‘Not interfered,’ he replied, hardly remembering what had been said. ‘We were just in a bit of a hurry.’
The officer had heard enough. He placed the package on the counter, searched through the rest of the case, then reached for a box-cutter in the pocket of his trousers.
‘Let’s open it up, shall we?’
He immediately began slicing through the loops of sellotape. It’s drugs, Gaddis thought, it can only be coke or pills. The officer was removing the brown wrapping paper. A sniffer dog picked up the scent and they waited to see who collected my bag.
‘So here we go,’ said the officer. Gaddis was staring at a small dark plastic box which the officer was holding in his hand. ‘Let’s have a look inside.’
He had stubby fingers, the nails cut short and clean. The lid of the box clicked open on a hinge. Inside, concealed in a nest of tissue paper, was not a wrap of cocaine, not a block of hashish, nor a vial of pills, but a wristwatch with a worn metal strap. The officer took it out.
‘A present,’ he said.
If anything, he seemed more surprised than Gaddis. The two men looked at one another. Gaddis could only assume that the package had been in the leather bag all along and that Miklos and Viki had failed to notice it. Why else would they plant a watch in his luggage?
‘It must be Dan’s,’ he said, conjuring another lie.
‘Dan?’
‘A friend who was staying in Budapest last week. He must have left it there.’
‘Where?’
‘In the apartment where I was staying.’
‘Ah.’
Gaddis had no sense of where the lies were coming from, only that they appeared to be having the desired effect. The officer was beginning to look bored. He had plainly been expecting a greater haul.
‘I see. Well, sorry to take up your time.’
‘Not a problem.’
If there had been a sofa in the customs hall, Gaddis would gladly have collapsed into it and lit a triumphant cigarette. Instead, he picked up his bags and walked towards a set of automatic doors. Tanya was waiting for him on the other side. She was standing beside a pillar in the same beige raincoat she had been wearing when he last saw her outside UCL. She looked tired and he realized that she had most probably been awake since his first, panicked phone call from Vienna. All those plans, all those contingencies, orchestrated from Vauxhall Cross within the last few hours.
‘I don’t know how to thank you,’ he said, though he was still mystified by the watch. They did not embrace, nor did they shake hands. It was like meeting a lover many months after an affair has ended: the atmosphere between them was charged, the mood civilized.
‘Don’t mention it,’ she said.
‘I had some trouble at Customs.’
She looked at him quickly, concern in her eyes. ‘Trouble?’
‘There was something in my bag. A package. Your friends may have put it there without telling me.’ Gaddis looked back in the direction of the customs hall. ‘A guard pulled me over and went through my case. Do you know what that’s about?’
Tanya swore under her breath, steering Gaddis away from the arrivals area. ‘Fucking Miklos.’
‘What about him?’
‘I told him not to complicate things. I told him to find another way of sending the watch.’
‘So you know about it?’
Tanya nodded. ‘Sure.’ She looked as irritated as he had ever seen her. ‘I’m sorry he got you involved.’
Gaddis looked around, half-expecting to see Des coming out of a branch of WH Smith with some Murray Mints and a copy of the News of the World. ‘We seem to be making a habit of spending quality time together at Gatwick Airport,’ he said, trying to ease the tension. ‘I have no idea how you did what you did, but I feel as though I’ve been carried here, watched all the way.’
‘Sounds like you were,’ Tanya replied. Her irritation with Miklos was still palpable. He had plainly crossed a professional boundary. Gaddis wondered what was so precious about the watch and why Miklos hadn’t simply told him to wear it on his wrist.
‘There’s information inside it,’ Tanya said, as if she had heard the question.
‘In the back of the watch? In the mechanism?’
‘There is no mechanism. It’s a false casing. The less you know, the better.’
‘Very James Bond.’
‘Very.’
They walked the short distance to the car park. Tanya’s muddy VW Golf was parked on the upper level of a clogged multi-storey. Gaddis recognised it from Kew.
‘Talking of presents,’ she said, ‘I’ve got something for you.’
Gaddis was standing behind her as she popped the catch on the boot. He could hardly believe his eyes. Somehow, Tanya had managed to retrieve his overnight bag from the Goldene Spinne.
‘How the hell did you get that back?’ he asked. He opened it to find his suit, his clothes, his house keys and wallet all packed inside.
‘Eva got them,’ she replied. ‘DHL to Gatwick did the rest.’
He surprised himself by reaching out and kissing her on the cheek. Tanya did not seem to object. ‘You’re a miracle worker.’
‘We do our best, Doctor. I used up a few favours. I’m just glad you’re back in one piece.’
It was only when they were inside the car, heading north towards the M25, that she asked what had happened in Vienna. Gaddis described the scene at the Kleines Cafe, his long night in the city, the journey with Eva and his time with Miklos and Viki in Budapest.
‘I owe you an apology,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have gone to Vienna. I didn’t think the Russians were following me.’
‘They most probably weren’t.’
He was surprised by this.
‘How can you be sure?’
‘I can’t. But only a handful of people knew that Wilkinson was going to be in Austria. Who alerted the Russians? Who tipped them off? He’s lived peacefully on the South Island of New Zealand for more than a decade. Why do they suddenly come looking for him now?’
‘Maybe they wanted me.’
Tanya produced a brief, one-note laugh. ‘Believe me, Sam, if the Russians wanted to kill you, they would have done it already. Vienna was a specific hit on Wilkinson. It was just lucky you were in the bathroom.’
He concluded that this was the moment to tell her what Wilkinson had revealed.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘There’s something you should know.’
‘Go on.’
‘Bob told me something before he was killed. Something that explains everything that has happened.’
He realized that he trusted her completely now. It was a total reversal. He did not even think twice about the consequences of what he was going to say.
Tanya looked across at him. ‘Tell me, Sam.’
‘Sergei Platov tried to defect in 1988.’
She almost swerved on to the hard shoulder. ‘ What?’
‘He went to MI6. He gave Wilkinson ATTILA’s identity as proof that he was serious. He was disenchanted with life in the KGB and wanted to make something of himself. Didn’t think he was valued highly enough by his superiors.’
‘So he tried to come over? Jesus.’ Tanya was nodding to herself. ‘That explains the killings,’ she said. ‘Everybody who knows about this has been assassinated.’
‘Except for Brennan.’ Gaddis had been chain-smoking since the airport. He slotted a third cigarette butt through a small gap in the window and watched it whistle past the door. ‘Your boss must have something on Platov.
