A Divided Spy (Thomas Kell Spy Thriller, Book 3)

by Charles Cumming

  ‘Instinct,’ Amelia replied.

  Kell was surprised by her answer. He had been expecting conclusive evidence that Mowbray had been caught talking to the Russians: proof of a wire transfer; recordings of a clandestine conversation with the SVR.

  ‘Instinct?’ he said. ‘Is that all?’

  With a dismissive movement of her eyes, Amelia suggested that instinct was all that the Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service required in order to arrive at a fixed conclusion.

  ‘It doesn’t add up,’ she said. ‘It’s too easy.’

  In his twenty-year career in the secret world, Kell – in common with many of his colleagues – had developed a theory that most of the Service’s greatest successes had come about, in part, because of cock-up and human error. He had never been a believer in perfect plans and immaculate conspiracies. Her Majesty’s enemies may have been clever and resourceful, but they were seldom so far-sighted, so operationally sophisticated, that they could entirely eradicate the possibility of accidents and mistakes. For a woman of Amelia’s experience to cast doubt on Kell’s story simply because it was ‘too easy’ ran counter to every instinct he possessed as a spy. It was when things were most obvious that they were often most true.

  ‘What doesn’t add up?’ he asked, though he knew exactly how Amelia was going to respond.

  ‘Well, for a start, even if you disregard the extraordinarily small possibility that Minasian’s sexuality has not been flagged up at some point by Moscow, you are asking me to imagine that a pedigree Russian foreign intelligence officer – the best of the best – takes the frankly insane risk of visiting a Western tourist hotel over the Easter holidays in the company of his secret boyfriend. You said that the hotel was popular with German tourists of a certain age and economic class? What if one of them happens to be BND?’

  Kell could feel his anger rising as rapidly as his determi-nation to prove Amelia wrong. He answered immediately.

  ‘You know yourself that nobody in the BND has ever seen Minasian. He’s a ghost. When he was running Kleckner we had a meeting with Stefan fucking Helling trying to find out what he looked like. Remember? Nobody in the entire German espiocracy had a clue.’

  Amelia was obliged to concede Kell’s point, but continued nonetheless.

  ‘Look. It just seems too cute. They have an argument right under Harold’s window. Poor Bernhard breaks into floods of tears. Minasian does a body swerve and leaves the resort. Meanwhile Harold just happens to find out Riedle’s name, address and serial number and call you up in London.’

  A waitress passed behind their sofa with an almost-empty bottle of champagne. Kell was thirsty and flagged her down.

  ‘That’s what Harold does,’ he replied. He thanked the girl as she filled his glass, then waited until she had walked on. ‘He takes surveillance photographs, he breaks into reservations systems. Are you telling me Elsa is part of this conspiracy, too?’

  Amelia shot Kell a jaded look, implying that Elsa was as eminently corruptible as any other freelance analyst on the books at Vauxhall Cross. Was it not the case that she had been uncharacte‌ristically incompetent on the current investigation? Elsa had not even been able to provide Kell with Minasian’s pseudonym at the Egypt hotel. Was that accidental or evidence of something more malign?

  ‘Don’t you believe in love?’ Kell asked.

  ‘Don’t I believe in what?’ Amelia assumed an outraged hauteur. ‘Love?’

  Kell took a sip of champagne.

  ‘Think about Minasian,’ he said. ‘A married man, dutiful, loving towards Svetlana, proud to be serving the Motherland. But he has needs. He has a secret sexuality that must be serviced. We’ve had these guys before. Hard men in the IRA with wives back in Belfast and a boyfriend in the unit.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Amelia snapped her reply, a return of serve fizzing low over the net. ‘In the unit. They kept it local. They kept it intimate. I know the man you’re thinking of and I know the way he managed things. He maintained control over every element of his secret life by sharing it only with one person in his unit over whom he exercised complete tactical and moral influence.’

  Kell tried to respond. Amelia again cut him down.

  ‘Let me finish my point.’ All the warmth and easy familiarity of her manner had dissipated. ‘Why doesn’t a man as clever and as careful as Minasian find a boyfriend in Kiev or Moscow? Why doesn’t he manage it in-house? Why does he fly from Ukraine to Cairo, from London to Brussels, carrying on like a dog on heat? Does he want to get caught?’

  ‘Love,’ Kell said again.

  Amelia threw back her arms and gazed at the ceiling.

  ‘I give up,’ she said. ‘You’ve gone soft, Tom.’

  There was a strange tenderness in the remark. With the exception of her relationship with Paul Wallinger, Amelia had lived so much of her own life at an emotional distance from the possibility of love that she could at times seem almost desiccated.

  ‘I haven’t gone soft,’ Kell replied. ‘Believe me, I have seen enough with Claire, heard enough about Minasian, realized the truth of Rachel’s behaviour towards me, to make me as cynical and as closed off to that sort of thing as you can imagine.’ It didn’t look as though Amelia had entirely understood what Kell was trying to tell her, but he pressed on. ‘I just happen to believe in Bernie Riedle. I have sat with him. I have listened to him. I have staged a mugging outside his apartment after which he almost wept with shock and gratitude. This is not a Method actor. This is a man who is in love with Alexander Minasian. And he believes that Alexander Minasian is still in love with him.’

  ‘Do you believe that?’ Amelia asked, and for the first time Kell glimpsed the possibility that she could be persuaded out of her prejudice.

  ‘Yes,’ he said firmly, though he was not at all sure that what he was about to say was even partly true. ‘I believe that Minasian is still in love with Riedle, in the sense that even the most heartless, self-interested individuals are capable of experiencing feelings of tenderness and affection, no matter how corrupted they may be.’

  There was a momentary break in their conversation, punctured by the amplified sound of an object being tapped against the side of a glass. A burst of feedback, then a disembodied voice filled the darkened room.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, the event is about to start. Will you please make your way to your seats?’

  It was Kell’s first – and, he hoped, last – experience of the fashion catwalk. Fifteen minutes of male models walking between rows of seated fashionistas wearing a series of increasingly bizarre outfits: violet leather biking jackets offset by cream silk scarves as broad as bedsheets; aquamarine culottes worn with pale plimsolls and straw boating hats; tablecloth-check linen suits with three-quarter-length trousers. Kell sat beside Amelia, who had been given a seat in the front row. She was watching the proceedings with rapt fascination, occasionally leaning across to whisper a mischievous: ‘Oooh, he’s rather dashing’ in Kell’s ear. Across the runway, Luigi was seated at the right hand of Burt Lancaster, his fists clenched and knuckles white, eyes set in fierce concentration.

  ‘Here she is,’ said Amelia, as the bone-thin Sophie finally appeared at the end of the runway. She was wearing a beautiful black evening dress, open at the shoulders and across the back, and passed Amelia’s seat like a spectre, making no eye contact with her godmother.

  ‘Tell me about Mowbray in Odessa,’ Amelia asked, once she had left the runway. All of the male models had now gathered on the narrow stage.

  ‘What about him?’ Kell replied. He was aware of Luigi staring at them in quiet disapproval. Guests were not supposed to chit-chat during the show.

  ‘Who saw Minasian?’ Amelia asked. ‘Did Harold spend time with him in the arrivals area?’

  Kell could still replay every frame of what had happened at the port a year earlier. He knew that Mowbray had been nowhere near Minasian.

  ‘Danny and Carol took him down after Kleckner came off the ship. Harold was outside the ter
minal all the time, making sure the SVR didn’t grab him from the Customs hall. He knew what Minasian looked like from our photograph, but they never got face to face. Danny Aldrich filled him with ketamine. He was out almost immediately.’

  Sophie had appeared for a second time, now wearing a sleeveless vest and a pair of black silk trousers not dissimilar – at least to Kell’s untrained eye – to the ones being worn by her godmother.

  ‘And later?’ Amelia asked.

  ‘Nothing.’ Kell glanced across at Luigi and tried to warm him up with a flattering smile. ‘Harold was around before we took off in the plane. He and Danny drove back to Odessa, flew out that night. Minasian never set eyes on him.’

  Amelia was looking to her left, tracking Sophie’s approach. She passed their seats and returned backstage. Kell wasn’t worried by Amelia’s questions. He felt only a sense of impatience that it was taking her so long to trust his judgment.

  ‘The Russians know where I live,’ he said. ‘It wouldn’t be at all difficult for them to track me down. If what you’re saying is true, that Harold has been turned and is working against me, it’s an extraordinarily elaborate way of exacting revenge for blowing Kleckner. Easier to throw me under a train, no?’

  ‘Perhaps Minasian doesn’t know you’ve left us and wants to recruit you?’ Amelia suggested. There was a burst of applause as the audience reacted to one of the outfits. ‘Perhaps this is his way of drawing you in.’

  Kell laughed at the idea. ‘Then why doesn’t somebody come and find me at The Havelock in Brook Green?’ Kell adopted a cod Russian accent. ‘Hello, Meester Kell. My name eez Vladimir. I know you unhappy. Let me buy you pint.’

  Amelia smiled, but as she turned back to him, Kell saw that her eyes were soft with concern.

  ‘Are you unhappy?’ she asked. In years gone by, Kell would have fallen on her tenderness with gratitude, but he was now too hardened against her. It was simpler to treat all expressions of kindness as a manipulation. ‘I don’t even work for you any more,’ he said. ‘What could I possibly tell Minasian that would be of any use to the SVR?’

  ‘You’ve always underestimated your importance, Tom. You could tell them a great deal.’

  Kell again ignored the deliberate flattery; Amelia had too many tricks up her sleeve for anything she said to be taken at face value. A song was playing, a synthesized version of ‘Don’t Stand So Close to Me’ that Kell didn’t recognize.

  ‘Who have you got in the SVR?’ he asked. The question was deliberately provocative, but he was in the mood to push her.

  ‘Never you mind,’ Amelia replied.

  Kell knew that she was being disingenuous. The Service had had nobody on the books a year earlier; the chances of a successful SVR recruitment in the intervening period were vanishingly small.

  ‘You still don’t have anybody, do you?’ he said. ‘At least, anyone of any stature.’

  A knowing grin curled across Amelia’s face, disappearing as quickly as it had appeared. Kell again looked across the runway and nodded at Luigi. This time, the Italian nodded back.

  ‘Nobody,’ Kell repeated. He was taunting her now. Amelia did not respond. The show was drawing to a close and all five male models had lined up on the stage. They left a gap between them, through which a bearded Italian of indeterminate age emerged from backstage to rapturous applause. He was flanked on one side by Sophie, on the other by a second female model, equally emaciated. Both had their arms wrapped around him. Kell assumed that he was the man who had designed the clothes.

  ‘Do you think Andrei Eremenko would look good in culottes?’ he asked, turning to face Amelia as both of them began to clap. He could feel her wariness clearing like clouds burning off on a summer morning.

  ‘Just the thing to wear in the bar at Claridge’s this season, darling,’ she replied.

  That was when Kell knew that she had changed her mind.

  21

  Svetlana Eremenko landed at Heathrow Airport three days later. According to MI5 surveillance she was met by a uniformed chauffeur who carried her modest luggage to an armour-plated Mercedes in the short-term car park. It was a Monday morning but there was little traffic on the M4. Within an hour she was checking in for a five-night stay at Claridge’s, paying £480 per night for the privilege and charging it to a credit card that was traced to a company owned by Andrei Eremenko.

  Amelia had insisted on a light-touch approach at the hotel, on the sensible basis that the continuing secure email exchanges between Riedle and Minasian would provide Kell with all the information he needed regarding the two men’s whereabouts. There was no sense in informing Claridge’s that a Russian citizen of interest to Her Majesty’s Government would soon be joining his wife in Suite 184; that would only heighten the risk of Minasian smelling a rat and taking the first plane back to Kiev. For the same reason, MI5 would not be flooding the lobby with surveillance. Amelia wanted Minasian to feel as relaxed and as anonymous as possible for a pedigree Russian intelligence officer who would already suspect that his wife was flagged by the Brits. There would be no chambermaid or concierge paid to offer information on Minasian’s movements, just as there would be no cameras or microphones installed in the Eremenko suite. The chances of Minasian saying or doing anything compromising at the hotel were negligible.

  ‘Besides,’ said Amelia, ‘as soon as he gets to the hotel he’s going to insist on switching rooms. They always do. Moscow rules. We could go to the very great trouble of bugging every phone and plant pot in the building, but I’d rather leave poor Svetlana in relative peace and just keep an eye on Riedle. Bernie will lead us to the mountain, won’t he, Tom? Bernie holds the keys to the castle.’

  She was right. In order to pitch Minasian, to have something to hold against him, Kell needed proof of his homosexuality. At the moment he had nothing; only Riedle’s verbal account of the relationship, some photographs from Hurghada and a few anodyne emails. The goal was to get the two men together in a room, to record and film their interactions, then to extract Minasian and present him with the full extent of his folly. Faced with cooperation or ruin, Kell was certain that Minasian would choose to save his own skin.

  Since Brussels, the number of messages between Riedle and Minasian had begun to intensify. Minasian had confirmed that he would be arriving in the UK on 30 June, a Tuesday. Riedle had immediately reserved a seat on a Monday-morning Eurostar from Brussels. Finding the Charlotte Street Hotel fully booked, Riedle had taken a room at a hotel on Piccadilly, less than a mile from Claridge’s. Kell had made an appointment to see the manager. Mowbray, whose fees were now being paid by SIS, equipped Riedle’s room with surveillance equipment and Kell was given a pass key allowing him access to every secure area in the hotel. No other members of staff were informed about the intrusion. The manager had been required to sign a copy of the Official Secrets Act and instructed not to report the operation to his superiors. He refused payment and told Kell that he would report ‘any unusual activity from Mr Riedle’ should anything arise.

  Vauxhall Cross still had little idea why Svetlana Eremenko had come to London. Amelia had allowed Kell to put foot surveillance on her whenever she stepped outside Claridge’s, and GCHQ were listening to her phone. For the most part, however, she seemed content to sleep late at the hotel and to enjoy the shops and cafés of Mayfair. Late on the Monday afternoon she walked as far as Marylebone High Street and bought some paperbacks in Daunt Books. The following morning she was tailed to the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy. At all times she was alone. One report described her as ‘modestly dressed, courteous and friendly’, as if to distinguish her from the stereotype of the super-rich Russian. It was assumed that Svetlana was communicating with her husband via WhatsApp – which was notoriously difficult to hack – or with a secondary mobile phone of which GCHQ had no knowledge. Her bags had not been searched at Heathrow nor had her room been investigated during her absences from the hotel.

  Kell himself was obliged to stay clear of Svetlana at all
times. There was every possibility that Minasian was already in London, travelling under alias, working counter-surveillance on his wife, checking for signs of trouble. If he spotted Kell at Claridge’s, or saw him wandering around the lobby of Riedle’s hotel in Piccadilly, he would cut and run.

  Riedle, however, was a different matter. The two men had agreed to meet in London and Kell was keen to speak to him, not least because he might have information about meeting ‘Dmitri’ that had not been disclosed via email. A separate surveillance team was on hand to ‘house’ Riedle from St Pancras station to his hotel in Piccadilly. Checking in at a similar time to Svetlana, Riedle had spent most of the day working in his room, breaking off to visit the hotel gym at around six o’clock.

  To limit the possibility of being seen in his company, Kell had invited Riedle to dinner at Archibald’s, an obscure private member’s club in Bloomsbury to which Minasian would have no access. Kell himself was not a member, but SIS had an arrangement with the club that had proved fruitful in the past. Unlike the Traveller’s Club or White’s, Archibald’s was not a Foreign Office watering hole and there was little chance of Kell being recognized. Nevertheless, he arrived an hour early, through the basement entrance, and arranged for a secluded table in the dining room with no line of sight to the street. Riedle, having been in town for less than six hours, was delighted to have been admitted to one of the inner sanctums of the British Establishment, and wore an uncharacte‌ristically sober grey suit for the occasion.

  ‘So it’s happening?’ Kell asked as their main courses were served. ‘You’re seeing him in London?’

  Riedle took a sip of claret and nodded.

  ‘Yes. He comes here tomorrow.’ That confirmed the message Minasian had sent to Riedle, setting the date of his arrival in London as Tuesday, 30 June. ‘He has to spend some time with Vera seeing a doctor about her medical condition, then he says he will be free in the afternoons, perhaps on Wednesday or Thursday.’