‘Staff are away at the races,’ Hector said, hanging it up.
Matlock was a broad-shouldered bull of a man, as his nickname implied, broad-headed, and at first glance avuncular, with a crouch that reminded Luke of an ageing rugby forward. His Midlands accent, according to the ground-floor gossips, had become more noticeable under New Labour, but was receding with the prospect of electoral defeat.
‘We’re in the basement, if you’re comfortable with that, Billy,’ said Hector.
‘I’ve no alternative but to be comfortable with it, thank you, Hector,’ said Matlock, neither pleasantly nor rudely, leading the way down the stone steps. ‘What are we paying for this place, by the by?’
‘You’re not. This far it’s on me.’
‘You’re on
our
payroll, Hector. The Service is not on
yours
.’
‘As soon as you greenlight the operation, I’ll be putting in my bill.’
‘And I’ll be querying it,’ said Matlock. ‘Taken to drink, have you?’
‘It used to be the wine cellar.’
They took their places. Matlock assumed the head of the table. Hector, normally the stubborn technophobe, sat himself on Matlock’s left in order to be in front of a tape recorder and a computer console.
And to Hector’s left sat Luke, thereby providing the three of them with a clear view of the plasma screen that the absent Ollie had erected overnight.
‘Did you have time to wade through all the material we bunged at you, Billy?’ Hector inquired sympathetically. ‘Sorry to interfere with your golf.’
‘If
all
is what you sent me, yes, Hector, I did, thank you,’ Matlock replied. ‘Though in your case, as I have come to learn, the word
all
is somewhat of a relative term. I don’t play golf, as a matter of fact, and I’m not enamoured of summaries, if I can avoid them. Specially not yours. I could have done with a bit more raw material and a bit less arm-twisting.’
‘Then why don’t we offer you some of that raw material now, and make up?’ Hector suggested, just as sweetly. ‘I take it we’re still Russian speakers, Billy?’
‘Unless yours has gone rusty while you were out making yourself a fortune, yes, I think we are.’
They’re an old married couple, thought Luke, as Hector pressed ‘play’ on the tape recorder. Every quarrel they have is a rerun of one they’ve had before.
*
For Luke, the very sound of Dima’s voice acted like the start of a full-colour film. Every time he listened to the cassette that Perry the innocent had smuggled in his shaving bag he came away with the same image of Dima crouched in the forests around Three Chimneys, clutching a pocket recorder in his improbably delicate hand, far enough from the house to escape Tamara’s real or imagined microphones, but near enough to scurry back if she yelled at him to come and take another phone call.
He could hear the three winds battling round Dima’s glistening bald head. He could see the treetops above him shaking. He could hear the crashing of leaves and a gurgle of water, and he knew it was the same tropical rain that had drenched him in the forests of Colombia. Had Dima made his recording in a single session or in several?
Did he have to brace himself with shots of vodka between sessions in order to overcome his
vory
inhibitions? Now his Russian bark drops into English, perhaps to remind himself who his confessors are. Now he is appealing to Perry. Now to a bunch of Perrys:
‘You English gentlemen! Please! You are
fair play
, you have land of law! You are pure! I trust you. You will trust Dima also!’
Then back to his native Russian, but so careful of its grammatical niceties, so prinked and articulated, that in Luke’s imaginings he is trying to rid it of its Kolyma stain in preparation for rubbing shoulders with the gentlemen of Ascot and their ladies:
‘The man they are calling Dima, number one for money-laundering for the Seven Brothers, financial mastermind to the retrograde usurper who calls himself the Prince, presents his compliments to the famous English Secret Service and wishes to make the following offer of valuable information in exchange for trustworthy guarantees by the British government.
Example
.’
Then only the winds speak as Luke imagines Dima mopping away his sweat and tears with a large silk handkerchief – Luke’s own gloss, but Perry had repeatedly mentioned a handkerchief – before taking another slug from the bottle and proceeding to the full, irrecoverable act of betrayal.
‘
Example
. Operations of the Prince’s criminal organization now known as the Seven Brothers include:
‘
One
: importations and rebranding of embargoed oil from Mid East. I know these transactions. Many corrupt Italians and many British lawyers are involved.
‘
Two
: injection of black money into multi-billion-dollar oil purchases and revenues. For this my friend Mikhail, called Misha, was specialist for all seven
vory
Brotherhoods. For this purpose he also lived in Rome.’
Another break in the voice, and perhaps a silent toast to the late Misha, followed by an exuberant return to fractured English:
‘Example three
: black logging, Africa. First we are converting black timber into white timber. Then we are converting black money into white money! Is normal. Is simple. Many, many Russian criminals in tropical Africa. Also black diamonds very interesting new trade for Brotherhoods.’
Still in English:
‘
Example four
: facsimile medicines, made in India. Very lousy, do not cure, make you bring up, maybe kill. Official State of Russia has very interesting relations with official State of India. Also very interesting relations between Indian and Russian Brotherhoods. The one they call Dima knows many interesting names, also English, regarding these vertical connections and certain private financial arrangements, Swiss-based.’
Luke the worrier is undergoing an impresario’s crisis of confidence on Hector’s behalf:
‘Volume all right for you there, Billy?’ Hector asks, pausing the tape.
‘The volume is very fine, thank you,’ Matlock says, with just enough emphasis on
volume
to suggest that the content may be a different matter.
‘On we go then,’ said Hector, a little too meekly for Luke’s taste, as Dima gratefully reverts to his native Russian:
‘
Example
: in Turkey, Crete, Cyprus, in Madeira, in many coastal resorts: black hotels, no guests, twenty million black dollars weekly. This money also is laundered by the one they call Dima. Certain criminal British so-called property companies are complicit.
‘
Example
: personal corrupt involvement of European Union officials with criminal meat contractors. These meat contractors must certify high quality, very expensive Italian meat for export to Russian Republic. For this arrangement my friend Misha was also personally responsible.’
Hector again pauses the recorder. Matlock has raised his hand.
‘How can I help you, Billy?’
‘He’s reading.’
‘What’s wrong with him reading?’
‘Nothing. As long as we know what he’s reading from.’
‘Our understanding is that his wife Tamara wrote some of his lines for him.’
‘She told him what to say, did she?’ said Matlock. ‘I don’t think I like the sound of that. Who told
her
what to say?’
‘Want me to fast forward? It’s only stuff about our colleagues in the European Union poisoning people. If it’s outside your remit, say the word.’
‘Kindly continue as you are proceeding, Hector. I shall henceforth reserve my comments till later in the performance. I’m not sure we have a requirement for Intelligence on meat sales to Russia, in point of fact, but you may rely on me to make it my business to find out.’
*
To Luke, the story Dima was about to tell was truly shocking. Nothing he had endured in life had dulled his senses. But what Matlock made of it was anybody’s guess. Dima’s weapon of choice is once more Tamara’s English:
‘Corrupt system is as follows.
First
: Prince arranges through corrupt officials in Moscow that certain meat is called
charity meat
. To be for
charity
, meat must be for needy elements of Russian society only. Therefore on meat that is corruptly classified for charity, no Russian tax payable.
Second
: my friend Misha who is dead buys many carcasses of meat from
Bulgaria
. This meat is dangerous to eat, very lousy, very cheap.
Third
: my friend Misha who is dead arranges with very corrupt officials in Brussels Union that all Bulgarian meat carcasses will be stamped
individually with European Union stamp of certification identifying meat as very top quality excellent best European Standard Italian meat
. For this criminal service, I, Dima, personally pay one hundred euro per carcass to Swiss account of very corrupt
Brussels
official, twenty euro per carcass to Swiss account of very corrupt
Moscow
official. Net profit to Prince, after deduction of all overheads: one thousand two hundred euro per carcass. Maybe fifty Russian people, also kids, got sick and die from this very bad Bulgarian meat. This is only
estimate
. This information is officially
denied
. The names of these very corrupt officials are known to me, also Swiss bank accounts by number.’
And a stiff postscript, sonorously delivered:
‘It is personal opinion of my wife Tamara L’vovna that immoral distribution of bad Bulgarian meat by criminally corrupted European and Russian officials must be of concern to all Christian person of good heart worldwide everywhere. It is God’s will.’
The unlikely intervention of God in the proceedings had created a small hiatus.
‘Would somebody mind telling me what a
black hotel
is?’ Matlock demanded of the air in front of him. ‘I happen to take my holidays in Madeira. There never seemed anything very black about
my
hotel.’
Fired by a need to protect the subdued Hector, Luke appointed himself the somebody who would tell Matlock what a black hotel was:
‘You buy a bit of prime land, usually on the sea, Billy. You pay cash for it, you build a five-star luxury-hotel resort. Maybe several. For cash. And throw in fifty or so holiday bungalows if you’ve got the space. You bring in the best furniture, cutlery, china, linen. From then on your hotels and bungalows are full up. Except that nobody ever stays in them, you see. If a travel agent calls: sorry, we’re fully booked. Every month a security van rolls up at the bank and unloads all the cash that’s been taken in room rentals, bungalow rentals, the restaurants, the casinos, the nightclubs and the bars. After a couple of years, your resorts are in perfect shape to be sold with a brilliant trading record.’
No response beyond a raising of Matlock’s avuncular smile to maximum strength.
‘It’s not only resorts either, actually. It can be one of those strangely empty white holiday villages – you must have seen them, trickling down Turkish valleys to the sea – it can be, well, scores of villas, obviously, it can be pretty well anything that’s lettable. Car hire too, provided you can fudge the paperwork.’
‘How are you today, Luke?’
‘Fine, thanks, Billy.’
‘We’re thinking of putting you up for a medal, courage beyond the call, did you know that?’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘Well, we are. A secret one, mind, nothing public. Nothing you can flash on your chest on Remembrance Day, mind. That wouldn’t be secure. Plus it would fly in the face of precedent.’
‘Of course,’ said Luke, totally confused, now thinking a medal might be the one thing that would get Eloise over her depression, now that it was yet another of Matlock’s wiles. Nevertheless, he was about to say something appropriate in reply – express his surprise, gratitude, pleasure – only to find that Matlock had lost interest in him:
‘What I’m hearing so far, Hector, if I cut away the guff, which I like to, is in my humble view straight international crookery. All right, granted, the Service has a statutory interest in international crookery and money-laundering. We fought for a piece of it when times were hard, and now we’re landed with it. I refer to that unfortunate fallow period between the Berlin Wall coming down and Osama bin Laden doing us the favour of 9/11. We fought for a piece of the money-laundering market the same as we fought for a larger slice of Northern Ireland, and whatever other modest pickings were available to justify our existence. But that was
then
, Hector. And this is
now
, and as of today, which is where we are living, like it or not, your Service and mine has better things to do with its time and resources than get its knickers caught in the highly complex wheels of City of London finance, thank you.’
Matlock broke off, expecting Luke knew not what, unless it was applause, but Hector, to judge by his stony expression, was a long way from providing it, so Matlock drew breath and resumed.
‘As of today, furthermore, we also have, in this country, a very large, fully incorporated, somewhat over-financed sister agency that devotes its efforts, such as they are, to matters of serious and organized crime, which I take it is what you are purporting to be unveiling here. Not to mention Interpol, and any number of competing American agencies falling over each other’s very large feet to do the same job while careful not to prejudice the prosperity of that great nation. My point is, Hector – wait till I’m finished, please – my point is, I’m not seeing what I was brought here for at extremely short notice. We all know that what you’ve got is
urgent
, though to whom I’m less sure. Maybe it’s even
true
. But is it
ours
, Hector? Is it ours?’