Our eyes lock in a tableau of male bravura, a standoff on a street corner. I have to deny this. I cannot betray the truth to him. I must, from somewhere, summon the energy to counterattack. Yet, I feel-as I have felt for so long now-completely worn down by him. Cohen has always second-guessed me. He has always been there, right from the beginning, hounding my every move. How did he know? What clue did I give him to allow his slight suspicion of me to develop into something altogether more serious? What was my mistake?
Again I say, “Go home, Harry. Get in your car and go home.”
But he says, “This is not going to go away.”
And now it is all I can do to stretch my panic into self-preservation. At least I can find out who else knows.
“Who the hell else have you been spreading these rumors to?”
To ask this is an innate piece of common sense that I am lucky to have struck on. His answer will prove crucial.
“As of this moment, nobody else knows.”
This is my only glimpse of hope, and I use it to turn on him, this time with more force.
“What do you mean, ‘nobody else knows’? There’s nothing to know.”
“We both know that’s a lie. Tonight has proved that.”
“Tonight has proved nothing.”
I turn in the direction of my front door.
“I’m on the Baku flight first thing tomorrow morning,” he says, barely raising his voice. “By the time I get back, I expect you to have spoken to David, to have given him your side of the story. I’m not a rat, Alec. I will not be the one to turn you in. I have always worked on the principle that I would give you the chance to give yourself up. But if you haven’t cleared things by the time I get home, I will see to it that you go down.”
He turns to leave, without waiting for a reply, heading back in the direction from which he came.
“This is all shit,” I call after him, struggling to conceal my desperation. He is already turning the corner onto Uxbridge Road when I say, “Wait. Harry.”
He stops, making to come back.
“I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” I tell him. “Call me from the airport when you’re more clearheaded.”
He does not reply.
“There are things you should know.”
He takes a step forward, intrigued.
“Meaning?”
I have to do this, have to tell him at least something of the truth.
“I know why it is that you have these suspicions. But believe me, things are not as they appear to be. You think you’re onto something, but the only person you’re going to end up hurting is yourself. In your mind it all adds up, but you have to try and see the bigger picture.”
He looks at me with contempt, and then is gone. I am left staring at a section of empty street with no clue as to how to proceed. I tried to make him privy to the complete truth of this. I was prepared to break the central binding law, but he withdrew from it.
A car goes past with the radio on, a song playing loudly that I do not recognize. I feel cold, hungry, and beaten. How quickly failure settles on me. Cohen has won. In this, as in all things, he has proved the better man.
29
This is what they told me, a long time ago.
Only make contact in the event of an emergency.
Only telephone if you believe that your position has been fatally compromised.
Under no circumstances are you to approach us unless it is absolutely necessary in order to preserve the security of the operation.
This is the number.
I ring from a telephone box outside the Shepherd’s Bush Theatre. With Hawkes out of contact, I have no other choice. The woman who answers says, “Two-seven-eight-five.”
“John Lithiby, please.”
“One moment.”
Lithiby picks up.
“Yes?”
“John. It’s Alec.”
“Yes?”
“We need to have a meeting.”
“I see.”
It sounds as if the breath has gone out of him. I never wanted to be a disappointment to them.
“Where are you?” he asks.
“Near my home.”
“Can you get to the restaurant for midday?”
“I’ve taken the morning off.”
“Good. I’ll send Sinclair to meet you. He will escort you to a place where we can speak freely.”
At the restaurant off Notting Hill Gate, downstairs out of sight of the street-facing window, I order a bottle of mineral water and wait for Lithiby’s stooge.
The only consolation in all this is that I am doing the right thing. It is better to act now, when I can take preventive measures against Cohen, than to let matters get beyond my control.
I never thought it would come to this. I never thought it would be necessary to tell the truth.
Sinclair is on time. He comes down the stairs at a fast clip wearing brown suede loafers and a corduroy suit. There is, as always, too much gel in his hair. He scans the room, sees me, but makes no discernible greeting. His height-six three-is immediately striking. It marks him out. He walks over to my table and I stand to greet him, to shake his firm hand. He looms four or five inches above me, looking down like a prefect. I hate the unearned psychological advantage of the tall, the payoff from an accident of birth.
“You’re lookin’ a bit ropy, Alec.”
His accent suggests a desire to shake off London vowels.
“I’m not too bad.”
We sit down. The waiter, new to the place, comes back with a bottle of Hildon and two menus in his other hand. He pours each of us a glass of water and begins reciting the specials in halting English.
Sinclair lets him get to the third dish before he says, “That’s all right, mate. We’re not staying.”
The waiter looks confused.
“It’s not that we don’t like it here. It’s just we have to be somewhere else.”
“I don’t understand,” he says, a Russian accent. “You don’t want eat?”
“That’s right,” I tell him. “I’ll leave money for the water. Just let me know how much it is.”
“What you like,” the waiter says with a shrug. He walks away from the table briskly, as if we have hurt his feelings.
“Just leave five pounds,” Sinclair tells me firmly. “No need to wait for the bill.”
I don’t like it when Sinclair tells me what to do. There’s only a five-year gap in age between us, but he likes playing the slick old hand, the unruffable pro. To irritate him, to make him look cheap, I take a ten-pound note from my wallet and wedge it between the pink tablecloth and a worn glass ashtray. Sinclair looks at it and then stands to
