The Crash, page 30
Chapter 25
L
ORD RAVEL SUGGESTS WE CHAT at his club, the Garrick. ‘I assume you know, but you’ll need to wear a tie,’ he tells me over the phone. ‘And we don’t allow trainers.’
‘Really? In which case, let’s not bother.’
A pause. ‘You’re joking.’
‘I’m joking.’
‘When you get there, tell the porters you’re meeting me.’
The dining room is crimson, with a long table down the middle for members – all men – who simply want to turn up and chat with other random members. When I enter, Ravel is seated at one of the smaller tables by a sash window. He pours me a glass of tap water from a jug.
‘My condolences about your father. I came across him as a junior official during the Callaghan government. A great man.’
Of course Ravel knew him, though I’m not sure what Dad would have made of Ravel. Dad wanted to change the world; men like Ravel are the bastions of the status quo.
‘Thanks. It’s been quite upsetting.’ With Ravel I default to understatement.
Ravel hands me the menu and suggests I play it safe in my choices. I choose smoked salmon and jugged hare.
‘You are taking a risk with the hare, but so long as you like living dangerously.’ He orders the smoked salmon, and the saddle of lamb from the trolley.
‘Thanks for coming here. I imagine our gender rule is not your thing.’ I give a peremptory nod. ‘I have become more wary with age, and I am pretty sure this is one place where Mr Putin won’t be eavesdropping.’
‘Putin? I thought he was our friend.’
‘That is the fashionable view, but not mine. Now what was so urgent?’
I’m fed up with all the euphemisms and evasions of the mandarin class. I plough straight in. ‘Your son, Chris. I need to know about his friendship with Islamist terrorists.’
Ravel is about to take a sip of water, but my question stays his hand. Good. He’s human after all. He holds the glass just in front of his mouth, his breath misting the rim.
‘Ah, that.’
‘Yes. That.’
He puts the glass down. ‘My son is a man of contradictions. As I think I told you, we were estranged. But I did become aware, as I assume you did too, that he joined a number of left-wing sects at university.’
‘Various revolutionary communist groups, from memory.’
‘Quite. Now, like many lefties of the era, he spent his vacations in the Middle East. I don’t suppose you did, or if so it would have been in a different country.’
Wow. The predictability of these bigots. It must be genetic. The British establishment is endlessly inventive in its needling antisemitism.
‘By contrast, Chris felt, and there is a case for this, that a terrible injustice had been done to the Palestinians in the creation of the state of Israel. I hope you don’t mind me saying that.’
‘It’s complicated. But yes, having sympathy for the Palestinians is neither unusual nor unreasonable.’
‘Christopher’s allegiances were more than sympathy. I was in a position to keep an eye on him, and over time I became concerned.’
‘You could keep an eye because you were inside MI6 at the time?’
‘You will draw your own conclusions.’ My God, he was spying on his own son. ‘Christopher became fanatical in his commitment to the Palestinian cause. They could do no wrong. Any atrocity they committed against the Jews of Israel was justified.’
‘That was a fashionable view on the left.’
‘Yes, well, Christopher took it further than that. He effectively joined Fatah. Went to their training camps. Learned how to use their assault weapons, to construct an improvised bomb.’
‘You’re joking, of course.’
He takes a sip of water.
‘I wish I was. We had eyes and ears in the camps – I saw the footage myself. I became so concerned that when he returned to Oxford, I visited him in his rooms. It did not go well. We haven’t spoken since.’
‘Have you really not spoken once in more than twenty years?’ I feel a surge of gratitude that at least dad and I talked, even if it was rarely about what matters.
‘Not in any way you would recognise as a conversation. We run into each other at family events. Births, marriages, deaths. But we don’t linger to chat.’
The hare arrives. It’s better than I feared: a bit too bony, but the pepperiness of the juniper berries works a treat with the gaminess of the meat.
Ravel notes my relish. ‘You may have gambled and won,’ he says. ‘Let it be an omen. Where was I?’
‘Your son and Palestine.’
‘Oh yes. I assume this is the bit you want to know about. Not long after Oxford, he graduated from the PLO to those who fund it. He got to know some immensely wealthy Saudis, the sheikh class, as it were. One of their businesses was supplying arms to unsavoury characters in Syria, Lebanon and Gaza. Colossally remunerative.’
‘And you were still tracking all this through the Secret Intelligence Service?’
Ravel ignores the question. ‘Christopher fell in with these Saudis. He became a sort of intermediary between the manufacturers of the weapons, and those who needed them.’
‘Presumably you mean “terrorists”.’
‘Christopher was the perfect go-between. Which western arms manufacturer could question the bona fides of an Oxford graduate whose papa was something senior in the Foreign Office?’
Jesus. Ravel junior was supplying arms to terrorists and paramilitaries, all of them avowed enemies of the West, while Ravel senior was watching from his eyrie in MI6. So British.
‘Is that how he got the cash to seed his hedge-fund business?’ I ask.
‘It was very much a mutually beneficial arrangement. The fund was the perfect vehicle to launder the Saudis’ cash, especially since it turned out Christopher had a talent for making the money grow.’
My leg is shaking, as it does when I’m on edge. I calm it. ‘If the intelligence services knew all this, why on earth didn’t you shut him down?’
Ravel gives me the kind of withering look that mandarins of a certain seniority and class must be taught somewhere. ‘The view was taken that if Christopher wasn’t doing it, someone else would be. At least, once we worked out what was happening, we could keep an eye on him – and his customers. You’d be surprised the useful things we learned.’
The waiter clears our plates. ‘Tea, coffee?’
‘Black coffee, please.’
Ravel makes a face. ‘Undrinkable muck. Worst coffee in London.’ He turns back to the waiter. ‘Two black coffees.’
There’s so much more I need to know. ‘Tell me about the Athena deal.’
Ravel arches against the straight back of the mahogany chair. ‘You know about that, do you?’
‘It’s the quid pro quo for a Saudi rescue of PTBG. Jackson and MHH are fronting for the beneficial owners.’
He frowns. For once, just possibly, I know a little more than he does. Then his face relaxes back into its normal resting position of effortless superiority. ‘That makes sense. Christopher would be desperate to prevent PTBG falling into the hands of the government and would presumably do almost anything to stop it.’
I remember Blackwell at Elliott’s party: Neither of us needs government-appointed auditors looking at the books. And earlier, when I spoke to Blackwell at the Brewery: We’ve been prime broker to Lulworth forever. And as his prime broker, I of course know his bets.
I am not sure which nauseates me more: that Blackwell was completely oblivious to the toxic risk of the CDOs and CDSs his bank was piling high, or that he was cognisant of and complicit in Ravel’s illegal trade with paramilitaries. Where there was a return to be made, scruple was pushed aside.
‘If this came out, it would be an establishment scandal like none other.’ I don’t know how much of this Marilyn knew, but I more properly understand the meaning of her warning. This is much bigger than you know.
‘It would be ugly,’ Ravel concurs.
‘It would be pretty bad for you too, wouldn’t it, given that you’ve known about it all these years?’
‘A secondary consideration.’
Which presumably means no one would be able to prove that MI6 tacitly sanctioned the illicit arms deals and the laundering of the proceeds through Lulworth and PTBG. I can’t prove it, and stupidly I didn’t bring my Olympus. Ravel’s tentacles make him a one-man Malmsey.
The coffee arrives. It is as stewed and bitter as Ravel suggested. ‘Why are you being so frank?’
‘Whatever you think of me, Mr Peck, I have served my country for forty years. I am a patriot. And I take the view that Athena should not be sold abroad, and most certainly not to the Saudis. It would upset the fragile balance of power in the region, and lead to goodness knows what kind of disaster. The sale must be stopped.’
‘Surely the government can just ban the technology transfer and prohibit the deal?’
Ravel peers down his aquiline beak. ‘This is Modern Labour, Mr Peck. One of Todd’s founding principles is that everything is for sale. It’s not my normal style to engage with the media’ – he pronounces it ‘meeja’, to signal his disdain – ‘but it would be a service to the public if you could get all of this in the public domain in your inimitable way as soon as humanly possible. It’s possible you’ll create enough of a stink to shame Tudor into action.’
My phone buzzes and I instinctively pull it out to answer it. A waiter appears within a millisecond and informs me telephones are not permitted in the dining room.
‘You’re on your toes when it suits you, aren’t you?’ Ravel joshes.
‘Sorry sir. Club’s rules.’
‘Quite right too. Anyway, Mr Peck and I were just finishing. Gil, why don’t you ring back your interlocutor in the lobby downstairs? I’ll pick this up.’
‘Are you sure? It was my idea to meet, so surely I should pay.’
‘Your money isn’t any good here, I’m afraid.’
As I go to the lobby, I note that the call was from Jess’s landline at home. She picks up the second I ring her back.
‘Everything OK?’
‘It’s Amy.’
Dread rolls over me as I hear the anxiety in her tone. ‘What about her?’
‘She’s disappeared.’
Chapter 26
‘W
HAT DO YOU MEAN, DISAPPEARED?’
‘The school telephoned. She left the playground at lunch break. No one knows how. She didn’t go back inside for registration. I’m about to go to the school.’
‘I’m sure there’s an innocent explanation and she’ll turn up soon.’ The words come out automatically, reassuring her in the way I always reassure my parents, though as soon as they’re out I realise I’m being patronising and stupid. ‘We should ring the police, though.’
‘If there’s an innocent explanation, why would we contact the police?’
‘Sorry. I wasn’t trying to minimise. I’ll see you at the school in twenty minutes.’
I don’t think I’ve ever cycled so fast. I ignore the red light and cross the Euston Road at Tottenham Court Road and narrowly miss being turned to pulp by an ambulance at the junction on the north side. When I get to the gates of Our Lady of Queen’s Park, Jess is pulling up in her car. I notice there’s a CCTV camera at the entrance, and the gate is locked.
‘The security seems to be good,’ I say, and then again regret my inanity. If Amy’s missing, it wasn’t good enough.
Jess buzzes the intercom, and we walk in together to see the headteacher, Ms Ditton. She offers us a couple of those plastic stacking chairs that every school owns. We sit facing her across her paper-strewn desk. Ms Ditton is trying to be calm, but concern is etched in her every self-conscious gesture.
‘I talked to Amy’s classmates. They say a young couple came into the playground at lunchtime. They went up to Amy as though they knew her, as though they were family or close friends.’
‘Do Amy’s friends have any idea who these people were and why Amy felt minded to leave with them?’ Jess asks.
‘Apparently one of them said they worked with your new boyfriend, and he’d arranged for Amy to have a treat.’
I reach out to Jess and squeeze her hand. ‘That would be me, I suppose.’
‘They told her you’d asked them to pick her up. Apparently, she said she wanted to speak to you, and they called you on the phone.’
Jess looks hard at me. ‘They didn’t ring me,’ I say. ‘Someone must have impersonated me.’
I daren’t look at Jess. It’s obvious she’s going to think that knowing me is too dangerous. All those hopes I’ve been building of making a family with Jess and Amy – of escaping to something normal and healthy from my obsessively compulsive, solipsistic bubble – is just so much dry sand escaping through my fingers.
I turn to the headteacher and dispense with tact. ‘How did they get in? Aren’t the gates locked when the children are in the playground?’
‘Yes, they are, normally. We are looking into it.’
‘What about CCTV? I saw the camera outside.’
‘Yes. We have it. But it broke last year. Money is tight and we haven’t been able to fix it. We do have one possible lead, though. One of the boys who saw Amy leave is obsessed with cars. He says they all got into a Bentley, and he said it was bigger than a normal one.’
Jess’s eyes go wide, and there’s no need for us to articulate what we’re both thinking. Primakov.
‘Do you have an idea who took her?’ the headteacher asks.
A Russian billionaire whose enemies drown in lakes or get bullets in their heads. I’m wondering how I can possibly explain the insanity of our life to the headteacher when my phone buzzes. I recognise the number and step outside for two minutes.
On my return, I say, ‘That was Kim Jansen.’
‘Jesus,’ says Jess. ‘She’s the last person we need.’
‘She says she’s pulling up outside.’
‘Who is she?’ asks the head.
‘The assistant commissioner of the Met.’ Jess rounds on me. ‘Did you call her?’
‘No. Of course not. Presumably the school contacted the police?’ I look at Ms Ditton, who nods. ‘And someone must have informed Kim, I suppose.’
‘Well it’s odd. And I want you to tell her to fuck right off.’
‘But isn’t it a good thing the police are taking this seriously?’ Ms Ditton is bewildered.
‘I’ll go and see what she’s doing here,’ I say. ‘I’ll encourage her to leave, but I can’t be sure she’ll listen to me.’
Outside the gates, there’s a navy blue official Jaguar, and a Vauxhall estate dressed in the luminescent yellow and blue Met livery. Kim is sitting next to the driver in the Jag. She winds down the window, and signals to me to wait, while she finishes a call. I walk up and down, increasingly agitated. I can see she’s actually laughing as she winds up on the phone. It is a struggle to suppress my rage.
She steps onto the pavement. ‘Jess must be frantic.’
I’m not in the mood for her phoney sympathy. ‘Why are you here.’
‘Your names were live on our database of open cases, because of your involvement in the Marilyn Krol suicide. Control room alerted me and I came straight over. We’ll obviously do everything we can to find Amy.’
The officers in the other car are getting out to join us. ‘Don’t give me that sanctimonious bollocks,’ I snarl. ‘I don’t believe your internal systems are anywhere near as efficient as that. You knew this was going to happen. You’re here because you’re in on it.’
Jansen looks around to see if we’ve been overheard. ‘Calm down.’ She shoots her colleagues a look and they instantly withdraw from earshot. ‘What you’ve just said is wrong and totally out of order. I’m here to help. If you have any sense, you’ll tell me everything you know. You can trust me.’
She’s the last person I trust. But however much she’s been corrupted by Elliott, she seems genuinely anxious.
‘Amy has been taken away by a couple who were using a car – an oversized Bentley – owned by a Russian billionaire called Primakov. I imagine his name is familiar, because he’s in business with your Malmsey friends Elliott and Jackson. Jess and I have been investigating their criminal activities, which include blackmailing a Bank of England director, fraudulently hiding massive losses in the MHH fund from creditors and investors, and failing to disclose substantial purchases of NewGate shares. And just to avoid any doubt in your mind about what I think about your culpability, if there is so much as a scratch on Amy, I will make it my life’s mission to destroy you.’
Kim’s jaw tightens. ‘Pipe down, before you say something you’ll regret. I can only imagine how upset Ms Neeskens feels. But don’t confuse conspiracy fantasies with the real world. You can rest assured I take the disappearance of a child very seriously. We will move heaven and earth to find her. First of all, though, it’s best if we go inside and talk with the head.’
‘Jess doesn’t want you here,’ I say.
‘It’s not her call. As I said, the disappearance of a seven-year-old is extremely serious.’
‘Did Elliott give you that script?’
Without responding, she strides into the school, the officers trailing behind. A moment later, Jess comes out.
‘I told you to get rid of her.’
I shrug. ‘I told her she wasn’t wanted, but she wouldn’t listen. Why have you left the office?’
‘She said she needed to talk to the head alone.’
Jess looks around the playground, presumably hoping for a miracle and that Amy will pop out from behind the climbing frame or the sparse trees. ‘Gil, what did you say to the Russian? What does he want from us?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe he’s in on the Athena deal and knows that if we expose it then it probably won’t happen.’
‘Oh don’t be so stupid,’ she hisses. I feel as though I’ve been slapped. ‘Take responsibility for once in your life. It’s all because you prevented the initial takeover of NewGate and then you told Tudor to nationalise. You cost Primakov a fortune. It’s his revenge.’
