‘Leave it open,’ he ordered.
‘I want some privacy.’
The two guards looked at one another and laughed.
‘We’re not coming in unless we have to,’ Hossein replied.
‘What am I going to do? Dig a tunnel? There’s nothing in there except a bar of soap and a shower curtain. At least let me close the door.’
Kamran indicated that it would be acceptable for Kite to do that.
‘No lock,’ he said.
‘Fine,’ Kite replied.
As soon as he was inside the bathroom, he closed the door and lifted the seat on the toilet. He noisily unclipped his belt, pulled it free of his trousers, and sat down. The two guards were talking in the passage and did not appear to be taking much notice of what was going on. Quietly, Kite opened the cupboard under the sink, ducked down and started pulling at the loosened nail, shaking it from side to side, trying to turn it. It moved slightly. Reaching back, he flushed the toilet and used the covering noise to scratch away at the plaster with the belt buckle until an inch of the nail was visible. He could feel it very gradually moving away from the wall. Kite reached for the bottle of bleach and squirted some into the space around the head, hoping that it would loosen the plaster. For another thirty seconds or so he chipped away. The bleach was running down the paintwork, making no discernible difference, but Kite knew that the nail was coming. Pinching the metal head so it dug deep into the skin of his thumb and index finger, he at last yanked it free of the wall.
He stood up, almost striking the back of his head on the cupboard, and turned on the tap. The nail was about four inches long. If he could get one of the men alone, he could use it to disable them. More than one and he doubted that he would be fast enough to disarm them before they used their weapons. He slipped the nail into his hip pocket and looked up at the metal towel rail.
‘Hey!’
It was Hossein. There was a loud succession of knocks. He said: ‘Let’s go. Taking too long.’ The attachments at either end of the rail shifted when Kite moved it up and down. It was stuck to the wall only by adhesive. He could pull it free from the wall or, if that proved impossible, kick it down by standing on the rim of the bath. Kite looped the belt around his trousers and called back: ‘Yeah, just a minute. I’m washing.’
He urinated in the sink, switched off the tap and went outside, resuming the role of the hapless oil trader.
‘No luck,’ he said.
‘What’s that?’ Hossein looked confused.
‘I can’t go to the bathroom properly. I’m too tense.’
‘You think I care? Don’t be fucking disgusting, man. Move!’
Kamran stuck the gun in Kite’s back and pushed him forward. Kite continued with the act, re-entering the room in a forlorn state.
‘Ready?’ Torabi demanded.
‘I don’t feel well,’ he told him.
‘I don’t have time for you not to feel well. Sit down. We made an arrangement. Eskandarian in exchange for the life of your wife and child. A simple trade.’
Kite slumped into the chair. As soon as Kamran and Hossein left them alone, he could use the nail, setting the head in the ball of his hand, pushing back Torabi’s neck and driving it up through the throat. To Kite’s despair, Kamran suddenly grabbed his arms, pulled them behind his back and tied his hands with a set of plasticuffs.
‘Hey! We agreed no wires, no handcuffs.’
‘I don’t trust you.’ Torabi was looking at him, pursing his lips. ‘I don’t care what we agreed.’
‘I can’t think straight if my hands are tied.’ He could feel the nail against his hip. ‘My wrist is already bleeding. I lose the feeling in my arms.’
‘Poor little Lockie,’ Torabi mocked him in a childish voice. ‘Just talk, you piece of shit. Just tell me what happened in France.’
32
And so Kite began.
He told Torabi nothing about what happened at the motorway service station en route to the villa, nothing about the lamp, nothing about the Mougins safe house or the plot to attack the New York subway. The story he told was a story of innocence to experience, the tale of a naive eighteen-year-old who went on holiday with the Bonnard family, found himself embroiled in a tragedy and came home a changed man.
There was no Carl or Strawson in Kite’s recollection of the summer, no dead drops or modified Olympus Trip. He told the truth about Bijan and Abbas, just as he told the truth about Luc and Rosamund. Kite did not conceal what had happened with Martha. He told Torabi what Xavier had likely told him in Paris before he died. One version of events, seen only from one point of view.
The rest was lies.
This is what happened.
On the morning of Wednesday, 2 August 1989, Lachlan Kite arrived at the Bonnards’ house in Onslow Square. His suitcases were packed, his training complete. The family were waiting for him on the ground floor: Xavier, sporting a patchy beard; his younger sister, Jacqueline, who looked permanently tired and moody; Rosamund, smelling of expensive perfume and wearing a bright yellow jacket with broad shoulder pads; and Maria, the Filipina maid, who greeted Kite with a delighted smile and a moist kiss. He remembered a similar encounter, two years earlier, when the Bonnards had invited him to Switzerland on a skiing trip. That time he had just been a normal teenager, innocent of the ways of men. Xavier’s parents had always been so kind to him, taking him under their wing and treating him like a surrogate son. Now he was set to betray them.
He looked down at his luggage. Zipped inside were the commonplace belongings
