I stayed in Tunis for the next three months. But I had no wish to become a lifelong exile. Eventually, I decided it was safe to go home. I arrived on a Maltese cargo vessel, bound for Rotterdam. It stopped for bunkering at Falmouth and I got off there. I wasn’t planning to stay in Falmouth. But life – the life of Duncan Forrester – turned out otherwise.
There’s no need to tell you much about that life. It was – and should have remained – an unremarkable, inconspicuous existence, the kind millions of other people lead the length and breadth of the country.
I didn’t think about my past much. Inevitably, though, the passage of world events reminded me of the alternative course Slavsky and those who backed him had hoped to plot. German reunification, the eastward expansion of NATO and the EU, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the slow, triumphant rise of China. It’s all played out just as Hexter’s masters in Beijing intended. The future, we’re told, belongs to them. And maybe it does.
Probably I should never have got involved with Liz. But you can’t repress emotion along with identity. It has a habit of ambushing you. I kept as distant as I could from the problems Charlie’s fast-and-loose business activities caused her. But that wasn’t quite distant enough.
Even if it had been, fate twists and turns in ways you can never anticipate. Of all the things Joe could excel at, why did it have to be Go? Maybe I should have studied the game sooner myself. Then I’d have known the key to victory at Go is the acquisition of territory.
That’s why it’s never mattered to Hexter whether I was alive or dead. I was surrounded. Therefore I was neutralized. Whether I stayed on the board, isolated and impotent, was irrelevant.
Or so he thought. So I’d have thought too. But now the stones have been swept from the board. I can’t let him take Joe. What does he have in mind for him? How will he use him to serve his masters’ interests?
I have to step out of the shadows. I have to face him. Maybe I should have done that thirty years ago. But it seemed to me defeat was certain. And I still think it was.
So, I retreated. I lived to fight another day.
And now that day has come.
END GAME
Sunday October 13
I never would’ve guessed how draining living on your nerves is. I feel exhausted in a strung-out kind of way. And I’ve no idea – absolutely none – whether what we’re doing is our best shot in the circumstances, or won’t make any difference at all in the long run. If that’s the case, I’m running towards a wall. And I won’t know it’s there until I hit it.
Forrester isn’t really equipped to reassure me. It’s just not what he does. He’s taciturn and self-sufficient by nature. I can see it’s taken a lot out of him to tell me the story of how he ended up hiding from his past in Falmouth. Beyond that, he has plans and resources and he isn’t about to give up the struggle. And he happens to be my only ally in all of this.
‘Your old life is over,’ he’s said more than once, which, reluctantly and incredulously, I’ve forced myself to accept. But understanding that and living by it are two very different things. If there’s a target on my back, how do I get it off?
As we hurried away from Kolonn Drogh across the fields yesterday afternoon, I was already living by different rules: Forrester’s rules for survival. We hurried, but we didn’t take the most direct route. We stuck to the hedge-lines. We made ourselves as inconspicuous as possible. Once we reached his borrowed Land Rover – borrowed from whom I didn’t ask – he demanded I hand over my phone. It didn’t do me any good to explain it was a pay-as-you-go I’d only bought that day. I’d paid by credit card and that meant it was traceable. He pulled out the SIM card and stamped it into the ground before throwing the phone into the next field.
Forrester had a stock of phones he categorized as safe for emergency use. They shared a holdall with wads of £20 and £50 notes. This little hoard was what we’d be relying on in the days ahead. ‘Everything electronic is our enemy, do you understand?’ he said as we drove off along the lane. ‘Hexter will be looking for us. And he’ll be looking hard. We have to stay out of sight.’
‘Is that actually possible?’ I asked.
Forrester’s answer was a long time coming. ‘We’ll find out, won’t we?’
I guess we will. Unless I give in to temptation, go home and hand all my problems over to Venstrom to sort out. Except they wouldn’t sort them out. I can’t stop my mind dwelling on the sight that was waiting for me under the tarpaulin in the back of Vogler’s car. Carl and Vogler, dead, hollow-eyed, with bullet-holes in their heads: executed. And I can’t forget how easily and callously Roger planned to get rid of me, either. That would have been another execution. These are realities. The rest – going back to a normal life, putting all this behind me, starting afresh – is just a fantasy.
So, here we are, Forrester and I, planning some kind of counter-attack, though what kind exactly he hasn’t said. ‘We’ll head for London,’ he announced. ‘There’s an old colleague there I need to speak to.’
‘What can he tell you?’
‘Not sure until I’ve spoken to him.’
‘Can you trust him?’
‘I think so. But I haven’t seen him in thirty years. I don’t know for sure if he’s still with the Service. Or even alive.’
‘Great.’
‘No, it isn’t. But we have to do what we can with what we’ve got.’
What Forrester hoped to get was the tape of Hexter talking in Chinese on Norrback’s telephone in Helsinki in September 1989. For that he needed to speak to Norrback’s brother, though the same provisos applied to the Norrbacks as they did to his old colleague. They could all be dead. Which would leave us swinging in the wind.
Still, he worked in deliberate stages. His calmness wasn’t exactly infectious. But it made me feel he knew what he was doing. He related the events of thirty years ago as he drove, avoiding the trunk routes, working his way slowly east until, with night falling, we reached a pub advertising rooms on the fringes of Exmoor.
Cash up front, no questions asked. I was beginning to see how this worked. We shared a twin-bedded room. What the landlord made of our relationship I was too shattered even to wonder. We ate a meal in the bar, eyed by the locals. Forrester slipped out to make a call on one of his mobiles. To Finland.
When he came back, he said quietly, ‘We’re in luck. Alvar hasn’t moved and he and Tahvo are both still alive and kicking. Alvar will pass my message on.’
‘How long before Tahvo gets back to you?’
‘Up to him. Alvar gave nothing away. But Tahvo knows I wouldn’t have made contact unless it was important. He’ll respond by text giving me a number to call. For that, we wait.’
‘In places like this?’
He nodded. ‘In places like this.’
‘What if there’s no text? What if Tahvo reckons it’s safer after all these years to cut you adrift?’
‘You think too much about the wrong things, Nicole. You can’t control Norrback. Neither can I.’
‘What can we control?’
‘Ourselves. It’s vital you don’t panic or act on impulse. Marianne Vogler has your phone. So, any messages you’ve had on it she’ll have received. That means she knows who contacts you and how frequently. Well, maybe she’s not that interested now. But you have to tell your friends and relatives something that will stop them worrying about you. We don’t want them going to the police.’
He’s right. ‘I’ve already told my mother and sister my phone’s been stolen and I’m waiting for Venstrom to supply me with a new one, so I can’t give them a new number yet. I can text my closest friends and stall them the same way. I’ll explain I’ve borrowed the phone I’m using. Even so, Mum will start worrying if she doesn’t hear from me again soon.’
‘You just have to hold them off for the moment.’
‘And how long is the moment?’
‘I’m not sure. But every move we make has to be calculated.’
‘Then you
’d better tell me more about what those moves are going to be.’
‘Sorry. I can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I don’t know what they are yet.’
His answer didn’t help me sleep last night. Nor did the fact that he fell asleep himself in a matter of seconds, while I lay staring into the darkness, listening to his steady breathing and the burble of conversation from the bar below.
Speaking to Mum didn’t help either. I pictured her as we talked, sitting by the phone – I called her on the landline, as per Forrester’s instructions – in the living room of the house in Norwich where I grew up. But I couldn’t let myself think too much in case I broke down and cried. ‘Everything’s fine, Mum,’ I assured her. ‘Just hectic.’
Hectic. That’s certainly one word for it.
And now we’re on the move again, tracing a slow zigzag towards London through Somerset and Wiltshire as a dull, damp Sunday unfolds. Every hour, Forrester gets me to turn on the phone and check for a text from Norrback. Every hour, the answer’s the same. ‘Nothing.’
I ask him when and how he thinks Hexter was recruited by the Chinese, but he won’t say more than he’s already told me. He’s trained himself so well to keep secrets it’s hard to judge his mood. It doesn’t seem to vary from a phlegmatic norm. He doesn’t get angry or fretful. But then he doesn’t get cheerful or chatty either.
‘I could bear this a whole lot better if you gave a bit more, Duncan,’ I complain at one point. ‘I’m grateful for what you did for me at Kolonn Drogh. You saved my life. Don’t think I don’t appreciate that. But now I need to know why we’re doing what we’re doing.’
He doesn’t respond, just keeps his gaze fixed on the road ahead. And in the silence, something snaps in me. The grey, damp countryside. The unknowable future. The threat hanging over me that’ll go on hanging over me as long as— Tears suddenly fill my eyes.
Forrester doesn’t notice I’m crying until I pull out a tissue. He doesn’t say anything, but he pulls into a field gateway a little way ahead and turns the engine off and says, ‘I’m sorry.’
I blow my nose and try to sound normal. ‘What are you sorry about?’
‘I know you have no experience of anything like this to draw on, Nicole. And I know you’d like me to fast-track you back to your old life. But I can’t. So, I’m sorry. But it is what it is. We have a chance, you and I. Whether it’s a good chance or not is too soon to say.’
‘What are we going to do?’
‘We have to expose Hexter for what he is. There’s no other way to exonerate you and me or get Joe out of his clutches.’
‘What does Hexter want with Joe?’
‘Not sure exactly.’
‘But you think he’s following orders from China?’
‘Probably.’
‘So, what do they want with Joe?’
‘Nothing that’ll turn out well for him. That much is certain.’
‘And to stop Hexter, you need the tape?’
‘Yes.’
‘There’s nothing else you have on him?’
‘The man I’m hoping to see in London – Colin Bright – can answer that question. He never trusted Hexter. He’s ten years younger than me, so he’s probably still in the Service. Unless he’s changed his mind about Hexter, which I doubt, he’ll have been harbouring a lot of suspicions over the years. Maybe more than suspicions. He might – just might – have something we can use.’
‘But the tape would be a big help.’
‘It would. It will.’
‘You really think Norrback will text you?’
‘Yes. I do.’
‘I hope you’re right.’
‘Hexter’s going to offer Joe a deal. Participation in some SIS-controlled AI research project in return for getting the police off his back. He’s probably already made the offer. And Joe won’t have much option but to accept.’
‘Where will they take him?’
‘Not sure. I’m hoping Liz will give me some idea.’
‘Liz? How will she know?’
‘They’ll have to let Joe speak to her to reassure her he’s OK. Last I heard, she’s due to be sent home from the hospital tomorrow. They won’t want her pestering the police or going to the press. So, they’ll aim to smooth things over before then. If Joe tells her he’s happy to cooperate with them and will be in regular contact, I imagine she’ll agree to keep quiet. But the detail of what Joe tells her may give us a clue to their intentions for him.’
‘You’re going to phone her?’
‘Tomorrow. I can’t risk contacting her prematurely. Contacting her at all is a risk.’
‘She’s probably worried about you as well as Joe.’
‘She knows I’ll do everything I can for him. And she’s always known there’s a lot I haven’t told her about myself.’
‘You think that’ll stop her worrying?’
‘Probably not. But there’s nothing I can do about that. That goes for a lot of other things as well.’
‘You could try saying something ever so slightly reassuring.’
‘We’ll be in London tonight. Where do you live?’
‘I have an apartment near Tower Bridge.’
‘Well, you can’t go there. You understand that? It’ll be under surveillance.’
‘I understand.’
‘As for those friends you mentioned, Hexter will probably have them under surveillance as well by now. Certainly your mother and sister. So, no more contact or you’ll be reeled in and me with you. Pay for anything with plastic, swipe your Oyster card on a bus or linger in front of a CCTV camera, the same applies. Hexter will want to handle this quietly, so I don’t think he’ll have the police looking for us. But he can still bring a lot of search power to bear. Probably more than I know about. I’m not exactly up to date with the techniques. We’ll stop at a superstore later and buy you some blend-in-with-the-crowd clothing. Hoodie, baseball cap, jeans, that sort of thing. You have to look as anonymous as possible. Stock up with underwear as well. We won’t be loitering in launderettes. We won’t be loitering anywhere.’
‘Is any of this meant to be comforting?’
‘I thought if you knew what our strategy was going to be, you might feel less anxious.’
‘Just tell me it’ll work, Duncan.’
‘Nothing else will. I can guarantee that.’
He isn’t lying. He isn’t exaggerating. I see the truth in his gaze. His is the only way to go.
‘You can bail out if you want to. I won’t stop you. I can’t stop you.’
‘But surely you should stop me. Now I know about Norrback and Colin Bright.’
‘How would I do that?’
I ponder the question for several moments. He’s almost smiling at me.
‘I’ve never killed anyone, Nicole. And I don’t intend to start now.’
‘How many people has Hexter killed?’
‘Personally? Probably none. But if you mean how many deaths has he been responsible for …’
‘Say I do mean that.’
‘Slavsky and his team; those Chinese dissidents who never made it to Hong Kong because the military were tipped off about their escape route: they probably tot up to twenty. And that’s just the ones I know about. We’d better multiply the figure by ten to take account of the scope of his very long and very treacherous career. So …’
‘Two hundred?’
‘Adding you to the list won’t cause him a moment’s hesitation.’
‘Christ.’ This is the truth. This is what we’re up against, this old man and I.
‘Are you ready to go on?’
I nod and answer softly, ‘I’m ready.’
Which I’m not, really. But somehow … I’m going to have to be.
It’s dusk by the time we cross the M25, on a minor road near Addlestone. I’m wearing my new blend-in-with-the-crowd clothing. I feel like a slightly different person as a result.
Forrester finds a privately run car par
k in a yard behind some shops in Brixton to stow the Land Rover for cash. We set off from there on foot. There’s still been no message from Norrback.
We walk north through Lambeth, pausing to book ourselves a couple of rooms in the unlovely Consort Hotel near The Oval. The streets are damp, the traffic thin, the Consort is quiet, even if not at all cosy. It’s a slow Sunday night.
Our destination is an area of terraced houses east of Waterloo station. ‘I used to live round here,’ Forrester volunteers as we head along Whittlesey Street. ‘Colin and I were virtually neighbours. It was an easy walk to Century House. The Service has moved now, of course, to its palace beside the Thames at Vauxhall. But has Colin moved with it? That’s the question.’
He stops at the door of one of the houses and rings the bell. There’s a light in the downstairs front room and another light comes on in the hall. I think I can hear footsteps approaching. They’re not rapid.
The door opens. A tiny, bird-like woman who could be anything between seventy and ninety looks out at us. She has blue-rinsed hair and a beady gaze. She’s wearing what I think my grandmother would have called a housecoat.
Forrester smiles. Apparently, he recognizes her. ‘Mrs Lane. It’s good to see you.’ He sounds as if he means it. ‘Remember me?’
Mrs Lane peers at him for a moment. Recognition comes with a slight start and a hand to her cheek. ‘My lord. It’s Mr Travers.’ Not Forrester, of course. I should have known. He only became Forrester when he went on the run in 1989. ‘How long has it been?’
‘Thirty years or more. But you haven’t changed a bit.’
‘Then all I can say is I must have looked a lot older than I was when we last met.’ She looks at me. ‘Hello, dear.’ Then back at Forrester. ‘Is this your daughter?’
‘She’s a friend.’
‘Glad to hear that. Mr Bright said you didn’t use to have any friends.’
‘It’s Mr Bright we’re looking for, actually,’ I say, giving the old lady a big smile.
One False Move Page 17
