Kremlin Conspiracy

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘Despite what I think is insufficient evidence for any sort of proper analysis, I’ve got to agree that indicates a change in their financial outlook,’ said Pike. ‘It’s the most obvious explanation.’

  ‘I don’t see there’s any other conclusion,’ said Snape, in agreement.

  ‘I was briefed about the need for this meeting in Washington on Tuesday,’ disclosed Volger. ‘Heard an interesting snippet from Al Herridge, in State. They’ve spent a lot of time down in Argentina, trying to gauge what’s happening. According to the delegation that negotiated the wheat deal in Moscow, Paramov was clearly on his way out, actually replaced as chairperson during negotiations by this woman that all the papers have been devoting so much attention to. They didn’t realize then how important she was going to emerge.’

  ‘If she were the negotiator, then I don’t think she made a very good deal,’ said Strange.

  ‘Beggars can’t be choosers,’ said Byrne, unembarrassed by the cliché. ‘If they don’t get wheat, they’ve got famine. What else could she do but concede?’

  ‘So far we’re pretty short on conclusions,’ said Volger.

  ‘I’d like to know the options first,’ said Funtle.

  ‘I don’t think there are a lot,’ said Pike. ‘To me it seems a choice of two extremes. The government changes could be another shake-up like dozens that have occurred before, because of the continued failure of the Russian economy and the absolute leadership changes since Brezhnev’s death. And all the other things could be coincidental, with no connection. The alternative is that there is a connection: that the people have been fired because of proven incompetence and that at last there’s some sort of guidance being attempted.’

  ‘So what’s the majority opinion?’ demanded Volger.

  There was an initial silence in the room. Then Pike said, ‘I’d like to repeat the remarks I made earlier: that I don’t think we’ve sufficient evidence to make a judgment. But from what’s available, I’d gamble on new financial control, after all these years …’ He paused and before anyone else could speak added, ‘But I’ll stress the word I used. It’s a guess.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Strange, at once.

  ‘So do I,’ said Snape.

  ‘Unanimity from the analysts,’ said Volger.

  ‘With the understood provisos,’ insisted Pike.

  Volger looked to the trade representatives. There was a hesitation and then Byrne said, ‘There’s a lot of coincidence, I agree: maybe too much. But things as apparently connected and yet, with the benefit of time, emerging as being quite separate have happened too many times in the Soviet Union for me to come out with any positive conclusion. And if you force me to make one, then I’ll dissent. I think all we’re seeing is the usual Soviet confusion, not sudden responsibility.’

  Everyone looked to Reconzi. There was matching hesitation from the second trade assessor and then he said, ‘As Paul pointed out, there’s maybe too much coincidence. I know there have been foul-ups in the past in our guessing, but this time I’m going for financial control.’

  Volger went to Funtle. The deputy said cautiously, ‘We finally get a chance to consider the overall conclusion; the views of the other Agencies?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Volger shortly, irritated by the other man’s reluctance.

  ‘I don’t think we’ve got enough,’ said Funtle.

  ‘Everyone realizes that,’ said Volger, with strained patience.

  ‘Responsibility,’ said Funtle quickly. Just as quickly he added, ‘But with the right to reconsider, if more evidence becomes available.’

  Volger turned to his other deputy.

  ‘I disagree,’ said Bellow. ‘I know all the indicators and take all the points but I can’t go along with such an abrupt change, after so long and so many failures. I don’t think anything is going to change.’

  Volger looked down at the notes had had been making during the casual voting. ‘The majority is for responsible planning,’ he said. He looked around the table. ‘Anyone want to make any further points?’

  There were vague movements and head shaking, but no one spoke. Addressing them all, but looking directly at Pike, Volger said, ‘In which case I’ll forward to Washington the initial view that we are being confronted with a dramatic change in Soviet economic strategy.’

  ‘Let’s hope it’s not too dramatic, if it’s happening at all,’ said Bellow, the doubter. ‘Those resource figures are terrifying: properly utilized, the Soviets could bring us to our knees.’

  ‘Tom made the point that they’re not being properly utilized,’ reminded Volger.

  ‘And we’ve just concluded, by majority vote, that there’s been a dramatic change in the economic thinking of the Soviet Union,’ said Bellow.

  The summons came an hour after the end of the formal meeting. When Pike entered the chairman’s office, directly above the conference room and with an even better view of Manhattan’s skyscraper forest, he saw that Volger was alone.

  ‘You weren’t backtracking at the meeting?’ demanded Volger at once.

  ‘No, sir,’ said Pike. ‘Trying to be objective.’

  The Federal Reserve chairman nodded. ‘Seen your father recently?’

  ‘He’s in Europe,’ said Pike.

  ‘We’ve had one or two conversations about you.’

  ‘I know,’ said Pike.

  ‘Feel like joining him?’

  ‘I’m happy here,’ said Pike.

  ‘Your position would remain safe.’

  ‘I’m still trying to make up my mind.’ Pike supposed he should have anticipated the pressure extending to include this other man.

  ‘The Bank of International Settlements is meeting in Basel at the end of next week,’ said Volger. ‘I’d like you to go over as an observer forus. I want to keep a tight rein on this Russian development: it’11 be an ideal opportunity to check out what all the European central bankers are thinking.’

  ‘I’d like that,’ said Pike. It would be good to get away from the newly established regime of weekends in either Southampton or Washington, with New York in the middle during the week – and from the settled involvement with Janet.

  ‘Not just Switzerland,’ said Volger. ‘Make a proper trip out of it. I’ll fix introductions for you in Paris and Bonn and London. I want to run this thing down properly.’

  Volger saw the Washington request as some sort of challenge and wanted to win the prize, Pike realized familiarly. He wondered if he’d get the chance to see the girl he’d met in Washington. Momentarily he frowned, unable to remember her name. Rosen, he recalled: Jane Rosen.

  Misunderstanding the doubtful expression on Pike’s face, Volger said, ‘No reason why you can’t go, is there?’

  ‘None at all,’ said Pike at once.

  ‘When could you leave?’ asked Volger.

  Pike hesitated briefly. ‘Virtually right away,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll start trying to set up the meetings today,’ promised Volger.

  ‘Thank you for the opportunity,’ said Pike.

  ‘You’ve earned it,’said the chairman.

  He had, decided Pike. He’d been the first within the bank to recognize the possibility of something unusual emerging from the Russian system, so the Swiss trip was rightfully his. The other analysts would see it as the benefit of influence and the right name. And not just the analysts.

  ‘It’s a frightening thought, isn’t it?’ said Pike, remembering Bellow’s remark. ‘That if the Soviets were properly managed and capitalized, they could sink us.’

  ‘Frightening,’ agreed Volger. ‘Long live Soviet inefficiency.’

  Chapter 12

  After the morning service, there was coffee in the vicarage. Jane took the offered cup and stood at the edge of the room, looking around her. Comfortable, settled people with comfortable settled lives, she thought. Lucky people.

  ‘You seem to be becoming a regular visitor.’

  Jane turned to see the nervous curate who’d been introduced
into the parish at the service three weeks earlier. She’d forgotten his name. He looked extremely young.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I do, don’t I?’ This would have been her fifth weekend with Ann since her break-up with Paul. He had tried to persuade her to take him back, but she had remained resolute. The weeks were all right, because she could immerse herself in her work, but she couldn’t stand weekends, particularly Sundays. But she was going to have to, she knew: Ann and Henry had been very understanding, but it couldn’t go on for ever.

  ‘Your sister tells me you’re something terribly important in London.’

  The curate had a curious way of talking, mouthing each word as if he were tasting it. She supposed it probably had something to do with teaching Sunday school, ensuring that everything he said was understood. ‘I work in the City,’ she agreed. ‘The Bank of England.’

  ‘All that money!’

  ‘I don’t actually see it,’ she said. ‘It’s numbers on paper.’

  ‘Fascinating,’ he said. ‘You must think us all very dull and parochial here in the country.’

  ‘Actually I was thinking how nice it must be.’

  The man looked at her doubtfully as if he suspected her of mocking him. Apparently deciding she was not, he said, ‘Nice but still rather dull. Highlight of this week is the election of officers for the Mothers’ Union. Not quite the same as keeping the country financially safe.’

  She laughed with him, appreciating the effort he was making. ‘I’ll do what I can for you.’ If I get the chance, she thought. It was almost a month since she’d appeared before the review board: she should be hearing soon. She didn’t think she’d made a good impression: not as good as she had wanted to, anyway, although a bad performance shouldn’t matter too much. Review boards were a formality: the decision should be made upon her record and she knew that on this basis she should get the promotion. Unless Paul interceded and stopped it. This doubt had occurred to her before, although she couldn’t remember when.

  ‘Are we going to see you in church next week?’

  Jane hesitated uncertainly and then said, ‘I don’t know.’ Maybe next week she’d stay in London. She’d thought the same thing about this weekend, she remembered.

  ‘I hope so,’ said the man. He looked across the room and said, ‘Excuse me, the vicar’s making “help me” gestures.’

  Her sister passed the curate as he crossed the room.

  ‘Seducing Mr Privett?’ said Ann.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Our new curate.’

  Jane smiled after the man. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘He was being very sweet, trying to make me feel at home.’

  ‘We enjoy having you here,’ said Ann.

  Jane looked directly at her sister but didn’t respond. Instead she said, ‘Where’s Harry?’

  ‘He and Edward have gone to fly your kite. Edward reckons you’re the best auntie anyone can have: no one in the school has got a kite as elaborate as his.’ She looked around the emptying room. ‘Let’s go and see about lunch.’

  Autumn tinged the countryside with reds and yellows and browns and the wind, always seeming colder across the flatness of Cambridgeshire than it did in London, plucked at them as they went out into the lane. Jane shivered, pulling her jacket around her. Ann was far more sensibly dressed than she was, in boots and a sheepskin coat. Without looking at her sister she said, ‘Thank you.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Letting me hide here with you, every weekend.’

  ‘Is that what you’re doing, hiding?’

  Jane shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

  Ann had been very patient, never asking. ‘Nothing much to talk about,’ said Jane. ‘Soap opera really. Supposedly hard-headed career girl becomes infatuated with married man, makes an idiot of herself, romance ends, utter misery.’

  A flock of birds, frightened by something, suddenly burst into the air from the bordering field, whirling about in panic. Only Jane jumped.

  Ann said, ‘Sounds like too much bitterness for it to be just infatuation.’

  ‘I was crazy about him,’ conceded Jane.

  ‘Was?’

  ‘He’s tried to start it again. I’ve said no.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘That’s the silly part: I don’t know.’ She hesitated and then said, ‘Yes, I do. I don’t want it to be like it was before.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘Just bed, as far as he was concerned.’ Jane felt herself blushing at the confession. Even bed hadn’t been that good, towards the end.

  ‘Sure?’

  Jane nodded, going first through the gate that her sister held open for her, a short-cut from the main drive into the rambling Tudor farmhouse. Inside Ann said, with attempted lightness, ‘A drink, to deaden the pain. Harry’s got a new shipper since he’s become master of the hunt: wants to impress people, I suppose. Sherry’s excellent: Jerez.’

  Jane nodded, accepting the glass.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ demanded Ann.

  ‘Stop bothering you every weekend, to start with.’

  ‘You’re not a bother.’

  ‘It’s got to stop though, hasn’t it?’

  ‘Not as far as we’re concerned: we like having you, really.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Jane.

  ‘I’ll just go and check with cook,’ said her sister.

  Glass in hand, Jane wandered towards the diamond-leaded windows, starting out over the rolling lawns and the acreage beyond. Ann was lucky, she thought. She might complain of the burden of being the squire’s wife, dinners and cocktail parties to give and to attend, but Jane didn’t think she minded, not really. The most settled, comfortable life of all: riding to hounds twice a week, personally shot pheasant for Sunday lunch and deference from the vicar after church. She heard her sister return but didn’t bother to turn back into the room.

  ‘Hope the pheasants haven’t hung too long,’ said Ann.

  ‘I’m sure they’ll be fine,’ said Jane.

  Ann came alongside, gazing out into the garden.

  ‘It’s very pretty,’ said Jane.

  ‘Costs a fortune to keep up,’ said Ann. ‘Church fête next week: it’ll take the gardeners weeks to get the heel marks out of the lawns. We’d love you to be here.’

  ‘You’re making it very easy for me,’ said Jane gratefully.

  They were quiet for a long time and then Ann said, ‘Want to know something?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sometimes I’m jealous of you.’ She frowned at her own remark. ‘Not sometimes. A lot of times. A lot of times I think of what life must be like for you in London and I’m jealous of you.’

  Jane laughed genuinely. ‘You want to know something?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I was standing here, feeling sorry for myself, envying you!’

  They both laughed.

  ‘I’d swap with you any time,’ said Jane.

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ said her sister. ‘You might think so, but if you actually had to make the decision I don’t believe you would.’

  ‘I’m not so sure.’

  ‘Is it important to you, the work you do?’ asked Ann. She gestured towards the sherry but her sister shook her head.

  ‘It’s become so, lately,’ said Jane. ‘It’s the lifeboat.’

  ‘I always thought it was,’ said her sister. She stopped for a moment and said, ‘Daddy was always so very proud of you. He was proud of me too, I suppose. Done well by myself, he said: never seen a farmer on a bicycle. But you were the one that made it all worthwhile for him: all the sacrifices.’

  Jane turned away from the view. ‘Poor Daddy,’ she said. ‘Mummy too. I wish they hadn’t done it.’ She sipped her drink and said, ‘And yes, work has always been important to me. The break with Paul hasn’t really altered anything.’

  ‘Don’t let it become too important, will you?’ said Ann.

  ‘What�
��s that mean?’

  ‘Career girls are envied when they’re thirty and glamorous. And pitied when they’re fifty-five and soured spinsters.’ Ann laughed nervously, at once apologetic. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘That was Agatha’s agony column philosophy.’

  ‘Appropriate though.’ Jane moved the glass between her fingers and said, ‘I don’t want to end up a soured spinster.’

  ‘He must have been a hell of a man, to leave you as depressed as this.’

  ‘That’s the stupid part,’ said Jane. ‘He really wasn’t. Really he was a shit.’

  ‘They’re usually the ones it happens with.’ She smiled again. ‘I should be writing a column, shouldn’t I?’

  ‘And I should start growing up.’

  Jane regarded Edward Parker as a traditionalist upon the Court – the governing board – of the bank, one of the directors who saw no place for women above secretarial level. As a senior director he had an office overlooking the Mansion House and the statue of a horse-borne Duke of Wellington: double glazing cut out any sound, so that the traffic swarmed noiselessly outside in unreal, silent procession. He stood to greet her as she entered the room, a dried-out, aloof man: there was a residue of white powder on the lapels of his regulation black jacket, from where he had talcumed his face after shaving. He remained standing until she seated herself in the chair he indicated, then lowered himself behind the desk. It was dark wood and large and intricately carved, and there was a smell of polish. Better than Paul’s office, she thought.

  ‘I have to offer you congratulations,’ said the man at once. ‘Your appearance before the review panel was successful. They were particularly impressed with your exposition of the Soviet situation …’ He paused, smiling mechanically, just drawing his lips back from his teeth. ‘It goes against the general feeling in the bank and they were impressed with the strength of your argument, even though you realized it was a minority opinion.’

  Despite her conviction that she deserved the promotion, Jane had prepared herself for rejection again and the announcement momentarily surprised her. Recovering, she said, ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘You’re entering a level of very great responsibility.’

  ‘I appreciate that,’ she said.