‘And there was no truth in what happened?’
She held his gaze as she put an olive to her full lips. Then she turned away.
‘I lost my brother last month. He was with the Agencja Wywiadu, too. A more senior officer than me, always more professional. I tried to do a good job, make sure you had your freedom.’
‘And you did.’
‘I enjoyed being with you,’ she said, keen to change the subject. ‘You were very gentle.’
Marchant recalled the brief time they had spent together, making love, smoking joints, each playing out their legends: he the tie-dyed gap-year student, she the hippy hostel receptionist. He had thought about her often since then, her confident sexuality worn so close to her skin.
‘But not as gentle as Hugo.’
She laughed, throaty and heartfelt, then lit a cigarette.
‘You’re not jealous, are you, Mr Englishman?’
Marchant looked away.
‘You are.’ She laughed again and prodded him in the ribs. ‘Daniel.’
It wasn’t what he had expected. For a moment, he wondered if he really was jealous. He had been with Monika for twenty-four hours in Poland, most of it spent in bed. But he knew it was something else — suspicion rather than jealousy — that made him keep probing.
‘Of course I’m not jealous.’
Her smile faded. ‘Hugo’s been a good friend. Lifted my gloom.’
Marchant felt a pang of guilt. Prentice had helped him through difficult times, too, particularly when his father had died. He could be a generous colleague, a man who lived life for the moment and wanted others to share in his luck.
‘I’m sorry about your brother.’ Marchant sensed that Monika wanted to return to the subject, talk about him some more.
‘He was shot by the SVR. Four of our agents have been killed in the past year. Another one was murdered last week.’
‘All by the Russians?’
‘We think so. Someone’s betraying them. An entire network’s been taken down. The WA’s in turmoil, searching for a mole.’
‘Is that why you’re here in London?’
She paused. ‘No. Hugo wanted to show me off to his friends.’
‘I lost a brother once. He was called Sebastian. Sebbie. We were twins. He died when I was eight.’
‘I’m sorry.’ She rested a hand on Marchant’s forearm. ‘I had no idea.’
‘He died in a car crash. His turn to sit in the front seat. We were living in Delhi at the time.’
‘You must miss him. They say the bond of a twin is unbreakable.’
‘Every day. I wish I could say it gets easier with time, but it doesn’t. I’m sorry.’
They sat in silence for a while, her hand resting on his. For once there were no legends, no cover stories. Their grief was real, their own.
‘I must go,’ Monika said eventually, ‘otherwise another Englishman will be getting jealous.’
She stood up from the table, gave Marchant a light kiss on the lips and was gone.
44
Prentice and Marchant were standing well back from the first-floor window of the Georgian townhouse, but they could see people walking up and down Savile Row beneath them in the summer-evening sun. Marchant hadn’t been aware that the tailor’s had a connection with the intelligence services, but it was an old arrangement brokered by Prentice, which made sense. He never bought his suits from anywhere else.
‘The gallery will be crawling with SVR,’ Prentice said. ‘Armstrong’s fixers tried to get a wire in there last night, but security’s been like a convent’s dormitory for the past three days.’
‘So I’ll be on my own,’ Marchant said.
‘I’ll be wired, but it’s too risky for you,’ Prentice replied, glancing behind him. Two technicians with headphones were sitting at a table, fine-tuning a bank of audio units. ‘The whole area will be flooded with jammers, but we must expect them to be able to communicate with each other. And to hear us, despite the best efforts of Five,’ Prentice added, glancing again at the technicians. ‘Primakov has been given the codename “Bacchus”.’
Two minutes later, Marchant was turning into Cork Street. It was easy to see which gallery was hosting the opening. People were spilling onto the pavement outside the Redfern, glasses of wine in one hand, catalogues in the other. He checked the street — Harriet Armstrong had provided a team of watchers at Fielding’s request — and recognised an agent sitting at the wheel of a black cab with its light off, thirty yards down the road. He wasn’t reassured. The Russians would not make contact if they saw he had company.
Inside the gallery, Marchant nudged through the crowds, declining a glass of wine. A tray of sushi canapés looked more tempting, but there was always a risk with the Russians that it might come with a side order of polonium-210. He headed downstairs, where there were fewer people. He was familiar with the gallery’s layout, having studied the floor plans, but something told him that the artist would be lurking in the basement, and he wanted to see him. Sure enough, he was holding court with a couple of younger men, both of whom had notepads. Marchant assumed they were journalists, and tucked in behind them to hear what was being said.
The artist must have been in his seventies, short with a full but close-cropped head of dyed-black hair that had been wetted down in jagged edges. He was wearing a bright pink open-necked shirt and socks with sandals. His face was angular, chiselled like a rough-hewn bust, and he had a fidgety, eccentric manner, massaging the top of his head with both hands as he explained his art.
‘This is one of my favourites,’ he said in a thick Russian accent, gesturing towards an abstract nude, all spatchcocked limbs and vibrant colours. His hands moved back up to his head. ‘Lots of cunt.’
Both journalists visibly flinched. Marchant glanced at the painting, the patch of cross-scratched charcoal. Even he was startled by the word, still hanging awkwardly in the air. Then everyone remembered that artists were meant to shock and the mood settled, more questions were asked. Besides, he was from South Ossetia, and might not even know what he had just said. Marchant doubted it. The old man’s moist eyes were dancing.
Upstairs, Marchant looked at some paintings (more nudes, more scratching), making his way around in reverse order towards number 14. He recognised the nude model as Nadia and felt a flicker of unease, particularly as the naked figure next to her bore a striking resemblance to himself. He glanced around instinctively, wondering for a moment if someone might recognise him. The Russians sometimes had a warped sense of humour.
A half-sticker had been stuck next to the price, indicating that the picture had been reserved — and that his meeting with Primakov was still on. But he hadn’t spotted anyone at the opening who matched the latest photos Fielding had shown him of the Russian. He looked around the crowded room again, and then he saw Valentin through the main window, smoking on the pavement outside.
Hidden by the surging crowds on the tube platform, Marchant had pulled Valentin back a moment after pushing him towards the oncoming train. He hadn’t caught the Russian’s curse, but he saw his blood-drained face as he turned around.
‘So sorry,’ Marchant had said. ‘Everyone was pushing from behind.’
To his credit, Valentin had maintained his composure. ‘In that case, I must thank you for saving my life.’ There was no acknowledgement that they had met before, just the same shiftiness in the Russian’s small blue eyes.
‘London’s a dangerous city,’ Marchant had said as the train doors opened. ‘I’ll catch the next one. Less crowded.’
Valentin squeezed into the crowded carriage, and Marchant waved to him as the train pulled out, the Russian’s pale face pressed close to the glass. A warning had been served. Next time, Marchant would push him under.
Valentin still seemed anxious now, glancing up and down Cork Street in expectation. Marchant wondered
