The Hidden Man - Charles Cumming [54]
From his desk- tidy and well organized, it betrayed none of the accumulating chaos of the operation - he retrieved the initial police report into Christopher Keen’s murder. No clues, no leads, no theories. Another dead end. Just blind panic at Thames House that an agent had been murdered and threats to shut the entire operation down. Taploe, in his defence, had pointed out that Keen had not been tortured for information; nor was it a signature mob killing, the motorcycle assassin favoured by Viktor Kukushkin in Moscow. No, in a desperate bid to preserve control of the operation he had argued that Keen’s death was a fluke, a random accident in a season of bad luck. There was no need to over-react, no need to take his team off the case. Just give it time and they would unravel the mystery. Just give it time and they would bring Kukushkin down.
His pleas had at least bought some time. Taploe, in effect, was now on final warning; without results in a matter of weeks, he would be back on Real IRA. He was convinced that a linkexisted between the shooting and Keen’s workfor Divisar, but it was impossible to prove it. Investigations had shown that in the weeks before he died, Keen had been assisting a private bankin Lausanne with clients in the St Petersburg underworld. Perhaps there was a link there. But how to establish that? Where to start?
There was a knock at the door of his office, three floors up at the north-western corner of Thames House.
‘Tea, boss,’ Ian Boyle said, setting a mug down on the desk. His tie hung at half-mast and the collar on his shirt was frayed.
‘Just leave it there.’
‘You all right, boss? Look a bit knackered.’
Taploe ignored the question and conveyed with a twitch of his moustache that he felt it impertinent.
‘Get the file on Mark Keen, will you?’
‘Sure,’ Ian replied, and retreated towards the door.
There was now a siege mentality about the operation, an imminent sense that a plug was about to be pulled. Something close to panic had begun to spread through the team, fanned by Taploe’s failure to redirect the investigation. It was like Ireland all over again: the boss looking downtrodden and frustrated, his ambition coming up against a wall of compromise and bad luck.
Ian returned with the file five minutes later, set it down and left without speaking. Taploe exhaled heavily as the door clunked shut and immediately began flicking through the material: photographs, email printouts, credit-card receipts, phone logs, surveillance reports. In all probability, a file on an innocent man, just as Mark’s father had insisted.
The idea, planted admittedly by Quinn, had been in his mind for three or four days. A last chance. The one person close to the centre with access to unambiguous information who could reveal the truth about Macklin and Roth.
He picked up the phone and dialled Mark’s office direct. A secretary answered at Libra Soho, first ring, with a voice like an advertising jingle. In a single breath she said: ‘Good morning Libra International how may I help you?’
‘Mark Keen, please.’
It felt like the final throw of the dice. To establish a source on the inside. Not the father, who could only ever have been peripheral, but the son.
‘Who shall I say is calling?’
‘My name is Bob Randall.’
‘Just putting you through now.’
There was a two-second delay, then, ‘Hello. Mark Keen.’
He recognized the voice like an old friend, the street consonants, the slackened vowels.
‘Mr Keen. Hello. My name is Bob Randall. I work for BT. Advanced telecommunications.’
‘Someone forget to pay our bill?’
Taploe felt that he should laugh, and did so.
‘On the contrary, Mr Keen, on the contrary. Not at all. Actually I have a business proposition for you. A little venture that I think Libra might be interested in. I understand you’re the company’s executive director. How are you