“Do you remember his name?”
“No,” said Pennington. “But it will be in the file.”
In Islamabad, thought Liz, her heart sinking. Pennington turned to Fane. “You’ll have a copy here, won’t you?”
“Yes,” said Fane, happy to re-enter the conversation with a solution. “Give me a moment, Elizabeth? I’ll get it dug out for you.”
Liz walked over the bridge and went back to Thames House. You had to hand it to Tom, she thought, with grudging admiration for his act, as she waited for the lift. He had played things perfectly, merging chameleon-like into his environment until even his boss couldn’t recall a single distinguishing characteristic.
“Is Judith about?” Liz asked Rose Love, who was halfway through a mug of tea and a chocolate biscuit at her desk.
“She’s gone home, Liz. She wasn’t feeling very well.”
Damn, thought Liz. She needed help right away. She’d returned from Vauxhall Cross with three names, each the target of an approach from Tom Dartmouth. They included the boy Pennington had mentioned, whose real name—carefully written down by Liz from the copy of Tom’s report—was Bashir Siddiqui.
“Can I help?” asked Rose.
Liz looked at her appraisingly. She seemed a nice girl, very pretty, but slightly shy and unself-confident. Liz was reluctant to use her now. There wasn’t any need for Rose to sign the indoctrination form, but Liz didn’t want rumours flying around about her pulling the files of a colleague. But she didn’t see any alternative; Judith might be out for days.
“Would you do a lookup for me on these names? I think you’ll find something about them in reports from Six’s Pakistan station. Probably sent by Tom Dartmouth when he was seconded over there. There’ll be quite a lot of reports but presumably the names will have been pulled out and indexed. Tom’s away at present, so I can’t ask him.”
“Okay,” said Rose, cheerfully.
Liz went back to her desk, worried about how long it would take Rose to sift through the reports. She answered some e-mails and did some paperwork and then went to the conference room she and Peggy were using, intent on looking through Tom’s personnel file again. She was surprised to find Rose Love there, chatting to Peggy. “I was just about to come and find you,” said Rose. “I’ve got the answer you wanted.”
“You have? That was quick.”
“I just did a lookup on the names. Two of them are there in the reports, but not the third. I searched for all sorts of spelling variants too. Still no luck.” She handed a piece of paper to Liz. The missing name was Bashir Siddiqui. Protected by Tom, when recruited in Pakistan, by the simple expedient of omitting his name from his reports to MI5.
“Thanks, Rose. Now I just have to figure out how to find him.”
Rose looked puzzled. “Oh I’ve done that too.” Seeing Liz’s surprise, she turned shy about her show of initiative. “I thought you’d want that.”
“I do,” said Liz, eagerly.
“I cross-checked his name against the list of British Asians travelling to Pakistan for long periods of time.” She added proudly, “It didn’t take long to find him.”
“Do we know where he’s from?” pressed Liz. Be patient, she told herself, Rose has saved you days of work.
“Yes. The Midlands.”
“Wolverhampton?”
“How did you know that?” asked Rose.
47
Eddie Morgan didn’t want to get fired, but since it would be the fourth time in five years he was at least used to it. “Anyone can sell,” his boss Jack Symonson liked to declaim. Then with a sarcastic sideways glance at Eddie, “Well, almost anyone.”
His wife, Gloria, would be upset, Eddie knew, but she should know by now that there was always another job, another slot in the flexible framework of the used-car business. The pay was tilted so heavily in favour of commission rather than salary that there was little risk in taking someone on—especially if, like Eddie, they had been around the trade for almost twenty years.
He knew cars—that wasn’t the issue. Give him a used Rover with 77,000 miles and he could tell you after no more than a quick sniff how long it would last and what it could be sold for. What he didn’t have—there was no use kidding himself—was the ability to close a deal. Customers liked him (even his bosses conceded that) and he could talk fluently about anything on four wheels. But when push came to shove…he couldn’t close.
Why can’t I? he asked himself for the third time that week, as a blonde woman in shorts, recently divorced and looking for something sporty, said, “I’ll think about it,” and left the forecourt after forty minutes of his time. Eddie stood, leaning against a five-year-old Rover, soaking up the sun.
Someone whistled, and he looked and saw Gillian, the receptionist, beckoning him from the showroom door. “Boss wants to see you, Eddie.”
Here we go, thought Eddie as he went inside, doing up his tie like a man tidying up on his way to the firing squad.
He was surprised, after knocking and entering Symonson’s office, to find him with another man. “Eddie, come in. This is Simon Willis, from DVLA. He wants to ask you about a car.” Willis was young and informally dressed—he wore a parka and chinos. He looked friendly, though, and as Eddie sat down, he grinned.
What was DVLA doing here? wondered Eddie, more curious than nervous. Or was this guy a cop? Whatever his weaknesses, Eddie had always been straight when it came to business, a bit of a rarity in the second-hand car game.
Willis said, “I’m looking for a Golf, T-reg, that our records say was sold here about two months ago.”
“By me?”
Willis looked at Symonson, who laughed derisively. “Miracles do happen, Eddie.”
Hilarious, thought Eddie sourly, but gave a fleeting, insincere smile, then looked back at Willis as Symonson continued to chortle at his own joke. Willis said, “The car was bought by someone named Siddiqui. Here’s a picture of him.”
From his lap Willis drew out a photograph and handed it to Eddie. It was an enlarged passport shot of a young Asian man with dark mournful eyes and a wispy attempt at a goatee.
“Do you remember him?” asked Willis.
“I’ll say,” said Eddie. How could he forget him? It was his first sale in almost two weeks; Symonson had started making the first of the grumbling dissatisfied noises that had recently approached a crescendo.
Then one morning a young Asian man had come in and started looking around, curtly rejecting the offers of two of the other salesmen for help. Eddie had therefore approached him tentatively, but the man had been receptive enough to let Eddie escort him around the cars in the forecourt, through the Peugeots and Fords and the two used Minis they had in stock, until suddenly the Asian stopped in front of the black Golf. Sixty-three thousand miles on the clock. In reasonable nick, though it could do with a respray.
Eddie had begun the spiel, but the Asian—unusually, since as a rule Eddie found those people very polite—had cut him off. “Spare me the bullshit,” he’d said. “What’ll you take for it?”
Eddie said to Willis now, “Yes, that’s the one. We haggled a bit over price, but in the end he seemed happy enough.” He wanted Symonson to feel he had handled the sale adroitly, but his boss’s expression remained indifferent. Eddie asked, “Why? Is there a problem?”
“Not with the car,” said Willis. Eddie looked at him more closely. Eddie had seen enough policemen over the years to know that, whatever Willis said, this was not your average copper.
Eddie said, “If he had a problem with the van, that’s his lookout. I warned him it was pretty iffy.”
There was silence in the room as Willis seemed to digest this. Finally Willis asked quietly, “What van?”
“The one he bought two days later. When I saw him come in I reckoned he’d had a problem with the Golf. Or just changed his mind—people often do that right after they buy a car. But no, he wanted a van as well. So I sold him one.”
“What make?”
“I think it was a Ford. It’ll be in the books.” He gestured towards Symonson. “But it was six years old, I remember that. White, of course. He insisted on climbing into the back to see how big it was. I got three and a half for it. I warned him about the transmission, but he didn’t seem to care.”
“Did he say what he wanted it for?”
“No.” The second time the young man called Siddiqui had been even terser than before, so Eddie hadn’t bothered trying to pitch.
“Did he say anything about where he might be going?”
Eddie shook his head. “He didn’t say much at all. No small talk. There’ll be a name and address in the books but he paid cash—both times.”
Willis nodded but Eddie could tell he wasn’t happy. “If there’s anything at all you remember about this man,” said Willis, “please give me a ring.” He took out his wallet and extracted a card, then handed it to Eddie. “That’s my direct line. Ring me any time.”
“Okay,” said Eddie, looking at the card. I’ll be damned, he thought, he is from DVLA after all. “Is that it?” he said, looking back and forth between Symonson and Willis.
It was Willis who spoke. “Yes,” he said. “Thanks for your help.”
As Eddie got up to go, Symonson said, “Will you be around later, Eddie? I need to talk to you.”
Where else does he think I’ll be? thought Eddie sourly. Honolulu? The Seychelles? “Yes, Jack,” he said, knowing full well what they would be talking about. “I’ll be here.”
48
Liz was surprised to learn that Tom lived in Fulham. She had thought that his flat was in North London, near her own place in Kentish Town. He hadn’t actually said as much, that evening when he dropped her off, but he’d certainly led her to believe that she wasn’t taking him out of his way.
Liz walked the two or three streets from the Underground station to Tom’s address, in a quiet, leafy backwater of uniform, red brick, semi-detached Edwardian houses, mostly divided into flats.
As she approached the front door, two A2 officers emerged as if by magic from a van parked further down the street. Liz recognised the tall broad figure of Bernie, an affable ex-Army sergeant she had worked with before. With him was Dom, his quieter sidekick, a short, wiry man, fit from running marathons. Dom’s expertise was locks—he had a vast collection in Thames House. He loved them; he studied them; he brooded over them, like an enthusiast with his stamp collection.
But Dom’s skills were not needed at first as the front door to the house was open and a cleaning lady, who had been mopping the tiled floor in the hall, was just leaving. She took no notice as they walked straight past her and up the stairs to the first floor where Tom lived. Bernie rapped sharply on the front door. They were confident from A4, outside watching the flat, that Tom wasn’t there, but no one wanted any surprises.
They waited a full minute, then Dom set to work. He picked the first lock in fifteen seconds, then struggled with the Chubb in the top corner of the door. “Bugger’s had it specially adapted,” he said. It took another three minutes before Dom grunted, pushed, and the door opened.
Liz hadn’t known what to expect, and her first impression was of overpowering neatness, an almost Germanic cleanliness. That and the light, which streamed through the front windows of the living room, highlighting the wooden floors, which had been waxed and polished to a sheen. The walls were white, reinforcing the sense of space, and the furniture was modern and looked new: Danish-style chairs and a long pristine white sofa. On the walls hung a few large bland prints in cold metal frames.
“Nice place,” said Bernie approvingly. “Has he got money of his own?”
Liz shrugged. Presumably Tom’s stepfather had left him something in his will. These were comfortable rather than lavish quarters, but it was an expensive part of town. It was hard to see how Tom could live here on his MI5 salary, especially as presumably he gave something to Margarita.
She followed Bernie and Dom into the other rooms: an alcove kitchen and dining area, two bedrooms in the back. Tom slept in the larger one; the spare bedroom was clearly used as a study—there was a small desk in the corner and a filing cabinet.
Bernie asked, “Do you reckon he was always this tidy, or did he clean up before he did a bunk?”
Liz ran a finger under the desk top and, raising it into the air, found no dust. “I think it’s always like this.”
“It’ll take about an hour,” said Bernie. He and Dom left Liz in the sitting room while they went to work, looking for hiding places: from the simple (lifting the cistern cover of the loo) to the complicated—checking the floorboards, and tapping the partition walls and the ceilings for hidden cavities. This was a preliminary search. Later, if necessary, the whole place would be taken to pieces.
Liz focused on what was visible, hoping it would tell her something new about the man she didn’t already know. Not that that’s a lot, she told herself. The flat had about as much personality as a hotel suite.
She went first to inspect Tom’s bedroom. There were a couple of suits and some jackets hanging from a rail in the cupboard. A chest of drawers held boxer shorts and socks, and a dozen crisp, cotton shirts, neatly folded, that had been washed and pressed by a commercial service.
So he dresses well, thought Liz. I already knew that. She looked at the tall oak bookcase set against one wall. Were books the key to a man’s mind or his heart? It seemed hard to tell. The reading was a mix of light fiction and heavier stuff—history and politics. Tom obviously liked thrillers, with a soft spot for the works of Frederick Forsyth. It seemed fitting, thought Liz, that Tom the lone wolf should own a copy of The Day of the Jackal.
The non-fiction books included three dull-looking tomes on the future of the EU. There were almost two shelves on terrorism, and several recent volumes on Al Qaeda. So what? thought Liz. I’ve got some of these myself. I’ve also got a copy of Mein Kampf, but that doesn’t make me a Nazi sympathiser. These were the tools of his trade.
She noted that there were very few books about Ireland. The Collected Poems of William Butler Yeats, and a battered Shell Guide to Ireland. Nothing political; no accounts of the recent history of the IRA.
And then she saw it. Tucked into the end of one shelf, a thin blue volume: Parnell and the English Establishment. She didn’t need to open it to know the author’s name. Liam O’Phelan, Queen’s University Belfast.
Liz was growing frustrated by the absence, throughout the flat, of anything personal—correspondence, mementoes, photographs. There wasn’t even a rug or vase to indicate Tom had just spent four years in Pakistan. Like his office, his flat was overpoweringly impersonal. Deliberately, thought Liz. It seemed likely that Tom had performed his own version of the sweep Bernie and Dom were conducting, scouring the flat and removing anything that might flesh out the bare bones of his past, anything that might indicate what sort of man he was—and what he was planning to do. Though he had forgotten O’Phelan’s book.
In the study, Liz was surprised to find the filing cabinet unlocked, but less so when she browsed through what it held—bills in the top drawer, neatly filed by utility and credit card. The second drawer held tax statements, and a protracted correspondence with the Inland Revenue about Tom’s marriage-allowance claim in the year he was divorced. Bank statements filled the third drawer, and the bottom one was empty.
As she took out the pile of credit card statements, she noticed that the top one was very recent. It all seemed straightforward until she came to the last entry on the page, the Lucky Pheasant Hotel, Salisbury: £212.83. Looking at it in surprise, she realised its date was the weekend of her mother’s biopsy—the weekend Tom had called at Bowerbridge. So he had dinner in Salisbury after all, she thought, remembering his invitation. But £212.83—for dinner? He must have entertained a large party. No. Much more likely, he’d stayed there.
So much for those friends with the farm off the Blandford road, thought Liz. No wonder Tom had been so vague about the location—the farm probably didn�
��t exist, any more than his friends did. Tom had been staying all along in the Lucky Pheasant. Why? What was he doing there?
Seeing me, thought Liz. Popping by, popping in, then after a long candlelit supper in the restaurant of the Lucky Pheasant, popping the “How about it?” question. What was she meant to have done? Fall into his arms, and then the feather pillows of his four-poster bed?
That must have been the plan, thought Liz, designed to put her off the path she’d been investigating. He had hoped she would be easily distracted by a new passion for him; that must have been his thinking. The arrogant bastard, thought Liz. Thank God I said no. Now I better go and talk to the woman who didn’t.
49
It was all very civilised. The Delft cups and the small Viennese biscuits on a china plate, the strong coffee, poured with a kind of Mittel European courtesy, and in the background classical music softly playing. It was so genteel that Liz wanted to scream.
Time seemed to have stood still, yet a furtive glance at the ormolu clock on the mantelpiece told Liz that she had been there precisely eleven minutes. Sipping her coffee, Margarita cocked an ear. “Oh dear, I forgot the radio. Do you mind the noise?”
“Not at all. It’s Bruckner, isn’t it?”
Margarita looked pleased. “You must like music,” she said. “Do you play?”
Liz gave a self-deprecating shrug. “Piano. I wasn’t very good.” She had passed Grade Eight and been competent enough, but since then she had lost the habit of playing. There was a piano at Bowerbridge, but even during her recent convalescence there, Liz had hardly touched the keys.
“We could talk all day about music, I suspect,” said Margarita, nursing her cup, “but that is not why you are here.”
“I’m afraid not.”
Margarita looked at her searchingly. “It’s Tom again, isn’t it? The young woman who came to see me before—she said it was just a formality. But it can’t be, can it? Not if you’ve come as well.”
Secret Asset Page 23
