The Hidden Man - Charles Cumming [57]
‘Mr Randall…’
‘Call me Bob, please…’
‘I don’t know how much you know about my family, but that thought never crossed my mind. I didn’t have anybody I would have wanted to tell. It wasn’t difficult keeping Dad’s past a secret. It was just between me and him and Ben.’
‘Now that’s exactly what I wanted you to say.’
Again Taploe smiled, and mistook the look of irritation on Mark’s face for nerves.
‘What you wanted me to say? I’m sorry, I’m confused. You’re not from British Telecom, you’re not here to do business with the club and you’re not from the police. You askme a lot of questions about my father…’
Taploe leaned backand brought his hands together in a badly stage-managed gesture of conciliation. Stick to the plan, he told himself. Stick to the plan.
‘I apologize,’ he said. ‘I was merely trying to conduct what I call a test.’
‘What you call a test,’ Mark echoed flatly.
‘It’s just that I would need you to be similarly circumspect with what I am about to tell you.’
Circumspect. It was a word Taploe had not thought of in years. Appropriate to the requirements of secrecy. Exactly right for the purposes of their conversation. He must remember to use it again.
‘The information I am about to share with you would have to remain confidential. In spite of the fact that it concerns your father, you would not even be able to discuss it with Ben.’
Mark appeared to hesitate, as if reluctant to be drawn in, then nodded, saying, ‘I understand.’ Taploe proceeded to assess the immediate vicinity. There were six other customers in the restaurant, none of them within earshot: two teenage girls ten feet away having a giggly lunch; a young Middle Eastern man by the far wall dropping globs of mince and lettuce from a crunchy taco whenever he brought it to his mouth; three American students at the door making enough noise for a table of eight. No listening threat, in other words, from neighbouring tables.
‘We’re looking into several possibilities,’ he said.
‘There may be a linkbetween your father’s murder and a post-Soviet crime group operating within the United Kingdom. Now I don’t want to alarm you unnecessarily, but it’s highly unlikely that your father was simply the victim of a random act of violence.
The nature of the killing, the timing, the location and so forth, all those factors point to another theory.’
Mark took a sip of his lager and nodded stiffly. He was already looking less composed. Taploe hoped the beer would be tasteless, dry and catching in his throat.
‘What about the Foreign Office?’ he asked. ‘Do they have any ideas?’
‘It’s not really for me to speculate,’ Taploe replied, his voice a reedy whisper. ‘Not my area of expertise.’
Mark began to hold his elbow in his right hand, rubbing it, staring blankly around the restaurant. Body language. Had he turned the corner? His food had arrived but he had pushed his plate immediately to one side.
‘We’re working on two suppositions,’ Taploe told him, creating a small cone of salt at the edge of his plate. Something about this pleased him, the exactitude of it. ‘In his capacity as an employee of Divisar Corporate Intelligence, your father was assisting two organizations at the time of his death. Libra, of course, and, latterly, a small private bankin Lausanne. Running checks on large-scale financial deposits originating in St Petersburg. Capital flight, for want of a better term. He may have mentioned it to you.’
Mark shookhis head.
‘No, he didn’t mention it. Didn’t mention anything about it at all.’
‘But it’s possible that your father made contact with these groups on their behalf?’
‘It’s more than possible,’ Mark replied. ‘It’s a certainty. That’s what Dad was employed to do.’
‘And thus the question must be asked: Did he attempt to circumvent protocols imposed by an organized crime group either in Russia or here in London? Did he?’
For a moment Taploe thought that Mark was preparing to answer; he had intended the question to be rhetorical. Jumping