Kemp retrieved it, squinting at the label. ‘Must have stretched the budget.’
‘It did, but Navy and Royal Marines carried most of it. Started out as a drugs bust.’
‘And ended up with this?’
‘There’s the rub.’ St Clair levered himself into an armchair without removing his coat. ‘How about coffee?’
‘That usually precedes something unpleasant.’
‘Coffee it is then.’
Kemp crossed to the open-plan kitchen, spooning instant into a mug and switching on the kettle. His visitor leafed perfunctorily through the back copy of a defence journal and waited. Two visits from the Security Service fixer in under a year – he was honoured, suspicious. Flattery could get you killed. Coffee made, he returned.
St Clair raised the rim to his lips, tasted, and scowled. ‘Now I know why Krista left you.’
‘Skip the pleasantries and tell me why you’re back.’
‘To congratulate you. Your charm offensive on the professor plainly worked – he’s hightailed it back to California.’
‘He was going anyway.’
‘True.’ Another sip. ‘But you taped some prime material for the archive. Caused much amusement in the office.’
‘My life hasn’t been wasted then.’
‘It isn’t a waste to bring sunshine to our murky little world. You had him on the ropes at times.’
‘He had me on the canvas.’
‘Sparring is how he gets his kicks. Perhaps he’ll invite you out to one of his training camps.’
‘Is that what you’re hoping?’
‘Forewarned etcetera, etcetera … forearmed etcetera, etcetera.’
‘Bullshit etcetera, etcetera.’
‘If you insist.’ St Clair’s eyes were wide with innocence.
Kemp pushed a foot up against the table. In jeans and trainers he was always going to feel underdressed, at a disadvantage, a student nephew playing host in his bedsit to a rich uncle. ‘I’m sure the Feds will appreciate you spying on one of their nationals.’
‘It’s not spying. It’s …’
‘What – gathering background?’
‘Exactly,’ St Clair nodded sagely. ‘Our relationship with the Americans allows for flexibility.’
‘Rather like your syntax.’
‘What did you make of him?’
‘Pitt? He had a point of view.’
‘And as a human being?’
‘As … a human being?’ Kemp repeated. ‘I thought the first step in demonization was not to recognize that quality.’
‘Humour me.’
‘He has a certain integrity. He’s bright, but then he’s an academic. He’s not warm, but then he’s an academic. He has an aesthetic doggedness, but then he’s an academic. It’s in my report.’
‘Thank you for the thumbnail.’
‘He’s also quite persuasive.’
‘Were you persuaded?’
‘I’m too anti-social.’
‘I’ll second that.’ The mug was raised with trademark weariness. ‘The rest we’ll fill in ourselves.’ Mug lowered. St Clair was nudging the conversation on, segued with the finesse of a professional DJ. ‘On the matter of a different recording, would you care to spin the shiny new disk?’
‘Not my kind of music.’
‘You’ll see.’
Kemp slipped the CD from its container and into the player beside him. He pushed a button blind with a forefinger and adjusted volume control. They listened. Boy band. Boy, was it excrement. First track, second track, third – the anodyne, over-manufactured sound signature of a thousand soulless two-dimensional androgynous teenie poster entities – and then it deviated, strayed into new territory, a different order. Group politics – with bite. A race-hate monologue had been inserted, followed by a fourth song, followed by a further propaganda insert and call to arms.
Kemp rubbed the side of his temple, concentrating. ‘As if the band wasn’t crime enough.’
