HOME RUN (20 page)

"Where is he now?" he asked quietly.

"Top end of Kensington High Street, his motor's on double yellows. Harlech says he's looking pretty pissed off. The sign on the door where he's gone says it's an Import-Export company. Haven't any more yet."

"Tally ho, Keeper."

Park grinned. "For the moment it's fine, but it's just a beginning."

"Home Office files, a stateless person has to have a guarantor."

"Nice one, Bill."

"What would not be nice would be for you to lose track of a load of stuff. Got me? That would not be nice."

The load of stuff was still in the flat in Beaufort Street, Park would have sworn to that. The Suzuki had the canvas back off, and the stuff wasn't in the cab. There was a watch on the front and back of the flat, 24 hours, and the tail was solid on the jeep when it went out, just as it had been solid when Tango One had come out earlier in the morning and gone down to the delicatessen for a pastry and a coffee.

Park would be going down to the Home Office. Parrish would be linking the radios. That was the way Parrish liked it best, left in the Lane with just the typists and clerical assistants to spoil him and share their lunches with him, and keep him fuelled up with coffee. The youngsters all out, raring to go and gone. It took a fair amount to wind up old Parrish, it took the whole of his team out and hunting to wind him right up.

He was in one hell of a great mood that morning, and thumping out on two fingers his progress report for the ACIO.

Of course he was excited, of course it had been one hell of a risk to let Eshraq and the stuff loose.

"You're very kind. I thank you."

"For nothing."

Mahmood Shabro walked through the outer office with Charlie. He was no fool, he saw the way his new secretary glanced up from her desk at the boy. He saw the trace of the smile at Charlie's lips. He took Charlie to the outer door.

"You pass to Jamil my best wishes."

"I will, Mr Shabro. I will see him tomorrow, if he can manage that."

He had not asked why Charlie should wish an introduction to his brother, the renegade and the fly one from whom he kept a secure distance.

"Look after yourself, my boy."

The outer door closed on Charlie's back. He stood in the centre of the outer office for a moment.

"I think Charlie has disappointed you, my dear."

She shrugged. "He might have rung."

"He should have rung."

"I mean . . . I don't just go, go out, with anyone. I'm not that type . . . "

She was efficient, she had his outer office organised, she was starting to learn the detail of his work. He wanted to keep Polly Venables. It was a peculiar request that Charlie had made to him that morning for an introduction to his brother.

His brother was involved in politics, and his brother had no visible means of financial support. Nevertheless, he had arranged the meeting.

"It would not be wise for you, Polly, to concern yourself too greatly with Charlie."

Park strode out of the Home Office building.

It had taken only an hour. He had in his briefcase a photocopy of the paperwork completed at the time of issue of a stateless person's travel document to Charles Eshraq, refugee from Iran.

The name of the guarantor was Matthew Furniss, Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

9

"Good morning, Mr Furniss." The voice was a wind whisper in trees.

Mattie started up from the tiled floor. He had been doing his press-ups.

"It is excellent to stay in good health, Mr Furniss."

His jacket and his shirt were on the bed, his shoes were placed neatly under the bed. He was sweating under his vest and his hair was dishevelled. Of course they had watched him through the spyhole in the door. They would have waited until he was stripped down for his exercises before making the entry. The fitting of the plywood screen on the window had tiny gaps in it, and he had known hours before that it was daylight. He did not know how many hours because his watch had been taken from his wrist when he was still semi-concussed in the truck. He had sat for what he reckoned had been hours on his bed, sometimes he lay and tried to sleep, waiting for them to come, and when the hours had drifted away he had decided to do his exercises. Of course they had watched him.

"It is my great pleasure to meet you, Mr Furniss."

Mattie spoke fluent Farsi, but the man spoke almost unaccented English. It was another tiny shaft into the shell of his spirit.

He was stumbling to his feet, and breathing hard. He would have liked to have stood his ground in the centre of the room, but his muscles were blood alive and his lungs heaved. He sat down heavily on the bed, and he started to pull his shirt over his shoulders.

"You are . . . ?"

"I am the investigator in your case, Mr Furniss."

"Do you have a name? A name would be a small courtesy.

And let me tell you my name. I am not your Mr Furniss. I don't need an investigator, thank you. I am Dr Owens, University of London, and I insist on being released immediately and on transport, at once, to my hotel. This has gone on long enough."

"Excuse me."

The man glided across the room and bent down close to Mattie and with sure movements he threaded the laces from Mattie's shoes and pocketed them, and then his hands came to Mattie's waist and he unbuckled the belt from the trousers and pulled it clear. There was a small expression of regret in the hazel eyes. Mattie read him. Not regret that he had to take away his prisoner's laces and belt, but irritation that it had not already been done.

It was the first time that he had been spoken to since his capture. The tray on which food had been brought to his room was on the floor beside his shoes. Neither of the men had spoken when the food was brought. The door unlocked, the tray put down just inside the door, a second man standing behind the one who had carried the tray.

It was as Mattie would have done it himself.

He had his shirt buttoned. He had his shoes loose over his socks. He smoothed down his hair.

He supposed that he was surprised that the investigator was not wearing a suit and tie. He noted the American jeans, faded, and the long tailed shirt, out of the trouser waist, and the sandals, no socks. He saw the harsh, short cut of the man's hair. He thought the man was a little younger than himself, he had spotted the grey pepper pot flecks over the temples of his head, and care lines below his eyes. Pretty horrible eyes.

Eyes without life.

"I should explain. You are in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Mr Furniss. You are of interest to the struggling masses of our people in their fight to rid themselves of American and Zionist and British domination. That is why you are here."

He straightened his back, he drew the deep breath down.

"I am an archaeologist, I am not very interesting to anybody and I am no part of what you call British domination."

The words hung, fell. Mattie saw the smile curl at the mouth of the investigator, but no humour in those awful eyes.

He said nothing.

"I can only suggest that you have made, whoever employs you, has made a mistake of which I am the victim. If a scholar cannot go about his work then the world has come to a pretty pass. I have devoted my adult life to the study of the Urartians, to their culture, to their architecture, to their disappearance.

You have people in London, I presume. You can check what I say with the Curator of Near Eastern Antiquities at the British Museum."

"No doubt, Mr Furniss."

The smile had gone from the investigator's face.

"I would be most grateful if you could make such checks as speedily as possible so that this ridiculous business can be concluded. I have no quarrel with the people of Iran, with their Revolution. I am not a politician, I am a scholar. I am engaged on work that is purely historical in its nature, and before I lose my patience will you kindly get it into your head that my name is O.W.E.N.S, Owens. I am not, quite obviously, who you think I am."

"Mr Furniss, I came this morning to see you to establish that you were well, that you had not been injured. I did not come to discuss the cover story that you have manufactured for yourself."

"Cover . . . this is preposterous. Go away, now. I have had enough of this. Go away and check before you get yourself into serious trouble."

"Mr Furniss, later today you will be brought some sheets of paper and a pencil. You may begin to write down your reasons for travelling to that area of Turkey which has a common border with our country. You should write of your activities most fully."

"I will, most gladly. You'll have a full account, and by the time I am finished I shall expect you back with a handsome apology. But I must warn you, I shall take this matter up at the British Embassy in Ankara, apology or no apology."

The hazel eyes hovered over Mattie's body, seemed to weigh him, explore him. The voice was softer than before.

"Mr Furniss, let me remind you: between 1975 and 1978

you were the Station Officer in Tehran representing the British Secret Intelligence Service. There was a day in February, 1976, a morning, as I remember, when you came to the headquarters of the SAVAK. I remember it clearly because it was I who brought in the coffee for you and the officers with whom you met. Myself, Mr Furniss, I handed you the coffee . . . I do not recall a discussion of Urartian forti-fications."

Like a punch to the stomach. "I'm afraid you have a case of mistaken identity."

"When the paper comes, Mr Furniss, it is advisable that you fill it."

Mattie's head dropped. He heard the shuffle of the sandals on the tiles, and the door opening on oiled hinges, and the turning of a key.

A pale body, sinew under the skin. Park never wore a vest.

In his chest of drawers at home he had vests that Ann had bought him the first January Sales after they were married, and they had never been worn. The girls in the April office didn't look up because none of them was that interested in Park, a cold creature, and anyway they were pretty used to seeing men with their shirts off, strapping on the canvas harnesses for radio transmitter/receivers. It was a harness that could support a Smith and Wesson .38, but the ID never carried "pumps". If the guns were thought necessary, then the marksmen were supplied by the police. Park had the microphone on a cord around his neck, and he shrugged back into his shirt, and put the clear plastic earpiece in place.

There would be two cars and a van in place that morning.

They could follow Tango One wherever he cared to lead them.

The van had a miserable clutch and wouldn't be able to keep up with the cars, but it would get there eventually. Corinthian would be on the Pentax with the 500mm lens, Keeper would be telling him what was wanted on the celluloid, what wasn't worth it.

Parrish had wandered out of his office.

"Still in his pit, is he?"

"He came out for his bun and coffee, went back in . . .

we'll be there in half an hour."

"Anything on his phone?"

"He hasn't used it."

"What about the profile?"

"I'm going to do half day in the van, then have Harlech take over. Then I'm going down to shake up the FCO chappies a bit."

"Ah yes, the best and the brightest," said Parrish.

Park grinned. The military and the Foreign Office were the officers, the police and the ID were the poor bloody infantry, that was Parrish's unchangeable view. Parrish would never take a six-bedroom farmhouse in Tuscany for his holidays, he was in a caravan at Salcombe . . . for that matter Park didn't take any holidays at all.

"I was actually quite polite last night. I asked for their personnel officer, I explained that I needed to talk to a Mr Matthew Furniss, and the guy went off, bloody supercilious but perfectly nice, and came back twenty minutes later and just shut a real heavy door in my face. Didn't say he was abroad, nor on holiday, just that he wasn't available. I sprang about a bit, got absolutely nowhere. He looked at me like I'd come in with the cat. Upshot is, I'm back there at four. I promise you, Bill, I'll have an answer then."

"I'll come down with you," Parrish said.

"Frightened I might thump someone?"

" T o hold your delicate hand, Keeper - now get yourself moving."

Parrish thought his squad were the pick of the world, and he was buggered if he was going to have them messed around by some creep in the Foreign and Commonwealth. He'd be an interesting fellow, Mr Matthew Furniss, guarantor of a big-time heroin distributor.

The Director General showed himself that morning. He saw himself as the captain of a storm-shaken ship, not that he would have cared to voice that feeling. He believed passionately in the responsibilities of leadership, and so he wandered the corridors and rode the lifts, he even took his coffee in the canteen. He took Houghton with him, the only fairly anonymous courtier, to whisper the name of any officer he didn't know and his job in the Service.

Century was compartmentalized. The North American Desk was not supposed to know of the day-to-day successes or failures of East European Desk. East European Desk was supposed to be insulated from Far East Desk. No other Desk would know of the abduction of Mattie Furniss. That was the system, and it was bust wide open. The Director General found his whole building riddled with rumour and anxiety.

He was asked to his face if there was any news of Mattie Furniss, whether it was true about Mattie Furniss. He sought to deflect all but the most persistent, to reassure them, and to switch talk whenever possible to other matters - the new computer, the cricket match against the Security Service on Gordon Street's ground, the rewiring of the building that was scheduled to begin in the autumn. He decided to call it a day long before he reached Iran Desk's office.

Back in his office he sent for his Deputy Director General.

The man was just back from three weeks in Bermuda and paid for, no doubt, with family money. The sun had tanned the Deputy's face, darkened it to the roots of his full head of blond hair and accentuated his youth. The Director General would finish his career in public service when he left Century, and it was assumed throughout the nineteen floors that the Deputy would follow him into the DG's job. Their relation-ship, twenty years apart as they were, had been at best strained since the arrival of the Director General from Foreign and Commonwealth, because the Deputy had narrowly missed the nod for the job himself, said to be too young and to have time in the bank. The DDG regarded himself as the expert and the DG as the amateur. They worked best when they had clearly distinct spheres within which to operate. But on that morning the Director General was not in any way combative. He needed movement, he would have to suffer a third meeting in two days with the Prime Minister in the late afternoon.