know that he has links to the FSB, but they’re not expecting to pursue a complaint against Moscow. Doronin will make a full recovery and he’ll be turfed out of Berlin. He’ll know that if he tries to finger any of his colleagues in connection with the conspiracy, there’ll be repercussions for his family in London.’
‘What a lovely story,’ said Gaddis, taking out a cigarette. Tanya asked for one and he lit it for her as a student came up behind them, asked Gaddis a question about an essay deadline and then walked off towards Endsleigh Gardens.
‘The Berlin solution is the best you’re going to get,’ Tanya said, pointedly expecting some measure of thanks for the horse-trading SIS had done on Gaddis’s behalf.
‘I understand that,’ he said. ‘Believe me, I’m extremely grateful.’
They walked in silence. She was wondering how best to say what she had come to say.
‘You are being careful, aren’t you, Sam?’
‘Careful in what way?’
‘You understand the terms of our arrangement? You can’t go looking for Crane. You can’t go seeking vengeance for what happened to Meisner and Charlotte.’
She thought of Brennan lashing out at her in his office and wondered why she was being so considerate of Gaddis’s feelings. A pigeon settled on the pavement ahead of them, hopped into the path of a taxi turning into the road and flew off.
‘If you leave the country, the minute your passport is presented anywhere in the EU, they’ll know where to find you.’
Gaddis stopped and turned. ‘What do you mean “they”?’
‘I’ve been removed from the operation. Pastures new. Brennan has a new team working on you.’
He was confused. Did she want his sympathy?
‘Why have they taken you off the case?’
‘Long story.’ Gaddis felt that she might have been about to explain, but instead Tanya merely reiterated her earlier warning. ‘It doesn’t matter who’s running you now. The terms of the arrangement are the same. Don’t go looking for Crane. Do you understand?’
Gaddis tried his best to convince her. ‘I have told you,’ he replied. ‘I understand, Tanya.’
She didn’t like to see him lying; it didn’t suit him.
‘It’s just that Robert Wilkinson may not be in New Zealand for ever,’ she said. ‘We wondered whether you might already know that. We wanted to be absolutely certain that you wouldn’t make any attempt to see him if, for example, he came to Vienna.’
Gaddis could only laugh, but it was a hollow sound, a breathless, near-silent surrender to the omnipotence of SIS. They had eyes and ears everywhere; they were listening to everything he said, even to a phone box on the edge of a housing estate in South Africa Road.
‘Wilkinson doesn’t want to have anything to do with me,’ he said. He dropped his half-smoked cigarette on to the ground and snuffed it out with his shoe. ‘Crane has disappeared. Even if I wanted to finish the book, I don’t have any more leads. It’s over.’
‘We both know that’s not quite true.’ He marvelled at her ability to convince him that she was still on his side. Perhaps it was the outfit: she looked so elegant, so off-duty, every inch the beautiful, available, seductive Josephine Warner.
‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘I could go to Vienna. I could gate-crash Catherine’s wedding. I could grab Bob Wilkinson over a smoked salmon canape and ask him to tell me all about Dresden, just as a favour to an academic that he doesn’t know and doesn’t even particularly like. Do you really think that’s what I’m planning to do?’
‘I think you’re capable of anything.’
Gaddis reached out and held her. ‘You need to trust me,’ he said. Her arms were gym-exercised, taut and wiry. ‘Check your surveillance records. I’m going to be in Barcelona for the rest of the month. I’ve arranged to spend a fortnight with Min.’
‘You have?’
Tanya was no longer privy to the POLARBEAR product; it was infuriating not to know even this simple piece of information.
‘I have,’ he said. ‘So if Des feels like following me, tell him to pack his swimming trunks. My daughter and I will be spending a lot of time at the beach.’
Chapter 36
It was a half-truth, at best, but Gaddis reasoned that he owed Tanya Acocella a lie or two. Barcelona was just his way of getting even.
He had spent the morning out at Colindale, on the outskirts of north-west London, going through back issues of The Times. He could have searched for what he was looking for online, but what was the point of risking the Internet when there were hard copies going back as far as the eye could see? The issue he found was dated 6 January. Gaddis laid a private bet with himself that Catherine Wilkinson had accepted her fiance’s proposal on New Year’s Eve, shortly before the corks had flown on the midnight champagne. MR M.T.M. DRECHSEL AND MISS C.L. WILKINSON The engagement is announced between Matthias, elder son of Mr Rudolph Drechsel and Mrs Elfriede Drechsel, of Vienna, Austria, and Catherine, younger daughter of Mr Robert Wilkinson and of Mrs Mary Edwards, of Edinburgh, Scotland.
That gave him the surname for the wedding party, which was the first step of his plan.
The second step was to ascertain the date of the wedding and to find the hotel in Vienna where the bulk of the guests would be staying. To that end, Gaddis printed out a list of all of the four- and five-star hotels in Vienna and called them, one by one, from two phone boxes at Colindale station, making the same request.
‘Hello. I’d like to book a room for the weekend of the Drechsel-Wilkinson wedding. I’ve been advised that you are offering a special rate for guests of the couple.’
The first fourteen hotels had ‘no record at all of a wedding booked under that name’, but the fifteenth — the SAS Radisson on Schubertring — knew all about it and asked Gaddis for his surname.
‘It’s Peters,’ he said. ‘P-E-T-E-R-S. Peters.’
‘Yes, Mr Peters. And when would you like to arrive?’
Gaddis now moved to the next phase of his strategy. He needed a precise date for the wedding, so he said: ‘Could you tell me if any of the other guests are arriving on the Thursday evening? Would that be too early, do you think?’
‘Thursday the twenty-third, sir? Let me see.’
Then it was just a question of whether the ceremony would take place on the afternoon of Friday twenty- fourth or Saturday twenty-fifth.
‘Mr Peters?’
‘Yes.’
‘It is difficult to say, sir. We have a number of guests arriving on Thursday evening, but the majority appear to be checking in on Friday.’
So, the reception would be on Saturday twenty-fifth. ‘I see,’ he said.
Gaddis had played along for a few moments more, requesting a double room for the Friday and Saturday nights, but when it came to divulging his full name and address, he had pretended that he had ‘an important call coming through on another line’ and promised the receptionist that he would complete the booking online.
‘Of course, Mr Peters. Of course. We very much look forward to seeing you in Vienna.’
Chapter 37
Two days later, Gaddis left London for Spain, catching an evening flight from Heathrow to Barcelona. He experienced no difficulties at passport control, but assumed that SIS would have Natasha’s apartment under tight
