. It’s quite clear he thinks I’m not here on merit. My dad’s the boss.’

‘That sort of thing doesn’t happen any more. Everyone knows that.’

‘He didn’t.’

Marchant turned back to his desk and looked out of the deep, stone-lined window. In the distance, the lights of an approaching Bilbao-to-Portsmouth ferry winked in the dawn light. Beyond it, on the far side of the main channel, he could make out the faint silhouette of the rollercoaster they had all been on two days earlier, as part of a team bonding exercise. Leila stood up, came over to him and started to work his shoulders. It was the first time she had touched him. He didn’t recoil.

‘You should get some beauty sleep,’ she said, close to his ear.

‘I didn’t mean to seem off with you tonight,’ he replied, lifting one hand slowly to hers.

‘You were with your friends, boys together. I should have left you to it.’

‘It wasn’t that.’

‘No?’

He paused. ‘I’m not going to be a particularly pleasant person to be around for the foreseeable future.’

‘Isn’t that for others to decide?’

‘Perhaps. But we’re spending the next six months learning how to lie, deceive, betray, seduce. I’m not sure I want what we might have mixed up with that.’

‘And what might we have?’ Leila asked. Her hands slowed.

Marchant stood up, turned and looked at her. His eyes were anxious, searching hers for an answer she could never give. She leant forward and kissed him. His lips were cold, but they were both soon searching for warmth before Marchant broke off. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, sitting down at his desk. ‘I must finish this tonight.’

‘You don’t sound very determined.’

‘I’m not.’

‘Shall I go?’

‘No. Stay, please. Get some sleep.’ He nodded at the bed.

Ten minutes later, she was tucked up under his old woollen blankets, struggling to keep out the cold, while he continued to read about motives for betrayal. He had bent the Anglepoise lower, to reduce the light in the room. She wondered if he could feel any heat from the lampshade, close to his cheek. The sea air was freezing.

‘What made you sign up?’ he asked, glancing in her direction. She managed a sleepy smile.

‘The need to prove myself, like you. Your father’s the Chief, my mother was born in Isfahan.’

Later, she was aware of him in bed next to her, holding her for warmth as sleet lashed the windows. She hoped that he was wrong about them, that what they might have could somehow survive the months ahead.