by Ian Rankin
“So, what can I tell you?” Billy sat down on the other bed.
“You mean about Latchkey?”
“Latchkey?” Billy seemed genuinely puzzled. “No, I meant about Sheila and me.”
“Oh.”
“I mean, I can tell you about the first day we met, purely by accident at a Hayward exhibition. About how we talked, and how we met once or twice more, also to talk. It’s not a very exciting tale, Miles. What’s so ironic is that we were on the point of calling it a day anyway. I went to the house only that once, and then only because Sheila was upset about Jack.”
“Upset?”
“Well, he’d just left, and there was still a gulf between them, wasn’t there? She was just trying to understand.”
“And she needed you for that?” Miles remembered the warm bed and thought no, I can’t believe any of this.
“Miles, blame me. I was attracted to Sheila, not her to me. I pushed our relationship. She thought our second meeting was chance, too, but it wasn’t. I’d set it up.”
“All that time we lunched together, drank, gossiped, parted with a handshake and a smile, and all the time, all those months, you were…you…”
And then it happened, not at all the way he had wanted things to happen. He wanted venom or icy, muted snubs; anything except this stupid blockage in his throat, full of weakness and sentiment. He began to cry, his body jerking in little spasms. And, daring to look up, he saw that Billy, old Billy Monmouth, with a skin like that of a swamp alligator, was crying too, his body as still as marble.
“Jesus Christ, Miles,” Billy said softly. “I’m sorry, sorrier than I can say.”
Miles was blowing his nose when the door flew open.
“Good God,” rasped Colonel Denniston. “What’s been going on here?”
Stevens was doing it by the book. It was just that no one had bothered to write this particular book. Janine found him the man he needed at the embassy, a fairly expensive go-between who was able to substantiate—on tape, though he did not know it—that the assassinated man had been a private trader; in other words, was his own operator for most of the time, but did odd jobs for the security service. There was Hickey’s word for it that MI5 had bungled their surveillance operation and so had allowed the assassin onto the streets. But the Israelis seemed not to know this. So, lowly Jim Stevens had his lever with which to crack open the spies. He knew something they wouldn’t want the Israelis to know.
What else did he have? He had something only Janine’s charm and looks could have inveigled from a parliamentary official: the Honorable Harold Sizewell MP was sitting on a hush-hush committee investigating the funding of the secret services and international cooperation between the various intelligence communities.
The dirt was there, he was sure of it. And the spade he needed with which to do his digging was Sinclair aka Hickey. Jim Stevens had his story.
He told Janine he’d buy her lunch, but hadn’t let on that they would be eating at her favorite restaurant. He had arranged to meet Macfarlane there, too, and over a long afternoon he would tell his editor the story, with Janine’s help. Macfarlane couldn’t turn this one away. The blinders were off.
“Jim! I’m not dressed for this place.” Janine had stopped at the door and was refusing to cross the threshold.
“OK,” said Stevens chirpily, “take off what you’re wearing and we’ll go in.”
She slapped his chest.
“Pig,” she said, smiling, as they entered the restaurant.
Stevens had found a tie in his wardrobe—unused for years—that was absolutely stainless. Hardly able to believe his luck, he had put it on, only realizing later, upon meeting Janine and her horrified gaze, that the pink tie was hardly a match for his light brown shirt.
It wasn’t one of the better tables, but what the hell. And it was a bit more pricy than Stevens’s credit card had bargained for, but it was a special occasion. They ordered aperitifs, and Stevens wondered where Macfarlane had got to. A waiter brought a telephone to the table.
“For you, Mr. Stevens.”
“Hello?”
“Jim, it’s Terry. Listen, sorry I can’t make it. Can you come in this afternoon? I’ve got some bad news.”
“Oh yes?” For Janine’s sake—radiant, youthful Janine—Stevens tried to sound calm.
“You’re fired,” said Macfarlane. “None of my doing. The official line is that it’s to do with the hell-raiser photograph.”
“And unofficially?”
“No comment,” said Macfarlane. “Sorry, Jim. Hope I didn’t spoil your lunch. Bye.”
“Lobster bisque, I think,” Janine was saying, “and an entrecôte for afters. Must watch my figure, mustn’t I? Jim? Is everything OK?”
“Fine, Janine. Everything’s just dandy.”
He was determined, hardened more than ever now. Sod them all. He’d break this story if it was the last thing he did. Somebody would publish it, somebody must. He’d show them all. There came a time when the truth had to push its way up through the mire. Didn’t there?
SIXTEEN
WHEN THEY FINALLY DID MAKE LOVE it was in glorious Technicolor to the music of the Beatles, Miles Davis guesting on trumpet. He felt the luxury of the mattress and the alcoholic glow in which they were both swimming. Everything was all right now, and though he couldn’t be sure who his partner was, whether Sheila or Billy or the Irishwoman, he knew that he was home at last and that he would never stray again.
The voice close to his ear told him that it was fine and always would be. Did it matter that some uninvited guest watched from behind the shutter of a peep-show booth, smirking? No, not really.
“Miles?” The voice seemed to come from the booth, where the eyes had grown feverish. “Miles?”
“Miles!”
He opened his eyes. Those of Richard Mowbray were on him, and a hand rested on his shoulder.
“Wakey, wakey, old chap.”
“Richard, I must have dozed off.”
“I admire that in a man, Miles, the ability to stay calm when all around are clinging to the wreckage.”
“I had no sleep last night.” He glanced around his office, having for a moment expected to find himself in the hotel room.
“I came to sympathize,” said Mowbray. “Is it true?”
“Is what true?”
“That you saw something suspicious and went over there to investigate?”
Well, that was the story which Denniston, listening like an attentive tiger beetle, had soaked up. Miles had added some nice touches, like the living-room light being turned off and then on again. Denniston had snatched at that one with his mandibles.
“A signal!”
“That’s what I suspected, sir.”
And Denniston had sat back, pleased with himself.
“Yes, I saw something, Richard,” Miles said now, scratching at his face.
“Uh-huh.” Mowbray seemed unconvinced, and Miles remembered that it was Mowbray who had come closest to witnessing his dark ebb and flow of the previous night, and of all other nights. Tact was needed.
“It seems strange,” he said, “that the very day we move out, something like that happens.”
Mowbray thumped the desk with his fist.
“That’s just what I was thinking, Miles. It’s as though they knew the operation had been wrapped up.”
“Of course, it could be coincidence.”
“If I have to make the choice between coincidence and conspiracy, I’ll plump for conspiracy every time.”
Miles thought of Billy Monmouth, conspiring against him and against Sheila.
“You’re probably right, Richard. But then what stops us from ripping our lives apart looking for the watchmen who are watching us?”
“Come on, Miles. What about your act with the restaurant cutlery and the way you check your car? I know all about your little rituals. Would you call them paranoia?”
Miles was suddenly aware of having humored Mowbray a little too much,
and it had led to this, his own discomfort. Did everyone know everything about him? Sheila could hear him at the living-room door. Mowbray was telling him that his little restaurant game was common knowledge. It was a sobering thought. How many people laughed at him behind his back? Everywhere he turned these days he bumped into people who knew too much about him, and all the time it was he who was supposed to be on the watch, on the hunt.
Hunting what?
Hunting his own fantasy of a goliath beetle, a double agent? What kind of beetle was Richard Mowbray anyway? To his enemies in the firm he would be a Colorado beetle. The Colorado beetle had led a harmless existence until settlers took the potato to North America. The beetle loved the new crop, became mesmerized by that first forbidden taste. Yes, that was Mowbray, safe within the firm until he had begun to investigate it for himself, and then coming to enjoy that investigation so much that he wanted to taste more deeply.
But Mowbray would never find a single double agent, for the simple reason that he was wandering aimlessly and in all the wrong directions.
“If there’s any paranoia to be found around here, Miles, it isn’t in your head, and it certainly isn’t in mine.”
Mowbray’s eyes were like candles, but Miles knew that he was fumbling in the dark.
In the film that evening, John Wayne played a policeman sent across to London to take charge of a criminal wanted in the United States. The film’s real entertainment came from the sight of the Hollywood legend stalking the streets of the dull old city. It was nice to watch one of the good old boys in action.
Miles was thinking back to his unheroic undergraduate days, days spent following Sheila, mooning outside her digs, wondering if she had any secret lovers or secret life. He would make a scene if he saw her speaking to other men, and she would laugh at him. God, he had been quick-tempered in those days. The firm had calmed him down.
“Hello.”
The voice was just about empty of emotion, but hesitant.
“Hello,” he answered.
This was it, then. She had entered the living room, was removing her coat. He kept his eyes on the television.
“I’m just going to make myself a coffee. Would you like some?”
“Yes, please,” he lied, not wishing to sound intractable.
“Fine.”
And she left the room again, while the film played to a score of gunshots and screeching wheels. Miles took a deep breath. Only seconds of this fragile peace remained. He sat up straight in the chair and clasped his hands, the way he had seen actors do when they were supposed to be anxious for resolution. He was no hero, but he could act as well as anyone.
Was it as easy as that, then? No, of course not. But they made some kind of effort at a beginning, sitting together on the settee, sharing a bottle of wine, watching television.
Or rather using the flickering pictures as a partial means of escape, so that the conversation never really had a chance to become too volatile, too involved. The television acted like the third party to an argument; neither Miles nor Sheila wanted to make too much fuss in front of it.
And although it was dark, they left the curtains open, to remind themselves how tiny their drama would seem against the perspective of the world. The programs on TV grew softer as the night progressed, and so did the conversation. Everything conspired, so it seemed, to make their own dialogue easier. The old marriage was over, on that they were agreed. Did they want a new one to begin, or were they content to see the old one perish and go their separate ways?
“What about you?”
“I asked first.”
And both smiled, wishing to try the former path.
“But there has to be give, Miles.”
“Agreed.”
Sheila was rubbing at her forehead, her eyes moist, and Miles examined her closely. She was the same woman to whom he had lost his virginity, the same woman he had married. Love overwhelmed him, and he put an arm around her, pulling her in toward him. She hugged him silently, her hands sliding over his back. He felt an almost adolescent excitement. Love was a strange and a timeless gift; one never lost the knack.
Over a supper of microwaved pizza and another bottle of Rioja, they spoke softly together, as though afraid of waking their parents in an upstairs room. They giggled together, too, thinking back on the good times, acting like old friends. Perhaps it was important at this fragile stage not to act as husband and wife. Miles mentioned that he had read a lot of Sheila’s books.
“You never told me that.”
He shrugged his shoulders. So then they talked about books for a while. Sheila applauded silently.
“You have been a bookworm, haven’t you?” She was smiling. “But, Miles, if you’d told me, we could have had such good discussions, couldn’t we?” He agreed that this was true. “Miles, let’s go to the theater sometime together. Let’s make it soon.”
Miles felt the life flooding back into him. It seemed that the firm, over the years, had sucked the life out of him and replaced it with little coils and bolts of mistrust and fear. But he could change, couldn’t he? Starting now, with Sheila giggling and looking so very young, and he trying to impress her and make her laugh. Yes, the life was there again.
They had not mentioned Billy Monmouth yet. Leave the pain to some other time, their eyes said. Everything can be faced in time.
Sheila felt confused, though she tried smiling her most open and encouraging smile. Was this what she had wanted all along? Was this what the fling with Billy had always been leading toward? And had it been a “fling” anyway? She didn’t know, not yet. Perhaps if Miles had not found out about Billy, she would have told him herself. Yes, she tried telling herself that she had been using Billy, nothing more. No, nothing more than that. Oh God, she had worried away the past few nights by herself, wondering where Miles was, even going so far as telephoning Jack in Edinburgh, swallowing her embarrassment and asking if his father was there. But not there, and now here, his arms feeling more muscular than she remembered, his back thicker, but having lost weight from his paunch. And it felt so good lying here, without questions, without answers to those questions.
And when the telephone rang, they lay still for a moment in the bed, both with a strong desire to ignore its magnetic plea. But both failed, and there was a giggling race to be first downstairs. Sheila won, and her arm, stretching toward the telephone, pushed it inadvertently onto the floor.
“Whoops,” she said, and then, scooping up the receiver, “hello?”
“Can I speak to Miles, please?”
She handed over the telephone in resignation, sticking out her tongue. Miles grabbed the receiver gleefully, breathing heavily.
“Hello?”
“Miles, it’s Richard here. Listen, there was a terrible clunking sound when you answered. Be careful. I think you may be bugged.”
“Oh, I see,” said Miles gravely, smiling and winking at Sheila, who had settled beside him on the parquet floor. “Well, I’ll certainly be careful, Richard.” Sheila began to ask silently who was calling, but Miles only tapped his nose with his finger, and so she pushed him and caused him to topple. He dropped the telephone, then, having pushed himself back up off the floor, picked it up again.
“There, did you hear it?” asked Mowbray excitedly.
“Yes, I did, Richard, most certainly I did.”
“Good God. I wonder who’s bugging you, Miles?”
Miles knew exactly who was bugging him at that moment.
“I don’t know, Richard. Was there something you wanted to say?”
“Yes, I’ve got a message. But I’m not sure I should deliver it over such a nonsecure line.”
“Well, give it to me anyway, as discreetly as you like.” Miles watched Sheila rise to her feet and pad toward the kitchen. She had mimed the drinking of coffee, to which he had nodded eagerly. Watching her retreat, he smiled.
“There’s a meeting this evening.”
“This evening?”
“A bummer, I
agree. Mr. P wants to see us. Something to do with an offshoot of our recent harvesting activities.”
“A sort of a seedling, eh?”
The humor was lost on Mowbray, who spoke past it as though explaining to an idiot the principles of addition and subtraction.
“To do with our recent harvesting, Miles. This evening. Six-thirty at the office of Mr. P.”
“Yes, Richard, of course, Richard. I’ll try to be there.”
“Try? You’d better do more than that, Miles. You’re not exactly the favorite nephew at the moment, if you get my drift.”
“Like a snowstorm, Richard.”
“Where have you been today, for example? Not in your office.”
Miles watched Sheila coming back into his line of vision. She wore only her thin satin bedrobe.
“Oh,” he said, “I’ve been around, Richard, believe me, I’ve been around.”
SEVENTEEN
HE HAD TO BRUSH LATE autumn leaves off the bonnet and the windscreen of the Jag. It had lain dormant for some time. The front bumper had been dented slightly, perhaps by some car trying to squeeze out of its tight parking space. No one, however, had put a brick through the front window, and no one had strapped a radio-controlled nasty to the wheel arches or the underbelly.
The drive, however, was not enjoyable, and this thought sent Miles jolting away from one particular set of traffic lights. He had always enjoyed driving his car, always. But something about the relationship seemed to have changed. Oh no, not you too, he wanted to say. The sounds of the engine, the change of the gears, the fascia, the leather that supported him, all seemed involved in a conspiracy of estrangement. He was just not right for the car anymore. “Divorce” was the word that came to mind. He would sell the car and buy something more austere, or—why not?—would travel everywhere by public transport. Too often he had used his car as if it were a womb or a protective shelter of some kind. Well, he was ready to face the world now.
And he was ready, too, to face whatever awaited him in Partridge’s office. The car behind was too close. If he braked at all it would bump him. Why did anyone risk that kind of accident? Maybe the driver was Italian. The car wasn’t: it was German, a Mercedes. And it had been behind him for some time.
