He, of course, collecting the kids had said nothing. He’d seen them into the hall, had watched them bolt upstairs, then gone down into the ready room. He wondered what they had said. ‘Daddy’s had a difficult day’ didn’t really do it. Esther gave her daughter a sharp nudge, as if something was planned, and the child came off the settee, skipped behind it and emerged with a big, like big, bouquet of flowers. More red roses than Carrick had ever seen in a bouquet. He didn’t care who knew it, he liked the kids. George knew he liked them, and Rob. He saw awe on the child’s face, as if she’d been told that this man had offered his own safety in the protection of her father, and there was sweetness and sincerity there, and she seemed to do a little bob curtsy, what she would have learned in a nine-year-old’s dance class at a private school, and the flowers were given him, and he realized how great his fondness was for those children, with the gentle banter they gave him in the car and their innocence.
He blushed, felt the heat in his cheeks. No one had given Johnny Carrick flowers before. Esther Goldmann said, a brittle voice, ‘For you, with our thanks, Johnny. Perhaps you will pass them to someone precious to you.’
The flowers were in the crook of his arm. He assumed, always, that Esther was not the shrinking violet who knew nothing of her husband’s trade, but it was the part she played. She took the children past him, past Viktor, through the door. He hadn’t realized that Viktor was there — silent, watching, arms folded across his chest.
Josef Goldmann sat upright now, as if energized, the haggardness of his face gone, and said briskly, ‘I am, Johnny, a businessman who buys and sells, who trades on his expertise, who is successful and therefore attracts envy. I am also an immigrant to your country, and I am a Jew … I do not seek to attract attention. You will be surprised that I have not contacted the police and reported this attempted murder. It is not, Johnny, in my interests to parade myself. Neither is it in the interests of Esther or our children. My work involves discretion and would be harmed if I were to be written about in sensational terms in newspapers. The police have not been told of what happened, or of your heroic defence of me. Is that understood?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Do you have, Johnny, a problem with my attitude to the police and my wish to avoid the spotlight of publicity?’
‘No problem, sir.’
‘That street, I have learned this in the past from those I visit there — in casual conversation — is not covered by security cameras, one of the few in the City. This afternoon Viktor went there, met the newspaper-seller, who assured him he had seen nothing of what happened. Does that, Johnny, make a difficulty for you?’
‘No difficulty, sir.’ Carrick wondered how much money had been passed, and whether the seller had now abandoned his pitch and retired to a bar to consider his good fortune.
‘You are recovered from this morning?’
‘Quite recovered, sir.’ He could look back, could try to piece together each moment of the confrontation. He could feel in his knee the jarred blow into the man’s groin and could feel in his fist a rawness from the punch to the bridge of the man’s nose.
‘You will be rewarded for what you have done today — and I hope you will feel that the reward is generous — and your terms of employment will be reviewed. In the future, Johnny, I want you close to me.’
‘Whatever you say, sir.’
‘You have, of course, a valid passport?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘With Viktor, I travel abroad tomorrow. You have a family occasion tonight, yes? You should be here by seven in the morning, and you go with us. You will be away for perhaps a week. Johnny, the events of this morning have gone by and will not again be referred to. I have avenues that I will use to learn who was responsible for the attack on me, and I will use them. Thank you, Johnny, and I will see you in the morning.’
Not asked whether it was convenient, not asked whether it suited his plans, but Carrick did not expect to be asked. He realized he had stepped higher up a ladder, that luck and good fortune had pushed him there. Felt, almost, a pride in the trust now placed in him.
He nodded, turned. Viktor opened the door for him.
He watched. Josef Goldmann stood back from the window but his finger hitched aside the net curtain. He saw Johnny Carrick go down the steps from the front door.
He asked of Viktor, ‘Is the trust justified?’
‘You said that two shots were fired, and Grigori says so too. He did not stop, think and debate. He acted. Grigori’s reaction, to freeze, was the more normal in close protection when an attack is made. He did not.’
‘Which tells you?’
He heard a slight chuckle, but it had no humour. ‘Perhaps that he lacks intelligence or imagination, and that he was a soldier. Only a corporal — with intelligence and imagination he would have been an officer. He can be given limited trust.’
Josef Goldmann saw his saviour pause on the step and against the grey of his suit was the great bundle of roses he held to his chest. Then his man walked away at a fast pace.
‘What I like about him is that he is limited in what he looks to know of us. Like a machine, robotic. He asks no questions. I do not see him listening. Neither is he where I do not expect to find him in the house. He gives me no surprises. Yes, limited trust.’
Now the chuckle had faint, grim humour. ‘If you take him you will expose him to Reuven. To win Reuven’s trust, as much trust as can be held between thumb and forefinger, a pinch of trust, that will be harder for him. Perhaps he will be turned out on to the street and sent home.’
The pavement was clear, and the brightness of the flowers gone.
‘If you had been there, Viktor, and had seen what I saw, you would understand my trust in him.’
He was in the outer office, sharing the woman’s workbench. She did not speak to him, but nothing, any longer, surprised Luke Davies.
The file contained sheets of paper, every one a printout. He could have challenged her, could have said that he had, until that afternoon, been unaware that the Stone Age was alive and well at Vauxhall Bridge Cross, but he’d noted the sharp darts of her glances at him while he scanned the pages, and reckoned her defensive. He had not heard of any other floor, corner or cranny of the building where paper still existed. If he had challenged he believed he would have embarrassed her and won an evasive reply, something about Mr Lawson’s preferences.
He’d been back to his old territory, Russia Desk (Baltic), had endured a volley of quips. He’d told them to wrap it, belt up, get lost, and then he’d had to laugh. He’d hacked into his computer and downloaded maps. They were now on his desk.
Fastening the map sheets together with Sellotape, he’d made an extended montage that went from London in the west to the city of Sarov in the east. And her ruler had been within reach.
The lines made a pattern, were as concise as a web left by spiders on a morning when hoar frost had formed. Had to admit that the pattern made a shape … and he had read about Sarov, home of St Seraphim, who had been canonized by the Orthodox church in 1903, and about Arzamas-16, home of the team that had built Joe One, the first of their tested atomic weapons, and Joe Four, the first of their tested hydrogen warheads. Lines on his map were traced between Sarov and London, to Colchester in Essex, to the east of Poland and Berlin. More lines ran to the Gulf. His pleasure, at understanding gained, was stabbed.
‘What’s that?’
Must have looked like a startled rabbit: spun on his chair, thwacked his knee against the bench edge, hadn’t heard the entry. Hated himself for it, but stammered, ‘It’s to show the linkage of the calls.’