The Hidden Man - Charles Cumming [80]
‘I suppose.’ Mark shrugged his shoulders. He felt like a child being sent out to play in the road.
‘The trickis to let them do the talking,’ Taploe said, priming him for the task a head. ‘Nurture any awkward silences. That forces people to open up. Agree with what Tamarov says, match his opinions with your own. If he feels that he can trust you then anything is possible.’
‘I’d also need you to find out whatever you can about a bloke called Timothy Lander,’ Quinn said.
‘Lander?’
‘He’s a banker, we think, based in the Caymans. Not, as far as we can tell, associated directly with Pentagon, but it’s a tight community out there and there’s a possibility a connection will be made. Your father made a series of telephone calls to his office in Grand Cayman in the weeks leading up to his death. There’s no record that they’ve met, but the coincidence seems strange.’
‘I’ve never heard of him,’ Mark admitted.
‘Well, I’ve asked our SIS station out there to look into it.’ Taploe suddenly looked pleased with himself. ‘The UK police are also interested in some workyour father was doing for Divisar on behalf of a Swiss bank. Not Geneva based, but an investment house in Lausanne. Macklin or the Russians may have interests registered there which your father stumbled upon.’
‘Yes.’
‘So it’s a big taskwe’re facing,’ he said. ‘Much as we appreciate what you’ve achieved so far, there’s still a great deal of workto be done.’
34
A brilliant mid-winter afternoon, clean white light pouring into the Great Court of the British Museum. Ben felt bathed in limestone. He walked a circuit of the Reading Room and was revived. Let Alice have lunch with whoever she likes. At least she has nothing to hide. At least there are no secrets between us.
Long, chrome-legged tables with plastic tops were set out in rows perpendicular to the north-western edge of the Great Court. After half an hour Ben bought himself a cup of tea and sat down beside a young American student with bug eyes and a sprout of goatee beard. He was talking to a Japanese girl.
‘You wanna know what really amazes me about the Kennedy assassination?’ he was saying. ‘It’s that the guy who shot him is most probably still out there.’
‘Unless the CIA already killed him,’ the girl replied. She had a faultless English accent and wore blue-rimmed glasses that were too big for her face.
‘Sure,’ said Goatee. ‘But if they didn’t, I mean, if he’s still at large, just imagine what goes through that guy’s mind, like last thing at night. He’d be - what? - like seventy now?’
‘I guess.’
‘Ben?’
A man was standing beside the table holding a guide to the museum in one hand and a walking stick in the other. McCreery.
‘Jock.’ Ben stood up so quickly that his thighs knocked on the underside of the table, spilling a splash of tea on to the white surface. ‘Fancy seeing you here.’
‘Ditto. Are you on your own? Not with Alice?’
‘Not with Alice,’ Ben said, and left it at that. ‘I thought you lived in Guildford.’
It was a pointless remark, but he had been stuck for something to say. McCreery was Mark’s friend, a stranger to Ben, a background figure in the chaos of death. Shorter and more overweight in the lower part of his body than Ben remembered, McCreery was wearing a bright green windcheater, hiking boots, and denim trousers with that pale fade particular to jeans worn by men in late middle-age. He looked suitably dressed for a long walk on the Downs.
‘I do live in Guildford, yes,’ he explained, leaning on the stick. ‘But I’m in town for the weekend. Haven’t been here since Foster stuck the roof on. Appalling, isn’t it?’
‘I think it’s incredible,’ Ben told him, and wondered if McCreery would respect his honesty.
‘Do you really? For me it’s highly derivative of Pei, you know, the Oriental chap who messed up the Louvre.’
The Japanese girl appeared to swallow hard as Ben said, ‘Right. Look, do you want to sit down?’
‘If that would be all right.