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‘Ah, Johnny …’

‘You asked for me, sir.’ Carrick could do the corporal-to-middle-ranking-officer act well. No impertinence, no cheek.

‘It is incredible to me, what happened last night.’

‘Difficult to understand, sir.’

‘You have to take the place of Simon, of Rawlings, as I said last night.’

‘Yes, sir. If that’s what you want, sir.’

He saw the tickets, noted the logo of the agency on Kensington High Street. He stood, feet slightly apart, straight-backed, hands clasped behind him, as if he was the corporal and he faced his officer.

‘You do the school drive.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Then you take me to the City. Viktor does not drive well in the City.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And you bring me back, and you collect the children.’

‘Of course, sir. I apologize, sir, but I mentioned last night a family commitment.’

‘You did.’

‘And I would need to be away by six, sir. In the future, in the new circumstances, I would not make any commitments without checking with you first.’

‘That is satisfactory.’

He thought his Bossman was worn down, at the edge of exhaustion. Josef Goldmann was pale, looked not to have slept, seemed burdened. Wouldn’t be from the loss of Rawlings, no way … The fingers fidgeted with the two tickets. The instructors had said that an undercover should press for information only in exceptional circumstances: ‘I see you’ve got two tickets there, sir. Are you going somewhere interesting?’ would have been about as bad tradecraft as was possible. To push for information, hurry it, was flawed practice.

‘I’ll be off, sir, on the kids’ run, then.’

‘Yes, Johnny, thank you. Then we go to the City, late morning.’

‘Yes, sir.’

* * *

‘I don’t have time to mess about. You either have an officer in that household or you do not. Which?’

It was a few minutes past eight. Lawson was in charge and gloried in it. An hour and a few minutes earlier, at one minute after seven, there had been the rap on his office door, room seventy-one on third floor west, and he had admitted — Lucy not yet at her desk — the young man, Davies. He had asked if the detail of Sarov had been learned, had seen a half-awake nod. Had asked if the history of Arzamas-16 had been studied, again the nod. He had not asked a clever or trick question to assess Davies’s reading of the history. The young man’s face had fallen when he’d realized he was not about to be tested on his work. Then he had told him he was late and received a sulking apology. A good start to the day. All in good time, the young man would be told the code-name of the operation and shown the file — it would be done later, if time allowed. He had led and Davies had followed. They had crossed Vauxhall Bridge, had not headed for Scotland Yard but had branched away into Pimlico, had found the door of a tatty, tacky office block and had rung a bell. When their business was asked by a porter, Lawson had given the name of who he had come to see, though not his own, and they had been escorted up two flights.

‘I’d have thought it a pretty simple question, requiring a pretty simple answer: yes or no. So, I repeat — which?’

He was in a room that had not recently been decorated, and the iron window frames had traces of rust where he could see them through the open slats of the dropped blind. There was a tidy desk, a pair of filing cabinets, a plastic-coated board on the main wall with a cover draped over it to prevent a visitor reading what was displayed on it, the compulsory mounted photographs of senior police posing and a family shot. He thought that in the moments before his arrival, with Davies in tow, the room had been sanitized. He had introduced himself only by his first name, and Davies’s. The other men had been George and Rob — and George had said, ‘Why don’t you take a pew, and tell me how I can be of help, Chris—’

And he had snapped back, with venom and interest, ‘It’s Christopher, thank you.’ He had not come to negotiate, or to be deflected.

‘I’m a busy man — yes or no?’

He watched George fidget and shift on his chair, and his fingers cracked together as he clasped them. His companion, Rob, peered out through the blind’s gaps. George drew air into his lungs, then let it hiss out.

‘I’m waiting.’

George bit his lower lip, whitened it. ’Would this be a matter of national security?’

‘I raised from his bed, at three this morning, a deputy assistant commissioner. I am assuming, or I would not have breached your front door, that you were instructed, ordered, to give me your full cooperation. Are you going to obstruct me? In which case I guarantee you will be spending rather more time with your family. Yes or no?’

Lawson thought George turned as if seeking support from his colleague, but the head was averted. No comfort to be gained there. The man caved: they usually did if kicked hard enough. Clipper Reade had preached that public servants when threatened with an early pension inevitably crumpled. He had found little, from thirty years back, in the creed of Clipper Reade that he could fault.

A small voice, as if the habit of a professional lifetime had been ditched: ‘Yes.’

‘Thank you, and I don’t know why we spent so long getting there.’

‘I confirm, with extreme reluctance, that we have an officer inside the home of Josef Goldmann. He is there as part of a criminal investigation into the laundering of money, an investigation mounted by the Serious Crime Directorate. I have never seen, or heard of, anything in the investigation that involves national security.’

‘Do you have bugs in the house?’

‘Is that question in the interests of national security?’

‘Bugs or no bugs?’

Again the lip was bitten, and the fingers now unwound the shape of a metal paperclip. ‘There are no audio or visual devices in the house. It is swept most days, and — for the same reason — there are no tags on the cars.’

Lawson leaned back, as if he owned the room, tilted himself, as if he was on home territory. He took pleasure from the obvious intimation that he was detested inside that office. Clipper Reade had said that an intelligence officer could never be loved, should not seek to be … He remembered that huge figure, a beast of a man, the battered hat, the crumpled raincoat, the cheroot, the wisecracks and the homilies … He thought rudeness created domination, and it was needed, and he believed time raced.

‘How well has your man done since his insertion?’

‘Not as well as we’d hoped.’

‘What’s working against him?’

‘The circumstances.’

It was like drawing teeth, but Christopher Lawson — if need be — could wield pliers and drag out a back wisdom. When he rasped his voice, and the police officer, George, winced under attack, he heard slight gasps from behind him, where Davies sat, as if in reaction to the directness of the frontal assault. No, it was not about negotiation.

‘I seldom make idle threats, so listen carefully. If you do not provide me with complete co-operation I give you my solemn promise that you will be clearing your desk and on a lunchtime train home — not to return. Prevarication with me is not an option. So, what circumstances are working against him?’

George swallowed hard, as if discussing an undercover was a personal hurt to him, and against every instinct. ‘Right, he is the junior in the household. He does school runs and drives the lady — both she and the kids would be possible kidnap targets so he escorts them. He has little to do with Josef Goldmann. Alongside the subject — we don’t call them ‘targets’ any longer, it infringes their human rights — alongside our subject are two Russian-born thugs who do close protection. Then there is Rawlings—’