A Darker Place
Bounine nodded. ‘May I say one thing on Putin’s behalf? He wasn’t responsible for what happened to your sister. It was before his time. He sees an advantage in it, that’s all.’
‘A point of view. And Vronsky?’
‘A pig. I’d cut his throat myself if I had the chance.’
‘And you look such a kind man.’
‘I am a kind man.’
‘So tell me, Yuri, how’s your wife?’
‘Ah.’ Bounine hesitated. ‘She died, Alex. Leukaemia.’
‘I’m so sorry to hear that! She was a good woman.’
‘Yes, she was. But it’s been a while now, Alex, and my sister has produced two lovely girls – so I’m an uncle!’
‘Excellent. Let’s drink to them. And to New York.’ They clinked glasses. ‘And to the Black Tigers, may they rest in peace,’ Kurbsky said. ‘We’re probably the only two left.’
New York came and New York went. The death of Igor Vronsky received prominent notice in the New York Times and other papers, but in spite of his books and his vigorous anti-Kremlin stance, there was no suspicion that this was a dissident’s death. It seemed the normal kind of mugging, a knife to the chest, the body stripped of everything worth having.
On the day following Vronsky’s death, Monica Starling and George Dunkley flew back to Heathrow, where Dunkley had a limousine waiting to take them back to Cambridge. She hadn’t breathed a word about what had happened between her and Kurbsky, but Dunkley hadn’t stopped talking about him during the flight. It had obviously affected him deeply. She kissed him on the cheek.
‘Off you go, George. Try and make it for high table. They’ll all be full of envy when they hear of your exploits.’
There was no sign of her brother’s official limousine from the Cabinet Office or of Dillon. She wasn’t pleased, and then Billy Salter’s scarlet Alfa Romeo swerved into the kerb and he slid from behind the wheel while Dillon got out of the passenger seat.
He came round and embraced her, kissing her lightly on the mouth. ‘My goodness, girl, there’s a sparkle to you. You’ve obviously had a good time.’
Billy was putting her bags in the boot. ‘A hell of a time, from what I heard.’
‘You know?’ she said to Dillon. ‘About my conversation with Kurbsky?’
‘What Roper knows, we all end up knowing.’ He ushered her into the back seat of the Alfa and followed her. ‘Dover Street, Billy.’
It was the family house in Mayfair where her brother lived. ‘Is Harry okay?’ she asked as they drove away.
‘Nothing to worry about, but he’s been overdoing it, so the doctor has given him his marching orders. He’s gone down to the country to Stokely Hall to stay with Aunt Mary for a while. Anyway, this Kurbsky business has got Ferguson all fired up. He’d like to hear it all from your own fair lips, so we’re going to take you home, wait for you to freshen up, then join Ferguson for dinner at the Reform Club. Seven thirty, but if we’re late, we’re late.’
‘So go on, tell us all about it,’ Billy said over his shoulder.
‘Alexander Kurbsky was one of the most fascinating men I’ve ever met,’ she said. ‘End of story. You’ll have to wait.’
‘Get out of it. You’re just trying to make Dillon jealous.’
‘Just carry on, driver, and watch the road.’ She pulled Dillon’s right arm around her and eased into him, smiling.
It was a quiet evening at the Reform Club, the restaurant only half full. Ferguson had secured a corner table next to a window, with no one close, which gave them privacy. Ferguson wore the usual Guards tie and pinstriped suit, his age still a closely kept secret, his hair white, face still handsome.
The surprise was Roper in his wheelchair, wearing a black velvet jacket and a white shirt with a knotted paisley scarf at the neck.
‘Well, this is nice, I must say.’ She kissed Roper on the forehead and rumpled his tousled hair. ‘Are you well?’
‘All the better for seeing you.’
She wore the Valentino suit from New York and Ferguson obviously approved. ‘My word, you must have gone down well at the Pierre.’ He kissed her extravagantly on both cheeks.
‘You’re a charmer, Charles. A trifle glib on occasion, but I like it.’
‘And you’ll like the champagne. It’s Dom Perignon – Dillon can argue about his Krug another time.’
The wine waiter poured, remembering from previous experience to supply Billy with ginger ale laced with lime. Ferguson raised his glass and toasted her. ‘To you, my dear, and to what seems to have been a job well done.’ He emptied his glass and motioned the wine waiter to refill it. ‘Now, for God’s sake, tell us what happened.’
When Monica was finished, there were a few moments of silence and it was Billy who spoke first. ‘What’s he want, and I mean really want? This guy’s got everything, I’d have thought. Fame, money, genuine respect.’
‘But is that enough?’ Dillon said. ‘From what Monica says, he’s lacking genuine freedom. So the system’s different from the Cold War days, but is it really? I liked his description of himself to you, Monica, about being like a bear on a chain. In Russia he’s trapped by his fame, by who he is. In the cage, if you like. The Ministry of Arts controls his every move because they themselves are controlled right up to the top. From a political point of view, he’s a national symbol.’
Ferguson said, ‘Obviously I’ve read his work and I’m familiar with his exploits. It all adds up to a human being who hasn’t the slightest interest in being a symbol to anyone.’
‘He just wants to be free,’ Monica agreed. ‘At present, every move he makes is dictated by others. He’s flown privately when visiting abroad, he’s carefully watched by GRU minders, his every move is monitored.’
‘So let him claim asylum here,’ Billy said. ‘Would he be denied?’
‘Of course not,’ Ferguson said. ‘But he’s got to get here first. This Paris affair, the Legion of Honour presentation, presents an interesting possibility.’
‘They’d be watching him like a hawk,’ Dillon said. ‘And there’s another problem. You know what the French are like. Very fussy about foreigners causing a problem on their patch, and that applies big-time to Brit intelligence.’
‘Still, it looks to me like a straightforward kidnap job with a willing victim,’ Billy said. ‘It’s once he’s here that he’d need looking after. They’d do something even if they couldn’t get him back. How many Russian dissidents have come to a bad end in London? Litvinenko poisoned and two cases of guys falling from the terraces of apartment blocks, and that was in the same year.’
Roper beckoned the wine waiter. ‘A very large single malt. I leave the choice to your own good judgment.’ He smiled at the others. ‘Sorry, but the joys of champagne soon pall for me.’
‘Feel free, Major,’ Ferguson said. ‘I notice that you haven’t made a contribution in this matter.’
‘Concerning Kurbsky?’ Roper held out his hand and accepted the waiter’s gift of the single malt. He savoured it for a moment, then swallowed it down. ‘Excellent. I’ll have another.’
‘Don’t you have any comment?’ Monica asked.
‘Oh, I do. I’d like to meet his aunt, this Svetlana Kelly. Yes, that’s what I’d like to do. Chamber Court, a late-Victorian house in Belsize Park. I looked it up.’
‘Any particular reason?’ Ferguson said.
‘To find out what he’s like.’
‘Don’t you mean was like?’ Monica asked. ‘As I understand it, she last saw him in 1989. When you think of what he’s gone through since then, I’d suppose him to be completely different.’
‘On the contrary. I’ve always been of the opinion that people don’t really change, not in any fundamental way. Anyway, I’ll go to see her tomorrow, if you approve, General?’
‘Whatever you say.’
Monica jumped in. ‘Would it be all right if I came with you? I don’t need to be back in Cambridge till Friday.’
‘No, that’s fine. I don’t think we should overwhelm her.’
Dillon said, ‘Old Victorian houses aren’t particularly wheelchair friendly.’
‘I’ll phone in advance. If there’s a problem, perhaps we can meet somewhere else.’
‘Fine. I’ll leave it in your hands,’ Ferguson said. ‘Now I don’t know about you lot, but I’m starving, so let’s get down to the eating part of the business.’
Later, they went their separate ways. Sergeant Doyle had waited for Roper in the van that had the rear lift for the wheelchair. Ferguson had his driver, and Billy gave Dillon and Monica a lift to Dover Street in the Alfa.
‘Very useful,’ Monica told him, as they moved through Mayfair. ‘You being a non-drinker.’
‘I get stopped now and then,’ Billy said. ‘Young guy in a flash motor like this. I’ve been breathalysed plenty. It’s great to see the look on their faces when they check the reading.’ He pulled up outside the Dover Street house. ‘Here we are, folks. You staying, right?’ he asked Dillon.
‘What do you think?’
‘You’re staying.’
He cleared off, they paused at the top of the steps for Monica to find her key, and went in. She didn’t put the light on, simply waited for him to lock the door, then put her arms around his neck and kissed him quite hard.
‘Oh my goodness, I’ve missed you.’
‘You’ve only been away four days.’
‘Don’t you dare,’ she said. ‘Ten minutes, and if you take more, there’ll be trouble,’ and she turned and ran up the stairs.
He changed in one of the spare bedrooms, put on a terrycloth robe and joined her in her suite. He’d found a tenderness with her that he’d never known he had – he’d surprised himself as their relationship blossomed – and they made slow careful love together.
Afterwards she drifted into sleep and he lay there, a chink of light coming through the curtains from a lamp in the street. On impulse, he slipped out of the bed, put on the robe, padded downstairs to the drawing room, took a cigarette from a box on the table, lit it, then sat by the bow window, looking out and thinking about Kurbsky. After a while, Monica slipped in, wearing a robe.
‘So there you are. Give me one.’
‘You’re supposed to have stopped,’ he said, but gave her one anyway.
‘What are you thinking of?’ she said. ‘Kurbsky?’
‘That’s right.’
‘I thought you might. He reminded me of you.’
‘You liked him, I think?’
‘An easy man to like, just as you are an easy man to love, Sean, but like you, there’s the feeling of the other self always there, like a crouching tiger just waiting to spring.’
‘Thanks very much.’
‘What were you thinking?’
‘What on earth would we do with him if we got him?’ He stubbed his cigarette out and got up. ‘Come on, back to bed with you.’ He put a hand round her waist and they went out.
It was ten thirty when Roper found himself back in his chair in the computer room at Holland Park. Sergeant Doyle said, ‘You’ve everything you need to hand, Major, so I think I’ll have a lie down in the duty room.’
‘You should be entitled to a night off, Tony. What about Sergeant Henderson?’
‘He’s on ten days’ leave.’
‘And the Royal Military Police can’t find a replacement?’
‘But we wouldn’t want that, would we, sir? A stranger in the system? I’ll get a bit of shut-eye. If you need me, give me a bell.’
Roper lit a cigarette and set his main screen alive, bringing up Svetlana Kelly. In her early years, she’d been a member of the Chekhov Theatre in Moscow, which meant she was well grounded in classical theatre. She hadn’t been much of a beauty, even when young, but he saw handsomeness and strength there. There was a selection of photos from the early years, and then London in 1981. A Month in the Country at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. Fifty-five and never married, and then she’d met Patrick Kelly, an Irish widower and professor of literature at London University. Roper looked at Kelly’s photos – he was strong, too, undoubtedly and yet there was a touch of humour about his mouth.
Whatever the attraction, it was strong enough for them to marry at Westminster Register Office within a month of meeting and for Svetlana to cut herself free of the Soviet Union. She would be seventy-one now. It was eleven o’clock, and yet on sheer impulse, Roper phoned her. He stayed on speakerphone, he always did, and there was an instant answer.
‘Who is this?’ It was a whisper in a way, and yet clear enough, the Russian accent undeniable.
‘Mrs Kelly, my name is Giles Roper – Major Giles Roper.’ He spoke fair Russian, product of an Army total-immersion course just after Sandhurst, and he’d kept it up since. ‘Forgive the intrusion at such a time of night. You don’t know me.’
She cut in. ‘But I do. I attended a charity dinner for the Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital last year. You spoke from your wheelchair. You are the bomb disposal expert, aren’t you? The Queen herself pinned the George Cross to your lapel. You’re a hero.’
It was amazing the effect of that voice, so soft, like a breeze whispering through the leaves on an autumn evening. Roper’s throat turned dry, incredibly touched. It was like being a child again.
He said in English, ‘You’re too kind.’
‘What can I do for you?’
‘May I come to see you tomorrow morning?’
‘For what reason?’
‘I’d like to discuss a matter affecting your nephew. I’d have a woman with me, a Cambridge don who has just met Alexander in New York.’
‘Major Roper, be honest with me. What is your interest in my nephew? You must know I haven’t seen him in sixteen years.’
To this woman, one could only tell the truth. Roper knew that nothing else would do. ‘I’m with the British Security Services.’
There was a faint chuckle. ‘Ah, what they call a spook these days.’
‘Only on television.’
‘You intrigue me. Tell me of your companion.’ Roper did. She said, ‘The lady sounds quite interesting. If you’re a spook, you know where I live.’
‘Chamber Court, Belsize Park.’
‘Quite right. My husband died ten years ago and left me well provided for. Here, I live in Victorian splendour supported by my dear friend and fellow Russian, Katya Sorin, who takes care of the house and me and manages to find time to teach painting at the Slade as well. I’ll see you at ten thirty. Your chair will not prove a problem. The garden is walled, but the entrance in the side mews has a path that will give you access to French windows leading into a conservatory. I’ll be waiting.’
‘Thank you very much, Mrs Kelly. I must say, you seem to be taking me totally on trust.’
‘You fascinated me at that luncheon. Your speech was excellent, but modest, and so afterwards I looked you up on the internet. It was all there. Belfast in 1991, the Portland Hotel, the huge bomb in the foyer. It took you nine hours to render it harmless. Nine hours on your own. How can I not take such a man on trust? I’ll see you in the morning.’
It was quiet sitting there, staring up at his screens, and he put on some background music. Just like comfort food, only this was Cole Porter playing softly, just as it had been all those years ago in the Belfast safe house not far from the Royal Victoria Hospital. It was a long time ago, a hell of a long time ago, and he lit a cigarette and poured a Bushmills Irish whiskey for a change and remembered.
3
Roper remembered that year well and not just because of his nine hours dismantling the Portland Hotel bomb. There had also been the mortar attack on Number Ten Downing Street. The Gulf War had been at its height, and the target had been the War Cabinet meeting at ten a.m. on February seventh – an audacious attack, and the missiles had landed in the garden, just narrowly missing the house. It bore all the hallmarks of a classic IRA operation, although nobody ever claimed responsibility for the attack.
In Belfast, meanwhile, the war of the bomb continued remorselessly, and in spite of all the politicians could do, sectarian violence ploughed on, people butchering each other in the name of religion, the British Army inured by twenty-two years to the Irish Troubles as a way of life.
For Giles Roper, scientific interest in the field of weaponry and explosives had drawn him in even during his training days as an officer cadet at Sandhurst, and on graduation, it had led to an immediate posting to the Ordnance Corps. In ninety-one, he was entering his third year as a disposal officer, a captain in rank and several hundred explosive devices of one kind or another behind him.
Most people didn’t realize that he was married. A summer affair with his second cousin, a schoolteacher named Elizabeth Howard, during his first year out of Sandhurst had turned into a total disaster. It was a prime example of going to bed on your wedding night with someone you thought you knew and waking up with a stranger. A Catholic, she didn’t believe in divorce and indeed visited his mother on a regular basis. He hadn’t seen her in years.
The ever-present risk of death, and the casualty rate amongst his fellows in the bomb disposal business, precluded any kind of relationship elsewhere. He smoked heavily, like most of his kind, and drank heavily at the appropriate time, like most of his kind.
It was a strange bizarre existence which produced obsessive patterns of behaviour. On many occasions, he’d found himself dealing with a bomb and indulging in conversation, obviously one-sided, demanding answers which weren’t there. It was an extreme example of talking to yourself. A bomb, after all, couldn’t talk back except when it exploded, and that would probably be the last thing you heard. However, he still talked to them. There seemed some sort of comfort in that.
His father had died when he was sixteen. It was his uncle who had arranged for his schooling and Sandhurst, and maintained his mother at the extended family home in Shropshire. She was basically there as unpaid help as far as Roper could see, but on army pay there wasn’t much he could do about it, until the unexpected happened. His mother’s brother, Uncle Arthur, a homosexual by nature and a broker in the City with a fortune to prove it, had died of AIDS and, lacking any faith in his sister’s ability to handle money, left a considerable fortune to Roper.
He could have left the army, but found that he didn’t want to, and when he tried to get his mother her own place, it turned out she was perfectly happy where she was. It had also become apparent that the perils of bomb disposal were beyond her understanding, so he settled a hundred thousand pounds on her, and the same on his wife, and left them to the joys of the countryside.
Before the Portland Hotel, he had been decorated with the Military Cross for gallantry, although the events surrounding it had only a tenuous link with his ordinary duties.
On standby, he had been based in a small market town in County Down where there had been a spate of bomb alerts, mostly false, though one in four was the real thing. The unit had five jeeps, a driver and guard and a disposal expert. On that particular day, a call came in over the radio, and the jeeps disappeared, leaving only Roper and his driver, the unit being a man short. The first call was false, also the second. There was another, this time for Roper by name. There was something about it, the speaker had a cockney accent that sounded wrong.
Terry, his driver, started up, and Roper said, ‘No, just hang on. I’m not happy. Something smells.’ He had a Browning Hi-Power pistol stuffed in his camouflage blouse. He was also wearing, courtesy of his newfound wealth, a nylon and titanium vest capable of stopping a .44 Magnum at point-blank range.
Terry eased up an Uzi machine pistol on his knees. There was a nurses’ hostel to the side of the old folks’ home across the street and as the voice sounded over the radio again, still calling for Roper, a milk wagon came round the corner. It braked to a halt outside the hostel. Two men were in the cab in dairy company uniform.
The one on the passenger side dropped out, turning suddenly as Roper started forward, pulled out a pistol and fired. He was good, the bullet striking Roper in the chest and knocking him back against the jeep. The man fired again, catching Terry in the shoulder as he scrambled out with the Uzi, then fired again at Roper as he tried to get up, catching him in the left arm before turning and starting to run. Roper shot him twice in the back, shattering his spine.
The vest had performed perfectly. He picked up the Uzi Terry had dropped, got to his feet and walked towards the milk truck. The driver had slipped from behind the wheel and was firing through the cab where the passenger door was partially open. A bullet plucked Roper’s shoulder. He dropped down on his face and could see directly under the truck where the driver’s legs were exposed from the knees down. He held the Uzi out in front of him and fired two sustained bursts, the man screaming in agony and falling back against the hostel wall.
Roper found him there, sobbing. He tapped the muzzle of the Uzi against the man’s face. ‘Where is it, in the cab?’
‘Yes,’ the man groaned.
‘What kind? Pencil timer, detonators or what?’
‘Go fuck yourself.’
‘Have it your own way. We’ll go to hell together.’
He grimaced at the pain of his wounded arm, but managed to pull the man up and push him half into the cab. There was a large Crawford’s biscuit tin. ‘You could get a Christmas cake in there or a hell of a lot of Semtex. Anyway, let’s try again. Pencil timer, detonator?’
He turned the man’s face and pushed the muzzle of the Uzi between his lips. The man wriggled and jerked away. ‘Pencils.’
‘Let’s hope you’re right, for both our sakes.’
He pulled off the lid and exposed the contents. Three pencils – the extras just to make sure. ‘Oh, dear,’ he said. ‘Fifteen minutes. I’d better move sharpish.’ He pulled them out and tossed them away and eased the man down as he fainted.
People were emerging from the houses and the local bar, now a couple of dogs barked, and then there was a sudden roaring of engines as two jeeps appeared, moving fast.
‘Here we go, the bloody cavalry arriving late as usual.’ He slid down on the pavement, his back to the hostel wall, scrabbled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, fumbled to get one out, and failed.
It didn’t make him notable in any way beyond military circles. The national newspapers didn’t make a fuss simply because death and destruction were so much a part of everyday life in Northern Ireland that, as the old army saying went, it was old news before it was news. But the Portland Hotel a year later, the lone man face-to-face with a terrible death for nine hours, really was news, even before the decision had been taken to reward him with the George Cross. He’d continued to meet the daily demands of his calling, working out of an old state school in Byron Road which the army had taken over on the safe-house principle, fortifying it against any kind of attack, the many rooms providing accommodation for officers and men, with a bar and catering facilities. There were places like it all over Belfast, safe, but bleak.
Local women fought for the privilege of working there in the canteen, the laundry or as cleaners. That many would be Republican sympathizers was clear, and a rough and ready way of sorting the problem was to try to employ only Protestant women. On the other hand, it was obviously a temptation for Catholics who needed work to pretend to be other than they were. Such women lived locally, and came and went through the heavily-fortified gates with identity cards, often so false they could be bought for a couple of pounds in any local bar.
Roper had been posted to Byron Street for nine months, and in that time had caused something of a stir with his Military Cross and good looks, but his gentlemanly behaviour towards the younger women, which was conspicuously absent in his fellows, had provoked a suggestion that, as the local girls put it, there had to be something wrong with him.
On the other hand, his incredible bravery was a fact, and so was the fact that in those nine months, some of his comrades had paid the final price and others had been terribly injured.