Our kind of traitor

*

Perry's improbable appointment as Hector's midnight confessor, by contrast, came out of the blue. He knew, and Gail knew – Luke did not need to tell them, the daily prevarications were enough – that things were not going as smoothly in London as Hector had anticipated. They knew from Luke's body language that, conceal it as he tried, the emotional strain was telling on him also.

So when Perry's mobile chimed its encrypted melody in his ear at one in the morning, causing him to sit immediately upright, and Gail, without waiting to know who the caller was, to hurry down the corridor and check on the sleeping girls, his first thought on hearing Hector's voice was that he was about to ask Perry to bolster Luke's spirits, or – more wishfully – to play a more active role in spiriting the Dimas to England.

'Mind if I chat with you for a couple of minutes, Milton?'

Was this really Hector's voice? – or a recorder, and the batteries were running down?

'Chat ahead.'

'Polish philosopher chap I read from time to time.'

'What's his name?'

'Kolakowski. Thought you might have heard of him.'

Perry had, but didn't feel a need to say so. 'What about him?' Was the man drunk? Too much of his malt whisky from the Isle of Skye?

'Very stern views on good and evil – which I'm tending to share these days – Kolakowski had. Evil is evil, period. Not rooted in social circumstance. Not about being deprived or a drug addict or whatever. Evil as an absolutely and entirely separate human force.' Long silence. 'Wondered whether you had a take on that?'

'Are you all right, Tom?'

'I dip into him, you see. At bleak moments. Kolakowski. Surprised you haven't come across him. He had a law. Rather a good one in the circumstances.'

'What's bleak about this moment?'

'The Law of Infinite Cornucopia, he called it. Not that Poles do a definite article. Not indefinite either, which tells you something, but there you are. Nub of his Law being, that there are an infinite number of explanations for any single event. Limitless. Or put in language we both understand, you'll never know which bugger hit you or why. Rather comfortable words, I thought, in the circumstances, don't you?'

Gail had returned and was standing in the doorway, listening.

'If I knew the circumstances, I could probably form a better judgement,' Perry said – talking to Gail as well now. 'Is there anything I can do to help you, Tom? You sound a bit fragged.'

'Think you've done it, Milton, old boy. Thanks for your advice. See you in the morning.'

See you?

'Has he got anyone with him?' Gail asked, getting back into bed.

'Not that he mentioned.'

According to Ollie, Hector's wife Emily had ceased to live with him in London after Adrian's crash. She preferred the arctic cottage in Norfolk, which was nearer to the prison.

*

Luke stands stiffly beside his bed, encrypted mobile to his ear and Ollie's lash-up connecting it to the recorder parked on the side of the handbasin. It is four-thirty in the afternoon. Hector hasn't called all day and Luke's messages have gone unanswered. Ollie is out shopping for fresh trout, and Wienerschnitzel for Katya, who doesn't like fish. And home-made chips for everyone. Food is a big topic these days. Meals are taken ceremoniously, since each one may be their last together. Some are preceded by a long grace in Russian, whispered by Tamara to many crossings of the breast. At other times, when they look to her to do her piece, she declines, apparently to indicate that the company is out of divine favour. This afternoon, to fill the empty hours before dinner, Gail has decided to take the small girls down to Trummelbach to see the terrifying waterfalls that tumble down the inside of the mountain. Perry is less than happy with the plan. Agreed, she will have her mobile with her, but deep inside the mountain, what kind of signal is she going to get?

Gail doesn't care. They're going anyway. Cowbells are chiming in the meadow. Natasha is reading under the maple tree.

'So here it is,' Hector is saying in a rock-steady voice. 'The whole, dismal fucking story. You listening?'

17

Luke listens. Half an hour turns to forty minutes. Dismal fucking story is right.

Then, because there is no point in hurrying, he listens again, for another forty minutes, lying on the bed. It is a short story. It is a play complex in itself, whether comedy or tragedy to be revealed in due course. At eight o'clock this morning, Hector Meredith and Billy Matlock were arraigned before a kangaroo court of their peers in the Vice-Chief's suite of rooms on the fourth floor. The charge against them was then read out. Hector paraphrased it, sauced with his own expletives:

'The Vice said the Secretary to the Cabinet had summoned him and put a certain proposition to him: to wit, one Billy Matlock and one Hector Meredith were jointly conspiring to besmirch the fine reputation of one Aubrey Longrigg, Member of Parliament, City mogul and arse-licker to the Surrey oligarchs, in return for the perceived injuries that the said Longrigg had inflicted on the accused: i.e., Billy getting his own back for all the shit Aubrey had made him eat while they were at daggers drawn on the fourth floor; and me for when Aubrey tried to bankrupt my family fucking firm, then buy it for a French kiss. There was a perception in the mind of the Cabinet Secretary that our personal involvement was clouding our operational judgement. Still listening?'

Luke is. And to listen even better, he now sits up on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands, and the tape recorder on the duvet beside him.

'I am then, as the prime instigator of the conspiracy to shaft Aubrey, invited to explain my position.'

'Tom?'

'Dick?'

'What on earth has shafting Aubrey – even if that's what you two were up to – got to do with getting our boy and his family to London?'

'Good question. I will answer it in the same spirit.'

Luke had never heard him quite so angry.

'Word is abroad, according to the Vice, that our Service is proposing to put on to the public stage a supergrass who will effectively discredit the banking aspirations of the Arena Conglomerate. Do I need to dilate on what the Vice-Chief was pleased to call the linkage here? A shining White Knight Russian bank, billions of dollars on the table and many more where they came from, with a promise not only to release these many more billions on to a cash-strapped money market but to invest in some of the great dinosaurs of British industry? And just when the good will of the said White Knights is about to reach fruition, along come us Intelligence wankers wanting to upset the apple-cart by spouting a lot of moralistic candyfloss about the profits of crime.'

'You said you were invited to explain your position,' Luke hears himself remind Hector.

'Which I did. Rather well, I must say. Gave it to him with everything I'd got. And what I didn't give him, Billy did. And bit by bit – you'd be amazed – the Vice began to prick his ears up. Not an easy role for a chap to play when his boss is putting his head in the sand, but by the end of the day he came through like a lady. Cleared the room of everybody except the two of us, and heard us out all over again.'

'You and Billy?'

'Billy now being inside our tent and pissing vigorously out. A Damascene conversion, better late than never.'

Luke doubts this, but charitably decides not to express his doubt.

'So where do we stand now?' he asks.

'Back where we started. Official but unofficial, with Billy aboard and the charter plane on my tab. Got a pencil poised?'

'Of course not!'

'Then listen up. Here's how we go from here, no looking back.'

*

He listens up twice, then realizes that he is waiting for the courage to ring Eloise, so he does. It looks as though I could be home quite soon, maybe even late tomorrow, he says. Eloise says that Luke must do whatever he thinks right. Luke asks after Ben. Eloise says Ben is fine, thank you. Luke discovers he has a nosebleed and gets back on the bed until it's time for supper, and a quiet word with Perry, who is in the sun room practising climbing knots with Alexei and Viktor.