A Sentimental Traitor

by Michael Dobbs

  As the light grew, the village came to life; dogs wailed at newspaper boys, cockerels crowed across the lanes, farmers thundered through on their oversized machines. No buses, of course, not any longer. The hours moved slowly on leaden feet through the heavy midsummer air. As the temperature began to rise, an elderly man appeared in the graveyard, his legs bowed, leaning heavily on a stick, with a small bunch of flowers clutched doggedly in his free hand. He used them to replace stems that were wilting at the foot of a recent stone. He stayed several minutes, head bowed, back bent, talking quietly to whomever was beneath. He didn’t look towards Harry’s hiding place. It was some time later that the churchwarden arrived, just as the steeple clock was chiming. He stopped at the lychgate, replacing a notice on the board, then walked up the short path to the church’s clay-tiled porch. Harry heard him opening the door, but he didn’t stay long. The time was close at hand.

  She was early, tracing the footsteps of the churchwarden, her tread slow, purposeful, crunching on the gravel, until she disappeared inside. Harry waited many minutes, checking to see whether she was being followed. He saw nothing. Eventually, warily, he slipped from his hiding place.

  He tarried inside the porch, listening. Nothing. He lifted the old latch and let himself in. The church was ancient, constructed of flint, its walls thick. As he took a step inside the latch clattered back into place, the noise echoing around the interior, which was cool, dark, and smelled of polish. He looked around, expecting to find her, but he was alone. Then he saw a door at the far end of the church that gave access to the belfry. It was open. His instruction. He followed her through it. On the far side he found worn wooden steps that carried him up to the heavy wooden scaffold where the bells were hanging, but still there was no sign of her. He pressed on, upward. From somewhere near at hand came the slow, persistent ticking of the clock mechanism; everything smelled of damp and ancient dust. At the top of the tower a small, low door opened onto the roof. It was ajar. He had to duck as he clambered through, and as soon as he straightened he found himself blinded by the sudden brilliance of the day. He stood, blinking, shading his eyes. It was there, at last, he saw her, waiting for him.

  ‘Mr Jones. I wish I could say it was a pleasure.’

  She was dressed in a simple cotton blouse with floral skirt, open-toed shoes and a straw shoulder bag in a manner that would have passed for the vicar’s wife, except for the Versace sunglasses, and the small aerosol she was pointing at him.

  ‘A little insurance, Mr Jones. It’s pepper spray.’

  ‘I thought that stuff was illegal.’

  ‘Oh, I have a laissez-passer for all sorts of things. So if you wouldn’t mind ditching your jacket, turning around . . .’

  He did so. The jacket fluttered to the ground, clearly not concealing a weapon, and he turned to show there was nothing in his belt.

  ‘Well, just look at you, Mr Jones,’ she said, her face flooded with contempt. ‘What a mess.’ She moved to the farthest part of the roof, putting her back against one of the weather-stained castellations that surrounded them on all sides. She dropped the spray into the top of her bag, ensuring it was still to hand.

  Harry gazed around him. Beyond the rooftops and gracious old trees of Upper Marlsford he could see to the fields, a patchwork of greens and glorious summer golds. Beneath him, on the path that ran alongside the slow moving river, two women had stopped to gossip while walking their dogs. Nearby a pair of swans raised their necks, alert, guarding signets.

  He shook his head. ‘Someone like you in a place like this. It’s . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Not what I expected.’

  ‘I’m not what most people expect,’ she said curtly. ‘Why did you want to see me?’

  ‘For much the same reason, I suspect, that you agreed to see me. To know it all. And to finish it.’

  They were disturbed as a large number of rooks flew over, like dark rags caught on the updraught, calling to each other before settling into the branches of a family of Scots pine. She pulled a handkerchief from her bag and began dabbing at her nose.

  ‘Hay fever,’ she announced. ‘You see, I am human, after all.’ Shemanaged to leave the impression of being annoyed by the fact.

  ‘I’m sorry about your husband.’

  ‘Sorry won’t bring him back!’ she snapped, her blue eyes suddenly igniting in anger.

  ‘It was an accident, unintended.’

  ‘He was a good man, despite his weaknesses. He didn’t deserve what you did to him.’

  He shook his head. ‘Not me.’

  ‘Oh, really,’ she spat in disbelief.

  ‘It was Jimmy Sopwith-Dane. He killed your husband. Didn’t mean it, but . . . You drove him too far.’

  She started in surprise, twisting her handkerchief around her finger as she considered the possibility. ‘It doesn’t make any difference to me which of you killed him. He didn’t deserve to die,’ she repeated emphatically.

  ‘Neither did the children.’

  ‘Of course they didn’t! What do you take me for, some kind of monster?’

  ‘Why, then, did you hide the truth?’

  She shook her head with the air of a disappointed schoolmistress. ‘Oh, Mr Jones, you’ve been around long enough to know how very harmful the truth can be.’

  ‘I’m not sure Mrs Maneckjee would agree with you.’

  ‘Maneckjee?’

  ‘Mother of Farrokh. You remember him, don’t you?’

  And for the first time she seemed troubled, looking distractedly at her shoe, twisting it uneasily, as though trying to stub out a cigarette. ‘Yes, that was most unfortunate.’

  ‘And that’s why the plane was shot down.’

  ‘A terrible thing.’

  ‘So terrible you decided to hide what had happened.’

  She looked up sharply. ‘In the wider interest.’

  ‘In your interest, I think, and that of your friends.’

  She seemed irritated by his words. ‘Shall we get on with this? I have a game of tennis in a little while.’

  ‘You like your games, don’t you? Like the ones you played with Ben Usher. You ruined him.’

  ‘I hadn’t intended that, not at the start. But he was such a dinosaur, couldn’t find his way out of Downing Street without a guide. Kept stumbling, getting in the way, and so . . .’ She flicked her hand, as though he had been no more than a gnat.

  ‘And so . . . Marmite.’

  She threw her head back and laughed, the blonde wisps catching the summer light. ‘You figured that out, did you? Well done, Mr Jones. He was done for anyway, but I thought it was an amusing touch. You know, when those Neanderthals at the CIA tried to get rid of Fidel Castro they used poisoned shoe polish and still managed to make a mess of it. I thought, why not show that we Europeans are better than that.’

  ‘Are we?’

  ‘Oh, I think so. Very much so. And the best still to come. It’s a dream, Mr Jones, and everything I’ve done has been about that dream.’

  ‘It’s people like you who drag it into the gutter.’

  ‘It’s the future, don’t you see?’ she said, her tone exasperated. ‘But of course you probably don’t. You’ve been fighting so long for Queen and country you can’t understand that it’s all been a ludicrous waste of time. Britain isn’t the future, Europe is. And yet . . .’ She gazed out over the sights of the English countryside, wistful. ‘I do love it so. All this.’ For a moment her face seemed to soften, but it was fleeting. ‘It’s not enough, is it? That American – Dulles? – he was right when he said we’d lost an empire and hadn’t found anything else to do. But now we have.’

  ‘As part of a new empire.’

  ‘And why not?’

  ‘But I had this quaint, ridiculously old-fashioned idea that the people were supposed to have a say in all this.’

  ‘They’ve got comfortable sofas and reality television. It seems to be enough for them. In any event, democracy’s vastly overrated. It’s a littl
e like cheese, only to be taken in moderation. Have too much of it and you end up like California, completely out of control.’

  ‘It’s a wonder you never thought of standing for election.’

  ‘I leave elections for people like Mr Murray. A great victory, I thought. With perhaps just the gentlest push in the right direction from me,’ she added smugly.

  They were standing on opposite sides of the tower, like boxers in a ring. The day was growing oppressive, the heat rising, bouncing back from the lead roof.

  ‘It’s all for the good of the country, you know, Mr Jones, every bit of it.’

  ‘Some would call it treachery,’ he replied softly.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘You’ve betrayed your country.’

  ‘Ridiculous,’ she sighed, ‘you simply don’t understand. Anyway, it’s Brussels, not Britain—’

  ‘And you’ve been betrayed yourself.’

  ‘Oh, indeed?’ she said, with the shadow of a frown, suddenly interested.

  ‘By your husband.’ It was his turn to mock.

  ‘By Felix?’

  ‘He was double-dealing. You’ve been building up this great castle in the sky, but on the ground floor, even in the bedroom, the men from Moscow had already moved in. All that time, your husband was working for the Russians. He was an agent!’

  She shook her head. ‘No, not the bedroom,’ she replied tartly, but said no more. She didn’t startle, didn’t fall to pieces with shock. Instead she took off her dark glasses and stared at him, her blue eyes intense, on fire, defiant. It was Harry who was left reeling.

  ‘You knew?’ he whispered, struggling to recapture his wits as suddenly he saw everything in a new and twisted light.

  ‘If this were a game of tennis you’d be about forty-love down by now.’ Her tone was contemptuous. ‘I take pride in having a good working relationship with the Russians, Mr Jones. Together we can achieve so much.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘EATA. The agency has come a long way since I took over. No one accuses us of being paper pushers or press cutters any more. But we live in turbulent times and I’d be the first to admit that we lack teeth. So the Russians occasionally – how can I put this? – help us out.’

  ‘The messy bits.’

  ‘Precisely. Russia isn’t the enemy any more, and the Americans aren’t particularly our friends. It’s a new world out there.’

  ‘So who is the enemy in this new world of yours? Just people like Ben Usher? Me?’

  ‘Oh, but Harry, I have the highest respect for you, truly I do. Do you mind if I call you Harry? I feel as if I’ve got to know you so well these past few months.’

  ‘So long as I don’t have to call you Patricia.’

  ‘You’ve been remarkably resourceful. If only I could find people like you, I wouldn’t need the Russians.’

  ‘You can find people like me everywhere. But I’m not sure they’d want to help.’

  ‘The pay and rations are extremely generous.’

  ‘Tell that to the Greeks.’

  ‘Oh, Harry, stop being such a bad loser. We have to move on. It’s a great adventure. But in any adventure it’s inevitable that some will get left behind.’

  ‘Like the kids in the plane.’

  ‘I don’t feel the need to apologize yet again.’

  ‘If you apologized, I didn’t hear it,’ he spat, his voice soaked in disgust. Her hand went to her bag, for the pepper spray, just in case, but he swallowed his anger. There was still more to be done. He took a couple of slow paces to the corner of the tower, head bowed in thought; she matched the move, cautious, keeping her distance.

  ‘So, Ghazi wasn’t working for the Egyptians,’ he said, facing her once more.

  ‘No, of course not. That tale was no more than a convenience. It kept the Americans happy, you know how they love their Muslim fanatics. They swallow such nonsense so blithely, it’s like feeding chocolate to children. And, of course, it left your Mr Usher chasing up his blind alley.’

  ‘Which leaves the question, who was Ghazi working for?’

  ‘And what do you think?’

  ‘Not the Russians.’

  ‘An interesting speculation,’ she said, sniffing, dabbing at her nose once more.

  ‘They caught Ghazi. Killed him.’

  ‘To keep him quiet.’

  ‘But they didn’t kill him straight away.’

  Her face came up from her handkerchief, her eyes swimming in curiosity. ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Felix said so. Before he died.’

  For the first time she looked disconcerted, as if a net cord on a vital point had dropped on her side of the court.

  ‘They questioned Ghazi. We both know what a messy business that can be with your Russian friends. He wouldn’t have died quietly, he would have sung like a nightingale – or, more accurately, like a man who was having his last remaining testicle crushed. They wanted something from him.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that, very hard, and there’s only one conclusion that makes sense. They wanted to know who was paying him . . .’ Suddenly, Harry’s head jerked as though an entirely new thought had hit him, hard enough to make him wince. ‘You . . . you didn’t know, did you? You thought it was the Russians. All along you assumed it was your messy-handed friends who ordered the attack on the plane because of what they feared was in young Farrokh’s report.’ He laughed, mocking, clapped his hands. ‘You were covering the whole bloody thing up, but there was no need.’

  She was still smiling, but the eyes had turned to glass. ‘Mr Maneckjee never completed his report.’

  ‘He never presented his report because your chums in Brussels were too busy rushing off for Christmas. You never got to know what was in it. But he completed it all right.’

  ‘Sadly, it seems all the copies were destroyed.’

  ‘Except for one. The one he sent to his mother. The one I read yesterday afternoon.’

  Her eyes had begun to melt and he thought he could see a bead of perspiration on her brow. It was as hot as hell, the heat from the lead roof burning through the soles of his shoes, but he was back in the game.

  ‘It was full of technical gobbledygook, I couldn’t understand it all, but the conclusions were as clear as fresh ice. It was OK for Babylon to go through Russia. There was never any need for them to blow that plane and the report out of the sky.’

  ‘But they didn’t—’ She stopped herself abruptly, struggling to reclaim her composure. ‘But if they didn’t know that, it would have given them every motive.’

  ‘Which, in turn, gave you your motive for concocting your cover-up.’

  She shook her head, but a blush of confusion had erupted on her chest and was creeping up around her neck.

  ‘Maneckjee’s offices had been repeatedly raided. Someone knew all right, someone with a far bigger motive than the Russians could have had.’

  Her lips twitched in bewilderment.

  ‘The other guys, Mrs Vaine. The losers who were going to miss out on billions in transit rights. The countries along the alternative route for the pipeline who so hate the Russians.’

  ‘The Georgians? Or Chechens?’ she whispered, at last coming to understanding.

  ‘Who knows? Well, the Russians know. They squeezed it out of Ghazi.’

  ‘Then why haven’t they said so?’

  ‘Oh, they will, but only when it suits them. In the meantime they have their pipeline, and their hands around some cringing neighbour’s throat, ready to put the pressure on any time it suits. They’re sitting pretty. Got everything they wanted and more than they could ever have expected.’

  Her eyes darted out across the rooftops of the village as her thoughts and fears tumbled over each other, but she recovered remarkably quickly. When she turned back her voice was firm, stubborn. ‘I didn’t know for sure, you see. It’s not the sort of thing you go to ask the Russians, is it? Oh, by the way, did you just blow one of our plane
s out of the sky? There was no time, I couldn’t get hold of Felix, so . . .’

  ‘You covered up what you thought your friends had done.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then you had to cover up the cover-up.’

  ‘It was in everyone’s interest.’

  ‘There you go again. But it was only ever in your interest.’

  ‘I’m not that sort of person. I made a mistake, that was all.’

  ‘And as part of that cover-up you tried to destroy me.’

  ‘Tried?’ Suddenly she was on the attack once more, mocking his crumpled clothes, his turbulent hair, the beard, the wild eyes. ‘Succeeded, surely. But it was your fault. You pestered, kept getting in the way.’

  ‘You seem to have made something of a habit of destroying people. It’s almost as though you enjoy it.’

  ‘And there speaks Harry Jones, a man who’s filled graveyards in every corner of the globe.’

  ‘I was doing my duty.’

  ‘As I have done mine.’

  ‘It was more than that, wasn’t it? Had to be.’ He was still troubled, didn’t have it all. ‘You rushed – panicked – when the plane came down. There was no need for that unless . . .’ His words died as his thoughts led him on to an entirely new destination.

  ‘Oh, but you are good, Harry. You can spot a girl’s weaknesses from a very long way away.’ She smiled, coquettishly. ‘I wonder, do you think at some other time that you and I might have . . .’ She twisted her handkerchief around her finger once again, flirting with her eyes, then sighed as though in frustration. ‘But no, I suppose we’re too much alike for that.’

  ‘By God, I hope not.’

  ‘You see, I’d heard whispers about Ghazi and the missile. I had no idea what he was intending, believe me, but I didn’t do anything with the information, didn’t share it, I wanted to follow it, to see where it led.’

  ‘And claim credit for it.’

  ‘You know how these things work.’

  ‘Instead you were left with a nightmare on your hands. You might have stopped it.’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. Please believe me on that. The information was too vague, I had no idea anything would happen so quickly. But if the media had found out they’d have made an appalling fuss, asked far too many questions, looked into all those dark corners – demanded my resignation, and there was no point in that.’