In the Mouth of the Tiger (121 page)

Stewart bowed, just a little ironically. ‘Then perhaps now you might join me for lunch?'

All I wanted to do was to flee the big, gloomy room with its row of shrouded billiard tables. Run through the marble foyer of the club with its gilt-framed paintings and its Roman pillars. Run out into the chilly London street to the friendly bustle and the boom of traffic, and shout out as loud as I could: ‘We have won!'

But of course I couldn't. I had won because I had acted a role. The role of a cold, ruthless, fearless woman who relished danger for its own sake. If I let the mask slip for an instant, gave Stewart the slightest hint that I was not everything I pretended to be, my victory would be in jeopardy. So I gave a slow smile and extended my hand.

‘It had better be a good lunch, Sir Stewart,' I said. ‘You wouldn't want the first woman to dine at White's to go out and tell London that the cuisine was not worth the candle.'

It was a decent lunch. We were the only ones in the dining room, and the
maître d'hôtel
placed us at a beautifully set table beside floor-length leaded windows overlooking Westminster. We had consommé, then fillet of sole Gaugin, a specialty of the house. The chablis was Hine 1928, a delightful vintage, and after a glass or two I suddenly realised that I was quite enjoying myself.

‘Tell me about the Linlithgow Hunt,' I asked. ‘Not about your colleagues who like to call themselves the Linlithgow Hunt, but the real Hunt. I take it there really was a Hunt Club of that name?'

Stewart laughed. ‘You are remarkably well informed. Yes, there was. We rode to hounds up in Stirlingshire, over some of the best foxhunting ground in Scotland. My father established the first traditions of the hunt. He earned the name Wild Jack: the harder the riding the better he liked it. Rather like you, I suppose.'

‘I thought your father was Edward VII?' I asked. ‘At least, that's what one is led to believe.'

Stewart didn't bat an eyelid. ‘My
legal
father was a tremendous huntsman. He started a tradition of meeting after each hunt at the Star and Garter hotel in Linlithgow, and settling the problems of the world through a mist of whisky fumes. My friends and I carried on the tradition. In fact we embellished it. We devised a legend, you see. A legend that there was a fox loose in Stirlingshire, a pure golden fox, that was invincible to ordinary huntsmen. It could only be taken by a man fearless enough to try and change the world for the better. So we all pledged to spend our lives trying to qualify, trying to change the world for the better. The idea was that we'd reassemble in our old age for one last hunt. One of us, we thought, would surely qualify to take the golden fox.'

He shrugged, and drained his glass. ‘And so the true Linlithgow Hunt was born.'

‘It's a delightful legend,' I said. ‘Has anyone qualified?'

Stewart shook his head. ‘Most of us are dead. Those who are still alive are so compromised as to be disqualified. But by God, I'm glad we tried.'

‘What do you mean by compromised?' I asked.

‘The world of secret intelligence is full of compromise. Those of us who work within it – on whichever side – have more in common with each other than we have with our own governments. So there are accommodations at every level. For example, it's perfectly understood that we don't kill each other. If we did there would be wholesale bloodshed. On another level, because we all want the same thing in the end – peace and quiet – there has to be a certain amount of cooperation.'

‘Cooperation?'

Stewart lowered his voice. ‘Oh, we all have a vested interest in the status quo. The balance of power between East and West. That's why some of us weren't too fussed when the Russians got hold of the atom bomb. It will mean a generation of stability, because nobody will dare to rock the boat.'

I was shocked but disguised my shock by laughing lightly. ‘Then someone like me comes along. Someone who doesn't know the rules and spoils your cosy game.'

Stewart lifted his glance in a silent salute. ‘We need someone like you every so often, Norma, to remind us just how far we have fallen from our ideals.'

‘Did anyone in the Linlithgow Hunt keep his idealism?' I asked. ‘Refuse to compromise?'

Stewart frowned thoughtfully. ‘Your guardian, Ernest Roberts, came damned close.'

Robbie – my lovely, naïve, romantic Robbie – a member of MI6? I covered my confusion as best I could but Stewart chuckled gently. ‘You didn't know, did you?' he asked. ‘I suppose Denis didn't want to spoil any illusions you might have had. Oh no, Robbie was from Deeside and the Hunt before London tamed him. And gave him his cover: a gentle little tea merchant from Mincing Lane. Robbie penetrated the toughest tongs in Malaya before malaria took its toll. Malaria and unrequited love.'

The steward appeared at our table with a chafing dish of crêpes Suzette, and as he deftly flipped them onto our plates I took the opportunity to take stock. Stewart was clearly trying to throw me off balance in turn with his confidences and his whispered secrets, and I wondered why. Whatever the reason, I told myself, I must resist, must keep to the high ground, must keep my powder dry. Must maintain my edge.

But Stewart was still on the attack: ‘Of course, it was Robbie who put about the story that your mother was the Grand Duchess Anastasia,' he said blandly. ‘It put you in the catbird seat, my dear. Your average Commissar may be proletarian to his bootstraps, but he still has a sneaking admiration for the Romanovs.'

I wasn't as surprised as I might have been. It had been a fancy of Robbie's that Mother could have been the ‘real' Anastasia – a fancy based on the coincidence that she was the right age, and appeared out of Revolutionary Russia at the right time. He called her Grand Duchess and we made quite a game of it. But I had no idea that the fancy had gone outside our home.

But it did explain a lot. The curious respect that Makarov and Sokolov had accorded me.

‘A fiction, of course,' I said. ‘Rather like your story about King Edward.'

‘Precisely,' Stewart said. But he was looking at me with curious intensity. The man half believes, I thought. Well, if he does, I told myself, so much the better.

‘Perhaps you understand,' I said enigmatically.

Stewart raised his eyebrows.

‘Perhaps you understand why I must serve the real Russia,' I said. And then, so softly that Stewart had to lean across the table to catch what I was saying: ‘We both have a duty to our people.'

Stewart actually blinked before recovering himself and leaning back
with sudden, affected indifference. ‘We must both be loyal to our people, madam,' he drawled, as if it were a platitude. But his eyes were still alive with curiosity and I knew he was aching to press me on the subject. And I also knew he never would.

We sipped coffee and nibbled mints, and I felt so comfortable and at ease that I decided to indulge in a little curiosity of my own. ‘What do you know of Maxine Elliott?' I asked. ‘A fascinating and delightful woman, and I counted her as a friend. But I've never really known how she fitted into Denis's life.'

Stewart smiled. ‘Oh, there were rumours of course, and none of them did Denis any harm. You know she couldn't have children? I think she liked the speculation that Denis might have been her son. Certainly, she never disabused anyone of the idea. And not just any son. He was born at the height of her affair with the King. It gave Maxine a certain lustre that she might have born a royal bastard. And again, the stories did Denis no harm at all.'

‘Rather like your own story,' I said. And then I looked at my watch. ‘I told Nutkin I'd be at Fleet Street at four,' I said. ‘No doubt he'll have arranged a taxi.'

We had just risen from the table when Stewart suddenly laid his hand on my arm. ‘Oh, by the way. I wasn't fooled by
The Moon and Sixpence
. A magnificent stratagem, my dear, but you brought along the wrong edition. There's no way you could have used that book to decrypt my messages.'

For a second I was tempted to laugh with him, tacitly admitting that it had been a gigantic bluff. But just in time I saw his eyes. Normally pale, they were dark, dark blue – as dark as Denis's eyes when he was concentrating furiously. And then it all fell into place. Stewart's casual confidences, his treatment of me as an equal, even the choice of Hine 28. They had all been careful steps leading to this moment, this vital half-second. If I crumbled, if I betrayed by so much as a half-smile that I was anything but a ruthless woman armed with the evidence to have him put away, he'd call my bluff. I'd walk out of White's stripped of everything I thought I'd won.

And Denis and I would be on the
Georgia
, bound for Leningrad, in three days' time.

So I reached down coolly for my bag, took out the book and tossed it on the table. ‘I never bluff, Sir Stewart,' I asked evenly. ‘Not when the stakes are this high. Take a look. You'll even see the dates of your messages marked against the appropriate page numbers. Denis rubbed them out, but they're still quite legible.'

There was a long silence, and then the darkness fled from Stewart's eyes and he smiled and slipped the book back into my bag without even looking at it. ‘Your word is good enough for me, my dear.'

I ran into the office at Gillaume & Sons as if I was floating on air, and threw my arms around a startled Denis. ‘We're not going anywhere!' I cried. ‘Except back home. Stewart Menzies is going to call off Malcolm's bloodhounds. Our lives are our own again!'

I don't think I had ever been so happy in my life.

Malcolm Bryant was happy in his own strange way. He leaned back in his chair at his favourite table in his favourite restaurant, and contemplated the world though a cloud of cigar smoke.

He had dined well – on his favourite dish, curried chicken Singapore style – and he had a fine port and more good cigars to look forward to. He had dined alone, but that was the nature of things and it hadn't bothered him.

Or so he told himself.

In fact he might have had company tonight. He had asked Ann Last to join him for dinner, to help celebrate their triumph, but Hollis had summoned her to his office as they had been packing up for the day. He hadn't been too disappointed. He liked Ann, respected her, but there was only one woman in his life. Always had been. And when he dined alone, at least there was room at his table for her memory.

He wondered idly what had kept Ann back at Leconfield House. Indoctrination into her next task, he assumed. The Elesmere-Elliott investigation was over – the papers were virtually on their way to the DPP – and so it was time for the two of them to move on. Ann was moving to F Branch, he knew that. Exactly what she would be doing he would never know. That was the nature of the job.

He wondered, not quite so idly, what was in store for him. It would have to be a promotion. He had done well. Very well. Even Roger Hollis had conceded that, shaking his hand stiffly over the bare polished surface of his desk. He hoped he was going to D Branch, the jewel in MI5's crown. D Branch dealt with counter-espionage, where all the action was now that the Cold War was well and truly under way.

Malcolm clipped the end of his second cigar and rolled it thoughtfully between fingers and thumb. This could well be the beginning of a new phase
in his career. Kim Philby had a close relationship with D Branch, treating it as the only serious player against the Russians outside MI6, and Philby's recognition meant something these days. Everybody knew that Stewart Menzies was grooming Kim as his successor.

Malcolm lit up his cigar and drew on it appreciatively. Kim in charge of MI6, he himself in charge of D Branch of MI5. What a combination. He and Kim would drag the traitorous scum lurking in the shadows of the British establishment kicking and screaming into the sunlight.

As Elesmere-Elliott would soon be dragged kicking and screaming out of his precious Almer Manor and into the Old Bailey. Malcolm almost shivered with pleasure. But then, as always happened at this point, his thoughts moved on to Norma and his mind froze.

Froze so completely that the waiter noticed his sudden immobility, the sheer agony in his face, and paused by his table.

‘A small glass of port, Tuan Bryant?' he asked solicitously. ‘On the house, sir.' Ahmet liked Tuan Bryant, not just because he was a good customer at the Salamat Makan, or because he knew so well the Malaya that the waiter was fast forgetting, but because of his gentle kindness. Kindness to the staff, kindness to any other customer who might look unhappy. More than once, Tuan Bryant had ordered a bottle of wine to be sent to a table that had struck him as sad or otherwise deserving.

Malcolm shook himself, snapping out of his painful reverie. ‘Thank you, Ahmet. Perhaps just a small glass.'

It was past midnight before Malcolm left the restaurant, with a chill fog gathering in Carnaby Street. He had intended a brisk walk to the Underground to get his blood moving, but his mood had changed and all he wanted was to get back to his flat in Hanover Gardens. He hailed a taxi and climbed in, shoving his Malacca cane ahead of him, just a little clumsy with wine and his final glass of port. As always, the end of the evening saddened him. As always, he cheered himself up by fishing for his lighter and his third cigar. He always took precisely three cigars in his chased silver cigar case when he went out for the evening, the third – the best, usually a Havana – kept for the lonely trip home.

Lonely? Of course he wasn't lonely! Sitting in the darkness as they crossed Vauxhall Bridge, Malcolm turned to his companion. She was always there, gentle, a half-smile on her face, invisible to everyone but him.

‘A rather decent curry, didn't you think?' he asked so softly that no one
could possibly have heard. ‘But it'll be good to get home. A cup of tea before we turn in, my dear? I'll bring it in to you if you like . . .'