Jon Stock - The Daniel Marchant Spy Trilogy - Dead Spy Running, Games Traitors Play, Dirty Little Secret

The two women’s area consisted of a pair of three-tier bunks facing each other. They were sleeping on the top two bunks, and a Keralan family, with one child, occupied the lower decks. The bunk directly below Holly was empty, and it was on this that Marchant was now lying, talking up to Kirsty.

‘You can stay there the night, if you want to,’ she said, glancing across at Holly. ‘She’s already asleep. There were three of us, but Holly and Anya had a bit of a falling out, so Anya stayed in Delhi. You’re on her bed.’

‘I’ll see if the ticket guy’ll upgrade me,’ Marchant said. He could hear the inspector making his way down the carriage. Earlier, a member of staff had eyed him suspiciously while he distributed sheets and blankets around the carriage.

Holly and Kirsty, both English and in their early twenties, were going to Goa. They were on a six-month world tour and had been travelling in India for two weeks. Holly, the younger one, was already at war with the subcontinent, railing at its food, the weather, the men, her bowel movements and the state of the public lavatories, before falling asleep. The argument at the station had clearly exhausted her. Kirsty had a more relaxed manner, and was obsessed with neither the weather nor her bowels. Something about her laid-back approach to life reminded Marchant of Monika, and they had immediately hit it off.

‘D’you hear that?’ Kirsty asked, nodding down the carriage. Marchant listened as someone protested about not being allowed to stay in an empty seat. The inspector explained about waiting lists, three-month advance bookings, the police. Marchant’s and Kirsty’s eyes met.

‘Quick, come up here. You can hide under my blanket.’

Marchant looked below him. The man from Kerala, an engineer who had earlier given him his business card, was snoring. The woman was also sleeping, but the toddler, who was cradled next to her, had his big brown eyes open and was staring up at him. Marchant smiled, putting a finger to his lips. ‘Sshhh,’ he said, stretching his leg across onto the edge of the opposite bunk, where the Keralan family had stowed some of their luggage. Then he heaved himself up onto the narrow top bunk. Kirsty giggled as she shuffled across to the edge, trying to make some room for Marchant beside the wall.

‘They’re tiny, these beds,’ Marchant whispered, feeling her body warmth as he pulled the wool blanket over him. Its coarseness reminded him of school.

‘The man’s coming,’ Kirsty said, pulling her rucksack up from her feet to provide a screen. Marchant lay still, listening out for the ticket collector. He heard him stir the family below as Kirsty reached across to wake Holly.

When the inspector had gone, Marchant stayed where he was for a few moments, lulled by the carriage’s rhythmic motion. The last time he had been on a train in India, in his gap year, he had travelled to Calcutta on what had once been known as the Frontier Mail.

‘David?’ Kirsty said quietly. ‘He’s gone now.’ Marchant came up for air, and the two of them lay there, looking up at the metallic-blue 1950s interior, with its rivets, brass switches and bakelite fittings. The style reminded Marchant of the inside of an old naval ship.

Earlier, they had talked about the incident on the Delhi concourse. Both women thanked him for his gallant rescue, asking if any of what he said had been true. Marchant chose to maintain the deceit, a harmless one for once, and told them that he had spent two days working as an extra up at the Red Fort, and that Shah Rukh was shorter in the flesh. He needed to keep his liar’s hand in.

Holly had sensed the chemistry between Marchant and Kirsty, and had retreated to her bunk in a sulk, leaving the two of them to sit on the open doorstep of the train, watching Delhi’s suburbs slide by. Their conversation had been unforced, as if they had known each other for years. No questions or accounting for lives, which suited Marchant.

He learnt little about Kirsty, except that she wanted to practise Ashtanga on a beach in Goa, and had the lissom figure of a yoga babe. All Kirsty thought she knew about him was that his name was David Marlowe, his rucksack had been stolen from a guesthouse in Paharganj, and he was originally from Ireland. They were strangers, in other words–much more so than Kirsty would ever know.

But Marchant felt there was something about their carefree encounter, lying on the narrow top bunk bed of a night train to Goa, listening to the long, droning horn of the engine, somewhere far ahead of them, that made it inevitable she should link a leg over his. He was about to reciprocate the gesture when, below them, the child from Kerala coughed. Marchant smiled as Kirsty moved her leg away. Instead, they lay there together, their colliding worlds moving apart from each other again, as the Mangala Express pushed on through the darkness towards the Arabian Sea.

Paul Myers had been drinking heavily all evening in the Morpeth Arms, watching the lights of Legoland across the Thames burning brightly into the night. He knew that what he was about to do could lead to his dismissal. It was also a betrayal of Leila, one of the few people he had been able to call a friend. But she had betrayed him, and he now realised that he was left with little option. Draining his fifth pint of London Pride, he stood up and walked outside, making his way across the Embankment to the pavement by the river.

He watched the dark water running silently beneath him as he dialled the personal mobile of Marcus Fielding. Very few people knew the number, and even fewer were allowed to ring it. But when you worked at GCHQ, with the security clearance of a senior intelligence analyst, there were ways. Myers looked up at the Vicar’s office as the number began to ring.

‘Who’s this?’ Fielding said.

‘Paul Myers, senior analyst, Asia desk, Cheltenham,’ Myers said, aware of a slight slurring of his words.

‘This is neither an appropriate channel of communication, nor an appropriate time,’ Fielding said. ‘Who do you report to?’

‘Sir, it’s about Leila. I need to speak to you tonight.’ Despite the alcohol, Myers detected a missed beat at the other end of the phone. ‘We’ve intercepted some of her calls. I think you should see the transcripts. I’ve got them with me.’

A pause. ‘Where are you?’

‘Just across the water.’ Myers glanced up at the buttressed bay window at the top of Legoland. He couldn’t see anyone, but imagined the Vicar looking out into the darkness.

‘I’ll pick you up in my car,’ Fielding said. ‘I’m on my way out.’

Ten minutes later, Myers was in the back of a Range Rover, next to Fielding, as they were driven down the Thames towards Westminster. Myers was much as Fielding had imagined: few social skills, heavy-rimmed glasses, little personal hygiene, drink problem, and an IQ off the scale. A typical Cheltenham data cruncher, in other words.

‘The first call showed up on the grid a few hours after the marathon,’ Myers said. ‘We were listening to everything, desperate for a lead. It was mayhem, a bit like 7/7. South India was obviously in the frame, so we were scanning for Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu. But we were on the lookout for Farsi, too. I picked up this. I knew it was Leila’s voice straight away.’

He passed Fielding a printout of a phone transcript. Fielding read it through carefully.

Mother (Farsi): ‘They came tonight, three of them. They took the boy–you know him, the one who cooks for me. Beat him in front of my eyes.’

Leila (Farsi): ‘Did they hurt you, Mama? Did they touch you?’

Mother (Farsi): ‘He was like a grandson to me. Dragged him away by his [feet?].’

Leila (Farsi): ‘Mama, what did they do to you?’