We need to know why.
6.
RED ORCHESTRA
LET US TEMPORARILY LOOK ASIDE FROM YR. HMBL. CRSPNDNT’S work diary to contemplate a very different matter: a vignette of street life in central London. I am not, myself, a witness: so this is, to some extent, a work of imaginative reconstruction.
Visualize the scene: a side street not far from Piccadilly Circus in London, an outrageously busy shopping district crammed on both sides with fashion chains and department stores. Even the alleys are lined with bistros and boutiques, tidied up to appeal to the passing trade. Pedestrians throng the pavements and overflow into the street, but vehicle traffic is light—thanks to the congestion charge—and slow—thanks to the speed bumps.
Here comes a red-haired woman, smartly dressed in a black skirt, houndstooth-check jacket, medium heels. She’s holding a violin case in one hand, her face set in an expression of patient irritation beneath her makeup: a musician heading to a recital, perhaps. She looks slightly uncomfortable, out-of-sorts as she weaves between a pair of braying office workers, yummy mummies pushing baby buggies the size of lunar rovers, a skate punk in dreads, and a beggar woman in hijab. She cuts across the pavement on Glasshouse Street, crosses the road between an overheating BMW X5 and a black cab, and turns into Shaftesbury.
Somewhere in the teeming alleys behind Charing Cross Road there is a narrow-fronted music shop, its window display empty but for a rack of yellowing scores and a collection of lightly tarnished brass instruments. The woman pauses in front of the glass, apparently examining the sheet music. In fact, she’s using the window as a mirror, checking the street behind her before she places one hand on the doorknob and pushes. Her close-trimmed nails are smoothly sheathed in enamel the color of overripe grapes: there are calluses on the tips of her fingers.
A bell jingles somewhere out of sight as she enters the shop.
“Good afternoon?”
One side of the shop is occupied by a counter, glass bound in old oak, running back towards a bead-curtained alcove at the rear of the premises. A cadaverous and prematurely aged fellow with watery eyes, dressed as conservatively as an undertaker, shuffles between the hanging strings of beads and blinks at her disapprovingly.
“Mr. Dower? George Dower?” The woman smiles at him tightly, her lips pursed to conceal her teeth.
“I have that honor, yes.” He looks at her as if he wishes she’d go away. “Do you have an appointment?”
“As a matter of fact”—the woman slides a hand into her black leather handbag and produces a wallet, which falls open to display a card—“I do. Cassie May, from Sotheby’s. I called yesterday?” The card glistens with a strange iridescent sheen in the dim artificial light.
“Oh yes!” His expression brightens considerably. “Yes indeed! A restoration project, I am to understand . . . ?”
“Possibly.” The woman swings her violin case up above the glass counter then gently lowers it. “Our client has asked us to obtain a preliminary valuation, and also to inquire about the cost of certain necessary restoration work for an instrument of similar manufacture that is currently in storage in a degraded condition—it’s too fragile to move.” She reaches into her handbag again and when she takes her hand out, she’s holding an envelope. “Before examining the instrument, I would like you to sign this non-disclosure agreement.” She removes a thin document from the envelope.
Mr. Dower is surprised. “But it’s just a violin! Even if it’s a rarity—” He does a double take. “Isn’t it?”
The woman shakes her head silently, then hands him the papers.
Mr. Dower scans the first page briefly then glances up at her. “This isn’t from Sotheby’s—”
“If anybody asks you who I am and why I’m here, you will tell them I’m Cassie May, from Sotheby’s auction house, inquiring about a valuation.” She doesn’t smile. “You will now read the document and sign it.”
Almost as if he can’t help himself, Mr. Dower’s eyes return to the document. He scans it rapidly, mumbling under his breath as he turns the three pages. Wordlessly, he produces a pen from his inside jacket pocket.
“Not like that.” The woman offers him a disposable sterile needle: “First, you must draw blood. Then sign using this pen.” She waits patiently while he presses a digit against the needle, winces, and rubs the nib of the pen across the ball of his thumb. He makes no complaint about the unusual request, and doesn’t seem to notice the way she produces a small sharps container for the office supplies and carefully folds the document back into its envelope. “Good. By the authority vested in me I bind you to silence, under pain of the penalties specified in this document. Do you understand?”
Mr. Dower stares at the violin case as if stunned. “Yes,” he mutters.
The woman who calls herself Cassie May unclips the lid of the violin case and lays it open before him.
Mr. Dower stares into the case for ten long seconds, barely breathing. Then he shudders. “Excuse me,” he says, hastily covering his mouth. He turns and stumbles through the bead curtain. A few seconds later she hears the sound of retching.
The woman waits patiently until Mr. Dower reappears, looking pale. “You can shut that,” he tells her.
“If you want.” She shrugs. “I take it you’ve seen one before.”
“Yes.” He shudders again, his gaze unfocused. He seems to be staring down inner demons. “What do I have to do to get you to take it away?”
“You give me a written evaluation.” She has another piece of paper, this one containing a short list of bullet points. “As I said, a preliminary estimate of the cost of repairing such a . . . relic. A half-gram sample excised from the corpse of another identical instrument. All necessary materials to be provided by the customer. If you can assess the nature of the bindings that hold it together, my employers would like to be able to replicate them.”
He stares at her. “Who are you from? Who sent you here?”
“I’m from the government department responsible for keeping instruments like this out of your shop. Unfortunately there is a time for business as usual, and then . . . well. Can you do it?”
Mr. Dower stares at the wall behind her. “If I must.”
“Good. If you attach your invoice to the report I will see that it is processed promptly.”
“When do you need the report?” he asks, shaking himself as if awakening from a dream.
“Right now.” She walks over to the door and flips the sign to CLOSED.
“But I—” He swallows.
“I’m required to stay within arm’s reach of the instrument at all times. And to remove it from your premises when you are not working on it.” The woman doesn’t smile; in fact, her expression is faintly nauseated.
“Why? To prevent me stealing it?”
“No, Mr. Dower: to prevent it from killing you.”
I’M BACK IN MY OFFICE AFTER THE BLOODY BARON MEETING. The committee have minuted that I am to try and think myself into Angleton’s shoes (ha bloody ha); the coffee mug is cooling on the mouse mat beside my cranky old HP desktop as I sit here, head in hands, groaning silently and wishing I’d paid more attention in history classes rather than staring at the back of Zoe McCutcheon’s head and thinking about—let’s not go there. (Sixteen-year-old male: fill in the blanks.) All this Russian stuff is confusing the hell out of me—why can’t we go back to worrying about Al Qaida or pedophiles on the internet or whatever it is that intelligence services traditionally obsess about?