The Hidden Man. Charles Cumming

up my dry cleaning for the party?’

      ‘Alice, I’m not your fucking PA. I’ve been busy in the studio all day. If I have time, I’ll get it tomorrow.’

      ‘Great.’ And she was on her feet, sighing. ‘Too busy doing what? To walk five hundred metres to the main road?’

      ‘No. Too busy working.’

       ‘Working?’

      ‘Is that where we’re going with this?’ Ben pointed towards the attic. ‘Painting isn’t work? There’s no such thing as a busy day when you’re an artist?’

      Alice took off her earrings and put them on a table.

      ‘Was that her?’ she asked, trying a different tack. ‘The one at the bottom of the stairs?’

      ‘Jenny? Yes, when you came in. Of course it was.’

      ‘And is she nice?’

       ‘Nice?’

      ‘Do you get on with her?’

      A pause.

      ‘We get on fine, yes. She just lies down and I start painting. It’s not really about “getting on”.’

      ‘What is it about then?’

      ‘So you’re now picking a fight with me about a model?’

      Alice turned her back on him.

      ‘It’s just that I thought you were painting older people nowadays. Isn’t that the idea for the new show?’

      ‘No. Why would you think that? It’s just nudes. Age doesn’t come into it.’

      ‘So you still hire a girl purely on the basis of looks?’

      Ben stood up from the sofa and decided to get away. He would go back upstairs to the studio, put on a record and wait until Alice had calmed down.

      ‘Look,’ he said, ‘you’ve had a bad day at work. Somebody fucked you over. Try not to take it out on everyone else.’ Alice stubbed out her cigarette and said nothing. ‘Why don’t we start again later? Mark’s arriving in less than an hour. Have a bath and chill out.’

      ‘Don’t tell me to “chill out”. Just give me a straight answer to my question.’

      Ben had to stop and turn.

      ‘To what question?’

      And Alice reacted as if he were deliberately concealing something.

      ‘Fine,’ she said, and pointedly looked at her watch. ‘What time does the dry cleaner close?’

      ‘How the fuck should I know?’

      ‘Well, I’m just wondering what I’m going to wear to this party tomorrow night, now that you haven’t picked up my dress.’

      ‘So go and get it. You’re a big girl.’

      ‘Well, I don’t have much choice, do I?’

      And Ben was halfway upstairs, heading back to the studio, when he heard the front door slam behind him.

      6

      Stephen Taploe called the waitress over with an impatient wave of his hand and asked for the bill. It had become necessary to conduct the rest of the conversation outside the café, because there were now three men standing idly behind Keen’s chair, sucking on bottles of Mexican lager. The bill came to a little under nine pounds and Taploe put the receipt carefully in his wallet. He was very exact when it came to filing for expenses.

      The two men crossed the road and turned towards Brook Green, a steady head-on wind blowing dried leaves and litter along the pavement. Choosing his moment with care, Taploe said, ‘What do you know about a man called Sebastian Roth?’

      The question took Keen by surprise. His first thought was that someone inside Divisar had breached client confidentiality.

      ‘Why don’t you tell me what you know about a man called Sebastian Roth and I’ll see if I can be of any assistance?’ he said. ‘Sort of fill in the blanks.’

      Taploe had anticipated that Keen would be evasive; it bought him time.

      ‘I know what any person can read in the papers. Roth is thirty-six years old, an entrepreneur, very well connected with the present Labour government, the only son of a Tory peer. He went to Eton, where he was neither particularly successful nor popular and dropped out of Oxford after less than a year. After a stint in the City, he opened the original Libra nightclub about six months before Ministry of Sound and at least a year before Cream first took off in Liverpool. Those three are still the nightclubs of choice for the younger generation, though it’s mostly compact discs now, isn’t it? That’s how they make their money.’ Keen remained silent. ‘Judging from the photographs in certain magazines – Tatler, Harpers & Queen and so on – Roth looks to have a new girlfriend on his arm every week, although we think he’s something of a loner. Very little contact with his family, no relationship at all with either of his two siblings. Libra is his passion, extending the brand, controlling the business. Roth spends a lot of time overseas, collects art, and has recently finished conversion on a house in Pimlico valued at over two million pounds. I also happen to know that one of his representatives came to your company some months ago asking for assistance.’

      Keen slowed his pace.

      ‘You know that I can’t discuss that,’ he said.

      ‘Then allow me discuss it for you.’ It was all going very well for Stephen Taploe, the one-upmanship, the gradual trap. He flattened down his moustache and coughed lightly. ‘Roth has a lawyer friend, an individual by the name of Thomas Macklin. Helped him build the Libra empire, the Paris and New York sites, the merchandising arm in particular. I believe you’ve made his acquaintance?’

      ‘Go on.’ The hard soles of Keen’s brogues clipped on the pavement as they turned left into Sterndale Road.

      ‘In the past four months, Macklin has made eight separate trips to Russia. On three of these journeys he took internal flights from St Petersburg to Moscow, where he remained for several days.’

      ‘May I ask why he was being followed?’

      To encourage a greater openness in Keen, Taploe opted to be as candid as the situation would allow.

      ‘He wasn’t being followed, exactly. At least, not at first. But on Macklin’s third visit to the Russian capital he was observed by local law enforcement officials talking to a known member of the Kukushkin crime syndicate under observation in a separate case. Nothing unusual there, you might think, but the meetings then occurred again, on trips four, five and six. Each time with the same man, albeit in a different location.’

      ‘What was the contact’s name?’

      ‘Malere,’ Taploe replied. ‘Kristin Malere. A Lithuanian, originally out of Vilnius. Anyway, as you may or may not be aware, my organization has been developing increasingly strong links with the organized crime division of Russian Internal Affairs. Because Macklin is a British citizen, these meetings were brought to our attention and my team began looking into it.’

      ‘On the basis of a few meetings with a low-level Baltic hoodlum?’

      Taploe sniffed. He did not enjoy having his judgment brought into question by anyone, least of all a disdainful MI6 toff eight years in the private sector.

      ‘Ordinarily, of course, this would not have aroused our suspicion.’ He wanted Keen to know his place, to feel like an outsider. ‘After all, Mr Macklin was only representing the interests of his employer. As you will be aware, it is often necessary in the present climate to climb into bed with what I like to call some of the unsavoury characters on the Russian landscape.’

      Keen looked at his watch.

      ‘Now,