by Alan Judd
‘In the door,’ said Charles, who had just noticed the key in the lock.
Hugo stared at it for some moments. Once in the room he walked to the window and stood facing out, his back to Charles, hands clasped behind him.
‘I hope Hookey lets us contact Lover Boy,’ said Charles.
‘My first security breach,’ Hugo said, without looking round. ‘You could breach me, of course. So could Angela, my secretary, or anyone else who saw the key in the lock and discovered the office was unoccupied with papers left out. But if you don’t mind’ – he turned, still with his hands behind his back as if facing a firing squad – ‘I’d sooner breach myself. It’s more honourable. I’ll report myself to Security Branch.’
It hadn’t occurred to Charles to report. ‘If you really think it’s necessary. I’m sure it isn’t.’
‘Of course it’s necessary. Security is an attitude of mind. It’s not something you can be keen on in principle and sloppy about in particular. Being secure means being particular, or it means nothing. I should be grateful if you would witness my report.’
‘If you really want. Why don’t you –’
‘I imagine you must have dealt with similar cases in the army.’ The telephone rang. Hugo’s responses were monosyllabic. ‘That was Anna,’ he said, ‘on about our weekly dinner party tomorrow. Small affair this week. Rather lacklustre. Two people have dropped out. She wonders if you would like to come.’
‘Tomorrow?’ He was to have a curry with Mary. ‘Thank you.’
Fortunately, Mary was doing nothing that night, so the curry was brought forward. Roger was packing in the flat when Charles got back, since the course was being sent on leave immediately after Danish Blue. Charles’s story of having been in Reykjavik was not put to the test. Roger was tactfully incurious, speaking only of his Viennese adventures.
‘Spent an entire evening with the wrong Joe,’ he said, using the old SOE slang for agent. ‘Well, he wasn’t a Joe at all, it turned out. Hungarian, you see. No English, hardly any German, no French, and me with no Hungarian. But the description fitted and he was carrying the right bloody newspaper. And of course he just went along with my recognition phrases because he couldn’t understand a word I said and thought I was the police. I thought he’d just stumbled over his phrases because the office had briefed him to be incoherent with nerves. So I bought him dinner, briefed him as best I could and sent him on his way. Turned out the real Joe was in the upstairs bar.’ He wiped the laughter tears from his cheeks. ‘No idea who my Hungarian bugger was. Christ knows what he thought was going on. Must’ve reckoned every day was Christmas Day in the west. Gulped his dinner and scarpered as soon as the bill came, anyway.’
He had had more success with a middle-aged Viennese woman he had met in a coffee-house. ‘Adds spice, doing it under alias.’Specially with her in her undies and furs. Wondered afterwards if she was part of the exercise. You know, sent round us all to give us a bit of a lift. They’re not that generous, Gerry says.’
‘She must’ve liked you, then.’
‘No accounting for taste.’
The reason for the curry with Mary was to discuss how he would proceed with the Tregunter Road flat. For once, he felt at an advantage.
‘You’ll have it?’ she asked. ‘Just like that? Don’t you want to see it again?’
‘No need.’
‘And the solicitors and building society?’
‘All fixed.’ He didn’t tell her he was soon to lack a salary and would have to get a tenant to pay the mortgage if he didn’t get a job.
‘And Nigel and the price –?’
‘No problem. We spoke on the phone. I’ve got the spare keys still. He’s happy for me to hang on to them.’
‘Aren’t you having your own survey?’
‘No.’
‘Nigel’s girlfriend – he’s moved in with her – said he hasn’t done a thing about moving out, not a thing. He’s awful like that, apparently. Just moved in with the clothes he wants and his books and won’t lift a finger about the rest. You may find it difficult to get vacant possession with all his furniture and everything there.’
‘He’s leaving it. Chairs, beds, sheets, teaspoons, clothes in the cupboards, milk in the fridge, curtains, flannels, everything. All included in the price. Saves him having to move it or get rid of it, saves me having to get anything.’
Her domestic instincts – a fairly recent development since she had been a wilfully careless adolescent – were aroused, without her quite knowing which way to turn. ‘But d’you want them? Have you looked at them? Are they the sort of things you would like?’
‘No idea but they’re there, which is the main thing.’
‘Well, shouldn’t you – shouldn’t we – go and have a look, as you’ve got the keys?’
‘Let’s go now. Help yourself to anything you want.’
‘I can’t if it’s yours, or will be.’
‘That’s never stopped you before. Treat it as your commission for finding it for me. There are one or two pictures you might like.’
He was supposed to be on call in case Viktor signalled, and anyway was waiting for Hookey’s decision on whether to initiate contact. When he was away from a telephone he had to ring in every few hours, and had to ring Rebecca in her office twice a day in case of further problems with his line. She also fielded any calls for him, pretending to be his secretary. ‘I’m learning quite a lot about you,’ she said when he rang in the following morning. ‘Who’s Suzanne?’
‘No idea.’
‘Come on.’
‘Oh – the building society girl. Who’s your admirer, if not Gerry?’
‘Need to know?’
‘Yes, I do, actually.’
‘One day, Charles. Perhaps.’
He travelled to Hugo’s dinner by train because of a superstition that, having advertised the Rover, he was more likely to crash if he used it. He thus arrived last, underestimating the walk from the station. Anna answered the door wearing a long skirt and a tight white jumper.
‘You shouldn’t’ve, you really shouldn’t,’ she said, accepting his flowers. ‘How did you know I love roses? Red, too. That’s very flattering for an old married woman.’
‘But they’re for you.’
She took his arm to lead him down the hall. ‘I hope you don’t mind but we’ve invited Angela, Hugo’s secretary, as a pair for you. I know you’ve met her already and I don’t really believe in gender equality at dinner parties but somehow when it comes to it my nerve always fails and I just do the conventional thing. And Hugo thought we should because we haven’t had her round for ages. Not that I’m reluctant, not in the least, it’s just that I didn’t want you to assume I was matchmaking.’
‘Last thing I’d have thought of.’
In the kitchen were two more bunches of roses – pink – still in their wrappers, which were the same as his own. She put his with them. The kitchen was in some disarray. ‘My fault for attempting a soufflé,’ she said, following his glance. ‘I should never do anything in which timing is critical.’
‘My fault for being late. I’ll disappear.’
‘No, don’t, I didn’t mean that.’ She faced him, as if she were about to continue but thought better of it. He, too, was about to speak but hesitated. They laughed.
‘Ah, there you are,’ said Hugo, advancing down the corridor from behind. ‘Come and be introduced.’
Angela was slim and dark haired with a tense expression but a hesitantly friendly manner. The others were an office couple: Alastair, a stout, loquacious, balding man in his forties and his wife, Emily, a former office secretary with kindly features riven by anxiety.
The soufflé was a success. Conversation during it was mainly about cooking. Charles’s attempt to look intelligently interested was made more difficult by the fact that, as usual, he finished well before everyone else, so had to do it for longer. The talk then was about people he didn’t know.
‘Not more office gossip,�
�� pleaded Emily, to a sympathetic glance from Anna as she cleared the plates. ‘Alastair used to talk about all sorts of things before we were married, since when it’s been office, office, office. Can’t you think of anything else? Try, darling.’
‘All right. Rugby.’
‘I’m going home if you talk about rugby.’
‘What about the latest Jacko story?’
‘That’s office gossip again.’
Alistair ignored her and went on to describe how the man called Jacko was being awkward about leaving Nairobi. That reminded Hugo of the famous story about old Mucker Maclean in Tripoli. Alastair matched him with other stories about Mucker Maclean.
Angela got up to see if Anna wanted help in the kitchen, beating Charles to it. As she did not immediately return, he got up anyway. Anna was hurriedly putting poached salmon on plates. ‘It’s terribly sweet of you,’ she was saying to Angela. ‘We can do it here instead of – potatoes there – letting people help themselves. The trouble with asking Hugo to help is that he interprets it as an invitation to take charge – assume command, I should say. Charles, go and sit down.’
‘Sure there’s nothing I can do?’
‘Well, yes, you can, actually. You can open some more wine. We seem to be getting through it rather. Unless it’s just Hugo.’
‘Alastair’s never exactly averse,’ said Angela.
Anna paused, pan in hand. ‘You know each other already? Sorry, I didn’t realise.’
‘We were in Brussels together.’
‘So you know Emily too? How nice.’
When Charles rejoined the others Alastair was defending office gossip on the grounds that ‘shop’ was the preoccupation of most professions. The great thing in life was to have a few belly-laughs. There were more belly-laughs in his job – operational security – than if he had followed his brother into the Society of Actuaries.
Over the main course Hugo and Anna had a spirited disagreement over whether there was such a thing as pure intelligence, in the intellectual sense. Anna’s father was an experimental psychologist. They talked over each other.
‘You don’t know what I mean,’ Hugo concluded crossly. ‘You won’t listen. You never do.’
‘No one ever knows what Hugo means,’ said Alastair, laughing. ‘It’s what makes conversation with him so intellectually challenging.’
During coffee in the sitting room Hugo and Anna avoided addressing each other directly. Angela remained quiet. Hugo sat heavily next to Charles on the sofa. ‘Brandy?’ His manner suggested an incipient moroseness, something not quite in control. ‘That’s the great danger with the office,’ he confided. ‘Can become all-enveloping. Privilege to serve, of course, but important to have something else in life. Partly why I do my war-gaming. You got any outside interests?’
‘Depends how you define them, I s’pose, I quite like –’
‘You should find one. Otherwise you’ll end up like –’ He nodded lugubriously in the direction of Alastair. No one else was looking in their direction. ‘Agreeable colleague, sound officer, but nothing else in his life. Except –’ He nodded again, this time at Angela.
‘You mean –?’
Hugo’s final nod was funereal. He had one eye closed.
Alastair was talking about Brussels, ignoring Emily’s punctuating contradictions and qualifications. Angela was sitting upright in an armchair, trying to look part of the discussion but still saying nothing. Anna, perched sideways on the other sofa, was attempting to make Alastair’s monologue more inclusive without appearing to wish to stop it. She interjected remarks, asked questions, appealed to the two women, glanced at her husband and Charles, was busy with coffees.
Hugo leaned over and murmured, ‘I have a good marriage. He doesn’t. Luck of the draw, really. Plus what you put into it.’
Anna came over with the coffee pot. ‘Come on, you two, what about a bit of audience participation?’
Charles sat up but Hugo remained slumped. ‘Brandy?’ he asked again, out of the side of his mouth.
‘No, thanks.’
‘Think I shall.’ He got up at the second attempt and went to a drinks table in the corner. Charles was about to join the others when Hugo returned and sat heavily again. ‘Thing is,’ he said. Charles waited. Hugo sipped his brandy and stared moodily at his wife. ‘Too many prima donnas.’
‘Prima donnas?’
‘Espionage success, like military success, is nearly always a question of organisation. Of course, personalities play a part but they should never be allowed to dominate. We overindulge the cult of the magical recruiter, like what’s-his-name in Personnel who talked to your course about the Eastern European case. All very well. But.’
‘D’you think we’d better join the others?’
‘Not that I’ve always been an angel, I admit.’ Hugo grinned complacently. ‘Bit of a bad boy myself. Once or twice. Not seriously, not like –’ He nodded at Alastair again. ‘Can’t keep off it. Welsh, you see.’
‘I thought he was Scottish.’
‘Welsh ancestry, far back. Always comes out.’
Charles searched Hugo’s face for clues. ‘I thought you said you were very happy with present arrangements.’
‘So I am, so I am. But having plenty of booze at home doesn’t mean you never want a drink when you’re out, does it?’ He looked mildly indignant.
The telephone rang in the kitchen. Anna jumped as if she had been waiting for it. ‘It’s for you,’ she told Charles when she returned. ‘The office, inevitably.’
‘For him?’ Hugo struggled to sit upright.
‘They’re offering Charles a peerage.’
‘What?’
‘About time, too,’ said Alastair from across the room. ‘He’s been doing noble work keeping you awake, Hugo.’
It was the duty officer. He had heard from the MI5 duty officer that the SV team on Lover Boy had reported that their subject had left the embassy alone for the first time since the delegation had arrived. He was behaving strangely and they had asked that Charles be told. His driving was erratic and now he was wandering on foot near the Thames with no obvious purpose but evidently dissatisfied and unhappy. He had taken no anti-surveillance precautions. They recommended Charles’s presence, if possible. ‘No idea what he’s up to,’ the duty officer said.
‘Where are they?’
‘Waterloo area, by the river. They can’t spare a car to pick you up as they’ve only got two on him but I can send the duty car and driver if you’re stuck.’
‘I’ll get a cab. Where should I join them?’
‘Wait one.’ There was a long pause. ‘Stamford Street, one hundred yards east of the Waterloo Bridge roundabout.’
It was not easy to leave quickly because Hugo wanted a full explanation, sotto voce, in the kitchen. He seemed almost wilfully obtuse and Charles had to repeat himself several times. ‘But why do they want you?’ Hugo asked.
‘Because I know him.’
‘What do they mean, behaving strangely? What’s he doing – exposing himself?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘What do they think you can do about it?’
‘I won’t know till I get there.’
‘Seems odd to me.’ Hugo looked sad and thoughtful. Oddity, in his lexicon, was a serious matter. ‘Does Hookey know?’
‘Shouldn’t think so.’
‘Very odd. I’d better talk to him before you do anything.’
‘And I’d better get there. You can get in touch with SV if Hookey has anything to say.’
‘I’m sure he’ll think it extremely odd. Extremely. I’ll ring him when I’ve dropped you off.’
‘Hugo, you can’t possibly drive, you’re drunk.’ Anna stood with folded arms in the kitchen doorway.
‘I’ll get a taxi,’ said Charles.
‘That will take ages. You can’t get them round here unless you ring for them. It’s quicker if I take you.’
‘If I’m drunk, you are,’ said Hugo.
�
�I’ve had less than a glass.’ She took the car keys from a hook on the pine dresser. The others sat in silent disunity as they left, with Hugo standing in the corridor, frowning.
‘D’you think it’s awful of me to leave them all like that?’ asked Anna, as she started the Austin Maxi. It was a wide car but they were close enough for him to catch her perfume. One of the Chanels, he thought.
‘Don’t answer,’ she continued. ‘It is awful, no matter what you think. But it’s such a relief, I can’t tell you. I’ve had to do it for years, week in, week out. Hugo insists. It’s worse when you’re abroad, of course. But this one was particularly awful. I’m so sorry. Real suet pudding evening. I don’t think anyone wanted to be there. Damn these gears, they’re so awkward.’
‘They’ve got a funny sort of cable link on this model.’
‘Oh dear, you’re not a car bore as well, are you?’
‘As well as what?’
She smiled. ‘As well as most of the men I meet. One thing you can say for Hugo: he’s got not the slightest interest in cars. Where are we going, by the way?’
She drove quickly. Neither spoke. He tried to focus upon Viktor, to work out what he might be doing, anticipate every eventuality, but the silence was distracting. It was not an uneasy silence, but complicitous. Once he caught her eye in the driving mirror.
‘Nearly there,’ he said gratuitously as they headed along Stamford Street from the Westminster Bridge end. ‘I wish we weren’t.’ His words hung in the air. She glanced at him but said nothing.
A Saab was parked in the appointed spot. She pulled up behind it, keeping the engine running. ‘Shall I wait for you?’
‘You shouldn’t. Anyway, I’ve no idea how long I’ll be.’
‘Good luck.’
‘Thanks for dinner.’ As he opened the door he leant over and kissed her on the cheek. She made no response.
Jim, the team leader from the Beaconsfield trip, was in the Saab with a man and a woman, who was not Sue. Charles got in the back, next to the man. ‘He came out the embassy at a hell of a lick,’ Jim said. ‘Turned right where he shouldn’t, driving careless, came over here, three times round the Elephant and Castle then up towards Borough, parked and wandered about as if he was lost, then back in the car and up this way, parking on double yellows behind the theatre, wandered about a bit more and finally went down this dark alley towards the river. We didn’t follow him in because you’d know if a mouse was behind you in there, even though it is as black as pitch. No idea what he’s up to but he looked ragged, uncertain, not careful and controlled like he usually is. Static OP is sure no one followed him out and we’re pretty sure he’s still down there. There’s no other way out. Unless he’s donated his body to the fishes.’
