flapped towards the opposite platform and settled beside a bench. There was a District Line train standing empty behind it. The pigeon hopped on board. As if on cue, the doors slid shut and the train moved out of the station.
Kell turned and joined the huddle of passengers on platform 4, heads ducked down in text messages, Twitter feeds, games of Angry Birds. A huge bearded man with a ‘Baby on Board’ badge attached to the lapel of his jacket stood beside him. Kell half-expected to spot his old friend from Bayswater: faded denim jeans and a brown tweed jacket. A woman behind him was talking in Polish on a mobile phone; another, shrouded in a black niqab, was scolding a small child in Arabic. These were the citizens of the new London, the international masses whom Amelia Levene was charged to protect. More than twenty years earlier, Kell had joined SIS in a spirit of undiluted patriotism. To save lives, to defend and protect the kingdom, had seemed to him both a noble and an exhilarating pursuit for a young man with adventure in his blood. Now that London was a city of Africans and Americans, of Hollande-fleeing French, of Eastern Europeans too young to have known the impediments of Communism, he felt no different. The landscape had changed, yet Kell still felt wedded to an
idea
of England, even as that idea shifted and slipped beneath his feet. There were days when he longed to return to active duty, to stand once again at Amelia’s side, but Rachel’s death had pushed him into exile. He had allowed the personal to overcome the political.
The train pulled into the platform. Carriages as empty as his days flickered in the afternoon light. Kell stepped aside to allow an elderly woman to board the train, then took his seat, and waited.
3
Kell was at his flat in Sinclair Road within twenty minutes. He had been inside for less than five when his phone rang, a rare landline call that Kell assumed would be from Claire. The number was otherwise known only to SIS Personnel.
‘Guv?’
It didn’t take long for Kell to pick the voice. Born and raised in Elephant and Castle, then two decades in Tech-Ops at MI5.
‘Harold?’
‘The one and only.’
‘How did you get this number?’
‘Nice to hear from you, too.’
‘How?’ Kell asked again.
‘Do we have to do this?’
It was a fair question. With half a dozen clicks of a mouse, Harold Mowbray could have found out Kell’s blood type and credit rating. Now private sector, he had worked closely with Amelia on two occasions in the previous three years: Kell’s home number might even have come directly from ‘C’.
‘OK. So how have you been?’
‘Good, guv. Good.’
‘Arsenal doing all right?’
‘Nah. Gave them up for Lent. Too many pretty boys in midfield.’
Kell found himself reaching for a cigarette that wasn’t there. He thought back to the previous summer, sitting with Mowbray in a Bayswater safe house killing time waiting for a mole. Harold had known that Kell was in love with Rachel. He had come to the funeral, paid his respects. Kell trusted him insomuch as he had always been efficient and reliable, but knew that theirs was a professional relationship that would never transcend Mowbray’s loyalty to whoever was paying his bills.
‘So what’s up?’ he asked. ‘You selling something? Want me to buy your season ticket to Highbury?’
‘Keep up. Arsenal moved out of Highbury years ago. Been playing at the Emirates since 2006.’ It occurred to Kell that, save for a perfunctory exchange in Pret A Manger, this was the first conversation he had held with another human being in over twenty-four hours. The night before he had cooked spaghetti bolognese at home and watched back-to-back episodes of
House of Cards
. In the morning he had gone to the gym, then wandered alone around an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. Sometimes he would go for days without any meaningful interaction whatsoever.
‘Still,’ said Mowbray, ‘we need to
Kell turned and joined the huddle of passengers on platform 4, heads ducked down in text messages, Twitter feeds, games of Angry Birds. A huge bearded man with a ‘Baby on Board’ badge attached to the lapel of his jacket stood beside him. Kell half-expected to spot his old friend from Bayswater: faded denim jeans and a brown tweed jacket. A woman behind him was talking in Polish on a mobile phone; another, shrouded in a black niqab, was scolding a small child in Arabic. These were the citizens of the new London, the international masses whom Amelia Levene was charged to protect. More than twenty years earlier, Kell had joined SIS in a spirit of undiluted patriotism. To save lives, to defend and protect the kingdom, had seemed to him both a noble and an exhilarating pursuit for a young man with adventure in his blood. Now that London was a city of Africans and Americans, of Hollande-fleeing French, of Eastern Europeans too young to have known the impediments of Communism, he felt no different. The landscape had changed, yet Kell still felt wedded to an
idea
of England, even as that idea shifted and slipped beneath his feet. There were days when he longed to return to active duty, to stand once again at Amelia’s side, but Rachel’s death had pushed him into exile. He had allowed the personal to overcome the political.
The train pulled into the platform. Carriages as empty as his days flickered in the afternoon light. Kell stepped aside to allow an elderly woman to board the train, then took his seat, and waited.
3
Kell was at his flat in Sinclair Road within twenty minutes. He had been inside for less than five when his phone rang, a rare landline call that Kell assumed would be from Claire. The number was otherwise known only to SIS Personnel.
‘Guv?’
It didn’t take long for Kell to pick the voice. Born and raised in Elephant and Castle, then two decades in Tech-Ops at MI5.
‘Harold?’
‘The one and only.’
‘How did you get this number?’
‘Nice to hear from you, too.’
‘How?’ Kell asked again.
‘Do we have to do this?’
It was a fair question. With half a dozen clicks of a mouse, Harold Mowbray could have found out Kell’s blood type and credit rating. Now private sector, he had worked closely with Amelia on two occasions in the previous three years: Kell’s home number might even have come directly from ‘C’.
‘OK. So how have you been?’
‘Good, guv. Good.’
‘Arsenal doing all right?’
‘Nah. Gave them up for Lent. Too many pretty boys in midfield.’
Kell found himself reaching for a cigarette that wasn’t there. He thought back to the previous summer, sitting with Mowbray in a Bayswater safe house killing time waiting for a mole. Harold had known that Kell was in love with Rachel. He had come to the funeral, paid his respects. Kell trusted him insomuch as he had always been efficient and reliable, but knew that theirs was a professional relationship that would never transcend Mowbray’s loyalty to whoever was paying his bills.
‘So what’s up?’ he asked. ‘You selling something? Want me to buy your season ticket to Highbury?’
‘Keep up. Arsenal moved out of Highbury years ago. Been playing at the Emirates since 2006.’ It occurred to Kell that, save for a perfunctory exchange in Pret A Manger, this was the first conversation he had held with another human being in over twenty-four hours. The night before he had cooked spaghetti bolognese at home and watched back-to-back episodes of
House of Cards
. In the morning he had gone to the gym, then wandered alone around an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. Sometimes he would go for days without any meaningful interaction whatsoever.
‘Still,’ said Mowbray, ‘we need to
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