The Avenue of the Dead (19 page)

Davina stepped out of the car. Lomax leaned forward out of the window and said, ‘I'll call back in an hour, unless you telephone the flat. All right?'

‘Fine,' she said. ‘Book us the royal suite, and we'll fly first class!'

‘Don't run away with yourself, woman,' he mocked her in a Scottish accent. ‘Just because we've been treating ourselves to lunch –' She smiled and waved back at him. The car moved off and she went to the front door of the Flemings' house and rang the bell. After a pause Ellen opened it. Her handsome dark face showed no surprise.

‘Mr Fleming is out, ma'am,' she said. ‘And Mrs Fleming's not come home.'

‘I know,' Davina said. There was something about her that prevented the maid from closing the front door. ‘I want to talk to you, Ellen. May I come in?' She walked into the hallway and Ellen slowly closed the door.

‘Will you come to the kitchen, please?' she said. ‘I don't like using the rooms when Mr Fleming's not here.' Suddenly, the stern face softened. ‘I'd feel easier in the kitchen if I'm going to talk to you.' She offered Davina coffee or tea, filled a glass with iced Coke for herself and sat down at Davina's suggestion in the dinette that led off the kitchen area.

‘There's still no news of Mrs Fleming,' Davina told her. ‘Mr Fleming spent all morning calling people who knew her, trying to trace her through the airlines and the travel agencies in the city. He found nothing. You know I'm a friend of hers from England?'

‘I heard her say something about it,' Ellen answered. ‘You was at school together. That's what she said.'

Davina lit a cigarette. There was hostility in that one word, ‘she'. It was like an insult. ‘You don't like Mrs Fleming, do you, Ellen?'

Ellen's face closed. ‘I don't talk about my employers, ma'am.'

‘You may have to,' Davina said shortly. ‘When we call in the police.'

The black eyes gleamed at her. ‘There's no need for that. There's no harm come to her.'

‘How do you know? How can you say that, Ellen?'

‘Because bringing the police in is just going to make a mighty big fuss for Mr Fleming and then she'll come home anyway.'

‘Has she ever done this before – is that what you mean when you say she'll come home anyway?'

Ellen lifted her shoulders a little. ‘Sometimes,' she said. ‘She goes away and she comes back. He's going round fretting himself, thinking she's been snatched or something bad's come to her. She'll come back when she's good and ready. Like the other times.'

‘Then why is he so worried,' Davina countered, ‘if she's done this before?'

‘Because he don't know about the other times,' came the answer. ‘Mostly he was away when she took off. I can't tell him that. Maybe –' there was a hesitation, ‘maybe you could.'

‘Maybe,' Davina agreed. ‘If I knew what to say. You'll have to tell me, Ellen. Then perhaps I can stop him worrying. Where did Mrs Fleming go when she took off?'

The look of contempt on Ellen's face was chilling. ‘With a man,' she said. ‘There were a lot of men. Senators, a general in the air force. They used to call her; sometimes she had them here when he was out of town. I'd find things that told me what she'd been doing, when I cleaned up the next day. Mr Fleming, he found out about one of them. Right soon after they were married too. She talked her way out of it that time; I guess it made her careful.'

‘How do you know this, Ellen?' Davina said slowly. She couldn't believe it …

‘I heard, Miss Graham,' came the answer. ‘When they had a row I didn't need to listen at the keyhole. All of Washington could hear her when she was mad at something. But he was the one who got mad that time. She did the crying and the end was he blamed himself for being busy and not paying her attention.' She gave a little snort. ‘Some men don't have any sense. I wish I could tell him not to fret – it's a man, that's all it is. She's gone off like a she-cat in the night. She'll be back when she's had enough.'

Davina didn't say anything for a few minutes. She didn't know what to say. There was a sick feeling in her stomach as if she had lifted a stone and found a nest of maggots wriggling underneath it.

‘Is that why you hated her? Because she made a fool of her husband?'

Ellen didn't deny it. She looked directly at Davina and said, ‘He's a good man, and she's trash. But that's their business, Miss Graham, not mine. I don't poke my nose into what white people do. You ask why I hated her? I'll tell you why. My husband died, my children are all gone, I had a little dog. Mr Fleming didn't mind it. She made me get rid of it. She said he smelled bad. It was a lie, she just did it to show me who was boss when they got married. When she came first she was nice enough, but just as soon as he puts on the ring, it all changed. She treated me like nigger dirt. I said to her once, I said, “I'm not staying here to be talked to like I was on a cotton plantation, Mrs Fleming. Those days are long gone. You find yourself another maid.” She got all worked up then; thought she might have to do her own dishes for a change. She squeezed out some tears and said how sorry she was and how they couldn't do without me, now that Mr Fleming had this important job. Wouldn't I please stay? I said, “No, ma'am, I won't.” Then Mr Fleming comes and talks to me and says she's not been too well lately, and won't I please stay for his sake? I refill the liquor supply, Miss Graham, every morning I check the decanters and the bottles, and I knew what he meant by “not too well”. Times she's been drunk when I brought up her breakfast tray. So I stay, for his sake only. I don't get myself too close to white folks, Miss Graham. It's not so long since they stepped all over coloured people. But Mr Fleming doesn't come from here. Maybe that's why I stayed with him. In spite of her. But she learned her lesson. She treated me properly from then on. That's all I ask when I work for anyone.'

‘Ellen,' Davina said at last. ‘Did anything happen to change Mrs Fleming? You said she was all sweetness before they married. How long before she started to drink and play around?'

‘A few months, maybe. Not long, that's for sure. Just like she was waiting till she got a hold of him.'

‘Who was the last man she was with?' Davina asked her.

‘Some man from the British Embassy. Browning, his name was. She was always calling him. Then you came and she stopped. I guess she was ashamed to let you see what she was doing. But it didn't last. She couldn't keep her pants on for that long. She's found some other feller if she's not back with this Browning.'

‘No,' Davina said slowly. ‘She's not with him. Ellen, I'm sorry to hear this. She's not the same person I used to know. Thank you for talking to me. I'll see Mr Fleming this evening and try to calm him down. If you're right, there's nothing to worry about. She'll come home with some excuse.'

Ellen got up. ‘That's the doorbell,' she said. ‘Excuse me.'

‘It's Mr Lomax come to fetch me,' Davina said. She held out her hand. ‘Goodbye, Ellen. If you think of anything, would you call me? I'm at 83460.'

‘I'll write that down, ma'am,' she answered. She shook hands briefly as if she didn't like the contact.

‘Give me a cigarette,' Davina said and Colin passed her one.

‘Well,' he asked, ‘was the sixth sense right? You don't look very pleased – didn't she want to talk?'

‘No, she did not. But she did when I mentioned calling the police. And now I almost wish she hadn't!'

‘Why?'

‘Because I can't make sense of it. Ellen hated her. She said she'd been sleeping with men behind Fleming's back soon after they were married. I grew up with Elizabeth. She was shallow and selfish – but not rotten.' She turned to him in the car and laid her hand on his knee. ‘Even if it
is
true, she's certainly paid for it.'

‘I think you'd better stop identifying with her,' Lomax said quietly. ‘That's what you're doing. You're seeing yourself in KGB hands again. Living it over through her. You mustn't. Listen, I've booked into the Alameda Hotel in Mexico City. It's only an hour's drive away from Cuernevaca. There are some Aztec temples close by too. Name like a Welsh railway station, I couldn't start to pronounce it – pyramids to the sun and moon – I've done a lot of homework this afternoon. And we fly first class at nine o'clock tomorrow.' She looked white and drawn. She was biting her lip. He had never seen her do that before. ‘The investigation shouldn't take too long. We can spend a bit of time there and enjoy ourselves, if we like it. I'm going to make it happy for you.'

She looked at him and smiled. ‘All right. And you've hit the nail square on the head about Liz. I have been identifying – reliving certain things – I'll stop. Thanks, Colin love. Look, I must see Kidson tonight, before we go. Maybe he's got more out of Fleming.' She turned and stared out of the window.

‘There's something about this that isn't adding up. I don't know what it is, but it's not right and it's driving me mad. What time is it?'

‘Just on six.'

‘Take me to the embassy. Don't wait for me – I'll get home when I can.'

‘OK. I can amuse myself. I'll call in on the Hicklings. She's a nice girl. She'll give me dinner.'

Igor Borisov's wife and children went to their dacha at Zhukova at the weekends. It was not unusual for Borisov to remain in Moscow on Friday and sometimes Saturday when he was very busy. He then drove out and joined them on Sunday. That Friday night he was in bed with his secretary Natalia. He had invited her back after their second private supper, and he no longer even wanted to go to the dacha on a Sunday.

He found her a satisfying lover and a girl of natural sweetness who charmed him as a companion. Most of all, she possessed an extraordinary unconventional intelligence. He had hoped in his uncertainty, haunted by the boast made before the other Politburo members, that she could help broaden his understanding of women and their motives. It was a gamble, and he didn't expect it to win him anything but an audience and a few platitudes which might contain some undiscovered truth. Instead her replies had been trenchant and clear. And not just about women. Her judgement of men was equally perceptive, and her comments on some whose names made the world apprehensive amazed him by their accurate assessment of human weakness. She didn't mock or criticize. She merely stated that one was vain, another greedy, and a third was hiding something. He made love to her with unrestrained sensuality and talked to her long into the night about the dangerous, twisting route that Operation Plumed Serpent was taking. Most of all he talked to her about the woman who was in the centre of the sticky web of lies and treachery that he had spun since he had taken Kaledin's place.

‘It's a matter of timing, now,' he said. She nestled warmly into his arm.

‘It's got to draw together, Natalia; all the different elements must magnetize on one spot at one moment and then I make the move. A day too soon and the whole thing will fail.' Strangely he didn't mind showing weakness or indecision to her. He had discovered how lonely it was to live on the peaks of power. ‘Perhaps I should have stayed with Kaledin's original plan,' he said. ‘But this seemed such a good opportunity to turn the whole thing round and strike a shattering blow at the Americans. The kind of blow that would crack and undermine one structure of their administration after another! I couldn't resist it. But if it fails –'

‘It won't,' she said. ‘The only danger is if this English woman is as clever as you are. And she isn't, my beloved love. But one thing puzzles me –' He raised his eyebrows. ‘Why did you call it by that strange name? Plumed Serpent. What does it mean?'

Borisov smiled. ‘General Kaledin used the code name Fallen Eagle,' he said. ‘That suited his concept very well. But not mine. The emphasis is not the same. The eagle is a noble bird of prey; it was our own emblem, after all, before the Revolution. The eagle is the symbol of majesty and power. Imperial power. Rome, Russia, Austria and Napoleonic France. Mexico, too, when it was ruled by a Hapsburg. It signifies our great enemy America. There was a legend, thousands of years ago, that only the serpent could kill the eagle. I found my serpent in Mexico, at the City of the Gods. She's a thousand years old, Natalia, and she demanded human sacrifice. She has eyes of jade and her fangs are pure gold. On her head she wears the plumes of divinity. She has a long Indian name and her temple is guarded by stone jaguars. The sun and the moon were worshipped from the top of great pyramids, but the Serpent God's temple is closer to the earth, and the Indians built it at the end of a long road they called the Avenue of the Dead. The serpent destroys by stealth; the approach is silent and the bite is instant death. My serpent will prove that the old legend is true. It will sink its teeth deep into the American eagle.' He saw her gazing up at him, and the admiration in her eyes was childlike. ‘I have a picture of the carving,' he whispered, holding her closer. ‘I'll show it to you. A little later on. It's beautiful in a cruel way. But not as beautiful as you.' He drew her to him and she put her lips to his mouth.

‘I like your house,' Kidson said. ‘Is this all your wife's design?'

‘Yes,' Fleming said sullenly. He slouched in an armchair, grasping a glass of vodka in both hands.

Kidson moved close to him. ‘Look,' he said. ‘Don't worry about that fellow Spencer-Barr coming to see you. There'd been rumours about your wife's drinking. It was bound to happen. He was checking up, that's all.'

‘He suggested it might be better if she took a trip to England,' Fleming muttered. ‘Why would he say that if he didn't suspect something? Suppose
they've
grabbed her … Jesus,' he groaned, ‘she'll tell them everything. She'll lie her head off, the way she did to Davina and Arthur Moore.'