Jahan downloaded his emails. There were no messages from the Iranians. Should he write to them and try to find out what had happened? Maybe not just yet. It would only embarrass both parties. Better to wait and to contact them in a couple of days. Jahan realised that he had no memory of what they had discussed at the meeting, only that both men had seemed enthusiastic about the rebuilding project in Syria.
He was annoyed to have missed the funeral. Xavier’s death was a tragedy and Jahan had wanted to pay his respects to one of the most interesting and amusing men he had ever met. He tried to load Facebook on his phone, but the password on the account wasn’t working and – to his confusion – there was only a blank space where his profile picture had been. Instead he wrote an email to the friend in London with whom he had been due to stay that night:
Gav, I’m really sorry. I overslept and missed my flight. Missed the funeral too. Not like me to be so disorganised. I think I must have eaten or drunk something last night that didn’t agree with me. I’m so sorry, but I’m not going to be coming to stay with you guys. Still stuck in Frankfurt and will just go straight home to Rome. Please accept sincere apologies for messing you around. Send my love to Kitty and the kids and hopefully see you soon. Jahan x
8
The chauffeur stood in front of Kite. With a blunt, joyless expression on his face, he said: ‘Do you work for MI6?’
Kite leaned on years of tight scrapes and crises, slowing everything down, trying to breathe evenly, trying to think of a way to stop what was about to happen. He clenched his hand into a fist, wondering how Kamran would go about breaking the fingers. With pliers? With a hammer from the toolbox? Certainly with pleasure: it would be more than adequate revenge for the black eye.
‘Kamran,’ he said, trying to sound as calm as possible. ‘I’m sorry about your eye. I was frightened. I was trying to defend myself. I apologise.’ His words had no discernible impact on the driver, though Torabi looked interested. Kite kept going, determined to deny both men the satisfaction of knowing that he was afraid. ‘It’s difficult to answer your question. Yes, it’s true, when I was a very young man, I worked for MI6.’ Torabi’s eyes flicked up. ‘That’s why your boss may be confused. Even by telling you this, I’m committing treason, but I don’t want a broken finger.’ He tried to laugh. ‘I value my hands!’
Kamran looked at Torabi, who indicated that they should continue to listen.
‘By the time I was twenty-five, I quit.’ Kite prayed that what he was saying was going to work. ‘In fact, if I’m completely honest, I was sacked. So the answer to your question is this: I do deny that I work for MI6 because I haven’t worked for them since 1994. And I’ll keep on denying it until I don’t have any fingers left.’
‘Why?’ said Torabi.
‘Why? Because it happens to be the truth.’
The partial, if inaccurate, confession had a miraculous effect. Torabi and Kamran exchanged a few words in Farsi and the chauffeur left the room.
‘So it is true.’ Torabi closed the door behind him. Kite felt a droplet of sweat fall onto the back of his arm. ‘In the summer of 1989, while on holiday with the family of Xavier Bonnard and Iranian businessman Ali Eskandarian, you were working for British intelligence?’
Kite lied again.
‘Not to my knowledge at the time, no. I was what you might call a useful idiot. The Americans took advantage of me. I was a friend of Xavier’s who became embroiled in what happened. Mr Eskandarian was a businessman with links to the highest levels of the Iranian government, yes, and was therefore a person of enormous interest to the CIA. At the tender age of eighteen, I was hardly aware of this. I spent most of that summer drinking wine, smoking weed and chasing girls, including Martha Raine. Afterwards, the Americans questioned me, pretending to be consular officials, and obtained my side of the story. One thing led to another and I was later put forward for a job at MI6 during my first year at university. The CIA had recommended me. I went to Russia, I partied a little too much, MI6 found out – and they sacked me.’
‘That’s not what I heard.’
‘And what did you hear, Ramin?’
Almost everything Kite had said, with the exception of his youthful enthusiasm for red wine and Martha Raine, was an invention.
‘I heard that you knew what you were doing. That Xavier later found out about it and was upset. He blamed you for a long time. Isn’t that true?’
Kite remembered Xavier’s rage and hurt, the lies he had been forced to tell as his friend’s world came crashing down. Thirty years on, he was using those same lies again on Torabi.
‘Xavier had the wrong end of the stick. His father got in his ear and blamed me for what happened. That wasn’t true. It was the Americans. Christ, it was all so long ago! Why the hell do you need to know all this now?’
‘All in due course,’ Torabi replied, tapping out a cigarette and offering one to Kite. ‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘I should have asked before if you smoked?’
‘Only when I want to.’
Torabi lit the cigarette and stood up. Kite also rose from his chair. The plastic floor rippled beneath his feet.
‘Enough for now,’ said the Iranian. ‘I have business to attend to. You will be taken back to your cell until I am ready to deal with you. When I come back we’ll start again. You’ll tell me everything you remember.’
‘About 1989?’
‘Yes.’
Kite assumed that Torabi would allow enough time to pass
