Albatross (3 page)

He had green eyes, almost too pale; they seemed washed clean in bright sunlight. There was a spark in them as he looked at her. ‘You're not cooking tonight, my love. I had a wee cheque from the Ministry this afternoon. We're going out.'

He was a handsome man, she thought, noticing that several women stared at him as they went to their table. The bullets that ripped into him in Mexico and the long, agonizing struggle back to life and health had fined him down. He had lost the muscled neck and powerful shoulders of the super-fit soldier, and there was a softness in his expression and in the line of the thin, rather hard mouth that had come over the long months of convalescence and the final operation to repair his shattered lung. He wouldn't marry her while he believed he had less than a year to live. She couldn't marry him until she had completed what she was doing. But she couldn't tell him that. He was proud and sensitive and suffered sudden flares of jealousy when she was away from him.

Her greatest mistake had been to introduce him to Tony Walden. The antipathy had been instant. The high-powered tycoon in his forties embodied most of what Colin Lomax despised in civilian life. It hadn't helped that Walden was a good-looking man who radiated energy and fitness. And she had sensed immediately that the former major in the SAS with the George Cross after his name had put Tony Walden on the defensive. They had squared up to each other like two fighting cocks in the little sitting room. Only the presence of Humphrey Grant had prevented open rudeness. His gaunt face seemed more greenish grey than usual and his voice had rustled over the three of them like dead leaves being raked off a path.

‘It's essential that Davina has this job as a cover. She has to be seen to leave her old associates and everything connected with them and be firmly settled in civilian life. It's very good of you, Tony, to help us out.'

And so it had been set up for her in the privacy of the Marylebone flat. A job with Arlington Agency, a legitimate salary that would be quietly refunded to Walden direct by one of the Service's overseas accounts. A flat and a live-in lover recovering from a near-fatal encounter in Mexico. And an open break with her old chief, Brigadier Sir James White.

Lomax's voice disturbed the flashback. ‘You're a long way off, my darling. We're having dinner together, remember?'

‘I'm sorry, Colin. I was just thinking how all this started. And you started it. You were the first person to see some connection between what happened in Mexico and what had happened over the last few years. You smelled the rat.'

‘I know I did. I didn't reckon on that old sod Grant setting you out to catch it. Or me being around to sit on the sidelines. I should've kept my big mouth shut!'

They laughed and the moment of tension passed. He reached across the table for her hand. One of the Spanish waiters saw them and grinning, said something to a companion.

‘You get yourself fit and well,' Davina told him. And looking at him over the candle flickering in its glass shade, she said quietly, ‘I love you very much, you know. When I got to the flat today I said to myself, Thank God he'll be there – I wouldn't know how to cope without you, Colin.'

He blushed like a schoolboy. He had once killed a man with a single blow in front of her. He squeezed her hand so hard that it hurt.

‘You'll never get the chance,' he said. ‘Now let's order something to eat, woman, before I change my mind and take you home to bed.'

Late that night as Davina and Lomax lay in each other's arms and slept, and Peter Harrington turned over in his cot for the twentieth time seeking sleep, the rose-red light of breaking day filtered through the window of a Moscow apartment and touched the naked bodies of a man and a woman. They lay silently and still while the sun came up and their skins turned the colour of blood. When it was fully light, the man turned to the woman and said, as Davina had done to Lomax, ‘I love you very much. I couldn't do without you, Natalia.'

She traced his mouth with a pointed nail, and then inserted the tip of her finger for him to bite. ‘As I love you, Igor Igorovitch. Our love grows, day by day. Isn't that wonderful?'

He held the soft body close to him; her large breasts escaped his hands, spilling over, and the desire she kindled in him roared like a flame through belly and thighs already stiff from making love. At the end he said as he had done for nights without number, ‘Never leave me, Natalia – I need you.'

And she gave the same whispered answer. ‘How could I leave you? Where would I go? You're my life …'

By eight o'clock the apartment was empty. The bed lay white and crumpled with the pillows on the floor. It would be made, the room tidied, all traces of their presence cleared away. The woman who kept the apartments carried the red shield with the crossed swords of the KGB in her passport. The flats belonged to the service; they were for the use of members of the service and their families. They were not the most exclusive or luxurious, and the people allotted them were in the middle echelon of the KGB in Moscow.

The man who left by a side entrance was picked up by a black Zim, its bodywork polished until it gleamed like a great beetle as it sped down the centre lane of the highway reserved for the Politburo and the highest officials in the party. It turned into the Kremlin gate exactly on 8.15 and by twenty-two minutes past eight Igor Borisov took his place behind the famous desk in the room overlooking Independence Square. At 8.30 exactly his secretary knocked on the door and came in with the priority files and telexes from the previous night. She was a pretty girl, with a generous, rounded figure and large breasts. Her manner was deferential and she didn't speak until he took the papers and said, ‘Thank you, Natalia.'

She lowered her eyelids and murmured, ‘Thank you, Comrade General. Shall I bring you some tea?'

‘Yes, thank you,' he answered, not looking up. Outside the bells of the Kremlin churches had begun chiming the half hour. The official day of Igor Borisov, Director of State Security of the Supreme Soviet and head of the KGB, opened like any other day. His secretary came back with a glass of tea in a silver holder, a half moon of lemon floating in it like a yellow eye. She set it on the desk on a heat-resistant saucer. He drank it carefully; it was steaming hot.

‘I'll need you in an hour for dictation,' he said. Neither of them glanced at the sophisticated battery of recording machines beside him.

‘Yes, Comrade General.'

‘And there's a telex from London.' He looked at her, frowning. ‘I want to show it to you.'

She gave a shy nod. ‘Yes, Comrade General. I'd like to see it.'

He bent over his desk and she left the room in her usual quiet way, closing the door without letting the lock click in case he was disturbed.

Humphrey Grant put his foot on the brake and the car began to slow down, drawing into the side of the road. It was a quiet street off the busy Marylebone Road, bordered by elegant Georgian houses occupied by solicitors in select little offices. He sat in the car watching in his driving mirror until he saw Davina turn the corner into Mansfield Street. Grant didn't have any sympathy with women; his determined neuterism covered a latent homosexual taste which he would die without admitting. He couldn't judge her as an attractive woman, but a solitary walker, complete with rolled umbrella and Horseguards Parade stride, paused and looked after her as she passed. He opened the door of the passenger seat and she got into the car. They didn't speak while he set off and turned left into the broad thoroughfare of Portland Place.

‘We'll go to the park,' Grant said.

‘All right,' Davina nodded. It was a bright morning and she looked out of the window as they drove into Regent's Park. Some of the finest houses in London were set on its perimeter like grandiose sentinels of its privacy. The great terraces built by Nash had housed only the very richest until the war came. Now the classical façades were restored and painted, but the great rooms were offices where the harsh glare of neon lighting filled the windows when darkness came.

Davina had never liked either the park or the famous terraces. For some reason there was a gloom about them; it was spurious countryside set in the heart of a city. In the winter it seemed to her the most depressing place on earth, and now the mugger lurked along the shadowy paths, in the tradition of his forbear, the footpad of the eighteenth century.

‘You're rather silent,' Grant broke in. ‘Anything wrong?'

‘No, nothing. I was just thinking how I'd hate to live here, that's all.'

‘There's not much chance, I'd say,' Grant remarked sourly. ‘Unless you become a millionaire. Or a property company. Let's pull in here.'

There were other cars parked along the side of the road. Solitary drivers waited for the strolling prostitutes and whispered invitations to them through the window. Patrols of traffic wardens and police harried them at night, but even in the early morning, there were a few stragglers.

Grant brought the car to a stop. He looked in his rear-view mirror, pulled up the handbrake, switched off the engine and checked he was in neutral. Everything he did was methodical and maddening and seemed to take longer than necessary. Davina didn't know why he irritated her more than usual that morning.

She opened her bag and took out a cigarette. Grant creased his nose and said, ‘Must you do that? It makes the car smell.'

‘It helps me think,' she answered. ‘Try opening the window, Humphrey. Or get one of those little air fresheners.'

He wound down the window a few inches, and coughed when she started smoking.

‘I saw Harrington,' she said.

Grant didn't waste time inquiring after his health. ‘Were we right?'

‘Dead right,' she said. ‘He didn't bat an eyelid when I talked about a mole high up in the Service. He said he was already planted on us when Harrington himself went over to the Russians.'

‘That brings us to eleven years ago, if my memory's right,' Grant interposed. ‘We were all there then. Kidson, the Chief, myself, and even you.'

Davina gave him a little irritating smile. ‘It's not me,' she said.

He didn't take it as a joke. He turned sharply in his seat and said, ‘It could be. It could be me. It could be any one of us. Eleven years ago … you believe him?'

‘Yes, I do. He's still full of his old tricks, but they've lost some of the novelty. I can see through him, Humphrey. He does know there's a traitor, and he has a lot more clues to give us. But we're going to have to pay to get them.'

‘An exchange, I suppose. That's the most complicated nuisance of all. And the opposition haven't any comparable agent of ours.'

‘He doesn't know that,' Davina answered. ‘But if we can't exchange him, what can we offer him? How long has he been at the Scrubs?'

‘He was held at Brixton for a while, but he was certainly at the Scrubs by the time you and Sasanov went to Australia. It's a very secure prison.'

‘What are we going to do then?' Davina asked.

‘Very secure,' Grant went on, ignoring her question. ‘But it didn't hold Blake … I think we'll arrange a move for him anyway. Just to be on the safe side.'

‘Where to? Won't that be very difficult? Won't it cause comment at the office if Harrington suddenly gets shifted from a place like the Scrubs?'

‘It can be managed. Leave that to me.'

‘Without John or the Chief knowing?' Frowning, she threw her cigarette butt out of the window.

‘Certainly. I've done things without consulting either of them.' Grant didn't say it as a boast.

‘I didn't realize,' Davina remarked quietly. ‘I didn't realize you were so powerful.'

‘John and the Chief could say the same,' he answered. ‘We've all worked behind each other's backs at one time or another. You should remember that.'

‘I shall,' Davina said. ‘I'll go back in a few days and see him again. Don't do anything about moving him till afterwards.'

‘There's no hurry,' Grant said. ‘I'll wait till we see what he has to offer. Do you want me to drop you at Arlington Place?' He didn't sound enthusiastic.

‘No thanks, leave me at the intersection outside the park, there on the right. I'll go and get my car.'

He went through the routine of starting up, and just before the car moved off he glanced at her and said casually, ‘Do you actually
do
any work for Tony Walden?'

Davina stared ahead and said with equal casualness, ‘Yes, as a matter of fact, Humphrey, I do.'

2

Arlington Place was a narrow street in the most prestigious square mile radiating out from Marble Arch. The Arlington Agency was housed in a tall, stuccoed house built for a tea merchant in the mid 1700s. It retained its original railings, portico and façade; a fine wrought-iron staircase swept up from the hall to the upper floors, and the lift was tucked away unobtrusively in a corner. There was the minimum of furniture in the entrance hall itself; a receptionist sat behind an antique desk, and inquired what visitors wanted with a practised smile. The phones and intercoms were not obtrusive; the visitor's impression was of quaint old-fashioned courtesy, and the impression was maintained to the moment they walked out into the street. Anyone at Arlington who failed to charm was promptly sacked.

There was no sign of the company's American parentage. Even the central heating was pleasantly low. The chairman insisted on flowers in his office and in the reception rooms. He had hung pictures from his own collection at salient points up the stairs where clients could see them. He loved early Dutch seascapes, but the client important enough to go into his room for a private discussion of his account could feast his eyes upon a magnificent fiery Turner landscape over the fireplace. Davina's small office adjoined this room, and she could see the picture when the communicating door was open.