“OK.”
She hung up. This could be very interesting, but she was going to have to stay on her toes. Swivelling round to her computer screen, she turned her thoughts to Faraj Mansoor. Fane’s anxiety, she supposed, sprung from his uncertainty as to whether the buyer of the fake driving licence in Bremerhaven was the same person as the al Safa contact in Peshawar. He’d probably have someone in Pakistan checking the auto repair shop right now. If they turned out to be different people, and there was still a Faraj Mansoor repairing jeeps on the Kabul Road, then the ball was fairly and squarely in Five’s court.
Odds were that they were two different people, and that the Mansoor in Bremerhaven was an economic migrant who had paid for passage to Europe-probably some hellish odyssey in a container-and was now looking to make his way across the Channel. There was probably a cousin in one of the British cities keeping a minicab driver’s position open for him. Odds were the whole thing was an Immigration issue, not an Intelligence one. She posted it to the back of her mind.
By 12:30 she was feeling a curious anticipation. As luck would have it-or maybe not-she was smartly dressed. With all her work clothes either damp from the washing machine or languishing in the dry-cleaning pile, she had been forced back to the Ronit Zilkha dress she had bought for a wedding. It had cost a fortune, even in the sale, and looked wildly inappropriate for a day’s intelligence-gathering. To make matters more extreme, the only shoes that went with the dress were ribbed silk. Wetherby’s reaction to her appearance had been a just-detectable widening of the eyes, but he had made no comment.
At twenty to the hour a call came to her desk which, she suspected, had already bounced several times around the building. A group of photographers describing themselves as plane-spotters had been intercepted by police in an area adjacent to the US base at Lakenheath, and USAF Security were insisting that they all be checked out before release. It took Liz a couple of minutes to pass the buck to the investigation section, but she managed it, and hurried out of the office with the Zilkha dress partly covered by her coat.
Lambeth Bridge, she discovered, was not an ideal rendezvous in December. After a fine morning the sky had darkened. A fretful east wind now whipped down the river, dragging at her hair and sending the litter dancing around her silk shoes. The bridge was, furthermore, a no-stopping zone.
She had been standing there for five minutes, her eyes streaming, when a silver BMW came to an abrupt stop at the kerb and the passenger door swung open. To the blaring of car horns she bustled herself into the seat, and Mackay, who was wearing sunglasses, pulled back out into the traffic stream. Inside the car a CD was playing, and the sounds of tabla, sitar and other instruments filled the BMW’s high-specification interior.
“Fateh Nusrat Ali Khan,” said Mackay, as they swung round the Millbank roundabout. “Huge star on the subcontinent. Know his stuff?”
Liz shook her head and tried to finger-comb her windblown hair into some sort of order. She smiled to herself. The man was just too good to be true-a perfect specimen of the Vauxhall Cross genus. They were crossing the bridge now, and the music was reaching a flurrying climax. As they slotted into the traffic-crawl on Albert Embankment the speakers finally fell silent. Mackay took off his sunglasses.
“So, Liz, how are you?”
“I’m… fine,” she answered. “Thank you very much.”
“Good.”
She looked sideways at him. He was wearing a pale blue shirt, open at the neck and with the sleeves rolled halfway up so as to provide a generous expanse of tanned and muscled forearm. The watch, which looked as if it weighed at least half a kilo, was a Breitling Navitimer. And he sported a faded tattoo. A sea horse.
“So!” she said. “To what do I owe the honour…”
He shrugged. “We’re opposite numbers, you and I. I thought we might have a bite of lunch and a glass or two of wine and compare notes.”
“I’m afraid I don’t drink at lunchtime,” Liz rejoined, and immediately regretted her tone. She sounded shrewish and defensive, and there was no reason to suppose that Mackay was trying to be more than friendly.
“I’m sorry about the short notice,” said Mackay, glancing at her.
“No problem. I’m not exactly a lady who lunches, unless you count a Thames House sandwich and a batch of surveillance reports at my desk.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” said Mackay, glancing at her again, “but you do actually look quite like someone who lunches.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment. In fact, I’m dressed like this because I’ve got a meeting this afternoon.”
“Ah. You’re running an agent in Harvey Nichols?”
She smiled and looked away. The vast and intolerant bulk of the MI6 building rose above them, and then Mackay swung left-handed into the convolutions of Vauxhall’s one-way system. Two minutes later they were turning into a narrow cul-de-sac off South Lambeth Road. Pulling into the forecourt of a small tyre and exhaust centre, Mackay parked the BMW, jumped out, and opened Liz’s door for her.
“You can’t just leave it here,” protested Liz.
“I’ve got a little arrangement with them,” said Mackay breezily, waving a greeting to a man in oil-streaked overalls. “Strictly cash, so I can’t claim it as a business expense, but they do keep an eye on the car. Are you hungry?”
“I think I am,” said Liz.
“Excellent.” Taking an indigo tie and a dark blue jacket from the back seat, he rolled down his sleeves and put them on. Had he taken them off just for the drive? Liz wondered. Just so she didn’t think him too much of a stiff?
He locked the car with a quick squawk of the remote. “Do you think those shoes will carry you a couple of hundred yards?” he asked.
“With a bit of luck.”
They turned back towards the river, and after negotiating an underpass came out at the foot of a new luxury development on the south side of Vauxhall Bridge. Greeting the security staff, Mackay led Liz through the atrium into a busy and attractive restaurant. The tablecloths were white linen, the silver and glassware shone, and the dark panorama of the Thames was framed by a curtained sweep of plate glass. Most of the tables were occupied. The muted buzz of conversation dipped for a moment as they entered. Leaving her coat at the desk, Liz followed Mackay to a table overlooking the river.
“This is all very nice and unexpected,” she said sincerely. “Thank you for inviting me.”
“Thank you for accepting.”
“I’m assuming a fair few of these people are your lot?”
“One or two of them are, and when you walked across the room just then, you enhanced my standing by several hundred per cent. You will note that we’re being discreetly observed.”
She smiled. “I do note it. You should send your colleagues downriver for one of our surveillance courses.”
They examined the menus. Leaning forward confidentially, Mackay told Liz that he could predict what she was going to order. Taking a pen from his pocket he handed it to her and told her to tick what she had chosen.
Taking care not to let him see, holding the menu beneath the table, Liz marked a salad of smoked duck breast. It was a starter, but she wrote the words “as main course” next to it.
“OK,” continued Mackay. “Now fold the menu up. Put it in your pocket.”
She did so. She was certain that he hadn’t seen what she’d written.
When the waiter came Mackay ordered a venison steak and a glass of Italian Barolo. “And for my colleague,” he added with a faint smile, nodding at Liz, “the duck breast salad. As a main course.”
“Very clever,” said Liz, frowning. “How did you do that?”
“Classified. Have some wine.”
She would have liked some, but felt that she had to stick with her not-at-lunchtime statement. “I won’t, thanks.”