Dirty Little Secret Read online

  ‘Well, I’m not interested in showing him,’ Jason said, finishing his coffee and standing up. ‘And I don’t think the rest of you should be either.’

  The group watched in awkward silence as Jason walked out of the café.

  ‘I’m sorry, Jim. He can get a bit passionate,’ Linda said.

  It was an unfortunate choice of words, but Spiro agreed to stay on. The remaining three women were easy on the eye, full of apologies and keen to tell him how pleased they were to have met his wife. He would look up Jason’s file later. It turned out the women had recently set up Photography for Peace, a Washington-based project to capture ‘whatever makes the world a more harmonious place’. They showed him some photos on an iPad, including a dove in flight and a peace sign formed by six hands, taken by Linda. She wasn’t yet a member, at least that’s what she told him on the drive home afterwards. She had wanted to clear it with him first.

  A brief check revealed that Jason was a peace campaigner who had cut his teeth protesting against the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Since then he had been a staunch critic of Israel, opposed the war in Afghanistan and campaigned for a ‘new and progressive non-militaristic US foreign policy’. He was currently on an FBI watchlist, although not under surveillance.

  Spiro and Linda had a row when he told her about Jason’s file. She was angry that he had checked up on him, and walked out of the house when he told her not to see him or her other friends again.

  ‘He’s just a frickin’ photographer,’ she had shouted. ‘You’re jealous, that’s what this is really all about. Jealous that someone might just be interested in me for a change.’

  ‘What do you know about my wife?’ Spiro asked, glancing at the cell door as he turned to face Dhar again. His voice was quieter now. At this point in the interrogation the psychological advantage should have been all his, but Dhar had turned the tables. The mother stunt appeared to have left him unmoved, and he knew about his wife. Spiro had no idea how, but he would find out.

  ‘We all carry secrets,’ Dhar said. ‘I was Stephen Marchant’s.’

  ‘Mine are strictly professional,’ Spiro lied. He needed to flush out more, establish what Dhar knew.

  ‘I know where she is.’

  ‘Of course you do.’ Spiro tried to play down his interest, but he realised how desperate he was to find out.

  ‘It could have been worse. She could have been a jihadi like me.’ A smile broke across Dhar’s bloodied lips. ‘But she chose to be a peace campaigner. At least nobody knows. None of your colleagues.’

  Spiro didn’t hesitate to hit him again. He punched him hard in the face, and followed up with a knee to the groin, thinking of Jason in the café. Then he hit him in the solar plexus.

  ‘You’re lying!’ Spiro shouted, losing control of his immediate environment, breaking the first rule of interrogation.

  Breathing heavily, Dhar spoke again.

  ‘My Palestinian brothers are grateful for her support. It takes a brave American to stand up to Israeli soldiers in villages like Bil’in. Ramallah is not for the faint-hearted.’

  Spiro knew he was telling the truth. She had gone to the West Bank with her peacenik friends. Professionally, it would be humiliating if it ever became known at Langley. Damaging, too. He had yet to tell the vetters about his wife’s new social circle.

  ‘You might never see daylight again,’ Spiro said, walking towards the door.

  ‘One thing I don’t understand,’ Dhar whispered, raising his head in defiance. ‘Does this man Jason know she’s married?’

  64

  Marchant stood up and stretched. The night was warm, and moths were crashing against the light outside the stable block. Jean-Baptiste was talking on the computer, the idle chat of a tedious stakeout. It was 9 p.m. in London, and he was in a hired car across the street from Ian Denton’s flat on Battersea Bridge Road.

  The previous night he had followed Denton’s Range Rover home from Legoland, but the driver had taken several counter-surveillance measures, which worried Jean-Baptiste. Either they were routine or he had been spotted. He liked to think it was the former.

  ‘He’s working late,’ Jean-Baptiste said. ‘Last night it was 8.30.’

  ‘He’s the Chief.’

  ‘I thought the point of being boss was that you got other people to do all the work.’

  ‘That’s true, but the buck stops with you when things go wrong, and Britain’s currently under attack, in case you hadn’t noticed. I’m amazed he’s not sleeping under his desk.’

  ‘He gets in early. This morning it was 5 a.m. How’s Clémence tonight? Still mad at me?’

  ‘You could have told her why you’re really in London.’

  ‘I will when I need to.’

  Marchant looked across at the château, where a light was on in an upstairs window. Clémence had taken Lakshmi under her wing, looking after her day and night. The phone call to Spiro three days earlier still worried him. Marchant’s natural instinct was to move on, keep running, but he couldn’t leave Clémence on her own. Lakshmi was his prisoner.

  He knew, too, that it was safer to liaise with Jean-Baptiste in London if he remained at the château. The VOIP software on Jean-Baptiste’s computer made it easy to talk to him over the internet, and harder for anyone else to listen in. As an extra precaution, Marchant had spoofed the IP address using a proxy server and downloaded free software for Tor, an anonymous routing network.

  Tor was widely used by political activists in countries – Iran or China, for example – where they needed to disguise their location. MI6 had its own ‘onion routing’ network for field officers (available as a secure app or a download) that used a similarly layered approach to security.

  ‘Here comes Denton,’ Jean Baptiste said.

  Marchant tried to imagine the scene: Denton sitting in the back of the Chief’s official Range Rover, talking on the phone, enjoying his new power, Fielding’s seat still warm.

  ‘Special Branch driver gets out, opens rear door for Denton,’ Jean-Baptiste continued. ‘He glances up and down street – old school – says good night to the driver, goes inside. Front door closes. I’m not sure what I’m going to find out here, Dan.’

  Marchant wondered too, but if Denton was going to do anything interesting, it would be after his Special Branch officer had left for the night. Earlier he had called Paul Myers on his pay-as-you-go number and asked him to hack into Denton’s bank account, find out where he shopped, look for any unusual payments. Myers had been reluctant at first – he was already feeling uneasy about delaying the Revolutionary Guard intercept – but Marchant knew it would appeal to his curiosity.

  ‘His personal data will be well protected,’ Myers had said, savouring the challenge already. ‘Very well protected. The News of the World’s been after it for months. And Armstrong’s. And the Prime Minister’s.’

  ‘Did they get anywhere?’

  ‘Only with the PM’s bank account. That’s because they didn’t understand –’

  ‘It’s OK, I’ll take your word for it.’ Marchant didn’t have time to listen to one of Myers’s technical explanations. They tended to be long and incomprehensible. ‘Can you do it?’

  ‘I can try.’

  Two hours later, a triumphant Myers was on the phone again. In the past year, Denton had shopped almost exclusively online for his clothes, except for the House of Fraser in Hull, formerly Hammonds, where he had picked up two suits in person.

  ‘There’s just one thing that strikes me as odd,’ Myers said. ‘He buys his food at Waitrose.’

  ‘What’s strange about that? Just because he’s from Hull, you think he should be shopping at Booths?’

  ‘Listen, pal, I’m from the Midlands, and I shop at Waitrose. We’re all middle-class now. It’s not that. He could have the stuff delivered. Waitrose Home or Avocado if he’s in London.’

  ‘Ocado. Bit posh for Denton.’

  ‘He buys his food at the Clapham Junction branch, St John’s Road, every Tuesd
ay and Friday evening. Pays with his partnership card. If I was Chief of MI6, I think I’d have it delivered, don’t you?’

  Myers had a point. And it was a Friday evening now. Perhaps Denton’s solitary shopping trips were a thing of the past, the habit of a deputy, but it was worth a try, which was why he wanted Jean-Baptiste to stay on the case tonight.

  ‘Be patient,’ Marchant told him. ‘Denton gets hungry on a Friday.’

  ‘So you said. I’m also hungry, but I think I’ll wait until I’m back in France to eat again. He’s out. Closes front door. Checks up and down the street. Heading my way. Far side. Walking quickly.’

  ‘He wants his dinner. He’ll go down Latchmere Road, then turn right to Waitrose.’ Marchant had called up Google Street View on the computer screen. ‘Follow him. I think this might be it.’

  65

  Spiro poured himself a large bourbon and sat down on the edge of the bed in his living quarters in Bagram. They were on the far side of the base, away from the runway, but he could still hear the sound of aircraft. The base was always busy, giant C-5 and C-17 cargo planes landing day and night, F-15 and F-16 jets screaming down the runway. After vowing never to eat there again, he had just had another lousy meal at DFAC, the base’s dining facility. He used to find it funny, but he hadn’t felt comfortable tonight seeing the Muslim LECS (locally employed civilians) serving up bacon and pork dishes. It would only breed hatred for America, fill the world with more Salim Dhars.

  He stood up and went over to the small window, from where he could see the Hindu Kush to the north and the Salang Pass. Beyond the perimeter wire, the grassy plains were dotted with solitary locust trees. A gathering ball of dust was rolling in towards the base, where it would coat everyone and everything in another layer of sand. It drove some servicemen crazy, particularly those who were billeted in the rows of canvas tents down by the hospital. Spiro had more of a problem with the permanent smell of aviation fuel that seemed to hang over the base like an accusing miasma.

  Spiro had driven up to the Salang Pass once, where a treacherous road cut through the snow-tipped mountains at ten thousand feet. It was after a particularly gruelling interrogation. The detainee, a local taxi driver, had died in custody, five days after being captured. It had become clear later that he was innocent. Mistakes happen in war.

  At least he knew Dhar was guilty. But he had got under Spiro’s skin in a way he had never thought possible. In all the interrogations he had carried out in the frenzied aftermath of 9/11, at Guantánamo’s Camp X-Ray and other detention facilities around the world, no one had had such an effect on him. He had been prepared for Dhar to spit at him, insult his religion and his parents, pour scorn on Western decadence and American imperialism – but it was the calculated nature of his attack that had taken Spiro by surprise. Each had known the other’s weakness: Dhar’s mother and Spiro’s wife. Unfortunately, his had proved the greater.

  Spiro had consulted earlier with a colleague in Joint Special Operations Command, and it had been decided to leave Dhar in separation for now. JSOC hadn’t asked why Spiro would not be proceeding with his interrogation, and he hadn’t volunteered an explanation. Instead, he had sarcastically reminded the duty officer that after thirty days, permission would be needed to extend Dhar’s isolation to ninety days. Both parties knew it would be a formality.

  He picked up his phone from the bedside table and tried to ring his wife’s mobile again. It went straight to voicemail, but he didn’t leave a message. He had left too many already. Things had not been great between them recently, but he would make amends, try to understand her changing needs. He might even work up an interest in cameras, if that’s what it took. Glamour photography didn’t sound so bad. It was only now she was gone that he realised how much he missed her. He needed to talk to someone, a friend who had been married for thirty years, but there was no one. Everyone he knew had messed up on the domestic front.

  All he could do was focus on practicalities. If she was in Ramallah, his options were limited. He needed to get her away from there without anyone at Langley knowing who she was or what she had been doing. His relationship with Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence service, had always been complicated, just like the Agency’s. Otherwise he would ask them to bring her in.

  His preferred option was to return to London. The UK was still reeling from the series of terrorist attacks on its infrastructure, and Washington was keen for him to be at the heart of the US response. His man, Ian Denton, was where he wanted him, running MI6, although the British PM had yet to make his appointment permanent. It was an annoying hitch, but only temporary. Denton owed his promotion to Spiro, and he would be happy to help. He had already told him his wife was missing. MI6 had a number of field officers in the West Bank who could spirit her back to London without too many questions being asked. He tried not to think of it as renditioning his own wife.

  A few minutes later, he was on the phone to Denton in London.

  ‘Has the smoke cleared yet?’ he asked.

  ‘We’re surviving.’

  ‘I can hear traffic. Bad moment?’

  ‘I’m doing my weekly shop.’

  ‘Christ, Ian, Chiefs don’t buy their own groceries.’

  ‘Northern ones do. Besides, I like the walk.’

  ‘I’m coming back to London overnight. Are you free for a coffee first thing tomorrow? I need a favour.’

  ‘I’ll buy some blueberry muffins.’

  66

  ‘Looks like he’s celebrating,’ Jean-Baptiste said. ‘He’s heading straight for the fine wines. Bordeaux. I like this guy. For a moment I thought he was buying fruit juice from California.’

  Marchant smiled at his old friend’s prejudices as he listened to him on the computer. ‘Burgundy would have been better.’

  ‘I thought you British were obsessed with Bordeaux.’

  ‘Not all of us.’ It was Marchant’s father who had introduced him to Burgundies, the grands crus of Musigny and Montrachet that still lay in the cellar at Tarlton. He was glad he hadn’t moved on to any of them with Dhar.

  ‘Now he’s at the bakery. Muffins. Blueberry, I think. The all-American boy.’

  It used to be a sausage sandwich from the canteen, Marchant thought. How people change. ‘What’s he doing now?’

  ‘Looking for the barcode. Scans them.’

  Earlier, Jean-Baptiste had described how Denton had gone up to a bank of ‘Quick Check’ handheld scanners when he had arrived at Waitrose, and Marchant had explained the joys of shopping with a barcode self-scanner, which wasn’t yet widespread in France.

  ‘Keep talking,’ Marchant said. He wanted to know Denton’s every move, however mundane or insignificant it might seem to Jean-Baptiste.

  ‘White bread, sliced. Scans it. What’s wrong with a baguette from the local boulangerie?’

  ‘Doesn’t keep.’

  ‘I hate supermarkets. Now he’s looking at – mustards? I don’t recognise this. A small white pot? Taking one of them from the back of the shelf.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Black writing on the lid. “Something Relish”?’

  ‘Gentleman’s Relish.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘Anchovy paste. Patum Peperium. Very English. You put it on toast.’ It was one of those foods, like Marmite, that was hard to explain to a Frenchman.

  ‘He’s scanning it – trying to. Looks at his scanner, then around the shop. Another look at the screen. Reading something. He didn’t do that with anything else. Puts the pot in his trolley, picks up another and scans that one. Twice. Maybe the first one didn’t work.’

  It was then that Marchant began to wonder if they were onto something.

  ‘Listen to me carefully, Jean-Baptiste. I think the scanner might be significant.’

  ‘It’s a weird-looking thing, isn’t it? Like a Geiger counter. Maybe he’s searching for weapons of mass destruction. An MI6 obsession, no?’

  ‘Very funny.’

 
; After more banter, Jean-Baptiste became serious again.

  ‘Wait. He did something strange with his hands there. Legerdemain. While he was looking at a small packet.’

  The internet voice connection began to buffer, distorting Jean-Baptiste’s words.

  ‘Say that again,’ Marchant said.

  ‘He picked something up – maybe blinis, I’m not sure. I think he stuck something on the packet, then put it back on the shelf. A sticker?’

  ‘Are you certain?’

  ‘No.’

  Marchant shifted in the wicker chair, checking instinctively that the door behind him was closed.

  ‘That’s not normal.’

  ‘Even for a supermarket?’

  ‘You don’t go around putting stickers on food. Not unless you work there.’

  After picking up a treacle tart, Denton headed for the checkout, tracked at a distance by Jean-Baptiste, still talking on his hands-free mobile phone to Marchant.

  ‘He scans a barcode on the till … hands back the scanner.’

  ‘Normal.’

  ‘Now he pays. With a card.’

  ‘What’s happened to the scanner?’

  ‘The girl’s put it in a basket, with lots of others.’

  ‘Do you know which one he used?’

  ‘I think so, yes.’

  ‘Keep an eye on it.’

  ‘What about Denton? He’s leaving.’

  ‘Let him go.’

  Ten minutes later, Jean-Baptiste was loitering by the books and magazines, reading about Carla Bruni in a copy of Hello!, when an announcement was made that the store was closing. He rang Marchant.

  ‘They’re shutting,’ he said.

  ‘The scanners?’

  ‘Still in the basket.’

  ‘Can you see them from the street?’

  Jean-Baptiste glanced over at the front of the store. The angle was not great, but it was possible. ‘I think so.’

  ‘Leave the store and hang around, see if they put the scanners back after they close.’

  Jean-Baptiste didn’t have to wait long before the stackers began restocking the shelves. They were young and from a range of ethnic backgrounds, some chatting, others yawning. It reminded him of a holiday job he had once taken with Carrefour. It had put him off supermarkets for life. After a few minutes, a woman picked up the basket of scanners and took them back to a wall panel near the entrance, where she placed each one in a slot. He watched carefully, and made a note of where Denton’s ended up: top row, far left. Then he rang Marchant and told him.