Connections (28 page)

Grace was in the kitchen, chopping cabbage for coleslaw. “They're getting on well,” Fleur told her. “It's the great fellowship of manual labour. They'll be under the van soon, with wrenches, if no one stops them.”

“What does Dominic do?”

“He's a builder. He's working on a big block in the City.”

“There's nothing wrong with honest labour,” Grace declared democratically. “Are you still starting that computer course?”

“On Monday,” she said.

“That's one good thing about abandoning Barbados,” her mother said. “You can start the course on time.”

Fleur laughed. The argument about the money was over. All was well, at least for the time being.

In the van, going through Brixton, Dominic said, “Robin's
thinking of selling the house and putting the money into a small factory – big workshop type of thing.”

“Robin? Selling the house? I don't believe it.”

“He thinks your father's going to cut off the money,” Dominic said. “He didn't say as much, but I'm as good as sure that's what he meant. It may already have happened. That would mean he's got to earn what they spend.”

“Oh Christ,” Fleur cried. “Do you think so?”

“Yes, I do. He doesn't seem too happy.”

“Cutting them off – that's just vindictive,” Fleur said.

“That's what it takes to be a man like your father – brains, guts, initiative, energy, readiness to take a risk and a vindictive streak. I got the impression Robin might be relieved to give up the money.”

“People always surprise you,” said Fleur.

So William, not for the first time Prothero sent for me. I thought I'd go and see what he had to say. Anyway, he had the drop on me over the Irish Farm business, so I had to be civil. He got some tea sent in on a tray, nice teapot and cups, plate of expensive bikkies.

Prothero, proffering the plate of biscuits, said, “We want you to look for someone.
”

“
Can't you find him?” I cheekily asked.

“
We don't want to find him officially. But unofficially we want to know where he is.
”

“
I hope if I find him you won't want me to dispose of him,” I said, laying out my attitude for inspection straight away.

He ignored this. “It's a sensitive matter,” he said. “The man's name is August Tallinn.
”

Why wasn't I surprised? I said, “This is the Russian smuggler you've been protecting from extradition to Germany.” I tactfully didn't mention Uncle Roger and the failed assassination attempt. Prothero, meanwhile, was looking at me carefully. I guessed if I found Tallinn Prothero would ask me to kill him, so I told him, “I'd rather not. I'm pretty busy. Can't your own men find him? Anyway, from what I've seen I doubt if he's still in Britain.
”

Prothero leaned forward and said, “We're getting a lot of pressure from Sinn Fein to examine the Irish Farm incident more closely. As you know they've never been happy that the investigation was in the hands of the army.
”

So we were back with that one. I realised I had to go along with him. So I put my hands up. “OK. Any fee involved?” I asked. He just looked at me.

He gave me an address in Finsbury Park where, according to a snitch they had inside Russian circles, Tallinn was supposed to be hiding out. For two nights and three days we watched the bloody flat, seeing a seemingly innocent couple going about their business.

I rang Prothero and told him that there seemed to be no sign of Tallinn where we were. He said to keep on observing. I put listening equipment in a white van with a breakdown notice on the front and Scottie and I spent twenty-four hours in it listening to the refugee family getting up, eating, playing with the kids, leaving for work, arriving home, watching
EastEnders,
washing up, making love, going to sleep. If Tallinn was in there he had to be lying down saying nothing, not eating, drinking or going to the toilet.

Again I reported back to Prothero and told him I was ninety-five per cent certain Tallinn wasn't there in the flat. I told him I couldn't stay in Finsbury Park indefinitely. I had other jobs to do.

Prothero said, “Get in there and make sure.
”

Goolies and Kemal got themselves up as men from London Electricity, waited for Mr Mishkin to depart for another shift, banged on the door, held up their ID and marched straight in. The woman, a bit scared and with little English, didn't stop them while they went from room to room testing plugs and sockets, though she followed them anxiously, the nippers in train.

I went round to Prothero's riverside office and said bluntly, “He's not there. Why don't you just let him leave the country, if he hasn't already? If he doesn't want to be here, and you don't want him, let him go. Easy.
”

Something flickered in his eyes, a thought too deep for tears. It worried me. He said, “We'd regard that as a rather sloppy solution.” If it had been the sort of solution they favoured, Prothero would have described it as “pragmatic”. Obviously since it had been classified “sloppy” the option of letting Tallinn go was not recommended. They didn't want Tallinn running around unsupervised, wherever he was – Moscow, Rio or Miami. Or so I thought.

I told him, “There's no point in me doing things you can do
better yourself. If you really want Tallinn, use the police. Claim he's done an armed robbery somewhere, circulate his picture and hope the cops can bring him in.
”

Prothero was too pissed off to reply. I saw he wasn't really pissed off with me apart from the fact that I was there. Something about the situation annoyed him. He knew if Tallinn wasn't in Finsbury Park, and perhaps never had been, he couldn't find him without another tip-off, unless he instigated a police search, which obviously he didn't want to do. Why not? Presumably because the police couldn't be relied on to keep the matter under wraps. Someone might recognise Tallinn from the picture circulated, someone might talk, the press might get hold of the story. Prothero didn't want any publicity about Tallinn. I suspected this wasn't only because they'd been incompetent and let him escape, but perhaps, just maybe, Tallinn had a tale to tell, knew something Prothero or his masters wanted to keep secret. Which would explain the British reluctance to hand him over to the Germans. And why, when it became embarrassing to go on protecting him, they – perfidious Albion as usual – decided to bump him off. But Tallinn, who'd grown up in a hard school, had anticipated this. Now he was running around like a loose dog they couldn't find and didn't want anybody else to find, and poor old Prothero was going to get the blame. Oh dear.

We're in January here, William. The hysteria about the Iranian nuclear weapons was mounting as it became more and more obvious that they had a possible twenty-five mobile launchers, and missiles to match. From the early nineties it had been known that some countries – Israel, Saudi Arabia and India – had been working on low-technology systems like this. The Israelis had Jericho II with a range of 1,000 miles, a real threat to the neighbours, and the Russians have been helping out the Iraqis a lot, they say. On the basis that my enemy's enemy is my friend, I suppose. They say the Cold War's over, don't they, William? But you and I don't really believe that, do we?

The Western powers and the USA were in the position of householders waking from a recurrent dream that there was a
burglar under the bed, realising with relief that “it was all a dream” and then finding the burglar there after all. But while terrifying it was also, when you come to think if it, inevitable. That awful thing had happened – the balance of power in the Middle East had been upset. This was the balance of power as seen by Western eyes, naturally.

Leader writers searched the lexicon of gloom and doom. Armageddon loomed, as did the Final Jihad and the death of the planet. The
Sun
recommended a Fifth Crusade and sixty-five per cent of
Sun
readers voted for it. Accusations and rebuttals ran to and fro as is natural in situations where everyone's shit scared and no one knows what to do. In the end, as usual, a culprit was found. It's easier to blame one individual than work out all the different factors involved. In this case the villain responsible was August Tallinn.

By now the British line was that they were making all efforts to find Tallinn but they were practically certain he'd left the country. They reminded Germany that since Tallinn had never been formally charged with anything, let alone tried and found guilty, he was technically an innocent man. You can imagine how happy the Germans felt about that one, knowing that they would by that time have had Tallinn convicted and in jail for the rest of his life, if only the Brits had handed him over when asked to do so.

There'd been good news – the announced successful merger between a US bank and the investment bank of Strauss Jethro Smith, masterminded by the successful British banker, Sir Richard Jethro. Much was made of Sir Richard, of his initiative and entrepreneurial skills, of his humble origins, of the almost miraculous stability of his bank. And he'd come from an ordinary family and worked his way up in banking in the days when there was a thick glass ceiling preventing the progress of those who didn't come from the right family and had not attended the right schools.

He was also suggested as chairman to the hastily assembled but potentially very important Government Economic Council. It was tough that just as Jethro was accepting the chairmanship of the
Council – he had no good reason to refuse the Prime Minister's personal request – he was trying to sort out the mess he was in. Achilles had his heel and Dickie Jethro had August Tallinn. Oh dear.

Towards the end of January, in the penultimate week of her computer course, with no word from the Jethros or Ben, Fleur took the afternoon off to see Gerry Sullivan, Verity's old accountant, in Soho. She told the gnomelike little man: “I've got to do something to straighten things out. Ben might come back, or he might not. In the meanwhile I'm getting three or four letters a day from creditors or their lawyers, tax, VAT – everything.”

He looked at her, puzzled. “I wouldn't have thought you had too many problems now.”

“I have,” she said, puzzled. “What makes you think I haven't?”

“I'll give you the name of a firm which will deal with all this. They're good. Go to them as soon as you can.”

“Is there a fee?” she asked.

“They won't work for nothing,” he said, “but you'll be able to manage that, I suppose.”

Fleur believed Gerry Sullivan thought she was in touch with Ben, who was funding her in some way. This was discouraging because it made her think Ben had some cash he wasn't prepared to let her have in order to pay off debts. She said to Gerry, “I'll go and talk to them.” She felt awkward about asking, but said, “Is there any news of Ben, by the way?”

He seemed surprised she didn't know and said uneasily, “He's in California, I believe, working on a project.”

“That's nice,” she said bitterly. “Next time you're in touch tell him I'm still bogged down in our debts, will you?”

She said goodbye to a still frowning Gerry and left. Fuming, she went round the corner for a coffee with Jess. “God, I felt a
fool. It's obvious Gerry's in touch with Ben and at first he thought Ben was sending me money. When I had to ask for news of him he was amazed and I felt like a woman turning up with two kids to ask for money because her husband's run away. And he played that man-game with me, support the bloke against the pursuing harridan. It just destroys your faith in human nature. Do you know where Ben is?”

“No, and nor do you,” Jess said calmly. “If you can stop ranting I'll tell you what's going on at Camera Shake.”

“Oh God, Jess. With what I'm facing—”

“Shut up,” Jess said earnestly. “This is important. Debs has sold up, like I told you, but she still owns twenty-five per cent of the firm and she's staying on as head of a small production company inside Camera Shake, which aims to make one, maybe two movies a year – big, full-length, British-style movies – which means getting scripts, raising money, putting packages together. It's a big deal, Fleur, if it works. She told me this morning I'm going to be her deputy, which, since she plans to spend more time with her family, puts me virtually in charge. There'll be two senior production assistants, Jane Ray – and you. Which means a big salary, car, expense account, the lot. Camera Shake's covering the first year's salaries, then the unit would have to be self-financing. Is this your lucky day, or what?” She sank back in her chair, grinning.

“Thanks, Jess,” said Fleur, stunned.

“Debs wanted you,” Jess told her. “She said she knew about you. I said I was seeing you later and she said she wouldn't mind an answer now. She wants to get going straight away, knowing we've only got one year supported by Camera Shake. Shall I phone her and tell her you said yes?”

“What do you think?” Fleur said.

So Jess phoned and Debs Smith said she was on her way home but if they could get to the office within five minutes she'd still be there. Jess and Fleur picked up their handbags and fled.

They sat round a table in Debs' smart office. Debs, small, dark and whippet-thin, said briskly, “Welcome aboard, Fleur. It's new
territory. None of us has ever done it before. We need to find a basic twenty scripts, for starters, and we need to have done it yesterday. Initially it's just a case of weeding through everything the agents and some hand-picked writers send us. If you agree, Fleur, we'll give your job six months, shall we? Then we'll review progress.”