Breaking Cover

by Stella Rimington

  ‘I know. And I was thinking, it might be useful if I went and had a little chat with Mr Patricov.’

  ‘Good idea. Give him some advice. We don’t want another dead Russian on our hands.’ It was said jokingly but Liz could see that Pearson was weighing something in his mind. After a short pause he added, ‘It would help if I had some back-up when I went to call. He might not pay too much attention to the local policeman. The English equivalent of Inspector Boris Plod from Novgorod.’ He paused as the waiter put down the bill in front of him. ‘I don’t suppose you could send somebody to come with me? Lend a bit of serious weight.’

  Liz looked at him, surprised by Pearson’s request. In her experience Chief Constables rarely admitted they might need help. She thought for a moment, wondering if she should send Peggy Kinsolving, or perhaps a protective security specialist. Then she thought again. He was asking for someone with seniority. ‘I could probably come myself if you think it would help,’ she said.

  Pearson smiled broadly. ‘That would be splendid, if you could spare the time. It wouldn’t be for a while; Patricov’s away in Switzerland apparently.’

  ‘There’s just one condition,’ Liz said with mock sternness.

  ‘What is it?’ He looked worried.

  ‘That I don’t have to go to a football match while I’m there.’

  15

  Jasminder was at her desk in one corner of her flat’s living room, writing an article for the magazine, when the phone rang. She thought it might be Laurenz, who was away in Paris on bank business for a couple of days, but it was her friend Emma.

  ‘Hello, stranger,’ said Emma. ‘Long time no see. Or hear for that matter.’

  ‘Actually I was about to ring you,’ said Jasminder, telling herself she really had intended to tell Emma about putting her name on the job application form. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Fine, thanks. Though not as busy you, it seems…’

  Jasminder replied cautiously, ‘What do you mean?’ As she spoke she drew the curtains across the window with one hand; the streetlight outside had just come on and was casting a rather nasty yellow glow into the room.

  ‘I’ve had two visitors this evening. But they weren’t interested in me: they wanted to know all about you,’ announced Emma.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. They were very polite. They showed me identification right away – both were from the MOD. They said they carry out background checks on job applicants who will have access to classified material. Apparently you’re one of them. Talk about a dark horse! Honestly, Jasminder, you might have warned me they’d show up.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I should have done, but I never thought it would come to anything. I had an interview with a head-hunter for a job, but they told me not to tell anyone about it. I put you down as a personal referee, and I should have asked you first. I’m very sorry. I hope it wasn’t too embarrassing.’

  ‘What kind of a job is it?’ Emma asked. ‘It must be very important, judging by all the stuff they wanted to know about you.’

  ‘I’m sorry but I can’t tell you anything at the moment. It’s probably not going to amount to anything anyway.’

  But Emma wasn’t so easily to put off. ‘You’re the last person I’d expect to work for some hush-hush part of the Government. What’s got into you? I thought you disapproved of all that spooky stuff.’

  Jasminder didn’t know how to respond. It was true that on the face of it the job was unlikely to interest her – she was a most improbable candidate for it. She looked across the room at her bookshelves. The books were all about liberty and civil rights, and the abuses of both by government. There was nothing there to suggest that she might one day end up working for the people she had spent so much of her life criticising. Instead of trying to explain she asked, ‘Did they ask you lots of questions?’

  ‘Tons,’ said Emma dramatically. ‘Where did we meet, how well did I know you – that sort of thing. Then it got more personal.’

  ‘What did they want to know?’ asked Jasminder, suddenly feeling invaded.

  ‘I suppose it’s standard stuff, but it still caught me by surprise. They wanted to know all about your boyfriends. Don’t worry,’ added Emma with a laugh, ‘I didn’t tell them about Oscar.’

  He had been an ill-advised fling during a holiday Jasminder and Emma had taken to the Greek islands. He lived in London, but had turned out on their return to be a clingy drip rather than the exotic character encountered in the Paxos sunshine. On the wall Jasminder could see the small watercolour of Gaios harbour, all pinks and blues, that she’d bought on that very holiday.

  ‘Then they wanted to know if you had debts, or drank to excess. So I said no, of course. Did you take recreational drugs? Any petty theft or shoplifting habits? Any “extreme behaviour”? That’s when I was glad they weren’t asking about me! Then they wanted to know your views on civil liberties and whether I thought that made you a revolutionary and likely to be disloyal to the state. Honestly, Jas, it was like the Inquisition. I got a bit cross at that point and told them you had always been perfectly open about your views and they were shared by lots of very loyal citizens, including myself. That shut them up.’

  Jasminder laughed. Emma said, ‘Actually, by the end they almost seemed disappointed by how pure you’ve been. I wanted to invent some peccadillos for you, but other than stealing my chips in restaurants, I couldn’t think of any. Aren’t you going to tell me what this is about?’

  ‘I will soon enough. I didn’t think they’d want to talk to you. I thought they’d decide I was completely unsuitable.’

  ‘Well, all I can say is that I have my suspicions. I think you’ve applied for that MI6 job I read about in the Guardian. They were advertising for a Director of Communications. I wouldn’t have thought it was your scene, but good on you if that’s what you want. Maybe you’ll be able to make them think a bit more like the rest of us. When will you be allowed to spill the beans?’

  ‘Soon probably; when they tell me I haven’t got the job. But I just don’t know exactly.’ And a few minutes later, after Jasminder had promised to fill her in at the earliest possible opportunity, Emma rang off.

  Jasminder got up and went into the kitchen, feeling unsettled. She’d left the radio on, but for once she didn’t find the sound of classical music soothing and switched it off in irritation. She hadn’t until now faced the possibility that they might actually offer her the job and didn’t know what she would do if they did. She was pondering this when the phone rang again. This time it was Laurenz calling from Paris.

  ‘Hello, my sweet,’ he said. ‘I tried you earlier but your phone was engaged.’

  ‘Yes. I was talking to Emma. You know that job I said I might apply for? Well, I filled in a form and sent it in and now they’ve been to see her to ask questions about me.’

  ‘That’s good. It shows they’re taking your application seriously. I hope she said nice things about you. What did they ask?’

  ‘All sorts of personal stuff. They wanted to know about boyfriends.’

  ‘Did she tell them about me?’

  ‘No. I haven’t told her about you. I’ve hardly seen her since we met.’

  ‘So they won’t be coming to call on me then?’

  ‘No chance. I didn’t put your name on the form. You didn’t come into the category of co-habitant.’

  ‘Oh, good, because I’d rather you didn’t. What with my wife and all this legal stuff, I don’t want to get some sort of record with the authorities.’

  ‘Well, we’d better not start cohabiting then.’

  He laughed. ‘Not officially, anyway.’

  16

  They expected a lot for £9.27 an hour, Kevin Burgess thought as he looked at his watch. When he’d left school it would have seemed like loads of money, but now that he was twenty-five with his own place to pay for, it didn’t seem much at all. It was time for his break, all of twenty minutes – he barely had time to swallow his tea. It usually took him five mi
nutes to get up to the hut where he and the gardeners gathered, and then there was a wait for the kettle to boil, the tea to brew and the mugs to be filled. By the time he’d taken a few sips he’d be watching the clock, knowing that his boss, Reilly, the head of security, would be out soon, making sure no one was skiving when they should be back at work. Reilly was ex-Army (some said ex-SAS), and though he certainly seemed to know his stuff, the man had clearly never readjusted to civilian life.

  Of course it all sounded very glamorous – Kevin’s friends and his girlfriend Linda had oohed and aahed when he’d told them about his new assignment from the agency. There were plenty of mansions in the neighbourhood, occupied by football stars and businessmen, but even by the standards of Altrincham’s Golden Triangle, The Gloamings was something special. The job came with its own uniform – today, as always, he wore a blue jacket with Gloaming Security printed on the back. His was a bit tight and he was thinking of asking for a new one. Kevin was a big lad – over six foot tall and more than fifteen stone, though he knew that at least a stone or two of this was excess padding.

  It was galling to think that with the money that was being spent just on the grounds – there were four full-time gardeners working there – Kevin and Linda could have bought a mini-mansion for themselves. And inside, with its eleven bedrooms, each with its own bathroom, and eight reception rooms, The Gloamings was just as lavishly staffed: there was a housekeeper, two maids to assist her, a cook, two cleaners and a full-time chauffeur.

  Not to mention the security staff. Kevin Burgess patrolled the grounds, and there were two others in the team so that the gardens were guarded twenty-four hours a day. Inside there was an office full of CCTV monitors that showed the view from over a dozen cameras, both inside and out. Under Reilly’s command, there were three men on duty in the house – one for the front door, the other a roving presence (though not allowed upstairs) and the third to sit and watch the monitors. Add a Russian goon or two – they seemed to change every few weeks – and you’d find Fort Knox less well protected.

  Which made it downright weird that the object of all this protection – Sergei Patricov, number fourteen in the Sunday Times Rich List – was so rarely there. People said his private jet did a million miles a year, which didn’t surprise Kevin. The man certainly travelled in style. One of the gardeners swore Patricov had hired an entire carriage of the train on one occasion when fog meant he couldn’t fly to London. And as for cars, the antique-looking barn (built the year before) was full of them – including a Rolls, a Bentley, a Jag, a Mercedes limo, two Range Rovers, and in case anyone felt like slumming it, a four-door Peugeot saloon.

  But mostly the cars sat idle, save for the odd expedition by Patricov’s lady – Nina. Was she his wife? They called her Mrs Patricov, but she didn’t look much like a wife. She was nearly always at the house, though to the likes of Kevin virtually invisible. She spent a lot of her time in the solarium, a sort of conservatory that had been converted into an indoor swimming pool and sun lounge, complete with changing rooms. The staff – including security – were strictly forbidden from intruding on her privacy there.

  In fact, though he had been here over two months, Kevin had only seen Nina on a couple of occasions, and then he’d just caught a glimpse of dark sunglasses and blonde hair. By contrast Patricov, despite his many absences, was a big presence when he was at home. He could be found in the orchid house sniffing his exotic flowers, or hitting balls against the backboard of his tennis court, or just sitting on the terrace, drinking a gin and tonic, watching the gardeners weeding the beds and cutting the grass. He was always friendly, happy to say hello to everyone – security guard or important guest – though one of the maids who was going out with a gardener was reported to have said that according to the housekeeper he did have a temper on him.

  Everybody was saying that he wanted to buy United, and you could see him in the role – backslapping his favourite players, cheering from the directors’ box at Old Trafford, soaking up the attention while showing himself to be a regular bloke. As if! Regular blokes didn’t own their own planes and helicopters, or spend more money every week on staff than most people earned in a lifetime. Still, Kevin thought it would be great if Patricov bought the team. They’d have an owner so rich he could buy all the best talent, and one who not only lived in the same country – unlike the Glazers – but actually nearby.

  When Patricov was away, his sidekick was in charge – a Russian called Karpis. He didn’t actually live in the house but you wouldn’t have known that from the way he popped up at the oddest times. He was a nasty piece of work, thought Kevin; where the boss was outgoing and jolly, Karpis was dour and aloof. He was a tall well-built man who wore dark suits and sometimes a black leather jacket; the effect was oddly menacing. His deep voice fitted the film villain of Kevin’s imagination, though his English was excellent and only slightly accented. Even Reilly, despite his tough-guy air, showed Karpis respect, and it was interesting that when Patricov spoke to the Russian he seemed to do so as to an equal rather than a subordinate.

  It looked as if it was going to rain soon, so Kevin headed quickly for the shelter of the gardeners’ hut. He had just taken a first sip of tea when his intercom went off. Damn! He put down his mug and looked at the little device. It was flashing, showing the number 11 over and over again. He sighed. This meant the small back gate at the far end of the grounds, where a sensor covered the entrance, along with a monitor and entry phone and a CCTV camera secreted in the branches of a beech tree. Lately the sensor had taken to going off unpredictably. The first time Kevin had raced down there, certain he would find an intruder. But after a dozen repetitions he had learned to take his time, knowing he would find the gate – which could be opened only by a numeric keypad – undisturbed, sitting there virtually smirking at him as he confirmed yet again it had not been touched.

  Still, he had no choice but to take this seriously. Orders were orders, and it would be his job on the line if he ignored the signal; Reilly had more than once made that clear. So Kevin put down his mug and went outside, where he cursed again; it had started to rain, not hard but steadily. By the time he had made his way to the gate, he could feel the downpour soaking through his clothes.

  He came round the slight bend in the walk, ready to re-set the sensor and enter the code on his pager that would tell the security man inside the house – sitting warm and dry in front of a bank of monitors – that it was just another false alarm. But Kevin saw to his surprise that the gate was open. Ajar rather than wide open, but enough to trigger the sensor and set off the alarm that had in turn sent a signal to his pager.

  He was still not suspicious; someone had probably failed to close the gate properly. But who would that be? Patricov was away, Nina never ventured anywhere this far from the house, and the iceman Karpis would never pick a chilly, wet day for a stroll outside. That left the gardeners, who were all working in the rose garden today, and security – which meant Kevin and his colleagues on the earlier shifts. Yet they were the one group certain not to open or close the gate, since their job was to stay inside it, making sure no one else came in.

  He was puzzled, but not yet alarmed. Then in the mud on the inner side of the gate he saw some odd holes. They looked like the plugs of earth extracted from golf greens to aerate them. He closed the gate and looked at the plug holes again – they went up the path towards the house and he followed them, occasionally losing the trail where the grass was still firmly in place, then finding it again in the odd patch of exposed mud.

  As he was getting closer to the house itself, the trail of odd marks suddenly veered off, heading towards the solarium. Now they were easy to follow and took him to the door at one end of the long low structure. Unusually it was open; he had never seen it anything but shut.

  Kevin paused, wondering what to do. Entry into the solarium was strictly forbidden; he had never seen even a maid enter the sanctum. But it looked as if this intruder had gone in – why else was th
e door open? He should probably raise the alarm and call for back-up from the house, but if he paged the security office or rang Reilly on his mobile phone and it turned out no one was there (except for privacy-loving Nina), Kevin would be in deep trouble. On the one occasion he had alerted the house it had been a false alarm and Reilly had exploded, accusing him of panicking and scaring the wits out of everyone for no reason.

  So he wouldn’t alert anyone, but should he go inside? Kevin wanted to do a proper job. It was what he was paid to do, and what he was good at. What if right now somebody was attacking Nina, or stealing her bag, or vandalising the swimming pool?

  He went on into the building, leaving the door open, thinking that would provide some excuse for his actions. He found himself in a little atrium. There was a glass door on one side and he could see the pool through it: about twenty metres long, four lanes wide, with water the colour of aquamarine. There was no sign of Nina. There were a couple of other doors leading from the atrium – changing rooms, one marked with a shadowed silhouette of a man, the other of a woman.

  He was about to enter the men’s room when he heard noises coming from behind the other door. It sounded like a woman’s voice. He hesitated, wondering if he should go in there. What if Nina was being assaulted? What if the intruder was robbing her, or even worse? Kevin unhooked the little cosh from his belt, and felt for the can of Mace he had been given by Reilly on his first day. But then he realised that the woman didn’t sound scared and a moment later heard the low bass tones of a man. With a start he recognised the voice – it was Karpis’s. Kevin immediately wanted to get out of there. But it couldn’t have been Karpis who had come up from the gate. So where was the intruder? Whatever Nina and Karpis were up to wasn’t Kevin’s business but he couldn’t leave without making sure that no one else was here.

  And then he heard a different kind of noise, coming from the men’s room this time. It was a sort of shuffling and clicking as if someone was walking around in hard-soled shoes. He took a deep breath, tensed, and pushed open the door. He had the Mace out and his cosh in his hand, and the first thing he saw was a holster hanging from a hook next to a black leather jacket. In the holster was a snub-nosed .38, an automatic.