A Colder War - Charles Cumming

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a few moments he looked at Kell again, as though surprised to see that he was still in the office.

      ‘Sorry?’ he said.

      ‘I was asking if you had met Mr Wallinger.’

      Delfas pursed his lips, the bristles of his thick moustache momentarily obscuring the base of his nose.

      ‘I have told you, I do not know about this man. I don’t have any questions to answer. What else can I help you with?’

      ‘Wallinger’s flight plan listed your office as a contact number on Chios. I wondered if he had rented a property from Villas Angelis?’

      Kell glanced at Marianna. She was still absorbed in her computer, though it was clear that she was listening to every word of the conversation: her ears and cheeks had flushed to scarlet and she looked tense and stiff. Delfas barked something at her, then uttered a word – ‘gamoto’ – which Kell assumed to be a close Greek cousin of ‘fuck’.

      ‘Look, Mister, uh …’

      ‘Hardwick.’

      ‘Yes. I do not know what it is you are talking about. We are very busy here. I cannot help you with your enquiries.’

      ‘You didn’t hear about the accident?’ Kell was amused by the idea that Delfas and Marianna were ‘busy’. The office had all the bustle and energy of a deserted waiting room in a branch-line railway station. ‘He took off from Chios airport last week,’ he said. ‘His Cessna crashed in western Turkey.’

      At last Marianna turned her head and looked at the two men. It was obvious that she had remembered Wallinger’s name, or was at least familiar with the circumstances of the accident. Delfas, seeming to sense this, stood up and tried to usher Kell towards the door.

      ‘I do not know about this,’ he said, adding what sounded like a further brusque denial in his native tongue. Pulling at the door, he held it open with his eyes fixed on the ground. Kell had no choice but to stand and leave. Long exposure to liars – good and bad – had taught him not to strike in the first instance. If the perpetrator was being wilfully stubborn and obstructive it was better to let them stew.

      ‘Fine,’ he said, ‘fine,’ and turned to Marianna, nodding a warm farewell. As he left, Kell quickly scanned the room for evidence of CCTV and burglar alarms, making a rapid assessment of the locks on the door. Given that Delfas was plainly hiding something, it might be necessary to arrange a break-in and to take a closer look at the company’s computer system. Kell informed him that Edinburgh would be in ‘written contact regarding Mr Wallinger’s relationship with Villas Angelis’, and said that he was grateful for the opportunity to have spoken to him. Delfas muttered: ‘Yes, thank you’ in English, then slammed the door behind him.

      The office opening hours and telephone number were engraved in a sheet of hard white plastic at the base of the external stairs. Kell was studying the notice and thinking about arranging for a Tech-Ops team to fly out to Chios when a far simpler idea occurred to him. The muscle memory of a cynical old spook. He knew exactly what he had to do. There was no need to organize a break-in. There was Marianna.

       10

      ‘Recruiting an agent is an act of seduction,’ an instructor at Fort Monckton had told a class of eager SIS pups in the autumn of 1994. ‘The trick with agents of the opposite gender is to seduce them without, well, seducing them.’

      Kell remembered the ripple of knowing laughter that had followed that remark, a room full of high-functioning trainee spooks all wondering what would happen if they one day found themselves in a situation where they were sexually attracted to an agent. It happened, of course. To gain the trust of a stranger, to convince a person to believe in you, to compel them to act, sometimes against their own better instincts – was that not the first step to the bedroom? Good agents were often bright, ambitious, emotionally needy: to run them required a mixture of flattery, kindness and empathy. It was the spy’s job to listen, to be in control, to remain strong, often in the face of impossibly difficult circumstances. The men employed by SIS were often physically attractive, the women also. Several times in his career, Kell had been in situations where, had he wanted to, it would have been easy to take a female agent to bed. They came to rely on you, to trust and admire their handler completely. Right or wrong, the mystique of spying was an aphrodisiac. For much the same reason, the atmosphere within the four walls of Thames House and Vauxhall Cross had often been likened to a bordello, particularly where younger employees were concerned. Secrecy bred intimacy. Officers could only discuss their work with other officers. Often they would do so at night, over a drink or two in the MI5 bar, or a local pub in Vauxhall. Inevitably, one thing led to another, both at home and abroad. It was the way of the business. It was also one of the reasons the divorce rate in SIS was as high as in Beverly Hills.

      The trick with agents of the opposite gender is to seduce them without, well, seducing them. Kell sat on the harbour wall at quarter to three, the instructor’s words running through his mind as he kept an eye on the first-floor windows of Villas Angelis. At exactly one minute past three, Marianna and Delfas emerged to begin their hour-long lunch break. Delfas went into the restaurant downstairs, to be greeted by several nodding patrons who were seated at tables beneath a burgundy awning. Marianna began to walk south along the harbour road. Kell followed her at a discreet distance and watched as she went into a restaurant adjacent to the ferry terminal. From his position on the street he had clear sight of her table. There was a second door at the side of the restaurant through which he could enter without being seen. He would sit down, order some food, then contrive a reason to walk past.

      He took five hundred euros out of an ATM, entered the restaurant, nodded at a waitress, and sat down. Within a minute, Kell had a menu open in front of him; within two, he had ordered sausages, fried potatoes and salad, as well as a half-litre bottle of sparkling water. Marianna was on the opposite side of the room, beyond the bar, one of perhaps fifteen or twenty other customers spread out around the restaurant. Kell could not see her table, but had glimpsed the top of her head when he walked in.

      As soon as the waitress had brought the water, Kell stood up and headed towards the bar. He turned right, ostensibly looking for the toilets, but made a point of staring at Marianna’s table. Sensing movement in her peripheral vision, she looked up and instantly recognized Kell. She smiled warmly and set aside the book she was reading.

      ‘Oh, hello.’ Kell managed to convey a look of complete surprise as he came to a halt beside her. He was pleased to note that Marianna was blushing.

      ‘Mr Harding!’

      ‘Hardwick. Call me Chris. Marianna, yes?’

      She looked embarrassed not to have remembered his name. ‘What are you doing here?’

      Kell turned and nodded back in the general direction of his table. ‘Same as you, I suppose. Just having some lunch.’

      ‘Have you eaten?’

      Marianna glanced at the chair opposite her own, as though mustering the courage to invite Kell to join her.

      ‘I’ve just ordered,’ he replied, adding a warm smile. ‘What have you got there? Some soup? Looks delicious.’

      Marianna looked down at what appeared to be a bowl of clear chicken soup. She lifted up the spoon. For a worrying moment, Kell wondered if she was going to offer him a taste.

      ‘Yes, soup. I am very sorry about Nico.’

      Kell played dumb with the name. ‘Nico?’

      ‘My boss …’

      ‘Oh. Him. Yes, that was frustrating.’

      She appeared to have run out of things to say. Kell looked ahead towards the door of the bathroom.

      ‘Sorry,’ she said, taking the cue. ‘I didn’t mean to stop you.’

      ‘No, no,’ Kell

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