‘I need you to do me a favour,’ he said.
It was far from the best approach. He owed Holly an explanation for his behaviour. Now, without bothering to ask how she had been, without even being honest about Wilkinson, he was expecting her to do his bidding in an emergency, the details of which he could not reveal to her. He was thinking only of Min’s security. Whatever it would take to keep her safe, Gaddis would do it, even if that meant manipulating Holly.
‘You want me to do you a favour?’
‘I know it’s a lot to ask.’
‘You haven’t even asked it yet.’
He was grateful that he had found her in a reasonable mood. ‘It’s about your mum’s files. Are you sure you gave me everything? The other day you said there might be other boxes in the basement.’
‘There are,’ she replied plainly. It sounded as though she was being distracted by something in the room from which she was talking.
‘Are you at the flat now?’
‘No. An audition.’
‘Could you go down there as soon as it’s finished? Would you be able to do that?’
‘Probably.’ Again, Holly sounded distracted. Gaddis experienced a strange desire for her to succeed at the audition, to be given a part that she could sink her teeth into, something that would take her away from him. She didn’t deserve to have been dragged into all this. He wanted her to be safe and yet, at the same time, he needed her to save Min. ‘Why don’t you come over and we can both do it?’ she said.
It was as though she was testing him. ‘I can’t get away.’ Gaddis looked out at the Cromwell Road and knew that he was no more than ten minutes by cab from Tite Street. But if he went there, it would surely draw FSB surveillance towards the tape. ‘I’m right in the middle of this MI6 thing. The book.’
‘About Bob?’
‘About Bob, yes.’ The lies were paper-thin. ‘If you could just go down there and have one more look, particularly for any tapes or cassettes that your mum might have mislaid.’
‘Tapes or cassettes?’
A woman in a raincoat appeared outside the phone box, waiting to make a call. Gaddis opened the door ajar and said: ‘I’m going to be a long time, I’m sorry,’ in a low voice. Holly was saying: ‘Sam?’
‘Yes?’
‘Are you all right? I’m worried about you.’
His body was bound in sweat. He had realized, even as he was talking, that he would never be able to publish the Crane biography, that there was now no hope of Platov’s defection becoming public knowledge. The president would remain in power and there would be dozens more Charlotte Bergs, dozens more Katarina Tikhonovs, who would lose their lives simply to prop him up in power. ‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘There’s just a deadline on the manuscript. I can’t get away. I can’t come to meet you.’
‘What if I find the tape?’
‘Then you must bring it to me.’
‘Where? In Shepherd’s Bush?’
‘No.’ That wasn’t safe. Holly would be observed and the tape stolen. He had to think of an alternative location. UCL was undoubtedly being watched. ‘Take it to the Donmar Warehouse and leave it with Piers.’
‘With Piers? Why?’
How could he explain that one? It made no sense. Gaddis cobbled together another shabby lie.
‘I’m working around the corner in a UCL building.’
‘Then why don’t I just bring it to you there?’
‘Security’s a pain in the arse. They’ll either lose it or tell you they’ve never heard of me.’ He was amazed by the speed of his lies. ‘The Donmar is less than a quarter of a mile away. I go there for coffee all the time. You can leave it at the ticket desk. Just call me at this number if you think you’ve found anything.’
He gave the landline number of Tanya’s house, wondering if even that was a safe means of communicating with her.
‘What number is that?’
‘UCL.’
Gaddis was sick of deceiving her, sick of the effort of accumulating excuses. He tried to change the subject.
‘What’s the audition for?’
‘A play.’
But he did not listen to the answer. Instead, focused only on the tape, he said, ‘Will you have a chance to look for it today?’ and finally Holly’s patience ran out.
‘Sam, I’ve told you: I’ll look for the fucking tape. But it might help your cause a bit if you stopped acting like a paranoid schizophrenic and explained to me what the fuck is going on. Try asking a girl out for dinner. Try asking how I’ve been. It’s not difficult. Last time I checked, we were having a pretty good time together. Now every time I speak to you I feel like your fucking secretary.’
‘I’m so sorry.’ He wanted nothing more than to be alone with her, back in his old life, Min safe in Spain, students coming to his office at UCL. But it had all been ripped away from him.
‘It’s OK. I just hope you’re being honest with me.’ She paused before adding: ‘If there’s somebody else-’
Gaddis looked out at the passing traffic and shook his head. ‘I promise you it’s not that. It’s about my daught-’ He almost choked on the word, lost in the wretchedness of his situation.
‘Sam?’
‘Please don’t worry. Just find the tape, OK? Just try to find it. You have no idea how important it could be.’
Chapter 53
Gaddis went back to the mews house and locked the door. There was a laptop in Jeremy’s room and he found the name of Min’s nursery on Google. He called the number, using Tanya’s landline. To his relief, the headmistress reassured him, in broken English, that Min was ‘completely fine’ and would be going home ‘as usual, in a few minutes’. Gaddis hung up, lit a cigarette and went out into the garden. The small, enclosed space was overlooked by more than a dozen windows in five or six separate buildings, but he was certain that here, at least, he was safe from FSB eyes.
He took the crumpled note out of his pocket and looked at it again. THE SUM OF ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS WILL BE PAID INTO YOUR BANK ACCOUNT. THIS BUYS MORE THAN YOUR SILENCE.
Something about it didn’t ring true. If the Russians knew his home address, they would have killed him. Why bother with a crude blackmail? The FSB wanted anybody with any connection to Dresden out of the picture — Platov wasn’t interested in buying Gaddis’s silence. His political career, his reputation, his hold on power, was worth far more to him than?100,000. Besides, Tanya had insisted that the FSB knew nothing about Gaddis’s search for Edward Crane. So how come they knew about Barcelona? How come they could identify Natasha and Min? Only SIS had access to that information. The note could only have come from Brennan.
Back inside, he stared at the phone, willing Holly to ring, but knew that he would have to wait. Her audition would continue until five or six, she might then have dinner with friends and would not get home until late. It wasn’t even certain that she would bother looking for the tape once she did.
Gaddis knew that he had panicked in the aftermath of seeing the photographs. He realized that he had been a coward. He was entrusting his fate, and that of his daughter, to Holly, who could lose her life if she was caught in possession of the Platov evidence. He had to go to Tite Street himself. He would have to talk his way into Holly’s building and then somehow break into the basement.
He found a toolbox under the sink in Tanya’s kitchen. Inside it, there was a small steel saw, some screwdrivers and a hammer. He took them and put them in a plastic bag with no clear idea in his mind what he intended to do with them. He tried to compose himself, wondering if he was even making the right decision by leaving the safe house. But surely, in final analysis, he had no choice? He locked the house, went out on to Earls Court Road and waved down a cab.
In the taxi, he formed the basis of a plan. The storage cupboard was located in the basement of Holly’s building behind a door which was secured by padlock. Gaddis would use the metal saw to cut through the bolt. The basement could be accessed via an exterior staircase leading down from the street. Gaddis would need only to walk down this short flight of steps, to break the glass on the door and then to open it from the inside.