Games Traitors Play

46

Marchant glanced at Primakov, trying to read his face for more. His nose was big, slightly hooked. It was a strange question to ask. How much did the Vicar explain to you? What did the Russian want him to say? He told me everything, that you betrayed Mother Russia and worked for my father? The room might have been purged of British bugs, but Moscow would be listening in on their conversation.

‘He told me that there were doubts about my father’s loyalty to the West. Fielding didn’t personally believe them, but he said the Americans had harboured suspicions about my father for many years. But that was the nature of his job, the risk he took — when he agreed to run you.’

‘Run me?’ Primakov managed a dry, falsetto laugh, shifting in his seat as it dissolved into a wheezy cough. Somewhere in Moscow Centre, Marchant thought, an audio analyst would be adjusting his headphones, calling over a superior. Had he overplayed it?

‘Fielding showed me some of the intelligence you supplied to him,’ Marchant continued.

‘It is true, we gave your father some product once in a while, to keep his superiors happy, but it was nothing important.’

‘Chickenfeed?’

‘Organic. Nice writing on the label, but overpriced.’

Primakov paused, as if to reassess the rules of their engagement. Marchant wondered again in the ensuing silence if he had said too much. Then the Russian leaned forward, his voice suddenly quieter, like a doctor with news of cancer. Marchant smelt the garlic again as he traced a delta of broken blood vessels across Primakov’s cheeks.

‘It was the least we could do, given the nature of the product your father was supplying us.’ Primakov drew on his cigarette and sat back, watching Marchant, his barrel of a body turned sideways as he blew the smoke away into the middle of the room. ‘I think you already knew, deep down.’

Now it was Marchant’s turn to shift in his seat. Primakov’s words weren’t a surprise, but they still shocked him. Up until this moment, he had tried to convince himself that the knowledge of his father’s betrayal of America could be kept inside Fielding’s safe, confined to an A4 piece of paper covered with green ink. Hearing a third party confirm it brought it out into the open, made it tangible.

‘You seem troubled,’ Primakov said. ‘Hurt, perhaps.’ His voice was even softer now, almost tender in tone. ‘Please understand why he never told you himself. It was not because he didn’t trust you. He wanted you to come to it yourself, to reach your own, similar conclusions. And I don’t think you are so far from the place that your father occupied.’

‘No.’ It was time to give Primakov some encouragement, to tire on the line, but Marchant was struggling to sound convincing. Too many thoughts were chasing through his mind. What if his father had been happy to give more than he received?

‘Not everyone can boast of being waterboarded by the CIA, after all. And they accuse us of being animals. Understandably, you share a similar distrust of all things American, which is to be applauded. Apart from their grain-fed steaks from Nebraska, of course, which your father loved, just as I do. Come, we must eat.’

Marchant laughed. It was detached, out-of-kilter laughter. Then he laughed again, like the last man standing at a late-night bar.

‘What’s so amusing?’

‘I came here tonight with orders to sound you out for recruitment, but now here you are trying to recruit me.’

‘I don’t blame you for the confusion. Sometimes I find the Vicar’s faith in his flock almost moving.’

Marchant looked hard at the Russian in the silence that followed. Don’t expect the smallest sign that Primakov is one of ours. For the second time, as Primakov’s words lingered in the twisting cigarette smoke, he wondered if the Russian was telling the truth and Fielding was wrong. He’ll give you nothing. Perhaps there was nothing to give.

‘I’m not trying to recruit you, Daniel. I just want you to meet someone. Another son who has discovered he has much in common with his father. Family business.’

Marchant paused. Had he fought hard enough against the rod?

‘And if I don’t want to meet him?’ The words stuck in his throat. He realised how much he wanted to see Salim Dhar.

‘Moscow will have no option but to go public on your father, expose him for the traitor he was. Your government would no doubt respond in kind, accusing me of treachery, but then we would tell the world about Salim Dhar, that his biological father was the former head of MI6. I think the world would make up its own mind, don’t you?’ He paused. ‘Please, read this. It’s a letter from Stephen, which I have kept with me until this day. I hope it will make things easier for you.’

Marchant looked at the folded letter before taking it, as much to steady his hand as wonder about its contents. He knew already that it was genuine, that the writing was his father’s. He began to read, resting his hand on the edge of the table:

My dear Daniel,

If you are reading this, it must mean that you have finally met Nikolai Ivanovich Primakov. I will not try to guess at what path led you to him, only to offer reassurance that I have trodden a similar one before you. You are old enough, of course, to make your own judgements in life, but in the case of Nikolai, I merely wish to assist you, because other influences will be in play. He is, first and foremost, a friend, and…