‘I feel fine, Richard.’
Macduff looks at the floor.
‘Really?’
‘Fine.’
This is not strictly true – how could it be, after what happened? – but I give my reply an ironic emphasis which effectively shuts down the discussion.
‘OΚ then. The thing is, you speak Spanish. You know Madrid. And you’ve done this sort of work before.’
‘You mean JUSTIFY?’
‘I do mean JUSTIFY, yes.’
And there’s the rub. Kitson has been very smart. He knows that after what happened with Katharine and Fortner I felt ashamed and ruined, as if nothing would ever wipe out the stain of treachery that led to Kate and Will’s deaths. He knows that all I have ever wanted was a second chance, to do it right, to prove to myself and to others that I was capable of success in the secret world. However, just in case I get cold feet, just in case he has read me wrong, he is going to pitch me in front of a colleague. That way it will be difficult to refuse. Kitson knows I won’t want to look like a coward in front of Macduff. He grinds out the half-smoked cigarette.
‘To get to the point, we wondered how you’d feel about becoming a raven.’ Macduff explains the term unnecessarily, perhaps because he has mistaken the look of surprise on my face for ignorance. ‘That is, somebody who sets out to seduce a target for the purposes of obtaining sensitive information.’
‘You want me to sleep with Javier de Francisco?’
This makes both of them laugh. ‘Not quite.’ Kitson scratches an arm and presses out of his seat. ‘Anthony is going to conduct some research of his own over the next ten days into the possible structure of the dirty war. We’ve already traced what looks like a link between secret Interior Ministry accounts and Luis Buscon. But meanwhile we’d like you to forge a relationship with one of de Francisco’s personal assistants in an effort to discover how far up the food chain this operation against ETA really goes.’ He is standing by the window now, looking directly at me. ‘That will happen in tandem with our ongoing surveillance of Buscon, which we cannot ignore. Now if it’s decided that the conspiracy has infected the upper levels of the Aznar government, then that obviously has an impact on our alliance with Spain. Any information you gather will go back to London and will be acted upon. But without your help we don’t have the resources to attack this thing.’
It appears that I have no choice. A shallow part of me just wants to find out what the PA looks like.
‘There’s just one problem,’ I tell him.
‘What’s that?’
‘You guys share a lot of intelligence with the CIA. I don’t want them knowing where I am. If I come up with useful intel, I don’t want my name on any reports that might find their way to Langley.’
Macduff looks momentarily confused but Kitson sees where I’m coming from.
Alec, as you can imagine, bringing up your name with the Cousins isn’t something we are in the habit of doing. JUSTIFY is an episode in the relationship between our two great nations that both of us, I am sure, would rather forget.’ A little grin here, almost a wink. ‘The CIA’s contempt for you is certainly equal to, if not in excess of, your contempt for them. Neither Anthony nor myself nor anybody on my team has any intention of involving the Agency in what’s going on out here.’
It’s strange to hear Kitson speak so plainly of my reputation within the CIA.
‘So this is why you wanted me to stop seeing Sofía? Because of this girl?’
‘Part of the reason,’ he admits. ‘It would only complicate things if you continued to see her behind Julian’s back.’
The familiar use of Julian’s Christian name makes me edgy, as if Kitson and Church have become friends. In my darker moments I still fear the revelation of a conspiracy between them. Nevertheless I remain light and co-operative.
‘Well, I don’t know whether to be flattered that you think I’d be capable of pulling off something like this, or offended that you see me as an amateur gigolo.’ There’s an awkward pause while both of them work out whether or not they’re supposed to laugh. Kitson does so; Macduff hedges his bets and produces a weak grin. ‘If she’s de Francisco’s PA, how do you know she’s not involved in the dirty war herself?’
‘We don’t. They’ve certainly known each other long enough. And if she is, that’s something that you’ll need to find out.’
I meet Kitson’s eye. He’s willing me to do this.
‘Well, it’s probably something I could look at.’
I haven’t begun to think through the consequences. Sex for information. Seduction for revenge. I can make jokes about gigolos in front of them, but the truth is that this is grim and seedy.
‘Good,’ Kitson says. ‘Now for the bad news.’ From an envelope beside the bed he produces a series of photographs of the girl. My reservations intensify. ‘As you can see, we’re not talking about Penelope Cruz.’
The woman in the photographs is very tall and thin, with a long nose, limp, straight hair and a pointed chin. Not ugly, exactly, but certainly not someone who would ordinarily draw my eye on Gran Vía. What am I letting myself in for? Is it too late to turn back? I should just abandon this whole thing and go back to my life with Endiom. The girl is past what most Spaniards would regard as marriageable age and dresses in a manner that can only be described as conservative. On gut instinct, however, I know that I’ll be able to win her over. She looks unhappy. She looks insecure.
‘What’s her name?’
‘Carmen Arroyo.’
‘And how much do you know about her?’
‘We know a lot.’
35. La Bufanda
Carmen Arroyo is thirty-five years old. She was born in Cantimpalos, a pueblo sixteen kilometres north of Segovia, on 11 April 1968, a daughter to José María Arroyo, a schoolteacher, and his Basque wife, Mitxelena, who is currently in hospital undergoing surgery for a small melanoma on her left shoulder. Carmen is an only child. She was educated at the Instituto Giner de los Ríos in Segovia and moved to Madrid at the age of eighteen, a typical provinciana. Having graduated from the Universidad Complutense in Moncloa with a mediocre degree in economics, she spent three years in Colombia working with underprivileged children at a hostel in Medellín, returning to Madrid in the winter of 1995. She passed the open competition for the Spanish civil service at Level D and has worked in both the Foreign and Agriculture Ministries in a secretarial capacity, always for Javier de Francisco, who has become a close friend. She became his personal secretary in the spring of 2001 shortly after Aznar appointed him Secretario de Estado de Seguridad under Maldonado. Her appearance alongside both men at an EU conference on policing later that year was noted by SIS.
José María Arroyo owns a two-bedroom apartment in the neighbourhood of La Latina on Calle de Toledo, right beside the metro station. Carmen has lived there for the past eight years. She shares the flat with an Argentinian actress, Laura de Rivera, who spends most of her time in Paris with a boyfriend, Tibaud, and is therefore rarely at home. Carmen has savings at the BBVA amounting to almost €17,000 and pays only a peppercorn rent to her father for use of the apartment. For the past five nights she has visited her mother’s hospital bed at 7 p.m. sharp, taking fruit, flowers or a woman’s magazine on each occasion. She listens to a lot of classical music, attended a Schubert concert at the Círculo de Bellas Artes on Wednesday evening, and shops mostly at Zara for clothes. The take quality from the bug fitted by Macduff in her kitchen is good enough to ascertain that she watched a dubbed American movie – Annie Hall – on Thursday night while eating supper off her knees. Carmen talked to herself throughout the film, laughing regularly and making two phone calls in quick succession at around 11 p.m. The first was to her mother, to wish her good night, the second to her best friend, María Velasco, to arrange to meet for a drink at a bar in Calle Martín de los Heros tomorrow night. That’s my opportunity. That’s how we’re going to start things off.