Games Traitors Play

49

Marchant walked up the iron steps, trying to get his bearings. Primakov had offered him a circuitous back exit from the restaurant, through the cellar into the basement of an adjoining wine bar, which he had gladly accepted. He wasn’t in the mood for small talk in the back of a black cab with one of Armstrong’s watchers. According to Primakov, Maddox Street was crawling with them, which had annoyed him. Fielding and Armstrong had promised him he would be left alone. One officer had even tried to get inside Goodman’s, posing as a diner.

‘It’s the footwear that gives them away,’ Primakov had joked. ‘Only your policemen and MI5 wear such ridiculous rubber soles.’ No wonder the Russian had got on so well with his father. Marchant resisted mentioning Valentin’s tell-tale shoes.

He knew that Fielding would be expecting him back at Legoland for a debrief, but he needed to clear his head, walk the summer-evening pavements. He stepped out onto Pollen Street, a narrow, dog-legged lane that ran down between Maddox Street and Hanover Street. Opposite him was the Sunflower Café, closed for the day. He glanced right and then headed away towards Hanover Street, turning into the square. No one had seen him.

It was only as he was heading west down Brook Street that he became aware of a tail, and it didn’t feel like MI5. At the junction with New Bond Street, he waited to cross the road, giving himself an opportunity to glance back down Brook Street. He spotted two of them, on either side of the road, a hundred yards away. The first man kept walking, head down, not letting Marchant get a look at his face. The second, further back, peeled away into a pub. Marchant guessed there would be at least two more. They didn’t look Russian either. Or American.

He had two choices. Keep walking to see how good — and who — they were, or call in and get picked up by MI5. He opted for the former, and increased his pace, continuing west down Brook Street towards Grosvenor Square. The American Embassy was not his favourite building in London, but the armed policemen that guarded it night and day might unsettle whoever was following him. If his tail pursued him for two brisk circuits of the embassy building, there was a good chance that they would be stopped by the police on the third. But before he could give them the runaround, a car drew up next to him.

‘You’re a guy in a hurry.’ It was Lakshmi Meena, sitting at the wheel of an Audi TT convertible. Its roof was down.

‘Working off dinner,’ Marchant said, continuing to walk.

‘Fielding said I might find you around here. He wants us to talk.’

‘Well, now you can tell him we have.’

Marchant stopped, glancing back down the road, scanning the pedestrians for signs, shoes. He could see four of them in total. They had broken cover, making no attempt to conceal themselves. Their body language was more lynch mob than watcher. Marchant recognised the one at the back from Sardinia. He opened the door of Meena’s car and climbed in.

‘Aziz is dead. Last night in the military hospital in Rabat,’ Meena said, looking in the rear-view mirror as they drove off. ‘Complications unrelated to his original injuries, but clearly he wouldn’t have been in there if you hadn’t ripped half his mouth off.’

‘Are they lodging an official protest?’

‘Not their style. They don’t want to draw attention to what they did to you first.’

‘On your orders.’

‘Spiro’s.’

‘And you do whatever he says.’

Meena pulled up at a red light and glanced again in the mirror, her knuckles whitening on the steering wheel. ‘Look, I’m sorry for what happened. Truly.’

Marchant felt the gap in his gum with his tongue, but decided not to say anything. ‘Where are we going?’

‘Your flat, then Heathrow.’

‘Heathrow?’

‘Fielding wants us to go to India. Our flight’s tonight, and you need to pack.’

‘Our flight? Not so fast. I’m not going anywhere until I’ve spoken to him.’

Marchant shifted in his seat. He hadn’t been back to India since the US President’s trip, Leila’s death.

‘Fielding’s meeting us at Heathrow. He’ll explain everything. How was Primakov, by the way?’

Marchant hesitated. A new arrival at the Russian Embassy in London would arouse even the doziest CIA desk officer, but her question still surprised him.

‘The sous-chef at Goodman’s is one of ours,’ she continued by way of explanation. ‘It’s one of the most popular Russian restaurants in town. You showed up on our grid before you’d even ordered your herring with mustard. How can you eat that stuff?’

‘You’re not from Calcutta then?’

‘Reston, Virginia, actually. Why?’

‘Bengalis like their mustard.’

‘I meant the fish.’

‘They like that too. Primakov was fine. Fatter than I remember him. He was an old friend of my father.’

‘Friend?’

‘Sparring partner.’ He paused. ‘So who showed up first on your grid? Me or Primakov?’

Meena hesitated. ‘OK, I’ll admit, we don’t have a great deal on Primakov. Cultural attaché, brought out of retirement, medium-ranking KGB officer before the fall.’

‘But you have a bulging dossier on me. Says it all, doesn’t it? So where in India are we heading?’

‘The south, Tamil Nadu. Where my parents are from.’

‘Great. Meet the in-laws time. A bit premature, isn’t it? We haven’t even slept together.’

Meena drove on in silence, glancing in the rear-view mirror.

‘I’m sorry,’ Marchant said, more quietly now. It had been a crass thing to say. Sometimes it was easy to forget Meena’s Indian heritage. She talked like a ballsy, confident American, trading coarse comments with colleagues, but there was an inner dignity about her that he recognised as uniquely subcontinental.

‘Actually, we’re going to find your father’s lover.’

He looked across at her for more.

‘Our Chennai sub-station is closing in on Salim Dhar’s mother. Fielding thought you should be there when we bring her in.’