The Hidden Man - Charles Cumming [16]
‘Not really.’ Keen refilled Mark’s glass with the new bottle. ‘A fortnight in Taiwan in the seventies. Overnight stop in Kowloon harbour a few years ago. Rather a lovely ketch, if I recall, French owner. Otherwise just homogeneous Chinese restaurants the world over. Anxious-looking fish in outsized tanks, ducks flying anticlockwise around the walls.’
Mark listened intently. He was good at that. Keen wondered if he had an image, in technicolour, of his father calmly going about the Queen’s business, standing on the prow of a luxury yacht wearing a battered Panama hat.
‘Why does everyone insist on calling it “Beijing” nowadays?’ he asked. ‘You don’t say “Roma”, do you? You don’t talkabout “Milano” or “Munchen”?’
‘It’s just the fashion,’ Mark replied.
‘Ah yes, the fashion.’ Keen sighed and let his eyes drift towards the ceiling. He enjoyed playing the fuddy-duddy with Mark, assumed that it was a part of his paternal role. ‘I sometimes thinkthat everything these days is about fashion, about not doing or saying the wrong thing. Common sense has gone right out of the window.’
‘I guess.’
A smooth-skinned waiter, working in tandem with a pretty Chinese girl wearing a sky-blue silk dress, ferried plates of dim sum and steamed rice to their table. They were on to their third bottle of wine - a characterless Ribera del Duero - by the time Keen got round to Taploe’s business.
‘Oh, by the way,’ he said. ‘I had a call from Thomas Macklin while you were away.’
‘Oh yeah? Tom? What did he want?’
‘Just a couple of routine questions. Divisar business. Tell me about him. How do you two get on?’
Mark was swallowing a mouthful of prawn satay and for some time was able only to nod and raise his eyebrows in response.
‘Why do you want to know?’ he asked eventually, wiping a napkin over his bottom lip.
‘He intrigued me. As you can imagine, we get a lot of lawyers coming into the firm. He’s still relatively young, highly competent, somebody whom I imagine would be an asset to Libra.’
‘Tom’s all right. A bit flash, bit lippy. Good lawyer, though.’
‘Does your work dove tail?’
Mark could not hear the question over the noise of the restaurant and he cocked his head to one side to encourage his father to repeat it. Keen leaned in.
‘I said, does your work dove tail? How much of him do you see, apart from when you’re both abroad together?’
‘I was out with him last night, matter of fact. Tom’s a big drinker, likes to whip out the company credit card. If there’s a new secretary in the office he’s always the one who asks her out. Champagne and oysters, loves all that shit. Never has any luckwith the birds, mind, but you’ll have a good time if you tag along.’
Whenever Mark discussed Libra business his voice unconsciously dropped into a mannered sub-Cockney that cloaked its true origins in private education. His workaccent, his music industry drawl, deliberately shaved off consonants and slackened vowels. It was an affectation that irritated Keen, though he had never mentioned it.
‘And what happens when you go on these trips?’ he asked, pouring himself a glass of water. The woman with whom he had briefly flirted rose from her table and managed a final seductive glance. Keen ignored her. ‘You must get sick of the sight of one another.’
‘Not necessarily.’ Mark was using a pair of chopsticks to pickup a porkdumpling. He held it in the air for some time, like a jeweller examining a gem for flaws. ‘I like the company, to be honest.’ He popped the food into his mouth and began chewing it vigorously, smiling as he ate.
All of this was of interest to Keen. Is Viktor Kukushkin’s syndicate providing Libra with protection in Russia, or is there a larger conspiracy evolving here in London? Taploe had almost whispered his requests, eyes glued to Keen’s lapel. Mark could prove vital in giving us a clear picture of Roth’s and Macklin’s activities. We’d like to know everything you can find out. But Mark did not appear unsettled by the line of questioning: on the contrary, he seemed comfortable and relaxed, just chatting and enjoying his lunch.