In the end, the Frenchman kept things simple. At Reading, he again switched services. Aldrich had more than enough time to follow him off the train, even to wait alongside him on the platform, and to travel back towards Woking, where he called Kell to tell him that CUCKOO had boarded a RailAir bus to Heathrow. Harold was more than twenty miles away, snagged in traffic on the outskirts of Reading with one bar of power on his mobile, but Aldrich was still able to follow the bus in a cab while Kell and Amelia went ahead to the airport.

They were sitting in the car park of a Holiday Inn, at the edge of the M4, when Amelia’s mobile phone rang. The number was unknown, an echo-delay on the line as she put the call on speaker.

‘Is this Amelia Levene?’

Kell knew immediately who was calling. A Frenchwoman, fluent English with a strong American accent.

‘Who am I speaking to, please?’

‘You can call me Madeleine Brive. I met your friend, Stephen Uniacke, on a ferry to Marseille.’

Amelia locked on to Kell’s eyes. ‘I know who you are.’

The voice became both louder and clearer. ‘I want you to listen very carefully to me, Mrs Levene. As you are aware, the primary operation against your service has failed. You will never know who was behind it. You will never find the people responsible.’

Kell frowned, wondering what Valerie’s remarks revealed about her state of mind. Was she concerned that they knew her location?

‘I doubt that,’ Amelia replied.

‘You may be interested to know the whereabouts of your son.’

Kell felt a coil of blind anger and could only imagine what Amelia was faced with.

‘Mrs Levene?’

‘Please go on,’ she said.

A young couple, trailing suitcases and jet lag, walked past the Audi on their way towards the Holiday Inn.

‘You speak French, am I correct?’

‘You are correct.’

‘Then I will speak in French to you, Mrs Levene, because I want you to understand every … every nuance of what I am about to tell you.’ She switched to her native tongue. ‘This is now a private operation. François Malot is being held at a location in France. In order to secure his release, five million euros should be paid into a Turks and Caicos trust within three days. The details of the account will be sent to you in a separate way. Do I have your cooperation?’

Kell could have no bearing on the decision. He looked quickly at Amelia, sensing that she would capitulate.

‘You have my cooperation,’ she said.

‘Within the next twenty-four hours, we will send you proof that your son is alive. If I do not receive the sum of money requested by Wednesday at 1800 hours, he will be executed.’

The mobile phone began to beep. A second call was coming in. Kell looked down at the read-out and saw that Aldrich was trying to reach them.

‘Hang up,’ he mouthed, gesturing to Amelia, who had reached the same conclusion. They were at war with these people; everything was now about power and control.

‘Fine,’ she said, ‘you’ll have your money,’ and shut off the call. Amelia allowed herself only a moment’s reflection before connecting Aldrich to the car.

‘Go ahead, Danny,’ she said.

‘Terminal Five. CUCKOO just got off the bus. Must be looking to fly BA to France.’

68

Within ten minutes, Elsa Cassani, sitting patiently in a Terminal Three branch of Starbucks with only a laptop and an iPhone for company, had scribbled down every flight leaving for France from Heathrow airport in the next five hours.

‘CUCKOO has a lot of choice,’ she told Kell, who was en route with Amelia to Terminal Five. ‘There are flights to Nice, Paris Charles de Gaulle, Paris Orly, Toulouse Blagnac and Lyon. They go all the time.’

Kell dismissed Lyon and Nice, but Toulouse remained a possibility, because the city was within an hour of Salles-sur-l’Hers. Yet Paris still seemed the most likely destination. He called Aldrich inside the terminal building for an update. CUCKOO had sat down at a table in Café Nero, a stone’s throw from passport control.

‘He went straight there, guv.’

‘Didn’t buy a ticket? Didn’t go to the BA desk?’

‘No. Hasn’t bought a coffee, either. Just sitting there.’

Kell explained the situation to Amelia, who hazarded what turned out to be an accurate guess.

‘He’s either meeting somebody or picking up a package. They may have cached a passport for him. Tell Danny to sit tight.’

Needing the jolt of a cup of coffee, Vincent stood up, queued at the counter and bought a double espresso. His table was still free by the time he returned to his seat. For hours he had felt an almost fatalistic sense of imminent capture; everything he’d done in Salisbury, every move he’d made on the trains, wouldn’t have been enough to throw off a decent British team. There were cameras at the airport, police in plain clothes, customs officials, security personnel. What if his photograph had been circulated among them? How was he going to get on to a plane? If he could just get through passport control, he might throw off MI6 on the Paris Metro. They wouldn’t be able to operate as effectively on French soil. But even that loophole seemed to close in front of Vincent’s eyes; there was an MI6 station in Paris and Amelia had had more than enough time to arrange blanket surveillance across the capital.

Think.

Try to see it from her perspective. She doesn’t want her secret to get out. If it does, her career is over. Only a handful of her most trusted colleagues will know about François Malot. Maybe she’s just as confused, just as rattled, as I am. Bouyed by this thought, Vincent sank his double espresso and did what he had come to do.

The Multi-Faith Prayer Room was a few paces away. He walked through the door from the main terminal and came into a short narrow corridor with prayer rooms on either side. To his left, a bearded Muslim was kneeling on a mat, in the act of praying. To the right, three veiled African women were seated on plastic chairs. They watched Vincent as he passed. The bathroom door was open. He went inside and locked it.

The bathroom stank of urine and patchouli oil. Vincent waved his hand under the automatic drier to create a covering noise and stood on the toilet, pushing one of the ceiling tiles above his head. It came free and jammed at an angle as small particles of dried paint and dust fell into his hair. Vincent looked down to protect his eyes while feeling blindly with his right hand, pushing through what felt like tiny nests or cobwebs, little piles of dust. His arm began to ache and he switched hands, turning around on the toilet seat so that he could search in the opposite direction. The handdrier cut out and he flushed the toilet with his foot, hearing voices outside in the corridor. Was it the police? Had they followed him into the prayer rooms so that they could make a discreet arrest?

Then, something. The crisp edge of a large envelope. Vincent went up on tiptoes and pushed the loose ceiling tile further back, stretching to reach what he had come for. It felt like his first piece of luck in hours. It was the cached package, covered in a scattering of dust. He flushed the toilet with his foot a second time, replaced the tile, sat down and opened the seal. Five hundred euros in cash, a French driving licence, a clean phone, a passport, Visa and American Express cards. Everything in the name ‘Gerard Taine’. Vincent flicked the dust from his hair and clothes, left the bathroom and carried the package out into the terminal.

Time to go home. Time to get a plane to France.

‘So that was interesting.’

Danny Aldrich had watched the scene unfold from a queue at one of the automated check-in machines.

‘What happened?’ Kell asked.

‘CUCKOO went into the multi-faith rooms, came out five minutes later carrying something. Now he’s fifth in the queue at the BA ticket desk.’