father’s judgement, his own, Fielding’s. Maybe the Americans had been right to suspect the house of Marchant. Then he recalled the Vicar’s words.
‘So why do you want to see me?’ Marchant asked. ‘I don’t really have the time or the desire to sit around discussing old times.’
‘You share a family look, and the same taste in whisky.’ Primakov took a sip from his glass, ignoring Marchant’s insolence. ‘Your father liked Bruichladdich, too. I ordered it in specially. It takes me back, just sitting here across the table from you. We shared many happinesses together, your father and me. They were good times.’
‘Different times. The world’s moved on.’
‘Has it?’ Primakov paused, raising a silver lighter to his cigarette.
Marchant wondered if his father might have been friends with the cultured Russian even if there hadn’t been an ulterior motive. In Delhi, they had both enjoyed going to the theatre, visiting galleries, attending concerts, which had made meetings easier. And Primakov had an undoubted warmth about him: a camaraderie that drew people in with the promise of stories and wine, the stamina to see in the dawn.
‘When we were both first posted to Delhi, we used to argue late into the night over local whisky — Bagpiper in those days — about the Great Game, what our countries were doing there. Your father was an admirer of William Moorcroft, an early-nineteenth-century East India Company official who was convinced Russia had designs on British India.’
Marchant knew the name well. ‘He wanted to publish a book about Moorcroft,’ he said. ‘It was going to be his retirement project. Unfortunately, he found himself retired earlier than expected, and wasn’t ready to write it.’
‘No.’ Primakov paused, lost in thought. ‘Moorcroft was also dismissed earlier than he intended. He took it badly, felt betrayed by his own country, just like your father, but he continued on his great quest to buy horses in Bokhara. Turkomans. He was a vet by training. He tried to reach Bokhara through Chinese Turkestan, but was held up in Ladakh, where he discovered he had a rival.’
‘A Russian?’
‘Persian-Jewish, a trader called Aga Mehdi. But he impressed our Tsar so much with his shawls that he was given an honorary Russian name, Mehkti Rafailov, and was sent to talk with Ranjit Singh, ruler of the Punjab kingdom, on behalf of Russia.’
‘So Moorcroft was right.’
‘Rafailov’s orders were to open up trade routes, nothing more.’
‘Of course.’
‘What intrigued your father was the relationship between Moorcroft and Rafailov, who was due to arrive in Ladakh while Moorcroft was there. The British spy was keen to meet his Russian enemy, but Rafailov died in the Karakoram pass before he reached Ladakh.’
‘So they never met.’
‘No, but Moorcroft made sure that Rafailov’s orphaned son was provided for and educated. He was an honourable man, respected his adversaries.’
‘Maybe that’s why my father wanted to write about him. He respected you.’
‘And he had a son whom I promised to look after.’ Primakov hesitated, but not long enough for Marchant to decide if he meant him or Salim Dhar. ‘I’m sure there would have been a market for the book,’ he continued. ‘Maybe you should write it?’
‘I don’t think you came here tonight to offer me a publishing deal.’
Primakov sat back, looked around and finished his whisky. ‘We are free to talk in here. The room was swept before we arrived. So tell me. How much did the Vicar explain to you? About your father?’
‘Nothing,’ Fielding said, removing his headphones. The live feed had deteriorated until he could hear little more than white noise. He had heard enough, though. Marchant was being swept out of his depth.
‘The entire area’s been jammed,’ Armstrong said, putting one hand over her mobile. ‘Our best people are on it.’
That was what worried Fielding, but he didn’t say anything. He wished MI6 was running the show, but London was Armstrong’s patch and he needed her support, particularly as his own man, Prentice, had uncharacteristically messed up.
‘What about your officer in the restaurant?’ he asked.
‘Shown the door after his starter.’
Fielding turned away and looked out onto the river, glowing in the evening sun. The encrypted feed from the restaurant was being relayed to his office and to no one else, given the extreme sensitivity of Primakov’s case. Armstrong was one of the few who knew that Primakov had once been a British asset, and Fielding trusted her. It was Marchant who was starting to worry him.
46
Marchant glanced at Primakov, trying to read his face for more. His nose was big, slightly hooked. It was a strange question to ask.
‘He told me that there were doubts about my father’s loyalty to the West. Fielding didn’t personally believe them, but he said the Americans had harboured suspicions about my father for many years. But that was the nature of his job, the risk he took — when he agreed to run you.’
‘Run me?’ Primakov managed a dry, falsetto laugh, shifting in his seat as it dissolved into a wheezy cough. Somewhere in Moscow Centre, Marchant thought, an audio analyst would be adjusting his headphones, calling over a superior. Had he overplayed it?
‘Fielding showed me some of the intelligence you supplied to him,’ Marchant continued.
‘It is true, we gave your father some product once in a while, to keep his superiors happy, but it was nothing important.’
‘Chickenfeed?’
‘Organic. Nice writing on the label, but overpriced.’
Primakov paused, as if to reassess the rules of their engagement. Marchant wondered again in the ensuing silence if he had said too much. Then the Russian leaned forward, his voice suddenly quieter, like a doctor with news of cancer. Marchant smelt the garlic again as he traced a delta of broken blood vessels across Primakov’s cheeks.
‘It was the least we could do, given the nature of the product your father was supplying us.’ Primakov drew on his cigarette and sat back, watching Marchant, his barrel of a body turned sideways as he blew the smoke away into the middle of the room. ‘I think you already knew, deep down.’
Now it was Marchant’s turn to shift in his seat. Primakov’s words weren’t a surprise, but they still shocked him. Up until this moment, he had tried to convince himself that the knowledge of his father’s betrayal of America could be kept inside Fielding’s safe, confined to an A4 piece of paper covered with green ink. Hearing a third party confirm it brought it out into the open, made it tangible.
‘You seem troubled,’ Primakov said. ‘Hurt, perhaps.’ His voice was even softer now, almost tender in tone. ‘Please understand why he never told you himself. It was not because he didn’t trust you. He wanted you to come to it yourself, to reach your own, similar conclusions. And I don’t think you are so far from the place that your father occupied.’
‘No.’ It was time to give Primakov some encouragement, to tire on the line, but Marchant was struggling to sound convincing. Too many thoughts were chasing through his mind. What if his father had been happy to give more than he received?
