Albatross (7 page)

‘Oh? Why?' She didn't look pleased, he noticed. A very independent lady; did not welcome interference.

‘Apparently people have called you here, and Frieda's given them rather short answers. Humphrey didn't like it. I've had a word with her about it, so I thought I'd let you know.' The dark eyes considered her closely.

‘When you say “short answers”,' Davina asked, ‘what does that mean?'

‘Apparently she gave the impression that you weren't a serious employee. That's what Humphrey was annoyed about. She didn't know where you were or when you'd be in, that sort of bloody nonsense. I've put her straight anyway.'

‘I'm glad,' Davina said. ‘It seems an unnecessary way to behave.'

‘She's jealous,' Walden remarked. ‘She thinks we're sleeping together.'

‘For God's sake!' Davina snapped out. She felt her face flame with embarrassment. ‘What on earth gave the stupid woman an idea like that? I sincerely hope you put
that
right!'

To her annoyance he laughed out loud. ‘How could I?' he protested. ‘What would you expect me to say? Look here, Frieda, don't think Miss Graham and I are having an affair, because we're not – she's a secret agent working for the Government. Don't get so angry about nothing. She's jealous of anyone who might take her place. And after all, you're a very attractive woman. So she thinks we're lovers. What the hell does it matter what she thinks, as long as she gives the right answers when you're out of the office?'

‘It matters to me,' Davina said angrily. ‘I won't be put in a false situation.'

‘For someone in your profession,' he said gently, ‘that's a funny thing to say.'

‘My profession is one thing,' Davina answered, ‘my private life is another. I can't see what you find so amusing about it. Do you normally sleep with your personal assistants?'

‘I've never had a personal assistant before you,' he answered. She could see that for some reason he was enjoying himself, and that angered her even more.

‘I have a private life, too, my dear Davina. The trouble with Frieda is, she's never been part of it. She wasn't bad looking when she first came, but not my type. I like them blonde and beautiful and absolutely brainless. So you don't have to worry. When will you have lunch with me again?'

‘You can't be serious! After this conversation – certainly not!'

‘What's the matter?' He spoke gently, teasing her. ‘Are you frightened your major would object? I'll invite him too, if you like.'

‘That,' Davina said coldly, ‘I would like to see.'

‘You don't think we'd get on?' he challenged her. ‘The man of action versus the man of ideas. I think it could be very interesting. He didn't like me, did he?'

‘No. You didn't like each other, that was obvious. Look, this is becoming silly. You called me to tell me about Frieda and I'm very grateful to you for putting it right. I've actually got some marketing results to get ready for you, so if you don't mind, I'll go and do them.'

‘I do mind,' Tony Walden said. ‘I can get those results from half a dozen people, and they'll produce them twice as fast as you.'

‘Thanks very much.'

‘Why don't you stop play-acting? I'm feeding stuff to you because you took this bloody silly attitude about wanting to be useful and earn the salary. It was a nice gesture, a good conscientious attitude, and I admired you for it. But it's becoming a bore. Will you sit down for five minutes and let me explain something to you?'

Davina hesitated. She was on strange ground with this man; she didn't know the type, or quite how to cope with him. If she walked out of the office now, in some infuriating way Tony Walden would have won.

He made it a little easier for her. He said, ‘Please?'

As ungraciously as possible she said, ‘All right,' and sat down again.

‘You don't understand me, do you?'

It was an opening and she took it. ‘I haven't tried.'

His slight grin denied her the point. ‘On the other hand, I took a lot of trouble to find out about you before I agreed to help Humphrey out. You're a remarkable woman; you have a brilliant record in the Service. I know about your major's medal, but I also know about your trip to Moscow. Yes, I made inquiries about you; not just from Humphrey. I wanted to know the sort of person I was giving a cover to, before laying myself and my business on the line if anything went wrong. I'm a respectable tycoon now, but I wasn't always a fat teddy bear. That's why I agreed to take you in and provide a cover for you. I hankered a little for the old days when there was a risk involved in living.'

‘I see,' Davina said. ‘But what you don't understand is that this isn't some kind of postwar game. You said I didn't understand you. That doesn't mean to say I didn't make inquiries too before I came here. You got out of Poland and into the West when you were eighteen, and you made it alone from then on. You also helped people escape after the Wall went up. I know all this, and it's very admirable. But it doesn't give you the right to involve me on a personal basis, just because you've done Humphrey a favour.'

‘Why not? Why do I have to play some silly charade with you about marketing results, when what I want is to talk to you as a human being?'

‘Because I can't,' she said. She felt suddenly awkward, rather than annoyed. ‘I can't talk to you,' she went on. ‘It's not the way things are done now.'

‘You're saying I'm old-fashioned because I expect to be trusted? Not with information,' he leaped in before she could reply, ‘but with ordinary contact – an interval between clients, telephone calls – a lunch when I am not on duty being convincing or funny or selling the agency to someone. No, I don't understand why you can't afford that.'

She didn't answer. There was an answer, Davina was certain, but at that moment she just couldn't think of one.

‘You make me feel rather mean and ungrateful,' she said at last. ‘But you don't really need me for any of those things. You have a wife; probably girlfriends too. You should get what you want from them.'

‘I do,' he said, and the smile was wide and mischievous. ‘What I lack is a little mental stimulation. And you're a stimulating person. You challenge me; that's what I like about you. I don't want to know what you're doing or what your work is. I want to talk to you sometimes, not behave like a dummy when you're sitting next door. Is that so impossible for you?'

‘Mr Walden,' she said, ‘you are being bloody. What on earth can I say to all that sob stuff except, “Yes of course”? Well, I'm not going to. I'm going to go and spend twice as long as anybody else and get you the marketing results!' She didn't look behind her as she left the room, but she could hear him quietly laughing.

Harrington spent the Sunday rest day studying the duplicate of Colin Lomax's confidential report. He read it straight through once, absorbing an overall picture, refreshing a memory gone stale, with events in which he had played a major part. He didn't pause or bother about anything that seemed at variance with his experience. The details and the conflicts in the sheaf of typed papers could come later, and would take a long time to analyse. His mind darted along the pages like a ferret in pursuit of a wildly jinxing rabbit. His early contact with Davina – the clever bugger was wrong there. He had just tried to pick her up, that was all. Nice looking in a prim way, might be worth a quick screw – two lunches, a few drinks, a withdrawal when he realized she wasn't going to meet expenses, so to speak. Wise chap, he'd never tried it on. His Washington posting – he began to grin, remembering faster than he read. He'd begun blotting his copybook, soaking up the martinis and the scotch at every official party, publicly lurching out into the night when everyone could see him. Those had been his orders. Get yourself recalled, and not to a foreign posting. He courted disgrace, and here the man who wrote the report had seen a glimmer through the murk of lies and counter-lies. That recall and demotion to a humble backwater in the London office brought him right into Davina Graham's path.

His orders had been to make contact. He laid the papers down. He'd thought it was masterminded from Dzerzhinsky Square; he thought his own cunning act had brought him to Davina and through her near to the defector Sasanov. But now he realized it was two hands, not one, that had placed him in position. Who had ordered his recall, and who had sent him down to Personnel? His file would hold that answer.…

He went on reading, absorbed, and found the second question mark, and this was more suspicious than the first. Never discount coincidence, they taught in the Service. Never dismiss something because you can't explain it. There was no coincidence about this. The man who was appointed to Washington in his place was reassigned at the last minute. He could see the slick yellow hair and the sharp little eyes, hear the crisp diction with its register of contempt for lesser men like sleazy old Harrington, the drunk. Spencer-Barr. The Minister's nephew, the brilliant graduate from Cambridge and Harvard Business School. A Mandarin in embryo, was young Jeremy. Destined for the top of the Establishment heap in due time. But the perfect specimen had a flaw. It ran through the bastard from the top of his spine to the tip of his tucked-up arse, Harrington mused. They hadn't found out about it till later, and by then Spencer-Barr was in Moscow, providing a vital liaison for the most dangerous and reckless SIS operation since the Cold War began. But someone had known. Someone had known what Spencer-Barr was really doing when they sent him to Moscow. Like the flutter of a magician's hand, the manipulator appeared and vanished. The KGB couldn't have engineered a better linchpin which would fail to hold. That too had been arranged in London.

Harrington was whistling; it was the same few bars of an old Beatles song. He had used it as a recognition signal in Washington when he met his contact in the airport lounge en route for New York.

‘She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah.' He travelled on the shuttle once a week. He met his fellow Russian agents every third week, and they used a rota. The only way he recognized them or they knew him was by the casual whistling of the old Beatles tune.

He hadn't thought about a traitor high up in the SIS until Davina came to see him – how long ago? Nearly three weeks. It seemed like an eternity. She had thrown a lifeline and he'd caught it and, thank the Christ above, his memory had picked up the distress signal and registered an answer. He had always possessed a wonderful memory. There was a Soviet penetration. He hadn't lied, although he was going to if he hadn't been able to recall the truth. But he hadn't the faintest idea who it was, or whether it was more than one person.

He lit one of Stephen Wood's precious cigarettes. Funny how the truth was paying dividends. He'd spent the major part of his life telling lies and listening to them. Now, when what was left of that life depended on it, the more he told the truth the better it was – he had decided not to try and con Davina. He made a wry grimace, mixed with hatred and self-pity. He'd learned to respect her intelligence the hard way. Thirty bloody years was quite a lesson.

He didn't know who or what or where the traitor was, and he said so. He asked for the report because without it he couldn't do a deal. Not that it would be the deal that she expected. Oh, no. Harrington had carried the red-shield badge with the crossed swords. The KGB punished betrayal, but not exposure. There was a Swiss account and a large sum of money waiting for him. The British would let him out, but only his Soviet masters would pay him. He must therefore deal with both. Stephen Wood had the message. That proved his loyalty. That would bring instructions, motivate a response on his behalf from the KGB. They had kept trust with him; it took a long time to get Stephen Wood into contact, but they were patient men. He couldn't stand Wood with his hearty manner, like some games master exhorting the boys to play up and play the game. Who would think a man like that, reeking of middle-class morality and social consciousness, had dipped his hand into the muddied waters of subversion? He had passed one message only to Peter Harrington in two years. ‘You are not forgotten by your friends. Be patient.' The months had passed and he had forgotten that message, as he believed he was forgotten. Until Davina Graham came.

The cigarette burned his fingers. He dropped it on the bed and cursed. The papers fell to the ground while he looked for it on the blanket, found it, stamped on it, sucking his sore finger like a child. He behaved childishly when he was ill, or when anything happened to thwart his few pleasures. Once, when a simple box he was making in the carpentry shop split, he found himself crying. That was what prison did to a man; he indulged in bouts of wild self-pity now and again. Kinder to shoot a poor bugger than lock him away for the rest of his life and pretend it was humane. Better to give it him in the back of the neck walking down the corridor, like they did in maligned old Soviet Russia, than keep him to eat himself alive with frustration and despair. Harrington picked up the papers, smoothed them; he'd trodden on the top one in his agitation. He made sure there was no spark in the bed; he'd become finicky and obsessive about tiny things. Satisfied, he lit another cigarette, positioning the ashtray by his side, and settled back to read and concentrate. For dear life. The old-fashioned phrase came to his mind, and he thought how apposite it was. Life, and any hope of enjoying it in freedom, depended on what he could get out of that report.

Igor Borisov swivelled his chair round and faced the window. He had a majestic view of the Lenin Monument at the end of Karl Marx Prospekt; he found it an aid to concentration. Behind him, Natalia waited in silence. He had a broad back; she knew every muscle in it, and had left little stinging scratches either side of his spine. They had been lovers for just on a year. What had started as a sexual encounter had developed into a secret partnership. Natalia often looked at herself in the mirror and smiled at the face of the most powerful woman in Russia. There were women in public office in the Soviet Union; the Politburo was all male. But the mistress and confidante of the director of Russia's mighty security forces was more influential than some of the members of the Politburo.