It wasnt Stephen Marchant, thats all I know, Myers said, momentarily unsteady as he took in her legs. Or his son. I cant understand why they suspended him. No, Daniels one of the good guys. Good taste in women, too.
Half an hour later, Leila lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling in her Canary Wharf flat, regretting that she had let Myers stay on her sofabed. He was already fast asleep, his body lying as if he had been dropped from a great height, and snoring loudly.
Leila thought again about her mother, how she had sounded on the phone the night before. The doctor who had first suggested a nursing home had told her not to worry, that she must expect her mother to sound increasingly confused, but it was still alarming. Sunday was not a day she usually called her, but the marathon that morning had left her frightened and tired. Alone in her flat, after four hours of questioning at Thames House, she had felt like a child again. When she was younger and needing to talk, she had never turned to her father, who had made little effort to know her. She had always confided in her mother, but now her voice had scared Leila even more.
They came tonight, three of them, her mother had begun in slow Farsi. They took the boyyou know him, the one who cooks for me. Beat him in front of my eyes.
Did they hurt you, Mama? Leila asked, dreading the answer. The confused stories of mistreatment grew worse each time she rang. Did they touch you?
He was like a grandson to me, she continued. Dragged him away by his feet.
Mama, what did they do to you? Leila asked.
You told me they wouldnt come, her mother said. Others here have suffered, too.
Never again, Mama. They wont come any more. I promise.
Why did they say my family are to blame? What have we ever done to them?
Nothing. You know how it is. Are you safe now?
But the line was dead.
Leila wanted to be with Marchant now, to hold him close, talk about her mother. If only they had met in different circumstances, other lives. Marchant had often said the same. But their paths had tangled and could never be undone, even though both had learnt to keep a part of themselves back that no oneagents, colleagues, loverscould ever touch. Marchant, though, was unlike anyone she had come across before. He was driven, pushing himself to the limits of success and failure. Nothing in his life ever happened in half measures. If Marchant drank, he would keep drinking until dawn. When he needed to sleep deeply, he could lie in until midday. And when he needed to study, he would work all night.
She remembered the day, two weeks into their new entrants course at the Fort, when she woke early after a fitful sleep. The wind had been blowing in off the Channel all night, and the old windows of the bleak training centre, a former Napoleonic fort on the end of the Gosport peninsula, were rattling like milk bottles on a float. The three female recruits were in a large, shared room on the north side of the central courtyard, while the seven men were in a block of separate bedsits on the east side, overlooking the sea. She went to the window and saw a light. She couldnt be sure it was Marchants, but she pulled on a jumper, wrapped herself in a dressing gown and made her way quietly across the cold stone courtyard.
When she reached the row of mens rooms, she knew immediately that it was Marchants weak light seeping out from under the old wooden door. She hesitated, shivering. The day before had been dedicated to the theory of recruiting agents. People could generally be persuaded to betray their country for reasons of Money, Ideology, Coercion or Ego: MICE. It had been a long day in the classroom, with only a brief drink in the bar afterwards. Marchant had studiously ignored her then, even though they had been in the same group all day, exchanging what she thought were meaningful glances.
She knocked once and waited. There was no sound, and for a moment Leila thought he must be sleeping; or perhaps he was partying down in Portsmouth and had left the light on as a crude decoy. But then the door opened and Marchant was standing there, in a faded surfers T-shirt and boxer shorts.
I couldnt sleep, she said. Can I come in? Marchant said nothing, but stood to one side, letting her step into the small room. Arent you cold? This dump is freezing.
It stops me falling asleep. Marchant picked up a pair of trousers that were slung across the unmade bed, dropped them in the corner and sat back down at his desk. Make yourself at home. Im afraid theres only one chair.
Leila perched herself on the edge of the bed. A pile of papers was stacked up on Marchants small desk, bathed in a pool of light from a dented Anglepoise. A half-empty bottle of whisky stood next to the papers. For a few moments they were silent, listening to the plangent wind outside.
What are you reading? she asked. He turned half away from her, flicking through the printed sheets.
Famous traitors. You know Ames is still owed $2.1 million by the Russians? Theyre keeping it for him in an offshore account, should he ever escape from his Pennsylvania penitentiary. There was no higher calling, just the need for cash. His wifes shopping bills were more than his CIA salary. So simple.
Its four oclock in the morning.
I know.
Why now?
Marchant turned back to look at her. Its not enough for me just to pass out of here. I need to fly out of this bloody place with wings.
Because of who your father is?
You heard the instructor yesterday. Its quite clear he thinks Im not here on merit. My dads the boss.
That sort of thing doesnt happen any more. Everyone knows that.
He didnt.
Marchant turned back to his desk and looked out of the deep, stone-lined window. In the distance, the lights of an approaching Bilbao-to-Portsmouth ferry winked in the dawn light. Beyond it, on the far side of the main channel, he could make out the faint silhouette of the rollercoaster they had all been on two days earlier, as part of a team bonding exercise. Leila stood up, came over to him and started to work his shoulders. It was the first time she had touched him. He didnt recoil.
You should get some beauty sleep, she said, close to his ear.
I didnt mean to seem off with you tonight, he replied, lifting one hand slowly to hers.
You were with your friends, boys together. I should have left you to it.
It wasnt that.
No?
He paused. Im not going to be a particularly pleasant person to be around for the foreseeable future.
Isnt that for others to decide?
Perhaps. But were spending the next six months learning how to lie, deceive, betray, seduce. Im not sure I want what we might have mixed up with that.
And what might we have? Leila asked. Her hands slowed.
Marchant stood up, turned and looked at her. His eyes were anxious, searching hers for an answer she could never give. She leant forward and kissed him. His lips were cold, but they were both soon searching for warmth before Marchant broke off. Im sorry, he said, sitting down at his desk. I must finish this tonight.
You dont sound very determined.
Im not.
Shall I go?
No. Stay, please. Get some sleep. He nodded at the bed.
Ten minutes later, she was tucked up under his old woollen blankets, struggling to keep out the cold, while he continued to read about motives for betrayal. He had bent the Anglepoise lower, to reduce the light in the room. She wondered if he could feel any heat from the lampshade, close to his cheek. The sea air was freezing.
Ten minutes later, she was tucked up under his old woollen blankets, struggling to keep out the cold, while he continued to read about motives for betrayal. He had bent the Anglepoise lower, to reduce the light in the room. She wondered if he could feel any heat from the lampshade, close to his cheek. The sea air was freezing.
What made you sign up? he asked, glancing in her direction. She managed a sleepy smile.
The need to prove myself, like you. Your fathers the Chief, my mother was born in Isfahan.
Later, she was aware of him in bed next to her, holding her for warmth as sleet lashed the windows. She hoped that he was wrong about them, that what they might have could somehow survive the months ahead.
6
Marchant watched from his bedroom in the safe house as the train pulled out from the village for London. He thought again of Pradeep dying on the bridge. For a moment he wondered if one of the two bullets had missed its intended target. Did they mean to shoot him as well as Pradeep? It was the right moment to firePradeep collapsing in his armsif they werent bothered about collateral.
Below him a Land Rover was making its way along the road that ran along the valley. He assumed it was heading into the village, but the driver turned off onto the track that led up to the safe house. It was a tatty, dark-blue Defender, and as it bumped its way towards the house, Marchant could make out the local electricity boards logo on both sides. Downstairs he could hear movement. His babysitters were stirring, ready to confront the driver, play out whatever cover story they had been given.
Next to the safe house was a small electricity sub-station for the village, enclosed by spiked green metal fencing and with its own orange windsock, billowing gently in the early-morning wind. The compound also housed an old nuclear bunker. A small sign, put up by the local history society, explained that it was used by the Royal Observer Corps during the Cold War, and could house three people for up to a month.
The surrounding area was all fields. Marchant assumed that the Land Rover belonged to the electricity boards maintenance staff. It must be a routine check on the sub-station, he thought, but as it parked up below his window, he recognised the man who stepped out of the front passenger seat. It was Marcus Fielding, his fathers successor.
From the moment he had joined the Service, fifteen years earlier, Fielding had been marked out as a future Chief. The media had branded him the leader of a new generation of spies, Arabists who had joined after the Cold War and grown up with Al Qaeda. They had learnt their trade in Kandahar rather than Berlin, cutting their teeth in Pakistani training camps rather than Moscow parks, wearing turbans rather than trenchcoats.
I dont suppose anyone has actually thanked you yet, Fielding said, as they walked down a path in the Savernake Forest. Marchant wasnt fooled by the bonhomie. Fielding had always been supportive of Marchant, dismissing his suspension as a temporary setback in the escalating turf war between MI5 and MI6. But the events during the marathon would have tested his loyalty, ratcheting up another notch the tension between the services.
All around them rainwater dripped off the leaves, resonating like polite applause through the trees. Marchant glanced back to where the Land Rover was parked. Two men from the safe house stood quietly at the foot of a monument to George III which rose out of a clearing in the woods.
It was quite a show you put on, Fielding continued. Saved a lot of lives. The Prime Minister asked me to pass on his personal thanks. Turner Munroe will be in touch, too.
He probably just wants his watch back. MI5 werent quite so appreciative.
No, Im sure they werent.
They walked on together for a while through the ancient wood, watched by its sentinel oaks. Fielding was lean and tall, professorial in appearance, with a high, balding forehead and hair swept back at the sides. His face was oddly childish, almost cherubic. To compensate, he wore steel-rimmed glasses, which added to his donnish air and broke up the expanse of forehead. Colleagues had been quick to dub him the Vicar. He had been a choral scholar at Eton, and it was easy to imagine him still in a cassock and collar. He didnt drink, nor was he married. Prayer, though, had played little part in his rise to the top.
Im sorry about Sunday, he continued. We tried to get you out of Thames House as soon as we could, but, well, youre not strictly our man at the moment. MI5 insisted you were their guest.
You would have thought I was the one wearing the belt.
Nothing too unpleasant, I hope?
Six hours of amateur Q and A. First they suggested I was helping the bomber, then they thought it was a set-up by MI6 to get my job back. No wonder they didnt see it coming.
Thats just it, Im afraid. The whole incident doesnt reflect well on them. Or on us, to be honest. Everyone had assumed that last years attacks were over. No one saw it coming. Youre certain he was from South India?
Kerala, born and bred.
We were all hoping that threat was over. The one person to come out of this with any credit is you, and you shouldnt have been there.
Cant it be spun as a general intelligence-led operation?
The medias not the problem. Its the PM. He cant understand why a suspended officer was all that stood between a marathon and carnage. Im not sure I fully understand either.
That had always been Fieldings way: his subjects rarely realised that they were being interrogated, such was his seeming politeness. But just when you had dropped your guard, he hit you hard with a disguised uppercut of meticulous accuracy.
Leila signed us up at the last minute. A friend of hers works for one of the sponsors. It was stupid, we hadnt done enough training. On race day, I saw a dodgy belt and did something about it. Im beginning to wish I hadnt.
And you had no warning? Youve heard that Cheltenham picked up some chatter on the Saturday?
No warning, no. There was little point in mentioning Leila, he thought. It would sound wrong, as if she had said more than she had, when in fact she had barely told him anything. It had been a passing remark, no hard information. It worried him, though, that Fielding also doubted that it had been an entirely chance encounter.
I couldnt have done it without Leila, Marchant added. You know that?
She did very well. A bright future should lie ahead of her. Ahead of you, too, if thats what you want.
Marchant knew Fielding was referring to his behaviour of the past few months, when old demons had broken free again, unchecked by the discipline of intelligence work. Fielding stopped at one of the Savernakes oldest oaks. Storms had removed the upper boughs, leaving only the trunk, strained and contorted, as if in pain. He bent down to look at the base of the tree, putting one hand to the small of his back. Sometimes his pain was so severe that he would take to lying down in his office, conducting meetings supine.
Spring morels, he said, pulling aside some brambles to get a better look. Marchant stooped to study them more closely. Exquisite fried in butter. Everyone in Legoland knew how seriously Fielding took his food. An invitation to one of his gourmet dinners at his flat in Dolphin Square was better than a pay rise. He stood up again, both hands now pressed against his back, as if he was about to address his congregation. They both stared out across the woods, the sun streaming through gaps in the canopy, forming spotlit pools of limelight on the forest floor.