Part 15 (1/2)

”It's fine, Berthy. It really is. Roger's promised me that everything will be all right. Nothing will change.”

She decided to change tack. ”Don't do it, Terence,” she said. She searched for language that might get through to her brother. ”His karma, you see. It's a question of karma.”

”But his karma's fine,” said Terence. ”You're right to raise the issue, Berthy, but Roger's karma is absolutely positive. No, there's no problem there.”

She did not give up. ”It's just that I had this feeling about ... about his aura. I felt that there was something negative there. I can't put my finger on it, but I think we should trust our intuitions.”

”You're right,” he said. ”We must trust our intuitions, and my intuitions all say that Roger is the right person to have a centre here. I just know it, Berthy. I'm convinced.” He paused. 'You know, I'm touched that you should take an interest in this. And I'm really pleased that you're getting on so well with Rog and Claire. It means a lot to me that the whole family should be happy with the s.p.a.ce that everybody's in.”

Berthea gritted her teeth. ”So you haven't signed anything yet?”

Terence shook his head. ”Not yet. But Roger has had a deed of some sort drawn up and it's going to arrive next Wednesday. I'll sign it then.”

”Don't you think you should show it to Mr Worsfold?” Herbert Worsfold was the family solicitor; he might be able to stop this, thought Berthea. He had rescued Terence from a number of difficult situations before now, although none as potentially disastrous as this.

”Mr Worsfold's terribly busy,” said Terence. ”Lawyers always are with all that law, you know. I don't want to bother him.”

”But you must!” pleaded Berthea. ”You really must, Terence. Mr Worsfold loves being bothered. He really does. It's ... it's part of his karma.”

”No, Berthy. My mind is made up. If I start getting solicitors involved in all this, then the karma would certainly be wrong. This is a transaction based on love and respect, Berthy. Lawyers spoil all that with their 'notwithstandings' and their 'hereins' and all that nonsense. Not for me, Berthy. Not for me.”

Berthea looked back at the house. It meant a lot to her; she had spent her childhood there and it was rich in memories. She was perfectly content that it had been left to Terence rather than to her, as he was more vulnerable and would never have been able to find a place to live had he needed to. And with him living there, it felt for Berthea that it was still, in a way, her family home. She would not give it up without a fight. It did not matter if she had to resort to underhand techniques; she was prepared to do that. And she knew a thing or two about those, she reminded herself. After all, she was the mother of Oedipus Snark MP, which must make her in the eyes of some ... well, not all that far removed from Lucrezia Borgia.

Very well, she thought. Gloves off. Roger and Claire: you're toast. She pondered the expression, alien in her mouth though it seemed. It was so vindictive, so primitive, so unforgiving. She should not use it, because she was neither vindictive nor primitive, and she was always willing to forgive. Except, perhaps, in the case of Oedipus. He would be toast too, she thought. In time. In time.

Chapter 46: Blackmail.

Freddie de la Hay had found a comfortable spot on the floor of the flat occupied by Tilly Curtain, a Senior Field Officer (Grade 2) in MI6. The salary of an MI6 field officer, though adequate, is not unduly generous and certainly was not enough to stretch to a flat in that particular street in Notting Hill. Even C himself, who was paid at the level of a senior civil service mandarin plus a twelve thousand pound annual danger allowance, and an automatic C (”C's C”), leading, of course, to a K would barely have managed the inflated monthly rental on this flat without feeling the pinch. The reason for the expensive rental was that the landlord had realised just how keen his prospective lessee was for this particular flat. He had suggested a number of other places to the young woman but she had not seemed in the slightest bit interested in those. That was when he understood that there was something about this flat in particular that she wanted. He could not see what it was, frankly, but people had their little ways, and if these idiosyncrasies enabled him to ask for twenty-five per cent more rent than he could normally expect to command for a short-term let, then so be it. And bless the little ways of tenants.

It had not occurred to the landlord that the attraction of this otherwise mediocre flat might be the neighbours. In the rental market, neighbours were usually a drawback rather than a positive feature, the one exception to this rule being celebrity neighbours, who by their mere presence could cause surrounding rentals to shoot skywards. To live next to a flamboyant and egocentric actor or actress should surely be counted a misfortune, but so great is the public fixation with the cult of celebrity that to many, such neighbours were a positive attraction rather than a drawback. The landlord, in fact, wondered whether this might explain the young woman's desire to secure the lease on the flat at all costs. He believed that an ill-mannered celebrity chef lived in the vicinity, as did a minor rock star. He quickly drew up the lease, with its exorbitant rental provisions, and the deal was struck.

He had no idea that it was the flat on the other side of the landing that was the draw. He had let that property six months ago to an East European company, which wanted it for its London employees. They paid the deposit immediately and appeared to be good tenants although they were reluctant to invite him over the threshold once they had moved in. ”There is no need for you to come in,” he had been told by a burly Russian who answered the door when he had called to see whether all was well. ”There is nothing wrong. Everything functions. We are very happy. Goodbye.”

The prosaically named firm seemed completely inoffensive; n.o.body would give such a business a second thought, and certainly not a second glance. It was obviously concerned with international trade, although not trade in anything interesting; it must deal in bearings, perhaps, or pork futures, or steel.

In reality, the firm was far from bland: it was entirely concerned with blackmail, which it used as a means of securing the sensitive trade secrets of major companies and government departments. These were then sold on to Russian companies who found themselves in compet.i.tion with western counterparts. The resulting revenues were divided equally between a shady and virtually unknown Russian security agency which provided the London staff and the commercial backers, a syndicate of wealthy St Petersburg investors with no sense of commercial propriety, or indeed any of other form of honesty and fair dealing.

The techniques of blackmail used by this organisation differed in few particulars from the blackmail that had been so widely practised by certain agencies of the former Soviet Union. The most common form was s.e.xual: a target would be identified a middle-ranking official in an appealing company and his appet.i.tes a.s.sessed. Thereafter there would be a sustained and carefully planned attempt to compromise him. (The victims were entirely men; women, it appeared, were considered less p.r.o.ne to temptation.) Once an indiscretion had been made, it was extraordinary how cooperative the victim became. Even in a permissive society, where there were few limits to what one could do, people were still sensitive to a light being shone upon their private affairs and indiscretions, and they would risk everything including their careers to avoid exposure.

These techniques paid off handsomely. It was in this way, for instance, that the firm obtained the formula for an improved fuel additive that could prolong the engine life of domestic cars by up to eighteen per cent. It was in this way that a radically more efficient refrigerator, which was upon the point of being granted European and American patent protection, suddenly popped up in an attractively priced Chinese version, having been licensed by a St Petersburg engineering company that had previously done no work at all on refrigerators, or indeed on any other kind of engineering. And when several British inventions in gun-sight optics were produced in Moscow before the release of the United Kingdom prototype, and the detailed plans for these devices were found on the laptop computer of the personnel officer of the firm developing them, MI6 became involved.

And now Freddie de la Hay too. His role was to spend time with the Russians suspected of being behind these dubious affairs, not so much with a view to arresting and punis.h.i.+ng the Russians as to find out who was being targeted and get to them first, before they started doing their blackmailers' bidding.

In order to identify the targets, MI6 had to hear what the Russians were saying. Unfortunately, attempts to bug the flat had failed, an electronic sweep by the Russians having quickly discovered the tiny hidden microphones. After that, the occupants of the flat had started to have long and earnest conversations among themselves as they walked in Kensington Gardens. It was not easy to eavesdrop on what was said in the open, of course, but if they were to take a dog on their walks, and the dog had a transmitter in his collar, then everything could be heard loudly and clearly in a loitering surveillance van bearing the livery of the Royal Parks ...

This was the mission upon which Freddie de la Hay now embarked. Wearing his new collar, in which a small transmitter had been expertly concealed, the obliging and urbane Pimlico terrier was put on a lead and taken downstairs by Tilly Curtain. Freddie's new career had begun. He was now officially in the service of his country.

Chapter 47: Freddie de la Hay Meets Mr Podgornin.

For Freddie de la Hay it was just another walk, although he felt a bit strange wearing this new, rather heavier-than-usual collar. But it was not for him to argue with the choice of collar or lead: this, he recognised, was the domain of the humans in whose shadow he led his life. He had his views which were strong enough, and sometimes vocal on subjects such as biscuits, squirrels or smells, but when it came to the broader parameters of his life, as laid down by humans, Freddie understood that this was simply not his sphere. Had he possessed the words to express it, he would no doubt have said that this was part of the social contract that existed between man and dog, which had been negotiated a long time ago, presumably not long after the first dog had stood outside the early human cave, which was redolent of warmth and charred meat and comfort, and whined to be admitted. That was the moment that sealed the fate of both parties, but particularly of dogs. Man did not ask to join dog, dog asked man, and was therefore the supplicant to whom no concessions needed to be made.

Freddie missed William. Having no real sense of time, he had no idea how long William had been gone from his life. In human terms, it was less than a day; in dog terms, it could have been a month, a year, half a lifetime. He just knew that William was not there and might never be there again. But he did not dwell on what might or might not be; dogs do not see the point, they are concerned only with what is happening now, and with the possibilities of the present moment.

What was happening at that moment was that Freddie was in the park, constrained by a leash, at the other end of which was his temporary custodian, Tilly Curtain. There were intriguing smells at every turn, and Freddie applied his nose to the ground in quivering antic.i.p.ation. Kensington Gardens was a ma.s.s of potential lines of enquiry; smells going in every direction; smells that ran straight along paths, smells that wound this way and that: smells that crossed flower beds and gra.s.s and path and then suddenly and inexplicably stopped at the base of a tree. It was enough to keep him busy for hours, for days perhaps, if this new person would only allow him the chance to investigate. But she was pulling on his collar, hauling him off in the direction of a thickset man who was standing on one of the paths, smoking a cigarette and looking pensive.

”Mr Podgornin,” said Tilly. ”What a fine day, isn't it? I love being out here on a day like this.”

Podgornin looked at the young woman standing before him; his neighbour, of course, the one who lived in the flat across the landing. And that dog of hers. It was a Pimlico Terrier, she had said something about that. What good dogs those were. I'm almost tempted to steal him! he thought. But no, she's a pleasant woman and one doesn't want to do anything to attract undue attention. The British are odd about that sort of thing. They become very excited if anybody does anything to a dog. Stupid people! Sentimentalists! No wonder they're finished, he said to himself.

”Good day, Miss ... Miss ...” What was she called? They had such ridiculous names, it was terribly hard to remember them. This young woman, for example, had a name that had something to do with furniture or construction or something like that.

”Tilly. Tilly Curtain.”

”Of course!” He took his cigarette out of his mouth with his left hand as he extended his right hand in greeting. Crude though he was, Podgornin knew how to behave gallantly to women. And they were always always impressed! They really were most predictable, he thought; like the whole country utterly predictable.

”I think I may have mentioned to you that I was getting a dog,” said Tilly. ”A Pimlico Terrier.” She pointed to Freddie de la Hay, who looked up at Podgornin with mild interest, wagging his tail politely.

”Of course, you did,” said Podgornin, drawing again on his cigarette. ”It's a breed I am particularly fond of. I had one myself a few years ago, when I first came to London. It was a very fine dog.” He paused, and bent down to pat Freddie on the head. Freddie smelled the tobacco tars on the approaching hand and struggled with the urge to turn his head away. He knew that this was not what was expected of him, and so he closed his eyes and let Podgornin's hand ruffle the fur around his collar. Now he had the smell of tobacco on his coat, an acrid, cloying smell that would make it difficult to distinguish the fascinating smells that he had been so happily investigating before this unwanted encounter. Who was this man? Was he a member of William's pack? Was he expected to accept him?

”I'm very pleased with him,” Tilly said. ”But ...” She hesitated, and Podgornin, who had been staring at Freddie, looked at her quizzically. ”But, well, you may remember that I was concerned about what I would do if I had to go away and couldn't take him with me.”

Podgornin thought for a moment. ”Oh, yes, I remember. I said that I'd be very happy to look after him for you. Very happy. We Russians are very fond of dogs, you know. Woof, woof!”

Tilly looked relieved. ”Oh, thank you, Mr Podgornin. In fact, I'm facing a bit of a crisis right now.”

Podgornin frowned. He drew on his cigarette. ”Crisis?”

”Oh, nothing out of the ordinary really. It's just that I have this rather infirm relative I think I spoke to you about her. She has a carer, but the carer needs respite from time to time. I have to go off tomorrow, actually, and look after things for a week or two.”

Podgornin smiled. ”I said I'd help you out, and of course I will. I'll be very happy to take this fine dog. You mustn't worry.”

”I'll get all his things together, his bowl, his food and so on. Would ten o'clock suit you?”

Podgornin nodded. He looked at his watch and then threw his cigarette b.u.t.t on the ground. Freddie de la Hay looked with distaste at the small, smouldering object. He did not like Mr Podgornin. He did not like his smell. He did not like the way he looked at him. He was not dog-friendly in the way that this woman, or that other man in the park, or those people downstairs at Corduroy Mansions were. Corduroy Mansions ... Where was it? Where was Pimlico? Where was William?

Chapter 48: A Breakfast Exchange.

On the morning after their impromptu inspection of Barbara Ragg's flat, Rupert Porter and his wife, Gloria, sat at their breakfast table, exchanging recriminatory glances. It was all Rupert's fault, thought Gloria, it had been his idea to go to the flat after dinner; it was true that she had agreed, but she would never have initiated such a visit herself. That was Rupert's trouble: he was so persuasive. And her trouble was that she allowed herself to be persuaded by him, often against her better judgement.