Proof of Life, page 6
Beneath the window were three plain wooden chairs. In the centre of the room was a table, a fourth chair, and it was here that he sat. He wanted to smoke but there was no ashtray. He wished he’d brought something to read.
It was a holding room, designed for exactly the scenario in which he now found himself. An unknown, an unwanted visitor, a potential troublemaker.
Forty minutes went by. On numerous occasions he heard footsteps along the corridor, the murmur of voices, the opening and closing of other doors. He didn’t feel nervous. What could they do? Ask him to leave? Physically manhandle him from the building? If they did, so be it.
Another fifteen minutes passed by and he became irritated. He got up and tried the door even though he knew it was locked. He thumped on it a couple of times.
‘Hey!’ he called out. ‘If someone isn’t going to talk to me, then at least let me the hell out of here!’
Nothing.
He waited another ten minutes, and then a door opened somewhere, footsteps approached, paused, and the door was unlocked.
An older man entered. He carried a dossier, perhaps half an inch thick. He looked at Stroud, nodded, and then took another step into the room.
No sooner had he set the dossier down on the table than a second man entered the room. Orhan Yilmaz.
Stroud smiled, but behind that smile was a profound and sudden sense of real fear.
‘Mr Stroud,’ Yilmaz said.
‘Mr Yilmaz.’
The first man brought a chair to the table, then a second. He sat down. Yilmaz sat beside him.
‘This,’ Yilmaz said, indicating the man beside him, ‘is Monsieur Jean-Michel Fournier. He is assistant to the deputy ambassador. He deals with all matters of security relating to the embassy itself, French officials, visiting dignitaries and the like. He also manages press relations from his office in Paris.’
‘Monsieur Fournier,’ Stroud said.
Fournier didn’t acknowledge him. He merely looked at him with practised disdain.
‘You have entered the building under false pretences, Mr Stroud,’ Yilmaz said.
Stroud smiled knowingly.
‘Unless the information you provided in our first conversation was misleading, then you are not officially employed by The Times of London, nor are you here as an accredited representative of The Times of London. Either way, one of the stories you have given us is false.’
Stroud looked at Yilmaz. He looked at Fournier. He looked down at the dossier. He wanted to know what was in it.
‘And so, given this duplicity, you have placed me in a position where I have no choice but to ask you to leave.’
With that, Yilmaz put his hand inside his jacket and withdrew Stroud’s passport.
‘The rest of your possessions are ready for you to collect. A car will take you to the airport. You will be leaving Turkey this afternoon.’
‘You have got to be kidding me,’ Stroud said. He feigned shock. He knew very well that a man like Yilmaz was not in the business of kidding.
‘You step on toes, Mr Stroud, and people no longer want to dance with you.’
Stroud laughed to mask how anxious he truly felt.
‘I am happy that you find some amusement in this situation,’ Yilmaz said. ‘I asked you not to embarrass us, and you have embarrassed us. I asked you not to make trouble, and here you are making trouble.’
‘Making trouble? I am doing nothing of the sort. I came here to look for my friend.’
‘Your friend is dead, Mr Stroud.’
Stroud looked at Fournier. ‘Vincent Raphael,’ he said, matter-of-factly. ‘Why are the French interested in him? What is really going on here?’
Yilmaz leaned forward. ‘Mr Stroud—’
‘Tell me why French intelligence is interested in a man who’s been dead for six years, Monsieur Fournier. Just tell me that much.’
‘Stroud—’ Yilmaz started.
Fournier raised his hand. Yilmaz fell silent.
‘Mr Stroud,’ Fournier said. ‘I am not in the business of discussing anything that might relate to French intelligence except with those who possess the authority to have such discussions.’
‘You know the name, though? You have heard of Vincent Raphael?’
Fournier looked at Yilmaz.
‘Don’t look at him,’ Stroud said. ‘I am asking you, assistant to the deputy ambassador, not some agent from the Turkish security services.’
Fournier smiled. ‘You are not very adept at making friends, are you, Mr Stroud?’
‘No disrespect, but I don’t care whether we’re friends or not. And if you are running press relations from an office in Paris, then what the hell are you even doing here? Why are you so interested in what I’m doing?’
‘It is not uncommon for ambassadorial staff and representatives to spend considerable amounts of time in the countries they represent. The fact that you are here, that you have entered this building under false pretences with this imaginative story, is of concern to me. You are, after all, on French soil.’
‘I want you to tell me whether you have ever heard of Vincent Raphael.’
‘I have not.’
‘You’re lying.’
Fournier smiled. ‘Enough.’ He started to get up from the chair.
Stroud grabbed the dossier. Both Fournier and Yilmaz instinctively reached to seize it back. Documents spilled across the table and onto the floor.
Stroud saw pictures of himself. There was one of him in the restaurant, even one of him speaking with Nadire in the lobby of the hotel.
Suddenly Vincent’s face caught his attention. A small picture affixed to the top of a sheet of paper. He snatched it before Fournier could retrieve it.
Yilmaz pushed him back into his chair and took the paper, but not before Stroud saw the name that was clearly typed beneath Raphael’s picture. Hendrik Dekker. Alarm bells rang loud and clear.
He held up his hands. ‘I am sorry. That was stupid.’
Yilmaz said nothing. Fournier commented angrily in French, bundled the papers back into the dossier and left the room.
‘Now you are aggravating me, Mr Stroud,’ Yilmaz said. ‘I have nothing further to say to you. You are leaving for Yeşilköy now. You will be on the first available flight back to London.’
Stroud didn’t reply. He had what he came for. A thread.
‘Let me make it clear that returning to Turkey would not be advised,’ Yilmaz said, and with that he left the room.
Stroud, much to his surprise, wasn’t surreptitiously spirited out of Istanbul. Yilmaz had him in first class, had the goons walk him right onto the plane and ensure he was buckled up. It was a nice touch. He was demonstrating that he was in charge, that he could swing whatever he wanted.
On board, Stroud took advantage of Yilmaz’s hospitality. Now more angry than afraid, he ordered one drink after another. By the time the flight landed in London, he was three sheets to the wind.
He took a taxi, stopped at the first hotel he saw. He paid for a room. Once inside, he pushed a chair against the door, and then fell onto the bed in his clothes.
9
The following morning, Stroud had nothing but two cups of black coffee for breakfast.
He made his way across to The Times. Marcus was at his desk and asked him to go up right away.
After a brief summary of what had happened, he said, ‘I called the French embassy in Istanbul this morning. I asked for the assistant to the deputy ambassador. The girl told me there was no such office.’
‘Why does that surprise you?’ Haig asked. ‘I mean, seriously, if I was French Ministry of Defence or whoever the hell he was, then I wouldn’t go announcing it.’
‘I know, Marcus, I know. Anyway, Vincent’s picture was in that dossier, and the name underneath that picture was Hendrik Dekker.’
‘Dutch?’
‘Maybe. Or South African. The question that begs an answer is whether this was an alias, and if it was, then how did neither of us know about it?’
‘We might not have done,’ Haig said, ‘but someone did.’ He leaned back in his chair, swivelled it slightly to the left and looked out across the London skyline. ‘You’ve upset the Turkish, upset the French. Now what?’
‘Find out whether there is any such person as Hendrik Dekker and chase it. I figured I could start with the archives here. I wanted to see if you had anyone who could help me.’
‘Sure, sure,’ Haig said. ‘Sounds like a needle in a haystack, though. If it’s just an alias, then it’s very unlikely that the name will appear in a newspaper article.’
‘I know that, but I have to start somewhere, and this is as good a place as any until I think of something better.’
Haig leaned forward and picked up the phone. ‘Carole, call down to Archives, would you? Tell them Stroud is on his way. And find someone we can send down to give him a hand for a couple of hours.’
The someone sent by Haig was Nina Benson. Nina wasn’t an abbreviation of anything; her parents were just Simone fans, it seemed.
‘We’re looking at Franco–Turkish relations. Conferences, meetings, trade agreements, all that kind of thing,’ Stroud told her. ‘And these names.’ He handed her the list he’d made. Jean-Michel Fournier. Orhan Yilmaz. Aydin Bekarys. Murat Kaya.
‘The first one, supposedly, is a French embassy official in Istanbul, but that’s more than likely a cover for the French Ministry of Defence. Number two and three are Millî İstihbarat Teşkilatı, which is—’
‘Turkish National Intelligence.’
‘You know of it?’
‘Foreign affairs desk, three years,’ Nina said.
‘Bravo,’ Stroud replied, without a hint of sarcasm.
‘Murat Kaya is Hürriyet Daily News.’
‘Okay. Anything else?’
‘The names Vincent Raphael and Hendrik Dekker. Hendrik with a K, Dekker with two.’
‘So what are we actually looking for?’ Nina asked.
‘Last five or six years, those subjects, those names. It’s ludicrous to think we can scroll through microfiche for the entire paper, so stick with intelligence-related issues, civil and national conflict, elections, that kind of thing, but only in overseas news for now.’
‘That’s still a huge amount of material, Mr Stroud.’
‘Drop the Mister. I’m just Stroud.’
‘You don’t have a first name?’
‘Stroud is fine. And yes, I know it’s a huge amount of material, and that is why I am going to help you.’
‘Carole told me you might be challenging.’
Stroud laughed. ‘Challenging?’
‘That’s what she said.’
‘I think that’s polite English for difficult bastard.’
‘Well, what you want is not difficult; it’s just very dull, time-consuming and more than likely fruitless.’
‘I think that’s perhaps the way my ex-wife would describe me, too.’
‘Oh, I don’t think you could be classed as dull,’ Nina said. ‘Not from the reputation that precedes you.’
‘I have a reputation?’
Nina smiled. ‘I am not going to inflate your fragile ego, Stroud. I know who you are, and I know who Vincent Raphael is. I also know why Marcus is having you do this.’
‘How do you know about Vincent?’ Stroud asked.
‘I worked on Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, the Middle East. I was familiar with all those regions: who was out there, who came back, who didn’t. I remember when he was killed—’
‘If he was killed.’
‘You think he wasn’t?’
Stroud checked himself. He was talking out of turn. ‘I have absolutely no doubt he’s dead. However, I am more interested in the circumstances of his death. Whether it was random, whether it was intentional. Too many seemingly unrelated people seem entirely too interested in me snooping around for there to be nothing of interest.’
‘You got booted out of Turkey.’
‘I did.’
‘I think you and Raphael are cut from the same cloth.’
‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’
‘It wasn’t meant that way.’
‘I know,’ Stroud said.
There was a few seconds’ silence between them, but it was neither stilted nor awkward. What needed to be said had been said; now there was just the task at hand ahead of them.
‘You cover ’70 to ’73,’ Stroud said. ‘I’ll take ’73 onwards.’
‘Carole said we could use one of the annexe offices. It’s poky, but there’s a window.’
‘Good enough,’ Stroud said, and let Nina show him the way.
They called it a day a little after seven.
Nina looked at him askance, a flicker of suspicion in her expression, when he invited her to dinner.
‘Really?’ he asked. ‘You think every one of us is the same?’
‘Frankly, yes.’
‘Maybe I am the exception that proves the rule.’
‘I doubt that very much.’
‘It won’t be fancy. I don’t really do fancy. A pub dinner. Lots of people. A smoky bar. Witnesses, right? You want plenty of witnesses.’
Nina laughed. She fluttered her eyes mock-coquettishly. ‘You surely do have the most charming manner, Mr Stroud.’
‘To hell with you, then.’
‘I’ll come and have dinner with you,’ Nina said, ‘but just so we understand one another, I have absolutely no interest in anything other than a purely professional relationship. I want that out there in the open right from the start.’
‘You think I’m someone I’m not. Or someone’s told you that. This is just dinner. And a cheap dinner at that.’
Nina lived near Camberwell. She suggested they head out that way. She knew a couple of decent places that weren’t expensive.
‘I was kidding about cheap,’ Stroud said. ‘Anyway, whatever we spend is going on Marcus’s tab.’
‘A pub is fine,’ she said. ‘I’m actually a pint-and-a-pie kind of girl, to be honest.’
They wound up at the Bricklayers Arms. The landlord knew Nina by name, got them a table in the saloon. Stroud ordered food, two pints of Guinness, and they sat for a while in silence.
‘Tired,’ he said.
‘Me too. There’s something about trawling through that stuff that just wipes me out.’
‘I really appreciate your help.’
‘I do get paid for working there, you know. If I wasn’t doing that, I would be doing something else equally riveting, I’m sure.’
‘What’s your job? Officially.’
‘I am – officially – the assistant copy-editor for the City desk. I cover crime, too.’
‘And how did you wind up in the newspaper business?’
‘Read English and journalism at university.’
‘How old are you?’
Nina frowned. ‘And this is relevant because…?’
‘Because I am interested.’
‘I’m twenty-nine. You?’
‘Thirty-seven.’
‘How did you end up in this racket?’
‘Born in Birmingham, moved here in ’47. Interested in pictures. Took a job as a darkroom assistant at the Standard when I was sixteen. The rest is history.’
‘Your mother?’
‘Still around, as is my father. He’s a retired quantity surveyor. And now it’s my turn to be curious about the questions.’
‘I can be interested too,’ Nina said. ‘I’m trying to figure out what kind of background people like you must have to wind up doing what you do.’
‘People like me?’
‘You, Raphael, others of your clan. The wild ones. The crazy ones. Those who run towards the things that everyone else is running away from. War junkies.’
‘That was one of the first things my ex-wife called me. First time we met, actually. She asked if I was one of Marcus’s war junkies.’
‘How long were you married?’
‘Five years.’
‘Kids?’
‘One. A daughter. Eva. I don’t see her. Ironically, Marcus probably sees more of her than I do. Julia is his cousin.’ Stroud reached for his beer. ‘Can we talk about something else?’
‘Later. I’m not done with my questions.’
Stroud laughed inadvertently.
‘Why did you get divorced?’
Stroud looked at her. She was beginning to irritate him.
‘I’m beginning to irritate you,’ Nina said, reading his expression accurately.
‘My ex-wife, Julia, came from a very wealthy family. She was a rich girl. Home Counties. Pony for her fifth birthday and all that. We had a great relationship, but it wasn’t built on anything substantial enough for it to last. I think we were each an answer to a question, but the wrong answer. I used to think I was a protest against the norm, a statement of rebelliousness against the life that had already been mapped out for her.’
‘That is such a cliché.’
Stroud was bemused. ‘Do you just say whatever comes into your mind?’
‘Mostly, yes. Otherwise we’re wasting a lot of time, right? So, now you can ask me some more questions.’
‘I don’t have any more questions for you,’ Stroud said.
‘That’s disappointing. Do I not engender even the slightest degree of curiosity, Mr Stroud?’
‘Okay. Why are you single?’
‘Because the last man I slept with told me he loved me and then slept with my flatmate.’
‘And that was how long ago?’
‘Christmas Eve last year.’
‘And you moved out?’
‘The hell I did. I made her move out. That night. Threw the pair of them out onto the street.’
