Keen noted the use of the plural pronoun: making it a point of honour, a duty to the old firm. However, rather than answer immediately, he asked a question of his own.
‘How did you find me?’
Taploe was looking down Augustine Road towards Brook Green. He rubbed his cheek.
‘Your name was recognized when it came up during preliminary research into Divisar.’
Keen sounded a sarcastic note.
‘So — what? — you found out I was in the Office, thought it was your lucky day and ran me as a trace request through the ND? Is that how it still works over there?’
Taploe hesitated. ‘Something like that.’
‘Was there anything Recorded Against?’ Keen asked, employing the Service euphemism. ‘I’d love to know.’
Taploe ignored the question.
‘Why don’t we just talkabout your initial contact with Libra?’
Keen sighed, loathing the dryness of bureaucracy.
‘Very well. This is what I know, although I can’t think why it will be of any use to you. Thomas Macklin approached Divisar about six months ago. I’d have to check the file to be more precise. He was sharp and efficient and he came as Roth’s representative, which is often the way in our business. If push comes to shove, those boys want as much distance between us and them as they can manage. It was a simple job, of the sort I do all the time. Libra were interested in setting up operations in Russia and Macklin had a lot of very sensible questions that needed answering. Due diligence on real estate and freeholders. Wanted to know how to go about recruiting staff, finding suppliers, who Libra’s competitors would be and so forth. I remember he was slightly obsessive about the tax and licensing position. Above all, he needed to know about the roof. What palms needed to be crossed and how much silver.’ To amuse himself, Keen added, ‘You know what a roof is, don’t you, Mr Taploe?’
‘I’ve been working organized crime for two years,’ he replied. ‘Of course I know about the roof.’ It irritated Taploe that Keen was not as concerned by his line of questioning as he might have been; but then that was the birthright of the upper classes, the lizard-thickskin of the FCO. ‘So did Divisar put Libra in touch with the appropriate organizations?’ he asked.
‘That’s not how it works. Kukushkin would have come to them. He’s one of the new-style mobsters, the avtoritet. Less regard for tradition than the older vors and a lot more unpredictable when it comes to things like chopping people’s fingers off. But, yes, I pointed them in the right direction, told Macklin who the main players were. Divisar did what we were paid to do.’
Taploe listened to this and decided that it was time to play his trump card.
‘And how long was it before you realized that your eldest son was a senior executive at Libra?’
Keen had known that the question was coming; Taploe had been deliberately withholding it as a tactic to arouse his suspicion. Nevertheless, he felt squeezed by it, cornered into obfuscation. His immediate response was defensive.
‘Now what does that have to do with anything?’
Taploe stopped walking and turned to face him. Keen was a good six inches taller and considerably better built, with narrow blue eyes that he used as tools of concealment, to frighten and charm in equal measure. Taploe tried as best he could to look through them.
‘Perhaps you could just answer the question,’ he said. ‘We have no wish to pry into your personal life. It is simply our understanding that since Libra’s first approach you have been able to form some sort of a relationship with your eldest son after… how should I put it?… an absence of almost thirty years.’
‘You’re clearly very well informed.’
‘Not as well informed as I’d like to be. Did you know that Mark was working at Libra when Divisar tookthem on as clients?’
Keen waited. He could feel frustration, even anger, beginning to undermine his better judgment. All that residual guilt over Carolyn and the boys rising up in him like a sickness.
‘As I recall,’ he said firmly, ‘there were two preliminary meetings between Macklin and one of my colleagues before I was brought on board. During that time Mark found out that I worked for the company and telephoned me with a view to getting together.’
‘And what was your reaction?’
‘Is that relevant? I wasn’t aware that I was talking to a psychiatrist.’
Taploe had pushed too far. He was annoyed with himself and felt the heat of unease flush through his cheeks. He would have to back down, if only for the sake of the pitch.
‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘It’s not my business. I am simply interested in Mark’s role in all of this.’
‘Then at last we have something in common.’
‘I can tell you that there’s no evidence to suggest your son knows what Macklin is up to,’ Taploe offered. ‘He didn’t accompany him to Russia on his last two visits, nor has he been seen with any of Kukushkin’s representatives in either Moscow or London.’
‘So why am I here this evening?’ Keen asked. ‘What on earth do you need me for?’
It was a question to which he already knew the answer. Taploe was simply priming himself.
‘Just an act of kindness,’ he said quietly, ‘a favour, for want of a better description.’
‘A favour.’ Keen paused and then repeated the word under his breath, killing its implications, the nuance. ‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘What is it about people in our business that they can never say exactly what they mean?’
7
The dummy London cab that had tailed Mark’s taxi from Heathrow stopped a hundred and fifty metres down Elgin Crescent, engine idling. They had made good time from Terminal One, almost slipstreaming the taxi in the outer M4 lane denied to cars.
‘So this is where the brother lives?’ Graham asked.
Ian Boyle cleared his throat and said, ‘Yeah, house up on the left.’
They saw Mark Keen step out of the taxi, pay the driver and make his way towards the front door carrying a large overnight holdall and several plastic bags. He was broadly built and did not appear to struggle with the weight.
‘Nice fucking place,’ Graham muttered, tilting his head to one side to get a better lookat the house. ‘What does the brother do for a living? Stockbroker? Investment banker? Dot com millionaire?’
‘None of the above.’ Ian dialled a number in Euston Tower on his mobile phone and held it up to his ear. ‘Our Benjamin’s an artist. Farts around all day in oils and charcoal, struggling with the impossibility of the authentic artistic act.’
‘I thought that sort of behaviour was out of fashion?’
The number wasn’t answering and Ian hung up.
‘Not so,’ he said.
‘What does the wife do?’ Graham was new on the Kukushkin case and still a bit sketchy on details. He looked upon Ian as a mentor, an older hand he wanted to learn from and impress.
‘Journalist,’ Ian said. ‘Writes about canapes and boy bands for the Evening Standard. One of your gorgeous, pouting, twenty something hackettes, arse so firm you could crack an egg on it. Drive up and we might get a lookat her.’
Graham flicked on the headlights, moved back out into the road and tookthe cab past the house. They saw Alice open the front door and fling her arms around Mark’s neck, her smile a flash in the darkness.
‘Fuckin’ hell,’ Graham muttered. ‘Wouldn’t mind one of them in my Christmas stocking.’ He pulled up another fifty metres further along the street and peered back over his shoulder. ‘How long they been married?’
‘Couple of years; three, maybe. Daddy was decent enough to throw eighty grand at the wedding. Nice of him, wouldn’t you say?’
‘All things considered.’ Graham couldn’t keep his eyes off her. ‘Does the gaffer have ears in there?’ he asked.
‘Not yet. Only at Mark’s place. And the lawyer, Macklin. We don’t reckon young Benjamin’s involved.’
‘Right.’
‘So what time’s Michael taking over?’ Ian scratched his armpit. ‘I wanna get the Arsenal score, find a pub with ITV.’