52

 

Alexander Minasian had left the Snaresbrook bed-and-breakfast, boarded a Central Line train into London, arranged a meeting with the SVR head of Station at a restaurant in Shepherds Market, and told him about KODAK’s relationship with Rachel Wallinger.

“Kell,” he said. “Tom Kell. What do you know about him?”

“The name is familiar. I can look into it. We will have files.”

“He was sent out to investigate the Wallinger accident. He had a meeting with Jim Chater at the American embassy in Ankara. According to KODAK, he came with this woman to a party he was hosting at a bar in Istanbul.”

“Kell knows Chater? They are friends?”

Minasian indicated that he did not know the answer to the question. He knew only that KODAK was possessed of a visceral hatred of Jim Chater. That he posed as Chater’s underling and creature, an admiring junior colleague learning at his master’s knee, but that KODAK despised the American’s ethics and working methods. Indeed there had been times when Minasian had felt that Ryan Kleckner’s work for the SVR was, in part, motivated by his animus against Chater.

“You have the date of this party?”

The head of Station was picking at a plate of chicken liver pâté. Minasian was not in the mood to eat.

“KODAK’s birthday,” Minasian replied. “According to the girl, that was the first night that she and Kell had met. We need to confirm that. They began a relationship that continued until Rachel returned to London. They had dinner here on Tuesday night, when she broke everything off. By then KODAK had already contacted her. She says she was more interested in seeing him.”

“According to who?”

“According to KODAK. This is what she told him on the night she came back to the Rembrandt. She says Kell is too old. Maybe forty-three, forty-four. She is only just thirty, she doesn’t want to be trapped in a relationship with a man she has no intention of marrying. Now she’s in Istanbul, she wants to have dinner with KODAK, he thinks she likes him.”

“Who do you believe?”

“It is not a question of who I believe,” Minasian replied, signaling for the bill. “It is a question of what the intelligence tells us.”