51

 

“The first thing Minasian will do is run a check on you. Try to find out everything he can about your relationship with Rachel. Then he’ll turn it around. Go to every e-mail she ever wrote, every text message she ever sent, and find out if she knows that you’re investigating Ryan.”

“I’m aware of that, Amelia.”

They were walking through Notting Hill, the rain a memory, London trying its best to be warm and European. Rachel was already in Istanbul, Kleckner on the plane. Minasian had not shown his face at the Russian embassy and was assumed to have returned to Kiev.

“What do we know about him?” Kell asked.

“Very little.” Amelia’s frank admission took Kell by surprise. “Youngish. Younger than you, anyway. Post-Soviet, in the sense that he has no bloodstream ideological link to the old days. Still in nappies during the Gorbachev coup. Ukraine is obviously of strategic importance to the Kremlin, but I suspect Minasian was posted to Kiev solely to service Kleckner, not to work the EU angle. Married. Children. Family man. Peters thinks very highly of him.” Peters was the ranking SIS officer in the Kiev Station. “Minasian is thorough, slick, ambitious. A rising star. We think the order to kill Sandor originated in Moscow, not with him, and that Minasian may have argued against it. He might be your common or garden SVR psychopath, he might not. Either way, he’s still low enough on the food chain to do what he’s told when Moscow thinks it knows best.”

Amelia was talking without looking at Kell, clipping along the pavement with impatient speed. Passing a policeman on the corner of Lansdowne Walk, she pressed Kell on his relationship with Rachel.

“Is there anything, in any of your correspondence, in which you discussed the molehunt?” Kell drew Amelia’s eyes to his and produced a withering stare that nevertheless failed to deflect her. “Even if you didn’t mention the leaks, did you discuss why you were in Turkey?”

“Of course we discussed that. Rachel knew that I was investigating her father’s crash. She knew that I’d been tapped up to replace him.” Amelia made a noise through her teeth; that revelation in itself constituted a breach of the Secrets Act. Kell settled on a mood of absolute candor. “She hated the fact that I couldn’t tell her what was going on. We tried to avoid the subject of my job as much as possible. I now realize, of course, why she was so reluctant to talk about the Office. Because all the time she was working for you.”

“Not all the time, Tom…”

“… she was afraid that I’d find out your dirty little secret.”

“A dirty little secret that just happened to produce the intel which will put Kleckner behind bars. But thank you for your support and understanding.”

It had been plain to Kell for some time that his friendship with Amelia might easily now deteriorate to a point from which it would never be salvaged. There would be too much bad blood between them. Too many lies.

“Did you talk to Rachel about Cecilia Sandor?” he asked.

“Did you?” Amelia’s quick, impatient glance further illustrated the extent of her frustration. Kell told her what she needed to know. “Of course we talked about her,” he said. “She was her father’s mistress. She knew all about her. So did Josephine. Rachel read their bloody love letters.”

“And did you tell her that Sandor was Hungarian NSA?”

It would have been easier to lie, to react with outrage at the accusation, but Kell knew that he was cornered. He had no choice but to tell the truth.

“Yes. She knows that.”

“Fantastic.” Amelia was shaking her head. “Was that a conversation or did you have it on e-mail?”

“I would never commit something like that to paper.” Kell’s response sounded brusque, but he privately acknowledged that he could not remember precisely where or when or how he had spoken to Rachel about Sandor’s intelligence background. Nor did he confess to a further sin—that Rachel knew Sandor had been assassinated. Amelia already had too much to work with.

“Have you heard from her?” she asked.

“Amelia, I haven’t heard from her since we had a row in the restaurant. It’s what you wanted, right? It’s the cover. I’m the jilted lover, she’s not responding to my calls.”

“Good. At least that’s one positive. As soon as she gets in touch, I’ll let you know.”