Walking the dog

We were up early the following morning. It was one of those rare bright winter days where there is no wind and the world looks made anew under its carpet of shimmering frost. The sky was an achingly blue vault with the only clouds a couple of puffs left over from God’s cigar. It isn’t possible not to feel glad to be alive on such a morning, whether you’re Man or dog.

Liam and Niall strolled off in opposite directions through the dunes to spy out the land while Angela, Trotsky, Magic and I headed down on to the beach for an early morning walk. Magic ran in circles in his own loopy, uncoordinated way while Trotsky paced beside us, ears erect, his great bush of a tail held high and curling over his regimentally straight back. Periodically he would spot a particularly brazen seagull that refused to concede his passage and he’d charge off in full hunting mode until the offending bird took to the air, leaving him with a lolling tongue and slightly sheepish air.

Angela held my hand and we talked lightly as we strolled. Once I saw Liam standing watching us at the edge of the dunes and he raised a hand, as if in benediction. Angela waved back gaily and he disappeared from view, a cell-phone clamped to his right ear, the picture of a professional. I found a piece of driftwood and hurled it into the sea for Magic. He plunged in, unbounded joy showing in every fibre. His two favourite occupations – swimming and retrieving; he must have thought Christmas had come early.

We walked for an hour or so. Ours were the only prints defiling the pristine sand. The sea was that particular hue of green, which characterises that stretch of coastline. It was only marred by the silty brown stain that marked the river’s effluence. The North Sea is too shallow ever to be truly blue, whatever the weather. This is the Wash, where legend has it King John lost the Crown Jewels. The land and sea lie constantly at war. One can imagine hearing the faint tolling of bells in drowned steeples when the wind rises. All around, the flat country recedes from the eye, interrupted only by occasional evidence of human habitation and the odd stump of a church tower. The coastline sweeps away to east and west, vanishing into a blurred and low horizon. It is a bleak place, bleak and beautiful.

The seductive smell of frying bacon greeted us on our return. Niall was busy in the kitchen and Liam was stacking fresh-hewn logs in the outhouse. His shirtless torso glowed with health. The muscular perfection of his body was only spoiled by two livid purple marks of puckered flesh just below his ribs. I knew these to be the legacy of a fierce night engagement on Tumbledown Mountain in the Falklands War. Neither brother would ever talk much about their experiences but I had seen the citation for Liam’s Military Cross. He had been hit twice early in the fighting but had continued to lead his platoon throughout the night. He was hit once more later on and was eventually persuaded to go to the First Aid post. He walked out; four miles over rough country in the darkness. It was later discovered that the last bullet had broken his ankle. Recalling this, I was once more grateful those two lunatics were on our side.

Over breakfast we made our respective plans for the day. Angela and I had to go to the police station in Cromer to settle the matter of her disappearance. We decided to stick to the truth but leave out the inconvenient bits. Angela had found her place trashed, got scared and come to London. There was nothing taken so it could just be a case of vandalism. Then I had to speak to Ted Allen at the Capital Taxes Office to find out who might know a bit more about this ikon. Liam and Niall offered to come with us to Cromer but it was clear that they were merely being polite. They agreed, instead, to do a bit of ‘snooping’ locally, just in case the opposition were about. Half an hour later I loaded Magic and Trotsky into the Volvo and we set off, surrounded by the pungent aroma of wet dog.

The Cromer police were icily polite and made no secret of their annoyance. Like most policemen, they trod warily around a lawyer, punctiliously correct but no more. We breathed a sigh of relief when they eventually let us go after Angela had given a statement. I doubted very much we’d hear from them further. We drove back to the cottage slowly. Angela pointed out various places of interest. This was her manor; I was the visitor. I felt a certain reluctance to get back into the world of Russian ikons and Chechen Mafia. The morning walk, the weather and, not least, our growing intimacy, had lulled me into a false sense of well-being. Now it was time to plunge back into the murk once more.

Ted Allen was all cheery bonhomie. “Christ, Martin,” he said, “Never saw you as the devotional type. George Allardyce is your man. You might not remember George, bit before your time. George took the hump when the Department moved out of Somerset House. He started up a little gallery in Chester. I think he still does valuations for some of the esoteric stuff. He’s quite brilliant but a prickly old sod. If George doesn’t know it then it doesn’t exist.” We chatted for a couple of minutes more about mutual acquaintances and I thanked Ted and hung up. I got the number for the Allardyce Gallery in Chester from Directory Enquiries and placed the call.

A voice as dry as old parchment with more than a hint of irritation answered. I explained who I was and what I was seeking. The timbre of the voice changed utterly and enthusiasm poured down the wires.

“12th Century Triptych on Boxwood, eh? The most famous one, and there are only four we know of, was given by Rasputin to the Czarina. That one is in the Hermitage in St Petersburg, another is owned by the Patriarch of the Orthodox Church in Moscow. That leaves two in private hands. One of these I’ m certain isn’t available. That Greek oil chap, Nikolaides, owns it. He doesn’t part with anything. That leaves the fourth and that has a very interesting little history.

“Now this one was brought out of Russia by a Wehrmacht officer during the latter stages of World War Two. Unusually, for those times, it wasn’t looting. Seems that this German chappie had saved a monastery from the attentions of the SS. Apparently he was the religious type and he lined up his tanks and threatened to blow all the Blackshirts to Kingdom Come. They wanted to fire the place as a nest of partisans. Our hero wasn’t having any. The Abbot or whatever presented him with this ikon as a sign of gratitude. They shot him eventually, of course, but the ikon was passed on to his sister.”

“What happened then?”

“Old Fat Hermann grabbed it for his collection at Karenhall. There was the dickens of a fight after the war with the Reds wanting it back. However, Fraulein Sussmann or somesuch had the provenance. She got it back, has it still, to my knowledge. Hmmm. Advertised as the ‘property of a lady’, you say? My money’s on this one.”

“Any ideas how we might contact this Fraulein Sussmann?”

“Frau Meyer, she is now.”

“What did you say?”

“She got married, boy. Her name is now Meyer. Mrs Helga Meyer. Rich as Croesus and a patron of the Arts. Mad as a bat, of course, but then women of that age often are. Hope that answers your questions, I’ve got things to do. Goodbye.”

And with that, he hung up. I sat there in stunned silence for a full minute. Angela was gazing at me, her eyes brim full of concern. “What did he say?” Her voice had a nervous edge. I repeated what Allardyce had told me. It was Angela’s turn to be stunned. “Frau Meyer?” She kept repeating the question softly to herself. Liam and Niall came in and we told them the full story. “It doesn’t make sense,” said Niall. I shook my head. Something was stirring uneasily at the back of my mind. I wasn’t there yet but I had the first glimmerings.

We kicked it back and forth, worrying at it like Magic gnaws a stick. That elusive little tickle at the back of my mind came and went. After a while, Angela said, “Let us summarise.” Niall pulled out a note pad and wrote as Angela spoke.

“Frau Meyer is my patron. She has bought some of my work. I think she has supported others but she doesn’t speak of it. Her brother gave her the ikon before he died. The Soviet Government contested her ownership after the War but she won. We think she is now selling the ikon through Hervey’s in London.”

We all affirmed that this was accurate thus far.

“This is where I don’t understand,” she went on. “Some people, who we think are Chechens, break into my house looking for something. Then Martin has a visit from this Mr Cornell. He tells Martin lies about my father. Later, he changes his story and says they are looking for a stolen ikon. Martin says Hervey’s won’t sell an ikon if the seller can’t prove where it came from. This, I believe. But if it is Frau Meyer’s ikon, then what has my father got to do with any of this? He doesn’t know Frau Meyer. She became my patron after I left Estonia. It makes no sense at all.”

From the glum looks all around, I could tell we were all equally flummoxed. Niall threw his notepad onto the low table between us. “These are the notes I made,” he said. He had drawn a diagram with the word ‘ikon’ in the centre. A line ran to Frau Meyer and, through her, to Angela. Another line ran from the ikon to the name ‘Cornell’ then onwards to ‘British Government’ and then, in dotted form, to ‘Russian Government.’ Another dotted line linked the legend ‘Chechens?’ with both ‘Cornell’ and ‘Russian Government’.

We studied Niall’s chart like soothsayers reading the entrails of a sheep. “The truth is, me darlin’,” said Liam, “your father doesn’t fit into the pattern at all. Either the ikon is the bloody red herring or your father is. I just don’t get it.” Again, I felt that faint nudge from my subconscious. We talked on in circles for a while. Angela was becoming heated. She marched to the sideboard and pulled a batch of letters out of the drawer. She shuffled through them, extracting one. She pulled the phone towards her and dialled a long number. A conversation in German ensued. The only words I understood were ‘Frau Meyer’ and ‘ikon’. After a while she hung up and turned towards us, a gleam of triumph in her eyes.

“It is Frau Meyer’s ikon,” she said. “It seems she has recently decided to get rid of all her religious pieces. She has a quarrel with God, it seems.” A smile played briefly around her face. “She has found me a quantity of bronze and she is shipping it over. It should have been here last month but there was a problem with the shipping firm. Finally, she wishes to commission three new pieces from me; they are to be of my own choosing.” We all congratulated Angela on her new commission. I knew, even if the twins didn’t, how hugely important such things were to relatively unknown artists.

“Well,” I said, “we now know the ikon is for real. I don’t see how that helps us, though. One thing we can do, however, is tell Cornell. It might get them off our backs once and for all.” The others agreed and I rose and crossed to the phone to call Cornell. My call was answered on the second ring. “Chief Inspector Howard,” a disembodied voice announced, “Who’s speaking?” “My name is Martin Booth,” I replied, “I’d like to speak to Mr Michael Cornell.” There was a snort from the other end of the line. “Then you’re going to need a bloody ouija board, Mr Booth. I hope he wasn’t a close friend of yours because Mr Michael Cornell is dead.”

I was shocked to silence. The policeman carried on speaking as if he’d said ‘it’s raining in London today.’ I stammered through an explanation, winging it but basing it loosely on the truth. Cornell had come to see me asking about ikons. I’d promised to enquire among my contacts. I assumed it was a Government matter. He sounded narrowly suspicious as he questioned me further. I didn’t mention Angela, Chechens or anything else. He thawed a little when I said I’d been in Norfolk with friends since the previous evening. I agreed to call him when I returned to London. He barked his number at me and rang off. The others sat in silence as I relayed the conversation. I reckon we were all thinking furiously but no one had a single thing to say.

At length we drifted away from the parlour. Angela gave me a tight squeeze but shook her head when I started to say something. She gazed into my eyes with a look that was almost fierce with the love that was in her. “Not now, my Martin,” was all she said. I knew she was right. We needed time to think. We both noticed the grim look that passed between the twins. Something unspoken was agreed upon and I thought I knew what it was.

We spent the afternoon separately. I returned to the beach with Magic and Trotsky, to walk and think and try to clear my head. Angela went to her studio and, assisted by Niall, began to repair the damage in preparation for the new commission. Liam patrolled the dunes, keeping an eye on me and the approaches to the cottage. I noticed, with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, that his jacket bulged beneath his shoulder once again. I had been right with my interpretation of that grim look.

Chapter Nine

I walked back to the cottage through the fading light. A man and a boy were making their way down to the beach. They were festooned with the arcane gear of beach fishermen. Long rods, tackle boxes, paraffin lamps and the like seemed to hang everywhere and they were making heavy weather of it, trudging through the soft sand. The boy was animated, obviously excited. His father, for such I supposed the man to be, was patiently plodding in the child’s wake. I looked up and tried to spot my guardian but Liam couldn’t be seen. All the same, I knew he was there. It was both reassuring and terrifying at the same time.

I had been trying to work out who had killed Mickey the Mouth. I didn’t like the man much but wouldn’t have wished him dead. The obvious suspects were the Chechens, if that was what they were. Cornell’s ikon story seemed to have been fabricated for our consumption. He knew of the link between Frau Meyer and Angela and learned of the sale. He probably guessed that I would keep digging, discover the link and then back off to protect Angela. It was subtle and would have been effective apart from that false start involving Angela’s father. I couldn’t believe the currency story. It just didn’t fit. There was only one conclusion I kept returning to. Angela’s father was alive and someone wanted to find him rather badly.

I decided to keep my speculations to myself. It was just a gut feeling. I hadn’t a scrap of evidence but whenever my thoughts turned down that track, the little warm prickling sensation at the back of my mind grew stronger. The evening was as calm and still as the day had been. The clear skies promised another hard frost and the temperature was dropping by the minute as the sun dipped to sleep behind the land. I stopped for a moment just to take it in. I breathed in the promise of the night. My mind quietened. The spinning thoughts slowed and died, one by one. I looked for a moment of tranquillity. Resentment crept over me instead, catching me unawares. I suddenly found myself thinking, ‘why me?’ This was soon followed by the old childhood saw ‘it’s not fair!’ No sooner had the phrase formed in my mind, the spell was broken. I could laugh at myself again, mocking the self-pity. After all, I now had Angela.

She was coming out of the studio as the dogs and I came in. Magic launched his soggy length towards her and she knelt to fuss him. Trotsky looked in an interested fashion, too aloof to prostitute himself for an ear-scratching. She smiled up at me. ” Hello, my Martin,” she said and my heart gave a funny lurch. She was dressed in some sort of loose-fitting overalls and her hair was scraped back and held at her nape with a band. Some loose tendrils of hair had escaped and she blew them from her face with puffed cheeks. Magic’s tail was thumping manically against the wall. The tail of a flat-coated retriever is lethal to anything at retriever-rump level other than reinforced concrete. Angela sighed and rose. She sniffed at her armpit unselfconsciously. “Phew, I smell like an old bear,” she said and grinned. “Time for a shower.”

We took that shower together. I washed her hair and then minutely washed every inch of her, first with the soap and then with kisses. I wanted to make her come then and there but she eased away from me gently. “Later,” she said. She giggled at my erection and then proceeded to ‘wash’ it enthusiastically. I groaned as my semen spilled out over her hand and spattered her thigh. Her eyes were soft with emotion, as if I’d given her an expensive gift. She languidly washed the pearly drops away then leaned her head on my chest. I held her close for a brief space as the water ran down over us. It was a perfect moment of peace in a strange and disturbing day.

Over a plain dinner we discussed Angela’s forthcoming commission for Frau Meyer. By tacit agreement, we did not discuss the death of Mickey the Mouth or any other of the day’s events. It was still all there, though, a spectre at the feast. I think we were all too worn down by the experience of living inside an enigma to face it yet again. Angela decided that she would honour her intention stated when we first met. She would ‘do’ Trotsky. A completely naturalistic piece, she promised. No tortured soul clawing its way through the twisted bronze. She threatened to do the twins but they refused with a laugh. “Sorry, darlin’, we don’t get our kit off for anyone but our wives,” Niall had replied. Angela had been surprised; she didn’t know they were both married.

“That leaves Martin,” said Liam. “You could just twist some of those bronze rods into a big knot of spaghetti and say it was a portrait of a lawyer’s mind.” This sparked off a series of ‘Lawyer Jokes’ at my expense. I responded with Irish Jokes, which Angela insisted had originally been Russian Jokes. We then got to plumb the depths with old Essex Girl Jokes. Angela needed some translations as the significance of Ford XR3i’s was lost on her. No joke is funny when you have to dissect it so the evening petered out with Angela still plaintively pleading with me to explain why the answer to “How does an Essex girl turn off the light before sex?” was “She shuts the car door.”

Niall and Liam had rigged up camp beds for themselves in the Studio. They complained that sleeping in the parlour was ‘too noisy’ and winked suggestively. Angela coloured up a nice bright shade of red as she caught their meaning. The head of the brass bedstead must have been hammering on the parlour wall, the two rooms being adjoining. “Apart from that,” said Niall, “your dogs fart abominably. At least, Liam claims it was them.” We could hear their good-natured banter receding as we readied ourselves for bed once more. I knew they would take it in turns to keep watch through the night, after the events of the day.

Angela once more tumbled me into our private world of soft embraces and thrilling touches. We made love twice before sleeping. The first time a gentle, loving, lingering journey to ecstasy, the second a raunchy, passionate gallop doggy-style, with Angela gasping harshly in Estonian as orgasm wracked her for the third or fourth time that evening. I haven’t been with that many women, but Angela’s capacity for orgasms was a brand new experience for me. She seemed to hit a plateau and then, out of the blue, she was scaling the peaks, hardly dropping down between one pinnacle and another. Sometimes, she seemed to be coming almost continuously with no break discernible between one climax and the next. I loved it. There can’t be any better tonic for a man’s ego than to have his woman trembling in a constant state of orgasm.

Afterwards, we lay chatting about it. Angela laughed at my wonderment. “Sometimes,” she said, “It never happens at all. If I’m tired or if I feel low, there is nothing. But when I feel safe and loved, my Martin, then, poof! I am like a string of firecrackers, one explosion following another. But you must not mind if it doesn’t go that way every time. Sometimes, I might want just to make you happy and that will be enough for me.” I didn’t really understand but claimed I did. It seemed the wisest thing to do.

Angela drifted off to sleep. She seemed now to have adopted a particular position, head on my chest, one leg flung over me. I have to say I loved it. My mind would let go, however. It was a roiling mass of thoughts and theories that echoed round and round in my over-tired brain. It was maddening; whenever I felt I just might be dropping off, this thought would re-emerge to the forefront of my consciousness like a line from a song that you can’t get rid of. ‘He’s alive! He’s got to be alive!’ To this day, I have no idea from whence this conviction had come. It was a certainty, as irrefutable as the dawn. Angela’s father was at the bottom of this. I didn’t know who had died in Gothenburg wearing his identity but I knew we would find no answers there. He’d covered his tracks well enough to fool British Intelligence and we weren’t in their league.

I tried to think of something else, something dull and neutral, like tax, but it didn’t work. When I eventually fell asleep it was through sheer exhaustion. I woke several times during that night. Once I heard a muttered exchange as Liam relieved Niall on watch and felt guilty. I ought to be taking my turn. Then I felt guilty that, if I did so, Angela would be left alone. I salved my conscience with the thought that I was protecting her. It was still dark when I woke for the last time. I heard one of the twins in the kitchen, filling the kettle. There was also the thump-thump sound of Magic’s tail wagging against the floorboards. A voice was speaking; I couldn ‘t hear the words but could tell, by the inflection, that someone was talking to Magic. The wagging thump intensified. It sounded like the dog had just conned someone into providing an unscheduled early breakfast. The pure familiarity of the sound relaxed me and I slept properly at last.

When I eventually woke up, it was full daylight and Angela was sitting naked on my chest. Her full breasts fell towards me and I lifted my head to gently kiss a nipple. She leaned forward more to offer herself to me and I suckled like a newborn babe. It wasn’t particularly arousing but it was enormously comforting. I suppose that says something about my affection-deprived childhood. If it does I don’t give a toss. I enjoyed it and so did she. We must have carried on like that for several minutes. I was just getting interested in taking matters further when there came a knock at the door. We were summoned to breakfast.

I shaved while Angela showered and then showered while she dressed. We arrived in the kitchen almost together; I can move fast when I’ve a mind to. As we all ate, Niall indicated the morning copy of the Daily Telegraph. Michael Cornell had made the inside page. Saddam Hussein still had all the headlines to himself. I scanned the article quickly. It didn’t tell us much new except that he had been killed on Monday morning at around six o’clock. Police were appealing for anyone who might have seen something suspicious in the area. Cornell was described as a senior civil servant. He had been killed on his doorstep, the cause of death: a single stab wound to the throat. The milkman had found the body and called the police. The only other detail of interest was that a Foreign Office spokesman stated Michael Cornell had been on leave of absence from his position at the time of the murder. There was some veiled speculation that sex had been the motive; it was hinted that Cornell might have been gay.

I wondered aloud to the others as to who had planted that piece of disinformation. According to Bernie at least, Mickey the Mouth was very much a ladies’ man. Liam and Niall were holding a conversation sotto voce. My raised eyebrow brought them up sharp and Niall said, “Professional job. Amateurs slash or hack. It takes practice and a bloody cold heart to do someone in with a single thrust. This is no crime of passion.” Liam nodded his agreement. “Question is,” he said, “Whodunit, the Russians or Mickey’s erstwhile employers? That little planted ‘gay’ thing smacks of Vauxhall. Stupid bastards still think it’s a stigma.” “It is, if you read the Telegraph,” I replied. Angela looked at me questioningly and I explained. “Very right-wing, middle aged, middle class newspaper.” She shrugged. “In Estonia also,” she said. I tried not to feel a faint liberal glow.

“Gets bloody messy if it was the Vauxhall funnies,” Niall said. You couldn’t put it more succinctly than that. If Cornell had been taken out of the game by the Security Services, well, we were ‘up shit creek in a barbed-wire canoe,’ as Liam put it. I almost groaned aloud with the weight of it. Angela looked from one face to another and saw how seriously we were all taking this possibility. Her chin came up and there was steel in those fabulous eyes where I was just becoming accustomed to find love. “They cannot kill us all,” she said simply. Looking at her defiant expression raised all our morale. “By Christ and all His saints, that they can’t!” Niall roared, “bugger them all and their donkeys too!” And we grinned like schoolchildren plotting their next prank.

Liam and Niall decided it was time to call for reinforcements. “You won’t know they’re there. It’s only a couple of mates from Hereford.” I explained to Angela that he meant ex-SAS men, a number of whom are recruited to the Special Air Service from the ranks of the Parachute Regiment. Liam went off to make a call and Niall disappeared to patrol the area once again. Angela and were left alone in the kitchen with the dogs. Magic wagged idly and Trotsky looked at me with an enquiring air, as if he understood the situation and was awaiting his orders. “I don’t think you two will be much help,” I told them. Magic seemed to agree and lay down again, eyeing the breakfast things in case we had missed something. Trotsky made a rumbling noise in his throat and came to stand by Angela. She had obviously made a friend. She patted him absently and he licked her hand, the height of affection, from a husky.

Two pairs of startlingly pale blue eyes were staring at me. I looked from the woman to the dog and back again. I made some feeble joke about their swapping eyes while I was asleep, just to confuse me. Angela gave me a weary smile. The strain was showing in tight lines around her mouth. I had a glimpse of the woman she would be in, say, twenty or thirty years. Tension ages you.

On instructions from the twins we stayed indoors all morning. The dogs weren ‘t that happy about it but I admit I was relieved. Around lunchtime Liam came in accompanied by two hard-looking men in their late thirties. They weren’t that tall but had a spare muscularity. Their eyes were distant and carried a vague aura of danger. He introduced them as Steve and Bill. Steve was slightly the taller with cropped sandy hair and freckles. Bill was stockier and had a marked ‘Five O’clock Shadow’ on his prognathous jaw. The effect was to make him look slightly simian but those dangerous eyes held a lively intelligence. He smiled at us; muttered “How do?” Steve simply nodded, his face impassive.

“Get yourselves something to eat,” said Niall, indicating the kitchen with a slight head movement. “Briefing in here in fifteen minutes.” In less than ten minutes they were back. Liam pulled what looked like a wad of rubbish out of the pocket of his Barbour. “I think we can assume we’re under surveillance,” he said. His voice was crisp and authoritative. He saw me start to ask the question and cut in. “I think I found where someone has been lying up. This stuff wasn’t there last night.” Bill came forward and poked through the rubbish. He sniffed at a piece of crumpled silver foil. “Chocolate,” he said, “very careless.” There was some cellophane and a single cigarette butt. In place of a filter tip it had a tube of cardboard. “That’s a Russian cigarette! ” Angela exclaimed. ” Quite right, Miss,” Bill replied. Steve said nothing but grimaced.

Liam and Niall established a patrol routine. Bill and Steve would go out after dark to do a ‘sweep’ at some distance from the house. In the meantime, the twins would follow the same routine as the day before. If the watchers thought they had been spotted, they would be more on their guard. Angela asked if it was safe for us to walk the dogs on the beach. Liam agreed it was, provided we stayed well away from the dunes. We would be fine out in the open, he opined, and any way, they would all be watching over us.

The tide was out as we walked that afternoon and we left deep bootprints in the muddy wet sand. The low sun sent streaks of bright fire into pools of seawater and they flickered where the wind ruffled the surface with a soft, lover’s touch. It was one of those bright, fierce days where you feel you can almost see the cold in the freezing air. We were well wrapped up but still Angela’s nose and my ears were turned scarlet by the icy breeze. I love those days, dry, hard and brilliant. They invigorate me. The dull, damp, cheerless days that typify an English winter are all depression and drabness that seem to seep through your coat and into your spirit. The clear, dry frosty days are a rarity and I welcome them; even in their chill, they seem to carry the promise that the warmth of summer will return.

We didn’t talk much. I think we were both too preoccupied with our own thoughts. The sense of danger was palpable now. Cornell’s death put a different complexion on things. We knew we were in good hands with the twins but the two ex-SAS men lent a brooding presence. There was something about the way they moved or held themselves when at rest that spoke volumes. Their world was one that comfortable, middle-class men in early middle age might fantasise about but, faced with the reality, shied away from. I felt a sense of impending crisis. Something was going to happen and it would be soon.

For her part, Angela seemed to have found some inner reserves of strength. She exuded defiant determination. Regardless of what was coming, she made her preparations for her new commission. Maybe it was to keep herself from dwelling on our predicament but it seemed more like she was waving two fingers at fate as if to say “Do your worst. Only art is real – the rest are phantasms.” I wished fervently that I had some all-consuming avocation to seize my attention. My focus was on keeping her safe.

Magic and Trotsky were unconcerned by such considerations. Chasing sticks or stalking seagulls was occupation enough for them. Their joyous, carefree spirits lifted ours after a while. We walked back to the cottage considerably lighter at heart than when we left.

Chapter 10

The two SAS men slipped away from the cottage as soon as it was fully dark. The four of us ate dinner together in a strained atmosphere. Liam and Niall were almost visibly quivering with anticipation. They were preternaturally alert. The speculation and the good-humoured jibes at me had vanished. Now they were all business. No alcohol for them tonight. Somehow we could sense that a line had been crossed. Before, they had taken it seriously but not felt we were in any real danger, not mortal danger at any rate. All that had changed. The word ‘operational’ popped into my head. We were now ‘operational.’

I took the dogs outside for a last pee before turning in. The sky was crystal clear; a halo hung around the moon that was just a couple of days off being new. Ice particles in the atmosphere made the stars shimmer and dance. They appeared unusually close that night. I was standing in the small untidy garden at the back of the cottage, taking all this in and breathing in the tangy sea air when I felt, rather than saw, Trotsky stiffen. I could just make out his pale coat in the faint light. He stood tall, head erect, the posture tense and guarded. I tried to pick out Magic but his black fur blended perfectly into the deeper shadows by the low wall.

I called them to me and pulled them quickly inside, shooting the bolts on the door, someone was definitely out there. The dogs sensed it and I caught their mood. I muttered the news to Niall and he gave a quick whistle for Liam. They waved me out of the room and then crouched, one each side of the door, against the thick stone walls.

There was a light tap on the glass and a laconic voice said, “It’s Steve, I think you’d better let us in.” Niall moved away, to be behind the door when it opened. Liam pushed the bolts open, taking care to keep his head and body in the cover of the wall. The door swung inwards with a crash and Steve was propelled into the room. A tall figure stood just outside of the pool of light spilling from the open doorway. A harsh voice called out, “Angelika!”

Angela flew into the room, thrusting me to one side in her rush. “Papa? Papa?” She let go a rapid-fire burst of what I took to be Estonian. The half-hidden figure answered in the same tongue. She turned to me, her face drained of all colour. “It’s my father,” she said, “he wants to come in and talk. He say’s it’s very important.” Niall looked at me and I nodded. He grimaced and then told Angela to tell her father to come in. Steve was looking sheepish. Niall raised an eyebrow in his direction. “Sorry, boss,” he said, “I fucked up big-time.” Liam muttered a terse “Later.” All our attention was on the tall, slim figure that emerged from the darkness into the lighted kitchen.

It was his eyes that I noticed first. They were incredibly like Angela’s but not the same. There was a feral glint to his that Angela’s lacked. His face was grave and unlined. He had short grey hair that showed just a hint of curls. It was cut high on his forehead, emphasising the regularity of his features. He reminded me a little of the English actor, Terence Stamp, even down to the cleft in his strong chin. His face was transformed when he smiled at his daughter. He looked at the rest of us and gave a sort of short bow. Liam shut the door and the Colonel turned and smiled at him, one professional recognising another.

We all sat down at the table and the Colonel began to speak. Angela did her best to give us a running translation but at times, she was so shocked, she would utter another burst of lightening-quick Estonian before turning back to us. He spoke for about half an hour. When he finished, we were all in shock.

The Colonel told us he had been watching us for about a day and a half. He had come at first to rescue Angela but had quickly realised, this with a nod in my direction, that she was among friends who were protecting her. He had never meant for either of his daughters to become involved. When Vika had been murdered in Gothenburg, he had vowed to take revenge. He traced the man who killed Vika to London. He had found him and killed him, early on Monday morning. Mickey-the-Mouth. Then he had driven to Norfolk to make contact with Angela. The Colonel had seen Bill and Steve arrive. He had guessed what they would do; it was what he would have done. He set up the decoy observation post and had baited the trap with the assorted rubbish Liam had found, knowing that someone would have the place under surveillance. He had dug a scrape a few yards away, covered himself with camouflage netting and tussocks of marrom grass, and waited. Steve had obligingly showed up. The former SAS man shrugged and mouthed, “sorry, boss.” Liam shook his head. No use crying over spilt milk. Steve had been careless, overconfident.

Angela’s father had related all this in a light easy, matter-of fact tone. Then Angela had asked him the question we all needed an answer to, ‘Why?’ His voice had grown flatter, harsher somehow, as he told us his incredible story. It had started when the Colonel returned from Afghanistan in 1986. He had been bitter, disillusioned by his experiences. A group calling themselves the Estonian Democracy Committee had made contact with him. At first he had resisted their courtship but the more he thought about it, the more he realised they were right. The USSR was rotting from within. It couldn’t last too much longer. One day soon, Estonia could take back the freedom it had lost in 1941.

He did nothing, but stayed in touch. When the Berlin Wall came down and the Russians didn’t react; when one by one, the former Soviet satellite states exerted their own free will and became self-governing once more; it was the Estonian Democracy Committee who moved to fill the political vacuum left behind. Now, as the legitimate government, they approached him again. Would he go to Russia, they had asked him. He was to take a job, keep his ear to the ground. They were particularly worried about the amount of former Soviet armaments that seemed to be flooding out of the old USSR. He agreed. His daughters had left home, one to marry, the other flying to the west to be a ‘bohemian’.

He had set up his ‘security consultancy’ and waited. Inevitably, his clients had been of a dubious nature, crooks, conmen, people on the make. He had picked up snippets here and there, had reported back to Tallinn. Some shipments of small arms and explosives, bound for who-knows-which ‘liberation’ army, had been intercepted and impounded. There had been a handful of arrests, no-one significant, of course, just couriers and low-grade operatives. The work was easy, he was making a good living and he had a comfortable life in St Petersburg.

All that changed about a year and a half ago. He was urgently summoned home to Tallinn. The government were in a state of near panic. It had come to light that 20 tonnes of weapons-grade plutonium had gone walkabout in the old USSR. Originally, it was ascribed to inefficiency, poor record-keeping, that sort of thing. Then someone caught a whisper. Someone else heard talk of an ‘Islamic Bomb’. Little accretions of evidence emerged here and there. Not proof positive, you understand, but enough links in the chain to get the politicos shitting themselves. He was sent back and told to dig some more.

It had taken him a while, almost a year. He had it all now. The Chechens, of course, were deeply involved. Some were in it in solidarity with their co-religionists but the majority were in it for the money. Half a billion dollars. A certain Arab country whose leader had pretensions of leading the great Jihad against Israel and its supporters provided the money. He traced the links out of Russia into the West; Germany, Spain, Britain, even into the USA. There were those, some of whom worked in their own government agencies, for whom the lure of half a billion dollars overwhelmed any scruples. He had pretended to be one such. They had rumbled him. He had fled to Sweden, faked his own death. Somehow Vika had learned of her father’s death and followed him to Gothenburg. He believed she had been sent as bait to trap him. He had avoided her. It hadn’t saved her.

At this point, the Colonel took out a roll of papers, wrapped in oilskin to protect them from the damp. He tossed it on the table. “Five good men have died for this,” he said and looked grim. “It is all there, names, places, facts and figures.” We all stared at the bundle. The room was completely silent. We were all shattered by the enormity of what we had heard. The Colonel’s mouth was a hard, compressed line; his steely blue eyes gazed frankly back at us. He gave a shrug. Angela continued translating.

“The problem I have is to know who to trust. There are Estonian names on that list, too. Everywhere, there are people prepared to sell their country. No! To sell the World! They must be stopped.”

I had a sudden thought. “Ask him what he has to do with the ikon,” I said to Angela. He laughed when he heard the question and Angela smiled when she heard the reply. She turned to us and when both father and daughter were smiling, the resemblance between them was clear.

“My father traced me through Frau Meyer. He went to see her after reading an article about her and he saw my name mentioned as one of those artists she patronised. The article had also said that Frau Meyer was a great opponent of extremism in the new Germany. He thought she would be disposed to help him. He explained a little of the situation and suggested that she might help. They hit on the idea of putting the ikon up for sale in the UK to mislead Cornell, who was getting too close.

“Frau Meyer wanted to do more so they agreed that she would send me some bronze to work with. Hidden in that shipment is about one hundred pounds of plutonium. My father thinks it will be at Felixstowe Docks tomorrow or the next day. He stole it from a shipment and substituted plain lead rods. The plutonium is wrapped in a lead sheath and a thin skin of bronze.”

“Why send it here?” I asked, puzzled. Angela smiled again, “It is his evidence. Anyone could come up with a list of names and things on paper. He needs our help. He wants someone to contact, someone above suspicion. Everything in the East is too corrupt; he doesn’t know who’s involved and who isn’t. Do you know anyone in the Government, Martin?”

I admitted I knew one person, an MP I had once done some work for. I hadn’t liked him much but as far as I knew, he was straight but didn’t know too much about him. Then Liam chimed in. “Do you remember Rollo Yeates?” I did, he had been Head Boy at school when we were there. “Rollo’s now a half-colonel in I Corps, he might be the very man!” I had to agree. If Rollo Yeates was now a Lieutenant Colonel in Army Intelligence, he could certainly point us in the right direction. All of this was explained to Angela’s father and he thought for a moment or two before answering. He puffed out his cheeks and then grinned. “Good, a soldier!”

It was agreed that Liam should contact Rollo Yeates and get him to meet us at Felixstowe Docks the following day. I picked up the roll of papers and began to scan them. They were written in a variety of languages but I saw a few names I recognised, Cornell’s among them. Another I recognised was a former MP, well known for his venal nature and habit of attracting scandal, and a third was a high-profile radical journalist with a history of penning attacks on Israel and the USA. There were other, obviously Western, names that didn’t ring any bells. The one name that brought me up short was that of a prominent European Industrialist. How the Hell could someone like that involve themselves with this bloody mess? I voiced this aloud and Angela’s father understood instantly. He spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Gelt!” he said, money.

It had got pretty late by this stage and we were all starting to flag a bit. I left Angela alone to talk with her father and retired to our bed alone. I could still hear the soft murmur of conversation as I drifted into a troubled sleep. At least I now knew what was going on. At any rate, I thought I did.