The Man Between: The gripping new spy thriller you need to read in 2018. Charles Cumming

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      Carradine’s apprehensiveness in the build-up to the meeting with Mantis had been completely erased by what had happened on Sussex Gardens. Arriving at the address on Lisson Grove, he felt numb and dazed. Mantis buzzed him inside without speaking on the intercom. Carradine walked up six flights of stairs to the third floor, slightly out of breath and sweating from the climb. The landing carpet was stained. There was a faux Dutch oil painting on the wall.

      ‘Kit. Good to see you. Do come in.’ Mantis was standing back from the door, as though wary of being spotted by neighbours. ‘Thank you so much for coming.’

      Carradine was led into a sparsely furnished sitting room. He laid his jacket on the back of a brand-new cream leather sofa wrapped in clear plastic. Sunlight was streaming through the windows. The sight of the plastic made him feel constricted and hot.

      ‘Are you moving in?’ he asked. The flat smelled of old milk and toilet cleaner. There was no indication that Mantis had prepared any food.

      ‘It’s not my place,’ he replied, closing a connecting door into the hall.

      ‘Ah.’

      So what was it? A safe house? If so, why had Mantis arranged to meet on Service territory? Carradine had assumed they were just going to have a friendly lunch. He looked around. Two mobile phones were charging on the floor by the window. There was a vase of plastic flowers on a table in the centre of the room. Two self-assembly stools were positioned in front of a breakfast bar linking the sitting room to a small kitchen. Carradine could see a jar of instant coffee, a box of teabags and a kettle near the sink. The kitchen was otherwise spotlessly clean.

      ‘Did you hear about Lisa Redmond?’ Mantis asked.

      Carradine hesitated.

      ‘No,’ he said, feigning surprise. ‘What’s happened?’

      ‘Grabbed by Resurrection.’ Mantis opened a double-glazed window on to a small parking area at the rear of the building. Cool air poured into the room. ‘Thrown in the back of a Transit van and driven off – in broad bloody daylight.’

      ‘Christ,’ said Carradine.

      He was not a natural liar. In fact, he could not remember the last time he had deliberately concealed the truth in such a way. It occurred to him that it was a bad idea to do so in front of a man who was professionally trained in the darker arts of obfuscation and deceit. Mantis gestured outside in the direction of Edgware Road.

      ‘A mile away,’ he said. ‘Less! Three men kicked the living shit out of her poor husband, who’s apparently some kind of hotshot TV producer. One of them had a pop at a have-a-go-hero who tried to save the day. It’s all over the news.’

      ‘What do you think will happen to her?’ Carradine asked, though he knew the answer to his own question.

      ‘Curtains,’ said Mantis. ‘Another Aldo Moro job.’

      Moro, the Italian Prime Minister kidnapped by the Red Brigades in 1978, had been murdered in captivity, his body discovered in the back of a Renault two months later. Carradine wondered why Mantis had made such an obscure historical connection but conceded his point with a nod.

      ‘I’m surprised she didn’t have any security,’ he said. ‘People kept saying she was a target. In America, employees in the White House, staff at Fox News, prominent Republican officials, they’ve all been carrying guns for months.’

      ‘Quite right too,’ said Mantis with an impatience that reminded Carradine of the way his temper had flared on Bayswater Road. ‘People have a right to defend themselves. You never know who’s going to come out of the woodwork and take a pop at you.’

      Carradine looked at the sofa. Mantis understood that he wanted to sit down and invited him to do so ‘on the plastic cover’. He asked Carradine to switch off his mobile phone. He was not particularly surprised by the request and did as he had been asked.

      ‘Now if you wouldn’t mind passing it to me.’

      Carradine handed over the phone. He was delighted to see Mantis place it inside a cocktail shaker that he had removed from one of the cupboards in the kitchen. He had used an identical piece of tradecraft in his most recent novel, stealing the idea from an article about Edward Snowden.

      ‘A Faraday cage,’ he said, smiling.

      ‘If you say so.’ Mantis opened the door of the fridge and put the cocktail shaker inside it. The fridge was completely empty. ‘And if you could just sign this.’ He crossed the room and passed Carradine a pen and a piece of paper. ‘We insist on the Official Secrets Act.’

      Carradine’s heart skipped. Without pausing to read the document in any detail, he rested the piece of paper on the table and signed his name at the bottom. It occurred to him that his father must have done exactly the same thing some fifty years earlier.

      ‘Thank you. You might want to take a look at this.’

      Mantis was holding what appeared to be a driving licence. Carradine took it and turned it over. Mantis’s photograph and personal details, as well as a Foreign Office logo and a sample of his signature, were laminated against a pale grey background.

      ‘This wouldn’t be enough to get you into Vauxhall Cross,’ he said. It was necessary to demonstrate to Mantis that he did not fully trust him. ‘Do you have any other forms of ID?’

      As though he had been expecting Carradine’s question, Mantis dipped into the pocket of his trousers and pulled out a moulded plastic security pass.

      ‘Access all areas,’ he said. Carradine СКАЧАТЬ