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She shook her head, bewildered. ‘A medal? He’s got medals. I don’t understand. Where are we at war?’ She clutched at Zorin. ‘Where was he killed?’
Volkov said, ‘On a mission of the greatest importance to the State, that’s all I can say. You may remember him with pride.’
She held up the photo of Igor Zorin in a bemedalled uniform, and Volkov took in the handsome face, the arrogance, the look of cruelty, and then she seemed to come to life.
‘That’s no good to me, General. I want my son alive again and he’s dead. It’s turned my heart to stone already.’
She burst into a torrent of weeping. Tasha held her close and nodded to Zorin and Volkov. ‘Go now,’ she said. ‘I’ll see to her.’
They did as they were told, went out into the street and paused beside their two limousines.
‘I can’t thank you enough for coming with me,’ Zorin said.
‘When I spoke to Colonel Bagirova of the Fifteenth Siberians, we agreed on the day after tomorrow for the funeral, ten o’clock in the morning, the Minsky Park Military Cemetery, so your nephew will be laid to rest with some of Russia’s finest soldiers. We will see what we can do about the medal. I can certainly promise a letter with Putin’s name on it.’
‘I doubt whether even that will cheer her.’ Zorin got in his limousine and was driven away.
‘Just another day at the office,’ Volkov murmured, got into his own limousine and was driven back to the Kremlin.
The funeral at Minsky Park was all that could be desired. There was a company of soldiers from the Fifteenth Siberian’s training camp outside Moscow, plenty of mourners in black, family and friends. The coffin was delivered on a gun carriage, lowered into the prepared grave, and twenty soldiers delivered the correct volley as ordered at Colonel Bagirova’s shouted command.
Olga Zorin stood with her brother, a few relatives behind, Tasha on the end of a line. Zorin held the umbrella, his sister sobbed, the regimental bugler played a final salute. Volkov stood some distance away wearing a military coat of finest leather and a black fedora, an umbrella over his head. The crowd dispersed to their various cars and Zorin came towards him.
‘It was good of you to come. The family are very grateful.’
Volkov, who had observed the furtive glances coming his way, smiled. ‘Oh, I don’t know. I think they’re more worried than anything else. This coat always makes me look as if the Gestapo actually got to Moscow.’
Zorin obviously couldn’t handle such levity. ‘The reception is at the Grand. You’re very welcome.’
‘Duty calls, I’m afraid, you must make my excuses.’
‘The letter from the President, which came yesterday, was a great comfort to her after all.’
‘Yes, it was intended to be.’ In truth, he’d signed it himself, but that was no matter.
Olga Zorin sobbed as relatives helped her into the back seat of one of the funeral cars and Tasha followed her.
‘A mother’s love,’ Zorin said piously. ‘I’m a widower with no children, you know. Igor was my only heir.’
‘Well, he isn’t now,’ Volkov said brutally. ‘You’ll get over it. We know what you oligarchs get up to in London. That bar at the Dorchester, the delights of Mayfair, the ladies of the night. Oh, you’ll cheer yourself up in no time.’
He walked away smiling, leaving Zorin with his mouth gaping.
Shortly after his return from America, Ferguson received a call to visit the Prime Minister, where they discussed Miller and the Kosovo affair at length.
‘So what do you think, Charles?’
‘I’ve no quarrel with Miller’s actions regarding Zorin. But I’ll be frank with you, Prime Minister, I thought I knew him and I find I didn’t. The stuff he was engaged in all those years, Titan and Unit 16. Remarkable.’
‘Especially when you consider that even people as knowledgeable as you had no idea. No, I’m very impressed with Harry Miller.’ He got up and paced around. ‘Miller has done many excellent things for me, great on-the-ground reporting. He has a brilliant eye and a gift for a tactical approach to difficult situations. You’d find him very useful, Charles.’
Ferguson could see how things were going. ‘Are you saying you think we should get together?’
‘Yes. I know there’s always been a fine line between what you do and his more political approach.’
‘And the fact that the two might clash,’ Ferguson said.
‘Yes, but I believe Harry Miller is a kind of hybrid, a mixture of the two.’
‘I’ve no argument with that. So what are your orders?’
‘To get together and sort things out, Charles.’ The Prime Minister shook his head. ‘What a world. Fear, uncertainty, chaos. It’s a war in itself. So let’s try and do something about it.’
The following day, Roper had Doyle drive him down to the Dark Man on Cable Wharf in Wapping, the first pub Harry Salter had owned and one still dear to his heart. When they arrived, Doyle parked the van and extracted Roper from the rear, using the lift, and they went inside.
Harry Salter and his nephew, Billy, were at the table in the corner booth, his two minders, Joe Baxter and Sam Hall, having a beer at the bar. Ruby Moon served drinks and Mary O’Toole beside her handled food orders from the kitchen. Roper joined the table and nodded to Ruby, who immediately sent him a large Scotch by way of Joe Baxter.
Harry Salter and Billy were reading a file between them. Roper said, ‘Is that the stuff I sent you on Miller?’
‘It certainly is,’ Harry said. ‘Where have they been keeping this guy all these years?’
‘In plain sight,’ Billy told him. ‘He’s been around. We just didn’t know the other side of him.’
Harry, a gangster most of his life, said to his nephew, ‘And what an other side. His past is incredible.’
‘I wouldn’t argue with that.’ As Billy leaned over, his jacket gaped, revealing a shoulder holster and the butt of a Walther PPK.
‘I’ve told you before,’ his uncle said. ‘A shooter under your arm when we’re about to have our lunch – is that necessary? I mean, there are ladies present.’
‘God bless you, Harry,’ Ruby called.
‘As an agent in Her Majesty’s Secret Service, I’m licensed to use it, Harry, and in this wicked world we live in, you never know when.’
‘Give it a rest, Billy,’ Harry told him and Ferguson walked in. ‘Thank God, it’s you, General, perhaps we can have some sanity round here. Where’s Dillon?’
‘He got a call last night from Levin, down at Kingsmere Hall. They’ve asked Dillon to give them a day for some reason. He’ll be back this evening.’
At that moment, a man walked in behind him. A light navy blue raincoat hung from his shoulders, over a smart suit of the same colour, a white shirt and regimental tie.
‘I had to park by the river,’ he told Ferguson. ‘Had to run for it.’ He slipped off the raincoat. ‘It’s started to pour.’
That his suit was Savile Row stood out a mile. There was a small silence and Harry said, ‘Who’s this?’
‘Sorry,’ Ferguson told him. ‘I’m forgetting my manners. Meet Major Harry Miller. You could be seeing him from time to time in the future. He’s thinking of joining us.’
The silence was total. It was Billy who said, ‘Now that’s a show stopper if ever I heard one.’ He stood up and held out his hand.
There was only a certain amount of truth in what Ferguson had said. He’d spoken to the Major as the Prime Minister had asked him, and Miller in his turn had had his orders from the great man, which he’d accepted with some reluctance. On the other hand, after looking at the file Ferguson had given him, with details of his unit’s activities and personnel, he’d warmed to the idea.
‘A drink, Major?’ Harry asked. ‘Best pint of beer in London.’
‘Scotch and water,’ Miller said.
‘A man after my own heart,’ Roper told him, and called to Ruby, ‘Another here, love, for Major Miller, and a repeat for me.’
Billy said to Ferguson, ‘So what’s Dillon doing at Kingsmere? I know he speaks Russian, but Levin, Greta and Chomsky are the real thing.’
‘Maybe they’re supposed to be encouraged by how well Dillon copes with the language,’ Roper said. ‘After all, he is still a Belfast boy at heart.’
‘Anyway, Simon Carter sanctioned it, and I wasn’t about to argue it,’ Ferguson said.
Miller surprised them all by saying, ‘You have to understand his logic. All Irish are bogtrotters, with faces like dogs and broken boots. By displaying Dillon with his Russian ability, his argument probably runs something like: If this animal can do it, so can you.’
‘Jesus, Major, that’s really putting the boot in old Carter.’
‘Who isn’t popular in our society,’ Roper told him. ‘And he loathes Dillon.’
‘Why, particularly?’
‘It goes a long way back, to when John Major was PM. Major was hosting an affair on the terrace of the House of Commons for President Clinton, and Simon Carter was responsible for security. Dillon told Carter the security was crap, and he laid a bet that no matter what Carter did, sometime during the affair he would appear on the terrace, dressed as a waiter, and serve the two great men canapés.’
‘And did he?’
It was Ferguson who said, ‘Yes. He got in from the river. Harry and Billy dropped him off overnight in a wet suit.’
‘Me being the biggest expert in London on the Thames,’ Harry said modestly. ‘You’ve got to get the tide just right, and the current can be a killer.’
‘President Clinton was very amused,’ Ferguson said.
‘But Simon Carter wasn’t.’ That was Miller.
‘No,’ Roper laughed. ‘Hates him beyond reason, perhaps because Dillon is what Carter can never be.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘Carter is the ultimate desk man,’ Ferguson put in. ‘He’s never been in the field in his life. Sean is someone quite beyond his understanding. He will kill at the drop of a hat if he thinks it’s necessary.’
‘And on the other side of his coin, he has an enormous flair for languages; a scholar and poet by inclination,’ Harry said. ‘Plays great piano, if you like Cole Porter, and flies a plane.’
‘And don’t forget, a bloody good actor in his day,’ Roper said. ‘A student at RADA, even performed with the National Theatre.’
‘And gave it all up, as he once said to me,’ Ferguson put in, ‘for the theatre of the street.’
Miller nodded, a strange alertness there. ‘Is that what he said?’
‘I remember it well. We have what you might call a special relationship. At a stage when he was no longer with the IRA, I was responsible for him ending up in the hands of Serbs and facing the possibility of a firing squad.’
‘And what was the alternative?’
‘A little judicious blackmail led him to work for me.’ Ferguson shrugged. ‘It’s the name of the game, but then no one knows that better than you.’
Miller smiled. ‘If you say so. I look forward to meeting him.’
‘He’s often found at the Holland Park safe house. You’re welcome there any time.’
‘I look forward to it.’
Harry Salter interrupted, ‘That’s enough chat. We’ve got some of the best pub grub in London here, so let’s get started.’
Later in the afternoon, Miller looked in at Dover Street and found his wife preparing for the evening performance. She was in the kitchen in a terrycloth robe, her hair up, preparing cucumber sandwiches, her personal fetish and absolute good-luck charm before every performance. He stole one and she admonished him.
‘Don’t you dare.’ The kettle boiled and she made green tea. ‘I’m going for my bath after this. Are you looking in on the show tonight? You don’t need to, I don’t expect you to be there every night, Harry. And anyway, I’m having a drink with the cast afterwards.’
‘I should check in at Westminster. There’s a foreign policy debate and I do have things to do. The PM’s asked me to interest myself in General Charles Ferguson’s security unit, just as an adviser.’
‘Oh, I didn’t tell you! I came home on the tube last night, and something truly strange happened.’
‘What was it?’
‘It was reasonably busy, quite a few people, and this man got on, a real thug and horribly drunk. He started working his way along, leering at women and putting his arm about one or two of the young ones. Of course, everybody, including the men, buried themselves in books and newspapers, or looked the other way.’
Miller felt anger stirring inside. ‘Did he bother you?’
‘I think he was going to, because he looked at me and started forward, but then he was distracted by a terribly young girl, and he went over and put his arm round her, and she was crying and struggling.’
‘What happened?’
‘There was a young black man who’d been reading an Evening Standard. He wore a raincoat over a very nice suit, gold-rimmed glasses. He looked like an office worker. He suddenly sort of rolled up the newspaper, then doubled it. He got up, holding it in his right hand and tapped the drunk on the shoulder. He said: Excuse me, she doesn’t like you. And you’ve no idea what happened next.’
‘Yes, I have. When you do that with a newspaper, it becomes brick-hard, like a weapon. I should imagine he rammed it up under the drunk’s chin.’
She was amazed. ‘How on earth did you know that? He went down like a stone and lay there vomiting. The train came into the station a few minutes later and we all got off and left him.’
‘And the young man?’
‘He smiled at me, Harry, and said, I’ve already seen Private Lives, Miss Hunt, you were wonderful. Sorry about what just happened. What terrible times we live in. And then he just walked off and disappeared up the escalator. But how did you know about the newspaper trick?’
He shrugged. ‘Someone told me once. Have a great performance, darling.’ And he went out the door. Olivia’s eyes followed him as he left.
At Westminster, he parked the Mini in the underground car park, walked up to his office and found far more paperwork than he had expected. Two hours flew by, then he went into the Chamber and took his usual seat on the end of one of the aisles. The debate concerned the secondment of British troops to Darfur to back up the United Nations force. It was difficult, with Afghanistan still a drain on military forces. As usual at that time in the evening, the Chamber was barely a quarter full. Still, it was always useful to hear informed opinion, and if Miller had learned anything about politics in his four years as an MP, it was that these sparsely attended evening debates were often attended by people who took their politics seriously.
He finally left, dropped in at a nearby restaurant and had a simple meal, fish pie and a salad with sparkling water. By the time he got back to the underground car park, it was nine thirty.
He drove out and up the slope between the walls, and as always it made him remember Airey Neave, the first Englishman to escape from Colditz in World War II – a decorated war hero, and another casualty of the Irish Troubles, who had met his end driving out of this very car park, the victim of a car bomb from the Irish National Liberation Army, the same organization which had taken care of Mountbatten and members of his family.
‘What a world,’ Miller said softly, as he moved into the road and paused, uncertain where to go. Olivia wouldn’t be home yet and she was having a drink with the cast, so what to do? And then he remembered Ferguson’s invitation for him to familiarize himself with the Holland Park safe house.
It looked more like a private nursing home or some similar establishment, but his practised eye noted the electronics on the high wall – certain to give any intruder a shock requiring medical attention – the massive security gates, the cameras.
