‘I hope you don’t mind, I anticipated your arrival – it’s already brewed.’ He smiled up at Abby. ‘I spent some time in your country, you see, and developed a taste for the English way of things – at least when it comes to tea.’
Abby smiled back as she took a bone-china cup and saucer from him. Alexei Gorshkov wasn’t at all what she had been expecting. She had imagined a stern, granite-jawed soldier with a stiff back and a gruff demeanour. The real Gorshkov was more like a slightly distracted Oxford don.
‘Mr Gorshkov . . .’ began Elliot.
‘Alexei, please. I’ve had enough of formality to last me a lifetime.’
‘Alexei, then. You said this place was a home for retired servants of the state. Am I correct in thinking that you were a senior member of the KGB?’
Gorshkov smiled. ‘If I was, you wouldn’t expect me to answer that question directly, would you? Let’s just say I was a faithful servant of Mother Russia.’
‘A faithful servant who worked in the field of intelligence,’ added Elliot cautiously.
Alexei nodded. ‘Oh, I think I can say that much, yes.’
‘You say you spent time in the UK. Was that in conjunction with this work?’
Gorshkov nodded. ‘Of course.’
‘And did you ever employ British operatives?’
Abby looked at Elliot and frowned. At this rate they wouldn’t get back to St Petersburg until midnight.
‘Were you a spy, Mr Gorshkov?’ she asked. ‘Did you know another spy, a British spy, called Dominic Blake?’
Elliot flashed her a surprised and slightly irritated look, but Alexei seemed to soften and started to laugh.
‘I was very active in espionage in your country for many years,’ he said. ‘But I was never a field agent myself.’
‘Then what were you?’
‘A spymaster.’ He looked over at Elliot. ‘But then Mr Hall already knows all this, don’t you?’
Elliot frowned. ‘I’m sorry. What do you mean?’
‘I mean that you asked your friend Paul Jacobs to put you in touch with a senior KGB operative. Once you had my name, you researched me from your terminal in the Chronicle building, making three telephone calls to contacts in the security services before you emailed me.’
He smiled at Abby’s astonished expression. ‘No need to look so startled, Miss Gordon. I even sent Tomas to drive you. It was his job to make you believe you were flagging a random taxi.’
He held up a hand to silence her questions.
‘It’s no secret who I am. The security services on every side always know their counterparts – that’s the easy part. The hard part is finding out what your opposite number knows.’
He paused to pour himself more tea.
‘So now we’re all introduced. The only question remaining is why have you come all this way? Or to put it another way, why is Dominic Blake so important to you?’
Abby and Elliot exchanged a look.
‘You knew we were coming to ask about him?’ said Abby.
Gorshkov gave a gentle good-humoured snort.
‘Give me a little credit. I searched for Mr Hall’s name on the internet; the first thing that pops up is a story about the Great British Explorers exhibition, alongside a picture of a man kissing his fiancée. And of course I recognised Mr Blake immediately.’
‘You knew him, then?’ said Elliot.
‘Of course. That’s why I agreed to meet you.’