Bad Actors (Slough House, #8)(22)

Then Josie wiped the video, and projected onto the wall images of those attending the reception at the Russian embassy that evening.

This too was run-of-the-mill, but had involved legwork, as there were attendees from Mother R rolling up to sample the canapés, so those from Ops responsible for babysitting the incomers looked suitably important, while the boys and girls from the hub prepared to chip in with background detail, the kind of small-print clarifications often overlooked by those wearing reinforced boots. Diana watched and listened while the guest list was toothcombed for anomalies, none of which arose from among the usual liberally inclined scientists, left-leaning playwrights and anything-for-a-sausage-roll poets; while minor staff changes at the embassy were noted, and local firms catering the evening given a onceover; and while those appointed to monitor real-time coverage of proceedings were namechecked and offered the ritual handclap of relief by those not so appointed, and so on and so very much forth until about forty minutes in, when what had been a by-the-numbers recital went—a breathless Josie later related to non-attenders—from snore-fest to shitstorm in nothing flat, Gregory Ronovitch being the culprit.

Gregory Ronovitch, not previously sighted in this parish, was a visiting academic, Moscow-gowned, come to deliver a lecture entitled “Battleship Potemkin: An iconography re-examined.” The photo accompanying his bare-boned CV—an action shot of Gregory alighting from a car on the embassy’s drive, his welcoming committee limited to one bored security guard—revealed a middle-aged nobody with neat beard and centre parting. He wore sunglasses, true, but so did everyone else, so the detail wasn’t cast-iron proof of mafia connections. Which meant that wasn’t the reason Diana Taverner got to her feet, causing all ambient noise in the room—the taking of notes and wrangling of phones—to cease immediately. When Taverner got to her feet, a meeting was over. Either that or it had just become urgent, without anyone else noticing.

When she spoke, her voice was icy calm. It was said of Diana that she’d been known to frost the glass wall in her office without recourse to the button, a quip popular among those who hadn’t been anywhere near when she was demonstrating its accuracy.

“Why the different angle?”

Nobody understood the question.

“It’s straightforward enough. The other arrivals were shot from whatever direction it was, was it east? Which means this was taken from the west. Why so?”

There was a shuffling of paper, and somebody said, “Ah, this subject, Gregory Ronovitch? He wasn’t caught full-face by the Service hardware. This was harvested from local security coverage.”

“He wasn’t caught full-face by the Service hardware,” Diana repeated. “Almost as if he knew how to avoid that.” Her eyes were fixed on the image on the wall. “Well, then. Someone. Anyone. Care to fill in the blanks on Mr. Ronovitch?”

Someone, anyone, but definitely from Ops, said, “Er, Battleship Potemkin . . . He’s some kind of film critic, right?”

Josie, who’d attended more of these meetings than anyone else present, Diana excepted, sent up a decoy balloon. “He was a late addition, but I’ll have a profile worked up before—”

But it was too little, too late. “No, really, don’t. Let’s just workshop it, shall we? Who’s been babysitting, let’s call him Greg?”

A young man at the back of the room raised an unhappy hand.

“And you’re . . . ?”

The young man said, “Dean. Pete Dean.”

“Well, Pete Dean, run us through Greg’s movements since he hit town.”

“Ah, he first arrived at the embassy yesterday morning—”

“From where?”

“. . . The airport?”

“You’re asking?”

“From the airport, ma’am. That would be Heathrow.”

“You’re sure about that.”

“That’s where the Moscow flight comes in—”

“And you had eyes on him as he waltzed through Arrivals.”

“Ah . . . No, ma’am.”

“And why’s that?”

“Because there’s only one of me? And I was assigned to three attendees?”

The clock on the wall was silent: it swallowed seconds, minutes, hours without chewing. But everyone present could hear a crocodile tick tock while waiting for Diana’s response.

Which was slow in coming, but at least was fair. “All right,” she said. “So you assume a Heathrow arrival. And I assume I’ll have the CCTV footage of that waiting in my office before I get back there. And I further assume that the timings will indicate that he went from airport to embassy gate with no intervening outings. When did he arrive?”

“Ah, 11:45?”

“Mr. Dean, you seem to think you’re the one asking questions. I promise you, you’re not.”

“11:45.”

“Movements the rest of yesterday?”

A brief, panicky look at inadequate notes. “He remained in the embassy all afternoon, then was driven to his hotel, alone, just before seven.”

“I’ll make up the background detail, shall I?”

“Ah, the Grosvenor, ma’am. He ate in the dining room, again alone, then retired to his room. This morning he ate breakfast at the hotel, then made a shopping trip. West End. I, ah, have a list . . .”