Box 88 : A Novel (2020), стр. 79
‘Why is what important?’
‘Collecting Martha from the airport?’
Kite sensed an opportunity to kill more time.
‘It’s important because when I look back to that summer, the first person I think about is her. Not Xavier, not Eskandarian, not Luc. I think about Martha Raine. You should know that, if you’re interested in understanding what I was thinking.’ Torabi set the phone to one side. ‘In spite of everything that happened, Martha became the most important person in my life for the next fifteen years. Xavier and I remained friends. What happened to the others was a tragedy, yes, but it just became a sad story, something I only thought about from time to time.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ Torabi replied.
Kite decided to lay it on thick.
‘Surely you remember that feeling you’d get when you were a young man? That crazy, dizzying sensation of longing? I can still picture the first time I saw Martha at the house, as if it was yesterday. What she looked like, what she was wearing. And I recall how embarrassed I felt telling her that we’d met before at a party. She didn’t remember me. At the time I thought: “I’m just another chump. I’m going to be spending a week with this girl in the South of France and it’s going to be torture.” But it didn’t turn out that way. In fact thanks to the encouragement of—’
Torabi stopped him.
‘I get it,’ he said. ‘You fell in love. You’re trying to tell me that it would have been impossible for you – maybe even forbidden – to have an affair with this woman while you were working for MI6.’
‘Exactly!’ Kite replied, pleased that Torabi had understood what he was trying to do. ‘Xavier was deluded. Whatever he told you was bullshit. It would have been impossible for me to spy on Eskandarian. I was just an innocent bystander.’
The Iranian lit a cigarette. For a moment Kite was concerned that he was going to burn him again; he could still feel the sting of the wound on his blistered neck. Instead Torabi remained in his seat, smoking impassively. He was once again the man of the boardroom, as relaxed as he might have been sitting in the lounge of an Abu Dhabi sports club or enjoying an after-dinner cigar with clients in Milan. Kite shifted the position of his leg and felt the weight of the nail against his thigh. If he moved too much there was a risk it would fall out of his pocket onto the floor.
‘If you lie to me, I will know,’ Torabi told him, drawing on the cigarette. ‘Keep talking.’
35
Rosamund and Jacqui drove south in the Citroën. Luc took Xavier and Kite in the Mercedes. They left Paris just after nine o’clock on Thursday, 3 August.
Kite sat in the back seat listening to his Walkman, which still continued to function in the normal way, allowing him to listen to the music – Eurythmics, Supertramp, Tears for Fears – for which he had been ridiculed by his friends at Alford for years. Only if Kite inserted a specially tailored blank cassette, provided by the Falcons, would it also record up to twelve hours of conversation on a set of fresh batteries.
A few miles beyond Clermont-Ferrand, Luc stopped for petrol at an aire on the autoroute. Kite looked around to see if Rosamund had followed them off the motorway, but the Citroën was nowhere to be seen. There was a queue for petrol. As Luc waited to fill up, Kite and Xavier walked towards a makeshift picnic area on a stretch of grass outside the service building. It was a humid afternoon. Clouds were blocking the fierce heat of the sun as they sat at a wooden table smoking. Kite could hear the low roar of the motorway, the crying of a small child nearby. He looked back at the petrol pumps, but there was no sign of Luc. He was probably still in the queue. Parents were dragging tired, squabbling toddlers back and forth from the service building. At the next table a family of Germans were eating slices of pizza from paper plates.
‘What were you listening to?’ Xavier asked.
‘Dylan,’ Kite replied, remembering that Blood on the Tracks was the last tape he had inserted in the Walkman. ‘You?’
‘Was just chatting to Dad. Long way. Keeping him company.’
‘Sure.’
A man wearing a black baseball hat was standing directly in Kite’s eyeline at a distance of about twenty feet. He slowly turned around until he was facing the table at which Kite and Xavier were seated. Kite clocked him but looked away without studying his face. An elderly woman was preparing a bowl of water for a panting dog. The man took a step forward. Kite saw that he was carrying a copy of the Financial Times. He was electrified.
‘Need a slash,’ he said, stubbing out the cigarette only two-thirds through. ‘Meet you back at the car?’
‘Sure,’ Xavier replied.
Kite walked towards the entrance to the service building, passing within touching distance of the man. His heart was galloping with the adrenaline surge of making contact with a member of the team. He was trying not to move too fast, too conspicuously. Had BOX been following the Mercedes all the way from Paris? Had something already gone wrong?
Kite moved through a set of sliding doors, remembering what Peele had taught him about meetings in the open. There was a large shop to his left stocked with puzzle books and magazines, bottles of wine and sunhats. Immediately ahead, crowds of people were queuing in a long line for hot food. Above their heads, illuminated signs advertised pizzas and burgers and plats du jour. A buxom woman had set out bowls of olives and cubes of local cheese at a wooden stall in the centre of the hall. There was a smell of burned