Games Traitors Play

30

‘I think someone should be with Marchant,’ Denton said, wondering if Fielding had heard him. His Chief was standing at the window of his fourth-floor office, lost in thought, watching a pair of Chinooks fly up the Thames towards a setting sun. The Union flag outside the window was rippling in the evening breeze. Sometimes Fielding’s apparent indifference to his own staff frightened Denton, but he told himself it was just his manner.

‘Do we know what happened?’ Fielding asked, turning around suddenly, as if trying to make up for his previous inattention.

‘The Americans handed him over to Abdul Aziz. Marchant proved a difficult patient.’

‘You think we should have protected him more, don’t you?’

‘I just — ’

‘Don’t go soft on me, Ian. It doesn’t suit you. Daniel Marchant knows how to look after himself. Besides, we had an agreement with Langley.’

‘For what it was worth,’ Denton said. He liked Marchant, and feared for his health if he was subjected to more trauma at the hands of the CIA.

‘Spiro saw his chance. He thought the world would be looking the other way, watching the death of Salim Dhar on YouTube. Who’s out in Morocco for them? Still Lakshmi Meena?’

‘Yes.’

‘Young enough to be my granddaughter.’

Except that you don’t have one, Denton thought. No grandchildren at all, in fact. No children, wife or lover of any description. Just a dog called Oleg and an extended tribe of godchildren. There had been talk once of an elderly mother, somewhere on the south coast — Brighton, or was it Eastbourne? — but that was long ago. Denton used to have a wife. A shared love of jazz and canal boats had brought them together, the Service had driven them apart, as it eventually did with most of its married employees. She still worked as a librarian in the House of Commons, down the river, but they no longer saw each other. There were no children, just a few Miles Davis albums still to be returned. Perhaps Fielding’s chosen path of apparent chastity was the only way to arrive at the top of MI6 without any baggage.

‘She said the Agency was putting Marchant up for a few days — Sardinia — but she had to get back to Morocco,’ Denton said.

‘Send Hugo Prentice. Marchant helped him out in Poland. And he knew his father.’

Denton had never liked Prentice, but now wasn’t the time to object. There would come a time, in his new role, when he could set the record straight, not just question Prentice’s expenses, but his very worth. They had both worked the SovBloc beat, in very different styles, Denton’s discretion in marked contrast to Prentice’s public-school flamboyance. Both had done long spells in Poland. Everyone knew Prentice gambled, drank too much, but for as long as he continued to come up with good product, Fielding turned a blind eye. Denton knew a part of him envied Prentice. He was still out there in the field, where agents belonged, while he himself had chosen to climb Legoland’s greasy pole.

He walked to the door, leaving Fielding in preoccupied silence. Not for the first time in his career, Denton felt that he had merely confirmed information already known to his Chief rather than told him something new. It was in such moments that he felt destined to be a deputy, one of life’s permanent number twos. He glanced back at Fielding, pacing his spacious office, and closed the door with more force than was necessary.

Fielding didn’t like to exclude Denton from anything, but sometimes it was unavoidable. The thoughts in his head were forming too fast to share even with his loyal deputy, the implications backing up like a restless queue. He went back to his desk, opened a drawer and removed a file on Nikolai Primakov.