The Trinity Six - Charles Cumming [113]
‘Look,’ Wilkinson picked his words carefully, ‘of course it’s not all about revenge. I believe that Platov is dangerous. I think he’s bad for Russia, I think he’s bad for Britain. The world, as they say, would be a very much better place without that monster in the Kremlin. So I’m asking you to tell the truth about the so-called saviour of modern Russia. I’m asking you to reveal that by 1992 Sergei Platov had been spotted by our good friend Mr Yeltsin’ – Wilkinson tapped the biography – ‘and had developed some serious political ambitions. He went full bore into politics and was fast-tracked to the very top. So, the last thing he needed was men such as Fyodor Tretiak, myself and Eddie Crane roaming the quiet countryside telling anybody who would listen that the risen star of Russian politics, the man anointed by Yeltsin, had tried to defect to the West during the death spasms of the Cold War.’
‘How does Brennan fit into all this?’ Gaddis asked.
‘Oh well, that’s a lovely sub-plot.’ Wilkinson almost laughed. ‘Platov hired some of his pals in organized crime to bump me off. I’d developed some fairly unsavoury contacts in St Petersburg over the years, and those same cronies were able to make it look as though I’d been on the take. It was ingenious, simple and effective. I give him credit for that. But Brennan, rather than listening to my pleas of innocence, believed the rumours and cut me loose. Unlike Eddie Crane, who got a brand-new identity and a slot in a nursing home, I was offered no protection, no assistance what soever from SIS. As far as the Office was concerned, I was a traitor to the cause.’
‘Hence New Zealand,’ said Gaddis.
Wilkinson nodded. ‘Hence the reason I live at the side of a hill, surrounded by sheep, looking over my shoulder, wondering when one of Sergei’s henchmen is going to come round the corner.’
‘And why has Brennan never been touched?’
Wilkinson shrugged. ‘Must have come to some sort of an arrangement with Platov.’
‘What kind of arrangement?’
‘Search me.’ Wilkinson looked genuinely baffled. ‘John was always very good at looking after his own interests.’
Gaddis shifted the direction of the conversation. ‘Do you have evidence of the meeting in the safe house? A recording of Platov attempting to defect? Is that the smoking gun, or did Brennan destroy everything?’
‘Not quite everything.’ Wilkinson was clearly pleased that Gaddis had arrived at the heart of the matter. ‘You said earlier that you had found nothing in the files.’
‘That’s right. Nothing. Nothing at all.’
Wilkinson looked at his hands. ‘What’s the lovely Eric Morecambe line? “You’re playing the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order”?’
‘Something like that.’ Gaddis wondered what he was implying.
‘What’s your poison?’ Wilkinson asked abruptly. ‘High time I bought us a round of drinks.’
‘Can you wait two minutes while I go to the bathroom?’ Gaddis didn’t want to lose the table if Wilkinson went to the bar. ‘When I get back, you can put them in the right order.’
Chapter 43
There were two men inside the cramped bathroom, one washing his hands in a chipped sink, the other coming out of a narrow cubicle, adjusting his flies. Gaddis squeezed between the two of them, no eye contact, went into the cubicle and locked the door. There was an odd, crisp smell of mint on the air, as if his predecessor had sprayed breath freshener into the room out of consideration for his fellow man. Gaddis immediately pulled out the pen and notebook on which he had written the letter at the wedding and began to write quickly. He could not afford to forget any detail of what Wilkinson had told him and did not trust his fortysome-thing brain to reproduce a completely accurate account of their conversation in the morning.
The door of the bathroom opened and the two men left. Gaddis could hear the dull thump of what was now rock music in the café, muffled conversations beyond the door. He had no shorthand, but wrote at speed in an abbreviated script perfected