Charles Cumming - A Divided Spy - A gripping espionage thriller from the master of the modern spy novel

There were pleasantries and exchanges of small talk while they studied their menus and drank their aperitifs. Riedle, who had his back to the other diners, raised a toast to Kell and insisted that he was going to pay for the meal ‘as a thank you for saving me’. During their conversation at the apartment, Kell had explained that he was working on an investment project in Brussels, a suitably vapid job description which he hoped would discourage any further interest. Nevertheless, Riedle asked if his meetings were going well and Kell was able to say that it was ‘early days’ and that ‘a number of parties still needed to be sounded out’ before the ‘proper financing’ could be guaranteed. Riedle’s own account of a difficult meeting with a services consultant that afternoon took them halfway through their first course, by which time they were drinking a bottle of Chablis. Kell had ordered smoked salmon blinis, Riedle a vichyssoise.

‘How is your food?’ Riedle asked.

‘Not identifiably Russian,’ Kell replied, and was glad to see a momentary discomfort flicker in his companion’s eyes. He had chosen the dish as a private joke, but now realized that it might lead him towards Minasian. ‘How’s your soup?’

‘Fine.’

Taking advantage of a slight pause, Kell inched towards Dmitri.

‘The blinis are fine, but I’ve broken a personal promise. Just as one should never eat bouillabaisse outside Marseilles, I believe you should never order these’ – he indicated his plate – ‘outside Moscow.’

‘You have been to Russia?’ Riedle asked. Kell could feel him lifting from the bottom of the river, circling upwards through the dark waters, rising slowly to the bait.

‘Many times,’ he replied. ‘The caviar is not as good as it once was – and it’s certainly more expensive nowadays – but I still go there for business.’

‘You were a diplomat there?’

‘No. Briefly in Armenia in the mid-nineties when I filled in for somebody on sick leave, but never Moscow.’ Kell had to be careful not to push too hard. ‘Minasian’ was an Armenian surname. Though it was almost certainly the case that Dmitri had presented himself to Riedle as a Russian citizen, he might occasionally have spoken nostalgically of his forebears in the Caucasus. The best cover is the simplest cover, one which draws on truthful elements in the spy’s background. ‘Have you been yourself?’ he asked, sipping his Chablis without an apparent care in the world. ‘Moscow? St Petersburg?’

‘I do not trust Russians,’ Riedle replied, with an almost petulant finality. ‘I have personal reasons. I despise their politics, their leadership.’

‘It’s certainly a worry …’

‘I sometimes think that the Russian character is the end of kindness, you know? The end of everything that is nice and good in this world.’

Kell was not a fisherman, but knew the angler’s rapturous delight in feeling that first bite on the lure. The sudden tug, the ripple on the surface of the water, the line running out as the fish ran free.

‘I’m not sure I understand you,’ he said, though he understood all too well.

‘As I say, personal reasons.’ Riedle finished his soup and set the spoon down gently. ‘I have to be careful what I say. I don’t want to come across as racist or as a bigot …’

‘You are among friends, Bernie. You can say what you like. I’m not here to judge you.’

That was all it took. Riedle pulled the sleeve of his jacket, squeezed a ruby cufflink and was away.

‘When I think of the Russian temperament, I think of sin,’ he said, looking at Kell as though he was both morally ashamed and politically disappointed by what he was about to say. ‘I think of money and the greed for riches. A state apparatus that robs its own people, politicians filling their pockets at the expense of the men and women they are elected to represent. I think of violence. Journalists silenced, opposition politicians murdered for the exercise of free speech. Corruption and death always going hand in hand.’ He took a sip of water, like a pianist composing himself before embarking on the final movement of a concerto. ‘When I think of Russia I think of deceit. Husbands deceiving wives. Young women seducing older men because they crave nothing but money and status. Deceit in business, of course. Do you follow me? The Slavic temperament is human nature at its most base. There is no kindness in Russia. Everything is so raw and brutal. They are like animals.’

It was an astonishing diatribe, and one to which Kell responded with the obvious question.

‘You said you had personal reasons for feeling this way?’

A waiter had inched along the balcony and begun to clear away their plates of food. Kell hoped that the interruption would not cause Riedle to soften his prejudice or, worse, change the subject.

‘I don’t wish to bore you with those,’ he said, ordering a bottle of Chianti. ‘I can’t only talk about myself this evening, Peter.’

‘No. Do.’ Kell sensed that talking about himself was exactly what Bernard Riedle wanted to do. ‘I’d be interested to hear your reasons. I sometimes find myself thinking the same way about Russia, particularly when it comes to murdered dissidents.’

Riedle took his eyes away from Kell and past him towards the large street window. He appeared to be lost in thought. It was like watching a man in a dealership trying to decide whether or not to buy an expensive car.

‘I had a relationship with a Russian,’ he said finally, the bustle and noise of the restaurant rendering his voice almost inaudible. ‘A man,’ he added. Riedle examined Kell’s reaction with sudden intensity. ‘Does this make you uncomfortable?’

Kell wondered if there had been something in his facial response to indicate disapproval, because he knew that Riedle was searching for any evidence of homophobia.

‘Not at all,’ he replied. ‘Does the man live in Hamburg?’

Riedle shook his head.

‘You were together a long time?’

‘Three years.’

‘When did you break up?’

Riedle swallowed a long, glass-emptying mouthful of Chablis.

‘Last month,’ he replied, and looked over the railing that ran along the length of the walkway, down towards the entrance of the restaurant. Kell could see a chef standing over a bed of crushed ice, shucking oysters. ‘I was in Egypt,’ he said, again bringing his eyes back to the table. ‘A holiday. Things had not been good for a long time. He decided finally to end things.’

‘I’m very sorry to hear that.’ Kell had a memory of Claire blithely informing him that she was in a new relationship, less than a month after their separation. ‘Nothing worse than a break-up,’ he said. ‘How are you coping?’

Riedle seemed both surprised and comforted by the question. ‘Not well,’ he said. ‘To be honest, Peter, I am suffering.’

Kell leaned towards him, doing his job. ‘I’ve been there,’ he said. ‘You don’t sleep. You can’t eat. You’re angry, you feel lost. It doesn’t get any easier with age. If anything, these things become worse.’

‘Yes,’ Riedle replied. ‘You felt this with your wife when your marriage ended?’

Kell hesitated for a moment, because he hated drawing Claire into operational conversation. It was tawdry and disloyal to use her for the purposes of deception; there had to be something in his life that remained sacred. Everything else, for years and years, had been infected by spying.

‘My marriage was different,’ he said. ‘My wife and I met when we were very young. We grew apart. We became different people as the years went by.’ Kell might have added that there had been times when he had blamed Claire for the entire squeezed and cut-down shape of his life; that he had been liberated by their separation. Or he might have said that there were still moments, when they met for lunch or saw one another at a social occasion, when he felt an almost gravitational pull towards her, a longing to be reintegrated into their former life. Instead, he said something comparatively bland, but undeniably true: ‘I think she found the demands of my job very difficult. There was also an added, very painful complication in that we were never able to have children.’