The Midnight Swimmer

by Edward Wilson

  Her words confused Catesby. It was as if he were in a play and someone had given him a script with lines missing. ‘Why,’ he said improvising, ‘do you need a gun?’

  ‘I need to kill her.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Sophie Devereux.’

  ‘Come upstairs.’

  ‘I want to, but I haven’t time.’

  ‘But I need to get dressed.’

  Katya followed him upstairs and then sat on the side of the bed as Catesby took off his dressing gown. He had started to stir and she noticed it. She leaned her head against his thigh as she caressed him. ‘I love you,’ she said.

  Catesby bent down to kiss her. She had never said that before. ‘Can you stay?’ he said.

  She embraced him tightly. ‘No, but you don’t have to come with me.’

  Catesby began to dress. He didn’t know what he was doing – or why he was doing it. He felt lost in an out-of-focus rosy dream where there were thorns and steep cliffs. He wondered if he would let her have his pistol, a British-manufactured Webley revolver. Any bullets recovered in an autopsy would point straight to the UK. On the other hand, everybody sanitised their wet-job guns by using foreign weapons – so a British bullet wouldn’t prove a thing. Maybe the opposite. Bluff and double bluff. In any case, Catesby didn’t want to help kill Sophie. He wanted to save her. But maybe there was a good reason why the Frenchwoman should be dead.

  ‘How,’ he said, ‘do you know Sophie?’

  ‘I met her at the Ministry of Culture where we attended courses on Latin American culture and language. We became friends and often had tea together. Zhenka suggested – the way he does – that I should get to know Sophie better. I told him that I wasn’t going to spy on my friends for him. Then he told me why it was important that I did so. I was a little shocked. I could never do the things that she did. It made me see her differently.’

  ‘And now you want to kill her?’

  ‘I don’t want to kill her, I have to kill her.’

  ‘But why does it have to be you?’

  ‘I want to save Zhenka. He was ordered to have her killed, but he wouldn’t do it. He told me he couldn’t bear to do it. That’s why he was called back to Moscow.’ Katya looked at Catesby. Her eyes were dark bottomless pools of pain.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘It’s something to do with what happened to him at the end of the war in Berlin.’ Katya paused. ‘My husband, my darling husband, said that it is wrong for any man to kill a woman because it was a woman who gave him birth. But he said it was even more obscene for a eunuch, who could not cast his seed into a woman, to take a woman’s life. He shouted, “It’s a sin against nature.” Then poor Zhenka began to weep the most bitter tears I have ever seen. I put my arms around my sweet husband, but I could not comfort him.’

  They sat still together on the side of the bed. Catesby watched a wall lizard stalking a spider. He held Katya’s hands in his, but felt afraid – almost unworthy – to look at her.

  ‘Will you help me?’ she said. ‘I don’t want Zhenka punished for disobeying orders.’ In Kremlin terms, ‘punished’ had unknown layers of nuance.

  ‘What did Sophie do?’

  ‘She found out important military secrets by sleeping with one of Fidel’s ministers?’

  ‘What happened to the minister?’

  ‘He’s already dead.’

  ‘Then the Cubans may have already done Zhenka’s job for him.’

  Katya smiled bleakly and shook her head. ‘You don’t understand what happened. I didn’t say that the minister was killed. He committed suicide. The Cubans still don’t know why he did it. They may never find out. We need to find Sophie and kill her before she passes on the information.’ Katya looked at Catesby with pleading eyes. ‘It’s the only way we can save Zhenka.’

  Catesby opened the door of a small fridge in the corner of his room where he made ice cubes and kept the ingredients for his mojitos and daiquiris modo de Hemingway. He removed a hidden panel from the back of the chill compartment and took out a loaded hypodermic syringe.

  ‘What’s that?’ said Katya. There was a chill in her voice as cold as the liquid in the syringe.

  ‘Cleopatra’s asp.’

  ‘Do you want me to take it?’

  ‘No,’ Catesby slipped the syringe into the pocket of his beige linen jacket. The jacket was a hand-me-down from a rich friend at Cambridge. He loved the jacket, even though he didn’t have the voice and the manners to go with it. But he deserved to wear it. For he was doing their dirty work so they could sleep safely and send their kids to Eton and drink Pimm’s at garden parties.

  ‘And the gun?’ she said.

  ‘Put it in your handbag in case we need it.’

  ‘Do you trust me, William?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I? You just said you loved me.’

  As they drove to the Frenchwoman’s flat Catesby made what Catholics call an examination of conscience. Was killing Sophie Devereux justified? Catesby’s eyes followed the beams of the car’s headlamps as they flowed along the broad tree-lined boulevards through Vedado and into Habana Vieja. It was justified because stopping the information about the missiles reaching Washington was in the UK’s interest. The ensuing crisis would make London the Soviet military’s prime target. Weighed against those millions of deaths, Sophie’s life was expendable. Just as American generals saw Britain and Western Europe as expendable pawn sacrifices in the crusade to eliminate communism. But it didn’t make killing a single person any less ugly and disturbing. It was tempting to use psychopaths to do these jobs, but psychos couldn’t be trusted to keep their mouths shut. They were proud of the fact that they didn’t mind inflicting pain on others. They thought it made them special and they liked to brag about it.

  Catesby parked the car, a Humber with a corps diplomatique badge, on Paseo de Marti. There were lots of all-night bars around. It would give them an alibi for being in the neighbourhood. A late-night liaison with a diplomatic corps wife was a better plea to cop than murder. And too commonplace to even raise an eyebrow. Any bar would do, but Catesby wanted to flaunt it. They drank their daiquiris on the roof garden of the Hotel Saratoga, probably the most elegant hangout in Havana. They were sitting on a yellow sofa next to the swimming pool. The dome of the capitol, modelled on the Paris Pantheon, was silhouetted against the sky. Fairy lights reflected in the water of the pool. Catesby was tempted to ask Katya to do a few naked lengths as Ava Gardner had at Hemingway’s place. It would be a big thing to ask, but not as big as asking him to kill another woman. He leaned over and kissed Katya on the lips. The sound of guitars, maracas and laughter drifted and faded on the midnight air.

  They left the hotel and walked arm in arm across Prado Boulevard like a pair of adulterers who just didn’t give a damn. Sophie’s flat was on the top floor of the Hotel Inglaterra. It did seem a little odd that a French diplomat was lodging there. The Inglaterra was the oldest hotel in Cuba and big on faded elegance. The daiquiris had made Catesby lightheaded, but clearheaded at the same time. Plans and alibis were forming. ‘We went to her flat to invite her for a drink, but no one answered the door.’ Or. ‘The door was open and we found her slumped over.’ Doing things on the hop, like covering up a murder, seldom went to plan. But, when you had diplomatic immunity, they didn’t need to.

  They walked up the narrow white wooden staircase because the lifts were out of order. The stairs were uncarpeted and their footsteps seemed to rattle the very fabric of the hotel. Katya led the way down the corridor when they got to the top floor. The sound of her heels on the bare wood was as subtle as rifle shots. When she got to the dark oak door of Sophie’s flat, Katya raised her fist to knock. But before her knuckles touched the wood, the door opened.

  ‘Good evening,’ said Che bowing graciously to Katya. He then looked over her shoulder at Catesby. ‘We were expecting you, William. Please come in, both of you.’

  The flat looked like a bomb had hit it. All the lights were glaring an
d all the furniture and possessions had been completed turned over. In addition to Che, there were six others in the room including two women. What looked at first like casual vandalism was, in fact, a thorough forensic examination. Catesby watched as one of the men unstitched a sofa cushion.

  ‘You realise,’ said Catesby, ‘that what you are doing is in complete violation of the Vienna Convention on diplomatic immunity.’

  Che looked bemused.

  ‘You are not allowed, Dr Guevara, to enter the residence of a diplomat without his or her permission.’

  ‘You are absolutely correct,’ said Che, ‘but Sophie Devereux is not, and never has been, on the list of accredited diplomats. I’m surprised you didn’t know that.’

  Catesby felt mildly ashamed. It would have been so simple, but he had never checked. Assumption, as Kit Fournier used to say in his direct American manner, is the mother of all fuck-ups. The fact that Sophie had been operating as an ‘illegal’ put a lot of things in perspective. Such as the fact that the French intelligence chief in Washington was running unauthorised operations on his own. And if Paris wasn’t paying for them, who was?

  ‘What did she do wrong?’ said Catesby.

  ‘I think you need to wash your hands. If the señora will excuse us,’ Che bowed gallantly to Katya, ‘I’ll show Señor Catesby where the bathroom is.’

  Katya nodded and Catesby followed Che to a marble-lined bathroom with a bidet and a huge cast-iron bath painted blue. Che closed the door and turned on the taps full blast to counter any hidden microphones.

  ‘We’ve already found one bug,’ said Che, ‘so there might be others. Our big problem isn’t foreigners, but Cubans spying for Washington who may be spying on Sophie.’

  Catesby completely understood why Washington spied on their own agents. It was the tiresome logic of espionage. You had to be certain that the people working for you hadn’t been turned.

  ‘You asked,’ said Che, ‘what Sophie had done wrong. It was the worst thing.’

  ‘Which is what?’

  ‘She tried to kill Fidel. We’re still trying to catch her and her accomplices.’

  ‘Is that a secret?’

  ‘No, but this is.’ Che reached into his pocket, took out a card and read the note written on it. ‘“Get in contact with me as soon as possible. It’s professional, not personal – and absolutely vital.”’ Che looked closely at Catesby. ‘Look. It’s your card and it’s your handwriting.’

  ‘I don’t deny it.’

  ‘You know how serious this is. You and your government could be implicated in a plot to assassinate the leader of our country. I don’t think the international community would blame us for ignoring your diplomatic immunity. Why are you smiling?’

  ‘Because Sophie did the job so well. She thinks on her feet. She’s not only dropped me and my country in the shit, but she did it in style. She’s a real professional. And that’s why you’ll never believe the truth.’

  ‘And you think that’s funny.’

  ‘I tend to smile and laugh at the wrong time – it’s a bad habit.’ Catesby realised it wasn’t funny at all and he needed to do something. Che was unarmed. He felt the hypodermic syringe in his pocket.

  ‘Why,’ said Che, ‘did you give her the card?’

  ‘You wouldn’t believe me,’ said Catesby edging his hand towards the syringe.

  ‘Maybe I would believe you.’ Che held up the card. ‘No one else knows about this. I found it on Sophie’s desk. Your card was lying completely in the open, as if she wanted us to find it. That made me suspicious.’

  Catesby moved his hand away from the pocket with the syringe.

  ‘The way she planted the card was too obvious,’ continued Che. ‘She wanted to get you and your country in trouble – to lay a false trail.’ Che touched Catesby’s lapel. ‘Nice jacket, Irish linen?’

  ‘Yes. Would you like one?’

  ‘Maybe someday.’ Che closed his hand on the lapel and pulled the jacket open. With his other hand he slipped the card into Catesby’s lapel pocket. ‘You keep that.’

  ‘What size are you?’

  ‘Forty, but I’m getting a bit fat.’

  ‘We’ll send you a straw boater and a bottle of Pimm’s to go with it.’

  Che gave a closed fist salute. ‘Hasta la victoria siempre!’

  Catesby smiled and returned the salute.

  ‘Come to see me tomorrow at La Cabaña.’ Che reached to turn off the taps. ‘It would be nice to talk without wasting so much water.’

  The drive back was more relaxed than the drive there. Not having to kill was almost as much a reprieve as not being killed – almost. At first, Katya lay back in the passenger seat with her eyes closed and a look of blissful relief on her face. But after a few minutes her eyes were open and worried. She was still thinking of the consequences for her husband. ‘What’s happened to Sophie?’ she said more to herself than Catesby.

  ‘I think she’s still alive. I’ll find out more tomorrow.’

  ‘I want peace for Zhenka,’ said Katya staring out the passenger window. ‘I want them to leave him alone.’

  ‘Is Zhenka going to tell his bosses that he disobeyed orders by not killing Sophie?’

  Katya smiled bleakly. ‘Of course not, my husband is not stupid.’

  ‘Does he know about us?’

  Katya stared out the window.

  They spent an entire night together for the first time. No words were spoken, but things would never be the same again. Catesby didn’t realise it at the time, but one day he would. We don’t control life; life controls us.

  Che’s office seemed narrower and more austere than it had before. The stained-oak ceiling beams slanted towards the outer wall giving the impression of a poet’s garret. Guevara, framed by the dark woodwork behind him, looked like a figure in a seventeenth-century Spanish painting. There was, thought Catesby, a striking resemblance to the freed slave Juan de Pareja in the painting by Velásquez – a natural dignity and poise that neither chains nor death could contain.

  Che was writing something. His pen moved quickly and fluently as if there was neither need nor time to pause for thought. He finally picked up the page and read: ‘Cuba does not recognize the right of the United States, or of anyone else in the world, to determine the type of weapons Cuba may have within its borders.’ He put the page down and looked at Catesby. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘There are people in Washington who would find that provocative.’

  ‘It isn’t a provocation. It is a statement of fact.’

  Catesby shrugged. He wasn’t there as Guevara’s foreign policy adviser.

  Che leaned back in his chair, an ornately carved Spanish colonial antique that would go for a bomb at Sotheby’s. ‘I suppose you want to know more about Sophie Devereux.’

  ‘I thought that was why you invited me here.’

  ‘Sophie Devereux was a killer.’ Che paused and stared at Catesby. ‘Have you ever killed anyone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And how did you feel?’

  ‘Shaky, a bit sick inside. Even though it had to be done.’

  Che nodded. ‘During the guerrilla war we had a spy travelling with our column. He was betraying our positions to Batista’s air force. He eventually confessed. He knew he had to die – we all knew he had to die. It was embarrassing – no one wanted to do it.’ Che paused. ‘So I ended the problem by giving him a shot with a .32 pistol through the right side of the brain. His eyes were open and looking straight into mine. I aimed at his forehead and the bullet exited through his right temporal lobe, just behind the ear. He gasped for a little while as the autonomic nervous system closed down – and then he was dead.’

  The clinical description reminded Catesby that Che was a medical doctor.

  ‘His name was Eutimio,’ continued Che in a soft voice, ‘he had knelt down before me, not to beg for his life, but that I look after his children – which I have. The sky darkened and a heavy thunderstorm broke just as I pre
pared to shoot him. The thunder claps were so loud that even those compañeros who were standing next to us did not hear the shot.’ Che’s voice lowered to a whisper. ‘One has to grow hard but without ever losing tenderness.’ His voice rose back to normal. ‘But I digress, you want to know more about Sophie Devereux.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Sophie is not one who kills out of duty or necessity. She kills for money – and more malevolently, for the thrill, the excitement.’ Che looked at Catesby. ‘Sophie is beautiful and bright, but not a woman who lives for anything beyond her own beauty and power. We, you and I, are different. We live for our ideals – and I am sure, that some of those ideals are ones we share.’

  Catesby smiled. There was a side to Che that was silky, feminine and seductive. Some felt threatened by it. The image of Che’s face, framed by its untidy black ringlets, affected the USA like a full moon affects a werewolf. It was an affront to the tidy conformity of shopping mall and church. Che’s androgynous allure was even more dangerous. Desire was something dirty that you had to keep under cover at the Quorum Club.

  Guevara offered a cigar that Catesby refused. Then lit one for himself. ‘We think,’ Che took a puff, ‘that Sophie Devereux was the person who spread the poison on the inside of Fidel’s wetsuit. Have you been to Cayo Coco?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘We must take you there sometime. It’s part of a string of coral islands to the east of Havana – the perfect place for scuba-diving. The water is a brilliant turquoise and jade. Its only disadvantage is being too close to the Florida Keys.’

  Catesby could see a pattern emerging.

  ‘In any case,’ continued Che, ‘Fidel is no fool or he would no longer be alive. Whenever a beautiful woman sleeps with him he does not assume that she is only interested in his manly charms, considerable as they are. Fidel certainly would never eat or drink anything that such a woman had been near. But this woman was so beautiful that he also checked his clothes, his socks – and even his wetsuit. He noticed something inside the wetsuit that looked like fungus – and knew that it was poison.