Читать книгу A Divided Spy: A gripping espionage thriller from the master of the modern spy novel - Charles Cumming - Страница 19

Kell and Riedle talked until two o’clock in the morning.

Kell had sensed immediately that it would take at least two or three such encounters before Riedle would begin to open up about ‘Dmitri’. It was obvious from a certain detachment in his conversation that the German wanted to present himself in a good light, particularly in the aftermath of the mugging, which had plainly unsettled him. He was a proud man. A successful man. Kell knew from Elsa’s research that Riedle was responsible for a large team of architects in Hamburg and had been a partner at his firm for more than ten years. He listened closely as Riedle explained the work he was doing in Brussels, occasionally adding stories of his own about his phantom career as a diplomat in the Foreign Office. Riedle, who spoke faultless English as a result of spending seven years working in London, was evidently highly regarded within architectural circles, but tended to keep himself to himself. He valued his privacy and had few close friends. With the exception of his three-year relationship with the married Minasian, Riedle’s lifestyle appeared to be morally unimpeachable: Elsa and Mowbray had not flagged up any predilection for rent boys or problems with drugs and gambling. His interests stretched from English and American literature to Chinese contemporary art to the street food of Mexico and the music of Brazil. He was educated, thoughtful and unfailingly polite. Kell liked him.

At no point in the evening did Riedle mention his sexuality. Kell hinted that his own marriage had broken down several years earlier, but quickly moved the subject on when he sensed that Riedle was uneasy. Don’t rush him, he told himself, moving through the rusty gears of a hundred yesteryear recruitments. Let the relationship flourish in its own good time. If Riedle thinks that you are discreet, that you are astute and wise, that you are, above all, sympathetic to his cause, he will become your agent. Allow him to warm to you, to trust you, finally to confide in you; Kell’s influence would be the drop of water that causes the whisky to open up.

And so it came to pass. The two neighbours made a plan to meet for dinner two nights later at Forgeron, a fashionable brasserie in a district of Brussels frequented by Belgian hipsters and optimistic couples on second dates. Riedle appeared at half past seven wearing a lively grey tweed suit, brown brogues and a pale pink shirt, offset by a cream tie spotted with large blue polka dots. He was sporting a new, thicker pair of glasses that were almost identical to those worn by every architect Kell had ever encountered. He was tempted to make a joke about typecasting but instead complimented Riedle on the choice of venue.

‘Yes. It’s wonderful here,’ he said, reminding Kell of a music-hall impresario as he gazed around the room. ‘I have reserved a table on the balcony.’

Kell looked up. The ‘balcony’ was a narrow raised metal walkway on the first floor, no more than five feet wide, set with tables for two. Riedle confirmed their reservation with the maître d’ and the two men were led upstairs by a waitress who shot Kell an exaggeratedly friendly look, judging him to be Riedle’s boyfriend and wanting to appear supportive. There was a low roof above the balcony and an overweight man occupying the first of three tables. The man’s chair was jutting out so that Kell was obliged to perform an elaborate ducking manoeuvre in order to pass him. The waitress had selected the furthest table on the walkway and took their orders for drinks. Kell was pleased when he heard Riedle asking for a kir. The sooner there was alcohol inside him, the better.

There were pleasantries and exchanges of small talk while they studied their menus and drank their aperitifs. Riedle, who had his back to the other diners, raised a toast to Kell and insisted that he was going to pay for the meal ‘as a thank you for saving me’. During their conversation at the apartment, Kell had explained that he was working on an investment project in Brussels, a suitably vapid job description which he hoped would discourage any further interest. Nevertheless, Riedle asked if his meetings were going well and Kell was able to say that it was ‘early days’ and that ‘a number of parties still needed to be sounded out’ before the ‘proper financing’ could be guaranteed. Riedle’s own account of a difficult meeting with a services consultant that afternoon took them halfway through their first course, by which time they were drinking a bottle of Chablis. Kell had ordered smoked salmon blinis, Riedle a vichyssoise.

‘How is your food?’ Riedle asked.

‘Not identifiably Russian,’ Kell replied, and was glad to see a momentary discomfort flicker in his companion’s eyes. He had chosen the dish as a private joke, but now realized that it might lead him towards Minasian. ‘How’s your soup?’

‘Fine.’

Taking advantage of a slight pause, Kell inched towards Dmitri.

‘The blinis are fine, but I’ve broken a personal promise. Just as one should never eat bouillabaisse outside Marseilles, I believe you should never order these’ – he indicated his plate – ‘outside Moscow.’

‘You have been to Russia?’ Riedle asked. Kell could feel him lifting from the bottom of the river, circling upwards through the dark waters, rising slowly to the bait.

‘Many times,’ he replied. ‘The caviar is not as good as it once was – and it’s certainly more expensive nowadays – but I still go there for business.’

‘You were a diplomat there?’

‘No. Briefly in Armenia in the mid-nineties when I filled in for somebody on sick leave, but never Moscow.’ Kell had to be careful not to push too hard. ‘Minasian’ was an Armenian surname. Though it was almost certainly the case that Dmitri had presented himself to Riedle as a Russian citizen, he might occasionally have spoken nostalgically of his forebears in the Caucasus. The best cover is the simplest cover, one which draws on truthful elements in the spy’s background. ‘Have you been yourself?’ he asked, sipping his Chablis without an apparent care in the world. ‘Moscow? St Petersburg?’

‘I do not trust Russians,’ Riedle replied, with an almost petulant finality. ‘I have personal reasons. I despise their politics, their leadership.’

‘It’s certainly a worry …’

‘I sometimes think that the Russian character is the end of kindness, you know? The end of everything that is nice and good in this world.’

Kell was not a fisherman, but knew the angler’s rapturous delight in feeling that first bite on the lure. The sudden tug, the ripple on the surface of the water, the line running out as the fish ran free.

‘I’m not sure I understand you,’ he said, though he understood all too well.

‘As I say, personal reasons.’ Riedle finished his soup and set the spoon down gently. ‘I have to be careful what I say. I don’t want to come across as racist or as a bigot …’

‘You are among friends, Bernie. You can say what you like. I’m not here to judge you.’

That was all it took. Riedle pulled the sleeve of his jacket, squeezed a ruby cufflink and was away.

‘When I think of the Russian temperament, I think of sin,’ he said, looking at Kell as though he was both morally ashamed and politically disappointed by what he was about to say. ‘I think of money and the greed for riches. A state apparatus that robs its own people, politicians filling their pockets at the expense of the men and women they are elected to represent. I think of violence. Journalists silenced, opposition politicians murdered for the exercise of free speech. Corruption and death always going hand in hand.’ He took a sip of water, like a pianist composing himself before embarking on the final movement of a concerto. ‘When I think of Russia I think of deceit. Husbands deceiving wives. Young women seducing older men because they crave nothing but money and status. Deceit in business, of course. Do you follow me? The Slavic temperament is human nature at its most base. There is no kindness in Russia. Everything is so raw and brutal. They are like animals.’

It was an astonishing diatribe, and one to which Kell responded with the obvious question.

‘You said you had personal reasons for feeling this way?’

A waiter had inched along the balcony and begun to clear away their plates of food. Kell hoped that the interruption would not cause Riedle to soften his prejudice or, worse, change the subject.

‘I don’t wish to bore you with those,’ he said, ordering a bottle of Chianti. ‘I can’t only talk about myself this evening, Peter.’

‘No. Do.’ Kell sensed that talking about himself was exactly what Bernard Riedle wanted to do. ‘I’d be interested to hear your reasons. I sometimes find myself thinking the same way about Russia, particularly when it comes to murdered dissidents.’

Riedle took his eyes away from Kell and past him towards the large street window. He appeared to be lost in thought. It was like watching a man in a dealership trying to decide whether or not to buy an expensive car.

‘I had a relationship with a Russian,’ he said finally, the bustle and noise of the restaurant rendering his voice almost inaudible. ‘A man,’ he added. Riedle examined Kell’s reaction with sudden intensity. ‘Does this make you uncomfortable?’

Kell wondered if there had been something in his facial response to indicate disapproval, because he knew that Riedle was searching for any evidence of homophobia.

‘Not at all,’ he replied. ‘Does the man live in Hamburg?’

Riedle shook his head.

‘You were together a long time?’

‘Three years.’

‘When did you break up?’

Riedle swallowed a long, glass-emptying mouthful of Chablis.

‘Last month,’ he replied, and looked over the railing that ran along the length of the walkway, down towards the entrance of the restaurant. Kell could see a chef standing over a bed of crushed ice, shucking oysters. ‘I was in Egypt,’ he said, again bringing his eyes back to the table. ‘A holiday. Things had not been good for a long time. He decided finally to end things.’

‘I’m very sorry to hear that.’ Kell had a memory of Claire blithely informing him that she was in a new relationship, less than a month after their separation. ‘Nothing worse than a break-up,’ he said. ‘How are you coping?’

Riedle seemed both surprised and comforted by the question. ‘Not well,’ he said. ‘To be honest, Peter, I am suffering.’

Kell leaned towards him, doing his job. ‘I’ve been there,’ he said. ‘You don’t sleep. You can’t eat. You’re angry, you feel lost. It doesn’t get any easier with age. If anything, these things become worse.’

‘Yes,’ Riedle replied. ‘You felt this with your wife when your marriage ended?’

Kell hesitated for a moment, because he hated drawing Claire into operational conversation. It was tawdry and disloyal to use her for the purposes of deception; there had to be something in his life that remained sacred. Everything else, for years and years, had been infected by spying.

‘My marriage was different,’ he said. ‘My wife and I met when we were very young. We grew apart. We became different people as the years went by.’ Kell might have added that there had been times when he had blamed Claire for the entire squeezed and cut-down shape of his life; that he had been liberated by their separation. Or he might have said that there were still moments, when they met for lunch or saw one another at a social occasion, when he felt an almost gravitational pull towards her, a longing to be reintegrated into their former life. Instead, he said something comparatively bland, but undeniably true: ‘I think she found the demands of my job very difficult. There was also an added, very painful complication in that we were never able to have children.’

The waiter brought their main courses and the bottle of Chianti. It was then that Riedle mentioned Minasian for the first time.

‘I’m embarrassed to admit that Dmitri – my lover, my boyfriend – was married.’

Kell allowed himself to process the revelation, seemingly for the first time, before responding.

‘These things happen,’ he said. ‘Adultery is commonplace. Men find themselves conflicted. Particularly in Russia, I imagine, where the attitude to a person’s sexuality is so toxic. Embarrassment is pointless, Bernie. Shame is what we feel when we are worried about what other people are thinking about us.’

‘This is a very liberal view.’ Riedle smiled with avuncular disapproval, touching one of the polka dots on his expensive cream tie. The light caught in his designer spectacles and flashed off a lens. ‘Dmitri was tormented by his deceit. Or, at least, he pretended to be.’

It was a first meaningful glimpse into the Minasian personality. Kell said: ‘What do you mean, “pretended”?’ as he scribbled notes in his mind.

Riedle lifted his knife and fork and carved into the fatty edge of a lamb cutlet. ‘Perhaps I am being unfair,’ he said. ‘His wife has been ill for many years. Some kind of muscular difficulty which leaves her in great pain.’

Kell suspected that this was a lie. There was nothing in the files about Svetlana Minasian suffering from a debilitating illness, muscular or otherwise.

‘That’s awful,’ Kell said, a judgment that caused Riedle to wince. He wanted no expressions of sympathy for the woman; she had simply been an obstacle blocking his access to Dmitri.

‘It is and it is not,’ he replied. ‘She prevents him from living the life he wants to live. From being the man he wants to be. She is also highly critical of him, closed off in her thinking. Spoiled and judgmental.’

Kell wondered how much of this was true. He suspected that Minasian had constructed flaws in Svetlana’s character that would both console Riedle and justify his emotional distance from the marriage.

‘And children? Do they have any?’

Riedle shook his head. ‘No.’ There was a strange kind of satisfaction in his reply; it suggested the complete absence of a sexual relationship between Minasian and his wife. ‘I think Dmitri was very sophisticated, very clever when it came to presenting himself to me in a certain way,’ Riedle said, with a perceptiveness that took Kell by surprise. ‘He knew what I wanted and he knew how to give it. He also knew how to take it away.’

‘Take what away? You mean his love for you?’

Like a breeze coming through an open window, Kell remembered the enveloping intimacy he had known with Rachel, the deepest and most fulfilling love he had ever felt for a woman; a love ripped away in a few short days by the realization that she had been lying to him. He thought of Amelia’s cunning and of his own role in deceiving Riedle. Minasian was the common denominator. ‘Dmitri’ controlled them all.

‘I mean that there is something sadistic about him. Something deeply manipulative and cruel. That is the conclusion I have come to, not just because of the way he has disregarded me since our relationship ended, but also because I can now look back on his behaviour when we were together in a different way.’

‘In what way?’

‘He was often selfish and bullying. He knew that I was not as strong as he was. He knew that I was profoundly in love with him. But rather than take responsibility for this, to be careful with my feelings, he used it as a tool, a weapon against me.’ For some time, Riedle chewed his food, saying nothing. Kell also remained silent, waiting. ‘A person should have a duty of care for someone they profess to love, no?’ Riedle’s expression suggested that his question could brook no argument. ‘I think Dmitri was obsessed by ideas of power. This is the only way I can understand things, looking back. Have you read Nineteen Eighty-Four?’

‘Not for a long time.’

‘It is one of Dmitri’s favourite novels.’ Kell silently absorbed the irony of this revelation, but said nothing. ‘There is an exchange, towards the end of the book, when Winston Smith is being tortured. A discussion about power. Winston is asked how a man exerts power over another man. Do you remember his answer?’

‘By making him suffer?’ Kell suggested.

‘Precisely!’

Riedle beamed at Kell with astonished admiration, as if he had at last met a person who could not only understand his plight, but explain Dmitri’s behaviour into the bargain. Kell smiled. He was trying to link together what Riedle was saying. Much of it was startling, yet a jilted lover, an angry and heartbroken boyfriend, will think and say anything that might make sense of tangled emotions. Kell needed to be able to separate Riedle’s prejudices from the hard, observable facts about Minasian’s behaviour. Kell reminded himself that he had only two objectives: to build a detailed psychological profile of Minasian, and to use Riedle to lure him out of the shadows. Everything else was tangential.

‘It sounds to me as though it’s a good thing that you’re no longer with this man. If what you’re saying is true, he didn’t make you very happy. It sounds like a form of torture.’

‘It is true. Believe me. But isn’t it also the case that the things in life which give us the most pleasure also cause us the most pain?’

‘I’ll drink to that.’

Kell lifted his glass but had misjudged the moment. Riedle was uncomfortable and quickly returned to his recollections.

‘Dmitri was everything to me. I thought of us as a perfect match, despite the gap in age between us.’

‘How old was he?’ Kell asked.

‘Thirty-four when we met. He is almost thirty-eight now. I have just become fifty-nine.’ Riedle appeared briefly to slip into a private memory. Kell knew that Minasian had lied to Riedle about his age; according to his file at SIS, he was almost forty-one. ‘We laughed together,’ Riedle said. ‘I could tell him everything and he could solve my problems. He was capable of immense kindness, of great insights. We shared a love of the same literature, the same interests. The truth is that he fascinated me in every element of his personality.’

‘But he knew this and he took advantage of it.’

‘Yes!’ Riedle’s response was quick, almost convulsive. Kell noticed the table behind him coming to a sudden halt in conversation. ‘Yes, he took advantage of that.’ Riedle cut off another chunk of lamb. He spoke as he chewed. It was the first time the German’s impeccable table manners had faltered. ‘What is most painful is the loss of this side of his personality. The side that could make me happy. It is not easy at my age to meet a man, particularly one who possessed this ability to bring such contentment to me.’ Kell thought of Rachel, her ghost eavesdropping on their conversation, and concluded – not for the first time – that human beings were fools to expect other people to shore them up. He was about to repeat his earlier assertion that Riedle was well shot of the relationship when something happened that stripped him of his composure. Looking down towards the entrance, he saw a beautiful woman in her early twenties walking into the restaurant in the company of a man who was at least twice her age. The man was wearing a black suit and his hair was slicked back with gel. A large birthmark was visible to the left of his nose.

It was Rafal Suda.

Kell fixed his eyes back on Riedle and smiled a crocodile smile. If the German looked down, he would see Suda. It was that simple. The man who had mugged him only two nights earlier was standing less than eight feet away, making audible small talk with the maître d’. If Riedle recognized him, there would be a confrontation. There would be police involvement and Kell would be obliged to act as a witness. The operation would be over before it had begun. Any hope of locating Minasian by using Riedle as a lure would evaporate.

In an effort to keep the conversation flowing, Kell repeated his assertion that Riedle was lucky to be free of Dmitri, a man who had exerted such a baleful influence over his private life. He spoke for as long as it took for Suda and his date to be led towards the interior of the restaurant. When they were beyond Riedle’s line of sight, Kell encouraged the German to respond. As he listened to his reply, Kell could see Suda, out of the corner of his eye, being led to the first table on the parallel balcony. He was no further away than the length of a London bus. It was a slice of wretched luck. Forgeron had seating for up to a hundred customers in the main section towards the back of the restaurant, but Suda had been seated in one of the few places from which he could still be seen by Riedle.

The German was talking. Kell was trying to absorb what he was saying about Minasian while simultaneously formulating a plan for getting Suda out of the restaurant. A warning text message would do it, but Suda would almost certainly have abandoned the mobile he had used on the Riedle operation. Kell had no other number, only an email address. What were the chances of a middle-aged Polish spook checking his inbox while a statuesque blonde was gazing adoringly into his eyes over a platter of oysters? Slim, at best. No, he had to think of an alternative approach – and all the while keep Riedle talking.

‘What were Dmitri’s politics?’ he asked. Kell looked down at Riedle’s plate. The German had almost finished his lamb cutlets. That was the next problem. With a kir and several glasses of wine inside him, a man of Riedle’s age might need to go to the bathroom in the break between courses. Should he do so, he would need to turn around and to inch along the balcony, all the while looking out over the restaurant, directly towards Suda’s table.

‘He rarely spoke about politics,’ he said. ‘I asked him, of course, and we had arguments about what was going on in Ukraine.’

‘What kind of arguments?’

‘Oh, the usual ones.’ Riedle speared a stem of purple-sprouting broccoli, no more than two or three mouthfuls left before he would finish. ‘That Crimea should be restored to Russia, that it was given to Kiev without permission by Khrushchev …’

‘I would agree with that,’ Kell replied.

‘But I saw the separatist aggression in the east as a senseless waste of lives, innocent people dying for the cause of meaningless nationalism.’

‘I would also agree with that,’ Kell concurred, desperately scrabbling for ideas. He felt like a public speaker with ten more minutes to fill and not an idea in his head. ‘And what we’ve been seeing in Russia is the extraordinary success of the Kremlin propaganda machine. There are educated, liberal intellectuals in Moscow who believe that Ukrainian soldiers have crucified Russian children, that any opposition to Russian influence in the region has been orchestrated by the CIA …’

The use of ‘we’ was a hangover from Office days, the party line at SIS. Kell had made a mistake. Riedle, thankfully, appeared not to have noticed. Instead he nodded approvingly at what Kell had said and then – Kell felt the dread again – turned in his seat and looked down towards the entrance, distracted by a movement or sound that Kell had not detected.

‘But otherwise he wasn’t a political animal?’ Kell asked, trying to bring Riedle’s eyes back to the table. It had been a mistake to ask about politics. Riedle was a sensualist, an emotional man in the grip of heartbreak. He didn’t want to be talking about civil wars. He wanted to be talking about his feelings.

‘No, he was not. He had studied political philosophy at Moscow University.’

A waiter brought a bottle of champagne to Suda’s table. When the cork popped, Riedle might turn around. All of Kell’s energy was directed at preventing that from taking place. He needed to hold Riedle in a sort of trance of conversation, to make it impossible for him to look away.

‘What was his job?’ Kell asked. He removed his jacket in the gathering heat.

‘Like you,’ Riedle replied. ‘Private investment. Raising financing for different projects around Europe.’

A classic SVR cover.

‘Which allowed him to travel extensively? To spend time with you?’

The woman was giggling, Suda raising a loud toast.

‘Precisely.’ Something had caused Riedle to smile. ‘It’s funny. I always felt like the sophisticated one. The older Western European intellectual teaching the boy from Russia. This was false, of course. Dmitri was much cleverer, much better educated than I am. But he was often very quiet. I used to think of it as shyness. Now I think of it as a lack of something.’

‘He sounds like somebody with very little generosity of spirit.’

‘Yes!’ Riedle almost thumped the table in enthusiastic endorsement of Kell’s insight. ‘That is exactly what he was like.’

‘Generosity of spirit is so rare,’ Kell said, continuing to improvise conversation. Could he send a note via a member of staff? Not a chance. Nor could he leave Riedle alone at the table; the German might use the time to start gazing around the restaurant. ‘If a person is essentially self-interested,’ Kell said, moving a floret of cauliflower in slow circles around his plate, ‘if their only goal is the satisfaction of their own vanity, their own appetites, even at the expense of friends or loved ones, that can be enormously distressing for the person left behind.’

‘You understand a great deal, Peter,’ Riedle replied, lifting a final mouthful of lamb towards his gaping mouth. Kell watched the rising fork as he might have watched a clock ticking down to zero hour. He was convinced that Riedle was going to leave the table as soon as he had finished eating. ‘Tell me about your own experience,’ Riedle asked. ‘Tell me how you coped with the end of your marriage.’

If it would guarantee the German’s undivided attention for the next hour, Kell would happily now have told him the most intimate and scandalous details of his relationship with Claire. Besides, wasn’t it one of the golden rules of recruitment? Share your vulnerabilities. Confide in a prospective agent. Tell him whatever he needs to hear in order to establish complicity. But before he had a chance to answer, Riedle added a coda.

‘First, however, will you excuse me?’ He was dabbing his mouth with his napkin and preparing to stand up. ‘I must go to the bathroom.’

At that same moment, Kell looked across the room and saw Rafal Suda in the midst of precisely the same ritual. The dabbed napkin. The soundless request to his companion. It was as though the two men had made a secret plan to meet. Rising to his feet, Suda laughed as his date cracked a toothy joke. If Riedle left now, he would bump into Suda within thirty seconds.

‘Would you mind if I went first?’ Kell asked and did something that he had never done in all his life as an intelligence officer. He clutched at his waist and pretended to be hit by a searing pain in his stomach.

‘But of course,’ Riedle replied, settling back into his seat. ‘Are you all right, Peter?’

Kell struggled to his feet, wincing in apparent agony. ‘Fine,’ he gasped, ‘Fine’, and ducked to avoid a low-hanging lamp. ‘Happens from time to time. Just give me five minutes will you, Bernie? I’ll be right back.’