The following day, having attended a chilly Easter Sunday service at Portpatrick parish church, eaten a decent lunch at the Crown Hotel and played nine holes of links golf at Dunskey, Michael Strawson took out a sheet of writing paper in Churchill and composed a letter to Billy Peele while gazing out at the misty cliffs of Killantringan.
Dear Billy
You were right. He’s worth pursuing. Smart, charming, quick on his feet, doesn’t panic when the shit hits the fan, which it surely will because it always does.
We tested him as best we could. He got the light-switch riddle inside two minutes – which is more than you ever did. A lot of these privately educated types are good in front of a book or at a cocktail party but have as much practical common sense as a rooster wandering around in a swamp full of alligators. He’ll be an asset to us. Let’s take the chance.
Two things:
1. Keep an eye on his social life. If there’s alcohol in the pipeline, or drugs, I need to know. And sooner rather than later. I don’t want a guy who starts out as Bobby Ewing ending up as Hunter S. Thompson.
2. Is there a soft underbelly? Is he sentimental? I need more on that. The way he interacts with his mother makes me think he’s burying a lot, keeping some kind of rage (or is it compassion?) below the surface. None of us got a chance to talk to him much about his father. Again, I don’t want a bleeding heart as an Achilles heel. God knows this world needs upstanding men of unwavering ethical principle, but not on my team.
Speaking of the mother, you’re right. Attractive – but chilly. A man might want to be her lover but I don’t envy young Lachlan being her son. To be added to the list of famous beauties, which already included Fawn Hall and Pamela Bordes at the last count. No doubt you obtained Miss Hall’s televised testimony. You always had an eye for a pretty girl, Billy. Iran-Contra. What a shitshow.
Have you made it through Satanic Verses? At one point Salman refers to your prime minister as ‘Mrs Torture’ and later as ‘Maggie the Bitch’. Charming from a guy enjoying round-the-clock protection from Special Branch at the expense of the British taxpayer.
Yours aye
M.S.
22
Kite was woken by the sound of pounding on the door of his cabin. The rattle of a key in the lock, a holler of ‘Get up!’ then someone shaking him in the darkness.
‘What’s going on?’ he mumbled.
As soon as Kite had sat up in bed, a light snapped on. Hossein slapped him hard across the face.
Kite swore, disorientated, and clutched his jaw. He climbed to his feet so that he could defend himself against any further attack. Hossein allowed him space in which to stand and Kite took advantage of it, dropping a punch into the Iranian’s stomach which doubled him over. Kamran, the driver, burst into the room behind them and the two men put Kite under control, Kamran seizing his arms from behind, Hossein putting him into a headlock.
‘You come with us,’ Hossein ordered.
‘Fuck you,’ Kite told them. He was enraged by what they had done. He managed to stop the men dragging him from the room by slamming the heel of his right foot into Hossein’s shin. The Iranian yelped in pain. Kamran bent down and gathered Kite’s legs like sections of pipe and together they carried him, raised in the air, to the room at the end of the passage.
Torabi was waiting. He seemed amused that Kite was being carried like a rolled carpet into the room and mumbled an order at his men. They allowed the prisoner to get to his feet.
‘Your goon punched me in the face,’ Kite complained as he was forced into the chair. He was back in the role of the beleaguered oil executive. His hands were pulled behind his back and the wrists bound with wire. ‘What the hell’s going on?’
Kamran and Hossein left the room. Kite realised that the wires around his wrists might be loose enough to work free.
‘What’s going on is they don’t like you,’ Torabi replied. ‘I don’t much like you either. What were you expecting? A cup of coffee and a hot shower?’
Kite shook his head, suppressing his anger. He didn’t know how long he had been in the cell but reckoned it couldn’t have been for more than a few hours.
‘Did you send a message to my wife?’ he asked.
There was a gun on the table beside Torabi. The Iranian picked it up and placed it behind his back in the band of his trousers.
‘Oh sure,’ he said. ‘I did exactly what you asked.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It means I’m not here to send comforting messages to your friends and family. I’m here to get the truth.’
‘So you keep saying,’ Kite replied. ‘What time is it?’
‘Time to talk.’ Torabi pushed down the sleeve of his shirt so that it covered his wristwatch. As if noticing the toolbox for the first time, he picked it up and set it down on a section of plastic flooring in the corner of the room. ‘Who was with you at the funeral?’ he asked.
‘Nobody,’ Kite replied, watching Torabi sit down. ‘I went alone. My wife was at—’
‘I know where your wife is. Who followed you from the church?’
Kite was unsettled by the reference to Isobel but encouraged by the news that he had been followed. Had ‘Emma’ tailed the Jaguar to Cheshire Street and alerted the authorities? Perhaps MOIS had got wind of the manhunt. That Kite was
