A laugh. Not from the belly but from the throat. Somers shook his head.
‘I’ll tell you what, Professor. Cough up the money and I’ll talk to you. Get me three thousand quid in the next six hours and I’ll tell you what your friend Charlotte was paying me to tell her. If not, then can I politely ask you to get the fuck out of my office? I’m not sure I appreciate strangers coming to my place of work and—’
‘Fine.’ Gaddis took the sting out of the attack by raising his hand in a gesture of conciliation. It was a moment of considerable self-control on his part, because he would rather have grabbed Somers by the narrow lapels of his cheap polyester nurse’s uniform and flung him against the radiator. He would prefer to have coaxed even the smallest gesture of respect for Charlotte out of this shiftless parasite, but he needed to keep Calvin Somers onside. The nurse was the link to Neame. Without him, there was no Edward Crane. ‘I’ll get the money,’ he said, with no idea how he would find £3000 before sunset.
‘You will?’ Somers seemed almost to wilt at the prospect of it.
‘Sure. I won’t be able to get more than a thousand out on my cards today, but if you’ll accept a cheque as a guarantee of good faith, I’m sure we can come to some kind of an arrangement.’
Somers looked shocked, but Gaddis could see that a promise of immediate payment had done the trick. The nurse was ready to spill his guts.
‘I get off shift later this afternoon,’ he said. His earlier antagonism had entirely evaporated. ‘Do you know Batchworth Lake?’
Gaddis said that he did not.
‘It’s in a stretch of parkland. Runs beside the Grand Union Canal. Follow signs to the Three Rivers District Council and you’ll find it.’ Gaddis was astonished by how rapidly Somers was making arrangements for delivery of the cash. ‘Meet me in the car park there at five o’clock. If you’ve got the money, I’ll talk. Agreed?’
‘Agreed,’ said Gaddis, though the deal had been struck so quickly that he wondered if he was being played. Why hadn’t Charlotte paid this man? Was the information he possessed even worthwhile? Somers could have accomplices, engaged in a simple con. It was quite possible that Gaddis would now go back to Rickmansworth, withdraw a large sum of money from his bank accounts, hand it to Calvin Somers and be told only that the Earth was round and that there were seven days in the week.
‘What guarantees do I have that you have the kind of information I’m looking for?’
Somers paused. He picked up the pen and began tapping it on the desk. Somebody walked past the office, whistling the theme tune to EastEnders.
‘Oh, I’ve got the information you’re looking for,’ he said. ‘You see, I know about St Mary’s Paddington. I know what that nice MI6 did to Mr Edward Crane.’
Chapter 9
CURRY NIGHT – WEDNESDAY.
Gaddis was staring at the poster tacked up on the wall of the pub in West Hyde. The jukebox had shifted to a song he didn’t recognize, an anti-melodic squawk run through software and drum machines. Somers had gone to the Gents again, his second visit inside half an hour. Was he nervous, or had the peanuts disagreed with him? Gaddis didn’t much care either way.
Seven hours earlier, in a trance of determination to find out what Somers knew, he had called for a taxi and driven from Mount Vernon Hospital to a supermarket three miles up the road. At a cash machine he had withdrawn £1000 on three separate cards, maxing out his current account, putting £400 on his already debt-ridden Visa bill, and, to his shame, making up the difference with £100 from an account set up in Min’s name which contained Christening money given to her by her godparents. That had been an absolute low-point and he promised himself that he would put £500 back in the account as soon as he received the signature advance on the book.
As arranged, Somers had been waiting for him in the car park. Gaddis had handed over the cash, along with a post-dated cheque for £2000. He had then accompanied Somers on their damp, enlightening walk along the banks of the Grand Union Canal.
This is what he now knew. That in February 1992, Sir John Brennan, currently the head of the Secret Intelligence Service, had bribed four people to fake the death of Edward Anthony Crane, a former Foreign Office diplomat prominent enough to earn an obituary – albeit one that had been faked – in The Times. Crane was now almost certainly living under an assumed name in some FCO variant of the Witness Protection Programme, his whereabouts known only to Brennan and certain privileged members of MI6.
‘So who do you think he was?’ he asked Somers. ‘Why do you think it was necessary to kill him?’
‘Search me.’
Gaddis had put the questions as a means of discovering what, if anything, Somers had subsequently discovered about Crane’s identity.
‘You never looked into it? You never saw Brennan again?’
‘Haven’t we been over this?’ Somers picked up his pint and drained it. In the bathroom, he had swept his hair back with the assistance of a little water; the collar of his shirt had become soft and wet as a result. ‘Like I said, all I know is that MI6 was prepared to fake someone’s death. So I conclude from this that the person involved must have been important, right? You see, I’ve been a nurse for over fifteen years, Professor. I’ve met a lot of other nurses. And when we get together, at the Christmas party, say, or a leaving do, it’s surprising how rarely we talk about being asked to pretend that someone’s dead. It’s not a daily occurrence. It’s not something we’re trained for. In fact, the departure of Edward Crane from planet Earth is probably the only time in the long and distinguished history of the National Health Service that something like that has ever happened.’
‘Drink?’ Far from annoying him, the speech had reassured Gaddis that Somers knew nothing about Crane’s link to the Cambridge spies.
‘What?’
‘I said, do you want another drink, Calvin? My round.’
Somers looked at his watch. The strap was worn, the freckled wrist slim and pale.
‘Nah. I’ve got to go.’ Gaddis stared at him, deadening his lively eyes. It was a trick he sometimes employed on particularly recalcitrant students and it had the desired effect. Somers looked immediately sheepish and said: ‘Unless, of course, you’re not satisfied that you’ve got your money’s worth.’
Gaddis moved very slightly to one side. ‘One more question.’
‘And what’s that?’
Two more smokers moved past the table and disappeared outside. A cold blast of wind ran through the open door.
‘How were you first introduced to Charlotte? How did you find her?’
‘Oh, that’s easy.’
‘What do you mean “easy”?’
‘Bloke called Neame put her on to me.’
‘And would you have any idea how I can find him?’
Chapter 10
It looked as though Thomas Neame did not want to be found. He wasn’t in the phone book. He couldn’t be traced online. Charlotte had told Gaddis nothing about his life, even less about his whereabouts. All he knew was that Neame was Crane’s oldest friend – his ‘confessor’, to use Charlotte’s description – and was willing to reveal everything about Crane’s work for the KGB. He was ‘ninety-one going on seventy-five’ and still in robust good health. How had Charlotte put it? ‘Very tough and fit, sort of war generation Scot who can smoke forty a day and still pop to the top of Ben Nevis before breakfast.’
Why had she mentioned Ben Nevis? Was there a clue in that? Did Neame live in Scotland? Gaddis was lying in bed one night when that thought came to him, but it moved on as quickly as a car passing outside in the street. After