Kompromat

‘What are you doing here?’ he tossed the stub of his cigarette into a bin.

‘We’ve come to talk to you.’

‘What about?’

‘Let’s go up to your apartment,’ Ling said.

They sat round the kitchen table in his flat. Stephanov had some cans of Baltica in the fridge and he passed them round.

‘So what’s the problem?’ he asked.

‘The problem is that material you sold us,’ Ling told him. ‘You said they filmed that English guy with the two ladies. We’ve had word back that the man on the bed with the girls wasn’t the English guy at all. It was someone else. They want to know who it was. They want the footage, the original footage.’

Stephanov swore under his breath. That bloody film! He wished he had never got involved in the first place.

Well, he couldn’t give them the film. Lyudmila Markova and her team had bagged everything up and taken it away with them.

‘I can’t give you the footage. I don’t have it. FSB Moscow took it. You’ll have to ask them!’

His visitors didn’t appreciate the joke. As part of the Chinese Ministry of State Security’s extensive net of agents in Russia, they were under great pressure to deliver the goods. When Beijing said ‘jump’, you jumped.

Ling took a long pull at his beer. Normally they would have resorted to violence, but with Stephanov it was different. He might have been selling Kompromat material on the black market, but he was still FSB.

‘What can you give us?’ Ling said. ‘Our clients are anxious.’

Stephanov stood up. ‘I’ll be right back.’

This was the moment, in cinematic terms, when he would have popped out of the room for a moment only to come back with a loaded pistol to turn the table on the intruders.

But Stephanov didn’t have his weapon that evening. He had gone straight from the FSB office to Savushkina Street without it. When you’re sitting in front of the computer, you didn’t need a suspicious bulge in your back pocket.

‘I’ll come with you,’ Kong said. He stood close to Stephanov in the bedroom, while Stephanov rummaged through a chest of drawers.

‘Got it!’ Stephanov exclaimed as he found what he was looking for.

Back in the kitchen, he spread the US-flag boxer shorts on the table. ‘You can have them. For free. Just don’t come back.’

Ling fingered the soft, silky material. ‘This is good. Very good. These are boxer shorts the man was wearing? You sure of that?’

‘I’d stake my life on it,’ Stephanov replied. He examined the inscription on the waistband. ‘See what it says: “Bloomingdales’ finest”!’

‘How much you think these US-Flag boxer shorts are worth?’ Ling asked.

‘A lot of money in the right hands,’ Stephanov replied. ‘There could be DNA, for example.’

When Ling and Kong had gone, Stephanov poured himself another beer. At least they hadn’t beaten him up, he thought. Maybe he ought to retire.

With three weeks to go before the Referendum, Edward Barnard took time off for lunch at the Athenaeum Club. He’d been a member for years. He didn’t go to the club often, but when he did he usually enjoyed himself. Most of the people who belonged to the Athenaeum were tremendously brainy. The club kept a special book recording the names of club members who had won the Nobel Prize in physics, chemistry, economics or whatever. Barnard was very ready to recognize that he wasn’t in that league. He didn’t regard himself as an intellectual – he’d read geography at Oxford – but he was capable of contributing to a discussion in the bar or around the Members Table if he felt he had something to say.

One of the nice things about the Athenaeum was that it had reciprocal arrangements with similar clubs around the world. If you were visiting Sydney, for example, you could dine at the prestigious Union Club, and vice versa.

Barnard found himself sitting at the long Members table next to a tall, greying Australian. ‘My name’s Irwin Jones. I’m Professor of Toxicology from Sydney University,’ the man introduced himself.

‘And I’m an MP campaigning to take Britain out of the EU,’ Barnard replied. ‘Does toxicology include the study of spider bites?’

‘It certainly does.’

Barnard spent the next few minutes telling the Australian Professor about his recent narrow escape in the Kimberley.

‘I had a terrace room at Lazy-T. I guess the spider came in through the open window. They rushed me to Kununurra District Hospital. Took the dead spider too. Luckily there was a top toxicologist there that night. He took one look at the thing and said it was a Sydney Funnel Web Spider. Atrax Robustus. He even gave it the Latin name.’

Professor Jones looked surprised. ‘Can you remember the name of the toxicologist? I might give him a call.’

‘Professor Cohen, as I recall. I’m going to send him a note. He probably saved my life.’

‘Cohen? I know Cohen. Toxicology’s a small world. He used to work at Sydney Hospital before moving west. Will you forgive me a moment? I need to use the phone.’

‘There’s a booth downstairs where you can make a call,’ Barnard told him. ‘The club doesn’t allow mobiles in the public rooms.’