The Trinity Six - Charles Cumming [72]
‘I can have a look,’ she replied. ‘In fact, why don’t we have another supper? This one on me. I can bring copies of any documents I find.’
‘That would be incredibly kind.’
And suddenly Gaddis’s memories were no longer of Josephine’s strange, withdrawn behaviour on the Goldhawk Road, but of her face across the candlelit table at dinner, promising something with her eyes.
‘I’m afraid I’m busy this weekend,’ she said. ‘Next week would be easier if you’re around.’
‘Why? What are you doing this weekend?’
‘Well, thanks to you, I finally got my act together.’
‘Thanks to me?’
‘You made me feel so guilty about not visiting my sister, I invited myself to stay. I’m leaving for Berlin tomorrow.’
He reflected on the serendipity of the coincidence. ‘That’s extraordinary. I just booked a flight to Berlin this afternoon. We’ll be there at the same time.’
‘You’re kidding?’ Josephine sounded genuinely excited at the prospect; perhaps her ‘complicated’ boyfriend had not been invited along for the trip. ‘Then let’s meet up. Let’s do something at the weekend.’
‘I’d love that.’
Gaddis told her where he would be staying – ‘a Novotel near the Tiergarten’ – and they made a tentative plan to have dinner on Saturday evening.
He couldn’t believe his luck.
Chapter 26
Forty minutes earlier, Tanya Acocella had been passed a note informing her that Dr Sam Gaddis – now known by the cryptonym POLARBEAR because, as Brennan had observed, ‘he’ll soon be extinct’ – had visited an Internet café on the Uxbridge Road and purchased an easyJet flight to Berlin. He was due to leave London Luton at 8.35 on Friday morning, returning two days later. The fare had been charged to Gaddis’s Mastercard and he had booked two nights at a Novotel at Tiergarten as part of a package deal with the airline. Tanya had wondered why Gaddis was using a public computer, rather than the PC at his house in Shepherd’s Bush, and concluded that he was at last becoming aware of the surveillance threats posed by his interest in ATTILA.
As the sun was coming down on what had been a crystal-clear day in London, she called Sir John Brennan.
‘Do the names Robert Wilkinson and Dominic Ulvert mean anything to you in the context of ATTILA?’
Brennan had just come off the Vauxhall Cross squash court and was boiling with sweat. He asked Tanya to repeat the names and, when she did, swore so loudly that his voice could be heard by a cleaning lady in the women’s changing rooms.
‘Where the fuck is Gaddis getting his information?’ he snapped. ‘Meet me in the courtyard. Half an hour.’
While Brennan showered and changed back into a grey suit, Tanya ran a trace on Wilkinson and Ulvert, encountering the same wall of obstruction and restricted access which had characterized her earlier searches for Crane and Neame. Somebody, somewhere, was trying to prevent her from doing her job. It was the first thing that she mentioned to Brennan in the courtyard. He had closed the access door back into the building so that they were alone in an area normally populated by smokers. Nobody would disturb the Chief in such a situation.
‘Forgive me for saying this, sir, but I believe there are some things you haven’t told me about ATTILA.’
Brennan peered down at Tanya’s legs. He had pulled a muscle in his arm playing squash.
‘Perhaps there are things you aren’t telling me,’ he replied, turning around. He didn’t feel that it was appropriate for Acocella to be criticizing his methods. ‘Last time we spoke, you told me that Gaddis was investigating Harold-bloody-Wilson. Now, for some reason, he’s stumbled on Robert Wilkinson.’
‘As you said, sir, AGINCOURT was a wild-goose chase.’
‘Fair enough, fair enough.’ Brennan’s mood now changed abruptly. He had known, as he put on his suit, that he would have to come clean about certain aspects of the ATTILA cover-up. Tanya could hardly be expected to perform effectively with one hand tied behind her back. ‘I should perhaps have been more candid from the start.’
Tanya was surprised that Brennan should capitulate