43
Kite and Martha went to separate rooms. Martha was worried that they would sleep late and Jacqui or Rosamund might find them in bed together in the morning. Kite set the alarm and had the drunken idea of putting the clock under his pillow so that it would be inaudible to anyone in the house when it went off. As things turned out, he woke naturally just before nine and switched it off. Groggy and dazed, he went into the bathroom, splashed cold water onto his face and brushed his teeth, remembering how much he had smelled of booze and tobacco on his first visit to the safe house. The door of Abbas’s bedroom was open and there was no sign of him. The rest of the house was silent. Kite changed into his running gear, put the piece of paper on which he had written Bijan’s phone number in the back pocket of his shorts and walked downstairs.
Rosamund was dressed and drinking tea in the kitchen.
‘Another run?’ she said, feigning astonishment. ‘Is there no stopping you, Lockie? I thought I heard someone going out a moment ago. Must have been Abbas.’
Kite told her he would be back within the hour, stretched under the lime tree and jogged down the drive. Abbas was indeed sitting in the Audi in his regular parking spot. He wound down the window when he saw Kite.
‘You missed your friend,’ he said.
For an awful moment Kite thought he meant Billy Peele. Then he looked down the road and saw Martha walking alone towards Mougins. A strong smell of sweat and unwashed clothes wafted out of the car. Abbas was wearing the suit jacket. The envelope was on the passenger seat beside him.
‘Where’s she going?’ he asked.
Abbas summoned the energy to shrug, reached for the automated button and closed the window without responding. Kite called out to Martha just as she was about to pass out of sight of the house.
She stopped and turned. They were three hundred metres apart. A car came down the road, forcing her onto the verge. Kite walked towards her, she towards him.
‘What’s going on?’ he said. They did not kiss but briefly held one another’s hands. Kite was conscious that he was already late for his meeting with Peele. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Got to go into town,’ she replied. She looked tired, but appeared happy to see him.
‘Why? What’s happened?’
‘We weren’t very careful last night,’ she said, touching her stomach. ‘I need to go to the chemist, see if I can get a morning-after pill.’
Kite was confused. At the time Martha had told him it was safe, that they didn’t need to use protection.
‘I thought you said—’
She looked at him sheepishly. ‘I checked my pill. I’ve missed two in the last week. I’m a bit hopeless. I’m not on it for the normal reasons. It’s not because I’m seeing anyone in London. Does that make sense?’
It didn’t make complete sense, but Kite nodded as if it did, relieved that Martha didn’t have a boyfriend but worried that she was now going to have to suffer feeling sick after taking the medication. Des had slept with a girl at a party who had taken the morning-after pill. She had been laid up in bed for three days.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ he said. ‘I would have come with you.’
‘It’s fine, Lockie. Not your fault.’ She tried to shake off the awkwardness with a friendly smile. Kite was worried that he had embarrassed her but determined that she should not go into Mougins alone.
‘I can go back to the house and change,’ he suggested. He did not want to do that but was prepared to put Martha’s needs ahead of BOX 88. ‘Or I can just come with you now.’ He thought about Peele waiting for him along the road. If he didn’t report today, there would be hell to pay. ‘Or come back. Let’s have breakfast. I’ll go for my run. Then we can go in later on the Vespa and—’
‘I don’t want the others to know.’
‘They won’t. It’ll just be you and me. Don’t go on your own, Martha. That’s miserable. It’s my fault. I should have had a condom or—’
‘Where? In your wallet? Whipped it out by the pool? Classy.’
He liked it that she was so easy-going with him, forgiving and quick to laugh. They decided that they would go into Mougins later, after breakfast, and walked back together towards the house.
‘Give me half an hour,’ he said within earshot of Abbas as they reached the gate. ‘Save me a croissant.’
Kite was outside the safe house three minutes later. He turned to check that the coast was clear, then ducked into the garden. Peele opened the front door and welcomed him inside. He was wearing shorts and looked characteristically dishevelled. He appeared to be alone in the house.
‘Where’s Carl?’ Kite asked.
Peele’s eyes went up to the ceiling. ‘Sleeping,’ he said in a quiet voice. ‘He was up all night transcribing conversations from the villa.’
‘So the tentacles are working?’ Kite asked.
Peele nodded. ‘Lots of interesting material. The Cathedral is sitting up and taking notice.’
The Cathedral had become a mythical place in Kite’s imagination. BOX 88 was headquartered in a small residential block somewhere in central London. The buildings could be accessed both from the street and via a church where the incumbent vicar, a former Royal Marine, had been discreetly placed on the payroll. Kite had been told that he would be taken to The Cathedral once the operation against Eskandarian was concluded. For this reason, it had always felt as though he was on a period of probation and must prove himself over the summer if he was to be granted
