‘I wish you weren’t going to India so soon, Mr Englishman,’ she said, moving around and sitting on his lap, facing him. She took the spliff out of his mouth and placed it back in her own. Marchant curled his arms around her lower back, and pulled her closer to him. For a moment all he could see was Leila, naked in the shower, watching him. He closed his eyes, breathed in deeply and thought hard about David Marlowe.
He stroked her cheek as he tried to calculate the risks and benefits of delaying his flight to stay with her. His brain was easing up. It slowed even more as she leant forward and kissed him, her spliff-free hand slipping inside his Levi’s.
‘Stay here for an extra day,’ she said quietly, holding him tightly. ‘I’d like that.’
‘What about my ticket?’ he said, slowly unpicking the mother-of-pearl buttons of her shirt. Leila was stepping out of the shower now, hair wrapped in a turban of towel.
‘What about it? I’ve got a friend, she runs a small travel agency not far from here. We send all our guests there. She can change it, she knows everyone up at the airport.’
But David Marlowe didn’t give a damn any more about his ticket, or Daniel Marchant, or Leila, as he eased Monika out of her shirt.
18
Sir David Chadwick had spent a lifetime brokering compromises in Whitehall meeting rooms, but even he was struggling to keep Marcus Fielding and Harriet Armstrong apart.
‘Before this gets referred to the PM, as it will, I need to know exactly what you’re alleging here, Harriet,’ he said, looking across his oak-panelled office at Armstrong, who was on the edge of her seat.
‘The Poles must have been tipped off by someone,’ Armstrong said, glancing at Fielding. He was sitting at a safe distance, equally upright though less on edge. On his lap was a clipboard, covered in a patchwork of blue and yellow Post-it notes. Armstrong had often wondered what Fielding wrote on them. No reminders to bring home dinner for his wife, because he had never had one, a fact that still intrigued her.
‘Marcus?’ Chadwick asked.
‘I think we’re underestimating our friends in Warsaw. The new government’s been looking for a way out of these renditions for some time now. I imagine someone was keeping the airbase under surveillance and decided that they no longer wanted a corner of their country run by America.’
‘Marcus, you rang me about the flight,’ Harriet said. Fielding’s poise riled her. Everything about him riled her: his equanimity, the Oxbridge intellect, those safari suits. And how could someone be ‘celibate’, as he had apparently defined his sexuality to the vetters, explaining that he was simply not interested in sex of any kind, with anyone? Her ex-husband had once accused her of something similar, but she hadn’t consciously chosen to deny him; it had just gone with the long hours.
‘True?’ asked Chadwick.
‘As you both know, we monitor all flights in and out of the UK, particularly ones that file dummy flight plans. To avoid confusion, I suggest that the next time the PM decides to authorise an undeclared CIA flight through British airspace, someone has the courtesy to tell us.’
‘Harriet?’ asked Chadwick, turning back towards her like a centre-court umpire.
‘It was agreed that the Americans could talk to Marchant,’ she said.
‘Talk to him, not try to drown him,’ Fielding replied. ‘And I think we said it should be in this country.’
Fielding’s last comment was addressed to Chadwick, who didn’t care for the look that accompanied it. ‘Oh, come on, Marcus,’ Chadwick said, a nervous smile creasing his pale jowls. ‘It must have felt like home from home, given the number of Poles over here.’
Harriet returned the smile, but Fielding stared out of the window onto Whitehall, watching an empty 24 bus make its way up towards Trafalgar Square. He didn’t have time for cheap jokes about immigrants. He didn’t have time for Chadwick, sitting behind his oversized desk like a child who had broken into the headmaster’s office.
‘So where is he now?’ Fielding asked him.
‘I was rather hoping you’d tell us.’
‘I want my man back alive. That was the other part of our deal.’
‘If you haven’t got Marchant, then who has?’ Chadwick turned back to Armstrong.
‘Spiro flew out to Warsaw this afternoon. They think he’s still in Poland.’
‘He lost him, he can bring him back,’ Fielding said, rising from his seat. ‘I’ve asked Warsaw station to keep a lookout.’
‘Prentice,’ Armstrong said coldly.
‘You know him?’ Fielding was now at the door, clipboard under one arm.
‘Only by reputation.’
‘Quite. One of the best in the business.’
‘And once Marchant’s found?’ Chadwick asked, standing too, sensing another altercation.
‘Then it’s our turn to ask him about Dhar,’ Armstrong replied.
Fielding opened the door to leave.
‘Just make sure we don’t lose him again,’ said Chadwick. ‘Twice would be careless. Thank you, Marcus.’
Fielding closed the door behind him, leaving Armstrong and Chadwick alone.
‘Whatever the differences between you two, I don’t want it affecting operations on my watch, Harriet.’ Chadwick had remained standing.
‘Spiro’s livid.’
‘I’m sure he is. But it should surprise no one that the Service looks after its own. It always has done. Is this Hugo Prentice protecting him?’
‘Quite possibly. We could throw the book at Prentice if we want. He’s had run-ins with Spiro before. He’s had run-ins with everyone. Any other agency would have got rid of him years ago.’
‘I’ll talk to Spiro.’ Chadwick paused, shuffling papers needlessly on his desk. ‘We want this contained, Harriet. The Americans need Marchant back.’
Fielding found Ian Denton, folder in hand, waiting for him in the room outside his office, making quiet conversation with his secretaries. The Chief of MI6 was entitled to three of them: his personal assistant, a letters secretary and a diary secretary. Anne Norman had been PA to the previous four Chiefs, all of whom had valued her brusque phone manner, particularly when taking awkward calls from Whitehall. She had resigned over the Stephen Marchant affair, only to be talked into staying on over a long lunch at Bentley’s with Fielding. A formidable spinster in her late fifties, she was the archetypal bluestocking, except that she always wore bright red tights, usually with red shoes. Fielding had often meant to ask her why, but he was in no mood for small-talk after his meeting with Armstrong and Chadwick.
‘Come,’ he said, walking through to his office. Denton followed, closing the door behind them. ‘What have you got?’
‘Marchant’s with AW,’ Denton said, quieter than ever.
‘And the Americans?’
‘Spiro’s turning Warsaw upside down. Prentice says they won’t find him.’
Fielding hesitated a moment. ‘What about Salim Dhar? Any progress?’
Denton pulled out a sheaf