‘Of course it wasn’t from me,’ she gasped out. ‘Alex, why would I have gone to Sewell about those –?’
‘Don’t say anything else – this line’s probably tapped. I know you did all you could, Freya. But I can’t understand how he knew so much.’
Nor could she. There were three people she’d told about Alex being blackmailed. Apart from Nancy, whose silence on the matter she absolutely trusted, there was Hetty – likewise – and Jerry Dicks, who’d gone out of his way, untypically, to outflank the threat of Sewell and his photographs. Her efforts had come to nothing.
‘Alex, what are you going to do?’
‘God knows,’ he said, resigned. ‘Mr Patterson here recommended I make for the hills, but I fear it’s too late for that –’ He broke off for a moment to mumble with the lawyer, and then came back. ‘Excellent timing. The police are outside.’
‘Tell your lawyer to let me know where they’re taking you. Alex –’
‘Freya, I have to go –’ There was further muffled, indistinct talk, and the receiver was hung up.
Her heartbeat was going at a dangerous lick. Nancy was out. She rang Robert’s number, but the telephone was one shared by the house, and the person who eventually answered had no idea where Robert was, or even who he was. She paced around the room, thinking. Where would he be at this hour? She looked at her watch.
Five minutes later she was walking, half running, down Chancery Lane towards Fleet Street. Her brain was overheating with theories about Alex’s exposure. Who was behind it? She wondered if Sewell had welshed on whatever deal he had made with Jerry Dicks and had kept back some of the photos to sell on the sly. But Jerry would have been wise to such tricks; he’d have made sure Sewell had given up the lot – or else. Hadn’t he said he had enough on the blackmailer to put him away for years? Jerry had stopped up the danger from that end. It had to be down to something – someone – else.
Entering the lobby of the Envoy, deserted but for the man at the desk who waved her on, she took the lift to the newsroom. The door to Standish’s office stood open. She made a beeline for it.
Standish, unshaven and tieless, had his feet up on the desk. He didn’t look very surprised to see her.
‘Why wasn’t I told about the Alex McAndrew story?’ she said.
He pushed his chair back and swung his legs to the floor. ‘Please, come in.’
She ignored his sardonic pleasantry. ‘Well?’
‘We knew that you had a personal connection to McAndrew and that you’d probably try to block it –’
‘Too fucking right I would have done.’
‘Calm down. It’s a story, a queer in the MoD. A huge story. It’s not like we could ignore it.’
‘You could if you had a conscience. How d’you dare call this a liberal paper, really – hunting down a man for what he does in his private life?’
‘I don’t make the laws. And in any case, it’s not just his being queer that’s got him in trouble. They reckon he’s been communicating with certain gentlemen in Eastern Europe.’
‘That’s balls – Alex isn’t a spy. He’s been looking for a friend of his from the Czech air force. They met during the war.’
‘I’m sure his lawyer will argue the same. Look, if it hadn’t been us it would have been someone else. Try to see it from a professional point of view. It’s a story in the public interest.’
‘That’s what they always say when some poor fool’s been hung out to dry –’
She saw Standish’s eyes flick to a point over her shoulder. She turned, just in time to catch a glimpse through the glass partition of a figure disappearing. She darted out of the office and was on his heels as he hurried down the corridor, pretending he hadn’t seen her.
‘Robert,’ she called out. He stopped, and turned round to face her, his jaw jutting defiance. She narrowed her eyes. ‘How could you? How could you, knowing what you knew?’
‘It’s my job, Freya. I work for a newspaper that pays me to report things. This one’s bigger than anything I’ve ever had. What, you expected me to hold off just because I knew him at Oxford?’
‘No. Because you knew I was Alex’s friend – that’s why. You really must have hated him to rat him out like that.’
Robert protruded his lip and shook his head. ‘I’ve no particular feeling about him one way or the other. I just got the story.’
‘Yes, and I wonder how you got it. Did Sewell make you a deal?’
‘Who’s he? I made no deal with anyone.’
She paused. So if he didn’t have the photographs – ‘How then? Who tipped you off?’
‘I told you, I’ve got a fellow at the ministry who keeps me apprised.’
‘Who – what’s his name?’
He shot her a sceptical look. ‘Come on. I protect my sources, like you would. I just put two and two together.’
She stared hard at him. ‘I don’t believe you. You’re not clever enough to have worked it out yourself. I hope to God you didn’t get it from Nancy.’
A twitch of resentment creased his face – a face she was feeling a violent urge to slap. He said, dropping his voice, ‘“Not clever enough” – ha. This story’s going to be all over the papers, for weeks. It’ll be on television. And I’m the one who broke it. Standish has already said he’s giving me Home Affairs, my own office, whatever I want. I’ll probably get a car. So you tell me which one of us has been clever.’
‘A car! I hope you fucking crash in it, you unspeakable cunt –’
Robert laughed, shaking his head. ‘Your language – it’s priceless. I’ll recommend they switch you to the crossword.’
‘Fuck you. You ruin someone’s life for a car and a promotion. Don’t you have any shame?’
‘You don’t change, do you? Always the self-righteous cow. What the hell are you doing working for a newspaper if you can’t stand people printing the truth?’
‘Nearly the right question,’ she said, her rage suddenly tearing away a veil. ‘It’s what I’m doing working for this newspaper. You know, I’d rather poison myself and get it over with – cos that’s what would happen anyway if I stayed in the same fucking room as you.’
He frowned at her, puzzling at the implication. ‘You’re not going to resign?’
‘Watch me,’ she almost snarled. ‘And don’t try showing your face at the flat again – ever.’
At the Strand Palace, over a bacon-and-tomato sandwich, Freya listened as her mother talked about the party; but the event now seemed so remote to her it might have happened in another lifetime. Cora hurried on about her old friends, the excellence of the catering, her disappointment at Diana being so ‘pleasant’, her annoyance at Stephen’s unwithered agelessness. When she paused a moment to squint at her daughter and ask if anything was the matter, Freya only smiled and said she was still hung-over from the night before. It seemed to satisfy her.
In silent relief she eventually handed her mother into a carriage at Charing Cross. Cora had made her promise that she and Nancy would come for a weekend at Finden very soon – she had so enjoyed seeing Nancy again.
She walked back to Great James Street, head and heart burdened with the drama of the last twelve hours. She had decided to spare her mother any rehearsal of it, partly because she knew she wouldn’t understand, and partly because she feared to choke in the telling. The empty Sunday stillness of the flat depressed her, though she felt in no mood for company. Nancy’s bedroom door stood open, her party dress from last night crumpled on the bed. She must have heard by now about Robert’s treachery: the newspaper lay open on the kitchen table, its headline the writing on the wall. Freya was turning away when her eye snagged on the tantalising sight of Nancy’s diary, expectant on her bedside table.
And all at once it fell into place. She knew, suddenly and absolutely knew, how Robert had got his story. In a trice she snatched up the black-boarded volume with its marbled endpapers and began riffling through its recent entries. It must be somewhere in the last ten
days of July, she thought, when they were in Florence. She felt certain that a clue, the clue, would be yielded up to her –
F.’s odd mood these last days is finally explained. We had stopped at a little trattoria & she told me that Alex McAndrew had called at her office a few days ago asking her to lend him money – hot on the heels of his queer revelation it turned out a blackmailer had him in his pocket over some photographs taken in a nightclub. He needed £300! F. of course didn’t have that kind of money, or anything like, but she was beside herself with remorse – & believes she has let him down. I told her it wasn’t her fault, but still she fretted, & begged me not to tell anyone, especially Robert. Felt rather offended that she thought I might betray her confidence, but I didn’t say anything. We walked back via the Duomo to where we’d left the scooter …
She sat on the bed and read it again, aghast that her secret should have been entrusted to so frail a receptacle. Nancy didn’t even bother hiding the diary away; it was always lolling on her desk or her bed, inviting temptation. Which wasn’t something Robert would have resisted overmuch: she could imagine him, pricked by curiosity, casually flipping its pages in search of references to himself – only to stumble upon this dynamite. Alex McAndrew, right there in Nancy’s steady, even cursive. Oh, the ghastly mischance of it! Alex, undone by the few strokes of a pen. A tear rolled off her eye and ploshed onto the open page. She dabbed at it with the edge of her blouse, smudging a few words. She closed the diary, and half lay, face down on the bed. She didn’t know if they were tears of rage, or sorrow, or loss; or all of them at once.
For a long time she lay there, until the scrape of the latchkey from below and footsteps on the stairs roused her. She stood up and moved to the bedroom doorway as Nancy reached the landing. Their eyes met, and Freya knew a moment of truth, another one, was coming.
‘Oh, darling,’ Nancy said, her brow creased with pity.
‘When did you know they were going to run the story? Did Robert tell you?’
She shook her head. ‘I only found out this morning, when I saw the paper.’ She came forward and clasped Freya’s forearms in sympathy.
‘But you know how he got hold of it?’
Now she nodded. ‘He told me – one of his contacts at the Ministry of Defence had tipped him off. They knew there was someone in the building who was using an encrypted code to communicate with his handler. I never would have dreamed Alex could be a double agent –’
‘Oh, but he isn’t! He was trying to trace Jan – his old lover. That’s why he was using a code. They’ve got him because he’s queer, not because he’s been passing secrets. And it’s not from anyone in the MoD Robert found out.’
Nancy frowned. ‘But how else could he –?’
‘He got it from you – from your diary! It’s the only way he could have.’
Nancy’s hands dropped, releasing her. Her expression had clouded. ‘How would you know that?’
For answer Freya stepped back into her bedroom and snatched up the book. She held it out as though Nancy hadn’t seen it before. ‘Because it’s here, written down, everything I told you about Alex when we were in Florence.’
Nancy held herself very still. ‘You read my diary?’
‘Yes, I did – and so did Robert. I just had to make sure it was in there.’
There was an unsteady pause between them. Then Nancy stepped forward and took the diary from Freya’s hands. ‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ she said quietly. ‘Of all people I’d never have thought you’d do that.’
‘And I wouldn’t have, but – but I knew that he’d read it, and I needed to prove a point.’ She had been wrong-footed, and now she heard the weakness in her excuse. ‘Nance, I’m sorry, I wouldn’t have done if it hadn’t been absolutely neccessary.’
‘Really. So you knew that Robert had read it, and because of that you had to read it too. Please, you’ll have to explain – how do you know? Why shouldn’t Robert have got the story from somewhere else?’
She heard a cold, sceptical edge in Nancy’s voice, and shrank from it. ‘I just know, because I know Robert. I saw him at the office this morning and had it out with him. He was almost hugging himself with delight – the editor’s promised him the Home Affairs desk. God, I knew he was ambitious, but I never imagined he’d stoop to this –’
‘He was surely only doing what the editor told him to – find the story – and you resent him for succeeding. A promotion? He deserves it.’
Freya couldn’t believe her ears. ‘How can you be taken in like this? Nancy, listen to me, two weeks ago Robert as good as admitted he thought the idea of a mole in the MoD was cobblers – his word. Next thing, he’s got Alex cold. The only way he could have done was by opening that book and finding Alex’s name there.’
‘So you say.’
‘Why d’you not believe me? Leave aside the fact I’ve resigned over this – yes, I’ve quit! – this all comes down to trust. You’re too nice to believe that Robert could be this underhand, this unscrupulous. But I know him. And he wouldn’t think twice about violating someone’s privacy if he thought it might give him an advantage.’
Nancy stared at her, almost pityingly. ‘You’ve never really forgiven him, have you, for throwing you over back then. You resent him, and you resent other people for liking him.’
‘God – give me strength! You want the truth? I considered Robert a friend, I enjoyed his company and found him charming. Yes, he once dropped me, and I thank my lucky stars he did. It was easy to forgive him, we were so young. What I’ll never forgive is his betraying Alex for a fucking news story.’
Nancy, eyes cast down, shook her head. ‘Please don’t say anything else. I mean it – please.’
A cold premonition of disaster had gripped Freya within. But she kept going. ‘I only wish you could see through him as I did. I can’t stand the idea of you not knowing –’
‘Freya, stop it! Not another word. I wasn’t going to tell you this yet, because I didn’t want it to come between us. Robert’s found rooms to rent, and he’s asked me to share them.’
It took her a moment to find her voice, lost somewhere near the bottom of her throat. ‘But … you’re not going to, are you? I mean, why would you do that?’
Nancy gave an incredulous gasp. ‘Because we want to,’ she said, and added, in a quieter voice, ‘I want to.’
Freya felt that something had dislodged in her head, because she couldn’t order her thoughts into a coherent sentence. Distracted, her voice came out in an odd croak. ‘Where?’ It wasn’t the question she wanted to ask; her mind was playing an involuntary trick.
‘Near here,’ Nancy replied. ‘We could still, if you were willing –’
‘I see,’ she said, and paused. ‘So given the choice between him and me …’
Nancy said nothing, which was tantamount to an admission. The shock of it made her regroup. She could beg Nancy to forgive her over the diary, say it had been a mistake; she’d apologise to Robert and set things right between them. Anything but let her go. Anything but that.
Apologise to Robert?
‘Why would you let him ruin your life? He’ll never change.’
Nancy stiffly looked away. ‘It’s already done. I’m going to move in. You can choose to see us or not – I hope you will.’
Freya wasn’t sure how long it was before she answered. She was staring past Nancy at the rooftops and chimneys framed in the long window. She had always liked their solid last-century steadiness: they had survived bombs. She would miss looking at them. In time she would be able to imagine herself living somewhere else, with other views and staircases and bedrooms not known to her. Her present life was breaking up and scattering the wreckage in front of her.
She managed to smile, and, in a moment that could have broken her heart, Nancy smiled back, mistaking a farewell for a truce.
III
That Girl
23
It was all going up, fast. Freya kept craning her neck as she drove
through the north London streets, trying to adjust her eyes in the shadow of another high-rise. When had this happened? She had left behind a more or less horizontal city and returned to find a vertical one. It was as though an invisible alien race had descended on the town and immediately set about throwing up their space-age cabins. ‘Streets in the sky’ she’d heard them called. Flats stacked high, one on top of another. And the best thing about these cellular habitations, apart from the view, was that they had ‘all mod cons’ – even their own bathrooms. She stopped at a traffic light and looked up through the windscreen at a looming tower. She grinned, and shuddered.
Strange to be back after all this time. She used to be wary of taking a backward step, but this felt different, it was a place at once familiar and transformed. More traffic, more shops, more noise, more adverts, more colour, more hustle and bustle. And more people, inevitably, streaming across the junction as she waited for the green light. Rome, where she’d mostly been living for the last eight years, had seen change, too, but it wasn’t something you noticed as much when you stayed put. And in any case it was still in the dark ages compared with thrusting modern London. The two capitals seemed to be moving at different speeds, one at the pace of a horse and cart, the other of an express train.
She had joined the traffic heading west along the Euston Road when something made her double-take. It was the gigantic arch fronting Euston Station, shrouded in scaffolding. A repair job. But no, wait; looking closer she saw that huge chunks of it were missing. Not everything was going skywards after all; they were taking this old giant down. How had she forgotten that? She had read about its proposed demolition months ago, there had been an outcry and a late campaign to save it – up in smoke, by the look of things. Amazing that something she thought so immovable, so much a part of ‘her’ London, could be made to disappear. An old song came to her, and she hummed a few bars.
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