Spy Sinker (10 page)

She needed his support nowadays. The strain was beginning to tell on her, but that was only to be expected. He liked to help her, and of course Bret would not have denied that there was a certain frisson to the way that they had to meet covertly, in such a way that her husband wouldn't start suspecting. For by now Bret had reluctantly come round to the D-G's idea that advantages could be obtained from Bernard Samson's dismay at his wife's defection.

'How could she?' It was only when he stole a glance at Bernstein that Bret realized that he'd asked the question aloud. He turned away and went across to the dining table to lean upon it with both arms outstretched; he had to think.

Bret and Fiona, they had become so close that lately he'd dared to start believing that she was becoming fond of him. He'd arranged fresh flowers whenever she came, and she'd remarked on it. Her rare but wonderful smiles, the curiously fastidious way she poured drinks for both of them, and sometimes she brought silly little presents for him, like the automatic corkscrew which replaced the one he'd broken. There was the birthday card too: it came in a bright green envelope and said 'With all my love, Fiona'. Bad security, as he told her at their next meeting, but he'd placed it by his bedside clock; it was the first thing he saw when he woke up each morning. Bret closed his eyes.

Bernstein watched him twisting and turning but said nothing. Bernstein waited. He wasn't puzzled; he didn't puzzle about things he wasn't paid to puzzle about. He'd discovered over the years how mysterious could be the ways of men and women, and Bret Rensselaer's wild pacing and unrestrained mutterings didn't alarm him or even surprise him.

Bret hammered a fist into his palm. It was inconceivable that Fiona was having an affair with this man Kennedy. There must be some other explanation. Bret had come to terms with the fact that, when she said goodbye to him, Fiona Samson went home to her husband and children. That was right and proper. Bret liked Bernard. But who the hell was Kennedy? Did Fiona smile and make jokes with Kennedy? Even more awful to think about, did she go to bed with this man?

It was at that point that Bret Rensselaer steadied himself on the mantelpiece, drew back his foot and kicked the brass fender as hard as he could. The matching fire-irons crashed against the fireplace with such force that the grate sang like a tuning fork, and one of the tiles of the hearth was hit hard enough to crack.

'Take it easy, Bret!' said Bernstein in a voice that, for the first time, betrayed his alarm. He found himself standing up, holding, for safety, the two Queen Victoria Diamond Jubilee plates that were his wife's most treasured items.

This displacement activity seemed to release some of Bret's anger, for the desperate nature of his movements subsided, and he stepped more carefully about the room and pretended to look at the books and then out of the window to where his car was parked. It was not often that Bret was lost for words but he simply could not get his thoughts in order. 'Jesus Christ!' he said to himself, and resolved to get Fiona Samson assigned to Berlin right away, perhaps by the weekend.

When Bret sat down again both men remained silent for a while and listened to the dustmen collecting the garbage: they banged the bins and yelled to each other and the truck gave a plaintive little hooting noise whenever it backed up.

'Give me a butt, Sylvy.'

Bernstein let him take one and flicked the Zippo open. He noticed that Bret was trembling but the cigarette seemed to calm him down.

Bret said, 'What would you say to a regular job?'

'With your people?'

'I just might be able to fix it.'

'Are you getting tee'd off with paying me out of your own pocket?'

'Is that what I'm doing?' said Bret calmly.

'You never ask for vouchers.'

'Well, what do you say?'

'I wouldn't fit into a British setup.'

'Sure you would.'

'The truth is, Bret, that I wouldn't trust the British to look after me.'

'Look after you how?'

'If I was in trouble. I'm a Yank. If I was in a jam, they'd feed me to the sharks.' He stubbed out his cigarette very hard.

'Why do you say that?' Bret asked.

'I know I'm stepping out of line, Bret, but I think you're crazy to trust them. If they have to choose between you and one of their own, what do you think they are going to do?'

'Well, let me know if you change your mind, Sylvy.'

'I won't change my mind, Bret.'

'I didn't know you disliked the Brits so much, Sylvy. Why do you live here?'

'I don't dislike them; I said I don't trust them. London is a real nice place to live. But I don't like their self-righteous attitude and their total disregard for other people's feelings and for other people's property. Do you know something Bret, there is not an Englishman living who hasn't at some time or other boasted of stealing something: at school or in the army, at their college or on a drunken spree. All of them, at some time or other, steal things and then tell about it, as if it was the biggest joke you ever heard.'

Bret stood up. Bernstein could be sanctimonious at times, he thought. 'I'll leave all this material. I've read it all through. I don't want it in the office.'

'Anything you say, Bret.'

Bret brought out his wallet and counted out twenty fifty-pound notes. Bernstein wrote 'one thousand pounds sterling' on a slip of paper without adding date or signature or even the word 'received'. It was the way they did business.

Bret noticed the freshly cut leather on the toe of his shoe and touched it as if hoping it would heal of its own accord. He sighed, got up and put on his hat and coat and began thinking of Fiona Samson again. He would have to face her with it, there was no alternative. But he wouldn't do that today, or even tomorrow. Much better to get her off to Berlin.

'This guy Pryce-Hughes,' said Bret very casually as he stood near the door. 'What do you make of him, Sylvy?'

Bernstein was not sure what Bret wanted to hear. 'He's very old,' he said finally.

Bret nodded.

West Berlin. September 1978.

The afternoon was yellowing like ancient newspaper, and on the heavy air there came the pervasive smell of the lime trees. Berlin's streets were crowded with visitors, column upon column, equipped with maps, cameras and heavy rucksacks, less hurried now as the long day's parading took its toll. The summer was stretching into autumn, and still there were Westies here, some of them fond parents using their vacations to visit draft-dodging sons.

Her day's work done, Fiona sighed with relief to be back in their new 'home'. There was a bunch of flowers, still wrapped in paper and cellophane, on the hall table. It was typical of Bernard that he'd not bothered to put them into a vase of water, but she didn't touch them. She took off her hat and coat, checked to be sure there was no mail in the cage behind the letter-box nor on the hall table, and then examined herself in the mirror for long enough to decide that her make-up was satisfactory. She had aged, and even the make-up could not completely hide the darkened eyes and lines round her mouth. She flicked her fingers through her hair, which had been crushed under the close-fitting hat, then took a breath and put on a cheerful smile before going into the drawing room of her rented apartment.

Bernard was already home. He'd taken off his jacket and loosened his tie. Shirt wrinkled, red braces visible, he was lolling on the sofa with a big drink in his hand. 'What a mess you look, darling. A bit early for boozing, isn't it?' She said it loudly and cheerfully before seeing that Bernard's father was sitting opposite him, also drinking.

Despite her flippant tone, Mr Brian Samson, still technically her superior in the office, frowned. He came forward and gave her a kiss on the cheek. 'Hello, Fiona,' he said. 'I was just telling Bernard all about it.' If it did anything, the kiss confirmed her father-in-law's feelings about upper-class wives who came home and reprimanded their husbands for making themselves comfortable in their own homes.

'All about it?' she said, going to one of the display shelves above the TV where by common consent the mail was placed until both of them had read it. There was only a bill from the wine shop and an elaborate engraved invitation to her sister's birthday party. She'd seen both pieces of mail but examined them again before turning round and smiling. Since neither man offered to get her a drink she said, 'I think I'll make some tea. Would anyone like tea?' She noticed some spilled drink and took a paper napkin to mop it up and then tidied the drinks tray before she said, 'All about what, Brian?'

It was Bernard who answered: The Baader-Meinhof panic, as they are now calling it.'

'Oh, that. How boring. You were lucky to miss it, darling.'

'Boring?' said her father-in-law, his voice rising slightly.

'Much ado about nothing,' said Fiona.

'I don't know,' said her father-in-law. 'If the Baader-Meinhof people had hijacked the airliner and flown it to Prague…' Ominously he left the rest unsaid.

'Well that would have been impossible, father-in-law,' she said cheerfully. The signal that came back from Bonn said that Andreas Baader committed suicide in Stammheim maximum security prison a year ago and the rest of them are in other prisons in the Bundesrepublik.'

'I know that,' said the elder Samson with exaggerated clarity, 'but terrorists come in many shapes, sizes and colours; and not all of them are behind bars. It was an emergency. My God, Fiona, have you been to Bonn lately? They have barbed wire and armed guards on the government buildings. The streets are patrolled by armoured cars. It's not boring, Fiona, whatever else it may be.'

Fiona made no concession to her father-in-law. 'So you don't want tea?' she said.

'The world is going mad,' said Samson senior. 'One poor devil was murdered when his own godchild led the killers into the house carrying red roses. Every politician and industrialist in the country is guarded night and day.'

'And complaining because they can't visit their mistresses, or so it said on the confidential report,' said Fiona. 'Did you read that?'

'What I can't understand,' said her father-in-law, ignoring her question and holding Fiona personally responsible for any delinquency attributed to the younger generation, 'is the way in which we have people demonstrating in favour of the terrorists! Bombs in German car showrooms in Turin, Leghorn and Bologna. Street demonstrations in London, Vienna and Athens.
In favour of the terrorists
. Are these people mad?'

Fiona shrugged and picked up the tray.

Bernard watched but said nothing. Throughout the world 1977 had seen an upsurge in the terrorist activities of religious fanatics and assorted crooks and maniacs. People everywhere were expressing their bewilderment. The older generation were blaming everything upon their children, while younger people saw the mindless violence as a legacy they had inherited. Bernard's wife and his father provided a typical example of this. Any conversation was likely to degenerate into an exchange in which they both assumed archetypal roles. Bernard's father thought that Fiona had too many airs and graces: too rich, too educated and too damned opinionated, he'd told Bernard once after a difference of opinion with her.

As Fiona went to the kitchen she delivered a Parthian shot: 'In any case, hardly a suitable cue for panic, father-in-law.'

Bernard wished she wouldn't say 'father-in-law' in that tripping way. It irritated his father, but of course Fiona knew that only too well. Bernard tried to intercede. 'Dad says it was the Russian message ordering the Czechs to keep their airfield open all night that did it. We put two and two together and made five.'

Fiona was amused. 'At this time of the year hundreds of East Bloc military airfields are working round the clock. This, darling, is the time of their combined exercises. Or hasn't that military secret filtered back to London Central yet?'

She wasn't in view but they could hear her pouring the hot water into the teapot and putting cups and saucers on a tray. Neither man spoke. The animated discussion they'd been having before Fiona's arrival had been killed stone dead. Brian looked at his son and smiled. Bernard smiled back.

Fiona came in and set the tray down on the table where Bernard had been resting his feet. Then she knelt on the carpet to pour the tea. 'Are you both sure…?' she said. She had arranged cups and saucers for all three of them, and a sugar bowl because her father-in-law took sugar in his tea.

'No thank you, darling,' said Bernard.

She looked at Bernard. She loved him very much. The hurried assignment to Berlin had not been wonderful for either of them but it had given her a chance to break away from the foolish relationship with Kennedy. These brushes with Samson senior were upsetting, but he was old, and in fact she'd found that the more she disliked the old man, the more she came to appreciate Bernard. He was always the peacemaker but never showed weakness either to her or to his father. Bernard, what a wonderful man she'd found. Now she'd had a chance to see things in perspective, she knew that he was the only man for her. The perilous relationship with Harry Kennedy was behind her. She still didn't comprehend how that frenzied affair could have happened except that it disclosed some alarming sexual vulnerability of which she'd never been aware.

Even so, she couldn't help but wonder why he hadn't sent the postcard. One was forwarded here every week: a coloured advertising card from a 'hair and beauty salon' off Sloane Street. Some friend of his owned it: a woman friend no doubt.

'No mail?' she asked as she measured milk into her tea and stirred it to see the colour of it.

'Only that same crimpers,' said Bernard.

'Where did you put it?'

'You didn't want it, did you?'

'If I take the card they said I could get a price reduction,' said Fiona.

'It's in the waste bin. Sorry.'

She could see it now. From where she knelt on the floor she could almost have reached it. It was in the basket together with an empty Schweppes tonic bottle and a crumpled Players cigarette packet that must have been Brian's. The postcard was torn into small pieces, almost as if Bernard had sensed the danger it held. Fiona resolved not to touch it, although her first impulse was to go and get it and piece it together.

'Anyway,' added Bernard, 'you won't be in London for a bit, will you?'

'No, that's right.' She sat back on her heels and sipped her tea as if unconcerned. 'I was forgetting that.'

'I told Dad that you are going out tonight. He wants me to go to some little farewell party at the Club and have dinner with him afterwards. Is that okay?'

She could have laughed. After all the trouble she'd gone to to arrange the secret meeting with Bret Rensselaer this evening, she now found that her husband was completely uninterested in her movements. She told him anyway. 'I'm at a familiarization briefing. Someone is coming from London.'

Bernard was hardly listening to her. To his father he said, 'If Frank will be there, I'll return some books I borrowed from him.'

'Frank will be there,' said his father. 'Frank loves parties.'

'Too bad you're not free, darling,' Bernard told his wife.

'Farewell parties are usually more fun without wives,' said Fiona knowingly.

'Another drink, Dad?' said Bernard and got to his feet.

His father shook his head.

'Where will you have dinner?' she asked.

'Tante Lisl's,' announced Bernard with great pleasure. 'She is cooking venison specially for us.' Tante Lisl owned a hotel that had once been her home. Brian Samson, and his family, had been billeted upon her when the war ended. It had become a sort of second home for Bernard, and old Tante Lisl a surrogate mother. Bernard's undisguised delight in the old house sometimes gave Fiona a feeling of insecurity. She felt that now.

Bernard came over and gave her a kiss on the top of her head. 'Goodbye, love. I might be late.' As he went out with his father he said, as if to himself. 'I mustn't forget to take those flowers for Lisl. She loves flowers.'

As she heard the front door close behind the two men Fiona closed her eyes and rested her head back in the armchair. Of course the flowers were not for her: how could she have imagined they were? The flowers were for that dreadful old woman against whom Bernard would hear no word said.

Bernard could sometimes be the archetypal selfish male. He took her for granted. He was delighted at the prospect of spending an evening with his father and his cronies, drinking and telling their stories. Stories of secret agents and daring deeds, exaggerated in the course of time and in the course of the evening's drinking.

It said a great deal about their relationship that Bernard would have been uncomfortable with her at such a gathering. Bernard respected her, but if he really loved her he would have wanted her with him whatever the company he was in. Secretly she lived for the day when he would be forced to see her for what she was: someone who could play the agent game as well as he could play it. Perhaps then he would treat her as she wanted to be treated: as an equal. And if meantime she'd used the same sort of secrecy to steal a little happiness for herself, could she be blamed? No one had been hurt.

She looked round the room at the mess that Bernard had left for her to tidy up. Was it any wonder that she had found such happiness in the short and foolish love affair with Harry Kennedy? He had given her a new lease of life at a time when she was almost in despair. During the time she'd had with Harry she had stopped the tablets and felt like a different person. Harry treated her with care and consideration and yet he was so wonderfully outgoing. He wasn't frightened to tell her how much he adored her. For him she was a complex and interesting human being whose opinions counted, and with him she found herself exchanging personal feelings that she had never shared with Bernard. When it came down to hard facts: she loved Bernard and put up with him, but Harry loved her desperately and he made her feel deeply feminine in a way she'd never experienced before.

Now that was all over and finished with, she told herself. She could look back soberly and see the affair with Harry for what it was: the most glorious luxury; a release in time of stress, a course of treatment.

She looked at the time. She must have a bath and change her clothes. Thank heavens she'd brought with her some really good clothes. For this evening's meeting she would need to look her best as well as have her wits about her.

Fiona Samson's appointment was in Kessler's, a family restaurant in Gatower Strasse, Berlin-Spandau. Its premises occupied the whole house, so that there were dining rooms on every floor. Downstairs old Klaus Kessler liked to supervise his dining room waiters in person. He stood there in his long apron amid dark green paintwork, red checked gingham table-cloths and the menu written on small slates. Kessler described it as a 'typical French bistro', but in fact its decor, and the menu too, showed little change from the Berlin Weinstube where the family had been serving good simple food since his grandfather's time.

Up the narrow creaking stairs there was a second dining room, and above that three upper rooms were more elaborately furnished, and with better cutlery and glass, linen cloths and handwritten menus without prices. These were booked for small and very discreet dinners. It was in one of them that Fiona had dinner with Bret Rensselaer that evening.

'You got away all right?' Bret said politely. She offered her cheek and he gave her a perfunctory kiss. There was champagne in an ice bucket: Bret was already drinking some.

The waiter took her coat, poured her a glass of champagne and put a menu into her hands.

'There was no problem,' said Fiona. 'Bernard is at a party with his father.'

'I hear the venison is good,' said Bret, looking at the menu.

'I don't like venison,' said Fiona more forcefully than she intended. She sipped her champagne. 'In fact I'm not very hungry.'

'Kessler says he'll do a cheese souffle for us.'

'That sounds delicious.'

'And a little Westphalian ham to start?' Anticipating her approval he put down the menu and whipped off the stylish glasses that he wore when reading. He was vain enough to hate wearing them but his attempts to wear contact lenses had not worked out well.