The Hidden Man - Charles Cumming [109]
‘So we just lookhere,’ she said, another page loading. ‘Legal services. Libraries. Fire Departments…’
‘Post Offices!’ Ben exclaimed, pointing at the bottom of the screen.
Alice smiled, muttered ‘Bloody artists’ and clicked the icon. There was a single Post Office listed for Cornish. She wrote down the telephone number on the back of a gas bill and shut off the connection.
‘Do you want me to call them?’
‘Yeah, you do it,’ Ben said. ‘You lie better than me. You’re a journalist.’
Alice seemed to take this as a compliment. There was a phone beside the computer and she dialled the number.
‘They’re five hours behind,’ she murmured as the number connected. ‘It’s about two in the afternoon. Hello?’
A woman at the Post Office had picked up. She said, ‘Post Office, good afternoon. How may I help you?’
Alice curled a loop of hair behind her ear and touched Ben’s arm. He pressed his ear close to the phone in order to hear what was being said.
‘I’m trying to get in touch with one of your customers. He has a PO Box registered at this address. A Mr Robert Bone. My name is Alice Keen. I’m calling from London.’
The woman tookan unusually long time to respond. Ben heard her cough and say, ‘Could you repeat that name for me please?’
‘Yes, it’s a Mr Robert Bone. He sent a letter to my husbandhere in London, but there was no return address.’ Alice made her accent sound polished, more upperclass. ‘We need to get in touch with him as a matter of urgency.’
Another pause. Then, ‘May I askif you’re a family member?’
At first, neither of them understood the significance of the question.
Alice said, ‘I’m sorry?’
‘It’s just that we’ve had a lot of enquiries recently about Mr Bone from the United Kingdom.’
‘No, no, I’m not a family member. Neither of us is.’ Ben was frowning. He tookthe telephone from Alice’s hand and said ‘Hello?’
More silence. He wondered if the woman had left her deskto lookfor more information. Then Ben heard movement on the line, a different voice, a man.
‘Hello, miss?’
‘No, this is Benjamin Keen. You were just talking to my wife…’
‘Yes sir. That’s right. To your wife. I understand that she was looking for Bob?’
‘That’s right. I don’t know if your colleague explained, but we’re calling from London and -‘
‘I’m sorry to have to tell you this, sir, but we’ve had a shooting here. Almost three weeks ago now. Bob was killed out at his house. You didn’t hear about it? Did nobody thinkto let you know?’
43
From time to time, Stephen Taploe would lie to his agents, present a more optimistic view of an operation than was realistically the case. He did it to maintain their trust. He did it to keep them onside. Running a joe was a delicate art and he had been taught long ago that it was acceptable to manipulate the truth if an officer had one eye on the long-term gain.
So Taploe had lied to Mark about Timothy Lander. He hadn’t asked SIS to track him down because MI5 had done so themselves two weeks before, using phone records obtained from Divisar. In fact he had never wanted SIS to play any role in the Kukushkin investigation, for fear that he would lose control of the case, and out of a more personally motivated concern that they would discover that Christopher Keen had been an agent for MI5. Keen’s dealings with the Swiss bankhad also provided a convenient smokescreen which Taploe had used to lure Mark into co-operation; there was no evidence atall that Kukushkin or any other syndicate had funds lodged in Lausanne. Furthermore, in the cab Taploe had failed to disclose his intention to recruit Juris Duchev; Mark’s suggestion that he try to do so had been merely a coincidence. For seven weeks, Service analysts had been weighing up the risks of running the Latvian. On Sunday, Taploe had made his pitch.
The team had Duchev’s routine down pat. He was up at six every morning, usually switched on the television in the sitting room of his flat, cursed in his native tongue as he tooka shower, then rang his daughter in Jelgava to catch