Albatross (30 page)

‘You'll stay for dinner,' Betty Graham said. ‘What a pity Mary isn't with you.'

‘She won't leave the house at weekends,' he explained. ‘She says two nights a week in London are bad enough. She can't wait for me to give up, you know.'

He can't stop harping on it, Kidson thought. Goading, would be a better word. Goading me, because I'm the only bloody candidate left. But it isn't going to make any difference. That's why he came down, to spike my guns with Davina, to stop me getting to Harrington before he does. But he won't succeed. Kidson busied himself pouring drinks. Betty Graham retired into the house and Charlie followed with the baby. Davina sat between her father and Lomax.

The Chief offered her a cigarette. He seldom shared his precious Sub Rosa with anyone. ‘No, thanks,' she said curtly. ‘I prefer these.' She'd filled an empty packet with the Balkan Sobranie.

He said quizzically, ‘That's a new foible, Davina. I've never seen you smoke those things before.'

‘It's not a foible,' she answered. ‘I happen to like them. You like Sub Rosa.'

‘I do,' he agreed. ‘I also think it's rather amusing, all things considered. Not many people see the joke. Let me give you a light.'

‘I've got one here,' Davina said. She didn't want to take anything from him, not even a match. John couldn't have known about Australia. Nor Humphrey. It was the smiling Judas sitting close who had set the KGB killer on their trail when he felt it was safe. And then she remembered her bitter accusation, thrown at him face to face, in this very garden only a year before. ‘You milked him dry and then you didn't give a damn what happened to him.…' There was something wrong with that, surely. Surely Albatross would have shut Ivan's mouth long before he'd told enough to wreck the Soviet strategy in the Middle East. She got up and said, ‘Excuse me, I'll go and help Mother.'

Lomax and the captain stayed behind with John Kidson to play audience to the fizz and sparkle of Sir James White's conversation.

Humphrey took the 6.15 from Waterloo. It was a crowded commuter train and he was forced to buy a first-class ticket to be sure of a seat. Normally frugal, he resented the extra cost, but he didn't want to be jostled and talked to on the journey; he wanted to stay unnoticed. It was stuffy and the carriage was crammed. Luckily he had found a place in a non-smoker. He hunched his long body down into the corner seat and raised an evening newspaper as a shield between himself and the rest of the travellers. He didn't read a word of the middle pages: theatre, the arts, some rather waspish book reviews, a three-column feature on women's fashions with photographs of beautiful girls made ugly by bizarre hairstyles and unwearable clothes. He thought for a while about Ronnie, and his mouth twitched into a meagre smile. He was growing more and more endearing as their friendship went on. So young, and so naive, yet with the directness of his Suffolk background and the affectionate nature of a grateful puppy, he brought out tender feelings which Humphrey didn't know he possessed. He made him smile with his constant cheerfulness. He had brought a warmth and brightness into Humphrey's life. From an act of impulsive kindness, he told himself, happiness flowed for him at last. They were a kind, and yet so different. The world beyond would see them and not ever know them as they truly were in human terms. He didn't care if Ronnie never got a job. He wanted him to stay cosy and waiting in the flat.

And then he thought about Davina. She had fooled him, he was sure of that. The look of contempt was so clear in her eyes when she refused the offer of a car and dismissed the insincere apology. She knew where Peter Harrington was. And Peter Harrington would lead her to Albatross. Kidson had rushed in with his own plan, using his family connection. He must be a fool indeed if he thought that Humphrey intended to stay quiet and leave him clear of the field. But Humphrey's way was unobtrusive, silent. He hadn't been an operative for many years; for a long time now his work had been behind a desk, leaning over James White's shoulders. But he hadn't forgotten. He would join the family gathering, but they wouldn't know it. He got out at Salisbury, which was the farther station, and was met by the car he had hired before he left London.

‘Come in,' Charlie called out. ‘Oh – Davy –'

Davina came into her sister's room and shut the door. It was the double guest room, a comfortable, chintzy bedroom that she remembered being reserved for her parents' friends when she was a child. Now it belonged to Charlie and John, and the baby slept in a carrycot in the corner.

‘Wasn't it a good dinner?' Charlie inquired, turning back to the mirror with a lipstick in her hand. ‘Mum is a marvellous cook; I'll never be as good.'

‘She's good at everything she does,' Davina said. She perched on the edge of the bed. ‘She doesn't make a fuss about it, that's all. Why did you suddenly suggest that I come down this weekend?'

Charlie wasn't easily caught off guard. ‘Mum said she hadn't seen you for ages.'

Davina swung one foot backwards and forwards clear of the floor and stared at it for a second before looking at her sister and saying, ‘Don't lie, Charlie. They never have us together. John wanted to get in touch with me, didn't he?'

Charlie finished making her mouth red and put the lipstick away. ‘Why don't you ask him instead of me?' she suggested.

‘Because I wanted to let you know what you are meddling with,' Davina answered.

‘I do know,' Charlie snapped suddenly. ‘I know you're trying to bitch up John's chances of taking over when Sir James retires. What the hell are you doing, Davina? Why don't you just get on with your own mess of a life and leave him alone?'

‘That's what he would like,' Davina said, ‘he, and Sir James and Humphrey. They'd all like me to leave them alone, but one of them has a very special reason. And I'm going to find out which one it is. You know about that part of it too, do you?'

Charlie came up to her. ‘I know,' she said loudly, ‘that John is not a Russian spy. That's what you're trying to suggest, isn't it?'

‘I'm going to prove it, one way or another,' Davina said. She took out a black cigarette and lit it. It was the last match.

Charlie's pale skin had flushed an angry red. She glared down at her sister. ‘I've been sorry for you,' she said. ‘Everything always went so wrong for you, didn't it? Poor Davy, couldn't keep her man, her wicked sister ran away with him. You've traded on that for years. Then you lose your husband. And what did we all do? We rallied round. No one was more sympathetic than John. Who rushed out to Mexico when you were in trouble? John. And what do you do, you hard-faced cow, but try and wreck his career just to justify some half-baked theory you've cooked up? Why don't you face it – whoever you sleep with, you're just as twisted and frustrated as you ever were!'

‘Give John a message, will you?' Davina got up. ‘Tell him I'll have Albatross by tomorrow evening. Good night, Charlie. You shouldn't shout like that, you've woken the baby.'

As she opened the door she came face to face with Kidson. ‘Charlie and I,' she said, ‘were just having a chat.'

When she came into the drawing room Sir James got up. There was no one else in the room. Her father put his head through the doorway and said, ‘The coffee's on its way – what will you have, James, brandy or Cointreau?'

‘Nothing, my dear chap, I have to drive back and it's quite a way.'

‘Davina? Something for you?'

‘No, thanks, Father.'

‘Right, won't be a minute.'

She didn't sit down and Sir James lowered himself into the big sofa, taking the corner seat. ‘Well,' he said, ‘I wonder why Humphrey hasn't turned up to join the happy group.'

‘He was never very sociable. He thinks he'll find Harrington another way. How do you think you'll find him, Chief?'

‘I think you'll tell me where he is,' Sir James replied quietly, ‘when you realize that I'm not the person you're looking for.'

Davina looked into the cold blue eyes. There wasn't a flicker in them. No nerves – she had to give him credit for an arctic coolness. Just that emptiness that made her feel that she was talking to someone who was not quite human. ‘I'll give you all the information you want by tomorrow evening,' she said. ‘You may not thank me for it.'

‘Perhaps not,' he admitted. ‘I shall be distressed to find that someone I trusted was a traitor. You are that near to Albatross? Clever girl. How is Mr Anthony Walden? We met, you know, at a dinner party. He insisted upon being called Tony. Such a pity with a fine Christian name.'

Davina held herself in check. ‘He's a Jew,' she said.

White smiled at her, ‘I know. He said so.'

Davina sat down in one of her mother's upright chairs. The exquisite needlework was Mrs Graham's hobby. She smoothed her light silk skirt, crossed one leg, showing a fine ankle and narrow foot. White watched the measured movement, waiting.

‘You ruined him with the prince, didn't you?'

There was the tiniest reaction: the glass-blue eyes opened a fraction, and then there was a deprecating little smile under his moustache. ‘My dear Davina – you must think I'm very powerful indeed to accuse me of ruining anybody.'

‘But you did do it, didn't you? Why?'

He shrugged slightly. ‘How strange – you're as prickly about him as he was about you. Don't tell me you're growing tired of our admirable Colin?'

‘I'm tired of you hurting people,' Davina said quietly. ‘You haven't even got the decency to tell me why you did it.'

‘I'll tell you that,' he countered, ‘when you tell me who Albatross is. And incidentally, where I can find Peter Harrington. It's becoming an embarrassment in the office, you know. I can't let you have much longer. Still –' He turned as Captain Graham came in with a tray of coffee. Betty Graham was in the background. ‘Still, you did say by tomorrow evening. I'll have to hold you to that. Ah, my dear Fergus – what a splendid dinner. I've just got time for one cup to keep me awake and then I must be on my way home. It's been such fun to be all together again. I must get you all to come to Kent.'

As he said his goodbyes in the hallway, White looked from Davina to the Grahams and then briefly his smile encompassed Kidson and Charlie. It glanced over Lomax like a passing spear. ‘One big happy family, aren't we?'

Humphrey had parked his car on some high ground in a sheltering belt of trees. He could stay awake without any difficulty. He had a thermos of hot sweet coffee and some chocolate; he also had binoculars and night glasses, so that his watch on Marchwood wasn't impeded by night or day. He had seen James White's car arrive and the lights in the house twinkling from room to room. He could imagine it inside. The fine panelled drawing room, with its french windows leading out onto the garden. The dining room. Ancestors and a coaching scene over the fireplace. A warm red-walled room, where good food and wine lulled the guests, with Captain Graham at the head of the table, a perfect English gentleman playing host. Humphrey knew the house so well he could monitor the movements by what window was lit, ending with the fanlight over the elegant portico.

Someone was leaving. The night glasses showed him Sir James White as the car turned out of the drive onto the road. Heading in the direction of Kent, by the long route. That left Davina and Colin Lomax in the house with Kidson. He must be preening himself, Humphrey thought with animus, thinking that he had outwitted his rival, poor SGI with his caricature of a face and lanky body. The perpetual second-in-command. Kidson would learn how foolish it was to underestimate him. Robespierre had hardly been a comic figure to his contemporaries.

He sipped his coffee and nibbled at the chocolate bar. He checked through the night glasses, although he didn't expect any activity until morning. But the lights were still on and until the last one snapped out, he stayed on the alert. And that alertness was rewarded when half an hour after James White left, at a few minutes past eleven, Davina Graham's car came down the drive and took the road to London. He saw her and Lomax clearly through the night glasses. Humphrey didn't waste time. His car was quickly on its way down the grassy slope and onto the narrow side road while Davina's tail light twinkled in the distance. He picked up the car on the Andover road. There was almost no traffic and although Humphrey trailed far behind he was able to keep it in view as it sped along the empty motorway and into central London.

Davina took the route through Gloucester Road and turned into a side street. There were two sleazy hotels on the left-hand side, with an inscription in Arabic lit up in the window. Humphrey turned into a cul-de-sac and got out. He watched from the corner as she and Lomax got out and went into the second hotel. He waited for twenty minutes. How ingenious. What a clever place to choose. A dingy semi-boarding house that catered for the lower level of Middle Eastern visitor. Little English would be spoken and less notice taken of who came and went. Very clever of you, Davina, but not quite clever enough. Humphrey's face was set and the thin mouth turned down. From being ugly he became cruel-looking. He started the car up and drove quietly back to his flat. He came in without making any noise; he didn't want to startle Ronnie. He closed the sitting room door and went to the telephone.

James White didn't trouble to be quiet when he reached home. It was very late, but he knew his wife would be awake and waiting. He put his car in the garage, paused in the garden to admire its pleasing aspect in the moonlight, and marched up the steps to the front door with a sprightly gait. He whistled going into the kitchen. He made two cups of tea, and placed a biscuit jauntily in each saucer. Mary White was reading in bed when he came up. She saw the triumphant gleam in his eyes. She loved him deeply, but she was a woman who didn't believe that one human being had the right to probe too deeply into another, however close they were. There was too much she would rather not know; his work and how he conducted it was not her business.