A Traitor in the Family

by Nicholas Searle

  ‘Very interesting. I didn’t know that’s how it worked. I thought you had to prove yourself with boring little tasks to begin with. I didn’t realize you could just step in and take things on like that. Or that Francis would be forthcoming to you.’

  ‘You’d be surprised at what I can do for you.’

  ‘We’ve talked about this, Liam,’ said Geordie. ‘We need to take things steady. Gradual. Can’t afford to take risks.’

  ‘I know. But I can do this. I can look after me own self.’

  ‘I’m sure you can,’ said Richard.

  The conversation continued, spinning on in its strange circular fashion. Concealing his despair, eventually Richard said, ‘Much food for thought, Liam. It’s been a real pleasure meeting you. Anyway, you must get back to your … microwave, was it?’

  He was patient through the debrief. The full team attended the first part and they were taken through all the preliminaries of the meetings. The military cannot be faulted for lacking thoroughness, he thought. By the time they filed out and left the officers to it, it was past midnight. David Pope-Norton, who was there both in Richard’s honour and in expectation, took a bottle of whiskey from his briefcase.

  Geordie went through the practical details. Liam O’Neill had improved his tradecraft: the pick-up had gone more smoothly than last time. His employment situation had not changed. He was still living with his mother and father. His spirits were good and he remained enthusiastic about his informant role. He’d split up with his girlfriend, suspecting her of infidelity. He thought she might be pregnant. It might be Liam’s child. They had agreed to meet again in the same place the following week, with the same cover story, that Liam was considering buying a second-hand car and had agreed with Geordie, the putative seller, to meet in the lay-by on the bypass.

  ‘So,’ said Pope-Norton eventually, and turned to look at Richard, who also had Freddie Spencer’s attention. Geordie looked away.

  ‘Very interesting. An interesting young man. There’s a lot going on there.’ Richard ventured a faint smile.

  ‘And?’ said Freddie.

  ‘And I think you’ve done a tremendous job bringing him on board. Geordie in particular of course.’

  ‘You don’t need to spare our feelings, Richard,’ said Pope-Norton. ‘What did you make of him?’

  ‘Well.’ Richard coughed and took another slug of air. ‘As I said, he’s an interesting young man. Ultimately, though, I think you should cut your losses and disengage.’

  Pope-Norton looked dismayed. Freddie Spencer glared.

  ‘And why might that be?’ asked Pope-Norton.

  ‘I think you’ve better things to do with your time. He has no access. We know from reporting that the IRA has disciplined him for crime. He has barely any relationship with his brother. Yet he seems to believe that in a few weeks he’ll be leading active service units and telling you exactly what’s in Francis’s mind.’

  ‘He may be ambitious, talking a good fight. We all know it’ll take time to wheedle his way into an ASU. But somehow I like that. It’s our job to keep it in check. Stop him overreaching himself. Isn’t it, Geordie?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Of course it’s entirely up to you what you choose to do, David. But I see a young man who’s not sufficiently amenable to anyone’s influence. I’m troubled by what motivates him and I think he’s immature and foolhardy. He’s little or no sense of the danger he’s placing himself in. We’re not looking for panickers but he seems to be in a world of his own. If he had real access or I could see a way for him to gain that access I might feel differently. I don’t think we’d want to take him on.’

  ‘Is that what Charles would say? Or his boss?’

  ‘I don’t know what Charles would say. But it’d be on my conscience if I didn’t tell you exactly how I felt. It’s up to you what you do, though.’

  In fact Richard knew precisely what Charles would say, and he did so, with alacrity. Richard shrugged, wrote it up, sent Pope-Norton a polite but unambiguous letter and assumed it was the end of the matter. It was time, anyway, for him to pack up and get back to London.

  Whether they persisted with Liam O’Neill was up to them. He’d fulfilled his obligations, duly protected his own and his organization’s back and it was no longer his concern. This place eroded scruples, the inclination to foresee the consequences of one’s actions and any sense of personal responsibility. It was all too awful and if you began to think too much you’d never get anything done. Placing one foot blindly before the other was all you could do in these trenches.

  6

  It was a damp Tuesday morning when Sarah rang. It was an event in itself when the telephone rang, so she almost knew it would be her. She’d called each month since Singapore.

  ‘I’m glad I caught you,’ said Sarah.

  ‘I’m just in from the shops,’ said Bridget. ‘Can you wait a moment, please?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Bridget took off her wet raincoat and hung it carefully on the hook in the hallway. Water dripped on to the linoleum. She folded her headscarf in two before draping it over the banister. She mussed her hair and picked up the telephone again.

  ‘I’m sorry. It’s wet outside. I had to take my coat off.’

  ‘That’s all right. It’s raining here in Birmingham too.’

  ‘Only, you’re calling from England …’

  ‘It’s all right. I’m phoning from the office. They’ll never know,’ she said in a conspiratorial whisper. ‘How are you, then, Bridget?’

  ‘I’m fine, Sarah.’

  ‘Am I disturbing you? Francis around?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes, thank you, Sarah. I’m fine. It’s nice to speak again. How are you?’

  ‘Wonderful. What’s going on with you?’

  ‘Just the normal stuff. Summer’ll be here soon enough. I’m starting me spring cleaning. The blossom’s starting to show on the trees.’

  ‘I can just imagine it. Sitting there in your cosy little cottage in the middle of nowhere …’

  ‘It’s not that idyllic,’ insisted Bridget.

  ‘I’m sure it’s not,’ said Sarah.

  ‘What are you up to?’

  ‘Oh, busy busy busy. God, meetings, whoever invented them? But I’m blathering again.’

  ‘No you’re not.’ She was, but it was pleasant to hear her talking.

  ‘You’re far too polite, Bridget. It’s good to talk to you though. Listen, I’ve had this crazy idea.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’d really like to see you. I’ve been given a bonus. Much bigger than I dared expect. Anyway, I was planning a long weekend away on my ill-gotten gains with one of my old girlfriends from uni. South of France. She’s just cried off, though. I’m quite relieved. I’d much rather go away with you. All my friends, they have complications with kids and they talk about them constantly when they’re away from them. Please say yes. Otherwise I’ll have to cancel and lose my deposit. Are you up for it?’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘South of France. Charles Trenet on the car radio. Ricard at the café watching the chic set go by?’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes, you.’

  ‘I’m not sure. When were you thinking?’

  ‘Didn’t I say? It would be this weekend. Is that a problem? Will your husband not let you?’

  ‘He won’t be back until next week.’

  ‘Well. There you are, then.’

  ‘I can’t just up and go like that.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘People. People would know.’

  ‘And that matters?’

  ‘Of course. If only you knew.’

  ‘I can well imagine.’

  ‘Maybe you can’t. Anyway, I’m not like you.’

  ‘Yes, you are. You know you are.’

  ‘I don’t do things like this. I don’t just get up and go on impulse. How would I get there for a start?’ />
  ‘That’s another thing I forgot to mention. I’ve got a provisional booking on a cheap flight from Dublin to Marseille. Call it an early birthday present. Aer Lingus is waiting for me to call back with the passenger details. All you have to do is turn up at the airport with your passport and away you go.’

  ‘All I have to do. You don’t realize how difficult for me that would be.’

  ‘I do. I know it’s hard.’

  ‘People round here know everything about me. They know what I’m doing. They check up on me.’

  ‘Check up?’

  ‘Not in a horrible way. There are people who see me all the time. They’d ask where I’d been.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And people round here don’t just up and go to France for the weekend. We don’t up and go anywhere.’

  ‘How about this? Could you say you’d been to see your sister?’

  ‘I could, I suppose. I don’t see her often, though.’

  ‘Well, say she’s ill, or going through some crisis. Would anyone check with her?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Could you ask her to cover for you if they did?’

  ‘I suppose. She’d probably think I had a man …’

  ‘Well, is that so bad? All right, then, phone her and tell her it’s to do with some medical condition that you don’t want to worry your husband about. So she needs to cover for you.’

  ‘He wouldn’t speak to her anyway.’

  ‘All right. But just in case. Don’t say anything more. Don’t make anything up or talk about the condition. She can fill that in for herself.’

  ‘It sounds like you’ve done this sort of thing before. Assignations and so forth.’

  ‘Ha. You could say that. In this day and age you’re lucky if you haven’t had to engage in the odd act of subterfuge, if only for a friend. Are you happy with that plan?’

  ‘I … I suppose so,’ said Bridget meekly, feeling she was being carried along.

  ‘Great. When you get to Dublin just go to the desk and pick up your ticket. Don’t feel the need to explain yourself to anyone.’

  ‘And if I meet anyone I know?’

  ‘We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it.’

  When she put the phone down Bridget felt a mixture of emotions: fear of discovery, anxiety about explaining her absence, but at the same time a certain lightness of heart.

  They were off the motorway now, so she could wind down the window and inhale. Lavender and a mixture of other fragrances she did not recognize – herbs, maybe – intermingled on the mild breeze. She could feel the warmth on her skin, let it imbue her, seduce her. She closed her eyes in pleasure.

  She hoped she’d been sufficiently hesitant before accepting the invitation. Francis was away, she had no idea where, and would be back in his own good time. It would not be before next week, though, she was sure; and if it was she would, for once, take her chances. The thought of her rashness thrilled her with a mixture of excitement and fear. This weekend was a turning point, she knew it. She was not inclined to melodrama, but it seemed like that to her.

  It was all so unnerving. The very process of getting here had been daunting, so much so that she’d thought several times of turning round and going home. But the desk that Sarah had said would be there at Dublin airport magically had been and a woman with shimmering lipgloss handed Bridget her ticket with little interest when she recited the jumble of letters and numbers that Sarah had given her. She’d looked at it, bemused, for a moment until, with a glance at the queue behind her, the woman had dismissed her.

  And then to check-in. She’d handed in her ticket and passport and her bag and had been seriously considering backing out when she realized she couldn’t any more. Her bag was wobbling away on the conveyor belt and she was checked in.

  She’d flown to Singapore with Francis but that had been different. He’d taken control of everything. This morning, though, she’d wandered through the controls and the shops as if she’d just woken and was full of sleep. She’d taken her seat at what they called the gate and eventually the passengers had been called forward to the aircraft. At each stage she’d expected it, somehow, to end, but she was now in France.

  And there Sarah had been at Marseille, with a broad smile and outstretched arms, and it felt suddenly all right. She’d allowed herself to be guided to the car park and, as Sarah fumbled for change, she looked around. It was real, then, this wide blue sky, the kerosene tang of the airport, all those signs and adverts in French, with its acutes and graves and circumflexes, and the liquid elegance of its sounds that she recalled from school. She’d enjoyed languages, but it was all forgotten. The snatches of conversation she picked up were somehow familiar but incomprehensible.

  Sarah drove confidently but cautiously, quite unlike Francis, with his garrulous manoeuvring of their old Ford round country lane corners and his complaints about its suspension and handling. Their progress was fast enough, then again slow enough for her to take in this new and so far magical world with its beneficent sunlight. They passed through small towns and Sarah concentrated as she followed the route and as mopeds ridden by helmetless young boys wearing shorts and sandals buzzed between the flow of cars. They spoke very little; for Bridget it was enough to breathe. She did not allow herself to consider what the next few days would bring, only that it might be pleasurable.

  They stopped in a small village. ‘Bread,’ said Sarah, and walked towards the baker’s. After a moment Bridget too stepped out of the car and stretched her arms, basking briefly in the sunshine.

  The small square was deserted and silent. She could smell oily-smoky diesel, the sweet, yeasty doughiness of fresh-baked bread, and the odour of the open drain nearby. The sun was not beating down but beaming on her. She squinted in the bright light. An old man came out of the nearby café, smiled at her, climbed on to an ancient bicycle and pedalled off. Sitting on the ancient yellow stone of the small fountain in the centre of the square and dipping her hand into the clear water, she looked at the war memorial.

  It still had that ring of utter but benign unreality, so tranquil, so distant. France: this was actually France. She was glad to be away from home and from him, free for a moment to confess her feelings to herself: terror when he was in the house and hatred when he was not, bound up in despair. These were the things that she could never say to the other wives and nor, yet, to Sarah. She surprised herself at the vehemence of her sentiments, then brought herself back to the pleasure of the present.

  Sarah came out of the baker’s waving a baguette.

  ‘You should have come in with me,’ she said. ‘What fantastic bread. And loads of superb croissanty things. I thought you must be tired after the flight.’

  ‘No, I feel fine,’ said Bridget. ‘Really I do. By the way, who’s Charles Trenet?’

  They arrived at the villa at around midday. The grey-blue wooden shutters were closed to keep the heat out and together they walked around the house, opening those on the ground floor. Inside, it was cool, quiet, rustic and ordered. The kitchen was long and tiled, with a rough-hewn farmhouse table, its surface smoothed by generations of use, set at one end near an open hearth, and the range, sink and other units at the opposite end. There was a formal dining room which they would not use, with a musty smell and chairs lined up with precision at the table seemingly to denote absent guests, and a large lounge with French doors at either end leading out to the two main parts of the garden. Three old sofas that looked shabbily comfortable surrounded the massive limestone hearth, smoke-stained from centuries of use, and at the other end of the room were two tub chairs near floor-to-ceiling bookshelves containing hardback and paperback books, mainly fiction, some biography; all, Bridget noted, in English.

  Upstairs Sarah showed her her room and its bathroom with blue Delft tiles, shower and claw-foot bath, stained and chipped. Together they worked their way around the other upstairs rooms, opening the shutters, welcoming in the light. Sarah had the second-larges
t bedroom, at the opposite end of the house.

  They unpacked the bread, found cheese in the fridge and tomatoes in a bowl on the table, misshapen and partly green. Sarah said she’d picked them in the garden that morning before she left for Marseille.

  They took their food outside, crunching across the gravel drive, and climbing the short flight of steps to the large grass area at the back of the house next to the swimming pool. A routine had commenced.

  Sarah spoke less than Bridget had expected. It seemed she had less need for volubility.

  ‘You seem more relaxed,’ said Bridget.

  ‘Less talkative you mean,’ replied Sarah. ‘When you come somewhere like this you realize life doesn’t have to be led at a hundred miles an hour. And you don’t have to talk all the time.’

  ‘I don’t exactly live my life at a hundred miles an hour. I suppose I’m not much given to talking either these days.’

  ‘You must have your stresses. Life’s never simple. I’m sure even here people have tough lives though it doesn’t seem like it. There’s something to be said for being taken out of your life. Out of yourself in a way.’

  They cleared the table and went upstairs to change into their swimming costumes. When they emerged Sarah said, ‘My God, Bridget. You look amazing! Your hair when you let it down, it’s lovely.’

  She reached out and touched it, brushing Bridget’s shoulder as she did so. Her hand remained there for the slightest moment and they smiled at each other. Bridget was embarrassed by the compliment.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  They sat by the pool reading, then swam together for a while, before reclining on their chairs to dry in the sun. Then they opened their books once more and remained until a chill began to take hold.

  The first evening they went to a restaurant to eat, but subsequently they decided to remain at the house in the evenings. The day’s end was then not punctuated by a rush to dress before getting into the car and finding the restaurant, and there was not the peering through the impenetrable country night to find their way back to the house. Instead, they ate lunch in a town they decided to visit and returned home to while away the afternoon in the sun.