Dirty Little Secret. Jon Stock

      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 too many drinks at the Morpeth Arms, he had walked her home to Vauxhall, but turned down coffee. Back then, there had been Leila to think about. Eighteen months on, the line was a forgotten memo and still secure, routed through MI6. But his own mobile phone, despite the encryption, would have been tracked to Fort Monckton, which was why he had removed its battery. He thought of Lakshmi, hoping she was safe. They would come looking for him at the Fort, and she would tell them he had gone to see Fielding.

      It was 4 a.m. when he eventually reached Cirencester, two hours after he had left Gosport. He took the road to Tetbury, turning left to Kemble after a few miles. He didn’t want to drive up to Tarlton in the Traveller. There was a chance that the sailors had noticed it had been stolen and had already raised the alarm. He needed to leave it somewhere it wouldn’t draw attention.

      At Kemble, he turned right into the railway station and a big car park that he remembered. He used to cycle here from Tarlton in the university holidays when he went up to London, leaving his bike against the railings in a well-tended garden beside the platform. There had been no need to lock it, as it was a sit-up-and-beg Hero his father had brought back from India. Modern bikes were stolen regularly from Kemble, but nobody had wanted this one.

      He found a quiet corner, away from the station, and parked the Traveller between two other cars. One was an Aston Martin, the other a BMW. The Traveller might stand out more than he thought. Then he went over to the garden beside the platform, just in case there were any unlocked bikes there. But it was empty, the flowerbeds still well tended. Shivering in the dawn light, he set off back down the road and began the two-mile walk up to Tarlton.