Authors: Jeremy Duns
She blinked, forcing herself to picture the chart on her desk with the row of distribution lists, and his name at the top of every one of them. No, he was guilty, and she could prove it. She
had
proven it, to the satisfaction of Sandy and everyone else who’d read her report. It was incontrovertible – and one may smile, and smile, and be a villain.
He leaned forward and took her hand firmly in his grasp. ‘Tom Gadlow. You must be Rachel. The office cabled to say you were on your way a few hours ago. Though the message was rather
vague.’
Rachel glanced over at his wife, and Gadlow caught it.
‘Oh, you can speak freely – Eleanor’s fully cleared.’
She was Gadlow’s secretary at the station – it was how they’d met – but Rachel had wanted to speak to him alone. An awkward silence stretched out as she wondered how best
to broach the subject. On an impulse, she walked over to the stone balustrade and leaned across it, looking out onto a large garden. Beds of vivid orange and red flowers – cannas, she thought
– were dotted around a small swimming pool that had been lit up from within, like a diamond glowing in a velvet cushion. What a life: servants and evening gowns and swimming pools. She
thought of her tiny kitchenette in Holborn: Danny’s books and papers, the sink so small it was an engineering job to wash the dishes, the malfunctioning radiators. A few weeks earlier it had
been so cold at night that she’d taken to spinning her legs around beneath her quilt, as though riding a bicycle, to generate some heat.
She turned back to the Gadlows, and the business in hand.
‘I’m sorry to barge in on you both like this. I take it you’re on your way out somewhere?’
Gadlow nodded. ‘Yes. The Harrisons – colleagues from the High Commission. They have an open house every year.’
‘It’s the best New Year’s Eve party in KL,’ added Eleanor. ‘Joan works with a local catering chap – what’s his name again, darling?’
Gadlow smiled tightly. ‘I don’t remember.’
‘Yes, you do. She was telling us about it the other day . . . Mister Kong, that’s it! She goes on a little sortie with him through Chinatown, and she samples all the hawker stalls
and chooses her favourite dozen, the
crème de la crème.
Mister Kong then makes all the arrangements and they relocate their stalls, just for the night, in the
Harrisons’ garden. They’re all decorated with lanterns, and you wander through helping yourself to
kway teow
or soup or whatever you fancy – your own little Chinatown for
the evening. Isn’t that marvellous? Tom always gorges himself at the
mee
stall – it’s those thick noodles, you like, isn’t it?’
Gadlow nodded, Rachel thought a little embarrassed by his wife’s loquaciousness. She gave what she hoped passed for a rueful smile. ‘Well, I’m afraid he’s going to have
to give the noodles a miss this year. He’s needed back in London.’ She addressed Gadlow. ‘We’re flying back tonight, and you’re expected at a meeting at headquarters
as soon as we arrive.’
Eleanor Gadlow spoke first, her face now devoid of the brightness of a few moments earlier.
‘Tonight? What’s going on – is there some sort of emergency? And why’ve they sent you all the way out here to escort him back, rather than just telling him to book a
flight out?’
‘I’ve no idea. I’m just following instructions.’
Eleanor Gadlow shook her head in a small gesture of bafflement. ‘But they must have told you
something
, surely?’
Rachel didn’t reply. Don’t get drawn in, Sandy had told her. Avoid all confrontation. But the mood had shifted: she was no longer a guest to impress with tales of lavish parties, or
‘the girl from London’. She was an intruder.
Gadlow placed a hand on his wife’s arm. ‘It’s all right, darling, I’m sure they’ll have their reasons.’ He turned to Rachel. ‘What time’s this
flight?’
‘We’re booked on the BOAC leaving at three a.m. We’ll arrive in Heathrow in the early afternoon and you’re due at headquarters straightaway. You’ll fly back out on
Monday.’
She did have a ticket for him on the return flight, but he was never going to use it. The schedule had been worked out to give him the least possible time to think, let alone contact his handler
or a cut-out.
Gadlow glanced at his watch. ‘You have to check in at one for that flight, which is, let’s see, in . . . six and a half hours from now. All right. I’ve got an overnight bag
prepared upstairs. I take it you won’t mind if I pop by the Harrisons’ with Eleanor anyway – just for half an hour or so? I don’t care for “Auld Lang Syne”
personally, but it’s the social occasion of the year in these parts and it would look odd if I didn’t at least show my face. Eleanor would be fielding pointed questions from first
attachés all night.’
He had played the hand well, she had to give him that. Concerned, polite, and there was nothing she could object to without seeming unreasonable. She didn’t know if he was acting alone or
with his wife’s help, but even without the prompting he must have suspected her real reason for coming out here – why send an escort, indeed? But Rachel’s objective was not simply
to get him back to London, but to do so without the Sovs noticing. Once a few days had passed and he hadn’t shown up at the High Commission or made contact, they would naturally worry he had
been blown – but they wouldn’t be sure of it. He might simply be attending a training course or being briefed for a future posting. After a few weeks they would realise there could be
no other explanation, but by then the Service would have had a chance to place surveillance on every agent and case officer he’d identified in the interim, and perhaps even to feed them some
disinformation.
She somehow doubted that a no-show at a New Year’s Eve party would seriously perturb anyone, let alone the Russians – but it was a nagging possibility nonetheless. It was a deft hand
in other ways, too, as he had instantly put her under pressure.
Don’t let the
bastard out of your sight.
Well, that had been easy enough for Sandy to say from the comfort of
his enormous office in London, but if she insisted Gadlow didn’t attend the party she would merely confirm his suspicion that he’d been detected, meaning he’d have even less to
lose by trying to make a run for it. And she had no way of preventing him from going to the party, or anywhere else for that matter. She wasn’t even armed.
She felt like a fool. All her planning had been undone in seconds. And as much as she wished she had brought a gun with her, she knew it wouldn’t have helped, as she could hardly have just
shot him if he failed to do what she said. That was something for the pictures.
And perhaps he had another motive. Was it simply the condemned man’s last request, but rather than a cigarette or a rare steak, his favourite dish of noodles and perhaps the chance to save
face with his wife and friends? The idea made her unaccountably sad. It was easy to hate traitors on paper. Far harder in the flesh.
Her mind raced through the possibilities, calculating her next move. Eleanor Gadlow was watching her intently, but her husband was now looking out into the garden, as though not especially
interested in how she would respond. She cleared her throat.
‘This party. Do you think the hosts would mind if I came, too?’
Gadlow turned to her and held her gaze for a fraction of a moment, then broke out his charmer’s smile again. ‘Of course not. You’d be our guest. Akib can drive us all there,
and then he can take the two us on to the airport when the time comes. How does that sound?’
‘Wonderful.’
At precisely ten o’clock, Udah Atnam walked through the front gates of the Harrisons’ property and glanced at the gathering of cars parked in the drive. Most had
diplomatic plates and small flags attached to the bonnets. The chauffeurs were smoking and talking among themselves.
He walked past them, down a narrow path in the grass that led to a servants’ entrance. He parted a beaded curtain and entered the hot, steam-dense kitchen. The Harrisons’
amah
was working with members of Mister Kong’s catering staff, preparing cold cuts and snacks. None of them paid Udah Atnam any mind, as he was dressed, like them, in a white smock
with a checked blue and white sash and matching forage cap.
‘It’s like a paper-chase, only with crates of beer at the end of it. You really should try it if you ever get the chance.’
Rachel was half-listening as Simon Harrison explained to her the history and rules of the Hash House Harriers while she took tiny sips from the glass of advocaat he’d foisted on her. A
blend of aromas – peanut sauce and chilli and coconut milk and fried meats – wafted over from the stalls in the garden, and somewhere over to her right a jazz quartet was playing an
instrumental rendition of ‘It Was a Very Good Year’. Every few seconds she glanced towards Tom Gadlow, who was standing a couple of feet away, talking with Eleanor and a Spanish
military attaché about the riots that had taken place between the Malays and Chinese the previous spring, and which had apparently led to the decision not to have any fireworks at midnight
this year.
A mosquito whined in her ear, and she shook her head in an attempt to evade it. She was being bitten to death by the things. Harrison broke off his exegesis to commiserate.
‘Ah, you’re fresh blood. I’m afraid they love newcomers, although you do become hardened to it. How long are you out here for?’
‘Oh, just a flying visit.’
He bowed his head. ‘What a shame – both for us and the mosquitoes.’
She forced a smile, grateful for the kindness but now a little weary of the flow of expatriate charm. This was what she had to look forward to if she was ever posted to a Station, she thought.
Christ. She caught Gadlow’s eye and looked down at her wristwatch meaningfully. He broke away from his discussion, and she quickly disentangled herself from Harrison.
‘We need to get going soon.’
‘I know. Thank you for letting me show my face – I hope you can understand why it was necessary.’
She nodded, although she understood no such thing. But she was relieved nevertheless – he seemed to be taking his fate with a certain dignity. They were nearly there, and no Russians in
fedoras had turned up to spirit him away on a freighter bound for Vladivostok. Only a few minutes to go now.
‘I’m just going to grab my annual bowl of noodles, and then we can head off.’
She looked at him. A last-minute attempt to run?
‘I’ll come with you.’
They headed into the garden, towards the replica Chinatown.
Udah Atnam walked through the kitchen and into the narrow corridor leading to the dining room. Halfway along, he opened a door that had a card reading ‘Staff
Bathroom’ taped above the handle.
He locked the door behind him, then took a small passport-sized photograph from his jacket. It was of a man, a European. He held it between two fingers and examined it for a few minutes. Once he
was sure he had committed every aspect of the features staring back at him to memory, he tore the photograph into tiny pieces, lifted the seat of the toilet and dropped them, fluttering, into the
bowl.
He reached behind the cistern and slowly pulled out a small dark wooden container resembling a cigar case. He clicked open the latch and removed the inner and outer barrels of a bamboo pipe. He
fixed these together, then attached the small ivory mouthpiece that sat in an indentation in the case. He placed the assembled pipe inside a thin pocket that was sewn into the lining of his right
jacket sleeve.
There was now just one item left in the case: a small dart. Its tip had been dipped in a mixture of strychnine and the boiled-down resin of an
ipoh
tree, and was protected by a wooden
sheath. He made sure the sheath was clipped tight, then placed the dart in the pocket sewn into his other sleeve.
He stood, flushed the lavatory and walked back into the kitchen. On one of the counters he spied a tray of drinks. He picked it up and headed outside.
Rachel was panicking. She’d actually lost sight of Gadlow. The cardinal bloody sin. Sandy was going to kill her, string her up outside his office as a warning to
others.
How had she let it happen? They’d been standing in line at his beloved noodle stall, and after she had given her order to the smiling stall-holder she had turned so he could do the same,
only to find he’d vanished.
She had been paralysed for a moment, but then the magnitude of the situation had registered somewhere and she had started running through the small warren of stalls, searching for him among the
party guests, of whom there suddenly seemed to be hundreds. Faces blurred into each other and snippets of laughter seemed to mock her as she rushed past, caroming into people. A babble of voices
called out to her, in English, Malay, Tamil and who knew what else, and she felt her head spinning. Her sandals were slowing her down so she kicked them off, feeling the blades of the coarse grass
digging into the soles of her feet as she did. He had to be here somewhere, he couldn’t simply have disappeared . . . Through a cloud of steam she glimpsed a flash of pink.
There.
It was him. He was about twenty yards away, talking to someone. A servant holding a tray. Could it be a contact?
She started running towards him, abandoning her English restraint and knocking over people’s drinks and plates in the process, her pulse racing as she tried to keep her panic from rising
and focus on the figure ahead: white shirt, pink and green sarong,
get to him, get to him . . .
A chit-chat scuttled in front of Gadlow’s feet as he hurried through the stalls. He had to get out of the villa. If Kolya had received the message he’d transmitted
that afternoon, there should be a car waiting in the street. If . . .
‘Sir!’
Gadlow turned sharply, his shoulders tensing. A kitchen boy was standing near one of the
satay
stalls, beckoning him. Gadlow hurried over.
‘Yes?’
The boy nodded in a small gesture of supplication. ‘I have been sent to assist you.’
Gadlow peered at the boy in the darkness. ‘By who?’