A Spy by Nature - Charles Cumming [127]
He looks at me with contempt and then he is gone. I am left staring at a section of empty street with no clue as to how to proceed. I tried to make him privy to the complete truth of this. I was prepared to break the central binding law, but he withdrew from it.
A car goes past with the radio on, a song playing loud that I do not recognize. I feel cold, hungry and beaten. How quickly failure settles on me. Cohen has won: in this, as in all things, he has proved the better man.
29
Truth-Telling
This is what they told me, a long time ago.
Only make contact in the event of an emergency.
Only telephone if you believe that your position has been fatally compromised.
Under no circumstances are you to approach us unless it is absolutely necessary in order to preserve the security of the operation.
This is the number.
I ring from a telephone box outside the Shepherd’s Bush Theatre. With Hawkes out of contact, I have no other choice. The woman who answers says:
‘Two-seven-eight-five.’
‘John Lithiby, please.’
‘One moment.’
Lithiby picks up.
‘Yes?’
‘John. It’s Alec.’
‘Yes?’
‘We need to have a meeting.’
‘I see.’
It sounds as if the breath has gone out of him. I never wanted to be a disappointment to them.
‘Where are you?’ he asks.
‘Near my home.’
‘Can you get to the restaurant for midday?’
‘I’ve taken the morning off.’
‘Good. I’ll send Sinclair to meet you. He will escort you to a place where we can speak freely.’
At the restaurant off Notting Hill Gate, downstairs out of sight of the street-facing window, I order a bottle of mineral water and wait for Lithiby’s stooge.
The only consolation in all of this is that I am doing the right thing: it is better to act now, when I can take preventive measures against Cohen, than to let matters get beyond my control.
But I never thought it would come to this. I never thought it would be necessary to tell the truth.
Sinclair is on time. He comes down the stairs at a fast clip wearing brown suede loafers and a corduroy suit. There is, as always, too much gel in his hair. He scans the room, sees me, but makes no discernible greeting. His height - six-three - is immediately striking. It marks him out. He walks over to my table and I stand to greet him, to shake his firm hand. He looms four or five inches above me, looking down like a prefect. I hate the unearned psychological advantage of the tall, the pay-off from an accident of birth.
‘You’re lookin’ a bit ropey, Alec.’
His accent suggests a desire to shake off London vowels.
‘I’m not too bad.’
We sit down. The waiter, new to the place, comes back with a bottle of Hildon, two menus in his other hand. He pours each of us a glass of water and begins reciting the specials in halting English. Sinclair lets him get to the third dish before he says:
‘That’s all right, mate. We’re not staying.’
The waiter looks confused.
‘It’s not that we don’t like it here. It’s just we have to be somewhere else.’
‘I don’t understand,’ he says, a Russian accent. ‘You don’t want eat?’
‘That’s right,’ I tell him. ‘I’ll leave money for the water. Just let me know how much it is.’
‘What you like,’ the waiter says with a shrug of his shoulders. He walks away from the table briskly, as if we have hurt his feelings.
‘Just leave five pounds,’ Sinclair tells me firmly. ‘No need to wait for the bill.’
I don’t like it when Sinclair tells me what to do: there’s only a five-year gap in age between us, but he likes playing the slick old hand, the unruffable pro. To irritate him, to make him look cheap, I take a ten-pound note from my wallet and wedge it between the pink tablecloth and a worn glass ashtray. Sinclair looks at it, impressed, and then stands to leave. I want to let him know that I have access to money.
We cross the room. A Japanese businessman passes us on the stairs with a young Slavic blonde draped on his arm, probably a hooker; she looks drugged out and shamed. Then we go outside on to the street.
*
Sinclair and I do not speak