The Man in the Corduroy Suit


 
 
 
 
 Picture the MI5 archives, if you will – a gloomy, dusty catacomb devoted to the interment of a hundred years’ worth of classified documents. In the corner, a locked door, because although everything down here is secret, the contents of this room are really secret. A sign on the door reads THE DISCIPLINE FILES. Inside, there is clearly more material than anyone ever anticipated. Shelves are buckling, cardboard boxes spilling their contents onto the floor. Because they have a discipline problem, our spies, or so recent history would suggest.
 In Beside the Syrian Sea, an analyst steals hundreds of stolen documents and resurfaces in Beirut, desperate to negotiate for the release of his kidnapped father…
 In How to Betray Your Country, a disgraced agent-runner in emotional free fall tries to build a new life in Istanbul, only to stumble across a mysterious Islamic State figure who is not quite what he seems…
 In The Man in the Corduroy Suit, a talented interrogator looks into the suspected poisoning of a retired colleague, but a startling discovery forces him to choose between obeying his masters or his own conscience…
 Three stand-alone stories, three spies, one very serious problem. In this day and age, with the meaning of duty, tradition and loyalty increasingly open to interpretation, how do you make sure your spies do what they’re told? And what do you do when they don’t?
 
 
 PRAISE FOR
 
 BESIDE THE SYRIAN SEA
 
 “A superb debut… fascinating. The writer has obviously been somewhere or something in the spy business.”
 
 MARCEL BERLINS,
 The Times Crime Book of the Month
 
 “Superb: an adventure from London to Lebanon to Syria and the desperate struggle for survival in the face of war and betrayal. Wolff is a new maestro.”
 
 SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE,
 Evening Standard, Best Books of 2018
 
 “Best new spy novel by a mile. Don’t let this one pass you by if you are a fan of intelligent, complex spy thrillers.”
 
 PAUL BURKE,
 NB Magazine, Top Noir Novels of 2018
 
 PRAISE FOR
 
 HOW TO BETRAY YOUR COUNTRY
 
 “Two bull’s-eyes from two throws suggest the arrival of a major talent.”
 
 ANDREW ROSENHEIM,
 The Spectator
 
 “A distinctly more thought-provoking novel than is customary in the genre. Turkish delight.”
 
 JAMES OWEN,
 The Times, Thrillers of the Month
 
 “A stunner of a spy thriller … smart, provocative.”
 
 LIZ ROBINSON,
 LoveReading, Books of the Year 2021
 
 THE MAN
 IN THE
 CORDUROY
 SUIT
 
 James Wolff
 
 
 
 
 
 
 For my children, who remind me every day just how nimble and funny language can be, with more love than this tongue-tied father can hope to put into words.
 
 PROLOGUE
 
 CONFIDENTIAL
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 FROM:
 Metropolitan Police
 
 
 TO:
 MI5 (Lead Development)
 
 
 SUBJECT:
 Incident 287466
 
 
 DATE:
 8 May 2019
 
 
 
 
 1. We are writing to inform you that a 64-year-old woman named Willa KARLSSON was admitted to University College Hospital last night in an unconscious state. KARLSSON presents a number of unusual symptoms. For this reason her doctors have been unable to reach any agreement on a diagnosis, but we have been told that one of the possibilities under serious consideration is that she has been the victim of a poisoning.
 
 2. Paramedics were sent to her south London address at 2135 following a call from a downstairs neighbour who reported hearing a loud noise that sounded like a fall. A uniformed police officer who attended the scene observed no signs of violence or forced entry. The neighbour said that KARLSSON lived alone, and described her as quiet, unremarkable and having the dishevelled and careless appearance of a “bag lady”.
 
 3. In light of the medical assessment, which doctors characterize as “tentative and rapidly evolving”, our officers have discreetly secured the property and moved residents of the building to a nearby location while experts from Porton Down carry out a thorough examination for traces of poison. Early reports suggest that none has been CHAPTER ONE
 
 Monday, 0900
 
 1
 
 It might come as a disappointment to learn that the natural habitat of the intelligence officer is not the shooting range or the gym mat, the departure lounge of a hot and dusty airport, the safe house or the interrogation cell. It’s not halfway up a ladder aimed at the draughty rear window of a foreign embassy. It’s not even the street, the simple street – narrow, damply cobbled, thick with London fog and Russian menace. No, the natural habitat of the intelligence officer is the meeting room. Spies like to talk.
 “You will have heard of a section called Gatekeeping,” says Charles Remnant. “In simple terms, we investigate the insider threat – the threat posed by our own members of staff, who may have been recruited by hostile foreign powers. What you will not have heard of, however, unless matters have really got out of hand, is the secret cadre of officers we refer to as Gatekeepers.”
 In this case, not just any meeting room, but one at the top of the building, one at the dead end of a corridor otherwise used to store broken filing cabinets and unused safes. The paint is peeling, the floor stained brown with water from a burst pipe. A sign on the door states ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT: STRICTLY NO ADMITTANCE. Leonard Flood has worked