‘Do you know much about that project?’
Duggan shook her head. The trace of an amused smile was back on her lips. ‘Very hush-hush. That’s all I know. Is that a test question, Ms Kingly?’
‘Yes, it is,’ said Peggy firmly. This woman had a veneer as hard as varnish – there was only one chance to get through it, and she was going to take it. She’d go straight in and shock her. So she picked up a file from the table, made a show of flicking through it, tossed it down and asked, ‘When was the last time you saw Hugo Cowdray?’
Duggan started, but quickly reasserted control. You had to hand it to her, thought Peggy. ‘Hugo Cowdray?’ Duggan asked, with bewilderment in her tone of voice. ‘What about him? What’s he got to do with security?’
‘I asked, when was the last time you saw him?’
Duggan shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Weeks ago – he hasn’t been in the office lately. Why?’
‘Do you know where he’s been?’
‘I assume he’s with Charlie. There’s a whole team gone with him. Somewhere in Norfolk, I think they are. It’s an open secret – there’s a safe house up there. I don’t know where it is. You’ll have to use your own access to find that out.’
‘Have you seen Hugo since he went there?’
‘I’ve seen Charlie – he’s often down for meetings with the finance chaps. But not Hugo.’
‘And you haven’t heard from him?’
Duggan began to look incredulous. ‘What are you implying? Why this obsession with Hugo? He’s a colleague but a distant one – we’ve never worked together. I know his name; presumably he knows mine. But that’s the end of it.’
‘Why did he send you an email then?’
‘What email? When is he supposed to have sent that?’
‘Recently.’ Peggy said nothing more.
‘I haven’t had an email from him. Though the filters here are so ferocious that half the time you’d never know who has sent what.’ She gave a little laugh.
‘You’re quite sure about that?’
‘Yes. If you are suggesting otherwise, then I’d like to see this email.’
She knows quite well I can’t show it to her, thought Peggy. But the way Duggan had moved so quickly on to the defensive made Peggy feel certain that she had been the recipient of Hugo Cowdray’s message.
Duggan was shifting in her seat as she said, ‘Is there anything else you want to discuss, Miss Kingly? I’ll have to leave in a second as I have a briefing for Directors. Three-line whip for me, I’m afraid – even the Security Service has to make way.’
Peggy resisted the urge to say, ‘No, we don’t. So just stay where you are, Ms Duggan.’ Instead she replied, ‘That’s all, Ms Duggan. For now.’
Chapter 25
Bern, a quietly pretty city, determined not to draw attention to itself, was a fitting home for the country’s Security Service. In the nondescript, modern building, Doctor Otto Bech’s office was no larger than her own, but through the window Liz had a view that could not be matched anywhere in Thames House. In a park, a line of poplars bent like bows in the breeze, and further off, across the wide river valley, a range of snow-capped mountains glittered in the morning sun.
Otto Bech’s appearance matched his low-key office. With his tweed jacket and flannels, ruffled grey hair and thick spectacles, he could have been an academic. Indeed before he joined the police he had spent several years at Lausanne University, his doctorate awarded for a dissertation on the historical development of international financial protocols. Russell White had asked for Bech’s help in identifying the person Sorsky had referred to as ‘a colleague’ – the man who had told him of the third-country penetration of the British Ministry of Defence. The previous day Bech had responded, saying the Swiss had some information which might be useful. Liz had come in person to hear what it was, with White accompanying her.
In Bech’s office a dour-looking youngish man, standing by a small conference table, was introduced as Henri Leplan. Bech explained that Leplan had been at the airport when the stretchered Russian had been flown out of Geneva. He motioned for the younger man to continue.
‘We have made some progress,’ Leplan announced as he pushed across the table a pile of photographic stills for Liz and White to look at. The top one showed a small private jet parked near a terminal building. It had Russian markings. In the second, the door of the plane was open and a short ladder had been dropped down. In the third an ambulance had drawn up beside the plane. As Liz and Russell White leafed through the sheaf of photographs the drama unfolded: two attendants were carrying a stretcher up the steps into the plane; then they had disappeared. The only other figure in the photo was a man in a dark suit, medium height and broad-shouldered, watching from the tarmac, his back to the camera. In the final photograph he had turned towards the terminal and his face was clearly visible.
Seen full on, the man had dark short hair, fleshy, slab-like cheeks covered with a five o’clock shadow, and a wide jutting chin. His eyes were so deep-set that in the photograph they looked black.
Leplan continued: ‘The man in the suit is Anatole Kubiak. Officially he’s a Commercial Counsellor in the Russian Trade Delegation in Geneva.’
White said, ‘But he’s actually the senior SVR officer here – Head of Security for the whole Russian mission.’
Bech smiled grimly. ‘An unpleasant character, we gather.’
‘Then he would have had the authority to send Sorsky back to Moscow,’ said Liz.
Bech nodded. ‘Kubiak must have given Moscow enough evidence to justify forcibly repatriating the man, though what happens to Sorsky now will be out of Kubiak’s hands. He’ll probably be recalled to give evidence if there’s a trial, but I expect the outcome is already fixed. Even in these “democratic days”, the Russian Special Services don’t tolerate traitors.’
Liz stifled a shudder. She was wondering how Sorsky had been detected. She felt confident it had not been through any slip on her part. She’d followed his instructions to the letter. But what about Russell White’s team – or the Swiss themselves? She glanced at White, who looked on edge, probably because he was having similar thoughts. Dr Bech’s face betrayed no emotion at all.
She said, ‘What I really need to know is who Sorsky worked closely with at the Russian Residency, so we can identify the colleague he called Boris.’
‘Russell White has explained that, and I think we can help you,’ said Bech, and nodded at Le Plan who leaned forward to put more photographs on the table. These were hazier than the first lot, having been taken off a CCTV camera – the date and time were digitally marked in a lower corner of each photograph.
The pictures showed a small stretch of a street at night-time, etched by a contrasting mix of shadows and pale light from the street lamps. The lens was focused on a building across the street, which had an awning in front that was adorned by white letters in italic script. Peering at the photograph, Liz could just make out the words PussKat Club. The place where Sorsky and his colleagues had gone after their celebration dinner.
‘Since we didn’t know exactly which night we were looking for, it took us some time,’ Leplan explained. ‘But eventually we found this.’
He picked up one of the photographs and handed it to Liz. Russell White looked over her shoulder. It showed two men coming out of the club, with a uniformed doorman just behind them. One of the men was Sorsky – Liz recognised the receding hairline, and his sharp features. He was supporting the other man, who was slightly shorter, but much broader. His face was half in shadow.
‘Who is it?’ asked Liz, though she thought she knew.