The Marylebone Drop Read online

  Books by Mick Herron

  The Oxford Series

  Down Cemetery Road

  The Last Voice You Hear

  Why We Die

  Smoke & Whispers

  The Slough House Series

  Slow Horses

  Dead Lions

  The List (a novella)

  Real Tigers

  Spook Street

  London Rules

  Other Novels

  Reconstruction

  Nobody Walks

  This Is What Happened

  Copyright © 2018 by Mick Herron

  All rights reserved.

  Published by

  Soho Press, Inc.

  853 Broadway

  New York, NY 10003

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Herron, Mick, author.

  The Marylebone drop / Mick Herron.

  ISBN 978-1-64129-013-5

  eISBN 978-1-64129-014-2

  I. Title

  PR6108.E77 M37 2018 823’.92—dc23 2018027719

  Printed in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

  The Marylebone Drop

  Seasoned Park watchers later said that the affair really began in Fischer’s, that beloved “café and konditorei” that bestows a touch of early twentieth-century Vienna on the foothills of twenty-first-century Marylebone High Street; its warm interior, its spring yellows and glazed browns, a welcome refuge from the winter-drizzled pavements. The more callow of their brethren preferred to believe that it started, as all things must, at Regent’s Park, but then the new generation had been trained to think itself at the constant heart of events, while the older knew that Spook Street, like Watling Street, runs backwards and forwards in time. The meeting at the Park might well have occurred earlier than the drop on Marylebone High, but that was a detail only, and when the time came for the whole business to be black-ribboned and consigned to the archive, nobody would care that a strip-lit office with functional furniture had been where the starting pistol was fired. No, once the facts were safely recorded, they’d print the legend instead. And legends thrive on local colour.

  So Fischer’s was the starting point; as good a place as any, and better than most. To quote from its website, “The menu includes an extensive choice of cured fish, salads, schnitzels, sausages, brötchen and sandwiches, strudels, biscuits, ice cream coupes, hot chocolates and coffees with traditional tortes mit schlag.” How could that not set the heart racing, with its enticing umlauts, its brazen italics, its artfully roman “coupes”? Solomon Dortmund can never pick up its menu without feeling that life—even one as long as his—holds some consolations; can never put it down again without inner turmoil having raged.

  Today, he has settled upon a hot chocolate—he breakfasted late, so has no need for anything substantial, but various errands having placed him in the neighbourhood, it would be unthinkable to pass Fischer’s without dropping in. And his appearance is instantly celebrated: he is greeted by name by a friendly young waiter, he is guided to a table, he is assured that his chocolate has so nearly arrived that he might as well be dabbing a napkin to his lips already. To all of which Solomon, being one of those heroes whom life’s cruelties have rendered gentle, responds with a kind smile. Secure at his table, he surveys the congregation: sparse today, but other people, however few in number, always command Solomon’s interest, for Solomon is a people-watcher, always has been, always will be. His life having included many people who disappeared too soon, he is attentive to those who remain within sight, which today embraced an elderly pair sitting beneath the clock, and whose conversation, he feels, will mirror that device’s progress, being equally regular, equally familiar, equally unlikely to surprise; three intense young men, heavily bearded, discussing politics (he hopes), or at least literature, or chess; and a pair of women in their forties who are absorbed in something one of them has summoned up on her telephone. Solomon nods benevolently. His own telephone is black, with a rotary dial, and lives on a table, but he is one of those rare creatures who recognises that even those technological developments in which he himself has neither interest nor investment might yet be of value to others, and he is perfectly content to allow them to indulge themselves. Such contemplation happily consumes the time needed to prepare his chocolate, for here comes the waiter already, and soon all is neatly arranged in front of him: cup, saucer, spoon, napkin; the elements of ritual as important as the beverage itself. Solomon Dortmund, eyes closed, takes a sip, and for one tiny moment is transported to his childhood. Few who knew him then would recognise him now. That robust child, the roly-poly infant, is now stooped and out of synch with the world. In his black coat and antique homburg, whiskers sprouting from every visible orifice, he resembles an academic whose subject has been rendered otiose. A figure of fun to those who don’t know him, and he is aware of that, and regards it as one of life’s better jokes. He takes another sip. This is not heaven; this is not perfection. But it is a small moment of pleasure in a world more commonly disposed to pain, and is to be treasured.

  Sated for the moment, he resumes his inspection of the room. To his left, by the window, is a young blonde woman, and Solomon allows his gaze to linger on her, for this young woman is very attractive, in today’s idiom; beautiful in Solomon’s own, for Solomon is too old to pay heed to the ebb and flow of linguistic fashion, and he knows beauty when he sees it. The young woman is sorting through correspondence, which gives Solomon a little flush of pleasure, for who today, young or old, sorts through correspondence? Ninety per cent of what drops through his own letterbox is junk; the other ten per cent mere notifications of one sort or another: meter readings, interest rates; nothing requiring a response. But this young lady has a number of envelopes in front of her; brown envelopes of the size codified as C5 (Solomon Dortmund knows his stationery). Job applications? He dabs his lips with his napkin. He enjoys these little excursions into the lives of others, the raising of unanswerable questions. He has solved, or reconciled himself to, all the puzzles his own life is likely to throw at him. Other peoples’ remain a source of fascination. Glimpses of their occupations are overheard prayers; doors left ajar on mysterious existences.

  He returns to his chocolate, slowing down his intake, because endings should never be hurried. Once more, he surveys the room. The young woman has gathered her things together; is standing, preparing to leave. A man enters, his attention on his mobile phone. Through the momentarily open door intrude the mid-morning sounds of Marylebone High: a passing taxi, a skirl of laughter, the rumble of London. And Solomon can see what is about to happen as surely as if he were reading the scene on a page; the brief moment of impact, the startled oomph from the young lady, an equally surprised ungh from the man, a scattering of envelopes, the sudden monopoly of attention. It takes less time to happen than it does to recount. And then the man, fully recovered, is apologising; the young woman assuring him that the fault is as much hers as his (this is not true); the envelopes are gathered up while the young lady pats at herself, confirming that she still has everything she ought to have; the bag slung over her shoulder, the scarf around her neck. It is done. The stack of envelopes is returned to her with a smile, a nod; there would have been a doffing of a hat, had the props department supplied a hat. A moment later, the man is at a table, busying himself with the buttons on his coat; the young woman is at the door, is through it, is gone. Marylebone High Street has swallowed her up. The morning continues in its unhurried way.

  And Solomon Dortmund finishes his chocolate, and at length rises and settles his bill, a scrupulous ten per cent added in coins. To an
yone watching as he heads for the outside world, he is no more than old-fashioned clothing on a sticklike frame; a judgement he would accept without demur. But under the hat, under the coat, under the wealth of whiskers, Solomon carries the memory of tradecraft in his bones, and those bones are rattled now by more than the winter wind.

  “John,” he says to himself as he steps onto the pavement. “I must speak to John.”

  And then he too dissolves into London’s mass.

  Meanwhile—or some time earlier, by the pedant’s clock; the previous week, or the one before that—there was a meeting in Regent’s Park. A strip-lit office, as mentioned, with functional furniture and carpet tiles, each replaceable square foot a forgettable colour and texture. The table commanding most of the floorspace had two saucer-sized holes carved into it, through which cables could be threaded when hardware needed plugging in, and along one wall was a whiteboard which, to Diana Taverner’s certain knowledge, had never been used, but which nevertheless mutely declared itself the room’s focal point. The chairs were H&S-approved, but only to the extent that each could hold an adult’s weight; long-term occupation of any would result in backache. So far, so good, she thought. The head of the Limitations Committee was expected, and Lady Di liked to lean austeritywards on such occasions, Oliver Nash having made something of a circus, on his last visit, of harumphing at whatever he deemed unnecessary extravagance. His singling out of a print on her wall, a perfectly modest John Piper, still rankled. Today, then, the only hint of luxury was the plate of pastries neatly placed between the table’s two utility holes. Raisin-studded, chocolate-sprinkled, icing-sugar frosted, the patisseries might have been assembled for a weekend supplement photo-shoot. A pile of napkins sat next to them. On a smaller table in the corner was a pot of filter coffee and a stack of takeaway cups. It had taken her ten minutes to get it all just right.

  She had rinsed her hands in the nearby bathroom; stuffed the box the pastries came in into the nearest cupboard. By the time she heard the lift arrive, by the time the door opened, she was in one of the dreadful chairs; a notebook in front of her, a pen, still capped, lying in the ridge between its open pages.

  “Diana. Ravishing as always.”

  “Oliver. Have you lost weight?”

  It was an open secret that Nash had been attempting one diet or another for some time; long enough, indeed, for the cruel suggestion to be made that if he’d attempted them sequentially instead of all at once, one of them might have proved effective.

  The look he gave her was not entirely free of suspicion. “I might have,” he said.

  “Oh, I’m positive. But please, sit. Sit. I’ve poured you a coffee.”

  He did so. “Rather spartan accommodation.”

  “Needs must, Oliver. We save the larger rooms for group sessions. Less wear and tear, and saves on heating, of course. I must apologise for this, by the way.” She gestured at, without looking towards, the plate of pastries. “They’re for the departmental gathering, I can’t think why they’ve been brought in here. Somebody got their wires crossed.”

  “Hmph. Stretching the budget a little, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Oh, out of my own pocket. A little treat for the boys and girls on the hub. They work so hard.”

  “We’re all very grateful.”

  His sandy hair had thinned in the last months, as if in mockery of his attempts to diminish himself elsewhere, but his chins remained prominent. Fastidiously avoiding looking at the plate of pastries, he placed his hands on his paunch and fixed his gaze on Diana. “How’s the ship? Come through choppy seas lately, haven’t we?”

  “If we’d wanted a quiet life, we’d have joined the fire brigade.”

  “Well, so long as we’re all having fun.” He seemed to realise that the placement of his hands emphasised the roundness of his stomach and shifted them to the tabletop, a more dynamic posture. “So. Snow White.” He raised an eyebrow. “By the way, have I mentioned—”

  “Everybody’s mentioned.”

  “—what a ridiculous codename that is?”

  “They’re randomly assigned.”

  “I mean, what if it had been Goldilocks, for God’s sake?”

  “We might have had to re-roll the dice. But as things stand, we live with it.”

  “Do you ever feel that we’ve become slaves to the processes? Rather than their existing to facilitate our objectives?”

  He had always been one for the arch observation, even when the observation in question was of unadorned banality.

  “Let’s save that for Wants and Needs, shall we?” she said, meaning the bi-monthly inter-departmental catch-up most people termed Whines & Niggles. “Snow White. You’ve received the request. There’s no difficulty, surely?”

  But Oliver Nash preferred being in the driving seat, and would take whatever damn route he chose.

  “If memory serves,” he said, “and it usually does, she was recruited by an older chap.”

  “John Bachelor.”

  “But here she is being handled by a new boy. How’d that come about?”

  “It was felt that Bachelor wasn’t up to the job.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he wasn’t up to the job.”

  “Ah. Got on your wrong side, did he?”

  “I have no wrong sides, Oliver. I just find the occasional thorn in one, that’s all.”

  Not that he had been particularly thorny, John Bachelor, since that would have required more character than he possessed. He was, rather, an also-ran; constantly sidelined throughout his career; ultimately parked on the milk round, the name given to the after-care service provided to pensioned-off assets. Bachelor’s remit—which, in the last round of cuts, had been downgraded to “irregular”—involved ensuring that his charges remained secure, that no passes had been made in their direction; increasingly, that they were still alive and in possession of their marbles. They were Cold War footsoldiers, for the most part, who had risked their younger lives pilfering secrets for the West, and were eking out what time remained to them on Service pensions. A dying breed, in every sense.

  But they had careers, or at least activities, to look back on with pride. John Bachelor, on the other hand, had little more than a scrapbook full of service-station receipts and the memory of a lone triumph: the recruitment of Snow White.

  “And this new chap—Pynne? Richard Pynne?”

  “He’s not that new.”

  “Bet that name gave him sleepless nights as a boy.”

  “Luckily the Service isn’t your old prep school. He’ll be along in a moment. And—forgive me, I can’t resist. I had to skip breakfast.”

  She helped herself to an almond croissant, took a dainty nibble from one end, and placed it carefully on a napkin.

  “An extra five minutes on the treadmill,” she said.

  There was a knock on the door, and Richard Pynne appeared.

  “You two haven’t met,” Taverner said. “Oliver Nash, Chair of Limitations, and one of the great and the good, as you won’t need me to tell you, Richard. Oliver, this is Richard Pynne. Richard was Cambridge, I’m afraid, but you’ll just have to forgive him.”

  “No great rivalry between Cambridge and the LSE, Diana, as I’m sure you remember all too well.” Without getting up, he extended a hand, and Pynne shook it.

  “A pleasure, sir.”

  “Help yourself to a pastry, Richard. Oliver was about to ask for a rundown on Snow White’s request.”

  “Do you want me to . . .”

  “In your own time.”

  Pynne sat. He was a large young man, and had dealt with a rapidly receding hairline by shaving his head from his teenage years; this, combined with thick-framed spectacles, lent him a geeky look which wasn’t aided by his somewhat hesitant manner of speech. But he had a fully working brain, had scored highly on the agent-running scenarios
put together across the river, and Snow White was a home-soil operation: low risk. Di Taverner didn’t play favourites. She’d been known, though, to back winners. If Pynne handled his first joe without mishap he might find himself elevated above shift manager on the hub, his current role.

  “Snow White’s been having problems at BIS,” he began.

  “The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills,” proclaimed Nash. “And I’d have a lot more confidence in its ability to handle all or any of those things if it could decide whether or not it was using a comma. What kind of problems?”

  “Personnel.”

  “Personal?”

  “Onnel,” stressed Pynne. “Though it covers both, I suppose.”

  Nash looked at the pastries and sighed. “We’d better start at the beginning, I suppose.”

  In the beginning, Snow White—Hannah Weiss—was a civil servant, a fast-track graduate; indistinguishable from any other promising young thing hacking out a career in Whitehall’s jungle, except that she’d been recruited at a young age by the BND—the Bundesnachrichtendienst; the German intelligence service. It was always useful to have agents in place, even when the spied-upon was nominally an ally. Especially when fault-lines were appearing the length and breadth of Europe. So far so what, as one of Pynne’s generation might have ventured; this kind of low-level game-playing was part of the territory, and rarely resulted in more than the odd black eye, a bloodied nose. But this game was different. Hannah’s “recruitment,” it transpired, had been carried out without her awareness or consent: she had been no more than a name on a list fraudulently compiled by one Dieter Hess, himself a superannuated asset, one of the pensioners on John Bachelor’s milk round. Hess, a shakedown of his cupboards had revealed after his death, had been supplementing his income by running a phantom network, his list consisting of shut-ins and lockaways, for each of whom the BND had been shelling out a small but regular income. Hannah Weiss alone had been living flesh, and unaware of her role in Hess’s scheme. She was the one warm body in a league of ghosts.