Alex nodded.
“I’m amazed it was big enough. Anyway, I was furious with Nile. He wasn’t thinking. The very fact that you were called Rider should have been enough. And for him to run into you a second time at Consanto! What were you doing there, by the way?”
“I was looking for you.”
She paused, thinking. “You must have seen the brochure in my desk. And did you overhear me talking to Harold Liebermann?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “There’s one thing I absolutely have to know. How did you get into the complex?”
“I jumped off the terrace at Ravello.”
“With a parachute?”
“Of course.”
Mrs Rothman threw back her head and laughed loudly. At that moment, she looked more like a film star than anyone Alex had ever met. Not just beautiful, but supremely confident. “That’s wonderful,” she declared. “That’s really quite wonderful.”
“It was a borrowed parachute,” Alex added. “It belonged to the brother of a friend of mine. I’ve lost all his equipment. And they’ll be wondering where I am.”
Mrs Rothman was sympathetic. “You’d better call them and let them know you survived. And tomorrow I’ll write your friend’s brother a cheque. It’s the least I can do after everything that’s happened.”
The waiter arrived with Alex’s orange juice and the first course: two plates of ravioli. The little white parcels were wonderfully fresh, filled with wild mushrooms and served with a salad of rocket and Parmesan. Alex tasted one. He had to admit that the food was as delicious as Mrs Rothman had promised.
“What’s wrong with Nile?” he asked.
“He can be exceptionally stupid. Act first, ask questions later. He never stops to think.”
“I meant his skin.”
“Oh that! He suffers from vitiligo. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. It’s a skin disorder. His skin is lacking pigment cells or something like that. Poor Nile! He was born black but he’ll be white by the time he dies. But let’s not talk about him. There are so many other things we need to discuss.”
“You knew my father.”
“I knew him very well, Alex. He was an extremely good friend of mine. And I have to say, you’re his spitting image. I can’t tell you how strange it is to be sitting here with you. Here I am, fifteen years older. But you…” She looked deep into his eyes. Alex saw that she was examining him but at the same time he felt as if she were sucking something out of him. “It’s almost as if he’s come back,” she said.
“I want to know about him.”
“What can I tell you that you don’t know already?”
“I don’t know anything, except what Yassen Gregorovich told me.” Alex paused. This was the moment he had been dreading. This was the reason he was here. “Was he an assassin?” he asked.
But Mrs Rothman didn’t answer. Her gaze had drifted away. “You met Yassen Gregorovich,” she said. “Was it he who led you to me?”
“I was there when he died.”
“I was sorry about Yassen. I heard he’d been killed.”
“I want to know about my father,” Alex insisted. “He worked for an organization called Scorpia. He was a killer. Is that right?”
“Your father was my friend.”
“You’re not answering my question,” he said, trying not to get angry. Mrs Rothman seemed friendly enough but he already knew that she was very rich and very ruthless. He suspected that he would regret it if he got on the wrong side of her.
Mrs Rothman herself was perfectly calm. “I don’t want to talk about him,” she said. “Not yet. Not until I’ve had a chance to talk about you.”
“What do you want to know about me?”
“I know a great deal about you already, Alex. You have an amazing reputation. That’s the reason why we’re sitting here tonight. I have an offer to make, something that may startle you. But I want you to understand, right from the start, that you’re completely free. You can walk away any time. I don’t want to hurt you. Quite the opposite. All I’m asking is that you consider what I have to say and then tell me what you think.”
“And then you’ll tell me about my dad?”
“Everything you want to know.”
“All right.”
Mrs Rothman had finished her champagne. She gestured with one hand and immediately a waiter appeared to refill her glass. “I love champagne,” she said. “Are you sure you won’t change your mind?”
“I don’t drink alcohol.”
“That’s probably wise.” Suddenly she was serious. “From what I understand, you’ve worked for MI6 four times,” she began. “There was that business with the Stormbreaker computers. Then the school they sent you to in the French Alps. Then you were in Cuba. And finally you crossed paths with Damian Cray. What I want to know is, why did you do it? What did you get out of it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Were you paid?”
Alex shook his head. “No.”
Mrs Rothman considered for a moment. “Then … are you a patriot?”
Alex shrugged. “I like Britain,” he said. “And I suppose I’d fight for it if there was a war. But I wouldn’t call myself a patriot. No.”
“Then you need to answer my question. What are you doing risking your life and getting injured for MI6? You’re not going to tell me it’s because you’re fond of Alan Blunt and Mrs Jones. I’ve met both of them and I can’t say they did anything for me! You’ve put your life on the line for them, Alex. You’ve been hurt – nearly killed. Why?”
Alex was confused. “What are you getting at?” he demanded. “Why are you asking me all this?”
“Because, as I said, I want to make you an offer.”
“What offer?”
Mrs Rothman ate some of her ravioli. She used only a fork, cutting each pasta envelope in half, then spearing it with the prongs. She ate very delicately, and Alex could see the pleasure in her eyes. It wasn’t just food for her. It was a work of art.
“How would you like to work for me?” she asked.
“For Scorpia?”
“Yes.”
“Like my father?” She nodded.
“You’re asking me to become a killer?”
“Perhaps.” She smiled. “You have a great many skills, Alex. For a fourteen-year-old you’re quite remarkable – and, of course, being so young, you could be very useful to us in all sorts of different ways. I imagine that’s why Mr Blunt has been so keen to hang on to you. You can do things and go places that an adult can’t.”
“What is Scorpia?” Alex demanded. “What were you doing at Consanto? What is Consanto? What were they making in that complex? And why did you have to kill Dr Liebermann?”
Mrs Rothman finished eating her first course and laid down her fork. Alex found himself hypnotized by the diamonds around her neck. They were reflecting the light from the candles, each jewel multiplying and magnifying the yellow flames.
“What a lot of questions!” she remarked. She shrugged. “Consanto Enterprises is a perfectly ordinary biomedical company. If you want to know about them, you can look them up in the phone book. They have offices all over Italy. As to what we were doing there, I can’t tell you. At the moment we’re involved in an operation called Invisible Sword, but there’s no reason for you to know anything about it. Not yet. I will, however, tell you why we had to kill Dr Liebermann. It’s really very simple. It was because he was unreliable. We paid him a great deal to help us in a certain matter. He was worried about what he was doing and at the same time he wanted more money. A man like that can be a danger to us all. It was safer to get rid of him.
“But let’s go back to your first question. You want to know about Scorpia. That’s why you were in Venice and that’s why you’ve followed me here. Very well. I’ll tell you.”
She sipped her champagne, then set the glass down. Alex suddenly realized that their table had been positioned so that they could talk without being overheard. Even so, Mrs Rothman moved a little cl
oser before she spoke.
“As you guessed, Alex, Scorpia is a criminal organization,” she began. “The S stands for sabotage. The CORP comes from corruption. The I is intelligence – in other words, spying. And the A is for assassination. These are our main areas of expertise, though there are others. We are successful and that has made us powerful. We can be found all over the world. The secret services can’t do anything about us. We’re too big and they’ve left it too late. Anyway, occasionally some of them make use of us. They pay us to do their dirty work for them. We’ve learnt to live side by side!”
“And you want me to join you?” Alex put down his knife and fork, although he hadn’t finished eating. “I’m not like you. I’m not like that at all.”
“How strange. Your father was.”
That hurt. She was talking about a man he had never had a chance to know. But her words cut straight to the heart of who and what he was.
“Alex, you have to grow up a little bit and stop seeing things in black and white. You work for MI6. Do you think of them as the good guys, the ones in white hats? I suppose that makes me the bad guy. Maybe I should be sitting here in a wheelchair with a bald head and a scar down my face, stroking a cat.” She laughed at the thought. “Unfortunately it’s not as simple as that any more. Not in the twenty-first century. Think about Alan Blunt for a minute. Quite apart from the number of people he’s had killed around the world, look at the way he’s used you, for heaven’s sake! Did he ask nicely before he pulled you out of school and turned you into a spy? I don’t think so! You’ve been exploited, Alex, and you know it.” “I’m not a killer,” Alex protested. “I never could be.”
“It’s very strange that you should say that. I mean, I don’t notice Damian Cray at the next table. I wonder what happened to him? Or how about that nice Dr Grief? I understand he didn’t survive his last meeting with you.”
“They were accidents.”
“You seem to have had an awful lot of accidents in the last few months.”
She paused. When she spoke again her voice was softer, like a teacher talking to a favourite pupil.
“I can see you’re still upset about Dr Liebermann,” she said. “Well, let me reassure you. He wasn’t a nice man and I don’t think anybody’s going to miss him. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if his wife didn’t send us a thank-you card.” She smiled as if at some private joke. “You could say his death was a shot in the arm for us all. And you have to remember, Alex. It was his choice. If he hadn’t lied and cheated his company and come to work for us, he would still be alive. It wasn’t all our fault.”
“Of course it was your fault. You killed him!”
“Well, yes. I suppose that’s true. But we’re a very large international business. And sometimes it does happen that people get in our way and they end up dead. I’m sorry, but that’s just how it is.”
A waiter came and took away the plates. Alex finished his orange juice, hoping the ice would help clear his head.
“I still can’t join Scorpia,” he said.
“Why not?”
“I have to go back to school.”
“I agree.” Mrs Rothman leant towards him. “We have a school; I want to send you there. It’s just that our school will teach you things that you might find a little more useful than logarithms and English grammar.”
“What sort of things?”
“How to kill. You say you could never do it, but how can you be sure? If you go to Malagosto, you’ll find out. Nile was a star student there; he’s a perfect killer – or he would be. Unfortunately he has one rather irritating weakness.”
“You mean his disease?”
“No. It’s rather more annoying than that.” She hesitated. “You could be better than him, Alex, in time. And although I know you don’t like me mentioning it, your father was actually an instructor there. A brilliant one. We were all devastated when he died.”
And there it was again. Everything began and ended with John Rider. Alex couldn’t avoid it any longer. He had to know.
“Tell me about my father,” he said. “That’s the reason I’m here. That’s the only reason I came. How did he end up working for you? And how did he die?” Alex forced himself to go on. “I don’t even know what his voice sounded like. I don’t know anything about him at all.”
“Are you sure you want to? It may hurt you.”
Alex was silent.
Their waiter arrived with the main course. Mrs Rothman had chosen roast lamb; the meat was slightly pink and garlicky. A second waiter refilled her glass.
“All right,” she said when they had gone. “Let’s finish eating and talk about other things. You can tell me about Brookland. I want to know what music you listen to and what football team you support. Do you have a girlfriend? I’m sure a boy as handsome as you gets plenty of offers. Now I’ve made you blush. Have your dinner. I promise it’s the best lamb you’ll ever eat.
“And after we’ve finished, I’ll take you upstairs and then I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”
ALBERT BRIDGE
She led him to a room at the top of the hotel. There was no bed, just two chairs and a trestle table with a video player and a few files.
“I had this flown down from Venice as soon as I knew you were here,” Mrs Rothman explained. “I thought it was something you’d want to see.”
Alex nodded. After the bustle of the restaurant, he felt strange being here – like an actor on stage when the scenery has been removed. The room was large with a high ceiling, and its emptiness made everything echo. He walked over to the table, suddenly nervous. At dinner he had asked certain questions. Now he was going to be given the answers. Would he like what he heard?
Mrs Rothman came and stood beside him, her high heels rapping on the marble floor. She seemed completely relaxed. “Sit down,” she invited.
Alex slipped off his jacket and hung it over the back of a chair. He loosened his tie, then sat. Mrs Rothman stood next to the table, studying him. It was a moment before she spoke.
“Alex,” she began. “It’s not too late to change your mind.”
“I don’t want to,” he said.
“It’s just that, if I’m going to talk to you about your father, I may say things that will upset you and I don’t want to do that. Does the past really matter? Does it make any difference?”
“I think it does.”
“Very well…”
She opened a file and took out a black and white photograph. It showed a handsome man in military uniform, wearing a beret. He was looking straight at the camera with his shoulders back and his hands clasped behind him. He was clean-shaven, with watchful, intelligent eyes.
“This is your father, aged twenty-five. The photograph was taken five years before you were born. Do you really know nothing about him?”
“My uncle spoke to me about him a bit. I know he was in the army.”
“Well, maybe I can fill in some gaps for you. I’m sure you know that he was born in London and went to a secondary school in Westminster. From there he went to Oxford and got a first in politics and economics. But his heart had always been set on joining the army. And that’s what he did. He joined the Parachute Regiment at Aldershot. That in itself was quite an achievement. The Paras are one of the toughest regiments in the British Army, second only to the SAS. And you don’t just join them; you have to be invited.
“Your father spent three years with the Paras. He saw action in Northern Ireland and Gambia, and he was part of the attack on Goose Green in the Falkland Islands in May 1982. He carried a wounded soldier to safety even though he was under fire and, as a result of this, he received a medal from the Queen. He was also promoted to the rank of captain.”
Alex had once seen the medal: the Military Cross. Ian Rider had always kept it in the top drawer of his desk.
“He returned to England and got married,” Mrs Rothman went on. “He had met your mother at Oxford. She was studying medicine and eventually became a nu
rse. But I can’t tell you very much about her. We never met and he never spoke about her, not to me.
“Anyway, I’m afraid it was shortly after he got married that things started to go wrong … not, of course, that I’m blaming your mother. But just a few weeks after the wedding, your father was in a pub in London when he got involved in a fight. There were some people making remarks about the Falklands War. They were probably drunk. I don’t know. There was a skirmish and he struck a man and killed him. It was a single blow to the throat … just like he had been trained to inflict. And that, I’m afraid, was that.”
Mrs Rothman took out a newspaper clipping from the file and handed it to Alex. It had to be at least fifteen years old. He could tell from the faded print and the way the paper had yellowed. He read the headline:
There was another photo of John Rider but now he was in civilian dress, surrounded by photographers, getting out of a car. The picture was a little blurred and it had been taken long ago, but looking at it Alex could almost feel the pain of the man, the sense that the world had turned against him.
He read the article.
John Rider, described as a brilliant soldier by his commanding officer, was sentenced to four years for manslaughter following the death of Ed Savitt nine months ago in a Soho bar.
The jury heard that Rider, twenty-seven, had been drinking heavily when he became involved in a fight with Savitt, a taxi driver. Rider, who was decorated for valour in the Falklands War, killed Savitt with a single blow to the head. The jury heard that Rider was a highly trained expert in several martial arts.
Summing up, Judge Gillian Padgham said: “Captain Rider has thrown away a promising army career in a single moment of madness. I have taken his distinguished record into consideration. But he has taken a life and society demands that he pays the price…”
“I’m sorry,” Mrs Rothman said softly. She had been watching Alex closely. “You didn’t know.”
“My uncle showed me the medal once,” Alex said. He had to stop for a moment. His voice was hoarse. “But he never showed me this.”