The Belfast was still being carried downriver by the tide, with the authorities wondering whether they could throw a line to the two gesticulating teenagers. However, none of their boats were powerful enough to hold the giant ship against the powerful tide. Their greatest fear was that it would damage the Thames tidal barrier defending London against floods, but fortunately it went aground on one of the bends further down the river before reaching it. Shortly after, the chastened teenagers were taken off, very much shaken, with their parents shocked to see them on TV when they were meant to be in safe hands on a school trip.
Once again, Sir Charles came out of the affair honourably, having put the warning about not using missiles on official record. The value of the pound dropped even further than it had done earlier in the day, and the Owl and his associates had certainly made a financial killing, even though they had not brought London to a state of paralysis by destroying as many bridges as intended. Even so, the damage to Tower Bridge was so extensive that it would be many weeks before any vehicles would be able to cross, and as a result traffic jams on the south of the river continued for weeks.
But who was the Owl? Theories abounded.
‘The Owl,’ said Sir Charles, ‘could be one of us, someone in the secret service. On the other hand, he could be living in luxury abroad, say in the south of France, where you possibly met him. Or amongst the high and mighty in the UK, in which case he might well be a Russian oligarch, senior politician, top civil servant, banker, hedge fund owner, or businessman.’
These were all people difficult to interrogate and investigate. The claim he made that he could have been prime minister, just like Sir Charles, was probably a red herring. Assuming it was not a red herring, the use of the term ‘our country’ would rule out Russian oligarchs. He also gave the impression that he went to the same private school as Sir Charles and other establishment figures, but again that would be easy to do, and it would be unlikely he would narrow down his background so much after taking so much care to ensure Holt did not know the precise time they had met supposedly, but not definitely, with him behind that mirror.
‘The fact,’ said Sir Charles, ‘that the Owl mentioned pilots and aircrew being sacrificed in addition to French civilians suggests he might be someone whose family lost members as pilots and civilians in World War II. But there were so many of those, and again it could be a red herring.’
Sir Charles made it known that he thought it was ludicrous for the security services to concentrate their limited resources on looking for a relatively benign ‘terrorist[Ma92] ’ – who, after all, wanted what many in those services and the country really sought – when there were so many evil ones posing much greater threats. Sir Charles maintained that Giraffe should be the unit responsible for seeking the Owl, with the help of GCHQ intercepts, of course.
The press was having a field day, running articles saying both the politicians and their parties should reveal all contacts with lobbyists and any donations or invitations to overseas conferences and seminars, with airfares and hotel costs included.
Chapter 26
Better for Having Waited
For Holt, there was one unexpected highlight – a visit to Buckingham Palace to receive an honour from Her Majesty the Queen. Because of the confidential nature of his work, it was all very low-key, with him only allowed to bring along someone with a high security clearance to witness it. Celia was the ideal candidate, and to his surprise he found she had a security clearance even higher than his.
Wearing his captain’s uniform, more to impress her than anything else, he looked good, and with his confidence bolstered, asked Sir Charles, who was accompanying them to the palace in the official car, why he was not getting a gong too.
‘You deserve one – you managed everything, made it possible.’
‘I’ve already got my K, and it would only provoke my establishment enemies. Besides, at my level extra honours are only a balm to console you when you retire or are let go.’
The ceremony at the palace was a laid-back affair, and before he knew it, Holt was slipping back into the role at Giraffe originally intended for him. To his dismay, Celia was hardly ever in the office, as she had been parachuted into a job as PA to a high-profile VIP too often in the news. The idea was that she would nominally be keeping a daughterly eye on him while all the while sniffing out what some of the rich foreigners he was hobnobbing with were up to.
The colleagues betting on when she would lose her virginity were still convinced she had managed to retain it.
‘Her face isn’t relaxed enough,’ they claimed. ‘It does not have that satisfied glow showing she’s getting it, or that look of frustration proving she needs it again.’
Holt did sometimes manage to meet Celia in St James’s Park, out of the sight of colleagues but not perhaps out of sight of security, which meant they had to be watchful. Blackwell had programmed their platonic relationship so well that Holt was not in the least put out when, on one of their afternoon get‑togethers in the park, she suddenly came up with a suggestion that seemed to indicate she still thought they should not be intimate.
‘I am sure,’ she said, ‘you would agree…’
‘Agree with what, Celia?’ he asked as he turned away from the ducks on the lake to look into her eyes.
‘That we do not want to spoil our relationship by doing something silly.’
‘I quite agree,’ he replied, wondering how far one would have to go for it to be something silly.
‘I was thinking it would be great to do another trip abroad. Like the time we went to Japan, but just for our own sakes. We could go to some fantastic place. A honeymoon but not a honeymoon, if you get my gist.’
‘I am not sure I do.’
‘Like our first night at The Loughty, without the peep show. You wouldn’t need the sedative this time. We managed without it on our trip to Japan, didn’t we?’
‘Only you know that. I take you at your word. Every time we had a bad coffee I wondered…’
‘Well? How about it?’
‘I think…it’s a…great idea.’
While it indeed was a great idea, he had agreed without hesitating for fear that if he declined she might seek out someone else, who would inevitably exploit the situation. Losing her, particularly to a colleague, would be a tragedy of the highest order, and it would most likely be a colleague because of the security angle, which always concerned her.
The ‘we do not want to spoil our relationship by doing something silly’ stipulation was not of great concern, for after his pulsating trysts with Consuela he was not gagging for it. Besides, the added confidence gained through that experience would enable him to adopt a haughty attitude in that domain.
After consulting friends – or rather, acquaintances, as they had none working for the service – they opted for the Maldives. Several had said if they were going all the way money-wise, even if as they claimed not otherwise, the ultimate escape was to have a chalet there perched on the sea, with a glass floor to watch the tropical fish milling about below while enjoying each other’s company above with a glass of bubbly.
And so it was. Their Maldivian chalet was everything they had been told to expect and more. Each island had its resort and nothing else, so there was a sense of relative privacy and privilege. Of course, that did not apply to the ordinary citizens, and there had been troubling stories about a fifteen-year-old being raped by her stepfather and sentenced to a hundred lashes, to be applied on her reaching the age of eighteen. Eventually, the highest court had stepped in and overturned the judgment after representations from foreign governments and fears that it would damage the tourist industry.
Such iniquities were far from their minds as they enjoyed a great seafood dinner at the restaurant on the beach by the sea on their first evening. On returning to their chalet, they collected the bottle of champagne waiting in the fridge and went out to the veranda facing the sea, where a couple of glasses were already laid out.
Th
ey felt as if a charm had come over them as they sat silently, gazing reflectively at the water flecked with moonlight. There was no need to talk – after all, they had known each other and shared each other’s company closely, if not intimately, for a long time. Resisting the temptation of a second bottle, they decided bed was the better option.
As on that unforgettable first night at The Loughty, Celia insisted Holt be the first to go to retire. Again, as at The Loughty, she emerged from the bathroom with a bath towel wrapped around her, but instead of allowing it to slip off right next to him and waltz in her birthday suit to her case for her knickers, she kept it firmly in place and made straight for the foot of her bed for her nightie. Only when the nightie fully encompassed her did she unclasp the top of the towel, extract it from underneath, and jettison it on the back of a rattan chair.
This time there was no gap between the twin beds, and consequently she had to get into hers on the far side and wiggle her way across.
‘Gosh, what a place!’ she exclaimed on arriving in the middle.
The schoolgirl language again took Holt back to The Loughty, adding to his guilt at thinking she must have nothing on underneath. A girl like her would hardly keep on the underwear she had worn during the day.
‘Why…don’t you come over here? It’ll be easier to…um…talk.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Sure of what?’
‘Sure that you’ll…be all right.’
What a stupid remark. Again he had forgotten the golden rule that one should never put too much into words.
‘There’s nothing,’ replied Celia, ‘to be afraid of. Or is there?’
‘Of course not. Hold on. I’m coming over.’
Unlike at The Loughty, it was not only his resolve to behave himself that was stiffening.
Moving like a crab with an unwieldy pincer, he wriggled over to her side, glad not to have to untuck the sheets, which the maids of course had not tucked in between the beds.
On arriving by her side, he did not know what to say, let alone what to do, so accustomed had he become to behaving as her brother. Contemplating the fan gyrating languidly above them, she seemed oblivious to him. Or was she too shy to look at him directly?
As he was resigning himself to the idea that after the meal, wine, and champagne they would drop off to sleep like that with no word spoken, she rolled over and looked at him intensely.
‘It’s wonderful,’ she whispered.
‘Wonderful?’
‘To be so close like this. Isn’t it?’
‘Yes, but…’
Raising her head, she gazed into his eyes, at the same time bringing her lips towards his in the obvious expectation of a kiss – an expectation he guiltily satisfied. Blushing and batting her eyelids, she was behaving as if she had never been in such a predicament before.
Feeling like a college lecturer embarking on an illicit relationship with a student, he brushed his right hand up and down her back, noting with pleasure the protuberances along her spine. Emboldened by her quivering response, he slid his other hand towards her left breast, encountering what proved to be token resistance, for when she finally ceded he found her nipples had already hardened under the cool linen of her nightie.
As his fingertips wandered at will over other sensitive areas, he could hardly believe his reversal of fortune, except for one place remaining off limits, as her knees were squeezed so tightly together that further exploration was impossible. Using a technique Consuela had taught him, he placed the leading edge of his open hand between her clenched knees and began sawing away. The sensation made her grit her teeth and squeeze them even more tightly together to resist his attempted intrusion, but after he had varied the pressure and the rhythm, even stopped once or twice, she suddenly giggled violently as her thighs involuntarily sprang wide open. As they spread, her nightdress rode up, allowing him to snuggle down between them.
The two of them remained motionless for what seemed an eternity but what was in reality only a minute or so. Gazing at him invitingly, she locked her arms around him and attempted to pull him even closer.
All that followed was so spontaneous and natural they might well have been lovers accustomed to sleeping in each other’s arms night after night. Even so, at the key moment Holt held back, only for her to shout out, ‘Don’t stop. Yes, no, no. Oh my…’
* * * * *
The next morning, after a repeat but more paced performance, they lay there in each other’s arms, replete, not saying a word.
With Celia lost in her own thoughts, Holt got up, switched on the kettle to boil some water for the coffee he so desperately needed, and went for a shower. Letting the water trickle over his face, he savoured the moment. At last she was Miss Innocent no more, and the limbo he had been in for months was over.
Later they would further liberate their bodies by going diving together amongst the tropical fish. Could life ever be better than this? He had said the same thing to himself when on the Côte d’Azur with Consuela.
Either he had the best of both worlds or neither world was quite what he had imagined it to be. Was Consuela the innocent one, and Celia not quite the innocent she made herself out to be?
Having returned the pillows on what had nominally been her bed back to their proper place while she was away in the shower, he had raised the top sheet and was just tucking it in at the foot of the bed when he noticed a little red stain almost in the middle of the bottom sheet, right where they had been lying. He stood there contemplating it, wondering about the implications.
‘Leave that to me,’ ordered Celia, who had come up beside him.
Letting go of the top sheet, he went off to finish making the coffee, missing his chance to mention the presence of the red spot without making a big deal of it.
On coming out to the veranda to join him for coffee, Celia gave no indication she had noticed anything. Not only did she look fulfilled, she looked completely at ease.
Was there a hint of amusement in her eyes, or was it his imagination?
Later at breakfast, again outside by the sea, neither of them said anything of any consequence, aware that a postmortem might spoil things. Holt did mention a breakfast he had had at a resort hotel in Thailand where a baby elephant went around the tables putting its snout into women’s laps in the hope of being able to share their breakfasts.
‘Women sitting alone would give generously, only to be shocked to find the cute cuddly one had rough skin like sandpaper and was not the pleasure to caress that they had expected.’
‘You know,’ said Celia as if she were very knowledgeable in the matter, ‘there must be something special about breakfasts on overseas holidays shared with someone one loves.’
‘How do you know that?’ asked Holt.
‘You remember how we used to laugh at that couple who repeatedly told us how much they enjoyed that wonderful breakfast in Paris they had together with coffee and croissants?’
‘Yes, only too well,’ replied Holt, relieved she was not speaking from personal experience.
‘Funny,’ added Holt, ‘how they hardly ever mention the expensive dinner they had the evening before.’
‘We will have,’ replied Celia, ‘to be careful not to be like them and bore people with our stories. Anyway, we’ll have to keep all this secret from our colleagues at Farringdon.’
‘Especially them,’ retorted Holt, wondering whether the two colleagues placing bets on when she would lose her virginity would be able to tell she was different.
With breakfast over, they sat in silence looking at the sea. To give himself a breather and allow Celia to go back to the chalet on her own and have free run of the facilities, Holt announced he would hop over to the resort office to see if there were any brochures about the activities, such as diving and catamaran trips. But just as he was placing his hands on the arms of his chair to heave himself up, Celia leant forward and stopped him.
‘Wait! Promise not to be angry.’
‘I pro
mise,’ replied Holt, thinking he knew what she was about to say.
‘You remember that night at The Loughty?’
‘How could I ever forget it, with you parading around in your birthday suit? You were so pure and angelic I was not in the least aroused – physically, that is.’
‘Actually, my being so pure and angelic had nothing to do with you not being aroused.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You couldn’t have done anything anyway.’
‘How come?’
‘I slipped a powerful tranquiliser into your coffee on the terrace while waiting for you to return from the loo. Enough to calm a horse.’
‘So that’s why the coffee was so awful.’
‘You must understand I was acting under orders from Blackwell. He said it would make things much easier for us both in the long run and that it was my duty. When I expressed my doubts, saying I did not join the service to be an exhibitionist and put drugs in colleagues’ coffees, he said that if I refused, I would be replaced. As I both liked you and wanted to go to Japan, I accepted.’
Holt could imagine Blackwell debriefing Celia after their stay at The Loughty, laughing to himself at how he had watched helplessly as the Virgin Mary pranced naked around the room. Thank heavens The Loughty had refused to comply with Blackwell’s request for the video.
‘Blackwell insisted the first night was critical, and if it went according to his plan, you would get a mental block and no longer think of me sexually. And, to be fair, it worked a treat.’
‘The tranquiliser – How many times did you use it?’
‘Blackwell said it should only be necessary for the first night, but to be on the safe side I might like to top you up from time to time. He said that the tranquiliser had not been needed in the case of other agents, but then none of the women had been as desirable as me!’
LONDON ALERT Page 23
