Moskva Read Online Free PDF Page A

was to say a car was waiting. Leaving Sad Sam, he stepped over the stray cat that spent its days guarding the gate, passed the bored KGB man in his little box and opened the rear door of a blue embassy Jaguar. In the back, on the shiny leather seat, sat Sir Edward’s head of security. First glance would have told you he was an ex-serviceman. Second glance might have suggested he needed to exercise his body less and his mind more. A flint-like sharpness suggested that second glance would be wrong.
    ‘Morning,’ Tom said.
    The ex-serviceman stared at him.
    ‘Here to make sure I don’t abscond?’
    ‘Something like that.’
    The man nodded at the driver’s mirror and the V12 purred into life. As the Jaguar turned south, a sleek Volga fell into place behind it.
    ‘Subtle,’ Tom said.
    ‘There’s a hierarchy. Sir Edward merits a Volga. I merit a new Moskvitch. You merit an old one. That’s also how you tell the services apart. The KGB drive Volgas, the police Moskvitches.’
    ‘I had a Volga the other night.’
    ‘You must have got that wrong.’
    Tom shook his head. ‘I don’t get things like that wrong.’
    The man looked at him. A long considered stare until Tom glanced away. He had no wish to get into a pissing contest with an ex-paratrooper. Unless he wanted to go home, of course. Because that’s where the Second Secretary could send him. ‘Do you know where she is?’ the man asked finally.
    ‘Why the hell would I –’
    ‘Do you know where she is?’
    ‘No,’ Tom said. ‘I have no idea where she is.’
    The man sat back and considered his next question carefully. When he spoke, his voice was less clipped and there was a trace of an accent. Something northern, Yorkshire maybe. ‘Any idea why Sir Edward thinks you might?’
    ‘Because he’s clutching at straws?’
    ‘There has to be more to it than that.’
    Tom shrugged. ‘What happens now?’
    ‘You see Sir Edward.’
    ‘Have we told the Soviets?’
    ‘Sir Edward’s rather hoping she’ll come back on her own.’
    ‘Does London know?’
    ‘Fox. You don’t seem particularly concerned.’
    ‘For the kid? Of course I’m concerned.’
    ‘For yourself. When I left, Sir Edward was raging. Apparently you gave his stepdaughter a lesson in how to commit suicide.’
    Tom inhaled sharply. ‘Oh, bloody hell.’
    The car trailing them stopped outside, as if the embassy’s high gates and wrought-iron railings were enough to make its engine fail. In a way they were. Inside was Great Britain. Outside, Soviet Russia.
    ‘He’s in his office,’ a woman at the reception desk told the head of security, who nodded and headed for the stairs. Across the hallway, two guards were watching, but casually. They knew something was going on. They didn’t know what. Ex-soldiers, possibly still serving. One caught Tom’s eye and shrugged.
    Sir Edward’s office was as big as Tom remembered.
    The desk was impressively huge and largely empty. There was the obligatory Annigoni portrait of the Queen as a young woman on the wall behind it. On a side table sat a photograph of Sir Edward with the PM. Before the door had even shut, the woman at Sir Edward’s side strode over and slapped Tom so hard his head jerked sideways.
    ‘
Anna!
’
Sir Edward protested.
    ‘How could you?’ she shouted. ‘How could you be so stupid? What kind of monster says
Wrist to elbow if you’re serious
?’
    ‘Did you know?’ Tom asked. ‘Did you know what your daughter was doing?’
    For a moment Anna Masterton’s face was hollow as a mask and, as the anger went out of her, Tom knew that she had.
    ‘What’s this about?’ Sir Edward demanded.
    ‘Your stepdaughter had dragged something sharp acrossher wrists. Not for the first time from the look of it. I told her to roll her sleeves up or roll them down. Have the fight or …’
    ‘Not?’ Sir Edward asked.
    ‘Was there a fight to have, sir?’
    ‘With Alex there’s always a fight to have.’
    ‘What did her note say?’ Tom