Joanne was alive, he could not expect anything from her. But that did not prevent the tinge of jealousy he always felt when he saw another man’s attraction to her.
The two men stood up. ‘Elizabeth,’ said Fane warmly, shaking her hand. ‘You’re looking well.’
Charles was aware that Liz hated to be called Elizabeth and he suspected that Fane knew it too. He waited to see how she would react. Fane, with his sophistication and his style, was an attractive man; he was also divorced. But Charles knew he was ruthless in pursuit of operational success and probably in his pursuit of women too. Liz and Fane had worked closely together in his absence on a case without a happy outcome for either. Charles, coming in at the end, had seen how it had shattered the confidence of both of them and in doing so had drawn them together. He hoped that Liz would be careful. Fane was not the man for her.
‘Thank you, Geoffrey,’ Liz said frostily as Charles waved her to the second chair in front of his desk.
‘Liz, I thought you should hear what Geoffrey’s just been telling me. It strikes me as rather important.’
Liz looked levelly at Fane, her eyes narrowing slightly with concentration.
Fane said, ‘We’ve had an intriguing report from Cyprus. Our head of station there is Peter Templeton – he’s been in the Middle East for years, so I don’t think you’ll have met him.’ She shook her head. ‘He’s been running a very sensitively placed source for some time. It’s someone who’s given us excellent intelligence in the past.’
Fane paused again, hesitant, and Charles could see that not all of his old arrogance had returned; once, he would have known exactly what he would or wouldn’t say.
Settling himself in his chair, Fane went on. ‘This source has high-level access. The day before yesterday he called an urgent meeting with Templeton. What he had to say was rather concerning.’
And Fane related in economical fashion what Templeton had learned from his source – that two people in the UK were working to blacken the name of Syria and so to destroy trust and wreck the peace conference. And that Syrian intelligence was going to move against them.
‘And that,’ said Fane, ending his account with a dramatic flourish of one cuffed wrist, ‘is the reason I came to see you.’
No one spoke for a moment. Then Liz asked, ‘Is this the threat Sir Nicholas Pomfret was talking about at the Cabinet Office?’
Fane nodded. ‘Yes. Bruno told me Pomfret had addressed you all.’ He smiled knowingly.
Charles was tapping his pencil on his notepad. He looked thoughtfully at Liz, who said, ‘If it’s a matter of protecting two people, that sounds like a job for the police, not us.’
‘This is delicate source material, Elizabeth. It can’t possibly be handed to the police,’ replied Fane. ‘Anyway, I’m not sure whom we should be protecting.’
‘You said these two lives are at risk,’ she responded.
He ignored the implication. ‘This is about the future of the Middle East. If there is some sort of plot to disrupt the conference, and the Syrians snuff it out, who are we to complain?’
Typical of Fane, thought Charles, and seeing Liz’s hackles rising he spoke quickly to pre-empt her response.
‘Did this source have any sense of what these two are planning to do? Are they working together? Who is controlling them? And above all, how did the Syrians find out about this plot?’
‘I’ve told you everything we know, Charles, and I’ve given you the names.’ Charles pushed a paper across his desk to Liz, while Fane leaned back in his chair. Fane said, ‘It’s over to you now.’ And as if the ensuing silence confirmed that the ball had been placed in MI5’s court, a smile bordering on the smug settled on Fane’s lips.
Charles ignored him and started tapping his pencil again, his eyes drifting over to the window and its view of the Thames. ‘It could just be an old-fashioned set- up. God knows, we’ve seen them before, especially from the Middle East.’
Liz spoke up. ‘But what would the point be, Charles? I mean, other than sending us on a wild-goose chase, why would anyone want to plant disinformation of this sort?’ Unusually, Charles noted, she was arguing on Fane’s side.
Fane snapped, ‘They wouldn’t.’
‘Possibly,’ Charles said. ‘But whoever told them may have had their own motives – or some reason we can’t imagine at present.’
‘In my experience, Charles, fathoming motives in the Middle East is the equivalent of building sandcastles.’ Fane was emphatic. ‘You can erect the most impressive structure, and then one big wave can wash it all away.’
Charles suppressed a sharp reply and Liz broke in. ‘These two names,’ she said, looking at the paper, ‘do we know anything about them?’
‘Not a lot,’ said Fane.
‘Sami Veshara – well, I think we can say he’s not Anglo-Saxon.’
‘Lebanese perhaps,’ said Charles. He added drily, ‘Curiouser and curiouser.’
Fane shrugged again. He’s being purposely irritating, thought Charles.
Liz went on, ‘And Chris Marcham. That has a familiar ring to it – or is it just because it sounds English?’
Suddenly Fane looked slightly flustered. ‘Actually, that’s a name we do know something about. He’s a journalist, specialises in the Middle East. Freelance now; used to be on the staff of the
‘Why’s that?’ asked Liz.
‘He made his name reporting first-hand on the Falangist massacres in the South Lebanese refugee camps. For a moment, the world was his oyster. He’s extraordinarily knowledgeable about the Palestinians, and one of the few Western journalists all their factions seem to trust. He could have become another Robert Fisk, but something seemed to hold him back. He doesn’t write that much nowadays.’
‘Personal issues?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Fane. ‘He’s a loner – no wife that we know of. He travels a lot – must be out there at least half the year.’
‘We should be able to find him easily enough.’
‘Yes, I’d suggest you start with him.’
‘Start?’
Charles caught Liz’s outraged gaze. But he had already made up his mind. ‘Geoffrey and I have agreed this story needs looking into, if only to establish there’s nothing to it. I want you to do the looking.’ He shrugged and knew that when she calmed down Liz would realise that he had no choice. To be told that people, operating in the UK to disrupt a peace conference, were also targets for assassination required some response – even if, as he suspected, it all proved to be absolute balls.
Fane’s smug expression made it obvious that whether he was passing along a ticking bomb or a damp squib, he was in the clear now.
‘When do you want me to begin on this?’ asked Liz, knowing the answer.
‘Right away,’ Charles told her and added what he hoped would be a consolation. ‘Have Peggy Kinsolving help you.’
Liz suppressed a laugh. She knew Fane had been irked when Peggy had switched allegiances from MI6 to Thames House.
But Fane seemed unfazed. ‘Good idea,’ he declared. ‘She’s a clever girl.’ He stood up. ‘In the meantime, I’ll ask Templeton to try and get more out of this source of ours.’ He grinned at Liz. ‘It will be good to work with you again, Elizabeth.’
‘It’s Liz,’ she said curtly.
‘Of course it is.’ Fane was still smiling. ‘How could I forget?’
Honours even, I think, said Charles to himself as Fane left the room.
SIX
‘This is really good!’ Peggy exclaimed, and Liz had to suppress a smile. Only Peggy could be delighted by a cheese sandwich bought from a deli on Horseferry Road.
