A Divided Spy (Thomas Kell Spy Thriller, Book 3) (15 page)

‘Alexander!’ Kell called out, leaning forward from the back of the cab. He produced a beaming smile. ‘Why don’t we give you a lift?’

With a barely perceptible push in the lower back, Mowbray steered Minasian into the taxi. Kell indicated that he should sit in the fold-down seat opposite his own and made way for Mowbray beside him. Simon entered by the opposite door. With no safe house nor clearance from Amelia, Kell had little choice but to instruct the driver to take them to his flat on Sinclair Road. He was certain that Minasian would insist on returning to Claridge’s within a few hours, citing the risk of being reported absent by the SVR. That would give him only a very narrow window of time in which to pitch the Russian and to set up the basic parameters of their relationship. The conversation would be complex and fraught with risk. Kell had the Riedle notes to work from, combined with years of experience in recruitment and interrogation, but he had never been up against a serving Russian officer. Minasian was cornered and compromised, but he was not going to make life easy.

There was the added problem of the taxi driver, who had sounded concerned as Minasian was bundled into the back of the cab.

‘Everything all right?’ he had said, as the doors slammed shut. ‘What’s the story, fellas?’

To allay his suspicions, and to avoid any compromising conversation from the back seat, Kell replied with a hearty: ‘Fine, thanks, sorry about the confusion’ and quickly engineered a diversionary chat as the taxi moved east along Brook Green.

‘Did you see those guys playing Frisbee?’

‘I did!’ Mowbray replied, playing along with the ruse. Minasian was staring at Kell with nerveless blue eyes, powerless to prevent what was happening. Kell stared back, mesmerized by the sudden proximity of the man who had dominated his thoughts for so long. Minasian was of average height, but evidently strong and fit. Kell was struck not only by his surprisingly youthful appearance, but also by the quality of his clothes and general appearance. Not for him the down-at-heel uniform of the Russian working class; this, after all, was a man who stayed at Claridge’s and lunched at The Wolseley. His shirt and trousers were designer brands, his jacket tailored, the polished shoes made from hand-stitched leather. The steel edge of a chunky wristwatch was visible beneath the sleeve of Minasian’s cufflinked shirt and his fingernails were trim and clean; they had evidently been manicured. Kell had a mental image of a snake, slipping out of its skin and into another. As the driver turned left towards Blythe Road, Kell leaned forward, reached into Minasian’s jacket pocket and, encountering no resistance or objection, withdrew both his wallet and a well-used BlackBerry. There was a burst of eau de cologne.

‘Did you know that Frisbees began life as containers for pizza?’ he said, drawing a smile from Mowbray as he began to flick through the contents of the wallet. Russian credit cards and a driving licence – all in Minasian’s name – as well as a substantial amount of currency in euros, roubles and sterling. The wallet was lizard skin with an Asprey’s stamp. ‘Somebody saw a couple throwing one back and forth on a beach and offered to buy it from them for a dollar.’

‘Is that right?’ Mowbray replied, deadpan.

‘Whoever it was, he realized he was sitting on a fortune.’ Kell took the cover off the BlackBerry and removed the SIM and battery. ‘Got the design patented, made the tins in hard plastic, the rest is history.’

Minasian was gazing out of the window. He looked detached and calm.

‘Just here, please,’ said Kell.

They were at least twenty metres from his door. The taxi pulled over and Kell paid. Mowbray and Simon flanked the Russian as they waited for the driver to pull away. They were concerned that he might try to run. Kell knew better. Minasian was coming along not only because he had no choice, but because he believed that he could win whatever battle lay ahead of him.

‘The apartment is just over there,’ Kell said, as the taxi growled around the corner. ‘No need for you to come inside, Simon,’ he added, and saw a look of disappointment flit across the young man’s face. ‘Stay out here for a bit. Keep an eye on the street.’

Minasian was looking up and down the road, doubtless trying to memorize his location. Simon took out his phone. Kell knew that he would soon be called home by his superi-ors, on the orders of ‘C’. Amelia would want to know where they had taken GAGARIN. She might even send a team to extract him.

‘Just through here,’ Kell said as they walked into the hall.

One of the neighbours had left a box of empty bottles for recycling near the door on the ground floor. There were parcels and letters on the large fuse box that served as a shelf for mail. Kell led Minasian upstairs, Mowbray following behind them.

‘Come in.’ Kell unlocked his door. He was suddenly hungry and realized that it would be a long time before he was able to eat a proper meal. ‘Make yourself at home.’

Minasian walked inside. He passed the kitchen and went into the living room, looking for all the world like a man sizing up a property for rent.

‘Why don’t you take a seat?’

Minasian spun around and looked at Kell as if he had suggested something quite uncommon. The Russian had not yet spoken. He frowned and dropped into a hard-backed chair. Kell found an iPhone charger, connected it to a power source, propped up his phone on a pile of books and aimed the lens at Minasian.

‘This conversation will be recorded,’ he said.

Minasian shrugged as Mowbray drew the curtains to reduce the brightness of the sunlight streaming through the windows. The air in the flat was stale, the temperature muggy, but Mowbray switched on a small desk fan rather than open the window. The risk of traffic distortion on the audio was too great.

‘Glass of water?’ Kell suggested. ‘Coffee? Tea?’

‘Coffee,’ Minasian replied. It was the first word he had spoken. His voice was deeper than Kell had expected, the Russian accent not as pronounced.

‘How do you take it, Alex?’ Mowbray asked, moving towards the kitchen. ‘Sugar? Dash of white?’

Minasian did not reply. For a considerable time, nothing was said. Kell lit a cigarette and manoeuvred a chair until he was sitting opposite Minasian. He checked the initial footage from the iPhone for framing and focus, then replaced it.

‘Can you confirm your name, please?’

‘Why?’ Minasian asked.

‘Because you have no choice.’

Minasian reacted with a look of impatient disdain that Kell suspected would become familiar.

‘Name,’ he said.

‘You know who I am.’

‘Name.’

Mowbray emerged from the kitchen carrying a tray on which he had placed two cups of coffee, a bowl of sugar, some milk and a plate of biscuits. There was a low table between the two men and he set the tray down, nodding at Minasian.

‘There you go, Alex. I made it black. Just the way you like it.’

‘
Menya zovut Aleksandr Minaysian.
’

‘In English,’ Kell replied.

Minasian’s response was reluctant and near-inaudible.

‘My name is Alexander Alexeyich Minasian.’

‘Again.’

‘My name …’ There was a stubborn, humiliated pause. ‘Is Alexander Alexeyich Minasian.’

‘Who do you work for?’

Minasian looked at Kell, half-pleadingly. Kell demonstrated by his reaction that he expected Minasian to comply.

‘Ya ofitser Es Ve Er.’

‘Are you married?’

Minasian spluttered a contemptuous laugh.

‘Excuse me?’

‘I said are you married?’

‘You know that I am.’

‘Please tell us your wife’s name.’ Kell wanted to humiliate Minasian, to see the suffering of the man who had made him suffer. Yet he knew that he must control his anger, his yearning for revenge.

‘You know this also,’ Minasian replied.

‘Tell us her name.’

‘Eremenko. Svetlana.’

‘And who is Bernhard Riedle? Who
was
Bernhard Riedle?’

On this occasion, Minasian did not hesitate.

‘He was a friend,’ he said, eyes dropping to the floor. ‘He was a decent man.’

Kell spooned two sugars into his coffee and indicated to Mowbray that he should leave the room. As he did so, heading towards the bedroom at the back of the flat, Minasian leaned forward.

‘How do you know that I am not being followed?’

‘I don’t,’ Kell replied briskly.

It was the truth, though he had guessed from Minasian’s behaviour in Sterndale Road – not to mention the longevity of his relationship with Riedle – that he was not a man who was ordinarily tracked by his own people.

‘Then you are taking a big risk, no?’

‘You would know all about taking risks, Alexander.’

Minasian interpreted the remark as a compliment and allowed himself a momentary smile. It was astonishing to see the effect of this on his face, as though his earlier sullenness had been a mask that he could decide to wear or remove on a whim. The lurching mood swings in Minasian’s temperament, described in such detail by Riedle, were beginning to play out in front of his eyes.

‘If I am not back at my hotel by seven o’clock,’ he said, ‘my wife will be alarmed.’

‘Well we can’t have that.’

‘You have given me no means of communicating with her.’

Kell took the BlackBerry and battery out of his jacket pocket, holding them up in both hands.

‘You mean this? You want to contact her?’

‘It would be a good idea for us.’

Kell shook his head. ‘Maybe later. First, could we talk about what you were doing in Sterndale Road?’

Minasian looked down at the plate of biscuits and ignored the question.

‘You live here?’ he asked, gazing around the room.

It was no surprise that Minasian had worked it out. They had walked past a pile of letters in the hall, one of which had been a bank statement addressed to Kell. Even if the Russian had failed to see it, there were too many personal touches, too many idiosyncrasies in the apartment for the location to pass as a safe house. From his chair, Minasian could see a black-and-white photograph of a Masai warrior, a memento from a long-ago posting in Nairobi; a framed letter in Hebrew from a senior official in the Israeli government, sent to Kell just a few weeks after he had arrived as an undeclared ‘diplomat’ in Tel Aviv; and a gold cigarette lighter, engraved with the initials P.M., given to him by Amelia two years earlier. On the bookshelves, to Minasian’s left, there were numerous weighty tomes on foreign affairs and political philosophy, as well as diplomatic memoirs and half a yard of John le Carré. It would not have taken a detective of particularly sharp insight to conclude that this was Kell’s home.

‘I do,’ he conceded. In all conversations of this sort, it was better to tell the truth whenever possible. Confidence was forged more quickly in an atmosphere of honesty.

‘Then why have you brought me here?’

‘Time,’ Kell replied, again being as candid as the situation would allow. ‘We won’t be able to talk for very long. As you said, Alexander, you must soon be getting back to your wife.’

Minasian appeared to concede Kell’s point and looked back at the plate of biscuits without any further comment.

Kell repeated his question.

‘What were you doing in Sterndale Road?’

Minasian looked up. His gaze assumed a soulful, penetrative quality that suggested both high intelligence and absolute candour. In this moment, it was a face seemingly innocent of wrongdoing. There was no malice in it.

‘You know why I was there,’ he said.

‘Do I?’

Minasian continued to look at Kell. He knew what SIS wanted. A video confession of his relationship with Riedle. It was just a question of how long Minasian would delay the inevitable, and therefore salvage a little pride.

‘I’m sorry about Bernie,’ Kell said, trying a different approach. ‘I really am. He
was
a good man.’

No discernible reaction from the Russian. Minasian used silence as both a disguise and as a tool of control.

Kell pressed on: ‘It must have been a terrible shock to you.’

Minasian’s mouth twisted into an expression of distaste. He looked across the room at the bookshelves.

‘You are Peter,’ he said quietly. It was not a question. It was a statement.

‘I am Peter,’ Kell replied.

‘You were lovers?’

Kell laughed out loud and turned towards the kitchen, as though expecting to share the moment with Mowbray.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Peter was not a threat to you.’

Minasian appeared to appreciate the subtlety of Kell’s answer and smiled to himself, nodding slowly. But the apparent softening in his demeanour was short-lived.

‘Why did the British have him killed?’

‘We didn’t.’

Kell took a first sip of the coffee. It was cooler than he had anticipated. Perhaps they had been talking for longer than he imagined.

‘Not you. Your superiors.’

‘That’s who I meant.’

A strange combination of sadness and disappointment played out across Minasian’s face. Kell was struck again by the beguiling candour of his eyes and felt for a moment, against all rational judgment, that he was dealing with a man of deep sensitivity and moral principle. Such an ability to deceive through appearances was a priceless quality for a spy and one that Kell found himself coveting. He could see how effective Minasian must have been in recruiting Ryan Kleckner, appealing simultaneously to the American’s sophomoric political ideas and to his monstrous vanity. As for Riedle, no wonder he had fallen so hard: a man as attractive and charismatic as Minasian would have strung him along as skilfully as a matador exhausting a bull.

‘He was assassinated.’

‘Yes he was,’ Kell replied. ‘But not by us.’ He felt it necessary to add: ‘I’m sorry.’

‘You do not need to say this. It is of no interest to me what you feel.’

Kell decided to test his longheld belief that Minasian had encouraged Rachel’s murder. What if the decision had come from Moscow and Minasian had been overruled when he tried to stop it? Kell had no evidence for this other than a sense that the man sitting in front of him was too canny, too cautious and all-seeing, to have made such a rash move. Rachel’s death had been a senseless act, not only morally indefensible but strategically pointless. Minasian was surely far too subtle to sink to such depths or to sully his reputation so needlessly.