The Man Between

by Charles Cumming

  I think Kit saw what was happening as a chance to show what his family was capable of, what Bill Carradine might have been if only he had not been deceived by one of his own. In this sense Kit was making amends. And he loved the world of spying! My shampoo bottle and the passport in the salt and how careful I was about phones and SIM cards. Second nature to me, but not to him. He was like a kid in a spy shop. It was very endearing.

  Of course, just as he talked about his own life and his family, I told him about Ivan, about my role in early Resurrection operations, about the way I had lived since leaving New York. He knew that Stephen Graham had been in love with me, that he had taken me away to a beach house he had rented for us in Mexico, that we had spent a weekend together by the ocean. He asked me about my childhood in Hungary and of course, out of habit, I told the stories I have always told, some of which were true, some of which were not true. A lot of the time I felt as though I should protect him from knowing too much about me, because I was aware that I could hurt him at any moment. I wanted to be with him but I knew, deep in my heart, that this could never be possible.

  As you know, I had been suspicious of Patrick and Eleanor. I liked Eleanor particularly and believe that perhaps Patrick was not always true to her. He had a streak of vanity, of arrogance, as if life had always come a little too easily to him. She hinted that he was having an affair, which explained his strange behaviour in the marina when we first arrived. He was always talking on the telephone, presumably to his mistress. I wanted to be able to tell Eleanor more about my life. We had many good conversations. She was a terrible cook! Of course, they had no idea who I was. Kit kept up the pretence very well and it was easy to act as though we were boyfriend and girlfriend because we had become lovers.

  My worry was that Kit was too concerned for my safety. He had a streak in his personality, a need to be the knight in shining armour. I’ve noticed that a lot of English men have this. So I had to be ruthless with him. I had to be cruel to be kind. I was trying to find a way to let him know that, sooner or later, it was all going to have to end.

  38

  Lara and Carradine had gone ashore for brunch at the marina in Puerto de Barbate. They had been at sea for two days and two nights living off cold cuts and salad and both yearned for a decent cup of coffee, some jamón ibérico and the chance to stretch their legs. The decision to delay arrival in Gibraltar by forty-eight hours had been Eleanor’s; she wanted to take a hire car into the La Brena National Park so that she could visit the Barbate Marshes. The last-minute change of itinerary had not seemed suspicious to Carradine, who was in no position to argue with Patrick and Eleanor after they had been so generous and hospitable towards him. Besides, it was not as if Gibraltar held any of the answers to Bartok’s predicament. When they had been alone in their cabin, Carradine had tried to persuade her to hand herself over to the British authorities. She had refused. She was reconciled to her fugitive status, insisting that Carradine return to London and forget all about her.

  He did not want to. On the first night out of Rabat they had slept together; consequently he was in a state of dazed infatuation and wanted to keep seeing her. He believed that Lara felt the same way and that by trying to persuade him to go home was only demonstrating how much she cared for him. She had explained that she wanted to protect him from the complications of her life on the run.

  Their bodies still swaying to the rhythms of the ocean, they walked hand-in-hand through the marina to a small tapas bar where they ordered fried eggs, patatas bravas and jamón. Patrick briefly joined them before returning to the boat to fix a broken hatch; Eleanor had gone into town to have her hair done.

  ‘Sooner or later they’re going to work out what happened to us,’ said Carradine, finishing off a second cup of coffee.

  ‘Maybe,’ Bartok replied. ‘Maybe not.’

  It was perhaps the nineteenth version of a conversation they had been having every day since leaving Morocco.

  ‘Where will you go?’ he asked. ‘What will you do?’

  ‘This does not have to concern you.’

  ‘I want it to concern me.’

  She kissed him on the cheek, running her hand along his jaw. They no longer had to pretend to be lovers; a natural intimacy had grown up between them. Carradine toyed with daydreams of smuggling Bartok into the UK so that she could live with him in his flat and make a new life in London. He knew that the crimes of which she was accused in America – armed assault, kidnapping, incitement to violence – would most likely see her extradited to the United States within a matter of weeks. He wanted to believe that he could mount a public defence on her behalf, persuading journalists and broadcasters to campaign for her release, arguing that Bartok had acted under duress from Ivan Simakov and deserved a second chance. He knew that such far-fetched notions were the stuff of fantasy but could not bring himself to face the simple truth: their adventure was over. Looking across the table at the woman who had so bewitched him, Carradine realised that he had only two options: to remain with her, abandoning his life and career in London; or to return home. It was no choice at all. He would have to go back to Lancaster Gate and look back on all that had happened to him in Morocco as a fleeting dream.

  ‘You should telephone your father,’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’

  An ancient Téléfonica payphone was bolted to a wall on the far side of the tapas bar. Carradine asked the obvious question.

  ‘Won’t they have his number covered? If I call, they can trace it.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Bartok replied.

  Looking back, Carradine realised that was the first sign of what was to come.

  Two hours later he was scrubbing the decks and washing down the windows while Patrick caught up on his sleep. The skipper was tired after sailing single-handedly through the night and had retired to his bunk. It was another fiercely hot day, the marina buzzing with activity. Eleanor had not yet returned from the local town. Lara was below decks reading a book.

  Just after midday she popped her head up into the cockpit and told Carradine that she was going ashore to look for a newspaper. He knew her well enough by now to realise that she wanted to go alone. She was carrying the soft bag that he had found in her apartment, into which she had stuffed various dirty clothes as well as their bed sheets and towels. There was a laundromat at the marina. They arranged to meet there and to find somewhere in town to have a late lunch. Carradine had not yet rung his father but planned to do so once they were a safe distance from the marina. Lara had agreed that this was a more sensible course of action.

  Just before two o’clock, Eleanor returned from the local town smelling of coffee and hairspray. Patrick was still asleep. She seemed surprised to see Carradine.

  ‘Oh. I thought you were in town. I saw Lily in the taxi.’

  She had taken to calling Bartok ‘Lily’. The two women had grown close in a short space of time. There was an edge to Eleanor’s voice, as though she were admonishing Carradine for a sin he had not committed.

  ‘She went on her own,’ he said, wondering why Bartok had taken a cab when she had said she was only looking for a newspaper. ‘I’m meeting her in a minute.’

  ‘Ah.’ Eleanor frowned. Carradine sensed that something was wrong. ‘It did seem odd,’ she said. ‘She drove right past me. You were nowhere to be seen. I assumed you two lovebirds had had a row.’

  ‘Why did you think that?’

  ‘Because she was crying.’

  He knew then that Bartok was gone. Carradine felt unbalanced. He asked in which direction the taxi had been heading when it had passed her.

  ‘Out of town, I suppose,’ Eleanor replied. ‘Away from here.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I think so.’ Her expression softened. ‘What was the argument about, darling?’

  Carradine found himself in the absurd position of confirming Eleanor’s belief that there had been a terrible row. What else could he say? That Lily wasn’t ‘Lilia’ but instead a fugiti
ve from justice with a bounty on her head? That she had slipped away into Andalucía without so much as a farewell? That Carradine had lied to them for days, taking advantage of their hospitality and potentially putting their safety at risk? It was easier to lie.

  ‘Just boyfriend and girlfriend stuff,’ he said, numb at the realisation of Bartok’s betrayal. ‘Give me a second, will you?’

  He went down into the cabin and saw their unmade bed. Only hours earlier they had made love, entwined in one another’s bodies, cocooned by the hum of the engine and the hiss of the sea. He opened the cupboard and saw immediately that Lara had taken most of her belongings. Even the absurd wig was gone. Some of her dirty clothes were in a laundry bag leaning against a pile of lifejackets; she had taken one of the Atalanta towels to fill out the bag. Carradine opened a drawer on the far side of the cabin. It was no surprise to see that the Lilia Hudak passport had gone. The Art Deco silver bookmark was no longer where Bartok had left it, wedged between the pages of Anna Karenina. It was a complete clear-out.

  Carradine went out into the galley. Patrick had woken up. He could hear him talking to Eleanor in the cockpit. It was evident that she had told him about the argument because as Carradine came up the ladder he said: ‘You OK, son?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ he replied, though in truth he was hollowed out.

  ‘Heard from Lily?’ Eleanor asked.

  ‘He doesn’t have a phone,’ Patrick replied.

  ‘No,’ Carradine confirmed. ‘I haven’t heard from her.’

  He explained that he was going to go into town to look for her and to apologise for what had happened. Patrick said, ‘Don’t worry, these things go on all the time,’ and Eleanor agreed, adding: ‘You two will be fine. You’re both lovely people.’ Carradine felt wretched for deceiving them. He found that he was intensely angry with Bartok. She had humiliated him, used him up.

  He walked to the laundromat. An elderly Spanish woman was removing sheets from a tumble drier and piling them into a plastic basket. She was wearing an apron and a badge. There was nobody else around.

  ‘Disculpe,’ said Carradine, using what bad schoolboy Spanish he could remember.

  ‘Hola?’ the woman replied.

  Before he had a chance to respond she appeared to recognise him, placing a hand on his elbow.

  ‘Señor Kit?’

  ‘Si.’

  She hurried into a back office. The laundromat was very hot. The vast machines had generated a greenhouse humidity with a smell of soap powder and artificial pine. Carradine broke out in a sweat and opened the door, hoping that the hot summer wind might at least make him feel less claustrophobic.

  ‘Here,’ said the woman in Spanish, emerging from the back office holding a large plastic bag and an envelope.

  At first Carradine thought it was a bill for the laundry. Then he looked inside. The shirts and towels had been cleaned and folded. He searched for Bartok’s clothes among his own, but of course found nothing.

  ‘For you,’ said the woman, this time in English. ‘Letter.’

  Carradine opened the envelope.

  My darling Kit

  Forgive me for doing this. We hardly know one another but I feel as though I have known you all my life. You have saved that life. I do not know how to repay you except by leaving you in peace. You must not come with me. You must not think of trying to find me. This is the only way. Believe me. It is better.

  Carradine’s throat was dry. He saw that the letter had been written hurriedly. Certain words had been crossed out, others underlined. The first few sentences slanted across the page. He turned away from the elderly lady because he could sense that she was staring at him.

  Go back to London, forget about me. I will go where I have to go and try to do the same. But please know this. As much as it is possible for a person to love another person after knowing him for so short a time, I do love you. I loved what happened between us on Atalanta. I will never forget it. I will never forget you.

  Lara

  39

  Carradine waited for the sheets. It was all that he could do. The elderly woman ironed them and folded them and looked at him sympathetically as he walked outside into the blistering afternoon.

  He walked back to Atalanta and explained that Lilia had gone to the airport in Gibraltar and booked a flight home to London.

  ‘How did you find out?’ Patrick asked.

  Carradine had been in such a state of shock that he had not even thought that his version of events would be questioned.

  ‘She wrote me an email,’ he said. Lies now came to him as easily as drinking a cup of coffee. ‘There’s an internet café in town.’

  It was agreed that Carradine would also leave the boat. Patrick and Eleanor were sad to see him go, but understood that he wanted to get back to London to try to save the relationship.

  ‘It’s all such a shock,’ said Eleanor. ‘You seemed so happy together.’

  ‘We were,’ said Carradine. ‘Very happy.’

  He went down into the cabin and packed his bags. He put the clean sheets and pillowcases on the bed and washed down the bathroom with an old cloth from the galley. It was as though he was erasing what had happened between them: the shower they had taken together on the first morning at sea; the sight of Bartok’s moonlit naked body as she slipped out of bed in the dead of night; her eyes looking back at him as she applied make-up in the bathroom mirror. It had all been a fantasy conjured by Carradine’s imagination, an affair so fleeting and unreal that he doubted his own ability to believe it in the months and years to come. He went up on deck to find Eleanor mending a broken china mug with a tube of superglue and some cotton buds. Patrick was eating tortilla and drinking a Mahou in the sun. Carradine asked for their address in England so that he could write to thank them and apologised for the muted way in which the trip had ended.

  ‘I know that Lilia loved meeting you and spending time with you,’ he said, angry with himself for making excuses for her.

  ‘Of course,’ said Eleanor, hugging him.

  ‘You’ll be all right,’ said Patrick, shaking his hand. ‘Let us know how it all goes.’

  Carradine caught a bus to the airport in Seville, checked his emails on a public computer and searched the British and American press for any references to the death of Ramón Basora. He found none. Having expected a tsunami of messages enquiring after his wellbeing, he discovered only an email from his agent asking how the festival had gone (‘Hope you didn’t get eaten alive by Katherine Paget’), an invitation to a book launch and a message from the manager of the riad revealing that his phone and laptop had been found under the mattress and were being kept in the hotel safe along with the memory stick. Carradine was relieved that Hulse or the Russians had not taken them and sent a reply saying that he would cover the cost of having the items couriered to his flat in London.

  He rang his father from the departure lounge. Though he expressed surprise that Carradine had not responded to a text message he had sent two days earlier, he was otherwise oblivious to the fact that his son had vanished.

  ‘Where are you calling from?’ he asked.

  ‘Seville,’ Carradine replied, relieved at last to be telling the truth about his whereabouts. ‘Stopped off near Cadiz on the way home.’

  ‘Cadiz? Really? I went there with your mother.’ Carradine was in such a sorry state that he felt tears rising. Father and son, both betrayed and humbled by the secret world. ‘Took her to a nudist beach. There’s a first time for everything. A last time as well.’

  A flight was leaving for Luton at seven o’clock. Carradine bought copies of The Times and Guardian and sat in a café eating a bocadillo. He had looked at both front pages with trepidation, expecting to find his author’s photo blown up alongside that of Lara Bartok under a headline about their mysterious disappearance from the Medina. Instead, turning page after page, he found no reference to what had happened in Marrakech, only detailed accounts of the Resurrection siege in Warsaw, which had been br
ought to an end by the Polish BOA. Parliament buildings around the world were in lockdown. The Pentagon had been evacuated after a bomb scare. In Budapest, a man and a woman had been shot dead after being mistaken for armed Resurrection activists. The movement had metastasised into an international terrorist phenomenon which could erupt at any time, bringing chaos and fear to governments and citizens alike.

  Reading the reports, Carradine began to feel that what had happened to him in Morocco had happened to another man. He had not left Marrakech in the dead of night. He had not stayed in the flat in Rabat. He had not slipped onto an English-registered yacht and spent two nights at sea with a beautiful woman who had vanished from his life as quickly as she had appeared. The whole thing had been as unreal and as fanciful as a film noir, with Bartok as the femme fatale. At no point was he tapped on the shoulder by a plain-clothes officer of the Guardia Civil nor quietly asked to leave the airport by a representative of Her Majesty’s Government in Gibraltar. All that remained was the dismay of losing Lara, the raw disappointment of having glimpsed the promise of love and losing it in the blink of an eye.

  The plane was on time. He caught a cab from Luton airport, sitting in late-night roadworks traffic on the M1, eventually reaching home after midnight. Carradine opened the door of his flat expecting to be greeted by a phalanx of officers from Special Branch, but instead there was only the smell of his neighbour’s cooking and a note from the Tenants’ Association advising him that the date for the Annual General Meeting had been moved to October. He searched each room for any signs of intrusion, but found nobody hiding in the spare bedroom or waiting for him in his office. He opened several windows to stir the warm, uncirculated air of the London summer and smoked a cigarette in the kitchen, wondering what had become of Lara and wishing that he had stayed in Spain to look for her.