The Hidden Man - Charles Cumming [114]
‘Boss?’
‘Ian?’
‘What’s going on? I’m tailing Blindside to the hotel but it’s arse about face. He’s on his way east, taking me into Highbury.’
‘There’s some confusion,’ Taploe said.
Ian was speaking hands-free, a microphone clipped to the sun-visor above the wheel.
‘What kind of confusion?’
Taploe took a while to respond.
‘Katy has just handed me some intel. We think Tamarov may have changed the meeting. We think he may be en route to Heathrow.’
‘Heathrow?’
‘It’s not confirmed yet. Where’s Blindside?’
‘Like I said. Going east. I’m on…’ Ian had to look for a street sign. ‘St Paul’s Road. Nowhere near Covent Garden, in other words. Maybe he’s got errands to run.’
Again Taploe waited before responding. It sounded as if the boss was holding four conversations simultaneously.
‘That’s not the case,’ Taploe said eventually. ‘We had a tap on a call Tamarov made half an hour ago. He told Blindside he was with the Latvian in Hackney, at the new restaurant. Asked him to get there prior to the meeting at St Martin’s Lane. Then someone else phoned the hotel and changed their reservation to ten o’clock.’
‘So what’s the problem?’ Ian asked. ‘Why Heathrow?’
‘The problem is, we traced the first call to Paddington Station. Got it to within sixty feet.’
‘And where is he now?’
‘Still trying to establish that. A conversation took place immediately after Tamarov had spoken to Blindside. In Russian, the phone moving west.’
‘He was talking to our friend?’
‘To our friend.’ Taploe cleared his throat, a noise that sounded like nerves. ‘He’s not in Hackney. We think Duchev may be on his way to Helsinki. Michael lost him at five. Again it’s not confirmed. I’m trying to obtain a translation of the conversation. Of the transcript. These things take time.’
Up ahead, Ian saw Mark’s Saab, black as a silhouette, swing fast into the right-hand lane of Ball’s Pond Road, as if preparing to make a turn south. A pretty girl was jay-walking through the traffic and he thought he saw her smile in Mark’s direction. In his rear-view mirror two motorcycles, fifty feet back, were crawling single-file in the narrow gap between cars.
Taploe, his voice now pinched with stress, said: ‘I think we should get Blindside out of there. Tell him the meeting is off.’
‘You sure about that, boss?’
A beat.
‘I’m sure about that.’
Taploe didn’t sound it. He was relying on technology, a satellite hunch, on little more than a feeling that something was wrong. Up ahead, Mark indicated on the green light and Ian followed him.
‘Can you see the Saab?’ Taploe asked. He sounded demoralized and Ian felt for him: if Duchev had done a runner twenty-four hours after the boss had tried to pitch him, there’d be hell to pay.
‘He’s making a right-hander,’ he said. Then a white Fiat Punto stalled in front of Ian’s van and the lights were changing back. One of the motorcyclists passed Ian’s window, frog-walking his machine. Ian leaned on the horn. There was a second passenger, leatherclad in black, riding pillion on the back of the bike. They buzzed past the Punto and ran the red light.
‘Fuck,’ Ian said and hit the horn again. Both the bike and the Saab were no longer visible around the corner. He wondered where the second motorcycle had gone. It was the training, the intuition. One of the motorcycles was missing.
‘What’s going on?’ Taploe’s voice rose on the question. ‘Get to him, Ian. He’s not answering his mobile. Get Blindside back to Kentish Town.’
‘I’m trying, boss,’ he said. ‘I’m trying. Somebody stalled in front of the van.’
Ian noticed exhaust fumes emerging from the tailpipe of the Punto and looked up to see the back of a green Range Rover edging slowly around the corner. Good, he thought, there’s traffic on the other side, something to hold Mark up. Then he saw the missing bike, two feet back in the passenger side mirror, long female hair dropping below the helmet. Speaking to Taploe in his office, he said, ‘I think everything’s OK, boss. I thinkeverything’s OK.’
Mark had been listening to demo tapes all