It’s me. I need to tell you something.’
‘Ennamma Kannu? I’m so glad you called.’ She could hear him place a muffled hand over the phone, letting her mother know it was their only daughter. ‘I’ve just had another call from the IRS. The whole thing was a hotchpotch, a terrible mix-up. They’re not investigating me any more.’
‘That’s good,’ Lakshmi said. Spiro must have moved quickly. ‘That’s so good.’
‘I’m just glad we didn’t waste time worrying unnecessarily. I always knew the charges were false.’
Lakshmi had to smile. Who was he kidding? He had nearly worried himself to death. Just as he had constantly worried about her over the years. And she had always done his bidding, forgoing alcohol, unsuitable men, meat, even caffeine. Her rebellion, when it finally came, had been extreme.
‘I wanted to say,’ she began, ‘that I know you were mad at me for dropping out of Georgetown –’
‘Baba, you know that’s not the case. And we’re so proud of you now, the important government work you’re doing.’
‘I know, but –’ she paused, holding the syringe. ‘It was a difficult time. I wasn’t well. I needed a change of direction.’
She thought back to the first and only meeting she had attended, when her habit was becoming hard to hide. Twenty strangers – hobos, storekeepers, journalists, a librarian – sat on plastic chairs in a circle, united by narcotics. Up until that anonymous gathering, her addiction had been private. Nobody knew about the stolen hospital supplies of diamorphine hydrochloride, better known as heroin. Shame had made her cunning, and she had concealed her secret life with the ingenuity of a spy. Certainly the vetters at Langley never found out when they later questioned her fellow students and tutors.
As she had sat there, listening to other people’s stories, the futility of her own rebellion had become all too apparent. No one she cared about had noticed anything. To her friends and family she was still the same clean-living, hard-working Indian girl from Reston, Virginia. Only a group of strangers knew that one of the brightest medics on campus was mainlining. For two weeks she sweated and vomited, vowing never to take drugs again.
‘You studied hard,’ her father said.
‘I’ve got to go,’ she replied, pursing her lips, fighting back the tears.
She had studied hard all her life, that was the problem. At her father’s behest she had spent every waking hour at her books, shunning nights out in Georgetown, politely declining dates, turning her back on life, all so she could study. It wasn’t his fault, she realised that now. Hard work was the curse of the immigrant, a response to the constant need to justify oneself. What was the point of telling him that she hadn’t always been studying in Georgetown? That she had nearly thrown her life away, the opportunities he had given her, and was in danger of doing so again?
‘I just wanted to check you were OK, about the IRS and everything,’ she said.
‘It’s all good. Everything’s fine.’
She said her goodbyes and put the phone down on the bed, looking again at the needle. The paramedic was to blame. After diagnosing that a single gunshot wound had shattered the lower radius and ulna of her left forearm, he had injected her with a 30mg ampoule of diamorphine hydrochloride. It had dulled the pain, like the good analgesic it was, but it had also mimicked the body’s endorphins, triggering a cascade of euphoria that had swept up her student past and laid it out in front of her in all its sparkling glory.
She sat back, trying to relax. Her dressing gown was drenched in sweat. Rolling up one sleeve, she tied a pair of knickers around her upper arm, tightened the elastic as hard as she could and flexed her hand again. Then she broke open two glass ampoules, one full of sterilised water, the other containing powdered diamorphine hydrochloride BP.
Although she knew the door was locked, she still looked up to check as she drew the sterilised water into the needle and squirted it into the powder. She shook the solution gently and then searched for the vein at the top of her forearm, sank back against a pillow and sobbed with joy.
21
Marchant soon got used to the loose gears of the Morris Minor Traveller as he drove up the A34 towards Newbury. Downhill, the car sat comfortably at 75mph, but it began to shake violently at 80mph. The slightest incline reduced its speed to 50mph. The one time he lost his nerve was when he accidentally pulled out the tiny brass ignition key, only for the engine to continue working.
The radio worked only intermittently, but the noisy heater produced warmth of a sort. His clothes were sodden and he was shivering, but at least his wallet and phone were dry, sealed in a food bag he had taken from the kitchen.
The Traveller had been easy to find in the marina car park, as it was the only one of its kind. After Marchant had thanked his rescuers and jogged off down the jetty, telling them he was staying at a friend’s house in Gosport, he had quickly spotted the car’s distinctive ash frame in the distance. The boat had taken a mooring on one of the furthest jetties, at least five hundred yards from the car park, and he was confident that they hadn’t seen him drive away.
His mobile phone lay on the passenger seat beside him. He had removed the battery as soon as Dhar had rung him. The call would have been picked up by GCHQ, and probably by the NSA too, who would have been monitoring his number. (Rumour had it that the NSA was now listening in on all MI6 comms traffic.) Dhar’s voiceprint would have been recognised and matched within seconds. He must have known that. What was he playing at? More importantly, what the hell was he doing at their father’s house in the Cotswolds?
Marchant realised that his fears about the missing Russian from the trawler were well-founded. And Myers had been right to be suspicious about the Search and Rescue Helicopter. Dhar must have come ashore with one of the Russians and somehow got himself to Tarlton, using the sailor’s voice to avoid his own being detected.
It would only be a matter of hours before Dhar was caught. Was he hoping for some kind of protection from Britain? If the Americans reached him first, would he talk, reveal their secret? Or perhaps he realised the game was up, and wanted to see his father’s home before he was killed.
Marchant thought again about the call. The only thing that had bought Dhar time was that he had chosen to ring from the home of a former intelligence Chief. MI6 had yet to downgrade the security on the line. A few weeks after his father’s funeral, Marchant had been down to comms on the second floor of Legoland and singled out an attractive female technician he had spotted a few weeks earlier.
‘I’m going to be living there at weekends,’ he had said. ‘It would make sense if the line stayed.’
‘You know it’s against protocol,’ she had replied. ‘Chief and deputy, heads of controllerates – they get secure landlines because they’re important. Last I heard, you were just a cocky field agent.’
‘What will it cost me?’
‘A drink after work.’
He had struck worse deals in his time. It turned out she had admired his father, thought he was a great Chief, and felt sympathy for a bereaved son. She would have to put in the order for a downgrade, but cuts in the department budget meant it would be a while before it was processed. She would oversee its delay personally.
After
