The Trinity Six - Charles Cumming [68]
‘Thank you, Alistair,’ he had said, speaking to Chapman that evening. ‘I doubt that in the long history of the Secret Intelligence Service we have ever employed a more distinguished backstop.’
The photographs that Charles Crane had supposedly posted to Gaddis were, in fact, pictures of a former SIS officer named Anthony Kitto, who had died in 1983. Brennan had simply dug them up from an archive and placed them in the envelope. Gaddis, of course, was none the wiser, and even made a mental note to write Crane a letter of thanks as he turned to his other post.
There was a letter from a colleague in America, a postcard of Gaudí’s Sagrada Família signed by Min and, at the bottom of the pile, a bank statement from Barclays. He was in the habit of throwing away correspondence from the myriad organizations to which he owed money, but on this occasion he glanced at the statement and was surprised to see that his balance was healthier than he had imagined. Over a month after he had handed Calvin Somers a cheque for £2000, the money had still not been cashed. The cheque had been post-dated, but at least two weeks had passed in which Somers could have presented it to his bank.
Gaddis was confronted by a dilemma. He could cross his fingers and hope that Somers had forgotten about the cheque, but it was hopeless to think that a man as grasping and as manipulative as that would simply forget he was sitting on two grand. More likely Somers had lost the cheque and would come asking for a replacement in three or four weeks’ time. The last thing Gaddis needed was somebody asking him for two grand in the run-up to Christmas. By then, any cheque he wrote would almost certainly bounce. He ran through the address book in his mobile phone, found the number of the Mount Vernon Hospital and called Somers’s office.
The call was diverted to the main switchboard. Gaddis was fairly sure that the woman who answered was the same bored, impatient receptionist who had brushed him off in September.
‘Could you put me through to Calvin Somers, please? I’m having difficulty getting him on his direct line.’
There was an audible intake of breath. It was definitely the same woman; she sounded irritated even by this modest request.
‘Can I ask who’s speaking, please?’
‘Sam Gaddis. It’s a personal call.’
‘Could you hold?’
Before Gaddis had a chance to say ‘Of course’, the line went dead and he was left holding the receiver, wondering if the connection had been lost. Then, just as he was on the point of hanging up and re-dialling, a man picked up, coughing to clear his throat.
‘Mr Gaddis?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re looking for Calvin?’
‘That’s right.’
Gaddis heard the awful hollow pause which precedes bad news.
‘Could I ask what your relationship was with him?’
‘I’m not sure that I understand the question.’ Gaddis instinctively knew that something was wrong, and regretted sounding obstructive. ‘Calvin was helping me with some research on an academic thesis. I’m a lecturer at UCL. Is everything all right?’
‘I am very sorry to tell you that Calvin has been involved in a terrible incident. He was mugged on his way home from work. Attacked, you might say. I’m surprised you didn’t see the reports in the newspapers. The police are treating it as murder.’
Chapter 24
Gaddis was standing in the same room in which he had learned of Charlotte’s death, but his reaction on this occasion was quite different. He hung up the phone, turned towards the shelves of books which lined one side of his cramped office and experienced a sensation of pure fear. For a long time he was almost motionless, his stalled brain trying to deny the inescapable logic of what he had been told. If Calvin Somers had been murdered, Charlotte had most probably been killed by the same assailants. That meant that his own life was in danger and that Neame and Ludmilla Tretiak were also threatened. Gaddis found that he began to think about himself in the third person,