Even then, Vosse wasn’t done. Following a quick lunch in Mayfair, Kieran Dean and Tessa Swinburn were given instructions to follow Zoltan when he came off shift at four o’clock. Matt Tomkins was told to go home and get some rest, then to drive over to the Bethnal Green flat at 11 p.m. to take over the stakeout. Meanwhile number plate recognition cameras had spotted the white van in the City, moving east through Whitechapel. The last known sighting of ‘Kidson Electrical Services’ had occurred on East India Dock Road at 14.35, indicating that the vehicle was probably located within a one-mile radius of Limehouse.
‘Needle in a haystack,’ said Vosse, ‘but at least it gives us an area to aim for. Once we see some activity from Zoltan’s mobile, he’ll get us to within fifty feet of BIRD.’ Cara’s boss held up the cloned device in his oversized hand. ‘I’m going to look at his messages, check who he’s been talking to. We’ll call a few numbers, see who picks up. Unless the Iranians are being very, very careful with their comms, we’ll have BIRD back home by the weekend.’
Cara didn’t necessarily share Vosse’s optimism but certainly admired his confidence and self-belief.
‘What about BIRD’s stuff?’ she asked, pointing to Kite’s belongings. Vosse had placed them on the boot of a nearby car.
‘BIRD’s shit?’ he replied, with a knowing look. ‘Good question. They left his wallet behind, his shoes, his phone, his watch. What does that tell you?’
Cara liked it when Vosse taught her on the job. She knew that she could learn from him, that he enjoyed the feeling of being the veteran taking an apprentice under his wing.
‘Well, I suppose they’re worried about being tracked,’ she replied.
‘More than that.’
Cara was stumped. She walked over to the car and picked up Kite’s watch.
‘Says Omega Constellation.’ She held it up for Vosse. ‘Looks genuine, looks expensive. Must be worth at least a grand. But they didn’t nick it.’
‘Quite,’ Vosse replied, looking proud of his pupil. ‘And the wallet?’
‘Plenty of cash inside. Same deal. They were in a hurry, didn’t have time to help themselves to a bit of easy money.’
‘Go through it,’ said Vosse. ‘Might be useful later. Photograph the bank cards, there might be accounts we don’t know about. Look at where he’s been going on his Oyster, use the driving licence to check if he’s hired any cars lately. There’s a couple of business cards in there. Make a note of the names, they might cross-reference with someone in the BOX 88 research. I looked earlier. There are four photos. Keepsakes. One is Isobel, find out who the other people are. There’s an old laminated picture of a cheerful-looking bloke standing behind a bar. Maybe Kite’s father? Another one of a woman who looks a lot like him, taken more recently. Could be his mother, his sister. Are they still alive? If we can match the faces, we can start to piece together where BIRD is from, who he cares about, who might have information for us. Speaking of which, have a look at the activity on Isobel’s profile for any sign of contact. Chances are she’ll start to worry when she doesn’t hear from him. Usually when he’s away they text one another. She might know something we don’t. Who these people are. Why they’re interested in BIRD. What they plan to do with him.’
‘What about the mobile?’ Cara asked.
‘Tricky.’ Vosse ran his tongue around his teeth, like someone at dinner fretting over trapped food. ‘Tried cloning it while you were walking the dog.’ He nodded towards the ramp, where Zoltan was smoking his ninth cigarette of the afternoon. ‘No dice. More firewalls than Xi Jinping’s underpants. Without the access code or a fingerprint, it’s a Cheltenham job. Could take days.’
‘Shame,’ said Cara. She was developing a sneaking regard for Kite’s tradecraft.
‘A phone is a thing of beauty, Cara, a joy forever. Its loveliness increases.’
‘Keats used a mobile?’ she said, wanting Vosse to know that she’d understood the reference.
‘Clever you,’ he said. ‘Imagine what we could get from that thing.’ Vosse looked down at the phone. ‘All those names and numbers, all those places BIRD’s visited, every message he’s sent, every Uber he ever ordered …’
‘A goldmine.’
‘But the men who took it didn’t want it.’
Cara saw that Vosse had realised something critical. She couldn’t tell if the breakthrough had only just occurred to him or if he had been sitting on it for some time.
‘Didn’t even take the SIM card,’ he said, pointing at the slot in the phone. ‘Didn’t take his watch or his money. No, they want something that couldn’t be found in BIRD’s phone calls, his emails, his text messages.’
‘What’s that?’ Cara asked.
‘They want his memory.’
11
Kite lay back on the bed. He closed his eyes, taking his mind back to 1989, a place which held the answers to each of Torabi’s questions, a vault containing the operational secrets of BOX 88.
The memories were as clear to him as they had been for thirty years – every encounter, every thought, every conversation – as if he had written a detailed account of his experiences at Alford, in Scotland and later in France, and was reading from it in the dark, soundless cell.
* * *
It is early November, the events of the summer three months behind him. The eighteen-year-old Kite is in Martha’s bedroom
