The Daniel Marchant Spy Trilogy: Dead Spy Running, Games Traitors Play, Dirty Little Secret. Jon Stock

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СКАЧАТЬ she must have visited his flat after the race and planted it there. ‘Just tell me one thing,’ he said. ‘Why didn’t he blow the bomber sky high, taking the Ambassador and every fucking fun runner in London with him?’

      Chadwick winced at the words. He had hoped Fielding would go quietly when he was presented with their evidence. ‘Clearly he had a change of heart.’

      ‘I’ll say. He saved the Ambassador’s life.’

      ‘I gather from David that you were working on the assumption it was a set-up by the Americans,’ Armstrong said, glancing at Chadwick.

      ‘Not unreasonably, given that Leila’s on their payroll.’

      ‘Daniel was within the press of a button of murdering Turner Munroe. Do you really think the Americans would have risked that?’

      Fielding said nothing. He almost felt sorry for Armstrong, with her misplaced admiration for Spiro, for America. It was the FBI’s fault. On a recent visit to New York they had presented her with a jacket and a baseball cap, both emblazoned with the letters ‘FBI’. She had even posed for photos in them. For a buttoned-up Whitehall mandarin, the culture shock had been exhilarating.

      ‘Marcus, I’m afraid it doesn’t look good for Daniel,’ Chadwick said. ‘I’ve already alerted the PM’s office. We’re going to need the cooperation of the Americans on this one. An MI6 officer nearly killing one of their most distinguished ambassadors isn’t great for the special relationship.’

      ‘Except that he didn’t kill him.’ It was almost an aside. Fielding had said it too often to care any more. He stood up and walked around the room, avoiding eye contact with Chadwick and Armstrong. His lower back was starting to ache. He had had enough of this game.

      ‘We all know the Americans have made no secret of their concerns about MI6,’ Chadwick said. ‘But we can’t pin this one on them, Marcus. They’ve been over it with Leila many times. She came off the course to alert MI5 as soon as she became aware of the bomber. She didn’t know if Marchant was involved, but she couldn’t take the risk, particularly in the light of her brief from the Americans.’

      ‘We don’t know why he had a change of heart out there,’ Armstrong said, ‘but perhaps it was Leila’s presence by his side, in which case we should all be grateful that the Americans had the sense to keep such a close eye on him.’

      ‘Are you suggesting that Leila talked him out of it?’ Fielding asked. He was at the window now, his back to Armstrong and Chadwick, wishing he was at Tate Britain across the river, before the crowds arrived. The night manager would often open up the gallery for him, let him walk the Pre-Raphaelite rooms on his own in the dawn light.

      ‘Not directly, no,’ Armstrong said. ‘She had no idea what he was planning. But by being there, we think she had an effect on him, yes.’

      ‘And she was running by his side because the Americans had turned her, not because of any genuine feelings she might have had for him, feelings that had been no secret to anyone at MI6 since their time together at the Fort?’

      ‘You still have a very romantic view of Marchant, don’t you?’ Armstrong said, annoyed that she was addressing Fielding’s back. ‘Son of a distinguished Chief, best case officer of his generation, heroically saves the American Ambassador to London from a suicide bomber. How about son of a traitor, picked up where his father left off, gets within an inch of causing carnage in the capital.’

      Fielding turned to face them, his tall figure silhouetted against the windows. ‘My point is that we must be grateful they were lovers.’ He paused. ‘But I’m afraid we’ve all got it the wrong way round. It wasn’t Daniel’s love for Leila that stopped the bomb being detonated, it was Leila’s love for Daniel. She was the one who had a change of heart.’

      ‘We’ve been through this before, Marcus. It wasn’t a set-up.’

      ‘I know. Because Leila wasn’t working for the Americans.’ He walked around to his seat, picked up the pile of transcripts and files and dropped them onto the table between Chadwick and Armstrong. ‘She was working for the Iranians.’

      39

      Marchant listened to the rustle of the necklaces slung loosely around the cows’ necks, made from seashells threaded with coarse coir twine. A small herd had gathered in front of the Namaste Café, meandering slowly towards a promontory of rocks that stretched out from the sand into the Arabian Sea. The café was in the middle of the beach, near the centre of the Om symbol. Marchant had seen the beach’s auspicious shape from the top of the cliffs at the far end, where the rickshaw driver had dropped him.

      Now he was watching the sun set, with a Kingfisher beer in one hand, a chillum in the other, thinking he could settle here for a year. His plastic chair was listing badly, its legs sinking slowly into the soft sand, forcing him to cock his head to level the distant horizon. Two human figures stood motionless on the far rocks, looking out to sea, their yogic poses silhouetted against the vermilion-streaked sky. Further down the beach, a group of fishermen squatted around a wooden canoe, mending their nets. Monika would have enjoyed the scene, in real life as well as her cover one. Leila, he thought, would have told all the Westerners to go back home and find proper jobs.

      He was beginning to accept now that Leila must have helped the Americans, unwittingly said something that made them think he was trying to kill Munroe at the marathon rather than save him. They had distrusted his father, and they suspected the son too. But had Leila really not known what she was doing? He hoped Salim Dhar would have the answer.

      Other stoned travellers were sharing the view, chilled out in seats scattered around the café, chatting quietly. Marchant had two of them down as being from Sweden, two from Israel and one from South Africa. The Israeli couple, he guessed, had recently completed their national service (three years for men, twenty-one months for women). Behind the café was a small row of cubicles, each with a two-inch thick mattress on its sandy floor. Marchant had rented one of them for fifty rupees, and later paid an extra thirty for a mosquito net, when the biting started.

      ‘It used to be more shanti here,’ said Shankar, the bar owner, bringing Marchant another beer. He hadn’t asked him yet about Salim. The Israeli couple were arousing his suspicion: the occasional look in his direction, the bulge of a mobile phone in the pocket of the man’s shorts. ‘Now there are too many Indian tourists. They come to watch the hippies at weekends. Soon it will be like Goa.’

      ‘The beer’s good,’ Marchant said, reading from the label, which hadn’t changed since his backpacking days. ‘“Most thrilling chilled.” Is it difficult getting a licence?’

      ‘I give the policeman 4,000 rupees, they let me sell beer. Which place you from?’

      ‘Ireland.’

      ‘I tried it once. The Guinness beer.’

      ‘And?’

      Shankar shook his head from side to side in appreciation, but Marchant could see that he was distracted. He was looking down to the far end of the beach, at least three hundred yards away, where there was another, bigger café. Some sort of commotion had caught his eye. Marchant turned around to see.

      ‘Baksheesh problem,’ Shankar said. Marchant stared hard into the dying sun, shielding his eyes. He couldn’t see anything unusual.

      ‘He didn’t pay up?’

      ‘Maybe. СКАЧАТЬ