Albatross (4 page)

The first thing she said when she went to Tony Walden's private office for the first time and saw it was an exclamation of surprise. ‘Good Lord – that's so like
The Fighting Temeraire
. What a marvellous picture, Mr Walden!'

And that had won him straight away. He had been married twice; his second wife was so like his first that friends couldn't think why he'd bothered to change. He loved beauty in women, in his surroundings and in his possessions. He perceived the sales potential of every form of vulgarity in the commercial market, and exploited it; at the same time he preserved the purity of his own values. He sold soap and hair remover and floor polish, cigarettes and lavatory paper and diet margarines and Swedish motorcars. He used nudity and crude status symbols to sell products which had nothing to do with either. He had a genius for persuading people that they wanted what they saw on television or on the giant hoardings in the cities. His knowledge of selling had been gained by knocking on doors and selling cheap make-up to housewives. His financial acumen came from a degree in mathematics taken in his spare time at the London Polytechnic.

His accent was classless, carefully cultivated to betray nothing of his original background. Neither of his wives nor his two children knew that he had been born in Poland just before the war. Only Humphrey Grant knew that he had supplied valuable information to MI6 about escape routes from the Eastern Bloc. In return, funds were made available to his mother and sister living in Cracow. Walden had been supporting them ever since.

He heard Davina come into the adjoining office; he was at his own desk by 8.30 every morning and he worked on Saturdays until lunch time. The Waldens lived in princely style in Grosvenor Square, but he refused to buy a status symbol in the country. He had no interest in country pursuits, and in the winter the English climate depressed him. When he took a holiday, which was usually allied to business, he went to California.

‘Davina?'

She came to the door. ‘Good morning, Mr Walden. I'm a bit late I'm afraid.'

‘Don't be silly.' He had a very attractive smile. ‘You know you don't have to come in unless it's convenient. You're looking very nice this morning. Blue suits you.'

‘Thank you.' She turned to go back into her office. There was a pile of correspondence laid out on her desk. It was Davina's insistence that turned the cover into some semblance of a job. She was too independent to take money without making some return. Allied to her appreciation of his Turner, this had impressed Walden even more. He didn't need a personal assistant; he had two highly competent secretaries, one of whom had been with him for ten years and counted herself indispensable. Her name was Frieda Armstrong, and her colleague, her junior in the company by six years, was Jill Collins. Both women were well aware that Davina's presence was superfluous, and it was accepted at Arlington that the chairman had personal reasons for introducing her into the office. Compared with the classic beauty of Mrs Walden, she seemed an odd choice as a mistress. Walden was well aware of what was being said. In a way it amused him to mystify his clever staff. It also helped to focus his attention on Davina Graham and to see her in a sexual context. She was not his type of woman. He didn't like red hair; he wasn't attracted by her very slim figure, apart from her magnificent legs. She had a remoteness that he found irritating, and a decisive manner that should have put his back up immediately. However, none of these disadvantages had stopped him from being powerfully attracted, and he couldn't understand why.

He gave her work to do at her behest; if she was absent or late, he made no comment. All that was understood. If she was in the office and he wanted something done, she showed herself to be prompt and efficient. She never got in his way, or tried to establish a relationship beyond the minimum courtesy between strangers. He had the impression that she knew him as a name but would have been hard pressed to describe his face.

She had closed the communicating door, and he had forgotten about her in a few seconds as he concentrated on his own work. Frieda Armstrong came in and out of the office; she took a series of instructions, reminded him of his appointments, glanced malevolently at the private office which she had been moved out of, albeit with a salary increase, and went out again. There was the twice-weekly conference at eleven o'clock, held in the long room on the first floor; it was 12.30 when Walden came back upstairs. His mind had been so preoccupied he had to check in his diary in case a luncheon engagement had been pencilled in. The two hours allotted were free.

He didn't smoke and he never kept alcohol in the office. There was a jug of fresh orange juice and ice always to hand. He poured himself a drink and relaxed. The door opened.

‘I'm free this afternoon, Mr Walden,' Davina said. ‘I could make myself useful.'

He looked at her thoughtfully for a moment. ‘Yes, you could, as a matter of fact. You could save me having a sandwich in the office and giving myself indigestion. Come and have lunch with me.'

‘I don't think it's a very good idea,' she answered.

‘Why not?'

She shrugged. She was annoyed to feel her face flushing. Damn red hair and the skin that went with it.

‘Well, why not? You've got nothing to do and I'd like some company. Meet me at Harry's Bar at one o'clock.' He didn't wait for an answer. He went out and left her standing in the doorway, feeling foolish and boorish and neatly outwitted.

In view of what he had done to help, she couldn't possibly not turn up. Harry's Bar was an offshoot of the long-established Marks Club – exclusive, expensive and popular with the young rich.

Davina had never been there. It wasn't a place that retired majors, however highly decorated, could afford to patronize. Because there was nowhere to park, she was five minutes late, and in a mood of bloody-mindedness she left the car on a yellow line. She would set the fine against expenses; Humphrey screamed like a banshee over minor infractions of the law like motoring offences. Two in two days. Wormwood Scrubs to Mayfair. She wondered what a clever analyst in the computer section would make of that.… She entered the restaurant, and was shown to a privileged table by the window.

Walden got up. ‘I didn't think you'd come,' he said.

‘I'm not that late, surely?' Davina sat down and immediately regretted the retort. ‘I didn't mean to sound rude,' she said. ‘This is lovely, and it's very kind of you to ask me.'

‘Then why did you make such a fuss about coming? It's a very respectable place. As you can see.'

She glanced up, following the movement of his head, and a very sociable royal duchess swept past them to the special table at the top of the room. Davina laughed. ‘Good Lord, respectable is the word! Do you always lunch here?'

‘Only when I have someone important,' he answered. He had very dark eyes, and when he smiled, his Eastern European blood showed in the broad cheekbones and the wide mouth.

The food was Italian and superb; he ordered wine, and she noticed that he drank very little. ‘This is nice,' he said suddenly. ‘I haven't thought about business since you came in!'

‘I hope that's a compliment,' Davina said. ‘I don't usually take people's minds off their work.'

‘Perhaps that's because you're so dedicated to your own,' he suggested. ‘How is it going, by the way? Or shouldn't I ask?'

‘You can ask,' she said calmly, ‘but I can't answer.'

‘No, of course you can't,' he apologized. ‘You must find my business very dull.'

‘As a matter of fact, I don't. It's very interesting indeed. Your marketing analysis is brilliant.' She smiled and added, ‘Now I know why I buy all sorts of things I don't need!'

‘And that's the secret.' Walden leaned towards her. ‘Consumer goods – whoever thought of that description helped to make my fortune. We eat more than we need, we smoke and drink and dose ourselves with chemicals and inhale pollution every time we take a breath. The world is consuming itself, eating its environment alive. I grow fat on the cupidity and stupidity of my fellow human beings.'

‘Then why do you do it?'

‘Because I love it,' he said simply. ‘And if I didn't take advantage, someone else would. Don't you ever question what you do?'

Davina lit a cigarette. ‘Not very often. Not yet, anyway.'

‘I said you were dedicated. You wouldn't like it if I said fanatic, would you?'

‘I don't think I'd mind. I don't work because I'm ambitious or greedy for money; I work because I believe in my job. I believe it has to be done.'

‘And what about Major Lomax?' The question caught her unprepared. ‘Where does he fit in?'

‘Into my personal life,' Davina answered.

‘I see,' Walden said. ‘It must be difficult to have a personal life.'

‘Not if the other partner understands what you're doing,' Davina answered. ‘And Colin knows the score.'

‘Then you're very lucky,' he said. ‘I have been married twice; my first wife wanted a husband with slippers by the fire and my present one wants to go to nightclubs every night. The stupid thing is, they look so like each other, but the only thing they have in common is being disappointed with me.'

‘That sounds terribly sad,' Davina said. ‘And just a little bit corny, if you don't mind my saying so. You've got children, haven't you – I've seen photographs on your desk.'

‘Two boys, both very nice, upright kids. One is at school still and the elder is at Keele University. Both working hard, no drugs, no problems. I can't complain about them.'

‘You sound as if you are,' she challenged him.

‘You're very quick, Davina, aren't you – they bore me, that's the trouble. I can see you don't approve.'

‘Well, you've spent the last part of lunch running down both your wives and your children, so how can I? And your business, indirectly. Isn't anything right for you?'

‘Yes,' he said coolly. ‘The challenge of tomorrow. Getting the Distillers' account away from my biggest rivals in the States. That makes everything else unimportant. I live for a challenge; it keeps the adrenaline going and the heart young. It's time to get the bill; I've an appointment at two forty-five and that old harridan Frieda will be clicking her tongue in the office. I've enjoyed our lunch. I hope you have?'

‘Very much,' Davina said, and realized that she meant it.

Twelve days. It seemed like years to Peter Harrington. He tried to dismiss his fears by remembering how much red tape was involved in an investigation. Of course Davina wouldn't come back to him quickly. He imagined the conferences taking place, the consultation with the Home Secretary to get the permission to visit him regularly, maybe to bring Kidson with her; that old death's head Grant muttering away to the brigadier, wanting everything cleared and filed in triplicate. He made all the excuses he could think of and none of them satisfied his clamouring nerves. Which was what the bitch wanted, he said to himself savagely. She was sweating him, and he had fallen into the trap.

He began pacing up and down his cell, something he hadn't done for the last four years of his imprisonment. He felt caged again, restless, unable to sleep; his mind ranged around the possibilities, and came up against her damnable silence. He tortured himself with the idea that the investigation itself had been shelved, and he would never hear from Davina again. The twenty-four years stretched ahead of him, and he came close to hysteria one night. He stood in the middle of the cell, sweat drenching his body, and shook his clenched fists at the wall. He had reached a stage of acceptance, a kind of weary limbo where his spirit stayed torpid, waiting but not hoping. Davina had given him hope, woken him to the possibility of freedom. The agony was unbearable when nothing more happened; the routine of waking up, working, reading, watching television during the recreation period, became a nerve-racking ordeal. Every time his cell door opened, he started up, thinking it might be a summons to the governor's office. There was a prison visitor who hadn't been to see him either.

By the thirteenth day he couldn't stop his hands from shaking. It was five o'clock in the afternoon, an hour before dinner, when the key scraped in the lock and the officer on duty said, ‘You're wanted upstairs.' There were tears in Peter Harrington's eyes when he came into the governor's office and saw Davina sitting there. He blinked them away and assumed a little swagger as he settled into the chair opposite. His relief was so intense that he could have laughed out loud. But whatever happened, she mustn't see how near to breaking point he'd come.

‘Cigarette?' she offered. He resisted the urge to grab one and inhale down to his feet. He couldn't trust his trembling hands. Not for a little while.

Davina didn't waste time. ‘I've got news for you,' she said. ‘Not very good news, I'm afraid.'

He couldn't control his colour; it turned a sickly grey. ‘Oh – come to deliver the body blow in person, have you, Davy? Nice of you.'

‘This whole investigation is hanging by a thread,' she said baldly. ‘I believe in it, so does someone else in the office. I believe we've got a top-level traitor and so do they. But there's a strong move to shut the whole case up.'

‘There would be,' he spat out. ‘There bloody well would be, if the mole knows you're on to something! Who wants it shelved – that'll be a pointer!'

‘The Foreign Office,' she said. ‘They don't want any scandal leaking out. Who's behind it is anybody's guess. Nobody's owning up, but there's been heavy pressure on us to drop the whole thing.'

He sank his head into his hands. ‘That's it, then. I know what heavy pressure means. I worked in the bloody place for twenty years. They'll have their way.'