‘Phone across the street,’ he said to KAISER. ‘Two o’clock. Get it.’
KAISER immediately crossed the road, flashed a badge ID and took the phone from the startled pedestrian. Cara sat in the front seat.
‘Where’s Isobel?’ Kite asked, closing the back door.
‘She’s fine,’ Cara replied. ‘Rita is with her. Everything’s cool.’
Kite looked at Jason as if to say: How the hell does she know Rita? Thompson was already on the move, the Mercedes tucking in behind them.
‘The baby?’ Kite asked.
Torabi tried to free his hands, swearing in Farsi. Jason put him in a headlock.
‘Also fine,’ said Cara. ‘We can call them.’
‘Who do we have here?’ Jason asked, squeezing Torabi’s neck as the Jaguar made a fast turn in the road. ‘His friends made a mess of your house.’
‘His name is Ramin Torabi,’ Kite replied. He indicated to Cara that he wanted to speak to Isobel. She passed him the phone, redialling the number she had used to speak to Fred.
‘This will connect you.’
Kite sat back in the seat, listening to the number ringing out. He turned to see if the Jaguar was being followed. Thompson reassured him they were clean.
‘And where are we taking him?’ Jason asked, releasing Torabi so that he bounced back into the centre of the seat like a crash test dummy.
‘Cathedral,’ said Kite.
63
Ramin Torabi was put into a secure, soundproofed room at The Cathedral and left alone. He was given food and water. The Iranian was still under the impression that his father was alive and well and living in Marble Arch and was therefore not considered a suicide risk.
Rita drove Isobel to London from the hospital in Sussex where she had received a clean bill of health. Kite was reunited with her shortly after midnight at a BOX 88 apartment in Canary Wharf. Rather than talk long into the night, they both fell into a deep sleep, Kite slipping away at dawn so that he could return to The Cathedral and begin to address the myriad problems which had arisen as a consequence of their respective ordeals.
He left his wife a note, trusting that she would understand why he could not spend the day with her.
Thank God you are safe (and Rambo). You mustn’t worry about the future. I promise you’ll both be safe. What happened will never happen again. I’ll make sure of it.
I’ve gone to the office. Back this evening. Let’s have dinner at Gaucho and talk. Call me if you need anything. There’s a woman in the flat next door, Catherine, who works for us. Dial 12 on the phone. Food, clothes, books, newspapers – whatever you need, she’ll get it. You just have to ask.
I’m sorry you’ve had to take time off work. There are people fixing the cottage, they’ll be finished by tonight. Let’s talk about all that over dinner.
I love you.
L x
Kite was aware that his actions might seem reckless or even uncaring, but he calculated that his wife and the baby were both fine and that his own injuries were negligible. He felt justified in leaving Isobel in the flat. What mattered now was the security of BOX 88. He compartmentalised his life in this way, dividing work from family. He had done so for years.
Rita had left a report on his desk. As far as Kite could deduce, there were two areas of immediate concern: the MI5 investigation, which needed to be shut down as quickly as possible, and Ramin Torabi’s access to sensitive information relating to Ali Eskandarian. The murder of Zoltan Pavkov, the bodies on the boat, the fracas in South Quay were of secondary importance. With time, and a little imagination, they could all be explained away and, if necessary, covered up. A team from BOX 88 had already visited the ship and taken wallets and phones from the bodies of the slain men as well as a laptop belonging to Torabi. Turings had wiped forty-eight hours of CCTV from the dock and were working on a Transport for London camera which had recorded the vehicles while they were parked outside South Quay station. Vetting requests had been sent to BOX personnel in New York and Dubai for information relating to Ramin Torabi; the London office was in the process of analysing the laptop and phones with a view to piecing together Torabi’s movements in the weeks leading up to Xavier’s funeral.
Kite decided to deal with MI5 first. Rita had left a number for Cara Jannaway, with whom Kite had spoken only briefly the previous evening. His assistant caught her on the way to work and asked her to ring back from a telephone box so that she could speak to Kite without Five scooping the call. It took Cara less than two minutes to do as she had been asked.
‘Mr Kite,’ she said when she was put through.
‘Call me Lockie. I just wanted to thank you again for everything you did yesterday.’
‘Don’t mention it,’ she replied. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Absolutely fine.’
‘And your wife?’
‘Left her sleeping.’ On his desk, Kite kept the small silver box given to him by his father in 1971 as a christening present. He lifted the lid and read the inscription inside: To Lachlan, from Da. He twisted the box in his fingers as he weighed his next remark. ‘You could be very useful to us, Cara.’
‘Us?’ she said.
‘You know who we are.’
‘Do I?’
Kite liked it that she wasn’t deferential. Her voice sounded confident, even slightly amused. In her report Rita had described her as ‘sassy, quick on the uptake, not easily panicked’.
‘Tell me about Robert Vosse.’
‘What do you want to know?’ It was the reaction Kite had been hoping for: Cara was instantly suspicious of the motive behind Kite’s question, instinctively loyal to her boss. ‘He’s a good guy. Experienced. Decent. Thorough.’
‘Tessa Swinburn?’
‘Tess is lovely.’
‘Matt Tomkins?’ Kite asked.
‘Honestly?’
‘Honestly.’
‘Bit of a prat,’ Cara replied.
Kite suppressed a laugh. ‘And how much do they know about what went
