On her return from China, with the help of an investigator borrowed from the City of London’s Economic Crime department, Eve attempted to chase down the lead Jin Qiang had given her: to identify who had made the bank transfer of £17 million, and who had been the beneficiary. The investigation failed to reveal the source of the funds, but led them via an intricate web of shell companies to the payee, a low-profile venture capitalist named Tony Kent.
Detailed investigation of Kent and his affairs revealed little, but one fact caught Eve’s interest: that Kent was a member of an exclusive fly-fishing syndicate that owned half a mile of the River Itchen in Hampshire. Information about the syndicate was not easy to come by, but Richard Edwards was able, after a few discreet enquiries, to furnish Eve with a membership list. This was not long; indeed, it contained only six names. Those of Tony Kent, two hedge-fund managers, a partner in a high-profile commodity trading firm, a senior cardio-thoracic surgeon, and Dennis Cradle. Eve knew exactly who Dennis Cradle was. He was the director of D4 Branch at MI5, responsible for counter-espionage against Russia and China.
Billy is crouched at the steel desk that used to be Simon’s, hacking into Dennis Cradle’s email account. The new computer hardware, now connected and running, gives off a faint hum. Lance is sitting on a plastic chair in front of the window, staring at the traffic on Tottenham Court Road. His contribution to the office decor has been a clothes rail, hung with coats and jackets that look like a job lot from a charity shop. In the teeth of all her principles, Eve has given him permission to smoke, as the pungent tang of his roll-ups masks other, worse odours.
“Did you have curry last night, Billy?” she asks, looking up from her laptop screen.
“Yeah, prawn Madras.” He shifts his buttocks in his chair. “How d’you know?”
“Call it an inspired guess. How are you getting on with that password?”
“Nearly there, I think.” His fingers dance over the keyboard as he stares at his screen. “Oh! You silly, silly man.”
“You in?” asks Lance.
“All the way. Dennis Cradle, you’re my bitch.”
“So what’ve we got?” Eve asks, a tiny flame of excitement flaring inside her.
“Cloud server data. Everything on his home computer, basically.”
“Doesn’t sound as if it’s very secure.”
Billy shrugs. “He probably thinks that because it’s domestic stuff, he doesn’t need heavy-duty authentication.”
“Or perhaps he doesn’t want to give the impression of having anything to hide. Perhaps this is what we’re supposed to see.”
Cradle shares an account with his wife, Penny, a corporate lawyer. Their emails are stored in orderly folders with names like Accounts, Cars, Health, Insurance and Schools. The inbox holds fewer than a hundred messages, which Billy copies and sends to Eve. A preliminary examination reveals little of interest.
“This is like a lifestyle advertisement,” says Eve, scrolling through the Cradles’ picture files. Almost all of the images are of family activity holidays. Skiing in Megève, tennis camp in Malaga, sailing on the Algarve. Cradle himself is a tanned, bullish figure of about fifty, who clearly enjoys being photographed in sports kit. His wife, prettyish and well groomed, is perhaps five years younger. Their children, Daniel and Bella, stare at the camera with the sulky entitlement of privately schooled teenagers.
“Twats,” says Billy.
“Have a look at their London place,” says Eve.
The street-view image shows a red-brick Georgian house, set back from the road. A pillared porch is half-obscured by a spreading magnolia. A burglar alarm is visible beside a ground-floor window.
“Where is it?” asks Lance.
“Muswell Hill. They’ve been there six years. Cost them one point three mill. Today, it’s got to be worth two, at least.”
“Surely Cradle’s not pretending to have paid for all this on his Service salary?”
“No. The wife’s the big earner.”
“Even so, they’ll have trouble explaining away seventeen fat ones.”
Eve shrugs. “I doubt they’ll have to. Assuming that Tony Kent is acting as some sort of financial intermediary for the organisation we’re targeting, I’d guess that money’s parked well out of sight of the Revenue.”
“So how do we know it’s going to Cradle?”
“We don’t, for certain. But Jin Qiang wouldn’t have directed me to Kent if he didn’t know I’d make the connection with Cradle. I’d asked specific questions about the possibility that members of the UK Intelligence Services were receiving large-scale payments from any unknown source. This was Jin’s answer. I think it was as far as he thought he could go.”
“So,” says Lance, “are we going to turn Cradle’s place over?”
Eve polishes her glasses. “I’d like to, but it’ll be well secured. He’s a senior MI5 officer. The shit would really fly if we were caught.”
“I’m assuming we’re not going the search warrant route?”
“No. We’d never get one, even if we said why we needed one. Which we can’t.”
“Just asking.” Lance leans in towards the screen. “That’s a dummy alarm over the first-floor window, so they’ve probably got a conventional system inside. Infra-red, pressure pads…”
“You think it’s doable?” Eve asks him.
He flicks his lighter beneath his half-smoked roll-up. “Everything’s doable. It’s a question of opportunity. Can you get the bloke’s diary up, Billy?”
“I’ve got Penny’s. He doesn’t seem to have one.”
“I need a guaranteed two-hour window. What can they offer us?”
“How about this?” says Billy. “Dinner with A & L, Mazeppa 8.00.”
Eve frowns. “But that’s tonight.”
“I can do tonight.” Lance shrugs. “I’ll cancel my date with Gigi Hadid.”
“Too soon. We need to do a proper recce. We can’t just go charging in there. What else have they got coming up?”
“Don’t know about Dennis,” says Billy. “But Penny’s not got anything else booked this week.”
“Fuck.” Eve searches for Mazeppa on her phone. It’s a Michelin-starred restaurant in Dover Street, Mayfair. She looks uncertainly at Lance.
“I could check the house out this afternoon,” he offers. “Park up and sit tight. Soon as they leave this evening, in we go.”
Eve nods. It’s far from
