A Foreign Country. Charles Cumming

towards a bank of lifts. Kell took a few steps backwards, peered into the bar, and spotted a young couple drinking cognacs at a table in the far corner. A wide-hipped barmaid was picking peanuts off the carpet. The room was otherwise deserted. ‘Never mind,’ he said, turning back to the desk. ‘Could I arrange a wake-up call for the morning? Seven o’clock?’

      It was a small detail, but would give the porter the useful impression that Monsieur Uniacke intended to go to sleep as soon as he reached his room.

      ‘Of course, sir.’

      Kell was allocated a room on the third floor and walked up the stairs in order to familiarize himself with the layout of the hotel. On the first-floor landing he saw something that gave him an idea: a cupboard, the door ajar, in which a chambermaid had left a Hoover and various cleaning products. He continued along a short passage, entered his room using his card key, and immediately began to unpack. En route to Heathrow, Marquand had given him a laptop. Kell placed an encrypted 3G modem in a USB port and accessed the SIS server through three password-protected firewalls. There were two miniatures of Johnnie Walker in the mini-bar and he drank them, fifty-fifty with Evian, while he checked his email. Marquand had sent a message with an update on Amelia’s disappearance:

      Trust you have arrived safely. No sign of our friend. Peripherals still inactive.

      ‘Peripherals’ was a reference to Amelia’s credit cards and mobile phone.

      Funerals at crematoria in the Paris 14th on applicable days. Look for surnames: Chamson, Lilar, de Vilmorin, Tardieu, Radiguet, Malot, Bourget. Investigating further. Should have specifics within 24.

      Crematoria. Trust Marquand to be fastidious with the Latin. Kell sprayed some aftershave under his shirt, switched the SIMs on his mobile so that he could check any private messages from London, and wolfed a tube of Pringles from the mini-bar. He then replaced the Uniacke SIM and dialled the Knights’ number. Barbara picked up. It sounded as though her husband was doing the driving.

      ‘Mr Kell?’

      ‘Where are you, Barbara?’

      ‘We’re just parking around the corner from the hotel. We were a little delayed in traffic.’

      ‘Did you get the room?’

      ‘Yes. We rang from the airport.’

      ‘Who made the call?’

      ‘I did.’

      ‘And did you say it was for two people?’

      Barbara hesitated before replying, as though she suspected Kell was laying a trap for her. ‘Not specifically, but I think he understood that I was with my husband.’

      Kell took the risk. ‘Change of plan,’ he said. ‘I want you to check in alone. I need you to leave Bill on the outside.’

      ‘I see.’ There was an awkward pause as Barbara absorbed the instruction.

      ‘I’m going to create a diversion at two o’clock that will require the night porter to go upstairs and fetch a Hoover.’

      The line cut out briefly and Barbara said: ‘A what?’

      ‘A Hoover. A vacuum cleaner. Listen carefully. What I’m going to tell you is important. The Hoover is in a cupboard on the first-floor landing. You’ll be waiting there at two. When the porter comes up, tell him that you’re lost and can’t find your room. Get him to show you where it is. Don’t let him come back to reception. If he insists on doing so, make a fuss. Feign illness, start crying, do whatever you have to do. When you get to the door of your room, ask him to come inside and explain how to work the television. Keep him busy, that’s the main thing. I may need ten minutes if the log-in is down. Ask him questions. You’re a lonely old lady with jet lag. Is that OK? Do you think you can manage that?’

      ‘It sounds very straightforward,’ Barbara replied, and Kell detected a note of terseness in her voice. He was aware that he was being brusque, and that to describe her as an ‘old lady’ was not, in retrospect, particularly constructive.

      ‘When you check in, play up the eccentric side of your personality,’ he continued, trying to restore some rapport. ‘Get your papers in a muddle. Ask how to use the card key for your room. Flirt a little bit. The night porter is a young guy, probably speaks English. Try that first before you opt for French. OK?’

      It sounded as though Barbara was writing things down. ‘Of course, Tom.’

      Kell explained that he would call back at 1.45 a.m. to confirm the plan. In the meantime, she was to check the hotel for any signs of a security guard, maid or member of the kitchen staff who might have remained on the premises. If she saw anybody, she was to alert him immediately.

      ‘What room are you in?’ Barbara asked him.

      ‘Three two two. And tell Bill to keep his eye on the entrance. Anybody tries to come in from the street between one fifty-five and two-fifteen, he needs to stall them.’

      ‘I’ll do that.’

      ‘Make sure he understands. The last thing I’ll need when I’m sitting in the office is a guest walking through the lobby.’

      8

      ‘I simply don’t understand it. I don’t understand why he doesn’t want me to be involved.’

      Bill Knight was slumped over the wheel of the Mercedes, staring down at his beige patent leather shoes, shaking his head as he tried to fathom this latest, and probably final, SIS insult to his operational abilities. A passer-by, gazing through the window, might have assumed that he was weeping.

      ‘Darling, he does want you to be involved. He just wants you to be on the outside. He needs you to keep an eye on the door.’

      ‘At two o’clock in the morning? Who comes back to a hotel at two o’clock in the morning? He doesn’t trust me. He doesn’t think I’m up to it. He’s been told that you’re the star. It was ever thus.’

      Barbara Knight had mopped and soothed her husband’s fragile ego for almost forty years, through myriad professional humiliations, incessant financial crises, even his own hapless infidelities. She squeezed his clenched fingers as they gripped the handbrake and tried to resolve this latest crisis as best she could.

      ‘Plenty of people come back to a hotel at two o’clock in the morning, Bill. You’re just too old to remember.’ That was a mistake, reminding him of his age. She tried a different approach. ‘Kell needs to gain control of the reservations system. If somebody comes through the door and sees him behind the desk, they might smell a rat.’

      ‘Oh balls,’ said Knight. ‘It isn’t possible to get into any half-decent hotel in the world at that hour without first ringing a bell and having someone come down to let you in. Kell is fobbing me off. I’ll be wasting my time out here.’

      Right on cue, two guests appeared at the entrance to the Hotel Gillespie, rang the doorbell and waited as the night porter made his way to the bottom of the stairs. It was as though they had been provided by a mischievous god to illustrate Knight’s point. The porter assessed their credentials and allowed them to pass into the lobby. Bill and Barbara Knight, parked fifty metres away, saw the whole thing through the windscreen of their superannuated Mercedes.

      ‘See?’ he said, with weary triumph.

      Barbara was momentarily lost for words.

      ‘Nevertheless,’ she managed, ‘it’s best if they don’t ring the bell. Why don’t you buy yourself a packet of cigarettes and just loiter outside or something? You could still be very useful, darling.’

      Knight felt that he was being hoodwinked. ‘I don’t smoke,’ he said, and Barbara summoned the last of her strength in the face of his petulance.

      ‘Look, it’s perfectly clear that there’s no role for you in the hotel.