The hidden man

25

Bob Randall arranged to meet Mark not at BT’s head office in Newgate Street, but at the Whiteley’s shopping centre in Queensway, a vast Americanized mall heaving with coffee bars and marble.

‘Will that be all right?’ he had asked on the phone.

‘It’s just that there are one or two individuals at my company — how can I put this? — that I’d prefer were left in the darkabout our meeting. Sorry to be so mysterious. I can explain everything when we’re introduced.’

Taploe enjoyed the Randall alias: the role allowed him to loosen the tie of his self-restraint. When, for example, he shook Mark’s hand at the top of the Whiteley’s second floor escalators, he felt almost hearty, and there was an uncharacteristic swagger in his walkas the pair made their way to a half-empty Mexican restaurant near by. Taploe felt that he had made mistakes in his recruitment of Keen, mistakes that he was determined to avoid a second time round. Too often he had surrendered control, allowed his contempt for SIS to cloud his better judgment. This time things would be different: Mark would respect him from the word go, and differences of class or status would not become an issue. With an understanding of who was boss, Taploe was sure they could get things done. Indeed, he ordered two lagers from the waitress and felt very optimistic about it.

‘So who at your company knows that we are meeting here this afternoon?’ he asked.

Mark was still settling down in his seat and said, ‘Nobody. Just Sam, my office manager.’

‘It’s in your desk diary?’

‘Palmtop, probably. Why?’

They were facing each other across a tile-topped table, laughter echoing in the mall. Taploe preferred to make a target ‘conscious’ of his identity at an early juncture in any conversation of this kind.

‘Let me come clean right away,’ he said. ‘It was necessary to employ a little subterfuge to lure you here today. I don’t workfor British Telecom. I’m actually an officer with the Security Service.’

Taploe waited for an appropriate reaction, but Mark’s response unnerved him. He simply said, ‘OK,’ and removed his corduroy jacket.

‘I work for MI5,’ Taploe explained, as if he had failed to understand.

‘I’d gathered that,’ Mark said. ‘And you’re investigating my father’s murder?’

‘Among other things, yes.’

Their waitress, a tired-looking eastern European woman wearing thick black eyeliner, set two bottles of lager on the table and walked off. Mark’s eyes followed her and then came back to the table.

‘Other things?’ he said.

Taploe poured the lager carefully into his glass and made an effort to compose himself. He felt that he had already lost ground.

‘What do you know about my organization?’ he asked.

‘Back of a stamp,’ Mark replied, rubbing two days of stubble on his jaw. Taploe was worried that he looked bored.

‘Right.’ He pushed up his sleeves. His arms were creamy and hairless and dotted with pale red freckles. He pushed them backdown again. ‘Our taskis to root out criminal organizations working in the United Kingdom. Excise fraud, human trafficking, prostitution. We go after drugs smugglers, money launderers, football hooligans, any individual or group of individuals who may pose a threat to national security.’

‘You must be busy then,’ Mark joked and, like a ghost, Taploe caught a family resemblance in the grin that flashed across his eyes.

‘Very,’ he replied.

‘So how does my father fit in?’

‘Well, why don’t we order first?’ By delaying his response, Taploe hoped to generate a little suspense. This, after all, was the part of the job he most enjoyed: the power afforded by privileged information. Let him feel that he is about to become involved in something beyond the commonplace. Let him sense that he is at the edge of his father’s secret trade. Over time, Paul Quinn had been able to build up a comprehensive profile of Mark Keen, a psychology that suggested he would comply with today’s pitch. Where Keen had been stubborn, Mark was biddable and kind; where the father had been haughty, the son was more modest and conscientious. Taploe also knew, from recent phone and email intercepts, of the ongoing argument with Ben. The two brothers had not spoken for days. Mark would be anxious to prove, if only to himself, that he had been affected by their father’s murder. What better way to prove that than to work towards tracking down his killer? A song began playing out of a speaker above his head and Taploe felt rejuvenated, more able to control his adrenalin. Beckoning the waitress over he ordered extensively from the menu, while Mark opted for the set lunch. When she was out of earshot, he continued.

‘You want to know how your father fits in.’ Mark bobbed his head. ‘Well, before I answer that question directly, it would be useful if I could make some enquiries of my own.’

‘Go right ahead.’

‘First of all, at what point did your father tell you about his workfor SIS?’

Mark again rubbed his jaw — it was becoming a reflex — and picked a fork up from the table.

‘After about two or three months.’

‘And he asked you to keep that information a secret?’

‘Sure.’

‘And did you tell anybody?’

‘I did, yeah.’

‘How many people?’

‘Just one.’

‘Your brother?’

‘My brother.’

Taploe was about to say ‘Benjamin’ but he thought better of it.

‘Nobody else?’

‘Nobody.’

‘Not even a friend, Mark?’

‘Not even a friend.’ Mark looked annoyed. ‘What are you getting at?’

Steeling himself, Taploe bounced his moustache into a smile.

‘Nothing unsavoury, I assure you. But you must have found it difficult keeping that sort of information to yourself. A father who was a spy. A member of your own family involved in an organization — ’

‘Mr Randall…’

‘Call me Bob, please…’

‘I don’t know how much you know about my family, but that thought never crossed my mind. I didn’t have anybody I would have wanted to tell. It wasn’t difficult keeping Dad’s past a secret. It was just between me and him and Ben.’

‘Now that’s exactly what I wanted you to say.’

Again Taploe smiled, and mistook the look of irritation on Mark’s face for nerves.

‘What you wanted me to say? I’m sorry, I’m confused. You’re not from British Telecom, you’re not here to do business with the club and you’re not from the police. You ask me a lot of questions about my father…’

Taploe leaned back and brought his hands together in a badly stage-managed gesture of conciliation. Stick to the plan, he told himself. Stick to the plan.

‘I apologize,’ he said. ‘I was merely trying to conduct what I call a test.’

‘What you call a test,’ Mark echoed flatly.

‘It’s just that I would need you to be similarly circumspect with what I am about to tell you.’

Circumspect. It was a word Taploe had not thought of in years. Appropriate to the requirements of secrecy. Exactly right for the purposes of their conversation. He must remember to use it again.

‘The information I am about to share with you would have to remain confidential. In spite of the fact that it concerns your father, you would not even be able to discuss it with Ben.’

Mark appeared to hesitate, as if reluctant to be drawn in, then nodded, saying, ‘I understand.’ Taploe proceeded to assess the immediate vicinity. There were six other customers in the restaurant, none of them within earshot: two teenage girls ten feet away having a giggly lunch; a young Middle Eastern man by the far wall dropping globs of mince and lettuce from a crunchy taco whenever he brought it to his mouth; three American students at the door making enough noise for a table of eight. No listening threat, in other words, from neighbouring tables.

‘We’re looking into several possibilities,’ he said.

‘There may be a link between your father’s murder and a post-Soviet crime group operating within the United Kingdom. Now I don’t want to alarm you unnecessarily, but it’s highly unlikely that your father was simply the victim of a random act of violence.

The nature of the killing, the timing, the location and so forth, all those factors point to another theory.’

Mark took a sip of his lager and nodded stiffly. He was already looking less composed. Taploe hoped the beer would be tasteless, dry and catching in his throat.

‘What about the Foreign Office?’ he asked. ‘Do they have any ideas?’

‘It’s not really for me to speculate,’ Taploe replied, his voice a reedy whisper. ‘Not my area of expertise.’

Mark began to hold his elbow in his right hand, rubbing it, staring blankly around the restaurant. Body language. Had he turned the corner? His food had arrived but he had pushed his plate immediately to one side.

‘We’re working on two suppositions,’ Taploe told him, creating a small cone of salt at the edge of his plate. Something about this pleased him, the exactitude of it. ‘In his capacity as an employee of Divisar Corporate Intelligence, your father was assisting two organizations at the time of his death. Libra, of course, and, latterly, a small private bank in Lausanne. Running checks on large-scale financial deposits originating in St Petersburg. Capital flight, for want of a better term. He may have mentioned it to you.’

Mark shook his head.

‘No, he didn’t mention it. Didn’t mention anything about it at all.’

‘But it’s possible that your father made contact with these groups on their behalf?’

‘It’s more than possible,’ Mark replied. ‘It’s a certainty. That’s what Dad was employed to do.’

‘And thus the question must be asked: Did he attempt to circumvent protocols imposed by an organized crime group either in Russia or here in London? Did he?’

For a moment Taploe thought that Mark was preparing to answer; he had intended the question to be rhetorical. Jumping in, he said, ‘Now I’m bound to say that I think this is highly unlikely. It would be unprofessional, naive, and extremely dangerous.’ He counted out the adjectives on his fingers — one, two, three — and made a point of looking stern. ‘Furthermore, we’ve found nothing in his records to backup that theory. So — ’ Mark was shaking his head ‘- if your father was doing his job — and we have no reason to believe that he was ever anything other than completely thorough in his affairs — he may have tried to encourage Libra or the Swiss to pull the plug on their operations because of an irregularity with the Russians. But, again, there’s no record of any such concerns in the files at Divisar.’

‘So why the linkwith organized crime?’ Mark asked. The table of Americans suddenly erupted in laughter and he looked across at them, eyeing with irritation a tanned, crew-cut jockwith a pair of Discman head-phones clamped around his neck. ‘What are you getting at?’ he said.

Now Taploe paused for effect, like a bad comic looking for laughs. He was buoyed by the ease of the pitch, by how quickly Mark had turned. The centre of their table was covered in small blue tiles and he tapped one of them in a clipped manner with the bitten nail of his index finger.

‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘What do you actually know about Russian organized crime?’

‘Just what I pickup when I’m over in Moscow.’

‘Well, let me begin by pointing out that the term “Russian mafia” is something of a misnomer. More usually these groups originate from former Soviet republics such as Lithuania and Ukraine. Chechen gangs are particularly high profile in Russia, less so in the UK. But you may already be aware that the men your company have been dealing with in Moscow are of Russian origin. Libra has been negotiating with the Kukushkin syndicate. Am I right?’

‘I don’t have a clue,’ Mark said quietly. ‘I’m not given access to that kind of information.’

‘And who is? Mr Roth? Mr Macklin?’

If he was surprised that Taploe knew their names, Mark did not show it.

‘That would be right, yeah.’

‘Let me fill you in. In August, Thomas Macklin banked two separate cheques for around a hundred thousand US dollars in an offshore company that he had registered in Cyprus a year before. Those cheques were given to him by a known member of the Kukushkin crime syndicate and made out to Pentagon Investments. Do you know anything about that?’

‘Pentagon Investments? Never heard of it.’

‘The payment may have been for any number of things. Services rendered, goodwill money, a piece of London real estate, something relating to business conducted between the two parties in Moscow or London. We don’t yet know. What would seem most likely, based on our further investigations, is that Macklin and Roth have entered into a clandestine relationship with Viktor Kukushkin in connection with their burgeoning interests in the Russian capital. That is to say, a relationship over and above any protection money usually — ’

To Taploe’s delight, Mark swore under his breath — ‘ Christ! ’ — halting him in mid-sentence. He waited several seconds before continuing.

‘… that is to say, the characteristic relationship usually established between organized crime groups in the FSU and overseas companies attempting to do business there. In other words, Mr Keen, your boss is up to something.’

Taploe watched Mark’s face as it registered first astonishment and then a gradual, seeping disgust at what he was being told.

‘ Up to something? ’ he said finally. Taploe nodded and lowered his voice.

‘We’ve had both of them under twenty-four-hour surveillance for the best part of six months.’ He failed to mention that Mark himself had been subject to the same level of scrutiny, yet felt no shame at the omission. ‘As a result, we remain convinced that Libra is being used by the Russians as a cover operation for money laundering, drugs smuggling, racketeering and prostitution.’ These were as yet baseless accusations, a list compiled by Quinn simply to frighten Mark into co-operation. Nevertheless Taploe reeled them off with a straight face. ‘What we need is proof. Proof that Roth and Macklin have entered into a mutually beneficial relationship with the Russians which your father accidentally uncovered and for which he was killed.’

Mark appeared to be staring at the paint work of the restaurant, as if the sweeping waves of orange were making him feel nauseous and confused.

‘You really think that’s true?’ he said. ‘You really think that’s what happened?’

Taploe knew that he could play on his rage, on his adulation for Keen. He wanted Mark to feel disgust, then the tremor of excitement at his first glimpse into a clandestine world, the thrill of the son initiated into his father’s secret trade. Above all, Taploe had to lead him to a point where refusal would cease to be an option.

‘Mr Keen,’ he said and, for a moment, thought about reaching across and touching Mark’s shoulder, just for added effect. ‘I can understand that it must be very hard for you to hear these things about people you have worked alongside for so long, about people you undoubtedly trust. These men are friends of yours, after all. But the reality is that you are most probably working for a company which is laundering money for the Russian mafia.’

Mark again shookhis head. ‘How does that work?’ he said. ‘How does that work? I hardly know anything about the Kukushkins. What the fuck are they doing in London anyway?’

Taploe sniffed.

‘Well, you see, that’s what I need your help in finding out.’

‘ My help?’

‘Yes.’ Taploe looked over Mark’s shoulder as the two teenage girls stood up and walked out of the restaurant. One of them dropped a generous tip, a note, on to the table. ‘We need somebody on the inside, somebody close to Roth and Macklin who can find out what’s going on. You have access to confidential papers, to computer software, travel arrangements, tax returns, everything we require to build a watertight legal case. I need as much of that as I can get my hands on and I need it quickly. Now, can you help me?’

Taploe made it sound like a personal crusade. When he had pitched Mark’s father, the circumstances had been very different. The guilt, his loyalty to the old firm. But Mark would be lured by a sense of right and wrong. Taploe was convinced now that the target could not reasonably refuse.

‘I know it’s a lot to ask,’ he said, risking understatement, ‘but I’m sure you’re just as anxious as I am to bring these men to…’

Mark was holding up his hand.

‘No, it’s not that,’ he said.

‘What then? We can pay you, of course. If that’s a problem.’

This was a mistake. Mark looked disgusted.

‘ Pay me?’ he said, and Taploe saw that he had moved too quickly. Panic engulfed him and he felt his thighs tighten under the table. ‘I don’t want your money. If I help you, I’ll do it because of my father. I don’t want to be paid for trying to find out who killed him.’

‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Fine.’ He tried to smile. ‘But nevertheless the idea interests you…?’

Mark looked down at his food, now lukewarm and congealed. A hard seal of oil had formed on the mince, on the shreds of tired, moisture-seeping lettuce gradually collapsing into rice. It was a dreadful silence.

‘Yes, it interests me,’ Mark said finally, and Taploe felt a surge of relief. ‘But we’ll need to talk more. To clear up how I go about it. I can’t just start snooping around the offices without knowing what I’m looking for, without knowing what to do.’

It was music to his ears. Mark was complying on instinct, allowing his anger to make a judgment for him, conscious only of his rage at Macklin and Roth, and ashamed at how easily they had duped him.

‘Who else knows about this?’ he asked.

‘Nobody,’ Taploe replied, hardly aware of the question. ‘You’re the only person, Mark, the only person. And it has to stay that way. You understand that you can talk to nobody about this? Not even to Ben?’

‘Yes,’ Mark replied impatiently. ‘Yes, I understand that.’

‘Then good. So perhaps before we go any further I can lay down some ground rules.’