He looked at the bruise that was starting to blossom across Knox’s cheek and the bloody cut on his brow that was dirty with soot from the kitchen floor. Then he checked that all the pieces of tape were secure and, satisfied with his work, put the roll back in his pocket, stepped out of the flat, sealed the tarpaulin across the door back down, and called the lift.
CHAPTER 49
Bennett had discovered Speakers’ Corner one Sunday four months ago.
Hyde Park was close enough to Grosvenor Square for a lunchtime stroll whenever she needed to get her head above ground. And it was on one such walk halfway through a weekend shift in the archives that she encountered a line of people in the north-east corner of the park raised up on chairs, stepladders and, in a couple of cases, actual soapboxes, waxing lyrical to anyone who would listen. This was Speakers’ Corner, and it was a curious spectacle, both profoundly British and un-British at the same time. It worked as a kind of social pressure valve, letting the usually reserved people of London rant, vent, and rail about anything they wanted – within reason. The police monitored the speakers – particularly those who drew large crowds – but usually only intervened if their speeches crossed the line into profanity.
This Sunday a constant stream of orators offered benedictions, damnations, and prophecies to the passing crowds enjoying their afternoon in the park. Bennett had timed her arrival well. A couple of the speakers had just finished their speeches and their audiences were starting to move on. She had her pick of the benches and chose one that gave her clear lines of sight along the paths that converged on this part of the park.
A few moments later a man sat down on a bench two along from her. Like Bennett, he looked like someone who had been called into the office and was stealing a few hours of his Sunday back to enjoy the sun. He wore a light linen shirt and slacks, and carried a tightly stuffed document wallet. He was, Bennett had to admit, quite a good tail.
Bennett had realised she was half an hour early for her rendezvous with Knox as she’d raced out of the American embassy. So she’d taken her own meandering route to Hyde Park while she went over the implications of what she’d discovered about Finney and the sudden arrival in the city of a NASA scientist.
She’d first noticed the man following her when she’d paused in front of one of Selfridges’ windows, then again when she made a loop of Portman Square, just north of the department store. He blended well with the general street traffic, but not well enough for Bennett to miss him passing her in the Marble Arch underpass or appearing two benches down from her in Speakers’ Corner.
The CIA hadn’t given her the skills to spot a tail. She’d acquired those herself in the Garden City library, reading novels like The Thirty-Nine Steps and The Secret Agent over and over, soaking up everything they could teach her about spycraft. She’d put what she’d learned to use quickly, finally finding out where her brothers vanished to every day instead of working or looking after their mother. She’d followed them to a dried-up creek where they spent hours shooting at stunted bushes and sun-dazed lizards with an old revolver one of them had found somewhere. Then she’d made them teach her how to shoot it in exchange for keeping their secret.
The man made a good show of watching the world go by and listening to people talk about the end of civilisation and the healing power of Christ. But there was no escaping the fact that he and Bennett were the only people who had stayed on their benches and not moved on for several changes of speakers.
Knox was now late, but Bennett was less worried about that than she was about her tail following her to their backup meeting point in the Italian water gardens on the other side of the park. For all she knew, Knox was somewhere nearby, had also spotted the man shadowing her, and was purposefully keeping his distance.
She waited for the next natural shift in the crowd, chose her moment, and fell into step with a group of passing picnickers. Halfway down the eastern edge of the park she peeled off and crossed a wide, open section of ground. There were fewer people here, scattered and gingerly testing the grass to see if it had dried out from last night’s storm. She was exposed, but there was no other way to the Serpentine, the long lake that snaked across the park and led to the water gardens. She moved quickly, but not quickly enough – she hoped – to draw attention. It took her five minutes to reach a tree-lined section of path that gave her a little cover.
The Serpentine was choked with people. Families swarmed around deckchairs, couples promenaded along the lake edge, and groups of children chased swans. The surface of the lake was scattered with rowing boats.
Bennett crossed in front of a group of ladies pushing prams, all wearing dark dresses with starched collars. She glanced behind her and saw the man from Speakers’ Corner emerging from the path to the lake. She started to move faster, weaving between more groups of people. She followed the edge of the lake as it curved northwards towards the water gardens, stopping for a moment under the old stone bridge that cut the lake in two.
She wondered who the man was. Was he KGB, out for retribution for Medev? An MI5 Watcher? Or had her snooping in Grosvenor Square finally caught the attention of someone in the CIA who wanted to know what she was up to?
When she couldn’t see him on the bend of the path behind her, she decided she must have lost him, and continued along a quieter stretch of path, passing opposite the statue of Peter Pan that had appeared in the park as if by magic one night in 1912. Knox wasn’t waiting for Bennett in the water gardens, but her tail was. He must have guessed where she was headed and cut across the park while she was on the lake path.
He was no longer playing the part of someone simply out for a stroll. He was standing in the middle of the water gardens, next to its large central fountain and surrounded by its ornamental lakes, scanning the faces of everyone around him.
When he saw Bennett he started to walk towards her, his eyes fixed on hers, and his hand reaching into his bulging document wallet. Bennett didn’t know what he had hidden in there, but she didn’t want to find out. He hadn’t just been following her, he’d been stalking her – and now he was about to pounce. Bennett knew she wouldn’t be able to outrun him if she tried to make a break for it across the park, and if she turned back the way she’d come she’d just end up confronting him somewhere secluded where she’d be considerably more vulnerable.
Luckily, she had another option – something he wouldn’t be able to defend against. She walked straight towards him, closing the distance between them. Then, when he was about ten yards away from her, she started to scream.
‘Help! Help!’ she shouted. ‘That man is following me!’
The man froze in place as heads turned first to Bennett and then to him.
‘He’s following me!’ she screamed over and over again. Soon everyone in the water gardens was glaring at them.
‘Leave her alone,’ an old lady with a scarf over her head and a tiny dog at her feet called out.
‘Clear off!’ another added from a bench near the fountain.
The man realised he’d been outmanoeuvred. He slowly pulled his hand out of the document wallet and shot Bennett one last threatening look. She watched him march back across the gardens and down the far side of the Serpentine.
Two young men in bright suits who had been strolling through the gardens arm in arm with their short-skirted girlfriends walked over to her.