Part 27 (1/2)

And if the same adolescent boys were seen next day, in their carefully different outfits, scrambling up the precipitous rock path that ran from the back garden all the way up to Mannlichen ridge, with Perry out ahead urging them on, and Alexei vowing that he was going to break his neck any f.u.c.king minute, and Viktor insisting that he'd just stared down a full-grown stag, even if it was only a chamois well, what was so remarkable about that? Perry even roped them together. He found a handy bit of overhang, hired boots and bought ropes ropes, he explained severely, being for a mountaineer both personal and sacrosanct and taught them how to dangle over an abyss, even if the abyss was only twelve feet deep.

As to the two young women one sixteen-ish and the other maybe ten years older, both beautiful stretched out on deckchairs with their books under a spreading maple tree that had somehow escaped the developer's bulldozer well, if you were a Swiss male, perhaps you'd look and then pretend you hadn't looked, or if you were an Italian, you might have looked and applauded. But you wouldn't have rushed to the telephone and whispered to the police that you had seen two suspicious women reading in the shade of a maple tree.

Or so Luke told himself, and so Ollie told himself, and so Perry and Gail as co-opted members of the neighbourhood watch agreed how could they do otherwise? which didn't mean that any of them, even the small girls, ever quite got rid of the notion that they were in hiding and living against the clock. When Katya asked at breakfast over Ollie's pancake, bacon and maple syrup, 'Are we going to England today?' or Irina, more plaintively, 'Why haven't we gone to England yet?' they were speaking for everyone round the table, starting with Luke himself, the hero of the party by virtue of having his right hand in plaster after falling down the steps of his hotel in Berne.

'You gonna sue that hotel, d.i.c.k?' Viktor demanded aggressively.

'I shall be consulting my lawyer on the subject,' Luke replied with a smile for Gail.

As to precisely when when they were going to London: 'Well, perhaps not today, Katya, but maybe tomorrow, or the next day,' Luke a.s.sured her. 'It's just a question of when your visas come through. And we all know what apparatchiks are like, even English ones, don't we?' they were going to London: 'Well, perhaps not today, Katya, but maybe tomorrow, or the next day,' Luke a.s.sured her. 'It's just a question of when your visas come through. And we all know what apparatchiks are like, even English ones, don't we?'

But when, oh when?

Luke asked himself the same question every waking and half-sleeping hour of the day or night as Hector's breathless bulletins piled in: now a couple of cryptic sentences between meetings, now a whole jeremiad in the small hours of another endless day. Bewildered by the barrage of contradictory reports, Luke at first resorted to the officially unforgivable sin of keeping a written log of them as they came in. With the lurid fingertips of his right hand poking from the plaster, he scribbled away painstakingly in his own quaint shorthand on single sheets of A4 bought by Ollie from the village stationer's, one side only.

In the approved training-school manner, he purloined the gla.s.s from a picture frame to press on, wiping it clean after each page, and caching the product behind a water tank against the remote possibility that Viktor, Alexei, Tamara or Dima himself might take it into their heads to search his room.

But as the speed and complexity of Hector's messages from the front began to overwhelm him, he prevailed on Ollie to get him a pocket recorder, much like Dima's, and connect it to his encrypted mobile another mortal sin in the eyes of Training Section, but a G.o.dsend when he was lying wakefully in bed waiting for the next of Hector's idiosyncratic bulletins: It's a knife-edge, Lukie, but we're winning. I'm bypa.s.sing Billy Boy and going straight to the Chief. I've said it's got to be hours not days. The Chief says talk to the Vice-Chief. The Vice-Chief says if Billy Boy won't sign off on it, nor will he. He won't sign off on it alone. He's got to have the whole fourth floor behind him or it's no deal. I've said b.u.g.g.e.r that. You're not going to believe this but Billy Boy's coming round. He's kicking like h.e.l.l, but even he can't stay away from the truth when it's rammed up his hooter.

All this within the s.p.a.ce of the first twenty-four hours after Luke had sent the cadaverous philosopher spinning down the staircase, a feat Hector initially greeted as sheer genius, but on reflection said he didn't think he'd be bothering the Vice-Chief with it for the time being.

'Did our boy actually kill kill Niki, Luke?' Hector inquired, in the most casual of tones. Niki, Luke?' Hector inquired, in the most casual of tones.

'He hopes he did.'

'Yes. Well, I don't think I heard any of that, did you?'

'Not a sound.'

'It was two other blokes, and any similarity is purely coincidental. Deal?'

'Deal.'

By mid-afternoon on day two, Hector sounded frustrated but not yet downhearted. The Cabinet Office had ruled that a quorum of the Empowerment Committee must after all be convened, he said. They were insisting that Billy Boy Matlock must be fully apprised repeat fully fully of all operational details that Hector had hitherto held close to his chest. They would settle for a four-man working party comprising one representative each from the Foreign and Home offices, Treasury and Immigration. Excluded members would be invited to ratify the recommendations of all operational details that Hector had hitherto held close to his chest. They would settle for a four-man working party comprising one representative each from the Foreign and Home offices, Treasury and Immigration. Excluded members would be invited to ratify the recommendations post facto post facto, which the Cabinet Office predicted would be a formality. With every kind of reluctance, Hector had accepted their terms. Then quite suddenly it was in the evening of the same day the weather changed, and Hector's voice rose a notch. Luke's illicit recorder played the moment back to him: H: The b.u.g.g.e.rs are ahead of us somehow. Billy Boy's just had the tip-off from his City sources.L: Ahead of us how how? How can they be? We haven't made a move yet.H: According to Billy Boy's City sources, the Financial Services Authority is shaping to block the Arena application to open a major bank and we're the boys who've put the knife in.L: We? We?H: The Service. All of it. The big City inst.i.tutions are screaming foul. Thirty cross-bench MPs on the oligarch payroll are drafting a rude letter to the Secretary to the Treasury accusing the Financial Services Authority of anti-Russian prejudice and demanding that all unreasonable obstacles to the application be removed forthwith. The usual suspects in the House of Lords are up in arms.L: But that's utter bulls.h.i.+t!H: Try telling that to the Financial Services Authority. All they they know is, the central banks are refusing to lend to each other despite the fact that they've been given billions of public money to do exactly that. Now, lo and behold, along comes Arena to the rescue on its white horse, offering to put hundreds of b.l.o.o.d.y billions into their hot little hands. Who gives a s.h.i.+t where the money comes from? [ know is, the central banks are refusing to lend to each other despite the fact that they've been given billions of public money to do exactly that. Now, lo and behold, along comes Arena to the rescue on its white horse, offering to put hundreds of b.l.o.o.d.y billions into their hot little hands. Who gives a s.h.i.+t where the money comes from? [Is this a question? If so, Luke has no answer to it.]H [sudden outburst]: There aren't any unreasonable obstacles unreasonable obstacles, for f.u.c.k's sake! n.o.body's even begun to erect erect any unreasonable obstacles! As of last night, Arena's application was rotting in the FSA's pending tray. They haven't met, they haven't conferred, they've hardly started their regulatory inquiries. But none of that has stopped the Surrey oligarchs from beating their war drums, or the financial editors being briefed that if Arena's application is rejected, the City of London will end up a poor fourth behind Wall Street, Frankfurt and Hong Kong. And whose fault will that be? The Service's, led up the garden path by one Hector b.l.o.o.d.y Meredith! any unreasonable obstacles! As of last night, Arena's application was rotting in the FSA's pending tray. They haven't met, they haven't conferred, they've hardly started their regulatory inquiries. But none of that has stopped the Surrey oligarchs from beating their war drums, or the financial editors being briefed that if Arena's application is rejected, the City of London will end up a poor fourth behind Wall Street, Frankfurt and Hong Kong. And whose fault will that be? The Service's, led up the garden path by one Hector b.l.o.o.d.y Meredith!

Another silence followed so long that Luke was reduced to asking Hector whether he was still there, for which he received a snappish 'where the f.u.c.k d'you think I am?'

'Well at least Billy Boy's aboard for you,' Luke suggested, by way of offering comfort that he didn't share.

'A total turnaround, thank G.o.d,' Hector replied devoutly. 'Don't know where I'd be without him.'

Luke didn't know either.

Billy Boy Matlock, Hector's ally ally suddenly? Hector's convert to the cause? His newfound comrade-in-arms? A total turnaround? suddenly? Hector's convert to the cause? His newfound comrade-in-arms? A total turnaround? Billy? Billy?

Or Billy Boy buying himself a little reinsurance on the side? Not that Billy Boy was bad bad, not bad like wicked, not bad like Aubrey Longrigg, Luke had never thought that of him not your devious mastermind, your double or triple agent, sidling between conflicting powers. That wasn't Billy at all. He was too obvious for that.

So when precisely might this great conversion have occurred, and why? Luke marvelled. Or might it be that Billy Boy had already covered his back elsewhere, and was now ready to offer Hector his ample front, thereby becoming privy to the most closely guarded secrets in Hector's treasure chest?

What, for instance, had been in Billy's head that Sunday afternoon when he walked out of the Bloomsbury safe house, smarting from his humiliating put-down? Love of Hector? Or serious concerns for his own position in the future scheme of things?

What great City eminence might Billy Boy, in the days of painful rumination following that meeting, have invited to lunch famously parsimonious though he might be and sworn to secrecy, knowing that in the great eminence's book a secret is what he tells one person at a time? Knowing also that he has gained himself a friend should events take a tricky turn?

And of the many ripples that might fan out from this one little pebble tossed into the City's murky waters, who knew which of them might lap against the super-sharp ear of that distinguished City insider and rising parliamentarian, Aubrey Longrigg?

Or Bunny Popham?

Or Giles de Salis, ringmaster of the media circus?

And of all the other sharp-eared Longriggs, Pophams and de Salises waiting to jump on the Arena roundabout the minute it begins to turn?

Except that, according to Hector, the roundabout hasn't hasn't begun to turn. So why jump? begun to turn. So why jump?

Luke wished very much that he had someone to share his thoughts with, but as usual there was n.o.body. Perry and Gail were outside the circle. Yvonne was off-air. And Ollie was well, Ollie was the best back-door man in the business, but no Einstein when it came to the cut and thrust of high-stakes intrigue.

While Gail and Perry were performing sterling work as proxy parents, troupe leaders, Monopoly players and tour guides to the children, Ollie and Luke had been counting off the warning signs, and either dismissing them or adding them to Luke's ever-growing worry list.

In the course of one morning, Ollie had observed the same couple pa.s.s the house twice on the north side, then twice on the south-west side. Once the woman wore a yellow headscarf and a green Loden coat, once a floppy sunhat and slacks. But the same boots and socks, and carrying the same alpine walking stick. The man wore shorts the first time and baggy leopard-spot pants the second, but the same peaked blue cap and the same way of walking with his hands at his sides, barely moving them with his stride.

And Ollie had taught observation at training school, so it was hard to gainsay him.

Ollie had also been keeping a wary eye on Wengen railway station in the wake of Gail's and Natasha's encounter with Swiss authority at Interlaken Ost. According to a servant of the railway with whom Ollie had had a quiet beer in the Eiger Bar, the police presence in Wengen, normally restricted to resolving the odd punch-up, or conducting a half-hearted quest for drug pushers, had been increased over the past few days. Hotel registers had been checked out, and the photograph of a broad-faced, balding man with a beard had been surrept.i.tiously shown to ticket clerks at the train and cable-car stations.

'I don't suppose Dima ever grew a beard at all, did he, back in the days when he was opening his first money laundromat in Brighton Beach?' he inquired of Luke during a quiet walk in the garden.

Both a beard and a moustache, Luke conceded grimly. They were part of the new ident.i.ty he a.s.sumed in order to get himself to the States. Didn't shave them off till five years ago.

And call it coincidence, but Ollie didn't while he was at the railway news-stand, picking up the International Herald Tribune International Herald Tribune and the local press, he had spotted the same suspicious pair that he had seen casing the house. They were sitting in the waiting room and staring at the wall. Two hours and several trains going in both directions later, they were still there. Ollie could offer no explanation for their behaviour except c.o.c.k-up: the relief surveillance team had missed the train, so the two were waiting while their superiors made up their minds what to do with them, or taking into account their chosen position overlooking platform 1 waiting to see who got off trains arriving from Lauterbrunnen. and the local press, he had spotted the same suspicious pair that he had seen casing the house. They were sitting in the waiting room and staring at the wall. Two hours and several trains going in both directions later, they were still there. Ollie could offer no explanation for their behaviour except c.o.c.k-up: the relief surveillance team had missed the train, so the two were waiting while their superiors made up their minds what to do with them, or taking into account their chosen position overlooking platform 1 waiting to see who got off trains arriving from Lauterbrunnen.

'Plus the nice lady at the cheese shop asked me how many people I thought I was feeding, which I didn't like, but she may may have been referring to my somewhat oversized tummy,' he ended, as if to lighten Luke's load, but humour wasn't coming easily to either of them. have been referring to my somewhat oversized tummy,' he ended, as if to lighten Luke's load, but humour wasn't coming easily to either of them.

Luke was also fretting about the fact that the household included four children of school age. Swiss schools were running, so why weren't our our children at school? The medical nurse had asked him the same question when he went to the village surgery to have his hand checked. His lame reply to the effect that the International Schools were having a half-term had sounded implausible even to himself. children at school? The medical nurse had asked him the same question when he went to the village surgery to have his hand checked. His lame reply to the effect that the International Schools were having a half-term had sounded implausible even to himself.

So far, Luke had insisted on confining Dima indoors, and Dima out of indebtedness had grudgingly submitted. In the afterglow of the scuffle on the staircase of the Bellevue Palace, Luke at first could do no wrong in Dima's eyes. But as the days crawled by and Luke had to find one excuse after another for the apparatchiks in London, Dima's mood turned to one of resistance, then revolt. Tiring of Luke, he put his case to Perry with characteristic bluntness: 'If I wanna take Tamara a walk, I gonna take her,' he growled. 'I see a beautiful mountain, I wanna show her. This isn't f.u.c.king Kolyma. You tell this to d.i.c.k, hear me, Professor?'

For the shallow climb up the concrete path to the benches that overlooked the valley, Tamara decided she needed a wheelchair. Ollie was sent off to find one. With her hennaed hair, splurged lipstick and dark gla.s.ses, she resembled some necromancer's artefact, and Dima in his boiler suit and woollen ski cap was no prettier. But in a community inured to every kind of human aberration, they made some sort of ideal elderly couple as Dima pushed Tamara slowly up the hill behind the house to show her the Staubbach Falls and Lauterbrunnen Valley in all their glory.

And if Natasha accompanied them, which she sometimes did, it was no longer as the hated love-child sired by Dima and inflicted on Tamara after she was ejected half-mad from prison, but as their loving and obedient daughter, whether natural or adopted was no longer relevant. But mostly, Natasha read her books or sought out her father when he was alone, blandis.h.i.+ng him, stroking his bald head and kissing it as if he were her child.

Perry and Gail too were integral parts of this newly const.i.tuted family that was forming: with Gail forever thinking up new activities for the girls, introducing them to the cows in the meadows, marching them off to watch Hobelkase being planed in the cheese shop, or looking for deer and squirrels in the woods; while Perry played the boys' admired team leader and lightning-rod for their surplus energy. Only when Gail proposed an early-morning four at tennis with the boys did Perry uncharacteristically demur. After the match from h.e.l.l in Paris, he confessed, he needed time to recover.