Authors: Alan Judd
‘Thank you, I think we’ve said all that can be said now. Is there anything else?’ She looked at Mr Mayakovsky, who was staring past her out of the window.
He turned to Sarah, without alacrity. ‘I should like you kindly to transact my property business.’ His English was slow and heavily accented.
‘What is your property business?’
Katya opened her handbag and handed Sarah a sheet of Ritz notepaper with a handwritten list of about a dozen properties, all in Knightsbridge or Belgravia.
‘I wish to buy them,’ said Mr Mayakovsky.
Most meant nothing to Sarah but there were three or four in Eaton and Belgrave squares, probably flats. ‘Are these residential properties or offices?’ She addressed Mr Mayakovsky but
he ignored her and left Katya to speak for him.
‘They are both,’ said Katya. ‘Mr Mayakovsky owns many properties in London and in other cities. He wishes to increase his property empire by buying these.’
Total value would be into the high double figures of millions, if not more. ‘Are they all for sale or are you intending to approach the owners and make offers?’
‘Some are and some are not. Mr Mayakovsky would like you to approach all the owners on his behalf.’
Sarah looked at Mr Mayakovsky, saying nothing until eventually he condescended to nod. ‘May I ask where the finance for this investment comes from, Mr Mayakovsky?’
‘From my business.’
‘Mr Mayakovsky owns many properties throughout the world and in Russia he has interests in oil and gas and industry and banks,’ said Katya. ‘This is just part of his
business.’
Sarah handed her back the list. ‘If you would send me a printed version indicating those advertised for sale and the identities of the owners of those that are not, along with indications
of what Mr Mayakovsky is willing to pay in each case, we would then approach them on his behalf. This would of course mean an enhanced fee.’ It was gratifying to see a flicker of irritation
cross Katya’s beautiful features. Perhaps work was uncongenial to her. They parted politely.
She left the office just before four, reckoning that Charles would be heading back from Croydon by then. He hadn’t intended to go in but felt he had to because of the murder. There was so
much to sort out in the house which, despite her efforts so far, still felt like a sorting office. Perhaps after an hour or two of that they could relax and do nothing for the rest of the evening.
Since their marriage a few months ago it seemed there had never been time to talk.
As it was Sunday she had left the car on Blackfriars Road rather than go in and ask the doorman to open the firm’s underground car park. This was normally reserved for partners and
important clients, on the grounds that partners often worked late and couldn’t trust public transport to get them home. None was in that day.
She had almost reached her car when she became aware of someone very close to her left shoulder.
‘I am sorry to surprise you, Mrs Thoroughgood,’ said Mr Mayakovsky, ‘but there is another subject I should like to discuss with you, if you please.’
He spoke more fluently than before. She stood looking down at him. Most Russians she had met were tall but Mr Mayakovsky’s very compactness was threatening, as if he had been compressed by
great forces into a thick square block that could be compressed no further. The indifference he displayed in her office had been replaced by an unsettling concentration. Sarah looked around for
Katya. She had never thought she would miss her.
‘It would be convenient if we talk in my car.’ He nodded at a black Rolls-Royce parked not far from hers. She could make out a driver wearing a cap.
‘I’m afraid I’m in a hurry. Could it wait until we meet again? You could make an appointment.’
‘We can talk in your car if you prefer.’
‘No, I’d rather not.’ It came out too quickly, before she’d thought what to say next.
‘Very well, we can talk here.’ His pale eyes were unblinking. A bus passed, then two Lycra-clad cyclists, talking loudly. A taxi pulled in for a fare on the other side of the road.
‘I have some information which concerns your husband. It is important for his career.’
She waited for him but he seemed to be waiting for her. Let him, she thought. He can say it himself, whatever it is. The taxi pulled away but still he said nothing. They looked at each other. It
was becoming ridiculous. She sighed. ‘Well, you’d better tell me quickly or better still tell him. I’m in a hurry.’ She edged towards her car, putting an extra yard between
them.
Mr Mayakovsky did not move. ‘Your previous husband was also chief of the Single Intelligence Agency,’ he said slowly, as if she needed reminding. ‘In his youth, when he was
diplomat, he became a spy for French special services. He gave them English secrets. You know this and your new husband, Mr Thoroughgood, he knows it. But it has never been acknowledged by the
British government. If this knowledge is published in the English newspapers it would be very harmful for your husband and for you. He would have to resign.’
A droopy young man with hair over his shoulders slouched unseeing between them. Sarah heard everything, understood everything, was aware of everything going on around her, but somehow
couldn’t engage. Afterwards she thought that was what it must be like to have a stroke.
Mr Mayakovsky continued, still without moving any closer. ‘In Moscow, Russian special services also have this knowledge for a long time. But they have not used it. Now they are thinking
they will use it. Perhaps the world should know about this thing. But it is possible to stop them. Perhaps.’
An artery throbbed in the side of Sarah’s head. Mr Mayakovsky was moving towards her now. She found herself moving too, alongside him, towards his car. He was speaking again but this time
she was taking nothing in. There was a thickening fog between her and what was happening. Mr Mayakovsky touched her elbow, his car door opened and she stepped in, almost without stooping. It felt
and smelt luxurious, the seat was huge. They sat beside each other facing the back of the driver’s head but the car didn’t move. It was as if she was struggling against anaesthetic.
Concentrate, she told herself, concentrate. But the threatened resurrection of all that she and Charles had gone through swept through her like a numbing and nauseous wave. It would be the end of
Charles; the end of them, perhaps.
‘If it can be arranged sensibly for both parties,’ Mr Mayakovsky was saying, ‘if they believe they will learn things, special things, they will do nothing.’
The fog was lifting. ‘What things?’ Her voice felt normal. ‘What do they want to learn? How do they think they will learn it?’
Mr Mayakovsky’s eyes rested on the fat immobile neck of his chauffeur. ‘State secrets. If they learn state secrets from you, they will be silent.’
‘State secrets? I don’t know any state secrets. How do they think they could learn them from me?’
‘From your husband. He will tell you things.’
‘He doesn’t, he talks very little about his work – past or present.’ It was true; she knew the kind of issues Charles would deal with but he would say little about the
detail. Neither would she of her work, come to that. His telling her about the late Dr Klein that weekend, giving her the history of the Configure case, was an exception. But that was history now
and was going to come out anyway. ‘What’s more,’ she said, her confidence growing with her indignation, ‘if you think there’s the remotest chance that I’m going
to run along to the KGB or whatever they now call themselves and prattle about our pillow-talk, you’d better think again. And if you don’t mind I’d like to go.’
‘It would not be necessary for you to meet Russian special services. It is better you never meet them. You can talk to me.’
His disregard of normal social responses and his unnerving persistence were intimidating. But she felt offended, which helped. ‘So you’re their spy, are you? Is that what you are, Mr
Mayakovsky – a spy?’
‘I do not work for special services but I know them and they have told to me about you and your husband and how I can tell you how you can save yourself from this difficulty. You do not
have to tell them very much, nothing at all yet. It will be sufficient for them to know that we are friends.’
‘Friends? You and me friends, Mr Mayakovsky?’
‘So long as they believe that, it will be sufficient. It is necessary only that we meet and talk sometimes. My properties can be the reason for that.’
‘Of course, your properties. Your would-be properties. You mean you’re really going to buy them? That all this portfolio business is real and not just a camouflage?’
‘Of course it is real.’ For the first time there was evidence of a reaction. His skin colour changed slightly, as if after a slap. ‘I buy what I want. If I want something, I
buy it. Why else have money? I will buy these properties.’
Sarah was beginning to feel thoroughly herself again. She sat upright on the edge of the deep seat, her handbag on her knees. ‘Then I’m sorry to disappoint you but you’re not
buying me. I am not going to spy on my husband. In fact, I shall go home and tell him exactly what has happened. He will know what to do with people like you.’ She thought she must sound
ridiculously prim and proper, but that was the way it came.
‘There is one other question I must ask.’ He waited for a reaction. ‘Mr Peter Tew. He was friend of your husband until he was sent to prison. Now he is out of prison. Is he
friend of your husband again? Has your husband seen him?’
The name meant nothing. ‘I’ve no idea. I don’t know who you’re talking about.’
‘I would like to meet this man.’
‘Then you’d better ask my husband.’
‘He has computer which we—’
‘Then you can ask him yourself. Goodbye, Mr Mayakovsky.’
Her exit was marred by the few seconds it took to find the door handle. Mr Mayakovsky did not help. His gaze had returned to his chauffeur’s neck. ‘Think carefully before you tell
your husband, Mrs Thoroughgood.’
‘
W
e’ll have to think very carefully about what we say,’ said Melissa Carron.
That much they could agree on. They were in Charles’s office. Melissa, who lived in Richmond and had a child’s birthday party to host, had been reluctant to come in but Charles had
insisted. Her journey had been slow and vexatious. Power was off throughout south London and the office generators were still not working, thus there were no lifts, no computers and no lights. Only
the phones worked.
‘Since it’s possible that his work for us was what got Configure murdered,’ said Charles, ‘we’ve no alternative but to tell the police everything. But can we trust
them not to plaster it all over the press or the blogosphere or whatever it’s called?’
‘Would that matter? If it was the Russians who killed him they already know what he did and where he was. And if it wasn’t them it’s too late for them to do anything about it
anyway. So there’s nothing left for us to protect. Also, it’s an old case, it’s not as if we remained involved after he was resettled, we didn’t have anything to do with
him, so it’s really nothing to do with us any more. And it would all come out in the inquest, anyway.’
He couldn’t tell Melissa the nature of Viktor’s continuing work via his unsuspecting brother. Nor could he show her the handwritten note from the duty officer, shielded by his empty
coffee mug. He would have given a lot to fill the mug but there was no power for the kettle.
‘All you say is true,’ he said, ‘but we mustn’t simply assume it was the Russians and not look anywhere else. It’s one possibility among others. Perhaps the most
likely – certainly the most obvious, it looks like their sort of job. But’ – he chose his words – ‘Configure continued to be consulted after his debriefing was over.
He was almost more a current case than a resettled defector. We can’t keep that back from the police but at the same time we don’t want to let the Russians know. Or open their eyes to
what we were doing with him if it wasn’t them that killed him.’
‘But who else could it have been? Robbery wasn’t a motive, from what you say.’
‘No.’ He glanced again at the note. He was tempted to tell her all but the COFE meeting had been unequivocal: someone within MI6 was permitting the Russians or Chinese access to its
systems and he could tell no-one. Melissa was one of the last people he would have suspected of treachery but the sight of her unopened laptop on the desk before her was another reminder. He said
the next thing that came into his head. ‘A jealous husband, perhaps. He had form in that area.’
‘Why not get MI5 to brief the police? They work with them more than we do and have a better feel for who to trust and how to manage things. And they both come under the Home
Secretary.’
He remembered that she was ex-MI5. ‘Good idea. Brief your opposite number and give them my numbers. Tell them not to hesitate if I’m needed.’
She picked up her bag and laptop. ‘You knew him well, Configure?’
‘We go – went – back a long way. I was his first case officer.’
‘Must be upsetting for you.’
‘Yes.’ It sounded a cold and inadequate response but he was thinking again of the note. ‘His is not the only recent death. Did you know Frank Heathfield?’
‘Only by name, from long ago. Headed your counter-intelligence section, didn’t he? Used to work closely with our CE – counter-espionage – people. I saw he’d died in
the e-newsletter.’ She tapped her laptop. As she did so her mobile rang. She scrabbled in her bag to quell it. ‘Sorry. Security breach for the director of security?’
They both smiled. ‘Not on Sundays between consenting adults. Good luck with the party.’
He rang the duty officer. They had reverted to the rota system of using a pool of retired officers but this one, Derek, sounded younger than most and was unknown to Charles.
‘Any news on this power cut?’
‘No, sir, except that it’s more extensive than first thought. Seems to be most of south London. Whitehall’s okay. I’ve just been on to the MI5 duty officer. They’ve
been fine all morning. Still problems with our own generators, apparently. We’re waiting for parts.’