“What have Tintin and Lara Croft been up to then?” Charlie Waits chuckled at his own joke. “Our intrepid reporter and his new squeeze doing anything I should know about?”
“She’s not his squeeze,” said Jenny. “I should know. We’ve got their bedrooms bugged.”
“Well, not yet perhaps. In any case I think it’s time we had a chat face to face, if you can indulge me.”
“Of course.” Jenny took the phone from her ear to check the time on the screen. “If I get the next flight I could be at Vauxhall for eight.”
“Actually, I’m outside right now.”
She ran to the window and there he was, wearing chinos and a pale pink shirt open at the collar. A cashmere sweater was slung over his shoulders – he seemed not to feel the cold.
Waits waved at her. “Shall we promenade?”
Medcalf looked up from her novel. “No fecking way … Charlie’s outside?”
Jenny nodded grimly.
“What is he, a ghoul or something?” The Ulsterwoman returned to her reading, shaking her head.
Jenny laughed. “I admit there’s a whiff of brimstone about the man …”
Jenny liked her agent. The pair had begun keeping each other company in their hotel rooms in the snatched moments of downtime, chatting or playing backgammon. It reminded her of university days, and Jenny was surprised to note a wistfulness for lost friendships.
Waits led her to the Grand Bazaar; he wanted to buy a carpet for his landing. The mass of stalls dealt in Ottomanesque tat for the most part, but there was the odd antique shop where one might find something decent. Out of season the stallholders were desperate for custom, yet at a glance from Waits they shied back, scenting the sulphur. The spymaster had been sitting at their last meeting and Jenny was surprised to see how short he was. But still he projected that haughty ease a certain breed of Englishman possesses in spades.
“Shall we talk about what happened in the Agya Sophia?” he enquired.
“Yes, let’s,” replied Jenny, bracing herself for a reprimand. MI6 didn’t like things getting fraught, regardless of whose fault it was.
“Never mind about the photograph,” said Waits, swatting away an imaginary fly. “Accidents happen.”
“Thanks, Charlie, I appreciate that.”
“I’m more concerned about this other fellow, the one who got involved on the staircase. Chinese chap.” He stopped to peer at a rug. “What are your thoughts? An innocent bystander?”
“Alexander Guilherme thought he was clean,” she replied. “Said he didn’t seem the type. For a start he was very overweight …”
Jenny caught herself too late. A glint of anger stirred in Charlie’s eyes – perhaps her handler was conscious of his own ample figure.
“Nice one, that,” he said, adjusting his glasses to peer at a rug. “Nineteenth-century Hereke, if I’m not much mistaken.”
Jenny knew not to apologize. Contrition would only highlight Waits’s loss of control.
“Alexander says if the Chinese guy was working for someone else then he was a damn good actor,” she said, turning to look the spymaster in the face. “Was he working for someone else?”
“I don’t know, why should I know?” Waits’s chin quivered from left to right. “We’ve got absolutely no evidence anyone else is keeping an eye on him.”
“Evidence is not suspicion. Is there suspicion?”
His smile fell away like rock cleaved from the cliff face. “We’ve absolutely no evidence anyone else is keeping an eye on Wolsey but ourselves,” he repeated. “Well then – how about tea?”
Damn the man, Jenny thought as they sat at a small café. Waits chose his words with the care of a Queen’s Counsel barrister; the same judiciousness was now being applied to the cake-stand. She watched in distaste as he selected four large baklava, oozing with syrup.
“It would help if I knew why we’re watching him,” she said. “I could concentrate our resources better. There would be less chance of us missing something important.”
“It’s for your own good that you don’t know, my dear, it really is.” Waits inserted a pastry into his mouth. “You’ll just have to trust me on that.”
“Your interest in the Chinese tourist suggests it’s to do with Chung’s project,” said Jenny mischievously. “With what they’re up to in the Agya Sophia.”
Her handler’s eyes twinkled. “Maybe yes, maybe no.”
Waits gobbled down the rest of his baklava, dabbing up the last traces of pistachio with his fingers. He was a most fastidious eater.