The hidden man

47

Taploe’s colleagues gave him a lot of credit for volunteering to break the news to Ben; that was a brave thing to do in the circumstances, a grim taskhe might easily have delegated to someone junior on the team. Taking three Special Branch officers to Elgin Crescent, he put Alice and Ben in a vehicle en route to a Kensington safe house where he informed them of Mark’s death. He thought Ben had recognized his face from the night of Keen’s murder, but perhaps the shock of the news deflected any suspicions he might have had. Watching his reaction, Taploe was reminded of Tamarov’s remark in the club on Friday night — they were screaming, like animals on the floor — and he was glad that Alice seemed to provide some comfort to her husband, a wife’s consoling touch. It looked as though things had improved between them since the end of her affair with Roth. God knows he would need her now. God knows Ben will not want to be alone.

Juris Duchev made it to Moscow from Helsinki, but customs stopped Tamarov at Heathrow checking on to a late Aeroflot flight with an unidentified woman who would later be released without charge. The translation of his conversation with Duchev came through shortly after midnight, but was lost until morning in the panic and confusion of events. It appeared that the Russians had had no concerns or worries about MI5 surveillance until Taploe had mentioned the land in Andalucia to Duchev in his pitch on Sunday morning. The Latvian had told only one person about his secret plans to retire. That one person just happened to be Mark Keen.

At first they couldn’t find Philippe d’Erlanger. He was not at the restaurant in Covent Garden, nor sleeping at his flat in Tottenham Court Road. The Belgian was eventually discovered back at the lap-dancing club in Finchley, tucked into a darkened corner with Ayesha giggling softly in his ear. Accompanied outside by two officers, he was taken swiftly into custody and visited at dawn by Paul Quinn.

Macklin had flown to New York on Libra business on Sunday, and when Taploe heard that he had received a telephone call from Roth and then fled immediately to Grand Cayman, he thought that at last he had conclusive proof of Roth’s involvement. The call had been logged at 15.47 local time, ten minutes before the shooting in London. How else could Roth have known that Mark was about to be killed? How else could he have been in a position to tip-off Macklin that the game was up?

But this was to prove the final irony of the Kukushkin case, the one random element that neither Taploe nor Quinn could ever have anticipated. It bore the stamp of SIS. It was the revelation of Elizabeth Dulong.