Christopher Jones - The Silent Oligarch

Webster wandered west into Covent Garden through the insistent rain, his trousers left damp by the short coat he kept hunched about him. His phone buzzed: Lock had checked in to the hotel. He bought a paper and sat in a café with a cup of tea waiting for new alerts. For an hour or so, there was no movement. One of George’s team discovered through some sleight of hand that Lock was staying in room 324, a junior suite. Then shortly after noon, a message: “Subject leaving in silver Volvo, east on Brook Street.” Immediately after it came another: “Have reason to believe others interested in subject. Please call.”

Black had been thorough. His people had checked the area around Claridge’s before Lock’s arrival and had noticed an anonymous dark gray Ford with three men in it parked in a mews behind the hotel. The same car was now following Lock east across the city. Black asked Webster whether he wanted to switch to countersurveillance, which, in the jargon, meant to start following the car following Lock. Webster thought about it. Stick with Lock, he decided, and Black did just that.

Webster sat with his tea for a long time, then bought another. People began to come in to order their lunch. Lock entered Bryson’s offices in the City at 12:32. The team settled down to wait for him to reappear, but Webster was sure that Lock would be in with the lawyers for at least a couple of hours and would then go back to his hotel.

That was what happened. Lock returned to Claridge’s in the middle of the afternoon, and didn’t emerge again until the evening, when he left for his dinner with Onder. Webster spent the afternoon writing a report he had been delaying, picking up the odd message from Black and waiting for news of Alan Knight. He would stay in the office for this evening’s program because he wanted to be close.

ONDER HAD PICKED THE PLACE, an Italian restaurant near Sloane Square where the waiters knew half the customers by name. He had wanted to know if he should wear a wire and Webster told him it wasn’t that sort of a meeting. Lock was there early, a little before eight, with his unseen caravan close behind him. His bodyguards waited outside in the car.

Onder was there shortly afterward. Webster found it impossible to concentrate: if Lock was going to leave it would be in the first half an hour. When it became clear that they were going to finish dinner he began to relax, and after a further hour was rather wishing that the two of them would hurry up. He heard nothing until a little after ten, when George let him know that both individuals had left the premises. Onder called two minutes after that, a little breathless on the line, evidently walking back to his Mayfair house. Webster had been in his office for hours now and his eyes were dry from the blueish fluorescent light. Still no news of Knight. Pizza crusts sat in a box on the floor beside his desk.

“I think I did well,” said Onder. “I like this spying game.”

Webster laughed but was too tense to be amused. “How did it go?”

“Well, I think. Not for him, but for you? Very well. He is a scared man.”

“What’s he scared of?”

“You. Malin. The FBI.”

“The FBI?” That seemed premature. Unless Hammer had been nudging things along again.

“He said that Cayman was OK, not too serious, but they mentioned the FBI.”

“OK. We’re in good company. What did they say?”

“All he said was, Now I’ve got to deal with the fucking FBI. I’m quoting.”

“What did he say about Malin?”

“That they do not see eye to eye. He wants Malin to settle but Malin will not. He feels that all Malin wants him for these days is his name. The rest of him is a liability. He did not open up, though. He cannot quite bring himself to say that Malin has him by the balls.”

“What about Gerstman?”

“I mentioned Gerstman. He went quiet. Said he had been a dear friend.”

“And did you talk about us?”

“He did. He said you have been calling everyone he knows and then they call him. He blames you for the press.”

“That’s good. Probably.”

“I said I knew you. Not you by name, but Ikertu. I said you were good guys, that I had used you.”

“Did you talk about an introduction?”

“No. I didn’t. He’s still proud. He wants me to think that he’s a big man. Big men don’t run to people like you.”

“So what did he say?”

“About you? Nothing. He just sat. I left a silence. He was thinking about it. Thinking hard I would say.”

Webster too was quiet for a moment. He knew what he needed to know.

“How did you leave it with him?”

“I told him to come to Istanbul and I would take his mind off it. Have some fun. He said he would need an excuse. He looked like he didn’t want fun. He was drinking a lot.”

“Thank you, Savas. That’s good. Thank you. Send me your expenses.”

Onder laughed, a jolly laugh. “That’s all right, Ben. Let us keep it clean between us. I enjoyed it. When Konstantin is begging on the street, send me a picture.” He hung up.

Webster had another text from George: Lock was on his way back to the hotel. He looked at his watch. He could be at Claridge’s by half past ten. Why leave it until tomorrow? Lock was tired. He would be dwelling on his conversation at dinner. Probably he was not looking forward to whatever he had to do tomorrow. This was the moment.

Webster looked out the window, saw that it was still raining, and took his coat off the back of his chair. He left his office, skipped down the stairs, and walked briskly from the building, looking behind him from time to time for a taxi. He found one on Chancery Lane, and it took him through Lincoln’s Inn and along New Oxford Street, the pavements shining yellow in the rain. London was quiet. People walked in twos and threes, heads down. A girl ran across the road with her coat pulled up over her head, her heels skittering in the wet. Webster watched and shivered. Now was the time for him to perform. It was cold but he kept the window open an inch.

At Claridge’s a doorman in a top hat opened the taxi door for him. Past the black revolving doors the hotel was alight with yellows and pale greens, reflected and absorbed by the white and black check of the marble floor. A fire burned in a grand hearth by empty leather chairs and in the room beyond white roses and lilies in giant vases bloomed. In this impeccable world Webster felt conspicuous, and his mission shabby. He took off his coat, still cold and heavy with rain, and went downstairs to wash his hands. As he did so he looked up at himself in the mirror. That same deceptively honest face. Had Gerstman seen in it any hint of his undoing? More troubling, should Lock?

He walked back up to the lobby, and then took the grand staircase up through the hotel. At the third floor he turned right and then right again. 316, 318. At the end of this corridor another ran across it. 324 was to the right. As Webster turned the corner he saw a large man with short gray hair standing outside one of the rooms. He was wearing a dark suit with a gray polo neck and stood with his hands clasped in front of him. He looked up at Webster as he passed. Webster gave him a casual glance and walked on, turning into another corridor that opened off this and led back to the stairs.

A bodyguard outside the room. That meant that Lock was either very important or under guard. It also meant that Lock was inside.

Webster went to the lobby and asked at reception how he could make an internal call. A bellboy showed him to a bank of phones in a quiet passage. Webster dialed and the phone rang, four times. It had a long ring, like an American line.

“Yes.” A short yes. Lock sounded irritable. Webster was surprised by his voice. It was rich and full.