Charles Cumming - The Man Between

‘Everything OK?’ Mantis asked as he came back into the living room.

‘Everything’s great.’

‘Come and have a look at these.’

He was holding an iPad. Carradine sat next to him on the sofa and looked at the screen. Mantis began flicking through a series of photographs, presumably of the woman Carradine would be asked to look for in Marrakech.

It was strange. In the same way that he had recognised Lisa Redmond as she was dragged from the car, without at first being able to put a name to her face, Carradine was sure that he had seen pictures of the woman before. She wasn’t a journalist or celebrity. She wasn’t a likely target for Resurrection. But she was some kind of public figure. Perhaps an actress he had seen on stage in London or somebody associated with a news story or political scandal. He could not work it out. It might equally have been the case that Carradine had met her at a party or that the woman had some connection to the film or publishing worlds. She was certainly not a stranger to him.

‘You look as though you recognise her.’

Carradine decided against telling Mantis that he had seen the woman’s face before. His explanation would have sounded confused.

‘No. I’m just trying to take a photograph with my eyes. Commit her face to memory.’

‘It’s a beautiful face.’

Carradine was taken aback by the wistfulness of the remark. ‘It is,’ he said as they shuttled back through the album. The woman had long, dark hair, light brown eyes and slightly crooked teeth. He assumed that most of the photographs had been culled from social media; they had a casual, snapped quality and appeared to cover a period of several years. In two of the pictures the woman was seated at a table in a restaurant, surrounded by people of her own age; in another, she was wearing a powder-blue bikini on a sunny beach, her arm encircling the waist of a handsome, bearded man holding a surfboard. Carradine assumed that he was a boyfriend, past or present.

‘He looks Spanish,’ he said, pointing at the man. ‘Was this taken in Spain?’

‘Portugal. Atlantic coast.’ Mantis reached across Carradine and quickly flicked the photo stream to the next image. ‘You were right. She has a Spanish mother. Speaks the language fluently.’

‘And her father? Where was he from?’

‘I’m afraid I can’t say.’

There was a fixed, unapologetic look on Mantis’s face.

‘And you can’t tell me her name either?’

‘I’m afraid not. It’s better that you know nothing about her, Kit. If you were to start asking the wrong questions, if you were tempted to Google her, for example, it’s not easy to say what might happen to you.’

‘That sounds like a threat.’

‘It wasn’t meant to.’

Mantis directed Carradine’s attention back to the screen. He had a good memory for faces and was confident that he would be able to recognise the woman if he came across her in Morocco.

‘How tall is she?’ he asked.

‘Couple of inches shorter than you.’

‘Hairstyle?’

‘She might have changed it. Might have dyed it. Might have shaved it all off. Anything is possible.’

‘Accent?’

‘Think Ingrid Bergman speaking English.’

Carradine smiled. He could hear the voice in his head.

‘Any other, uh …’ He reached for the euphemism. ‘Distinguishing characteristics?’

Mantis stood up, taking the iPad with him.

‘Of course! I almost forgot.’ He extended his left arm so that it was almost touching Carradine’s forehead. ‘The woman has a tattoo,’ he said, tapping the wrist. ‘Three tiny black swallows just about here.’

Carradine stared at the frayed cuffs of Mantis’s shirt. Veins bulged on his forearm beneath a scattering of black hairs.

‘If it’s a tattoo,’ he said, ‘and she’s trying not to get recognised, don’t you think she might have had it removed?’

Mantis moved his hand onto Carradine’s shoulder. Carradine hoped that he wouldn’t leave it there for long.

‘You don’t miss a trick, do you?’ he said. ‘We’ve obviously picked the right man, Kit. You’re a natural.’

Mantis said nothing more about the tattoo. Carradine was told that if he spotted the woman, he was to approach her discreetly, ensure that their conversation was neither overheard nor overseen, and then to explain that he had been sent by British intelligence. He was also to pass her a sealed package. This would be delivered by the Service before he left for Morocco.

‘I’m assuming I can’t open this package when I receive it?’

‘That is correct.’

‘Can I ask what will be inside it?’

‘A passport, a credit card and a message to the agent. That is all.’

‘That’s all? Nothing else?’

‘Nothing else.’

‘So why seal it?’

‘I’m not sure I understand your question.’

Carradine was trying to tread the fine line between protecting himself against risk and not appearing to be apprehensive.

‘It’s just that if my bags are searched and they find the package, if they ask me to open it, how do I explain why I’m carrying somebody else’s passport?’

‘Simple,’ Mantis replied. ‘You say that it’s for a friend who left it in London. The same friend whose photo you’re carrying in your wallet.’

‘So how did she get to Morocco without a passport?’

Mantis took a deep breath, as if to suggest that Carradine was starting to ask too many questions. ‘She has two. One Spanish, the other British. OK?’

‘What’s my friend’s name?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘I need to know her name. If it’s on the passport, if I’m carrying her picture around, they’ll expect me to know who she is.’

‘Ah.’ Mantis seemed pleased that Carradine had thought of this. ‘The surname on the passport is “Rodriguez”. Christian name “Maria”. Easy enough to remember.’

‘And mundane enough not to draw attention to itself.’

‘It does have that added dimension, yes.’

They remained at the Lisson Grove flat for another half-hour, going over further practical details of Carradine’s trip, including protocols for contacting Vauxhall Cross in the event of an emergency. Mantis insisted that they meet at the flat when Carradine returned from Marrakech, at which point he would be debriefed and given payment, in cash, for any expenses he had run up in Morocco.

‘Feel free to stay somewhere decent in Casablanca,’ he said. ‘We’ll cover your costs, the extra flight as well. Just keep accurate receipts for the bean counters. They’re notoriously stingy when it comes to shelling out for taxis and train tickets.’

As Carradine was leaving, Mantis handed him two envelopes, each containing €1,500. There was no limit to the amount of foreign currency he was permitted to bring into Morocco and Mantis did not think that €3,000 would be considered suspicious. He told Carradine that the sealed package containing the passport and credit card would be delivered to his flat in Lancaster Gate the following day, as well as the novel which was to be used as a book cipher. Mantis reiterated the importance of leaving the sealed package intact, unless Carradine was instructed to open it by law enforcement officials in the UK or Morocco. He did not give an explanation for this request and Carradine did not ask for one. Carradine assumed that the package would contain sensitive documents.

‘Good luck,’ Mantis said, shaking his hand as he left. ‘And thanks for helping out.’

‘No problem.’

Carradine walked out onto Lisson Grove in a state of confusion. He was bewildered by the speed with which Mantis had acted and strung out by the painstaking assimilation of so much information. It seemed bizarre that he should have been asked to undertake work on behalf of the secret state – particularly after such a cursory meeting – and wondered if the entire episode was part of an elaborate set-up. Clearly the content of his novels, the depictions of tradecraft, his observations about the burdens of secrecy and so forth, had convinced the Service that C.K. Carradine was possessed of the ideal temperament to work as a support agent. But how had they known that he would agree so readily to their offer? While working for the BBC in his twenties, Carradine had spoken to three veteran foreign correspondents – two British, one Canadian – each of whom had been tapped up by their respective intelligence services overseas. They had turned down the opportunity on the basis that it would interfere with the objectivity of their work, undermine the relationships they had built up with local sources and potentially bring them into conflict with their host governments. Carradine wished that he had shown a little more of their steadfastness when presented with the dangled carrot of clandestine work. Instead, perhaps because of what had happened to his father, he had demonstrated a rather old-fashioned desire to serve Queen and country, a facet of his character which suddenly seemed antiquated, even naive. He was committed to doing what Mantis had asked him to do, but felt that he had not given himself adequate protection in the event that things went wrong.