The Hidden Man - Charles Cumming [13]
‘I’ve been working organized crime for two years,’ he replied. ‘Of course I know about the roof.’ It irritated Taploe that Keen was not as concerned by his line of questioning as he might have been; but then that was the birthright of the upper classes, the lizard-thickskin of the FCO. ‘So did Divisar put Libra in touch with the appropriate organizations?’ he asked.
‘That’s not how it works. Kukushkin would have come to them. He’s one of the new-style mobsters, the avtoritet. Less regard for tradition than the older vors and a lot more unpredictable when it comes to things like chopping people’s fingers off. But, yes, I pointed them in the right direction, told Macklin who the main players were. Divisar did what we were paid to do.’
Taploe listened to this and decided that it was time to play his trump card.
‘And how long was it before you realized that your eldest son was a senior executive at Libra?’
Keen had known that the question was coming; Taploe had been deliberately withholding it as a tactic to arouse his suspicion. Nevertheless, he felt squeezed by it, cornered into obfuscation. His immediate response was defensive.
‘Now what does that have to do with anything?’
Taploe stopped walking and turned to face him. Keen was a good six inches taller and considerably better built, with narrow blue eyes that he used as tools of concealment, to frighten and charm in equal measure. Taploe tried as best he could to look through them.
‘Perhaps you could just answer the question,’ he said. ‘We have no wish to pry into your personal life. It is simply our understanding that since Libra’s first approach you have been able to form some sort of a relationship with your eldest son after… how should I put it?… an absence of almost thirty years.’
‘You’re clearly very well informed.’
‘Not as well informed as I’d like to be. Did you know that Mark was working at Libra when Divisar tookthem on as clients?’
Keen waited. He could feel frustration, even anger, beginning to undermine his better judgment. All that residual guilt over Carolyn and the boys rising up in him like a sickness.
‘As I recall,’ he said firmly, ‘there were two preliminary meetings between Macklin and one of my colleagues before I was brought on board. During that time Mark found out that I worked for the company and telephoned me with a view to getting together.’
‘And what was your reaction?’
‘Is that relevant? I wasn’t aware that I was talking to a psychiatrist.’
Taploe had pushed too far. He was annoyed with himself and felt the heat of unease flush through his cheeks. He would have to back down, if only for the sake of the pitch.
‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘It’s not my business. I am simply interested in Mark’s role in all of this.’
‘Then at last we have something in common.’
‘I can tell you that there’s no evidence to suggest your son knows what Macklin is up to,’ Taploe offered. ‘He didn’t accompany him to Russia on his last two visits, nor has he been seen with any of Kukushkin’s representatives in either Moscow or London.’
‘So why am I here this evening?’ Keen asked. ‘What on earth do you need me for?’
It was a question to which he already knew the answer. Taploe was simply priming himself.
‘Just an act of kindness,’ he said quietly, ‘a favour, for want of a better description.’
‘A favour.’ Keen paused and then repeated the word under his breath, killing its implications, the nuance. ‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘What is it about people in our business that they can never say exactly what they mean?’
7
The dummy London cab that had tailed Mark’s taxi from Heathrow stopped a hundred and fifty metres down Elgin Crescent, engine idling.